Last Ditch

She hadn’t gone any distance at all when Mr. Sydney Jones presented himself.

There was nothing very remarkable, Troy thought, about his appearance. He had a beard, close cropped, revealing a full, vaguely sensual but indeterminate mouth. His hair was of a medium length and looked clean. He wore a sweater over jeans. Indeed, all that remained of the Syd Jones Ricky had described was his huge silly-sinister pair of black spectacles. He carried a suitcase and a newspaper parcel.

“Hullo,” Troy said, offering her hand. “You’re Sydney Jones, aren’t you? Ricky rang up and told us you were coming. Do sit down, won’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, and sniffed loudly. He was sweating.

Troy sat on the arm of a chair. “Do you smoke?” she said. “I’m sorry I haven’t got any cigarettes but do if you’d like to.”

He put his suitcase and the newspaper parcel down and lit a cigarette. He then picked up his parcel.

“I gather it’s about Jerome et Cie’s paints, isn’t it?” Troy suggested. “I’d better say that I wouldn’t want to change to them and I can’t honestly give you a blurb. Anyway I don’t do that sort of thing. Sorry.” She waited for a response but he said nothing. “Rick tells us,” she said, “that you paint.”

With a gesture so abrupt that it made her jump, he thrust his parcel at her. The newspaper fell away and three canvases tied together with string were exposed.

“Is that,” Troy asked, “some of your work?”

He nodded.

“Do you want me to look at it?”

He muttered.

Made cross by having been startled, Troy said: “My dear boy, do for pity’s sake speak out. You make me feel as if I were giving an imitation of a woman talking to herself. Stick them up there where I can see them.”

With unsteady hands he put them up, one by one, changing them when she nodded. The first was the large painting Ricky had decided was an abstraction of Leda and the swan. The second was a kaleidoscopic arrangement of shapes in hot browns and raucous blues. The third was a landscape, more nearly representational than the others. Rows of perceptible houses with black, staring windows stood above dark water. There was some suggestion of tactile awareness but no real respect, Troy thought, for the medium.

She said: “I think I know where we are with this one. Is it Saint Pierre-des-Roches on the coast of Normandy?”

“Yar,” he said.

“It’s the nearest French port to your island, isn’t it? Do you often go across?”

“Aw — yar,” he said, fidgeting. “It turns me on. Or did. I’ve worked that vein out, as a matter of fact.”

“Really,” said Troy. There was a longish pause. “Do you mind putting up the first one again. The Leda.”

He did so. Another silence. “Well,” she said, “do you want me to say what I think? Or not?”

“I don’t mind,” he mumbled and yawned extensively.

“Here goes, then. I find it impossible to say whether I think you’ll develop into a good painter or not. These three things are all derivative. That doesn’t matter while you’re young: if you’ve got something of your own, with great pain and infinite determination you will finally prove it. I don’t think you’ve done that so far. I do get something from the Leda thing — a suggestion that you’ve got a strong sense of rhythm but it’s no more than a suggestion. I don’t think you’re very self-critical.” She looked hard at him. “You don’t fool about with drugs do you?” asked Troy.

There was a very long pause before he answered quite loudly, “No.”

“Good. I only asked because your hands are unsteady and your behavior erratic, and—” She broke off. “Look here,” she said, “you’re not well, are you? Sit down. No, don’t be silly, sit down.”

He did sit down. He was shaking, sweat had started out under the line of his hair, and he was the color of a peeled banana. He gaped and ran a dreadful tongue round his mouth. She fetched him a glass of water. The dark glasses were askew. He put up his trembling hand to them and they fell off, disclosing a pair of pale ineffectual eyes. Gone was the mysterious Mr. Jones.

“I’m all right,” he said.

“I don’t think you are.”

“Party. Last night.”

“What sort of party?”

“Aw. A fun thing.”

“I see.”

“I’ll be OK.”

Troy made some black coffee and left him to drink it while she returned to her work. The spirit trees began to enclose their absolute i

When, at a quarter-past one, Alleyn walked into the studio, it was to find his wife at work and an enfeebled young man avidly watching her from an armchair.

“Oh,” said Troy, grandly waving her brush and staring fixedly at Alleyn. “Hullo, darling. Syd, this is my husband. This is Rick’s friend Syd Jones, Rory. He’s shown me some of his work and he’s going to stay for luncheon.”

“Well!” Alleyn said, shaking hands, “this is an unexpected pleasure. How are you?”

ii

Three days after Ricky’s jaunt to Montjoy Julia Pharamond rang him up at lunchtime. He had some difficulty in pulling himself together and attending to what she said.

“You do ride, don’t you?” she asked.

“Not at all well.”

“At least you don’t fall off?”

“Not very often.”

“There you are, then. Super. All settled.”

“What,” he asked, “is settled?”

“My plan for tomorrow. We get some Harkness hacks and ride to Bon Accord.”

“I haven’t any riding things.”

“No problem. Jasper will lend you any amount. I’m ringing you up while he’s out because he’d say I was seducing you away from your book. But I’m not, am I?”

“Yes,” said Ricky, “you are, and it’s lovely,” and heard her splutter.

“Well, anyway,” she said, “it’s all settled. You must leap on your bicyclette and pedal up to L’Espérance for breakfast and then we’ll all sweep up to the stables. Such fun.”

“Is Miss Harkness coming?”

“No. How can you ask! Before we knew where we were she’d miscarry.”

“If horse exercise was going to make her do that it would have done so already, I fancy,” said Ricky and told her about the mishap on the road to Montjoy. Julia was full of exclamations and excitement. “How,” she said, “you dared not to ring up and tell us immediately!”

“I thought you’d said she was begi

“She’s suddenly got interesting again. So she’s back at Leathers and reconciled to Mr. Harkness?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“But couldn’t you tell? Couldn’t you sense it?”

“How?”

“Well, from her conversation.”

“It consisted exclusively of oaths.”

“I can’t wait to survey the scene at Leathers. Will Mr. Jones be there, mucking out?”

“He was in London, quite recently.”

“In London! Doing what?”

“Lunching with my parents among other things.”

“You really are too provoking. I can see that all sorts of curious things are happening and you’re being furtive and sly about them.”

“I promise to disclose all. I’m not even fully persuaded, by the way, that she and Syd Jones are lovers.”

“I shall be the judge of that. Here comes Jasper; I’ll have to tell him I’ve seduced you. Goodbye.”

“Which is no more than God’s truth,” Ricky shouted fervently. He heard her laugh and hang up the receiver.

The next morning dawned brilliantly and at half-past nine Ricky, dressed in Jasper’s spare jodhpurs and boots and his own Ferrant sweater, proposed to take a photograph of the Pharamonds, including the two little girls produced for the purpose. They assembled in a group on the patio. The Pharamonds evidently adored being photographed, especially Louis who looked almost embarrassingly smooth in breeches, boots, sharp hacking jacket, and gloves.

“Louis, darling,” Julia said, surveying him, “Très snob — presque cad! You lack only the polo stick!”

“I don’t understand how it is,” Carlotta said, “but nothing Louis wears ever looks even a day old.”