The Consolations of Invalidism

4

The Consolations of Invalidism

    Three? What had he done, to get into the Almighty’s good books? Or had Matron shoved something ’orrible into that huge glass of water she’d forced him to drink this morning?

    “This one’s Georgia!” said Rosie with a loud giggle.

    Colin smiled feebly. “Hullo, Georgia. Welcome to England.”

    “Hi, Colin. Thanks,” she replied composedly.

    “How are you feeling?” asked Rosie, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

    At this precise moment? It really wouldn’t be polite to say! “Much brighter, thanks, Rosie. How are you, Molly? How’s Micky?”

    She was fine and Micky was fine and not with them today because Rosie’s neighbour— Colin didn’t listen: he just leaned back on his pillows and appreciated them. The Three Graces! Well, 21st-century style. Molly was again in the delicious pale lemon suit, ooh-er, the spun-gold curls just lightly veiled by a large lemon gauze hat. Georgia had gone for what was possibly technically a smarter look. White, possibly technically a two-piece. Although the second piece was an abbreviated sleeveless bolero Colin could have done without it, ’cos the larger piece was a very tight, strapless thing. Um, was that bodice boned? Not one of the flattening corsets that had featured largely at a Society wedding he’d been to last, um, possibly the year before last, though the way the tits bulged gently above ’em on the better-endowed bridesmaids hadn’t been bad— Uh, no: not that. Sort of… Panelled? Well, sections outlined by vertical boning. The boning only went up as far as the cups, which were outlined, too. And rounded over the tops of ’em. Jolly good! She had a hat, too: big wide-brimmed white thing, not gauzy. Rosie was completely squidgy in a pale pink thing that shimmered round the edges…

    “Um, what? Sorry, Rosie,” he said feebly.

    “That’s all right, you were busy looking,” she replied kindly.

    Colin managed a silly grin. “Don’t seem to be able to look and listen at the same time, yet! Um, look, unless Matron put something ’orrible in that pint of water she forced me to down this morning, that suit of yours is actually shimmering round the edges!”

    “It’s silk,” supplied Georgia helpfully.

    “Uh—yes, I’m sure it is, Georgia,” he agreed politely.

    Molly gave a smothered giggle.

    “Exactly, Molly: conveys less than nothing to the thick-witted male side!” agreed Colin with a grin. “The point I was trying to make in my inept male way, Rosie, was that today your pink suit’s shimmering and I think a couple of times before it did, too, but the first time you brought Molly it definitely didn’t! Or is it the bloody medication?”

    “No. I’ve got two pink suits. This is the silk one. It shimmers,” she said simply.

    Colin sagged on his pillows, as the delightful lemon and white sisters collapsed in helpless giggles. Feebly he said when they seemed more or less to be over them: “It’s so simple. Such a simple solution, I mean.”

    “Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Rosie with a gurgle. “Never mind! –Terence mentioned you like Turkish delight.” She handed him one of the Harrods bags that she and the other Graces were clutching.

    Feebly Colin felt inside it, not even managing to say: “Been shopping?” ’Cos what, exactly, had bloody Terence said? Feebly he opened the box. Palest pink, palest lemon, and, ye gods, plain white! Um, not plain, those ones seemed to have nuts in ’em, but close enough. He swallowed hard.

    “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it,” said Rosie on an uncertain note.

    “Personally I think it’s revolting,” contributed Georgia.

    “Uh—no, no, I love it,” he said weakly.

    “Colin, has Matron told you you’re not to eat sweets?” asked Molly anxiously.

    “No: just been a naughty boy, not keeping my fluid intake up. Told her, if they’d offer me something vaguely human, instead of bloody glucose drinks—!”

    “The male side means beer when it says something vaguely human,” put in Rosie drily.

    “Yes, I got that, Rosie!” said Molly with laugh.

    “Yeah.” Colin offered the box but they all shook their heads, so he took one, line of least resistance. Mmm-mm… squidgy.

    Helpfully Georgia poured him a glass of water as he swallowed. “Er—thanks,” he said feebly. Georgia didn’t smile; she just held the glass out, giving him a hard look. Feebly he drank it. “Talking of vaguely ’uman, where is Terence?” he ventured.

    “Gone down to Kent to fetch Father Sir Admiral’s station-waggon; we’re all going down to the Mountjoy Midsummer Festival on Friday,” explained Rosie, smiling.

    “Except Molly,” put in Georgia.

    Molly explained she was starting the job Rosie had found for her. Helpfully Georgia ratified this statement with much extraneous detail: what and where the job was, whose relation the employer was—or was it whose relation’s relation-by-marriage? Colin just took another piece of Turkish delight and smiled nicely, letting it all wash over him…

    “Sorry if it was all a bit much for you, old man,” said John, two afternoons later.

    “Uh—no. Did I give that impression? Um, no,” he said weakly. “Well, um, three of them?” he explained weakly.

    “Yes, a startling sight!” admitted Lily Rose Rayne’s husband with a laugh.

    “Mm. Um, the hats weren’t for yours truly, surely?”

    “Hats? Oh! It was that day! Well, no, old man, the hats weren’t for you, they were for the express purpose of putting the noses of all the puce and magenta hags at the Ritz well out of joint.” His eyes twinkled. “As was the three,” he murmured.

    Colin smiled feebly. “Yes. Um, ‘puce and magenta hags’?”

    “Rosie’s term for all the extraneous females in my life before I met her.”

    Colin had to swallow.

    “I could explain the precise derivation—”

    “Don’t bother, John, it’s ’orridly clear, ’s’matter of fact.”

    “Yeah!” he admitted with a laugh. “They haunt the Ritz—well, goes without saying—and rather unfortunately we bumped into a clutch of the bitches—not all mine, but close enough—on Georgia’s very first day. Hence the—”

    “’Ats; got it!”

    “Quite. Well, ’Arrods followed as night the day by ’ats, think it was, Colin!”

    “Of course! –Who was that dark chap, youngish, that arrived to escort ’em?” he asked idly, taking a piece of Turkish delight—since it was there.

    John blinked a little; he was in no doubt that, should Rosie have overlooked the fact that Colin might not have met the chap before, Lattimore would have introduced himself—but explained that it had been Max Lattimore, Terence’s second-in-command.

