Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

‘This is a foxtrot,’ he said. ‘May I have this dance?’ and Phryne floated into his embrace.

‘How is Tom?’ she asked.

‘Drunk but affable. He was spouting family secrets like a geyser, wasn’t he? Does he do this often?’

‘No, I’ve never seen him like that before. You dance very well.’

‘So do you.’ Phryne saw Miss Mead seated by Mrs Fletcher. They looked amiably on. Even Mrs Fletcher seemed to have forgiven Lin Chung for being Chinese and charming, as her daughter Judith danced past with Gerry Randall. Jack Lucas had persuaded Mrs Reynolds to dance with him. They matched steps very well.

‘You heard what he said,’ Phryne reminded Lin. ‘Tom said he had no objection to a love affair between you and me going on under his roof.’

‘Even so,’ said the smooth voice. ‘He was not himself. There are other distractions, Silver Lady. Gerald is evidently overcome by your charms.’

‘He’s very pretty,’ said Phryne consideringly. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Not too much, I beg.’ He broke step and then regained his rhythm.

‘Oh? And are you intending to seduce the bouncing Miss Fletcher?’ Lin laughed, unabashed. ‘She said to me . . . she thinks . . .’

‘Tell me.’

‘She is under the impression that all Chinese men lust after white women. I had to find a way to disabuse her of this idea, while not telling her that to a Chinese she has hair like straw, round eyes like a demon, such eyes moreover the colour of a blind person or a devil, and lumps in all the wrong places.’

‘Poor girl.’

‘No, no, I was very polite.’ He brought Phryne neatly round a corner. ‘But you, Phryne, you are altogether different. If I had to explain your appeal I would have to say . . . I don’t know what I would say. That you have the carriage of a Manchu Princess, the black hair and the neat head, the red mouth of a courtesan of the first rank, yet you have eyes like precious jade. Such eyes were never seen in China. That is what they would call you, the poets who came to make songs of your beauty. Green Jade, the Silver Lady. You are wearing your Shanghai ring.’

‘The dragon and the phoenix, yes.’

‘In Western philosophy they call it the alchemical marriage. The White Queen and the Red King. Their mating engenders the philosopher’s stone.’

‘The Major’s wife wants to leave him,’ said Phryne, changing the subject. If Lin Chung was to be coaxed out of his chastity, it would not be done by allowing him to enthuse endlessly about her beauty.

‘Indeed? I can understand that.’

‘She has a lover. Someone in this house. Can you hazard a guess?’

Lin considered the Doctor, the poet, Tom Reynolds, Gerald Randall and Jack Lucas, and shrugged fluidly.

‘No, I cannot guess. Do you know?’

‘No. Do any other groupings suggest themselves? Perhaps we can cancel them out like an equation.’

‘What an immoral conversation,’ observed Lin, amused. ‘Let’s see, Miss Medenham and the poet, I think. They were in the library together, you said. I think they’d be a match. Tom Reynolds and his wife seem devoted. The Major . . . no. I don’t think any woman would find his bluster and bullying attractive.’

‘Miss Medenham seems to,’ said Phryne as the pair danced past, close together and talking.

‘True. An eccentric woman – I believe that novelists often are,’ said Lin. ‘Well, perhaps Miss Fletcher and Gerald. And maybe I am wrong about Miss Medenham – I think she fancies Jack Lucas.’

‘The woman fancies everyone. As you say, novelists. And Lucas is certainly good-looking. But very young.’

‘You prefer experience, perhaps?’ asked Lin, sliding a hand down the back of the velvet dress.

‘Infinitely,’ agreed Phryne, clasping his waist.

The gramophone whirled to a halt.

‘Check and mate,’ said the poet into the silence. ‘You are off your game, Doctor.’

‘Yes, Tadeusz, I don’t feel well. I think I’ll just sit here and play the gramophone.’ The spare figure reached out a long hand and picked up the next record. ‘Here’s a Charleston.’ He wound the machine up and placed the needle on the spinning wax platter.

‘There is something macabre about the gramophone,’ observed the poet. ‘It preserves the voices of the dead, as cherries are preserved in confiture.’

‘And are thus exalted,’ commented Phryne. ‘Jam is the highest state to which cherries can aspire. Good cherries become jam, and bad cherries become compost.’

The poet laughed.

‘Down on your heels, up on your toes, stay after school, learn how it goes, that’s the way to do the Varsity rag,’ sang the gramophone.

The Charleston was not a complicated dance. It merely required strong ankles and good balance. Phryne could dance the Charleston all night.

She found herself next to Gerald. Two steps forward, two steps back. He was singing along with the next record.

‘In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows, anything goes.’

‘The world’s mad today and good’s bad today and black’s white today and wrong’s right today and most guys today that women prize today are just silly gigolos,’ sang Phryne.

‘Although I’m not a great romancer I know that you’re bound to answer when I propose,’ sang Gerald, staring into Phryne’s eyes.

‘Anything goes,’ she replied. He really was a very pretty boy.

The Doctor, perhaps influenced by Mrs Reynolds’ silent disapproval of modern dancing, put on a waltz. Gerald bowed and said, ‘May I have this dance?’ and Phryne smiled.

‘Shouldn’t you be dancing with Miss Fletcher?’ she asked, moving closer to him. He was slim and smelt of port and the hand taking hers was smooth and strong.

‘She doesn’t waltz. In any case, I don’t belong to her,’ he said, his arm encircling Phryne’s waist. ‘I would much rather belong to you.’

To the sugary strains of ‘The Blue Danube’, Phryne waltzed with Gerald. Lin Chung was dancing with Mrs Reynolds. Jack Lucas had left the room. Letty Luttrell had presumably gone to bed. Judith was sitting next to the Doctor and leafing through the records. The poet had abandoned his surrealist principles and had led out Mrs Fletcher, and Miss Medenham was hanging on to the Major with grim determination.

‘What does Miss Medenham see in the Major?’ she asked idly, noticing that Gerald Randall was a very good dancer.

‘God knows. Though I believe that she used to know him in Melbourne. She’s rather marvellous, isn’t she – so vivid.’

‘Yes. You dance very well.’

‘Only with you. You’re as light as the feathers in your hair.’

Phryne smiled and noticed that her partner, who was leading, was moving them unobtrusively towards the door into the little parlour. As they passed under the carved Gothic lintel, the record wound to a close, but Gerald did not release his hold.

‘Beautiful Phryne,’ said the young man very softly. ‘Most beautiful lady.’

‘Exceptionally decorative Gerald,’ she replied.

‘Let me come to your room tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Last time, we were interrupted.’

‘So we were,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she temporised. ‘This is a strange gathering and I’m worried about what happened to Lina. I don’t know if I’m really in the mood, Gerald.’

‘I can change your mood,’ he said confidently.

‘Can you, indeed? Perhaps,’ she said. The music started again, a slow foxtrot, and Gerald gathered her close. There was little light in the small parlour, just a shaded pink lamp on one Victorian table. The bodies moved together, clung and slid, jade velvet against sable broadcloth.

Then they were no longer alone. Cynthia had manoeuvred the Major into the half-dark, her bright blond head leaning on his massive shoulder, and Gerald and Phryne slipped away, back into the general dance.