by Bella Pollen
* * *
‘Who would you rather sleep with, Wolf?’ asked Dwight, ‘Oprah or Joan Rivers?’
‘Joan,’ Wolf said, ‘Oprah would be too preachy.’
‘Hillary Clinton or Cherie Blair?’
‘Cherry who?’
Dwight’s teeth were small and very stubby and he ran his tongue over them now as he looked at Wolf suspiciously. He had always been confused by Wolf’s stir-fry genealogy, figuring it made him frighteningly unpredictable.
‘The British prime minister’s wife.’
‘Is she cute?’ Wolf had graduated summa cum laude from Yale with degrees in political studies and socio economics. He knew exactly who Cherie Blair was. Wolf was rarely mean to anyone but he was mean to Dwight, referring to him as Smallboy behind his back.
‘No, but Hillary’s no peach either.’
‘Oh please, she’s a babe,’ Wolf said. ‘What’s more she’s the First Babe.’
I wound down the window of our rented van. The English countryside smelt of wet tarmac. ‘Lunch was what time?’
‘One o’clock sharp,’ Wolf said.
‘Time now?’ I turned the map the other way round.
‘One o’clock sharp.’
‘What!’ Dwight exclaimed. A passing signpost read Stourton on the Water.
‘Godammit, Maggie. We’ve been through here. We’ve been going round in circles.’
For some reason, definitely one other than sartorial, Dwight had chosen to wear a necktie in the style of an English Rake. He tugged distractedly at the jaunty piece of silk as though it were choking him. ‘I told you we should have left earlier. I told you.’ His baby face scrunched up.
I looked at him apprehensively. The last thing I needed was Dwight going off at the deep end.
* * *
When I first worked for Newsline, Wolf and I had been researching a story about funding for schools. In a small town in Mississippi we witnessed a peculiar episode. We were in a hardware store buying batteries, standing in the queue behind some guy at the checkout. When he pushed a packet of shoelaces over the counter, the lady with ‘Honey’ pinned to her bosom said, ‘That’ll be thirty-nine cents and do you have a Slavens Value card, sir?’ whereupon this man began shouting at the top of his lungs, ‘You fuck ass overweight nigger scumbag, your fat black face makes me want to PUKE,’ before calmly handing over his dollar and strolling out of the store. Wolf and I stared after him. It wasn’t so much his behaviour that stunned us but the lack of reaction from everyone else. I mean this was the land of fried catfish and baby alligators, a town where the ghost of the Ku Klux Klan had not entirely been exorcized. Apart from us, and you couldn’t really count Wolf, he was the only other white person we’d seen. Honey just shrugged. He was a local she told us. He was sick and couldn’t help himself. ‘He jest opens that mouth of his,’ she said, shaking her head solemnly, ‘and out pours all the filth o’the world.’
Turned out he had Tourette’s syndrome and Wolf and I figured that in any situation that involved transport, punctuality or paperwork, Dwight displayed minor symptoms of this same disease. Everyone in Newsline had a story about him. He was once arrested on landing because he’d kept up a tireless commentary throughout a flight about the plane crashing. Another time he’d been caught hyperventilating by the colour copy machine because he couldn’t find his passport. The first assignment I flew with him he’d nearly come to blows with an air stewardess.
‘What do you mean the hand baggage allowance is only twelve kilograms,’ he’d demanded at check in.
‘Civil Aviation Authority tests have shown, sir, that if a bag falls from the overhead locker and it’s under twelve kilos, then it’s safe.’
‘Oh yeah, what’s the baggage allowance in premium class then?’
‘Fifteen kilos, sir,’ said the poor girl, beginning to sweat.
‘You’re telling me it takes twelve kilos to hurt a man in coach but fifteen kilos to hurt a premium class passenger?’ he’d yelled, ‘What – they got better quality heads or something?’
He jest opens that mouth o’ his and out pours all the filth o’ the world. I wanted to apologize to her.
On the plus side, he was one of the best sound recordists in the business and indispensable for paperwork. He had a traffic cop approach to minutiae, in that once he started writing a ticket, he had to finish it. Didn’t matter what it was: labelling of films, the spelling of interviewees’ names, routes, maps, plane tickets, gas receipts. Dwight was meticulous.