    “Oh, right. Seemed very struck by Georgia.”

    “We’ve noticed that,” John agreed. “Rosie’s very keen to get him down to this blessed festival we’re headed for. It lasts for a week, I’m afraid. She and Rupy have friends in it, or I’d have suggested we pass it up, this year.”

    “Mm. –Eh? Oh, Lor’, don’t worry about me, John!” He explained just which old Army pals were around the joint but John, though declaring he was very glad to hear it, didn’t seem all that cheered. Very delicately Colin managed to ask whether his wife was insisting on leaving the baby at home while they were at this festival but John gaped at him and assured him that of course they were taking Baby Bunting!

    “Oh,” said Colin feebly. “Sorry. Thinking in clichés, or something.”

    “You certainly were! Puce and magenta clichés, I rather think!” said his cousin with feeling.

    “Eh? Oh,” he said sheepishly, grinning sheepishly. “Yeah.”

    “There is nothing,” said John, his shoulders shaking slightly, “puce and magenta about Rosie.”

    Unaccountably Colin’s eyes had strayed to the last, deliciously pink and squidgy piece of Turkish delight. “Uh—no!” he said quickly. “No, no, old man, of course not!”

    Terence’s idea of sick-visiting seemed to be to tell him all about the ruddy festival. Colin sighed.

    “All right, old man? Want me to ring for the nurse?”

    “So as you can goggle at her tits? No, thanks all the same. –I’m all right, Terence,” he said heavily. “Go on: you grabbed the Georgia peach in the teeth of the mighty opposition of Max Lattimore and some elderly American cousin on your mother’s side.”

    Terence cleared his throat. “Luke Beaumont. One of Mother’s cousin Diane’s kids. He’d be our age, I suppose. Got round the whole time in a faded tee-shirt and jeans, though.”

    Colin eyed him drily. Terence had driven up from his parents’ place in Kent in the Porsche, so of course he was wearing heavy white linen slacks and, ye gods, a pale apricot tee-shirt. On his arrival he’d also been wearing the nastiest steel-rimmed sunglasses Colin had seen outside of the mags in his dentist’s waiting-room, but Colin had solved that one by shutting his eyes and refusing to open them until he’d taken the bloody things off. “While you wore that lot, I suppose?”

    “More or less, yes,” he said airily. “Well, Max and I wore evening shirts with our dress trousers and black cummerbunds to the evening shows. Well, Hell, Colin, the dump was swarming with peopl—”

    People one knew. Quite. “Hand me those grapes, or do you mean to gobble the lot?”

    “Mm?” said Terence through a grape. “Shorry. ’Ere.”

    Sighing, Colin took a grape. “I think, if I can untangle the actual narrative from the ramblings in my weakened state, you’d got as far as actually getting there?”

    “Eh? Oh,” he said, looking silly. Well, sillier. “Yes. Stayed in the village with an old boy Rosie knows. Put up Father’s old tent in the back garden for me and the lads. He was in her film—the series, too, I think: played the Captain: Michael Manfred. Max was a bit took aback. Well, by the combination of him and Rupy, really.”

    “Who?”

    “Don’t say Rosie hasn’t brought him to see you!” he said with a laugh, reaching for a grape. Unfortunately they were on the side of Colin’s cracked shoulder: he eyed them balefully. “Played Commander in the TV sheries.” He swallowed. “Gay. Quite a decent chap, though. Very good with Baby Bunting. Shares their flat in town—well, John and Rosie are hardly ever there. He was in a striking combo of pale lemon slacks, bright lime tee-shirt, and enough ear studs to start a small jeweller’s shop!” His shoulders shook. “You should have seen Max’s face! Then he got a good look at old Michael. Fresh blue rinse, huge cream bags—dead ringers for the things Max’s old Uncle Charlie plays croquet in!—navy knit golfing shirt and a blue and white silk cravat. Oh, and the cream shoes to match the bags.”

    “Another gay,” Colin deduced in a bored voice. “Could you possibly put those grapes on my good side?”

    “Eh? Oh—shorry, ol’ shap,” he said thickly. He moved the grapes over to the cabinet on the other side of the bed. “No: no gay in the world would give Rosie and Georgia that sort of kiss!”

    “Ugh,” said Colin obligingly, hurriedly eating two grapes at once. “Did he spare Molly?”

    “Not with us. Don’t think Rosie’s deliberately hiding her from yours truly, she’s found her a job in some female solicitor’s office.”

    Colin did vaguely recall the girls had mentioned something of the sort. He said: “Uh-huh,” not intending it to be encouraging, but as it was more or less through a grape the intention didn’t register and Terence launched into his narrative. Was it merely going to be a string of grievances, not about the actual Mountjoy Midsummer Festival at all? Apparently John had decreed Max could take the Porsche plus Georgia to some concert. Because it was his turn. Terence now had a foolish grin on his mug.

    “Terence,” said his cousin heavily, “you’re a prat. Unless I’ve mixed the cousins up, she’s half your age. Literally. Isn’t she?”

    “Uh—well, twenty-twoish, I suppose.”

    “Quite. Before you say anything, I’m not claiming she wouldn’t be up for a bit of the other, and I’m not claiming there’d be any harm in it. What I am saying is, do you want to be in your brother’s bad books for the rest of your life?”

    Terence was now trying to smile. “All right, she’s jail bait. But a chap can look!”

    “Yeah. Tell me about the concert.”

    Brightening, Terence told him about the concert in great detail. Restoration—everything in the festival had to be. Well, a bit early for him—Colin nodded, he knew Terence was a great Mozart fan—but superb. Really first-rate!

    “How the Hell do you cope on your sub?”

    Terence made a comical face. “Retire to my quarters, put my earphones on, and remain deaf to all but actual sinking, old boy. Ever heard of the modern invention known as batteries?”

    “Yeah. Um, what’s the sound quality like?”

    Rolling his eyes, Terence produced a pocket diary, scribbled, ripped out the page, decided Colin’s pyjama pocket wasn’t the ideal place for such a sacred relic, got up, ruthlessly found his wallet in the top drawer of his cabinet and put it in that.

    “Ta ever so.”

    “Any time.” He took a handful of grapes and returned to his chair.

    “Go on: anything else worth going to?”

    “Mm: the opera. Superb—wonderful!”

