The Plonk Party
AMIDTHElower Australian peck order where Alice McGorr had been born and reared, wines are imbibed from the bottle or thick china cups or tumblers. Of course, in the particular section of Australian society to which she was now to be presented, wines are sipped or swilled from fragile crystal. There is no difference in the quality or potency of the liquor.
For people like Bony this sherry-quaffing was unfortunate when, as in this instance, he was forced to drink it in the course of duty. Any other type of wine would have been less obnoxious, because Australia can produce wines the equal of overseas products… all wines excepting sherry, which has a digestive reaction similar to the oil in sardine cans.
As Alice told him when they were being driven to the home of Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones, she wasn’t a wowser, and was not averse to a drink provided she could choose her drink and say when. Far more than Bony had she seen the ill effects of alcohol from good honest Scotch down the ladder tomethylated spirits and, still lower, battery acid. Alcohol had ruined her father, had blurred his brain and thickened his fingers. He had been extremely successful on rum; the beginning of the end was plonk.
She was still mutinous at having to accompany Bony to this social engagement, and not for the world would she confess that her hostility was due less to having to drink sherry than to lack of social confidence.
Bony, too, possessed a secret which for nothing the world might render would he tell Alice McGorr. Her dress was wrong. The colour scheme was allcolour. The hat was obviously a hat. And there was too much powder on her nose.
Not that his ‘cousin’s’ appearance really disturbed him. Actually he was delighted with her, for no one, noteven the most perspicacious, could possibly imagine Alice McGorr in the trim uniform of a policewoman. And further, his own sartorial elegance was emphasised.
“Have you thought up the antidote to plonk?” she asked, her voice edged.
“Oh yes. Robins will call for us at six, and will rush us first to your lodgings. You will at once take two teaspoons of carbonate of soda in a glass of hot water. When your tummy has disgorged the plonk, you must drink a cup of warm water in which six cloves have been boiled. Then lie and rest for half an hour. If you should find the bed behaving like the prow of a ship in a storm, you must take anobbler of brandy.”
“I am serious,” Alicesaid, two edges to her voice.
“I am, too. So much so that I asked Constable Essen to be sure that his wife boiled the cloves.”
“Are you going to drink this alleged antidote?”
“No. I have another much less unpleasant.”
“And that is?”
Alice watched his slim fingers caressing an object clothed with tissue paper. Having removed the paper, Bony disclosed a small jar having a screw top. From a pocket he produced two teaspoons, presenting her with one.
“I have here a half pound of butter,” he told her. “Before arriving at the party, I intend eating half of it. The other portion I am offering to you. The effect of this little meal will be to keep the plonk under a layer of butter and thus prevent the fumes of raw alcohol from reaching the brain and so cause the state called inebriation. I assure you it is most efficacious.”
“I love butter,” Alice said, slightly impatient.
“Then take your share first.”
“Thanks.”
“At this exhibition, Alice, we will meet the elite of Mitford. You are my cousin who is greatly interested in criminal investigation as it provides you with knowledge of abnormal psychology, about which one day you hope to write a book. In passing, don’t forget the relationship is on my father’s side.”
“All right. I get that.”
“We are being invited because Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones are deeply interested in me as a particularly rare anthropological specimen. Doubtless they will occupy most of my attention, and it is therefore important that you note and remember scraps of conversation, your reactions to people, and to give your feminine intuition complete freedom.”
She watched him remove the last spoonful of butter from the jar, watched the lid being screwed on and the jar placed, with the spoons, on the floor. She saw him glance at his watch, heard him say it was five-ten, and felt the taxi being braked to a stop.
“Now for it,” she said, on being gallantly assisted to alight.
She noted his smile, and then was being ushered through a low gateway betweenlambertianas, to be escorted across lawns studied with small rose bushes. Before her stood a spacious old brick house, having bow windows and Venetian blinds. The impression of light and colour gave place to one of chocolate above white linen, the broad face of an aboriginal woman who looked at her with huge liquid black eyes. The face vanished, and in its stead was the picture of people filling a long room, a scene of chaos from which emerged the Viking she had once seen on a cinema screen. Taller than her escort, the Viking stooped to take her hand. And Bony was saying:
“Permit me to present my cousin, Miss McGorr, Professor Marlo-Jones.”
