Not to Disturb (8 page)

Eleanor points to a flat, leather-bound book lying ready
beside the small porcelain statuettes on a wall-table. ‘That's it,' she says.
‘It can't be simplified, it's impossible.'

Lister advances into the room, stopping to twist a bowl
of flowers to better taste. He says, ‘Eleanor, the bridegroom is C. of E., I
think.'

‘No, they're Catholics.'

‘Oh well, he went to Winchester, an English school.'

‘No, he never went to school. He was always unable.'

‘He went for a week.'

‘It isn't enough.'

‘Eleanor,' says Lister, ‘we can have any little
irregularity put straight later.'

‘That's right,' says Heloise. ‘This coat's heavy.'

Irene comes in with a large branched candlestick in
ornamental silver with long white candles set in its sockets. She places it on
the covered table.

‘Don't light the candles yet,' says Eleanor, raising her
eyes to the ceiling, from above which comes the sound of a scuffle and a howl.
‘Goodness knows what might happen. We don't want a fire.'

‘He's had his injection,' Lister says.

‘Well it hasn't taken yet,' says Heloise.

‘Come back into the little room and stand with me,'
Lister says to Heloise. ‘The bride should enter last and enter last she
will.'

The scuffle upstairs continues and is accompanied by a
repeated banging.

‘Is that the wind or is it him?' says Eleanor. ‘Is it the
shutters?'

‘It could be either,' Pablo says listening expertly.

‘I'd better go and help,' says robust Hadrian. He bounds
out of the drawing-room and up the stairs.

Heloise has again joined Lister at the door between the
ante-room and the drawing-room and from there he gives his final instructions.
‘Remove the Sèvres vases — take them away, just in case. Irene, your skirt's too
short, this is a ceremony.'

Heloise says, ‘Irene likes to show her legs. Why
not?'

‘They're all she's got,' says Clovis.

‘He's coming!' says Irene.

The wind now whistles round the house and the remote
shutters bang as another latent storm wakes up. Footsteps descend heavily and
the occasional howl that accompanies them becomes, as it approaches, more like a
trumpet call.

Mr Samuel now enters with his camera. Mr McGuire follows
with his tape-recorder which he places on a table in an angle of the room,
unplugging the lamp to make way for the plug of his machine. He tests it out,
then pulls up a chair and, folding his arms, waits.

As the footsteps and the trumpet-blast tumble their way
down, Pablo puts a record on the gramophone with a pleased, but unsmiling
expression. It is a new rendering of
Greensleeves
, played very fast
even at the beginning, and plainly working up to something complex and
speedy.

‘Not so loud,' says the Reverend, but his words cannot be
heard at the door of the ante-room, where Pablo has settled the gramophone by
the side of Heloise and Lister. ‘Play it more quietly,' Lister says.

Pablo turns it down.

‘It seems unsuitable but one has to go along with them,'
says the Reverend as Hadrian and Sister Barton edge into the drawing-room,
supporting between them him from the attic. It is immediately noticeable that
the patient's howls and trumpetings appear to be expressions of delight rather
than pain, for he grins incessantly, his great eyes glittering with ecstatic
gladness.

Lister, with Heloise on his arm, advances slowly to meet
the bridegroom. ‘What a noise he's making,' says Heloise.

‘There must be at least eighty-two instruments in that
band you've got for your wedding march,' Lister says, ‘another can't be amiss.'
An instant of quick lightning at the windows followed by a grumble of thunder
reinforces his argument.

The zestful cretin's eyes fall first on Irene. He neighs
jubilantly through his large teeth and shakes his long white wavy hair. He wears
a jump-suit of dark red velvet fastened from crotch to collar-bone with a
zip-fastener. This zipper is secured at the neck by a tiny padlock which very
likely has been taken, for the purpose, from one of the Baroness Klopstock's
Hermès handbags. Beside him, holding him fast with one arm round his shoulders
and with the other hand gripping his arm, is a young nurse whose youthfulness
does not help. Hadrian, his eyebrows tentatively raised, holds the other
arm.

‘My boy,' says the Reverend to him from the attic who now
stands shaking off his keepers with his powerful shoulders.

