They worked the balls in tandem, as they had used to do, speeding up as the rhythm began to establish itself.
‘Andy, pandy, sugar and candy, salt, almond, rock,’ Dulcie chanted.
‘Alack, I am worn to a ravelling,’ Christina said. ‘But I have my twist.’
‘Methinks I am a prophet, new inspired,’ Dulcie said. ‘Yet I myself am in want of a feather bed.’
‘I like your hat,’ Christina said.
‘Thanks,’ Dulcie said. ‘I nicked it off of that pile of sand back there by the cathedral.’
‘That cathedral’s the college chapel,’ Christina said. ‘So where d’you buy your coat, then? Tramps’ Outfitters?’
‘Yeah,’ Dulcie said. ‘And don’t I look a fuckin freak? I give a tenner for it up the Oxfam. Got to have the clothes, then, haven’t I? All the bourgeois clothes. That’s if I’m coming to join you here.’ And the two of them kept on juggling.
‘Coming here?’ Christina said. And her heart leapt, rejoicing. ‘What do you mean, coming here? Anyway, you don’t like it here – the whole sodding place looks like churches.’
‘Well, it might be a dump,’ Dulcie said. ‘But it’s a damn sight better than stuffing jam in them cakes down the bakery all day long. That’s what I’ve been doing, Chris. That and working in the caff.’
‘Our caff?’ Christina said.
‘Yeah,’ Dulcie said. ‘That’s where I met your mum. She come in with a fat priest.’
‘Father Zachary Levine,’ Christina said. ‘God in heaven, how weird.’
‘Chris,’ Dulcie said. ‘She’s great, your mum. She’s fantastic, I reckon. Anyway, she persuaded me to think again – about this place, I mean. So I come along this afternoon to bung in the application forms. Today’s the last day, you see. D’you reckon they’ll have me?’
All the while, as she spoke, Dulcie kept on juggling.
‘Are you joking?’ Christina said. ‘With your grades and your background? Dulce, they’ll practically club you over the head and drag you in by the hair. But what about all that choirboy stuff? And all the gargoyles and the cycle clips and that? I thought all that stuff scared you.’
‘So why do you think I’m standing here in the middle of the quad?’ Dulcie said. ‘Pardon me, “court”. In the middle of the court, like a charley, with a traffic cone on my head? Why d’you think I’m juggling, then, with five oranges what I just nicked from the dining hall over there?’
‘You’re proving that you’re not scared?’ Christina said.
‘Right,’ Dulcie said. ‘Right, as usual, Hunca Munca, only mustard isn’t a bird. Gawd, but I’ve missed you, Chris, I tell you. So, how did you break your leg?’
‘I fell off a fire-escape staircase,’ Christina said. ‘I was watching two women kissing.’
‘Fuckin lezzies,’ Dulcie said, and all the while she kept on juggling. After a longish silence, she said, ‘So how about it? How about us, then, Chris? What I mean is, do you fancy blokes?’
‘I thought I did,’ Christina said. ‘I used to think that I loved Jago, but now I know that I don’t. Yesterday I discovered that I loved Peter, but that’s more like the love people bear towards their guardian angel, I suppose. I’ve also discovered – embarrassingly – that I really do love my father. By which I mean to say that I adore my mother’s estranged husband.’ She sighed. ‘What about you?’ she said.
‘Me?’ Dulcie said. ‘Blokes? Not bloody likely. But then I never have. It’s just them forever going after me – always trying for a grope on the fuckin Underground. It’s just like my bum’s not my own private property. They’re all like fuckin Wayne. Else they’re like that charley with the sandals and the posh, squeaky voice. Remember him? I’d much rather be with you, Chris. I’ve always liked you, haven’t I? D’you remember when you first walked into the john? In the coat and the shoes and all? And poor old Trace with her big tits, teasing up her hair? Anyway, aren’t fags supposed to meet each other in the john?’
Christina blinked. ‘Dulce,’ she said. ‘Crumbs. I don’t think so, but maybe it’s too sudden. I don’t think it’s me, to tell you the truth. I think I was aware of that yesterday when I fell off that fire-escape staircase. Not that you aren’t this life’s most beautiful creature. Not that I don’t passionately wish that I was you.’ Then she said, ‘But excuse me for just a moment. There’s a bloke that’s coming straight for us.’
