6

‘Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,’ said the man in the bowler hat. He stood in the sun-lounge of the Rimini, hovering, though not uncertainly. He smiled with gaiety at the seated men. Mr Cridley began the process of identification.

‘I am Mr Cridley, this is my friend Mr Sole. I cannot speak for my friend, but in my case your presence here is somewhat puzzling. We have not met; your face is new to me. How can we help you?’

‘Not you me, but I you,’ the man said smartly. ‘My card, sir. Joseph Harp, heat exchange expert and installation engineer. I come about central heating. You have been in communication with my firm.’

‘Yes –’

‘I have come, in a word, to measure up and deliver you with an estimate. A biggish job, a biggish house. A good day’s work, I hazard. Now tell me, sir, what did you have in mind?’

‘Pray sit down,’ replied Mr Cridley, ‘and take off your hat.’

‘You are wise,’ said the man, obeying these injunctions, ‘to take advantage of our summer terms. Ten per cent off. Naturally enough, a lot of people don’t think of central heating in the middle of a summer like this. Well anyway, a lot of people who are not as far-sighted as you, sir. Pardon me: I’ve taken a liberty.’

‘Not at all, not at all.’

‘I spoke rather personally. I estimated character rather than what I am here to estimate. I have that way with me, gentlemen, and I hope you’ll forgive. My tongue runs away on me, as any of my mates will tell you. Colleagues I should have said; we are told to say colleagues. Again the victim of my tongue. Gentlemen, you’ll pardon me?’

‘Yes, yes –’

‘We are given a short course in salesmanship, every one of us when we join the firm. Say this, say that, never say the other. They tell us how to lead a prospect on, watch for the nibble and time the moment for the kill. It’s very exciting.’

‘What’s a prospect?’ Mr Sole asked, genuinely interested.

The man aimed a wild blow at his thigh, punishing himself for his shortcomings.

‘Forgive me, forgive me,’ he cried. ‘Aren’t I running on like a dose –? Oh my God, you’ll think me a frightful fellow! A prospect is a person, gentlemen. A person you aim to sell something to. A prospect is a customer before, if you follow me, he becomes a customer. A prospect is a prospect is a prospect. That’s a little joke we have in the trade. A kind of a jingle that we call out to each other when we meet.’

‘What does it mean?’ asked Mr Sole.

‘What does it mean? Well – gentlemen, do you know, I don’t know. D’you know, I’ve been saying that for a fair number of years now and –’

‘We are mightily intrigued by all this,’ Mr Cridley interrupted. ‘I think I speak for my friend as well. We are interested ourselves in the world of business, of salesmanship and advertising. We are not professionals, you realize, but we watch and learn. Your advent is little short of a tonic. That is not flattery, Mr Harp. Mr Sole will tell you fast enough I am not given to flattery. No, I feel we could talk together all day –’

‘In the way of central heating, Mr Cridley, just what did you have in mind? We have the Major Plan, the Minor Plan and our –’

‘We are interested, Mr Harp. We are very interested indeed. But my friend and I are of a conservative nature. We do not care to rush things. I call upon you, Mr Sole. Is that not so?’

‘We do not care to rush things, no. It is true we are interested, and we would greatly like to know about your system. We would esteem it a personal favour.’

‘No favour at all, gentlemen,’ Mr Harp retaliated briskly. ‘It is why I am here. Part of the day’s work, part of the job, part of the service. For a house the size of this I would not hesitate to suggest our Major Plan. Warmth, warmth, and more warmth, eh? That’s the ticket in a place like this unless I’m much mistaken. I note you’re in the hotel business. I put it to you, gentlemen, that a snug room is heart’s delight for the weary wayfarer. Am I right, gentlemen, or am I wrong?’

