A tousled rather grubby young man was casually holding a tray of drinks as we entered the stateroom, and we all duly stood around holding glasses of champagne, eyeing the decoration.
“Most unimaginative,” I whispered to Sylvia, “John Taylor could teach him a thing or two.”
Sylvia nodded doubtfully, looking round at the cream and gold swathed silks and the pale blonde wood that was so moulded and unnatural it could well have been plastic. Hal and Archie were poking around with all the latest technology that the Jolly Spree offered, satellite this and that, and state of the art sound systems, when our host entered the room.
Mr Carlton kept his head down and away from the portholes. He walked heavily, and with a slight limp. Dressed in a blazer and cravat he looked like the perfect elderly English gentleman, until he turned sideways, then you may be forgiven for thinking you were looking at the molten flesh of a war victim. The left hand side of his face had vicious scars running from his eyes and nose to his chin. The tram lines of puckered red flesh met around his cheekbone and slid around his face like a small nest of vipers. Livid red and white, it was an angry sight. The flesh had been pressed back together and held there, just, but with a lopsided twist to it. It was as if one side of his face was a jigsaw puzzle put together by a dyslexic chimp.
His left hand constantly sought and fingered the scars with an unconscious rummaging. He was aware that the blazer, and indeed the cravat, the gold cufflinks, the cigars, were all a little too much. But he needed them. The props from another life were such a comfort.
“Miss Tate, how lovely to see you again,” his old Etonian voice echoed around the stateroom. I smiled and kissed his cheek, letting my smooth skin caress the damaged side of his face for a second or two.
I introduced the Ambles and saw that Archie had stood almost to attention when Mr Carlton shook his hand. It seemed that if you had once been in the Coldstream Guards, as Mr Carlton in a previous life had, you never quite shook off the officer’s mess. Even Hal assumed a more rigid posture.
“Wonderful boat, or yacht, or should I say motor launch,” Sylvia tentatively offered as an opening remark.
Mr Carlton viewed her, breathing heavily through his nose for a moment or two. “You can call her anything you like my dear,” he said finally, seeming pleased with himself for having answered her at all.
There were a few muffled thuds from outside the door as the rough and ready Aussie crew struggled with the complicated European concept of small trays of nibbly things on toast.
Mr Carlton surveyed his staff sadly, he was past complaining, he merely endured. He wandered around the stateroom with a bottle of champagne, filling glasses and breathing like a dragon. I knew that this was caused by a botched rhinoplasty in Paris over a decade ago, but for those who didn’t, it could be alarming.
I had just accepted a triangle of toast that looked as though it had been covered with tinned dog food when there was a shriek and a sound of breaking china from the door that led to the main salon. Mr Carlton raised his eyebrows at me, and muttered, “It’s the damned Aussie crew, but what can I do?” He moved towards the door with a ponderous tread and I seized the opportunity of popping the triangle of toast back onto the silver tray.
He ushered us into a dining room that could have seated fourteen, but was haphazardly laid for five. I explained Bella’s absence, and we sat around the table gazing in ill-concealed horror at the food. Silver tureens held cold lumpy mashed potatoes and gritty looking cabbage, whilst on a flat silver tray lay a dozen or so pallid sausages. Truly, is there anything more unappetizing in the world? I doubt it. Anaemic, wrinkled, small and vulnerable they lay like sea slugs on a bed of silvered seaweed. The very sight of the food was enough to make the strongest stomach weak, but add to it, if you will, the slight shifting of the very habitat you are dining in, and the feeling of queasiness grew a plenty. I steeled myself, and drank a glass of water, pushing aside the champagne, and glanced sympathetically at Sylvia. She, bless her boarding school digestion, was helping herself as meanly as she dared to the offerings. Archie and Mr Carlton were admiring the label on a very expensive bottle of claret and had seemed to ignore the food completely. Hal was pushing a sausage round his plate looking distinctly worried. From time to time he glanced at me, hoping to catch my eye, but I ignored him. Really, I had no use for a love sick swain, and didn’t want to encourage him with look or word. That could come later.
