The phrase “throwing a dinner” has just acquired a new level of meaning. Perhaps you’d better come, if you wouldn’t mind.’
By now the possibility that Samper might somehow be to blame is beginning to sink in and provides yet another reason for my reluctance to return to the dining room. Not for the first time while dining in Crendlesham Hall I feel a real urge to sidle out of the front door and start running. But my Norman forebears were not called ‘Sans Peur’ for nothing and anyway a gentleman must take responsibility for his actions, no matter how well-intentioned. So back I go with a large jug of water and a roll of kitchen paper, albeit not with any real enthusiasm . I can hear Spud’s heavy footsteps and jaunty workman’s whistle behind me. Little does he know.
The scene is awesome, the smell worse. A few, their worst spasms over, are struggling weakly to their feet. Marta looks as though she has been at the epicentre of a cataclysm involving industrial quantities of porridge. I think her outfit may have intercepted some of her neighbour’s early heaves. Her great, sodden, muslined bosoms sparkle in the lamplight, though the sequins are dulled. Max, too, is on his feet, leaning heavily on the table and occasionally spitting. The ape is now headless, and the small gingery face of the clarinettist within glistens with mucus and clots beneath thin plastered hair. The fur on his chest is matted and dripping.
‘Bleedin’ Nora,’ says Sir Barney Shangri-Loo feebly, also beginning to stir. ‘What the hell was that? ’ To judge from one side of his coat he appears to have taken much of Jennifer’s liver smoothie in his left ear. And yes – the way things are sliding and plopping off his jacket confirms that it, too, is polyesterous . It’s odd what secrets these little crises throw up. Meanwhile, over on the far side of the table it seems from Spud’s hoarse cries of ‘Dougie!’ that all is far from well with his baronet, who is slumped back in his chair with his eyes shut.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Spud throws at me as he feels the old man’s neck. ‘Get an ambulance, quick! Get ten! They’ll all have to go to hospital, the lot of them. Now! Get your skates on!’
The clear, incisive tones of Winchester suddenly give him the authority he lacked as a boiler-suited Man Friday. Obediently I go out into the hall and dial 999, stressing that the house is that of the world-famous conductor Max Christ and that he himself is one of at least six other victims. Back in the dining room I find that everyone bar the Baronet is now walking wounded. I open the French windows and let in some welcome cool night air. People totter out to the terrace with glasses of water and there comes the sound of much gargling and rinsing and spitting. Jennifer comes back in and leadenly begins stripping the cloth and its gastric load off the table.
‘Leave that, Mrs C,’ Spud tells her. ‘It’s evidence. You’ve all been poisoned. They’ll want to know what it was. Help me get Dougie on the floor, if you can. I need to do heart massage.’
Standing here amid the debris of what until only five minutes ago was a staidly tasteful dinner party, the discrepancy between my intention to pull off a culinary coup and the awfuloutcome is too huge to be plausible. It still feels like nothing to do with me. ‘What hath God wrought!’ was the phrase Samuel Morse sent to congratulate God on having invented the first practical telegraph. I am inclined to employ the same phrase right now, the whole thing clearly being God’s doing and not Samper’s. My insufferable pious stepmother Laura once told me that Morse had borrowed the phrase from the Bible, which being itself the Word of the Lord makes it just the sort of self-praising utterance the Almighty favoured. I feel very strongly that if He could take credit for the Morse code, He can jolly well do so for this carnage in Crendlesham. As to whether anyone else will
By now the possibility that Samper might somehow be to blame is beginning to sink in and provides yet another reason for my reluctance to return to the dining room. Not for the first time while dining in Crendlesham Hall I feel a real urge to sidle out of the front door and start running. But my Norman forebears were not called ‘Sans Peur’ for nothing and anyway a gentleman must take responsibility for his actions, no matter how well-intentioned. So back I go with a large jug of water and a roll of kitchen paper, albeit not with any real enthusiasm . I can hear Spud’s heavy footsteps and jaunty workman’s whistle behind me. Little does he know.
The scene is awesome, the smell worse. A few, their worst spasms over, are struggling weakly to their feet. Marta looks as though she has been at the epicentre of a cataclysm involving industrial quantities of porridge. I think her outfit may have intercepted some of her neighbour’s early heaves. Her great, sodden, muslined bosoms sparkle in the lamplight, though the sequins are dulled. Max, too, is on his feet, leaning heavily on the table and occasionally spitting. The ape is now headless, and the small gingery face of the clarinettist within glistens with mucus and clots beneath thin plastered hair. The fur on his chest is matted and dripping.
‘Bleedin’ Nora,’ says Sir Barney Shangri-Loo feebly, also beginning to stir. ‘What the hell was that? ’ To judge from one side of his coat he appears to have taken much of Jennifer’s liver smoothie in his left ear. And yes – the way things are sliding and plopping off his jacket confirms that it, too, is polyesterous . It’s odd what secrets these little crises throw up. Meanwhile, over on the far side of the table it seems from Spud’s hoarse cries of ‘Dougie!’ that all is far from well with his baronet, who is slumped back in his chair with his eyes shut.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Spud throws at me as he feels the old man’s neck. ‘Get an ambulance, quick! Get ten! They’ll all have to go to hospital, the lot of them. Now! Get your skates on!’
The clear, incisive tones of Winchester suddenly give him the authority he lacked as a boiler-suited Man Friday. Obediently I go out into the hall and dial 999, stressing that the house is that of the world-famous conductor Max Christ and that he himself is one of at least six other victims. Back in the dining room I find that everyone bar the Baronet is now walking wounded. I open the French windows and let in some welcome cool night air. People totter out to the terrace with glasses of water and there comes the sound of much gargling and rinsing and spitting. Jennifer comes back in and leadenly begins stripping the cloth and its gastric load off the table.
‘Leave that, Mrs C,’ Spud tells her. ‘It’s evidence. You’ve all been poisoned. They’ll want to know what it was. Help me get Dougie on the floor, if you can. I need to do heart massage.’
Standing here amid the debris of what until only five minutes ago was a staidly tasteful dinner party, the discrepancy between my intention to pull off a culinary coup and the awfuloutcome is too huge to be plausible. It still feels like nothing to do with me. ‘What hath God wrought!’ was the phrase Samuel Morse sent to congratulate God on having invented the first practical telegraph. I am inclined to employ the same phrase right now, the whole thing clearly being God’s doing and not Samper’s. My insufferable pious stepmother Laura once told me that Morse had borrowed the phrase from the Bible, which being itself the Word of the Lord makes it just the sort of self-praising utterance the Almighty favoured. I feel very strongly that if He could take credit for the Morse code, He can jolly well do so for this carnage in Crendlesham. As to whether anyone else will
Similar Books
