I was put into a sort of vestibule where I sat down and waited. Five minutes later, Lady Makepiece swept into the room in a flurry of silk and chiffon. “Well, well!” she cried, taking both my hands in hers. “So you are William’s son! He always had good taste, the old rascal! We got his letter and we’ve been waiting for you to call.”
She was an imposing wench. Not young, of course, but not exactly fossilized either. I put her around forty. She had one of those dazzling ageless faces that seemed to be carved out of marble, and lower down there was a torso that tapered to a waist I could have circled with my two hands. She sized me up with one swift penetrating glance, and she seemed to be satisfied with what she saw because the next thing she said was, “Come in, William’s son, and we shall have a dish of tea together and a chat.”
She led me by the hand through a number of vast and superbly appointed rooms until we arrived at a smallish, rather cosy place furnished with a sofa and armchairs. There was a Boucher pastel on one wall and a Fragonard watercolour on another. “This,” she said, “is my own private little study. From here I organize the social life of the embassy.” I smiled and blinked and sat down on the sofa. One of those fancy-dress flunkeys brought tea and sandwiches on a silver tray. The tiny triangular sandwiches were filled with Gentleman’s Relish. Lady Makepiece sat beside me and poured the tea. “Now tell me all about yourself,” she said. There followed a whole lot of questions and answers about my family and about me. It was all pretty banal, but I knew I must stick it out for the sake of my great plan. So we went on talking for maybe forty minutes, with her ladyship frequently patting my thigh with a jewelled hand to emphasize a point. In the end, the hand remained resting on my thigh and I felt a slight finger pressure. Ho-ho, I thought. What’s the old bird up to now? Then suddenly she sprang to her feet and began pacing nervously up and down the room. I sat watching her. Back and forth she paced, hands clasped together across her front, head twitching, bosom heaving. She was like a tightly coiled spring. I didn’t know what to make of it. “I’d better be going,” I said, standing up.
“No, no! Don’t go!”
I sat down again.
“Have you met my husband?” she blurted out. “Obviously you haven’t. You’ve just arrived. He’s a lovely man. A brilliant person. But he’s getting on in years, poor lamb, and he can’t take as much exercise as he used to.”
“Bad luck,” I said. “No more polo and tennis.”
“Not even Ping-Pong,” she said.
“Everyone gets old,” I said.
“I’m afraid so. But the point is this.” She stopped and waited.
I waited, too.
We both waited. There was a very long silence.
I didn’t know what to do with the silence. It made me fidget. “The point is what, madame?” I said.
“Can’t you see I’m trying to ask you something?” she said at last.
I couldn’t think of an answer to that one, so I helped myself to another of those little sandwiches and chewed it slowly.
“I want to ask you a favour, mon petit garcon,” she said. “I imagine you are quite good at games?”
“I am rather,” I said, resigning myself to a game of tennis with her, or Ping-Pong.
“And you wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all. It would be a pleasure.” It was necessary to humour her. All I wanted was to meet the ambassador. The ambassador was my target. He was the chosen one who would receive the first pill and thus start the whole ball rolling. But I could only reach him through her.
“It’s not much I’m asking,” she said.
“I am at your service, madame.”
“You really mean it?”
“Of course.”
“You did say you were good at games?”
“I played rugger for my school,” I said. “And cricket. I’m a pretty decent fast bowler.”