Читать книгу Clouds among the Stars - Victoria Clayton - Страница 12

‘That’s a new photographer, isn’t it?’ said Cordelia, three days later, lifting swollen eyelids to look into the street. She was sitting cross-legged on the window seat in the drawing room, with a box of paper handkerchiefs at her elbow, reading her favourite bit in Little Women where Beth March almost dies of scarlet fever. She had Good Wives beside her with a marker at the page where Beth finally joins the choir invisible.

Idly I strolled over to have a look. We were all extremely bored with our lives. It was difficult to be purposeful with a cohort of reporters dogging our steps and quite impossible to think expansively, confronted as we were at every turn by insuperable problems. Cordelia and I had been to the cinema the evening before to see Robert Mitchum in The Big Sleep but it had been hard to lose ourselves in the story while the press chortled at the seduction scenes, rustled bags of Butterkist and blew so much cigarette smoke over us that our hair and clothes reeked like the snug at The Green Dragon.

Bron was the only one of us who did not mind having his photograph taken whenever he bought a bar of soap or went to collect his dry-cleaning. But, to his annoyance, photographs of him never appeared in the newspapers. Not a word of the interview he had given had been printed. We no longer merited headlines. Instead, articles about our clothes and our hairstyles and whether we were looking pale and haunted (Bron) or aristocratic and forlorn (Ophelia) or sparky and irrepressible (Cordelia) appeared in the society gossip columns, a whispering that continued to fan the flames of notoriety. According to the Clarion, Ophelia was suing Crispin for breach of promise and Bron was out on bail, paid by a female member of the royal family whose playmate he had been until scandal touched him.

Because she had not set foot outside the house since her return from Surrey three days ago, the wildest conjectures were made about Portia. The Clarion revealed that she had signed a lucrative contract to star en travestie as Mozart in a new play called Amadeus. The People’s Exclusive had it from a reliable source that she had been the mistress, successively, of Prince Rainier, Lord Snowdon and Ziggy Stardust. The Herald insisted that she was due to fly out to join Lord Lucan, who had taken refuge in a Nazi colony in Tierra del Fuego.

Probably it was my lack of resemblance to my brother and sisters that fuelled the rumours circulated by The Daily Examiner that I was the lovechild of my father and Maria Callas. I have to admit that I was pleased to be described as svelte and enigmatic.

Portia joined us at the window. Her bruises were beginning to turn yellow and the swellings to go down, but the broken tooth was startlingly incongruous with her beautiful face. She had not been able to bring herself to confront the outside world in order to visit the dentist. Her sleep had been so troubled by nightmares that she had moved to a camp bed in my room. She refused to say a word more about her experiences and had made me promise not to tell the others. She insisted she was nearly over it but I was worried about her. She glanced indifferently in the direction of Cordelia’s pointing finger and then ducked down beneath the sill.

‘It’s one of Dimitri’s bodyguards!’ She clutched my ankle. ‘Not Chico, the other one! I think his name was Dex.’

‘Are you sure?’ The man, who was leaning against the lamppost, rolling a cigarette, looked quite ordinary. ‘I can’t see, Cordelia, if you’re going to put your head there.’

‘Would I say so if I weren’t sure? You think I’m having hallucinations? Or going mad, perhaps?’ Portia was extremely snappy these days, which was unlike her. ‘He’s got a birthmark on his cheek. I can hardly make a mistake about that, I suppose.’

‘Some people think it’s rude to push,’ said Cordelia bitingly.

‘Well, I can’t see one.’ I was studying the man’s profile as he fiddled about with a box of matches. ‘He’s so undistinguished, I bet thousands of people look just like –’ I broke off as the man turned his head to stare up at the house and I saw a dark red mark running from temple to chin. ‘Oh. Oh dear. It’s Dex, all right. But what can he want?’

‘I expect he wants Maria-Alba’s recipe for minestrone. Honestly, Harriet, you seem to be particularly stupid at the moment. Of course he’s looking for me.’

‘Poor man! I think it’s very sad,’ said Cordelia. ‘Imagine having people stare at you all the time. There’s a girl at school –’ Cordelia stopped speaking and begun to hum.

I was well aware that Cordelia had been deliberately avoiding all mention of school because she was afraid someone would insist on her going back.

