made a sort of token movement, shifting a little in his chair and eyeing Trixie. Mrs Bünz ordered cider. ‘The snow,’ she said cosily, ‘continues, does it not?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, and then seemed to pull himself together. ‘Too bad we still can’t get round to fixing that little bus of yours, Mrs – er – er – Bünz, but there you are! Unless we get a tow –’
‘There is no hurry. I shall not attempt the return journey before the weather improves. My baby does not enjoy the snow.’
‘You’d be better off, if you don’t mind my saying so, with something that packs a bit more punch.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He repeated his remark in less idiomatic English. The merits of a more powerful car were discussed: it seemed that Begg had a car of the very sort he had indicated which he was to sell for an old lady who had scarcely used it. Mrs Bünz was by no means poor. Perhaps she weighed up the cost of changing cars with the potential result in terms of inside information on ritual dancing. In any case, she encouraged Begg, who became nimble in sales talk.
‘It is true,’ Mrs Bünz meditated presently, ‘that if I had a more robust motor car I could travel with greater security. Perhaps, for example, I should be able to ascend in frost with ease to Mardian Castle –’
‘Piece of cake,’ Simon Begg interjected.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘This job I was telling you about laughs at a stretch like that. Laughs at it.’
‘– I was going to say, to Mardian Castle on Wednesday evening. That is, if onlookers are permitted.’
‘It’s open to the whole village,’ Begg said uncomfortably. ‘Open house.’
‘Unhappily – most unhappily – I have antagonized your Guiser. Also, alas, Dame Alice.’
‘Not to worry,’ he muttered and added hurriedly, ‘it’s only a bit of fun, anyway.’
‘Fun? Yes. It is also,’ Mrs Bünz added, ‘an antiquarian jewel, a precious survival. For example, five swords instead of six, have I never before seen. Unique! I am persuaded of this.’
‘Really?’ he said politely. ‘Now, Mrs Bünz, about this car –’
Each of them hoped to placate the other. Mrs Bünz did not, therefore, correct his pronunciation.
‘I am interested,’ she said genially, ‘in your description of this auto.’
‘I’ll run it up here tomorrow and you can look it over.’
They eyed each other speculatively.
‘Tell me,’ Mrs Bünz pursued, ‘in this dance you are, I believe, the Hobby Horse?’
‘That’s right. It’s a wizard little number, you know, this job –’
‘You are a scholar of folklore, perhaps?’
‘Me? Not likely.’
‘But you perform?’ she wailed.
‘Just one of those things. The Guiser’s as keen as mustard and so’s Dame Alice. Pity, in a way, I suppose, to let it fold up.’
‘Indeed, indeed. It would be a tragedy. Ach! A sin! I am, I must tell you, Mr Begg, an expert. I wish so much to ask you –’ Here, in spite of an obvious effort at self-control, Mrs Bünz became slightly tremulous. She leant forward, her rather prominent blue eyes misted with anxiety, her voice unconvincingly casual. ‘Tell me,’ she quavered, ‘at the moment of sacrifice, the moment when the Fool beseeches the Sons to spare him: something is spoken, is it not?’
‘I say!’ he ejaculated, staring at her, ‘you do know a lot about it, don’t you?’
She began in a terrific hurry to explain that all European mumming had a common origin: that it was only reasonable to expect a little dialogue.
‘We’re not meant to talk out of school,’ Simon muttered. ‘I think it’s all pretty corny, mind. Well, childish, really. After all, what the heck’s it matter?’
‘I assure you, I beg you to rest assured of my discretion. There is dialogue, no?’
‘The Guiser sort of natters at the others.’
Mrs Bünz, clutching frantically at straws of intelligence on a high wind of slang, flung out her fat little hands at him.
‘Ach, my good, kind young motor salesman,’ she pleaded, reminding him of her potential as a customer, ‘of your great generosity, tell me what are the words he natters to the ozzers?’
‘Honest, Mrs Bünz,’ he said with evident regret, ‘I don’t know. Honest! It’s what he’s always said. Seems all round the bend to me. I doubt if the boys themselves know. P’raps it’s foreign or something.’
Mrs Bünz looked like a cover-picture for a magazine called ‘Frustration’. ‘If it is foreign I would understand. I speak six European languages. Gott im Himmel, Mr Begg – what is it?’
His attention had wandered to the racing edition on the table before him. His face lit up and he jabbed at the paper with his finger.
‘Look at this!’ he said. ‘Here’s a turn-up! Could you beat it?’
‘I have not on my glasses.’
‘Running next Thursday,’ he read aloud, ‘in the three-fifteen. “Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Substiteuton!” Laugh that off.’
‘I do not understand you.’
‘It’s a horse,’ he explained. ‘A race-horse. Talk about coincidence! Talk about omens!’
‘An omen?’ she asked, catching at a familiar word.
‘Good enough for me, anyway. You’re Teutonic, aren’t you, Mrs Bünz?’
‘Yes,’ she said patiently. ‘I am Teuton, yes.’
‘And we’ve been talking about Dancers, haven’t we? And I’ve suggested you Substitute another car for the one you’ve got? And if you have the little job I’ve been telling you about, well, I’ll be sort of Subsidized, won’t I? Look, it’s uncanny.’
Mrs Bünz rummaged in her pockets and produced her spectacles.
‘Ach, I understand. You will bet upon this horse?’
‘You can say that again.’
‘“Teutonic Dancer by Subsidize out of Sustiteuton!”’ she read slowly, and an odd look came over her face. ‘You are right, Mr Begg, it is strange. It may, as you say, be an omen.’
II
