Free Clubbed to Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards Page B

spew in her lap;
There we quarrel and scold, till I fall asleep,
When the bitch growing bold, to my pocket does creep;
Then slyly she leaves me, and, to revenge the affront
At once she bereaves me to money and cunt.
If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk
What a coil do I make for the loss of my punk
I storm, and I roar, and I fall in a rage
And missing my lass, I fall on my page:
Then crop-sick all morning, I rail at my men,
And in bed I lie yawning till eleven again.
    Milton laughed and passed the poem to Pooley. ‘I presume I shouldn’t take this as a literal record of members’ behaviour, sir.’
    ‘No. But you get the tone.’
    ‘Indeed I do. When did the change begin to occur?’
    ‘Hard to tell,’ said the Admiral. ‘It’s all very mysterious. I went there pretty regularly on and off on shore-leave during the early and middle fifties. Then I was attached to the Foreign Office in various postings as a defence attaché. I had years in Latin America, the Far East, all over the place, and any time I came back to London, well, there was too much to do to have much time for somewhere like ffeatherstonehaugh’s, and anyway I was married by then and my wife wouldn’t have approved. Any entertaining I had to do in London was in the United Services Club. I saw ffeatherstonehaugh’s as a young man’s club, and kept up my subscription purely for sentimental reasons. Inflation made it a negligible amount, in any case.’
    ‘Sorry, sir. I don’t quite follow that.’
    ‘There was a rule that one’s subscription never went up from whatever it was the year you joined. Of course that should have been altered when inflation became serious, but it wasn’t. I pay forty pounds a year, about a twelfth of a normal club subscription. ’ He sucked fruitlessly on his now extinct pipe, laid it down on the table beside him, got up, and turning his back on his visitors, wandered over to the window. ‘A couple of years ago I thought I might get involved again. I’d retired by this time. I’d been living in the country with my wife when she died unexpectedly. As you can imagine I was at a bit of a loose end. Decided to move up to town. Didn’t really fancy staying in the country on my own. Got these chambers, looked round for something to do. I’ve always been a bit of an organiser, so when I looked in on ffeatherstonehaugh’s, started to go regularly and saw that things seemed to be in a bit of a mess, it seemed to me I might usefully give it some of my time.’
    ‘When you say “a bit of a mess”?’
    ‘Come on, Chief Superintendent. You’ve seen what it’s like. There aren’t a quarter of the members there are supposed to be. Do you know why? It’s because subscriptions for new members are set at fifteen hundred pounds to make sure no one joins. The servants are treated like slaves. There’s no life in the club any more. It’s more like a luxurious rest-home for geriatrics, except rather than them paying the club, the club is essentially paying them. There’s actually a rule that members of the general committee don’t have to pay for meals. I smelled several rats immediately.’
    ‘Commander Blenkinsop? Was he able to help you?’
    The Admiral wheeled round and emitted a loud snort. ‘Pinkie? That bollocks.’ He threw up his hands. ‘He’d gone to pot. Sold out. Secretary indeed. He should have been put up against a wall and shot, if you ask me, for dereliction of duty. I was ashamed that I’d written a reference for him when he applied for that job. It’s always a bit of a shock when you find your friends lack moral fibre.’
    ‘But was he not pleased to see you back?’
    ‘He was, until he got a whiff of what I was planning to do. But at least he didn’t spot that until he’d got me on the committee.’
    ‘How does the system work?’
    ‘It’s a travesty,’ said the Admiral. The old system was fine. Just the way Lord ffeatherstonehaugh wanted it. With a good, happy and well-looked-after