In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson Page A

by her appearance, especially those soft hands, you would swear that Gloria Stringer had never done a day’s hard physical labour in her life. My first thought was an uncharitable one. Knowing farmer Kilnsey’s wandering eyes, I thought that, perhaps, when his wife wasn’t around, he was teaching Gloria a new way of ploughing the furrow. Though I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, being only sixteen at the time, I had heard more than one or two farmers use the phrase when they thought I was out of earshot.
    But in this, as in most of my first impressions about Gloria, I was quite wrong. This freshness in her appearance was simply one of her many remarkable qualities. She could spend the day hay-making, threshing, pea-pulling, milking, stooking or snagging turnips, yet always appear fresh and alive, with energy to spare, as if, unlike the rest of us mere mortals, she had some sort of invisible shield around her through which the hard diurnal toil couldn’t penetrate.
    On first impressions, I have to confess that I did not like Gloria Stringer; she struck me as being vain, common, shallow and selfish. Not to mention beautiful, of course. That hurt, especially.
    Then, wouldn’t you know it, but right in the middle of our conversation, Michael Stanhope had to walk in.
    Michael Stanhope was something of a character around the village, to put it mildly. A reasonably successful artist, somewhere in his early fifties, I’d guess, he affected a rakish appearance and seemed deliberately to go out of his way to offend people.
    That day, he was wearing a rumpled white linen suit over a grubby lavender shirt and a crooked yellow bow-tie. He also wore his ubiquitous broad-brimmed hat and carried a cane with a snake-head handle. As usual, he looked quite dissipated. His eyes were bloodshot, he had at least three days’ stubble on his face, and he emanated a sort of general fug of stale smoke and alcohol.
    A lot of people didn’t like Michael Stanhope because he wasn’t afraid to say what he thought and he spoke out against the war. I quite liked him, in a way, though I didn’t agree with his views. Half the time he only said what he did to annoy people, like complaining that he couldn’t get canvas for his paintings because the army was using it all. That wasn’t true.
    But he would have to walk in right then.
    â€œGood morning, my cherub,” he said, as he always did, though I felt far from cherubic. “I trust you have my usual?”
    â€œEr, sorry Mr Stanhope,” I stammered. “We’re all out.” “All out? Come, come now, girl, that can’t be.” He grinned and looked over at Gloria mischievously. Then he winked at her.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr Stanhope.”
    â€œI’ll bet if you looked in the usual place,” he said, leaning forward and rapping on the counter with his cane, “you would find them.”
    I knew when I was beaten. Mortified, blushing to the roots of my being, I reached under the counter and brought out the two packets of Piccadilly I had put aside for him, the way I always did whenever we were lucky enough to get some in.
    â€œThat’ll be one and eight, please,” I said.
    â€œOutrageous,” Mr Stanhope complained as he dug out the coins, “the way this government is taxing us to death to make war. Don’t you think so, my cherub?”
    I muttered something noncommittal.
    All the while Gloria had been watching our little display with growing fascination. When I glanced at her guiltily as I handed over the cigarettes to Mr Stanhope, she smiled at me and shrugged.
    Mr Stanhope must have caught the gesture. He was always quick to sense any new nuance or current in the atmosphere. He fed on that sort of thing.
    â€œAh, I see,” he said, turning his gaze fully towards Gloria and admiring her figure quite openly. “Do I take it that you were enquiring after cigarettes yourself, my