*
An hour later he’d found himself down in the well of the valley. The cliff had been just traversable to the west, down a series of broken natural pathways. Some hours after that he had actually found her body. It had lain broken at the foot of a tree he had no name for. He’d straightened her buckled limbs and smoothed her hair and piled stones around her to keep off the predators. He was happy to leave her to the smaller processes of the world, to let her sink back into the soil in the jaws of insects and through the stomachs of worms and larvae, slowly as the seasons passed. That was dignified, he thought, more dignified than being ripped at by pumas or tapirs or vultures.
After sitting with her and burying her and leaving her he had wandered the jungle around the foot of the cliff and gathered up what he could find of their belongings. He’d walked miles round and round and found his rucksack (it required some tree climbing to reach), with all his notebooks intact and mostly dry, and he’d found a cooking pot, which he wasn’t sure was actually one of his, but which he claimed anyway. What he hadn’t found a trace of, was his baby. It was as if she had been lost on the wind, or more simply that the jungle was so huge and she so small and he only one man searching it. He’d sworn, but had known that he had to climb back up the cliff before night fell and get back to his two boys. They were alive and he loved them and could locate them, therefore they would be, they must be, his focus now.
*
Only once, while climbing the narrow path out of the valley did he think he heard the sound of a baby’s cry. It was a thin and distant sound, carried by the high fast wind that alternately pushed and pulled him on the dangerous cliff path. High and thin and then gone. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was some aural illusion created by the wind whipping through a tree or driving through a hole in a rock. Maybe it was just an animal. He convinced himself, in no short time, that it must’ve been a natural sound of some sort that merely played with his sense of wishful thinking. But for a moment there, for one terrifying hopeful moment, it had sounded shockingly real.
Chapter 19
Penelope Penultimate & The Lawyer’s Office
When Penelope Penultimate arrived back in London she went straight to the Quirkstandard family’s lawyer’s office. There she met the man who had been entrusted with the safekeeping of her sister’s will. Her brother-in-law had died three years earlier in slightly mysterious circumstances, which after some investigation by the authorities were deemed to be ‘still fairly mysterious’. Whatever the precise circumstances had been, and the rumours were varied (not that Miss Penultimate listened to rumours and her sister hadn’t liked to talk about them, even to her), the fact had been established beyond doubt that Lord Quirkstandard was dead. Now that Sarah Penultimate-Quirkstandard, Lady Quirkstandard, had also departed that left their only son as sole heir. Balustrade had no siblings to quibble over the details and on the Penultimate side Penelope was the only relative, therefore she assumed that the procedures would be fairly straightforward, legally.
Ivor Funicular was a small man, hardly five foot two when barefooted and barely an inch or so taller in his boots. His hair was dark, his nose offensive in an indistinct way (not only couldn’t you put your finger on just what it was, but you wouldn’t have wanted to even had you been allowed) and his eyes glistened like Brilliantine.
When Miss Penultimate entered his office he was sat in the chair at his desk giving dictation to his secretary. He (the secretary) was sat with a notepad on his knee on the desk. When Funicular saw Miss Penultimate in his doorway he gestured the secretary aside with a flick of his hand and stood up, becoming momentarily shorter, before climbing back into his chair.
‘Please, have a seat, Mrs …?’ he said as he did so.
‘Miss.’
‘Oh, I do apologise, Miss …?’
‘There appears to be only the one chair,’ she observed, after briefly glancing around the small room.
‘There’s always the desk?’ Funicular offered.
‘I think I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.’
‘As you wish, Miss …? The marble is rather cold.’ He smiled in a grimacing sort of way, as if he had made a joke which he felt needed pointing out in the silence.
‘Yes, quite.’
‘Indeed. Indeed.’
A silence passed between them. Funicular gazed and Miss Penultimate waited. Nothing happened. He seemed content to just look at her over the top of his spired fingertips. Eventually she gave in and spoke.
‘Is there something you wish me to sign, Mr Funicular?’
‘Oh, maybe. Are you famous, Miss …?’