    Colin listened to his raptures and agreed that the production of Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria had got to be the highlight of the festival.

    “Then there was the supper club,” said Terence with relish, investigating a box of Colin’s chocs. “Ooh, rum truffles!” He stuffed his gob, ignoring Colin’s glare. “Fea’ure’ a Misha Feliksh Beaumon’,” he said thickly.

    “Give me a rum truffle!” interrupted Colin loudly.

    “Oh, sorry, old man, thought you were on medication or some such,” he said, quickly passing him the box.

    “No! They were sitting over there because I couldn’t fucking reach them!” he shouted. “The butchers have been working on the hip: I’m not allowed to get up!”

    “Sorry,” said Terence, biting his lip. “Um—well, you’ve got a pile of stuff over here, Colin. Want it?”

    “Only if it’s edible and delicious,” admitted Colin with a sigh. “Sorry.”

    “That’s okay,” he said vaguely, investigating. “Ooh, there’s a rude book here!” He sniggered. “Want it?”

    “What for?” replied Colin glumly. “Got nowhere to put nothing. Added to which, having bullets dug out of your ’ip perilously near your vital bits is a real turn-off.”

    “Yeah. Thought they took the bullet out ages back?”

    “Yes,” he said heavily. “They’re chopping it about to see if they’re going to have to replace the entire joint or just leave it pinned together—well, don’t ask me, I’m only the body.”

    “Mm. How’s the knee?” he said cautiously.

    “Gone. Got a nice shiny steel one in its place. Don’t ask about the fucking ankle, think it’s got them stumped. Has that book got pickshas in it?”

    Terence came out of it with a jump. “I’ll say! Who in God’s name brought it? One of your chaps?”

    “Yes. Couple of fellows who were in the last do in the desert turned up. Well, I’ll have it, it may remind me what it was.”

    Terence passed it to him, though noting that he’d hide it if he was expecting any lady visitors. His cousin didn’t reply, so he could only conclude he wasn’t. Shit! Where were they all, the bitches?

    Colin ate a rum truffle. “Mm! These are superb, I feel quite betterer!” he said with a grin, taking another. “Go on: something about a supper club?”

    “Oh, yes! Featured a Mr Felix Beaumont—no relation to Luke’s family—lisping his way through Alexander’s Feast to the accompaniment of a reedy tenor with a lute. Rosie explained that lithping is Felix’s speciality. Rupy explained that Felix’s costume was based on one once won by the Sun King and that the lutenist was dressed as Cupid as a youth.”

    Colin swallowed hard. “Dryden?” he croaked.

    “So they tell me.”

    Colin shook silently, finally gasping: “Ouch!”

    “Oh, it was good! Let’s see. Well, there were Restoration tumblers, so-called. To an accompaniment of Purcell. You ever been down there? –No. Well, it’s very near the coast, and this was a daytime do, actually on the cliff-top, in a field. Backdrop of sea and sky, see? Great steel towers and platforms—huge safety nets, of course. Very bright coloured tights and spotlights.” Colin just goggled at him so he went on: “Rosie couldn’t take it—can’t stand circuses, either. Baby Bunting loved it, mind you: gurgled like mad each time they launched themselves into the wild blue yonder.”

    “Fucking acrobats,” he croaked. “Like that Cirque du Soleil crap.”

    “You got it.” Terence tried a different box of chocs. “Parfait amour,” he said, grinning.

    “Same to you with brass knobs on. Well, hand ’em over. –Jesus!” he gasped, swallowing. “You weren’t kidding.”

    “No.” Terence investigated the card on the box but they weren’t from any of the bitches Colin had done pretty regularly over the past few years, they were from his sister. Well, Viola never had had any taste—look at the chap she’d married. He took another one. Colin also took another one. Then he shook silently, the good hand holding the bad shoulder in place.

    “Highly cultural, it was. What else? Well, a Restoration consort on the lawn, five thousand Friends of the Festival, strawberries and cream, champers.”

    “That does sound very cultural,” Colin agreed.

    “Mm. Uh—bumped into Deirdre Vaughan. –No? You ain’t missed much. Old Roddy Vaughan’s daughter. Gone all cultural: she’s a Friend.”

    Colin coughed.

    “Well, she is now!” admitted Terence, grinning. “Thought yer actual Poppy Mountjoy was on offer, for a while: turned out she fancied John more than she fancied yours truly, only he ain’t on offer, these days. Oh, um, lipsticked lady actress,” he explained. “Belongs to the Mountjoy family: ’tis her real name.” Colin was looking completely blank, so he was forced to elaborate: “It’s the fucking Mountjoy Midsummer Festival! Get it?”

    “Finally, yes. What happened to the jail bait?”

    “As a matter of fact I did notice John’s eye getting distinctly frosty, so I left her to Max,” he said virtuously.

    “He’s certainly a bit nearer her age. And did he do her?”

    “Not then. She rang him last night, though, so I sort of gathered he thinks there’s yet hope. Well, if he can get out of having his kids dumped on him. Thing is, first the bitch said he couldn’t have them this leave, but now she’s threatening to dump them on him. He’s gone off to argue with her, today.”

    “Right,” said Colin, yawning. He took another rum truffle, since they were there. “So that was it for the festival, was it?”

    “Well, I could give you a blow-by-blow description of Rosie in a pale lemon thing—thin, with a bit of lace draped over the salient points,” he said, licking his lips.

    “Filthy bugger,” said Colin with an effort.

    “You getting tired, old boy? I’ll push off.”

    “No; it’s about time for me afternoon pills,” he said, making a face.

    “Want me to ring for the nurse?”

    “No, I’ll wait until the appointed hour.”

    Terence didn’t argue. There never had been any use arguing with Colin: he was as strong-minded as John was. Or as stubborn as a mule, you could put it that way, too.

    He rattled on about the horrors of the festival until the nurse brought the pills. Colin was very obviously drowsy after taking the bloody things, so he slung his hook.

    Old Cousin Matthew Haworth, Colin’s uncle, was discovered sitting in the little reception place down at the end of the corridor.

    “Sir, why didn’t you come in?” he gasped.

    He scowled. “Saw him this morning, gave me a load of old codswallop.”

    Terence swallowed. “Oh. Um, he’s just had his medication: think he’s dropping off.”

