Lanching, who felt perhaps that it was his turn to provide comment, offered the opinion that it did not seem at first sight to be the kind of material to inflame the baser senses.
“No, no, no—they’re selected. I told you. Heavens, you surely don’t imagine that just because a film is pornographic there isn’t an innocuous shot in it.”
The unexpected sharpness of Grail’s retort produced an awkward silence. He broke it himself by sorting off-handedly through the rest of the prints and saying: “Well, we certainly seem to have a fair selection of participants here for the record. Notice how some of them keep cropping up in different roles, so to speak?”
Birdie had been looking at Grail thoughtfully. She glanced now at Becket. Their eyes held for an instant. Then he forced one of his quick, uncertain laughs.
“Hey, you haven’t heard yet, have you, girl?”
She waited, smiling, playing up to him.
Becket nodded his oversized head towards Grail. “We’re losing him.”
“Oh, yes?” Birdie stood, looking from one to another, like a party guest who has missed a joke through leaving the room.
“He is about to be done to death by an outraged mayor.”
“What a way to go!”
There was laughter, Grail’s included.
“Not a horse,” said Becket. “The Mayor of Flaxborough.”
“He’s challenged our Clive to a duel,” Lanching added. “With pistols...is that right, Clive?”
Grail shrugged. “So the more vulgar sections of the Press assert.”
Birdie pressed hands together and parodied girlish heroworship. “Oh, blissikins! Hey, may I staunch your wounds? Oh, please!” And she capered up to him and pushed the heel of her hand against his groin.
Suddenly, she was solemn again. She looked round at the others. “You’re not pulling my leg?”
Lanching handed her the Express. The story had made the front page, but more than half way down. Birdie wrinkled her nose, then gave Grail a pitying look. “You poor darling. Below the fold.”
The account began:
Burly Glaswegian Charlie Hockley—His Worship to the 14,482 inhabitants of this quiet little market town—today threw to the floor of his Mayor’s Parlour one of the ceremonial white kid gloves that go with his office. The Chief Citizen of Flaxborough was issuing a challenge to a duel—probably the first public “calling out” in this country for more than a century.
For Mayor Hockley believes that his township has been grossly libelled by a recent article in a Sunday newspaper (not the
Sunday Express
) and considers it his duty on behalf of his fellow citizens to challenge the journalist responsible and demand “satisfaction“.
Birdie looked up, wonderment on her face. “This clown must be certifiable. Must be.” She read on.
During the next few days, the man they are calling Honourbright Charlie here in Flaxborough (motto: In Boldness We Prosper) will await formal apology for statements made in the article of which he complains.
And if the apology is not forthcoming?
“I shall be there—make no mistake about that,” Mayor Hockley told me. “Of course, the time and place must be secret for the time being. That is tradition, I understand. But I can assure you that all arrangements are being made. I have chosen my second, and what I prefer to call ‘suitable equipment’ is being made available.”
The mayor is widely believed here to have been promised the loan of a pair of authentic duelling pistols together with lessons in their use.
The man named by Mayor Hockley in his challenge, London columnist Clive Grail, was last night not available for comment.
“Weren’t you, Clive?” asked Birdie, innocently.
“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Lanching, “that anybody stuck in this part of the world would be available for anything. I’m beginning to feel like a political detainee.”
Becket had been listening with a half smile to the reading and to the remarks of the others. He now looked intently at Grail and said: “The phone rang yesterday evening at about seven and you answered it. Why didn’t you tell us that it was a newspaper man? You knew then about this duel nonsense, didn’t you?”
“Of course not. How the hell could I?”
“How could you?” repeated Becket, mockingly. “Quite simply, old man. This local correspondent—the fellow who’s been working up the story—rang up and asked for a quote. And you gave him the old ‘not available’ crap—but not before he’d told you all about it. Oh, come, Clive—it’s bloody obvious. Don’t treat us like idiots.”
There was silence. The two men—one undersized, aggressive, confident; the other tall, defensive, contemptuous—faced each other across the bowl of scarlet and yellow dahlias that Mrs Patmore had brought in from the garden the day before. Then, as though obeying a cue, both smiled simultaneously and relaxed.
“You’re right, of course,” Grail said, lightly. “It’s just that the thing’s so ludicrous, so unimportant.”
“Not now, it isn’t,” Lanching said. He took the paper from Birdie. “This mayor bloke may be round the twist, but whoever put him up to this has hit on a pretty effective way of queering our pitch.”
“I don’t see that,” said Grail.
“At the least, it’s a diversion that he’s arranged. At worst, it could win public sympathy and make the Herald’s morality campaign look like priggish interference.”
Birdie looked pleased by this suggestion. She reached over and grasped Grail’s shoulder. “There’s only one thing for it, darling. You’ll have to accept. Tell you what. I’ll be your second.”
Grail’s impatience flooded back. “For Christ’s sake, stop being such a tit!” He strode to the sitting-room door and slammed it behind him.
The ensuing silence was broken by Becket. “My, my—we’re touchy today. Don’t tell me he’s publicity-shy.”
“Understandably,” said Birdie. “When you’ve shovelled as much shit as dear Clive, a head wind makes you nervous.”
“The office won’t like this,” suggested Lanching. “I wonder they haven’t been on to us yet.”
Birdie shook her head. “Don’t you worry—he’ll have got in first. Probably last night or first thing this morning. I bet he tried to take personal credit for it.”
“I shouldn’t feel very happy,” said Becket with a sort of gloomy relish, “if a mad mayor was laying for me with a gun. Not round here, I shouldn’t. These characters mean what they say.”
Lanching had opened one of the cans of film and was holding a strip up to the light. “Hot air,” he said, casually. “It’s got to be. If anybody really meant to fight a duel, they’d not advertise it in advance.” He let slip through his fingers another two or three feet of film, frowned dubiously, then wound it back on the reel. “You might as well,” he said, “tell the press you’re going to commit burglary. Duelling is just as illegal.”