Clouds among the Stars

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘I’ve got a new job,’ I said, feeling that this was as good a time as any to get his attention. ‘As assistant deputy arts sub-editor on the Manchester Sentinel. Starting next month.’

  Rupert turned his gaze slowly to my face and looked at me as though I had announced that I intended to earn my bread playing a comb and paper in Oxford Street. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘My new job. In Manchester. The salary’s pretty good. I shall be able to afford a room and food, and I hope Pa will make Cordelia an allowance. It’s a pity she’s got to change schools again but she seems quite good at making friends. I’m going to try and get a ground-floor room so that Mark Antony can go in and out by himself. Dirk’ll be the biggest problem but if the room isn’t too far away I can come back every lunchtime to walk him –’

  ‘Have you had too much sun, Harriet?’ It was a pity the good humour had been so swiftly banished. Rupert was looking very cold now, almost angry. ‘You seem to be babbling. Perhaps you ought to lie down.’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right. You’ve both been angelically good about having us to stay but of course things can’t go on like this for ever. We’ve loved being here. How ever much I tried I could never tell you how grateful we are –’

  ‘Please …’ Rupert closed his eyes and put up his hand as though he were shutting me out. ‘You know I hate that kind of thing. I’m tired and I’m incapable of thinking about anything much. Whatever’s brought on this maudlin fit, just skip it, would you mind? I don’t want you to be grateful. Even less do I want you to tell me about it.’ He put down his glass and put his head in his hands. ‘Can’t you be reasonable and just get quietly on with your life, at least for the time being until this production’s over?’

  ‘I’m being perfectly reasonable!’ I felt myself growing hot. ‘This needn’t disturb you at all. Cordelia and I can just slip away and you probably won’t even notice we’ve gone. I should think you’ll be delighted not to have Dirk chewing everything and Mark Antony digging holes in the garden. To say nothing of the telephone ringing and the sewing machine going at all hours of the day.’

  For a moment Rupert sat silent, smoking his cigar and frowning at a bee that was buzzing about a dish of peach stones. He looked so far away that I wondered if he had stopped listening.

  ‘Do you really think,’ he said at last, in tones of wounding contempt, ‘that you’re going to be able to find a landlady who’ll tolerate an enormous dog and a large cat on the premises? Really, Harriet, I wonder sometimes if you’re fit to be allowed out on your own.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ My spirits, already sinking, were further dashed. ‘But some people are mad about St Bernards. They’ll probably like him better than us. Anyway, that just shows what a lot I’ve got to learn about being independent and looking after myself. You’re always saying I don’t live in the real world. I shall put aside a certain amount to pay back everything I owe you. It’ll take rather a long time, I’m afraid, but –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more about it!’ Rupert stood up suddenly and threw his cigar into a rose bush. He turned on me a face that was transfigured by what looked like fury, almost hatred. ‘Go, if you want! Go to hell, if you like – the sooner, the better – but leave me in peace!’ He marched into the house.

  Archie went to retrieve the cigar butt. ‘We don’t want Dirk to eat it. He’ll only be sick again.’ I could feel that he was looking at me. My face was burning. ‘That didn’t go too well, did it?’

  I gave a shaky laugh. ‘Not very.’

  ‘Don’t take it to heart, my girl. He’s not sleeping very well and he has to deal with everyone else’s nerves at work and bind their psychic wounds. As soon as this thing comes off, he’ll be himself again and then he’ll be sorry he lost his temper.’

  ‘I’m the one that’s sorry. Sorry that I upset him. Sorry that we’ve been such a nuisance – all along really, ever since I came to your party when Pa was arrested. Poor Rupert’s been badgered mercilessly by the entire family, but most of all by me. Of course I understand what he’s feeling. He’s afraid the opera might not be a success.’ I managed some sort of smile though my heart was sore. ‘I want to help him, not make things worse.’

  ‘It’s only two and a half weeks until the first night. You’ll see, if the notices aren’t too bad, he’ll be back to normal in no time. And I’ve had an inspired notion! We’ll have a party afterwards to celebrate. That’ll put him right. A sort of catharsis. Drinking, dancing and fornication.’

