by Paul Bailey
‘It would take more than that to frighten the Baskerville brothers,’ Daisy assured him. ‘Have you completely recovered?’
‘Yes. I have.’
‘Good.’
‘You were concerned for me?’
‘For a moment. For a moment I wondered if you were having hysterics.’
‘I am calm again. Thank you. I was carried away. It does not happen often.’
‘That’s a relief.’
(Kitty Crozier would think of that privileged, pampered animal – the glossiness of his coat attesting to the refinement of his diet – when she visited Romania two years after her lover had gone. The strays she would see on city streets and country roads were mangy, warty, possibly rabid, with eyes either crazed or dulled by hunger. She would not be struck by the sight of a bemedalled canine general riding in sole splendour down Calea Victoriei, past the antique shops selling icons of the Virgin and Child, St Nicholas, St Peter and other, unfamiliar, saints: his time of glory was over. She would stare, instead, at a pregnant bitch with inflamed teats, her scrawny body covered in bleeding sores, stretched out on the cracked and dusty pavement. She would stare and then she would remember one of the poems-cum-proverbs Virgil had taught her:
De to latrã vre-un câine
Astupã-i guru cu pâine
which he translated as ‘If a dog barks at you, stop his muzzle with bread’. But this sad beast was beyond barking, probably beyond feeding, too – lying there in the fierce midsummer heat, weighed down by all the unborn life inside her.)
In Richmond Park, that afternoon, Daisy warned Andrew and Janet, as she warned them every Sunday, not to let the Baskervilles disturb the deer.
‘They’re miles away, Ma.’
‘You always say the same thing, Andrew. If Buster or Bruiser got it into his head to run off, there could be terrible consequences. The keepers have orders to shoot.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘The deer are the Queen’s property, Virgil. They have what I suppose are grazing rights. It’s one of my foibles, but I can’t warm to deer as most people can. I don’t deny they are pretty. It’s their nerviness I have difficulty with. They start at the slightest noise, the sillies.’
‘Yes,’ Virgil responded, bewildered that Daisy should be in possession of such an odd foible. He was diverted by the word ‘sillies’ and by her use of it, but thought it impolite to say so.
‘You’re not actually living with Kitty, I believe.’
‘That is correct. Not yet.’
‘But you do intend to live with her, I hope.’
‘One day, yes. When I am more settled. When I am feeling more at home here.’
‘What about Kitty’s feelings? Aren’t you considering those?’
‘Yes, he is, Daisy. I’ll answer for him. I’m perfectly happy with our arrangement. We see a great deal of each other.’
‘It’s not an arrangement I’d care for, Kitty.’
‘No, Daisy. But it suits me.’
‘Until Virgil becomes acclimatised?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whenever that may be.’
(He wanted to say he was certain he would become acclimatised; that, even with the name Virgil Florescu, he might be accepted as a Londoner soon. He wanted to assure Kitty’s sister, who was waiting for his assurance, that he would move into the untidy house with its surfeit of books and live in the present, beside the woman he loved. He wanted desperately to be free to make this promise with complete confidence in its being fulfilled. But he wasn’t free. Not yet. He knew he had to stay silent.)
‘Let me mention the unmentionable while Cesspit’s occupied with kids and dogs. Have you heard from him lately?’
‘Our father?’ asked Kitty, knowing whom Daisy meant; knowing, too, how Daisy would respond.
‘Who art not destined for Heaven.’
‘He sent me one of his postcards,’ Kitty lied.
‘With news?’
‘The usual. He has found a new companion. His ideal, it seems.’
‘The poor deluded woman. What a lovely fate she has in store for her. She’s rich, I presume.’
‘He didn’t indicate.’
‘She must be. And he must be worse than ever, now that he’s really old. Did he give you his address?’
‘No, Daisy. He’s somewhere in America.’
‘I wonder what he looks like these days. If he has his hair, and his teeth, and his figure.’
‘Forget him, Daisy. Please do. Cecil dropped a hint that you have a surprise for me.’
