The Players And The Game Read Free Page A

In the bar he said, ‘Ray wasn’t pleased, not pleased at all. It won’t do that young man any harm to be taken down a peg.’ In the same breath and without any change of tone he went on, ‘Ray, what are you having? I was just saying to Sally that she played a wonderful game.’
    Ray Gordon was in his mid-twenties and had played for the county. He was a small nutty man, a journalist on the local paper. He said amiably enough that Sally’s shots had been going in. When Louise Allbright came out of the dressing-room Ray took her by the arm, and said that he would take a rain check on that drink if Peter didn’t mind. Sally dropped one eyelid in a wink. Then Ray and Louise went out together, and the zoom of his Triumph Spitfire could be heard.
    ‘Somebody is getting too big for his boots.’ Peter had the round face of a cherub, scored by two lines of disappointment from nose to chin. He was a bachelor in his forties, and was thought by some members to be queer. His conversation was either amusing or boringly gossipy, according to your taste. ‘And I’ve heard of cradle-snatching, but really. She can’t be much more than eighteen. And I thought you and Ray–’
    ‘You shouldn’t think so hard, Peter dear, it’s bad for you.’ Sally went off to the changing-room. Standing under the shower, feeling the water hot and hotter and then deliciously cold, she thought that she was pretty bored with the tennis club and with the whole Rawley scene. She was bored with tinpot little journalists like Ray Gordon. Making love in the back of a car had ceased to be exciting, and she was too big a girl to find it comfortable. Louise, now, would be a much better fit. She puffed powder at her body and said aloud, ‘I wonder if he’s laid her yet.’ Then she went home and there, passionately hungry, devoured a leg of chicken from the refrigerator.

Chapter Four
Meeting People
     
    In early May the Vanes were invited to dinner by the Lowsons. They had not yet completed the purchase of Bay Trees. A query raised by Paul’s solicitor had remained unanswered for a couple of weeks. Then it had been cleared up, and everything seemed so straightforward that Paul and Alice had moved some of their furniture out of store into the empty house. In buying and selling a house, however, nothing is finally settled until the contract has been signed by both parties, and now the solicitors for the seller, a man named Makepeace, had told Paul through Mr Darling that they had received a higher offer.
    On the way to the Lowsons’, Paul and Alice called on the estate agent. His office was in the old part of the town, in an eighteenth-century house with an elegant bow window. Paul had worked himself up into a state of anger that was part-synthetic and part-real.
    ‘I’m bound to say that to do what your client has done, accept an offer, let us pay a deposit, and then look for a higher offer behind our backs, seems to me outrageous. Gazumping, that’s the name for it.’
    Mr Darling, head bowed and tonsure showing, heard this assault with composure. ‘I should go farther.’ His voice was low but audible. ‘I should say it shows bad faith. Gazumping I am not prepared to tolerate.’
    ‘We took it that he was honest, and we’ve moved some stuff in already. If the whole deal’s off I shall expect compensation.’ Paul paused. ‘What’s that you said?’
    ‘I put this to Mr Makepeace, and said that I could no longer act on his behalf if he considered another offer after accepting yours.’
    ‘That’s all very well but–’ Paul paused again, considering the small firm jaw that faced him across the table.
    ‘I am happy to say I have been able to get Mr Makepeace to agree. He did have a higher offer – not made through me, I can assure you – and he was tempted. I don’t think he quite understood the ethics of the situation. I told him that he was bound in honour not to consider any other offer.’
    ‘And?’ It was almost the first word