by Daisy Waugh
She plonked it on Dominic’s head, shoved the Dogmatix teddy into his arms.
‘Stand up!’ she ordered. ‘Come on Dominic! This is your moment!’
He stood, and his bones creaked. ‘We had a little thing prepared, India,’ he grumbled. ‘What happened to that?’
‘Forget that,’ India snapped. She fiddled with her iPhone.
Egbert said: ‘My goodness, India, you are full of surprises! What are you up to, I wonder? And what on earth are you doing with my old Fourth of June boater? I’m actually rather fond of it…’
‘He’s got to look the part, hasn’t he? Wait a bit. Hang on – oops!’ In a burst, from her tiny speaker, that famous theme tune filled the room.
‘AHHH! THE WONDERS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY!’ India yelled. But nobody could hear her over the music, so she switched it off.
‘Dominic Rathbone, coffee ad superstar, is now going to take us all on a guided tour of the house – by candlelight! How about that?!’
Yay!
The cheers were noticeably less heartfelt than before. The last thing anyone wanted to do, after a night of merry drinking, was to trail around this big, cold house, in uncomfortable shoes, listening to a washed up old actor wheeze on about boring architecture. What they wanted to do at this point (and would, as soon as they got the chance) was to slip off to the nearest lavatory and chop themselves out some lines.
India ignored their subdued grumbles. She rang the bell for Carfizzi.
‘And because Dominic’s an actor,’ she continued, ‘and because he is still best known for the role he played twenty-five or thirty years ago, or whenever it was, in this very house, and because I want to remind you all of what a fantastic performer he is, and what a fantastic house this is, and what a fantastic novel Prance to the Music is (even if I haven’t read it hahaha) and because basically I want to remind you it’s about time one of you guys organised a remake, and paid us loads of money to film it here…’ She paused for breath, gave a wobbly, wild laugh. ‘Because of all of that, Dominic is going to do the house tour in character! All right Dominic? All right everyone? So come on, cheer up! It’s going to be fun! This is a murder mystery weekend, after all! So if Dominic gets too boring we can just kill him! Only joking! Oh. And here is the amazing Mr Carfizzi! Carfizzi, Dominic’s going to lead us on a grand tour of the house, by candlelight! Isn’t that fab?’
Mr Carfizzi was feeling very ill. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes emptying his guts into the pantry sink. But nobody would have known it, not even if they had been looking at him really hard (which of course they weren’t). Carfizzi’s guts may well have been dissolving inside him, but he stood upright in his butler’s coat, proper and professional to the end.
‘As you can see,’ India said, ‘our lazy guests are going to need a bit of encouragement – can you please bring in some champagne? Don’t give any to Dominic though, will you?’ She grinned at him evilly. ‘Dominic’s got to keep his wits about him, haven’t you Dominic? Actually Dominic, I’m going to call you Tintin from now on. Everyone, you have to call Dominic “Tintin” until the end of the tour, just to keep him in character. All right?’
Woop… Yay…
‘It’s called “method acting”,’ she explained. ‘So come on, everyone. On your feet! Let’s GO!’
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ muttered Egbert, standing up and tucking his chair in. ‘It seems a bit much…’
‘Nonsense! It’s great fun. Carfizzi – catch us up with the champagne will you? And keep an eye on Hamish. He’s been cross-questioning me about Tode Hall security all evening, haven’t you Hamish? I’m pretty sure he wants to rob us.’
Hamish gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘I’m a starving artist, India, darling.’ He looked directly at Dominic. ‘In any case, I never leave Tode Hall without taking a little treasure away with me. It’s tradition. Isn’t it, Dominic? You can’t expect me to make an exception this time.’
‘What’s that?’ India said, but she wasn’t really listening. ‘All right Tintin, are you ready to roll? We’re going to begin in the Great Hall, and I’m starting the music now. EVERYONE! STAND UP…’
Reluctantly, the guests clambered to their feet.
CHAPTER 41
Dominic stood beside the twenty-five-foot Christmas tree, in the middle of the huge marble floor, the dead-flowered boater on his head, Dogmatix the teddy in his hand, trying his best to look dignified. There was a fire roaring in the grate, and logs crackling, and the Prance theme tune, bouncing off the seventy-foot ceiling. He took a breath to begin.
