Skylark

by Sheila Simonson

  Miss Beale's will named Daphne and her brother as co-heirs. While proving the will would take some time, the lawyers saw no reason the flat should remain unoccupied. Daphne had moved in. She would be able to walk to work in five minutes instead of commuting for an hour from Chiswick--and someone had to dust the knick-knacks, after all. The problem was that Trevor had just announced his intention of moving in, too.

  "Don't y'all get along, honey?" Ann was pink from the effects of too much wine, and her accent had thickened.

  Daphne blinked at her like an owl.

  "You and your brother?"

  Daphne gave a small shrug. "Oh, we go on well enough these days, though we fought like cat and dog when we were children. I'll fetch up darning his bloody socks and cooking his meals, and I can't abide his posh friends."

  Ann and I made universal female noises. Men.

  Emboldened, Daphne went on, "And he'll stick me with the housekeeping tab. Brother Trevor is not precisely scrupulous about money." She glanced at us and made a moue. "I don't mean he's dishonest, but he did borrow from Auntie. As far as I know he never repaid her. Trevor went to public school. He picked up the accent and a lordly attitude toward debt."

  The phrase public school triggered off Ann's teacher persona, and she launched into a series of questions about the differences between the British and American educational systems which Daphne answered with relish and less prejudice that I expected. After all, Daphne was a teacher, too. I poured a round of bad burgundy from a half-empty bottle that had sat in the cupboard for a week.

  Burgundy induced melancholy. Daphne began to reminisce about her aunt. According to her, Miss Beale was a saint. She had nursed Daphne's grandparents through the cantankerous ailments of old age, devoting herself to them, while Daphne's Mum married a wastrel car-salesman and bore two kiddies. When the car salesman scarpered, Miss Beale came to the rescue.

  "I was eleven," Daphne enunciated, holding her glass out. I poured the last of the burgundy. "Trevor was thirteen and set to leave for his posh school. Auntie paid the fees. I'll never forget Mum's relief."

  "Couldn't Trevor have applied for a scholarship?" Ann was interested. Also pinker.

  Daphne wrinkled her nose. "Trevor's not a scholar. He was always good at games--tennis, you know, and cricket. He's a stylish cricketer. He left school when his A level passes weren't good enough for university."

  "What does he do for a living?" I asked. I had imagined Trevor in the wig of a barrister.

  Again the shrug. "Sells posh automobiles. Like father, like son."

  "Rolls Royces?" Ann took a ladylike sip of burgundy.

  "And Mercedeses. The odd Maserati." Daphne hiccupped and patted her acetate blouse. "Sorry. I'm tiddly. Do you know that showroom on the Old Brompton Road, the one with the red Porsche in the display window?"

  Ann and I nodded.

  "Trevor works there," she said dispassionately, "but he never could persuade Auntie to buy a car. She walked or took a taxi or rode the Tube. Poor Auntie."

  "I suppose your aunt lived here all her life," Ann murmured.

  "In this house? Yes, except for the time she spent studying in Europe. Auntie was a linguist. She worked as an au pair in France when she was a young woman, but her real love was the Slavic languages, not French. She worked as a translator until last year." Daphne's face darkened. "She said she wanted to savor early retirement."

  "Uh, did your aunt speak Czech?" I interposed, ideas shifting beneath the haze of booze.

  Daphne blinked at me. "To be sure. Czech and Slovak and Polish. And Russian. She worked as a translator for the BBC, off and on. Grandpapa taught at Imperial College, you know. He was deep in the Moral Rearmament movement, and he despised Stalin. Still, he made Mum and Auntie learn Russian, just in case."

  I tried to square this account with my perception of Miss Beale as the insular type. Why had Ann's association with Milos bothered her to the point of evicting us if she was a student of Middle European languages? Perhaps she had objected to Milos not because he was Czech and a foreigner, but because he was a waiter.

  The British, I reflected solemnly, had thought Lady Chatterley's Lover pornographic not because of the sex, not even because of the four letter words, but because it portrayed a lady falling in love with a gamekeeper. There was a Tory grandfather.

  I could see Ann's eyes gleaming behind her pink lenses, and I had no doubt she was digesting the possible ramifications of Miss Beale's Czech connections.

