by Alan Clark
Vic shook his head and pointed at me.
‘No. You. Cold,’ he said.
I’d forgotten I was still only in my track-suit pants. I’d not realized before that I was shivering, but now I did. Beau gave me his sweater but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I suddenly felt a terrible agitation sweep through me. My heart was thumping in my head. The shivering ratched itself up into an all-out trembling I couldn’t control.
The Archdeacon came over and knelt beside us. He suggested a little prayer. Big Frankie crossed himself and clasped his hands.
‘We don’t need that shite Archdeacon,’ I said, my voice now shaking like the rest of me. ‘Vic’s going to the Royal Free and no further. And then he’ll be coming home. Do you hear me? Do you?’
Vic moaned and wagged an admonitory finger. He tried to smile at the Archdeacon before going into another wrench of coughing. Beau dabbed the dribble off his chin.
‘Don’t forget next week,’ I said, forcing out a smile. ‘The duet with Elton. You’ll have to be fit for that. Get the voice sorted. Just think of the sales on your back catalogue. Okay?’
The ambulance screeched through the gates; revolving splinters of red light danced over us. An oxygen mask was clamped like an alien onto Vic’s face. My old mate the paramedic murmured that he didn’t look too brilliant now, but that the real risk would be in the next twenty-four hours with the chance of pneumonia or even a heart attack. He ordered that Lord Billy and Big Frankie should be taken to the hospital too; everybody else seemed physically okay. Vic was lifted onto a stretcher and levered into the ambulance. I climbed in behind him followed by Alma. Big Frankie sat stroking his forehead. Lord Billy was in a corner, in a vaguely foetal position, fretting about the mother-of-pearl box that contained his pills. I felt my rage boil up against him, the same rage I’d felt the night I’d hit Caravaggio as Vic had lain on the floor. Wanting to hurt anyone who hurt Vic.
The paramedic took off the oxygen mask to put a tube down his throat; to keep the airways clear, he said. But Vic pushed it away and grasped my hand.
‘Save the house toots,’ he whispered.
‘Fuck the house,’ I said ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No,’ he said, getting agitated, ‘Save the goddamned house. For everyone’s sake.’
‘Okay, but I’ll be right there in no time.’
The paramedic was anxious to put in the tube. Vic yelped as his singed throat tried to swallow it down; one hand still clenched in mine, the other clutching the cat. The paramedic said they needed to get moving right now. I felt myself start shaking again. The idea that he might not survive suddenly seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen. The event of thirty years ago, that I’d carried in me like a cancer, no longer mattered a damn. I wanted him to be here with me. Without him, Mount Royal would be as desolate as it had been on that day when I’d come back to it. I knew now that nobody had ever cared for me quite like he did and probably never would again. My grandmother had loved me once, Faisal had tried to and I hoped that Dolores might one day, but it was Vic who’d put himself on the line, who’d stayed the course with no reward, who’d thought of me before he thought of himself. My eyes were still red and dripping from the smoke; the perfect camouflage. I put my face right down to his.
‘Don’t you leave me, you hear me Victor?’ I said. ‘Don’t you dare fucking leave me.’
Big Frankie was still stroking Vic’s head. Now the huge hands suddenly drew back. I glanced up into his face. The sadness printed there was only momentary, then he smiled and told me not to worry; he’d take care of Vic till I got there. The paramedics more or less threw Alma and me out of the ambulance and it vanished screaming out of the gates.
It narrowly avoided collision with Big Frankie’s lilac scooter, Elspeth in the saddle, her mad hair fanning out from under the helmet. Right behind her came half a dozen cars, soon followed by a squad of designer bicycles and then, minutes later, by a breathless bunch of thirty or forty running men. Some were in sports gear; shorts and singlets: a few were in full leathers, one in some kind of rubber suit. They came in all shapes and sizes; willowy boys, beer-bellied bears, Muscle-Marys built like characters off Play Station. There were even a couple of girls, except they weren’t.
‘There you go,’ said Elspeth proudly. ‘I rounded up my laddies from the Heath.’
