Here Be Monsters

'Oh, but there is!' He ignored Audley and the fallen potatoes and broad beans equally.

'And it is not even as though it is entirely his fault, either. For he did say that he might bring someone - ' He directed her along the side of the cottage, under a great cascade of clematis, alongside a bed thick with columbines and wallflowers ' -it is I who am at fault.'

' Silly old bugger!' repeated Audley, behind them.

''Silly', unfortunately - 'old', inevitably.' Mr Willis pointed her past his back-door and his dustbin, towards the garden proper. ''Bugger', I reject. Shall we settle for 'fool'?'

The sitting-out side of the cottage, where thick thatch was lost in more spreading clematis, was ablaze with roses - old cottage roses competing with modern hybrids - round a tiny patio, and a lawn full of daisies to the exclusion of grass.

'Do sit down, Miss Loftus.' He indicated a trio of elderly deck-chairs. To continue my apology - but I see you are admiring my daisies.'

It didn't sound like an apology, thought Elizabeth as she lowered herself cautiously on to the faded canvas. 'You have a lot of them, Mr Willis.'

'I'm thirsty, Willy,' complained Audley.

'A cup of tea, Miss Loftus?' The old man still ignored Audley. 'Or… at this hour I sometimes treat myself to a glass of hock-and-Seltzer. I find it most refreshing.'

Elizabeth smiled at him. 'That would do very well, Mr Willis.'

'Capital!' He lowered himself into the chair next to her, and then waved at Audley. 'Well -

don't just stand there, dear boy. Take the cases inside. The hock and the Seltzer is in the refrigerator, and the beer is where it always is. So chop-chop! He bobbed his head at the lawn. 'Yes… my daisies - they were there when I first came here, and I fought a great war with them, with one of those frightening selective weedkillers. But after a year or two they started to come back. And then one evening I was sitting here, planning another dummy2

massacre… and I thought suddenly how beautiful they were, with their little rayed-sun faces, sacred to the Mother Goddess. So I went and put the weedkiller in the dustbin, and we're all perfectly happy now, living together.' He watched her, but he wasn't smiling. 'It's my age, you see.'

What was he talking about now? She still had her smile pasted on her face,but although it suddenly felt out-of- place she didn't know what to do with it. 'Your age?'

'That's right. I thought I heard a car - he did telephone me, and he did say he might have someone with him. And there you were… and there he wasn't… But also I come from a generation which does have difficulty in acclimatizing itself to the fullest implications of the sexual equality revolution. Which is why I jumped to that most unfortunate - indeed, unpardonable - quite unpardonable - assumption.' He continued not to smile. 'Simply, when he said why he was coming, I expected one of his wary young men. You must be acquainted with the type. Perfectly respectful, even respectable. But always looking around, not to say over their shoulders, but noting everything just in case. Which I know, because for a brief space of time at the end of the war, I had something to do with their breed. Or different breeds. I used to divide them into foxes, ferrets and hounds, for convenience's sake: different animal for different job… Is it the hen- house you want raiding?

was what I used to say to myself. Or something fierce to put down a hole? Or is it a hunt, and the quarry has to be tracked and driven out of a field of kale or a briar-patch?' He studied her for a moment. 'But you don't look like any of those, my dear young lady. In fact… in fact, if I didn't know better -or worse, perhaps… I really don't quite know what I'd make of you.' The scrutiny continued, like the non-smile. 'But no doubt that is part of your stock-in-trade.'

Elizabeth became aware that she was still smiling. But there was an undoubted nuance of disapproval in what he had said, though of an entirely different sort from that in the look he had given her when he had taken her for the plainest playmate of all time. So perhaps she ought not to be smiling.

But the devil with that! He had served her with misunderstanding, and then good manners and the story of his daisy lawn, and with hock-and-Seltzer to come, only to give him time to study her at leisure. So she owed him nothing yet.

'Is that your complete apology? Or is there more?' She worked to improve her smile. 'I am a vixen? Or - I don't know the term for a female ferret.' He looked a bit like an elderly ferret himself, thin where he had once been wiry, but still sharp enough to catch the unwary. 'But with hounds I suppose the word is 'bitch'?'

He sat up, and the canvas stretched dangerously under him. 'My dear Miss Loftus!' He blinked at her, pretending embarrassment. And then looked at her sidelong. 'Loftus…

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Loftus… Now, where did I read that name? Unusual name - ' He compressed his lips and stared at his daisies. ' Loftus?'

Audley appeared with a clink of glass and a somewhat disgruntled expression on his face.

In turn, he handed them tall, cool glasses, and took one look at the third deck-chair and decided against it, ending up standing, looking down on them as from a great height.

Elizabeth formed the impression that, after his initial pleasure in returning to a man whom he loved (and who returned that sentiment with interest), he was no longer quite so sure it had been a good idea.

He settled on her finally. 'Well, What have you told him?'

The old man sat back. 'Dear boy, she has hardly got a word in edgeways yet.'

'I can well believe that.' Audley buried his face in his beer.

'Loftus - of coursel' Mr Willis turned back to her, his hock-and-Seltzer still untasted. ' The Times obituary column! My favourite reading!' He beamed his delight at her. 'When you get to my age you'll be just the same, you know.'

'He knows he's still alive if he isn't in it,' murmured Audley.