‘Sorry to interrupt, would anyone like some, ah, Rigbert’s? It’s made from genuine loganberries…’
‘Weren’t you scared?’ Laura gushed.
‘Nah, we go straight in,
dujj
, bop – it was over in a few minutes.’ He sat back, sipped at his Rigbert’s, and with a Napoleonic air sniffed, ‘I don’t think we’ll be hearing from that particular cunt again.’
‘Aren’t you
amazing
,’ Bel teased, tickling his elbow. Frank looked annoyed.
‘But what if he comes after you?’ it suddenly occurred to Laura, bringing a fearful hand to her mouth.
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Frank snorted, ‘cos if he did, he knows I’d just kick his head in again, only even worse.’
Laura responded with a long-drawn-out ‘Wow…’ as if she were melting. It was quite erotic in spite of her and I experienced a brief flash of jealousy.
‘Livin with his Granny,’ he remarked contemptuously, ‘what a cunt.’
‘Charles, where on earth did you get this?’ Bel’s face scrunched up in disgust. ‘It’s absolutely
repulsive
.’
‘It was down in the cellar. I think it was a gift from that poisonous maiden aunt of Mother’s, the one who lives in a boathouse.’
‘Something about it tastes horribly
wrong
.’
‘I’d imagine that’s the “dash of wild rhubarb”. I thought it might be a change – anyway, these two’ll hardly notice.’ I nodded at our guests, who were talking intently, foreheads nearly touching. ‘Doesn’t it bother you?’
Bel laughed scornfully. ‘It would be like being jealous,’ she said, ‘of a sack of polystyrene chips.’
‘Mmm.’ I folded my hands and cast a wistful glance at the sack of polystyrene chips I had so failed to bring to life. ‘So where were you this evening? Did you help firebomb that unfortunate’s house?’
‘
Charles
,’ she waved her hand impatiently, ‘I wish you’d just stop
exaggerating
everything like that –’
‘Well he
said
…’
‘Oh, he’s as bad as you, he’s only trying to impress that nitwit. He makes half of it up, it’s just a silly boys’ game that sooner or later they’ll get bored with and forget about.’
‘The thing about
Titanic
,’ Laura said, ‘is that it has something for everyone.’
Bel withdrew her arm from Frank and, with a woeful pretence at sisterly concern, shuffled her chair over to me. ‘So,’ she whispered, ‘is she everything you hoped she’d be?’
‘Don’t, Bel, I’ve suffered enough for one evening.’
‘Has it been that bad?’ Bel asked, attempting to conceal her amusement.
‘It’s been catastrophic. I mean, at least
he
is colourful in a delinquent sort of way.
She
’s like a valium overdose.’
‘Is she what you’d call a Golem, then?’
‘She’s a Golem Team Leader,’ I said sorrowfully.
‘She does seem to’ve gotten worse since I last saw her,’ Bel mused. ‘All the same, Charles, you did bring this on yourself. I mean this is what happens when you pick your girlfriends out of school annuals.’
‘She really did photograph well…’
‘That’s exactly why – thanks, Mrs P,’ as Mrs P bussed in, stacked up the dishes in one hand and left again in one swift motion, ‘but that’s exactly why you need to get out into the real world and
see
people,
do
things –’
I made an indistinct mumble, picturing myself wandering the desert scrubs of Chile with a plastic tiara and an Improving Book –
‘Seriously, because Charles it just won’t work out, falling in love with people simply because they’re good-looking, or because they’re named after Gene Tierney movies.’
‘It’s as good a reason as any,’ I objected, suddenly feeling emotional. ‘Anyway, what if for some people the real world just doesn’t feel right, and they know it won’t ever feel right, surely it’s better for everybody if those people just stay out of the way, and, and…’
I realized I was perspiring, and that I must have been talking loudly. Frank was drawing some kind of a map for Laura, which they seemed too engrossed in to have overheard; but Bel regarded me thoughtfully, a little like she had the night we found out about the bank. My head swam. I downed the rest of my Rigbert’s, embarrassed.
‘… join a monastery?’ she finished my sentence for me.
‘Presumably there’s some kind of Michelin guide for monasteries…’
‘There’s Baker’s Corner,’ Frank pointed to the salt cellar, ‘and here’s Kill Lane, this sauce bottle, right? So Ziggy’s is here, up next to the Texaco. Last time we were there me and this bloke Droyd, right, he had fourteen yokes and I had eleven –’
‘My boyfriend was going to run that Texaco,’ Laura said sadly.
