The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories

by Robert Aickman

  “Are you going back to Kynaston?”

  “I’m not going back to you.”

  “I see.” He turned to Griselda. “And you? Where do you come in?”

  It was difficult to know what to say. Lotus saved Griselda the trouble.

  “Stop asking questions and leave the room, Barney.” She took a short step towards him. It was like the school bully and her victim, Griselda thought.

  “I’ll kill myself.”

  “The best thing you can do.”

  His bloodstained face was now completely white.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Hanging from the washbasin was a dirty towel, the property of a former tenant. It might have hung there for months. Lotus snatched it and flicked it with a loud report in Barney’s face.

  “Lotus.” His voice was a voice from the tomb. “Lotus, I love you. I love you terribly, Lotus.”

  Before she had succeeded in driving him from the room, she must have been hurting him quite considerably.

  When Barney was outside, Lotus locked the door and stuck the key into the top of her black corselette, which her exertions had exposed to view.

  Griselda was alarmed. But Lotus only looked dreamily at her for several seconds, her large eyes full of lustre, her exquisite hands making small groping movements; then with a low cry fell upon the prostrate Kynaston, all beautiful compassion. Again she looked at Griselda.

  “Do you know any first-­aid?”

  “A little.” Griselda reflected. “Very little.”

  “Can you tell if he’s alive?”

  “I think I can.”

  Griselda held the mirror from her bag against the side of Kynaston’s mouth pressed against the dust coloured carpet. A slightly yellow mist immediately clouded it.

  “He’s alive.”

  Lotus squatted back.

  “I don’t mind if you marry him so long as you let me go on seeing him. It’s only his body I want really. I don’t at all care about your having everything else.”

  “I quite understand. Hadn’t we better try to bring him round?”

  “So long as you understand. It’ll be no different from any other marriage. Except, of course, that Geoffrey will never be able to keep you. Still I want him to be happy and might be able to help with that: always through you, of course. Geoffrey can’t tell the difference between fourpence and ninepence.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “It’s not only kindness. There’s a close connection between a man’s happiness and his vitality, you know. In many ways, men are exactly like animals. Perhaps you don’t believe that?”

  “Shall we chafe his extremities?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what we were taught.”

  “Then you’d better do it.”

  Griselda hesitated.

  “Have you any brandy?” She thought that this might, among other things, get the door unlocked and Lotus out of the room.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think you could bring it?”

  “I suppose so.” Lotus rose to her feet, stretching the cramp from her leg muscles. “What a curse men are.” She was looking for the key. “Wait.” She had unlocked the door and was going upstairs. Indeed she had left the door open.

  To her own surprise Griselda remained with the body.

  When Lotus returned, she once more locked the door. “We don’t want a crowd,” she remarked. She bore a half-­full bottle of excellent liqueur brandy; distinctly superior to what might be expected of Juvenal Court.

  “Shall we force it down him?”

  “I suppose so. I’ve never done it.”

  “I’ve never done it either. I always let other people deal with emergencies.”

  Tenderly Lotus rolled Kynaston on to his back.

  “Give me that tooth-­glass. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have some first. The whole thing’s Geoffrey’s own fault.”

  “It needs washing. There are two dead flies in it.”

  “All right. Wash it. But be quick.”

  Griselda emptied the flies to the floor and cleaned the glass to the best of her ability.

  “I’ll dry it.” Somewhat to Griselda’s distaste, Lotus dried the glass on the grimy towel. “Now then.” She half-­filled the glass with brandy. “Me first, if you don’t mind.” At once the glass was again empty. “Now you.” Griselda’s allowance was considerably smaller.

  “Thank you.” It was certainly wonderful stuff.

  “How do you force drink between tightly clenched jaws?”

  “Geoffrey’s mouth is open.”

  “Oh yes. Still I don’t want to waste it.”

  “Let me try.” Griselda was beginning to worry lest Kynaston have concussion, whatever that might be.

