by Paul Bailey
‘You are kind. Thank you.’
‘Kitty tells me you can’t eat meat.’
‘That is correct, yes. I cannot.’
‘She says you’re allowed fish.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I hope fried sole with a plain parsley sauce will be acceptable, Mr Florescu.’
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘He is Virgil, Daisy,’ said Kitty, putting an arm about her twin. ‘He is Virgil to us.’
‘It occurs to me, Virgil – if I may –’ Cecil began, and stopped.
‘What occurs to you, Cecil? You obviously find it amusing.’
‘Yes, I do. Rather. Yes, it is amusing. Or rather, to be accurate, it’s more droll than amusing. On balance, I would say it was droll.’
‘What is droll, Cecil?’
‘The fact that here I am addressing Virgil, Daisy. What is droll is that two years ago, in Chicago, I found myself sitting next to a banker named Homer Bradley at dinner. All through the meal it was Homer this and Homer that. So, you see, I’ve made the acquaintance of Homer and now I’ve met Virgil. It’s almost as if I’ve started to move in classical circles.’
‘I don’t know how many Homers there are in America, Cecil, but I am one of thousands of Romanian Virgils.’
‘I shall pretend I didn’t hear that. I wonder what the chances are of shaking hands with a Socrates or an Agamemnon. Pretty remote, I should think.’
‘You might come across them in Greece.’
‘That’s an idea, Kitty.’
‘Please don’t give my husband ideas, there’s a good baby sister. I’m happy with him as he is.’
Cecil laughed and said what a disgraceful host he was, forgetting to do the honours. There was something in the cabinet to satisfy every tippler’s taste, though Daisy and he were in the habit of drinking a sherry before Sunday lunch. But to each his own, to each his own.
‘Do you approve of our house, Virgil?’
‘Approve? Why, yes, Daisy.’
‘We have put a lot of love and work into it.’
‘I can see.’
‘Do you have nice houses in Romania? Does your family own one?’
No, he answered. No, his family, his present family, owned no property. They lived in apartments, none of them spacious. Politicians and those in favour with the authorities – they had large apartments, houses in the countryside. No one else. ‘My mother kept photographs of the house she was born in. It was built in the old Romanian style, with the dining-room stretching the length of the ground floor. There was a gallery, or balcony above, and once a year, on his feast day, my grandfather would invite gypsy musicians to play and sing in the courtyard below the gallery. He was a farmer. He was a good man, kind to the people who worked for him. So my mother impressed on me. The house was taken from him, along with his land.’
‘He’s dead, is he?’
‘He died when I was seven. My mother is dead also.’
‘But your father is alive?’
‘Yes, he is alive. He still has all his wits. Constantin Florescu is imperishable.’
‘Imperishable? What’s his secret?’
‘His secret, Cecil, is a secret.’
‘Very mysterious.’
‘Before we get lost in secrets and mysteries, why don’t we drink a toast to our complete Romanian’s health?’ Daisy suggested. ‘Here’s to Virgil.’
‘To Virgil.’
‘To Virgil.’
‘Thank you. You are kind. The sherry is exquisite. I am touched. Noroc.’
‘Noroc means happiness,’ Kitty explained. ‘It’s one of the few words I have learned.’
‘You’ll learn more, sister dear, if I know you. That’s one of the many differences between Kitty and me, Virgil. She has brains, whereas I have common sense.’
‘Really?’
‘Really and truly. Look at this room. See how tidy it is. No dust, no mess. Now think of the chaos Kitty lives in. Books everywhere you turn, newspapers scattered over the carpet, clothes left on the backs of chairs. I haven’t peered behind her bedroom door lately, but I can imagine – from past experience – the sheer awfulness inside.’
‘I find Kitty’s bedroom very pleasant.’
‘You do? Do you? Oh, well, yes, of course. You would. I understand what you’re saying. You would, of course.’
‘Very pleasant.’
‘Are you planning to marry Kitty, Mr Florescu? I mean, Virgil.’
‘Virgil’s married, Daisy. To a woman who lives in Bristol with her lover.’
‘It is a marriage of convenience. For political reasons. We shall divorce when times change. If times change.’
