Free Notwithstanding by Louis De Bernières Page B

do you think, Perry?’
    The Colonel lowered a reconnoitring proboscis, and sniffed. ‘Smells of fish,’ he declared. ‘What d’you expect?’
    Mrs Barkwell was still worried. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit ripe? I mean, wouldn’t it be awful if we made everyone ill?’
    ‘Folderol,’ said the Colonel. ‘Perfectly good fish.’
    ‘Nanna,’ called Mrs Barkwell, ‘do come and smell this fish; I think it might be off.’
    Nanna came into the kitchen and poked the flank of the salmon. Then she sniffed her finger, first with one nostril, and then the other. She wiped it on her apron, and said, with a connoisseur’s air of finality, ‘
Weiss nicht. Entschuldigung
’.
    ‘I’ve eaten pheasant so high, maggots in it,’ declared the Colonel. ‘No harm done.’
    ‘Pheasant’s different, Perry dear, fish has to be fresh,’ said his wife.
    ‘Portugal,’ said the Colonel, ‘
bacalao
. Months old. India, Bombay duck, years old. Prehistoric.’
    ‘Years old, and dried and salted,’ rejoined Mrs Barkwell. ‘This is supposed to be fresh from the lochs.’
    ‘Cat,’ suggested the Colonel.
    Mrs Barkwell raised a finger and touched him on the tip of his nose. ‘Clever boy,’ she said.
    Troodos was accordingly summoned from the orchard by the vigorous rattling of his biscuit box. There had not been much action on the vole front, and he was certainly ready to try the fish. He was so fussy about his food that in the evening he would not even eat from a tin that had been opened that morning, and Perry and Leafy Barkwell placed great faith in his gastronomic expertise.
    Nanna, the Colonel and Mrs Barkwell bent over and watched Troodos contentedly polishing off a lump that Leafy had cut out of the side that was to be downward on the serving dish. ‘
Er schnurrt
,’ observed Nanna, and the other two listened with satisfaction as Troodos accomplished the daily miracle of purring and eating at the same time.
    ‘Well, pussy likes it,’ said Mrs Barkwell, and the Colonel patted Troodos somewhat brusquely on the head, saying, ‘Good soldier, what? First class, first class.’
    The salmon was duly poached. All the same Mrs Barkwell could not help but wonder whether or not the fish really was all right. She had sown a doubt in her own mind that was very hard to uproot, and this doubt also began to infect the Colonel, despite his implicit trust in the cat’s considered judgement. ‘Crossed fingers, what?’ he said to his wife.
    Sir Edward and Lady Rawcutt had cried off, but the Rector, Polly Wantage and her artist friend, and Joan and the Major turned up at eight as planned. ‘Slight worry about the fish,’ the Colonel informed them as they sat down. ‘Hope it’s all right. Should be. In fact, damned sure it is. Tried it on the cat. Can’t fool the cat.’
    ‘Please leave it if you have any doubts,’ said Mrs Barkwell. ‘There’s plenty of everything else. I won’t be at all offended.’
    ‘All the more for puss, eh?’ said the Colonel.
    ‘One has to be so careful of salmonella, these days,’ said Polly Wantage’s artistic friend, oblivious to the pun. ‘And wisteria.’
    The Colonel regarded her incredulously; he had always thought her a little ill-connected in the brain department, a typical airy-fairy artist type, in fact. ‘Wisteria is a card game,’ he told her, ‘listeria’s the one.’
    ‘Whist is the card game, I think you’ll find,’ offered the Reverend Godfrey Freemantle, diffidently. ‘Wisteria is a climbing plant,
floribunda, formosa, sinensis, venusta
…’ Here he caught the Colonel’s hostile eye, and added, ‘But, of course, as Perry says, it is indeed listeria that causes gippy tummy.’ Once more he smiled at the Colonel, who was notoriously irked by being corrected, and who, on account of just this very flaw, had once narrowly missed the opportunity of being made equerry to the Queen.
    The guests tucked into their fish, and declared it perfect, wonderful, superb, just right,