Clouds among the Stars

by Clayton, Victoria

  Clearly so momentous a declaration required proper recognition. I searched for something intelligent and positive to say. It was difficult, so early in the day. ‘Darling Portia.’ I stretched out my free hand and patted her knee. ‘I hope you and Suke will be very, very happy.’ I was aware, even as I said it, that this response was paltry.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘Look at this!’ Cordelia kicked the front door shut behind her and negotiated Dirk’s prancing with care. She held a bowl filled with flowers. ‘It came just now by a special van. Isn’t it pretty?’

  ‘Did I hear the bell?’ Ophelia emerged from the drawing room. ‘Lilies of the valley! Peregrine’s taste is improving. I had to give the carnations he sent to the woman who collects for the blind. Good Lord! This bowl is famille verte!’ She looked triumphant. ‘He’s going to propose.’

  Cordelia read the card. ‘It says, “For Harriet, with my apologies and love.” Look, they’re real little plants in earth like a garden. Hat!’ Her eyes gleamed with inspiration. ‘You could put in a bit of mirror for a lake and make some flamingos out of Plasticene. I’ve got a bit of bright pink left you can have for the legs.’

  ‘Well! What an extraordinary thing!’ Ophelia was evidently disappointed, and I did not blame her. Between the stalks of trembling, scented bells the earth was covered by velvety emerald moss, charmingly complemented by the paler green of the flowered porcelain. ‘Apologies for what?’ asked Ophelia. ‘It must have been one hell of a faux pas. That bowl’s worth at least a hundred pounds. Who sent it? It doesn’t look like something Grudge would choose.’

  Ophelia had called Dodge ‘Grudge’ from the moment of meeting him at that unfortunate supper party when he had so conspicuously sulked and glowered. I had long since given up protesting. She took the card from Cordelia. ‘Max Frensham!’ She looked at me meditatively for a moment, then took the bowl from Cordelia. ‘You’re bound to drop it. I think it will look best on the red lacquer desk.’ I followed her meekly into the drawing room. ‘Yes. It covers that chipped place beautifully. Now, you little ass,’ she fixed me with a look of disapproval, ‘you’d better listen to me. Don’t even consider having an affair with a married man.’

  I was surprised. Usually Ophelia had only contempt for conventional moral codes. I stood in attentive silence while Ophelia opened her budget on matters adulterous. ‘They hardly ever leave their wives. The dog always returns to his vomit and it’s the same thing with a man. He feels safe with the poor drudge who’s willing to wash his underpants and have his ghastly mother for Christmas. But if he does leave her for you, then he feels quite justified in whining non-stop about his crippling guilt complex, while trying to throw all the blame on you. And when she rings in tears at two in the morning you’re supposed not to mind having your sleep ruined. She’ll send you vituperative letters and tell poisonous stories about you to anyone who’ll listen. That’s when she’s not following you about and making scenes in Harvey Nichols. Worse, there may exist some disgusting sprogs, the spit of their mother. Either you have to spend weekends on your own or put up with the little beasts eyeing you as though you were an acid-bath murderer, while he spends ridiculous amounts of money on them to shut them up.’ Ophelia spoke with unusual energy. Evidently this was a subject about which she had strong feelings.

  I spoke firmly and I meant it. ‘I’m not going to have an affair with Max.’

  Naturally neither Ophelia nor Cordelia could be expected to keep to themselves the interesting news that I had a new suitor. Reactions were various and characteristic. Though Max had forever lowered his value in my mother’s eyes for not paying court to her, she was prepared to acknowledge that he would be able to give me a little of the town bronze I so observably lacked.

  ‘He’s certainly good-looking, though a little effete for my taste,’ she articulated carefully through her veil. ‘I prefer something more rugged.’ Ronnie expanded his chest and clenched his jaw. ‘But,’ continued my mother, ‘Max should be able to teach you something of the ways of the world. Blushing, breathless innocence is perfectly convenable in young girls from country parsonages, whose only accomplishments are grooming dogs, serving over-arm at tennis and making a fourth at bridge, but you, Harriet, despite your social advantages, have elevated naivety to an art form.’

