He glanced at me, and asked kindly,
‘Do you follow me?’
‘Yes.’
He pushed his chin down on his breast, and walked back to the table, where he perched precariously on one buttock, with one leg swinging free.
‘It is often asked, why do people perpetrate practical jokes? And, indeed, I myself would ask why people bother with those ungainly buckets-over-the-door affairs. But the real, true
practical
joke, the artistic joke, where no conditions are
manufactured
,
but the complete thing is conjured out of the air, as it were; well, do I ask a writer why he writes books? These things cannot be explained. You write a book, do you not, because there is a certain set of situations, or ideas, if you like, suspended
somewhere
beyond the reach of other mortals, without cohesion, without direction, which you must pluck from space, arrange, direct, and give to them a voice? Is it not so? You call it art. Why should not I say that my jokes are art? You don’t believe, do you, that your books will save souls, cause deaths —?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, pointedly.
He paused, and frowned, and nodded quickly.
‘I see what you mean,’ he murmured, sniffed loudly, and left the room. His head came back immediately around the door. ‘But I’ve never felt responsible for anyone’s death, you know,’ he said, grinned, and was gone. I followed him. The hall was empty.
I climbed the stairs again, and, looking up, saw him, in the mirror, walking four or five steps behind me, on tip-toe, with a hand pressed over his mouth, and his blue eyes popping with glee. The red and black squares of his skin-tight suit shook where they were stretched over his big belly, and his knees wobbled from the effort of suppressing his laughter. The bell, dangling from his cap, tinkled derisively. I ignored him, and crossed the landing, and went into that room from whence I had first seen him emerge. It was his study. He sat in an armchair, with a book open on his knees, an enormous cigar in his fingers, and a glass of brandy beside him on a low table.
‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, brushing away the webs of pale blue fragrant smoke, and laying his book down on the floor. ‘Care for a drink? Cigar? Damn fine smokes, these.’
I pressed my back against the door, shaking my head from side to side. I could not speak.
‘Come along, sit,’ he roared jovially, motioning me to a chair.
I sat down opposite him, and placed my hands on my knees. He cast a sidelong look at me, and grinned slyly.
‘This is my hideout,’ he whispered, with a ponderous wink. I come up here for a bit of peace and quiet. The old girl doesn’t like me to smell up the house with smoke. Sure you won’t have
a drop of brandy, boy? Last of the stock, this bottle.’
He picked up the glass, and held it to the light.
‘Grand stuff,’ he said.
‘Julian.’
‘Well?’
‘Will you stop this?’
‘Eh?’
‘I said, will you stop this. I deserve at least an explanation.’
He began to cough, and thumped himself on the chest with the paw which held the cigar. Grey ash tumbled down his waistcoat.
‘What do you mean — humph humph — eh — humph — explanation? Explanation? Let me tell you, if I had spoken to my elders like that when I was your age, I’d have had a good trouncing. You young fellers today, you’ve got no respect, none. Going around in your cissy clothes and your long hair. Where’s your respect, eh, ha, where? Hum.’
He puffed at the cigar, wheezing, and swilled the brandy, and stared at me malevolently, blowing and grunting, an old grampus.
‘What you need is work. Yes, work. Do you good, a bit of honest work. Why, when I came to this country, I had the clothes on my back and nothing else. I got a job as an office boy, ten hours a day for three drachmas an hour. I saved what I could, kept my ears open, invested, made a bit of profit, and started my own office. I met a good woman, and married her. We had no soft life in those first years, but by god we were happy. And look at me today. I’m not a proud man, but I think I can say that I used my time, and used it well. And don’t think that my fighting days are over. That damn army crowd have been threatening to nationalize my industries, the first chance they get. Ha. I’ll show them nationalize. I have them where I want them now, Oh ho yes, I spiked their guns. They won’t cross me now. Listen —’
He bent forward, and beckoned me closer.
‘If it was in my interests, which it’s not, but if it was, I could scotch their plans today. I could. I have something that would … but enough, I’ve said enough.’
Another wink, a quick grin, and then he waved his hand, commanding a general silence on that topic.
‘So that’s it,’ I said.