‘Let’s hope they do. If there is anything in this world that would make me happier than I am already it’s the knowledge that my younger sister has finally settled down. She has had too many, far too many infatuations. Far too many infatuations for my liking.’
(There has been one infatuation, Kitty Crozier did not remind the sister she had reminded so often, and so ineffectually, before. She had only once been infatuated and that was with the ‘Kaftanned creature’, the blond, beautiful, grey-and-green-eyed Freddy. She had tried to tell Daisy that her other involvements were of the uninvolved kind, with friends and acquaintances, for mutual gratification. But Daisy had chosen not to hear her, Daisy-fashion.)
‘Kitty and Virgil must follow their own course, Daisy love.’
‘As long as it ends in marriage, that’s all I ask.’
‘Perhaps they will keep your request in mind when the opportunity arises. I can just imagine Kitty saying to Virgil, “Daisy wants us to marry, therefore we should.” Or rather, I can’t imagine it.’
‘Cecil’s being sarcastic now, which isn’t the way he is usually.’
There was a sudden sound of buzzing. ‘Cook’s call to arms,’ said Daisy, rising from the sofa. The timer on her good old faithful cooker was commanding her to get those vegetables on the boil and to baste the joint of beef – beef for Sunday lunch was a Hopkins family tradition – which she was sorry Virgil wasn’t permitted to eat. And she must fry his fish. And would Cecil rustle up their offspring, wherever they were, and have everybody around the table in, well, ten minutes flat?
She left the room. The buzzing stopped and Cecil let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’ve persuaded Daisy to go to India, Kitty.’
‘You have what?’
‘I’m not surprised you’re astonished. It is surprising, isn’t it? But yes, indeed, Daisy is about to take the proverbial plunge and spread her folded wings, as it were. Majorca is the furthest she has ever been away from home, so this will be quite an undertaking for her. Quite a trip.’
‘Why India?’
‘Well, when I tell you it’s India, perhaps I should be more exact and say Nepal. Rather, she’s going first to India and then on to Nepal. Daisy has this friend, a widow, a rather splendid woman, very enterprising, not the sedentary type, who loves the great outdoors. It’s been her dream for years to walk in the Himalayas. She invited Daisy to join her and Daisy, not surprisingly, declined. Usual excuses – children at a difficult age; Cecil incapable of boiling an egg for himself; India on the other side of the world, so not easy to get back quickly in case of an emergency, et cetera, et cetera. Whereupon Harriet – that’s the widow – asked me to come to the rescue. Which I did. I explained that walking in the Himalayas was not the same as climbing Everest and mentioned her grandfather, who died in Darjeeling. Why not dabble in some family history? I suggested. That did the trick. Oh, and the fact that I’m footing the bill. But I won’t believe she’s going until I’ve waved her goodbye at the airport. No, not until then.’
‘When does she leave?’
‘On Wednesday, at eleven in the evening, God and Daisy willing.’
Cecil remembered that he was supposed to be rustling up his young ones rather than imparting matters of state – when Daisy finally got round to telling them about her Indian trip, would they pretend to be ignorant of it?
– and excused himself for a moment.
In the dining area adjoining the kitchen Kitty introduced Virgil to her niece and nephew.
‘Hi,’ said Janet.
‘Hi,’ said Andrew.
‘Hi.’
‘Mr Florescu, Virgil, is from Romania. You’ve probably done Romania in your geography class, haven’t you, Andrew?’
‘Probably, Ma.’
‘My children are shy, Virgil, and given to few words in company. But we love our pair of Trappists, don’t we, Cecil?’
‘Do we? I think we do, sometimes.’
‘That’s only Cecil’s joke. Of course we do. I hope you are hungry, Virgil. You’ll pardon my saying so, but you look as if you could do with a square meal.’
‘I am thin, yes.’
‘I have to warn you that simple food, simply cooked, is the way we like it in the Hopkins household. Nothing too rich or fancy. That’s another difference between Kitty and me. She adores making complicated sauces, with ingredients the majority of people have never heard of, whereas I stay content with the traditional recipes.’
‘You are kind to invite me.’
‘I can’t tempt you to some beef?’
‘No, Daisy. Thank you. I have an aversion. The fish in your uncomplicated sauce will give me satisfaction enough. I shall eat it with pleasure.’
