Clouds among the Stars. Victoria Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ that suggested a childhood on a heather-tufted moor or a sheep-bitten crag.

      ‘Oh.’ The inspector smiled, so far undeterred. ‘Well, Mr Loveday, I believe Miss Byng gave you some clothes to burn.’

      ‘Ah ha. Cloth made fro’ devil’s dust, spun into threads on Queen Mab’s wheel.’

      ‘Well – perhaps.’ The inspector blew noisily down the stem of his pipe. ‘Did you do so?’

      ‘No, milord.’

      The inspector forgot to puff and suck, and leaned forward on his chair. ‘Where are they?’

      ‘Twas the flames that burned them. I am but a mortal man. I cannot combust.’

      ‘So they are destroyed?’ The inspector could not hide his disappointment.

      ‘Tha’s a deep question, milord. Who knows where things go that are consumed by fire? Mayhap they become smoke-imps that ride the backs o’ will-o’-the-wisps to mislead travellers in the dark. There’s only one can answer that.’

      The inspector frowned, and I sensed that Loveday’s particular brand of whimsy was beginning to pall. ‘Who?’

      ‘’Tis the man in the moon with a dog at his feet and sticks on his back.’

      ‘Right. Well, thank you, Mr Loveday, that’ll be all for the moment.’

      Loveday went back to his maze, leaving a trail of leaves across the carpet. The inspector put away his notebook, humming tunefully and spent some time examining the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. When he spoke again it was to ask me how I thought my father was bearing up in prison. The inspector was very kind and assured me that being on remand was nothing like as bad as serving a sentence. I hoped this meant he thought it unlikely that my father would have to do so. I was afraid to ask him outright.

      He waited with us until a police car delivered a uniformed bobby to stand in our front garden. PC Bird had round, grey, guileless eyes. A manifest sense of duty stiffened the large chin that braced the strap of his helmet. I noticed this at once for the events of the last few days had bread an increased sense of caution and mistrust in things generally, and in men in particular. I watched from the window as Loveday remonstrated angrily with him about treading on the emerging hellebores. This was sheer bloody-mindedness on Loveday’s part, for the journalists had long since crushed every living thing to stalks and mud resembling a small-scale Passchendaele.

      

      It was about then that things – already, I had thought, about as bad as they could possibly get – got suddenly worse. We were told by Inspector Foy that we should limit our excursions into the outside world. If we really had to go out, it should be during the hours of daylight and only to public places where there were plenty of people about. We had to inform the policeman on guard of our destination and appoint an hour for our return. Having to log in and out was curiously discouraging to enjoyment, and anyway, it was difficult to have a good time when we were jumpy and suspicious of every stranger. We all began to behave as though we were characters in Wuthering Heights, digging up old scores, seeing slights where there were none, and generally doing a good deal of brooding, sulking and scowling.

      Absolutely the worst thing of all – apart from Pa being in prison, that is – was the disappearance of Mark Antony. He had become quite a favourite with the, by now, very bored reporters. So when, one rainy night, he did not return from his evening session at stool I went out to ask the last stragglers if they had seen him. They told me that the fellow with the birthmark had put in a brief reappearance an hour earlier with a ‘dish of scraps for the kitty’. It had struck them as odd at the time for he had not seemed the sort of person to be fond of animals and, anyway, it was apparent from the size of Mark Antony’s girth that he was already well catered for.

      I spoke urgently to the policeman on duty, not our nice PC Bird but the grumpiest of the three who took it in turns to prevent us being made sorry we had been born. He had noticed the man but assumed he was a crank. When I rang Inspector Foy he was sympathetic but regretted that resources would not permit him to send out a police car to search for Mark Antony.

      I had recently failed my driving test for the fourth time for being insufficiently in control of the vehicle but this did not prevent me from taking out Bron’s car illegally, with only Cordelia as passenger, and combing the streets of Blackheath. After an hour of hopeless searching we were both crying so much that I failed to see a bollard and we had to drive away hastily, leaving confirmatory evidence of the justice of the last examiner’s pithily worded strictures.

      After this, life looked as black as could be and I think it was this that prevented me from seeing what was happening to Maria-Alba. At first I thought her extreme volatility was due to distress at the disappearance of Mark Antony, of whom she was very fond. But when she started seeing the Virgin Mary on the basement stairs and having long hectoring conversations with her about the rights and wrongs of the Catholic Church, I became seriously worried. The others were no help at all in this latest crisis.

      To while away the hours of their incarceration Bron and Ophelia played Honeymoon Bridge in the drawing room for enormous if imaginary stakes. Portia spent all her time in her room, reading things like Swallows and Amazons and The Magic Pudding, chosen, she explained because she could be certain there would be no sex scenes, as she could not bear the idea of even the chastest kiss. Cordelia and I occupied the dining room where we were constructing a cat-sized four-poster bed for Mark Antony to sleep in when he came home. This was to distract Cordelia from her first plan, to keep a candle burning in every window of the house. I was certain this plan would result in him having no home to return to. Secretly I was convinced that he would not come back and whenever I thought of what might have happened to him I felt miserably sick, and scowled and brooded and sulked as much as anyone.

      I was just stitching some gold braid to the delicious blue velvet we had found for Mark Antony’s curtains when I heard screams of rage coming from the basement. I ran down to discover Maria-Alba beating the stair carpet with the soup ladle, so violently that the handle broke and the bowl flew off, hitting me painfully on the shin.

      ‘Diavolo! Diavolo!’ she howled, almost incoherent with angry weeping. When Cordelia appeared at the top of the stairs, her golden locks illuminated by the hall chandelier, Maria-Alba fell on her knees and implored il Spirito Santo to be merciful.

      Reluctantly I rang her doctor. He was out, and by the time he called back, a few hours later, Maria-Alba was her old self again, exhausted but perfectly rational. But the next afternoon, at about the same time, Maria-Alba was on her knees before the washing machine, weeping and begging it to forgive her for strangling Father Alwyn. I tried to reason with her but she was convinced I had come to arrest her. When PC Bird, who was on duty that afternoon and with whom we had become friendly, came to the back door to thank her for the tea and to return his mug, she shrieked with terror. To my surprise he turned pale and put his hands over his ears. Considering what ghastly things police officers are required to witness it struck me that PC Bird was going to have to toughen up. I went to call Maria-Alba’s doctor.

      I had to hang on for ages while the doctor’s receptionist rang round his various haunts. I returned to find PC Bird, glassy-eyed and gibbering, wandering about the kitchen declaring that he could see tiny faces of beautiful girls on the cupboard doors. I assured him they were just door knobs but when he began to clutch his head and moan that he was being blinded by brilliant stars exploding like fireworks, that were something ruddy marvellous but at the same time bloody awful, then I began to put two and two together.

      By the time Inspector Foy and Sergeant Tweeter arrived, one of the reporters СКАЧАТЬ