So the aged human chain evacuating the treasures of Mount Royal was lengthened and rejuvenated. Under the direction of Curtis and myself, the most valuable pieces from the state-rooms were removed; pictures, furniture, tapestries. It wasn’t easy; some of the stuff weighed a ton and there were paintings the size of garage doors. And by now, the smoke was pouring down into the Gilded Hall from the first floor. It wasn’t nice in there. But they were inexhaustible and, not for the first time, I felt grateful for the pivotal role of the gymnasium in gay culture. The only problem was of momentum slowing down when somebody found himself holding a nice little Monet, unable to pass it on without at least half a minute’s appreciation. I cantered back and forth along the length of the chain, encouraging, thanking. Au contraire, said a guy in a rubber vest; he’d been absolutely aching to see inside Mount Royal. He gave me his card, confirming my suspicion of a higher than average proportion of antique dealers in the line-up. The lower orders seemed equally humbled by the experience.
‘It’s part of our gay heritage now, innit, “Withering Heights”?’ said a gorilla with rings through his nose, as he heaved a Queen Anne armchair to safety. ‘Like the Coleherne.’
A slim boy dressed only in shorts had a nasty weal on his upper back.
‘Careful son, you’ve hurt yourself,’ I said.
‘Nah, it’s cool,’ he said, ‘I was bein’ whipped when Elspeth come along on her bike. Crazy granny or what?’
‘You call her Elspeth?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said the kid. ‘She’s a bit of a party-pooper like, with all her Jesus shit and leaflets about the clap, but I quite look forward to seeing her now. We’re all gonna club together and get her something for Christmas. Like a fuckin’ hair-do maybe.’
It was nearly two in the morning. The rag-bag battalion from the Heath had taken over the chain, allowing my old guys to take a break. Most were exhausted, just sitting on the grass or making sure others were all right. I went round checking on them, like Henry V at Agincourt.
I apologized to the Archdeacon for biting his head off. He forgave me with that irritating condescension which makes you want to kill all believers in anything. The deep pockets of his dressing-gown were bulging out like flying buttresses; no need to ask what he’d chosen to save from the flames. Wee Jacob Trevelyan was sobbing quietly, clinging to his brother’s sleeve.
‘Come on, Jacob,’ I said, squatting down. ‘We might be gay but there’s no need to be girly.’
‘I’m not gay actually,’ he said. ‘Jasper is, but I’m not. Well, I’m not anything really. I just go where Jasper wants to go. He’s my other half, you see.’
‘That’s nice, Jacob,’ I said.
‘You’ll not chuck me out now will you?’ he asked.
‘There might not be anywhere left to chuck you out of Jacob,’ I said.
‘Oh I’d hate to go now,’ said Jacob. ‘We’d all hate to go now.’
Curtis Powell stood staring at the house, his face so tight with tiredness the skull was poking through. He could be a pain in the arse, but he’d been brilliant tonight. If anybody else loved the house like I did, the bricks and mortar, the very smell of it, it was probably him.
‘Grampa done good, yeah?’ asked Beau, patting Curtis on the back.
‘Grampa done good,’ I agreed.
Beau was relieved he’d not had to climb down a turntable-ladder or anything; he just knew he’d have hurtled off like Jennifer Jones in The Towering Inferno. He was sure Vic would be okay; Vic had played the cabaret rooms of Las Vegas, those old lungs were smokeproof by now.
Marcus Leigh was standing apart from the others, leaning a
gainst the statue of Father Thyme. He’d not said anything about his tests, to me at least, but it was pretty obvious something wasn’t right. I slipped a matey arm round his shoulders and told him things would be fine. He pulled his dressing-gown more tightly around him and didn’t reply.
Then, suddenly, deliverance. The real cavalry arrived. Two fat engines swung through the gates and in no time creamy-coloured hoses like giant tagliatelle ribboned into the Gilded Hall and up the staircase. Everyone was ordered out and the firemen flooded in. The tagliatelle swelled rigid as the water gushed into them. As they penetrated my fragile house, they seemed as scary as the tube that had been put into Vic’s throat, but it was out of my hands now.
‘It can’t burn,’ muttered Curtis, his gaze still clamped on the house. ‘The lost palace. It mustn’t burn.’
‘It won’t burn, Curtis,’ I said with bravado I didn’t feel. ‘It’s not fucking Manderley.’
