Mrs Latimer’s wealth and status have bestowed power on her but the stronger power of the circus still makes her vulnerable. She’s in love with the circus; hopelessly, profoundly, day-dreamily besotted with it. Like many people in love, the love humbles her and makes her behave foolishly. In the exotic presence of terse, foreign, muscular circus artists, Mrs Latimer makes a bundle of her articulacy, her business nous, her head for figures, her expensive private education, like a redundant bundle of clothes on a naturist holiday, and she lays them at their feet.
Her family whole-heartedly disapprove. There was a bit of silliness a couple of years ago when Mrs Latimer lost her head entirely over a circus girl who came to work with her. Mrs Latimer told all her business and professional secrets. She loved and admired and bundled herself up. She wrapped the glittering girl in her love, bandaging her in layers and layers of admiration and confidences and foolish love. Eventually the girl repaid her by stealing an elephant and a great deal of money and running away.
There are more than seventy candles alight in the house by the time Mrs Latimer’s son arrives. The ones nearest the front door flicker slightly as he and his best friend Hugo Fragrance let themselves in quietly and join the party. Mrs Latimer’s attitude to throwing parties is that she invites every single person she knows or has ever known without worrying about whether people will get on. The success is in the numbers rather than the mix.
Tonight, the guests are mixing well, ladling punch for each other from the Emphglott-sponsored crystal bowls awarded to champion dog breeders, and caressing the award-winning dogs sprawled on the sofas. There are several researchers from Emphglott who are trying to give the impression they are in TV, several TV researchers who are trying to give the impression they are producers, lots and lots of people from the village, high-flyers from the City, farm hands, dog hands, acrobats, trapeze artists and elephant trainers, and Mrs Latimer’s accountants who are having an affair and will slip away later and have sex. Almost everyone is hoping to get very drunk at Mrs Latimer’s expense, except the people who have brought their own drugs.
Taron is talking to a young man wearing a dress. She can see the blonde hairs under his arms, poking from above the sleeveless bodice, when he puts the bottle of beer to his mouth to drink. His short fingernails are painted a shade of baby pink that Miss Selfridge markets as ‘Miss World’. His face is beautiful. He has a performer’s swagger, as if he is used to being looked at and admired but when he speaks he looks down a lot, as if he is really quite shy.
‘Fifty per cent of trees planted in cities die in their first year,’ Taron tells him. ‘The parks departments are planting the wrong trees, they can’t survive the conditions. They suffer horribly from the pollution. Even if they make it past the first year, their life expectancy is cut by one fifth. I’m going to take some water containers out next week and give them a drink and try wiping some of the filth off their leaves.’
‘I’m going to stop the traffic.’ The young man smiles suddenly, making dimples at the sides of his mouth. Taron, unsure whether this is an anti-pollution plan or a comment on his outfit, turns away to dip her cup into the bowl of punch.
On the temporary dance floor in the living room, very close to the speakers broadcasting a selection of Mrs Latimer’s favourite tunes, the zebra keeper and his best friend are clinging together, cigarettes alight. Both have damp hair, gray faces, dilated pupils. They are grimacing, or possibly smiling, their expressions like teenagers on a scary fairground ride. Their teeth are chattering. ‘Fucking hell,’ whispers the zebra keeper, breaking away from his friend’s embrace to find his bottle of poppers in the back pocket of his jeans.
The cloudy, moonless night conceals Mrs Fitzgerald, a little way removed from the house, wearing a very smart brown tweed skirt and pink Marigold gloves. She is crouching in a field collecting fecal samples and urine-soaked straw with Alison. Alison is dressed more casually but is taking the same sensible precautions in protecting her hands. Phoebe is with them in her stroller, wrapped against the chill of the spring evening, staring into the middle distance as children tend to do when they’re with adults who are engaged in inexplicable tasks that don’t involve them.