  She made an exit, which was her own kind of art form, before I could think of anything to say in self-defence.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart.’ Ronnie patted my arm kindly as he followed my mother. ‘She’s nervous. We’ve agreed to take the wrappings off after lunch. Promise you’ll enthuse. As for Max Frensham – one should never look a gift horse in the mouth.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Max?’ Portia asked me, after she had been entertained by Cordelia with a highly embellished account of my romantic adventures.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. We had dinner together and that’s all. Surely a man and a woman can be friends without everyone thinking of sex? He has a perfectly good wife. I don’t expect he’ll ask me again.’

  ‘Come and see what he sent her,’ Cordelia persisted.

  We stood together in the drawing room and admired the bowl and the flowers.

  ‘Oh, Hat!’ Portia was impressed. ‘You flipping little liar! And you expect us to believe that he doesn’t want to get into your pants. I should think he’ll be exciting, as men go. If you can stand all that scratchy stubble and sweatiness and seeing his rather revolting equipment.’

  Portia had the exhortatory zeal of the newly converted.

  ‘I’ve only ever seen Bron’s cock,’ said Cordelia thoughtfully. ‘It’s really small and floppy, like on statues. Not at all like the photograph Tania Vickers showed us in a magazine she pinched from her dad’s desk –’

  A smart slap on the side of her head cut her off mid-speech. ‘You little stinker!’ We had been standing with our backs to the door and had not heard Bron come in. ‘If you ever repeat that I shall tear out your tongue, mince it up, fry it in butter and eat it smeared on toast.’

  ‘Ow!’ Cordelia rubbed her ear and glared at him, indignantly. ‘That hurt!’

  ‘Let it be a warning to you, you treacherous little blighter, not to discuss your brother’s genitalia in public.’

  ‘I only said it was small – ow, ow, ow!’

  After Portia and I had intervened on Cordelia’s behalf and she had gone away to sulk, Bron pinged his finger against the bowl.

  ‘That’ll fetch a bob or two. If he’s really keen on you, perhaps he’ll let me borrow his Aston Martin sometimes. You might ask him again about that job in the FO. Soften him up a bit first. Timing is everything, I’ve found.’ He put on his worldly-wise look, which he had perfected playing Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, when he had belonged to a touring company two years ago.

  ‘I’m sorry to be disobliging but I have no influence over Max.’ I spoke a little coldly. ‘I’m not going to have an affair with him.’

  ‘That’s sisters all over,’ said Bron bitterly. ‘Self, self, self. I’m not suggesting you devote all your working hours to it. You only have to get him into bed once. Tease him into a lather of desire and just before you let the fox go to earth, pop the question. I don’t think it’s much to ask.’

  ‘You make it sound so enticing,’ said Portia sarcastically.

  ‘I heard that about lathers of desire and foxes,’ called Cordelia, through the crack in the door.

  Dirk was so excited by this disembodied voice that he knocked over the shepherdess. I was able to put an end to the speculation about my putative lovemaking by rescuing her head from beneath the chest against which Hamlet had once leaned, bemoaning the beastliness of life and wondering whether to put an end to it, or not.

  I went upstairs to my attic room. Mark Antony was asleep on one of my jerseys before the paraffin heater. He refused to have anything to do with the four-poster Cordelia and I had made for him. Our hurt feelings had been assuaged by Dirk’s electing to sleep with his head within it. I
t was all he could squeeze in for he had grown considerably larger in the last two weeks. His jowls were droopier, his ears longer, his chest more massive. I had looked up Cornish terriers in my Observer’s Book of Dogs but they had not included the breed, presumably because it was so rare. I knew I must apply myself to instilling some discipline. After a day of the literary equivalent of picking oakum – that is, sorting out the ads section of the Brixton Mercury – it was disheartening to be met with a long and varied list of complaints about Dirk’s behaviour.

