lighter and lit a cigarette.
“Do you mind awfully?” Her host stood in front of her, brandishing a knife.
“What?”
“This is a smoke-free zone.”
Agatha leaned round him and stared at the barbecue. Black smoke was beginning to pour out from something on the top. “Then you’d better get a fire extinguisher,” said Agatha. “Your food is burning.”
He let out a squawk of alarm and rushed back to the barbecue. Agatha blew a perfect smoke ring. She felt her nervousness evaporating. She did not care what James thought. Jill was a dreadful hostess, and worse than that, she seemed to have a thing about James. So Agatha sat placidly, smoking and dreaming of the moment when the evening would be over.
There was one sign of relief. A table was carried out into the garden and chairs set about it. She had dreaded having to stand on the grass in her spindly heels, eating off a paper plate.
Jill had reluctantly let go of James’s arm and gone into the house. She reappeared with two of the women guests carrying wine bottles and glasses. “Everyone to the table,” shouted David.
Agatha crushed out her cigarette on the patio stones and put the stub in her handbag. By the time she had heaved herself out of her chair, it was to find that James was seated next to Jill and another woman, and she was left to sit next to a florid-faced man who gave her a goggling stare and then turned to chat to the woman on his other side.
David put a plate of blackened charred things in front of Agatha. She helped herself to a glass of wine. The conversation became general, everyone talking about people Agatha did not know. Then she caught the name Andrew Lloyd Webber. “I do like his musicals,” she said, glad to be able to talk about something. There was a little startled silence and then Jill said in a patronizing voice, “But his music is so derivative.”
“All music is derivative,” said Agatha.
“Dear me,” tittered one of the female guests. “You’ll be saying you like Barry Manilow next.”
“Why not?” asked Agatha truculently. “He’s a great performer. Got some good tunes, too.” There was a startled silence and then everyone began to talk at once.
I will never understand the Gloucestershire middle classes, thought Agatha. Oh, well, might as well eat. She sliced a piece of what appeared to be chicken. Blood oozed out onto her plate.
James was laughing at something Jill was saying. He had not once looked in her direction. He had abandoned her as soon as they entered the house.
Suddenly a thought hit Agatha, a flash of the blindingly obvious. I do not need to stay here. These people are rude and James is a disgrace. She rose and went into the house. “Second door on your left,” Jill shouted after her, assuming Agatha wanted to go to the toilet.
Agatha went straight through the house and outside. She got into her car and drove off. Let James find his own way home.
When she reached her cottage, she let herself in, went through to the kitchen and kicked off her sandals. Her cats circled her legs in welcome. “I’ve had a God-awful time,” she told them. “James has finally been and gone and done it. I’ve grown up at last. I don’t care if I never see him again.”
“What an odd woman!” Jill was exclaiming. ‘To go off like that without a word.”
“Well, you did rather cut her dead,” said James uneasily. “I mean, she was left on her own, not knowing anyone.”
“But one doesn’t introduce people at parties any more.”
“You introduced me.”
“Oh, James, sweetie. Don’t go on. Such weird behaviour.” But the evening for James was ruined. He now saw these people through Agatha Raisin’s small bearlike eyes.
“I’d better go and see if she’s all right,” he said, getting to his feet.
“I’ll drive you,” said Jill.
“No, please don’t. It would be rude of you to leave your guests. I’ll phone for a taxi.”
James rang Agatha’s doorbell, but she did not answer. He tried phoning but got no reply. He left a message for her to call back, but she did not.
He shrugged. Agatha would come around. She always did.
But to his amazement the days grew into weeks and Agatha continued to be chilly towards him. She turned down invitations to dinner, saying she was “too busy.” He had met Patrick Mulligan one day in the village stores. Patrick worked for Agatha and he told James they were going through a quiet period.
When Sir Charles Fraith came to stay with Agatha, James began to be really worried. Charles, he knew, had once had an affair with Agatha. He dropped in and out of her life, occasionally helping her with cases. For the first time, James realized with amazement, he felt jealous. He had always taken it for granted that Agatha would remain, as far as he was concerned, her usual doting self. Something would have to be done.
“So how’s your ex?” asked Charles one Saturday as he and Agatha sat in her garden.
“I told you. I neither know nor care. I told you about that terrible barbecue.”
“They sound like shiters but we all know weird people.”
“He abandoned me! And when they all started sniggering about Andrew Lloyd Webber, he did nothing to defend me.”
“Oh, well. It’s nice to see you off the hook. If you
But Agatha was addicted to obsessions. Without one going on in her head, she was left with herself, a state of affairs she did not enjoy.
“So no murders these days?” asked Charles.
“Not a one. Nothing but lost teenagers and cats and dogs. I feel guilty. I persuaded young Harry Beam, Mrs. Freedman’s nephew, to stay with me another year before going to university. He’s finding things very dull.”
“Is everyone else still with you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Freedman is still secretary. Then there’s Harry, Phil Marshall and Patrick Mulligan as detectives.”
“Why don’t you take some time off? Go away somewhere. Get away from brooding about him next door.”
Charles was so self-contained and neat in his impeccably tailored clothes and well-cut fair hair that Agatha sometimes felt like striking him. Nothing seemed to ruffle Charles’s calm surface. She often wondered what he really thought of her.
“Anyway,” Agatha went on, “I’m taking time off from the office today. Mrs. Freedman will phone me if anything dramatic happens. What’s up with Andrew Lloyd Webber anyway?”
“Don’t ask me. I never could understand the middle classes.”
Fuelled by jealousy, James did not pause to think whether he really wanted the often-infuriating Agatha back in his life. He watched and waited until Charles left and then watched some more until he saw Agatha leaving her cottage on foot. He shot out of his own door to waylay her.
“Hullo, James,” said Agatha, her small eyes like two pebbles. “I’m just going down to the village stores.”
“I’ll walk with you. I have a proposition to make.”
“This is so sudden,” said Agatha cynically.
“Stop walking so quickly. I feel we got off to a bad start. It really was quite a dreadful barbecue. So I have a suggestion to make. If you’re not too busy at the office, we could take a holiday together.”
Agatha’s heart began to thump and she stopped dead under the shade of a lilac tree.
“I thought I would surprise you and take you off somewhere special that was once very dear to me. You see, I may have told you I’ve given up writing military history. I now write travel books.”
“Where did you think of?” asked Agatha, visions of Pacific islands and Italian villages racing through her brain.
“Ah, it is going to be a surprise.”
Agatha hesitated. But then she knew if she refused, she would never forgive herself. “All right. What clothes should I take?”
“Whatever you usually take on holiday.”
