An anguished cry of relief, not unlike an anguished cry of despair, issued forth from yet another heap of wet wool standing nor far outside the door. Once he’d staggered in past the threshold, he stopped and let loose the cry again, this time in anger and protest.
“You might want to step in a bit farther so I might close the door.” Kitty made sure she yelled directly into the man’s ear, causing him, in reflex, to raise his hand to protect his tympanic nerve from lasting damage. Obediently he took three more shuffling steps, his waterlogged garments sending a torrent of their own onto the flagstones.
“Much obliged,” he screamed, forgetting that he was no longer in competition with the deluge outside. Kitty flinched and managed a small smile that quickly increased to a beaming affability that took possession of her entire face. She let it freeze into position long enough to make sure it had been observed, then reconfigured these seldom-used muscles into her former look of servile superiority. Again she took up her candle. “Tea will be served in the scullery. If you’ll be so good as to come this way.”
“Oh,” said his lordship. “Well.” He considered a moment, lengthened the upper part of his body, especially the head and shoulders, and added, “The scullery, then. Why not, eh?”
Whether the intruders knew it or not, they were led to the best-appointed room in the castle. What passed for a sitting room consisted of a well-used couch abandoned by the squatters and an overstuffed chair whose high back was stained with grease that hinted at a predilection for purple hair dye. Except for two ladder-back chairs—also gifts from the scholarly squatters—the rest of the furnishings had come from Kieran’s farm: a wing chair set near the fireplace; a low table in front of the couch, crudely made but sturdy; a round table on a pedestal with a lamp, its shade a brown parchment onto which no design had been attempted; and a rug worn thin by generations of Sweeney boots. To give the room a proper baronial claim, the andirons in the fireplace were huge implements resembling giant chess pawns that would have required for their lifting and moving Cuchulain himself. The grate, more suited for burning peat than the metal pawns, was a bed of common metal now undifferentiated in color from the ashes it had created over the years of good and faithful service. The chimney drew perfectly, making this particular room, despite its discolored stone walls of lime and mortar, the most hospitable space in the entire castle—a fair replica of what might be found in a nearby cottage—and far too comforting for his Lordship and his aggrieved associate.
What was called the dining room was furnished with the Ping-Pong table, with seven unmatched chairs—some cushioned, some not—arranged not around the table but along the walls, the table itself reserved for the game for which it had been devised, a diversion often enjoyed by Kitty and Kieran after a day of separation.
But it was in the scullery that communal life was lived in the castle. Here the fireplace could accommodate a pig deemed suitable for roasting—although the roasting planned for the high feast would take place not in the scullery but in a field a kilometer farther west, the castle tower still in sight. (The honored pig had not yet been chosen.)
The table was butcher block, and the four chairs surrounding it were, like more than several of the castle appointments, a set brought by Kieran as a gift to his bride from the family cottage now occupied by his brother, his wife, and their three children. But the scullery’s more obvious treasures were the oven, the sink and the culinary equipment no chef worthy of the name would be caught dead—much less alive—without. The refrigerator and a freezer alone probably sent into the surrounding countryside more ozone-killing pollutants than the rest of the village households combined. Vents, a microwave oven, a machine to wash dishes, another to whip, grind, stir, slice, and pummel—all were arrayed around the ample room for the astonishment of visitors and the delight of Kieran Sweeney, who, along with his initiation into connubial bliss, was granted the knowledge, heretofore unsuspected, that he was a cook with great gifts, some of them instinctive, others revealed. This phenomenon can be explained by noting that Lolly—now a McCloud, gave, in a misguided attempt at wit, the wedding gift of a cookbook to her new aunt-inlaw. Kitty, embarrassed by the feebleness of the effort at humor, was about to discard the book, along with several Victoria’s Secret undergarments and the complete works of Doris Lessing. Kieran, drawn to the cookbook’s slick cover picturing a pig roasting on a spit, stayed her hand and wrested the book from her and began, with growing avidity, to scan the possibilities for satisfactions heretofore unknown in his culinary endeavors.