  It had always seemed to me that Archie enjoyed parties more than Rupert did but I bowed to his superior knowledge. ‘What sort of party?’

  ‘A drum! A rout! Let me see. Stop that, you brute!’ Archie threw a peach stone at Mark Antony, who was starting to dig a hole among the regal lilies. ‘The performance will end at about half-past ten. They’ll need a few minutes to get their breaths back. Transport will have to be organised. Char-à-bancs, I suppose. They’ll get here about half-past eleven. Perfect! They’ll be drunk already on excitement. We shall dance until dawn!’

  ‘Won’t they all be too tired to perform the next day?’

  ‘An opera house isn’t like a theatre, with the same play on every night throughout the run. They mix up two or three operas and often ballet as well. There won’t be another performance of Un Ballo in Maschera for at least a week. It’s the ideal moment for a ball.’

  ‘A ball!’

  ‘It’s the obvious thing. And it’ll save changing.’ Archie sighed with satisfaction and chucked another stone at Mark Antony, who was beginning on the Japanese anemones. ‘We shall give a masked ball!’

  FORTY-TWO

  During the watches of the night, I wondered if Rupert was awake too, and if occasionally his mind ceased to wrestle with the problems of the production and perhaps turned to thoughts of me. I told myself that this was most unlikely, and anyway, it was a deplorable kind of egotism on my part to want it. But when I went down for breakfast there was a note, with my name on it, propped against my cup. Archie, in a magnificent red silk dressing gown embroidered with fans, was frying eggs. There was no sign of Rupert.

  Archie gave me a plate. ‘You look as though an inebriate husband has blacked both your eyes. Pillow uncooperative?’

  ‘Like a hot iron,’ I admitted, unfolding the note.

  ‘Forgive the tantrum. Too much to drink combined badly with a trying day. Of course you must go and if I can help, please ask. Congratulations on the new job. R.’

  ‘A pipe of peace, I take it?’ Archie peeled a pear with finesse.

  ‘Yes.’ I folded the piece of paper and put it in my pocket. ‘He’s very kind.’

  ‘M-hm.’

  ‘He says congratulations on the job.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘He’s sorry he was cross.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘He says of course I must go. So that’s all right,’ I smiled as brightly as I could manage. Which perhaps was not very. Archie put down the pearl-handled knife, folded his hands and looked at me over the top of his half-moon spectacles. ‘Archie …’ I hesitated.

  ‘Harriet.’

  ‘Don’t you mind about Rupert sleeping with girls? I mean, don’t you feel even the tiniest bit worried that one day he may actually like one of them enough to …’ I paused.

  ‘You mean, Rupert might want to make little Wolvespurgeses with some fresh-faced, flaxen-haired Brünnhilde? Of course that’s always been a possibility. But it’s just as likely that I may want to set up an antiques shop in the Cotswolds with Siegfried. We have to take that as it comes. Rupert and I aren’t lovers. As far as I know, he’s never had sexual congress with a man. Naturally people assume that two men living together are buggers but the truth is that it suits us both to let the world think that. It appeals to Rupert’s sense of humour and, more importantly, it gives him protective colouring. Women are fascinated by him – I suppose it’s his reserve they find challenging. He likes taking them to bed but he d
oesn’t want emotional ties. Living with me he has all the pleasures of domesticity and companionship without the histrionic episodes and sentimental assurances that women require. In my case it makes me look much sexier if I can hint of a handsome younger man as a conquest.’

  I digested this. Rupert and Archie were not lovers. Rupert wasn’t gay at all. I did not know whether joy or despair was uppermost in my mind. Perhaps an uncomfortable mixture of equal amounts of each. Then I remembered something.

  ‘But just a minute. At Pye Place I opened the door of Rupert’s room and overheard what sounded like – things said that strongly suggested that you and he …’ I felt my face grow hot. ‘I mean, you were making love. I heard you.’

