Читать книгу Angel - Колин Маккалоу, Colleen McCullough - Страница 24

Well, I did it at last. I’ve had the family to dinner in my new flat. I invited Merle too, but she didn’t come. She rang me in January while I was still in Chests, and I had to have a junior tell her that I couldn’t come to the phone, that staff are not allowed to receive private calls. Apparently Merle took it as a personal rebuff, because whenever I’ve phoned her at home since then, her mother says she’s out. The trouble is that she’s a hairdresser, and they seem to spend half their lives on the phone making personal calls. At Ryde the policy wasn’t so strict, but Queens isn’t the same kind of institution. Anyway.

I’d wanted to have Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz and Flo to dinner as well, but that lady just grinned and said she’d come down later to say hello.

It wasn’t a huge success, though on the surface it was smooth enough. We had to wedge up at the table, but I’d grabbed extra chairs from the front ground floor flat, which is vacant again. Two women and a man who said they were siblings had rented it, but I tell you, men are not fussy when it comes to getting rid of their dirty water. The prettier of the two “sisters” made Chris Hamilton look like Ava Gardner, and both of them stank of stale, horribly cheap scent over the top of their B.O. The “brother” just had B.O. They were doing a roaring trade until Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz rang the Vice Squad and the paddy wagon arrived. There’s an American aircraft carrier in port, and when I pushed the front door open on Thursday night, I saw sailors from arsehole to breakfast—sitting on the stairs, leaning against Flo’s scribbles in the hall, spilling into Pappy’s hall and trooping by the dozen to the upstairs toilet, which was flushed so often that it took to groaning and gurgling. Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz was not amused. The “brother” and his “sisters” were hauled off to the pokey in the paddy wagon, and the sailors scattered far and wide at the sight of the Boys in Blue behind Norm and his sergeant, a hugely beefy bloke named Merv. Good old Norm and Merv, stars of the Kings Cross Vice Squad!

It really hurt that I didn’t dare tell this story to the family.

As I haven’t met Klaus yet, let alone started to learn to cook, I cheated and imported all these delicious foods from my favourite delicatessen. But they didn’t like any of it, from the macaroni salad to the dolmades and the shaved ham. I’d bought this divine orange liquer gateau for pudding, skinny layers of cake separated by thick layers of aromatic butter cream. They just picked at it. Oh, well. I daresay steak-and-chips followed by Spotted Dick and custard or ice-cream with choccy syrup are what they dream of when their tummies rumble in the middle of the night.

They walked around like cats in a strange place they’ve made up their mind not to like. The Bros pushed through the bead curtain to inspect my bedroom a bit bashfully, but Mum and Dad ignored it, and Granny was too obsessed with the fact that she needed to pee every thirty minutes. Poor Mum had to keep taking her outside and down to the laundry because my blue-birded toilet is too high for Granny to get up on by herself. I apologised for the state of the toilet and bathroom, explained that when I had the time I was going to do everything out in bicycle enamel so it would look absolutely spiffy. Cobalt blue, white and a scarlet bathtub, I rattled feverishly. Most of the conversation fell to me.

When I asked if anyone had seen Merle, Mum told me that she was convinced I didn’t want to have anything to do with her now I had moved. She wouldn’t believe that Queens refused to let its staff take personal phone calls. Mum spoke in the gentle tones mothers use when they think their children are going to be bitterly disappointed, but I just shrugged. Goodbye, Merle.

They had more news about David than about Merle, though he hadn’t visited them—didn’t dare, was my guess, until that wacko shiner I’d given him faded.

“He’s got a new girl,” Mum remarked casually.

“I hope she’s a Catholic,” I remarked casually.

“Yes, she is. And she’s all of seventeen.”

“That fits,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. No more David Murchison! He’s found a new bit of female clay to mould.

After I’d cleared the uneaten gateau away and made a pot of tea, Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz and Flo materialised. Oh, dear. The family didn’t know what to make of them! One didn’t talk, the other’s grammar wasn’t the best, and the most that could be said for their unironed dresses was that they were clean. Flo, barefoot as always, was clad in the usual snuff-brown pinny, while her mother sported orange daisies on a bright mauve background.