The other servants stand back, and Hadrian joins them.
Eleanor casts a glance behind her to the open door, and stands a little nearer
to it.

‘A vivacious husband,' says Lister. ‘Miss Barton, try to
hold him firm. It's an exciting moment in his life.'

‘It's a scandal,' says young Sister Barton. ‘It's me he
wants to marry.'

At the moment he seems to prefer Irene, and, breaking
loose, plunges upon her. Heloise says, ‘He doesn't level, you can't really
construe with him.'

He is lifted off Irene, who demands a cigarette, and he
is then consigned, still wishfully carolling, to the strong arms of Hadrian and
Pablo.

‘Make it look like something,' says Mr Samuel, training
his camera. Immediately they open their mouths in laughter to combine with his,
and group themselves on either side of him so that their restraining arms are
concealed, only Hadrian's arm of fellowship and Pablo's congratulatory hand in
the bridegroom's being revealed. Mr McGuire's bobbins whirl sportively while the
scenes lasts.

‘Just hold him there,' says Lister, ‘for a minute.'

But now the captive has caught sight of the bride, tall,
pink and plump, and indicates his welcome with a huge fanfare of delight,
straining mightily towards her.

‘Reverend,' says Miss Barton, ‘this is not proper. He's
had his injection and these girls are simply nullifying the effect. In his
normal state he is very much attached to me.'

‘This bit of group-therapy,' Lister tells her, ‘is
precisely what he needs. Poor man, confined up there all the time with you!'

‘I am perplexed,' says the Reverend. ‘I have to know
which one he wants to marry.' He smiles at the prisoner and says, ‘My boy, which
of the ladies is your preference, if any?'

The bridegroom gives a cunning heave, triumphantly
dragging Pablo and Hadrian in the direction of Heloise who is now taking a light
for a cigarette from Irene's. He also spares a glance of beatitude for Eleanor,
but continues to make for Heloise with determination.

Lister says, ‘It's Heloise, obviously.' The storm beats
on the windows and detonates in the park. The music comes to an end, causing him
from the attic to crow and romp a little, and to touch the padlock of his zip
lovingly.

‘He wants to take his clothes off,' says Sister Barton.
‘Take care. He's been known to do it.'

‘Who is the father of your child?' says the Reverend
desperately to Heloise.

‘Well,' says Heloise, taking a chair, ‘it isn't born yet.
Four months and a bit to go. Pablo was busy helping the Baron every evening at
the time and Hadrian was off-duty. Mr Samuel and Mr McGuire were in the Baron's
team, too, following their respective professions. Then —'

‘The Baron?' says the Reverend impatiently. ‘Don't tell
me he's never attempted to exercise
droits de seigneur
, because Baron
Klopstock was well known in his youth.'

Lister says, ‘A pornophile, merely. Pornophilia does not
make for fatherhood, Reverend. At least, in my experience, it doesn't. Now, if
the Baroness could have been the father in the course of nature she might have
been, but the Baron, no.'

‘Let me see,' says the Reverend, looking round the room.
‘Who does that leave?'

‘All the rest of them,' says Heloise. ‘Let's have some
music.'

‘Someone from outside,' says the Reverend.

‘Do you mean one of the guests at one of the banquets,
Reverend?'

‘No, one of their private affairs, perhaps.'

‘Heloise was strictly on duty at the time,' says Lister.
‘Very busy. The secretaries were fully occupied and there were no visiting
cousins. You saw for yourself how it was the month of June. You were a constant
visitor at large.'

‘Then it rests between Clovis, the poor boy Klopstock
here, and you, Lister,' says the Reverend, ticking them off again on his fingers
while mentally going through the roll-call.

Lister whispers in the Reverend's ear.

‘Oh,' says the Reverend. ‘Well it isn't Clovis. That
leaves you and the poor boy.'

‘I am enamoured to the brim with Eleanor,' says Lister,
‘and her prayer-book carry-on.'

‘Lister,' says Eleanor.

‘Eleanor,' he says.

‘It's got to be him in the attic,' says Heloise. ‘I'm
waiting.'

‘It could only be him or the Reverend,' Lister says.

‘Let us begin,' says the Reverend. ‘Bring him over —
carefully, carefully. He must stand here with the girl.'

‘The music,' says Heloise.

