Sarah Caudwell - The Shortest Way to Hades

“I don’t think,” I said, “that fudge and champagne mix well together, Julia.”

“No,” said Julia sadly, “no, they don’t. A realization of this came suddenly upon me, obliging me to make my way in some haste to the bathroom. The bathroom, however, proved unsatisfactory. It was in many respects an admirable bathroom — marble walls, gold taps, and a bath the size of a paddling pool. It did not, however, afford the privacy which was my objective. The bath, you see, was full of people — I can’t say exactly how many, since they were rather tangled up together.”

“How,” I asked, “did you resolve your difficulty?”

“I said I was terribly sorry and withdrew, not knowing what to do next. But fortunately I found Rowena just outside the bathroom door: she told me that there was another one en suite with Rupert’s bedroom, and offered to conduct me there. I accepted with alacrity, and in due course emerged feeling much better. Rowena had waited for me in the bedroom, intending — or so I supposed — to escort me back to the center of the social whirl. She showed no inclination, however, to leave the bedroom: she said there were some very interesting things in Rupert’s wardrobe and that if I liked she would show them to me. I could hardly say that I wasn’t interested, could I?”

To say so, I perceived, would have seemed to Julia a breach of the rules of polite conduct which had been impressed on her during her schooldays. I inquired the nature of the interesting objects.

“Sundry items of leatherwear, various whips and things, one or two pairs of handcuffs — I found it difficult to know what comment was appropriate: such phrases as ‘Oh, how nice’ didn’t seem entirely suitable. What Rowena, for some reason, expected chiefly to interest me were various items of clothing, apparendy intended for some kind of dressing-up game. There was a nurse’s uniform, I remember, and also a navy blue gymslip. Rowena giggled a good deal about the gymslip, and said that it was the costume that Rupert liked her best in. It featured, evidently, in some kind of fantasy in which he undertook the role of schoolmaster. She seemed very anxious that I should try it on. The idea, to be candid, did not greatly appeal to me — I did not think it at all a becoming garment. She grew so insistent, however, that I could not politely refuse.”

Ragwort, at this point, covered his eyes with his hand in a gesture of elegant despair.

“I had accordingly put on the gymslip, and was trying to persuade Rowena that it really did not at all suit me, when the disturbance occurred. But Selena is in a better position than I am to tell you about that.”

Selena, having concluded her dealings with her sole meunière, accepted the invitation to resume the narrative.

“The party had increased in informality, with the encouragement, I suppose, of the fudge, not to speak of various other substances being smoked or sniffed by our fellow guests. Scenes similar to that noticed by Julia in the bathroom were now occurring in various parts of the drawing-room, and Rupert had begun leaping about with a flashlight camera taking photographs of everyone. He frequently interrupted his artistic activities, however, to urge me to take my clothes off and enjoy myself — this made it very difficult for me to concentrate on Pride and Prejudice. Isn’t it curious how intolerant some people are of other people’s pleasures? Was I pestering Rupert to put his clothes on and read Jane Austen? No, I wasn’t. Was he prepared to show me a corresponding indulgence? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, he became quite peevish and aggrieved—‘If you and your girlfriend,’ he said ‘are just going to sit there and not do anything, I think it’s a pretty poor show.’”

“He was evidently under some misapprehension,” I remarked, “as to the nature of your friendship.”

“Evidently — as I say, he’s a rather unsophisticated sort of person. But even if we had been on such terms as he supposed, it would still have been frightful cheek to expect us to make a public demonstration of it. I began to feel, in spite of the champagne, that it was time we were leaving. I was still waiting, however, for Julia to return from the bathroom, when, as she says, there was a disturbance — people banging loudly on the front door and shouting for admittance. Their precise words being ‘Open up there, this is the police.’” Selena paused, and thoughtfully sipped her Frascati.

The words “Open up there, this is the police” tend to have a dampening effect on almost any social gathering. The initial response to them of Rupert’s guests had been a panic-stricken immobility, which held them frozen for several seconds in the attitudes in which the moment found them; then, disengaging with amazing rapidity from their various mutual entwinements, they had scrambled headlong for the doorway giving access to the roof, leaving their host to deal as he thought best with the unwelcome intrusion.

“Rupert,” said Selena, “failed notably to behave like a respectable householder whose home is his castle and who does not suppose himself to be living in a police state. The proper course of action for such a person, when the police demand entry, is to ask politely by what authority they do so and to take steps, before opening the door, to verify their answer. This sensible precaution has the further advantage of enabling the householder, should he happen to be dressed only in a pair of black leather bathing trunks, to change into some more orthodox costume before confronting the forces of law and order. Rupert, however, did not seem to think of this — the last of his guests had hardly disappeared from the drawing-room before he was opening his front door, with apologies for the delay, to admit his more recent visitors: two heavily bearded but quite personable young men, one tall, the other taller, wearing the distinctive uniform of the Metropolitan Police.”

Making vague reference to “information received,” they had proceeded to search the drawing-room. Rupert, green-gilled and glassy-eyed with apprehension, had offered no protest; Selena, not being present in a professional capacity, felt that it would be officious to volunteer any on his behalf. She ventured to suggest, when they took possession of the flashlight camera, that they would wish to give Rupert a receipt for it, and something was rather grudgingly scribbled on a page of one of their notebooks; otherwise her role was that of disinterested spectator. It was not until they gave signs of proposing to search the other rooms in the flat that she began to feel serious disquiet.

“I thought, you see, that if they went into the bathroom they would find Julia there, still perhaps feeling not quite well, and it might be upsetting for her.”

“As it happens,” said Julia, “I was no longer in the bathroom, but on the balcony of Rupert’s bedroom — Rowena had thought it the best place to go when the disturbance started. Something rather curious happened while we were out there — there was a snow shower. Not an ordinary snow shower, you understand, falling alike on the just and unjust, but one confined to the balcony and falling exclusively on Rowena and myself. At least, so it seemed at the time; on closer investigation, we found that what was falling on us was not snow at all, but a quantity of little twists and packets of paper. It appeared that those on the roof, thinking it inadvisable to remain in possession of whatever they had been sniffing and smoking and putting in the fudge, were attempting to dispose of the evidence; but they evidently didn’t realize that the balcony extended some distance further than the roof, so obstructing the free passage of their dejectamenta to the safe anonymity of the public highway. Selena, of course, didn’t know about this at the time.”