The Glimpses of the Moon (33 page)

serfs?'

‘Kindly leave this to me, Miss Davenant,' said Mr Dodd, who was losing his temper fast.

‘I said, move it, Dad.'

‘And stop calling me “Dad”.'

‘I'll call you what I bloody like, you crazy old crank.' The motor-cyclist raised his eyes to heaven, as if imploring it to rescue him from this superannuated donkey. ‘Ninety if you're a
day, and can't even drive a car yet. Don't you argue with
me
, Dad, or I'll knock your dentures down your throat. When I tell you to get that wreck out of the way, you don't argue, see, you just do it.'

For Mr Dodd, this was the last straw. ‘Oh no, I don't,' he said, bearing down on the motor-cyclist. ‘Don't you dare tell
me
what to do, you miserable young puppy. I'll teach you to tell
me
what to do.' He clenched his fist and swung wildly at the motorcyclist's face, but was still too far off for the blow to connect. Taking several steps nearer, he tried again, and this time, if the swipe had ever got under way, it might have rocked the motorcyclist slightly. It did not, however, get under way; in fact, it had only just started when Mr Dodd, still moving forward, tripped over a tortoise and fell abruptly into the motor-cyclist's arms, clutching him round the back for support. It was possible to judge from the motor-cyclist's face when confronted with this assault that his aggro was strictly verbal, that he avoided physical fights and that he feared that even such a decrepit relic as Mr Dodd, once roused, had the capacity to do him an injury and cause him much unacceptable pain. Accordingly, he confined himself to putting his own arms round Mr Dodd, and for some moments, in a confined space, the pair of them gavotted unsteadily round in circles - in what would have looked like a fraternal embrace but for the feeble wrestling motions to which one or other of them occasionally resorted - watched with mild interest by everyone present. The motor-cyclists made no move to come to the aid of their leader, and the hunt saboteurs made no move to come to the aid of theirs. Mr Dodd's spectacles were shaken from his nose and at once trodden on by Miss Mimms's horse. Eventually both combatants lost their balance altogether, and fell down, still locked together, on to the dusty tarmac. Disentangling himself, the motor-cyclist got upright again; he stood glaring round and brushing himself off with the palms of his gloved hands. Mr Dodd remained on his knees, groping about him vainly for his spectacles, which presently the hunt saboteuse, striding forward contemptuously, picked up for him and thrust into his hand. He put them on, but on discovering that with their lenses cracked and their frames buckled he could see better without them, soon
took them off again, heaved himself to his feet, and with arms extended in front of him like a somnambulist's, began making his way towards the estate wagon.

‘I'm getting out of this,' said Mr Dodd.

‘Male chauvinist mouse,' the hunt saboteuse hissed at him. It occurred to Fen that although she could only be about sixteen or seventeen, her package of progressive
idées
reçues
was already a bit out of date, not to say rather blurrily cross-referenced. What would it be next, he wondered? Namibia? The perennial C.I.A.? Chile again? The Black Papers on Education?

‘Oh, shut up,' said Mr Dodd to the hunt saboteuse.

‘I suppose you think I'm just a sexual object,' said the hunt saboteuse.

Mr Dodd was normally a polite man, but now the last vestiges of chivalry left him. ‘You're not even capable of being that, I'm afraid,' he said; and got into the estate wagon and scrambled into the back, where he huddled down morosely, dissociating himself from all further part in the circumjacent turmoil. As to the hunt saboteuse, she was uncharacteristically for the moment bereft of speech.

The leader of the herd of Clarence Tully's South Devons had meanwhile succeeded in getting the field gate at the bend off its hinges, had pushed it open and was now browsing in solitary splendour in the field beyond.

Two cars came round the bend from Glazebridge. They braked hurriedly on seeing what confronted them, and began playing protracted, angry fanfarades on their horns. To cries of rage and despair from Alan Tully, the cows on the far side of the estate wagon, unnerved by this fresh souce of noise, again scattered.

The second of the two cars was a Panda, containing a brace of uniformed constables. The first, a grey Cortina, had Widger driving, with Ling sitting at his side, puffing miasmally at a pipe. In the back sat Detective-Constable Rankine, lovingly nursing a pair of handcuffs. Rankine's mouth was moving, so it was to be presumed that he was beguiling his superiors' journey with a commentary on the landscape, or the weather, or the Botticelli murder, or the blockage in the lane, or some other topic which had struck his fancy. Both cars were forced to a halt, and a
constable leaped from the Panda to clear a way for them, efficiently herding, by virtue of his uniform, all of the horses, the huntsmen, the motor-cyclists, the motor-cycles, and even the bald youth and the hunt saboteuse, on to the southern side, the apple-tree side, of the lane, where they joined the man in the caftan's bay, which was still drowsing peaceably almost immediately beneath the Major. The constable then stood on guard while the police cortège nosed cautiously forward along the narrow route thus provided until once again checked, this time by the estate wagon.