  Daphne gave a melancholy giggle. "My mother forgot her Russian as soon as she learned it. Auntie used to try to persuade her to keep up her languages, but Mum couldn't be bothered. Auntie said it was a great waste of talent. I'm rotten at languages myself, and Trevor's not much better." The brooding look settled again on her squarish face. "Poor Auntie." She dashed off the last of the burgundy as if she were toasting Miss Beale.

  "Poor lady--and poor Rollo, too," Ann murmured with tipsy sincerity.

  Daphne's rather protuberant grey eyes glittered with unshed tears. "Poor old Rollo." She sniffed. "Auntie was a tough old bird. I'm sorry she's dead, God knows, but at least she could try to defend herself. Whoever killed Rollo ought to be hanged." British law had abandoned the death penalty many years before.

  I made a ponderous philosophical foray into the murk of British ethics, and Daphne responded with a passionate defense of dumb animals. I said I didn't think Rollo was all that dumb.

  Daphne withered me with a look. "You Americans, you're so violent."

  I was about to protest when sanity intervened. I was drunk. Daphne was drunk. There was no point in arguing. Perhaps she came to the same conclusion, for she rose, wobbled, regained her balance, and stuck out her hand.

  "Mussay g'night. Thanks awfly for the wine. An' the lolly." She waved the twenty pound notes in her left hand.

  I shook her free hand. I thought about curtseying, but concluded I would fall to the floor if I bent my knees. Ann shook hands, too, murmuring southern nothings, and Daphne departed.

  When we had closed the door on Daphne, Ann took my elbow. "Wasn't that interesting?"

  "Miss B's knowledge of Czech? You bet your booties. But I'm sorry 'bout Rollo." My tongue blurred the last sentence. "Godda goda bed."

  "Weren't you supposed to call your husband?"

  I stared at my wristwatch. "No' forn hour."

  I heard Ann sigh. "Well, that leaves an hour for you to sober up in. My goodness, Lark, you didn't have to match the woman drink for drink."

  "I thought I saw you chugalugging along with us."

  She considered that. "You're right. I did."

  We had a fit of drunken giggles, repaired to the coffee pot, and sobered sufficiently so that I could negotiate the distance to the phone booth without falling in the gutter. Ann went with me for safety's sake.

  Jay was tired and rather cross and seemed not to notice my exaggerated clarity of speech. I took down the information on his flight and assured him I would meet him at the airport. He said he would call my parents before he left. We made ritual goodbye noises. The call took about ten minutes.

  Ann and I sloshed back, ducked down our stairs under the constable's suspicious eye, and went to bed. In spite of my potations, I slept like a baby and woke without the least trace of headache at eight o'clock. Ann was being sick in the bathroom, so I pulled on my sweats and went out for papers.

  By ten Ann was on the road to recovery, and I was deep into the Independent's Sunday edition. Much discussion of Britain's role in the upcoming European Economic Union. The latest on the investigation into Miss Beale's death featured a photo of Ann, glasses gleaming maniacally as she looked over her shoulder at the photographer. There was no word at all on Milos, certainly no mention of his disappearance from St. Botolph's.

  Ann was drinking weak tea and leafing through the Times Literary Supplement. I don't think she focused. Flipping pages was just a way of avoiding conversation.

  I turned to the opinion pages. An excellent article d
etailed the progress to date on three disaster investigations: the King's Cross Fire, the train crash at Clapham Junction, and the Lockerbie airplane crash. The article alluded to but didn't analyze the recent Hillsborough football disaster in which more than a hundred Liverpool fans had been crushed to death by the drunken crowd.

  There is something about disasters of that magnitude that fascinates while it repels. I read the section dealing with Lockerbie carefully. One of my father's favorite students had transferred to Syracuse University expressly to take part in its overseas studies program--and been killed at Lockerbie--so I had followed the story from the beginning with almost obsessive interest.

  The investigation was being conducted with great thoroughness by the Scottish lord advocate, by the chief constable of Galloway and Dumfries--and by the FBI, the CIA, and half a dozen other agencies associated with aviation or foreign governments. Shocking allegations had been made in the world press--of CIA foreknowledge; of information passed on to the airline at Frankfort, where the flight originated, and ignored; of possible security laxness at Heathrow.

