27

The sun was stretching out the Welsh hills, and the shadows had started putting up the shutters for the day across the tumbling waters of the River Usk. It was approaching that magic moment on a summer’s evening when the flies hatch from the water like smoke and big fish plop with befitting dignity in sun-forsaken pools, when fishermen throw out their chests and raise their rods and thank heaven for allowing its creatures such a beautiful world to dwell in, before trying to remove as many fish as possible from it before supper.

‘Poor Gaston,’ murmured Lucy, dropping into third as her Aston rounded a corner.

‘Mostly my fault, I suppose,’ I admitted. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve been a bit of a mutt.’

‘Yes, you have rather, haven’t you?’ Lucy agreed cheerfully. ‘But you possess such a sweet nature, Gaston.’

‘Oh, come–’

‘You’ll always do anything for anybody. You let people push you around quite unthinkingly, like a revolving door.’

‘Oh, tut–’

‘That cousin of yours, for instance.’ I’d told Lucy the whole story during the cross-country journey. ‘You ought to stand up to him, Gaston. Stamp on his toes and spit in his eye.’

‘Difficult to spit in the eye of a chap who once gave you six of the best, just because he’d found you with a pot of strawberry jam under the bedclothes.’

‘What a pity, Gaston,’ Lucy continued, ‘you had no one at your side to support you against these people.’

‘It was, I suppose.’

‘Someone with strength of character.’

‘True enough.’

‘And with a mind of their own.’

‘Exactly.’

We turned another corner.

‘Aren’t we getting near the place?’ asked Lucy.

I glanced at the river running beside the road.

‘I can’t see the old boy anywhere.’

‘You’re sure he won’t mind? I mean, our just arriving like this?’

‘Since I got him out of clink in New York I don’t think he’d mind if I arrived at midnight with a travelling circus. Besides, he’s got bags of room. He usually runs a business men’s clinic, but that’s on hols at the moment.’

Lucy sighed.

‘After this afternoon, if I don’t have a week lying low and completely away from it all, I shall go as mad as my brother.’

‘I’m a bit worried about old George,’ I confessed. ‘After all, we did rather leave him in the clutches of the law.’

‘If they lock him up, Father will unlock him when he gets home next week. Though I shouldn’t think any self-respecting jail would put up with George as long as that.’

‘Here’s the house,’ I announced, as Sir Lancelot’s front gates came in sight.

I was a bit surprised to find the gates shut, with barbed wire along the top and a large red notice saying KEEP OUT.

‘The old boy may have sold up, I suppose,’ I suggested, feeling pretty mystified as I left the car to investigate.

The gates being unlocked, I swung them open for Lucy to drive inside. I was about to climb in again, when Sir Lancelot himself bobbed up among the shrubbery.

‘Good evening, Grimsdyke,’ he said, very genially. ‘An unexpected pleasure, is it not?’

‘Oh, good evening, sir.’ I stood staring at him.

‘Is this a social call? Or do you intend to stay?’

‘Well, I – er, I was rather thinking of asking you to put us up for a few days, sir. But then I didn’t quite foresee–’

‘You have a companion? Come out, young lady. I shall not eat you. Indeed, I remember you. I never forget a face or an abdomen. I once advised, at considerable expense to your family, that your father should have his stomach removed and you your tonsils. I believe nothing came of either suggestion.’

‘Good evening, Sir Lancelot. No it didn’t, I’m afraid,’ replied Lucy calmly.

‘A waste of money, you see.’ Sir Lancelot sniffed a rose he happened to be carrying. ‘I am at last realizing the laughable unimportance of money and the outward trappings of this world. A beautiful evening, is it not?’

‘Perhaps you may find it a trifle chilly, sir?’ I suggested.

‘Not quite yet. A little later perhaps.’ Sir Lancelot paused to listen to the birds. ‘Charming. Just like your earlier visit, Grimsdyke.’

It was, except that this time Sir Lancelot had no clothes on.

‘A return to Nature, Grimsdyke. There is nothing like it for physical and mental health. I hit upon the idea while seeing my wife off for a Scandinavian holiday earlier this week. I fancy she will feel perfectly at home when she returns. Of course my sunshine clinic is hardly yet under way, but I am sure we shall see many well-known bodies here before the snows of next winter. You two may, of course, stay as long as you like as my guests.’

‘I think, sir, that we’d better be getting on–’

‘As this is a clinic and not a camp, I separate the sexes during the day. We dress for dinner.’

‘The arrangement suits us perfectly, Sir Lancelot,’ said Lucy. ‘We’ve no luggage anyway.’

‘Very good, my dear. Perhaps you would proceed in the other direction and report to the Matron? Grimsdyke, you will come with me. We can still enjoy a pleasant game of basket ball with the others before dusk.’

‘Look here, Lucy – I mean, you’re not really serious – ?’

‘Of course I am, Gaston. I always try anything once. Besides, what have I got to worry about, with my figure?’

‘Come along, Grimsdyke.’

‘Lucy–’

‘Yes, Gaston?’

I swallowed. ‘Lucy, there’s something I’ve simply got to tell you.’

‘Yes, Gaston?’

‘That bee. On your neck. It was one of the sort which don’t sting.’

‘I know, Gaston. I looked it up in the bee book. But I never let it make the slightest difference to us.’

‘Come, Grimsdyke! Make haste.’

I wandered towards the shrubbery, removing my sports jacket.

I turned back. ‘Lucy–’

‘Yes, Gaston?’

‘Lucy, I haven’t got much of a job.’

‘I’ll persuade Daddy to give you one. Running his Medical Foundation, for instance.’

‘But your Father hasn’t got a Medical Foundation.’

‘I’ll persuade him to found one. It’d be very much easier than persuading him to put money into Basil’s beastly musical.’

‘If you please, Grimsdyke,’ commanded Sir Lancelot,

I took off my tie. ‘Coming, sir.’

I reached the cover of the bushes.

‘Lucy,’ I called. ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Of course, darling,’ Lucy called back.

‘The psychology of clothing,’ observed Sir Lancelot, with another sniff at his rose, ‘which has been thoroughly investigated by Krafft-Ebbing, presents several highly interesting psychiatric hypotheses. It is, of course, bound up with the taboo-complex, ingrained in all of us from the moment our maternity nurse puts on our first pair of baby’s nappies. In this manner we first become conditioned to certain areas automatically creating a sense of shame and anxiety…’

I stumbled happily into the sunset, removing my trousers.