  Working conditions had taken a definite turn for the worse after Eileen and Muriel had circulated the news that I was the daughter of the celebrated actor-murderer. I had swapped inferiority for notoriety. The editor, Mr Walpole, who hitherto had been just a shadowy profile on the frosted glass of his office door, sent for me to ask if I would write an exclusive feature for the Mercury about what it was like to be the offspring of a crazed exterminator. These were not his actual words but, by implication, it was what he thought. I asked if I could think about it and rang Rupert immediately for guidance. Would he consider I was failing to keep my part of our financial bargain if I refused to write the article, thereby risking the sack? Or should I take this opportunity to declare my father’s innocence to the world?

  Rupert told me not to be a little idiot. I was not to say anything to anyone, let alone write it. The case was sub judice and for all he knew, I would be running foul of the law. Far from persuading people of my father’s innocence I would create damaging speculation and make things worse. He said he would speak to Walpole, and rang off without saying goodbye. I was left with the feeling that I had behaved with wanton ineptitude. Anyway, Mr Walpole reverted to his former shadowy eminence and I did not hear from him again. Most of the rest of the staff confined their interest to staring a good deal and averting their gaze the minute our eyes met. A few were excited to a show of friendliness but when it became clear after a few days that I had nothing to tell them, their curiosity turned to resentment. Fortunately I was prevented from worrying about this by the daily struggle to remain employed.

  When Mr Podmore had asked me to write a weekly article on haunted houses, I had imagined this would be the sum of my contribution to the paper and was consequently disappointed to be told I could have only one day a week away from the office for researching and writing up. On the remaining four days I was to make myself useful and learn the trade, which meant doing the jobs Muriel and Eileen most disliked. Advising people how best to word an advertisement for ‘baby bath, v.g.c. pushchair with hood, navy, exercise bike, as new’, palled after two days and the lists of dreary appurtenances and all that they said about adult life began to depress me. There was sporadic interest in entries like ‘ventriloquist’s dummy, suit novice’, and ‘silk top hat and tailcoat, much worn, hence bargain price’. Occasionally I was sent out on my own to cover the closing-down of a long-established corset factory or an evening of jujitsu organised to raise money for the scouts’ outing, but anything at all interesting that happened in Brixton was bagged by Muriel and Eileen.

  I put on my writing robe and threw a blanket round my shoulders, for the warmth from the paraffin heater did not quite reach my desk. I had discovered a block of marzipan, one of my favourite things to eat, in the cake tin in the larder. It was past its best but, thanks to Ronnie’s tight grasp on the family purse strings, rations were short these days. I nibbled abstractedly. I was supposed to be fine-tuning an account of the senior citizens’ tea-party I had attended, but my muse was uncooperative.

  It had been an occasion to make one dread one’s decline. The middle-aged women running the event spoke to their charges in hard-edged voices and exchanged glances of exasperation and contempt. The poor old things were bullied into joining in the songs played by ‘Uncle Billy’ on his electric organ. Half of them wanted to go to sleep, the other half to the lavatory. A few tried to rebel but were swiftly reprimanded. Uncle Billy, whose heart did not seem to be in it, had galloped through to the end of ‘My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean’ while quavering voices were still mumbling the first words. Greasy ham rolls and bitter-tasting fruit cake were handed round, and anyone who spilled their tea was roundly ticked off. Bleary eyes with down-turned lower lids stared in bewilderment as impatient hands wiped their chins and whisked away their cups. Instructions to sit up and stop looking miserable were audible above the distorting amplification of ‘Danny Boy’.

  I ate some more marzipan. A piercing draught from an imperfectly fitting sash window made my eyes water. When the shortcomings of my working conditions were brought thus to my attention, I always thought of Dr Johnson, one of my heroes. He had laboured at his marvellous dictionary in an unheated garret, by the feeble light of the few candles he could afford, while balanced precariously on a chair with only three legs. Whether this was due to dire impoverishment or just perversity it was difficult to be sure but at least I could congratulate myself on a light bulb and a solid chair. I found an old pair of tights to stuff into the gap, searched my desk drawer for my writing mittens, which were my old school gloves with the fingers cut off, and came across Dodge’s letters.