‘Yes, sister dear, believe it or not, I’m going to India. I’ve been injected in the arms and the bum for every dreaded tropical disease you can think of. Cesspit will be ruling the roost in my absence.’
Then Bruiser dropped a large red plastic bone at Virgil’s feet and Virgil threw it for the dog to retrieve.
‘The moment my grandfather died, my Uncle Mircea went over to the window and broke a pane of glass. I asked my mother what he was doing and she said, “He is letting Tatã’s soul escape” and I asked her, “What is a soul, Mamã?” and she told me, then and there, that the soul is the best part of a man or woman. “The soul is God’s hidden gift to us and our gift back to Him. Tatã’s soul is free now, in the free air.” And then she began to weep.’ He spoke as he spoke his poem to her, in a low voice, calmly, slowly.
She stirred in his arms.
He kissed her forehead and went on: ‘I was seven years old, as you know. I watched my mother close my grandfather’s eyes for the first and last time. She was his favourite child. It was the custom that the favourite should perform this one, loving task. I watched a lot that day, Kitty. There was a lot for a little boy to watch.’
‘Tell me.’
‘This was in the 1950s, when officially there was no God in my country. The decree from the Kremlin was that He had gone into history. But not for my grandmother and my Uncle Mircea and my Aunt Irina, and not for my mother. They were believers. So, when my bunic went to his Maker, my mother’s family tried as well as they could to see him off in the traditional way. They moved his bed to face the window, and after his soul was released and his eyes shut on the world, Uncle Mircea lifted him up and carried him to the bath-tub. My uncle and aunt washed the corpse with hot water, and Uncle Mircea shaved him and Aunt Irina combed his few wisps of white hair. And all the time my mother wept.’
Virgil told her that they dressed his grandfather in a linen shirt – not a brand-new shirt, as it should have been, but the newest they could find among his small stock of clothes – and decked him out in his smartest suit. They put a black cap made of lambskin on his head. They laid him on a table. While his Aunt Irina cut and trimmed the old man’s nails, his Uncle Mircea filled a kettle with the cooling bath water and said to Virgil, ‘Come with me.’
‘I took my uncle’s hand, and we left the apartment and went down to the street. We had to seek out the nearest tree and we walked for I can’t remember how many minutes until we found it. In the old days, my uncle explained – in the days before the Germans and before the Russians – there were trees galore on Tatã’s farm. But now the family were reduced to living like machines, we had no choice but to pour the precious water over the roots of a public tree in a public place. I was mystified, Kitty. Why did we need a tree and why did we have to pour the water over its roots? We stopped in front of a sycamore, I think it was, and Uncle Mircea bent low and emptied the kettle, drip by drip, on the earth around it. Then he put the kettle on the wet patch of grass. We moved back two steps and I saw that my uncle was looking at the kettle as if it were a sacred object. I understood, as children sometimes understand, that I dared not say a word. I watched and waited. Then my uncle said that Tatã’s thirsty soul had had its fill, perhaps, God be praised, and now we should return to help Matilda and Irina. He gave me the kettle to carry.’
He kissed her again and, after a silence, he said: ‘My intellect tells me the breaking of the pane of glass and the pouring of the water we
re acts of superstition, of centuries-old fear and ignorance. Mumbo-jumbo, to use your strange English expression. Yes, that is what my brain is telling me. Even so, Kitty, even so, I am fond of the memory. It still stirs my heart. I can see and hear the priest muttering from the Gospels over my grandfather, and the cousins and family friends who stayed awake all night to keep company with the body. Some of them cried and some of them laughed, recalling happier times. The priest was at the graveside, too, wearing ordinary clothes and it was he who whispered the final blessing Fie-i ârina uoarã – “May the earth be light on him” – as the grave-diggers covered up the coffin. Tonight, beautiful Kitty Crozier, I am a reluctant atheist.’
(Whenever she opened his infirm copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius she would remember that phrase ‘reluctant atheist’ and the hint of anguish in his voice as he spoke it. She would recollect how it had warmed her, his confession; how it had seemed, in that moment, to represent everything in him she loved.)
