But what he did mainly, in a rather argumentative way, frequently resting his left elbow on the table and waving his fork accusingly at Ruby, who sat next to him, or Ray who sat opposite him, was to dilate on his successful career as a military advisor to the Shah of Persia – a fine man by his account – before the disastrous turn of events which had ended in the expulsion of the Shah, leaving him to wander homeless on the face of the earth, while his country was taken over by a bunch of religious Muslim maniacs.
Noel swallowed down wine before repeating the last phrase in case someone had missed it. ‘Religious Muslim maniacs.
‘Not much fun for estate agents,’ he said, braying with laughter, gesturing at the local specimen of the breed.
Ray’s unease during this long discourse, which drove all other conversation from the table, was considerable. He knew little of Iran, and did not greatly like what he knew, but he understood that Noel Roderick Linwood was presenting a prejudiced view of events – the view in fact of a parasite, who had self-confessedly made a fortune selling arms to a despotic leader, at the expense of the leader’s people. That there had been a violent reaction against the Shah’s materialism was hardly surprising.
Since no one round the Linwood table had ever come within dreaming distance of the fortune Noel Linwood had accumulated, everyone listened to his tirade with varying degrees of respect or patience, some nodding or smiling in agreement. Not understanding the situation in Iran, they accepted his boasting for truth. No one disputed that the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had replaced the Shah, represented the greater of two evils. Noel’s claim that Muslim fundamentalism was a threat to the West met with no argument round the table. Instead, the men reached solemnly for their wine glasses. The wine came from the Suhindol region of Bulgaria; they knew no harm of it. The estate agent said he drank it by the crate at home.
Ruby appeared to be enjoying the glimpse of the world beyond Norfolk provided by Noel. To Ray’s mortification, she showed an unexpected understanding of Iran’s internal affairs. ‘They chop off people’s hands in Tehran,’ she said.
‘They amputate the hands of thieves,’ Noel Linwood elaborated, in a schoolmasterly tone, as if correcting a pupil. ‘At the wrist.’ He did not fail to demonstrate the action on himself, smiling fiercely at the company as he did so, showing his too-white teeth. ‘The work is done by a criminal élite who were, under the late Shah, respectable surgeons, many of them trained here in England, at Bart’s and elsewhere.’
Guests expressed their disgust and said it should not be allowed.
‘It’s barbaric!’ exclaimed Ruby, gazing admiringly at her neighbour’s wrist, which he still clutched as if in agony.
Prodding her under the table with his foot, Ray said, ‘Better to have a surgeon do it than a butcher.’
A dessert spoon was pointed across the table in his direction.
‘They’re butchers. You have to understand that, if you’re to understand the first principles of the present intolerable regime. Let me repeat – Muslim extremism, and there’s no other word for it, Muslim extremism has ruined many a good honest English businessman. I tell you, I transferred to Iraq. Saddam Hussein is a man who understands the West.’
Ray, who had had to listen to his daughter’s arguments on the subject, was against the armaments trade; he said no more, recalling Jean’s caution earlier.
At the end of the meal, following coffee, the estate agent was already rising unsteadily from the table. At that juncture, Noel turned beaming to Ruby. Laying a hand on her arm, he said, ‘You and your husband must come and stay with me in my little eyrie for a few days. I could show you some of my treasures from the East, since these two’ – indicating his son and daughter-in-law – ‘aren’t much interested.’
Ray read a look of horror on Mike’s face at this summons and a look of bemused delight on Ruby’s. Before there was any chance of Ruby’s fatal acceptance, before he could stop himself, he leaned across the table and said, ‘Oh, I don’t think you’d like us at close quarters, Mr Linwood. You see – Ruby and I have no manners.’
The old man turned to him, thrusting his neck forward as if to make sure he was hearing correctly. ‘You’re not a barbarian, man, are you?’
‘Our table manners are very obnoxious,’ Ray continued. ‘And we’re dirty. I’m sorry to have to admit it, but we’re dirty. Ruby especially.’
‘Ray!’ she exclaimed, but he pressed on as excitement welled in him. The other guests, about to leave the room, turned to listen in fascination.
‘You see, a few months back we decided to become Muslims, so we’d never agree with your views as expressed this evening … It’s Mecca five times a day. We’re not fanatics – we just hate Christians.’ He rushed on. ‘And in my case – it’s shaming to admit this, Mr Linwood, but in my case it’s a medical problem – an intestinal incontinence. And if I forget to take my pills – help, help, an attack coming on! Goodness, oh – excuse me—’
And with that he rushed from the room, Ruby following.
Outside the house, he had collapsed over the car bonnet, helpless with mirth, while she clouted him about the head, calling him a drunken brute.
‘You stupid bloody liar!’ she yelled.
Thinking over that occasion now, Ray could not repress a smile. The tyrannical old man had steered clear of him since. Mike and Jean, too, had been a while before they saw the joke. After a short stand-off period, Jean had congratulated him on confounding her father-in-law.
Turning his back on Noel’s brooding portrait, Ray checked his watch, vexed that Mike had not put in an appearance.
Alf had returned to a piled bowl of cereal. The boy sat at a bare scrubbed pinewood table, doing major work with both elbows as he spooned the food into his mouth. Near to his hand stood a small radio, transmitting what Tebbutt assumed to be Radio One. Above its blare, Tebbutt asked the lad where his father was.
‘Upstairs, of course. Praying or something boring.’
‘Go and tell him I’m here, will you?’ As he spoke, he leaned forward almost unthinkingly to switch off the noisy radio.
‘Hey, leave that alone, bugger you!’ the boy yelled, with unexpected vigour, and snatched the instrument out of Tebbutt’s reach.
‘Well, bloody well go and tell your father I’m here and waiting for him.’
Taking a look at Tebbutt’s face, Alf slid down from his chair. He went off complaining, carrying cereal bowl and spoon with him. The dog followed, claws clicking on the bare flagstones. After thinking things over for a minute, contemplating the panties, inspecting the unwashed dishes piled in the sink, Tebbutt went to wait outside and stood and breathed in the morning air, gazing towards the roofs of Hartisham.
‘Muslims,’ he said aloud, and laughed. ‘It would make a change …’
Only a few minutes later, Michael Linwood appeared, struggling into a jacket, breathing hard, his eyebrows arched with effort.
‘I thought it was half-past eight,’ he said, whether by way of apology or explanation Tebbutt could not determine.
As they went round to the front of the house to the car, Tebbutt leading, he said, ‘Hop in, Mike, and I’ll try to make up for lost time.’
