In the city long buses had concertina central sections for turning sharp corners into narrow streets and in the country mimosa trees bloomed fluffily yellow in March, and everywhere, every day, all day, there was the talk and the smell of wine. By the time I left it, Bordeaux was my spiritual home. Henri Tavel hugged me with moist eyes and told me he could place me with de Luze or one of the other top négotiants if I would stay: and sometimes since then I’d wondered why I hadn’t.
On my return to England, armed with a too-flattering Tavel reference, I’d got a job with a wine shipper, but I was too junior for much besides paperwork and after the intensities of Bordeaux grew quickly bored. Impulsively one day I’d walked into a wine shop which said ‘Help wanted’ and offered my services, and in a short time began a brilliant non-stop career of lugging cases of booze from place to place.
‘Tony works in a shop,’ my mother would say bravely. My mother was nothing if not courageous. Large fences had to be met squarely. She also, in due course, made me an interest-free loan for basic stock for a shop of my own and had refused to accept repayments once I could afford to start them. As mothers went, in fact, mine wasn’t at all bad.
Flora, in essence a more motherly lady, grew day by day less exhausted and depressed. Jack’s leg was doing well and Jimmy was tentatively out of danger, although with pierced lungs, it seemed, one couldn’t be sure for a fortnight.
Jimmy, Flora said, couldn’t remember anything at all of the party. He couldn’t remember escorting the Sheik round the yard. The last thing he could remember was talking to me about the Laphroaig; and he had been very shocked to learn that Larry Trent was dead.
‘And Jack’s spirits?’ I asked. ‘How are those?’
‘Well, you know him, Tony dear, he hates to sit still, and he’s growing more bad tempered by the minute, which I suppose I shouldn’t say, but you know how he is. He’ll be home by the weekend, he says, and he won’t sit in a wheelchair, he wants crutches, and he’s quite a weight, you know, to support on his arms, and not as young as he was.’
The daily reports, faithfully written by Flora and me, had not unduly cheered Jack, it appeared, because he thought we were keeping disasters from him; but as if in a burst of good luck after bad there had been fewer than usual sprains, knocks and skin eruptions among the string.
By Thursday the horsebox had gone, also the remains of the tent and the matting, only the churned lawn and the gap in the rose-hedge remaining.
‘We’ll never be able to walk on the grass without shoes,’ Flora said. ‘Not that we ever do, come to that. But everywhere you look there are splinters of glass.’
She’d heard of course about the robbery and murder at the Silver Moondance and listened wide-eyed when I told her I’d been there again on the Tuesday morning. ‘How awful,’ she said, and ‘Poor Larry...’ and then with confusion, ‘Oh, dear, I’d forgotten for a minute... it’s all so dreadful, so dreadful.’
On Wednesday she told me that Sally and Peter now knew who had let off the brakes of their horsebox. Sally had been again on the telephone, almost equally upset, telling Flora that the parents of the little boy were blaming Peter for leaving the doors unlocked and saying it was all Peter’s fault, not their son’s. They had denied at first that their child could have caused the accident and were very bitter about the fingerprints. Sally was saying they shouldn’t have let their beastly brat run around unsupervised and should have taught it never to touch other people’s property and especially never to get into strange cars or horseboxes and meddle.
‘And who’s right?’ Flora asked rhetorically, sighing. ‘They used to be friends and now they’re all so miserable — it’s awful.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I wish we’d never had that party. We’ll never have another, I don’t suppose.’
By Thursday afternoon she was almost back to her old cosy self, handling the smarmy Howard on the stable round with sweet-natured assurance, and I said that unless she felt panic-stricken I wouldn’t come the next day, Friday.
‘Dear Tony, you’ve been such a rock, I can’t tell you...’ and she gave me a warm kiss on the cheek when I left and said she would see me again soon, very soon.
Friday proceeded up to a point in the way of most Fridays: morning extra-busy with customers and early afternoon spent making up the big load of orders for week-end delivery. Brian carried countless customers’ goods for them personally to their parked cars and received their tips, beaming. Mrs Palissey gave him six Mars bars when she thought I wasn’t looking and told me brightly that we were running out of Coca-Cola.
Mrs Chance came for her surreptitious gin. A wine shipper telephoned that he’d reserved me fifty cases of Beaujolais Nouveau for November 15th, and did I want more? (November 15th was to the drinks trade what August 12th was to the food: the race to be first with the new wine, as first with the grouse, was intense. I never waited for the Nouveau to be delivered but fetched it myself from the shipper very early on November 15th so as to be able to open my doors at practically dawn with it already displayed in the window. At least, I had done that for six years. Whether I would bother without Emma I wasn’t sure. The fun had all gone. Wait and see.) Fifty cases would be fine, I said, considering Nouveau’s short life: it was at its best sold and drunk before Christmas.
Mrs Palissey set off with Brian soon after three on the extra-long delivery round and someone rang up in a great fuss because I’d sent half the amount of beer ordered.
‘Do you need it tonight?’ I asked, apologising.
‘No, Sunday, for after the village football match.’
‘I’ll bring it myself,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow morning at nine.’
In order not to forget I carried the beer immediately out of the back door to the Rover estate, and found on my return that I had a visitor in the shop in the quiet shape of Detective Chief Superintendent Wilson.
‘Mr Beach,’ he said as before, extending his hand.
‘Mr Wilson,’ I said, trying to smother my surprise and no doubt not succeeding.
‘A bottle of wine,’ he said with a small smile. ‘For dinner. What do you suggest?’
He liked full-bodied red, he said, and I offered him a Rioja of distinction.
‘Spanish?’ he murmured dubiously, reading the label.
‘Very well made,’ I said. ‘It’s excellent.’
He said he would take my word for it and punctiliously paid. I rolled the bottle in tissue and stood it on the counter, but he was not, it appeared, in a hurry to pick it up and depart.
‘Your chair...’ he murmured. ‘Would it be available?’
I fetched it at once from the office and he sat gratefully as before.
‘A question or two, Mr Beach...’ His gaze unhurriedly rested on my face and then wandered as if vaguely round the shop. ‘I heard that you called in at the Silver Moondance last Tuesday morning, Mr Beach.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And wrote a list of the stolen goods.’
‘As much as I could remember, yes.’
‘And on Monday last you went there with Detective Sergeant Ridger and tasted various whiskies and wines?’
‘Yes,’ I said again.
‘And you saw a certain Paul Young there?’
‘Yes.’
His slow gaze finished its wandering and came to rest tranquilly on my face. ‘Can you describe him, Mr Beach?’