The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

THE PICNIC

The months of March and April of that year had been unprecedentedly dry and warm for England . The farmers, caught by surprise by the novelty of a situation which did not allow them to plead bankruptcy because of unusually late frost, rallied gamely and started talking about the horrors of drought. People who had, the previous autumn, informed us that the wonderful crop of berries and mushrooms were signs of a hard winter and an even harder summer to follow, now said that a surfeit of berries and mushrooms meant a fine spring the following year. To top it all, those paid Munchausens amongst us, the weather forecasters, predicted an extremely hot spell from April to August. The English, being gullible, got so overexcited at these predictions that many of them went to extreme lengths, like laying in suntan oil and deck chairs. In the whole length and breadth of Bournemouth, on the south coast, where we were living, there was not a pair of bathing trunks nor a sunshade to be had for love or money.

My family, all sun-worshippers, responded like buds to the warmth. They quarrelled more, they sang more, they argued more, they drank and ate more, because outside in the garden the spring flowers were in riotous sweet-scented bloom and the sun, though only butter-yellow, had real heat in it. But of all the family, it was my mother who was moved to a strange fervour by the meteorological forecasts that were being mooted about, principally, I think, because she heard these predictions from the radio.

To Mother, this made all the difference; the difference between reading your horoscope in a women’s magazine and having your future told by a genuine gypsy on the steps of his caravan. Throughout the war, the British government, including Churchill (when he was not otherwise engaged) lived inside our radio set for the express purpose of keeping Mother informed as to the progress of the war, and the imminence of the German invasion. They had never told her a lie and, more important, they had won the war. Now, of course, the war was over, but the integrity of the men who had lived in the radio was just as impeccable as it had been of yore. When she heard farmers talking of thousands of cattle dying of thirst or reservoirs drying up, anonymous doctors giving tips on how to avoid sun-stroke, and of beauty consultants advising on how to get a tan without withering away, Mother naturally concluded that we were in for a heat-wave that would make the West Indies seem like an extension of Alaska .

“I’ve thought of a wonderful way of welcoming Larry back,” she said one morning at breakfast.

Larry, who of his own volition had been absent from England for some ten years, was paying a flying visit in order to attend to the promotion of one of his books. In spite of a letter from him saying how the thought of returning to what he called Pudding Island revolted him, Mother was convinced that he was pining for the sights and sounds of “Merry England” after so many years as an exile.

“Who wants to welcome him?” asked Leslie, helping himself liberally to marmalade.

“Leslie, dear, you know you don’t mean that,” said Mother. “It will be so nice to have the family all together again after so long.”

“Larry always causes trouble,” said my sister Margo. “He’s so critical.”

“I wouldn’t say he was critical,” said Mother, untruthfully. “He just sees things a little differently.”

“you mean he wants everyone to agree with him,” said Leslie.

“Yes,” said Margo, “that’s right. He always thinks he knows best.”

“He’s entitled to his opinion, dear,” said Mother. “That’s what we fought the war for.”

“What? So that we’d all have to agree with Larry’s opinion?” asked Leslie.

“You know perfectly well what I mean, Leslie,” replied Mother, sternly. “So don’t try and muddle me up.”

“What’s your idea?” asked Margo.

“Well,” began Mother, “it’s going to be unbearably hot . . .”

“Who says so?” interrupted Leslie, disbelievingly.

“The wireless,” said Mother, crushingly, as though speaking of the Deiphic oracle. “The wireless says we are in for an unprecedented trough of high pressure.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Leslie gloomily.

“But it was on the wireless, dear,” explained Mother. “It’s not just a rumour — it came from the Air Ministry roof.”

“Well, I don’t trust the Air Ministry, either,” said Leslie.

“Neither do I,” agreed Margo. “Not since they let George Matchman become a pilot.”

“They didn’t?” said Leslie incredulously. “He’s as blind as a bat, and he drinks like a fish.”

“And he’s got B.O., too,” put in Margo, damningly.

“I really don’t see what George Matchman’s got to do with the weather on the Air Ministry roof,” protested Mother, who had never got used to the number of hares her family could start from a normal conversation.

“It’s probably George up there on the roof,” said Leslie. “And I wouldn’t trust him to tell me the time.”

“It’s not George,” said Mother firmly. “I know his voice.”

“Anyway, what’s your idea?” asked Margo again.

“Well,” continued Mother, “as the Air Ministry roof says we are going to have fine weather, I think we ought to take Larry out to see the English countryside at its best. He must have been missing it. I know when your father and I used to come home from India, we always liked a spin in the country. I suggest we ask Jack to take us out for a picnic in the Rolls.” There was a moment’s silence while the family digested the idea.

“Larry won’t agree,” said Leslie at last. “You know what he’s like. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll carry on terribly: you know him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be very pleased,” said Mother, but without total conviction. The vision of my elder brother “carrying on” had flashed across her mind.

“I know, let’s surprise him,” suggested Margo. “We’ll put all the food and stuff in the boot and just say we’re going for a short drive.”

“Where would we go?” asked Leslie.

“Lulworth Cove,” said Mother.

“That’s not a short drive,” complained Leslie.

“But if he doesn’t see the food, he won’t suspect,” said Margo triumphantly.

“After he’s been driving for an hour and a half; he’ll begin to,” Leslie pointed out. “Even Larry.”

“No, I think we’ll just have to tell him it’s a sort of a welcome home present,” said Mother. “After all, we haven’t seen him for ten years.”

“Ten peaceful years,” corrected Leslie.

