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Authors: Roald Dahl
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of the head.
Around nine-thirty, feeling comfortable and well fed, we returned to the large living-room to start our bridge. We were playing for a fair stake – ten shillings a hundred – so we decided not to split families, and I partnered my wife the whole time. We all four of us took the game seriously, which is the only way to take it, and we played silently, intently, hardly speaking at all except to bid. It was not the money we played for. Heaven knows, my wife had enough of that, and so apparently did the Snapes. But among experts it is almost traditional that they play for a reasonable stake.
That night the cards were evenly divided, but for once my wife played badly, so we got the worst of it. I could see that she wasn’t concentrating fully, and as we came along towards midnight she began not even to care. She kept glancing up at me with those large grey eyes of hers, the eyebrows raised, the nostrils curiously open, a little gloating smile around the corner of her mouth.
Our opponents played a fine game. Their bidding was masterly, and all through the evening they made only one mistake. That was when the girl badly overestimated her partner’s hand and bid six spades. I doubled and they went three down, vulnerable, which cost them eight hundred points. It was just a momentary lapse, but I remember that Sally Snape was very put out by it, even though her husband forgave her at once, kissing her hand across the table and telling her not to worry.
Around twelve-thirty my wife announced that she wanted to go to bed.
‘Just one more rubber?’ Henry Snape said.
‘No, Mr Snape. I’m tired tonight. Arthur’s tired, too. I can see it. Let’s all go to bed.’
She herded us out of the room and we went upstairs, the four of us together. On the way up, there was the usual talk about breakfast and what they wanted and how they were to call the maid. ‘I think you’ll like your room,’ my wife said. ‘It has a view right across the valley, and the sun comes to you in the morning around ten o’clock.’
We were in the passage now, standing outside our own bedroom door, and I could see the wire I had put down that afternoon and how it ran along the top of the skirting down to their room. Although it was nearly the same colour as the paint, it looked very conspicuous to me. ‘Sleep well,’ my wife said. ‘Sleep well, Mrs Snape. Good night, Mr Snape.’ I followed her into our room and shut the door.
‘Quick!’ she cried. ‘Turn it on!’ My wife was always like that, frightened that she was going to miss something. She had a reputation, when she went hunting – I never go myself – of always being right up with the hounds whatever the cost to herself or her horse for fear that she might miss a kill. I could see she had no intention of missing this one.
The little radio warmed up just in time to catch the noise of their door opening and closing again.
‘There!’ my wife said. ‘They’ve gone in.’ She was standing in the centre of the room in her blue dress, her hands clasped before her, her head craned forward, intently listening, and the whole of the big white face seemed somehow to have gathered itself together, tight like a wineskin.
Almost at once the voice of Henry Snape came out of the radio, strong and clear. ‘You’re just a goddam little fool,’ he was saying, and this voice was so different from the one I remembered, so harsh and unpleasant, it made me jump. ‘The whole bloody evening wasted! Eight hundred points – that’s eight pounds between us!’
‘I got mixed up,’ the girl answered. ‘I won’t do it again, I promise.’
‘What’s
this
!’ my wife said. ‘What’s going on?’ Her mouth was wide open now, the eyebrows stretched up high, and she came quickly over to the radio and leaned forward, ear to the speaker. I must say I felt rather excited myself.
‘I promise, I promise I won’t do it again,’ the girl was saying.
‘We’re not taking any
Around nine-thirty, feeling comfortable and well fed, we returned to the large living-room to start our bridge. We were playing for a fair stake – ten shillings a hundred – so we decided not to split families, and I partnered my wife the whole time. We all four of us took the game seriously, which is the only way to take it, and we played silently, intently, hardly speaking at all except to bid. It was not the money we played for. Heaven knows, my wife had enough of that, and so apparently did the Snapes. But among experts it is almost traditional that they play for a reasonable stake.
That night the cards were evenly divided, but for once my wife played badly, so we got the worst of it. I could see that she wasn’t concentrating fully, and as we came along towards midnight she began not even to care. She kept glancing up at me with those large grey eyes of hers, the eyebrows raised, the nostrils curiously open, a little gloating smile around the corner of her mouth.
Our opponents played a fine game. Their bidding was masterly, and all through the evening they made only one mistake. That was when the girl badly overestimated her partner’s hand and bid six spades. I doubled and they went three down, vulnerable, which cost them eight hundred points. It was just a momentary lapse, but I remember that Sally Snape was very put out by it, even though her husband forgave her at once, kissing her hand across the table and telling her not to worry.
Around twelve-thirty my wife announced that she wanted to go to bed.
‘Just one more rubber?’ Henry Snape said.
‘No, Mr Snape. I’m tired tonight. Arthur’s tired, too. I can see it. Let’s all go to bed.’
She herded us out of the room and we went upstairs, the four of us together. On the way up, there was the usual talk about breakfast and what they wanted and how they were to call the maid. ‘I think you’ll like your room,’ my wife said. ‘It has a view right across the valley, and the sun comes to you in the morning around ten o’clock.’
We were in the passage now, standing outside our own bedroom door, and I could see the wire I had put down that afternoon and how it ran along the top of the skirting down to their room. Although it was nearly the same colour as the paint, it looked very conspicuous to me. ‘Sleep well,’ my wife said. ‘Sleep well, Mrs Snape. Good night, Mr Snape.’ I followed her into our room and shut the door.
‘Quick!’ she cried. ‘Turn it on!’ My wife was always like that, frightened that she was going to miss something. She had a reputation, when she went hunting – I never go myself – of always being right up with the hounds whatever the cost to herself or her horse for fear that she might miss a kill. I could see she had no intention of missing this one.
The little radio warmed up just in time to catch the noise of their door opening and closing again.
‘There!’ my wife said. ‘They’ve gone in.’ She was standing in the centre of the room in her blue dress, her hands clasped before her, her head craned forward, intently listening, and the whole of the big white face seemed somehow to have gathered itself together, tight like a wineskin.
Almost at once the voice of Henry Snape came out of the radio, strong and clear. ‘You’re just a goddam little fool,’ he was saying, and this voice was so different from the one I remembered, so harsh and unpleasant, it made me jump. ‘The whole bloody evening wasted! Eight hundred points – that’s eight pounds between us!’
‘I got mixed up,’ the girl answered. ‘I won’t do it again, I promise.’
‘What’s
this
!’ my wife said. ‘What’s going on?’ Her mouth was wide open now, the eyebrows stretched up high, and she came quickly over to the radio and leaned forward, ear to the speaker. I must say I felt rather excited myself.
‘I promise, I promise I won’t do it again,’ the girl was saying.
‘We’re not taking any
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