Immediately after supper I went for a run to work off a few pounds of noodles. Orlando and Fritz were sitting on the balcony with coffee and Baisers, meringues flavoured with almonds and rosehips. Conrad had disappeared into his study. I would not be missed. I reminded myself as I ran that I had dedicated my life to dancing, and society therefore must come a poor second. I took the path down through the woods.
The soft evening light gave every tree and glade a mysterious beauty. Now and then my thudding feet startled birds into sudden flight. The simple pleasure of moving my body and stretching my limbs lifted my mood. The heady scent of hawthorn mingled with the pungent smell of wild garlic as my plimsolls crushed the aromatic leaves. I breathed steadily and slowly on the way down to the edge of the wood then, without pausing, turned and began the ascent. Naturally, running uphill was much more strenuous. By the time I emerged from the trees to the little plateau by the bridge, the sky had taken on an inky hue and I was breathing fast.
I started to walk across the bridge. My anxiety returned. Supposing Rafe became depressed? Despite the act he had put on in front of the others, he must believe that this time I meant what I said. I passed the statue of Justice with her blindfold and then Envy, gnawing her own heart and … fright made pandemonium of my circulation. Standing on the parapet between Avarice and Idleness, holding out her arms like an avenging angel, was a statue I had never seen before. Someone ran past me, pushing me aside roughly so that I fell onto one knee.
‘For God’s sake, Vanessa!’ shouted my father. ‘Stop playing the fool!’ Vanessa Trumball swayed backwards and forwards. ‘I’ve had enough of your games!’ he shouted. ‘Get down, you bloody pain in the arse!’
I saw him lift his hand towards the teetering figure, saw her twist round and leap into the air. Then her body folded and she dropped headfirst into vacancy with a high-pitched wail of terror.
‘Oh …Christ!’ He leaned over the parapet to look down. ‘Jesus! Vanessa!’ He sucked in his breath suddenly and then let out a series of gasps. It was the oddest noise. I realized that he was crying. Never in my life had I seen my father even mildly doubtful. Always he had been hard and certain and cynical. My one desire was to get away before he realized I had seen him exposed, suffering. While he leaned against the balustrade, weeping and cursing, I crept back towards the place where the bridge ended and the road began. When I heard footsteps approaching I flung myself to the ground behind a bush. He walked past me still talking to himself. ‘Bitch! Bloody fool! Stupid bitch!’ over and over again. Then he shouted, ‘Marigold! Marigold! Where are you, for God’s sake!’ I hardly breathed until I heard a car door slam and the engine start up.
For some time after he had driven away I lay in the mud. I had a sensation of floating above myself, of being able to look down and see my body prone in the rain-filled tyre tracks left by turning vehicles. I suppose it was shock. At last the coldness of the wet ground returned me to my senses and I staggered up. My legs were stiff and heavy as though they were both encased in plaster. I stumbled across the bridge with my hands over my ears. This was foolish, I admit, because nothing could block out the memory of Vanessa’s last despairing cry.
I ran into the courtyard and took the steps two at a time. I dreaded to find myself locked out, but the great iron ring turned under my hand.
‘Where have you been?’ Conrad stood back to let me in. ‘I was on the point of going out to see what had become of you.’
He surveyed me critically. ‘You seem to make a habit of impersonating Die Schwarzen Buben. In English The Inky Boys. It is a moral fable for children by Heinrich Hoffman. Three naughty little boys make fun of a blackamoor. Saint Nicholas is so angry with them that he dips them in his inkstand so they are as black as crows themselves.’
I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was a figure of fun. I burst into tears.
‘You must not be so sensitive,’ said Conrad calmly, handing me his handkerchief.
‘It was horrible … horrible!’ I sobbed. ‘I can’t get it out of my mind. I think I’m going mad.’
‘I perceive this is something worse than wounded vanity. You had better sit down and I will fetch you a drink.’
The drawing room was warm, candlelight glittered on the gold leaf, and Siggy lay sleeping next to an open book on one of the divans. I sat down facing the great windows. Orlando and Fritz were still talking on the balcony, their profiles gilded by a storm lantern. Moths drifted around them like sparks of fire. Conrad put a glass in my hand and sat down opposite me. He crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands. ‘Well?’