I stared down at Portia. ‘Why?’ Portia had turned round so she could sit on the floor, out of sight. She shrugged her shoulders and spread her hands wide in a gesture of bafflement. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it,’ I went on, ‘but I’ve been wondering – how did you meet Dimitri?’

‘Bron introduced us. He suggested we went down to The Green Dragon for a drink. He pointed Dimitri out the minute we got in there and said he was incredibly rich.’ Portia went faintly pink. ‘I thought at the time it was something of a set-up. Bron shuffled off the minute Dimitri started talking to me.’

I was silent for a moment. An unpleasant idea had at once presented itself. This might be the explanation for Bron’s new-found riches. No doubt selling one’s sister was a time-honoured method of raising the wind in many parts of the world but I was incensed with my own brother for doing it. ‘The low-down louse!’ I said aloud.

‘That’s putting it mildly, I think.’ Portia thought I was referring to Dimitri and I didn’t bother to enlighten her. ‘What’s Dex doing now?’

‘He’s talking to one of the reporters.’ Cordelia kneeled on the window seat to get a better view. ‘He’s looking very bad-tempered. I expect it’s his birthmark that makes him grumpy. If he was a girl he could wear his hair across his face like Veronica Lake in I Married a Witch. You remember, the one which starts off with a thunderstorm and the lightning strikes the tree Veronica Lake’s buried under. She and her father, who’s also a witch – or would that be a wizard? – were burnt by the Puritans two hundred years ago and the two witches come out as puffs of smoke –’

‘Oh, mercy!’ cried Portia. ‘Just tell me what’s happening, will you?’

‘He’s shaking his head. He’s looking at the house – he’s looking at me!’ Cordelia pulled her hair half across her face and began to pout. ‘Golly, he’s really staring at me. I wonder if I remind him of Veronica Lake? I love the bit when they’re going to be married and the woman keeps singing, “I love you truly” and he says, “Oh, shut up!”’ Cordelia began to giggle helplessly.

‘If you don’t want to be tied to a railway track and have your Veronica Lake locks cut off by the wheels of a passing express, you’d better shut up yourself.’ Portia put up her hand and got hold of Cordelia’s skirt. ‘Move over and let Harriet see.’

‘Don’t pull! He’s getting out a little book and writing something in it. Now he’s tearing out a page. He’s walking up the path – he’s coming up the steps!’ We heard the flap of the letter box clang and Dirk, who had been sleeping off his breakfast on the sofa, went from nought to sixty in one point eight seconds and was at the door attempting to remove the paint from the panels with his front paws. ‘I’ll get it. You beast, Portia, you’ve torn my skirt. I hope it’s a love letter. Or a poem. I shan’t mind about the birthmark. I wish he was a bit more swave, though.’

She ran off, ignoring Portia’s unkind laughter. She returned, frowning over the note. Written in crooked capitals, bunched together like a cipher was the legend, ‘GIVEUSTHECLOBERANDWELLEVEYOUALONE OTHERWIZYOULBESORYYOUWAZBORN.’

Cordelia looked disappointed. ‘It’s not a very good letter. I expect he was an orphan and was made to work in a blacking factory instead of going to sch – O-ho, a-ha … What’s a clober?’

We puzzled briefly over this until the general absence of double consonants suggested ‘clobber’. Bron came in at that moment, wearing only a towelling robe. His hair was wet and sleeked back from his noble brow. He looked every inch a splendid specimen of modern manhood.

‘Hello, Portia. Your face is turning quite a fetching shade of gold, like Tutankhamun’s mask. But whatever you do, don’t grin. That tooth really spoils the effect.’

Now I thought about it, I realised that Portia had not smiled once since her return. Bron wandered to the window, pointedly ignoring me, but I was too angry with him to be hurt.

‘Cordelia,’ he went on, ‘be a good girl and ask Maria-Alba to make me a chicken sandwich. I’ve got a date with a girl whose father owns a merchant bank. Just the thought of all that tin is making me hungry. Hello, what’s that bloke doing out there?’ He stabbed a finger at the pane. ‘Geezer who sold me the coat. Fellow with the birthmark. I paid the first instalment in cash so there can’t be anything wrong about it. He’s lowering the superior tone set by the gentlemen of the press. I’ll tell him to go away.’