  ‘Ha, Ha! I see!’ Archie laughed until his mascara ran. ‘The fact is, Rupert and I changed rooms. Mine was shockingly draughty. My throat is susceptible to inflammation, you know. Rupert is not sensitive to such things. You must have heard me dallying with the gallant Emilio – not a catch I’m especially proud of but he had a certain Hispanic lustre that was appealing. And he was willing. I haven’t shocked you, have I?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I gave further thought to this new interpretation of events. Archie and Emilio. I ought to have guessed. Poor Georgia. I felt so sorry for her that I completely forgave her for sleeping with Max. Of course I knew the whole thing was Max’s fault anyway and not hers, but one is only human. ‘Archie …’

  ‘Harriet.’

  ‘You’re rather hard on women, aren’t you? Histrionic episodes and sentimental reassurances – we don’t all want to live in a ferment of false emotions.’

  ‘I’m only explaining how Rupert thinks. I like the company of women. For me life would be hideously dull without melodrama and theatricality. But I’m rarely serious. And then only when I’m coming down with a cold. Rupert’s madly intense. Poor boy, he can’t help it. He’s terrified of being overwhelmed by love.’

  ‘I can understand that.’ I put my head in my heads. ‘It is frightening to feel that all your happiness is bound up in another person. That without them you don’t – you don’t particularly want to live.’

  ‘Oh, Harriet! Harriet! My poor child, you have got it bad!’

  There was a sympathetic silence while I got control of my face. Then I lifted my head and smiled bravely. ‘I feel such a fool,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how I’ve let myself get into this ridiculous situation.’

  ‘I don’t suppose this is all about Max, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I thought not. Will you let Uncle Archie give you a bit of advice?’

  I nodded.

  ‘There’s a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Now don’t say Othello, because it’s Julius Caesar,’ he added quickly. ‘Shakespeare understood that the art of living consists in playing your cards right. Bugger beauty and truth. Remember, he goes on to say, if you omit to catch that tide, all the voyage of your life will be bound in shallows and in miseries. Doesn’t sound too good, does it? In other words, you’ve got to get the timing right. It’s clever of you to be going away. That’ll do it, if anything will.’

  ‘It isn’t cleverness. Just that I hate to be a burden. And I don’t think I could bear it if I had to stand and watch some girl – even if I knew it wasn’t going to lead to anything permanent – well, you know …’

  ‘My dear, don’t speak to me of jealousy. Horrid, horrid, horrid!’ Archie made a face of abhorrence. ‘Now listen. Be as blithe as you know how. Don’t be seen to mope. Let him brood on your bold new independence. Pretend you’re stalking a very rare, shy camelopard. You mustn’t startle him. Men are frightfully stupid creatures in these matters. Sometimes I’m tempted to lose all patience. Ideas trickle into their minds like silt drifting to the bottom of a pond. Finally you get something you can call mud. Bide – your – time!’

  ‘You’re the kindest, dearest man, Archie. Would you mind if I kissed you?’

  ‘I should be absolutely delighted. Provided you keep it dry and don’t knock me off my chair.’

  That afternoon Archie rushed round to the printers with the invitations he had designed – a black card with information about the party written in silver – and, while Archie addressed envelopes, Cordelia and I spent all evening cutting the cards into mask shapes. We could do several at once so this wasn’t as labour-intensive as it sounds. But we rebelled against cutting in eyeholes, which was much too difficult, and compromised by sticking two eye-shaped lozenges of glitter on each card, instead, which was fun to do and looked very effective. Rupert, when told of the proposed celebration, confined his comments to suggesting we get in chairs with solid seats and strong legs. The fortuneteller’s hut had had to be completely remade in the shape of an Eskimo tupik to accommodate the lead tenor.

  The discovery that Rupert was neither homosexual nor emotionally committed to Archie really changed nothing. I felt even more of a nuisance. Sometimes when I answered the telephone a woman’s voice would ask for Rupert. I always said he was out, as I had been told to do. The voice would become suspicious, even tetchy. One girl asked outright what I was doing there.

  When a Leah lookalike – Rupert’s taste seemed to be for tall blondes – escaped Archie’s vigilance and sneaked into the house behind Cordelia, she was clearly annoyed to find me in residence. She cross-questioned me in a manner bordering on the accusatory about my relationship with Rupert, and chain-smoked without bothering to extinguish the last cigarette properly so the atmosphere in the drawing room was like a Highland black house by the time he came home. When he saw her, he said, ‘Oh. Virginia. I wasn’t expecting you,’ in a voice that lacked even the faintest suggestion of pleasure and flapped his hand about in front of his face. I went to help Archie in the kitchen. Ten minutes later Virginia left the house.