“They weren’t at all peaceful,” said Mother. “We had the war.”

“I meant peaceful without Larry,” explained Leslie.

“Leslie, dear, you shouldn’t say things like that, even as a joke,” said Mother reprovingly.

“I’m not joking,” said Leslie.

“He can’t make a fuss if it’s a welcome home picnic,” put in Margo.

“Larry can make a fuss about everything,” replied Leslie with conviction.

“Don’t exaggerate,” said Mother. We’ll ask Jack about the Rolls when he comes in. What’s he doing?”

“Dismantling it, I expect,” said Leslie.

“Oh, he does annoy me!” complained Margo. “We’ve had that damn car for three months and it’s spent more time dismantled than mantled. He makes me sick. Every time I want to go out in it, he’s got the engine all over the garage.”

“You shouldn’t have married an engineer,” said Leslie. “You know what they’re like; they have to take everything to pieces. Compulsive wreckers.”

“Well, we’ll ask him to make a special effort and have the Rolls all in one piece for Larry,” concluded Mother. “I’m sure he’ll agree.”

The Rolls in question was a magnificent 1922 model that Jack had discovered lurking shame-facedly in some remote country garage, her paint unwashed, her chrome unkempt, but still a lady of high degree. He had purchased her for the princely sum of two hundred pounds, and brought her back to the house in triumph, where, under his tender ministrations, she had blossomed, and was christened Esmerelda. Her coach-work now dazzled the eye, her walnut fittings glowed with polish, her engine was undefiled by so much as a speck of oil; she had running boards, a soft top you could put back for fine weather, a glass panel which could be wound up so that the driver could not hear your strictures on the working classes, and — best of all — a strange, trumpet-like telephone thing through which you shouted instructions to the chauffeur. It was as wonderful as owning a dinosaur. Both the back and front seats would accommodate four people with room to spare. There was a built-in walnut cabinet for drinks, and a boot that appeared big enough to contain four cabin trunks or twelve suitcases. No expense could be spared on such a vehicle, and so, by some underground method, Jack had produced a continental fire-engine horn which let out an ear-splitting, arrogant ta-ta, ta-ta . This was only pressed into service in extreme emergencies; normally, the huge, black, rubber bulb horn was employed, which made a noise like a deferential Californian sea-lion. This was suitable for hurrying up old ladies on pedestrian crossings, but the fire-engine horn could make a double-decker bus cringe into the ditch to let us pass.

Just at that moment Jack, in his shirt-sleeves and liberally besmeared with oil, came in to breakfast. He was a man of medium height with a mop of curly dark hair, prominent bright blue eyes, and a nose any Roman emperor would have been glad to possess. It was a nose that really was a nose; a nose to be reckoned with; a nose of size and substance, one that would have warmed the cockles of Cyrano de Bergerac’s heart, a nose that heralded the cold weather, the opening of the pubs, mirth, or any other important event, with a flamboyant colour change that a chameleon would have envied. It was a nose to be arrogant with, or to shelter behind in moments of stress. It was a nose which could be proud or comic, according to the mood; a nose that once seen was never forgotten, like the beak of a duck-billed platypus.

“Ah!” said Jack, and his nose quivered and took on a rubicund sheen. “Do I smell kippers?”

“There, in the kitchen, keeping warm,” said Mother.

“Where have you been?” asked Margo, unnecessarily, since Jack’s oil-covered condition stated clearly where he had been.

“Cleaning Esmerelda’s engine,” replied Jack, equally unnecessarily.

He went out into the kitchen and returned with two kippers lying on a plate. He sat down, and started to dissect them.

“I don’t know what you find to do with that car,” said Margo. “You’re always taking it to pieces.”

“I knew a man once who had a wonderful way with kippers,” remarked Jack to me, oblivious of my sister’s complaints. “He’d sort of turn them on their backs and somehow get all the bones out in one go. Very clever. They all came out, just like that. Like harp strings, you know . . . I still can’t quite see how he did it.”

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Margo.

“What’s wrong with what?” countered her husband vaguely, staring at his kippers as if he could hypnotize the bones out of them.

“The Rolls,” said Margo.

“Esmerelda?” asked Jack in alarm. “What’s wrong with her?”

“That’s what I’m asking you,” said Margo. “You really are the most irritating man.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” replied Jack. “Beautiful piece of work.”

“It would be, if we went out in her occasionally,” pointed out Margo, sarcastically. “She’s not very beautiful sitting in the garage with all her innards out.”

“You can’t say innards out,” Jack objected. “Innards are in, they can’t be out.”

“Oh, you do infuriate me!” said Margo.

“Now, now, dear,” said Mother. “If Jack says there’s nothing wrong with the car, then everything’s all right.”

“All right for what?” asked Jack, mystified.

“We were thinking of taking Larry out for a picnic when he comes,” Mother explained, “and we thought it would be nice to do it in the Rolls.”

Jack thought about this, munching on his kippers.

“That’s a good idea,” he said at last, to our surprise. “I’ve just tuned the engine. It’ll do her good to have a run. Where were you thinking of going?”

“Lulworth,” said Mother. “It’s very pretty, the Purbecks.”

“There’s some good hills there, too,” said Jack with enthusiasm. “That’ll tell me if her clutch is slipping.”