‘Without a shadow of a doubt –’

‘I can mention no prices until I’ve seen the premises. A thorough inspection. Nooks, crannies and how’s your father? Right, gentlemen? The cellars are my immediate interest. It is usual to begin in the cellars, to establish the siting of the boiler. Once the siting of the boiler is out of the way, Robert becomes your avuncular relative. Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Mr Harp briskly, drawing papers from a briefcase. ‘Lead me to the cellars.’

Mr Cridley and Mr Sole rose slowly, eyeing one another. They followed Mr Harp who had, so he said, a nose for the geography of a house.

In the cellars Mr Cridley coughed and said:

‘You are moving rather fast for us, Mr Harp. Strictly speaking, a lady called Miss Burdock is in charge here. We are at a disadvantage. Mr Sole and I would wish to talk the matter over –’

‘Mr Cridley,’ called Miss Burdock from the top of the stairs. ‘Mr Cridley, what are you doing down there?’

Mr Harp, quick to assess a situation, replied: ‘Miss Burdock. Is that Miss Burdock?’ and began to mount the stairs.

‘I am Miss Burdock. Mr Cridley, who is this man?’

‘Joseph Harp, madam, and here with a purpose. Heat exchange expert and installation engineer. Central heating is my stock in trade. You want it, Harp has it. OK, Miss Burdock?’

‘I do not want central heating, Mr Harp.’

‘This is the Rimini Hotel? The gentleman below, Mr Cridley? I have you on my list.’

‘Be gone, Mr Harp.’

‘Now wait one little minute, madam. Now –’

‘Be gone, please. Promptly and without further argument vacate the space you stand in.’

‘Madam –’

‘I shall not hesitate to complain to your employers.’ She held the door and Mr Harp passed through. ‘Mr Cridley and Mr Sole, do not skulk in the darkness. You must face me and explain all this.’

‘My beautiful Boadicea,’ murmured Mr Sole, stumbling behind his companion up the cellar steps.

General Sanctuary pulled the straw hat over his eyes and fell asleep. He dreamed that he was talking to the Prime Minister on the telephone. ‘There is one man in the country,’ the Prime Minister was saying, ‘who has the know-how and military skill to salvage what is left of this unholy mess. You, General. I know I do not ask you this in vain. Let me hear you say you are ready, General.’ The garden was peaceful in the warm afternoon. Bees and insects droned lazily amongst the flowers. Strawberries ripened. Pods of peas were full and yellow; asparagus shot into seed, its fern delicate against the untidy earth.

The General had been re-reading Henty, the only author he cared for. For the Temple lay open beside his chair, its leaves curling as he slept. He had read the book a dozen times or more. He could quote long passages from all the works of G. A. Henty, and quite often he did.

‘There is only one man I can call upon. You, General Sanctuary.’ The dream was not entirely a fantasy. Once upon a time, many years before, a Prime Minister had addressed him in terms that were not all that dissimilar.

Basil Jaraby set about his weekly task of cleaning the cages of his budgerigars. He slid out the trays and cleaned them one by one. He scrubbed the perches with a wire brush and washed out the water- and seed-cups. He examined with care the toys they played with – pieces of furniture designed for dolls’ houses, bells and little wooden trucks – satisfying himself that they had not become damaged and might be a danger. The birds seemed in good spirit, although he spoke to them anxiously, worried in case the heat was affecting them harshly. The room was not ideal for their habitation: there was a danger of draughts if he opened the window, and if he kept it constantly closed he feared for their welfare in an airless atmosphere. He prepared their evening meal of seed and a little grass, put fresh cuttlebone and millet in the cages. He taught the cleverest one how to walk up and down a miniature step-ladder, and began his taming of another, offering it his finger as a perch.

Mr Swabey-Boyns was engaged on a large jigsaw of the Houses of Parliament. It was very difficult and he wondered if he would live to finish it. A month ago, in hospital, he had completed a smaller but no less difficult one of Ann Hathaway’s cottage, and had then upset the whole thing over the bedclothes. The nurses had laughed; and he had laughed later, as he clipped little holes in their sheets with his nail-scissors.

