A Death at the Palace
Page 29
‘Why? Why stop? It’s not like I can turn back the clock, Sylvain, so why should you?’
‘You’re not what I thought you were. I made you into a monster, but you’re not a monster. With your bad foot, and your eye-patch and your cans of lager… Actually, I feel sorry for you.’
The boy pulled up his hood, thrust his hands into the pockets of his top and strode away into the mist. Rex tore up the postcard and threw the bits into a hornbeam bush. Then he felt guilty, so he gathered the bits back up and put them in a bin. It was probably the sort of thing that made him look pathetic to Sylvain, but he didn’t care.
* * *
Sister Florence took a long time to answer the convent door. When she saw Rex, she said nothing about his injuries. She just clapped her hands and exclaimed, ‘Everything is illuminated!’
‘Is it?’ Rex asked, wondering what brand of religious fever had seized the household.
‘It’s wonderful film, Rex. Have you seen it? We watched it today. But now we are watching policiers again.’ She sighed and bustled off down the scrubbed, shabby hallway. Rex assumed he was meant to follow her, and did.
In the tv room, with Ironside tracking down jewel thieves in the background, Sister Florence made Rex the sort of cup of tea one might expect a Belgian nun to make and Rex, politely, took a few sips as he heard all about the film. It was about a young Jewish American who went in search of his roots in Ukraine. Since Sybille was in one of her non-communicative moods, Rex took advantage of the topic to mention Aguta. Sister Florence flushed.
‘Cette fille pauvre! I wanted to telephone to her, but Rex…’ She lowered her voice and leant closer. He smelt lavender talc – a very holy sort of smell. ‘I believe that Sister Columba moved my book in the office when she tidied it up. I cannot find it.’ She looked heavenwards. ‘I feel terrible. I think we will have to make again an advertisement, and pray that this girl comes back.’
‘You were going to give Aguta the job?’
‘Of course. Not Catholic, of course. Orthodox. But – good hands and heart, as my father used to say!’
Rex was writing down Aguta’s number on a slip of paper when Sybille decided to speak. Had she been angry that he had not visited for a few days? Had she noticed? No one knew.
‘He’s got it wrong,’ she said.
Sister Florence and Rex looked at her.
‘It’s wrong.’
‘What is, Sybille?’ Rex asked, taking her cold hand in his. She had her tweed skirt on. He had been with her when she bought it. On Regent Street, in one of those strange, shabby, expensive knitwear shops. They had laughed about the Americans in there, coming to the centre of London to buy Harris tweed and clan tartan. ‘What’s wrong?’
She squeezed his hand, something she did every now and then, and it always felt as if she was squeezing his heart, with this trace of the affection there had once been between them, without anything else around it.
‘Ironside,’ she said. ‘He gets one person at the end of every mystery. But it’s never one person.’
‘What do you mean, Sybille?’ asked Sister Florence.
‘Everyone is guilty,’ Sybille said. ‘We are all born in sin, and we’re all redeemed through the love of Christ.’
Sister Florence looked at Rex and said in a low voice, ‘That new priest was here today,’ as if that hadn’t been an entirely good thing. Then she stood up and rubbed her hands briskly. ‘So many visitors for you today, Sybille! Like the Grand Central Station.’
She bustled out and Rex was left wondering if Sister Florence had ever seen Grand Central Station. In tv shows, he guessed.
‘Did anyone else come today, Syb?’ He wanted to hear it from her.
‘The priest.’
‘I mean anyone apart from him. Anyone apart from me and the priest?’
She didn’t answer. Later, at the door, Sister Florence pressed her lips together and said, ‘I wish I knew if there was some sense to the things she says sometimes. Ironside!’ And she gave a high, musical laugh that reminded Rex of Julie Andrews. He wasn’t sure what holiness was, but if it existed at all, then it existed in Sister Florence: in her kindness, her battiness, in the way she made him not want to leave her at the door and go on with his journey.
He walked down Muswell Hill, descending through the fog onto the wide, flat plain of Tottenham, which smelt of slow-burning leaves and Indian takeaways. He walked slowly, gingerly, as he always did, all the way down, as the light seeped from a sky etched with the vapour trails of peoples departing and arriving.
He felt a strong urge to be on one of those planes, heading somewhere hot and steamy and strange. After all, he had the ticket.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Nottingham in 1971, Matthew Baylis is a novelist, journalist and scriptwriter. A former ‘EastEnders’ storyliner, his first novel, Stranger Than Fulham (‘Fast, funny and funky’ The Times; ‘Original enough to get noticed and pickled in black humour’ Daily Mail) was published by Chatto & Windus in 1999. His second novel, The Last Ealing Comedy (‘A triumph’ Daily Express. ‘The excellent dialogue makes you snort at least once a page’ Kirkus UK) was published by Chatto & Windus in 2003.
After adapting Catrin Collier’s series of novels for BBC One, he went to work in Kenya and Cambodia, training local scriptwriters and creating TV dramas for the United Nations and BBC World Service Trust. After a spell living in a remote mountain village on the Pacific island of Tanna, he returned to Britain in 2005, to take up his present role as television critic for the Daily Express. He continues to write films and TV dramas for the Far East.
Copyright
First published in 2013
by Old Street Publishing Ltd
Trebinshun House, Brecon LD3 7PX
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
© M.H. Baylis, 2012
The right of M.H. Baylis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–908699–17-6