Fortified with the knowledge that the Rolls would be intact for the picnic, Mother threw herself with enthusiasm into the task of preparing for it. As usual, the quantity of food she prepared for the day would have been sufficient to victual Napoleon’s army during its retreat from Moscow . There were curry-puffs and Cornish pasties, raised ham pies and a large game pie, three roast chickens, two large loaves of home-made bread, a treacle tart, brandy snaps and some meringues; to say nothing of three kinds of home-made chutney and jams, as well as biscuits, a fruit cake, and a sponge. When this was all assembled on the kitchen table, she called us in to have a look.

“Do you think there’ll be enough?” she asked, worriedly.

“I thought we were only going to Lulworth for the afternoon?” said Leslie. “I didn’t realize we were emigrating.”

“Mother, it’s far too much,” exclaimed Margo. “We’ll never eat it all.”

“Nonsense! Why, in Corfu I used to take twice as much,” said Mother.

“But in Corfu we used to have twelve or fourteen people,” Leslie pointed out. There’s only six of us, you know.”

“It looks like a two years’ supply of food for a Red Cross shipment to a famine area,” said Jack.

“It’s not all that much,” said Mother, defensively. “You know how Larry likes his food, and we’ll be eating by the sea, and the sea air always gives one an appetite.”

“Well, I hope Esmerelda’s boot will hold it all,” commented Jack.

The next afternoon, Mother insisted, in spite of our protests, that we all dress up in our finery to go down to the station to meet Larry. Owing to the inordinately long time Margo took to find the right shade of lipstick, Mothers plans were thwarted, for, just as we were about to enter the Rolls, a taxi drew up. Inside was Larry, having caught an earlier train. He lowered the window of the cab and glared at us.

“Larry, dear!” cried Mother. “What a lovely surprise!”

Larry made his first verbal communication to his family in ten years.

“Have any of you got colds?” he rasped, irritably. “If so, I’ll go to an hotel.”

“Colds?” said Mother. “No, dear. Why?”

“Well, everyone else in this God-forsaken island has one,” said Larry, as he climbed out of the cab. “I’ve spent a week in London running for my life from a barrage of cold germs. Everyone sneezing and snuffling like a brood of catarrhal bulldogs. You should have heard them on the train — hawking and spitting and coughing like some bloody travelling TB sanitarium. I spent the journey locked up in the lavatory, holding my nose and squirting a nasal spray through the keyhole. How you survive this pestilential island, defeats me. I swear to you that there were so many people with colds in London, it was worse than the Great Plague.”

He paid off the taxi, and walked into the house ahead of us, carrying his suitcase. He was wearing a deer-stalker hat in a dog-tooth tweed, and a suit in a singularly unattractive tartan, the ground colour of which was dog-sick green with a dull red stripe over it. He looked like a diminutive and portly Sherlock Holmes.

“Mercifully, we are cold-free,” said Mother, following him into the house. “It’s this lovely fine weather we’ve been having. Would you like some tea, dear?”

“I’d rather have a large whisky and soda,” said Larry, taking a half empty bottle out of the capacious pocket of his coat. “It’s better for colds.”

“But you said you hadn’t got a cold,” pointed out Mother.

“I haven’t,” replied Larry, pouring himself out a large drink. “This is in case I get one. It’s what is called preventive medicine.”

It was obvious that he had been using preventive medicine on the way down, for he grew more and more convivial as the evening drew on; so much so that Mother felt she could broach the subject of the picnic.

“We though,” she said, “since the Air Ministry’s roof is emphatic about the terribly hot weather, that we might take the Rolls out and go for a picnic tomorrow.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit churlish, going off and leaving me after a ten-year exile?” asked Larry.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Mother. “You come too.”

“Not a picnic in England,” protested Larry, brokenly. “I don’t think I’m up to it. How I remember it from my youth! All the thrill of ants and sand in the food, trying to light a fire with damp wood, the howling gales, the light snowfall, just as you’re munching your first cucumber sandwich . . .”

“No, no, dear. The Air Ministry roof says we’re having an unprecedented ridge of high pressure,” said Mother. “Tomorrow’s going to be very hot, it said.”

“It may be hot on the Air Ministry roof, but is it going to be hot down here?” enquired Larry.

“Of course,” insisted Mother stoutly.

“Well, I’ll think about it,” promised Larry as, carrying the remains of the whisky in case germs attacked him in the nigh; he made his way to bed.

Next morning dawned blue and breathless, the sun already warm at seven o’clock. Everything augured well. Mother, in order to leave no stone unturned in her efforts to keep Larry in a good mood, gave him his breakfast in bed. Even Margo, in the interests of peace, refrained from giving us our normal excruciating half-hour when she sang the latest pop tunes in the bath, without the benefit of knowing either the tune or the lyric with any degree of certainty.

By ten o’clock, the Rolls had been loaded up and we were preparing to go. Jack made some last-minute slight but important adjustment to the engine, Mother counted the food packages for the last time, and Margo had to go back into the house three times to get various items that she had forgotten. At last we were ready and assembled on the pavement.

“Don’t you think we ought to have the roof down, since it’s such a nice day?” suggested Jack.

“Oh, yes, dear,” said Mother. “Let’s take advantage of the weather while we’ve got it.”

Between them Leslie and Jack lowered the canvas roof of the Rolls. We entered the car, and were soon bowling along through the English countryside, as lush and as green and as miniature as you could wish for, full of birdsong. Even pieces of woodland on the rolling Purbeck hills were set in bas-relief against the blue sky in which, high and faint, like the ghosts of minnows, a few threads of cloud hung immobile. The air was fragrant, the sun was warm and the car, purring softly as a sleepy bumblebee, slid smoothly between tall hedges, breasted green hills, and swept like a hawk down into valleys where the cottages clustered under their thatched roofs so that each village looked as though it was in need of a haircut.