‘The Great Hall, designed in 1699 by Vanbrugh, is, as you will be aware, one of the great architectural masterpieces of eighteenth-century Britain. This remarkable dome which you see above you was, for its time, a miracle of engineering. It…’ India was holding the iPhone that controlled the music, and the small speaker that amplified it.
For no clear reason, she suddenly whacked up the volume, deafening everyone and making the decorations on the twenty-five-foot Christmas tree shake. Dominic’s mouth kept moving but nobody could hear anything he said.
It made India laugh, helplessly. Nobody else thought it was funny; nobody wanted to be standing in this echoey hall at this stage in the evening, watching somebody mouth the words to a lecture about eighteenth-century engineering: that India seemed now intent on prolonging their discomfort, was beyond irritating. Everybody groaned. She apologised, shoulders still shaking with the funniness, and turned the music down again.
Dominic continued as if he hadn’t noticed. ‘Of course Vanbrugh was first and foremost a playwright, as I’m sure you know. He was not an engineer and he could never have realised his extraordinary vision without the help of—’
She did it again.
‘Come on Munch,’ shouted Egbert. ‘This really isn’t fair on anyone…’
She stopped laughing, turned the music down, apologised, told Dominic to continue… But after that, each time he took a breath, she’d do it again. It wasn’t malicious, any longer. She just couldn’t resist it. She’d whack up the volume, drown him out, and at once fold into helpless laughter… apologise… turn it down… and then do it all over again. Until everybody’s irritation became comical in itself, and Alice began to laugh, and Hamish began to snigger, and even Egbert started laughing.
‘For goodness sake,’ said Dominic, eventually.
India said: ‘OK, OK, sorry, sorry, sorry… I won’t do it again. I swear… I absolutely swear… Also Tintin, remember you’re meant to stay in character! Tintin’s LBGTQRS-BMW or whatever… apparently. He really is. So do it super-gay as well. Come on. It’ll be funny!’
Again, Dominic ignored her. ‘The Great Hall was initially the dream child of Sir Ecgbert the First,’ he continued, ‘who had distinguished himself at the court of William III…’ It was a speech Dominic had delivered many times before, if never to music, or to such a bawdy, drunken and uninterested audience. Nevertheless, he was professional, and he knew what he was doing. ‘This extraordinarily beautiful ceiling which we are standing under now is the highest of its age in the county of Yorkshire, and at the time the First Baronet imagined…’
Before she had a chance to do it again, Egbert snatched the phone off her. Which was a mistake because it meant Dominic was able to carry on.
… And on… He was (at least according to the original plan) supposed to be leading the guests to the Lady Laverty Suite. But instead, perhaps in revenge, he led them through the back of the hall, along ‘what we now call the Corridor of the Ancients, so named as a consequence of the multitude of remarkable busts from the ancient world, as you can see, each one wonderfully framed by its own baroque archway… Here we have a bust of the great Cicero, rescued by the fourth Baronet during what I call his Grand Shopping tour of seventeen forty-five… And beside Cicero…’
The guests began to talk among themselves. Rather, they never stopped talking among themselves, but as Dominic and the theme tune drilled on, and on, they began
to talk louder, the better to hear themselves above his racket.
‘And on the left here…’
The guests tripped along behind him, from the Corridor of the Ancients, to the Imperial Singsong Room, with its harpsichord, once strummed upon by Mozart, and its remarkable rococo painting, Lady and Violin, thought to be the work of… India turned to Alice and said: ‘Do you think this was a mistake?’
Alice said: ‘It depends what you were hoping to achieve. I don’t think anyone’s having any fun.’ She looked at India’s shining face, her glazed eyes: ‘But I’m not sure that was really the aim, was it?’
India said, slightly indignantly but without looking directly at Alice: ‘What else was supposed to be the aim? You’re right though, it’s bloody boring. Maybe we should cut it short? Mellors is playing dead in Lady Laverty – I’m pretty sure… Maybe we should just head over there?’
Too late. She glanced back at Dominic just as Hamish was tapping him on the shoulder. Dominic paused, an expression of fierce irritation on his face. Hamish was a half-head smaller and altogether less well built. He tipped his face upward and whispered something into Dominic’s ear.
