Just Desserts (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 10

  In these circumstances Bognor failed to properly appreciate the glories of an early English summer and conversation faltered. When they finally arrived at the ground all three passengers needed calming down, though Blight-Purley, presumably accustomed to the dangers of his own driving, was quite relaxed.

  The Petheram ground was all that a village cricket ground should be—or almost all. True, it was not actually on the green, being situated just outside the village away from any houses. Nor was there an adjacent public house with ale-quaffing yokels seated on benches outside. On the other hand, it was bordered on two sides by fine oaks and elms and on a third by a low hedge which prevented a herd of Ayrshires from encroaching on to the playing area. The fourth boundary was formed by a gentle slope surmounted by a plateau on which stood two practice nets and a white pavilion with thatched roof and a balcony. On the other side today was a marquee adorned with bunting. At either end of the ground were white sightscreens on wheels and in the middle two men were pushing a heavy roller up and down the narrow closely mown strip of green which was the wicket. The stumps, shiny light yellow-brown, were already in place at either end. Bognor experienced a feeling he had not had since school—an extreme form of nervousness which made him feel physically sick. Already there was a small crowd gathered between the tent and the pavilion. The majority had glasses in their hands and whereas under normal village cricket circumstances those glasses would have contained lukewarm mud brown beer with scarcely any fizz, today’s were full of clear light golden sparkling wine which Bognor adduced, correctly as it turned out, to be non-vintage Bitschwiller.

  The four of them advanced on the drink which was inside the tent. They drank silently and thirstily with none of that pretence of tasting and savouring and assessing which usually characterized their drinking. Bognor noticed that some of the men were already changed into their whites. One or two looked distressingly lithe and young, and the blazers, multi-striped like Blight-Purley’s, suggested a level of achievement way above Bognor’s. Freddie Pendennis hailed Blight-Purley from across the tent.

  ‘Didn’t see you arrive,’ he shouted. ‘Hadn’t we better toss?’

  Blight-Purley delved in his trouser pocket and produced a shiny silver coin. ‘Lucky Churchill crown,’ he muttered, walking slowly to the exit with Aubrey Pring.

  ‘You look jolly apprehensive,’ said Aubergine, accepting a second glass with alacrity. ‘I’m glad that you’re entering into the spirit of the thing.’

  ‘The thing?’ Bognor was wondering where they would put him to field. You could get killed fielding. Once, many years ago, he had been standing at square leg when a batsman had swept the ball towards his head, and raising his arm in self defence rather than any attempt to make the catch, he had been struck on the elbow. The ball had bounced off him and over the boundary for six. His housemaster had counted it a dropped catch. He winced at the memory.

  ‘Well,’ Aubergine Bristol was saying, ‘the food and drink business. I call playing cricket with us very much beyond the call of duty.’

  ‘I suppose so. Goodness, isn’t that Ebertson?’ He pointed in the direction of a willowy figure in beautifully starched and creased whites. The effect was marginally spoilt by the cap he was wearing which was more appropriate to baseball than cricket.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He played last year. He was rather fun. Terrible cross-bat shots all the time and a tendency to shout whenever he hit anything. Also he went shooting off into the covers after the first ball but we soon cured him of that. Otherwise he was fine.’

  They had a third glass, and then Pring came bustling in looking officious. ‘You chaps had better get your togs on,’ he said to them. ‘Blight-Purley’s lucky crown let him down as usual and Pendennis is batting first. We start in ten minutes.’

  ‘Blast,’ said Aubergine, ‘I have to go and change in the car. I can’t think why in this day and age, but the changing rooms are a bit primitive. No privacy.’ She gulped down her drink and went off.

  Bognor, too, shuffled off to the pavilion.

  ‘Anywhere you want to field in particular?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mid-on suit you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then you can drop back to third man at the other end.’

  ‘Right you are.’ Bognor felt sick again. He controlled the urge.

  ‘They’re playing ffrench-Thomas again, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not Hugh ffrench-Thomas?’

  ‘Alas, yes,’ Pring frowned. ‘We had him leg before for five last year. One of the benefits of Blight-Purley’s umpiring. But the year before he made ninety.’

  ffrench-Thomas had been at Oxford the same year and gone on to play for Surrey. He had had an England trial, but his attitude was thought too dilettante and that was as far as he had got.