“Yes,” commented Larry, musingly, “I’d forgotten how Victorian dolls’ house the English landscape could look.”

“Isn’t it lovely, dear?” said Mother. “I knew you’d like it.”

We had just swept through a hamlet of white-washed cottages, each with a thatch that looked like an out-sized piecrust on top, when Jack suddenly stiffened behind the wheel. “There!” he barked suddenly. “Didn’t you hear it? Distinctly. Tickety-tickety-ping, and then a sort of scroobling noise.”

There was a pause.

“I would have thought,” Larry observed to Mother, “that this family was quite unbalanced enough without adding insanity by marriage.”

“There it goes again. The scrooble! The scrooble! Can’t you hear it?” cried Jack, his eyes gleaming fanatically.

“Oh, God!” said Margo bitterly. “Why is it we can’t go anywhere without you wanting to take the car to pieces?”

“But it might be serious,” said Jack. “That tickety-tickety-ping might be a cracked magneto head.”

“I think it was just a stone you kicked up,” said Leslie.

“No, no,” said Jack. “That’s quite a different ping. That’s just a ping without the tickety.”

“Well, I didn’t hear any tickety,” said Leslie.

“Nobody ever hears his tickety except him,” complained Margo, angrily. “It makes me sick!”

“Now, now, dear — don’t quarrel,” said Mother, peaceably. “After all, Jack is the engineer of the family.”

“If he’s an engineer, it’s a curious sort of technical language they are teaching them now,” commented Larry. “Engineers in my day never discussed their tickety-pings in public.”

“If you think it’s serious, Jack,” said Mother, “we’d better stop and let you have a look at it.”

So Jack pulled into a lay-by, flanked with willows in bloom, leapt out of the car, opened the bonnet, and flung himself into the bowels of Esmerelda, as a man dying of thirst would throw himself into a desert pool. There were a few loud groans and some grunts, and then a high nasal humming noise that sounded like an infuriated wasp caught in a zither. It was our brother-in-law humming.

“Well,” said Larry, “since it seems that our postillion has been struck by lightning, how about a life-giving drink?”

“Isn’t it a bit early, dear?” asked Mother.

“It may be too early for the English,” observed Larry, “but don’t forget that I’ve been living among a lot of loose-moraled foreigners who don’t think that there’s one special time for pleasure, and who don’t feel that you’re putting your immortal soul in danger every time you have a drink, day or night.”

“Very well, dear,” said Mother. “Perhaps a small drink would be nice.”

Leslie broached the boot and passed us out the drinks.

“If we had to stop, this is quite a pleasant spot,” said Larry, condescendingly, gazing round at the rolling green hills, chess-boarded by tall hedges, and patterned here and there with the black and frothy green of woodland.

“And the sun really is remarkably hot,” put in Mother. “It’s quite extraordinary for the time of year.”

“We shall pay for it in winter, I suppose,” said Leslie, gloomily. “We always seem to.”

Just at that moment, from beneath the bonnet of the car, came a loud reverberating sneeze. Larry froze, his glass halfway to his mouth.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Jack,” answered Leslie.

“That noise?” exclaimed Larry. “That was Jack?”

“Yes,” said Leslie. “Jack sneezing.”

“Dear God!” cried Larry. “He’s brought a bloody germ with him. Mother, I’ve spent a week avoiding infection by every means known to the British Medical Association, only to be transported out here into the wilderness without a medical practitioner within fifty miles, to be bombarded by cold germs by my own brother-in-law. It really is too much!”

“Now, now, dear,” said Mother soothingly. People sneeze without having colds, you know.”

“Not in England,” said Larry. “The sneeze in England is the harbinger of misery, even death. I sometimes think the only pleasure an Englishman has is in passing on his cold germs.”

“Larry, dear, you do exaggerate,” said Mother. “Jack only sneezed once.”

Jack sneezed again.

“There you are!” said Larry, excitedly. “That’s the second time. I tell you, he’s working up for an epidemic. Why don’t we leave him here; he can easily hitch a lift back into Bournemouth, and Leslie can drive.”

“You can’t just leave him on the roadside, Larry, don’t be silly,” said Mother.

“Why not?” asked Larry. “The Eskimos put their old people out on ice-floes to be eaten by polar bears.”

“I don’t see why Jack has to be eaten by a polar bear just because you’re frightened of a stupid little cold,” exclaimed Margo, indignantly.

“I was speaking figuratively,” said Larry. “In this area, he’d probably be pecked to death by cuckoos.”

“Well, I’m not having him left, anyway,” said Margo.

At that moment, Jack emerged from under the bonnet of the car. His ample nose seemed to have grown to twice its normal size, and to have assumed the colouring of an over-ripe persimmon. His eyes were half closed and watering copiously. He approached the car, sneezing violently.

“Go away!” shouted Larry. “Take your filthy germs into the fields!”

“Id’s nod germs,” said Jack, endeavouring to enunciate with clarity. “Id’s by hay feber.”

“I don’t want to know the scientific name for it — just take it away!” shouted Larry. “Who the hell do you think I am? Louis Pasteur? Bringing your bloody germs to me.”

“Id’s hay feber,” Jack repeated, sneezing violently. “Dere must be some damn flower or udder growing here.” He glanced about balefully through streaming eyes and spotted the willows. “Ah!” he snarled, though a flurry of sneezes, “dad’s id, der bloody things.”

“I can’t understand a word he’s saying,” said Larry. “This cold’s unhinged what passed for his mind.”

