An Awkward Lie by Michael Innes Page A

he gave her – certainly rashly – a swift wink. Miss Danbury failed to wink in reply. Instead, she turned away from Bobby through an angle of some thirty degrees. Bobby realized – with the effect of a poet rediscovering life in a dead metaphor – that this was what is called being given the cold shoulder. Miss Danbury conversed with Mr Hartsilver on current Overcombe affairs. As Miss Danbury was certainly not an ill-bred girl, the implication of this was clear. Bobby shook hands with Hartsilver, gave Miss Danbury a kind of Jane Austen bow, and retreated from the Art Block with dignity.
    He wasn’t, of course, going to be defeated. Indeed, there was no question of anything of the sort. It was merely (he told himself, his confidence returning) that this girl was giving him points in the discreet handling of the difficult and almost certainly dangerous situation in which they both found themselves. What he had to do now (if he wasn’t further to make a fool of himself) was to read her mind . What did she expect him to do? The answer wasn’t hard to arrive at. Lurk . He must lurk until she could get colourably clear of poor old Hartsilver.
    Then they could confer, and each discover where the other stood.
    For a moment Bobby paused irresolutely just outside the miserable hut which represented Overcombe’s concession to the aesthetic side of (juvenile) human nature. He had better not move out of sight of its door. He must conceal himself in a spot from which, upon the girl’s emergence, he could attract her attention unobtrusively. Perhaps with a low whistle.
    Bobby looked about him. The Art Block stood on somewhat lower ground than the main school buildings, and at some remove from them. Quite close to it, and a little lower still, were the surface evidences of the out-size septic tank which represented Overcombe’s advance towards the concepts of modern sanitation. (The school lay a couple of miles from a by-road, let alone from any main drainage.) The delicacy of Dr Gulliver – as of Mr Onslow, no doubt – had caused this humble necessarium to be surrounded with a sizable if somewhat suburban-looking privet hedge. The privet hedge, Bobby reflected inconsequently, afforded a good deal more privacy than was enjoyed by the privies which here achieved their easement into external Nature. The horrible things – he suddenly vividly remembered – didn’t even have doors. In upperclass English schools, indecency is regarded as the sole effective preventive of immorality… Upon this sombre thought, Bobby dived behind the hedge.
    He didn’t have to wait long – perhaps not long enough to do such thinking as he might have done. The door of the hut opened, and the girl appeared. The sun, of course, was now in her face, and for a moment Bobby (who was peering very cautiously through his hedge) saw her pucker her eyes. It wasn’t an action that should have conduced to any overwhelming impression of beauty. But it struck Bobby that way. Miss Danbury was a deliriously good-looking girl. And, of course, she had that figure too. Bobby knew he wasn’t easily going to forget it.
    He wondered whether she was looking around for him. It would be the rational thing to do. But in fact Miss Danbury was now stepping out quite briskly, which was disconcerting.
    Then he saw that she had taken a path which came straight towards his hiding-place. She must have guessed instantly where he had taken cover. A clever girl. He and she – Bobby told himself – might make quite a formidable team.
    But Miss Danbury didn’t pause as she drew abreast of him. She walked on regardless, and in a moment would have left the septic tank behind her. So there was nothing for it but to bob up. Bobby bobbed up.
    ‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘It’s me. Come in here.’
    At least this halted Miss Danbury in her tracks. Bobby had a notion that she looked alarmed. Perhaps she was judging him to be acting rashly once more.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said