‘No, don’t do that,’ we girls cried in unison as Bron made to throw up the sash.

‘It must be Bron’s coat he’s after,’ cried Cordelia. ‘I’ll run and fetch it, shall I?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Bron took hold of Cordelia’s arm. ‘Keep your mitts off my gear.’

‘But Dex wants it. He’s going to make us sorry we were born if we don’t give it to him,’ Cordelia explained. ‘You’re pulling my jersey.’

‘One step further and I’ll pull your head off. You don’t mean to say that you’re actually considering handing that ape my beautiful new coat?’

‘Read this.’ Portia gave him the note.

Bron turned it sideways and upside down before finally interpreting the crude capitals. ‘Go and get it,’ he instructed Cordelia. ‘Chop, chop!’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Portia, crawling across the floor towards the door. ‘I’m getting tired of this ventre à terre existence.’

Bron watched Portia’s progress with an air of puzzlement. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ he asked me, forgetting that I was in Coventry. Dirk was so enchanted to find a human face at his own level that he followed Portia into the hall, pawing at her bottom and barking loudly into her ear.

‘Thanks to you, pretty well everything.’ I regretted breaking my promise to Portia but I was so furious with Bron that I found it impossible to keep silent any longer. ‘How much money did that brute Dimitri give you for an introduction to Portia? You ought to be ashamed, Bron! Selling your own sister to a gangster! She might have been killed! As it is, she may never get over what he did to her. How could you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Bron put on his injured expression, to which I was only too well accustomed.

‘Where did you get that money I’ve seen you flashing about recently? Dimitri gave it to you, didn’t he? Portia told me you set the whole thing up. He raped her several times at gunpoint and kept her prisoner in his house. She had to let some other thug make love to her in order to get away. That man you got the coat from is one of Dimitri’s gang. You absolute bastard, Bron!’ I was shouting now. All the anxiety I had been feeling on Portia’s behalf poured out as uncontrolled anger and Bron, for once, looked abashed.

‘Is it true? You’re not having me on?’ Seeing my face he went on, ‘All right! No need to scream at me! Naturally, I had no idea he was going to do that. I just thought there’d be something in it for Portia. You must admit she’s never been exactly fussy about who she takes into her bed. Dimitri said he’d seen Portia several times in The Green Dragon and was crazy to meet her. It seemed harmless enough. Of course I’m sorry if he hurt her. But I didn’t take a penny from him, I swear.’

‘Where did you get that money then? I don’t believe you. I know what a liar you are!’

‘I don’t see why I should keep you informed of my pecuniary dealings.’

‘I’m going to the police. I ought to have done it days ago.’ I was halfway to the door when he called me back.

‘All right, Goody Two-shoes. But you won’t like it. I got the money from Derek’s last owner. He was mad keen to find him a good home. He said if I’d take the dog he’d give me a hundred pounds. Apparently his wife was kicking up hell because Derek barked all night and stopped the baby sleeping and she told him not to come home until he’d got rid of him. The poor bloke was desperate. He said he couldn’t reconcile it with his conscience to abandon Derek in the streets because he’d grown fond of him. But the missus was threatening divorce. Well, it seemed to me we’d all benefit. He’d be restored to domestic bliss, you’d have the dog you’ve always wanted and I’d have a hundred pounds. What are you doing? Don’t mess up my hair! I’ve just combed it the way I want it to dry. Look, Harriet, remember men don’t like girls who throw themselves at their heads.’

‘I’m just so thankful!’ I was halfway between laughing and crying. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you being a – procurer.’

‘Pimp is the mot juste, I fancy.’ Bron waggled a finger at me. ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Harriet, not to jump to conclusions. You’ve got a nasty censorious nature. Were you really going to tell Plod all my evil doings?’

I shook my head. ‘Not really. I wanted you to tell me the truth. Dear Bron, let’s make it up. I’m sick of quarrelling. I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me?’

‘What are you forgiving me for, exactly –’ Bron broke off as something dark and voluminous dropped past the window. He pushed up the sash and put out his head. ‘There goes my wonderful coat. Straight into a dustbin.’

We heard Cordelia’s voice from the upstairs window, yelling, ‘It’s yours. Take it and go away! If you wouldn’t mind!’ she added as an afterthought.