(Kitty Crozier would recall how quietly courteous her vanished lover was that day; how he spoke of his aversion, yet again, with no hint of its genesis; how he persuaded the timid Janet to exchange a little French with him, to Daisy’s startled delight; how he sat across from her at lunch, in his approximately-fitting ‘charity suit’, looking almost at ease amid so much domesticity – family chatter, family phrases and rare family silences.)
‘We thought we might take a walk later, after our stomachs have settled. That’s our Sunday routine, unless it’s raining heavily. It’s the dogs’ favourite time of the week.’
‘You have a dog?’
‘We have two, Virgil. Buster and Bruiser.’
‘But where are they?’
‘At the back of the house, in their own special extension that Cecil built for them. They come inside once a year, for Christmas dinner, but otherwise they’re out of bounds.’
‘They’re not out of bounds when they’re running, Daisy love. They bound like the very devil the moment they’re let off the lead.’
‘I’ve lived with Cecil’s jokes for nineteen years,’ said Daisy, ‘and they don’t get any better. Did you understand that one, Virgil? The play on words?’
‘Yes, yes, I did.’
‘I couldn’t live without them now – his jokes, I mean. They have grown on me. That’s the funniest thing about them, the way they grow on you.’
‘You make them sound like fungus, dear. Some more pears and custard, Virgil?’
‘Please. Thank you.’
‘I’ll have a second helping as well.’
‘Sister Kitty, you do surprise me. Isn’t custard a bit too common, a bit too ordinary for your sophisticated taste?’
‘Not when it is as smooth and delicious as this, Daisy, no.’
‘There was I thinking you were above my custard.’
‘Oh, Ma,’ sighed Andrew.
‘We’ve been prattling on, Virgil, and no one’s bothered to ask you the important question. How did you manage to leave Romania?’
‘I had ways and means, Cecil.’
‘Legal ways and means?’
‘Yes. I would say legal, for me. Legitimate ways and means.’
‘You escaped?’
‘In a manner of speaking, Andrew. I have nothing adventurous to report, though. I crossed the border. I have been in Italy. That is all.’
‘Do you speak Italian, Virgil?’
‘Yes, Janet.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Spanish and Portuguese. The Latin languages. And a little Greek. And awkward English, as you can hear.’
‘And French.’
‘Yes, and French. Like you.’
‘Please say something in Romanian.’
‘What shall I say? Listen. Asculi. Asculi is “Listen”:
‘Mai bine singuratec i uitat …
În ara trista plina de humor …’
He paused. ‘I will translate for you – roughly, I’m afraid, crudely. “It is well to be alone and forgotten, in a sad country full of humour.” That is as close as I can get. Poetry has its own language in every language.’
‘Virgil is a poet, Janet.’
‘I write poems, Daisy.’
‘I have to confess, Virgil, that I’ve never been much of a poetry person. Poetry’s Kitty’s province. Nelly, our mother, tried and tried to tune my ear to it, and she didn’t succeed, more’s the pity.’
Why, Cecil wanted Virgil to tell him, was a man with his gifts working in a park, picking up leaves and litter and stuff? Why was it that he, a writer, hadn’t found, with Kitty’s help, a job to do with books?
‘I do not need such a job here. Believe me, it is not necessary. As it is, I meet diverting people. I have time to think. I have no wish to do with books.’
‘You might earn more money.’
‘I earn enough for my needs.’
‘Yes, I suppose you do,’ said Cecil, without malice or irony. ‘Are you a famous poet, over there in Romania?’
‘I am infamous. I have become infamous.’ He smiled. ‘I am more famous than famous by being infamous.’
‘Now that’s a riddle if ever I heard one. I’ll hazard a guess you wrote a poem that caused offence, that the boys in power considered unwarranted. Have I hit the target?’
‘“Boys in power” is very good, Cecil. I am taken with “boys in power”.’
‘You have my permission to quote it.’
‘Thank you.’
