Hunter, Stephen - Basil's War by Hunter Stephen

Author:Hunter, Stephen [Hunter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penzler Publishers
Published: 2021-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

MISSION

Of course, one normally never went about in anything but bespoke. Just wasn’t done. Basil’s tailor was Steed-Aspell, of Davies & Son, 15 Jermyn Street, and Steed-Aspell (“Steedy” to his clients) was a student of Frederick Scholes, the Duke of Windsor’s genius tailor, which meant he was a master of the English drape. His clothes hung with an almost scary brilliance, perfect. They never just crumpled. As gravity took them, they formed extraordinary shapes, presented new faces to the world, gave the sun a canvas for compositions playing light against dark, with gray working an uneasy region between, rather like the Sudetenland.

Basil had at least three jackets for which he had been offered immense sums (Steed-Aspell was taking no new clients, though the war might eventually open up some room on his waiting list, if it hadn’t already) and of course Basil merely smiled dryly at the evocations of want, issued a brief but sincere look of commiseration, and moved onward, a lord in tweeds, perhaps the lord of the tweeds.

The suit he now wore was a severe disappointment. He had bought it in a second-hand shop, and monsieur had expressed great confidence that it was of premium quality, and yet its drape was all wrong, because of course the wool was all wrong. One didn’t simply use any wool, as its provincial tailor believed. Thus, it got itself into twists and rumples and couldn’t get out, its creases blunted themselves in moments, and it had already popped a button. Its rise bagged, sagged, and gave up. It rather glowed in the sunlight. Buttoned, its two breasts encased him like a girdle; unbuttoned, it looked like he wore several flags of blue pinstripe about himself, ready to unfurl in the wind. He was certain his clubman would not let him enter had he tried.

And he wanted very much to look his best this morning. He was, after all, going to explode something big with Germans inside.

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