  ‘What does he do now?’ asked Bognor, hovering nervously at the pavilion door.

  ‘I thought you’d know. He’s the Bitschwiller rep.’

  ‘Guide Bitschwiller or the champagne?’

  ‘The champagne. The Guide’s man is one of those absurd closely guarded secrets. No one knows who he is.’

  Even in his nervous and slightly intoxicated state the information seemed important. However, time was pressing. He hurried inside the building, becoming aware as he did of a strong odour of stale sweat and Blanco. All around was cricketing detritus—discarded pads and boxes, old bails and underpants, bats and balls. On the walls there were fading sepia photographs of cricketers in boaters and heavy curling moustaches, some of them solo action shots, others posed team photos with, in the approved Edwardian manner, at least one player sprawled full length on the ground. Two men clad only in jock-straps were arguing about the rival merits of the Australian and West Indian fast bowlers. They nodded to him perfunctorily and continued their discussion while he changed. The trousers were so tight that he couldn’t do them up round the waist. Despairing, he threaded his tie through the loops and knotted it in a ham-fisted granny at the front, then tucked the shirt in at the back and hoped, forlornly, that he did not look as ludicrous as he felt.

  On the grass outside, he found the other ten members of his side grouped in a semi-circle round Aubrey Pring who was wielding a cricket bat. ‘Come along, Simon,’ he called. ‘Quick spot of fielding practice just to limber up. Here, catch!’ and so saying he lofted the ball gently in Bognor’s direction. Mercifully, he caught it, though clumsily, and threw it back underarm. His hands stung.

  The game got off to a quiet start, so quiet that it was easy for him to forget that he was a participant. He had always enjoyed cricket as a spectacle. It looked pretty, and the languid unfussy movements of the players, the polite unvocal applause, the regular and inimitable sound of willow bat on leather ball, always had the effect of making him sleepy in an oddly patriotic way. The ‘Enigma Variations’ had the same effect. The champagne helped, so that after the first few overs he abandoned the half-remembered habit of walking a few steps towards the batsman as the bowler ran in, and sank further back on his heels. Basil Luton was bowling from one end and a fair-haired youth from one of the consumer organizations at the other. Runs accumulated. Twice the ball was prodded in Bognor’s direction, and on both occasions it was moving so slowly that he had no problem in stopping it. Suddenly one of the batsmen had an uncharacteristically violent heave at a straight ball from Luton and was struck on the foot. Immediately half a dozen men appealed for leg before wicket—Bognor joining in rather tardily when he realized what had happened. Blight-Purley was umpiring at the right end (umpiring by honorary captains was a quirk peculiar to this fixture) and his finger was raised immediately and unequivocally to signify the batsman’s dismissal. Twenty-two for one.

  The next man in turned out to be ffrench-Thomas. He seemed much as Bognor remembered him except that his complexion was a touch higher, and there was more of his forehead. To Bognor’s horror he advanced down the wicket to the first ball he received and crashed it two yards to Bognor’s righ
t. Even if he had been wide awake he would hardly have seen it, much less stopped it, but even so Bognor’s complete lack of reaction was indicative of his somnolence. The bad impression was not helped by his flat-footed run to the hedge, where he had to crawl on all fours before retrieving it, and then by his throwing it ineffectually and underarm so that the wicket-keeper had to run halfway to him to pick it up. By the time he had jogged back to his position he was red-faced, and only partly due to his exertions, ffrench-Thomas’ next stroke was still more dramatic. Charging the bowler once again he thrashed the ball straight back down the pitch. It was an immaculate drive, perfectly timed, and the ball rocketed through the air at a little below head height. It easily missed the bowler whose follow-through took him slightly to the left, but Blight-Purley, standing in his umpiring position immediately behind the far stumps, was forced to take evasive action. It was not dignified nor conventional but it was swift and effective. He simply collapsed in a heap, knocking over the wicket as he did. The ball continued on its way for four runs and Pendennis, umpiring at square leg, together with two or three other players and a noisily solicitous ffrench-Thomas, converged on the fallen Colonel. Bognor watched. There was no harm done. The stricken man was raised to his feet and dusted down. He was asked if he would like to leave the field. He preferred not. The game continued; the remaining balls of the over were bowled and everyone changed over for Aubrey Pring to begin with his ‘leg-tweakers’.