A blonde haired, cheerful, looking young girl popped her head around the door and said, “Grub OK for you?” but didn’t stay for an answer.
Mr Carlton neither apologised nor made reference to the food, but merely stated that he was pleased to have company.
“Are you here for long?” Archie enquired politely.
“Oh no, back to Skiathos in a few days. It has a good deep harbour and ripe with rich tourists wanting to charter yachts. Do you know it at all?” Mr Carlton replied.
“No, I don’t. The furthest I’ve ever been by boat was to Cannes on the Lady Sylvia,” Archie said, memories of seasickness and squally sleepless nights came flooding back to him, and he managed to suppress a shudder of dislike.
“Such a shame. I think you’d like it. Your son certainly would,” Mr Carlton said, raising his eyes to Hal who looked pleased to be noticed amongst such elevated company as he perceived Mr Carlton to be.
“I love Greece,” Hal said enthusiastically, managing to remove a gritty cabbage stalk by sleight of hand into his napkin.
“Do you sail?”
“Oh yes, that is when pa gives me a chance, but –“
“Then you should come over,” Mr Carlton interrupted, looking at Hal, no doubt thinking of his own son, whom he hadn’t seen in decades.
“What a good idea!” I said jumping into the stilted conversation as if into an icy swimming pool. As in impetuous diving, sometimes you had to leap around a bit just to get the circulation going. The thought of Hal island hopping with Charles (I thought that was his first name at the moment, but I didn’t want to chance my arm by mentioning it) Carlton was mind boggling. Fearfully good experience for Hal, I thought.
Mr Carlton pushed his plate away from him and ignoring the stale looking plate of cheese and limp celery, began to quiz Hal on his nautical experience.
By common assent we all removed ourselves back into the stateroom with indecent haste, to get away from the sick-making tableau of food, where Mr Carlton plied Hal and Archie with cigars.
“Well then Flora, have you decided to re-invest?” Mr Carlton said, looking fondly at me. Well, as fondly as I dare say an anaconda can. The Amble family were wandering around the room, and Mr Carlton had taken my arm in an impromptu promenade away from prying ears.
“What’s my return at the moment?” I whispered to him.
“About 120%,” he said, looking pleased.
I stood closer to him, pulling at his arm so that he was facing me. “Do you know? I think I’ll pass this time, but, if I were you I’d play your favourite game with Archie. Perhaps The Lady Sylvia could be the stakes? It seems that Archie isn’t overly fond of life on an ocean wave. He might even throw in his son for the summer, you never know,” I said in a low voice, gazing up at him.
He tapped the side of his nose, unable to resist the running of his fingers over his scars as he did so. His cold blue eyes gazed down at me and I wondered, not for the first time if that’s what Veronica had seen as she had struggled for her life. Those dead fish, glacial eyes. I smiled at him.
“I see. Well, I’ll take that as your withdrawal fee, shall I my dear?”
I nodded and we strolled back to the Amble’s. They made a pretty picture at the end of the cabin, mother flanked by father and son.
The conversation was stilted and I could see that the normal questions that Archie might have asked such a man as Charles Carlton were squashed before they even reached his lips. Somehow, through years of practice Mr Carlton emanated the ability to swerve personal queries. They were headed off befo
re they arrived, and soon it was as if we had all been tutored firmly in the art of double bluff and counter strategy. It was curiously tiring, this form of talk. It never went anywhere and never reached a conclusion. It was like making love to an eager but very inexperienced lover. Endless foreplay and no orgasm.
“So,” said Archie, struggling at sea for a lifeline that didn’t exist, “Your business interests are mostly overseas then?”
“It would seem so. Is London still foggy? Someone told me that there hadn’t been a peasouper years now. Extraordinary.”
“Umm, no. The clean air bill, you know.” Archie added vaguely.
Hal was filling his time by gazing longingly at the door, hoping for the cheerful blonde Australian, who seemed very pretty and somehow normal, and eyeing a complicated looking play station in the corner of the room.
“I try and keep up with things, but it’s tricky, you know. Only ever read The Times, and that’s quite hard to get sometimes. Still, I don’t suppose I miss very much.” Mr Carlton said, firmly clipping off any possible loose threads of conversation.