  I was unable to resist looking at them again, though their contents were well known. They were mostly terse notes of instruction, devoid of expressions of love. Occasionally they said that he had been thinking about me. Once, when I had been in bed for a week with tonsillitis, he had written to say that he was missing me and enclosed a pressed dog rose. My happiness on receiving this testimony of devotion had been immense. I still had the dog rose enclosed between the pages of Hard Times. Had Dodge not disapproved altogether of reading fiction, I felt certain this was a novel he would have liked.

  When I had received my marching orders a few weeks before, I had been unable even to glance at the letters without a fierce pain and a welling eye. But in a surprisingly short time – so short, actually, that I accused myself of lamentable shallowness – I stopped being altogether sorry that the affair was over. Now, as I reread Dodge’s letters, I felt what could only be described as unqualified relief. I still thought of him with affection but the unremitting effort to be other than I was had been irksome. While I agreed wholeheartedly with his principles, I was too selfish to devote my life to the class struggle. Nor did I like to be constantly on the receiving end of disapproval and rebuke. The realisation that I need never again attempt to disarm the suspicions of the inhabitants of Owlstone Road made my spirits lift.

  I wondered if this surge of optimism had anything to do with Max. I would have liked to have had the lilies of the valley in my room, adding what scent manufacturers would call ‘floral notes’ to the smell of hot, damp animal fur and paraffin, but I knew my family would put the wrong construction on their removal from the drawing room.

  I recalled Max’s face as clearly as I could, given the brief nature of our friendship, and felt an agreeable flutter of excitement. Then I tried hard to conjure up a picture of Caroline. I could only remember that she was slender and extremely well-dressed. And that during our only conversation, at Ma’s birthday party in the summer, her eyes had roamed constantly, as if seeking someone more interesting to talk to. I felt an instinctive prejudice against her but the idea of adding to her unhappiness, perhaps even to the point of sending her back to the barbiturate bottle, horrified me. No, no, no! Without meaning to, I found I had spoken aloud. Dirk withdrew his muzzle enquiringly from the curtains of Mark Antony’s bed and Mark Antony stretched out a protesting paw. Anyway, wasn’t I forgetting something? Max had not asked me to assist him in breaking the seventh commandment. Probably the idea had never occured to him.

  ‘Hat.’ Portia tapped on the door. ‘Max on the blower.’

  ‘Tell him I’m out.’

  ‘What’s the verdict? I wish I’d been there.’ Despite the shaven head and the paleness of his complexion my father seemed to have regained something of his old sparkle. His shoulders were braced and his eyes were bright. I wondered why. ‘So thrilling, the moment of denouem
ent. Like that great dramatic climax in The Winter’s Tale when the curtain is drawn back to reveal the statue of Hermione. “‘O! she’s warm.”’ he boomed suddenly, making the woman next to us on the visitors’ side of the table spill her tea. ‘“If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating.”’

  ‘I nearly screamed when I saw Ronnie’s nose.’ Cordelia was sitting on my left.

  ‘Thank goodness you didn’t,’ I said. ‘The atmosphere was quite tense enough. Ma’s mouth is quite a lot smaller than it used to be. Ronnie says it’s very aristocratic.’

  Actually it looked as though she were perpetually sucking a straw. The best that could be said of it was that it made the most of her cheekbones.

  ‘It reminds me of my gym-bag, you know, all gathered up,’ said Cordelia. ‘The string’s got into a knot and now I shall have to cut it to get my school plimsolls – Ah, ha! I thought it was small feet that showed you were highborn. You couldn’t say Ronnie’s new nose was aristocratic, could you? It’s exactly like Judy Garland’s.’

  ‘No, really?’ My father started to laugh, then straightened his face. ‘Poor fellow.’

  ‘It’s much shorter than it was and quite startlingly retroussé,’ I said.

  ‘One is tempted to say “I told you so” but that would be ill-natured. I mustn’t let myself become embittered by misfortune. I’ve argued with your mother so often about putting herself into the hands of quacks. For myself I am resolved to put up with the ravages of time.’ He turned his head a little to the left to exhibit his famous profile. Dutifully we reassured him that his good looks were unimpaired by the march of years, which was largely true. I thought this might be the right moment to disclose something that had been troubling me.