Part 11 (1/2)

7.

But it was always Ma, in her unruffled way, who shrewdly remembered the best and most important things and it was she who, next morning after breakfast, called Pop's attention to an event a week ahead.

'You know', she said, 'what it is next Thursday?'

Pop didn't; except that they were going home.

'That's Friday,' Ma said. 'Thursday the twenty-ninth I mean.'

Pop said he couldn't think what the twenty-ninth meant at all; he only knew that the month at St Pierre le Port seemed to have gone like the wind. He could hardly believe that soon they were going home.

'Mariette and Charley,' Ma said. 'Their wedding anniversary.'

'Completely forgot,' Pop said.

'Forgot, my foot,' Ma said slyly. 'The trouble is you don't get much practice with wedding anniversaries, do you?'

Pop confessed that this was quite true but nevertheless suggested darkly that he and Ma made up for it in other ways.

'Good thing too,' Ma said. 'Anyway, I thought we ought to give them a party.'

Perfick idea, Pop said. Jolly fine idea. Perfick. Tres sn.o.b.

'I thought we could ask Angela Snow and her sister and perhaps Mademoiselle Dupont. How does that strike you?'

Pop said that nothing could have struck him better. It was just the job. Mariette would be thrilled too.

'By the way,' Ma said, 'what's Angela Snow's sister like? If she's anything like her we'll have a high old party.'

She wasn't, Pop said.

'Oh?' Ma said. 'What's she like then?'

Pop found it difficult to say. He could find no handy word to describe Iris Snow with any sort of accuracy. He thought hard for some moments and then said: 'All I know is she wears false boosies and she's very pale.'

What a shame, Ma said. She was very sorry about that. She always pitied girls who had to wear those things. Good boosies were a girl's crowning glory, as you could see from all the advertis.e.m.e.nts there were about them everywhere nowadays.

Pop heartily agreed and invited Ma to consider our Mariette for instance, which in turn made him remark that he was glad to see that she and Charley were well on hooks again.

'Like love-birds,' Ma said. 'We must give them a good time on Thursday. The tops.'

Best party they could think up, Pop said. What did Ma suggest?

'Well,' Ma said, 'I tell you what I thought. I thought that as we've got Angela Snow coming to lunch today we'd discuss it all then. We can get Mademoiselle Dupont in over coffee and all talk about what we're going to eat and drink and so on. Have a proper laid-out menu and the table decorated and all that. How's that strike you?'

Again Pop thought it struck him very well. They could get all the wines ordered too and he would try to think up some special sort of c.o.c.ktail. The expense could be d.a.m.ned; the gherkins and the cuc.u.mber in vinegar lark would take care of that.

'Good,' Ma said. 'Now perhaps we'll get some real food.'

At lunch, before Mademoiselle Dupont joined them for coffee, a small but quite unprecedented incident took place: in Pop's experience anyway. The day was coolish, with a touch of that bristling westerly wind that could blow fine sand into every corner and crevice like chaff from a thresher. Even Angela Snow had put on a thick red sweater and Pop noticed that in spite of it she shuddered as she first sat down.

'Let's give the vin rosy a rest, shall we, Ma?' Pop said. 'Have something a bit more warming today.'

Just what she felt like, Ma said. Pop must choose a good one.

'Sky's the limit,' Pop said, and with infinite charm turned to Angela Snow and suggested that she should make the choice.

The customary Thursday langoustines not having arrived because the sea had been too rough it presently turned out that for lunch there was potage du jour and omelette au fromage followed by cotes de pore grillees with haricots verts.

'In that case burgundy,' Angela Snow said.

'A good one, mind, the real McCoy,' Pop said. 'No half larks. The best.'

Angela Snow said she thought in that case that the Chambolle Musigny '47 couldn't be bettered.

'Fire away,' Pop said. 'Make it two bottles.'

A waitress finally brought the wine in a basket cradle. A lot of dust covered the bottle and this, to Pop, was a sure sign of something good. The waitress then pulled the cork and poured out a little of the wine for Pop to taste but Pop was quick to say: 'No, no. Angela. Angela must taste it.'

She did.

'Corked,' she said firmly. 'No doubt about it. Must go back.'

A curious suspended hush settled on the table, broken only after some seconds by Primrose asking in a piping voice: 'What's corked, Pop?'

Pop didn't know; he hadn't the remotest idea what corked was. Obviously this wine lark was a bit dodgy, he thought, and privately decided he must go into it a bit more closely. There were things he didn't know.

'Of course it can happen any time, anywhere,' Angela Snow said. 'It's n.o.body's fault. It's one of those things.'

Pop said he was relieved to hear it and was on the verge of saying that 'corked' might not be a bad word to describe Iris Snow when he thought better of it and decided not to, in case Ma should somehow misunderstand.

The direct result of all this was that when coffee was brought Mademoiselle Dupont came to the table in more than usually nervous, apologetic mood. She apologized several times for the unfortunate incident of the Chambolle Musigny. Aware though she was of the ease with which it could happen at any time, anywhere, even to the best of wines, she would nevertheless have rather cut off her right hand than it should happen to milord Larkin and his family.

At the word milord Angela Snow was astounded into a silence from which she hadn't recovered by the time Ma was suggesting to an equally astonished Mademoiselle Dupont that the party wouldn't be complete if the children didn't have custard and jelly for afters.

Meanwhile the coffee filters had to be attacked. Pop always dealt with his, though never very successfully, by giving it a number of smart hostile slaps with the flat of his hand. Mostly these produced no visible result whatever. Charley's method was more simple. He merely pressed the top down hard and invariably spilt what coffee there was all over the place.

On the other hand Mademoiselle Dupont seemed lucky enough to be blessed with a special sort of filter, for while everyone else was struggling messily to coax a few black drops of liquid into the cups she was sipping away with alacrity, trying to calm her nerves.

'First, to decide how many people.'

Ma counted up the heads.

'Not counting Oscar and I think he's a bit young, don't you?' she said, 'I think there'll be a round dozen. That includes you', she said to Angela Snow, 'and your sister. And,' she said to Mademoiselle Dupont, 'you too.'

Mademoiselle Dupont's pale olive face at once started flus.h.i.+ng. She was most flattered, most honoured, but really it couldn't be. Her French and English began to mix themselves hopelessly, as always at times when she was excessively nervous, and she could only blurt out that it was tres difficile, impossible, quite impossible. There would be so much travail and Alphonse would need much watching.