LITMIR.BIZ

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word for it, in the whole business of this pending birth. Why? She’d seen all kinds of animals born, she’d even given birth herself. Technically there was no mystery; but if she closed her eyes she instantly saw the mare’s large lustrous eyes, could almost feel the trembling which racked her every now and again. So few things ever affected her personally that she was almost afraid of the degree to which she was … very well, obsessed by the small (vast) everyday act of nature which was proceeding ineluctably over there at the corner of the yard. It seemed to have some meaning for her which she was unable to understand.

      Presently she became aware of the postman’s van parked near the manor; turned and went to collect her mail, she was expecting a contract.

      Laurence Otterey had heard the clack of his letter-box but couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed in order to claim a few bills, and so lay there staring at the Kilner jar in which Mrs Merritt had transported her soup. He had made up his mind to abandon the damned novel, in fact to burn it so that there was no going back short of writing those 180 pages all over again, a penance he had no intention of undertaking.

      He turned his face into the pillow and lay there inert, as if his block, the whole ton of it, had squashed him to death.

      Down at The Lodge, Edvard Kusnik rewound the tape of Concertante 100 and then stood watching it wipe itself clean forever. Was it the trash he now imagined it to be, or was it perhaps the best thing he’d ever done? If the latter, others, not he, were responsible for its destruction: all those anti-Semitic apes who inhabited the rest of Crestcote. Yes, and that went for Lisa MacDonnell too; if she hadn’t preferred her chunks of marble to his own beautiful, warm, virile body all this self-doubt might have been avoided; there was nothing like a little active sex for bolstering artistic confidence. By the time the silly cow came to her senses it would be too late. In fact, he thought grimly, watching the slowly revolving tape, it was already much, much too late.

      Sarah Langdale was very fond of her resident sculptress, preferring her to any other member of the community; it was an affection which Lisa MacDonnell returned. They now leaned side by side against Lisa’s marble, watching through the door of the coach-house/studio the interesting antics of Madame Vicky Lind who had cornered Sarah’s husband on the far side of the yard, waving a sheet of paper under his nose and at the same time haranguing him energetically. Oliver Langdale was looking irritated and apprehensive; both were red in the face.

      ‘What,’ inquired Sarah, ‘do you imagine it’s all about?’

      ‘Oh, this,’ replied Lisa without hesitation, ‘bet you anything you like. I know she got one.’ Sarah took the photocopied anonymous note, liberally marked with rings from the bottom of Lisa’s coffee-mug, and stared at it. I saw you in London last night. Wickedness! More later.

      ‘But … Lisa, what does it mean?’

      ‘Nothing, I’d say, except that there’s a nutter around.’ She had turned to the marble and was feeling it with practised fingertips.

      The Lord of the Manor, followed by an expostulating Vicky Lind, was now advancing on them. He was saying, ‘You mustn’t let it upset you, for God’s sake, it’s obviously some kind of practical joke.’

      ‘Even the crowd you’ve got here,’ snapped Vicky, ‘would hardly call that a joke.’

      Still examining the marble for possible flaws, Lisa said, ‘Anyway, I’d have thought we’re all far too self-centred to even think of playing jokes on each other.’

      ‘You don’t suppose,’ asked Sarah, aghast, ‘that everybody’s been sent one?’

      Oliver was avoiding his wife’s eyes, for the simple reason that he had found a copy of this very communication among the correspondence awaiting his return, and he was only just containing the guilty conscience and panic it had aroused in him. As Sarah, Mrs Merritt and young Kevin suspected, he had no more been in Ireland buying a horse than in India buying an elephant; he had been shacked up in Brown’s Hotel with his latest lady-love who happened to be the wife of an exceedingly rich and influential neighbour. A dreadful suspicion crossed his mind that this appalling Lind woman was using the letter to blackmail him: he said, ‘Were you in London last night?’

      ‘No. I was here, and lots of people saw me.’

      Panic was making Oliver feel weak in the back of his legs. Somebody was blackmailing him all right. Think of the scandal if his exceedingly rich and influential neighbour found out—if the media found out, for God’s sake—perhaps most appalling of all (but noticeably the last to enter his mind) if Sarah found out! Forcing himself to think coherently, he was almost sure that his wife never bothered with any envelope which wasn’t addressed to her personally, picking these out and leaving all the rest, including the junk mail, to him. Or had she on this occasion noticed the unaddressed envelope and been curious? He glanced at her pretty, comfortable face and thought not; if she’d read the anonymous note she’d have said so, instantly, that was the kind of person she was. Well, wasn’t she? And besides, he had examined the envelope carefully for signs of it having been steamed open. There were none.

      Very well, so Sarah didn’t know about it but somebody did, and that somebody could cause the most disastrous havoc. For God’s sake, who could it be and how could he be silenced?

      Sarah was now coping efficiently with Mrs Lind’s bad temper. ‘I think Oliver’s right, it’s got to be someone’s idea of a joke—in very bad taste. Lisa, don’t you agree?’

      Lisa shrugged, turning from her examination of the marble. ‘Could be. Your British sense of humour has always defeated me.’

      ‘All I hope,’ said Madame Lind, ‘is that you get to the bottom of it damn quick.’ Her attitude was beginning to rile Sarah, who replied more sharply, ‘And how would you go about that?’

      ‘Ask your inmates,’ suggested Vicky, as to an idiot.

      Oliver might betray his wife at the drop of a hat, but he wasn’t going to have this tedious, and really rather common, little woman being rude to her; also he didn’t awfully like the word ‘inmates’. ‘What good would that do? Whoever it is would obviously lie.’

      Vicky snorted. ‘It’s a very unpleasant situation. I’ve always felt protected here, that was the major … lure in your prospectus.’

      At this, Sarah’s irritation came to the boil: ‘There were no “lures” in our prospectus, and we’ve never promised any kind of protection. Crestcote’s part of the world, and the world’s a pretty lousy place these days. If you don’t like it here you’re free to go—we’d waive the month’s notice.’

      Lisa thought this was a damn good answer, but Madame Lind, no fool, sidestepped it neatly: ‘If you ask me, it’s a matter for the police—there’s a sex-maniac around.’ Like many women with little interest in sex, she was adept at seeing satyrs behind every bush. She turned on Lisa: ‘You don’t seem very interested, I must say.’

      ‘Frankly I don’t give a damn, I’ve more important things to worry about.’

      ‘Well, don’t blame me if the whole thing blows up in your face. People who ignore obvious warnings get what’s coming to them. And this—’ waving the photo-copy—‘is typical of a deranged male mind.’

      Oliver had a nasty feeling that there was nothing deranged about it; in fact, he was now quite sure that all these other notes had been sent as a blind, concealing the truth: that he himself was the real target. Meanwhile his wife, ashamed of her moment’s anger, took Vicky’s arm and said, ‘We’ll bring it up at dinner tonight—it’ll be fun. You are coming?’

      ‘I intended to, but now …’

      ‘You must. And I bet it will all have explained itself away long before then.’

      The anonymous note was showing no sign of doing any such thing. On the contrary, it was causing reverberations all over Crestcote that afternoon.

      Johnny Ash and Rosamund

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