The long hand of the clock inched towards twelve again. I heard Mrs P going up to bed. By now MacGillycuddy would be installed outside with his camera; outside where I could just make out through the room’s reflection on the glass the shadowy edges of trees.
‘Charles, what happened with you and that Patsy girl?’ Bel drew invisible diagrams with her finger on the tabletop. ‘You really liked her for a while, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, her…’
‘And then you stopped seeing your friends – what happened? Did something happen?’
‘A fling, that’s all that was. Why, you think I should be settling down, do you? Find an heir for my vanished fortune?’
‘Well, you can’t fling for ever, can you? I mean, Charles, it won’t be much fun here on your own…’
As she said it, I could sense a sudden discomfort. She didn’t look up, but her finger moved more quickly over the wood.
I reached for a bottle with an elephant on the label. ‘You never did tell me where you went with Frank today.’
‘If you must know,’ she said coolly, ‘we spent the afternoon looking at flats.’
‘Flats?’ The oysters performed a somersault in my stomach.
‘Yes, we’re going to move in together.’ With an aloof expression she took a sip of the new liqueur, and gagged – ‘what
is
this?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said faintly. ‘Possibly something to do with elephants.’ Inside my mind everything was whirling like a carousel spun out of control.
‘It’s worse than the other stuff, it’s
undrinkable
…’ She drank a little more, the fingers of her free hand quivering slightly. ‘Anyhow there’s no point you overreacting. It doesn’t have to be permanent, it’s not like we’re getting married or anything. I have to get out of here and I don’t have any money, so it’s the logical decision.’
‘But… but what…’ I knew there was no point saying this, but I couldn’t stop myself: ‘Bel, what can you possibly see in him?’
She darkened. ‘Look, whatever I say you’ll persist in seeing him as a monster. But he’s
not
. He’s a
person
, he’s sweet and he’s kind and he doesn’t pretend to be anything he isn’t, and furthermore he has nothing to do with this place, or with Holy Child or Trinity or with Mother or Father or any of their friends –’
Words and feeling welled up in me: I ached to tell her everything – not just about the stolen chair and the menorah and what had happened to the cellar, but about Chile and MacGillycuddy and the Folly and Patsy Olé – but I knew no matter what I said, it wouldn’t change her mind. Bel’s attitude to my advice was to consider it carefully in order to work out the exact opposite course of action and then do it.
‘It’s got a sunroof,’ Laura was saying, ‘but some day I’d love to get one of those jeeps, you know, like a Mitsubishi Pajero.’
‘It’s just that you have your whole life, and –’
Bel beat her hand on the table. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she cried. ‘All you’re doing is trying to sound like you think Father would have sounded if he’d ever bothered to speak to me!’ I flinched. Frank looked round momentarily. ‘It’s
different
,’ she said, more quietly. ‘It’s like being in another world where you don’t always know what’s going to happen, what time
dinner
is served. It makes me feel like I’m
alive
.’
‘You couldn’t possibly be romanticizing it just a little, could you?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ she said coldly.
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that; she was right, probably. She shunted her chair back up towards Frank, and I had the curious, surprisingly painful sensation that even though I was going to Chile, still it was she who was leaving me.
We had put quite a dent in the liqueurs; Laura was gabbing away with a new pink glow in her cheek and a woozy, alcoholic sparkle in her eye. She intermingled talk with giggles and playful slaps. Bel smiled mirthlessly and wouldn’t look at me.
‘You see?’ Laura had pulled back the collar of her blouse and was showing Frank her bra strap. ‘Magenta.’
‘Just looks red to me,’ Frank leered over her bone-white throat.
‘They have special names,’ Laura said. ‘Like cerulean, that’s a kind of blue. Christabel’s eyes are that colour. In school I was always really jealous of your eyes – I never told you, Bel.’
‘Really?’ The lights were low but I could tell from the way she bowed her head that Bel was blushing.
‘I didn’t know what it was called, like I just thought it was blue? But then I was looking at eyeshadow in Boots and there was one just that colour, cerulean… I wondered if Charles’s eyes would be that colour too and they are!’ She beamed at me. I may have blushed a little too.