‘I’ve just seen … someone’s thrown herself off the bridge …’ I put my hands over my face in a futile attempt to shut the image out. ‘I saw … it was … oh God! … terrifying!’
‘Take some brandy. It will give you courage.’
I was afraid it would make me sick, but I had no strength to argue so I sipped obediently. ‘She did it because of my father – at least … no … they’d been lovers but he’d ended it. He says she was mad. Do you think you have to be mad to … do that?’
‘Finish that glass.’
‘I don’t think I should. I’ve got to dance tomorrow.’
‘Drink it! I shall speak to Fritz.’
He went onto the balcony. I heard them talking in German.
Fritz exclaimed in a distressed voice, then nodded and said ‘Jawohl!’ several times. He stood up. ‘Please to come now,’ he said to Orlando. ‘I vill take you home.’
‘Ta ta, Marigold.’ Orlando took a second look at me. ‘Is that a mud pack on your face? I find it’s the only thing for my eczema. But it must be volcanic …’
Conrad took his arm and conducted him into the hall. The brandy had stopped me shivering but my body ached with tension. Siggy roused himself enough to climb onto my knee, which was comforting. I heard a murmur of voices before Conrad returned alone. ‘I want you to tell me everything that happened.’ He refilled my glass and poured one for himself.
‘I don’t know if I can bear to—’
‘Everything.’
I was unable to prevent myself from weeping again as I described what had taken place, but the more I talked the easier it became. ‘He tried to save her … honestly he did … that’s what he does for a living. Save people. I don’t know … perhaps I’ve been a bit unfair … I’ve always taken my mother’s side, you see.’
‘Isobel has told me he is a man misunderstood.’
‘It’s all very well for Isobel to stick up for him,’ I said rather fiercely. ‘I don’t suppose he’s ever chased her with a bread knife.’
‘With a bread knife? Really?’ Conrad filled my glass again which had become unaccountably empty. ‘So prosaic an instrument.’
‘I mustn’t have another glass. I’m beginning to feel most peculiar.’
‘Go on about your father.’
I did go on. In fact the whole sad story of our relationship came pouring out. I seemed unable to stop talking. The brandy tasted much less unpleasant now that my mouth and throat were numb. In fact I felt pretty numb all over. ‘So you see,’ I concluded, ‘he was to blame and he wasn’t … I hate him really … at least, most of the time I do … but now I feel sorry for him too … not as sorry as I feel for Vanessa, only I didn’t know her and knowing someone is everything really, isn’t it?’
I dropped my head back to drain the last drops. When I sat up, Conrad had taken to swaying about and going in and out of focus.
‘Certainly it is.’ He filled my glass again.
‘No more, thank you. What ought I to do? About –’ I recalled her name with an effort – ‘Vanessa.’ Much to my surprise I hiccuped loudly. ‘Sorry.’
‘Nothing. Fritz has gone to the police. They will take care of everything. No doubt they will come here but you need not see them. You can say nothing that is useful.’
I blinked hard. The whole room seemed to be alight, the flames leaping up to the ceiling and then dwindling to pinpoints. ‘
It’s so odd the way you keep coming very near and going very far away all the time.’ I giggled and then put the handkerchief, now as black as the Inky Boys, over my mouth. ‘What a ridiculous sound. Did I make that ridiculous sound?’
Conrad was smiling. ‘It was not I.’
‘Goodness! I thought I was laughing just then. But I’m never going to laugh again. I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life seeing her … hearing her …’
‘I don’t think so. It will do her no good and yourself harm. When my parents were killed, I thought I was bound to assume black garments and steep myself in woe for eternity. But the capacity for happiness that is in all of us renews itself so quickly it seems almost shocking.’
‘Oh, Conrad. I’m so sorry. I’d quite forgotten … forgotten … I’ve forgotten what I’d forgotten …’ As I struggled to remember, Siggy stirred in my lap, no doubt to remind me that I had stopped stroking him. ‘Do look at Siggy. Don’t you love it when he yawns and shows all his teeth?’
