The period between the wars was a curious mixture of bright young things drinking cocktails while millions trudged to the soup kitchens. None of it made any sense and perhaps it was inevitable that out of that confusion would come another war. After all, during war time, everything becomes so much clearer.
This story is a simple character study of a few friends who can not, or will not, believe what is happening. It's easy to laugh at them but in truth, what else could they have done?
Clive stood helplessly by and watched Daphne Watterson-Hedges rummaging amongst those mysterious, oily workings beneath the bonnet of the Riley.
“Ahah!” She exclaimed.
“Found something?” Clive ventured.
Daphne stood up, smug with success. She tucked a wisp of hair back behind her ear, which left oil on her cheek. Her hands were filthy with the stuff. “You have a broken oil pipe old sport,” she told Clive, perhaps unnecessarily.
“Is that bad?” He tried to sound nonchalant. Wouldn't do to get all excited.
“Oh yes, appalling. The stuff has been peeing out all over the road. The sump must've run dry ages ago, that's why the block seized and that's why the engine went bang and chucked a con-rod out through the side.” She sounded as if she might be enjoying this. She held out her hand. “I say Clive, be a darling and lend me your handkerchief.”
Clive pulled the hanky from his pocket and handed it to her. She brusquely wiped her fingers on it.
“I suppose we have no choice but to walk, then?” Clive suggested.
“I suppose so,” Daphne said. She held out the hanky.
“Um – no, thank you.”
She shrugged and tucked it down into the engine bay, then unpinned the bonnet and dropped it with a sharp clang. “Right, well, off we go then. It's a couple of miles to the next village, I suppose we can get a lift there.”
“Do they have taxis out here in the country?”
“Oh really Clive, have you never been away from town before?”
“Not much, no.” He sighed as he walked around to the boot. “I always found that too much fresh air irritated my chest.”
Daphne looked him up and down, wearing an expression that, for a few uncomfortable seconds, reminded him of his mother. He made a great show of pulling the bags from the boot. By far the largest was Daphne's. It was a stout leather case with brass fittings. With some effort he held it out to her. She folded her oily arms and gave him a frosty look.
“Clive, manners, please. I'm the lady, after all.”
#
The gramophone was refusing to co-operate. Clarissa wound the handle one more time, then gave up. “Work!” She glared at it.
“Don't bother, leave it until Daphne gets here.”
“Hmph." She was prodding it as if trying to wake an elderly relative.
“Leave it alone, it's too hot.”
Clarissa's bottom lip stuck out in a petulant pout. She walked away from the gramophone with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders.
Charles Sanderson dropped his sunglasses back onto his face and settled down again. They were all out on the terrace enjoying the late summer sunshine. Charles was in a deck chair, Toby Carmichael and his brother Hugo were sprawling on a groundsheet they'd found in the potting shed.
Clarissa wandered around for a second or two then came over to Charles and looked down at him. He pretended to be asleep. She sat on him.
“Umph! What are you doing you mad women!”
“There's nowhere to sit,” she told him. He tried to turf her off, she clung to the deck chair with both hands.
“You'll break the bloody thing!”
“Serve you right.”
He pushed, hard, she jabbed him in the ribs with a remarkably sharp elbow then bounced on his stomach. He groaned as the wind was knocked out of him and then from underneath there came a splintering noise.
“Oh bugger,” he said.
The deckchair collapsed. Clarissa leapt nimbly away while Charles was left to flop onto his spine. “Ouch!”
Toby sat up on one elbow and put a hand over his eyes so he could see what was happening. He stared at Charles, floundering like a stunned whale, while Clarissa stifled a grin. “You've broken your chair,” he told Charles.
“Well done. Very observant of you.”
“Just as long as you know,” Toby said, and settled back down again.
“What happened?” His brother asked sleepily.
“Charlie broke his chair.”
“I knew it would happen. Arse too big. Next time he sits down he should make sure it's on something cheap. Or very robust.”
Clive and Daphne appeared a little while later. Charles was on the balustrade, a Webley pistol and a box of bullets beside him. He turned as they approached. “Hello. What happened to you?”