  At that point it seemed clear that the plane had been destroyed by a terrorist bomb hidden in a cassette tape player. The assumption was that the terrorists were tools of Iran, taking vengeance for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by an American military jet. Many dark hints were circulating about the involvement of other governments, but the Independent's reporter separated fact from rumor. It was good journalism, and I appreciated it. I also began to brood about Jay's long flight into Gatwick.

  To distract myself from visions of my husband being blown to bits somewhere over Hudson Bay, I turned to the bitchiest of the gossip columns. The writer, a woman, had clearly cut her teeth on the tabloids. Her air of snickering tittle-tattle was unpleasant, but she could turn a phrase. I was admiring her snide innuendoes about a minor royal and his hairdresser when my eye caught the phrase "murder investigation in Chelsea." My stomach knotted.

  Across the table from me Ann moaned gently.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, honey. Just thinking about my sins."

  "Try meditating on this." I began reading. "'Two rich American women living in pricy West End digs are helping the police in their enquiry into the brutal murder of Letitia Beale Friday evening. Miss Beale had the bad luck to let a flat to the Americans. And very bad luck it was for Miss Beale's doggie, too. Little Rollo's skull was smashed by a single blow from a cosh. The weapon, my dears, was improvised from a rare Esquimaux statue stolen from the flat and an intimate item of apparel peculiar to Americans.'"

  "Socks," Ann snorted.

  "'The Hon. Patricia Windom, Secretary of the Chelsea Dog Lover's League, expressed the sentiments of Britons everywhere. It's bad enough, said Winsome Pat, that undesirables are buying their way into our most exclusive neighbourhoods. Tell them to leave our dogs alone, I say. Hear, hear.'"

  Ann said through her teeth, "That's actionable."

  "I doubt it. There's more. This, mind you, is the Independent. Shall I run out for the Daily Blatt?"

  Ann groaned. "I'm a sick woman."

  I was merciless. "'Americans are not as me and thee. When a dog is killed on the motorway, they make jokes about road pizza. They are tenderer of their own safety. After the Lockerbie airplane crash in December, bookings on flights from America to Britain took a nosedive. Hotels and restaurants all over Chelsea filed for bankruptcy. Of course, the odds of dying in an air disaster are rather less than of being coshed with an Inuit statue. Unless you're an innocent poodle.'"

  "There's something lacking in the logic there," Ann opined after a heavy silence.

  "It would seem so, but probably only to me and thee." I tossed the paper at the wastebasket and missed. "The Daily Blatt articles will have that flavor but they're probably shorter. I think tabloids have a four paragraph limit."

  "You're saying the business with the press can only get worse?"

  "Seems likely. We can hope for a distraction."

  "Prince Edward running off with a taxidermist?"

  "Or Thatcher invading Vanuatu." I retrieved the article, smoothing the crumpled newsprint and smearing my hand with ink. "What we need is a clipping service."

  "Good God, why?"

  "After this is over and we're safe at home, we'll want to appreciate the full horror of British journalism. Your grandchildren will be able to read all about Granny's famous vacation."

  Ann got up. "We don't need a clipping service. We need action."

  "I need breakfast," I announced. "Then I'll put on my articles of intimate apparel and my running shoes and lead the press off for a trot through the park."

  "You cannot run today, Lark." Ann reached into the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a box of Weetabix. "This is no time to be dillydallying. Eat and get dressed."

  "You don't like my apparel?"

  "Wear the wool suit. It looks Canadian."

  "Thanks a lot. Canadian?"

  "You are going to impersonate Milos's long-lost sister, remember?"

  "I was joking, Ann."

  "It's a long-shot, but we're desperate. Inspector Thorne needs our help."

  I thought of my interrogation. "He'll have to get along without mine."

  "Don't be petulant." She poured a bowl of cereal and sloshed cream on it. Real cream. The English do not believe in cholesterol.

  I ate my Weetabix like a woman. With banana.

  Ann was serious. She wanted me to go to the hospital and find out what I could. I must admit my urgency about Milos had receded in my concern for myself. I did not wish to study conditions in Holloway Prison at first hand. I was willing to take Dorothy Sayers's word that they had been deplorable even in the 1920's.

