Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon - M. C. Beaton [37]
“Goodnight,” said Agatha curtly. The door began to close.
“Look,” said Freddy, “I was trying to help you by being nice to her. Let’s have an evening by ourselves.” He suddenly wanted to kiss Agatha as she stood, pouting slightly.
“Oh, all right. Just us. When?”
“Wednesday evening?”
“With Charles?”
“Without Charles.”
“What will I tell him?”
“Tell him you’re working on the case.”
“That won’t work. He’ll wonder why I’m not taking him along. I know. There’s a ladies’ society meeting that evening. I’ll tell him I’m going there.”
“Good. He leaned forward to kiss her on the mouth, but Agatha drew back and said again, “Goodnight.” She still had not quite forgiven him for spending the whole dinner talking to Mabel.
Agatha heard Charles coming home sometime after midnight but pretended to be asleep.
Bill Wong rang the next morning and invited Agatha and Charles to his home for Sunday lunch.
“It’s an honour to be invited and I only accepted because of Bill,” said Agatha. “How did he turn out to be so sweet with such awful parents? And he adores them. He never notices how rude they are.”
Bill’s father was Hong Kong Chinese and his mother was born in Gloucestershire.
Mrs. Wong, small, bent, sour, and fussy, opened the door to them. She jerked her head by way of greeting. They followed her into the living room. Bill rose to welcome them.
The living room had been refurnished since Agatha had last seen it. There was a new three-piece suite covered in protective plastic, a low glass coffee table, a stuffed parrot on a perch by the window and a massive television set, all standing on a shag carpet of shocking pink.
“Where did the parrot come from?” asked Agatha.
“Great, isn’t it? Dad picked it up at a boot sale.”
Mrs. Wong came in with three small glasses of sweet sherry on an imitation silver tray which she banged down on the coffee table so that some of the sticky liquid slopped over the side. “Don’t be long,” she said.
Bill followed her out and came back with a roll of kitchen paper and the bottle of sherry. He mopped the tray and refilled the glasses.
They raised their glasses. “Cheers,” said Charles.
The door burst open. “Don’t sit there drinking all day,” said Mrs. Wong. “Food’s ready.”
They hurriedly put down their glasses and followed her into the dining room. The table was covered in a pink crocheted cloth. The knives and forks were imitation gold. Mr. Wong sat at the head of the table dressed in his usual old ratty grey cardigan. He grunted by way of greeting. His face was greyish yellow and he had a drooping moustache. Only his eyes behind thick glasses were like Bill’s.
Soup was served, soup out of a can, tomato soup, Agatha’s pet hate. But she was terrified of offending Bill’s formidable mother, so she drank the lot of it. She tried to discuss the case, but Bill said gently, “Afterwards, Agatha. Mum doesn’t like talking at the table.”
“Yus,” agreed Mr. Wong.
The next course was roast beef, cooked to the consistency of shoe leather, flanked by soggy potatoes, sprouts which had been boiled nearly to extinction and those canned peas which spread green dye all over the place.
Agatha chewed her way through the meal, glancing in amazement at Charles’s plate. He had eaten everything in remarkably quick time.
She was the last to finish, aware the whole time of Mrs. Wong’s beady eyes on her.
Mrs. Wong bustled round, collecting the plates.
“You’re making a lot of extra work for Mother,” commented Mr. Wong.
Agatha remembered her first visit to Bill’s home, imagining delicious Chinese cooking.
Mrs. Wong jerked up the hatch from the kitchen and shouted, “Pudding. Hand round the plates, Bill.”
Pudding turned up to be a piece of sponge cake in lumpy custard. Agatha gave up after a few mouthfuls. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wong. I can’t eat anymore.”
“There’s starving people in this world would be glad of that,” said Mrs. Wong.
Inside