Ostrich Country. David Nobbs

Ipswich By-Pass Pegasus slowed down as he passed two girls. He opened the window and shouted: ‘I’ll go on a long road. I have the respect for the ingredient.’ The girls giggled.

      Nothing had happened with Mrs Hassett. All that had been an illusion. When she came to his room he had been so near to grabbing hold of her, and when she sneezed he had said ‘Bless you’ more like a lover than an employee, but she hadn’t noticed. He had entirely misconstrued her reason for coming to his room.

      He was glad, for Paula’s sake, that nothing had happened with Mrs Hassett.

      ‘I’m sorry, darling. I just don’t feel like going out,’ said Simon.

      ‘But it’s so nice,’ said Paula.

      ‘The sun’s shining in the window,’ said Simon. ‘That’s nice, too.’

      ‘It’s so nice out,’ said Paula.

      ‘You go out, then, if you want to.’

      ‘There’s not much point in my coming round to see you if I go out the moment I’ve arrived.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said Simon. He was writing, at his desk, in his small neat hand.

      ‘I tell you what I do fancy,’ said Paula. ‘A bath.’

      ‘Good idea. Have one.’

      Simon’s bathroom was in a different class from hers. Hers was shared.

      ‘You can have the wireless if you want to,’ said Simon.

      Paula thanked him. It was a sacrifice. He didn’t really like exposing his radio to all that steam.

      He came over to her and kissed her in that leisurely way of his.

      ‘We’ll make a real night out of it tonight,’ he said.

      They probably would. He was always true to his promises.

      ‘Do you need the loo before I have my bath?’

      ‘No.’

      He never did. A small thing, but irritating.

      Pegasus sat on the seat and closed his eyes.

      How could you, Paula?

      Nothing.

      Oh, Paula, Paula, Paula.

      Nothing.

      He opened his eyes again and looked out towards the bandstand with its pretty curved green roof. Old men were flying kites. One of the kites was a painted eagle, a lectern in the sky. He couldn’t see the surface of the Round Pond but he could see the miniature sailing boats sliding across the grass. In the foreground were the sharp cries of children. Behind them, far away, restful from this distance, the hum of traffic, like canned music.

      Once more he tried to rebuild Paula, but he couldn’t remember her, only his memories of her. Remembrance of Paula past. ‘Paula darling’ meant ‘I remember what a darling you were, Paula, in the days when I used to say to you “Paula darling”.’

      There is no one else, Paula. If I no longer have you I have no one.

      Oh, Paula, Paula. Nothing.

      Tarragon walked happily over the duckboards towards his favourite of all the hides, with the best view of the bearded tits and marsh harriers. He was on his own. Occasionally he brought friends to Suffolk, but never to the bird sanctuary.

      There was somebody else there, in his favourite of all the hides. A woman, a square woman.

      ‘Plenty of beardies,’ said the square woman. ‘Gadwall to port, avocet’s nest straight ahead, three little stint to starboard.’

      Damn the bitch. The pleasure of it was finding the things, spotting them in the far distance, pitting your wits against them, forgetting the banalities. The ability to speak was the curse of mankind, and more especially womankind, and most especially of all, square-jawed authoritative womankind.

      ‘Thank you,’ he said.

      ‘Don’t mench.’

      Damn all square-jawed women. Damn all women. Damn all unsatisfied sexual feelings and all pathetic painful maladjustments. Damn his bloody family, the Clumps of Gloucestershire, and their inhibiting Cotswold seat. Damn all interruptions which spoilt the perfection of the pale filtered sunlight of May by the sea, the magical stillness of a morning without wind, of trees hardly stirring and of mists slowly clearing, and of thin films of white cloud drifting harmlessly overhead.

      ‘Beardies straight ahead. Quick. To the right. Gone.’

      ‘Never mind.’

      Focus, Clump. Focus on beautiful creatures marred by cruelty but untouched by malice.

      There was a great therapeutic calm in the drawing of his binoculars slowly over the stones and puddles and rank grass.

      ‘Two redshank copulating in line with that upturned rowing boat,’ said Tarragon. He looked the square-jawed woman in the face. ‘Nice morning for it,’ he said.

      The square-jawed woman left the hide, and a weight was lifted from him. He had a splendid day, after that. Marsh harriers winging with lazy beats over the marsh, two girls sunbathing on the dunes, swallows and martins swooping and diving, a kestrel hovering, two girls sunbathing, a solitary shoveller flying purposefully towards its mate, two girls sunbathing.

      Late in the afternoon, as the wisps of cloud grew thicker and a light wind began to disturb the unnatural stillness, Tarragon set off for the hotel. He began to feel excited. He hurried into a small copse on the edge of the marsh.

      Sitting with his back against a tree he had a good view of the hotel. He scanned the upper windows through his binoculars.

      I suppose this is voyeurism, he thought, without surprise. A new departure. It was true that he’d often hung around outside underground stations to see the pretty girls returning home from work, and had even followed them, admiring their legs and bottoms, but that was not voyeurism, since it had been his firm intention to speak to them, to invite them to a concert at the Festival Hall, and later to marry them. It wasn’t his fault that it hadn’t turned out like that.

      But this was different, looking at girls from the protection of a bird sanctuary, watching out for Mrs Hassett, squinting through his binoculars, 8 × 35, a good magnification for bird-watching and not too bad for voyeurism. He felt ashamed, yet continued. And was rewarded. At 5.45 he saw her, changing in preparation for the evening’s duties. He fancied he could see her breasts—small, neat breasts. He was almost certain that she was applying powder to her armpits. He saw a flash of something pale, her back perhaps, as she twisted into a dress.

      ‘You find Mrs Hassett attractive, no?’

      Tarragon jumped and scrambled guiltily to his feet. He blushed.

      ‘I startled you?’

      It was Alphonse.

      ‘Yes, you — er — you did. I think there’s a swallow’s nest under the eaves.’

      ‘Now to me, Mrs Hassett, she has not my sort. She is a little, how you say, not so enough effeminate. A little what I would say Parisian.’

      ‘I thought I saw a hawk of some kind flying past the hotel.’

      ‘Me, I like more the country girl, yes? In my native Provence, there they have the roundness, how you say, swollen. Oh, monsieur, you should see them.’

      Tarragon had no wish just then to see the swollen girls of Alphonse’s native Provence. He set off towards the hotel, with Alphonse at his heels.

      ‘The swallows were rather early this year,’ he said.

      ‘You are a coal mine of interesting information, Mr Clump,’ said Alphonse. ‘I think perhaps my information also to Mrs Hassett and your family will be quite interesting, too.’

      ‘I don’t