‘Famous?’
‘Yes. I do have an autograph book, but as a rule I do only collect signatures of the great and the good, and sometimes actors too. And you, Miss …?’
‘No, I’m not famous. I meant, do you want me to sign some paperwork? Is there something that requires my signature, legally?’
‘Oh. I see. Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it?’
‘Depend, on what?’
‘On who you think you are.’
‘Really?’
‘Most sincerely.’
‘Surely sir,’ Miss Penultimate felt a pedantic twitch rise in response to this little man’s quiet but persistent obstreperousness, ‘who I am and who I think I am are not necessarily statements of common identification. Are you really suggesting that the latter, a mere belief in who I am, is in fact pertinent to the question in hand; or do you, as I suspect, wish to know, as a contingent fact in the external world, what it says inside, for example, inside my hatband? You wish to know, I imagine, who the rest of the world believes me to be, and if I claim to be Napoleon or Joan of Arc that would merely be an accidental confirmation of my inappropriateness to be signing legal paperwork of any kind.’
‘Ah, so true, so true, Miss …? Um? Who do you think you are? An intriguing and revealing question indeed as you point out. A fount of inappropriate knowledge for this office. One that we may investigate, perhaps, at our leisure some other time. So, madam, assuming you claim to be neither Napoleon nor Joan of Arc (which would be unfortunate since I don’t keep a straitjacket handy in the office, anymore), would you be so kind as to tell me, just who it is you are?’
‘I, Mr Funicular, am the sister of the late Sarah Penultimate-Quirkstandard. I am Miss Penelope Penultimate and I believe you have something for me.’
‘Oh, Miss Penultimate!’ he shouted gleefully, ‘You’ve come all the way from the jungle to see me! I should’ve guessed from your hat, of course. Forgive me for my rudeness and lack of detective intelligence. Oh, I would be delighted if you would sign my autograph book before you leave. I have worn your aglets ever since I was a lad.’
(The Penultimate Fortune was founded on the sale of aglets. Miss Penultimate had always found the fame that came along with the name (which was known around the world, wherever aglets were sold) to have been both an aid and a hindrance (occasionally both at the same time) on her wide travels.)
‘How lovely. I feel obliged, however, Mr Funicular, to point out that I haven’t come straight from the jungle, and nor have I come, strictly speaking, to see you.’
‘All the same, all the same, here you are in my little office.’
‘Yes, it is quite small isn’t it?’
‘Ah, you make a joke.’ (Miss Penultimate didn’t think that she had.) ‘I adore a woman who can joke. And such a funny woman, wisely cracking wisecracks in my office. My office!’
‘Yes. This conversation (which would be far better, Mr Funicular, were it shorter) would be very awkward were I in someone else’s office. That is why I am here.’
‘Ah, yes. Shorter is always better. That’s one of my mottos. Would you like to know what the others are, Miss Penultimate?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, very well. One of them is “Size is unimport … ”’
‘Mr Funicular, to business, please. Now. I believe you have something for me?’
‘Oh yes.’ H
e scooted his chair forward and plunged his hand into a pile of papers. ‘Yes, Miss Penultimate. There are, of course, some formalities to be observed first.’
‘Of course.’
He leant back in his chair, clutching a sheet of legal paper in his hand and stared at her for a moment.
‘Over dinner, perhaps?’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Miss Penultimate, uncharacteristically thrown.
‘The details, Miss Penultimate, I thought we might discuss them over dinner, maybe this evening?’
‘No.’
‘Tomorrow night, then. Or the weekend? In fact, I’m quite free …’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
‘Here and now, Mr Funicular.’
‘Well then, let me at least send for a couple of glasses of wine. I mean, civilisation can hardly be said to exist without the fragrant juices of the grape to fill the gaps. Let us whet with wine our palates …’
‘No. Mr Funicular it is a quarter past nine in the morning. I left work early and travelled almost four and a half thousand miles to be here and I am in neither the mood for your risible ideas of romance, nor for further, if I may speak frankly, fannying around. Stop it at once and show me exactly what it is that you have relating to my late sister’s will. Thank you.’