  ‘All right, you disgraceful pair.’ Rupert called down to where Archie and I had been jostling for position out of sight round the bend in the stairs. ‘I know you were listening. Well, what’s the verdict? Did that go better?’

  ‘Certainly it was effective as a temporary measure,’ said Archie. ‘I wonder if she’ll continue to believe that your doctor has prescribed absolute rest to avert a nervous crisis, when she receives an invitation in tomorrow morning’s post with your name on it, requesting her to jitterbug till dawn in less than two weeks’ time?’

  Rupert groaned. ‘Why on earth did you ask her?’

  ‘I remember you were quite keen on her at one time. And I thought we could do with a few more girls with waists.’

  ‘At least she didn’t break your jaw,’ I said comfortingly.

  Archie invited everyone who lived in the street to the ball, thereby ensuring the co-operation of the Horn-on-the-Green Preservation Society, of which he was, anyway, chairman. He planned to have a fifteen-foot wide, sprung dance floor on the grass the full length of the canal and a marquee for food and drink on the common at the end of the cul-de-sac. That way there would be plenty of room for everyone to dance and drink and eat without disturbing the decorum of number 10. This would be used for sitting out only. Where the fornication – declared by Archie to be a key component of the evening’s fun – was to take place, I could not imagine. I decided to lock the door of my bedroom just in case.

  Archie worked tirelessly to ensure the success of the celebration. The music was the most taxing element to get right. Minuets, pavans and galliards would be in keeping with the period but no one would know the steps. Disco dancing would be contrary to the spirit of the occasion. Country dancing would be fun but perhaps too energetic for the stouter guests. In the end Archie decided on a thirties swing band to get the thing off to a lively start, giving way to a more sultry jazz band just before dawn, when we would unmask. Fortunately he had an extensive network of contacts. He knew just the girl to do the food, was on familiar terms with a most obliging wine merchant, and had met the very person to put up a marquee. As we had so little time it was as well that one afternoon on the telephone s
ettled every major requirement. Then we came to what we all agreed was the most important item on the list – what we were going to wear.

  ‘I fancy something in black leather, very tight,’ said Cordelia, whose ideas were rapidly changing under the influence of the Arthur Brocklebuck Comp.

  ‘You must wear white.’ Archie spoke decidedly. ‘It may remind some of the worst roués of your virginal condition. We want it to stay that way if at all possible.’

  ‘I’m not at all sure that it will be a suitable –’ I broke off and clapped my hands over my ears as Cordelia began to scream.

  ‘– and if you don’t let me come I shall go to bed with one of the boys at school and get pregnant immediately,’ I heard when I unblocked my ears. ‘Or perhaps it’d better be the art master. He’s crazy about me and at least he could afford a pram. I hope they won’t send him to prison for underage sex. It wouldn’t be a very good start for the poor baby, would it? I shall tell it as soon as it’s old enough to understand about its wicked Aunt Harriet who was so mean she wouldn’t let me –’

  ‘Oh, all right!’ I gave in with ill grace. ‘But you mustn’t drink anything – nothing alcoholic, I mean – and you must be in bed by twelve.’

  ‘All right,’ Cordelia said with great sweetness. ‘Anything you say, dear sister.’

  I was not fooled for a moment by this. I made a mental resolve that I would not let her out of my sight. This would curtail my own enjoyment but the idea of struggling in a bedsitter in Manchester with Cordelia, Dirk, Mark Antony and a tiny baby was not appealing.

  ‘Something Empire for Cordelia,’ mused Archie. ‘High-waisted diaphanous muslin with tiny puffed sleeves and a low neck. Not too low,’ he added, catching my eye. ‘A green sash, a sprinkling of flowers and a silver mask sewn with crystal beads. No jewellery. We want to suggest something vernal, burgeoning. Flora and the country green. Botticelli’s Primavera.’