‘My God, it's the pigs,' said the hunt saboteuse disgustedly. That was all we needed. Well, come on, arrest us for something,' she shouted at the Cortina.

‘Ah, belt up, Elaine, can't you?' The bald youth might share the hunt saboteuse's views on the evils of venery, but it was far from certain that he shared them on any other issue, and in his taciturn way he had become almost as irritated with her as had Mr Dodd: only rapidly fraying generation ties were still binding the two of them together. ‘I'm going to move your junk dooly, that's what I'm going to do. I don't want no trouble with the fuzz.'

‘Coward. Conformist,' the hunt saboteuse spat at him. She turned her attention again to Widger. ‘Come on, then, arrest us,' she bellowed. ‘It oughtn't to be difficult for brutal fascist pigs like you to find some excuse for arresting and beating up innocent people.'

Widger stuck his head out of the window of the Cortina. ‘Does this … this motor-car belong to you, Miss?' he asked.

‘For the love of the Lamb, let's get going, Charles,' said Ling fretfully. ‘We're in a hurry.'

‘Ms.' The hunt saboteuse wobbled her breasts under the T-shirt to show that they were un-brassiered, a token of liberation which had little effect, since her torso was almost entirely concealed by long shanks of tangled, parti-coloured hair. ‘Ms, if you don't mind.'

‘I do mind,' said Widger, who had no time for such inanities. He got out of the Cortina and advanced on the hunt saboteuse with an air of menace. ‘I said,
is this your car?'

‘Yes, it is, and I'm not going to move it. You can -'

‘Do let's get
going
, Charles,' Ling shouted. ‘Our man -'

‘I really
will
arrest you, you know,' said Widger. ‘For obstructing the police in the execution of their duties. Now if you'll kindly - '

‘Scybalum!' hissed the bearded huntsman, while Miss Mimms wept, the motor-cyclists' leader judiciously picked his nose, and the man in the caftan contemplated the scene in despair. Enoch could still be heard grieving, and Alan Tully swearing monotonously as he tried to organize his cows. The Major reached for yet a third apple and Fen lit a fresh cigarette.

‘The police seem to be putting on a show of strength,' said the Major. ‘Do you think they've found out who the murderer is, and are on their way to arrest him?'

‘Either that or detain him for questioning. They certainly seem to expect resistance.'

‘Let's hope it isn't one of us, then,' said the Major. ‘Because we're well hidden and they haven't spotted us yet.'

‘Very well, if you refuse to move it,' Widger was saying to the hunt saboteuse, ‘I shall have no alternative but to move it myself.' He turned away from her and began clambering into the estate wagon, where for the first time he perceived Mr Dodd hunched in the back. ‘Mr Dodd!' he exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?'

‘Oh, hello, Inspector,' said Mr Dodd uneasily, having managed to identify Widger at the cost of some optical strain. ‘I -I've got myself into rather bad company, I'm afraid. These young people - I'm sure they mean well, but such language … And they just won't see that reason is the only weapon, calmness and reason.' He shook his head sadly, doing his best to look an injured innocent. ‘We shall never get reform in any other way.'

‘Oh, so it's hunt sabotage, is it?' said Widger, enlightened. ‘Calmness and reason, eh? And just what's this aniseed I smell?'

‘Aniseed,' said Mr Dodd rather more stiffly, ‘has its place.'

‘I see. Well, you just stay where you are while I try to get this ruin of an automobile into the side of the road.'

Widger edged himself into the driver's seat, switched on, started the engine with a roar, let the clutch in, put the gear lever into reverse, twisted the wheel, and let the clutch out again.
The estate wagon twitched once, but otherwise made no move, and the engine died. Widger restarted it and tried again, with the same negative result. Nor did any of the forward gears make any difference: the vehicle remained immobile where it was.

‘We really must get
on,
' Ling bawled through his pipe.

Disembarking, Widger addressed himself to the bald youth, who happened to be nearest. ‘What's the matter with this thing?' he demanded irritably.

‘You tell me, cock,' said the bald youth. ‘She was okay when I was driving her. It's something you've done.'

‘Oh, rubbish … Rankine!'

