The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(86)
‘Sorry about that,’ I said ambiguously.
The room was Spartan: an iron cot, hard mattress, no sheets, no heating, two rough blankets, a deal table and a kitchen chair. I have been in cosier prison cells. I broke out one of my half-bottles and sucked at it vigorously while I cleaned the pistol. Soon both it and I were ‘clean, bright and slightly oiled’ as we used to say in the Army. I loaded a clip with the graphite rounds but thoughtfully introduced, first of all, one solid cartridge into the bottom of the clip. Emerging from the shower I heard a rasping boom from some hidden loud-speaker: ‘Mortdecai – moving target outside your window – SHOOT!’ Shrugging a shoulder, I scooped up the Airweight from under my pillow, flung back the curtains, flung back the casement window, all in jig-time. I could just see a shadowy man-size target trundling jerkily across the lawn. Flipping off the safety-catch I squeezed the trigger. There was a resounding click.
‘Lesson Two, Mortdecai,’ said the loudspeaker, ‘always keep your pistol loaded and within reach.’
‘It was bloody loaded,’ I snarled.
‘I know. I took the clip out while you were under the shower. Careless, very.’
‘How the hell am I supposed to shower with a pistol about me?’ I yelled.
‘Sponge-bag,’ said the loudspeaker succinctly.
When the dinner-gong roared I strolled warily downstairs, happy in the awareness of my pistol-heavy trousers pocket. There’s nothing like a nice new pistol to dispel a feeling of castration. Not a soul struck at me. Taking a line from the grimness of my quarters, I had been dreading dinner but I was agreeably surprised. Hare soup, a casserole of pheasant with apples à la Normande, a soufflé and one of those savouries that women make, all washed down with a couple of decilitres of something which tasted quite like Burgundy.
‘Excellent,’ I said at length, ‘quite delicious,’ and beamed amiably down the huge refectory-table. There were two or three silent men present but most of the staff and students were women, some six or eight of whom were undeniably nubile. Following my gaze, the Commandant said off-handedly, ‘Would you care for a girl to keep you warm tonight?’ I gulped, which is not a thing one should do when drinking brandy, it makes it go down the wrong way. Much of mine went down my shirt-front. ‘I daresay,’ she went on absently, ‘that one or two of them will be feeling randy – it’s all that violence on television, you know. No? Well, perhaps you’re wise. Need all your strength tomorrow.’
I turned my attention frantically upon the middle-aged woman on my right. She proved to be one of those astrology-bores that you meet everywhere nowadays and promptly asked me under which Sign I had been born.
Haven’t the least idea,’ I said, pishing and rushing freely.
‘Oh, but you must know! What is your birth-date?’ It seemed only civil to tell her, especially since she did not ask the year, but I took the opportunity to deliver my set-piece lecture about the stultifying folly of those who believe, in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century, that being born at one particular time and place will govern the whole of one’s character and future. ‘Why,’ I perorated, ‘this would mean that every triplet would be run over by a ’bus at the same time as his two siblings! Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote a sentence which has been the guiding-star of my life: “Children dear, never believe anything which insults your intelligence.” Reading that at an impressionable age has, I am confident, formed my nature much more positively than the moment, some er, chrm, forty years ago when a fashionable accoucheur glanced at an unreliable time-piece and, realizing that he had another appointment, decided to spare my mother any further vexation by calling for the high forceps. Surely you can see that?’
She, the astrology-bore, was wearing that rapt, attentive look which women use when wishing to flatter pompous idiots. Being an experienced pompous idiot, I know that this look means that the woman is not listening at all but is merely waiting for you to stop making noises with your mouth so that she can do a spot of uttering herself.
(As it happens, and if you must know, I was born on the last day of September, because my father begat me on the Christmas night of a year which I do not propose to divulge; I know this to be true because my father told me so in front of my mother and several of her friends – he was like that. When he saw my face fall he quite misconstrued my feelings and explained apologetically that he had been drunk at the time. My mother did not speak to him for weeks afterwards but few people noticed this because, by then, she was not speaking to him much at all, anyway. She was a woman of great beauty and dignity, although unpleasing in almost every other way you could imagine and a good few which you could not.)
When I had drawn to a close and had vouchsafed my birth-date the astrology lady seemed thrilled. ‘You’re a Libra, then, how wonderful! Guess what my sign is. Oh, do!’ I ransacked my mind for zodiacal signs. ‘Virgo?’ I said.
‘Silly,’ she said, lightly slapping my wrist. ‘I’m a ram – Aries. We rams are made for Libras.’ Well, I couldn’t correct her Latin, could I, so I just eyed her guardedly. Her face would have passed for an old but once expensive handbag and the crocodile-hide of her neck and bosom would have attracted a snappy bid from Gucci’s luggage-factory. ‘Not Wanted On Voyage’ was the phrase which sprang to mind.
‘Oh, come, come,’ I said diffidently.