For Lord Shaftoe and Mr. Skiddings, it was to be tea and a few biscuits that had gathered age in the bottom of a tin. While Kitty busied herself with the kettle, the teapot, the pitcher of milk, the sugar bowl, and the plate of hardened biscuits—a breed with a butter base so insufficiently trusted that chips of chocolate rather like bunny droppings had been included for marketing purposes—his lordship and his attending architect felt free, once they had accepted their relegation to the scullery, to express their amazement and approval of what their eyes beheld. Mr. Skiddings was particularly interested in the installations and, without permission, opened and closed doors, flicked on and off several of the machines— to no effect in the absence of a generator—until the power, miraculously restored, set in motion an excitable vegetable chopper and nearly gave the poor man a myocardial infarction. Once recovered, he went on to test the rest of the pots and skillets, the contents of cabinets and drawers, with a skeptical regard.
To lure him to the table, and to end his intrusion into the privacy of Kieran’s kitchen, Kitty said, “Help yourselves to the milk and sugar. I never take either, so I’m no good at proper serving. And there are more biscuits, if you like.”
“Oh,” said his lordship. “I should do it myself?”
“Try,” said Kitty. “And see what happens.”
“Come, Mr. Skiddings. These biscuits won’t wait much longer.”
The architect left off his scrutiny of Kieran’s knives—a scrutiny that consisted, it would seem, of examining his reflection in the shining blades, including profiles, jutted chin, and, finally, the coating and color of his tongue—and came to the table, but continued glancing back at the wonders he had seen. His lordship also had difficulty concentrating on the repast Kitty had so arduously prepared. He, too, was casting an all-too-appraising eye at the surroundings. To nip in the bud what was being thought by both guests, Kitty said, “You needn’t worry. All this will be removed so it won’t interfere with your own plans, which I’m sure will shame our own poor efforts.”
His lordship, being less experienced in disappointment, said only, “Oh?” Mr. Skiddings, when he had assimilated the import of what had been said, could only add another spoonful of sugar to his tea, stir it, put down the spoon, and stare into his cup. So pleased was Kitty with the moment that she extended it by saying, “We’ll be sure to get all this out of your way. As I’ve said, we’re most eager to make the transition as amiable and as easy as possible for everyone concerned. And that, I assume, includes you, Mr. Skiddings.”
He picked up his cup, touched it against his lower lip, set it down, and said, “Yes, I suppose it does.”
Leaning his head sideways in the architect’s direction, Lord Shaftoe said to Skiddings, “We may as well use this opportunity, since we’ve already been so terribly inconvenienced, for you to make your first survey of the property. Then we can use the journey back for discussion.”
Kitty, the perfect hostess, smiled and said, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I’ve not prepared the castle for visitors— especially visitors as illustrious as yourselves.”
His Lordship, not to be instructed in the ways of affability, said, “But we’re hardly visitors.”
Kitty’s smile stayed, even as her chin was raised. “Considering the recent ruling of the court, you fit the category of visitor until a specified time. More tea?” Without waiting for a reply, she added, “Oh, but the rain has stopped. Or, unless my hearing is d
efective, it’s settled itself into an ordinary drizzle that will hardly discommode men as robust and hearty as yourselves.”
His lordship had had two sips, Mr. Skiddings none. Kitty had emptied her cup and enjoyed, to whatever degree possible, one of the biscuits. “It could start up again at any moment, and I doubt that you’d prefer to find your way in the midst of another cloudburst.” She held out the plate of biscuits. “Would you care to take one with you? Something to sustain you on your journey?”
Mr. Skiddings’s right arm twitched, but seeing an aghast look from his lordship, the architect transformed the gesture in midintent to the placement of his hand on the table next to his undefiled teacup.
Standing, his Lordship touched the declivity between his lips and chin and bowed in the direction of his hostess. “Then you must excuse us. You’ve been most kind, but we really must be on our way. The storm has reversed itself in our favor, and we would be less than gracious not to accept the consideration. Mr. Skiddings?”