‘What a shame. I’m so sorry. But if you bought it from Dex, it was probably stolen.’

‘So? I didn’t steal it. Damn it, look at those reporters!’

The press were jostling each other to get down the area steps. There was an ugly scene as they fought for possession of the coat. Instead of joining the scrum Dex was back at the lamppost, rolling another cigarette.

‘I don’t get it. Why isn’t Dex interested?’

‘Presumably, though you girls were so eager to fling my raiment to the wolves, it is not the clobber referred to in the note.’

‘But what …?’ Light dawned. ‘It must be Chico’s clothes he’s after.’

‘Where are they?’

‘I gave them to Maria-Alba to give to Loveday to burn in his incinerator.’

‘You muff!’ Portia was standing in the doorway, her expression alarmed. ‘You absolute fathead!’

‘I’m sorry. I just hated having the nasty smelly things around reminding – me.’

‘Let it be a lesson to you to stop bloody tidying up! Now we’re going to be made sorry we were born and I can tell you, in my case, it won’t take much.’ Portia put her head in her hands.

‘That does it! I’m ringing Inspector Foy.’ I went into the hall and picked up the receiver. It seemed like weeks until I was finally put through.

‘Hello, Harriet. How are you getting along?’ I felt comforted at once by the jolly uncle manner. I launched immediately into the tale. ‘What was there about the garments in question to justify a threat like that?’ he asked when I had told him everything I knew. All the avuncular cheer had gone out of his voice.

‘I don’t know. Nothing as far as I could see. The jacket was leather but it was worn and the collar was filthy. And the jeans were just ordinary.’

The inspector made his characteristic pom-pomming noise. Then he said, ‘Stay indoors and don’t let anyone in. I’ll be an hour at the most.’

He was as good as his word. I happened to be standing at the window as his car drew up. Though it was his usual plain black, unmarked saloon, Dex took one look at it and melted into the ether.

‘Now, Miss Byng.’ The inspector looked at Portia. ‘You’d have done yourself and us a favour if you’d come along straight away and told us all about it. We’d have had some evidence then.’

‘If you mean presenting myself knickerless on a table to be groped by a sadistic doctor in full view of a bevy of sniggering female police officers so that you can earn another pip, thank you, but no.’ Portia gave him a glare of defiance. ‘Nothing would persuade me.’

‘Well, I can understand that.’ Inspector Foy sat down, got out his pipe and lifted an eyebrow at me. I nodded. ‘I’ve always thought the victim of a rape gets a thoroughly raw deal. Not just the physical examination, though that’s bad enough, but all the questioning afterwards. Her past life raked up, counter-accusations from the defence, public humiliation – no, things are stacked against the victim from the start. And, naturally, when you’ve been through an ordeal like that, the last thing you want to do is talk about it with a lot of strangers who are bent on trying to prove you wrong. I agree, you’ve suffered enough already.’ Portia’s stern gaze softened fractionally. ‘If you’ll co-operate with me I’ll see your privacy’s protected. But I’d like you to help me put the culprit away.’ Portia looked noncommittal. ‘Do you recognise any of these men?’

He handed her a portfolio of photographs. She began to go through them. ‘No, no, no,’ sigh ‘no, no – wait a minute. My God! I think it’s him! I can’t be sure. I never saw him without sunglasses.’ Inspector Foy took out a pen and scribbled black circles over the eyes, then handed the photograph back. ‘It’s him. That’s Dimitri.’ Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth trembled but she continued to fix the inspector with a mutinous look that made me feel tremendously protective of her.

‘Well done, Portia – if I may call you that?’ There was a breezy kindness in his voice as he waved the stem of his pipe at her. Portia shrugged and quickly wiped the corner of one eye. ‘This fellow’s been on our books a long time. He’s done time for fraud, embezzlement and robbery. A couple of his chums are still inside for GBH. It’s likely he’s involved with drugs. The vice boys are very interested in him. Anyone else you recognise?’

‘Chico.’ She threw the photograph of a man with cheeks like cushions on to the floor. ‘And that’s the man who was lurking outside, ready to make us regret our birthdays.’ She held up a photograph of Dex.

‘The birthmark doesn’t look so bad, does it?’ Cordelia held her head on one side, considering.

