Pictures of Perfection

CHAPTER THREE

Dalziel need not have worried, even though his assessing glance at the heroic deeds being performed all around convinced him he was in the company of peers. There was grub aplenty and of a quality he hadn’t encountered since his childhood.

‘If I weren’t promised, I might marry that lass,’ he declared. ‘Where’s she at?’

‘I think she’s being reconciled with her brother and to her new status,’ said Pascoe, looking to where George and Dora were huddled together in animated conversation. ‘Who are you promised to, sir?’

‘Greasy Joan in the canteen who gives me extra chips.’

‘Is this a formal engagement?’

‘Nay, I just told her if I ever did decide to get wed again, I’d give her first refusal,’ said Dalziel. ‘Pass me them cream horns, will you? Where’s Wieldy?’

‘Over there talking to Digweed.’

‘We’ll need to watch him, Peter. He’s been acting funny ever since he got back. What was all that crap about yon kingfisher anyway?’

‘What was all that about the kingfisher?’ Digweed was saying.

‘Guy shot it. It’s an offence,’ said Wield stolidly.

‘I see. So us burglars can be allowed to run free, but offences against wildlife must be rigorously prosecuted. Very green of you. So it was only incidentally that you did Enscombe in general and Old Hall in particular the signal service of disinheriting Guy.’

‘You think the Squire will disinherit him, then?’ said Wield.

‘I do love a man who knows how to change a subject,’ said Digweed.

‘Are you really going to make Girlie and George your heirs?’ asked Fran as she strapped the Squire’s wrist.

‘If I live long enough to see my lawyer,’ said the Squire. ‘What’s that redheaded fellow hanging about for?’

Fran glanced to the doorway where Harry Bendish was visible peering in.

‘I think maybe he wants to ask if it’ll be all right to marry me,’ said Fran.

‘Good Lord. That’s not what you want, is it, my dear?’

‘Very much,’ she said.

‘Fellow’s a striker, you know that?’

‘No, he’s not. That time you saw him on the wall, well, we’d been together in the garden, in the shed actually, and afterwards he just sort of got carried away.’

‘Together? Doing what?’

Fran cast around for an idiom which might be familiar to the old man. All she could come up with was, ‘Spooning.’

‘Spooning?’ he echoed, then threw back his head and laughed. ‘Spooning you call it? In my days we kept our clothes on to spoon, especially in midwinter! No, my dear, what I think you mean is at the very least canoodling, and possibly even coupling, eh?’

Fran flushed deep apricot and said, ‘I’m going to marry him, Grunk.’

‘Of course you are. You’re like your gran, my sister Frances. Went off and married the vicar while I was chasing sheep around New Zealand. She’d gone by the time I came home. Never saw her again. Pity. She might have told me little Agnes was pregnant. I never knew that, you know. I thought I got sent away simply because she wasn’t what they called suitable. A terrible man, my father. Most of them were, the Guillemards. Perhaps you think I’m a terrible man too?’

‘No,’ she smiled, ‘I’ve never thought that.’

‘Good. I’ll tell you something. First place Agnes and I ever spooned in, that was the garden shed too. What do you think of that?’

‘I think it’s great.’

‘You do? Great, eh? Well, I’ll talk to young fellow-me-lad later. First things first. Soon as you bind me together, you slip off and get that big fiddle of yours.’

‘But I thought you weren’t going to do the ballad today?’ said Fran.

‘Things have changed, haven’t they?’ he said. ‘Besides, there’s probably plenty of folk out there thinking it’s going to be all cakes and no ballad. Can’t have them going home disappointed, can we?’

And he winked at her.

It took Fran a second or two to grasp his meaning. Even then she wasn’t certain. She’d always been sensitive to the politely glazed boredom of most of his audiences, and it had been a constant worry that the Squire himself might one day detect and be hurt by it.

She said cautiously, ‘I’m sure most of them enjoy …’

‘Oh God. I hope not! After the years I’ve spent listening to them droning on at fêtes and shows and concerts and meetings, I hope I’m not wasting me old age entertaining them!’

She began to laugh, the Squire too, and after a while, encouraged by their mirth, Harry Bendish came through the door, smiling shyly.

Kee Scudamore smiled shyly at Larry Lillingstone and said, ‘It’s probably all for the best, Larry.’

It was, she realized, at the very least an ambiguous statement. It could mean, it’s all for the best that the object of an avowed celibate’s desires should put herself out of reach by marriage. Or it could mean that in view of the kind of expectations Caddy would have of a husband, it was all for the best that someone else should be landed with her. What it really meant, of course, was that it was all for the best that her sister’s availability had been so satisfactorily removed, thus clearing the decks for her own assault.

He said, ‘Never console a professional consoler, Kee. He’s played that game too often not to know all its finesses.’

