Victoria Clayton - Clouds among the Stars

The car was an unmarked black saloon. Sergeant Tweeter drove, Inspector Foy sat next to him and Maria-Alba and I sat in the back. The inspector kept up a stream of small talk – the unseasonably mild weather, the effect of roadworks on traffic flow, the Lely exhibition, the new play by Harold Pinter, the latest novel by Günter Grass. No doubt my replies were lame but the effort required to make them was steadying. Sergeant Tweeter confined his remarks to the odd grunt of dissatisfaction with other people’s driving, and Maria-Alba sat in silence, looking stern. As chance would have it we drove round Parliament Square.

‘Bit of a row here today,’ said the inspector.

‘Really?’

‘Just some silly kids with nothing better to do than make a nuisance of themselves. But apparently they attacked an old woman. This sort of thing sends the press into overdrive. They’ll insist it’s proof of declining morality. There’ll be sentimental talk of the past when hardened East End villains paused in the act of shooting each other full of holes to help dear old ladies cross the road.’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course,’ I murmured.

‘But think what life was in the so-called good old days. A couple of world wars for a start. A hundred years ago children starved to death in the streets. Two hundred years ago dear old ladies were burned as witches. Plenty of things have changed for the better. In my job it’s all too easy to be cynical. But there’s a great deal of good in the world if you look for it.’

I understood that he was trying to keep my spirits up. In the half-darkness, coloured lights from shops and advertisements streamed across Maria-Alba’s face. It was shining with sweat. Searching for a handkerchief in my pocket, I found the remains of Yell’s cake, which Hank had given me. It was composed chiefly of golden syrup and had made a horrible mess of my coat. The stickness seemed to get worse the more I licked my fingers.

The police station was modern and anonymous. As we walked in I was assailed once more by the disorientation that had threatened all afternoon. Sound and vision were subtly distorted. People’s faces were crooked with bulging foreheads and noses out of proportion with their chins. Overhead neon strips made buzzing sounds, pulsating, now dim, now glaring, as though they were extraterrestrial beings attempting to communicate across light years.

We walked down corridors that swayed and jiggled like the elephants’ cakewalk at the funfair. I kept my eyes fastened on the nape of Inspector Foy’s neck. When he stopped and spoke to me his voice boomed and broke over my ears in waves.

‘He’s in here. We’ve made him as comfortable as we could.’ He was frowning at me. ‘Are you all right?’

‘ Sta bene .’ Maria-Alba’s voice was gruff. ‘ Senta, sputa .’ Her handkerchief appeared in my line of vision like a great white wing. ‘On the cheeks is what you eat in the car. Lo sa il cielo, chissà !’ I spat obediently and did not protest as Maria-Alba dabbed vigorously, hurting my cut cheek.

‘Here we are.’ Inspector Foy spoke with a hearty cheerfulness as though ushering his nieces into a box at the theatre for their annual pantomime treat.

My father was sitting at a table with a glass in his hand and a nearly empty bottle of red wine at his elbow. The room had originally been painted a harsh yellow. Now, up to shoulder height, it was dimmed by dirt and defaced by graffiti. The ugly plastic chairs, metal filing cabinets and printed notices were depressing. In this setting my father, with his beautiful, sensitive face and his dark hair, grown long for the part of Gloucester, looked like an exotic creature trapped in a down-at-heel circus. This was despite wearing a jacket and trousers that plainly did not belong to him. Not only were they too small but they were of a Terylene respectability that Pa would never have chosen. A policeman was standing to attention by the door, presumably in case my father decided to make a run for it. He was grinning all over his face for my father was in full flow.

‘So there she was, without a stitch on and holding this thing as though it was a bomb about to go off, when the lights went on and the duchess said – Ah, Harriet!’ He broke off as we were ushered in. ‘And Maria-Alba. My dears, this is truly heroic.’ He stood up and came from behind the table to kiss our hands and then our cheeks with the graceful ceremony of a Bourbon prince welcoming guests to his Neapolitan palazzo. ‘I was just telling the constable the story of Margot Bassington and the Prince of Wales’ cigar case.’

I was astonished to see him apparently in the best of spirits. A shiver ran down my back and into my knees, which was probably relief. I had been afraid this terrible shipwreck might have changed my father into someone unrecognisable. I wanted to put my arms round him but I saw at once that this would be inconsistent with the style in which he had chosen to play the episode.

‘We’ve brought you some things.’

‘Thank you, my darling. Ridiculous as it may seem, my clothes have been impounded. Of course they are covered in blood and naturally the blood is Basil’s. I do not wear clothes dabbled with gore, as a rule.’ He looked more closely at my begrimed appearance. ‘Your sympathy with the oppressed does you credit, Harriet, but is it absolutely necessary to take on their slipshod condition? Where is your mother?’

‘She’s … distressed. Lying down.’

‘Good, good. I should not like to see her against this – pedestrian background. And Ophelia? Have you met my eldest daughter, Inspector? One ought not to praise one’s own children, but she is remarkably beautiful. Very like her mother.’

‘Ophelia’s gone to bed.’ I could not keep a note of apology from my voice though I knew it would annoy him.

‘Of course, of course. The sensible thing.’ He frowned. ‘Is your brother with you?’

‘He had to go out.’

‘My son, Oberon,’ he addressed the inspector again, ‘is a fine actor. But sordid commercial considerations must prevail over beauty and truth.’ Beauty and Truth were our household gods and my father had a special face he put on when speaking of them, lifting his eyebrows and lengthening his upper lip. ‘As a suckling actor Oberon is obliged to turn his hand to toil of a more prosaic kind. He has a flourishing career in – ah – property.’

Bron, who had not had an acting job for more than a year, had been working for an estate agent but had been sacked only last week. An American to whom Bron had sold several miles of the River Thames for a gigantic sum had complained to the ombudsman when he discovered the sale was fraudulent. There was the threat of a court case.

‘Portia’s staying with friends,’ I said. ‘She probably doesn’t know what’s happened – otherwise she’d certainly be here.’

I knew I had put too much eager assurance into my voice. My father betrayed his displeasure by drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Then he shook back his hair and showed his excellent teeth in a smile in which good humour was mildly flavoured with regret. ‘I understand perfectly, Harriet. You need not prevaricate. You see, Inspector, my children have inherited a sensibility so acute we may even call it excessive. They do not wish to see their father in this painful predicament. They dislike unpleasantness, the dark passages in a man’s life, the sordid whys and wherefores of our mortality. They prefer to frisk and frolic in the sun, to banquet on felicity. It is a family weakness but is it not better to be thin-skinned than to be unfeeling? I confess I think so.’

Maria-Alba put his overnight bag on the chair with something of a thump. ‘Fortunate for you there is someone of the family without feelings. Or you have no toothbrush.’ She sat on a chair beside the constable, folded her cape around her though the room was stuffy, and closed her eyes.