Part 3 (1/2)
Three.
As a reluctant spring crept over the Cotswolds, Agatha's mind often turned to Wilson's offer of a job. At last he phoned her himself and she told him that she might be ready to start work in the autumn, because by the autumn the gardening days would be over. Mary had become a friend, despite Agatha's initial reluctance. She was always claiming, always ready to help, and her close relations.h.i.+p with James Lacey appeared to be at an end.
Daffodils shone in the gardens of the village, and then came the cascades of wisteria and heavy lilac blossoms. It was such a miserable spring that it seemed incredible that anything could blossom at all in the slas.h.i.+ng rain and gusts of chilly wind. Agatha intended to plant out her seedlings on the first of May. She had bought more trays of seedlings from the nursery and they lay alongside the 'home-grown' products in her greenhouse waiting for the big day.
She had promised Mrs Bloxby to help at the tombola stand on May Monday, which was when all the village celebrations were to take place. Sunday was to be May the first.
It was on Friday the twenty-ninth of April, that James decided he had been too hard on Agatha. She had in the past made him countless cups of coffee and brought him cakes. They had shared many adventures together. It nagged at his mind that he had taken Mary Fortune out for several dinners while Agatha had been away, and yet he had never asked Agatha out. He had at one time, he admitted, thought that Agatha was keen on him and he had s.h.i.+ed away from the thought. But the woman had been all that was normal. In fact, she had never called on him.
So on Friday morning he went and rang her doorbell and asked a fl.u.s.tered Agatha fl.u.s.tered because she was still in her dressing-gown out to dinner at a new restaurant in Moreton, the Game Bird.
Gardening forgotten for once, Agatha pa.s.sed the day in a daze of preparation, finding to her delight that gardening, along with a moderate diet, definitely had its compensations, for all her dresses now fitted her beautifully. She winced at the sight of a green dress. Definitely not green. Mary never wore anything else. She wondered vaguely about the mentality of a woman who always wore one colour. She took herself off to Oxford and got her hair cut and shaped. She bought new cosmetics. She bought new high heels and then, when she returned from Oxford, realized she had only left herself an hour to get ready, and she had originally planned to take two hours beautifying herself.
The doorbell rang just as she had finished. Thinking James was ten minutes early, she went to answer it. Mary stood there wearing the inevitable green; green blouse, green jacket, green slacks, green leather high-heeled sandals. She blinked a little at the sight of the new Agatha Raisin in little black dress, gold jewellery, and with her short brown hair gleaming in the light over the door.
”Coming to the pub?” asked Mary.
”Can't,” said Agatha cheerfully. ”James is taking me out for dinner.”
Mary's blue eyes went quite blank and then she said with a little laugh. ”Tomorrow then?”
”I'll meet you there at seven,” said Agatha. Mary waited, but no, Agatha was not going to spoil this golden meeting by inviting Mary in and risking having Mary include herself in the invitation when James arrived. ”See you,” said Agatha brightly and slammed the door.
She then waited in the hall in a frenzy of impatience. What if Mary should now call on James? What if they both came back together?
What if James said, 'Mary's going to join us'? What if...?
The doorbell rang, making her jump. Crossing the fingers of one hand, she opened the door with the other and let out a sigh of relief to see James there on his own, wearing a well-cut dark suit and looking heart-wrenchingly handsome.
”Whose car are we taking?” asked Agatha. ”Which one of us is going to do without drink?”
”Neither,” he said with a smile. He looked down the lane. ”Our taxi is just arriving.”
Agatha, made shy by happiness, sat very upright in the back seat of the taxi with James. Mrs Mason stopped on the corner and looked curiously at them as she pa.s.sed and then made her way to the Red Lion. By midnight, there would be very few people in Ca.r.s.ely who did not know that James Lacey had driven off with Agatha Raisin in a taxi.
Agatha, although she was slowly coming to appreciate good food and yet still was quite happy with junk, nonetheless had a sharp eye for a rip-off and her heart sank a little as they entered the elegant country-house atmosphere of the Game Bird. And yet all was calm and soothing. They had a drink in the small bar, seated in chintz-covered armchairs before a roaring log fire. Perhaps, thought Agatha, it was because the tablecloths in the dining-room were pink, as were the napkins. There was always something suspicious about restaurants which went in for pink tablecloths.
When they sat down at the table, huge menus were handed to them, the kind that are handwritten as if by a doctor, the writing is so nearly indecipherable.
