Gerald Kersh - Prelude To A Certain Midnight

Instead of falling you are flying.

The memory of that bit of burnt paper, coming back into Asta’s mind in that brief dream, made her laugh. She did not laugh as one laughs heartily at a good joke. She did not laugh at the end of her teeth in anger or in scorn. She laughed, in her little sleep, as a child laughs when you show it the solution to an exceptionally mystifying yet simple trick.

The sound of this laugh awoke her. She felt a great deal better. Mrs Kipling, who had an eye on the heel-taps in the bottles and the dregs of the glasses, was loitering about the place with a hypocritical air of anxiety to be of service to her mistress.

‘Kipling, put out all the lights and go to bed,’ said Asta, going upstairs.

After two or three great clumping strides she remembered that her sister Tot had gone to bed and was probably asleep; so she took off her shoes, went on her way cautiously, and at last got to bed with as little noise as she was capable of making.

Then Mrs Kipling and The Tiger Fitzpatrick slunk out to talk of old times over what the guests had left of the liquor.

40

Asta was awake, as usual, by seven o’clock in the morning, but she made less noise than usual while she dressed. She was almost tone-deaf, yet she sang Russian drinking songs in her bath when she was alone in the house. But she would not for any consideration disturb the dangerous old lady whom she described as her little sister’. After a silent, unsatisfactory bath, she got into her loose tweed suit, knotted about her bullock-throat a yellowdotted tie, and went (quietly for her) down to breakfast.

She was astonished to find Thea Olivia downstairs before her, dressed in a becoming garment of pink and grey, and seated in a Queen Anne chair with a high back. Mrs Kipling was dancing attendance, as she always did when Thea Olivia paid a visit.

‘What are you doing up so early, Tot?’ said Asta.

‘Good morning, Asta dear.’

‘Good morning. What are you doing up so early? What’s the matter with you? Couldn’t you sleep? Since when did you get out of bed before nine o’clock?’

Thea Olivia said: ‘Dear Asta!’

‘Look at her! Bags under her eyes!’ said Asta. ‘What happened? I know. That idiot Kipling. If I’ve told her once I’ve told her a thousand times to give you a hot-water bottle. Two bottles. I didn’t have time to see to it myself. I know, I know you, I know you to the heart and soul, Tot — you’d suffer on the rack rather than complain, but I know. Kipling!’

‘No, please. Everything was just as it should be, Asta dear, I assure you.’

‘What are you so angry about? I was only asking. I’ve never known you to be visible before nine or ten o’clock before.’

‘I think your party excited me.’

‘All the better. You need exciting, Tot. You know,’ said Asta, half defiantly, ‘you know I live my own kind of life here. Breakfast is breakfast. What are you going to have? Kidneys? Bacon? Eggs? Kippers? Finnon haddie? Say the word. Have an egg and haddock.’

Thea Olivia, to Asta’s astonishment, said: ‘I only want a cup of tea.’

For the first time in living memory Asta Thundersley was quiet at the breakfast table. She was marvelling at her sister’s presence; and her sister was amazed at her silence.

They looked at each other. There was suspicion on both sides. Asta was full of a desire to slap her sister on the back, take hold of her with her enormous red hands, pick her up and swing her round and whirl her off her feet. Asta wanted to make conversation, to talk about people.

‘What did you think of the party?’ she asked. ‘It struck me as being a complete failure. Didn’t it you?’

‘Do you mean as a party?’

‘Yes, Tot darling, as a party. As anything. A failure. Socially or otherwise - not a success How did it strike you? Be honest. D’you know what? Before I went to bed I found Pink asleep on the floor — fast asleep on the floor. I’ve often wondered whether that man was one of God’s holy innocents or just another common drunk. What’s your impression, Tot darling?’

‘Mr Pink. That’s the little gentleman who keeps talking about God, isn’t it? Well, I don’t think he’s just a common drunk. I think he’s a good sort of man, don’t you?’

‘Look here, Tot, I insist on your having at least an egg. Come now, a lightly-boiled egg in a cup. Then you can put little bits of bread into it like you used to.’

‘I couldn’t face an egg,’ said Thea Olivia, almost in agony. ‘I only want … I’ll have some toast, some toast and some marmalade; some of that dark brown marmalade. On the whole, Asta, I think it was a very good party.’

‘You seemed to make quite a hit.’

‘No, you don’t really mean that? I didn’t do a thing. I just kept still. Who were all those young men that kept talking to me?’

‘Why, Tot darling, everybody was talking to you all the time. Which young men do you mean? There was young Hemmeridge, and there was Mothmar Acord. There was —’

‘That young man in the grey suit.’

‘Oh, you mean Tobit Osbert.’

‘The one that got so drunk.’

‘They were all drunk, Tot my sweet. And lots of them were wearing grey suits. You mean Tobit Osbert, do you? Why, I do believe you’ve fallen in love with him. Now what on earth for? You’re old enough to be his mother.’

‘Oh dear Asta, my dear Asta — can’t I just make ordinary conversation without your assuming all kinds of things? Tobit Osbert, that’s the man. He promised to get in touch with me about … a book I wanted to borrow. There’s a book he has, and he said he’d lend it to me.’

‘What sort of book?’

‘A book about the Crusaders.’

‘I’ve got his address somewhere in my little black book,’ said Asta, referring to her address book. ‘I’ll get it for you later. Or do you want it now?’

‘Oh no, not now. Any time will do.’

After breakfast Asta remembered that she had an appointment with a certain Mr Partridge, who was telling her something about a scandal concerning the adoption of illegitimate children. She went out at nine o’clock. As soon as the door had slammed behind Asta, and the sound of her big, heavy-heeled feet had ceased to ring and snap between the front door and the end of the street, Thea Olivia went to the long, old-fashioned, untidy walnut desk in the room described as ‘the study’, and looked for a black book. She found several. One of them was like a digest of Who’s Who ; another resembled the note-book of somebody who has had to study Whitaker’s Almanack . A third contained some queer record of letters that had been sent to a Secretary of State. The fourth was full of addresses and telephone numbers. The numbers were written down, together with the exchanges, tolerably clearly. But the names were represented generally by initial letters, so that Thea Olivia had to apologize to Theodore Oxford, Ted Oliver, Timothy Ogden, Timothy O’Brien, and Tudor Owen, before she got an ‘I’ll see if he’s in’ from a woman who sounded like a landlady. Then she heard feet coming down creaking stairs, and her heart thumped as a gentle voice said:

‘Tobit Osbert speaking. Who is that, please?’

‘This is Miss Thea Olivia Thundersley. I hope you will excuse me for disturbing you so early, but I wanted — if it’s perfectly convenient — to have a word with you. It’s rather urgent. I’d be so glad if we could meet fairly soon. Can we?’

‘Why, whenever you like, of course. Where shall we meet? At the — I was going to say at the Savoy, but it’s always so full of a certain sort of… you know what I mean? Shall I come along to your place?’

‘No, I think it might be better if I came to yours. May I?’