    “Yes,” said the old man heavily. “I’ll just sit by him for a bit.”

    Oh, Lor’! Sit by him and watch him sleep, the poor old creature meant! The thing was, he had no sons of his own—couple of daughters by the, um, second wife. That bitch he was currently married to wouldn’t give him kids and slept with anything in trousers. Not that the old boy was any bloody example of clean living, either. Colin had very little in common with his father, so Cousin Matthew had sort of tried to move into what was pretty much a vacant position. On Colin’s leaves he’d always ask him down to that frightful dump he’d bought in, um, Somerset, was it? And if he was in town insist on giving him a decent dinner, that sort of thing. A bit unfortunately, Colin never had felt in want of a paternal hand. One of the old man’s daughters did have boys but of course the silly old sod had got off-side with the father: hardly ever saw them. The latest was he wanted Colin to chuck in the Army and join him in his bloody merchant bank. It wasn’t just because of the wound: he’d been banging on about it for some time—certainly since Colin’s last stint in Iraq.

    He attempted to make his farewells but the old man said: “Sit down for a minute, Terence.”

    Mentally gritting his teeth, Terence sat down. No way was he going to put Cousin Matthew’s point of view about anything to Colin: especially not about what he should do with his life!

    However, it didn’t seem to be about that. Not directly, anyway. The old boy just sat there for a bit, glaring at the floor. Then he said: “Has he mentioned that bitch Aimée Mainwaring to you?”

    “Uh—no. Since he landed in hospital, sir? No.”

    He grunted.

    Terence thought about it. “Um… Last saw her at Ascot, wasn’t it? His last long leave before Iraq. Well, I mean, not leave before Iraq as such, our chaps didn’t even know they were being sent out, from what I—”

    “Yes!”

    “Not that I’d know, we were doodling about under the Gulf at the time.”

    “Uh—yes, of course you were, dear boy,” he said with a visible effort. “Sorry.”

    “Not at all, sir. Er… Don’t think she’s been to see Colin or sent him a card or anything, from what I could see.”

    “No,” he said grimly.

    There was a short pause. Terence wondered if he should mention that round about the time of Colin’s last leave he’d also been up that red-headed bitch Willi Duff-Ross, who was his cousin on his mother’s side, and, um, some lady fund-raiser, a connection of his brother-in-law’s, he thought, and um… an old flame he’d bumped into at a party? Not Aimée, though she was, as well. Never mind. Busy man, Colin Haworth. Always had been.

    “She’s had a brat. Girl. Born around the time he was invading Iraq,” he said sourly.

    Really? Old Mainwaring was over seventy and the way Terence had heard it he needed a tube to get it… up. Jesus!

    “Red hair,” said Matthew very sourly indeed.

    Right. Colin had red hair. Very distinctive. Red-gold, according to the distaff side.

    “Is Mainwaring recognising it, Cousin Matthew?” he croaked.

    “Of course! Horrid fellow’s middle’s name’s ‘Complaisant’ and always has been!”

    Well, possibly better than a messy divorce. “Does Colin know?” he said faintly.

    “I was trying to ascertain whether you knew that, Terence!” he snapped.

    Ouch. “No, hasn’t mentioned her name.”

    “Nor to me,” he said sourly.

    That proved nothing but Terence didn’t say so: the old boy was sharp enough.

    “Well, how did he strike you?” said the old man heavily.

    “Better, actually. Brighter, more like his old self. Um, said ’orrible at least once,” he remembered.

    He grunted.

    Terence took a deep breath. “What is the story with the ankle?”

    “Shot to blazes, fucking surgeons think he’ll have to have at least three more operations, may get some limited mobility in it.”

    “Right. Uh—they’re not thinking of taking the foot off?”

    “No. Gave me a lot of technical garbage about nerves. Think they meant he can still move his toes, and, um, well, that’s it, really.”

    “Mm. Well, that’s a lot more than I got out of them,” he said, wondering what lies the old boy had told them to get them to part with that much. Um, in loco parentis? There wouldn’t be much competition, that was for sure. “Er, his parents been up lately, sir?”

    Matthew Haworth’s wide mouth that was rather like John’s tightened. Then he said sourly: “Yes, day before yesterday. They had to be up in town anyway for a protest about these missing weapons of mass destruction, if you please!”

    Terence licked his lips. Par for the course. “Um, well, he is out of danger,” he said limply.

    Colin’s uncle gave a terrific snort.

    “Michael’s in town with his little girls,” Terence said awkwardly. Michael was Colin’s older brother and for many and varied reasons, none particularly valid, the old man didn’t like him.

    “Yes; he was in this morning,” he agreed with a sigh.

    “He’s not a bad chap,” ventured Terence.

    “He’s a wet fish,” replied Michael Haworth’s paternal uncle heavily. “Colin’s worth ten of him and always has been!”

    Terence had no argument with that. He said nothing.

    “Taken ’em to the zoo,” he rumbled.

    Terence jumped. “Oh—Michael? Good show!”

    “Girls,” he said sourly.

    Ouch! Not again! Terence had had it. He said goodbye firmly, and escaped.

    Matthew Haworth looked after him sourly. “Not half the man his brother is,” he muttered. “Not that he’s distinguished himself lately. Telly actress? Huh!” He got up and went slowly down the corridor to Colin’s room. Colin was asleep, flat on his back with his good arm flung out of bed. He always had slept like that, since he was a little chap. The old man sighed and sat down by the bed.

    Colin opened his eyes slowly. Lily Rose Rayne in person, the perfect pink-cheeked face haloed in spun gold. “I’m dreaming,” he murmured.

    Rosie grinned at him. “You said that the very first time we visited you!”

    “Did I?” said Colin feebly, struggling to sit up a bit.

    “Want more pillows?” She assisted him. “Is that putting too much weight on your hip?”

    Alone of humanity! Colin stared at her. “Done nursing?”

    “No, but what else does the human anatomy rest on if it sits up? –Is it?”

    “One pillow less, I think,” he murmured.

    She bent over him. Thank You, Lord, I do believe in You. She removed a pillow. That was better, actually.

    “I brought you something different,” she said. Personally Colin didn’t care if it was hemlock, she was in a blue thing that showed off every line and curve of that perfect figure.

