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Authors: Jonathan Raban
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stationed in Malaya”, and Nicola came back with a “When I was in New York”. The score was going well enough for them to afford to disqualify “When Gilbert worked at Lazard’s”. Barbara Stevenson had said “When we were out in Kenya” for the second time, but this, too, wasn’t counted since Barbara Stevenson was a separate When-I game in her own right. The girls moved among the guests with trays of canapés, pretending they were working for MI5. Sue said that Patrick Cairns had been tryingto peer down the front of her dress, but Nicola said no way; everyone knew that Cairns was only interested in little brown boys. “Unless, of course,” Nicola said, “he was just trying to see if you’d got a penis down there.”
George stood at the window and watched the spooling water. The tide had turned and it was travelling fast downstream in a sweep of simmering tar. The buoys that marked the edge of the channel were half-submerged by it, and the torn tree branches which had piled up against the buoys were waving as if they were drowning. The reflected party lay on the water in broken panes of light.
He was joined by Rupert Walpole.
“Well, how are you settling in?”
“Oh, quite nicely, thanks. Still feels a bit odd to be here, like being jetlagged with a hangover. One gets astonished by the most ordinary things.”
“It’s early days yet,” Rupert said. “I must say I rather envy you—having somewhere to retire
to
. I’ve only got a couple of years before I come up for the chop myself. What I dread is staying on with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, with the works a quarter of a mile up the road. That’s going to be the hard bit.”
“Yes,” George said. “I thought of that too. That’s pretty much why I came home.”
“I suppose we just have to learn how to be old folks.” He turned back from the window to face his party. “You know what Truro people call St Cadix now? God’s waiting room.”
At 10.30, the Walpoles’ hall was pungent with the smell of wet coats. In the crush, Brigadier Eliot was being gallant under the mistletoe and Denis Wright was shouting, “Looks as if someone’s balkanized my hat.”
“George here is earless,” announced Polly Walpole. “Diana? Why don’t you drop him off? You know—Thalassa—the cottage on the bend.”
“Really—I can walk,” George said.
“It’s no trouble,” said Diana Pym. “You’re on my way.”
The long drawing room had emptied. Nicola and Sue weretotting up the score.
“Thirty-two,” Sue said.
“No, thirty-one,” said Nicola. “You must have counted a Home as an Abroad.”
Diana Pym’s car was, like her shoes, old and muddy. The butts in the ashtray were packed and crusty as a nugget of iron pyrites. As George closed the passenger door and the interior light went out, he recognized a paperback book lying, dogeared and broken-spined, on the shelf under the dashboard. It was only when the car was dark and the book no more than an afterimage that he saw its cover:
The Noblest Station
by S. V. Grey. He glanced across at Diana Pym, who was having difficulty trying to make the engine fire on more than one uncertain cylinder. Did she know Sheila was his daughter? Did she think she had a famously insensitive patriarch for a passenger?
The car grizzled, whined and started. They rolled slowly across a grass bank and stopped short of where the Stevensons’ Daimler blocked the drive sideways on. Perry Stevenson was driving, but Barbara had the starring role. She stood in the blaze of the headlamps in a tan riding mac and shouted “Come on! Come on! Forward just a smidgeon, now!” She was waving her arms like a policeman. She turned to the audience of waiting cars in the dark garden. “Sorry everyone! We’re almost there!”
“What were you?” said Diana Pym.
“Sorry?”
“Everybody here
was
something. It’s like reincarnation. What were you?”
“Oh … I ran a sort of gas station cum grocer’s
George stood at the window and watched the spooling water. The tide had turned and it was travelling fast downstream in a sweep of simmering tar. The buoys that marked the edge of the channel were half-submerged by it, and the torn tree branches which had piled up against the buoys were waving as if they were drowning. The reflected party lay on the water in broken panes of light.
He was joined by Rupert Walpole.
“Well, how are you settling in?”
“Oh, quite nicely, thanks. Still feels a bit odd to be here, like being jetlagged with a hangover. One gets astonished by the most ordinary things.”
“It’s early days yet,” Rupert said. “I must say I rather envy you—having somewhere to retire
to
. I’ve only got a couple of years before I come up for the chop myself. What I dread is staying on with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, with the works a quarter of a mile up the road. That’s going to be the hard bit.”
“Yes,” George said. “I thought of that too. That’s pretty much why I came home.”
“I suppose we just have to learn how to be old folks.” He turned back from the window to face his party. “You know what Truro people call St Cadix now? God’s waiting room.”
At 10.30, the Walpoles’ hall was pungent with the smell of wet coats. In the crush, Brigadier Eliot was being gallant under the mistletoe and Denis Wright was shouting, “Looks as if someone’s balkanized my hat.”
“George here is earless,” announced Polly Walpole. “Diana? Why don’t you drop him off? You know—Thalassa—the cottage on the bend.”
“Really—I can walk,” George said.
“It’s no trouble,” said Diana Pym. “You’re on my way.”
The long drawing room had emptied. Nicola and Sue weretotting up the score.
“Thirty-two,” Sue said.
“No, thirty-one,” said Nicola. “You must have counted a Home as an Abroad.”
Diana Pym’s car was, like her shoes, old and muddy. The butts in the ashtray were packed and crusty as a nugget of iron pyrites. As George closed the passenger door and the interior light went out, he recognized a paperback book lying, dogeared and broken-spined, on the shelf under the dashboard. It was only when the car was dark and the book no more than an afterimage that he saw its cover:
The Noblest Station
by S. V. Grey. He glanced across at Diana Pym, who was having difficulty trying to make the engine fire on more than one uncertain cylinder. Did she know Sheila was his daughter? Did she think she had a famously insensitive patriarch for a passenger?
The car grizzled, whined and started. They rolled slowly across a grass bank and stopped short of where the Stevensons’ Daimler blocked the drive sideways on. Perry Stevenson was driving, but Barbara had the starring role. She stood in the blaze of the headlamps in a tan riding mac and shouted “Come on! Come on! Forward just a smidgeon, now!” She was waving her arms like a policeman. She turned to the audience of waiting cars in the dark garden. “Sorry everyone! We’re almost there!”
“What were you?” said Diana Pym.
“Sorry?”
“Everybody here
was
something. It’s like reincarnation. What were you?”
“Oh … I ran a sort of gas station cum grocer’s
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