Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal and Other Stories by H.E. Bates Page B

glasses of dark red wine on a pink tablecloth. Doesn’t that strike you as being absolute heaven on a summer’s day?’
    Bemused, she stared at the tumbling skeins of creeper, at the rising regiments of sow-thistle, more than ever uncertain what to say. She began hastily to form a few words about it being time for her to go when he said: ‘There was something else I had to say to you, Mrs Corbett, and now I can’t think what it was. Terribly important too. Momentously important.’
    A burst of sunshine falling suddenly on the wet wilderness, the rusting canopies and Clara’s frog-like cape seemed abruptly to enlighten him. ‘Ah—hearts,’ he said. ‘That was it.’
    â€˜Hearts?’
    â€˜What’s today? Tuesday. Thursday,’ he said, ‘I want you to bring me one of your nicest hearts.’
    â€˜One of my hearts?’
    He laughed, again not unkindly. ‘Bullock’s,’ he said.
    â€˜Oh! Yes, I see.’
    â€˜Did you know,’ he said, ‘that hearts taste like goose? Just like goose-flesh?’ He stopped, laughed again, and actually touched her arm. ‘No, no. That’s wrong. Too rich. One can’t say that. One can’t say heart’s like goose-flesh. Can one?’
    A stir of wind shook the beech boughs, bringing a spray of rain sliding down the long shafts of sunlight.
    â€˜I serve them with cranberry sauce,’ he said. ‘With fresh peas and fresh new potatoes I defy anyone to tell the difference.’
    They were back now at the kitchen door, where she had left her husband’s basket on the step.
    â€˜We need more imagination, that’s all,’ he said. ‘The despised heart is absolutely royal, I assure you, if you treat it properly——’
    â€˜I think I really must go now, Mr Lafarge,’ she said, ‘or I’ll never get done. Do you want the heart early?’
    â€˜No,’ he said, ‘afternoon will do. It’s for a little evening supper party. Just a friend and I. Lots of parties, that’s what I shall have. Lots of parties, little ones, piggy ones in the kitchen, first. Then one big one, an enormous house-warmer, a cracker, when the house is ready.’
    She picked up her basket, automatically drawing the cape round her shoulders and started to say, ‘All right, sir. I’ll be up in the afternoon——’
    â€˜Most kind of you, Mrs Corbett,’ he said. ‘Goodbye. So kind. But no “sir”—we’re already friends. Just Lafarge.’
    â€˜Goodbye, Mr Lafarge,’ she said.
    She was halfway back to the van when he called, ‘Oh, Mrs Corbett! If you get no answer at the door you’ll probably find me decorating.’ He waved soft, pastry-white hands in the direction of the creeper, the canopies, and the rusting balconies. ‘You know—up there.’
    When she came back to the house late on Thursday afternoon, not wearing her cape, the air was thick and sultry. All along the stark white fringes of chalk, under the beechwoods, yellow rock-roses flared in the sun. Across the valley hung a few high bland white clouds, delicate and far away.
    â€˜The creeper came down with a thousand empty birds’ nests,’ Lafarge called from a balcony. ‘A glorious mess.’
    Dressed in dark blue slacks, with yellow open shirt, blue silk muffler, and white panama, he waved towards her a pink-tipped whitewash brush. Behind him the wall, bare of creeper, was drying a thin blotting-paper pink in the sun.
    â€˜I put the heart in the kitchen,’ she said.
    Ignoring this, he made no remark about her cape, either. ‘The stucco turned out to be in remarkably good condition,’ he said. ‘Tell me about the paint. You’re the first to see it. Too dark?’
    â€˜I think it’s very nice.’
    â€˜Be absolutely frank,’ he said. ‘Be as absolutely frank and critical as you like, Mrs