'Thanks. I'll eat it here, while it's hot.'
'You don't really hit it off with my wacky friends, do you, Prof?'
'I'm not complaining.'
'I'll make some coffee in a mo and move the whole thing indoors. They'll be glad of a warm drink after their dip.' She cleared some plates from a table and handed me a knife and fork, and a paper napkin. 'Listen, I knew you'd be wanting some sleep after being out all day, so I made up the camp-bed in the summerhouse. You can slip away whenever you wish. They won't disturb you there. I left half a bottle of Courvoisier and a pack of cigars beside the bed.'
Such wifely consideration was so rare from Gerry that I at once suspected an ulterior motive. I found it difficult to believe – even of Gerry – that she would have the gall to invite her admiring estate agent up to the bedroom while her own husband spent a night in the garden, but what other construction was there to put on it? other construction was there I said, 'I'm not tired.'
I said, 'I'm not tired.'
'That's all right, then,' said Gerry with such implacable charm that I was reassured. 'Just remember it's there if you want to escape before the party finally breaks up.'
She went off towards the house, leaving me alone on the patio eating my supper. The food was good, the sauce a trifle too peppery for my taste. I scraped some off the steak. Presently I was aware of someone standing nearby, holding a beer glass. It was Roger, the estate agent, his moon face glowing greenly in the artificial light.
'Hello there, brother Gregory. What's this – second helpings?'
I gave him a look without much fraternity in it. 'I only just got here. I've been out.'
'Business or pleasure? The latter, I hope. Six days shalt thou labour.'
'… and have a barbecue on the seventh?'
Roger laughed. 'Speaking of labour, I have to be at my charming best in the office tomorrow morning.'
'Gerry's making coffee,' I informed him.
'I think we'll have to skip it. Have you seen
'I think we'll have to skip it. Have you seen anything of Val?'
'Val?'
'My wife.'
'Er, no.' I refrained from adding that I'd always assumed Roger was a bachelor from the way he carried on with Gerry.
'She was one of the first in the pool,' said Roger.
'Perhaps she's gone indoors to get dry.'
'No, there she is!' said Roger, and called out, 'Val, darling, we're about to leave. Come and say goodbye to your host.'
Val came over. By this time, she had got back into her clothes. When dressed, and with her damp hair flat to her head, she looked even more like one of James Thurber's creations. Her stare was withering. 'So you're the husband.'
I felt like the owner of an unruly dog.
Roger smiled feebly and said, 'She means thank you for having us. Come on, my water nymph. Party's over for you and me. Nighty-night, Greg.'
They moved off around the side of the house. Presently I heard their car start up and move away. I wondered if Gerry knew they had left.
When I had finished eating I strolled across to the house for a coffee. There, I couldn't avoid getting into conversation with some people who were vaguely connected with the Bristol Old Vic and wanted to impress me with their theatrical gossip. The vagueness was more of my making than theirs because unusually my concentration had started slipping. Black coffee didn't help. I was getting more weary by the minute.
Unable to listen any longer, I muttered some excuse and wandered out through the patio door. All that I could think about was that camp-bed in the summerhouse. I moved as if wearing one of those early diving suits with weighted boots. It wasn't the drink that had done this; I'd had nothing since the cognacs in the pub and they never make me sleepy. Then I was conscious of pointed heels clattering on the patio behind me, and Gerry was at my side.
'Greg, are you all right?'
'Just tired,' I answered, and I heard myself slurring the words. 'Going to bed now.'
'Can you make it that far?'
'Yes.'
My thigh came painfully into contact with a table. I turned my head, but Gerry had already gone back to her party. The impact sharpened my wits momentarily. I thought, I've been given something. I'm drugged. I groped across the table and found the mustard-dish, pulled it towards me, scooped up a generous amount on my finger and pushed it into the back of my throat. Instantly I retched, staggered to a tub of geraniums and heaved up as much as I could of the barbecue supper. My head spun when I raised it. I still felt profoundly tired. 1 thrust my finger down my throat a second time, with a result almost as copious. The sweat on my forehead turned icy. Down the patio steps I tottered, then perilously around the edge of the pool, across the lawn and as far as the summerhouse, an octagonal wooden structure open to the elements on two sides.
True to her promise, Gerry had made up the camp-bed there. I dropped on to it like a felled tree, too exhausted to remove even my shoes.
It felt as if I were levitating. Not a pleasant sensation.
Home-made sauce, I thought, as I pushed my finger down my throat again.
The next thing I knew was when I stirred, opened my eyes, and tried to remember where I was. It was still dark and quiet, yet something had disturbed me. My limbs felt heavy and my thinking was slow. I closed my eyes again.
Another sound, a movement close to me.
I remembered that I was in the summerhouse and that it was open on two sides. Possibly a breeze had got up and disturbed something. But the sound had been heavy, as if some living thing were in there with me. A fox? They sometimes crossed the garden.
Without otherwise moving, I opened my eyes. A faint light from the moon enabled me to make out a human figure – Geraldine, wearing a dark tracksuit. I wondered vaguely why she had come, but I was too weary to supply an explanation. I was too weary even to ask her.
I closed my eyes again.
A faint bubbling sound broke through my muzzy perceptions, as if liquid were being poured from a narrow- necked bottle. I looked, and that was exactly what was happening. Gerry was emptying the Courvoisier bottle, holding it upside down so that the contents tipped on to the floor. I registered that she must be drunk to do such a crazy thing. Too dazed to intervene, I observed her passively, as if watching a surrealist film too bizarre to interpret.
When the bottle was empty, Gerry turned, bent down and picked up another that she must have brought in. She unscrewed it and began liberally dowsing everything, including the bed. I murmured a protest that came out as a Neanderthal-sounding series of grunts.
Geraldine ignored me. Next she picked a cigar from the box she had left by the bed, put a match to it and started smoking! Extraordinary – she never touched cigars. I watched her put it to her mouth and draw on it so that the tip smouldered and glowed. Then she crouched down and it was difficult to see her.
My eyelids drooped. It had been an effort to keep them open so long.
Sightless I may have been, but my sense of smell continued to function. I sniffed and caught the acrid whiff of smoke. It crept into my nostrils and made me open my mouth and cough. I heard a hissing sound. I opened my eyes and saw that the bed was on fire. Not merely the bed, but the entire floor was alight with trails of fizzing blue flame.
If I continue to lie here, I thought, I'm going to be incinerated with the summerhouse.