“Car went 'pop',” Clive was a picture of gloom. “The oojar snapped off inside the midget flange and leaked mascara all over the grommets. Or something.” He sighed. “Any chance of some lemonade?”
“We abandoned the car and walked,” Daphne said. She smiled around at everyone. “We got a taxi in the end. Clive didn't think there would be any. He said why would anyone run a taxi service when there's plainly nowhere worth going. He's been a complete misery all afternoon. Any chance of a stiff drink?”
The maid was summoned and instructed to bring refreshments. Charles began taking pot-shots with the webley. A duck appeared on the lawn, waddling confidently along. He carefully aimed and fired. There was a colossal bang and a cloud of blue smoke. The duck squawked and scurried away.
“Your car makes three,” Clarissa was telling Clive.
“Three what?” He looked blank.
“Three broken things.” She told him about the gramophone and the deck chair. "We've had nothing but rotten luck today, you know."
“What about the-” He had to pause while the echo of another gunshot died away. “What about the announcement?”
“Announcement?” She looked confused.
Clive raised his eyebrows. “I mean our Mr Chamberlain and his radio broadcast. War with Germany? If you're talking about bad luck...”
“Oh that.” She shrugged. “Charlie said that's a political ploy. The germans will back off. They won't dare start anything.”
“Surely they already have?”
“Oh I don't know.” Clarissa was getting annoyed. “Let's not talk about that. You'll just spoil the party and I don't want to spoil it. No one does.”
“No, I suppose not.”
From behind them came the familiar hissing sound of needle on shellac, followed closely by the wailing trumpets of a dance band. Clarissa turned, smiling in delight. “Daphne! You're a star!”
Daphne shrugged. “Couple of loose screws,” she said carelessly. “Very easy to fix.”
“Well I for one am extremely grateful.” Clarissa put her drink down. “You've saved this party from death by boredom.” She began to dance around the terrace.
Clive wandered over to where Charles was sitting and perched next to him. Charles was taking aim at a sparrow in the branches of a hawthorn bush. “Hit anything?”
“No. Everything keeps moving. Bloody unfair.” He fired.
Clive waited a second. “What about trees? They tend to keep quite still.”
“No, they keep ducking. ” He blew smoke from the gun barrel with studied nonchalance.
“Did you hear the Prime Minister on the radio?”
“Chamberlain? Can't stand the man. Father says he's a weasel. Mother says he has foreign blood in his veins which makes him inherently unreliable.”
“Is that true?”
“Dunno.” Charles shrugged, then held up the webley. “This used to be Uncle Henry's. He used it a lot in the last war, apparently. He was a good shot, potted loads of Turkish heathens with it. Then one of them potted him and he was sent home in a box, personal effects to follow. As it happened, there was a cock-up over some paperwork and his effects didn't reach Aunt Maud until 1923. February, I think. She'd given up hope by then.”
“Bad luck on her,” Clive murmured.
“Bad luck indeed.” Charles squinted up at the cloudless sky. “What did Clarissa say? We've all had bad luck today?”
“That's all superstitious rubbish, you know.”
“I wonder. I've been thinking about it. It's been a day for things breaking and now we're at war. Could that be coincidence?”
“Are you saying it's our fault somehow?”
“It might be. We live in a damned funny world, you know.” He looked down at the pistol.
Clive followed his eyes. For a few seconds neither of them moved, while the tinny sounds of the dance band echoed mindlessly around them. “Do you know what else Clarissa said?" Clive asked. “She said not to talk about it, it spoilt the party.”
“Quite right.” Charles raised his chin. “No more talk about the bloody war. We're on holiday, after all.” He hefted the webley in his hand, then impulsively threw it as hard as he could. It sailed away into the bushes.
Clive slowly exhaled. “What would Uncle Henry say to that?” he wondered.
“I'm told he liked a good party,” Charles said. He picked up the bullets and threw them as well. “He'd probably complain that we were being very boring and weren't nearly drunk enough.”
"Someone should have said that to Neville Chamberlain and Herr Hitler," Clive remarked, and both of them laughed.
No comments:
Post a Comment