  We argued and expostulated. I had almost reached the point of putting on the Canadian suit when the gate buzzer sounded. The whites of Ann's eyes showed, and I imagine mine did, too. I went to the door.

  My mother's ancient friend, Elizabeth Stonehouse, climbed down our steps despite her arthritis. She came in. we gave her coffee, and she gave me the name of her solicitor. Her kindness and concern blunted my exasperation with the Independent's gossip columnist.

  Dame Elizabeth was eighty if she was a day, and I didn't deserve her attention. It's true she made it plain her concern was for my mother's child, but I was beyond being picky. I thanked her and tried to ease her agitation.

  Ann was agog over Dame Elizabeth's visit. "I read her books in graduate school."

  "She's a genius," I said glumly. "And a real scholar. Lady Margaret Hall. She reads the Daily Blatt, though."

  "No!"

  "Or the equivalent. How else would she know I was in trouble? Our names weren't mentioned in the Times." I cleaned the overworked cafetière. "Obviously we ought to do something. I'll go to the damned hospital, if you think I can do any good."

  "Of course you can." Ann cleared the Times and Independent from the breakfast area. "Visiting hours are one to three. If you dress now and walk to the hospital you'll be just in time."

  I dressed. I would have preferred to spend the day in sweats, but I tugged on panty hose and the wool suit. We did not have to look out to know that the press was lurking. At twelve thirty Trevor Worth came down and verified the fact.

  "By Jove, it's war out there." He ran a hand through his red-gold hair.

  "No fun," I agreed.

  Ann poured him a cup of tea.

  He sipped and looked around as if seeing the apartment for the first time. "What a small place this is for the two of you. But you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

  "I'll remember that as I'm hauled off to the Old Bailey," I murmured. "Do have a biscuit, Trevor."

  "The Old Bailey!"

  "Trial by press." I showed him the column. "I like dogs."

  "Lord, don't take it seriously." He munched a wafer.

  I didn't respond. Members of the Chelsea Dog Lovers' League would be picketing the flat at any moment.

  Trevor made soothing noises through
the crumbs, and Ann flirted with him half-heartedly. Presently he left. I geared up to visit St. Botolph's Hospital. Ann geared up to divert the press.

  As I slipped away I heard her telling the assembled reporters all about her springer spaniel, Pattycake, and how Pattycake had saved the infant Ann from a nasty copperhead. She was explaining the differences between copperheads and timber rattlers when I moved out of earshot.

  It would be idle to suppose I wasn't followed. A sharp-eyed reporter saw me slinking off and trailed me to the South Kensington station. I took the Tube to Victoria and caught a taxi back to St. Botolph's. I don't know if my game plan worked, but I was alone when I walked into the hospital.

  The receptionist was a blue-haired woman I had never seen before. Nor was the child laborer behind the desk familiar.

  I drew a deep breath. "I wish to see Milos Vlaçek immediately. I am his sister. From Toronto." I don't know if I sounded Canadian. I'm pretty sure I didn't sound Czech.

  The woman regarded me for a moment without speaking then fiddled with the control board. "Mr. Vlaçek's sister is here," she said in clear BBC English. She listened. "Very well."

  She nodded to me. "Matron will see you in a few minutes. Why don't you wait over there?" At that point her sense of humor must have overcome her, for she added, "With your other brother."

  I turned to the reception area. The young man who had given Milos the papers at the Barbican Centre was sitting on one of the vinyl couches flipping through a magazine.

  My adrenaline started to flow. I stalked over to him. "Hello, there. Where's Milos?"

  He gaped at me. He had dark eyes, a faint mustache, and a slight overbite.

  "Milos Vlaçek," I gritted. "Don't play dumb. I know you know him."

  He stood up. "I beg your pardon, madame?"

  "I saw you give Milos the papers. What have you done with him?"

  "Papers?" His eyes darted around the reception area. "We can't talk here,"

  "No? Why not?"

  He started toward the exit. I followed, mentally cursing the high heels I had worn to bolster my Canadian image. I was half a head taller than he was, though, so I stayed right behind him, heels or no heels.