‘It is a delightful sight.’
‘He is a beautiful rabbit, isn’t he? Don’t you think he’s the most beautiful rabbit in all the world?’
‘Certainly. He looks perfectly charming.’
‘And you look perfectly charming, too. Do I look cherfectly parming?’ I was giggling hard now. It was undignified, which I deplored, but somehow I couldn’t help it.
‘Charming yes, but for perfection you need a cleaner face.’
‘I do like you, Conrad. So much.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you like me?’
‘Oh, very much.’
‘Really? As much as I like you?’
‘That I cannot answer, as I have no way of knowing your feelings.’
‘I like you as much as … as anybody in all the world. Better. Much better. Actually, I’m crazy about you!’
‘That is very nice for me.’ Conrad stood up. ‘Now I think you had better go to bed. Give me your glass and I will show you where Fritz has made your room.’
He seemed to tower above me. His face was so beautiful. He was like a god looking down from heaven. I tried to stand so I could put my arms round him, but my legs refused to obey my instructions.
‘I can’t get up. Do you think I’ve been paralysed?’ I began to roar with laughter. Siggy moved away, annoyed. ‘I’m never going to be able to dance again. Will you still like me if I can’t dance?’
‘It will make no difference. But you are not paralysed. Just drunk.’
‘Oh, no.’ I shook my head firmly. At least I thought I did but perhaps it was the room swinging from side to side. ‘I never get drunk. It’s bad for my body. Do you like my body?’
‘I like it very much. Now you must go to bed.’
‘And Siggy must come too. He always sleeps with me. Darling, darling Conrad, would you like to come as well? Please do. I love you so much. I want to lie in your arms and kiss your beautiful face.’
‘That is a delightful idea but it must be for another time. Let go of your glass, Marigold … let go …’
I wanted to protest that another time might never come, but miraculously I grew a delicious pair of soft downy swan’s wings and flapped slowly off over the lake and into oblivion.
43
A sadistic inquisitor was shining a brilliant light into my eyes. The sun beat through curtain-less windows filled with an unclouded delphinium sky. Something moved in the bed beside me. I put down my hand to find Siggy curled up beneath the bedclothes. He gave my questing hand a gentle nip to show I was disturbing him.
A piece of my life seemed to be missing. Only too quickly, like blows to the head, I remembered the bridge and Vanessa and my father. After that it was hazy. I had drunk a lot of brandy, which would explain why my temples were pounding and my tongue felt like a sun-bleached bone. Conrad and I had talked while I drank. I wished I could remember the conversation. I had no recollection of coming upstairs and getting into bed.
On the table beside my bed was a charming blue and gold enamelled clock. I admired it sleepily for some time before noticing that it said a quarter to nine. I flung back the bedclothes and sprang up. Orlando was arriving at nine to begin work. Apart from the bed and the table the room was bare of furniture, but in one corner was my old suitcase which I had collected from Dumbola Lodge the day before. The skirt I had worn the previous evening was folded neatly over it.
‘And ze top of ze mornink to you,’ said Fritz as I ran, dressed in leotard, tights and legwarmers, into the kitchen. He was looking particularly cheerful, I thought. He had washed his hair and it lay in damp golden kiss curls across his marmoreal brow.
‘And to you,’ I returned, ‘but you’ve gone a bit off course. I’m not an expert in dialect but I’m practically certain that’s Irish.’
‘Is zat so?’ Fritz looked disappointed and amended his notebook.
‘I say, Fritz. You haven’t got such a thing as an aspirin, have you? I’ve got one hell of a hangover and I’ve got to start dancing in a minute. My head’s drumming like a restless native.’
‘Oh, dear you!’ he tutted. ‘I haf exact zing for it. Bismarkhering. Vun moment. I fetch from store.’
The Bismarkhering turned out to be strips of salted vinegary fish. I ate them to please Fritz though they were the last thing I felt like.
‘How feel you now?’ he asked sympathetically.