“It’s his hay fever,” explained Margo. “The willows have started it up.”

“But that’s worse than a cold,” said Larry in alarm. “I don’t want to catch hay fever.”

“You can’t catch it, dear,” said Mother. “It’s an allergy.”

“I don’t care if it’s an anagram,” said Larry. “I’m not having it breathed all over me.”

“But it’s not infectious,” insisted Margo.

“Are you sure?” asked Larry. “There’s always a first time. I expect the first leper said that to his wife, and before she knew what was happening, she’d founded a colony, all ringing their bells and shouting ‘unclean’.”

“You do complicate things, dear,” said Mother. “It’s perfectly ordinary hay fever.”

“We muzt ged away from deze trees,” said Jack. He entered the car and drove us off at such a furious pace that we just missed hitting a large wagon of manure pulled by two giant Shire horses, which was coming round the corner.

“I don’t remember entering into any suicide pact with him,” cried Larry, clinging to the door.

“Not so fast,” said Margo. “You’re going too fast.”

“Air!” groaned Jack. “God to have air to ged rid of de pollen.” After a few miles of furious driving, accompanied by squeaks of alarm from Mother and Margo and admonitory roars from Larry, Jack had taken sufficient air through his nose to ease his affliction somewhat. We settled down to a more sedate pace.

“I should never have set foot in England again. I knew it,” complained Larry. “First it’s cold genus, then it’s hay fever, then a death-defying ride like something out of Ben Hur. When you get to my age, you can’t stand this sort of pace without getting a coronary.”

Just before lunchtime, we discovered that we were enmeshed in the maze of little lanes that led all over the headlands and the cliffs. In our efforts to try to find Lulworth Cove, we got ourselves thoroughly lost, but at last we followed a road that led down to a circular bay guarded by tall cliffs. The bay looked blue and serene in the sunshine, so we decided to stop and have lunch there. Apart from an elderly couple exercising their dog, the beach was deserted.

“How fortunate,” said Mother. “We’ve got the beach to ourselves. I was afraid this fine weather might bring out a lot of people.”

“Let’s walk half-way round the bay,” suggested Leslie. “It’s not very far, and you get a better view.”

Having all agreed to this plan, we parked the Rolls and, staggering under the burden of food and drink and rugs to sit on, made our way across the shingle.

“I must have something to sit against,” said Mother. “Otherwise I get terrible back-ache.”

“Yes, you must recline in a civilized manner,” agreed Larry, “otherwise you’ll get your viscera in a knot. It leads to ulcers and all sorts of things. Your guts rot and your food falls through into the stomach cavity.”

“Larry, dear, not just before we eat,” said Mother.

“How about leaning against the cliff?” suggested Margo.

“That’s a brain-wave,” said Mother. “Over there, in that sort of little sheltered nook.”

As she started across the shingle towards it, a fairly large chunk of the cliff came away and fell to the beach with a crash, to be followed by a hissing waterfall of sand.

“Thank you,” said Larry. “If you sit there, you sit alone. I have no desire to be buried alive,”

“Look, there’s a big, black rock in the middle of the beach,” said Leslie, “perfect for leaning against.”

He hurried ahead and reached the rock. He threw down the things be was carrying, draped the rock with the rug, padded it with cushions, and had a suitable seat for Mother to sink on to when she had staggered across the shingle to his side. Larry sat down beside her, and the rest of us spread more rugs and sat down, unpacking the vast array of food.

“There’s a very curious smell around here,” Larry complained, his mouth full of curry-puff.

“It’s the seaweed,” explained Leslie. “It always pongs a bit.”

“It’s supposed to be very healthy for you,” said Margo. “Anywhere that smells of seaweed is supposed to be good for the lungs.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that this smell was good for the lungs,” complained Mother. “It’s a bit . . . well, it’s a bit strong.”

“It comes in waves,” said Larry. “I suppose the wind is carrying it.”

“Oh, yes, I can smell it,” said Margo, closing her eyes and Inhaling deeply. “You can almost feel it doing your lungs good.”

“Well, it’s not doing my lungs any good,” exclaimed Larry.

“The wind will probably change in a minute and blow it the other way,” put in Leslie cheerfully, cutting himself a large piece of game pie.

“I do hope so. It’s a bit over-powering,” said Mother. We ate for some time in silence, and then Larry sniffed. “It seems to be getting stronger,” he observed.

“No, it’s just the way the wind blows it,” answered Leslie. Larry got to his feet and peered about.

“I don’t see any seaweed,” he said, “except right over there at the water’s edge.”

He came over to where we were sifting and sniffed again. Well, no wonder you’re not complaining,” he commented bitterly, “there’s hardly any smell over here. It seems to be concentrated where Mother and I are sitting.”

He went back to where Mother was sipping her wine and enjoying a Cornish pasty, and prowled around. Suddenly he let out such a cry of anguish and rage that everybody jumped, and Mother dropped her glass of wine into her lap “Great God Almighty, look!” roared Larry. “Just took where that bloody fool Leslie’s put us! No wonder we’re being stunk out; we’ll probably die of typhoid!”

“Larry, dear, I do wish you wouldn’t shout like that,” complained Mother, mopping up the wine in her lap with her handkerchief. “It’s quite possible to say things in a calm way.”

“No, it isn’t!” said Larry, violently. “No one can keep calm in the face of this… this olfactory outrage!”

“What outrage, dear?” asked Mother.

“Do you know what you’re leaning against?” he asked. “Do you know what that back-rest is, that was chosen for you by your son?”