    “Thanks very much,” he said feebly, unwrapping it, since it was there. Um, little triangles and diamonds of, um, white stuff and pink stuff and pale green stuff?

    “Barfis. With Mrs Singh’s very best wishes for a speedy recovery,” said Rosie with her lovely smile.

    Colin didn’t ask, he simply offered the box. Rosie shook her head, smiling. He chose a pink one. Gosh.

    “Ambrosia for the mouth!” she beamed.

    He nodded dazedly. Though managing to say once he’d swallowed: “Ambrosia is for the mouth.”

    The big grey-blue eyes twinkled. “That’s the point! It’s one of Rupy’s sayings. I have to admit he loves it when anybody corrects him. Though so far not many have.”

    “Right. Ninety percent in ignorance, nine percent getting the joke,” he said glumly.

    He didn’t have to elaborate, she giggled and nodded, wasn’t she perfect?

    “Uh, gather you’ve been down to some festival thing, Rosie?” he said, ’cos if he didn’t say something the alternative was just to lie back and stare.

    “Oh, God, don’t say John’s being going on about it to you!”

    “Um, no. Hasn’t mentioned it, no. Terence gave me a blow-by-blow account of what I think he meant were the best and the worst bits.”

    “The concert and the opera were the best,” she said cautiously.

    “Yes, so I gathered.” He watched with terrific enjoyment as the satiny brow wrinkled.

    Finally she admitted: “It’s hard to decide what were the worst.”

    Colin went into a spluttering fit. It was so bad he ended up grabbing his bad shoulder with his good hand. The box of barfis went for a skate and she made a grab at them. “Oof!” he gasped, approximately. Thank You, Lord, I definitely believe in You!

    “Sorry!” said Rosie with a smothered giggle, rather pink.

    “Don’t be. Nice to know I still can. So tell us about some of the other worst bits. Um, heard about the acrobats and, uh… Oh, yes, some awful fellow with a lisp, reciting Dryden.”

    “The garden party thingo was horrible, too.”

    “Uh—featuring champagne, strawberries? Mm. Terence seemed to enjoy that.”

    “He would! It was just like those deadly does we went to in D.C.”

    “D.C.? Oh, yes: during John’s secondment. Terence picked up flash bird then, too, did he?”

    “Yeah. Are you sure John didn’t mention it?”

    “No: why, Rosie?”

    She sighed. “He’s got a bee in his bonnet—well, him and Rupy, actually. Um, well, Luke was with us—he’s not your cousin as well, is he? Luke Beaumont,” she said as he was looking blank.

    “Uh—oh, yeah. No, no relation: he’d be on John’s mother’s side. Um, met one of the family during my stint in D.C., actually—years ago. 1987, I think. About my age. Pushy go-getter, already making his fortune in his early thirties. Don’t think his name was Luke, though. Can’t even remember what he looked like, now. I do remember he wanted to make use of our very distant connection in order to get me to use what he imagined was my influence with a, er”—he looked at those shining eyes again and decided against the word “congresswoman”—“politico from some place he wanted to do business—destroy the environment? Forget what.”

    “That’d be the brother,” she said heavily. “Henry.”

    Colin honestly couldn’t remember. He looked at her expectantly.

    “Well, we were at the garden party, and I was saying it was as horrible as the does we had to go to in D.C., and Rupy—what was it? Oh, yes, he said never mind, the White House in the snow was nice—which it was!” she said with a sudden dazzling smile: Colin blinked—“and I’d never have to see Mrs Admiral (Terri) Baxter again!”

    “Er—yes?”

    “So I said that was right, unless she takes it into her head to swan on over for tea at the Ritz, ’cos that was Wanda Makepeace Hooten we bumped into there on Georgia’s first day! Then Luke said—lemme get this right, because Captain Exactitude claims it’s significant. He said: ‘Ambassador Hooten’s wife?’ In those words.” She looked at him hopefully.

    “Don’t think I know them,” he said feebly.

    She bit her lip. “Um, no. Think about it.”

    Colin attempted to urge the brain-box into gear but, possibly because he’d recently fallen off a moving vehicle onto it, possibly not, all it came up with was that John was the jammiest bastard in the country. “Uh—sorry,” he said feebly.

    Rosie sighed. “Then I went and said—I must’ve been brain-dead!—‘Don’t say you know them?’ So of course he said he didn’t, he’d just read the name somewhere.”

    “Ye-es… Hang on. Luke said ‘Ambassador Hooten’s wife?’ and you said ‘Don’t say you know them?’ Right. So Captain Exactitude concluded he did know them and this was highly suspicious?”

    “That’s it, exactly!” she cried, beaming.

    Ooh, talk about the Class Prize! It was better than that time he’d actually managed to land a hit on John’s midriff. “Uh—can’t see it, myself.”

    “No. The thing is, Henry’s made millions but Luke went the other way. He did get his degree, presumably the family pressured him into it, but then he dropped out and ever since he’s been bumming around the world. For twenty years or so, he’s about your age.”

    Colin scratched his jaw slowly. “I see. Uh—look, I hate to say it, Rosie, but this sounds horribly like John with not enough to do.”

    “That’s exactly what Rupy said!” she beamed.

    “Well, there y—”

    “No!” she said crossly. “That wasn’t all, there was another thing, even stupider and—and less significant, and he used it to talk Rupy round to his way of thinking! And all I can say is, it’s a stupid Y-chromosome thing, never mind if you’re gay or not!”

    “No,” he agreed kindly, trying not to laugh. “Calm down; have a barfi.”

    “Well, just one,” she said, smiling at him, the flush dying away. “I know it’s silly, but once he gets a fixed idea it’s liable to turn into a mania. Like the veggie garden,” she added gloomily.

    Colin blinked. John? Last time he’d been down at the cottage—before John’s marriage to Rosie, true—his large back yard had contained quantities of rough grass, a couple of elderly apple trees, and one small greenhouse. “Er—mm. What was the other stupid thing?”

    “I don’t want to prejudice you. But then, if you don’t know the background… I think it’s fair to say it. Terence and Max and Luke were sleeping in a tent in Michael’s back yard, and Terence had a bottle of Glenfiddich out there. Um, is that right? Glen-something.”

    “That’d be right. All boys together.”

