Cynthia Manson (ed) (51 page)

The Hon. Con was not of
course so bedazzled that she overlooked the grimmer side of the picture.
Bringing good will and Christmas cheer to a pack of some seventy-five infant
savages is no joking matter, and the Hon. Con took every reasonable precaution
for her own protection. She would like to have equipped herself with an
electric cattle prod or a lion-tamer’s whip and a kitchen chair, but she knew
the Ladies’ Organising Committee would never stand for that so she settled for
something less exotic. Like heavy boots with reinforced toe-caps, a pair of
cricket pads to protect the old shins, and a small rubber truncheon stuffed
down the leg of her red trousers just in case she was obliged to move on to the
offensive.

On the day of the party
the Hon. Con and Miss Jones set off in good time. This was partly because the
Hon. Con, arrayed in full festive rig, had trouble even getting into the Mini,
never mind actually driving it, and partly because they had to attend a final
briefing in the main or Margaret Thatcher Hall of the Conservative Club.

The lady helpers were all
somewhat anxious and on edge as they gathered round their leader, Mrs. Rose Johnson,
Chairperson of the Ladies’ Organising Committee. Mrs. Johnson, however, rattled
through the battle orders with an air of quiet confidence which, though
completely spurious, did help to steady the troops. Indeed, some of the ladies
felt so much better that they even started grumbling about the allocation of
duties. Mrs. Johnson sighed. This happened every year, no matter how often she
reminded them that all the various jobs were distributed strictly by lot. She
knew as well as anybody that some posts were more, well, dangerous than others,
but what could she or anybody else do about it? Trying to keep track of what
people had done in previous years was simply too complicated, and considerable
concessions had already been made in respect of the so-called latrine fatigues.
Nowadays only bona fide mothers were stationed in the cloakrooms as, when it
came to overexcited kids and the undoing of buttons, a certain deftness had
been found essential if disasters were to be avoided.

Taking everything into
consideration, Mrs. Johnson felt that everybody should be reasonably satisfied
with the arrangements, but it came as no very great surprise that one person in
particular wasn’t. As the meeting came to an end and the ladies, with
exhortations to stand firm and unflinching ringing in their ears, began
dispersing to their battle lines, the imposing figure of Lady Fowler could be
seen swimming doughtily against the stream. She trapped Mrs. Johnson by the
platform.

“God damn and blast it,
Rose,” she exclaimed—her husband had been knighted for services to the
fish-paste and tinned pilchard industry which may account for the forcefulness
of her language—”you’ve bloody well done it again!”

Mrs. Johnson tried, and
failed, to move what was obviously going to be a bruising encounter away from
the platform on which a dejected group of total strangers was huddled,
listening gloomily to every word. “Done what, dear?”

“Given that bloody
Lyonelle Lawn bitch the best goddamn job again! That’s three bloody years on
the trot!”

Mrs. Johnson ruffled
unhappily through her sheaf of papers. “The best job, dear? Oh, I’d hardly call
being stuck by the fire exit at the end of that draughty old corridor ‘the best
job,’ would you?”

“Compared with being
stuck for two solid hours in the middle of World War Three,” snarled Lady
Fowler, “yes, I damned well would! Last year I was on serving bloody teas and
this year I’ve copped marshalling the little bastards up to collect their
presents—and that’s in addition to being on sentry-go out here all the time the
entertainment’s going on. I suppose you know one of the little sods bit me last
time? Why the hell don’t I ever get one of these cushy jobs where—with luck—you
don’t even see a blasted kid from start to finish?”

“The Committee draw the
names out of a hat, dear,” protested Mrs. Johnson feebly, noting with chagrin
that the Hon. Con and that peculiar little woman of hers had moved up and were
now avidly eavesdropping on the other side. “It’s all absolutely fair and
aboveboard.”

Lady Fowler blew heavily
down her nose. “Damned funny it’s always Lyonelle Lawn who comes up smelling of
roses!”