‘I could get him straight away for loitering with intent. But I don’t want to warn off the big boys. Could you find the house again?’

‘I don’t think it was in Devon. It didn’t seem far enough away.’

The inspector pom-pommed a little.

‘It was near Oxshott,’ I said. ‘That’s Surrey, according to Ophelia. Oh, here she is.’

Ophelia came strolling into the drawing room, wearing her new fur-lined coat and a great deal of shimmering eye-shadow that made her eyes appear startlingly large. She looked extraordinarily lovely, even for her. Inspector Foy stood up politely. When she saw him she sighed. ‘I’ll be home late so don’t bolt the back door.’ She turned to go out again.

‘Just a minute, Miss Byng.’ The inspector spoke sharply. ‘There’s a man lurking who’s been making serious threats against your family. You’d better not go out.’

‘Why don’t you arrest him?’ Ophelia allowed her eyes to glide over the inspector’s face before training them on the fireplace in a bored way. ‘Isn’t that your job?’

‘I don’t plan to do that yet.’

‘Well, that’s your business.’ Ophelia lifted a brow. ‘Kindly mind it. I’m going out.’

The inspector moved between her and the door. I admired the way he managed to look bigger suddenly, like an animal when challenged, though he had no fur to fluff up or hackles to raise. ‘Don’t be a fool.’ It was quietly said, but with an undertone of contempt. ‘I don’t want to have to fish your body out of the river in a few hours’ time. It doesn’t take long for a water-logged corpse to swell to four times its usual size. They’re a great deal of trouble to get to the morgue.’

Ophelia stared at him as insolently as she could, which was plenty and then some, as Americans say. The inspector held her gaze with one equally forceful.

‘Life is rapidly becoming a dead bore.’ She took off her coat and let it drop to the floor. She walked slowly from the room and I heard her going upstairs.

If the inspector felt victorious he had the grace not to show it. ‘If Chico’s clothes weren’t worth anything then there was something in the pockets, or perhaps the lining, that was. Can I have a word with your gardener?’

‘I’ll go and get him,’ said Portia.

‘I don’t think Loveday’s the easiest person to question,’ I said apologetically, aware as never before that our family must be quite infuriating to the methodical mind. ‘He’s rather – odd.’

‘We see all sorts in this job.’ The inspector was helping his pipe to draw by placing his matchbox on the bowl. I was becoming familiar with the habits and mannerisms of pipe-smokers. I was convinced now it was all a distraction so he could control the tempo of any conversation. ‘From genius to madman and everything in between.’ He got out his notebook and a Biro.

‘Have you seen the film Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?’ asked Cordelia eagerly. ‘It’s about a man who’s both. This scientist invents a potion that makes him grow hideous and sinful and go out killing people. He’s good, you see, but his other self is as wicked as can be. It’s absolutely terrifying – particularly the bit when you see this horrible hairy hand come creeping round the door and she’s brushing her hair in front of the mirror and she sees it and tries to scream only she can’t get any sound out –’ Cordelia paused for breath – ‘but I expect being a policeman, nothing scares you.’

‘Don’t you believe it!’ Inspector Foy laughed. ‘The man who tells you nothing frightens him is whistling in the dark. Besides, fear is not necessarily bad. It may guard you from harm. And I suspect that fear of being caught, punished and disgraced keeps many more of us from committing crimes than does the voice of conscience –’

The arrival of Loveday interrupted this philosophical discourse. He was a small man with a large pointed nose and small eyes, rather ratty-looking, in fact. He had been giving the maze one last trim before the onset of winter so his hair and his clothes were sprinkled with leaves. His eyes gleamed cunningly against his speckled green skin in a way that made me think of those sinister wild men in medieval literature, forces of Nature and all that sort of thing.

‘Thank you for coming to see me, Mr Loveday. I’m Chief Inspector Foy of –’

‘I know who ye are. I seen it all writ in the clouds, se’en nights ago.’ Though Loveday had been born and bred in East Hackney, he had a strange Loamshire accent that suggested a childhood on a heather-tufted moor or a sheep-bitten crag.

‘Oh.’ The inspector smiled, so far undeterred. ‘Well, Mr Loveday, I believe Miss Byng gave you some clothes to burn.’