“Welcome, Miss McGorr,” boomed the Viking. “And I am really delighted you brought the Inspector, because he must be a very busy man. Come along in and meet people. Ah, my dear! Here is Inspector Bonaparte with Miss McGorr.”
The woman, dumpy, broad, thick hair greying and brown eyes small and twinkling. The man, huge, vital, old yet ageless. Their interest in Bony was undisguised, paramount, passing her by.
People… a thousand. Voices… a million. Mr and Mrs Simpson, Miss McGorr. Dr Nott, Miss McGorr. Mrs Bulford, Miss McGorr. Mr Martin, Miss McGorr. Tinkling glasses filled with sherry, glasses massed on a silver salver presented by a chocolate face with large fathomless black eyes. Dr and Mrs Delph, Miss McGorr. Cheers, Miss McGorr. The smell of plonk. The taste of plonk. Plonk sliding down her throat to fight with the butter, and the butter, she hoped, sitting on top. Mrs Coutts, our local author, you know, Miss McGorr. Mr and Mrs Reynolds, Miss McGorr. Cheers. More plonk. Thank heavens that glass is empty. And the same voice saying over and over again, Inspector Bonaparte, as it said over and over, Miss McGorr.
She wanted to scream at the voice to say Bony and Alice for a change, and the voice went on and blessedly away when she was halted by a hand clasped about her arm, and a soft voice urged her to a chair. Her gaze encountered a large womanwho’s eyes were light-blue and ringed with powdered fat, and whose face was heated and streaked with growing fire.
“Frightfully boring, all these names,” the woman said. “Relax, dear, and drink up. The Professor knows a good sherry from a pig’s tail.” There came a deep-down rumbling snigger. “Are you a detective, too?”
Alice wanted to explain the relationship with Bony, felt it was her duty to him, and managed only to emit a giggle. A tray of filled glasses was presented, and this time the face above the tray was white, and the eyes were grey. The grey eyes commanded her to place the empty glass on the tray and accept a filled one, and somehow she wasn’t brave enough to refuse.
Voices. Voices close and distant. Voices harsh and voicesslurred, voices malicious. People seated along the walls, groups of standing people, a maniac pounding on a piano. Hands, dozens of hands from which rose crystal stems supporting limpid globes of yellow wine.
Voices: “Wretched day, my dear. Quite off my game, you know.” “Yes, he got the contract. He would.” “What do I think of her?” “But, darling, I told you he got the contract.”“Fancy asking that half-caste person here. A what! Detective-Inspector. Good lord! I must meet him.” “Darling, she must be fifty. Couldn’t possibly know how.” “Oh, didn’t you know that? Must be mental, don’t you think?” “Writes all day long, I was told. Never mind the baby or the husband. Wants to be a great authoress.”Laughter. Voices… discord… pounding upon the ears.
“Drink up, dear,” urged fat face. “Here comes some more.”
The lubra stood before her and the fat woman, the black face wide in a fixed smile, the black eyes large and probing and without depth. They seemed to say: “What! You don’t like plonk! Silly! They all drink plonk, as much as they can and as fast as they can. It’ll be six o’clock soon.”
Alice emptied her glass and accepted a filled one. It was peculiar that she was feeling no different than on arrival. There was no exhilaration, no urge to talk, justa warmth in the tummy when a warm tummy wasn’t appreciated on a hot day. The fat woman said: “Cheers, dearie!” Alice sipped, twice, and wanted to fling the glass in the fat one’s face.
She could never recall just when it happened, the change which swept away confusion and brought everything to clear perspective. Faces became adjuncts of necks, hands of arms and arms of bodies.
She saw Bony laughing at something said by the Viking, and she thought him the handsomest man present. She saw the local authoress talking earnestly with a young woman who listened with rapt attention, and although she couldn’t hear Mrs Coutts, she knew that her subject was writing novels. She watched Mrs Marlo-Jones among the standing groups, the woman apparently deep in thought and oblivious of her guests.
“Funny little woman,” mused Alice. “Whatever that lion of a man ever saw in her beats understanding.” Mrs Marlo-Jones looked up, but not in time to see Alice watching her. She weaved among the groups, spoke to this person and that, and presently came again to the place where she had been cogitating. That place was just behind Bony, and Alice thought she had returned to continue listening to his conversation with her husband.