Since the days were already beginning to shorten, wouldn’t it be sensible, Daisy proposed, if they went for their stroll a trifle earlier than usual. Now, for instance. The Baskervilles, Buster and Bruiser, were probably champing at the bit, anyway, and Virgil was obviously curious to meet them. ‘Baskerville’ was Cecil’s family name for the dogs, and another of his inimitable jokes. Had Virgil read The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle? Nelly had read it aloud to her frightened daughters on winter evenings in Alder Court, with the trees howling in the wind outside. Kitty and she had huddled together as the horrible plot thickened and Nelly’s voice grew steadily – no, unsteadily – more excited. A happy memory, though, despite the fear they had felt. Yes, a very happy memory of being absolutely terrified.
‘No, I have not read it.’
‘It’s a Sherlock Holmes story. He unravels the mystery. You have heard of Sherlock Holmes?’
‘Oh, yes. And the dependable Doctor Watson, too. They are well-known in my country.’
‘Just as your Count Dracula, it suddenly occurs to me, is well-known here.’
‘I must correct you, Cecil. He is your Count Dracula, not ours. The preposterous undead Count in his preposterous Transylvanian castle is the invention of an Irishman. He is one blood-sucking demon who does not belong to us. We have no claim on him.’
‘Is Transylvania a real place?’
‘Yes, Janet. It is as real as England. I have been there in spring and it is beautiful.’
Daisy rose from the table, clapped her hands and said it was time to put their skates on – an English expression, she remarked to Virgil, not to be taken literally – and set off. They had had some fascinating conversation, but some healthy exercise wouldn’t come amiss either.
‘Let’s be going, everyone. On your pins. Marching orders.’
‘Oh, Ma,’ sighed Andrew.
Kitty and Virgil waited with Daisy on the steps leading up to the house while Cesspit – that was Daisy’s private nickname for Cecil, not to be used in polite company – and the offspring fetched the Baskervilles.
‘They are hard to tell apart,’ said Daisy when the dogs appeared, panting, tongues lolling. ‘T
hat’s Bruiser with Andrew and Janet is trying to control the uncontrollable Buster. They are Labradors, Virgil, in case you don’t know. Thoroughbreds.’
‘Yes, yes. I can see. Yes, yes.’ He sniggered, then began to splutter and soon he was laughing loudly, helplessly.
‘What is so funny about a pair of black Labradors?’
He was unable to answer Daisy’s question immediately, because his laughter was rising higher and higher – just as it had risen, Kitty recollected, on their first evening together, when she had asked him if his gleaming tooth was made of silver.
‘Our beloved leader –’ he managed to say before being overcome again. ‘Nicolas Unpronounceable?’ Cecil ventured. ‘The little chap with the little wife? Him?’
‘Yes, yes. Forgive me. Be patient.’ He breathed deeply, cleared his throat, patted his chest and said: ‘Our beloved leader, our Conducãtor as we call him, was given a black Labrador by one of your politicians. He is called Comrade Corbul. That dog is treated like a god and we wretched creatures, we humble, patriotic Romanians, must pay him our respects. I am serious. One day, in Bucharest, our capital city, I was walking along Calea Victoriei, the Street of Victories, when I saw an enormous car, with an armed guard on a motor bike on either side, caught in the traffic. I looked, I blinked, I looked, I blinked – yes, it was not a dream; I was not hallucinating. What I was looking at was a dog – no, not a dog; the dog – seated in splendour behind the driver. He had a medal of some kind attached to his collar. I looked until the car started moving and the dog – the dog – returned my stare. I may have saluted him; I think I did, because of his medal. What are medals for but to be saluted?’
‘Is this true?’
‘On my honour, Cecil. Everything I am saying is true. Some say that dog is now an honorary general in the Romanian army and a member of the government. He is said to vote on important issues with his left front paw and mastermind military campaigns by wagging his tail. When Comrade Corbul barks – woof, woof – heads roll. When he goes on barking – woof, woof; woof, woof – it means there is a national emergency. But when he growls – grr, grr – a curfew is imposed, alarms are sounded, arrests are made. Now I am being fanciful, perhaps. Or perhaps not. It is possible that the sleek, shiny, well-fed dog is the real ruler of my country. A dog’s obeyed in office, isn’t he?’ He paused and smiled. ‘I must apologise for my outburst. Your dogs are handsome. Good afternoon, Buster. Good afternoon, Bruiser. I hope I have not frightened you with my laughter.’