Sylvia was struggling to think of anything to say and as if by luck she spied the backgammon board sitting on the table.
“Oh, look, do you play Mr Carlton?” she said, desperately hoping that someone would relieve her of any more input into the conversation.
“Now and again, what about yourself?” Mr Carlton enquired idly of the Ambles, as genially as he knew how.
Within ten minutes Charles Carlton and Archie Amble were seated opposite one another, a bottle of brandy and two snifters by their sides.
Board games are of course utterly mind-numbing, more so for the kibitzer or spectator than the player, but I was intrigued to see if Mr Carlton was going to lull Archie into a false sense of security by letting him win the first game. He didn’t. Most professionals do, but then of course Mr Carlton was a fine judge of character. He knew that Archie’s pride would be dented and that Archie would agree to more and more games till he won. I idled the time away by sipping the excellent brandy and watching Hal’s profile as he studied the game.
The second game was about to start.
“I don’t do the Jacoby rule, do you?” Mr Carlton asked.
“What? Umm, no, no I don’t,” Archie blustered helplessly.
“Automatic doubles old boy, shall we beaver? Always makes it more interesting I think.”
The game continued with the inevitable loss by Archie. I smiled to myself. Now was the time for me to whisk Sylvia away. No man likes to lose in front of his wife and family.
“Let’s be off Sylvia, once men start playing dice you could parade naked in front of them and be ignored. Let’s check up on Bella shall we? I’m sure that Hal is eager to look over this magnificent craft. Perhaps that pretty Australian girl could kindly give him the grand tour, Mr Carlton? No, no Hal, really, you stay with your father and Mr Carlton. Thank you so much for a pleasant evening, and perhaps you would be kind enough to give Archie my paperwork on the investment?” I said smiling at Mr Carlton and lightly kissing his scarred cheek again, wrapping myself against the cold night air with my stole.
“Wait a moment, Flora. Let’s see how Archie does, shall we?” Sylvia interrupted.
With as much good grace as I could muster I settled myself down again. How I hate having my plans foiled.
Twenty minutes later I was bored, thirty minutes later I was horrified. It was a bit like being at a modern play at The Royal Court, you know the sort. One that had wooed the press with promises of outrage and controversy and just when you had congratulated yourself on braving the rain and fighting for a cab, ennui settled in and then – the unthinkable happened, the press were actually right – the play proved itself shocking.
Archie’s losses were becoming monumental. Yes, yes, of course I wanted Archie to lose. A little. Not everything. Where would that leave me?
This had to stop.
But how?
I wildly considered my options. Stripping naked? As I had mentioned jokily to Sylvia earlier I knew this to be a non runner. How? Well, let’s just say I knew. Faking appendicitis? How I mourned the days when ladies could have an attack of the vapours and no questions asked. But wait. Archie won the next game. And the next. I started to breathe a little easier, and then I insisted that Sylvia and I leave.
I wound my wrap over my shoulders and smiled fondly at Hal. Let Archie act as my money courier, I thought, as I guided his wife down the gangway and into a taxi. Let Archie lose his yacht and as much money as he dared risk. Let Archie be on the losing side for once in his white middle class man’s world. Let Archie play backgammon with one of the most wanted men in Europe. Usually in my job I try hard not to let emotions rule me, but I couldn’t deny the shiver of satisfaction that was rippling through my bones.
“Shall we stop for a sinful bag of chips on the way back?” I said to Sylvia, “I don’t know about you, but I’m simply famished!”
Rule Number Ten
“It is almost trite to observe that things are not always what they seem. But it remains the case that much that is important is invisible to the eye. Well, most eyes. Not to the trained eye.”
The combination of cold salty air and hot salty chips are immeasurably satisfying. The chips were perfect. Crisp on the outside, meltingly soft interior and the exact shade of golden brown that I require. Obviously double fried. I drenched mine with malt vinegar and a liberal dose of salt. Sylvia, who I was sure had never eaten anything in the street before in her life, followed suit. We strolled back to Middle Fish Street dipping into our chips and licking our fingers. The night life of Brighton was suitably exotic to Sylvia’s innocent eyes. A group of leather queens who were jostling at the entrance of a club, paid homage to my delicious new coat.
