Clouds among the Stars. Victoria Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ that audiences were the proper arbiters of genius. It had been an unpleasant shock when the laurel crown had been placed on Basil’s receding brow. It was not the knighthood Pa resented but the immediate clamour for Basil’s presence on every stage that stung him. My father’s insults became less jocular and more venomous. It would be true to say that he was in a fair way to hating Basil.

      ‘This has been a terrible shock for you.’ The inspector’s manner was that of a story-book uncle, genial, reassuring, safe. Probably the pipe and Burberry helped. ‘I’m afraid there are one or two questions I must ask. Your mother – is she at home?’

      ‘I – she’s in the drawing room. I’m not sure whether … She suffers from, um, neurasthenia.’

      I did not know what this was exactly, only that my mother complained of it. The sergeant’s pencil paused and I heard him give a cluck of distress.

      ‘You needn’t write that down, Tweeter.’ Inspector Foy nodded and hummed thoughtfully to himself. ‘Are you the eldest, Miss Byng?’

      ‘No. My brother – we call him Bron – is twenty-six and Ophelia’s twenty-four. I’m twenty-two.’

      ‘Can I have a word with them?’

      ‘Bron’s gone to the – out. Ophelia’s in bed.’

      ‘Is she ill?’

      ‘No. She always goes to bed when she’s upset.’

      He squinted down the end of his pipe and hummed some more. ‘Pom – pom – pom,’ up and down the scale. ‘And Portia? How old is she?’

      ‘She’s twenty. But she isn’t here. I don’t know where she is.’

      ‘I see.’ The inspector drew thoughtfully on his pipe and blew a cloud, his expression noncommittal. ‘I was hoping that someone would come back to the station with me. Your father’ll need some overnight things, and no doubt a visit from a member of the family will cheer him up. His solicitor’s been with him all day, of course. Your father’ll be moved in the morning. Probably the Shrubs.’

      ‘The Shrubs?’ I echoed stupidly.

      ‘Winston Shrubs. The wing for prisoners on remand.’ When he said ‘prisoners’ I wanted to be sick. I must have looked green for the inspector said, ‘You’re rather young for all this. I think I should have a word with your mother.’

      ‘I – I’ll ask her.’

      My mother was alone, pacing the length of the drawing room, the back of one hand pressed to her forehead, the other clutching her left side. ‘Ma.’ I tried to speak calmly but my voice was breathy and unnaturally high. ‘There’s a policeman in the library who wants us to go to the station to see Pa.’

      She paused in her pacing and crossed her hands over her chest as though cradling something small and vulnerable. ‘Waldo! Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed shall lodge thee till thy wound be healed!’

      ‘Othello. Are you coming then?’

      ‘Two Gentlemen. Why, he is whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back!’

      ‘Yes, I know. But we ought to go and see him.’

      She widened her eyes. ‘This is the very coinage of my brain. It harrows me with fear and wonder.’

      I saw the policemen hovering at the door of the drawing room. ‘This is Inspector … um,’ I still could not remember his name.

      ‘Good evening, Mrs Byng. I’m Chief Inspector Foy.’

      My mother looked wildly at me. ‘Alas, how is’t with you that you do bend your eye on vacancy?’

      The inspector spoke in a slow, calming sort of way as though announcing the next item of a concert on the radio. ‘Hamlet, isn’t it? Gertrude’s speech, if I’m not mistaken. This is my sergeant. We’d like you to come with us to the station, if you wouldn’t mind.’

      My mother groaned and clasped her throat. ‘This fell sergeant, death, is swift in his arrest.’

      The sergeant coughed respectfully. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am, but the name’s Tweeter.’

      My mother made a small sound of impatience. Brushing past us, she paused on the threshold and pointed a finger at each of us in turn. ‘Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence!’ She swept into the hall and I heard her walking upstairs with slow majesty.

      ‘It had better be me,’ I said.

      I went into the hall to find my coat.

      ‘I come with you.’ In the dim light of the stairs Maria-Alba’s complexion, always sallow because of all the nerve-stabilising pills she took, looked yellow enough to be jaundiced.

      ‘Oh, but Maria-Alba – you can’t. You know it’ll make you – upset. Besides, they need you here.’

      ‘Cordelia is with the television.’ Maria-Alba was buttoning her cape, a voluminous garment in scratchy tartan, which she wore winter and summer. ‘The others is all right. And Bron, when he return home, è ubriaco fradico, certo.’

      I hoped the policemen would not know the Italian for stinking drunk. I had not the presence of mind for argument. I went up to my father’s dressing room to pack a bag. Shirts, pyjamas, pants, socks, washing things, razor, shaving soap. Eau-de-Cologne, two silver hairbrushes and the hairnet he wore in bed. He was extremely particular about his appearance. I folded up his dressing gown carefully. It was made of saffron-coloured marocain and had once belonged to Noel Coward. As an afterthought I took two cigars from his humidor, his cigar cutter, his sleeping pills and the book of sonnets from his bedside table.

      The car was an unmarked black saloon. Sergeant Tweeter drove, Inspector Foy sat next to him and Maria-Alba and I sat in the back. The inspector kept up a stream of small talk – the unseasonably mild weather, the effect of roadworks on traffic flow, the Lely exhibition, the new play by Harold Pinter, the latest novel by Günter Grass. No doubt my replies were lame but the effort required to make them was steadying. Sergeant Tweeter confined his remarks to the odd grunt of dissatisfaction with other people’s driving, and Maria-Alba sat in silence, looking stern. As chance would have it we drove round Parliament Square.

      ‘Bit of a row here today,’ said the inspector.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Just some silly kids with nothing better to do than make a nuisance of themselves. But apparently they attacked an old woman. This sort of thing sends the press into overdrive. They’ll insist it’s proof of declining morality. There’ll be sentimental talk of the past when hardened East End villains paused in the act of shooting each other full of holes to help dear old ladies cross the road.’

      ‘Oh. Yes. Of course,’ I murmured.

      ‘But think what life was in the so-called good old days. A couple of world wars for a start. A hundred years ago children starved to death in the streets. Two hundred years ago dear old ladies were burned as witches. Plenty of things have changed for the better. In my job it’s all too easy to be cynical. But there’s a great deal of good in the world if you look for it.’

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