Роберт Эйкман - The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

‘You don’t say so?’ said Griselda sympathetically.

‘I expect you young ladies believe in being modern and up-to-date?’

‘You can tell at a glance,’ said Lena.

‘It’s the best thing. But Sir Travis, he never would see it.’

Outside the park, they found their way without particular difficulty to where they had left the rest of the party.

‘You’re good at it,’ said Griselda. ‘You must have what is known as a sense of direction.’

‘These little jaunts are symbolical,’ replied Lena. ‘Instead of leaving the organization to me, who, as you rightly say, am good at it, they will always leave it to Geoffrey, because they like him and because he’s no good at it at all, which saves them the anguish of envying him. Not that I greatly care,’ she added. ‘I really only come to watch.’

‘I’m not bad at finding the way myself, you know, Lena. Women often are better at things than men, aren’t they?’

‘Men have uses, all the same.’

Griselda said nothing; because at that moment the place where they had lunched came into view.

There was no sign of the party. Instead, a troop of Boy scouts were learning about the Arctic.

‘Was there anyone here when you arrived?’ asked Griselda. ‘Sitting on the grass?’

‘No one at all,’ replied the scoutmaster. ‘Only rather a lot of litter, I regret to say.’

A rustle went round the troop at Griselda’s good looks and Lena’s trousers.

‘Come to the pictures, miss,’ cried out one of the more precocious scouts.

So Griselda and Lena had to find their way back to London unattended; which they did with much pleasure. The day ended with Lena accompanying Griselda back to Greenwood Tree House for coffee and anchovies. It was after midnight when Lena departed, but there was still no sign of Peggy.

XXVI

Hugo Raunds was not in the Telephone Directory, and even in ‘Who’s Who’ he figured solely as his father’s heir, without even an address of his own. To Sir Travis were ascribed four different residences, one in each of the four kingdoms; but Griselda wrote to Sir Hugo at the one she knew. She asked simply if he had any knowledge of the possible whereabouts of a girl named Louise, whom she had met at Mrs Hatch’s house, Beams, had since lost touch with, and wished to meet again. ‘In the course of conversation she mentioned you several times; so I venture to trouble you.’

One day in the shop a pleasant young man made a really determined attempt to engage Griselda’s interest. Entering merely in order to enquire for a copy of The Last Days of Pompeii , he had not departed before, in Mr Tamburlane’s temporary absence, he had persuaded her to accompany him that evening to the Piccadilly Hotel for drinks.

‘We might dance somewhere afterwards.’

‘I don’t dance.’

‘Then we’ll go somewhere else and have some more drinks.’

It proved all too true. By the time they had migrated from the Piccadilly Hotel to Oddenino’s and from Oddenino’s to the Criterion and from the Criterion to the Bodega, Griselda had begun to feel faint.

‘Eat?’ said the young man. ‘Of course. Come back to my place and my girl will run us something up. She’s Italian, you know, or, more accurately, Sardinian.’

He was out of the Bodega (Griselda had felt faint between drinks) and into a taxi with such dexterity that Griselda could not escape without an absurd and embarrassing scene before the cynical eye of the taxi-driver.

‘By the way, my name’s Dennis Hooper. You’ve probably heard of me? I should have told you before.’

Griselda hadn’t. She said nothing. The motion of the taxi was suddenly making her feel really ill; and also there seemed a case for reticence.

He didn’t seem to mind that she hadn’t heard of him.

‘I bet your name’s Anne?’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Every single girl I meet’s called Anne these days. There’s a positive Anne epidemic.’

Griselda could for the moment do nothing but groan.

‘What’s your other name?’

Griselda clutched at a wisp of what she took to be worldly wisdom.

‘Musselwhite.’

‘So you’re Anne Musselwhite. One of the Brigade of Guards people?’

‘No.’

‘I say, would you rather have gone to Scott’s and had lobsters?’

‘No.’

‘Not under the weather are you?’

‘No.’

‘Shall we stop and have a drink? Might pull you round.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘We’re there anyway. There’ll be time for one or two quick ones before we eat. We might go somewhere afterwards and dance.’

The taxi drew up at an exceedingly splendid block of flats. Hooper gave the driver a ten shilling note and waved away the thought of change.

They ascended by lift to the top floor. The flat had fashionable furniture, no pictures, and a view.

‘Gioiosa! Do sit down.’

Griselda seated herself upon a geometrical sofa, upholstered in a strident, headachy green, and applied herself to watching the rotating dome of the Coliseum through the long low windows.

The Sardinian girl entered. She was brown and luscious, and, bearing in mind the characteristics of her people, could not have been more than fourteen. She wore a black satin dress cut alarmingly low, and no stockings.

‘We want to eat. What can you do for us?’

‘A spiced omelette with sauerkraut? Some hot meat served in oil?’

‘Anne Musselwhite. Which?’

‘You haven’t any fish?’

‘Some potted squille only, signorina. Non troppo fresche.’

‘Could I just have a little bread and butter with some warm milk?’

Gioiosa looked at her employer.

‘Anne Musselwhite, you’ve been deceiving me. You are under the weather. You must permit me to prescribe. All right,’ he said to Gioiosa, ‘anything you like.’

‘Anything you say, signore.’ She smiled bewitchingly and departed.

Hooper produced a bunch of keys and unlocked a vast antique cabinet bearing the Hat and blazon of some fourteenth or fifteenth century Prince-Bishop. He mixed a complicated drink, with ingredients derived from the interior.

‘This’ll make your blood run cold.’

‘No thank you. Could I just sit for a few minutes?’

‘Of course. I’ll leave it by you.’ He drew up a three-legged occasional table in cream aluminium.

‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.’

‘I expect you’ve been overdoing it in the shop. We’ll have to see about that.’ He poured himself a big round brandy-glass of neat whisky.

‘If I could be quiet for a while, I’ll be perfectly all right.’

‘I’ll leave you by yourself.’ She smiled at him gratefully. Taking his whisky he opened a door into the next room. The door was decorated with scarlet zig-zags. In the doorway, Hooper looked back and said ‘Darling Anne Musselwhite.’ Then he withdrew, shutting the door. Instantly there was the sound of dance music. Hooper’s gramophone was such a good model that it might have been in the room with Griselda.

Griselda removed her feet from the carpet (which was covered with representations of the Eiffel Tower in different colours) and placed them on the sofa. The dome of the Coliseum began to rotate faster and faster, and almost at once, despite the music. Griselda was asleep.

She first dreamed that she was climbing Mount Everest with Mrs Hatch, who was dressed as a lama; then that Epping Forest was ablaze and Sir Travis Raunds’s catafalque, four times life-size, reared itself incombustible in the midst; and lastly that she was dressed rather mistily in white and had just been married to Kynaston. Kynaston had insisted on removing her shoes in the Church Vestry; was embracing her and about to kiss her. It was, she felt, a perfectly agreeable prospect, because for some reason, not very clear, no responsibility attached to the transaction. But before the transaction was completed, Griselda awoke.