Ways and Means Page 18

  ‘He would,’ put in Petula.

  ‘Sometimes bringing her some flowers or a small present.’

  ‘Let’s make it a small present,’ said Petula.

  ‘You wouldn’t have had to think how to spend your time. It would all have been done for you. Petula would have had several children and —’ Basil paused. ‘Well, now,’ he said eventually. ‘I wonder why we’ve never thought of that before.’

  It was not at all a prosperous little community which lived round Sutcliffe Bowling. They had neither cars nor horses and they had virtually no capital. The Vicar typified the place. He had a large, cold Vicarage which was gradually falling to pieces, a wife and five children and a tiny stipend on which to feed his family and educate his children. He certainly managed as well as was possible, but it was an uphill job. Everyone round him was similarly short of money and everything else, and the local pastime was borrowing. It was a game at which one could not hold the championship for long. Indeed, to become champion meant almost immediately complete eclipse. As soon as it was known that, say, Major Brain had qualified as the most successful borrower in the neighbourhood, no one would lend him anything. The game divided itself into two parts; the first part was to obtain the loan and the second to avoid giving it back. The Vicar never joined in this game, but he acted as a sort of unofficial umpire. He would be approached both by those who were trying to recover a loan and by those who were trying to borrow something. To the best of his ability and with complete impartiality, he advised his parishioners as to the best course to adopt. Major Brain had in fact been very successful at the first part of the game and was battling bravely with the second. He was besieged on all sides — now by Lady Brill for the return of her mowing machine (which he had broken and couldn’t afford to have repaired), now by the artist Paddy Langbourne, who, in a moment of lunacy, had lent him seven-and-six, and now by the local jobbing gardener who had lent him some pliers, which he had lost. It soon became fairly clear to the Vicar that Major Brain was the reigning champion, with the inevitable consequence that he found his way round to the Vicarage for consolation. Curiously enough, no one ever tried to borrow from the Vicar, but each succeeding champion made his way to the Vicarage for moral sustenance.

  ‘It’s absurd,’ said Major Brain. ‘I could easily write to one of my brothers, but I hate to worry them.’

  ‘That shows a nice family feeling,’ said the Vicar. ‘Let me see, how many brothers have you?’

  ‘Only two. There’s H. F. Brain, the miler, you know. He’s nearly ninety. And then there’s that old scapegoat, Willie. He’s nearly eighty. Both doing very well at the moment, I should say.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I haven’t heard from them for so long. Oh, well, there’s nothing for it, I suppose, I shall have to pop my dress clothes. Never wear them, anyway. Hope they haven’t got the moth. D’you know, I can’t even get half a pint on the slate. Half a pint. Now I ask you, Vicar. I’ve a good mind to clear out and wind up the whole shooting match. How can a man live on an Army pension?’

  ‘But where could you go?’

  ‘Anywhere, Vicar. Become a tramp, I suppose. I might manage to pick up a thing here and there, I suppose. But I can’t get any work here. Why, dammit, Vicar — excuse me — I’d mow old Charley’s lawn for a pint, but he says he can’t afford it, and I’ve bust the mowing machine. It’s a pretty pass, Vicar. My poor old father would turn in his grave, if he could see me. Haven’t even the price of a cigarette.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Vicar, ‘have one of mine.’

  ‘Now, I haven’t come round cadging, Vicar,’ said the Major, quite truthfully, but at the same time availing himself of the welcome offer. Then he saw that it was his last.

  ‘Oh, I can’t,’ he said. ‘I haven’t sunk as low as that.’

  ‘Plenty more in the other room,’ said the Vicar, easily reconciling the lie with his conscience.

  To Sutcliffe Bowling there came one day four strangers, Basil, Elizabeth, Nicholas, and Petula. They took the big house which had been empty for some years and which even the local authority would not take, as there was no one to put there. They bought it, with fifty acres, and started to settle in.

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ll stay any longer than the last people,’ the Vicar said to his wife, ‘but I’d better go and see them.’ He was very pleasantly surprised with his visit. Never in his time had any people arrived at Sutcliffe Bowling who seemed so anxious to bring in more than they wanted to take out. And they appeared wealthy, too.

  ‘You want a new village hall, Vicar,’ said Basil. ‘Could you get a licence?’

  ‘I expect we could get a licence,’ said the Vicar. ‘But it takes more than a licence to put up a village hall.’

