sleeping-pills Dr Tripkin had given her.
It had been months since she last asked for one, and the label Mr Ratch had stuck on the bottle said the capsules were only safe until March of this year. Now it was October. Having grown used to discarding stock when its time expired, Mr Jacksett pointed out the fact.
It was the resulting row that made him try and phone the Doctor’s House; he could see a light on. But there was no answer, and when he went to make apologies to Judy, she was snoring. Much relieved, he joined her.
But it was a long time before he got to sleep. Where
was
that bloody dog?
Business was slack this evening at the Bridge Hotel. Mr Mender decided to close the dining-room early and told Tim Wamble the chef he could clear up.
Having done so, and changed into ordinary clothes, Tim slipped into the bar for a nightcap. The landlord gave him a look of annoyance – he didn’t approve of his employeesmixing with the clientele – but said nothing. Staff were hard to find, and apart from his peculiar lapse this morning Tim had proved hard-working and reliable.
There were a couple of customers Tim didn’t know talking together in low tones, man and wife by the look of them, and another that he did, Mr Ratch the chemist, a roly-poly man with thick glasses and a shiny bald pate. Most uncharacteristically, he was indulging in a succession of pink gins that had unlocked his tongue.
‘I can’t get
over
it!’ he kept exclaiming, and then proceeded to describe what it was he couldn’t get over. By the weary expression on Mr Mender’s face, Tim deduced that this was far from the first time he’d said the same thing in more or less the same words.
‘I mean, in a village like ours, if you can’t trust the doctor and the parson, who can you trust? In the old days you’d have said the squire, I suppose, but with poor old Marmaduke Goodsir in the state he is, and Basil having behaved in that extraordinary fashion …’
He grew aware that Mr Mender’s attention was wandering, and cast about for a fresh audience. Spotting Tim, he twisted around on his stool and demanded, ‘What do
you
make of what’s going on?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,’ Tim answered diffidently. ‘I’ve been in the kitchen all day.’
‘You mean you haven’t heard that the locum tenens sent me a prescription for a still-warm chicken on the Health Service?’ Mr Ratch was delighted, and moved to the next stool, closing the gap. ‘You haven’t heard about Mr Phibson being possessed of the Devil, or what Basil Goodsir said about hanging people for sheep-stealing? No? Well, let me bring you up to date!’
Listening, while in some relief Mr Mender collected used glasses for Megan the barmaid to wash, Tim felt a stir of private anxiety. He’d had that strange conviction about theday’s special, hadn’t he? It had given him a very odd feeling to discover that Mr Mender was right and he was incontestably wrong, despite his inner certainty. Not to be able to feel you could trust your own memory … Had Mr Mender mentioned it?
Seemingly not, for if he had Mr Ratch would certainly have included it in his long list of inexplicable events. To the ones already mentioned he added what Mary Flaken had done to the Blockets, and what Miss Knabbe had allegedly tried to do to Mrs O’Pheale, and some very odd stories that his children had recounted when they came home from school, the younger who went locally chuckling about the behaviour of the Surrean girls, the older who was at Powte laughing inordinately about some trick that had been played on one of those stuck-up Ellerfords …
‘Take all that together,’ Mr Ratch concluded triumphantly, ‘and what does it add up to? Does it sound to you like the Devil making mischief? Well, that’s what Mr Phibson’s saying, in so many words!’
Tim shook his head in polite wonderment, asking himself the while whether what had happened to him felt like a prank played by the
It had been months since she last asked for one, and the label Mr Ratch had stuck on the bottle said the capsules were only safe until March of this year. Now it was October. Having grown used to discarding stock when its time expired, Mr Jacksett pointed out the fact.
It was the resulting row that made him try and phone the Doctor’s House; he could see a light on. But there was no answer, and when he went to make apologies to Judy, she was snoring. Much relieved, he joined her.
But it was a long time before he got to sleep. Where
was
that bloody dog?
Business was slack this evening at the Bridge Hotel. Mr Mender decided to close the dining-room early and told Tim Wamble the chef he could clear up.
Having done so, and changed into ordinary clothes, Tim slipped into the bar for a nightcap. The landlord gave him a look of annoyance – he didn’t approve of his employeesmixing with the clientele – but said nothing. Staff were hard to find, and apart from his peculiar lapse this morning Tim had proved hard-working and reliable.
There were a couple of customers Tim didn’t know talking together in low tones, man and wife by the look of them, and another that he did, Mr Ratch the chemist, a roly-poly man with thick glasses and a shiny bald pate. Most uncharacteristically, he was indulging in a succession of pink gins that had unlocked his tongue.
‘I can’t get
over
it!’ he kept exclaiming, and then proceeded to describe what it was he couldn’t get over. By the weary expression on Mr Mender’s face, Tim deduced that this was far from the first time he’d said the same thing in more or less the same words.
‘I mean, in a village like ours, if you can’t trust the doctor and the parson, who can you trust? In the old days you’d have said the squire, I suppose, but with poor old Marmaduke Goodsir in the state he is, and Basil having behaved in that extraordinary fashion …’
He grew aware that Mr Mender’s attention was wandering, and cast about for a fresh audience. Spotting Tim, he twisted around on his stool and demanded, ‘What do
you
make of what’s going on?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,’ Tim answered diffidently. ‘I’ve been in the kitchen all day.’
‘You mean you haven’t heard that the locum tenens sent me a prescription for a still-warm chicken on the Health Service?’ Mr Ratch was delighted, and moved to the next stool, closing the gap. ‘You haven’t heard about Mr Phibson being possessed of the Devil, or what Basil Goodsir said about hanging people for sheep-stealing? No? Well, let me bring you up to date!’
Listening, while in some relief Mr Mender collected used glasses for Megan the barmaid to wash, Tim felt a stir of private anxiety. He’d had that strange conviction about theday’s special, hadn’t he? It had given him a very odd feeling to discover that Mr Mender was right and he was incontestably wrong, despite his inner certainty. Not to be able to feel you could trust your own memory … Had Mr Mender mentioned it?
Seemingly not, for if he had Mr Ratch would certainly have included it in his long list of inexplicable events. To the ones already mentioned he added what Mary Flaken had done to the Blockets, and what Miss Knabbe had allegedly tried to do to Mrs O’Pheale, and some very odd stories that his children had recounted when they came home from school, the younger who went locally chuckling about the behaviour of the Surrean girls, the older who was at Powte laughing inordinately about some trick that had been played on one of those stuck-up Ellerfords …
‘Take all that together,’ Mr Ratch concluded triumphantly, ‘and what does it add up to? Does it sound to you like the Devil making mischief? Well, that’s what Mr Phibson’s saying, in so many words!’
Tim shook his head in polite wonderment, asking himself the while whether what had happened to him felt like a prank played by the
Similar Books