I told Beau to get contact numbers for all the guys who’d come from the Heath; we’d have to find some way to thank them. Then I asked Elspeth if she was up for another scooter ride and we roared off towards the Royal Free. Having my arms locked tightly round Miss Wishart’s waist seemed vaguely indecent, but the wind felt good on my hot dirty face. I threw my head back and closed my eyes; partly from fear, partly from the need to shut out the world, if only for a few seconds. Behind me the survival of Mount Royal was in the gift of strangers; in front of me, Vic was in exactly the same heap of shite.
‘Miss Wishart, don’t get all excited and think I’ve found religion,’ I yelled as the lilac scooter took a wobbly left into East Heath Road. ‘But I don’t know the Poor Clares’ number so would you pray for Vic now? For some crazy reason, it seems to have something going for it.’
‘Do you think I’ve not been doing it already, Rory Blaine?’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘But God will hear. He owes you Mr d’Orsay’s life.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because apart from the sad accident of that poor Italian boy, you’ve saved quite a few lives lately. Mine included,’ she said. ‘Now hang on, I don’t like the look of this bend.’
The brutal bulk of the Royal Free loomed before us, its concrete face pocked by squares of yellowy light; harsh but somehow hopeful. I wondered behind which of them Vic now lay and what was waiting for me there. I hoped that Elspeth was right about my having brownie points with her God. I also hoped He’d forget that Vic did not approve of Him, would remember the innocent pleasure the King of Croon had given to millions and overlook the time he’d taken out his willy and waved it at the Singing Nun.
*
And the Lord heard her prayer and it was good. Or at least somebody did, because both Mount Royal and Vic’d’Orsay survived the night of the fire. In each case, the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked. The firemen had commented that they’d known how to build them in the old days; the doctors had said much the same about Vic.
The blaze had more or less gutted Lord Billy’s apartment but miraculously the wider damage, to Vic’s suite and the adjacent corridors, was mostly smoke and soot. First thing next morning, Robin Bradbury-Ross had roared in with his English Heritage storm-troopers in a state of mild hysteria but, having evaluated the mess, he’d calmed down, run his tongue over his lower lip and said how much he looked forward to our working together on the restoration of the ravaged area.
Vic’s passageways had been similarly scorched and his chambers filled with smoke but after a few hours in intensive care, they’d transferred him to a private room. But it was facing north and Vic didn’t do north, so he kicked up a charming stink till he was moved to a sunnier one. That was when I knew he’d be all right. But his larynx wasn’t up to recording the duet with Elton and he’d been replaced at the last minute by Lulu. Elton had sent a huge bunch of lilies and a card that read, ‘Sorry luv, that’s showbiz!’ Vic was well pissed-off.
When they discharged him, he was still a bit weak. His own apartment wasn’t yet habitable so I decided he’d move into the spare room in the flat. Everyone came out to welcome him back. There was much hugging and kissing of the air; even Bruce Willis embraced him in a self-conscious, macho way. Marcus Leigh instigated a rendition of ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’ to which Vic responded with a short and graceful speech of the sort he’d been opening fêtes with for decades; only the phrase ‘fuck Lulu’ might have been thought ungracious.
Lord Billy seemed to hang back a bit from the crowd. He’d not suffered from the smoke as badly as Vic and, along with Frankie, had been sent home from hospital the day after. The guys had bent over backwards to forgive him, agreeing that it could have happened to anyone. A candle left burning. A faulty toaster maybe. Even, as Beau had suggested, the Archdeacon’s DVD player exploding through overuse.
Back at the Royal Free that night, I’d marched into his A&E cubicle ready to bawl him out. He’d been lying there, pale as a wounded swan, pushing back his cuticles. He’d flinched at the sight of me.
‘Stop!’ he’d pleaded. ‘There is nothing more you can say to one which Miss Wishart has not already expressed most intemperately. Quite the most formidable woman I’ve encountered since Nancy though sadly without either her dress sense or exquisite turn of phrase.’
So I’d contented myself with promising that if he lit a cigarillo inside the walls of Mount Royal ever again, I’d ram them one by one up his scrawny old arse till they came out of his nostrils. He’d still been fretting about his mother of pearl pill-box. I said I’d already let the doctors know he was positive.