So abruptly did Mr. Skiddings stand that he almost tipped over his chair, and, not to exempt the table from the eager- ness of his response to his lordship’s summons, he knocked the right hand he’d so cunningly put next to his teacup against the saucer, spilling some of the tea onto the biscuit plate, ruining forever the crispness that only uncounted days and nights shut up in a tin could accomplish. He seemed about to make an apology but apparently decided not to draw further attention to his handiwork and said simply, “Do you think I might be able to use the men’s?”
That he was able Kitty had no doubt. If she was willing to give her permission, she was not quite so sure. To give still further use to the smile still pasted onto her face, she was tempted to tell the man that considering the condition he was in, wet to the bone, no notice could possibly be taken if he simply chose to make a contribution of his own to his completely soaked apparel. But, for the first time, she saw an honest need on the poor man’s face. She also saw, pretty much for the first time, that the man was inordinately plain. Her phrase to herself was “ugly as an elbow.” And indeed the creases and folds in the man’s face traced a circular pattern of diminishing circumferences as they neared the nose and mouth, the nose itself providing an acceptable center to the concentrics surrounding it. It helped not at all that the eyes were gray—meaning, to Kitty, that the man was color-blind. For hair, he had been given tufts and clumps randomly placed that would have suggested transplants had the choice of donor not been so immediately discredited. Although his ears were pinned nicely against his head, there sprouted from their whorls and lobes yet more hair. Whether it was his habit or a genetic indisposition, or a combination of the two, his shape was somewhat peculiar and his impeccably tailored clothing—especially in its ruined state—failed to disguise this sad and obvious truth. It could be said that the man was, in his own way, perfectly formed, but the perfection was that of a perfect ripe pear.
In pity, Kitty said, “Come, I’ll show you the way. If your lordship will excuse us.”
“Certainly. It will give me time to look around.”
“I’ll be but a minute.”
And, indeed, in a minute she did return, having rushed Mr. Skiddings up the stair and nosed him in the direction of the second door on his left. “Fresh towels in the cabinet.”
His lordship was running his hand over the stones that walled the passageway leading to the great hall. “All this will be covered over, of course.” He removed his hand and rubbed his fingers against his thumb to rid himself of any residue. After looking around for some object on which to wipe his hand, he settled for a somewhat ratty velvet drape the squatters had hung in a brave attempt to duplicate the medieval tapestries that held back some of the seeping damp the walls could not absorb. “Archival evidence indicates that my ancestor, had he taken full possession of the castle rather than been driven off by the notorious plot, would have finished the task only begun but hardly advanced by the primitives responsible for the original structure. One can’t live in a rock pile and declare oneself civilized. I don’t doubt that you yourself had similar plans, which it was my sad duty to my ancestors to interrupt.”
“It’s a castle, not a palace.”
“Ah, but it will approach the palatial when I’ve finished. I can now complete a task too long delayed. Gives one a sense of mission, would you say?”
To spare his lordship Kitty’s response, Mr. Skiddings appeared, a good toweling having plastered his tufts onto his skull. He had also taken time to straighten his rain-shriveled tie and make an attempt to revive the delicate but elaborate foldings of the handkerchief stuffed into his jacket pocket. “The plumbing—” he said hesitantly—“the plumbing?”
“Oh,” said Kitty, the smile slapped back onto her face, “I forgot to tell you. You must reach inside the water closet and pull up on the mechanism. It works fine if you do it properly.”
“I see.” The man started back toward the stair.
“No,” said Kitty. “It’s all right. Nothing I can’t tend to later. And I’m sure you gentlemen, now that the rain has stopped—”
“It hasn’t stopped.” For this, his lordship had adopted a clipped tone common to his kind.
What could Kitty do but intensify her agreeable smile? “Then let’s say it’s abated.”
“One could hardly be wetter that one is now, I suppose.”