It was very expensive and she blinked at the prices. But she was very hungry after her weeks of dieting and gardening no fruit diet, just eating less and decided to splash out. She ordered bouillabaisse, followed by the 'venison special', despite James's murmur that April might not be a good time to order venison.
”You forget,” said Agatha, ”that there is a lot of farm venison around these days.”
They talked about people in the village and James said he, too, would be planting out his seedlings. The bouillabaisse arrived. But it was nothing more than a rather thin fish bisque no bits of seafood and served only with one sliver of toast melba, and the soup was served in a very small bowl.
James had a tiny portion of pate, which was beautifully arranged on a small plate.
Determined to be good and not to make a fuss, Agatha drank her soup. She was still hungry when she had finished but then there was the venison to look forward to. The wine, although French vintage, and claiming to be Montrechat, tasted even to Agatha's untutored palate thin and vinegary.
But then her venison arrived. It was a small piece surrounded by carefully sculptured vegetables and covered in a cranberry sauce. No vulgar fattening potatoes. ”That looks good,” said James heartily, a shade too heartily. He had ordered duck in orange sauce.
Agatha attacked her venison. One cut, one mouthful proved her worst fears. Never had she seen a piece of meat with so much gristle. Her stomach let out a baffled rumble of disappointment.
She cracked.
Agatha imperiously summoned the head waiter. ”Yes, madam?” He stooped over the table.
”Can you tell me,” said Agatha in a thin voice, ”which part of the animal this comes from? Its hooves? Its knees? The bit between its eyes?”
”Perhaps madam is not accustomed to venison?”
Deep down inside her, Agatha's working-cla.s.s soul flinched. Her temper snapped. ”Don't you dare patronize me,” she said. ”This is a lump of gristle. And while we're on the subject, that bouillabaisse was a rip-off, too.”
”Dear me,” said an acidulous-looking woman with a strangled would-be upper-cla.s.s voice from the table behind Agatha, ”the tourist season is here again.”
Agatha whipped round. ”Screw you,” she said contemptuously. Then she turned her bearlike eyes back to the head waiter. ”I'm telling you this stuff is c.r.a.p.”
Her voice had been overloud. Everyone had stopped talking and was staring at her. She flushed red.
”I don't know about the venison,” said James mildly, ”but this duck is as tough as old boots and appears to have been microwaved.”
”I will get the owner,” intoned the head waiter.
”I'm sorry, James,” said Agatha miserably.
He leaned across the table and poked at Agatha's venison experimentally with his fork. ”You know, you're right,” he said. ”It is a lump of gristle. And here, unless I am mistaken, comes the owner.”
A huge man bore down on their table. He had a large body and a surprisingly small head. ”I know your sort,” he said in a thick Italian accent. ”Get outta here. You don't wanna pay. So don't pay.”
”We do not mind paying,” said James stiffly, ”just so long as you take this away and bring us some decent food.”
The owner let out a growl of rage like a Klingon at a death ritual and seized the four corners of the tablecloth. He gathered up the lot and strode off to the kitchen with it over his shoulder, wine and gravy dripping down his ma.s.sive back.
”Time to leave,” said James. He stood up and helped Agatha out of her chair.
Covered in shame, Agatha went outside. It was a clear, starry night. Far above the Fosse they twinkled, cold and remote from the social anguish of one middle-aged lady who felt she had not only blown the evening but destroyed all her hopes of romance. And then she realized James was laughing. He was leaning against the wall of the restaurant, laughing and laughing. At last he looked down at her, his eyes glinting in the streetlights. ”Oh, Agatha Raisin,” he said, ”I do love you when you're angry.”
And suddenly the stars above whirled and the Fosse became a Parisian boulevard and the world was young again and Agatha Raisin was young and pretty and attractive.
She grinned and said, ”Let's go to the pub next door and get some beer and sandwiches.”
Most of the pubs in the Cotswolds are comfortable places, redolent of age and centuries of good living. The sandwiches were delicious and the beer was good. They talked comfortably like old friends, Agatha cautiously determined to be on her best behaviour.
”We must do this again,” he said after he had called for a taxi to take them home. ”A very cheap evening after all.”
And Agatha, a few minutes later sitting beside him in the taxi, reflected that if one is in the grip of an obsession, nothing is ever enough. She had told herself at the beginning of the evening that all she wanted was for them to be friends again, but now she longed for him to put an arm around her shoulders in the darkness of the taxi and kiss her. The longing was so intense that she felt her breathing becoming ragged and was half sad, half relieved when the short journey was over and he refused her offer of coffee, but said he would no doubt see her in the pub on the following day.