  “Careful.”

  Griselda poured about half a tablespoonful of brandy into the glass and released it drop by drop down Kynaston’s throat.

  “Careful.”

  When the glass was nearly empty, Kynaston seemed to have a violent spasm. He curled up instantaneously, like a caterpillar which has taken alarm. His mouth closed sharply and a curious rattle came from somewhere inside him. It frightened Griselda so much that she swallowed what remained in the glass.

  “Of course,” she said, “he’s been having very little to eat.”

  Lotus stared at her dreamily; again half-­filling the glass.

  “Don’t forget your promise,” she said, drinking.

  “What promise?”

  “You may not think you’ll marry Geoffrey. But he’ll marry you. You won’t be able to resist him: and he’ll make marriage his price.” She had unbuttoned Kynaston’s shirt and was running her free hand over the upper part of his body. “Or part of his price.”

  “Shall we call a doctor?”

  “How innocent you are, Griselda!”

  Suddenly Lotus had cast the tumbler into a corner of the room, where it shattered with rather too much noise and into rather too many pieces; had thrown herself upon the half-­naked Kynaston; and was frenziedly kissing his mouth. Instantly Kynaston sat up.

  “Beloved,” he said, clasping Lotus in his arms. Then, seeing Griselda, he gave a groan of shock and disgust, and was on his feet, buttoning his shirt.

  Lotus lay on the floor. She appeared to be looking round for another glass. As with the locked door, she seemed to find difficulty, Griselda thought, in sustaining her romantic emphases.

  “Come away at once,” said Kynaston, apparently none the worse. “We shall have to live elsewhere.” The knock-­out seemed to have awakened in him a slightly hysterical dignity.

  “No need at all,” replied Lotus from the floor. “Griselda and I are on the best of terms. We are going to be great friends.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Kynaston. “Griselda needs some friends.”

  “We’ve made a bargain.”

  “What bargain?”

  Lotus smiled her lovely smile. “Geoffrey,” she said, “do organize a picnic for next Sunday.”

  “All right, Lotus.”

  “We’ll all come. It’ll be like old times.”

  “So long as no one crosses me about the arrangements.”

  “Who would?”

  He smiled back at her.

  “Griselda hasn’t seen you at your wonderful best until she’s been on one of your wonderful wonderful picnics.”

  Now Griselda smiled also.

  Kynaston was at the door.

  “It’s locked.”

  All three were still smiling.

  “Where’s the key?”

  Lotus knelt, sitting back upon her ankles, and, her hands clasped behind her, extended her plump black-­corsetted bosom towards him.

  “Reach for it.”

  The key being extracted, and the door opened, they left Lotus, the search for another glass abandoned, imbibing direct from the bottle.

  “Marry-­in-­haste,” she said between gulps.

&nbs
p; “I never shall,” said Griselda still smiling.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Through his door on the ground floor, Barney could be clearly heard grinding his teeth and his colours.

  As Griselda and Kynaston passed into the summer night, the clock on the local Crematorium struck midnight, an intimation repeated a few minutes later by the doubtless more accurate clock at the Palace of Westminster.

  “I should have told you about Lotus.”

  “She’s no affair of mine.”

  “I never expected to see her again. It’s Monica Paget-­Barlow’s fault. She misled me.”

  “I see.”

  “All the same she’s rather splendid.”

  “Miss Paget-­Barlow?”

  “But I’m quite finished with her none the less. She lacks your glorious independence.”

  “I’ve lost the thread.”

  “You’ll come on the picnic?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “Don’t be jealous. It’s absurd of you. Really it is.”

  “I’m not jealous. I have another engagement.”

  “What?”

  Without particularly thinking, Griselda answered the truth. “I’m spending the day with my friend Peggy Potter.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Regrettably, Peggy, with her passion for the provisional, always, when possible, refused to agree upon a plan in advance.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Bring her with you. There’ll be a crowd. She’ll pass un­noticed.”