‘Ah ha. Cloth made fro’ devil’s dust, spun into threads on Queen Mab’s wheel.’

‘Well – perhaps.’ The inspector blew noisily down the stem of his pipe. ‘Did you do so?’

‘No, milord.’

The inspector forgot to puff and suck, and leaned forward on his chair. ‘Where are they?’

‘Twas the flames that burned them. I am but a mortal man. I cannot combust.’

‘So they are destroyed?’ The inspector could not hide his disappointment.

‘Tha’s a deep question, milord. Who knows where things go that are consumed by fire? Mayhap they become smoke-imps that ride the backs o’ will-o’-the-wisps to mislead travellers in the dark. There’s only one can answer that.’

The inspector frowned, and I sensed that Loveday’s particular brand of whimsy was beginning to pall. ‘Who?’

‘’Tis the man in the moon with a dog at his feet and sticks on his back.’

‘Right. Well, thank you, Mr Loveday, that’ll be all for the moment.’

Loveday went back to his maze, leaving a trail of leaves across the carpet. The inspector put away his notebook, humming tunefully and spent some time examining the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. When he spoke again it was to ask me how I thought my father was bearing up in prison. The inspector was very kind and assured me that being on remand was nothing like as bad as serving a sentence. I hoped this meant he thought it unlikely that my father would have to do so. I was afraid to ask him outright.

He waited with us until a police car delivered a uniformed bobby to stand in our front garden. PC Bird had round, grey, guileless eyes. A manifest sense of duty stiffened the large chin that braced the strap of his helmet. I noticed this at once for the events of the last few days had bread an increased sense of caution and mistrust in things generally, and in men in particular. I watched from the window as Loveday remonstrated angrily with him about treading on the emerging hellebores. This was sheer bloody-mindedness on Loveday’s part, for the journalists had long since crushed every living thing to stalks and mud resembling a small-scale Passchendaele.

It was about then that things – already, I had thought, about as bad as they could possibly get – got suddenly worse. We were told by Inspector Foy that we should limit our excursions into the outside world. If we really had to go out, it should be during the hours of daylight and only to public places where there were plenty of people about. We had to inform the policeman on guard of our destination and appoint an hour for our return. Having to log in and out was curiously discouraging to enjoyment, and anyway, it was difficult to have a good time when we were jumpy and suspicious of every stranger. We all began to behave as though we were characters in Wuthering Heights, digging up old scores, seeing slights where there were none, and generally doing a good deal of brooding, sulking and scowling.

Absolutely the worst thing of all – apart from Pa being in prison, that is – was the disappearance of Mark Antony. He had become quite a favourite with the, by now, very bored reporters. So when, one rainy night, he did not return from his evening session at stool I went out to ask the last stragglers if they had seen him. They told me that the fellow with the birthmark had put in a brief reappearance an hour earlier with a ‘dish of scraps for the kitty’. It had struck them as odd at the time for he had not seemed the sort of person to be fond of animals and, anyway, it was apparent from the size of Mark Antony’s girth that he was already well catered for.

I spoke urgently to the policeman on duty, not our nice PC Bird but the grumpiest of the three who took it in turns to prevent us being made sorry we had been born. He had noticed the man but assumed he was a crank. When I rang Inspector Foy he was sympathetic but regretted that resources would not permit him to send out a police car to search for Mark Antony.

I had recently failed my driving test for the fourth time for being insufficiently in control of the vehicle but this did not prevent me from taking out Bron’s car illegally, with only Cordelia as passenger, and combing the streets of Blackheath. After an hour of hopeless searching we were both crying so much that I failed to see a bollard and we had to drive away hastily, leaving confirmatory evidence of the justice of the last examiner’s pithily worded strictures.

After this, life looked as black as could be and I think it was this that prevented me from seeing what was happening to Maria-Alba. At first I thought her extreme volatility was due to distress at the disappearance of Mark Antony, of whom she was very fond. But when she started seeing the Virgin Mary on the basement stairs and having long hectoring conversations with her about the rights and wrongs of the Catholic Church, I became seriously worried. The others were no help at all in this latest crisis.