“What?” replied Mother, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “It’s a rock, dear.”

“It’s not a rock,” said Larry, with dangerous calm, “nor is it a pile of sand, a boulder, or a fossilized dinosaur’s pelvis. It is nothing remotely geological. Do you know what you and I have been leaning against the last half hour?”

“What, dear?” asked Mother, now considerably alarmed.

“A horse,” replied Larry. “The mortal remains of a ruddy great horse.”

“Rubbish!” said Leslie, incredulously. “It’s a rock.”

“Do rocks have teeth?” enquired Larry, sarcastically. “Do they have eye sockets? Do they have the remains of ears and manes? I tell you — owing either to your malevolence or stupidity, your mother and I will probably be stricken with some fatal disease.”

Leslie got up and went to have a look, and I joined him. Sure enough, from one end of the rug protruded a head which undeniably had once belonged to a horse. All the fur had fallen off and the skin, through a motion in the sea water, had become dark brown and leathery. The fish and gulls had emptied the eye sockets, and the skin of the lips was drawn back in a snarl displaying the tombstone-like teeth, a discoloured yellow.

“How damned odd,” said Leslie, “I could have sworn it was a rock.”

“It would save us all a considerable amount of trouble if you invested in some glasses,” remarked Larry with asperity.

“Well, how was I to know?” asked Leslie, belligerently. “You don’t expect a bloody, great, dead horse to be lying about on a beach, do you?”

“Fortunately, my knowledge of the habits of horses is limited,” answered Larry. “For all I know, it may have suffered a heart attack while bathing. This in no way excuses your crass stupidity in turning its rotten corpse into a chaise-longue for me and Mother.”

“Bloody nonsense!” said Leslie. “The thing looked like a rock. If it’s a dead horse, it should look like one, not like a damn great rock. It’s not my fault.”

“It not only looks like a dead horse, but it smells like one,” went on Larry. “If your nasal membranes hadn’t been, like your intellect, stunted from birth, you would have noticed the fact. The rich, ambrosial smell alone would have told you it was a horse.”

“Now, now, dears, don’t quarrel over the horse,” pleaded Mother, who had retreated up-wind and was standing with a handkerchief over her nose.

“Look,” said Leslie angrily, “I’ll bloody well show you.” He flung the cushions aside and whipped away the blanket to reveal the horse’s blackened and semi-mummified body. Margo screamed. Of course, when you knew it was a horse, it was difficult to see it as anything else, but to do Leslie justice, with its legs half-buried in the shingle and only its blackened, leathery torso showing, it could be mistaken for a rock.

“There you are!” exclaimed Leslie triumphantly. “It looks just like a rock.”

“It doesn’t remotely resemble a rock,” said Larry coldly. “It looks what it is — an extremely dead horse. If you mistook it for anything, one could only think it was one of the more senile members of the Jockey Club.”

“Are you going to spend all afternoon arguing over a dead horse?” asked Margo. “Really! You men make me sick.”

“Yes, Larry, dear,” said Mother, “let’s move away from it and find another spot to finish lunch.”

“Let’s send Leslie on ahead,” suggested Larry. “Maybe this time he could rustle up a cow or a couple of sheep. Who knows what other odoriferous farmyard trophies await us? A drowned pig would be a tasty addition to our menu.”

“Larry, do stop it,” said Mother firmly. “It’s quite bad enough having that smell, without you talking like that.”

“It’s not my fault,” answered Larry irritably, as we moved along the beach. “It’s Leslie’s. He’s the one who found that delicious, disintegrating Derby winner. He’s the Burke and Hare of Lulworth Cove. Why don’t you attack him?”

We moved further down the beach, and now, our appetites stimulated by the sea air, the lack of smell, and the quarrels that had grown out of the discovery of the dead horse, we attacked our victuals once again with relish. Presently, nicely sated with food, and having, perhaps, drunk a shade too much wine, we all fell asleep and slept long and soundly. It was owing to this that, none of us noticed the change in the weather. I was the first to awaken. At first I thought we had slept so long that it was late evening, for the whole of the bay was dark and gloomy, but a glance at my watch showed that it was only five o’clock. A quick look upwards and I saw why it appeared to be later. When we had gone to sleep, the sky had been a pale but bright blue, and the sea was sparkling, but now the sky was almost slate-coloured and the sea had turned a dark indigo in sympathy with it, and moved sullenly under sudden gusts and eddies of wind. Looking in the direction which the clouds were coming, I could see the horizon was as black as pitch, with shreds of lightning running through it, and to my ears came the not-too-distant rumble of thunder. Hastily, I gave the alarm, and the family sat up, bleary-eyed and half asleep. It took them a moment or so to assimilate the meteorological volte face that had taken place.

“Oh, dear,” said Mother, “and the Air Ministry roof did promise…”

“This is an awful country,” complained Larry. “Only a full-blooded masochist would enjoy living here. Everything in the place is a mortification of the flesh, from the cooking to the licensing laws, from the women to the weather.”

“We’d better get back to the car quickly. It’s going to teem down in a minute,” said Leslie.

Hastily, we bundled up our goods and chattels and boxes and bags, and made our way along the beach. Arguing about the dead horse had distracted us, and we had moved further round the bay than we had meant to. Now we had quite a long walk back to the car. Before we were half-way there, the rain started. A few fat drops hit us at intervals and then, as if the rain had been getting the range, the clouds above us seemed simply to open like a trap door and the rain fell in what can only be described as a solid blanket. Within seconds, we were all drenched to the skin. The rain was icy. With chattering teeth, we ran up the hill to the Rolls, where the next of our misfortunes became apparent. Jack, beguiled by the sunlight, had left the hood back so that the inside of the Rolls was awash.