“Nice bit of shmutter, gorgeous,” a shaven headed sweetie called out.
I thanked him and watched with amusement as Sylvia sidled closer to me in alarm.
“It’s quite alright Sylvia, they’re gay.”
“Are they? How can you tell?”
Was the woman serious? The tight buttocks, the clean hair over burdened with products, the heavy hand with the cologne and fake facial tans, the touch of the dandy around the collar was enough to tell one that these boys were Friends of Dorothy. I was seriously tempted to take Sylvia into the club, but I reminded myself that I had other fish to fry.
“I find the liberal attitude here very refreshing, don’t you?” I asked, as I pointed out two men kissing each other goodnight at a taxi rank.
“Goodness, Flora, I don’t think about those things,” Sylvia replied nervously, her mind skittering back to the curious time she’d had in Brighton at the hands of Lady Pat, rescued only by Candy and Ellie in the nick of time.
We walked without speaking for a moment, finishing our chips. The town was busy, and the sound of sirens, traffic and different types of music could be heard coming from bars and clubs. A group of foreign students were dancing the samba in the street and one man laughingly caught at my arm obliging me to join him for a moment. I pulled away and re-joined Sylvia who was pressed against the wall trying hard not to look nervous.
“Honestly Flora, you’re very –“
“ What? - Forward? Fast? Racy? Dangerous? Flirty? Shall I go on Sylvia, or is that the drift of your conversation? I think I’ve got it right, haven’t I?” I said smiling at her to show that I wasn’t at all offended.
Sylvia gave a rueful shrug.
“I sometimes wish that I, well, that I was more, well you know –“
“I know. I know you do,” I said laying my hand on her arm. A tremor of pity and wonderment suffused my body. How had this woman survived in the world? Please don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with Sylvia. And I am not in any way suggesting that every waking breath has to be packed with life changing moments. I mean, we can’t all run with the bulls in Pamplona, can we? Or make love behind the high altar at St Marks in Venice. But my god, some of us can dream of doi
ng so. Another shiver raced through my blood. Well, tonight may just well be your lucky night Sylvia my good woman, I thought as we turned into Middle Fish Street.
Soon we were inside the club sitting at the bar watching Ellie move with a fluid grace as she dipped and weaved between the glasses and bottles of her domain.
“A good evening, I hope?” she asked, raising her eyebrow at me.
“So so. How did Bella get on?” I asked, accepting a brandy.
“Sleeping like a baby after making the most delicious treats for breakfast. I’m just clearing up after a bar full of publishers. My god they can drink. Then I’ll join you if I may,” she smiled a tentative, yet confident smile at Sylvia, who responded by smiling back.
I was pleased. Of course. But it really aggravated my headache. After all, I was the one meant to instigate things, I wanted to deliver Sylvia to Ellie on a platter, not have them continue some sort of unfinished business from last year.
Ellie joined us and I took a begrudging back seat in the proceedings. Ellie was wooing Sylvia with the tale of how derelict this building had been when she and Candy had taken it over. With every tale of boarded over fireplaces, stripped floorboards, and cracked plaster cornices she drew her nearer. The horrors of the old kitchens drew a gasp of pleasure from Sylvia that I doubted Archie had heard for many a year. The re-wiring, re-plumbing not to mention the replacement sash windows were hooking Sylvia into a moment of female solidarity against the tyranny of male house owners who had allowed the decay in the first place. Sylvia started to tell Ellie about the renovations going on in her own home, and Ellie sighed and nodded in perfect concordance with her words.
“But then you know all about it! It can be so disruptive that one sometimes feels like giving the whole thing up and going to a retreat, don’t you think?” Ellie asked, placing her hand over Sylvia’s.
“Oh yes, I mean we’re very lucky that Flora managed to find John Taylor – he’s simply marvellous – but I know that Archie’s getting a bit fed up with it and it’s only been a couple of days –“
Before and After Page 10