Clouds among the Stars. Victoria Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ think double Scotches would be more the thing.’ Ronnie helped my mother out of her coat and then took off his own. They retained their scarves, hats – a smart blood-red turban in my mother’s case, pulled well down over her ears – and sunglasses. ‘It’s chilly, isn’t it?’ He shivered, though the house felt warm to me, and drew his scarf tighter round his face. ‘I think I’ll hang on to this for the moment.’

      ‘Me, too.’ My mother went into the drawing room.

      I ran down to the kitchen and poured two generous whiskies. ‘Ma’s home,’ I said to Portia and Cordelia.

      ‘Your eggs have boiled dry,’ said Portia. ‘Was that meant to happen?’

      There followed a short scene of which I was immediately ashamed. After I had apologised we went up together to the drawing room.

      My mother seemed touchingly pleased to see her children but repelled affectionate overtures with cries of pain. She and Ronnie crouched by the fire in their mufflers and head-dresses, like Russian peasants round a samovar. Dirk was evidently worried by their suspicious appearance, for he flashed his eyes from one to the other and kept up a continuous growling.

      ‘I hope Maria-Alba has something good for supper,’ said my mother as she gulped down the whisky. ‘That bloody clinic has kept us on famine rations. Only the thought of getting home and having something decent to eat stopped me from throwing myself into the river.’

      ‘Maria-Alba isn’t well,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to poach some eggs. But it’s trickier than I thought. I’ve got two out of the eight that are probably edible. You should have telephoned.’

      ‘Naturally we’d have done so if we’d had two pennies to rub together. When we arrived at the clinic – Ronnie decided, as the prices were so favourable, to have a little work done too – they made us strip down to the last hairpin and put on their overalls. They took away our clothes and locked them up. Then the minute we came round from our operations they presented us with exorbitant bills. Eighty pounds for champagne that was scarcely drinkable! Of course we refused to pay. Had Ronnie not been very resourceful and stolen the key from Matron’s desk we’d be there still. All our pockets had been emptied and there was no sign of my bag or Ronnie’s notecase. We had to walk all the way from Bethnal Green. I had no idea that London could be so unpleasant. The inhabitants were positively abusive and some of the children threw things at us. Poor Ronnie received a nasty blow on the shoulder from a brick. Not a policeman in sight, naturally. They are all too busy obstructing the doorways of the upper classes.’

      ‘Why are the myrmidons of the law encircling the house?’ Ronnie sat cradling his glass in one hand while the other tenderly massaged his upper arm.

      ‘It’s all Portia’s fault,’ said Ophelia. ‘Her penchant for rough trade has had its inevitable consequence. This house is now notorious for every vice and vileness in the Thieves’ Almanac.’

      ‘That’s unfair.’ I looked at Portia but her chair was empty. When, later, I went up to her room she explained that two pairs of sunglasses were too much for her and she would forgo supper. I descended to the kitchen with the forlorn hope of making something of those wretched poached eggs. Ronnie was already there, his features still hidden by scarves and sunglasses, but with his shirtsleeves rolled up and wearing Maria-Alba’s apron. He was chopping an onion with speed and expertise.

      ‘We cannot all afford a cook,’ he said with a degree of hauteur when I expressed surprise. ‘I am going to make a cottage pie. It will be simple but good. Your mother needs nourishment.’

      ‘How kind you are, Ronnie.’

      ‘Not really.’ Ronnie’s lenses flashed as he bent to crush a clove of garlic. ‘I’ve always adored her. I simply can’t help wanting to do things for her. It’s as natural as tides being drawn to the moon or the hen returning to her coop at dusk. Irresistible forces compel each of us to our destiny …’ I sat down, my hand on Dirk’s head to dissuade him from growling as Ronnie continued his speech to the end. ‘And how is your poor papa?’ he asked when he had finished, his good humour apparently restored. ‘You know, your mother’s feelings have been so painfully lacerated by his misfortune that she cannot bring herself even to mention it. Some people might misunderstand this but we, who know her delicate, sensitive nature, will not condemn it as weakness. Great artists are as different from us ordinary mortals as a Ming vase from a flowerpot.’

      I wondered if he really believed this. My mother had not acted for ten years. Not since a reviewer wrote that her portrayal of Lady Macbeth put him in mind of an exasperated society hostess burdened with unmannerly guests who had lost the new tennis balls, left the bathrooms in a mess, and finished the gin. My mother was inclined to recite the review verbatim accompanied by peals of mordant laughter, when she had had a little too much to drink.

      ‘But surely you are no mean actor yourself?’ I said politely.

      ‘I was, in my day, a skilled journeyman of the stage. I could charm and I could menace. Girls, the length and breadth of England, dreamed of being taken in my arms and bent to my will. My performance as Lord Sylvester Steel, the Man in the Scarlet Hood, was, I believe, definitive. But I could not have played Hamlet to save my life.’

      ‘Ma has always said you’ve the best profile of any man she’s ever met.’

      ‘Really?’ Ronnie sounded pleased. What she had actually said was that Ronnie had done very well with nothing to recommend him but a handsome profile, but it was nearly the same thing. He offered Dirk the remains of the leg of lamb he was cutting up. ‘That’s a nice puppy you’ve got there.’

      ‘He is sweet, isn’t he?’ Dirk did not at that moment look specially sweet, tearing the flesh from the bone with huge white teeth. ‘But he’s fully grown, thank goodness.’

      ‘Mm.’ Ronnie considered him. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure.’

      I fetched potatoes and carrots from the larder and together Ronnie and I chopped and scraped and scrubbed in a warm, steamy atmosphere of domestic harmony. From time to time I looked at Dirk as he lay slumbering, one ear folded across the glistening picked-clean femur. Now Ronnie had drawn my attention to it, Dirk did seem larger than when he had arrived.

      

      ‘I’m afraid the clinic wasn’t all it was cracked up to be,’ I said. My father and I sat facing each other, in the middle of a long row of prisoners and their visitors. Two prison officers patrolled the room, looking bored. Between Pa and me was a battered table, over which crawled an out-of-season fly. Neither it nor my father looked well. ‘The bruising’s very bad. They’re still refusing to take off the scarves and sunglasses. You remember The Invisible Man? It’s almost the same except for the turban and Ronnie’s purple hair. Apparently because it was so cheap and the surgeon was awfully persuasive, they got carried away and had far more done than they’d originally planned.’ I was chattering on in this inconsequential way, hoping to cheer Pa up. His skin looked colourless, almost flabby. I wondered if he was eating properly. I paused, then plunged on. ‘Ronnie’s staying with us for the time being. He’s being very useful because he knows how to cook. Maria-Alba has had to go and stay with the nuns again.’

      Poor Maria-Alba had had upsetting flashbacks from her involuntary experience with LSD and her doctor had decided that she should have a rest. She had a love-hate relationship, mostly hate, with the sisters at the Convent of St Ursula, in Bushey Heath, whose guest she had been several times in the past. She was convinced they wanted to get possession of her soul so they could barter СКАЧАТЬ