The Bagthorpe Saga: Ordinary Jack. Helen Cresswell

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СКАЧАТЬ truly thankful.”

      On the last two words her eyes blinked open like a cobra’s and a hand went rapidly out to the nearest pile of stuffed eggs.

      “Amen,” gabbled the company, with the exception of Uncle Parker who said loudly and cheerfully, “Hear, hear!”

      The food began to vanish at an astonishing rate.

      “Well, darlings,” said Mrs Bagthorpe. “What is there to tell?”

      Babel was instantly let loose as all present with the exception of Grandpa, Uncle Parker and Jack, began to talk with their mouths full. Mrs Bagthorpe believed that meals should be civilised occasions with a brisk and original interchange of views and ideas, but as none of the younger Bagthorpes were prepared to talk at the cost of stuffing themselves, they invariably did both at the same time.

      “I beathja teleths,” came a crumb-choked voice by Jack’s elbow.

      “Told you,” said Jack to Uncle Parker.

      “What was that, Rosie?” enquired Mrs Bagthorpe. “You left what in the bath?”

      “I beat Jack doing ten lengths.” This time Rosie’s voice was shamingly distinct and, what was worse, fell into a rare lull in the general din.

      “Did you really?” exclaimed Mrs Bagthorpe, and “Pooh!” said Uncle Parker simultaneously with such force that morsels of crust flew across the table at his wife.

      Conversation ceased abruptly.

      “Did you say something, Russell?” asked Mrs Bagthorpe.

      “I said ‘Pooh!’”

      “That’s what he said before when I told him,” squeaked Rosie indignantly. “And it’s good – it is! Jack’s three years older than me and I beat him and it is good!”

      “Of course it is, darling,” agreed her mother. “And I’m terribly proud of you. Bad luck, Jack.”

      “Bad luck Jack my foot, leg and elbow,” said Uncle Parker. Everyone stared at him except Grandpa who was being SD and evidently did not realise what he was about to miss.

      “I’ll elaborate,” said Uncle Parker. “In my opinion young Jack here, while being a perfectly good chap and worth ten of most here present, swims with the approximate grace and agility of an elephant.”

      No one contradicted him.

      “The fact, therefore,” he continued, “that young Rosie here, while also being perfectly acceptable in many ways though some might say too clever by half, the fact that she has beaten Jack doing ten lengths seems to me to be an event totally devoid of interest. It seems, in fact, to be a non-event of the first order.”

      “I am three years younger,” piped Rosie.

      Uncle Parker turned to her.

      “Kindly do not tell me that again,” he told her. “I have been given that information at least three times in the last hour and am by now in perfect possession of it.”

      “No, Uncle Parker,” said Rosie meekly. “I mean, yes.”

      “Crikey, Uncle P,” said William, “you are in a lather. Anyone’d think Rosie’d beaten you.”

      “I don’t doubt that she could,” returned Uncle Parker calmly. “I am a notoriously bad swimmer, and I dislike getting wet unnecessarily. The only good reason for swimming, so far as I can see, is to escape drowning.”

      “The thing I best remember about that jewel of a cat,” said Grandma reminiscently, “was his extraordinary sweetness of nature. He hadn’t a streak of malice in him.”

      It was, after all, Grandma’s Birthday Party, and she probably felt she was losing her grip on it.

      “That cat,” said Mr Bagthorpe, caught off-guard and swallowing the bait, “was the most cross-grained evil-eyed thing that ever went on four legs. If I had a pound note for every time that animal bit me, I should be a rich man, now.”

      “How can you, Henry!” cried Grandma, delighted that things were warming up.

      “I’d be Croesus,” said Mr Bagthorpe relentlessly. “Midas. Paul Getty. That cat bit people like he was being paid for it in kippers.”

      “There he would lie, hour upon hour, with his great golden head nestled in my lap,” crooned Grandma, getting into her stride, “and I would feel the sweetness flowing out of him. When I lost Thomas, something irreplaceable went out of my life.”

      “Bilge, Mother,” said Mr Bagthorpe. “That cat was nothing short of diabolical. He was a legend. He was feared and hated for miles around. In fact I clearly remember that the first dawnings of respect I ever felt for Russell here began on the day he ran the blasted animal over.”

      “Language, dear,” murmured Mrs Bagthorpe automatically.

      “Not on purpose, of course,” said Uncle Parker.

      “Of course not on purpose!” snapped Mr Bagthorpe. “The way you drive, you couldn’t hit a brick wall, let alone a cat.”

      “It just wasn’t very nippy on its toes, you see,” said Uncle Parker apologetically to Grandma.

      “It nipped me on my toes,” said William. “Bags of times.”

      The rest turned unsmilingly towards him.

      “All right,” he said. “So it wasn’t all that funny. But what about this ‘Pooh!’ business of Uncle P’s? Let’s get back to that. Unless you want to hear what Anonymous from Grimsby told me.”

      “I don’t think you’d better,” said Jack. “It’d be breaking the veil of secrecy.”

      He enjoyed making this remark, but his pleasure was short-lived.

      “I wish you’d learn to use words accurately,” said Mr Bagthorpe testily. (He wrote scripts for television and now and again got obsessed about words, which in his darker moments he believed would eventually become extinct, probably in his own lifetime.) “You can’t break a veil. A veil, by its very nature, is of a fine-spun, almost transparent texture, and while it may be rent, or even—”

      “For crying out loud,” said Uncle Parker.

      “Oh, dearest,” murmured his wife, “must you …?”

      This was the first time Aunt Celia had spoken. She had not even noticed when Uncle Parker had sprayed crumbs at her. The reason for this was that she was gazing at a large piece of bark by her plate. No one had remarked on this because Aunt Celia often brought pieces of bark, ivy or stone (and even, on one memorable occasion, a live snail) to table to gaze on as she ate, even at other people’s parties. She did this because she said it inspired her. It was partly to do with her pot-throwing, she said, and partly her poetry. There was no argument about this since her poetry and pottery alike were not much understood by the other Bagthorpes. They respected it without knowing what on earth it was all about. Also, Aunt Celia was very beautiful – like a naiad, Uncle СКАЧАТЬ