Death in Disguise (46 page)

She kissed him now on his small neat ears and saw his irresolute mouth curve into a smile, as if remembering her presence in his sleep. The atmosphere in the room was stale and spicy. Several foil dishes from the Mumtaz Takeway were on the table and some empty Ruddles Bitter cans. Last night they had celebrated Hedda's departure. She had gone to live with a professional wrestler at Stamford Hill. All her things had disappeared so it must be true. But V was still nervous.

Trixie was not. She had swaggered happily into the flat, kissing her lover, laughing in a new and quite boastful way. On her third beer she had said, ‘What would you think if I told you I'd killed someone?' Victor had laughed, ‘You, pretty kitten?' and taken her on his knee. Trixie let him tease her, thinking it's a fact though and if Hedda comes back I shall tell her, and she'll see by my face it's true and leave us alone.

At the sound of footsteps along the balcony, Victor's eyes opened, becoming quickly alarmed. Trixie—although her heart beat a little faster—said, ‘It's all right…keep quiet…'

She put her arms around him and they lay huddled together beneath the duvet, absolutely still. It was not Hedda, the lightness of the step told them that. Perhaps it was someone from the council. A snooper trying to make trouble.

The letter box rattled. Trixie smothered a laugh, covering her mouth with the corner of the sheet. Victor whispered, ‘Sshh…' They rested motionless, hardly breathing. Victor whispered again. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘Nothing. Don't worry. They'll go away.'

And, after a long while and a lot more rapping, they did.

T
he evening group-meditation on the terrace was a failure. Everyone sat on seats of thyme-fringed paving slabs, separately locked into fretful inner disturbances. When it was over there was a sad bit of discussion about the Master's funeral. They all seemed to think the sooner it was over the better. Suhami said she couldn't bear the thought of his physical shell lying in a metal drawer in the dark. He should be resting on a high catafalque she believed, on the seashore perhaps, under a benign sun. Everyone had voted for a cremation rather than a burial.

‘That would be his own wish,' said May. ‘Spirit of air and light that he was. Blowing in the wind.'

Ken said, ‘That was a lovely album.'

He and Heather glanced with shy unease at the heirs regnant. Yesterday they had expressed their surprise and pleasure roundly, like everyone else, when May and Arno had told their exciting news—but the couple were still not sure if they would ever be well thought of or trusted again. Their smile now was the smile of people in tight shoes. From inside the house, the telephone rang and Heather cried, ‘I'll go, I'll go!'

The meeting broke up. May disappeared to prepare a herbal sleeping draught for Felicity. Suhami left to milk Calypso. Chris tried to follow, was gently rebuffed, tried again and finally went into the house—his face dark with anger and distress. Heather returned, explaining that the call had been a wrong number and asked if Arno could help her get Ken to his feet ready for his walk. Ken had been told that it was important to exercise his uninjured leg and every couple of hours would have a discreet little hobble about. Now Heather suggested that, as the main gates were now news-hound free, they might take a turn around the village.

Arno watched them go, Ken complaining loudly that it was much too far, then he set off for the kitchen to wash up the supper things. He knew he should be feeling indignant about how the Beavers had behaved but the fact was that he found himself in such an extraordinary state of mind that other people's presence, let alone their transgressions, hardly registered.

It had all started yesterday. Shortly after the remarkable disquisition of the Master's Will, Arno had felt stirring within his for-so-long-timorous breast a bracing current of embryonic confidence. He was chosen! Obviously not for any outstanding qualities of spiritual leadership (Arno had never been one for self-deception), nevertheless he had been thought capable. That night before climbing into bed to fall instantly into a calm and happy sleep, he'd extended his prayers to include a request for strength to shoulder courageously his new responsibilities.

He awoke equally calm and happy, only to be gripped at once by a new and terrible idea that frightened him half to death. He leapt out of bed as if speed of movement might trick the notion into staying behind to be smothered in the pillows, flung on some clothes and rushed about his business. Throughout the day he completed not only his own tasks, but also half the others on the list.