Mr Turtle broke his rule and thought about his wife. She had died during the First World War, when he was in France, after they had spent only two days together. She caught pneumonia, and in the bustle and confusion of wartime no one had been able to tell him how it had all happened or how she had died. Films, to which Mr Turtle was addicted, made such stories romantic, but to him the reality was scarcely sad even: it was ugly and precise and a fact.

Once Mr Turtle had kept photographs of his wife, faded sepia prints that became absurd as the years advanced. There was nothing of her in them, just a face that was now a stranger’s face; for in his mind he had forgotten what she looked like and remembered more poignantly other things about her. He tore the photographs up, without any emotion at all. But often, and more often recently, he found himself weeping. He did not know why until, in a cinema or on the street – because it happened more usually when he was out – he wiped his leathery face with his handkerchief and thought the matter out. Then he knew that some passing detail had reminded him of his wife. He scolded himself and said he was behaving like a child; weeping in the street like that, causing people to pity him, inviting them to approach him and enquire about his welfare. So he made up the rule, promising himself to be on guard against the memory of her.

But Mr Turtle had just been to see a re-issue of Random Harvest. It brought back the war to him, the ins and outs of emotional entanglements and the setting off by train for the front. He had seen it through twice and had watched the opening scenes once again. He emerged with a headache, feeling shaky in the legs and syrupy all over. Over a cup of tea in the cinema restaurant he tried to straighten himself out. He took a pill, ate two pieces of bread, and tried to convince himself that he was feeling quite gay: he drummed his fingers on the table-cloth, humming a tune. He would telephone Cridley and Sole and see if he might visit them at the Rimini. The journey would waste an hour or so and they were always quite refreshing, the things they said. He remembered Cridley using a terrible obscenity once in the washroom, and that little fat clergyman who was the Housemaster overheard him and thrashed him, as he stood there in his pelt, with everyone watching. The little fat clergyman was always thrashing people when they did or said something wrong in the washroom. Years later there had been some scandal when a couple of Old Boys returned and thrashed the little fat clergyman.

Mr Turtle made his way out of the restaurant. A waitress ran after him to explain that he hadn’t paid for his tea. He gave her the money and went on his way to telephone the Rimini.

‘It is scarcely a month,’ complained Miss Burdock, ‘since those frightful women came here with corsets. And now a man with central heating. You can guess what I am going to say to you, both of you: if there is further trouble I shall be obliged to ask you to leave the Rimini.’

‘A genuine misunderstanding, Miss Burdock, a genuine error.’

‘I could easily fill your rooms. There is a waiting list for the Rimini.’

‘Now now, let us not be hasty.’

‘Let you not be hasty, Mr Cridley. Nor you, Mr Sole. You escape with a warning, but make no mistake –’ The words hung ominously in the air. Miss Burdock, like a monument driven by some propulsion outside its nature, sailed from the sun-lounge. Mr Sole and Mr Cridley returned to their newspapers.

‘Free trial,’ said Mr Sole. ‘Send no money. Retain for ten days, return if not delighted.’

‘What is it?’

‘Transistor Company of Great Britain. A wireless set.’

‘You know, I have it in my mind to get in touch with Harp. We might arrange to meet him outside somewhere and have a drink. I was keenly interested in what he had to say for himself –’

‘Take care, take care. We must not offend the threatening manageress.’

‘We must not nothing. We are free, white and over twenty-one. Burdock has gone hysterical.’

‘I know, I know. But she can soon have us out on the street.’

‘Nonsense. If we meet Harp in the quiet seclusion of some bar, what harm is there in that? If we meet him as a friend what can Burdock do?’

‘Still, care should guide us.’

‘So it shall be. I shall telephone Harp and arrange a conference. I’ll tell you what,’ Mr Cridley added, leaning forward and lowering his voice, ‘it’s this hot weather that’s affecting Burdock. You understand how disastrous a run of heat can be for the ageing virgin?’