Mrs. Johnson bridled. “I
hope you are not accusing me of indulging in some kind of favouritism,
Felicity!” she snapped. “I can’t think why you should imagine that I would do
Lyonelle Lawn, of all people, any favours. You know she’s definitely got
planning permission to build that bungalow at the bottom of their garden, in
spite of our objections? It’ll ruin our view of the river and knock thousands
off the price of our house.” Mrs. Johnson gave a bitter laugh. “Lyonelle Lawn
is hardly
my
blue-eyed girl.”

“Maybe you’re
over-compensating,” suggested Lady Fowler unkindly. “You know, being especially
bloody kind to the cow because you hate her so much. Understandable, but damned
tough luck on your friends.”

“Oh, don’t be so
ridiculous!” Mrs. Johnson looked round for something or somebody upon which to
vent her pent-up irritation. She found it on the platform where those
peculiar-looking folk were still hanging aimlessly around. Mrs. Johnson pounced
on them with relief. “I say, isn’t it about time you people were getting
yourselves ready?” she called. “You know—make-up and costumes and things? The
kiddies will be here any minute now and we don’t want to start running late.”

Silently, sullenly, and
led, somewhat improbably, by a midget, the group began shuffling off backstage.

Lady Fowler watched them
go before awarding herself the last word. “I don’t know why we bother hiring
outside entertainers, Rose,” she observed. “Your pet, Lyonelle Lawn, is
supposed to have been an actress of sorts, isn’t she? I’m sure she’d be
delighted to put on a show for us. Belly dancing, was it? Or striptease?
Anyhow, something frightfully artistic, I’m sure. I hear they loved her in
those ghastly workingmen’s clubs up North.”

The Hon. Con looked at
her watch as Lady Fowler and Mrs. Johnson went somewhat icily their separate
ways. “Oh, well, suppose it’s time I went and sorted those dratted old presents
out.”

Miss Jones, who didn’t
approve of eavesdropping—at least not in such a blatant manner—thought it was
more than time. She would like to have chided the Hon. Con for such ill-bred
behaviour, but she knew what the answer would be so she saved her breath.

The Hon. Con, being the
daughter of a peer of the realm as well as the finest private detective in
Totterbridge, was naturally a law unto herself. What in common people like you
and me would have been idle curiosity was in her case a serious, in-depth
research project into behavioural patterns. Private detectives were by
definition great students of human nature and everything was grist to their
mill.

Untrammelled by the
demands of husband and children, blessed with a considerable independent income
and spared even from having to bother with all those time-consuming little
domestic chores by the selfless devotion of Miss Jones, the Hon. Con did
occasionally find it hard to fill up her day. At first she had thrown herself
into charitable work, until the protests from the poor, the sick and the
deprived became too vociferous to be ignored. Then she had gone in for sport,
demolishing two tennis clubs, wrecking the entire local league for crown green
bowling, and implanting the kiss of death on mixed hockey. Her sallies into the
world of art fared little better, though the charge that she set back the cause
of modern music in Totterbridge by fifty years is exaggerated.

It came, therefore, as a
great relief all round (except to the police) when the Hon. Con discovered,
almost by chance, that she was a natural private detective. Her progress to the
very heights of her chosen profession would have been meteoric had it not been
for some petty jealousy on the part of the official forces of law and order,
and for the acute shortage of really juicy crimes in the Totterbridge area. Had
there been even a modest sufficiency of spy rings, mass murders, kidnapings,
and bank robberies to keep her going, you wouldn’t have found the Hon. Con
pottering around in a blooming old Santa Claus outfit, oh dear me, no! However,
there wasn’t so she was.

“Were that mangey crew
hanging about on the stage really the entertainers?” asked the Hon. Con.

Miss Jones nodded.
Although laying no claims to being either a master private detective or even a
student of human nature, Miss Jones always seemed to know what was going on.

“Thought we were going to
have a film show this year.”

“You have to have the
lights out for a film show, dear. Mrs. Johnson felt we just daren’t risk it.”

“What happened to that
conjuror fellow?”

“He refused to come
again, dear. After what they did to his rabbit.”