Dominic turned to him, stunned. Before anyone knew quite how it happened, Dominic had dropped his Dogmatix teddy bear, knocked Hamish Tomlinson to the ground, straddled him, and was punching him in the face.
Egbert was the first to react. He said: ‘For Christ’s sake, you two, watch out for the harpsichord!’
But Dominic kept pounding.
Annoyingly, no one had heard what Hamish said, and even after the TV producer and the film director had prised Dominic off him, and an element of calm had been restored, nobody ever did get to the bottom of it.
India, looking gleeful, said: ‘Shall we carry on, or shall we call it a day? Dominic you are awful! You should be ashamed of yourself! Whatever got into you?’
‘I think we should carry on,’ Hamish said, holding a tea towel and ice to his weaselly cheekbone. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Dominic – or should I call you Tintin? – India wants you to give the guests a murder mystery tour. I’m prepared to overlook the pounding you just gave me, as long as you grant the wish of the lady of the house, and carry on!’ But he was smirking beneath the tea towel, and there was a moment when Alice thought Dominic might relaunch his attack.
‘Ignore him,’ she muttered.
Dominic glanced at her, ignored her. He said to Hamish: ‘You’re bloody lucky they pulled me off when they did.’
‘Shall we have a post mortem?’ Hamish said. ‘I’d want to move on as fast as I could if I were in your boots, Tintin… Except I’m not, am I? Not in your boots exactly…’
The words meant more to Hamish and Dominic than to anyone else standing around in the Singsong Room. Dominic glared at Hamish, and Hamish smirked at Dominic. And finally Dominic said: ‘Frankly, you can all fuck off!’ And he stormed away, out of the Singsong Room, along the Ancient corridor, past the baroque archways, beneath the feat of engineering… to his own bed. Rather, to the bed he’d been sleeping in these past thirty years, which belonged, like everything else in his life, to Egbert and India.
CHAPTER 42
It was generally agreed that Dominic and Hamish’s fight had pepped up the midsection of what was already an excellent evening. After Dominic stormed off, the party returned to the Chinese Drawing Room for coffee, champagne, brandy and further merriment. The Londoners, all fired up on their marching powder, didn’t retire to bed until four in the morning; Egbert left at about half past twelve, and Hamish and India, neither of whom was offered any of the Londoners’ cocaine, sidled off to bed at about two. For a short period, they sidled off to the same bed. India had put Hamish in the Russian Room, one of the less good bedrooms: partly to punish him for not returning her calls when she was seventeen, and partly because she had half known all along how this was likely to play out, and the Russian Room was discreet, far away on the third floor.
She might have saved herself the trouble because the encounter didn’t go well. Not as she had planned. India, confronted by his ratty nakedness and weirdly vast – elephantine – erection, sobered up. She thought of Dominic, his comparative neatness, and of how cruelly she had treated him earlier: also, more powerfully, how cruelly he had treated her. She thought of Egbert, one floor below, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, and realised she missed him.
‘Oops,’ she said, staring at Hamish and feeling a bit sick. ‘Serious second thoughts. [Hic] Sorry!’
He didn’t try to change her mind – beyond a desultory ‘Are you sure?’ It wasn’t his style. So she slipped back into her grey dress, hiccupping but otherwise silent.
‘See you at breakfast,’ she said, as she closed his bedroom door. ‘Thanks for not making a fuss.’
But he didn’t look up. He was lying naked on the bed, erection slowly deflating, apparently already engrossed in an article in yesterday’s Times.
CHAPTER 43
Breakfast was served from 9 a.m., but India advised Mrs Carfizzi not to expect the London guests to appear before noon.
At 10 a.m., having dropped the children at their weekly riding lesson, she herself could be found in her seat at the head of the dining table, glossy haired and smelling of roses, eating toast and marmalade. Her husband sat in his seat, at the other end of the table. He was wearing mud-spattered biking gear, eating kedgeree and reading the Mail on Sunday. Between them, also eating kedgeree, and reading the latest edition of the New Yorker, sat the bruised and rat-like Hamish. No one else had yet surfaced, of course: and the silence, and the munching, and the men, with their complacent reading faces, and the smell of the kedgeree – not to mention her own hangover – were putting a terrific strain on India’s patience.
