THE AUSPICIOUS MEETING OF THE FIRST TWO MEMBERS OF THE FAMOUS NOTWITHSTANDING WIND QUARTET
IT WAS A day in middle March, of the kind that for early risers begins sunny and uplifting, but which for late risers has already degenerated into the nondescript gloom that causes England to be deprecated by foreigners. The rooks were breaking off the ends of willow twigs and building their nests with raucous incompetence, most of the twigs ending up on the ground below, whence the birds could never be bothered to retrieve them. The box hedges were in blossom, causing some people to ring the gas board, and others to wonder what feline had pissed so copiously as to make the whole village smell of cat piss. Out on the roads, squashed baby rabbits were being dismantled by magpies, and frogs migrating to their breeding ponds were being flattened into very large and thin batrachian medallions that would, once dried out, have made excellent beer mats.
It was a Saturday, and the young man was driving along Notwithstanding Road, which leads twistingly and straitly from Notwithstanding to Godalming. Over time the lanes had sunk some fifteen feet below the surface of the ground, steep banks rose up on either side and trees so overarched the carriageway that the ensemble formed a kind of natural tunnel that gave people exhilarating intimations of being in fairyland. It was on this road that one was most in danger from the nuns who lived in the convent on the hill. Their bizarre disregard for safety on the roads was a source of constant wonderment to the locals.
The young man was taking a long cut into town in the spirit of exploration, since he was relatively new to the area, having recently taken up a post as assistant music teacher in a local public school. It was the kind of public school that one might have described as being in the top rank of the second-raters. He was not on duty this day, having been spared the embarrassment of refereeing any football games or supervising any detentions. Thus far he was not relishing his job particularly. The boys’ attitude to music was more robust and jocular than musical, confining itself mainly to bawling out filthy rugby songs in the communal showers. Moreover, since he was accommodated in a spartan bachelor flat provided by the school, he had not experienced the customary welcome of newcomers to the village, which consisted in solidly constructed, inquisitive middle-aged women turning up with pots of home-made marmalade and general offers of assistance and advice. His flat was in a large house in a remote corner of the school grounds, and the other flats were occupied by the school chaplain, a sports teacher who thought that classical music was for ‘queers’ and a fey and unhappy young English teacher who almost certainly was one.
The music teacher was quite poor, and had no prospect of ever being otherwise. He drove a Morris Minor saloon which he had bought for fifty pounds at the age of seventeen. He and his father had dismantled and rebuilt it in the garden. The car was admittedly and visibly hand-painted, but it had already proved a faithful servant, and it worked well even when technically ill. He was fully reconciled to a long future with this car, even though his rowdier friends in better-paid jobs were roaring about in souped-up white Ford Escorts with red stripes down the sides and huge holes cut out of the bonnet in order to accommodate oversized Weber carburettors.
He had passed the hedging and ditching man, who was contemplating an old whisky bottle that he had just excavated from the mud. He was somewhere in the vicinity of the Glebe House when he came across a car that was stopped on the verge, unwisely near to a bend in the road. He felt reluctant to overtake it, in case a car should be coming round the bend the other way. Most of all, though, he stopped because the stationary car was also a Morris Minor.
Going round to the front, he met with a woman, standing and facing him with an expression that had something about it of embarrassment and shame. Her hands were behind her back, as if she were concealing something. She was about thirty years old, a little plump, pleasant in the face without being pretty, dressed practically rather than for elegance or for effect.
‘Ummm, hello,’ said the music teacher diffidently. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, but I wondered if … if you were in need of assistance. I mean, I thought you might have broken down, and, as it were, I drive a Morris Minor myself, and I always stop for Morris Minors if they’re broken down. Usually I can get them going, you see. I’ve got a toolbox and some spares in the car. Solidarity and all that.’ He looked at her, feeling foolish.
‘Actually, I haven’t broken down, so I’m not a damsel in distress, but thank you all the same. It was very kind of you to stop.’ She smiled at him. It was the smile of someone who wishes that you would go away.
‘The thing is, you’re parked near a bend, so I thought …’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘it’s a silly place to stop, but …’
‘Yes?’ It was then that he saw, behind her head, a pheasant. ‘Gracious,’ he said, ‘poor little bugger.’
It had clearly been struck by a car while flying across the road and had hurtled into the side of the thorn hedge, near the top, where it had become stuck upside down, and died. The brown rump of the pheasant, as it protruded from the hedge, looked both comical and pathetic.
‘Yes, poor little bugger,’ she agreed. ‘So many of them get splatted at this time of the year. God knows why.’
‘It’s the mating season perhaps? That’s when all the animals get silly.’ A thought occurred to the young man. ‘You weren’t … are you, er, if you don’t mind me asking, planning to eat it? I mean, did you stop to get it out?’
She looked horrified, but also guilty. ‘Gosh, no. They’re so bruised when they’re hit that the flesh goes all black and has a horrible texture. My dad ran one over once, and it wasn’t at all nice when we tried to eat it. It’s the kind of thing that everyone tries once. Not recommended.’
The young man scrutinised the bird. He was always fascinated by the intricate and beautiful patterns on pheasants’ feathers. ‘I wonder what happened to the tail,’ he said. ‘This pheasant doesn’t seem to have one. The feathers can’t have been knocked out by the car, surely?’
‘Well, actually, I’ve got them,’ she admitted, taking her hands from behind her back, and holding out the long, barred feathers. ‘In fact, that’s why I stopped.’
‘What, for a hat or something?’
‘Me? Can you see me in a hat with pheasant feathers in it? My granny, maybe.’
‘Well, I suppose they’re very pretty in their own right. I can understand why anyone would want one. Or even a handful.’
‘It’s not because they’re pretty. It’s because I play the oboe.’
‘The oboe?’ he said, trying to make the conceptual leap that might connect oboes with pheasant tails, and failing.
‘An oboe,’ she repeated. ‘It’s a wind instrument, and it has a conical bore that’s very tight at the top. A pheasant feather is just ideal for cleaning it when you’ve finished playing. You could say it’s traditional.’
‘To get the spit out?’
She smiled wryly. ‘I call it condensation.’
‘So you play the oboe?’
‘I just started again. You know, kids at school, husband at work, a bit of time on my hands. I got the itch again. It’s not going very well, though. If you haven’t got anyone to play with, you can’t improve, and anyway my mouth seems to have lost the knack.’