‘So do you always wear knickers the same colour as your bra?’ Frank inquired with an anthropological expression.
I kicked Bel under the table. She started laughing.
‘I do sort of understand,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Give me some more of that horrific elephant concoction, would you?’
I poured her a glass, and yawned absently. ‘Ought to be pushing on soon, though…’
‘What, do you two want to be
alone
?’
‘I want to go to
bed
, illuminating as this underwear conversation undoubtedly is. Anyway, didn’t I tell you? She’s had a boyfriend for the last five years.’
‘Surely not!’ Bel said in mock disgust. ‘What, instead of waiting for you, the man she’s never met?’
‘No, but… I mean all that time I spent pining over her and writing her songs and so forth –’
‘You only wrote one song, Charles.’
‘Well, all right, but still I always thought – you know, when things went wrong with the girls one actually
knew
– that she was somehow
there
.’ I shook my head. ‘Five years. With a petrol attendant called, called Dec!’
‘
Because I could not stop for Dec, he kindly stopped for me
–’
‘Yes, very funny – oh.’ Without a sound, the lights had gone out.
Laura shrieked. There was a tinkle of glass. ‘What happened?’ she said with a quaver.
‘The lights have gone out,’ Bel’s voice came acidly.
‘Prob’ly a fuse,’ Frank said with an air of professional indifference.
‘I’ll call Mrs P,’ I said, getting up and fumbling about for the bell rope. The blackness had a dizzying effect. Knick-knacks tumbled to the floor around me.
‘Oh, let her sleep, Charles, for heaven’s sake, surely we can manage to change a fuse…’
‘It’s
awful
dark…’
‘Could be a power cut, o’course.’
‘God – you don’t think they’ve – Charles, do you remember seeing an electricity bill in among the others? I’m pretty sure we pay direct debit, but –’
‘I don’t really remember, there were so many…’
‘Oh my
God
,’ she said despairingly.
‘Ah, don’t worry… here…’
‘Do the other houses still have their lights on?’
‘You can’t see any other houses from here,’ I said, quickly interposing myself between Laura and the window.
There was a scratching noise and Frank’s face appeared in the flame of a cigarette lighter; Laura halted on the way back to her seat, seeing Bel had repositioned herself in his lap. ‘Is there any candles?’ Frank said.
‘Mrs P has some in the kitchen,’ Bel said, without getting up. Frank was taking advantage of the darkness to give her inappropriate squeezes.
‘It’s so
dark
,’ Laura said sadly, holding her arms tight to her body and wheeling about to moon at the window.
‘Well, I’ll get them, shall I,’ I said irritably.
‘I got such a fright,’ Laura said almost to herself – and then froze: ‘Oh my God! There’s someone out there!’
‘What?’ Bel said, half-rising –
‘Don’t be silly! Frank, give me your lighter and I’ll get these –’
‘There
is
, there’s someone like
standing
out there –’
‘Look, it’s, it’s probably just a tree or something,’ taking her firmly by the shoulder and turning her away from the window, ‘why don’t you come with me and find these candles?’
‘Okay…’ she followed obediently out and down the hall. ‘Oh – Charles, is that your hand?’
‘Oh yes, sorry –’ evidently she wasn’t in the market for squeezes –
We went into the empty kitchen. Laura leaned herself against the table as I rifled through innumerable drawers. ‘So how long are Christabel and Frank going out?’
‘I don’t know – can you hold this lighter for me, be careful it’s hot – a month or so, maybe?’
‘And is it serious?’
‘Well, apparently they’re moving in together.’
‘Oh,’ she said thoughtfully.
I moved on my hunkers to the cupboard beneath the sink, pawing in the uneven light through Brillo pads, oddly shaped brushes, stern plastic bottles of bleach and detergent, letters postmarked France, Germany, Slovenia, maps – wait, letters? maps? – but here were the candles, no time to pursue this now: ‘Here, you take this one,’ lighting mine from her wick and hastening back out towards the dining room. I was thinking that this power cut could be a blessing in disguise. There was no way Laura could insure anything else, so surely she would go home; and the darkness would be an extra incentive for Frank to strike, which was why we needed to install these and get the room cleared ASAP – ‘so… Charles, do you have a job or…?’ her face bobbing politely towards me in the candlelight.
‘What?’