message seemed to say, if there was a message. Then Tupra walked round behind the sofa, bent over and rested his forearms on the back of it in order to say something quickly — one phrase — in the ear of young Judge Hood, or, rather, a phrase addressed to the back of his neck, it was not, I assume, confidential. Hood and Beryl stopped laughing, they turned to listen to him, she again looked mechanically at her watch, like someone waiting only to be rescued or perhaps relieved, she uncrossed her very bare long legs. 'They're going to leave together, they're all going to leave at once,' I said to myself. 'Tupra will drive the fat guy home. Or Beryl will, if she's driving.'
'I'm going to have one of these slags tonight or my name's not Rafael de la Garza. I didn't come here in order to go away empty-handed, dammit. I'm going to dip my wick if it kills me.'
De la Garza did not let up for a second, barely had I left Tupra's side than he returned to the attack. Prompted no doubt by his name, which, in Spanish, means 'heron', I suddenly recalled a proverb, as incomprehensible as most proverbs.
'No matter how high the heron flies, the falcon will pounce.' I said the words without thinking, just as they came into my head.
'What? What did you bloody well say?'
'Nothing.'
De la Garza did go away empty-handed, dammit, or, rather, he left accompanied only by the glum mayor of that Oxfordshire town and the woman I took to be the mayor's wife, neither of whom seemed likely candidates for interminglings of any kind (I hadn't even noticed the wife until then, she would clearly do little to alleviate the miseries of the place over which they presided), especially not at their age, the attaché was caught off guard, and it fell to him to drive them to wherever it was they lived, Eynsham, Bruern, Bloxham, Wroxton, or perhaps to what has been the most ill-famed of places since Elizabethan times, Hog's Norton, I've no idea. He was in no fit state to drive (especially with the steering wheel on the right), but he obviously didn't care a fig about being fined and was one of those vain types to whom it never even occurs that he might crash. It did occur to Wheeler and he expressed his concern, wondering if he shouldn't put all three of them up for the night. I dissuaded him from the mere idea, despite the evident unease of the Labour mayor and his Labour mayoress wife, who talked of getting a taxi to Ewelme or Rycote or Ascot, or wherever. It wasn't very far, I said, and De la Garza was a young man, doubtless endowed with marvellous reflexes, a very leopard. The last thing I wanted was to find myself at breakfast with that fan of or expert in chic universal medieval fantastic literature, the Lord of the Slags, and, anyway, I didn't care two figs if he crashed.
The three people I had expected to leave together also left, indeed, they were the first to go. Fortunately for Sir Peter Wheeler, the only guest who lingered until gone midnight was Lord Rymer, The Flask, not because he was very animated or not as yet sleepy, but due to his complete inability to put one foot in front of the other. Since The Receptacle lived in Oxford, this did not pose such a problem. Mrs Berry called a taxi, and between the two of us we managed to detach the heavy, alcoholic Flask from the armchair in which he had installed himself half-way through the evening, and with a few discreet heaves (it was impossible to perform this task quickly) we got him as far as the front door under the supervision and guidance of Peter's walking-stick; we gladly accepted the help of the driver in squeezing him into the taxi, although the poor man would have a tough time prising him out of there on his own when they reached their destination. The hired waiters could not leave without first collecting up the more substantial leftovers from plates and serving dishes, and then I helped Mrs Berry with the cups and glasses and the remaining ashtrays, so that everything
'I'm going to have one of these slags tonight or my name's not Rafael de la Garza. I didn't come here in order to go away empty-handed, dammit. I'm going to dip my wick if it kills me.'
De la Garza did not let up for a second, barely had I left Tupra's side than he returned to the attack. Prompted no doubt by his name, which, in Spanish, means 'heron', I suddenly recalled a proverb, as incomprehensible as most proverbs.
'No matter how high the heron flies, the falcon will pounce.' I said the words without thinking, just as they came into my head.
'What? What did you bloody well say?'
'Nothing.'
De la Garza did go away empty-handed, dammit, or, rather, he left accompanied only by the glum mayor of that Oxfordshire town and the woman I took to be the mayor's wife, neither of whom seemed likely candidates for interminglings of any kind (I hadn't even noticed the wife until then, she would clearly do little to alleviate the miseries of the place over which they presided), especially not at their age, the attaché was caught off guard, and it fell to him to drive them to wherever it was they lived, Eynsham, Bruern, Bloxham, Wroxton, or perhaps to what has been the most ill-famed of places since Elizabethan times, Hog's Norton, I've no idea. He was in no fit state to drive (especially with the steering wheel on the right), but he obviously didn't care a fig about being fined and was one of those vain types to whom it never even occurs that he might crash. It did occur to Wheeler and he expressed his concern, wondering if he shouldn't put all three of them up for the night. I dissuaded him from the mere idea, despite the evident unease of the Labour mayor and his Labour mayoress wife, who talked of getting a taxi to Ewelme or Rycote or Ascot, or wherever. It wasn't very far, I said, and De la Garza was a young man, doubtless endowed with marvellous reflexes, a very leopard. The last thing I wanted was to find myself at breakfast with that fan of or expert in chic universal medieval fantastic literature, the Lord of the Slags, and, anyway, I didn't care two figs if he crashed.
The three people I had expected to leave together also left, indeed, they were the first to go. Fortunately for Sir Peter Wheeler, the only guest who lingered until gone midnight was Lord Rymer, The Flask, not because he was very animated or not as yet sleepy, but due to his complete inability to put one foot in front of the other. Since The Receptacle lived in Oxford, this did not pose such a problem. Mrs Berry called a taxi, and between the two of us we managed to detach the heavy, alcoholic Flask from the armchair in which he had installed himself half-way through the evening, and with a few discreet heaves (it was impossible to perform this task quickly) we got him as far as the front door under the supervision and guidance of Peter's walking-stick; we gladly accepted the help of the driver in squeezing him into the taxi, although the poor man would have a tough time prising him out of there on his own when they reached their destination. The hired waiters could not leave without first collecting up the more substantial leftovers from plates and serving dishes, and then I helped Mrs Berry with the cups and glasses and the remaining ashtrays, so that everything
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