  Six months later the affairs of Sutcliffe Bowling were in the process of transformation. The quartet had come there to start families, but they soon found that there was plenty of other interesting work to be done. The setting upon its feet of a half-moribund community quickly appealed to Basil and Nicholas as a job worth doing. It was fun to see such immediate results. Even Major Brain, who was now starting to spend more time in the big house than in his own, did not worry them. Indeed, they found it an interesting question to decide how to launch him again on the world. Finding that he was quite clever with his hands, they eventually set him up as a jobbing carpenter. He was delighted and soon became able to earn the price of a pint or (on a hot day) even a quart. The Vicarage itself started to take on a different air. Elizabeth went to see the Bishop and arranged for the house to be repaired without the Vicar knowing who was paying for it. Just as they had been amused in the past at the antics of the people who provided them with the means of livelihood, so now they enjoyed watching the little people round them being reborn as a result of their help.

  One day the Vicar and Basil were chatting.

  ‘It’s such an attractive name — Sutcliffe Bowling,’ Basil said.

  ‘Yes, it is a pleasant name for a village — but I’m bound to admit that, until you four came here, there wasn’t much else pleasant about it. It’s horrible to watch people going downhill and to know that the help one is giving is wholly insufficient. You ought to be very happy people.’

  ‘We are, Vicar,’ said Basil. ‘Very. In fact, we always have been. Even when things weren’t so good with us, we always found ways and means of getting along.’

  ‘If one may judge from your behaviour here, you have certainly deserved your success. You must have led almost exemplary lives.’

  ‘Well, we’ve managed to keep out of prison.’

  ‘It must have been a close thing sometimes,’ said the Vicar, smiling at his little joke.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Basil, smiling too.

  WHEN THE GREEN WOODS LAUGH

  H. E. Bates

  1975

  ‘There!’ Pop said . . . ‘There’s the house. There’s Gore Court for you. What about that, eh? Better than St Paul’s, ain’t it, better than St Paul’s?’

  Nevertheless Pop could bring himself to part with the noble pile of junk for a song — to the tune of £10,000 profit. And if Mr Jerebohm, the Piccadilly farmer, imagined the Kentish yokels were dim, he was at liberty to do so. But the up-stage city wives were not at liberty to bring charges of indecent assault against Pop. He showed them why . . . in court.

  In the last of the Larkin trilogy H. E. Bates makes the Dragon’s Blood and the double scotches hit with no less impact than they did in The Darling Buds of May. For the full Larkin orchestra is back on the rural fiddle, and (with Angela Snow around) the Brigadier may be too old to ride but he’s young enough to fall.

  ‘Pa is as sexy, genial, generous, and boozy as ever. Ma is a worthy match for him in all these qualities’ — The Times

  Also available:

  THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY . 1602

  A BREATH OF FRENCH AIR . 1685

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A.

  DON’T TELL ALFRED

  Nanc
y Mitford

  1976

  ‘Miss Mitford at her wittiest and gayest and . . . most audacious’ — Scotsman

  Cracks in the upper crust are almost Nancy Mitford’s private literary domain. She scribbles moustaches on to the family portraits with the irresistible glee of an urchin.

  Many of the characters in her latest novel need no introduction to the thousands of admirers of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. The scene is Paris, where Alfred (the husband of Fanny, who is once again the narrator) has been posted as Ambassador. Nancy Mitford is on the top of her sparkling form as she describes the effect on Parisian society not only of such old favourites as Uncle Davey and the Bolter, but of a younger generation who will undoubtedly become equally well loved. We might mention particularly the exquisite Northey (Fanny’s social secretary and latter-day Zuleika Dobson), Fanny’s own children (problems, one and all), and — but no, there are too many. Read, and be enchanted in your turn.

  ‘Delicious imbroglio’ — Daily Telegraph

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A.

  MY OEDIPUS COMPLEX

  AND OTHER STORIES

  Frank O’Connor

  1956

  W. B. Yeats once declared that ‘O’Connor is doing for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia’. A patriotic boast, perhaps, but it doesn’t take an Irishman to recognize the unpredictable liveliness and observant sympathy in these eighteen short stories. Their insight into Irish character and life never slides into sentimentality. Ranging from a child’s confident misconceptions about sex to Sam Higgins, the honest headmaster, driven to exasperation and near madness by his slick and cynical rival, they are written with a freshness and fluency that is indeed Irish, but their appeal is world-wide.