She spoke in haste, because she had noticed that the man in the pin-striped suit with the fibre-glass briefcase had left the porter’s lodge and was now striding across the grass. He was gesticulating angrily. When he spoke, it was with quite a strong northern accent.
‘Off the gruss, off the gruss!’ he said. ‘Cun’t you read?’
‘Who is he, do you suppose?’ Christina said.
Dulcie shrugged. She kept on juggling. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘Bobby Shaftoe? One of the low on whom assurance sits as a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.’
‘Cun’t you read?’ said the man, ‘Cun’t you read? What does the notice say?’
‘I can read,’ Dulcie said. ‘It says “Keep Off of the Grass”. And who are you calling cunt? Anyway, we’re not on the grass. We’re on the step, aren’t we? You’re the one who’s on the grass, mister. Mister Whatsyourname. Lord Muck.’
‘I’m Doctor Riley to you,’ he said. ‘I’m the new college fundraiser. So don’t you trifle with me.’
‘Trifle with you?’ Dulcie said. ‘Trifle as in jelly and ice-cream?’ And the girls kept on juggling.
‘Do you know what trifle’s called in Italian, Dulce?’ Christina said. ‘It’s called zuppa inglese. That means English soup.’
‘Soup?’ Dulcie said, and she kept on juggling. ‘You kidding?’
The fundraiser paused. He was fast considering discretion to be the better part of valour. ‘You’ll not have heard the lust of this, you two,’ he said, and he turned on his heels to go.
‘Lust?’ Dulcie said.
As he turned, somebody in the east wing switched on a light. It threw a beam across the court and illumined the fundraiser’s ear, upon which Christina noticed that the Born Lump was small but unmistakable.
She faltered. She dropped the balls.
‘Now look what you’ve gone and done,’ Dulcie said.
‘Sorry,’ Christina said. ‘It’s that man. The thing is, I know who he is.’
Dulcie took the traffic cone off her head. She began to collect the fallen oranges. She stowed them inside the inverted cone. ‘So who is he, then?’ she said. ‘And anyway, who the hell cares?’
Christina shrugged. She laughed. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Who cares?’ She picked out one of the oranges and threw it high in the air. It travelled first through the beam of light, then disappeared for a moment into the moonless dark. After that, it fell to the ground with a soft, bursting thud. It landed at Dulcie’s feet.
‘So who is he, then?’ Dulcie said again.
‘Second son of old Sir Rowland de Boys,’ Christina said. ‘I don’t know. Just someone. Some schmuck. As you say, Dulce, who the hell cares?’
Epilogue; or, What You Will
So what has happened to them? Did the frame freeze? Did the balance hold? No, of course not. Well, yes and no. Let us take a look at them all, three years on.
Pam and Jago are married. They were married in France by Jago’s second cousin, the once so youthful rugby priest. The wedding itself was big and splashy and had to do, Christina considers, with Jago’s dubious romanticism about her sister – and with Joe’s equally dubious compulsion to control both bride and groom with largesse. It also had to do with Jago’s need to act out his own self-consciously reconstructed past.
Jago’s mother, Mireille, was delighted by the turn of events and immediately took Pam to her heart. Jago’s father, Charles Rutherford – who had advised his son in dastardly manner to ‘screw the girl, if you must, Jamie’, but ‘in Christ’s name’ not to go marrying her – Charles Rutherford had aptly got his comeuppance
and had died suddenly at the wheel of his car before the invitations went out.
Pam, Jago and little Bruno are together now in Italy, where Pam pursues her career as a singer and Jago, for the moment, has taken a break from mathematics to complete a Foundation Course in Art and Design in Florence. For Pam’s sake, he is determinedly cultivating the Whole Man. A big mistake this, Christina considers, who is of the opinion that there is quite enough of him already.
Peter Rusconi is still very happy with Victor, whom he loves dearly. Peter was never marked out for Christina, for all that symmetry, colour-coding and all the physical correlatives seemed to point so conveniently in that direction. Colour-coding is, after all, not necessarily a highly successful basis for permanent living-together relationships, and sometimes, as in Twelfth Night, for example, it is employed merely to mark out links between siblings, especially twins. Peter and Christina are profoundly infused with a reciprocal brotherly love. They are also, in one sense, related and both, of course, have appeared at crucial moments as Jago Rutherford’s angels. Oddly enough, they have recently discovered that they also share a birthday.