“God damn it!” bellowed Larry, raising his voice above the roar of the rain, “does nobody use any intelligence around here?”

“How was I supposed to know it was going to rain?” asked Jack, aggrievedly.

“Because it always bloody does in this sponge of an island,” answered Larry.

Leslie and Jack were trying to get the hood up, but it soon became apparent that for some reason it was refusing to function.

“It’s no good,” panted Leslie at last, “we can’t shift it. We’ll just have to sit in the car and drive like hell to the nearest shelter.”

“Splendid!” said Larry. “I’ve always wanted to be driven in an open car through a monsoon.”

“Oh, stop moaning, for heaven’s sake,” snapped Leslie. We’re all going to get equally wet.”

We piled into the Rolls, and Jack started her up. At first, in order to try to get us to shelter as quickly as possible, he drove fast, but soon, the cries and roars from the back, made him slow down, for to travel at any speed turned the rain into a stinging whip across one’s face. We had progressed perhaps half a mile, when a familiar shuddering sensation made it clear to us all that we had a puncture. Cursing, Jack eased the Rolls to a standstill, and he and Leslie changed the wheel, while the rest of us sat in sodden silence, and the rain beat down. Margo’s hair, so carefully prepared for the occasion, now hung in rat’s tails about her face. Mother looked as though she’d just finished swimming the Atlantic single-handed, while Larry was probably in the worst condition of all. He’d put the ear-flaps down on his deer-stalker, but a steady stream of water, like; miniature Niagara, flowed off the peak of his hat and into his lap. The thick tweed of his coat absorbed water with the eagerness and completeness of a Saharan sand-dune. The coat was heavy in itself, but now it had absorbed some ten gallons of rain water, it hung round Larry like a suit of damp armour.

“What I want to know, Mother, is what you’ve got against me?” he remarked, as Jack and Leslie got into the car and we started off again.

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Mother. “I’ve got nothing against you. Don’t be silly.”

“I can’t believe that this is all fortuitous,” said Larry. “It seems too well planned, as if you had some deep, psychological urge to destroy me. Why didn’t you simply put a pillow over my face when I was in my pram? Why wait until I’m in my prime?”

“You do talk nonsense, Larry,” said Mother. “If a stranger heard you talking like that, he’d think you meant it.”

“I do mean it,” exclaimed Larry. “Never mind; my publishers are going to love the publicity “Famous Novelist killed by Mother. ‘I did it because I thought he was suffering,’ she said.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Larry!” said Mother. “You make me cross when you talk like that.”

“Well, the picnic was your idea,” Larry pointed out.

“But the Air Ministry roof . . .” Mother began.

“Spare me,” pleaded Larry. “If you mention the Air Ministry roof once again, I shall scream. One can only hope they have all been struck by lightning.”

We had now reached the top of the cliffs. It was almost as dark as twilight, and the driving curtains of rain were pushed and trembled by gusts of wind so that one could not see more than a short distance with any clarity. A flash of golden lightning, accompanied by au enormous clap of thunder right overhead, made both Mother and Margo squeak with apprehension. It was at that moment that we got our second puncture.

“Well,” said Jack, philosophically, as he pulled the car into the side of the road. “That’s it.”

There was a short silence.

“What do you mean: “that’s it”?” asked Larry. “Why don’t you change the wheel? It may have escaped your notice, but it’s still raining in the back here.”

“Can’t,” replied Jack, succinctly. “We’ve only got one spare.”

“Only one spare?” cried Larry, incredulously. “Dear God! What organization! What planning! Do you realize that if Stanley had carried on like this he’d still be looking for Livingstone?”

“Well, I can’t help it,” said Jack. “We’ve used up our spare. You don’t expect to get two punctures — one on top of the other.”

“The art of life is to be prepared for the unexpected,” said Larry.

“Well this is unexpected,” replied Margo. “If you’re so clever, you deal with it.”

“I will,” said Larry, to our surprise. “When surrounded by morons the only thing to do is to take charge.”

So saying, he climbed laboriously out of the car. “Where are you going, dear?” asked Mother. “Over there,” said Larry, pointing. “There is a man in a field. Don’t ask me what he is doing in the field in the pouring rain; he’s probably the village idiot. But from him I might ascertain where the nearest cottage or hostelry is with a telephone, and we can walk there and phone for a breakdown van.”

“That is clever of you,” said Mother, admiringly.

“Not really,” replied Larry. “It’s just that when you are surrounded on all sides by stupidity, any logical decision seems like a stroke of genius.”

He marched off down the road, and I followed him, determined not to miss anything.

We reached the field, on the far side of which was the man, pacing about among the rows of some newly-emerging crop, whistling cheerily to himself. His shoulders were protected from the rain by a sack, and another one was draped over his head. Now and then he’d pause, bend down, examine a plant carefully, and then pull it up. I began to wonder whether he was the village idiot. We made our way towards him, between the furrows. The dark earth was as sticky as molasses and long before we reached him, both Larry and I were carrying some five pounds of soil on each shoe.

“What with my coat weighing about eight-hundred pounds, and the mud on my shoes, I might well suffer a cardiac arrest,” panted Larry.

“Hello, there!” I called to the man as soon as we were within ear-shot. He straightened up and looked at us, mud-covered, dripping.

“Goo’ arternoon,” he called.

