Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“I said ‘Don’t you think that’s a marvellous idea’,” said Lady Maud.

Sir Giles pulled himself together. “Er… What… oh yes… splendid,” he muttered. “Quite splendid.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” said Lady Maud.

“It’s just that I wouldn’t have thought it was financially viable,” Sir Giles said. “The cost would be enormous. I can’t see the Ministry taking to the idea at all readily.”

“I can,” said Lady Maud, “with a little prodding.” She went out through the french windows on to the terrace and looked lovingly across the park. With Dundridge’s help she had solved one problem. The house had been saved. There remained the question of an heir and it had just occurred to her that here again Dundridge might prove invaluable. Over lunch he had waxed quite eloquent about his work. Once or twice he had mentioned cementation. The word had struck a chord in her. Now as she leant over the balustrade and stared into the depths of the pinetum it returned to her insistently. “Sementation,” she murmured, “sementation.” It was a new word to her and strangely technical for such an intimate act, but Lady Maud was in no mood to quibble.

Sir Giles was. He waddled off to the study and phoned Hoskins. “What’s all this about that bastard Dundridge being a nincompoop?” he snarled. “Do you know what he’s come up with now? A tunnel. You heard me. A bloody tunnel under the Cleene Hills.”

“A tunnel?” said Hoskins, “that’s out of the question. They can’t put a tunnel under the Forest.”

“Why not? They’re putting one under the blasted Channel. They can put tunnels wherever they bloody well want to these days.”

“I know that, but it would be cost-prohibitive,” said Hoskins.

“Cost-prohibitive my arse. If this sod goes round bleating about tunnels he’ll whip up support from every environmental crank in the country. He’s got to be stopped.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Hoskins doubtfully.

“You’ll do better than that,” Sir Giles snarled. “You get him on to the idea of Ottertown.”

“But what about the seventy-five council houses -”

“Bugger the seventy-five council houses. Just get him off the bloody tunnel.” Sir Giles put down the phone and stared out of the window vindictively. If he didn’t do something drastic he would be saddled with Handyman Hall. And with Lady Maud to boot. He got up and kicked the wastepaper basket into the corner.

Dundridge drove back to Worford with no thought for the landscape. His encounter with Lady Maud had left him stunned and with his sense of self-importance greatly inflated. Lunch had been most enjoyable and Dundridge with two large gins inside him had found Lady Maud a most appreciative audience. She had listened to his exposition of the theory of non-interruptive constant-flow transportation with an evident fervour usually quite absent in his audience and Dundridge had found her enthusiasm extraordinarily refreshing. Moreover she exuded confidence, a supreme self-confidence which was contagious and which exerted an enormous fascination over him. In spite of her lack of symmetry, of beauty, in spite of the manifest discrepancy between her physique and that of the ideal woman of his imagination, he had to admit that she held charms for him. After lunch she had shown him over the house and garden and Dundridge had followed her from room to room with a quite inexplicable sense of weak-kneed excitement. Once when he had stumbled in the rockery Lady Maud had taken his arm and Dundridge had felt limp with pleasure. Again when he had squeezed past her in the doorway of the bathroom he had been conscious of a delicious passivity. By the time he left the house he felt quite childishly happy. He was appreciated. It made all the difference.

He got back to the Handyman Arms to find Hoskins waiting for him in the lounge.

“Just thought I’d drop in to see how you were getting on.”

“Fine. Fine. Just fine,” said Dundridge.

“Got on all right with Leakham?”

The warm glow in Dundridge cooled. “I can’t say I liked his attitude,” he said. “He seems determined to go ahead with the Gorge route. He has evidently developed a quite irrational hatred for Lady Maud. I must say I find his attitude inexplicable. She seems a perfectly charming woman to me.”

Hoskins stared at him incredulously. “She does?”

“Delightful,” said Dundridge, the warm glow returning gently.

“Delightful?”

“Charming,” said Dundridge dreamily.

“Good God,” said Hoskins unable to contain his astonishment any longer. The notion that anyone could find Lady Maud charming and delightful was quite beyond him. He looked at Dundridge with a new interest. “She’s a bit large, don’t you think?” he suggested.

“Comely,” said Dundridge benevolently. “Just comely.”

Hoskins shuddered and changed the subject. “About this tunnel,” he began. Dundridge looked at him in surprise.

“How did you hear about that?”

“News travels fast in these parts.”

“It must,” said Dundridge, “I only mentioned it this morning.”

“You’re not seriously proposing to recommend the construction of a tunnel under the Cleene Hills, are you?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Dundridge, “it seems a sensible compromise.”

“A bloody expensive one,” said Hoskins, “it would cost millions and take years to put through.”

“At least it would avoid another riot. I came up here to try to find a solution that would be acceptable to all parties. It seems to me that a tunnel would be a very sensible alternative. In any case the plan is still in the formative stage.”

“Yes, but…” Hoskins began but Dundridge had risen and with an airy remark about the need for vision had gone up to his room. Hoskins went back to the Regional Planning Board in a pensive mood. He had been wrong about Dundridge. The man wasn’t such a nincompoop after all. On the other hand he had found Lady Maud charming and delightful. “Bloody pervert,” Hoskins muttered as he picked up the phone. Sir Giles wasn’t going to like this.

Nor was Blott. He had had a relatively phone-free day in the kitchen garden. There had been Dundridge’s call in the morning but for the most part he had been left in peace. At half past four he had heard Sir Giles call Hoskins and tell him about the tunnel. At half past five he was watering the tomatoes when Hoskins called back to say that Dundridge was serious about the tunnel.

“He can’t be,” Sir Giles snarled. “It’s an outrageous idea. A gross waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Blott shook his head. The tunnel sounded a very good idea to him.

“You try telling him that,” said Hoskins.

“What about Leakham?” Sir Giles asked. “He’s not going to buy it, is he?”

“I wouldn’t like to say. Depends what sort of weight this fellow Dundridge carries in London. The Ministry may bring pressure to bear on Leakham.”

There was a silence while Sir Giles considered this. In the greenhouse Blott wrestled with the intricacies of the English language. Why should Lord Leakham buy the tunnel? How could Dundridge carry weight in London? And in any case why should Sir Giles dislike the idea of a tunnel? It was all very odd.

“I’ve got another bit of news for you,” Hoskins said finally. “He’s keen on your missus.”

There was a strangled sound from Sir Giles. “He’s what?” he shouted.

“He has taken a fancy to Maud,” Hoskins told him. “He said he found her charming and delightful.”

“Charming and delightful?” said Sir Giles. “Maud?”

“And comely.”

“Good God. No wonder she’s looking like the cat that’s swallowed the canary,” said Sir Giles.