The Emperor Waltz. Philip Hensher

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СКАЧАТЬ leapt onto the back of her chair; not a cat, but an animal of burst and flutter. It took a strut into the small pool of light, and Duncan saw that it was a parrot, quite black. The parrot tipped its head on one side; it looked in Duncan’s direction; it raised a foot and began to groom itself, quite uninterested in the new arrival. Presently the aunt reached up behind her. She had taken something – a nut or a seed – from her lap, and the bird snatched it. All this Duncan watched remotely, as if it were a drama on a television screen. And then an unknown force seemed to push the door behind Rebecca, and it closed, leaving him alone with the staircase.

      The stairs creaked. He felt like a burglar. And upstairs the bedroom doors were also closed. For the first time, Duncan saw the box-like construction of the hall downstairs, the landing upstairs; the distinguished shape that the house had once had, and still had at its core. The panelling continued upstairs, and a threadbare green and blue carpet. This was where Samuel had hung his less successful acquisitions in the way of paintings, including the ‘Constable’, signed extravagantly, from which he had hoped to make a fortune until he was laughed out of Sotheby’s – a red-jacketed farm boy on a wagon in the middle of a dark wood. Samuel’s bedroom was in the middle. Duncan gave a very gentle knock, and in a moment there was a small crisp bustle and the door was opened by what must be a nurse. She came out, closing the door softly behind her.

      ‘Are you Duncan?’ she said. ‘I’m Sister Balls. We’ve been having a slightly restless couple of days, and sometimes he doesn’t make the best sense, but I don’t think he’s in pain any more. He’s falling asleep and waking up and falling asleep again, but he’ll be very happy to see you.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ Duncan said. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, though.’

      ‘Now why would you say that?’ Sister Balls said. ‘He’s asleep, but he’s been asking after you a lot, saying, When is he going to get here? I’ll be all right when Duncan gets here. It’s been very nice to listen to and to be able to say that you were definitely coming today.’

      ‘Shall I wait downstairs?’ Duncan said.

      ‘Oh, no,’ the nurse said. ‘No, that’s not necessary. Just come in quietly and hold his hand, and he’ll wake up when he’s ready, and then I’ll go and leave you two in peace for a bit. Don’t tire him out, I’m sure you won’t.’

      Duncan felt a kind of gratitude to Aunt Rebecca for being so abrupt, to the other two aunts for being so rude as not to come out to greet him. He felt tenderized. Talking to Sister Balls, he had been admitted to a caring space, concealed and protected. Then the nurse opened the door to the dark room, and he remembered that inside that space, his father lay.

      There was the smell of an enclosed hot room, and something alongside, unexpected. Oh, he thought, that’s the smell of a deathbed. But it wasn’t unpleasant, or particularly human, apart from its warmth; it smelt of something unfamiliar, something welcome, and some blocking agents on top, floral and medical and antiseptic. His father’s room had its own smell, too, a masculine one of wood and shoe polish. Duncan went in, closing the door behind him softly. The room was very dim. But he didn’t want to turn the light on and startle his father. He groped around the room, to the side of his father’s head, and in a moment he banged against the winged armchair that had always been on the landing until now, in case anyone tired themselves out climbing the stairs. He felt on the seat to make sure there was no medical equipment – he had a dread of syringes and containers, of cardboard bedpans – and sat down cautiously. He could hear his father’s breathing. Not dead yet. He sat for a few minutes, and shortly his eyes got used to the dim light, as his nose got used to the room’s lingering odours of illness and cure. His father’s profile was sharp and drawn; his hands were under the counterpane, making a pulling gesture. Duncan waited. There might be no need to remain. He had seen his father now. He would wait only fifteen minutes more. But just then, his father gave a deep, rasping breath, as if choking, and woke. His eyes were still closed, but there was a change in his being and his breathing. He gave the impression of being disappointed to wake and find himself still alive.

      ‘Who’s there,’ his father said. ‘I can’t see.’

      ‘It’s me,’ Duncan said. Then there was a pause, a lingering silent question, and Duncan had to say, ‘It’s Duncan, Daddy.’

      ‘Oh, Duncan,’ his father said. ‘I thought you were in Italy. Well, better late than never.’

      ‘I came as fast as I could,’ Duncan said. ‘I only heard two days ago, and the earliest flight I could get was last night and today. I had to change in Paris – there was no direct flight.’

      ‘Heard what,’ his father said. ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

      ‘Just heard,’ Duncan said. ‘I came over as quickly as I could.’

      ‘Always in a great rush,’ his father said. ‘Always not doing things properly because of something that’s turned up in an emergency. You were the same as a little boy.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Duncan said, finding himself unable to think of what he should have done to preserve his father’s sense of the right thing to do, while simultaneously coming as soon as possible. ‘I do my best.’

      ‘Have you seen your sister?’ Samuel said. ‘I was expecting to see her, as well.’

      ‘Are you sure she hasn’t been?’ Duncan said. ‘I’m sure she’s been to see you. Hasn’t she?’

      ‘What do you think I am?’ his father said. His voice was dry and rasping; the heat in his throat, its pain, tangible. His eyes were still closed; the annoyance of his existence, his ways as if a headmaster, surviving until his last moments. Duncan reflected that anyone else, he would pass him a glass of water without a request. His father would demand one, and then expect the person to put up with being called an idiot for not having one poured out ready. He waited. ‘Do you think I can’t remember if Domenica has been or not? I’m ill, not stupid.’

      ‘Sometimes you’re not quite sure of things when you’re as ill as this,’ Duncan said.

      ‘She hasn’t been,’ Samuel said. ‘I don’t suppose it’s important to her.’

      And then, to Duncan’s horror, his father raised his hands to his face in a gesture of self-benediction, his palms over his eyes, and began to sob, juddering. ‘My life’s been for nothing,’ his father said. ‘My life, and my children can’t wait for me to die.’

      ‘You don’t need to think that,’ Duncan said. ‘Don’t say things like that.’

      His father’s noise of weeping would soon bring the nurse into the room or, worse, his sisters. But then downstairs a harsh call came; a barbaric yawp and shriek. It seemed to interest or divert his father, and, just as a child’s tantrum can be pushed to one side by an entertainment, so his father paused in his fit, just gave one more shudder, and lowered his hands. ‘I keep hearing that noise,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is. It’s like an animal crying.’

      ‘It’s a parrot,’ Duncan said. ‘It’s a black parrot that Ruth brought. Or Rachel. I don’t know which one.’

      ‘It would be Rachel,’ Samuel said. ‘She has a parrot, a black one. Why has she brought it here? I don’t want it here. I don’t want that noise downstairs.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Duncan said. ‘I thought she must have asked you. I’ll tell her to take it home again.’

      ‘Oh, СКАЧАТЬ