  The incident had unsettled Bognor. Had the ball hit Blight-Purley it would have, at the very least, knocked him cold. He wondered if he himself could have ducked quite so nimbly, and rather feared not. He also wondered whether ffrench-Thomas had known what he was doing. A batsman so skilled and experienced would have no difficulty in placing the ball where he wanted. It was reasonable to infer that he had aimed his blow in the general direction of Blight-Purley’s head. Reasonable, though no more. Certainly he had given every impression of concern and remorse. And yet …

  Bognor settled down to watch Pring’s leg-tweakers. They were not very good. Whether or not the ball actually tweaked he was unable to see from his fielding position, but it was plain that the genial parabola described by the ball before it hit the ground could under no circumstances be called menacing. The batsman had ample opportunity to think about how to deal with each one. Nevertheless ffrench-Thomas treated the first three deliveries with quite exaggerated respect, smothering each one with his bat, so that it rolled only a few yards away, yielding no score. It was precisely the sort of play which gave cricket its bad name, especially with foreigners. By the fourth, though, the batsman had plainly had enough. He took two casual paces down the wicket, dropped gently on one knee and hit the ball with deceptive pace towards square leg. In the previous over Blight-Purley had been at the far end of the wicket. Now, of course, he had become square leg umpire, and, improbable though it may seem, the ball was once more travelling straight at him. Again, the evasive action was extraordinarily prompt for one so apparently aged and infirm. The ball screamed several feet over the prostrated Colonel and crossed the boundary at the second bounce while, for a second time, players converged on the victim. This time Blight-Purley’s anger was plain. He was not in the least frightened, but he was purple with rage. Replacing his panama hat with its gaudy orange and scarlet ribbon, he repudiated ffrench-Thomas’ attempts at apology with a terse ‘Typical Teddy Hall behaviour!’ (A reference to the Bitschwiller man’s former college.) Then, resuming his umpiring stance, he waved well-wishers away with his stick and settled down to adjudicate. The players and Pendennis were slow to get back to their places, but eventually did so, and play resumed. ffrench-Thomas dealt perfunctorily with Pring’s two remaining leg-tweakers and the game settled back into its lethargic pattern. So it continued until ten minutes later when one of Pring’s tweakers failed to tweak. Instead, it continued in an absolutely undeviating line several feet wide of the leg stump. ffrench-Thomas, mildly surprised by the extra innocuousness, flailed in vain and was hit just above the knee. Pring optimistically pivoted on his heel and shouted, both arms high above his head, ‘How was that?’ The Colonel did not hesitate. It was perfectly clear to all those present that, under the rules of cricket, ffrench-Thomas was still very much in. Yet Blight-Purley’s finger was once more raised to the skies in the unmistakable gesture of dismissal. For an instant the batsman and his opponents stared disbelievingly at the judicial finger and then, with manifest irritation and cynicism, ffrench-Thomas put his bat under his arm, began to undo his gloves and marched back to the pavilion, head in air, mouth set in petulant stiff-lippishness.

  ‘That was never out,’ said Bognor to Aubergine Bristol who was fielding nearest to him at first slip.

  ‘Nothing like,’ she agreed, hitching up her skirt, ‘but you wait till Pendennis has a go. He’s just as partisan.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Like our next batsman.’

  Bognor peered at the swarthy individual now waddling myopically wicketwards from the pavilion. ‘Who he?’ he enquired.

  ‘Luigi Dotto. The chef from the Grand at Dynmouth.’ She executed a couple of brisk bowling movements and clutched at her shoulder. Bognor watched the undulations of her breasts. ‘Hence partisan,’ she continued. ‘He was an anti-Mussolini chap. Aubrey made up a rhyme about him once during the team photos:

  “There once was an Italian partisan

  Who lived on a diet of parmesan

  When asked to say ‘cheese’,

  He replied: ‘If you please,

  I’d really much rather have parma ham!”’