But physical activity, he found, was no answer. However busy his body, his mind remained like a pot on the boil—throwing again and again to the surface this single and deeply disquieting suggestion. The truth of the matter was that his passionate love for May had finally got the better of him and, by linking the two of them more or less officially together, the Master's bequest had nudged Arno into such a state that he was on the point of declaring himself.

There had been many opportunities during the day but he thought none of them propitious. At one point, recalling May's veneration of all things indigo, he went into the garden and picked every deep blue flower he could find. He returned with a huge armful of lupins, delphiniums, larkspur and Canterbury bells, only to find himself rigid with fear at the thought of even presenting them, let alone stumbling into amorous speech. They were now in a bucket under the sink.

One of the problems—well, the main problem actually—was that Arno was no longer able to deceive himself as to the pure, ennobling and spiritual nature of his affection. He now knew it would no longer be enough to share with her, in happy platonic servitude, the sweet prosaic things of everyday life. To venerate her from a respectful distance. He wanted more.

‘Oh,' cried Arno aloud in the empty kitchen. ‘I am no higher than a beast.'

He had fought this onrush of licentiousness. His baths had got cooler, his flesh pink from loofah persecution. He had applied himself to the section in Father Athelstan's Herbal that dealt with Discharge of Troublous Humours and been instructed to gather some hyssop flowers, bake them to drive off the moisture, mix the remaining purple crumbs with some almond oil, spread the resultant paste across his tummy and lie down for half an hour with his feet up on a hassock—all of which he duly did. He felt better for the rest but his skin went blue.

He had tried to reason with himself, which had proved difficult, and to think uplifting thoughts which had proved very easy. Attempting to approach what the Master had called his innate fountain of wisdom, he was always beaten to it by Priapus muddying up the water. So, finally, Arno had been compelled to accept this irresistible summons of the blood, comforted only by the knowledge that at least he would do the decent thing and keep these feelings to himself. And so he had. Until today.

Today it had been borne upon him that until he spoke he would have no peace. Also that, if he failed, she would be lost to him for ever. For, in spite of the Master's injunction, Arno felt he could not then further embarrass May by his continual presence. All day, like an anxious foot soldier before a fateful battle, he had been on the look out for favourable signs. After lunch one had been vouchsafed. Draining his mug of Acorna, the remaining sludge had formed itself into the shape of a perfect heart. This had cheered Arno considerably. The time it seemed was right. He only had to do it once and, after all, how long did it take to say three little words? No time. Of course there would have to be a few endearments.

At the thought of the endearments Arno's skin crawled with apprehension. Perhaps he could just place his last and final haiku in amongst the flowers. He produced it from his pocket.

May, goddess, heart’s queen
Bitter the path without you
Joined be. With me.

He was cheating rather on the last line, which was a syllable short unless you said ‘joinèd' like Shakespeare, but it had pith and moment. No doubt about that.

Washing and drying all this time, Arno now began to put the glasses back and that was when he came across the brandy. Tucked away, in a purely medicinal manner, on the back of the oats and beans and barley shelf. With nothing really definite in mind, Arno took it down. It was a pretty large bottle and it was pretty full. He poured out a small glass and drank it.

It burned his throat and made him cough but there was no doubt, once the discomfort had worn off, that he felt better. In fact he felt so much better he decided to have another. This went down much more smoothly, engendering nothing more disturbing than a nice warm glow across the chest. Arno could feel it doing what he had always understood strong drink was supposed to do. Loosening inhibitions, magicking up the assurance he needed to accomplish his brave, foolhardy sortie. He decided to have a third, then sat down in a single swoopy motion—feeling rather blobby in the head.