‘Not just for tonight, sweetheart.’
‘Tonight especially.’
‘You haven’t mentioned your father. Why is that?’
‘He wasn’t there. He was in the capital, with my brother. He was playing the devout Communist. No ancient rituals for Comrade Constantin Florescu. Not in nineteen fifty-three. Certainly not in nineteen fifty-three. Earlier, yes. He was swimming with the tide, Kitty, and the tide was of a different orthodoxy. He didn’t want to be seen dead with the pious dead. He had his latest career to consider. He had to move stealthily. He tried to persuade his wife not to tend her dying Tatã, but my mother, for once in her life, was unpersuadable. No, Kitty, he wasn’t there. Perhaps that is why the memory is so dear to me.’
‘I have a few surprises for you, Nelly. Three, in fact. The first is that Daisy is in India.’
‘Was the subcontinent given warning of her arrival? Have the men joined their wives in purdah as a result?’
‘She’s walking in the Himalayas.’
‘My sympathy is with the sherpas. Is this the truth you’re telling me, Kitty?’
‘Yes, it is. I never tell you anything else.’
‘And is the sweetly boring Cecil scaling the heights alongside her?’
‘No, he’s not. She’s gone with a friend.’
‘A friend? I often wonder what kind of person befriends Daisy.’
‘An adventurous widow, apparently.’
‘This sounds very un-Daisy-ish. Do you think she’ll encounter one of those Maharishis and come back filled with inner peace? I hope not. A serene Daisy would be quite insupportable.’
‘And unimaginable, Nelly. My beloved twin revels in being irritated, as we both know well. Something is bound to exasperate her in the mountains. Rest assured.’
‘What’s your second surprise?’
‘It concerns Daddy. He’s living in England. He says for good.’
‘Nothing Felix does is for good, Kitty. Have you seen the old beast?’
‘Yes. And his new companion. With whom, he says, he intends to spend what is left of his life.’
‘That strain again. None of this is surprising. I’ve always believed he’d return one day. And as for his new companion –’ Nelly Crozier halted, put her hands to her mouth, lowered them and grinned at her daughter. ‘Wait a minute. You said “new companion” rather than “new wife”. It’s a man, isn’t it, Kitty? He’s living with a man, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘I’m not totally surprised. Is the companion younger and attractive?’
‘No, Nelly. Daddy would be horrified by your question. Derek Harville is in his seventies and strikingly unattractive. He resembles one of those gargoyles on Chartres Cathedral. He treats Daddy as if he were an imbecile and Daddy appears not to mind. The more Derek insults him – and Derek has a rare line in insults – the happier he seems.’
‘Are you asking me to believe that Felix and his legendary libido have parted company?’
‘I suppose I am.’
‘You have failed me, Kitty. You have let me down with a wallop. I should have loved to hear that Felix has become a paederast. The vain, ageing lecher in search of his lost youth – what an irresistible picture you’ve denied me. You must pour me another hefty vodka to compensate for my disappointment.’
Kitty filled Nelly’s glass.
‘Are they in London, Felix and his friend?’
‘They are in Sussex. In a restored Tudor cottage owned by Derek, who does the cooking and the housework and the gardening. Daddy is there to amuse him and to be his usual decorative self. Except that he isn’t as decorative as he was. His first words to me in eight years were “I have jowls, Kitty” and he has. He also has – quelle horreur – a pot belly. Not a massive one, but conspicuous. He’s a different Felix now.’
(And no longer pitiable, she might have added. Kitty Crozier saw the two satyrs with their furry legs and cloven hoofs, and felt saddened that something of her affection for the father she still called Daddy had evaporated.)
‘Have you told Daisy that her father’s within spitting distance?’
‘Of course I haven’t. I couldn’t be so cruel. Not to him, or to her. You are full of terrible ideas today.’
‘I only ever voice them to you, Kitty. It’s only you I allow to see the nastier side of my nature. That’s your special privilege and always has been. Have you forgotten the third surprise?’
‘No, Nelly.’
