Blott On The Landscape by Tom Sharpe Page A

he cycled over to Guildstead Carbonell to the Royal George and sat in the bar until it was time for bed, the bed in question belonging to Mrs Wynn who ran the pub and whose husband had obligingly left her a widow as a result of enemy action on D-Day. Mrs Wynn was the last of Blott’s wartime customers and the affair had lingered on owing more to habit than to affection. Mrs Wynn found Blott useful, he dried glasses and carried bottles, and Blott found Mrs Wynn comfortable, undemanding and accommodating in the matter of beer. He had a weakness for Handyman Brown.
    But now as he washed his neck – it was Friday night and Mrs Wynn was expecting him – he was conscious that he no longer felt the same way about her. Not that he had ever felt very much, but that little had been swept aside by his sudden surge of feeling for Maud. He was sensible enough not to entertain any expectations of being able to do anything about it. It just didn’t seem right to go off to Mrs Wynn any more. In any case it was all most peculiar. He had always had a soft spot for Lady Maud but this was different and it occurred to him that he might be sickening for something. He stuck out his tongue and studied it in the bathroom mirror but it looked all right. It might be the weather. He had once heard someone say something about spring and young men’s fancies but Blott wasn’t a young man. He was fifty. Fifty and in love. Daft.
    He went downstairs and got on his bicycle and cycled off across the bridge towards Guildstead Carbonell. He had just reached the crossroads when he heard a car coming up fast behind him. He got off the bike to let it go by. It was Sir Giles in the Bentley. “Going to the Golf Club to see Hoskins,” he thought, and looked after the car suspiciously. “He’s up to something.” He got back on to his bike and freewheeled reluctantly down the hill towards the Royal George and Mrs Wynn. Perhaps he ought to tell Maud what he had heard. It didn’t seem a good idea and in any case he wasn’t going to let her know that Dundridge fancied her. “He can sow his own row,” he said to himself and was pleased at his command of the idiom.
    In the Worford Golf Club, Sir Giles and Hoskins discussed tactics.
    “He’s got to have a weakness,” said Sir Giles. “Every man has his price.”
    “Maud?” said Hoskins.
    “Be your age,” said Sir Giles. “She isn’t going to fartarse around with some tinpot civil servant with that reversionary clause in the contract at stake. Besides, I don’t believe it.”
    “I distinctly heard him say he found her charming. And comely.”
    “All right, so he likes fat women. What else does he like? Money?”
    Hoskins shrugged. “Hard to tell. You need time to find that out.”
    “Time is what we haven’t got. He’s only got to start blabbing about that bleeding tunnel and the fat’s in the fire. No, we’ve got to act fast.”
    Hoskins looked at him suspiciously. “What’s all this ‘We’ business?” he asked. “It’s your problem, not mine.”
    Sir Giles gnawed a fingernail thoughtfully. “How much?”
    “Five thousand.”
    “For what?”
    “Whatever you decide.”
    “Make it five per cent of the compensation. When it’s paid.”
    Hoskins did a quick calculation and made it twelve and a half thousand. “Cash on the nail,” he said.
    “You’re a hard man, Hoskins, a hard man,” Sir Giles said sorrowfully.
    “Anyway what do you want me to do? Sound him out?”
    Sir Giles shook his head. His little eyes glittered. “Kinky,” he said. “Kinky. What made you say that?”
    “I don’t know. Just wondered,” said Hoskins.
    “Boys, do you think?”
    “Difficult to know,” said Hoskins. “These things take time to find out.”
    “Drink, drugs, boys, women, money. There’s got to be some damned thing he’s itching for.”
    “Of course, we could frame him,” said Hoskins. “It’s been done before.”
    Sir Giles nodded. “The unsolicited gift. The anonymous donor.