Closing Ranks by Dirk Bogarde

Author:Dirk Bogarde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tuesday Noon

Isobel came out on to the porch, an onion and a knife in her hands. Jake sat hunched in a creaking old wicker chair, work table before him strewn with papers, newspaper cuttings, his portable typewriter; in his hands a heavy ledger; on the back of his chair the binoculars hanging. He was sucking a pencil, staring blankly into space, oblivious to the world. The ledger was half open. A tiresome, almost familiar, sight to Isobel when he had started on ‘working out stuff for a book.

‘I’m doing a Niçoise for lunch. All right? A medium onion like this, or larger? Last time you grumbled I’d used too much onion.’ She waved it almost in his face. ‘What size, Jake?’

He didn’t look at her, chewing his pencil. ‘Whatever you say.’

She felt a sudden surge of irritation. ‘Well, do you want a lot of onion this time? Or just a—’ She hit the table with the fist which held the knife. ‘Jake! Have the good manners to just look! I’m talking to you.’

Then he did look up, vaguely, as if he’d been on a journey and had suddenly returned. ‘Sorry. What is it? Ah! Onions … I don’t really mind, you choose. I’m working, you fix it, OK? Got some olives?’

She stood up, her brow creased with frustration. ‘Sometimes I really wonder why I bother. You’d eat a doormat. I’ve got the olives.’ She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up the hill to Bottle Cottage. ‘That bloody place has been a sort of fixation for you. Thank God they’re clearing off. The car has gone at last. Our landlord went skittering off through the orchard as if he was expecting an arrow in his back. I suppose you’d got him in your sights.’ She laughed coarsely. ‘Awful to be haunted by a pair of binoculars. Maddening. I mean for them, not for you. Fun for you, I suppose.’

Jake realized that she was not going to let him free. He shook his head roughly like a dog crawling out of a pond, settling his thoughts. He’d been miles away. He placed the ledger on the table, folded his hands resignedly together on top. ‘Yes, kept my eye on him. The blonde woman is still up there. The big fellow went off with a thin, bearded chap. Shabby sort, with a stick. Haven’t caught up with him. But the big fellow I seem to think I have placed.’

He opened the ledger, the spine cracked. ‘Here is the list, long list. Guesswork in places, but I think the cast is more or less complete now that he’s shown up. I think he’s called “Bob”, or “Bobbie”, or “My Bobbie” as the old woman used to call him. He’s married to the dairy-maid, she’d been a Land Army girl. Came here … um …’ He looked down at the open ledger, flipped some pages. ‘May Smollett. Land Girl at Hartleap, end of April 1940. Married under-gardener, Robert, Bobbie, Bob, Smollett. Presently lives in Shropshire.

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