The Midden (33 page)

'He'll have to go,' he told the Home Secretary. 'I don't care what arguments you put to me, I
will not have such a corrupt person in a position of high public responsibility. I won't.' It was
a strong statement from such a weak man. But the Home Secretary had no intention of opposing the
Prime Minister. He too would willingly have strangled the Chief Constable, not only for what he
had done to the Middenhall, but more personally for what he had done to the Home Secretary.
Someone ought to have warned him about that establishment at Urnmouth and the fact that he might
be filmed in his role of Marlene Dietrich. To put it mildly, Sir Arnold Gonders' future was not
going to be a pleasant one.

'On the other hand, we mustn't rock the local party boat too much,' the Prime Minister went
on. He really was a very weak man.

The Home Secretary couldn't bring himself to agree. He was in a very ugly mood. He'd have
torpedoed the bloody boat and machine-gunned any survivors.

As the last marksman was carried from the front lawn and the forensic experts flown in from
Scotland Yard ('The hell with what that moron Gonders says, I'm putting you in command,' the Home
Secretary told the Commissioner of Police) began the almost impossible task of distinguishing the
remains of Mrs Devizes from those of Mrs Laura Midden Rayter and the other burnt corpses (only
DNA tests might do that); while the lobster-coloured cook explained to a TV audience of at least
fifteen million how she and the other kitchen staff had escaped the holocaust by hiding in the
cellar and being boiled; as the persons who cared and were concerned went back to their extremely
expensive conference hotel to discuss the sphincter in an entirely different context, namely as
it applied to those arseholes of the anti-feminist State, the police; in short as things got back
to normal, the Dean led the Porterhouse Mission to the Isle of Dogs away from the smouldering
squalor that had been the Middenhall. In the thicket Consuelo McKoy fumbled with her silver cat
suit and wondered if she would ever feel the same way about small boys.

Inspector Rascombe knew he wouldn't. In the back of a police van he had no interest whatsoever
in the fate of little kiddies. As far as he was concerned they could hold Black Masses and
slaughter the little buggers on an hourly basis and he would rejoice. He had nothing else to
rejoice about. They were waiting for him at Police Headquarters and the two detectives who had
collected him said some Special Interrogators had been flown up from London to have a little chat
with him. Rascombe knew what that meant. He had had 'little chats' with people before, and they
hadn't enjoyed the process.

Behind him in the wood Phoebe Turnbird left Detective Constable Markin with his thumbs tied
together round the back of a tree, a trick she had been taught by old Brigadier General Turnbird,
who had done the same thing to a great many captured PoWs before interrogating them. Then she
headed triumphantly up to the Midden farmhouse in her stained and torn white frock and battered
hat. She wanted to console poor Marjorie Midden and let her know how desperately, but desperately
sorry she was and how she felt for her in her moment of loss. To her amazement she found Miss
Midden sitting outside the front door looking remarkably cheerful for a woman who had lost
everything.

'Oh, my poor dear...' Phoebe began, disregarding the glow of satisfaction on Miss Midden's
face. Miss Turnbird, in spite of her love of poetry, was not a deeply sensitive or perceptive
woman, or perhaps poetry was a substitute for sensitivity and perception. She had come up to
sympathize with poor dear Marjorie (and to patronize her) and she was going to do it, come hell
or high water. Hell there had already been, and as far as the cook was concerned high water had
been exceedingly helpful. But Miss Midden had had too good a day to put up with sentimental slush
from Phoebe Turnbird, slush and odious sympathy. Besides, it was plain to see that wherever
Phoebe had been she hadn't been in church all day. The leaf mould on her face and hands and the
state of her dress indicated that. She had obviously been rolling on the ground, having a whale
of time.

Looking at her, Miss Midden was struck by a sudden inspiration. She raised her hand and her
voice. 'Stop that at once, Phoebe. I won't have it. Now get yourself a chair...no, go upstairs
and wash your face first. You look like Barbara Cart You don't look your usual self. Lipstick
doesn't suit you. I suppose you put it on for that dreadful old Dean because he once said...Never
mind. I shall make a nice pot of tea and then tell you all about it.'

Phoebe lumbered upstairs, and when she came down she looked a good deal better. At least the
lipstick had gone, though her attempt the previous evening to pluck her eyebrows was now revealed
with mottled clarity to have been a mistake. She fetched a chair and joined Miss Midden in the
garden.