Roland and his wife are no longer an item. This was the work of Gentille, who discovered that her life was suddenly ripe for change. Once that time had come, she managed the change magnificently, and Roland at a stroke became a part of her past – and the past by its very nature was history. It simply wasn’t there. Gentille, on the day that Christina had burst in on Roland to claim him as her father, had been visiting the people who lived next door to Judith and Hugo Campbell. It was Roland’s sister’s family, of course, who were on sabbatical from Vancouver. The two little girls mentioned earlier in the story were none other than Roland’s sister’s daughters, who had in the interim become six. The two older girls were away at school, while Miffy’s friend Rose was the third child of the family, and strident Patience the fourth.
Gentille, in short, has struck up with Hugo. It was on the cards from the start. Hugo and Judith were disastrously matched and had brought out all the worst in each other. So the Mermaid Woman, as Christina puts it, has run off with the Watery Green Man.
It was Miffy who brought them together. Roland’s daughters, Ellen and Lydia, who were visiting next door, had caused some uncomfortable realignments from Miffy’s point of view. Her dear friend Rose, for the course of her cousins’ visit, had had eyes only for Lydia, and Miffy, tired of playing gooseberry, had announced that she would return home.
‘Well, why don’t you go by the rope ladder?’ was all that Lydia said. ‘That way, with a bit of luck, you’ll break it.’ This unpleasant personal remark had been too much for fat little Miffy. Though always apprehensive about heights, she had announced at once that she would return by no other means. The rope ladder hung in Rose’s garden, but from a branch attached to one of Hugo’s trees; it was the work of Roland’s brother-in-law, who had made it for the diversion of his two youngest daughters. Miffy and Rose had always gone by the gate, but on this particular occasion, Miffy mounted the ladder and began determinedly to climb.
She made it up to the top of the ladder and on to the horizontal branch. She was already well beyond the Vancouver family’s airspace when she looked down, lost her nerve, and froze.
‘I’m going to fall,’ she called out. ‘Help! I’m going to fall.’
To these cries Gentille responded by entering Hugo’s garden. This was how Gentille first saw Hugo and how Hugo first saw Gentille. Her effect on him was extraordinary. Hugo put down the pen and the pastry-board and then he rose from his chair, staring at Gentille fixedly. He stepped out through the iron bars of the gazebo and walked, enchanted, towards her. As he proceeded, she began to move forward. Their eyes were fixed on each other. They met half-way between the house and Miffy’s tree, their raised arms held out until their four hands met, two and two, fingers touching.
‘Help!’ Miffy cried. ‘I’m going to fall!’
It was then that Judith’s brother came flying out of the kitchen. The whole dense mass of him broke through the arch made by the enchanted lovers’ limbs and caught the child as she fell. Miffy fell horizontal, belly upwards, into his outstretched arms. It was the first successful acrobatical act of Zak’s life.
‘In one hour,’ Gentille was murmuring on a sigh, ‘I must leave for Poland.’
‘Poland?’ Hugo said, incredulous. ‘But I too am leaving for Poland. Conference,’ he added. ‘Humour and Anarchy.’
‘Ah,’ Gentille said. ‘Then it is a miracle.’ After that, they kissed.
‘Zak,’ Miffy said. ‘Thank you so much. I didn’t even know that you’d come.’
Their noses and ears as they hugged were identical, as was most of their physiognomy. As to Zak, Miffy’s fall was terrible: it was an occasion for revelation, because in the moment that Zuleika landed in his arms the scales dropped from his eyes. He knew all at once that she was his daughter and that all those curious dreams he had had for twelve years now in which he was falling, falling, always falling into his sister’s arms had suddenly taken on a local habitation and name. The habitation was Gordon Square. A party. Student party. Lots of medics. Something very strange about the drink, so that the night was like a dream. And the name of the dream, as he realized now, was incest. Zak blinked. He thought about his sister. He said, talking sadly to himself, ‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.’