    “Yes. We got home pretty late from the play—it was awful,” she noted by the way. “Modernised Molière. They’d missed the point that it was meant to be funny. Anyway, Michael made a pot of tea, and he had some lovely biscuits, but Terence and Max went off to the tent and Luke decided to go with them. John said he was trying too hard to do the expected thing and it wasn’t the same as just trying to fit in. And that the thing expected of a visiting American with his history of bumming around the world for a while would be that he’d join the relative rough and tumble of the tent, not that he’d sit inside with the rest of us sipping tea.”

    “Jesus,” said Colin weakly.

    “Yeah. Anyway, I said he was mad—paranoid. ’Specially ’cos of the bottle of whisky. And he said he betted he wasn’t drinking it, so I went and looked.”

    In an all-boys-together tent? Colin winced a bit. “Yes?” he croaked.

    “Well, Captain Exactitude was right: he was in his sleeping-bag with his eyes shut while those two Naval nongs were knocking it back. Now tell me that it proves he isn’t Luke Beaumont!”

    “Couldn’t it be that he’d just had enough, saving your presence, of the company, and wanted to go to bed?” he croaked.

    “Only if you’re not paranoid, Colin,” she said grimly.

    “Yeah. –Not Luke Beaumont? Who the fuck does he imagine he is?” he muttered.

    “Don’t ask. He’s admitted he’s got to be his cousin, he knows all the family history. He hasn’t come to a definite conclusion but Henry Beaumont’d be a contender,” she said heavily.

    “Eh? The rich one? Wandering about southern England in old tee-shirts attending potty festivals?” he croaked.

    “Quite,” said Rosie drily.

    “Uh—was there any more evidence?” he groped.

    “Don’t you start!”

    “What was it?” he said with a little smile.

    Rosie sighed. “John got up with the birds, of course, and so did Luke, and that was suspicious in itself, and one morning he went into the kitchen just as Michael was about to turn the financial news off, and Luke was asking him to leave it on.”

    “So this proves that the drop-out in the old tee-shirt is the wealthy brother?”

    She shrugged. “Indicative. Unquote.”

    “Does anybody know if this so-called drop-out actually has assets?”

    “No. I did point out that the fact he doesn’t lead a conventional life and doesn’t wanna be in the Royal Navy doesn’t mean that he hasn’t got a bit put by. Captain Judicious granted my point, of course,” she said evilly.

    Wincing, Colin concluded it was high time they dropped that subject. So he asked her about her little boy and she was soon chatting away happily, her husband’s strange paranoia apparently forgotten.

    It was a bit odd, he supposed vaguely, trying a green barfi after the perfect bum and wholly delightful legs had disappeared out his door. Hmm. Interesting. Some sort of ground-up nut, perhaps? Not in the same class as the pink ones, however. He gave in and took another pink one. Oo-ooh. Ambrosia for the mouth!

    “Rosie’ll be up in town again next week,” said Rupy kindly.

    “Yes,” agreed Colin faintly. “Terribly good of you to deputise, Rupy.” The chap was wearing—and Terence’s description of him at the fucking festival should possibly have warned him—white duck trousers—uniform trousers, or he, Colin Haworth, was a Dutchman in his clogs—a tight pale pink tee-shirt, tucked in, and a light blue blazer which he would have taken his dying oath was a Cambridge University one, yes. Not to mention a peaked cap of the type worn backwards by American street-kids and right way round by American presidents. Rupy’s was the right way round but it wasn’t a presidential navy, it was white. Its insignia was not the presidential one, and possibly one should be grateful for small mercies, here. It appeared to be a green palm tree and a blue swordfish. Shark? Dolphin? Breaking down entirely, he asked: “Where did you get that cap?”

    “Queensland, Colin!” he beamed, taking it off and letting him look at it really closely. “Rosie said it was probably made for Sea World, ’cos that’s a dolphin!”

    “Right,” he said groggily.

    “When we were filming, Colin!” he urged. “Last year!”

    “Oh, of course.” He didn’t ask if the chap had the sunglasses to match, because he was sure of the answer, and Terence’s had been more than enough for one lifetime.

    “Now,” said Rupy busily, “I have to get these right. These are from me—absolutely nothing, don’t mensh!” he said as Colin thanked him for the mandarines. Actually, that was really thoughtful: several people had brought him oranges, which were bloody hard to peel one-handed. “These are from Rosie, she thought you might like something different after all those sweet things, and I have to admit it, they are delish!” Colin was looking blankly into the box so he explained quickly: “From the kosher grocery down the road from the flat. Tiny bits of onion on top, not burnt, and I did say was butter wise, though of course one realises you’ve lost weight—” He broke off, as the grinning Colin was trying a heavily buttered roll. “Oh, good!” he said in relief. “No, I won’t, ta, I can have them any time. Though it is hard to remember he’s closed on Saturdays.” He watched as Colin chewed hungrily. “One could have added something to them besides the butter, but I thought you might be particular about cheese, like darling John—of course he pretends he isn’t, but it’s obvious to me,” he added smugly, “and Rosie thought that ham might not be tactful, ’cos dear old Mr Goldman is very—” He broke off and waited until the hysterics were over. “Strict. Well, she’s like that. And he’s bound to ask if you liked them.”

    “Please tell him I adore them, they’re the first thing I’ve had that tasted like real food since they clapped me up in here, and thank Rosie very much for the thought, Rupy,” he said firmly.

    Terrifically pleased, Rupy nodded like mad and promised he would. He watched, smiling, as Colin embarked on another kosher roll. “And these are from darling Mrs Singh, she’s done all pink ones this time! I told Rosie you’d like them best!”

    Ooh, gosh! A whole boxful! Colin nodded wildly round his mouthful of incredibly food-like onioned kosher roll. Finally managing to swallow and say: “Of course I like the pink ones best! Ambrosia for the mouth!”

    Smirking ’orribly, Rupy agreed: “Absolutely! Go on, have one!”

    Weakly Colin finished his kosher roll and took a pink barfi. “But who is she?” he said feebly.

    “Mrs Singh? Didn’t Rosie say? She’s Greg’s mum, of course! The Singhs own the Indian restaurant in our street: The Tabla.”

    The ambrosia for the mouth didn't seem to be reaching the brain. “Y—Um, I’m sorry, Rupy, but who is Greg?”

