“No,” said Blott.
There was an awkward silence and then Mrs Forthby spoke. “What do you want?”
Blott tried to think of something he wanted. “I want a ton of pig manure,” he said.
“You must have the wrong number.”
“Yes,” said Blott and put the phone down.
In the greenhouse Lady Maud was delighted with the experiment. “I’ll soon find out who’s beating him now,” she thought and took the headphones off. She went back to the house.
“We shall take it in turns to monitor all telephone calls my husband makes,” she told Blott. “I want to find out who he’s visiting in London. You must write down the name of anyone he talks to. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Blott and went back to the kitchen garden happily. In the kitchen Lady Maud finished washing up. She’d meant to ask Blott who he had been talking to. Never mind, it wasn’t important.
Chapter 3
Sir Giles got back from London rather sooner than he had expected. Mrs Forthby’s period had put her in a foul mood and Sir Giles had enough on his plate without having to put up with the side-effects of Mrs Forthby’s menstrual tension. And besides, Mrs Forthby in the flesh was a different kettle of fish to Mrs Forthby in his fantasies. In the latter she had a multitude of perverse inclinations, which corresponded exactly with his own unfortunate requirements, while possessing a discretion that would have done credit to a Trappist nun. In the flesh she was disappointingly different. She seemed to think, and in Sir Giles’ opinion there could be no greater fault in a woman, that he loved her for herself alone. It was a phrase that sent a shudder through him. If he loved her at all, and it was only in her absence that his heart grew even approximately fonder, it was not for Mrs Forthby’s self. It was precisely because as far as he could make out she lacked any self that he was attracted to her in the first place.
Externally Mrs Forthby had all the attributes of desirable womanhood, rather too many for more fastidious tastes, and all confined within corsets, panties, suspender belts and bras that inflamed Sir Giles’ imagination and reminded him of the advertisements in women’s magazines on which his sexual immaturity had first cut its teeth. Internally Mrs Forthby was a void if her inconsequential conversation was anything to go by and it was this void that Sir Giles, ever hopeful of finding a lover with needs as depraved as his own, sought to fill. And here he had to admit that Mrs Forthby fell far short of his expectations. Broad-minded she might be, though he sometimes doubted that she had a mind, but she still lacked enthusiasm for the intricate contortions and strangleholds that constituted Sir Giles’ notions of foreplay. And besides she had an unfortunate habit of giggling at moments of his grossest concentration and of interjecting reminiscences of her Girl Guide training while tightening the granny knots which so affected him. Worst of all was her absent-mindedness (and here he had no quarrel with the term). She had been known to leave him trussed to the bed and gagged for several hours while she entertained friends to tea in the next room. It was at such moments of enforced contemplation that Sir Giles was most conscious of the discrepancies between his public and his private posture and hoped to hell the two wouldn’t be brought closer together by some damned woman looking for the lavatory. Not that he wouldn’t have welcomed some intervention into his fantasy world if only he could be certain that he wouldn’t be the laughing-stock of Westminster. After one such episode he had threatened to murder Mrs Forthby and had only been restrained by his inability to stand upright even after she had untied him.
“Where the hell have you been?” he shouted when she returned at one o’clock in the morning.
“Covent Garden,” Mrs Forthby said. “The Magic Flute. A divine performance.”
“You might have told me. I’ve been lying here in agony for six hours.”
“I thought you liked that,” Mrs Forthby said. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Wanted?” Sir Giles screamed. “Six hours? Nobody in his right mind wants to be trussed up like a spring chicken for six hours.”
“No, dear,” Mrs Forthby said agreeably. “It’s just that I forgot. Shall I get you your enema now?”
“Certainly not,” shouted Sir Giles, in whom some measure of self-respect had been induced by his confinement. “And don’t meddle with my leg.”
“But it shouldn’t be there, dear. It looks unnatural.”
Sir Giles stared violently out of the corner of his right eye at his toes. “I know it shouldn’t be there,” he yelled. “And it wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been so damned forgetful.”
Mrs Forthby had tidied up the straps and buckles and had made a pot of tea. “I’ll tie a knot in my handkerchief next time,” she said tactlessly, propping Sir Giles up on some pillows so that he could drink his tea.
“There won’t be a next time,” he had snarled and had spent a sleepless night trying desperately to assume a less contorted posture. It had been an empty promise. There was always a next time. Mrs Forthby’s absent shape and her ready acceptance of his revolting foibles made good the lapses of her memory and Sir Giles returned to her flat whenever he was in London, each time with the fervent prayer that she wouldn’t leave him hooded and bound while she spent a month in the Bahamas.
But if Sir Giles had difficulties with Mrs Forthby there were remarkably few as far as the motorway was concerned. The thing was already on the drawing board.
“It’s designated the Mid-Wales Motorway, the Mioi,” he was told when he made discreet enquiries of the Ministry of the Environment. “It has been sent up for Ministerial approval. I believe there have been some doubts on conservation grounds. For God’s sake don’t quote me.” Sir Giles put the phone down and considered his tactics. Ostensibly he would have to oppose the scheme if only to keep his seat as member for South Worfordshire but there was opposition and opposition. He invested heavily in Imperial Cement, who seemed likely to benefit from the demand for concrete. He had lunch with the Chairman of Imperial Motors, dinner with the Managing Director of Motorway Manufacturers Limited, drinks with the Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Road-workers, and he pointed out to the Chief Whip the need to do something to lower the rate of unemployment in his constituency.
In short he was the catalyst in the chemistry of progress. And with it all no money passed hands. Sir Giles was too old a dog for that. He passed information. What companies were on the way to making profits, what shares to buy, and what to sell, these were the tender of his influence. And to insure himself against future suspicions he made a speech at the annual dinner of the Countryside Conservation League in which he urged eternal vigilance against the depredations of the property speculator. He returned to Handyman Hall in time to be outraged by the news of the proposed motorway.
“I shall demand an immediate enquiry,” he told Lady Maud when the requisition order arrived. He reached for the phone.
In the greenhouse Blott had his time cut out listening to Sir Giles’ telephone calls. He had no sooner settled down to deal with some aphids on the ornamental apple trees that grew against the wall than the bell rang. Blott dashed in and listened to General Burnett fulminating from the Grange about blackguards in Whitehall, red tape, green belts and bluestockings, none of which he fully understood. He went back to his aphids when the phone rang again. This time it was Mr Bullett-Finch phoning to find out what Sir Giles intended to do about stopping the motorway.
“It’s going to take half the garden,” he said. “We have spent the last six years getting things shipshape and now for this to happen. It’s too much. It’s not as though Ivy’s nerves can stand it.”
Sir Giles sympathized unctuously. He was, he said, organizing a protest committee. There was bound to be an Enquiry. Mr Bullett-Finch could rest assured that no stone would be left unturned. Blott returned to the aphids puzzled. The English language still retained its power to baffle him, and Blott occasionally found himself trapped in some idiom. Shipshape? There was nothing vaguely in the shape of a ship about Mr Bullett-Finch’s garden. But then Blott had to admit that the English themselves remained a mystery to him. They paid people more when they were unemployed than when they had to work. They paid bricklayers more than teachers. They raised money for earthquake victims in Peru while old-age pensioners lived on a pittance. They refused Entry Permits to Australians and invited Russians to come and live in England. Finally they seemed to take particular pleasure in being shot at by the Irish. All in all they were a source of constant astonishment to him and of reassurance. They were only happy when something dreadful happened to them, be it flood, fire, war or some appalling disaster, and Blott, whose early life had been a chapter of disasters, took comfort from the fact that he was living in a community that actually enjoyed misfortunes.