'Now then, Phoebe, I have something to tell you. So I want you to listen carefully. I am
afraid I have presumed on your hospitality,' she said as she handed Miss Turnbird a very large
cup and saucer. 'I've had a very nice boy staying here. He's had a nervous breakdown and he's a
bit jumpy. So this morning when the shindig down at the Middenhall...No, dear, do not say
anything. I won't discuss it. This is far more important. As I say, when the police began to kill
all those people down there, I immediately thought of you and Carryclogs as the perfect place to
send the poor boy. Well, to be truthful, he isn't exactly a boy, more a hulking great brute of
twenty-eight and not frightfully bright. He likes to call himself Bright, Timothy Bright, but he
isn't. That's part of his nervous problem. He's been something in the City and the stress has
affected him. He suffers terrible nightmares, and I'm not at all surprised. No one should put a
healthy young man in front of a computer screen all day and ask him to make instant decisions
about money. It isn't natural. Now, given the healing hand of time and fond affection and plenty
of food and fresh air I'm sure he shoots well and rides, he's that sort he'll soon be as right as
rain. So I sent him over to your place because I know how good you are and kind and affectionate.
He's your class, too. I've met his uncle and the family is a very good one indeed. And his
manners aren't bad. I'm sure you'll be able to help the poor boy. Now, I hope you don't mind my
taking advantage of you like this but I thought...'

What Miss Midden really thought she kept firmly to herself. If Phoebe Turnbird didn't take
that ghastly lout to her ample bosom and to the altar, her own name wasn't Marjorie Midden, the
daughter of Bernard Foss Midden and Cloacina von Misthaufen, daughter of General von Misthaufen,
whom her father had met and married when she was allowed over to visit the dying General at the
Middenhall in 1949. Miss Midden had never known her mother, who had died in childbirth, but her
father had always spoken of her as an immensely strong-minded woman whose plain

German cooking had suited his ailing stomach to perfection. 'Dear Clo,' he would say, 'I miss
her Blutwurst and Nachspeise sometimes. She had a wonderful appetite, your mother. It was a
pleasure to watch her eat. She used to say to me, "We're not really 'vons'. Or Misthaufens.
Affectation. We were just plain Scheisse, like you Middens, until the Kaiser came along and
somehow we became von Misthaufens. Scheisse is better. Down to earth and no pretendings." And
there was a lot of truth in what she said. Your mother was a remarkable woman. She saw things
clearly.'

Presently, with the smoke drifting across the sky behind her, Miss Midden drove Phoebe over to
Carryclogs and picked up Major MacPhee. She was rid of the Middenhall with all its pretendings
and she needn't think about it any more.

She wouldn't have to think about money either. On top of her wardrobe in a cardboard box there
was a brown paper parcel containing thousands and thousands of pounds from the man with the razor
who had so terrified Timothy Bright. It was never going anywhere now. The Brights had their money
back and Phoebe had a fiancé in waiting. Miss Midden herself would go on living at the Midden
while Lennox exacted every penny from the authorities for the destruction of the Middenhall. But
she would never go to Phoebe's wedding, though Phoebe would undoubtedly want her to. As a
bridesmaid.

Miss Midden shuddered at the thought. It would be a hideously noisy wedding and in any case
she was not a maid and never intended to be a bride. She would stay the way she was and always
would be, an independent woman. She had no intention of marrying for the sheer hell of it. There
were enough Middens in the world already without creating any more. And the Major could stay if
he wanted to. She didn't much care one way or another. He was a pathetic little creature and she
could do with help in the house. But she doubted if he would. The Major's taste for the life of
the gutter, she had once heard it called nostalgie de la boue, though in his case it was less
boue than ordure, would call to him. As the old Humber drove past Six Lanes End she saw, limping
towards them, a tattered and besmirched figure. Miss Midden stopped and asked if she could be of
any assistance.

'Very kind of you, I'm sure. I'm trying to find the way to Piccadilly Circus, but no one round
here seems to know.' It was Buffalo Midden and the boue in his case was entirely genuine.

'Get in,' said Miss Midden, 'I'm going that way myself.'

Beside her Major MacPhee began to gibber a protest. 'Shut up,' said Miss Midden. 'Shut up or
get out and walk.' The Major shut up. He had walked far enough that day.

As they drove into the farmyard Miss Midden knew she would never be rid of stupid old men and
their mad fantasies. Being a kindly, sensible woman, she didn't mind. In a way, it was her
calling.

The End