If Miss Penultimate had not already been standing she would have stood at this point. As it was she simply stood straighter, if such a thing were possible, and stared.
Penelope Penultimate was a handsome lady, not beautiful in any classical sense, but decidedly eye-catching. Much of this had to do with her deportment and posture, but no small part came about from her eyes. She had a number of stares which quickly silenced people, men and women, and she knew exactly which one to use in which circumstances. They captivated, quietened and could inculcate loyalty, adoration and fear. Oh, most especially fear. She was not a woman to cross, that’s what those eyes could say, as the blue in them turned icy cold and as they narrowed their beams to sharp, penetrating arrows. There was no messing. With those eyes she had once dissuaded a jaguar from pouncing in the Amazon and had on another occasion quieted a whole horde of revolting mutineers in the South China Seas after a week with no fresh water and a dicky compass.
It was one of these stares that she turned on Ivor Funicular now. But to her surprise he appeared to remain unfazed by her steely glint. Whether it was a sign of a strong will, of idiocy or of severe myopia she couldn’t tell.
‘To business then,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I sit on your lap, Miss Penultimate?’
‘What?’
She was not used to be being so wrong-footed, but this little man, this annoying little man, was zigzagging about too quickly. She felt tired with the ship-lag and had rushed to visit the lawyer without having any breakfast.
‘We need to go over the text of the will, just quickly. I mean it’s all quite straightforward.’
‘That’s not what you just said, Mr Funicular. Repeat what you said before that.’
‘The will, Miss Penultimate, we must just look over it …’
‘No, before that … There was something about my lap?’
‘Ah, dear Miss Penultimate, as you correctly noticed upon your entrance, there is only one chair in this little office. I’m only a junior partner you see and such extravagances as having two chairs are quite beyond my means at this point in time. What I was suggesting, which is, I can assure you, quite standard procedure in a situation like this, in which we both need to be able to see the same document from the same angle, is that you take the chair and I hop up onto your lap …’
Miss Penultimate had not heard such offensive drivel for years and years, not since she encountered a pair of Prussian missionaries in the Belgian Congo. But even then they’d simply been surprised by her and her girls (who were somewhat taller than the pygmies they’d been sent to talk to), and what followed was more along the lines of an embarrassed misunderstanding than the sort of pointed, purposeful nonsense that Funicular was spouting.
‘Just tell me what it says,’ she said coldly.
‘You could sit on mine, if you prefer.’
‘No.’
They paused for a moment longer. A clock ticked.
‘Are you definitely sure you won’t sit down? A slice of cake perhaps? Some tea?’
She tried increasing her stare and raised an eyebrow half an inch. What had never failed to quell an imperious man before, failed now.
‘The will, Mr Funicular.’
He looked up, straight into her eyes and didn’t shudder at all. He did pause for a long moment though.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, finally.
He laid the piece of paper he’d been waving around down onto the desk in front of him and pulled a pair of reading glasses out of his suit’s breast pocket. Miss Penultimate recognised the gold flare of the Quirkstandard letterhead at the top of the sheet.
‘Your sister, Lady Penultimate-Quirkstandard, made this will merely hours before she passed away. But it was signed and witnessed, and is entirely in order, replacing her previous will which had been made in 1897, well before her husband’s untimely death. When she was told that the verrucas had spread to her brain she became calm and called for us to set her affairs straight. I was with her shortly before the end, my dear Miss Penultimate, and I can say that your sister was not in very much pain, despite the size of the growths …’
‘Get on with it.’
‘Oh, yes …’
‘The will.’
‘The will says two things. Firstly, that everything that was hers passes to her son, Epitome Quirkstandard; and, secondly, that, until he reaches his twenty-first birthday, she entrusts the boy, and all his financial, educational and moral affairs, into your care.’