  “No, thank you. She’d hate that.”

  They were walking southwards down Tottenham Court Road, as Griselda did not care to risk the passage of the back streets at midnight. Outside Goodge Street Station, Kynaston stopped, again took hold of Griselda’s elbows, and said: “Griselda, I love you with all my heart.” He seemed to mean it. But as he spoke a lift arrived, and they were pushed about by a load of tired revellers and resentful night workers.

  Absurd though the declaration was, Griselda had too soft a heart to feel unmoved. “Where will you go tonight?” she asked sympathetically.

  “I’ve made arrangements . . . Please marry me.”

  “No, Geoffrey. It’s impossible . . . You’ll be all right?”

  “I’ll be far from all right if you won’t marry me. Besides I’ve got a slight headache.”

  “When do you take up your job?”

  “On Liberation Day. Next Wednesday. It’s a job for a D.Litt. There’s very little money in it.”

  “Poor Geoffrey! I really must go. I shall miss the last tube.” Griselda had previously intended to walk.

  “You won’t need an address for me as I shall look in the shop every day.”

  “No please, Geoffrey, I’m sure there’ll be trouble with Mr. Tamburlane.”

  “Yes. I suppose there may.”

  “I wonder if Mr. Tamburlane’s still alive? Poor Mr. Tamburlane.”

  “Promise to come on the picnic and we’ll leave it at that for the moment. I’ve got a lot of things to do anyway before I’m tied by the leg on Liberation Day. Promise, Griselda.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Ten o’clock next Sunday at Juvenal Court. Bring your own lunch. Tell your friend to bring enough for the two of you.”

  “Good night, Geoffrey.”

  “May I kiss you?”

  “No.”

  He kissed her. Although it was Goodge Street Station and another lift had come up, Griselda realized that Kynaston really had feelings. It was most surprising.

  Despite her efforts, he felt her respond.

  “Griselda darling. . . .”

  But Griselda had been swept away by a flood of sad ineluctable memories and a posse of half-­drunken suburbans on their way to Hendon, Edgware, and Trinity Road, Tooting Bec.

  The tide of grief because Louise had been lost was so overwhelming, and the prospect of Sunday spent alone with Peggy so depressing (fond of Peggy though she was), that when she arrived back at Greenwood Tree House, Griselda, though it was late by Peggy’s standards, knocked at her friend’s door. With so many weightier cares to keep her from sleep, Griselda knew that she would lie awake all night unless she settled the matter of the picnic before she retired.

  “What is it?”

  “It is I. Griselda. Please let me in.” Peggy always locked her door.

  There was a curious sound of shuffling and putting away, which continued for an unexplained time. Then the key was turned and Peggy stood in the doorway.

  “Come in Griselda,” she said quite pleasantly.

  “You needn’t have bothered to put on your dressing-­gown.”

  Peggy said nothing.

  “Do get into bed again. I can quite easily talk to you in bed.”

  “I’d rather not. Sit down.”

  They sat formally in the room’s two chairs. Peggy must have been putting away her clothes and underclothes, as none were visible.

  “Had you anything in mind for Sunday?”

  “Need we settle so long beforehand? After all, it’s not work. Can’t we leave it till the time comes?”

  “We’ve both been asked on a picnic.”

  “Both?”

  “I’ve been asked and asked to bring you.”

  “I see. Will the people like me? Seeing that they don’t know me or I them. I should hate to spoil your day.”

  “Of course you won’t spoil my day, Peggy. I hardly know the people myself. I shall be glad to have you for company.”

  “Are they a married couple?”

  “There’s to be quite a number of people, I believe. You’ll be able to pass unnoticed, if you wish.”

  “Not if they’re my sort of person, I hope. And obviously not if they’re not my sort of person,” said Peggy, patiently smiling. “Are they my sort of person? You won’t mind my asking.”