Kitty approved of his self-referral in the third person, an obvious abjection when his preference no doubt would have been the use of the royal we. To further demonstrate his inbred humility, he had lengthened his neck and thrust out his bit of a chin, locking his jaw and sending forth his words through teeth immobilized by abnegation. If Kitty’s smile had extended further, her face would have broken. “If one gets wet, one gets dry,” she said, hoping his lordship remembered, as did she, that this was the exact same advice she’d dispensed at the close of his previous visit.
Now, as then, his Lordship summoned the stoical resignation adopted by his ancestors when first confronted by a wisdom to which they were unaccustomed. “Still no umbrella, I assume.”
“I keep forgetting.” Kitty gave her head a slight bow.
“It’s not for myself I’m concerned. It’s for Mr. Skiddings, who’s subject to pneumonia.”
The architect jerked his eyes open wider in surprise at this revelation.
“You have none in the car?” Kitty asked.
“Would we not have availed ourselves of it to come here in the first place?”
“Forgive me. I’m not very bright.”
When his lordship offered no contradiction, Kitty lifted her head, the better to display the still beaming smile to which her face was now becoming accustomed. No doubt Lord Shaftoe took it for the grimace of an idiot, and Kitty, so pleased with this interpretation, now smiled with genuine happiness and deep-seated pleasure. “We’ll leave this way.” Kitty gestured toward the entrance to the great hall. “But mind your step. There are cows in residence.” She stepped aside and let the two gentlemen enter first, his lordship preceding the architect.
“There’s a pig standing in my way, staring at me.” Lord Shaftoe paused, then, with offended astonishment, added, “Oh, and now it’s—Well, really!”
Looking past his lordship, Kitty saw the pig planted in the man’s path, not only staring up at him, but sending out behind, as is the sow’s way, an arc of golden piss that reached, with perfect aim, the center of a steaming cow flop a few feet away.
“Faugh a Ballagh! Faugh a Ballagh!” Kitty clapped her hands in the manner of her niece-in-law, Lolly. The pig lowered its snout and swung its pink head to the side, retreated to a corner of the hall, and lay down next to a cow that had been watching the display with all the interest of a lump of lard.
Mr. Skiddings had come to his lordship’s side. Kitty waited for them to move on, but George Noel Gordon Lord Shaftoe had begun to gesture with a waving arm. “All this must be tended to. Once it’s thoroughly scoured, an admirable room with definite possibiliti
es. The crudities I’m sure can be overcome. And I want fireplaces, at both ends of the hall, and carvings, perhaps with figures emerging from the marble.”
It was the word marble that roused Kitty from her smiling complacence. Marble? In a castle? Here she was surrounded above and below by stones once hurtled and sent crashing down from the mountain peaks, stubborn reminders that even to grinding glacial ice it had been possible to say, “No farther; here I stay”—a contest hard won against forces elemental in their indifference and implacable in their determination. Never would these stones be civilized. To put them into the company of decadent marble would be an abomination to which her ancestral blood could never give consent. To claim that they were insufficient in themselves was a heresy to which she could never subscribe.
Lord Shaftoe turned to his architect. “I must take you to East Anglia to show you what I have in mind. Can you believe what we see here?” He leaned closer to Mr. Skiddings and lowered his tone. “Fascinating to find out that what’s been said of these people is actually true. You have only to look around. I do believe Heaven has sent me—may I say, us?—just in time. A moment later and all could be lost, eh, Skiddings?”
So great a pitch had been reached by Kitty’s wrath that only complete calm could rescue her from spontaneous combustion. To impose it, she had no need. Through natural selection, a strain had developed within her species that would, when threatened with self-destruction through the rise of a righteous wrath, trigger an interior mechanism so that, for the moment at least, a preternatural serenity was substituted for the furies that were already shredding her mind and tearing at her soul. Composed now, she dismissed her smile and decided to answer his lordship’s inanities with simple silence and uncaring patience. She would hurry the departures no longer. She would stand where she stood and wait, not ignoring further outrages but setting them aside for future reference, when a conniving rationality could devise a vengeance best suited to the offenses being thrust like poisoned darts at her innocent self. Calm pervaded; patience prevailed.
The Pig Comes to Dinner Page 14