‘It was a renter in Derby on my way to stay with Debo at Chatsworth,’ he’d said. ‘Years ago now. Such are the perils of the country-house weekend.’
‘Don’t worry, Billy,’ I’d said. ‘We’re on your case.’
‘I’m not quite sure what that means, my dear,’ he’d said, ‘but I find it oddly comforting.’
Today he hovered on the fringes of the welcoming party till Vic went and kissed him, asking how he was feeling. Billy then broke down and had to be led into the house by Beau who promised to mix him a Mint Julep as good as any nigger could make.
Big Frankie, untypically, hung back too till Vic sought him out and thanked him for his heroics during the fire. Frankie replied in the faintly robotic way of someone who’d over-rehearsed a speech. He declared that he could never regret having met Vic and that he hoped they would be able to go on being friends.
‘Well of course we will,’ said Vic, patting him on the cheek.
‘Boss, I think Mr d’Orsay should rest now,’ Frankie said firmly. He took Vic’s hand and joined it with mine, welding them together with his own. Then he took a few steps back, almost bowing as he did so.
Everyone watched as Vic and I walked towards the East Court. Alma, ecstatic at having him back, bolted ahead. My back was dreadful; the day after the fire it had thrown one of its tantrums and refused to go another inch. Lifting Vic on my shoulders hadn’t been in its job description. As we hobbled off round the carriage circle, we must have looked like a knackered version of the Start-rite Twins.
*
Elspeth’s Lord giveth but also taketh away. Is that the phrase? Think so. Anyway that seems to be the deal, the way He does business. We had been spared death in the fire, but we weren’t to be spared it for long.
It was a two-seater plane; the sort they used every day to hop from village to village. She’d been at the controls. Witnesses said it had been climbing into a calm blue sky when the engine noise suddenly changed. It had faltered, floated in the thermals for a moment, then nose-dived a thousand feet into a clump of trees. There had been a short silence before the big bang came and the black smoke began snaking its way up through the lattice of the tree-tops. They said that Ruby and Faisal would have died instantly, but I wondered how they knew that. And at what point exactly? Before the plane hit the trees? As it splintered into a hundred pieces? Or only as they both lay there, broken but maybe just conscious, knowing, if only for a second, w
hat was about to come? I was informed, as delicately as possible, that there wasn’t much left of them. Elspeth’s Lord had thrown in free cremation on this one.
The call had come at about five in the morning. Faisal’s passport, safe back in the camp, had me listed as his next of kin. He’d needed a new one a while back and had asked if I’d minded. He’d thought it right as we were building a life together. I’d said it was cool.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a bit, then trudged upstairs and made some coffee. Vic was softly snoring from the spare room; he and Alma had gone to bed early after his return from the hospital. I took the coffee to my chair in the big window. The lights at the Canary Wharf were winking in the distance, the first reddish-pink flickers of dawn just beginning to rise behind it. The city seemed unusually silent. No planes flew over, no sirens screeched, no stray dogs barked. I sat there soaking up coffee till the birds were all up and the familiar shapes in the gardens started to emerge from the gloom; colour seeping back into the plants and the flowers, the statues on the roof of the Orangery appearing like some semi-spectral chorus-line. I tried to scrub my mind clear of any other image but the one before me, to absorb the play of light and shadow, to calm myself by breathing in its unchanging serenity. But it didn’t work. All I could see was the interior of a tiny plane, a piece of scorched and blackened ground and an arching tomb of tropical trees.
I was usually quick to delete redundant numbers from my mobile; I was tidy like that. But by some miracle Khan’s Tools & Hardware was still there. I was expecting one of the bigot-uncles but his mother answered. At once she demanded to know if something had happened to Faisal; yesterday had been his usual day for calling her. I heard the panic rising in her throat. And so I found myself telling her that her child was dead. There was a brief silence then a cacophony of dreadful noises the like of which I’d never heard before. It went on and on. I wondered if she’d dropped the phone and forgotten I was there. I hung on in case she spoke again but she didn’t. I listened till I couldn’t take any more and switched off the phone. When I got up from the chair, I kicked over my coffee mug and sent the contents flying over the Berber rug.