    Rupy realised in horror that he hadn't been down to the cottage in years, registered in horror that he’d been off in Germany and horrible Bosnia and all those places as well as horrible Iraq, and finally explained that Greg was Rosie’s research assistant. M.A. in sociology, and the professor was very keen for him to do his Ph.D., but the thing was, he was the sort of boy that needed a push…

    Colin just sat back, digested his ambrosia for the mouth, ate another kosher roll, and let it all wash over him…

    “Mm?”

    “She said she thought you might get a giggle out of this!”

    Er—did she? The Official Mountjoy Midsummer Festival Programme 2003. The huge, shiny sort that cost so much you had to give up one or more of the actual shows to buy it. It fell open of its own accord at a very stained page, so he just read numbly what it said there. After a while he began to smile.

    Rupy peered. He gave a smothered snigger. “Is that the so-called Restoration dinner? The meat was very good!”

    Grinning, Colin replied: “I believe you, thousands wouldn’t! ‘Restoration Dinner: The Roast Beefe of Olde Englande’—help, they’ve even put an E on the end of ‘beef’—‘as Mr. Pepys knew it!’—There’s an exclamation mark there,” he explained redundantly. “‘Merrie Maidens, High Jinks, Serving Wenches & Orange Sellers at The London Tavern’—wonder why they didn’t shove an E on that?—‘the whole presented for your delighte’—E, well done—‘by Olde English Dyning Incorporated’—I see that Y but I don’t believe it—‘and Master Meats, a subsidiary of Perfect Foods, Proud Sponsors of the Mountjoy Midsummer Festival 2003.’”

    Rupy collapsed in giggles, gasping: “It’s all like that! But the meat was good, honest!”

    “Uh-huh…” They’d listed the principal delights: God! “Ale of Olde England,” “Red, Red Wyne,” presumably of other parts, and “Honey Mead,” sic. “Did anybody try the Honey Mead?” he croaked.

    “Only Luke: he’s an American, you see,” replied Rupy simply.

    Colin’s shoulders shook. Ow! He supported the bad one with his good hand. “Yes, quite!” He took a pink barfi. “Have one, Rupy.”

    “No, they’re for you. And delish though they are, what about some fruit? Do you good!” he urged.

    “That or give me the runs. No, well, that was earlier—sorry, Rupy. I’d love one of your mandarines, thanks. I don’t think it really was the fruit, it was the bloody penicillin they’d pumped me full of. –Iraq’s dirty, bullets are dirty, and my leg was full of both,” he explained on a sour note.

    Rupy began peeling a mandarine. “Of course, dear! One quite understands! But didn’t they ask you if you were allergic to penicillin when you signed up?”

    “Uh—I suppose. But I’m not,” he said blankly.

    “Stoic, Colin,” he reproved him, frowning. “Us cowardly civilians count having the horrid runs as being allergic to the stuff.”

    “Oh,” said Colin feebly. “Thought allergic meant did it make you swell up and pass out. Anyway, seems to have worked, didn’t get gangrene.”

    Rupy gulped. “No,” he said faintly.

    Colin bit his lip. Damn. Too explicit for the poor chap. Quickly he said: “Talking of Luke, Rosie seems a bit upset by some barmy notion John’s taken into his head about him.”

    “Oh, that. As a matter of fact, you seem to have calmed her down, Colin! No, well, she told me what she told you, and I have to say it, John’s gone too far. Though I suppose,” he said, glancing at the festival programme, “there was one other thing… No, well, it was at the Restoration dinner. Derry Dawlish turned up: the producer-director, Colin: he directed our film. Rosie was too busy wishing the man at Jericho to notice anything, I think. Um… Well, he spread the best butter around liberally, of course. Told Terence he could be next year’s answer to Hugh Grant and claimed Luke was the Bogie type. Then he said he was sure they’d met before. Out in New Zealand. Um, well, he claimed to have been out there for some big game fishing, but believe you me, Colin, dear, Derry is no Hemingway! He thought Luke was some American tycoon that was doing business with some tycoon he knows out there. Conglomerates were mentioned. Luke said it wasn’t him. I have to admit he didn’t seem disturbed.”

    “No. Well, sounds like a storm in a teacup to me. –Thanks,” he said, smiling, as he was handed the neatly peeled mandarine segments. “And what in God’s name was all that about John’s vegetable garden?”

    “Oh, that! Well, she doesn’t really mind, of course, but he has rather gone overboard about it!” He embarked on the full saga…

    Colin just lay back, ate his mandarine, and carefully selected a plump, buttery kosher roll with lots of little bits of chopped onion on its shiny crust…

    Rupy trotted out looking really pleased with himself. The smirk faded as he reached the little reception area at the end of the corridor, and he gaped. There was this terrifically military lady general or something sitting on one of the flowery sofas! She’d taken her hat off and she had that terribly military hair: pulled back into a tight bun, very shiny.

    “Um, I say, you’re not waiting to see Colonel Haworth, are you?” he bleated.

    “Yes,” she said, getting up.

    “But you could have interrupted us!” he gasped. “I mean, I’m nobody, really!”

    “You’ve come to see him, apparently,” she said grimly. “More than any of his damned floozies have. How is he?”

    “Well, I don’t know him, you see, he’s my friend Rosie’s, um, cousin by marriage. But he seems perky, and I gave him the kosher rolls she said to bring him and he’s eating them!”

    “That’s a bloody great improvement. Well done,” she said with a nod, striding off towards his room.

    Golly! Rupy just gaped after her.

    “That sounds like Margie,” said John with a grin to his wavering report.

    Rupy looked round nervously but no admirals appeared in the corridors of the Admiralty, so he hissed: “What was she?”

    “Long-time girlfriend; nothing serious, just a convenience for both of them, really.”

    “Yuh—uh, gosh.”

    John’s shoulders shook. “He’s a brave man.”

    “Yes, one could see that, John, dear!” he said eagerly. “No, but what is she?”

    “Oh—rank? Margie’s a brigadier-general, Rupy,” he said, his eyes dancing.

    “I knew she was a general!” he gasped.

    “Mm. Well, one usually says brigadier. But, yes.”

    “Isn’t that against the rules, though?” he hissed.