That was it. So simple. He stood up, and put a hand on my shoulder.
‘Now boy, not a word, not another word.’
‘He brushed the ash from his waistcoat, and shuffled out of the room. I downed the half inch of brandy which he had left in his glass, and went out on the landing. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, clad in hunting red, slapping a riding crop against his gleaming boots. Catching sight of me, he threw back his shoulders and roared,
‘Tally hooo.’
He went riding out through the blue room, into the
courtyard
. There was the sound of him prancing around on the gravel. He came thundering in again, waved his stick at me, did a circle of the hall, and galloped away. I went into the
courtyard
and sank down beside the parapet of the fountain, with my knees against my chest, and my arms wrapped tightly around my legs. I pressed myself against the cool stonework, and closed my eyes. The fog inside my head had begun to pulse, as though something lay panting at the heart of it. There were footsteps in the gravel. Julian came slowly toward me, his head bowed, his fingers to his chin. He stopped beside me and asked,
Tell me, what date is this?’
‘The twenty-first of April.’
‘Is it? Dear me, how time does fly. I’ve been thinking about poor Nana.’
He glanced at me, and smiled, and sat down on a cane chair near me.
‘But of course,’ he said sadly, and put his hands into the shallow pockets of his cardigan, ‘You never knew her, did you? An exquisite woman. I can’t express how much I miss her, even yet, after all these years.’
He sighed, and shook his head. ‘But you know, it doesn’t seem such a long time to me. Oh I know, the years are there, you can quote figures to me. And there’s Helena, a grown woman, and the boy, growing up so quickly I can’t keep track of him. But I
remember Nana as if she had … passed away only yesterday. That time in Cannes, our last visit, when she wore those flowers in her hair, why, she was the prettiest little thing I’d ever seen. The whole resort was raving about her. And I was proud, my, how proud I was. And now she’s gone from me forever.’
He covered his eyes with a hairy hand, and a little sob escaped through his fingers. Cicadas were singing. There was a black bird gliding through slow, swooning circles high in the sky, and I marvelled that any creature at play would execute
movements
of such perfection, loneliness and grace. I was tired. It surprised me, how tired I was. Now and then, a tiny black shadow, like that of a fly, would flit across the extreme edge of my vision.
‘Does she know?’ I asked, and swung my head around, trying vainly to catch that shadow.
‘What?’ he sobbed. He had not taken his hand from his eyes.
‘That she’s your daughter?’
Then he did look at me.
‘Of course she does,’ he cried. ‘What are you suggesting? How dare you. I won’t take this kind of insinuation from the likes of you. I’m a warm-blooded man, what did you expect, that I would take a vow of chastity? My god, this is disgraceful, coming in here, to my house, and making such grotesque suggestions.’
He jumped up from the chair, and glared at me, his fist clenched and trembling at his sides.
‘I must ask you to leave,’ he said stiffly.
He stalked away. I looked up at the sky again. How blue it was, like their eyes, blue as blue, O god. From an open window above me, a voice came clearly down.
‘Now, boy, since your tutor has deserted you, I think I shall have to take a hand in your education. Today we’re going to talk about word games and puzzles, conundrums, anagrams, that kind of thing. First, anagrams. An anagram is a
transposition
of letters of a word or phrase to make a new word or phrase. Dog and god is a simple one; then there’s James H. Twinbein, another simple one, a bit amateurish really, but it served its purpose, I suppose. Now —’
‘I’m going to kill you, Julian Kyd,’ I screamed.
A resounding silence answered me. I lay down on the gravel, and wept. Tears brought no comfort. I picked myself up, and crawled into the house, and up the stairs. I found them in Yacinth’s room, sitting by the desk. The boy was bent over a paper, writing swiftly, smiling, with that smile, so perfect, so absorbed, a thing which seemed to exist, like himself, like music, without reference to anything else in the world. I stopped behind him, trying to hold my breath. Julian sat sideways at the desk, with his legs crossed, smoking the butt end of his cigar. Yacinth glanced over his shoulder, and the smile faded. He set down his pen, left the chair, and walked silently out of the room. I watched him go. Julian chuckled softly, eyeing me with amusement.
‘You pig,’ I said.
