Ostrich Country. David Nobbs

scraped in the lock and he had to resist the temptation to hide. The door opened. It was Jane.

      ‘You go downstairs first, looking natural,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow.’

      ‘It’s so sordid. Things are going to be a little awkward.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘I don’t really think my place is the answer. We shouldn’t broadcast the fact to Brenda,’ said Pegasus.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Besides, it wouldn’t exactly be the ideal love nest. Not with all those books and toys.’

      ‘Not with Wol and Piglet and Eeyore.’

      ‘Not to mention Major James Bigglesworth, better known to all his friends as Biggles.’

      10

      Mervyn arrived unexpectedly on the day before the picnic. He came unheralded as always, on the Ipswich bus, just in time to get the last room at the hotel. It was his half-term. He seemed surprised that Pegasus didn’t give up all his duties the moment he arrived. Mervyn was the most demanding of all his friends, and the closest. More a mutual need than a friendship.

      Tony was present this week-end so Mervyn’s presence suited Pegasus and Jane. But it was a pity about the picnic. Mervyn was the last person you wanted on an occasion of that sort.

      ‘Your mind is not over the job,’ said Alphonse, noting Pegasus’s absent-minded attack on the unfreezing of some fresh spinach.

      Pegasus made no reply. He was beginning to think less highly of Alphonse. He was uninspired. No finesse. And lazy. ‘Please to open for me a tin of pâté maison. Well, I am not making my own. They are not appreciating it, English pigs.’ Pegasus felt that he had drifted into catering simply because he was French, just as, if he was Panamanian, he’d be Sparks on some rusty coaster. He was just doing a job, rather than expressing his essential Alphonseness. But Pegasus remained outwardly respectful, not wanting to get in the man’s bad books, and be kept on this routine work for ever.

      Steam rising, Tonio swearing, trout sizzling. Enter Jane, busy supervising. Hotel moving towards success. All comments favourable. A special smile from Jane, concealed in an ordinary smile. A rising leap in Pegasus, a salmon leaping, hollandaise sauce spawning. Spurt of water. Tiny pains of hot water alighting on face. Part of great band of men and women creating pleasure and sustenance for others. Romantic brotherhood. Three visits to her room now. Ripening summer, rain and sun. Time for a few pints before closing time. Mervyn in good form, happy in his work. Nostalgia. Sudden access of gloom, feverishly dispelled.

      Careful feet on cottage steps, exaggerated care of the drunk. Falling into bed. Soon asleep.

      Five hours later he awoke, suffering. He had been dreaming. His dreams had begun again.

      The dream had been set at the Ministry of Insemination. The official in Room 511 was Cousin Percy. He was seated at the head of a large round table with twenty-four seats. Pegasus sat at the foot.

      ‘What’s your complaint, Baines?’ said Cousin Percy.

      Pegasus felt instantly servile.

      ‘Well, sir, fifteen years ago I ordered a son.’

      ‘What sort of a son, Baines?’

      ‘A test cricketer, sir.’

      Cousin Percy consulted a form. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite correct. You ordered a test cricketer, who would go in number six, bowl a well-concealed Chinaman, and win the Nobel Prize for left-arm bowling. What is a well-concealed Chinaman?’

      ‘It’s the left-arm bowler’s off-break, sir.’

      ‘I see. And what went wrong?’

      ‘He isn’t what I ordered, sir.’

      ‘You mean he isn’t a test cricketer?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘How old is he?’

      ‘Fourteen, sir.’

      Cousin Percy leant forward, his face stern, his eyes flashing orbs of controlled fury. The room stretched huge and dark in all directions. Pegasus was afraid.

      ‘You’re not giving him much time, are you, Baines?’ said Cousin Percy.

      ‘He’ll never be a test cricketer, sir. He isn’t the sort.’

      ‘What sort is he?’

      ‘He’s non-co-operative, sir.’

      Non-co-operative! Nothing could describe the agony of being a parent to such a child.

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘He throws things, sir.’

      ‘What things, Baines?’

      ‘Anything, sir.’

      ‘Anything else?’

      ‘No, sir, just anything.’

      ‘I meant does he do anything else apart from throw things?’ Cousin Percy was getting annoyed.

      ‘Yes, sir. He says “sweet and sour pork”.’

      ‘I don’t see anything so terrible in that,’ said Cousin Percy.

      Pegasus felt that he wasn’t explaining it very well.

      ‘But he says it all the time, sir,’ he said.

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘And he’s Chinese.’

      ‘What’s his cricket like?’

      ‘He refuses to play. He just throws all the stumps at the umpire and says “sweet and sour pork”. He’s not the sort of thing we had in mind at all, sir.’

      ‘Fetch him in.’

      His wife walked listlessly, her spirit broken. Johnny looked so nice in his school uniform, a round jolly contented Chinese face. He sat on Pegasus’s right, with his mother beyond him.

      ‘What’s your name?’ said Cousin Percy, not unkindly.

      Pegasus had a wild hope that the boy would tell him.

      ‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.

      ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

      ‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.

      ‘What’s your favourite meal?’

      ‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.

      ‘You see,’ said Cousin Percy. ‘He answers sensibly enough in the end, if you just show a bit of patience.’

      Johnny jumped up, picked up his chair, and threw it across the table towards Cousin Percy. It didn’t reach him.

      ‘Why did you do that?’ said Cousin Percy.

      ‘Sweet and sour pork,’ said Johnny.

      ‘Take him away,’ said Cousin Percy.

      The mother led the boy from the room, an innocent smile on his chubby little Chinese face.

      ‘Johnny Chinaman doesn’t always take to cricket all that easily. You haven’t been forcing it down his throat, have you?’ said Cousin Percy to Pegasus.

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘On balance, Baines, I am inclined to think that this is just a phase he’s going through — a phase of being Chinese and throwing things and only saying “sweet and sour pork”.’

      ‘But, sir …’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘I wanted an English boy.’

      ‘You aren’t a racialist, are you?’

      ‘No,