Besides it was my fault. I should have rung Stately Locations for directions, but Rory Jones’s parting shot had been issued as a challenge, not friendly advice, and like a moth I was now sizzling on the burning light bulb. Not only were we late for lunch, we were also lost. We’d hit this town a full hour earlier and it wasn’t even much of a town, more like a piece of hived-off countryside crisscrossed by electricity pylons, gas stations, bypasses, roundabouts, the design of which all seemed pretty haphazard. Even the telephone boxes looked like they’d been accidentally dropped from an aircraft and lodged randomly in the mud. It was thoroughly depressing. A man in a cloth cap was sitting at the bus stop. He looked like he was prepared to wait for several years.
‘Pardon me,’ Dwight quickly wound down his window, ‘the quickest way to Bedlington?’
‘Well now,’ the old man scratched his head, ‘it’s a good question. Let me see…’ the regional accent curling his tongue made him barely decipherable. ‘You go straight on about a quarter of a mile until you reach the field of corn. There’s a turning just after the field, hidden by a bank on the right-hand side, mind you don’t take it. Rather, take the fork after Frogsfarm, past the King and Custard, over the humped-back bridge, sharp right at the scarecrow, through a small hamlet then…’
Fidgeting like a live prawn on a griddle, Dwight ran out of patience. Muttering profanities, he rolled up the window and shot off leaving the local staring after us.
Dwight pulled up the van in the next turning.
‘You drive, I’ll map read,’ he said and again we changed places.
In the back seat, Wolf lit a joint.
* * *
An hour later an enormous set of gates flashed by.
‘Back, back!’ Dwight yelled.
I rammed the gears into reverse, charged through the gates and there, through the drizzle, was Jane Austen’s England. Rich, lush countryside, deer wandering through immaculate parklands, which rolled down soft green banks towards a river. In the distance, a house loomed, terrifyingly grand.
‘Whoah,’ breathed Wolf. ‘Magnificent.’
I stared through the windscreen. I knew houses like this existed but this was something else. It wasn’t a house, more like twenty houses built one on top of another.
‘Come on,’ said Dwight feverishly. ‘Come on.’
DANGER. CATTLE GRIDS. DEAD SLOW.
The significance of this sign entered my consciousness way too late. The car hit the grids doing fifty. Dwight’s head cracked against the roof, Wolf’s arm smashed against my shoulder, but as we hurtled up the other side of the grids I was aware of something else – a wild flash of colour, the sickening thud of a body. I yanked at the handbrake. The van went into a circular skid then came to a halt on the soft verge.
Dwight was swearing, Wolf groaning, I was white with fear. There was blood on the windscreen. I felt faint as the reality sank in. I’d injured, or worse killed, a human being. Possibly even a child. Robotically I reached for the key and cut the engine. My hands trembled as I wrenched open the door. I walked unsteadily round to the front of the car but what I’d hit was not, thank God, a human, but a peacock. A beautiful, magnificently multicoloured peacock.
‘Oh, dear God,’ I said, flooded with relief.
The peacock lay on the road, tail fanned out defensively, emitting weird sounds from its throat.
‘This is really extremely bad karma, Maggie,’ Wolf said. He peered at the bird. ‘Is it dead?’
‘Of cour
se it’s not dead.’ Dwight rubbed his forehead where a small egg was forming. ‘Who do you think’s making all that noise.’
‘I thought that was Maggie,’ Wolf said.
One of the peacock’s legs was broken. It used the other to push itself away from us. A dark stain of blood discoloured the green of its feathers and seeped onto the road.
‘Poor thing, look,’ I knelt down. ‘It’s in pain, we’ve got to help it. Dwight, pick it up.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Dwight said. ‘What if it bites? You pick it up.’ He peered closer.
‘How can it bite? I’ve practically killed the poor thing.’
‘It’s got a mean look to it.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Wolf bent down and clumsily gathered the peacock in his arms. Quick as a flash the bird struck.
‘Jesus!’ Wolf jumped back clutching his mouth. Blood dripped down his chin.
‘I know what we’re supposed to do,’ Dwight said. ‘We’re supposed to put it out of its misery.’