“You’d think, with its meteorological history, that the English language could have thought up another greeting, wouldn’t you?” said Larry. “It’s perfectly preposterous to say ‘good afternoon’ on a day whose climatic conditions could make even Noah worry.”

As we reached the man, Larry became as charming as his ridiculous costume and dripping condition would allow.

“So sorry to worry you,” he said, “but our car’s broken down. I was wondering if you’d be kind enough to tell us where the nearest telephone is, so that we can telephone for a breakdown van to come?”

The man studied us carefully. He had tiny, twinkling blue eyes and a hawk-like nose set in a great slab of a face as russet as an autumn apple.

“Telephone?” he queried. “There’s no telephone ’ere-abouts. No call for ’un really, sur — no, not out ’ere.”

“Yes, I understand,” went on Larry patiently, “but where’s the nearest one?”

“Nearest one?” said the man. “Nearest one . . . Now, let me think . . . It’s a good long time since I used the telephone, but it’ll come to me presently . . . Now, Geoff Rogers, he’s jist down the valley this way, but ’e ’asn’t got one . . . nor hasn’t Mrs Charlton, she’s up that way . . . no, I think your best solution, sur, is to go to the cross roads and turn right. That’ll bring you to ‘The Bull’ — the pub, sur, they’ve got a telephone . . . Least-ways, they ’ad one when I was there last spring.”

“I see,” said Larry. “How do we get to the cross roads from here?”

“It’s a tidy walk, sur,” said the man. “A good three miles it be.”

“If you could just give us directions,” Larry suggested.

“It’s a tidy walk an’ up ’ill most o’ the way,” went on the man.

“Well,” answered Larry, “that’s not important. If you could just tell us which . . .”

“I could lend you Molly,” said the man. “That ’ud be quicker.”

“I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing your wife . . .” Larry began, when the man interrupted with a bellow of laughter.

“My wife!” he crowed. “My wife! Bless your soul, sur, but that’s a laugh, and no mistake. Molly ain’t my wife, bless you, sur. She’s my ’orse.”

“Oh,” said Larry. “Well, it’s very kind of you but I haven’t ridden for years, and we’ve already had one unfortunate experience with a horse today.”

“No, no. You couldn’t ride ’er,” said the man. “ ’ Ur pulls a trap.”

“Oh, I see,” said Larry. “But, then, how do we get her back to you?”

“Oh, don’ you worry about that, sur. You jist ’itch up ur reins nice and snug to the trap and she’ll come back to me. Oh, aye, she always comes back to where I’m at. She’s as good as a wife, sur, and that’s no disrespect to my ol’ woman. If I goes to the pub of a Saturday, an’ ’as one too many, they puts me in the trap, sur, and Molly takes me ’ome without a word of a lie, sur.”

“A sagacious animal,” observed Larry. “Will your trap carry six people?”

“Yes, sur, if you takes it slow, like — and a couple of you walks up the steep bits.”

So we went round behind the hedge, where we found Molly, covered in sacks, chewing thoughtfully at her nosebag. She was as sturdy as an Exmoor pony but twice as big; the trap was a nice one; there was plenty of room. The man unhitched Molly and handed the reins to Larry, who passed them hurriedly to me.

“You’re supposed to be the zoologist of the family. You drive,” he instructed.

The man gave us directions which, like all directions in the country, were full of confusing details like “pass the blasted fir tree on your left” and “go straight past the sheep dip or round it if you prefer”. We made him repeat them twice to get them right, and then, thanking him profusely, climbed into the trap. Molly, who must have been chilly standing in the hedge, responded eagerly to my chirrups of encouragement, and we set off towards the road at a spanking trot. Our appearance was greeted with hilarity and disbelief by the family.

“What are you going to do with that? Give us a tow?” enquired Leslie.

“No,” said Larry austerely, “this vehicle is to take us to shelter and to a telephone. If we tie some picnic knives to the wheels, Margo can pretend she’s Boadicea, and with a bit of luck we can run down a villager and cut off his legs.”

After a certain amount of argument, we persuaded everyone to vacate the sodden Rolls for the equally sodden but more mobile trap. The rain had eased off now to a fine mizzle which, if anything, made you damper than a hard downpour. Molly, her ears back to hear my encouraging comments on her prowess, pulled with a will and We progressed at a rapid walk down the lanes. After some twenty minutes, we were in totally unfamiliar and uninhabited country.

“I do hope you know where we are going, dear,” said Mother, anxiously.

“Of course I do,” answered Larry, impatiently. “The man’s instructions are burnt on my brain in letters of fire. Here, Gerry, turn right there, at that oak tree, and then second left.” We progressed some distance in silence, and then we reached a cross roads without benefit of a signpost. Before Larry could give instructions, Molly, of her own volition, had turned to the left.

“There you are,” said Larry in triumph, “the horse agrees with me. Even the dumb beasts of the field recognize a born leader. Anyway, her owner probably frequents this pub, so she knows the way.”

We plunged into a piece of damp and dripping woodland, where the wood pigeons clapped their wings at us and magpies clucked suspiciously. The road wound to and fro through the rain-soaked trees.

“Very soon now we’ll reach this wonderful old country pub,” said Larry, waxing poetical. “There’ll be a huge, wood fire to warm our outsides, and a huge hot whisky and lemon to warm our insides. The landlord, s humble peasant, will leap to do our bidding, and while we are roasting by the fire…”

Here, we rounded a corner and Larry’s voice died away. Fifty yards ahead of us, squatting in the mud, was the Rolls.

Molly may have had her failings, but she knew her way back to her master.