  Bognor smiled. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Was he a friend of Scoff’s?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  Bognor returned to third man. Dotto swung cross-batted at the first ball which found an outside edge and ran slowly to where he stood. He saw it in time, managed to stop it and pat in a passable throw. Someone on the boundary clapped. He felt enthused and fell to attempting a similar limerick about the Italian chef who soon began to plunder the bowling in an entirely foreign, not to say Latin, fashion. Within another twenty runs and two more safe, though unexciting, pieces of fielding he had come up with:

  ‘A genial Italian named Dotto

  Cried out in a voce quite sotto

  “Beware of my hook

  Which is worse than I look

  And more deadly by far when I’m blotto.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Aubergine, whirling her arms again, ‘except that his hook is his worst shot, and he doesn’t drink.’

  ‘What, not at all?’

  ‘No. Never. That’s what makes him such a dangerous customer.’

  Their conversation was interrupted at this point by Aubrey Pring who chucked the ball in Aubergine’s direction and called out, ‘You have a go, Ginny.’

  Bognor retreated once more. The score had reached sixty-one for two, but Aubergine proved more effective than her boyfriend. She had Dotto caught at the wicket; bowled the new man second ball with one that cut back off the seam; and within a couple more overs took a neat caught-and-bowled. At the other end the score rattled along more easily, but as the wickets fell, so the quality of batsmanship diminished. The middle-order batsmen gave evidence, by girth and complexion, of their calling, but nevertheless the score had advanced to one hundred and twenty-seven for seven wickets when lunch was taken at one o’clock.

  The meal, which, unlike the forty minutes allowed for lunch at first-class matches, was spread over an hour and a half, was every bit as lucullan as the circumstances would suggest.

  It is traditional to maintain that tables and sideboards labouring under the weight of large quantities of food ‘groan’, but the word was altogether too gloomy to convey any emanation from the tables in the Petheram marquee that lunchtime. Naturally there were the roseate lobsters and soft fruit, crisp green lettuces and cucumbers, golden fowl and pinkish brown pâtés which Bognor associated with the traditional buffets, but Gabrielle and her team had produced them only
as a concession to the more conservative palates. Not for them the Gâteaux Berichonnes, the eel galantines, the quiches of crab, the tortes of chocolate, the glazed salmon à la Russe with its garnish of truffles and fresh tarragon leaves, the Queen Mab’s pudding with its cacophony of candied peel and ginger and currants and bitter almonds, the guinea fowl in tangerine and turmeric, the pistachio-coloured sauce verte, the oeufs saumonées en croûte, the claret jellies and the snowy textured sorbet a à fine champagne.

  Bognor remembered the team teas of his school days: thin sandwiches filled with spread, and currant buns. He blinked and turned to his neighbour, Anthony Ebertson, and exclaimed quite simply, ‘I say!’

  ‘They put on a good show, wouldn’t you say?’ agreed the American who had spent a quiet morning patrolling the far boundary. ‘I always used to think it was something only Scoff could do, but it does look as if Gabrielle has assumed the mantle with some success.’

  Bognor salivated, all thought of the game and batting to come quite forgotten.

  ‘But where to begin?’ he murmured.

  ‘Try the oeufs saumonées,’ said a voice at his elbow. He turned, looking rather blank, to find the lop eyes of Amanda Bullingdon staring at his admittedly eccentric attire. ‘It’s a sort of smoked salmon and scrambled egg mixture stuffed into a crust. Delicious.’

  ‘Did you make it?’

  ‘Sort of. But it just means scrambling a whole lot of eggs and chopping smoked salmon into bits.’

  ‘And stuffing them into crusts?’ He smiled facetiously.

  ‘Exactly,’ she smiled back, but amused, he was sorry to see, at him rather than by him. Still, the amusement was not unfriendly. They walked over to the Oeufs saumonées, already much depleted, and both helped themselves. They were difficult to eat elegantly. Bognor avoided egg on his face but got crumbs on his chin, the result of trying to force too much into his mouth at the first attempt. Greed, he conceded to himself, ruefully. Amanda managed hers more elegantly, like a cat.