  ‘Frank O’Connor has long been recognized as one of the great shortstory writers of this century’ — Time and Tide

  ‘Nowhere will you get so vivid, humorous, and deeply understanding a picture of Ireland as in these tales. . . . Anyone can enjoy his stories. All start with a bang and carry one through breathless to the end’ — Daily Telegraph

  ‘A miraculous technique which universalizes the stories without impairing their local virtue’ — Muriel Spark in the Observer

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A. or CANADA

  ON THE LOOSE

  John Stroud

  1974

  Old enough to want to run away from a loveless home, but too young to know where to go, Royston Beedman is a small boy on the loose. Royston is the wretched result of an adoption gone wrong — gone wrong because his well-to-do ‘parents’ thought that bringing up a child consists in paying school fees and buying expensive presents. He cuts a tragi-comic figure as his rebellious jaunts force him to spend cold nights huddled in beach huts or railway trucks. Driven to petty crime, he becomes ‘a social problem’, as well-intentioned but over-worked officialdom does its best to take over where the home failed.

  The same warmth and humour mark this story as The Shorn Lamb, in which John Stroud retailed the experiences of a Child Care Officer — experiences which allow the writer to inject a feeling of real life into his novels.

  ‘Beautifully done . . . the stress and tension are kept up excitingly throughout’ — Sunday Times

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A.

  MY FRIEND JUDAS

  Andrew Sinclair

  1980

  ‘I’ve seen every steady affair I know bust up round this time. Joes and totties loving each other the whole year through, and suddenly spitting in each other’s eye this week. Pills taking every chance to tread on their best friend’s faces. All so goddam neurotic. If May Week’s meant to be a rest-period after Tripos, give me Piccadilly Circus at midday any old time.’

  For Ben Birt, a self-confessed parasite, May Week marks the end of an era. He has finished his exams. His girl has finished with him. And as Ben mournfully looks forward to two years of National Service, and back over three years at Cambridge doing everything but set-work and sport, Andrew Sinclair, author of The Breaking of Bumbo, explodes once and for all the myths about all those hallowed seats of learning.

  ‘Very clever indeed. . . . This portrait of la vie de bohème universitaire should raise squeals of outraged delight . . . all along the line from Belgravia to Budleigh Salterton’ — Peter Green in the Daily Telegraph

  ‘A brilliantly readable comedy with an edge of bitterness . . . showing a very talented young novelist in the act of extending his range’ — J. D. Scott in the Sunday Times

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A.

  HENRY CECIL

  Henry Cecil does for the law what Richard Gordon has so successfully done for the medical profession. Among his brilliantly funny novels, of which eight are now available in Penguins, are:

  Brothers in Law . 1745

  Introducing the immeasurably young and ignorant Roger Thursby, who has just been called to the bar.

  Friends at Court . 1746

  ‘Cecil better than ever’ was P .G. Wodehouse’s comment on this story of Roger Thursby, now on the point of taking silk.

  Much in Evidence . 1747

  The law courts tend to get completely out of hand in this ‘further instalment of fun and frolic at Bar, Bench, and Solicitor’s office’ — Spectator

  Sober as a Judge . 1748

  Roger Thursby is now a judge, and an array of entertaining and sometimes lethal characters now beset his sober path.

  Settled Out of Court . 1990

  In the story of a financier convicted of murder on perjured evidence, the author ‘continues to do superbly what everyone now knows he can do well’ — Sunday Times

  Daughters in Law . 1991

  The hilarious experiences of twin sisters in the law make a novel which is as entertaining and readable as Brothers in Law.

  Alibi for a Judge . 1992

  The case of the judge who had pangs of conscience. ‘Improbabilities so imperturbably and amusingly put can only be enjoyed’ — Solicitor’s journal

  Independent Witness

  His latest novel. ‘Mr Henry Cecil’s comedies of criminal life are ingenious, sprightly, immensely amusing from page to page’ — Julian Symons in the Sunday Times. Independent Witness is published by Michael Joseph Ltd, 26 Bloomsbury Street, London wc1.

  NOT FOR SALE IN THE U.S.A.

  oooOooo

  Scanned and proofed by Amigo da Onça