‘Gee, let’s give it a Tylenol’ Wolf said.
‘No, we’re supposed to put it down. I read it somewhere. It’s the kind thing to do.’
‘Are you crazy?’ I said. ‘You want to murder it?’ What was the deal with peacocks? Were they wild? Vermin? Good luck, bad omens, family pets? I could only pray this one didn’t have a name and a sobbing child attached to it.
‘We could wring its neck.’ The peacock blinked its eye accusingly at Dwight.
‘Great, and what if someone sees us?’ I said.
‘Who’s gonna see us in a place like this?’
Wolf’s lip was beginning to swell. He looked around the deserted parklands. ‘Sherlock fucking Holmes,’ he said sourly, ‘that’s who.’
* * *
We stood at the foot of the steps. From the top, a group of people were making their way down to us. An ancient man in a butler’s uniform. Two elderly women, one in a smart floral outfit, the other in trousers and a sweater. A few steps behind them walked a priest.
* * *
There are rules in this business. My God they’re pretty basic but you need to follow them if you want people to talk to you, because whatever preconceptions you might have of them, you can bet they’ll have a worse one of you. So let’s be clear: first impressions are paramount.
* * *
The group reached us. Like two warring parties on a tentative and possibly doomed peace mission we stood before each other. I had a sudden flash of who we were. We were the enemy. We were the Americans; the miners, ranchers, the soldiers who’d come to encroach upon the native’s ground and steal their heritage, we were invading the Roxmeres’ privacy and questioning their right to their land. My clothes were spotted with blood, Wolf, with his dishevelled ponytail and swollen lip resembled a demented Sioux tracker, Dwight with his absurd necktie looked like a private from F Troop.
The butler turned and signalled. At the top of the stone steps, silhouetted against the sky, flanks of servants appeared. We were badly outnumbered. Hell, if I’d had a white flag this would have been the time to wave it. The servants swarmed down the steps, formed a circle around the van and began unloading suitcases and equipment.
‘What are these people called again?’ Wolf muttered.
‘Roxmere,’ I hissed.
‘Title?’
‘Leave it to me,’ Dwight said, and before I could stop him advanced unctuously on the floral lady, taking her hand and pressing his lips to her liver-spotted skin.
‘Profound apologies Your … er…’ he cast around wildly, ‘… your Liege.’
‘Oh dear me no.’ The floral lady squirmed uncomfortably. She stepped aside. ‘This is Her Grace, the Duchess of Roxmere.’
The second lady stared incredulously at the peacock in my arms.
There was little hope for a treaty – only surrender. I held out the peacock. As a peace-offering it was surely ill-conceived.
‘It just ran straight out in front of me,’ I heard myself saying, ‘there was no way I could have stopped in time.’
The Duchess looked from me to the peacock then back again. Enough of these obsequious and false avowals of friendship.
‘In fact, not that I want to cast the first stone or anything, but I don’t think it can have been looking,’ I added weakly. Behind me, Wolf groaned as if to say, Duchess, I am ashamed to have sworn allegiance to these Americans.
To add to our woes, a grizzled little dog had appeared from nowhere and began leaping at the terrified peacock in frenzied excitement.
‘I feel awful,’ I shouted at the Duchess over the chaos. ‘I really truly am very sorry.’
I will punish those who have washed their hands in innocent blood said She Who Wears Rubber Boots, or maybe she just said, ‘Take care of it would you, Father John,’ because I found myself putting the peacock gently into the priest’s extended arms, ‘but you know,’ I babbled, ‘with the proper care and assistance – a long period of convalescence, I’m quite sure it will make nothing less than an absolute and complete recovery.’
At which point the priest snapped the bird’s neck.
Jesus Christ was not only the Son of God. He was also of a very good family on his mother’s side.
– Seventeenth-century French bishop
daniel
Rory parks the Rover on a bay in Irving Street, behind Leicester Square. The parking meter is out of order earning it a good kicking followed by a stream of abuse while Rory scrounges around the car for a pen and scrap of paper to leave a note. By the time he presses the entry buzzer to the Beefsteak club he is steaming with irritation.
He gives his name to the doorman and moments later the Maître d’, a large gentleman experiencing no small difficulty fitting into a pair of velvet britches, hurries towards him.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘Afternoon, George.’
‘Thank you for coming, sir,’ he says leading Rory through to the club’s inner sanctum. Rory neither knows this man well, nor is a member of this establishment, but all staff who work at the Beefsteak club are called George so as not to humiliate the memory-impaired peers who do belong here. That something as archaic as a gentleman’s club still exists is anathema to most people including my brother. Personally I like to think of them more as a harmless form of petting zoo where remnants of our species are kept alive by a soothing mixture of familiarity, tradition and stodgy food – and frankly, if a group of old codgers find it comforting to sit around reading The Field, boring each other senseless with anecdotes, repeated ad nauseam, better they should do so in a controlled environment.
‘He’s in here, sir,’ George says pushing open a heavy pair of doors, ‘But I have to warn you that his father’s only just left.’ He withdraws discreetly.
Like its occupants, the air in this room belongs to 1920. No amount of spit and polish can exorcize its staleness. Rory passes an old man slumped into an easy chair smoking a cigar and reading the Racing Post. On his feet are a pair of velvet slippers embroidered with Mallard ducks in flight. Rory can barely hold his exasperation in check. What the hell was Benj doing here forty years too soon?
Anger fades as he rounds the corner. Benj sits in the seat below the bay window, a pyramid of cigarette ash in front of him. He’s been crying, that much is obvious. His eyes are red and the sadness in them goes deep, tunnelling back to his childhood, to the interminable days of loneliness. Rory doesn’t know how to mend the gaping holes in Benj’s life but he’s damned if he’s going to allow him to fill them with alcohol. Benj glances up from the tumbler of neat gin in front of him. He looks shell-shocked. His eyes drop from Rory’s face to the table. They both look at the glass. Then before Rory can stop him, Benj snatches up the tumbler and gulps down the clear liquid within.
maggie
My clothes had been unpacked for me and laid out in the Chrysanthemum bedroom, even my underwear had been folded neatly and put into drawers. It was all a little unnerving. I walked round barely daring to touch the fin
e fabrics and beautiful old furniture. The curtains were made of a flowery chintz (chrysanthemums?) and the four-poster bed was dressed, top, bottom and sides, with ruched skirts made of the same print. I tried to imagine sleeping in it with Jay but decided it would be like having sex inside a giant Kleenex box.
In the en-suite bathroom an old-fashioned set of hairbrush, comb, and clothes brush, all with ivory handles, was laid out on a glass shelf. On a table next to them a hairdryer looked like it might be on loan from a museum exhibition of twentieth-century inventions. Through the window, on the lawn outside, a skinny little girl was playing with her rabbit. There was something so self-contained about her that I fetched my camera off the bed. She had a ritual going: she would pick up the rabbit, stroke it, then let it go. The rabbit would hop two paces, then turn round as if to check, this far OK with you? Whereupon the little girl would pick it up stroke it and release it in a different direction. I wondered who she belonged to.
* * *
Along the corridor, in his appointed bedroom, Dwight was preening himself in front of a large gilt mirror. ‘The Right Honourable Dwight,’ he intoned, ‘Dwight, peer of the realm, Viscount Dwight … Dwight…’ he puffed out his chest and saluted … ‘Heir … to the throne.’ He jumped as I opened the door. His bedroom was even more extravagant than mine with flocked wallpaper and a wonderful bed whose walnut headboard was intricately carved with fruit and birds. At the foot of the bed a lacquer box stood open on a table. Set into its velvet was a seal, a stick of red wax and an ink pad. Dwight touched the pad gingerly and held up a blue finger to show me.
‘Excuse me, sir, madam?’ As the butler appeared, Dwight closed the inkpad guiltily pretending to examine the wallpaper instead. ‘Laura Ashley?’ he ventured, running a hand over its elaborate surface.
‘Eighteenth-century Chinese, sir,’ the butler corrected gently, ‘and of course, quite priceless.’
* * *
Downstairs, in a small anteroom, a reserved man of around fifty was waiting to greet us. Dwight, apparently recovered from his earlier gaffe stepped forwards without hesitation. ‘Ah, Your Grace,’ he said smoothly, ‘a very good afternoon to you.’