Ostrich Country

‘Ah, a Frenchman,’ said Tarragon.

‘I hope you won’t mind my asking,’ said the vaguely familiar young man. ‘But you don’t happen to have a vacancy, do you? In the kitchen, I mean.’

‘Well, we do need a vegetable chef,’ said Mrs Hassett.

The whole thing was fixed up in no time, and the vaguely familiar young man bought drinks all round.

‘You’re Tarragon Clump, the kidney surgeon, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘We call ourselves renal surgeons, but yes, I am.’

‘I met you at my cousin’s prediction party. I’m Pegasus Baines.’

‘I thought you were vaguely familiar.’

‘He’s never even been vaguely familiar with me,’ said the other young man.

‘This is my friend Mervyn,’ said Pegasus.

The tall, familiar one had apparently been driving around from hotel to hotel, begging for work.

Tarragon fixed his eyes on Mrs Hassett’s neck and said: ‘His cousin writes a horoscope. Old friend of mine.’

‘I never read them,’ she said. ‘Afraid, perhaps.’

‘Any operations on royalty yet?’ said Pegasus.

‘Not yet,’ said Tarragon.

‘A good year for kidneys, is it?’ said Mervyn.

‘The beer’s good,’ said Pegasus.

Tarragon felt annoyed. These people had come between him and Mrs Hassett. They had disturbed his afternoon.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll be off down the marsh. See if I can see the odd bird or two. Odd’s the operative word.’

Damn!

4

Pegasus sat with Morley and Diana on the back lawn of twenty-three Grimsdike Crescent, Uxbridge, waiting for Sunday lunch. Blackbirds sang, planes flew overhead, and the world stood still, waiting for Sunday lunch.

A faint breeze blew snatches of radio towards them, Two Way Family Favourites, the Critics. We’ve been to see the exhibition of Private Bob Norris of B.A.O.R. 17. I loved the way he captured the, the as it were, the at once transitory and yet eternal beauty of Mavis Bungstock, who lives at ninety-seven, Cratchett Lane, Axminster. She hopes to see you soon, Bob, and could well develop into the Francis Bacon of the 1970s.

They read the Sunday Times, each a different section, having nothing much to say to each other now. Diana was sixteen, still at school and too young for conversation. Morley was twenty-eight, a prematurely elder brother, serious, with slow movements and long anecdotes, a leader writer on a Yorkshire daily, a future pundit.

Pegasus felt nervous. He hadn’t told the family yet, and it would be hard. He was firmly expected to bring Grimsdike Crescent its first Nobel Prize. He wanted to tell Morley and Diana, but couldn’t begin.

‘Come and get it,’ said their father at the french windows.

They went and got it, Pegasus immediately, Morley gradually, Diana deliberately the last of all. There was wine — a rare treat.

‘After all,’ said his father, ‘it’s not often we’re all together.’

Pegasus was irritated by this apology. If the Shah of Persia had been there, what would he have thought? And he was irritated by his own irritation. A bottle of wine was an extravagance.

It had meant financial sacrifices bringing up the children. It had meant frayed carpets, a rusty lawn-mower, Radio Times but no T. V. Times, an old decrepit car. Pegasus felt that it was his irritation, not his father’s apology, of which the Shah of Persia would disapprove. And even now Paula was making love to a man who translated Ogden Nash into Latin. At this moment while Pegasus was chewing Yorkshire pudding she was biting gently at the thick dark hairs on that odious young man’s revoltingly hairy arms, while he mouthed sweet hexameters into her ear.

‘What’s wrong, Pegasus, aren’t you hungry?’

‘I was thinking.’

‘I hope you aren’t sickening for something.’

‘No, mother, I’m not sickening for anything.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said his mother, ‘it is nice, all being together like this.’

‘Quite a family,’ said his father.

‘I think Morley’s gone a lot more dour since he went up North,’ said Diana.

‘My library book’s set in the North,’ said his mother. ‘I can’t get into it. I don’t like sordid books.’ (Murmurs of dissent.)

‘There’s nothing sordid about the North,’ said Morley.

‘Except what the bosses plunged it into in the industrial revolution,’ said Diana.

‘The distinctions drawn between the North and the South are a romantic myth,’ said Morley. ‘We try to see in the North the kind of strength and simplicity we would like to have.’

‘There are some very nice parts of the North,’ said his mother. ‘Your father and I are very fond of Wensleydale, aren’t we George?’ (Uproar.)

‘We’re talking about the real North,’ said Diana.

I must join in. I must say something. I mustn’t put myself at a distance.

‘Anyway this Yorkshire pudding is very good,’ said Pegasus.

How old his mother was, he thought. Shrinking. Hardly more than five foot tall these days. Liable to disappear by 1990 at this rate. Beginning to call him Diana by mistake. She had aged at the same rate as him, and so he had never noticed it. She had been there, busy about the house, not sparing herself, a familiar landmark, twenty-five years older than he was. Now overnight she was old. She was a human being. She had been young. He knew nothing about her.

‘It’ll be warm enough to sit outside,’ said his father.

His father looked a little strained, a little haggard, a little baggy. His father too was very pleased about his scientific leanings.

‘The temperamental differences between Yorkshire and Lancashire people are considerably more radical than the difference between say Pontefract and Bedford,’ said Morley, droning on.

Short work was made of the washing up. It was found to be just possible to sit outside in the deck-chairs, in a sheltered corner of the garden.