  “Not exactly,” replied Griselda thoughtfully. “But I’m sure you’ll like them. I do,” she added without particular regard for truth.

  “Could I let you know later?”

  “No. I want to know now. Or I shan’t sleep.”

  “All right, I’ll come. Thank you for asking me.”

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “I suppose it must be important to you. There’s someone expected? Someone in particular?”

  “Nothing like that. Just a group of old friends. Very pleasant people,” replied Griselda, seeing mental pictures of Lotus flagellating Barney with the towel and Barney trying to beat out Kynaston’s brains.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  When Griselda arrived at the shop next morning, Mr. Tamburlane was taking down the shutters as usual.

  “Since I had to hurry away last night, let me at once whisper in your hymeneal ear, Miss de Reptonville,” he exclaimed as she approached.

  “Are you quite safe, Mr. Tamburlane?”

  “I glow. I bask. I kindle.”

  “Then that’s all right.” Griselda entered the dusky shop with its smell of scholarship.

  “Advance the nuptials, Miss de Reptonville. It’s the best thing you can possibly do. Afterwards you can throw the traces right over and—your tastes being what they are, of course—Society will do nothing but smile upon you.”

  “Please don’t concern yourself.”

  “In my anachronistic way I feel called to advise you; both as your employer and also quasi-­paternally.”

  “It shows thought, Mr. Tamburlane.”

  “But perchance the plough has entered the furrow without aid from me?”

  At that point a young man came into the shop and saved the situation by calling, in an affected voice, for the Complete Incubology of St. Teresa of Avila, which had to be got up from the basement.

  None the less, all day Mr. Tamburlane made himself quite a nuisance with his sympathetic but entire misunderstanding of Griselda’s situation. Nor did the heat help.

  Saturday was really hot.

  “Need we go tomorrow?” enquired Peggy, as she lay beside Griselda i
n the Park, her head on an old copy of “Headway”.

  “It may not be so hot.”

  “Then it will be raining. It’s August.”

  “Look at that duck.”

  “That’s a widgeon.”

  “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

  “I agreed to spend Sunday with you, Peggy. It’s for you to say about the picnic.”

  “It’s only the heat. I’d love to come otherwise.”

  “Surely it’ll be hotter in Italy?”

  Sunday was hotter.

  Griselda had passed the night naked on top of her bed and had slept perfectly; but she feared that Peggy might not have slept at all.

  “Are you awake, Peggy?”

  “I’m making sandwiches. Come in.”

  Griselda entered. Peggy was fully dressed in a pale blue cotton frock covered with small sprigs of pale pink flowers; and was being exceedingly useful. Griselda was delighted by her energy and practicality. Kynaston’s cynical suggestion was coming to pass. Peggy was preparing lunch for the two of them.

  “I’ll go away again and get some clothes on.”

  “Do you like mustard with tinned salmon?”

  “Please. It adds a flavour.”

  Immediately Griselda thought that this might be interpreted as offensive. So she added. “They’re beautiful sandwiches. So even.”

  “Got the knack at College,” replied Peggy. “I made sandwich lunches for my group every day.”

  “Didn’t the others ever take a turn?”

  “Catch them,” said Peggy with much meaning but no explanation.

  Griselda put on a dark flame coloured silk shirt and her black linen skirt.

  At five minutes to ten they were at Juvenal Court. Peggy had insisted on bringing her rucksack. It seemed to Griselda to go somewhat queerly with her cotton frock, but certainly came in useful as a repository for the little packets of food.

  Seated on the steps were Barney, dressed precisely as before, and a young man in a tennis shirt, with fair hair and an open innocent face. Behind them on the step above, was a girl in a khaki shirt and grey flannel trousers. She had sharp but lively features, including a longish nose and almondish eyes; dark skin and black hair, drawn tightly back and tied with a length of wide khaki ribbon. She sat with her legs rather wide apart; but not sprawling: on the contrary, giving an impression of alertness and vigour.