Part 15 (1/2)

When everything was finally packed and everyone was in the car Ma quite imperial in the back, with little Oscar in her arms Pop went up to the steps of the hotel and under the astonished eyes of M. Mollet gave Mademoiselle Dupont a prolonged parting sample of amorous affection that even had the children cheering from the car.

'Here, stand back and let the dog see the rabbit!' Ma called.

'Au revoir!' Pop said. 'Good-bye, Mademoiselle,' and at last retreated from her dazed figure with several debonair waves of the hand. 'A bientot! Au revoir, merci! So long! Good-bye.'

'Good-bye!' she called. 'Au revoir! Good-bye! Adieu!'

'Good-bye! Au revoir'! everyone called. 'Adieu. Good-bye!'

When Pop got back into the Rolls even Ma had to confess she was surprised at the length and generosity of Pop's prolonged farewell.

'You wouldn't be if you'd seen the bill,' Pop said. 'Dammit, might as well have my money's worth.'

The bill was a blinder. He doubted very much if he'd ever get over the bill. Percentages for this, taxes for that, services for the other. Breathing charges. He doubted if even Charley, that master of figures, would ever be able to sort out all the dodgy squeezes in that bill. It had very nearly skinned him out, he told Ma, very nearly skinned him.

'Think we got enough to get home with?' Ma said.

'Might have to p.a.w.n the Rolls,' Pop said serenely. 'Well, so much for the French lark.'

Still, he thought a moment later, it was all over, it was well wurf it, and he gave a final chorus of contrapuntal toots of the horn in debonair farewell as the Rolls moved away.

As soon as the Rolls was out of sight and Pop's cheerful tooting of first the medodious tune of the country horn and then the symphonic bra.s.s of the town one had died away Mademoiselle Dupont rushed back into the hotel, determined that no one should detect the tears in her eyes. But when the red roses arrived at two o'clock there was no help for it and she lay for the rest of the afternoon on her bed, weepily watching the roses in their big gla.s.s vase and seeing over and over again the pictures Pop had painted for her of his home, his chateau, the lordly paradise, in England. Never again would she say that the English were frigid and reticent or restrained or that they took their pleasures sadly or that fog perpetually covered their land. She knew it to be otherwise.

Meanwhile, as the Rolls drove along the coast, Ma called Pop through the speaking-tube.

'I don't know what you did to Mademoiselle Dupont last night but you got her in a proper tizzy.'

'Nothing,' Pop said airily. 'Nothing. Not a thing.'

'Did you ask her to marry you?'

Pop said he rather thought he had. Hadn't he ought to have done? Ma wasn't offended? After all she'd given him the cufflinks. Had to encourage her a bit.

'Oh! it's not that,' Ma said and started laughing in her customary hearty fas.h.i.+on. 'I was only thinking I hope she don't have to wait as long as I have.'

Pop burst out laughing too. That was one of Ma's good ones. Well, bill or no bill, it had been a pretty good holiday. Done everybody a whale of good, he thought, getting to know how foreigners lived. Especially Mariette and Charley, who both looked in the pink. He'd expect results now.

'I expect you asked Angela too, didn't you?' Ma said down the tube.

'Shouldn't wonder,' Pop said. 'She said summat about it.'

Ma said she wasn't worried about Angela. She was a sport. She could take care of herself. But she didn't want Pop going round putting people in a tizzy and breaking their hearts. You'd got to draw the line somewhere.

Pop agreed, but still when you were in Rome 'Oh! talking about Rome, there's another thing,' Ma said. 'Have you thought any more about little Oscar's names?'

Pop was quick to confess he hadn't.

'Well, I know you've been busy, but we can't let the poor little mite go about all his life with only one name, can we?' Ma said. That would be a nice thing, wouldn't it?'

Terrible, Pop said.

'Well, I've been thinking a lot about it. Are you listening?'

Yes, Pop told her on the tube, he was listening.

'Well,' Ma said, 'I tell you what.'

'Half a minute. We want something good. Something special. No half larks. Something a bit tres sn.o.b.'

'I know that,' Ma said. 'Anyway I've thought what I'd like to call him.'

'Oh?' Pop said. 'What?'

'I thought we'd call him Oscar Livingstone David Larkin.'

Pop was silent for some moments. All his strong paternal instincts came steeping warmly to the surface as he contemplated the proposed trio of names for his son. The names had got to be right, he thought again, no half larks.

Almost immediately he had a qualm about it and called back to Ma down the tube: 'No, Ma. Won't do. Not them. Can't have them.'

'Oh?' Ma said. 'Why not?'

'Makes his initials O.L.D.,' Pop said. 'He'll be called Old Larkin all his life. Can't have that.'

Ma cordially agreed; they couldn't possibly have that; and before she could think of anything else to say Pop called her again on the tube.

'Giving us a bit of trouble, this one,' he said. 'Good job it wasn't twins,' and went on to shoot a sudden, uneasily pertinent question at Charley 'Twins run in your family, Charley old man?'

Not that he knew of, Charley said.

'Well they do in ours!' Pop said in direct, open challenge, 'you want to watch what you're up to.'

And what did that mean? Ma said. Watch what who was up to?

'Well, you know,' Pop said darkly.'Somebody or other.'

Mr Charlton treated these exchanges with silence, not only because it was a silence he thought they deserved but also because he couldn't for the life of him think of anything remotely sensible to say.

'What was that you said about Rome, Ma?' Pop said. 'Didn't you say once you wanted to call him after some Roman Emperor?'