Читать книгу When in Rome - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 12

‘I must say,’ Lady Braceley murmured, ‘you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself very madly. I never saw such a glum face.’

‘I’m sorry, Auntie Sonia. I don’t mean to look glum. Honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful.’

‘Oh,’ she said, dismissing it, ‘grateful! I just hoped that we might have a nice, gay time together in Rome.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

‘You’re so—odd. Restless. And you don’t look at all well, either. What have you been doing with yourself?’

‘Nothing.’

‘On the tiles, I suppose.’

‘I’ll be all right. Really.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have pranced out of Perugia like that.’

‘I couldn’t have been more bored with Perugia. Students can be such an unutterable drag. And after Franky and I broke up—you know.’

‘All the same your parents or lawyers or the Lord Chancellor or whoever it is will probably be livid with me. For not ordering you back.’

‘Does it matter? And anyway—my parents! We know, with all respect to your horrible brother, darling, that the longer his boychild keeps out of his life the better he likes it.’

‘Kenneth—darling!’

‘As for Mummy—what’s the name of that dipso-bin she’s moved into? I keep forgetting.’

‘Kenneth!’

‘So come off it, angel. We’re not still in the ‘twenties, you know.’

They looked thoughtfully at each other.

His aunt said: ‘Were you a very bad lot in Perugia, Kenneth?’

‘No worse than a dozen others.’

‘What sort of lot? What did you do?’

‘Oh,’ Kenneth said, ‘this and that. Fun things.’ He became selfsuffused with charm. ‘You’re much too young to be told,’ he said. ‘What a fabulous dress. Did you get it from that amazing lady?’

‘Do you like it? Yes, I did. Astronomical.’

‘And looks it.’

His aunt eyed herself over. ‘It had better,’ she muttered.

‘Oh lord!’ Kenneth said discontentedly and dropped into a chair. ‘Sorry! It must be the weather or something.’

‘To tell you the truth I’m slightly edgy myself. Think of something delicious and outrageous we can do, darling. What is there?’

Kenneth had folded his hands across the lower half of his face like a yashmak. His large and melting brown eyes looked over the top at his aunt. There was a kind of fitful affectation in everything he did: he tried-on his mannerisms and discarded them as fretfully as his aunt tried-on her hats.

‘Sweetie,’ he said. ‘There is a thing.’

‘Well—what? I can’t hear you when you talk behind your fingers.’

He made a triangular hole with them and spoke through that. ‘I know a little man,’ he said.

‘What little man? Where?’

‘In Perugia and now here.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s rather a clever little man. Well, not so little, actually.’

‘Kenneth, don’t go on like that. It’s maddening: it’s infuriating.’ And then suddenly:

‘In Perugia. Did you—did you—smoke— ?’

‘There’s no need for the hushed tones, darling. You’ve been handed the usual nonsense, I see.’

‘Then you did?’

‘Of course,’ he said impatiently and, after a pause, changed his attitude. He clasped his hands round his knee and tilted his head on one side. ‘You’re so fabulous,’ he said. ‘I can tell you anything. As if you were my generation. Aren’t we wonderful? Both of us?’

‘Are we? Kenneth—what’s it like?’

‘Pot? Do you really want to know?’

‘I’m asking, aren’t I?’

‘Dire the first time and quite fun if you persevere. Kid-stuff really. All the fuss is about nothing.’

‘It’s done at—at parties, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, lovey. Want to try?’

‘It’s not habit-forming. Is it?’

‘Of course it’s not. It’s nothing. It’s OK as far as it goes. You don’t get hooked. Not on pot. You’d better meet my little man. Try a little trip. In point of fact I could arrange a fabulous trip. Madly groovy. You’d adore it. All sorts of gorgeous gents. Super exotic pad. The lot.’

She looked at him through her impossible lashes: a girl’s look that did a kind of injury to her face.

‘I might,’ she said.

‘Only thing—it’s top bracket for expense. All-time-high and worth it. One needs lots of lovely lolly and I haven’t—surprise, surprise—got a morsel.’

‘Kenneth!’

‘In fact if my rich aunt hadn’t invited me I would have been out on my little pink ear. Don’t pitch into me, I don’t think I can take it.’

They stared at each other. They were very much alike: two versions of the same disastrous image.

‘I understand you,’ Kenneth said. ‘You know that, don’t you? I’m a sponge, OK? But I’m not just a sponge. I give back something. Right?’ He waited for a moment and when she didn’t answer, shouted, ‘Don’t I? Don’t I?’

‘Be quiet. Yes. Yes, of course you do. Yes.’

‘We’re two of a kind, right?’

‘Yes. I said so, didn’t I. Never mind, darling. Look in my bag. I don’t know how much I’ve got.’

‘God, you’re wonderful! I—I’ll go out straight away. I—I’ll—I’ll get it—‘ his mouth twisted ’—fixed. We’ll have such a—what did that old burnt-out Egyptian bag call it?—or her boyfriend?—gaudy night?—won’t we?’

Her note-case shook in his hand. ‘There isn’t much here,’ he said.

‘Isn’t there?’ she said. ‘They’ll cash a cheque downstairs. I’ll write one. You’d better have something in hand.’

When he had gone she went into her bedroom, sat in front of her glass and examined the precarious mask she still presented to the world.

Kenneth, yawning and sweating, went in febrile search of Mr Sebastian Mailer.