It was absurd, of course. For the second time Mrs Marlo-Jones was too late to see Alice watchingher, and she stooped swiftly and retrieved something from the floor. The lubra approached again with her tray of glasses, and once more Alice felt impelled to accept yet another sherry.
When the lubra had passed, Mrs Marlo-Jones was over by the mantel upon which were curiously painted bowls; done probably by aborigines. One supported an emu egg, the green surface of which had been carved to reveal the white base of the shell portraying a winding snake. Alice saw Mrs Marlo-Jones drop an object into a bowl, and that object was a button.
The fat woman stood up and mumbled something Alice failed to catch. She made only one false step before reaching the door. Mr Bulford slipped into the vacated chair. He smiled at Alice and said “Cheers,” and Alice drank with him, thankful that Bony’s antidote was working well.
“Howd’you like Mitford, Miss McGorr?” asked the banker, and Alice was saying what a nice place it would be in the winter when it wasn’t so hot, when Dr Delph, large, portly and tanned, pulled the chair forward upon her other side and made a threesome. Alice liked his eyes and his clipped grey moustache, and somehow she knew these two men were more than acquaintances.
“I hear you are studying abnormal psychology, Miss McGorr,” said the doctor. “Lucky, aren’t you? Being able to work with a detective-inspector, watch him work, study his methods, and all that. Tellme, is it true that Inspector Bonaparte has never failed in a case assigned to him?”
“Yes, I believe so,” admitted Alice, instantly on her guard. She saw Mrs Marlo-Jones leave the room, and that the lubra watched her leave, and she was certain that neither Dr Delph nor Mr Bulford was aware of her interest in the lubra.
“He’s an amazing man,” said the doctor.“Had a few words with him just now. He proves how triumphant the mind can be over matter, how personality can conquer insuperable difficulties.”
“Certainly a charming man,” added Mr Bulford.“I don’t think I’d be happywere he trailing me.”
“I’d be like the man in the Bible: put a millstone round my neck and drown myself in the river,” Alice contributed. A man, tall and gaunt, drifted into Alice’s mind, and when glancing up at him she saw Professor Marlo-Jones by the mantelpiece. He was taking the button from the china bowl. The gaunt man was calling to the white maid to bring her tray, and Alice saw the Professor drop the button back into the bowl. She could not see Bony.
“Whatd’youthink of our Mitford parties, Miss McGorr?” asked the gaunt man, and Alice giggled:
“Lovely, Mr Martin. Sherry and crime go well together. I don’t know which I like best.”
“Must be exciting at times,” observed Dr Delph, voice blurred a trifle, eyes bright and complexion to be described now as rosy.
“It’s exciting at all times,” stated Bony from behind Alice. “I assume you are referring to the mixture of crime and sherry. I have often wondered to what degree crime begets drink and in what degree drink begets crime.”
Alice was feeling fire in her tummy, and she hoped her face wasn’t blazing red. Now and then she thought how amazing it was that she didn’t feel even faintly squiffy, but she was by no means confident. The black maid now was near the mantelshelf, offering drinks to people whose names she couldn’t remember. Mr Bulford said something and she laughed, although not hearing what he said. Only Alice McGorr could watch that lubra without betraying her interest to those around her. The lubra took the button from the bowl and dropped it into the pocket of her white apron.
It was all very hot and noisy when she noticed that people were drifting to the door, and on standing she was gratified that her legs were of use and that the scene remained right side up. She felt slight annoyance when Bony lurched against her slipping an arm through hers and urging her gently door-wards.
They bade their adieus to their hosts in the hall, and when they were walking the path to the gate, again Alice was annoyed that Bony staggered slightly.
“Are you really oiled?” she asked, when they were in the private car owned and driven by Constable Robins.
“Not visually, Alice. How do you feel?”
“Beaut. What’s the idea of pretending?”
“Well, I must have drunk at least half a bottle of sherry, and our host would have been disappointed had he thought his wine was wasted. Did you observe anything unusual?”
“No, can’t say that I did. Did you?”
“Yes, I learned much of interest, but I was uncomfortable soon after arriving. Er… I lost a trouser button.”
Alice shrieked and Bony shrank.
The story of the adventures of the button was related, and at the end of it Bony was gripping Alice by the arm.
“You observed something of great import,” he said.