To while away the hours of their incarceration Bron and Ophelia played Honeymoon Bridge in the drawing room for enormous if imaginary stakes. Portia spent all her time in her room, reading things like Swallows and Amazons and The Magic Pudding, chosen, she explained because she could be certain there would be no sex scenes, as she could not bear the idea of even the chastest kiss. Cordelia and I occupied the dining room where we were constructing a cat-sized four-poster bed for Mark Antony to sleep in when he came home. This was to distract Cordelia from her first plan, to keep a candle burning in every window of the house. I was certain this plan would result in him having no home to return to. Secretly I was convinced that he would not come back and whenever I thought of what might have happened to him I felt miserably sick, and scowled and brooded and sulked as much as anyone.

I was just stitching some gold braid to the delicious blue velvet we had found for Mark Antony’s curtains when I heard screams of rage coming from the basement. I ran down to discover Maria-Alba beating the stair carpet with the soup ladle, so violently that the handle broke and the bowl flew off, hitting me painfully on the shin.

‘Diavolo! Diavolo!’ she howled, almost incoherent with angry weeping. When Cordelia appeared at the top of the stairs, her golden locks illuminated by the hall chandelier, Maria-Alba fell on her knees and implored il Spirito Santo to be merciful.

Reluctantly I rang her doctor. He was out, and by the time he called back, a few hours later, Maria-Alba was her old self again, exhausted but perfectly rational. But the next afternoon, at about the same time, Maria-Alba was on her knees before the washing machine, weeping and begging it to forgive her for strangling Father Alwyn. I tried to reason with her but she was convinced I had come to arrest her. When PC Bird, who was on duty that afternoon and with whom we had become friendly, came to the back door to thank her for the tea and to return his mug, she shrieked with terror. To my surprise he turned pale and put his hands over his ears. Considering what ghastly things police officers are required to witness it struck me that PC Bird was going to have to toughen up. I went to call Maria-Alba’s doctor.

I had to hang on for ages while the doctor’s receptionist rang round his various haunts. I returned to find PC Bird, glassy-eyed and gibbering, wandering about the kitchen declaring that he could see tiny faces of beautiful girls on the cupboard doors. I assured him they were just door knobs but when he began to clutch his head and moan that he was being blinded by brilliant stars exploding like fireworks, that were something ruddy marvellous but at the same time bloody awful, then I began to put two and two together.

By the time Inspector Foy and Sergeant Tweeter arrived, one of the reporters had joined us in the kitchen, exclaiming that everything in the world had turned a bright, beautiful yellow and that he was floating in the scent of lemons. This encouraged PC Bird to assure us earnestly that he was a lemon.

‘All right. So it’s some kind of hallucinogenic substance.’ Inspector Foy began to pick up bottles at random and sniff the contents. ‘Obviously taken unintentionally.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Four thirty. Who had cups of tea?’

‘Everyone except Cordelia and two of the reporters who bring flasks. I had a mug of tea and I feel fine. Oh, I know – of course! It’s the sugar! Maria-Alba always has three spoons. Only two of the reporters take sugar. And poor Dicky, I mean PC Bird – sorry, but everyone calls him that – has four.’

The inspector dipped his finger in the blue-and-white sugar jar and licked it. ‘Tastes all right to me but I’ll take it for analysis. I wonder, though …’ He got out his pipe while he was thinking but when he lit a match poor Dicky knuckled his eyes and whimpered that a big fiery dragon was coming to eat him up, so the inspector was forced to abandon it. ‘Look after that man,’ he instructed Sergeant Tweeter.

Dicky began to sob brokenly into Sergeant Tweeter’s tunic, which embarrassed its owner horribly. Meanwhile Maria-Alba was cradling the pieces of the broken ladle in her arms and singing it a lullaby, while the reporter, under the impression that the kitchen table was a large chocolate cake, was trying to eat it with a spoon.

The inspector sounded just a little rattled. ‘I can’t think with all this noise going on. Get that man into the car and wait for me. Calm him down. Sing him a nursery rhyme or something.’ Sergeant Tweeter’s ruby-coloured face darkened further and he dragged the poor sufferer away. ‘It’s something like LSD. That’s it. Sugar lumps!’ We opened every jar and box in the place until we found a large cache of lump sugar in an old biscuit tin.

‘We never usually have sugar in lumps,’ I said, puzzled. ‘Maria-Alba, shush a minute!’ I showed her the tin. ‘Where did you get them?’