For no reason a memory arrived. Some indeterminate time ago he had seen a play at an amateur theatre. Set in Russia, the bit Arno remembered had two people who were thought by all the other characters to be in love. She was packing to go away, he was standing by the door. She thought he was going to propose and he thought he was going to propose, but he never did and she went off to be some sort of governess. Arno had been very moved by the waste and pathos of the situation. He saw this recollection now as both warning and encouragement.

Lest sorrow should unman him, he had another small glass and with some difficulty made his way towards the window. He opened it and the balmy air lay warm against his face. It was pleasant but he felt he could have done with something a bit more bracing. And then he heard the cello.

She was playing the chakras which, she had explained to him once, corresponded to the seven-note musical scale. How he knew she was not simply playing the scale, Arno could not have said. A special richness in the timbre perhaps; a deeper resonance in the pause. Could one in any case
hear
colours? He stood, supporting himself by gripping the edge of the sink, straining not to miss a single thread of the glorious sound.

He felt intoxicated with joy and immensely confident. As if all the strength he would need to sustain and support them, both now and in the years to come, had been given all at once in a lump. And far from weighing him down, he soared with it. He flew. He was suddenly totally convinced she would be his—he knew it! All the exuberant unfathomable extravagance of her. As the dulcified notes flowed, Arno—in a frenzy of nympholepsy—recreated the beloved musician and saw her not seated in an English country house, but magnificently astride a gold-rimmed cloud and surging across the heavens in a shining helmet, with bright curved shining horns. This was it! His instant of momentous opportunity. His
kairos
.

Buoyed up by all this riotous bodily excess, Arno started to tug the flowers out of the bucket. He looked round for something to tie them up with. Nothing of the right length, width or texture presented itself, so he made do with a tea towel. The strategy was to offer them, rhapsodise a while on the beauty of her soul, the sweets of her conversation and her astounding physical loveliness, bow low in a proper boon-craving manner, then withdraw. Shouldn't be too difficult. Anyone could pitch a little woo. He slipped the poem between the larkspur and the delphs and was just tottering towards the door when the music stopped in mid-scale (somewhere between the heart and the solar plexus).

Arno stood very still, all his attention straining into the silence—which continued. What could be the matter? Was she ill? He felt a shiver of fear until reason asserted itself. May was never ill. Those Rubenesque limbs, glowing eyes and that unquenchable bosom were surely not only healthy but also indestructible.

Perhaps she had simply taken a break to tighten a string. Or rest that strong right arm. But half way up the scale? As he hovered, disconcerted, clutching his bouquet, another much stranger sound came to Arno's ears. A bitter-sweet and pure sound interspersed with brief moany gurgles. He thought at first that she was singing. Certainly the manner of delivery was strangely musical. Its clear plangent quality reminded him of medieval, high-French ballads often sung to a lute. But then a sudden extra-mournful cadence brought home the appalling truth. She was not singing, but
crying
.

Unhelmed by pity and terror, Arno flew along the corridor. May was sitting in the nursing chair, bending over her instrument, bow poised as if to play again. Her cheeks were wet and her profile stamped with sorrow. Arno halted at the threshold, heart breaking at the sight. He could not speak. Could not choke out a single comforting phrase, let alone deliver his chivalric eulogy.

At first, wrapped in unhappiness, she did not notice him. Then, still clutching his unbound bouquet, Arno hesitantly stepped forwards. She turned and said simply, ‘Oh Arno—I do miss him so.'

It was enough. Released, emboldened, Arno approached. Crying ‘Dearest May,' he embraced her and launched into a flood of adoring speech.

Then things got a little complicated. May rose to her feet, her expression one of confusion rather than alarm or dismay. Arno, clinging to voluptuous silk-clad shoulders, slid off. There was a brief tumultuous scrimmage, involving folds of slithery fabric, stout little legs, spires of deep blue flowers and gleaming rose-wood, followed by a howl of elemental magnitude, though whether provoked by joy or anguish it was impossible to tell.