Mrs Fitzgerald is engrossed by the task of collecting the samples with a trowel and placing them in labelled plastic bags held open for the purpose by Alison. If a crowd of students from a local university were to walk by, one of them might comment ‘Ner, you’re mad, you are’ but an engagement in the serious business of investigating is one of the occasions when Mrs Fitzgerald has no such doubts about her sanity.
‘Harvey, I need your help.’
‘That makes a nice change, Jane. You sound echoey, where are you?’
‘I’m having a colonic.’
‘Well, I suppose that is a change. You’ve never called me under such intimate circumstances before.’
‘Yes I have. I can’t interest any TV production companies in the story about Jeremy. I want to go ahead and make a short film anyway and use it as a show reel. I need you to do the camera work.’
‘I made a film at art school, that doesn’t make me Steven Spielberg.’
‘Philippe can get me all the kit for free. I’ll carry the fuzzy thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s in shot, I think it lends authenticity. Come on Harvs, I’d do it for you.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Why are we friends, would you say? Is it because we both hate men?’
‘I like men.’
‘Oh yes. Is it because we both hate women?’
‘I like women too. I like everyone and you hate everyone. It’s an attraction of opposites.’
‘Jeremy’s got a sister who’s run away from the world. She’s living miles away. In the middle of nowhere, effectively. She’s escaped her old identity. Do you see, Harvs? She’s got no name and no sense of place. She’s living in a void. If you do this teeny bit of filming I could get Jeremy to take us to meet her. Maybe she can be your guru. Just don’t tell Jeremy that I can’t get him on TV, I promised him some publicity.’
‘Don’t tell Jeremy? It sounds as if it’s getting serious. Will you start wanting to take care of him?’
‘No, taking care of someone is just a way of trying to control them.’
‘You like to control people.’
‘Yes, but I like to give them a list and say “do this, do that.” I don’t want to arse about cooking some man a fried breakfast and ironing his shirts as a precursor to influencing all his decisions.’
‘Well, why do it the hard way? You’ve certainly come up with a labour-saving strategy.’
‘Did I tell you that I’ve been having sex with Jeremy?’
‘Is it any good?’
‘Yes, I really like him. Part of the attraction is that I don’t really know what he’s thinking, he’s quite unpredictable. Do you remember when we bought those teen mags to pass the journey when we took the train to Cardiff?’
‘Wasn’t it Edinburgh?’
‘Whatever. We completed all the quizzes for each other and ticked all the right boxes. It’s great to know someone as well as I know you, don’t get me wrong. But with Jeremy, I wouldn’t know which boxes to tick.’
‘Alison? It’s Taron, I’m just back from Mrs Latimer’s. Sorry, were you asleep? I wish you could have been at the party.’
‘I was doing something. Anyway I couldn’t leave Phoebe. Never mind, how was it?’
‘It was great. Do you remember going to parties as a child? There’d always be a party bag full of goodies to collect at the end of the night. I’ve never grown out of that, I hate to go home empty-handed from a party.’
‘What do you mean. Did you bring a man home?’
‘Not this time. There was no-one there that I wanted. Mrs Latimer gave me a big parcel of food to take away, though, and two dozen candles.’
‘Anything else happen?’
‘I drank too much and got really trashed because I’ve given up drugs.’
‘I didn�
��t know you’d given up drugs.’
‘Yeah, I just stopped getting high so I gave them up.’
‘Maybe you need to try a different brand.’
‘No. I feel about drugs the way I’d feel about an old love affair. It made sense at the time but I wouldn’t want to go back and try again. I’m finding it quite difficult, though. If you don’t do drugs you have these huge gaps in your life that you have to fill. Time goes really slowly and you have to be on the lookout for adventure the whole time. Drugs create a whole momentum of their own where you chase about finding a dealer, getting high, recovering, buying more drugs, getting high. It really fills up the spare moments. Now I’ve got so much quality time on my hands I don’t know what to do with it all. And I get pissed all the time because I’m not used to drinking without taking drugs to temper the alcohol.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘Two weeks? We were at Miss Lester’s dinner party two weeks ago.’