‘What is it, then? It obviously has to do with you because you’re blushing.’
‘Yes, it has got to do with me. And a man named Virgil Florescu.’
‘And a man named Virgil Florescu? Is this love, Kitty? Are you in love, at last?’
‘Yes, Nelly. Yes.’
‘This is the nicest of your surprises by far. My remaining brain cells are signalling that a man named Virgil Florescu isn’t English. Which language has names that end in “cu”? Let me guess. Is he Romanian?’
‘He is.’
‘My ears are alert, Kitty. And my tongue is prepared to stop wagging while you supply a few details.’
(‘You were right to love him,’ Nelly Crozier would assure her daughter afterwards. ‘You were radiant in his presence, Kitty. You glowed. How could you have begun to fathom the guilt he was living with? You’d have needed divine powers. You saved him for a time. You almost rescued him.’
Kitty Crozier became aware, in grief, of an aspect of her mother’s character she had rarely considered before. The comforting Nelly had no use for terms of endearment. She said, simply, what she felt. Each ‘Kitty’ came without decoration, without the unnecessary adornment of a ‘dear’, or ‘dearest’, or ‘darling’. Such had always been her affectionate way, Kitty acknowledged. ‘Felix is the person for sweet nothings,’ Nelly had once remarked. ‘He gave me six years of them.’)
‘Do you intend introducing me to this swarthy paragon?’ Nelly asked when Kitty finished talking.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Does Daisy approve of him?’
‘I’m not sure. I think she would prefer him more domesticated.’
‘Ah, yes. Safe and sensible.’
‘Shall I bring him with me at Christmas, Nelly? If he’s free, that is, and wants to come.’
‘If Virgil Florescu is free and wants to come with you, then please bring him. I hope he finds me – what was the word? – diverting.’
‘He will, Nelly. He can’t fail to.’
* * *
Sometimes, waking beside him, she would marvel at the strangeness of his being there – at his glinting smile in the hospital, at their chance meeting in the park. Then she would scare herself with the prospect of his lasting absence – with the thought of his disappearing as inexplicably as he had come to her. ‘Please don’t go,’ she often whispered when she was certain that he was sleeping. ‘Please don’t leave me, Virgil.’
He liked to tease her that she owned too many books. ‘Far too many for a serious reader, Kitty. I despair at
the sight of all those shiny covers.’
On this particular evening – the evening he first talked of Marcus Aurelius – she responded to his gentle mockery with the question, ‘How many is enough?’
‘Just as many as you really need.’
‘What if I need hundreds, thousands?’
‘Hundreds, thousands? No, no, such a need can never be satisfied.’
‘But you must have read hundreds of books, Virgil. In each of your languages.’
‘Yes, I have. But I haven’t hoarded them since I was a youth. I stopped being a literary squirrel when I was eighteen. I can remember the actual day of my conversion. I went with two of my fellow students to the apartment of our professor, Teodor Costea, to drink tea and talk with him about the classical world. I was keen to see his private library, to look at the precious volumes I was certain he had collected. There was no library, Kitty. There weren’t any shelves groaning under the weight of learning. I asked him why the walls of his study were bare. “My dear wife Liliana does not enjoy dusting,” he joked. Then he gave me his serious answer. “I have twenty essential works by my desk,” he said. “Twenty is a great number. These twenty are my friends. I read them again and again.” His words opened my eyes. He made me see that most books are for reading once and once only. A few become your friends. A very few remain your friends for life. I live with very few books.’
And one of those, he told her, was the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. He had befriended the wisest of the wise Roman emperors on a winter’s night in Sibiu, where he had gone to teach. He was beguiled by Marcus’s personality within moments of opening the book, and soon he was oblivious of the drunken shouting and laughter coming from the room below. The next day he was snowed in and read the Meditations a second time, with increased pleasure. He marked, with a pencil, the passages, the sentiments that most appealed to him, that struck him as being incontestably true, and when he had finished there was scarcely an unmarked page. ‘I had sprinkled the text with a thousand yeses.’