Her expression grew solemn and wondering. ‘Diamanti! Scintillanti! Siamo ricchi!’

‘No, not diamonds – unfortunately. Sugar. Zucchero.’

‘Sì, sì. Jack! Jack!’

‘Jack who? We don’t know anyone called Jack.’

‘No, no, no!’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘Jack!’

Suddenly I got it. ‘I see! Not Jack but giacca! It means jacket. They must have been in Chico’s coat! We’ve been trying desperately to save money. She probably thought it would be wasteful to throw them away.’

‘If they’re all impregnated with LSD there must be a thousand pounds worth here,’ said the inspector. ‘Dex and his chums would be keen to recover them. Who else takes sugar in their tea?’

‘Not Ophelia – nor Portia – oh dear, Bron!’

The inspector picked up the biscuit tin. ‘You go and see to your brother. I’ll check on the other reporter. Come along with me,’ he addressed the one who was trying to eat the table. ‘We’ll see you safely home.’

The reporter looked at the inspector with astonishment. ‘Why, if it isn’t Rita Hayworth! Well, I never!’ he giggled. ‘I’ve always fancied you rotten.’

I ran up to see how Bron was. He was lying on the sofa in the drawing room, screeching with laughter.

‘I’ve never known him be so stupid.’ Ophelia was sitting at the table, building a house of cards. ‘I can’t get any sense out of him at all. I suppose he must be drunk but I do think he might have shared it round. He’s always so selfish. There!’ The construction collapsed with the last card. ‘I wish I knew what was funny. I’m bored to sobs.’

‘He’s on a trip. The sugar lumps in the tea had LSD in them.’

‘Really?’ Ophelia was interested for a moment. ‘How long will it last? Where did you get them from?’

‘Several hours, I should think. Maria-Alba found them in the pockets of Chico’s clothes.’

‘Who’s Chico?’

‘Oh dear, I’d forgotten. I promised Portia I wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘All right, don’t bother, then. I’m not really interested in her sordid pick-ups.’ Ophelia looked gloomy. ‘I’d better have a sugar lump, then. I could do with a laugh.’

‘The inspector’s taken them away. Anyway, it wouldn’t do you any good. Honestly, I think it’s dangerous. People jump out of windows thinking they can fly, and often they have a really horrible time.’

‘I may as well go to bed then, until he’s sobered up.’

‘You aren’t supposed to leave people alone when they’re on trips.’

‘I shall have a migraine if I have to listen to that noise.’

Dirk and I sat with Bron while he chortled and cackled and chuckled for hours without a break. I was glad for his sake that my brother seemed to have no inner demons, but whether this was good or bad for the rest of the world, I couldn’t make up my mind. Portia and Cordelia played draughts in Maria-Alba’s room while she slept deeply, having been given a sedative by her doctor. By evening we were all in a state of extreme lassitude. Bron finally stopped laughing and demanded supplies of wine, lemonade and throat lozenges, as he was painfully hoarse.

There was a general, plaintive call for food. I tried to poach some eggs but it was more difficult than I had imagined. A plate was piled high with failures – too hard, broken yolks, stringy whites like rubber bands – and I was heated with feelings of inadequacy and annoyance, when a row broke out at the front door. The bell rang repeatedly, the knocker banged violently and Dirk let the front door know what he thought of it in a succession of ear-splitting barks. All the journalists had gone home hours ago, no doubt to write lurid exposés of everyday life in a famous actor’s narcotics den. I went up to see.

On the doorstep were two figures of sinister appearance, disguised in swathes of clothing so as to conceal their features.

‘Cut along now!’ said the policeman who had replaced poor Dicky. ‘Let’s have no argy-bargy, madam, if you please. The family doesn’t want to be disturbed.’

‘Now, look here, my good man,’ said a male voice that was familiar. ‘This lady lives here and if you know what’s good for you you’ll let us in without delay.’

‘A likely story,’ said the PC, who seemed to have learned his lines from Dixon of Dock Green. ‘You reporters have plenty of cheek, I’ll give you that.’

‘But this is my daughter!’ said my mother’s voice from behind a veil. A gloved finger emerged from among the wraps to point at me. ‘Harriet, tell this blundering fool who I am!’