Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [29]
‘We’ve tried Corfu,’ said Simpson. ‘It’s fairly picturesque. Cricket in the square, pig and chips in the tavernas. Have you tried Corfu?’
‘No,’ Edward said. ‘Helen’s rather tied up, you know – meetings and so forth.’
‘Meetings?’ said Muriel.
‘Well, she’s on various committees . . . politics . . . school . . . that sort of thing.’
‘What schools?’ asked Binny. ‘What sort of thing?’
‘She’s a school governor,’ admitted Edward. ‘And she’s secretary of the local Liberal party.’
Binny started to have palpitations. She had to put her hand to her mouth to stop abusive words coming out. Though Edward had mentioned on occasions that Helen was at one of her meetings, she had somehow gained the impression that they were to do with the W.V.S. or even the church. He hadn’t hinted that Helen was clever or influential, or in a position of power.
‘I’ve a lot of time for the Liberals,’ said Simpson.
Binny moved the vase of carnations to one side so that she could see Edward clearly. ‘Last April,’ she began, ‘I was taken out for the day by a gentleman friend. It was terribly exciting for me, as you can imagine. Just for the day, you understand. We went to Yorkshire—’
‘It’s getting awfully late,’ Edward said.
‘We left London very early in the morning and arrived about eleven. The moment I stepped into the car, I couldn’t stand him. I went right off him. I don’t know why . . . he just annoyed me—’
‘Yorkshire’s so pretty,’ said Muriel.
‘I wanted to go to sleep in the car but he wouldn’t let me. He kept pointing at trees and boring things like that, as if I’d never seen one before. I was worn out. And then, when we got there, he wouldn’t just stop and get out so that we could walk in the country. He kept driving on a little bit further to find somewhere more suitable. It was all suitable to my mind. I couldn’t see why, if I wasn’t allowed to get out and walk, I couldn’t have a bit of shut eye. He was still going on about trees. Anyway, he found somewhere he called suitable and we set off with the sandwiches I’d made. I was terribly hungry . . . I was ravenous—’
‘You’d had breakfast,’ Edward said. ‘I expect.’
‘But I wasn’t allowed to eat the sandwiches, because that had to be done in a suitable place as well. So I ran off over a field and the next thing I knew this bull started coming towards me—’
‘Good God,’ said Simpson. He was relieved to hear about the bull. He’d feared she was going to divulge all sorts of intimacies in the grass. It couldn’t be much fun for old Freeman, listening to tales about her ex-boyfriends. He was looking jolly miserable.
‘I ran like hell in the other direction and called this man’s name. He wouldn’t answer at first . . . he thought I’d come back for the sandwiches. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I felt I’d been a bit rotten and to make amends I asked him about what his uncle did to the grass. He was very fond of this uncle and I thought if I sounded interested he’d be pleased. His uncle used to set fire to tussocks of grass or something. To help the sheep. When it all gets matted and old after the winter, the sheep can’t get at the new grass underneath. Have you ever tried to light a fire in the open air?’
‘Not often,’ said Muriel. ‘As a child perhaps, when camping.’
‘It’s damned difficult,’ Simpson said. ‘There’s a knack to it. You have to build a kind of tent made out of twigs. It’s a question of—’
‘Well, I’d never had the knack,’ continued Binny. ‘I just idly struck a match and put it to the ground.’ Dramatically she pursed her lips and made a zipping sound. Her fist shot into the air like a rocket taking off.
The Simpsons stared at her open-mouthed.
‘I only did it to be nice to him . . . to show I had faith in his silly old uncle. It was meant as a compliment really. There were sheep having small sheep . . . you know, they were pregnant—’
‘Lambing,’ said Simpson knowledgeably.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. A little flame ran up the hill like a worm . . . Then the whole field caught fire. There were