‘My mouth seems to have taken on all the characteristics of the desert we were taken to see when we were dancing in Chile. Apparently it’s the driest place on earth, just lava flows and salt basins.’
‘Ah, but you vill feel better in a vile. Haf tea. Trust Aunt Fritz.’ He looked up, colouring beautifully like a poppy opening to the sun. ‘Here is Orlando.’
Orlando ran gracefully down the stairs. He was wearing a sleeveless white unitard cut low enough in front to bare his nipples, which he had dusted with gold paint and drawn lipstick circles round, like the petals of a flower. The decoration was effective but I wondered if Fritz, for whose benefit this must have been intended, might not be a little alarmed by so much originality so early in the day. Fritz was shy and serious and intellectual and, I thought, probably inexperienced.
‘My dears, I must have the smallest cup of coffee to get my creative juices flowing. Golly’s house, though perfectly adapted for a milkman, is the temperature of a refrigerator. Also, my mattress has been carved from rock. By morning I had shivered myself into an identity crisis. I kept thinking I was a pat of butter, beaded with iced water, lying on a marble shelf.’
‘Oh, zis is terrible!’ said Fritz. ‘Vy do you not say before?’
‘Nanny taught us it was bad manners to criticize one’s hostess.’ Orlando looked virtuous. ‘She was such a beast. My innocent little buttocks were frequently whipped raw.’
‘Buttocks?’ Fritz took out his notebook again. ‘Zat is little pieces of butter? As in hillocks?’
‘No, my dear.’ Orlando put his hand on my bottom. ‘This little seat of pleasure is buttocks.’
Camp innuendo was general currency among the gay members of the Company, so I was used to this sort of talk, but Fritz looked shocked. I hoped Orlando would see the wisdom of tempering his modus operandi. After he had fortified himself with coffee, we went up to the drawing room and Orlando taught class. Being the only student was forty times harder. There was not a centimetre of muscle he did not inspect or an angle of my body he did not criticize – but it was exactly what I needed.
Halfway through we were interrupted by the arrival of three large pieces of mirror, each six feet square, sanctioned by Conrad, ordered by Orlando and paid for by Golly. These were put in place on the section of wall that remained unpainted. When the workman left we continued the class but, now I could see myself, I was ten times as critical as Orlando. Dancers have a powerful love-hate relationship with their own image. Any perceived faults are galling and physical imperfections are a knife to the heart. But we are absorbed by and infatuated with our reflections. It is
an extreme form of narcissism. By lunchtime we were tired and hot but the Bismarkhering had done its stuff and my head was clear. As the day remained unclouded, we ate on the balcony, a dish of pears, bacon and beans which was light yet restoring. Afterwards there were garnet-coloured cherries.
‘This is so delightful,’ sighed Orlando, leaning back in his chair and putting up his feet to rest on the parapet. He forgot for the moment to be flirtatious. ‘I should like to stay here forever. Being so high up you feel cut off from the horrid world with its hordes of people who are quite indifferent to ballet and those fucking ignorant, insensitive reviewers. Do look at that patch of sunlight on the water, like a scattering of yellow diamonds. All I ask God for is beauty. Poverty, insult and betrayal I can bear, but I dread Butterbank.’
‘Then it seems your prayers are answered.’ Conrad walked onto the balcony. ‘I have just returned from there. Golly has invited her librettist to stay. They have much work to do to change the setting for the opera from Japan to Alaska. As she has only one guest room, she asked me if I would offer you a bed. I said I would.’
While Orlando was expressing jubilant thanks, I examined my glass of iced tea with feigned interest. The moment I saw Conrad the conversation of the night before began to piece itself together in my mind. It grew more calamitous by the second. The brandy had acted as an emotional purgative. Not content with sobbing and beating my breast, I had poured out my life story and spread out my neuroses for his inspection like an unpalatable picnic. My face prickled with shame. There was worse. I had grown affectionate. Had I really said something about wanting him to come to bed with me? Feeling acutely miserable, I stared at a piece of boiled, sepia-coloured mint floating in my glass. How I wished it was deadly nightshade so I could gulp it down and put an end to my suffering.
Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs Page 52