He held out a hand. 'Jimmy Jessop.'
'Well, Mr. Jessop...'
'Jimmy.'
'Jimmy, then. I'm a bit old to be picked up in a crummy pub by someone I don't know.'
He seemed amused by her glaring eyes and haughty manner. 'If you normally go on like this you can't have any fun at all. If you go to a dance with me, what terrible thing could happen to you? I am probably the same age as you, so I'm hardly going to try to take off my clothes and rape you.'
'You don't need to take off all your clothes to rape someone.'
'I wouldn't know, never having tried it.'
Agatha suddenly thought of another gloomy evening alone at the Garden.
'Oh, why not. I'm Agatha Raisin. Mrs. Agatha Raisin. I'm staying at the Garden Hotel.'
'And is there a Mr. Raisin?'
'Dead.'
'I'm sorry.'
'I'm not.'
He looked surprised but then he said, 'I'll pick you up at eight o'clock. The pier's close to your hotel, so we can walk. Want another one?' He pointed to her empty glass.
'No, I'd best get back.' Agatha just wanted to get away from him, to get back to the hotel and figure out whether she should really go. If she changed her mind, she could always tell reception to tell him that she was indisposed.
She gathered up her handbag and gloves. He stood up and held the door open for her.
'Till tonight,' he said. Agatha mumbled something and scurried out past him.
Back in her hotel room, she stood before the long glass on the wardrobe door and studied her reflection to see if there was anything about her that should make some strange man invite her out. Her head was tightly wrapped in a headscarf, her face without make-up was shiny and her nose was still pink with the cold. Her eyes looked even smaller than usual. She took off her coat and unwound her headscarf and looked dismally at the tufts of hair on her head. No, he must be weird. She would not go. She looked at her watch. It was nearly lunch-time. She washed her face and then sat down at the dressing-table--kidney-shaped, with a triple mirror and a green silk flounce to match the slippery green silk cover on the large bed. A flapper's dressing-table, thought Agatha. She wondered whether there was any new furniture in the hotel at all. She carefully applied makeup and then put on a glossy brown wig. Not bad, she thought. Now if Jimmy Jessop had seen her looking like this ...
She gathered up her handbag again and then a paperback as a barrier in case any of the geriatrics in the dining-room tried to start up a conversation, and made her way down the thickly carpeted stairs with their brass risers. A fitful gleam of sunshine stabbed down through a large stained-glass window on the landing, chequering the Turkey-red carpet on the stairs with harlequin colours.
The dining-room was high-ceilinged with long windows overlooking the sea.
She took a table in the corner and covertly surveyed the other diners. There was an elderly man whom the waitresses addressed as Colonel. He had a good head of snowy-white hair and a lined, tanned face. He was tall and upright and wearing an old but well-cut tweed jacket. Glancing over at him and obviously trying to catch his attention was a lady with improbably blonde hair. She was heavily powdered and her lipstick was a screaming red. She was wearing a low-cut blouse which showed too much shrivelled and freckled neck. There was another man, small and crabby-looking with a dowager's hump. Then two elderly women, one tall and masculine in tweeds, the other small, weedy, and rabbity-looking.
What an advertisement for euthanasia, thought Agatha sourly.
The food when it arrived was good, solid English cooking. That day the main course was pork tenderloin glazed with honey, served with apple sauce, onions, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, cauliflower and cheese, and peas.
It was followed by toffee pudding and lashings of Devon cream. Agatha ate the lot, and she groaned as she could feel the band of her skirt tightening. She would need to go for another long walk or she would feel lethargic and heavy for the rest of the day.
This time, as the tide had gone out, she went down onto the shingly beach where great grey-green waves crashed and surged.
She had a sudden memory of a piece of poetry learned at school.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world
Agatha brightened. It was grand to be able to remember things, if only a fragment of poetry. That was one of her fears, that her memories would be lost to her one day.
There was something hypnotic about the rise and fall of the waves. The wind was slowly dropping and pale sunlight gilded the restless sea. She walked miles before she turned back to the hotel, feeling energetic and refreshed. She may as well go to the dance on the pier with the mysterious Jimmy Jessop. It was unexpected, a little adventure.
Her mind was thoroughly made up when the blonde woman met her in the reception area and fluted, 'We haven't been introduced. I am Mrs. Daisy Jones.'
Agatha held out her hand. 'Agatha Raisin.'
'Well, Miss Raisin ...'
'Mrs.'
'Mrs. Raisin. The colonel, that is dear Colonel Lyche, has suggested we all get together after dinner for a game of Scrabble. There are so few of us. Miss Jennifer Stobbs, and Miss Mary Dulsey are very keen players. And Mr. Harry Berry usually beats us all.'
'Too kind,' said Agatha, backing away, 'but I've got a date.'
'I thought you were a business woman when I saw you. I said to the colonel--'
'I mean a date. A fellow.'
'Oh, really. Another time, then.'
Agatha escaped up to her room. Surely a dance on the pier was infinitely preferable to an evening playing Scrabble with that lot!
At seven o'clock, she picked up the phone and ordered sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water to be served to her in her room.
When the elderly waiter creaked in with it ten minutes later, Agatha tipped him lavishly because he looked too old and frail to be carrying one of the heavy solid-silver trays the hotel used for room service.
She ate quickly and then put on an evening blouse and a black velvet skirt. She carefully put on her wig and made up her face. Then she swung open the wardrobe door. The wardrobe could have been turned into a room in another type of hotel, she thought. It was one of those vast Victorian mahogany ones. Hanging there was her mink coat. She took it out, her hands caressing the fur. Should she wear it? Or would some animal libber spit at her and try to wrench it off her back? Or was it safe to consign it to the perils of the pier ballroom cloakroom? If she put on a cloth coat, then she would need to wear a cardigan over her evening blouse. With a feeling of sin, she wrapped it round her, remembering when she had bought it in the dear, dead days when fur was fashionable. Then she tied a silk scarf over her wig to anchor it. The wind might rise again.
When she went downstairs, Jimmy was waiting in the reception, wearing white evening shirt and black tie under another long black coat.
'Dressy affair?' asked Agatha.
'We always dress up in Wyckhadden,' he said. 'We're pretty old-fashioned.'
'What kind of dancing is it?' asked Agatha. 'Disco?'
'No, ballroom.'
As they walked along the pier, Agatha saw a poster, BALLROOM DANCING FOR THE OLD-TYMERS, it said. And then in smaller letters, 'Old-Age Pensioners, Half-Price.'