‘Sister Barton,' says Pablo. ‘If you don't come and help
I can't go and put on the wedding record for Heloise.'

‘It's atrocious,' says Sister Barton, weeping but not
helping. ‘To take him away from me now, after all I've done.'

The Reverend looks for a moment at Sister Barton then
looks away as if finding her unsavoury. ‘Have you got a Protestant Bible?' he
says. ‘If not, we'll do without.'

‘The English Prayer Book,' says Eleanor, but she cannot
be heard above the noise of the storm and the ecstasy of the man from the attic,
whom Clovis is now assisting Hadrian to hold. Standing beside Heloise the
patient is apparently dumbstruck and gazes at her with only his grin.
Greensleeves
starts up again.

‘It's getting late,' says Lister.

‘The Book of Common Prayer,' says Eleanor.

‘It's within my competence as a pastor to perform a legal
marriage in this country according to my own simple formula,' says the Reverend
looking at his watch then at him from the attic, while pointing to Heloise.
‘Gustav Anthony Klopstock, do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?' he
says.

The bridegroom escapes, once more, to tumble upon
Heloise.

‘That means “I do”,' says Pablo, helping with the others,
to rescue the bride.

‘Nobody can now say he wasn't in his right mind at the
time of the marriage,' says Lister. ‘He knows perfectly well what he's
doing.'

‘In my condition,' says Heloise.

When the couple are set in place again the Reverend says
to Heloise, ‘What is your father's name?'

‘Klopstock,' says Heloise

‘Klopstock?'

A howl of delight is emitted by the Klopstock from the
attic.

‘Kindred and Affinity!' shrieks Eleanor above the
boisterous instrumentals of the storm, the music and the groom.

‘It is a coincidence,' Lister says, spreading his hand
like a conductor of an orchestra pleading a
pianissimo
. ‘Her father is
a humble Klopstock, a riveter. No connection with the House of Klopstock whose
residence this is, where galaxies of generals, ambassadors, and their bespangled
consorts mingle with cardinals and exiled Arabians by night when the Baron and
Baroness are not privately engaged.'

‘Are you of age?' says the Reverend to Heloise.

‘I'm twenty-two,' she says, swinging a little to the
rock-music as it speeds up, and shaking the white mink coat.

‘She's twenty-three!' says Sister Barton, still
tearful.

‘Well you're a major,' says the Reverend to Heloise.
‘Heloise Klopstock,' he says, ‘will you take this man to be your wedded
husband?'

‘I will,' says Heloise.

‘They have no ring,' says the Reverend looking round
irritably.

Lister produces a ring immediately.

‘He'll only put it in his mouth and swallow it,' weeps
Sister Barton.

‘I shall place the ring on the bride's finger by proxy,'
says Lister, doing so.

‘I hereby pronounce you man and wife,' says the Reverend
placing a hand on each shoulder of Heloise and her new husband who, now
overjoyed, once more leaps out of reach, this time gambolling to the far end of
the room. Numerous precious vases crash to the floor.

Mr McGuire hastens to protect his bobbins, while Mr
Samuel says, clicking his camera, ‘Marvellous! His laugh's very like a
large-mouthed cry of elation such as any beauty queen might give at the moment
of her election.'

‘I would never resemble him to that,' says Heloise.

Her husband is sprightly and will not be caught. He rips
the whole zip-fastener from the stuff of his suit and exultantly dances out of
the garment. Then, capering lustily with carols and further damage to the
furniture, he pulls the mink coat off his wife's back, drags her into a corner
and falls on top of her.

Pablo rushes to intervene.

‘Leave him be. He has every right,' says Lister.

‘He has no right at a wedding,' says the Reverend. ‘It's
not the thing to do.'

Sister Barton sobs and the storm revels, while Heloise
shoves with hard athleticism and finally escapes, fleeing to the safety of the
sound and film-track area. ‘Give me a comb,' she says.

Clovis is blowing out the candles.

Mr Samuel says, ‘This will need a lot of editing.'

‘In my condition,' says Heloise, ‘and I've lost a
shoe.'

The bridegroom is being held by Sister Barton, Hadrian
and Pablo, and is being clothed with the embroidered table cloth by Eleanor.