Kee regarded him fondly, thinking how well despair became him. He was right, of course, he knew the cards of consolation as well as she did — the needs of the living, the healing powers of time. Eventually he would also recall that he knew these were not deuces and treys but mighty trumps. She wanted him body and soul. The one was still focused on Caddy, the other fixed on God. No problem, she thought. She was aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary very much as to time in different people, but, late or soon, she had the patience to wait.

She said, ‘At least you can’t think about leaving Enscombe until we get this business of the vicarage and the school sorted out.’

He said, ‘Sometimes I get this odd feeling that I shall never leave Enscombe.’

‘That will be nice,’ she said lightly. ‘We would all love you to stay. That way, not only could you finish your history of the parish, you could write yourself into it.’

‘Talking of history, I think I see it coming,’ said Lillingstone.

And he pointed to the house from which approached at a pace dictated by age, Fop’s teeth, and an uncased ’cello, that (to Enscombian eyes) terrible trio of the Squire, Harry Bendish and little Fran Harding.

As news of the sighting spread, most villagers accelerated their consumption to a rate which left even Andy Dalziel floundering.

‘What’s going off?’ he demanded. ‘Has someone cancelled tomorrow?’

‘I think,’ said Pascoe with greater artistic sensitivity, ‘they may be trying to eat themselves insensible.’

There were those whom the threat of balladry inspired to more direct forms of escape.

Digweed said, ‘I think the time has come to make an excuse and leave.’

‘What excuse is that?’ asked Wield.

‘I came out in such a hurry I may have left the shop unlocked. With all these unsolved break-ins, a man can’t be too careful.’

‘Aye, lot of desperate criminals in these parts,’ agreed Wield. ‘Talking of which, I don’t see young Toke tucking in. Don’t he come to these things?’

‘Almost invariably. Perhaps the poor devil’s got wind of this strange union between Caddy and Halavant.’

‘How’ll he take it?’

‘Badly, I should think. While Caddy was everyone’s unattainable dream, he could be content. But now …’

‘Might he do summat … daft?’

‘Self-destruction, you mean?’

‘I weren’t thinking of self.’

Digweed laughed and said, ‘Oh dear. You’re thinking like a policeman again.’

‘I am a policeman,’ said Wield heavily. ‘Nowt can change that.’

The two men regarded each other cautiously, recognizing that almost imperceptibly their conversation was shifting on to another level. In the background the villagers chattered and chomped, distant birds sang, and Fran Harding’s ’cello groaned in sweet agony as she lovingly tuned it.

‘I’m a lawyer, a bookseller, a burglar,’ said Digweed. ‘These are labels, passport pictures to the world outside. They don’t mean much in Enscombe. Here we tend to know the truth about each other.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ asked Wield, frowning.

‘I suppose it means in a way that here everyone is out. We may laugh at, quarrel with, gossip about each other, but ultimately if everyone’s business is everyone else’s, then your own business is your own. A kind of emotional communism.’

‘You’ve lost me now,’ said Wield.

‘I should hate to do that, Edgar.’

‘How the hell do you know my name?’

‘It’s like I say,’ grinned Digweed. ‘We know everything there is to know about our own.’

‘You’re a right clever bugger, aren’t you?’ growled Wield.

‘You’d be amazed. Listen, before I flee, something to occupy your mind while the Squire declaims. I mentioned before that I was thinking of putting in an offer for Corpse Cottage if your lot put it on the market. I suspect that could happen quite soon. You’re not going to risk losing another young bobby to Enscombe, are you? Now, it will stretch my purse a bit. I’d be pleased if someone came in with me, spread the burden. You look the careful type, I dare say you’ve got a few bob stashed away, all those bribes! So how about it?’

The proposition took Wield’s breath away. Finally he managed to say, ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Up to you. Purely commercial. If you want. Oh God, I think he’s going to start. See you later. I hope.’

And Edwin Digweed slipped away from Old Hall and made his way back down the High Street towards his shop and his fate.

Others followed, or had preceded.

Thomas Wapshare left with a genial wave, claiming the imminence of a beer delivery. Dudley Wylmot left with an awkward bow, explaining to any who listened that he wouldn’t offend for the world but the law required him to open the Post Office. Caddy Scudamore left without explanation, her mind full of the shapes and colours of the Reckoning’s excitements and her fingers aching to feel the heavy thickness of a brush. Justin Halavant, discovering his promised bride’s absence, observed that to attend a Guillemard Reckoning might be History, but enduring a Guillemard Recital was mere masochism, so with a casual nod to the Squire and another to second slip, he hastened away.

And first of all to leave, convinced now that her son was not going to put in an appearance, and with foreboding increased once the amazing news of Caddy Scudamore’s engagement had reached her, was the slight, pale figure of Elsie Toke.

But the vast majority of Enscombians, anchored by feudal loyalty, immobilized by self-indulgence, or intimidated by Girlie’s fierce gaze, remained in their places and listened to the Squire’s ballad, until the screaming began.