The Hon. Con jerked her
head in the direction of the stage. “So what are this lot supposed to be doing?”

“They’re a kind of
mini-circus, dear. You know, clowns and a juggler and a tightrope walker, I
think. And that midget, of course.”

“No animals?”

“They apparently have a performing
dog, dear, but Mrs. Johnson thought we hadn’t better tempt fate.”

The Hon. Con pondered the
situation and pronounced her verdict. “The kids’ll eat ‘em alive.” She looked
at her watch again. “You’d better be getting your skates on, Bones. It’s only
five minutes to D-day.”

Miss Jones managed a
brave little smile before trotting off to her post. She was on duty by the door
which led from the Margaret Thatcher Hall to the corridor in which the two
cloakrooms were located. It was her job to ensure that no more children at any
one time passed through those portals than the facilities could cope with. It
was no sinecure as almost everything seemed to get those Conservative toddlers
right in the bladder.

Two o’clock struck like a
death knell and the Totter-bridge & District Conservative & Unionist
Club’s annual Christmas party got under way with both bangs and whimpers.
Viewed as a whole, this year’s effort was better than some but worse than most.

It was unfortunate that
the proceedings opened with the professional entertainers. They were not a
success and the Hon. Con, tucked away in the manager’s office, listened to the
howls and cat-calls coming from the Margaret Thatcher Hall with gloomy
satisfaction. Her predictions were coming true and she could only hope that the
little swine would have run out of steam by the time it came to distribute the
presents.

The trouble was that the
children, reared on a healthy diet of slick TV sex and violence, just couldn’t
take a real man tossing three colored balls in the air while balancing a plate
on his nose. The contortionist came on, received several suggestions as to how
he might enliven his act, and switched frantically into his fire-eating
routine. This did cause a momentary lull but, when it became apparent that he
wasn’t about to set himself on fire and burn to death, the hostilities were
resumed. The midget fared no better, being told by one juvenile wit that he
ought to be in a preserving bottle at the Royal College of Surgeons. But it was
the lady tightrope walker who really whipped things up. Her appearance was
greeted by a hail of shoes, the only offensive weapons that the mites could lay
their tiny paws on, thanks to the foresight of the Ladies’ Organising
Committee, who had frisked every child on arrival.

The lady tightrope
walker, having been given the bird in better places than Totterbridge and being
in any case well insulated from the slings and arrows by gin, would probably
have weathered the storm if the midget hadn’t tried to come to the rescue. He rushed
onstage lugging a large packing case stuffed with cheap animal masks made of
paper which he proceeded to fling out at the audience by the handful. It was
reminiscent of some ignoble savage attempting to placate his gods, and about as
successful.

True, the children ceased
baying for the lady tightrope walker’s blood but only in order to husband their
strength for the furious internecine struggle which now flared up over items so
abysmally undesirable that, in calmer times, they wouldn’t even have been
removed from the cornflakes box.

Mrs. Johnson viewed the
melee with resignation and a faint touch of hope that it might die down of its
own accord. Only when blood began to flow and some of the smaller children had
gone not so much to the wall as halfway through it did she acknowledge that the
moment for desperate measures had arrived.

“Plan B, ladies!” she
screamed. “Plan B! Quickly, now!”

The ladies took a deep
breath, squared their shoulders, clenched their fists, and dived in.

Plan B was simple and consisted
only of taking the cheap paper masks away from the little kids and giving them
to the big kids, who were going to get them anyhow in the end. It merely
speeded up the natural order of things and was justified only by the fact that
it worked. Gradually the turmoil quietened. The circus performers had long ago
beaten a cowardly retreat and so it was, as ever, to Mrs. Carmichael that Mrs.
Johnson turned in her hour of need. Mrs. Carmichael was a pianist with an
inexhaustible repertoire of your old favourites and mine, and the touch of a
baby elephant. But she was used to soothing the savage beast and the children
were ready for a change. In a matter of seconds they were gleefully bawling out
highly obscene versions to the stream of popular songs which flowed from Mrs.
Carmichael’s leaden fingers.