    John cleared his throat. “Something like that. But they’ve never been in the same outfit, you see.”

    Rupy nodded obediently.

    “Did he eat anything besides damned sweets?” he asked grimly.

    “Yes! Mr Goldman’s rolls were an inspiration! He ate four while I was there, John!”

    John sagged. “Thank Christ,” he muttered.

    “Absolutely! And I peeled a mandarine for him and he ate that, he didn’t think it’d give him the runs like the horrid penicillin!”

    “What?”

    He gulped. “Help. Didn’t he mention it to you?”

    “Not to me, not to Cousin Matthew, not to Terence, not even to Rosie—” He broke off, breathing heavily. Finally he said: “Well done, Rupy. You’ve done more than the entire bloody family put together.”

    “I don’t think it was me, John, I think he’s probably at that stage. Um, Mrs Singh’s barfis are full of calcium,” he offered.

    “Mm? Oh! Yes. I really meant damned chocolates.”

    “I know, John, dear!” he cried sympathetically. “Just like when Rosie broke her leg and she didn’t eat a thing for three days except chocs and grapes!”

    “God, yes!” He grinned at him. “Did you like him, Rupy?”

    “Oh, very much! Terribly masculine, though, isn’t he? But one can’t help liking him.”

    John knew quite a lot of people who disliked Colin very much. Mostly those who’d come slap up against his stubborn streak or his refusal to compromise. But as far as ordinary day-to-day acquaintances went, he was right: most people did like him. Perhaps it was because he was the sort of person who was always himself, whatever his company. Funnily enough, that was something he had in common with Rupy!

    “I shouldn’t be long. Why don’t you have a seat, Rupy, and we’ll go and grab a drink somewhere. Fancy the Club?”

    “The Army and Navy?” he gasped.

    “Mm.”

    “Ooh! Lovely!”

    His eyes twinkling, John disappeared into his committee again. Rupy sat down and looked about him. After a while his gaze returned to the closed door. He was ninety-nine percent sure the name on that notice was darling John’s actual committee, and that looked like a very permanent notice… After a while some stout Naval persons came down the corridor. Rupy looked sideways at their lovely uniforms. One, two, three… Oh, help. Then a lovely young man hurried up with a cup of tea: Captain Haworth had thought he might like this. This would have been very cheering to the constitution except that he had two and half stripes and that meant he was very far from being a minion! He thanked him palely. It was lovely tea. More uniforms went past. Commander. Lieutenant-commander. Two captains. ’Nother commander. Um, Army ones? No, hang on, marines! Lady commander, help. Oh, help, two admirals!

    John’s committee’s door finally opened and they all came out amidst a clamour of those upper-class noises. Brian hadn’t got it quite right in the telly series, he’d said that all along, and this proved it! Added to which nobody shook hands at all. Or saluted.

    “Right! We off?” John said with his lovely smile,.

    Rupy stumbled to his feet. “Yes, um, but could one rethink?” he said lamely.

    “Of course, Rupy. Anywhere you’d feel comfortable,” he said immediately.

    Rupy swallowed hard. “Um, well, is it too late for the Ritz’s tea place?”

    “Of course not. Tea or drinks, just as you like.”

    “Perhaps one could have a drink there, then,” he said thankfully.

    Smiling, John took his elbow gently and led him off to the Ritz. It was, of course, crammed full of what Terence would call people one knew. Well, up theirs.

    Terence took a leftover green barfi.

    Fleetingly Colin considered telling him that the pink barfis weren’t ’orribly aniseed-flavoured at all, that had been a big fat lie. Er—no.

    “Your Uncle Matthew been in, lately, Colin?” he asked airily.

    “Yes,” replied Colin grimly, “and I’ve no intention of joining him in his bloody merchant bank!”

    “Bloody good opportunity.”

    “I don’t want it. I loathe the City. You have it, if you’re that keen.”

    “God, no! I can’t do sums!” said Terence in naked horror.

    “What are you going to do? Can’t go on swanning about in subs until you’re sixty, you know. In fact I’m surprised they haven’t said—”

    “They have. And you needn’t repeat it to John, thanks. I’ll get out when I’m fifty and not before.”

    “And do what?” returned Colin, unimpressed.

    “No idea,” he said, sounding sulky. “If you don’t know, why should I?”

    “I didn’t precisely plan this,” said Colin tiredly.

    “No. Sorry. But, um, didn’t you have some idea? When were you planning to get out?”

    Colin made a face. “As late as possible. Old soldiers merely fade away. I don’t have to get out: old Hatters dropped in the other day, said there’s a desk job waiting for me as soon as I’m fit.”

    Terence was gaping at him in naked horror.

    “You’re right, I’d go barmy,” he said heavily. “No, well, it’s a question of what else to do.”

    “Um, give Michael a hand with your grandfather’s place?”

    Colin sighed. “No. He suggested that, too, bless him. No, I know myself too well, Terence—and him. I’d take over, couldn’t help myself. No, it’s his show. Well, it’s a lot too soon to make any decisions, really; they won’t even be giving me a crutch for a while. I just thought I might start off with some R&R down in Bellingford. There’s a spare cottage I could use. –What are you looking like that for?”

    “Colin, old man, there’s absolutely no point in even thinking of Rosie—”

    “What? No! It’s nothing like that, you ape. The place is a total backwater, far, far away from Uncle Matthew—and if you must have it, from Ma and Pa.”

    “Well, yeah, it’s peaceful enough,” said Terence, in some relief. “Oh: talking of Australian lovelies, there’s been a development on the Max and Georgia peach front!”

    “Eh? He hasn’t?”

    “No bet! –Thing is, the other cousin turned up.”

    Colin ate a pink barfi. Mmm-mmm. “Eh? ’Nother one? Won’t John’s flat be bulging at the seams?”

    “No: Molly’s staying with her new boss and the others have gone back down to Bellingford— Are you listening?”

    “Yes. Four kinds of Turkish delight: yum,” said Colin kindly.

    “What? No! This new one’s some sort of lady artist. Older!”

    “Oh, older?” Wasn’t this story supposed to be about Max Lattimore making it with the Georgia peach? Never mind, it was a warm afternoon and if Terence wanted to tell him long, involved stories about lady artists in their forties, why not? But in case it got very, very long he might just have another— Mmm-mmm…