In his anxiety to be of help, Detective-Constable Rankine almost fell out of the back of the Cortina. He was still dangling the handcuffs from one fist. ‘Sir?' he said.

‘You're supposed to know something about cars, aren't you?'

‘I think I may assert without immodesty, sir,' said Rankine, ‘that I have some practical experience of the internal combustion engine.' He lifted a forefinger, presumably in order to engage Widger's closest attention. ‘Its basic principle is simple. Petroleum vapour under pressure is ignited by a -'

‘Yes, thank you very much, Rankine, but we don't want a lecture on mechanics just at the immediate moment. The point is, can you do anything about this bloody estate wagon? I think the brakes must be jammed. Can you unjam them?'

‘Certainly, sir.'

‘Well, don't just stand there, Rankine. Get on with it.'

‘Sir.'

‘
Quickly.
'

‘Sir.'

Ling could be heard groaning aloud. ‘I said,
quickly
, Rankine,' Widger repeated.

‘I shall have to borrow some of your tools, sir.'

‘Borrow anything you like, but for God's sake, man, get weaving.'

‘Very good, sir,' said Rankine, recovering from his uncharacteristic stupor and at once becoming a blur of purposeful activity. Flinging the handcuffs into the back of the Cortina, he rushed to its boot, opened it, and abstracted the tool-kit which
the manufacturers had thoughtfully provided in case their workmanship should fall to bits the moment it got on the road. Armed with this, he ran to the estate wagon, flung himself on to his back on the ground, and wriggled underneath until only his shoes, socks and trouser-ends remained visible. He set to work, and from time to time his muffled voice could be heard giving a blow-by-blow account of his procedures (‘I select a spanner of the correct size. I apply it to the nut. I take a half turn to the right.') while his large audience looked on sceptically.

‘Charles, hadn't we better turn and go round some other way?' Ling said restively from his seat in the Cortina.

‘It's a long distance, Eddie,' said Widger. ‘And I think Rankine will be able to manage,' he added without much confidence.

‘If only he didn't
talk
so much.'

‘Yes. I know. But he just gets bewildered if you try to stop him.'

A helicopter marked SWEB ground its way towards them, appearing suddenly from beyond a distant rise in the terrain, and although originally flying at a height of about five hundred feet, dipped to examine the snarl-up in the lane below; like all helicopters, it sounded like an inexpensive clockwork toy enormously amplified, and inevitably its uproar panicked the cows again. Serenely unconscious, like all his kind, of the obnoxiousness of his tawdry expertise to the vast majority of the public, the pilot waved through his Plexiglas. Then his machine lifted again, its damage done, and made off in the direction of the Pisser, where it could remittently be glimpsed buzzing round in circles, no doubt making some sort of inspection from above. Collecting his cows together for what seemed the umpteenth time, Alan Tully now sensibly gave up all attempt to get them to their proper destination, instead driving them up the lane opposite the Rector's house, where the Mini was parked. Here a second gate gave on to the field in which, for some time now, the more enterprising leader of the herd had been peaceably stuffing her rumen, honeycomb, manyplies and abomasum with Farmer Droridge's grass, and here Alan Tully harried her companions to join her. They could go to their proper pasture later. Meanwhile, Alan knew that his father, returning from the hunt, wouldn't when he heard all the circumstances in the least
blame him. And as to Farmer Droridge, to hell with the old fool.

Noted initially only by Fen (the Major was eyeing Miss Mimms, Mr Dodd in the estate wagon was nursing an aura of gloom, Alan and the cows were gone, Enoch the cowman was too preoccupied with his ankle to have any attention to spare for anything else, and the remainder of the participants were on the wrong side of the estate wagon, or, in Rankine's case, active underneath it) - noted only by Fen, a new phenomenon was at this point added to the situation. In the Rector's gateway there materialized a familiar pink blob; apart from shining black shoes, a white shirt and a conservative navy-blue tie, it was surmounted and underpinned entirely by palest grey; it was the man from Sweb. In his arms he was lugging an ornate metal coffer, and this, though not particularly large, evidently weighed a good deal. He looked back anxiously over his shoulder; he gaped in some dismay at the brouhaha up along the lane. Then, summoning up his determination, he scuttled across to where his Mini was parked, levered himself and the coffer into it, started the engine, reversed rapidly, and drove off towards Burraford. By this time the Major's interest was aroused, and he and Fen watched in some fascination as the Rector himself emerged, beamed up the lane and down it (where the Mini was just disappearing from sight), and abruptly gave tongue.