‘Pardon?’
‘You heard me.’
He jammed a finger into his ear and wagged it vigorously up and down.
‘Going a bit deaf these days,’ he muttered.
‘Pig,’I shouted.
He laughed.
‘Come now, Benjamin. Don’t pretend that you’re so
concerned
about her. If it doesn’t trouble her, why should it trouble you? Anyway, I’ve heard that your own past is not without its … bizarre moments.’
‘I loved her.’
He turned to the window to hide his smile.
‘Did you? No, I hardly think so. You considered her stupid, isn’t that true? Not that I would disagree for a moment, mind you.’
He drew toward him the paper on which Yacinth had been writing, and read a few lines, his lips moving, his eyebrows raised.
‘I think,’ he murmured, still with his eyes on the page, ‘I think, Benjamin, that we both know who it was that you really wanted. Don’t we?’
There was a distant tinkling of music. He paused, and turned
his ear toward it, grinning up at me.
‘It was —’
‘Shut up,’ I cried.
‘Hnn,’ he sighed in delight. ‘A shocking suggestion, you think? But it’s true. Helena was just a … what would I say? … a stand-in. Not a very elegant definition, hut I think it sums up the situation, eh?’
I stared at the floor, at my feet braced on the floor. The fog dispersed in my head, and I saw, down at the end of that long tunnel of the past, a night, and a hillside; trees murmured; the sea was not far; I heard my voice telling a story about myself to a faceless figure, who kept his peace, as he always did, and listened, receiving my secrets in silence. Julian was speaking again.
‘God knows, I would not have cared. I didn’t care about Helena. But you did nothing, made no moves. I wonder why, Benjamin? Not morals, surely, for I don’t think that you have any.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’
I grasped the back of the chair, and sat down slowly. Julian tapped his fingers on the desk. I rubbed my eyes, and gathered my poor forces. Jesus, they made one tattered army.
‘Julian, I want that document.’
‘But I paid good money for it,’ he said softly, reasonably, showing me his palms. ‘Friend Knight does not operate for what is known, I believe, as peanuts.’
‘I want it.’
‘Yes, I know you do, but I
need
it. The army is going to take over today, and they will ruin me unless I can blackmail them. You do see that, don’t you? It’s an impossible situation. If things were not as they are … Benjamin, I know you won’t believe this, but I like you, I’d like to help you. But what can I do?’
‘I hope you rot.’
‘I shall, some day. Look, you have one chance. Come with me.’
He led me swiftly through corridors, down the stairs, and to a room at the back of the house, where a door was open on the garden. At the far side of the lawn, Helena stood, with her back
toward us, pruning a little tree with a pair of gleaming secateurs. We stopped in the doorway.
‘The fact is‚’ said Julian, ‘I no longer have the thing. I gave it to Helena, as a present on the anniversary of the day we met you, our benefactor. Yes, it’s a year ago, today, don’t you remember? We’re not without gratitude, Benjamin, and we shall always celebrate that day.’
He paused, and looked at me, with the tip of his tongue wedged into the corner of his mouth.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ I asked. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’
‘Benjamin, where we live, you pay for everything. There now, I have said something of import, just for you.’
‘Damn you.’
He gave a great laugh.
‘Ah, my boy, original as ever, even in your curses. Off you go now, and whisper a word in her ear. You may not have the chance again for a long time, for we’re leaving today on a little holiday.’
I could not move. My feet would not move. He patted my arm, and began to turn away, stopped, and looked at me, and, not without a certain fondness, he said,
‘You weren’t wicked enough to cope with us, were you? Good luck.’
I nodded dumbly, and stepped down to the garden. And a sprinkler, squatting like a toad at the corner of the lawn, turned round its vicious snout and spat on me.
The rest is hardly worth recounting. Well, an effort, and then on to the last horrors.
She glanced at me calmly over her shoulder, as though she had been expecting me. Calmly, why not? Of course she had expected me. I avoided her eye, and fingered the leaves of the tree. They were thick and dry, and coated with a malodorous green dust.
Snap,
said the secateurs,
snap
snap.
She stepped
back from the tree, and pulled a strand of hair away from her forehead. The old days back again.