She sighed. It was exactly as she expected. She couldn’t have imagined it playing out any other way. She had inherited the boy. A son she had never wanted, had never thought about, barely ever met and had never much liked. What was she going to do with him?
‘Here,’ said Mr Funicular, having climbed down from his chair and walked round to the front of the desk, ‘Are the keys to 23 Devonshire Terrace.’
He handed her a set of keys from his pocket, before spinning on his tiny heel and marching toward a giant safe in the corner of the room.
‘And in here,’ he said reaching up with a key of his own and twirling a combination lock at the same time, ‘are Lady Penultimate-Quirkstandard’s jewellery, cutlery and documents. We felt it best not to leave them lying unaccounted for in a house full of servants. I’m sure you understand.’
As he swung open the heavy door which led, not so much into a safe as into a small room filled with shelves of miscellaneous paperwork, boxes, and boxes of paperwork all tied up with fancy legal ribbons, Miss Penultimate caught sight of a small boy.
Her thin, pale twelve year old nephew was sat on a little wooden stool, reading a magazine. She noticed a candle burning on one of the shelves just to his side.
‘Oh, and here’s the boy,’ added Funicular, apparently as an afterthought.
As the lawyer stepped into the safe, climbed a stepladder and pulled down three small boxes from a high shelf, Epitome stretched and stepped out into the office. It took him a moment to recognise his Aunt, since it had been at least a year since she had last visited and he’d been busy idling at the time, but when he did see her and realised who she was he ran over, flung his arms around her waist and buried his head in her bosom, something no man had ever dared do before.
‘Auntie, Auntie!’ he cried, as if in joy.
Something unexpected stirred in Miss Penultimate’s heart at this great welcome, and as she prised his head away from her bust and looked at his big teary eyes she patted his cheek and said, ‘There, there, dear, your Aunt’s here for you now.’ Perhaps it was simply having spent a quarter of an hour wrangling with Funicular that improved her view of Epitome (as if he proved that not all men were as vulgar, smarmy and idiotic), or perhaps it was the emerge
nce of long buried maternal instincts, or maybe just that her overpowering moral sense kicked in and wouldn’t leave one of her own family behind. Whatever it was, she was determined from that moment on, that what she could do for the boy, she would do.
She ruffled his hair in a way she imagined might be comforting. But who knew with boys?
Funicular placed the three packages onto his desk.
‘Jewellery, cutlery and important documents,’ he said, ‘Could you just sign the docket there to say you’ve picked them up?’
As she signed, he walked back to the safe and closed it, locked it and spun the combination wheel. Miss Penultimate was fairly sure she’d memorised the numbers and she knew which pocket Funicular kept the key in. You never know, she thought, when such information might come in handy.
‘Are you sure,’ Funicular said, apropos very little, ‘that I can’t tempt you with just a small glass of wine, or perhaps, seeing what time it is, a quick breakfast roll?’
His eyes flickered devilishly.
‘Mr Funicular,’ Miss Penultimate answered slowly and evenly, ‘may I speak candidly with you a moment? Stepping outside the usual bounds of normal and good society? Outside the conventional mores of usual London decency, if you see what I mean? Only, what I wish to say to you … may be … upsetting.’
‘Miss Penultimate. I think we both know I am a man of the world. I can guarantee that not only is whatever you say to me in this office obviously covered and bound by my lawyer’s oath of confidentiality, but also that I am almost, shy of a few exceptions, quite entirely unshockable.’
He stepped with her over to the large window which dominated one wall of the office, leaving Epitome sat on the other side of the desk shuffling his heels.
‘Very well, Mr Funicular,’ she began, bending over him like an awesome, beautiful leaning tower and speaking in a low soft hushed voice. ‘In my time I have killed only three men. All of them, it must be said, were taller than you, broader than you and possibly more intelligent than you, although one of them was a Bavarian, so who can say? He was despatched with a paperweight, a very large and heavy paperweight. Another vanished mysteriously in the night from the deck of an ocean liner, and the third I strangled to death with my belt.’
The Education Of Epitome Quirkstandard Page 14