‘Well, ten days. Listen, Alison, drugs are just a fast track to some kind of excitement you recognize because you’ve experienced it before somewhere. It’s like using a microwave instead of conventional cooking. Whether you’re using drugs or not using them, you’re still trying to get to the same place. All I have to do is remember how to get there the slow way.’
‘Are you drunk now?’
‘A bit. I feel pretty weird, actually. I think I’d feel toxic if I went anywhere near any more drugs. I’ve done so many over the years that one more little grain of anything might tip me over the edge. I may as well chew on pencil lead.’
‘That won’t do you any harm. They use graphite now. You’d have to lick tin soldiers in an antique shop. Was Joey at the party?’
‘Yeah. He’s really cute, he seems very fond of me.’
‘And do you like him?’
‘I’ve kind of taken him under my wing.’
‘Under your wing? Where would that put him? In your armpit?’
‘Alison. I thought you wanted me to go to the party so I could report back to you about Mrs Latimer. There’s no point being rude or I won’t tell you anything.’
‘Well, did you find out anything about Mrs Latimer?’
‘She loves me to death and there’s something weird going on with her animals.’
‘What kind of weird?’
‘Have you ever seen a dog typing and smoking a pipe?’
‘Like Ernest Hemingway?’
‘They’re like really bright undisciplined kids. They paint and chase rabbits and ride bicycles. There was a Doberman on the couch who looked as if it was reading a newspaper.’
‘Is chasing rabbits necessarily a sign of weirdness in dogs?’
‘No, but it is in children. I saw a programme on TV once about some posh kids who were allowed to do what they wanted at school and they chased a rabbit and killed it.’
‘So what’s happening with Joey? Are you going to start seeing him?’
‘No, nothing like that. He’s just going to help me out with a few of the projects I’ve got on at the moment. What about you, Alison? Why don’t you get yourself a man?’
‘Men are like cigarettes. I only want one when I’m drunk.’
Chapter Eighteen ~ Night-time
Watching the street outside their flat in vain for Roy’s return, Sheila suddenly pulls up the sash window and leans out, looking up. She wouldn’t be able to say why, if anyone had been there to ask her. Perhaps she was tired of breathing her own warm breath in the flat and she wanted to take in the cool, smoky London air for a change. Above her, hanging among the drifting clouds in the sky, is a very bright, ellipse-shaped light.
Sylvia likes to sleep naked in Paradise, drawing the pillows around her in her big bed as if to cushion herself against a potential fall while asleep. A family in England recently searched all night for their missing teenage daughter before realising she had been safely tucked under the covers in bed the whole time. Roy would never make such a mistake with Sylvia, the curves of her body accentuated under the patchwork counterpane in the places where she props pillows around her body. She slips one arm under the pillows at the head of the bed, hugging her face to them. She keeps one pillow at her back, cuddles another at her side under the crook of her arm, another under one bent knee, or between two bent knees. She is lying on her right side, watching the doorway.
When Roy comes in to the room, smelling of toothpaste, she pushes all the pillows to the edges of the bed. The pillow that has been resting against her back is very warm when he lies his face against it. She makes a place for his left leg where one of the pillows touched inside her thighs and knees. Her body is hot, insulated against the night-time by the feathers that have been all around her. Even her feet are warm, when she slithers them across the sheets and puts them on Roy’s feet. She keeps her eyes open but Roy can barely see them in the darkness. He puts his hand out to her face and touches it very softly, to be sure where her mouth will be when he kisses her.
She puts her hand on his hips and presses him closer but he resists, arching his back slightly so that he can move his hand up her body and feel her bosom. He slips his left hand under the pillow at his head and finds Sylvia’s right hand. He works his fingers into the palm of her hand so she will stop holding on to the pillowcase and he laces his fingers through hers.
He moves his right hand to her thighs, her bottom, the flesh above her hips. All the flesh has the same consistency as her breasts; firm, with a slight give when he presses his fingers into it. Oh my God, I’m fucking a giant breast, he thinks, just before he comes, in the moment that is like falling, when Heaven and Earth seem to fit together.
