The old devils: a novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

was an opaque greenish concoction with pieces of ice and fruit floating in it.
    'Annual dinner ... '
    The girl studied the slightly mildewed photograph. 'Nowhere here is that.'
    'Chairman ... committee ... You know, like some sort of club?'
    'Served us all right, didn't they?'
    The pair had begun to turn shyly towards the group of old men when Garth, having recognized without any sense of novelty that Peter and Charlie were too fat to be expected to make a move and Malcolm too windy, got up and shut the door as loudly as he could, which was not very loudly because it had already come close to shutting itself.
    'Er, excuse me,' began the youth.
    Garth stared at him without speaking.
    'Er, is this some kind of club?'
    'Not exactly a club, no,' said Garth, moving his head about and screwing up his face in a confidential way. 'It's more, well, we had been hoping to hold this private committee meeting in just a few minutes. Personal matters, you'll appreciate, er ... '
    'Oh ... well ... sorry ..’
    After an exchange of glances and no delay the two invaders set about leaving. The girl, who was rather tall and walked with a firm tread, looked briefly over at the seated three as she passed.
    'And shut the door,' said Peter with elaborate movements of his mouth. When the door had shut, almost soundlessly, Garth puffed out his breath, Charlie said, 'Well done, Garth, you're a great man,' and Peter gave a short roar like a lion keeping in voice.
    Malcolm made no sound. He thought the girl's eye had caught his for an instant, not of course out of anything but habit or even politeness, and yet it set him thinking. How many years was it since he had noticed a girl? And what exactly had he seen in this one? -" she was not all that attractive. She was young, yes indeed, not that he could have said what age, but not so much young either as fresh, new, scarcely out of the wrapping-paper with no time for anything to have got at her and started using her up. It was hard to believe that there had been a time when he had lived his whole life among people like that with occasional unimpressive distractions from an aunt or a teacher or a ticket -collector.
    'That, that breed haven't necessarily been badly brought up, they're gross and boorish by nature.' It seemed that Peter thought the affray of a moment before had been far too lightly passed over.
    'On the contrary,' said Malcolm, quite sharply for him. 'They blundered in rather crassly because they knew no better, but as soon as they grasped the situation their decent instincts took over and they were perfectly civil.'
    'I'll go and invite them back in if you like,' said Charlie.
    'It's my shout,' said Garth.
    ‘No, mine,' said Peter.
    But before he had got properly started on rising to his feet the door opened again, nearly as wide as before but smoothly and silently. There followed a frozen pause which a stranger might have found unsettling. Then a man came into the room and shut the door ceremoniously behind him, a man of the same sort of age as the company, a tall broad man, not fat, wearing an unusually thick naturalcoloured cardigan with scuffed leather buttons. This was Tarquin Jones, known as Tare, landlord of the Bible as long as any of the others could remember. On first sight of him standing behind the beer-pulls in the main bar, perhaps as far back as 1950, Malcolm had thought that he must have suffered a bereavement earlier that morning and had on the instant decided that he, Malcolm, was in some way responsible. But he had stood his ground and quite soon discovered that Tare always had that expression on, at least in public. Now, grasping the backs of Charlie's and Peter's chairs, he leaned over the table and looked them all in the eye one after the other.
    ‘So you managed to dispose of the intolerable intrusion,' he said in a grave tone, at once diffusing a cloud of the ambiguity that hung about so much of what he said.
    ‘They went like lambs,' said Charlie. ‘No trouble at