bathroom was much cleaner than those I’d been to in city bars, presumably because the clientele knew exactly to whom to complain if it wasn’t. There were four stalls all in a row, and the row of sinks and mirror across from them. Going for the stall on the far end, I was just zipping up my pants when I heard a flurry of feet barging through the bathroom door.
‘—bring her here,’ Joan Plowden-Plugge’s voice shrilled through the air like an electric drill.
There was a rustle of hair and a sighing noise that sounded like, ‘Oh, Joan.’
I slunk back against the wall of my own stall, desperately hoping that neither of them would notice an extra pair of feet in the last loo. Fortunately, they were too preoccupied with their own conversation to notice me – or if they did see my feet, they didn’t recognise them.
I could hear Joan’s voice, smug, even through the stall door. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when she finds out what he does.’
‘I don’t think you could fit into her shoes,’ commented Sally casually, and I could hear the bolt of her bathroom stall sliding home.
Joan’s stall door banged shut with considerably more force.
As I heard the rustle of a skirt being raised, I realised that this was the ideal time for me to make good my escape, while they were both incapable of exiting to investigate. But I stayed, like a rabbit in a hedgerow, frozen by my own curiosity. And probably just as likely to get mown over by a Range Rover. I didn’t think Joan was the sort to brake for fluffy bunnies.
Joan’s cut-glass tones sliced straight through three stalls. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just think it’s disgraceful, a grown man who had a perfectly respectable career—’ A forceful stream of pee drowned out the rest of her words.
‘That’s you,’ said Sally. ‘Not everyone would feel the same way.’
Joan clearly had little patience for relativism.
‘I wouldn’t want my boyfriend’ – the gurgle of the toilet flushing all but extinguished the rest of the sentence, right up until – ‘spies.’
Wait. She hadn’t really said ‘spies,’ had she?
Maybe she had said ‘sties.’ As in pigs. I couldn’t see Joan Plowden-Plugge having any truck with livestock that couldn’t be ridden.
I tamped down on a betraying giggle at the thought of Joan Plowden-Plugge riding pig-back in her immaculate Country Life riding gear.
It did make sense, though, that she would look down on farming. For all her lady of the manor pretensions, everything I had seen of Joan Plowden-Plugge implied that it was the money rather than the land that counted with her. Oh, she wanted the land, too, but only if it came with designer gardens and the latest in fashionable topiary. Someone who did something in the City, eventually ending up on the honours list for dodgy financial favours done to his local MP, would be much more in her style than the gentleman farmer who actually farmed. I was reminded a bit of Hyacinth Bucket from the old comedy Keeping Up Appearances , forever pushing her husband, Richard, to be more posh, even though Hyacinth’s view of posh was decidedly naff. Did anyone even use the word ‘naff’ anymore?
As I pulled myself back from that fascinating byway, the other toilet finished hiccuping. ‘—rather interesting, really,’ Sally was saying.
Presumably not sties, then. I doubted even kindhearted Sally could find much to ooh and aah over in a sty. But spies? No. Too silly. I just had spies on the brain, courtesy of my dissertation research. It was one thing to have gentlemen spies running around in the nineteenth century, quite another in the twenty-first.
‘If you like that sort of thing,’ said Joan pettishly. I heard a rustling sound, like a purse being excavated none too gently.
‘I like that shade,’ said Sally, in a conciliatory tone.
Oh Lord, they were putting on makeup? I began to wish I had run for it while I still could. Of course, then I would have missed all
‘—bring her here,’ Joan Plowden-Plugge’s voice shrilled through the air like an electric drill.
There was a rustle of hair and a sighing noise that sounded like, ‘Oh, Joan.’
I slunk back against the wall of my own stall, desperately hoping that neither of them would notice an extra pair of feet in the last loo. Fortunately, they were too preoccupied with their own conversation to notice me – or if they did see my feet, they didn’t recognise them.
I could hear Joan’s voice, smug, even through the stall door. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when she finds out what he does.’
‘I don’t think you could fit into her shoes,’ commented Sally casually, and I could hear the bolt of her bathroom stall sliding home.
Joan’s stall door banged shut with considerably more force.
As I heard the rustle of a skirt being raised, I realised that this was the ideal time for me to make good my escape, while they were both incapable of exiting to investigate. But I stayed, like a rabbit in a hedgerow, frozen by my own curiosity. And probably just as likely to get mown over by a Range Rover. I didn’t think Joan was the sort to brake for fluffy bunnies.
Joan’s cut-glass tones sliced straight through three stalls. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just think it’s disgraceful, a grown man who had a perfectly respectable career—’ A forceful stream of pee drowned out the rest of her words.
‘That’s you,’ said Sally. ‘Not everyone would feel the same way.’
Joan clearly had little patience for relativism.
‘I wouldn’t want my boyfriend’ – the gurgle of the toilet flushing all but extinguished the rest of the sentence, right up until – ‘spies.’
Wait. She hadn’t really said ‘spies,’ had she?
Maybe she had said ‘sties.’ As in pigs. I couldn’t see Joan Plowden-Plugge having any truck with livestock that couldn’t be ridden.
I tamped down on a betraying giggle at the thought of Joan Plowden-Plugge riding pig-back in her immaculate Country Life riding gear.
It did make sense, though, that she would look down on farming. For all her lady of the manor pretensions, everything I had seen of Joan Plowden-Plugge implied that it was the money rather than the land that counted with her. Oh, she wanted the land, too, but only if it came with designer gardens and the latest in fashionable topiary. Someone who did something in the City, eventually ending up on the honours list for dodgy financial favours done to his local MP, would be much more in her style than the gentleman farmer who actually farmed. I was reminded a bit of Hyacinth Bucket from the old comedy Keeping Up Appearances , forever pushing her husband, Richard, to be more posh, even though Hyacinth’s view of posh was decidedly naff. Did anyone even use the word ‘naff’ anymore?
As I pulled myself back from that fascinating byway, the other toilet finished hiccuping. ‘—rather interesting, really,’ Sally was saying.
Presumably not sties, then. I doubted even kindhearted Sally could find much to ooh and aah over in a sty. But spies? No. Too silly. I just had spies on the brain, courtesy of my dissertation research. It was one thing to have gentlemen spies running around in the nineteenth century, quite another in the twenty-first.
‘If you like that sort of thing,’ said Joan pettishly. I heard a rustling sound, like a purse being excavated none too gently.
‘I like that shade,’ said Sally, in a conciliatory tone.
Oh Lord, they were putting on makeup? I began to wish I had run for it while I still could. Of course, then I would have missed all
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