Chapter Nineteen ~ Usefulness
The zebra keeper is in his rented kitchen, lying on the ridged, prickly carpet near the fridge. The carpet is tough-wearing and of indeterminate color, chosen by the landlord to withstand the enthusiasms of sloppy young men with an aversion to vacuuming. The zebra keeper is lying on the patch where the spilled food collects on its journey to and from the table.
The zebra keeper’s name is James. He remembers this almost as soon as he wakes up. His left arm is slightly numb where he has been lying on it. His underpants have hitched themselves a little way into the cleft between his buttocks, which he now remedies with his good hand.
James’s flatmate, Robert, another animal keeper and his best friend, walks bare-footed into the kitchen from his bedroom. He is also wearing the clothes he wore last night. He knocks James’s head lightly as he opens the fridge door to find a beer. ‘Man, that party was really kicking last night.’
James is sitting up, shaking his left hand vigorously and patting his discarded jacket with his right, trying to locate his cigarettes. ‘Yeah,’ he agrees. He begins to laugh. ‘Every time I looked at the old lady, she seemed to be morphing into one of her animals.’
‘She was necking the punch down.’
‘So was everyone. I was tripping off my face but they were just tottering around, making small talk like nothing was happening.’
‘The alcohol kills it. There wasn’t really enough in the punch to do anything except put a sheen on things, although I chucked a bit on the chicken satay as well. You and me and Christian had a whole phial each before we even went out. Don’t forget we had all that coke as well.’
‘God yeah, I still owe you for that. I better do some overtime this month to pay for it.’ James drags himself to a wooden chair and sits down, conserving his energy for the while.
Venetia Latimer has been up and about since early this morning, watching some of the CCTV tapes that recorded the events on the grounds during last night’s party. She finds them most instructive. Then she switches to the live camera and watches a couple of the kennel boys set off for Hampshire and Dorset in the van.
Venetia has suffered. She was once betrayed and robbed by someone she cared about. Venetia went into the tunnel of wretchedness and bitterness that everyone goes into when somethi
ng like that happens, but she came out the other side deciding to work through the pain by doing good deeds. Venetia Latimer now strives to turn useless things into useful things. She brings this about by combining her formidable skills with endless financial means.
Who, other than Venetia Latimer, would have had the idea of trapping and training the mink that were set free by animal rights activists and are now colonising the countryside and interfering with the food chain? Mrs Latimer has a team working day and night to put together the first comedy circus routine starring performing mink. It is a difficult task because mink kill each other for sport and the supply of performers needs constant replacement. The kennel boys have been searching the English countryside for them with nets, stout leather gloves and – at their insistence – cricket boxes to protect their genitals.
Venetia Latimer is a busy woman. She doesn’t have time to sit back and rest on her laurels otherwise she would be feeling very proud of her achievements. From a very young age she has admired artists and performers and keenly felt the gap between their productive lives and hers. It is only now, past the age of fifty, that she has been able to see that she too can offer something good to the world – usefulness.
Chapter Twenty ~ Hot Line
Sheila has thought it over carefully and she’s sure that when she wears long, dangly earrings, the messages from the aliens are stronger. Consequently, she has been experimenting with other ways of enhancing the alien signals. The triangular caps she has made for her ears out of tinfoil seem to work very well. They are barely noticeable so long as she keeps her hair falling forward and doesn’t brush it back over her face nervously when she talks, which she has a habit of doing.
Sheila gathers all her courage for the next stage of her search for Roy. The time has come to try and find out how she can contact his captors. She picks up the phone. A bored young woman sits in a meagrely-furnished office by the phone with an A4 pad of paper, leaning on a plastic wood-effect table. She wears gray flannel trousers and a gray V-necked jumper. You might suppose she had come straight to this office from school if she weren’t five years too old to be wearing uniform. Her hand trembles slightly when the phone rings and she takes up her pen with very great care before she answers.
Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries Page 71