She wondered what had become of Dominic. Even though he wasn’t staying in the house for the weekend, she had made it clear that he was expected for breakfast. His celebrity presence was part of the entertainment, after all. She rang the bell.
A moment longer than India had wanted to be kept waiting, Mrs Carfizzi poked her head through the connecting kitchen door. This was doubly annoying. India had been expecting to see Mr Carfizzi, and was not in the mood to deal with Mrs Carfizzi’s useless English. She scowled.
‘Where’s Mr Carfizzi?’
‘He sick.’
‘Really? Why?’ India remembered something, and laughed. ‘Oh! He is, is he? Poor fellow. Tell him to get better soon.’
Mrs Carfizzi shrugged. ‘He try.’
‘No. I mean – send him my best. Never mind. I’ll come and visit him later. Will you tell him?’
Mrs Carfizzi shook her head. This, she seemed to understand. ‘No, he no want it.’
‘Of course he does! He’ll be delighted!’ India chortled. ‘Tell him I’ll bring him some more of his favourite chocs!’
Mrs Carfizzi looked terrified. ‘NO!’ she said vehemently. ‘Chocolates. He kill.’
‘What? Who kills?’
‘Chocolate he kills.’
India shook her head. ‘Never mind. Where’s Mr Rathbone?’
Mrs Carfizzi said: ‘Mr Rathbone very angry today. Train for London.’
‘What? This morning? He’s supposed to be working! He’s supposed to be entertaining the guests!’
Mrs Carfizzi shrugged. She glanced nervously at Egbert, but he was engrossed in his newspaper and didn’t appear to be listening.
‘Well, never mind,’ India said again. ‘Please will you ask Alice to join us for breakfast?’
Mrs Carfizzi didn’t move.
‘Ask Alice. Please ask Alice Liddell at the Gardener’s House to come and join us for breakfast. As soon as possible. Please. Do you understand? Also can you please get rid of the kedgeree. The smell is making me feel sick.’
‘Bit much, Munch,’ muttered Egbert, watching Mrs Carfizzi clear the dish away. ‘Don’t chuck it out, will you Mrs Carfizzi? I’m sure when the other guests appear they’ll want to eat it… Terrific stuff. Thank you so much…’
&nb
sp; Just then, behind India, the large mahogany door slammed open and in barged Mad Ecgbert, 12th Baronet Tode: looking, India thought, when she turned to see the source of the noise, even madder than usual.
‘For goodness sake, Ecgbert,’ said Egbert, mildly. ‘There’s no need to smash the door like that. One day you’ll knock the Reynolds right off that wall and Christ only knows if the insurance would cough up…’
India rolled her eyes.
‘You may well roll your eyes, India,’ her husband snapped, sounding unusually sharp. ‘But actually we have a responsibility…’
She turned towards her husband’s cousin. His long, lean frame was clothed, this morning, in a slinky, wide-collar orange shirt and slim-cut purple velvet suit, and his thick hair was like a Brillo pad on top of his head, woolly and grey. There was nothing too unusual about the hair – it often looked wild – but the clothes were something else. Normally he wore jeans and an ancient tweed jacket. This morning he looked like a beatnik version of Beethoven. Mad, perhaps; but not unattractive.
‘Ecgbeeeeeeerrrrrrrrt!’ she cried, mostly to shut up her husband. ‘Nice suit! We haven’t seen you for a bit! Where have you been? Come on in! Mrs Carfizzi has made kedgeree. It smells gross, to be honest. But my husband says it’s delicious.’
‘I haven’t come here to talk about kedgeree,’ Mad Ecgbert replied. He looked around him impatiently; from the scowling, mud-spattered Egbert, to the smiling, rosy India – and then to Hamish Tomlinson, peering at him over his New Yorker. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mad Ecgbert asked.
‘I’m eating breakfast,’ Hamish smirked. ‘How very nice to see you again, Ecgbert. An unexpected pleasure.’
‘Definitely not reciprocated,’ Mad Ecgbert replied, and slammed the big mahogany door shut behind him, making the Reynolds shake on its wire again.
