The Saint Zita Society by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

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CHAPTER SIX
    T he meeting of the Saint Zita Society took place at lunchtime and mainly concerned a particularly horrible habit increasingly indulged in by dog walkers, though not of course June and Gussie. While these offenders obeyed the requirement to scrape up their animal’s excrement into a plastic bag, instead of taking the bag home with them, they tied a knot in the top of it and left it at the roots of one of the trees in the pavement. Such nasty little bags were sometimes to be seen at the roots of every tree in Hexam Place.
    This was a subject that aroused a lot of anger in Saint Zita members, of whom Henry, Beacon, Sondra, Thea and Jimmy were present round the table in the Dugong. It was unanimously decided to write a letter to Westminster City Council and another, slightly differently worded, to the
Guardian
. Thea was chosen to write the letters, rather to Beacon’s resentment. She might have a degree but he was positive it wasn’t as good as his nor obtained from as good a university as the University of Lagos. Could he have been rejected or even not considered for the job because he was African? However, he said nothing – for now, he thought – and walked along Hexam Place a few paces behind June instead of accompanying her.
    Making sure Beacon was looking, June went up the steps of number 6 to the front door and let herself in, taking her time about it. Zinnia was clearing up after the Princess’s lunch.
    ‘Are you drunk?’ said the Princess.
    ‘Of course not. At my age!’
    ‘I don’t know what difference age makes. My grandmother drank more heavily the older she got. She was paralytic in her seventies and unconscious in her eighties. Have you done whatever it is you have to do on the computer to fix us in for our flight?’
    ‘
Check
us in, madam,’ said June. ‘It’s too early. We’re not going till Sunday.’
    ‘I’d have thought the earlier you did it the better.’
    Then you’d have thought wrong. ‘They won’t let you do it till twenty-four hours before the flight.’
    ‘How ridiculous,’ said the Princess. ‘When we get back I’m thinking of getting myself a wheelchair. I could get out then. I’m dying of boredom stuck in here. You could push me.’
    ‘No, I couldn’t, madam. I’m too old to push other old people about. If you want a wheelchair you’ll have to get one you drive yourself.’
    ‘Well, when you chart us in for the flight could you look up wheelchairs on dongle?’
    Zinnia was giggling. She had the Caribbean ready sense of humour and irrepressible laugh. June frowned at her and said she would see. She couldn’t be bothered to correct her employer’s two new errors but maybe next time such a mistake was made she’d asked the Princess if she’d like a computer lesson from Thea next door. Imagine how that would go down! She hunted around for Gussie, found him asleep under the piano and put him on the lead. The two of them carried out a survey of the tree roots in HexamPlace and adjacent streets. Even when composing the relevant item on the agenda, June hadn’t suspected there were quite so many of those disgusting little bags. Gussie enjoyed his part in the research, amazed at being allowed to sniff the excrement repositories as much as he liked. June counted twelve in Hexam Place alone. While photographing the most obtrusive on her mobile, her activities were watched by a passing dog walker who stared at her in horror, picked up his Pekinese and ran off towards Eaton Square.
    They were going to Florence. They always went to Florence for a week in October and to Verona for a week in May. From this fortnight in Italy June had managed to pick up a little Italian and had bought herself an Italian dictionary and a phrasebook. HSH the Princess Susan Hapsburg spoke no Italian despite her year and a half living with Luciano. That evening, over drinks, they described to Rad Sothern how they would pass their week.
    ‘She thinks she’s an egghead,’ said the