‘What did you say?’ Miffy said. She had swivelled herself upright in his arms and had fixed her stout legs, scissorwise, around his ample waist.
‘Oh, my dear,’ Zak said. ‘I merely said that I feared Greeks, bearing gifts.’
Miffy laughed. ‘Greeks?’ she said. ‘Zakky, hug me, please.’
And Christina? Is she with Dulcie?
No, she isn’t, because Dulcie has taken up with Christina’s mother. They are living together in Cambridge in that nice little house that Papa had so kindly bought for Christina. Dulcie has just written her finals and she has drafted her research proposal. She has been invited to stay on and do graduate work by the department which, Hugo Campbell notwithstanding, is quite capable of knowing a very good thing when it sees one. She has decided to research the cult of the Black Madonna in Southern France. Alice is working in London with a firm of chartered accountants. Her professional life is matter-of-fact. She saves romance for home and for Dulcie.
Dulcie has become the great love of her life; a miracle, a second chance, because long ago, as a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, Alice fell in love. She fell in love with Jem McCrail, who subsequently became Pam’s mother. Jem had been the tallest, the brightest, the most creative schoolgirl; humbly born, dazzling, and besotted with English literature. And now, miraculously, here was Dulcie – Chrissie’s dearest friend – the tallest, the brightest, the most creative schoolgirl; humbly born, dazzling, and besotted with English literature.
And the best thing is that Dulcie loves her back with an infinite and tender conviction. So that, when Alice cries and worries about the difference in their ages, Dulcie is always able to be completely sincere in reassurance.
‘Don’t be so soft in the head, Alice Springs,’ she says. ‘Don’t be such a dafty. You’re thirty-nine, aren’t you? That’s young. That’s nothing. And who gives a fuck? By the look of you, my loveliness, you could be Chrissie’s baby sister.’
Dulcie wakes Alice early and brings her tea in bed. She has persuaded Alice to work out with her. They run together on early summer mornings before Alice takes the train. Over weekends they sometimes run the country path from Newnham Croft to Grantchester, passing the cows that helped Christina to formulate her essay. They hold hands in quiet cafés and thank God for the miracle of each other’s XX chromosomes. They can hardly believe their own good luck.
It is not that Joe wasn’t lots of fun, but Alice can almost not believe, now, that her marriage really happened. Incredible Joe, her mother’s bête noire, her children’s stand-in father, her personal bald, provoking lover, and chef, and hound of hell. It had all been an experienc
e not to be missed. But the energy that it had consumed! All that constant hammering of oneself into something which one was not.
And then, just as she was close to despair, she had found lovely Dulcie in that café off Seven Sisters Road. And then, in the whorl of that perfect exposed female umbilicus, and in that beautiful recessed ropy column of exposed female spine, Alice’s mind had at once put to bed the idea of Judith Levin – Judith, who was destructive and manipulating and herself too unhappy and angry to help – and it came to rest and to drown in Dulcie.
So what, then, has become of Judith? Judith has gone with Joe. Their story is as follows. Joe sold out the small, independent publishing house. He sold out to a large multinational corporation that had made its money in biscuits. He has bought the food shop off Seven Sisters Road. He has gone into business with his friend Zak Levine, who is a one-time Jesuit priest. Judith’s parents sold up the shop and returned to Johannesburg. There they fell into joyful reunion with many elderly, once-banned, returning exiles, and rediscovered a multitude of modest, well-deserved pleasures, like the beauty, for instance, of bougainvillea rampant over small suburban bungalows on quarter-acre lots.
Joe lives with Judith and Zak and Zuleika in the sizeable upstairs flat above the shop which expands over the top two floors and has a fire-escape staircase running down the back – ‘so Chrissie can visit’, as he says. He has touched the flat with his genius for bright extravagance, so that the apartment now looks like a well-lit Aladdin’s cave.
Miffy is fifteen and is much happier and a bit thinner because her mother is happier and a bit fatter. She thrives on the fact that, in place of one useless, pale green man who behaved as if she were invisible, she now has two dark, distinctly corporeal men who notice her far too much. She has Zak, who indulges her as he always did, and Joe, who scares her, rants at her, excites her, loves her, and looms over her eating habits, her homework, her deportment and her friends, like a captivating tyrant.
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