Ostrich Country

Pegasus cherished a secret ambition — to be a chef in a country inn. He’d never told anyone, not even Paula, for fear they’d laugh. It had become, over the years, something almost shameful. Several times he’d been on the point of taking action, but always this fear of ridicule had held him back. Now, with Cousin Percy’s prediction to urge him on, it would be different.

‘You will star in a new musical,’ said Cousin Percy to Pamela Blossom, actress, singer, pin-up of the Atlantic weather ship S.S. Hailstone.

‘I could do with the money,’ said Miss Blossom.

He wanted to leave, to start his new life straight away, to go down to Kensington Gardens, to the seat, and say good-bye to Paula. He accepted another glass of the red wine and willed Cousin Percy to hurry up.

‘You will win a vast new export order in the Middle East,’ said Cousin Percy to Thomas Windham, the industrialist.

‘That would certainly be just the fillip we need, and I’m sure everyone at Articulated Tubes and Cartons, on both sides, will do their level best to make your prophecy come true,’ commented Thomas Windham.

Fifteen celebrities sitting in a circle, waiting for their predictions, waiting for the photographer to catch their modest smiles, all invited because they were tipped to be the big names in their chosen fields during the next decade. All except Pegasus, who was there because he was family.

‘You will operate on a royal personage,’ said Cousin Percy to Tarragon Clump, the kidney surgeon.

‘Well well,’ said Tarragon Clump, who wasn’t used to giving quotes.

Why had they all come? Vanity? Curiosity? Dipsomania? Agoraphobia? And why did Cousin Percy do it? Aged thirty-four. Ordained 1959. Suddenly lost his faith during the 1961 Cup Final, in the fifty-third minute. Became a free-lance journalist and designer. Pegasus had seen a play he’d designed — strong, spiky scenery. What had made him become the horoscopist for Clang and give this repulsive prediction party?

‘Will I do the double this year?’ said Edward Forrest, the cricketer, whom Pegasus had once seen bowled first ball at Lords.

‘It will be a rewarding time emotionally, and a plan will bear fruit,’ said Cousin Percy.

‘Stuff the bloody emotions,’ said Edwin Forrest. ‘Stuff a plan bearing fruit. Will I do the double?’

He would leave London, the dreary institute off the North Circular Road, the bad dreams, his Hampstead flatlet where an old woman died upstairs and three months later he found out.

There’d be no more dreams, not in the country. Dreamless sleep.

‘You will compere a new quiz programme between members of the dry-cleaning trade.’

At last the predictions were over. The circle broke up, conversation began. He could leave now.

He took a last glass of wine and drank it rapidly. Behind him someone said: ‘I suppose royalty would be much the same as everyone else as regards vital organs, would they, Mr Clump?’ but he didn’t stop to hear the reply. He said: ‘Good-bye. I must be off,’ and Cousin Percy said ‘Oh, are you off?’ and then the voices faded and he was breathing the cold, clammy February air and he was on his way to Kensington Gardens.

He must get away from his old haunts and his memories of Paula. He must stop hanging around the National Film Theatre on Jean-Luc Godard nights in the hope of seeing her. He must cease these visits to Kensington Gardens.

His heart quickened as he approached the seat — the fifth seat on the left of the Broad Walk going towards Bayswater. It was on this seat that he had first kissed her, and it had been there that they had usually met.

He sat on the seat now and thought about her. He thought about the smell of her flesh, that faint, earthy, rubbery emanation of warmth.

She had light fair hair and her eyes … he couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes.

His parents would be upset. They had made sacrifices. Weather forecasting wasn’t all that well paid. They saw him as a famous biologist. His mother had visions of the Nobel Prize. Stockholm. Steady, sincere, unemotional applause. It would be hard to tell them, especially after all these years, especially after it had grown into such a secret ambition.

A new leaf, blown on warm zephyrs. A new life. A new Pegasus. New business and personal interests. A limitless prospect. You’re going to miss out on all this, Paula.

The sky was heavy and colourless. Night would creep up unobserved. Pegasus sat on the seat, rather drunk, rather cold, thinking about Paula.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember her legs, slightly on the short side. She was a little round-shouldered but very desirable, unless his memory was playing him false. He thought of his lips flecking the inside of her arm just below the armpit, and of licking her left ear, in Academy One, during the Czech cartoon.

Soon his eyes filled with tears and his lips moved a little as he appealed to her.

Paula, Paula, how could you do it? I would have adored you for ever. Any impression you may have received to the contrary was caused by the tension which is inseparable from an intimate relationship between two tender and passionate souls. How could you leave me for anyone, let alone a man who translates Ogden Nash into Latin as a hobby? How could you make such a nonsense of my life, my darling rubbery lovely utterly …

Hell! A light silent rain was beginning to fall from the still, grey February sky. He was getting wet, because he had brought no raincoat, because his father had told him that the fine weather would continue.

2

Some of the slides had a man in them, and when one of these was shown the pigeons would find food. Some of them had no man in them. This meant that the pigeons would find only buttons and hard objects in the bowls.

When this pattern had been fully established, when man in slide equalled goodies even to the most retarded pigeon, Cummings would insert the algae. Some untreated, some flavoured, some mixed with pesticides, some from the outflow of nuclear power stations. Then Bradley and Pegasus would correlate the results.

Pegasus was merely a cog in all this. Miss Besant brought him his instructions from Mr Colthorpe, he got his results, Miss Besant took his results back to Mr Colthorpe. His little piece of work was fitted into someone else’s grand design.

Bradley passed through now.

‘Fantastic,’ said Bradley.

‘Yes?’

‘The cats given the fish-flavoured weed from the Yorkshire Ouse are doing fantastically well. Twelve per cent heavier than the cats fed on normal cat food.’

‘Fantastic.’

This was progress. Vast immovable growths of weed-guzzling cat. Must make the break today, while Cousin Percy’s prediction is fresh in my mind.

Pegasus had often alleviated the boredom and distastefulness of his work by trying to convince himself that it was in the national interest, that he was a dedicated man, patriotically resisting the brain drain.

At other times, when he was wanting to persuade himself to give up and become a chef, he’d tried to convince himself that it wasn’t in the national interest, or that the national interest wasn’t in the world interest, or something, anything helpful.

He had never yet convinced himself of anything.

He began to go through the arguments again, the same old arguments, so familiar that he thought of them in note form nowadays.

He thought: Food, research into new sources of. For: increased use of earth’s resources. Elimination of starvation. Against: increased depletion of earth’s resources. Elimination of starvation could lead to even worse population problems, hence to even worse starvation.

Conclusion as regards value for mankind of nutritional experiments: no conclusion.

Miss Besant was typing — smoothly, lightly, efficiently, by way of contrast with her plump figure and red legs. She lodged in Willesden with two friends, kept her personality in the bank and only withdrew it at week-ends.

The coffee came round. Have one on me, Miss Besant. Nice momentarily to feel generous. Vile coffee. Niceness gone. No air. Stifling. Poor old pigeons. Dancing helplessly to man’s absurd tune. Slides in one of the cages not coming through. Sort that out. Coffee now cold. Resume arguments.

To hell with the arguments. Make the break now.

‘Miss Besant?’

The clacking stopped.