by Paul Murray
FREDERICK (coldly): There’s another thing you don’t understand, Lopakhin, and that’s a thing called tradition. My father worked this vineyard, and his father before him, and his father before him. It’s not about money. It’s about producing a half-decent bottle of Burgundy. It’s about giving employment to generations of local peasants, although frankly they don’t deserve it. We will never sell this chateau! They will have to wrest it from our very hands!
BABS (sadly): That reminds me. The bank manager called again this morning. He wants to speak to you urgently. And Frederick, things keep going missing around the house! And those noises – those inhuman noises! (she weeps)
FREDERICK (putting his arms protectively around her): Don’t worry, Babs. No one’s going to harm you. (Defiantly. ) And inhuman or otherwise, no one’s going to drive us out of this chateau, not if Scotland Yard has anything to say about it!
LOPAKHIN: Scotland Yard? (exits hastily)
FREDERICK: There’s something I don’t trust about that fellow. Sometimes I wonder if he really is the young Belgian student backpacking his way around Europe that he claims to be. I mean for one thing he doesn’ t have a backpack. And he’ s been here for months. It’ ll take him another forty years to get round Europe at this rate.
BABS (laughing): Oh, Frederick, don’t be silly! He’s a dear, an absolute dear! He’s terribly clever, and he knows ever so much about theatre. (bashfully) He wants to put on a production of Hamlet in the village. He thinks I would make a perfect Ophelia.
FREDERICK: Babs, darling, you know the doctors forbid you from acting. Your health’s far too fragile for that. Anyway, I think he’s leading you up the garden path. Who’s going to go to a theatre production in the village? The damn peasants?
BABS (wounded): Why must you always undermine me?
FREDERICK (taking her hand): Oh, my sweet Babs, I’m trying to protect you. You’re such a naif. Anyway, I need you here with me. I couldn’t possibly run the chateau on my own.
BABS: Sometimes I despise this chateau.
FREDERICK (simply): It is our destiny. (He goes and stands meditatively under the large portrait of their father hanging over the fireplace. ) Hamlet, eh? ’To be or not to be.’ It really is the question, when you think about it.
(There is a thunderous noise overhead. BABS rushes to FREDERICK’s side)
BABS: Oh Frederick! I’m so frightened!
FREDERICK (pulling a fencing sword down from the wall): Don’t worry, Babs, I’m here!
(The door bursts open and INSPECTOR DICK ROBINSON, SCOTLAND YARD comes in, with HORST and WERNER caught under either arm. LOPAKHIN slouches in after them, looking disgruntled.)
INSPECTOR DICK ROBINSON: Well, we’ve solved the mystery of the noises and the missing egg-beater. Bosnians, hiding out in your attic.
FREDERICK: Great Scott!
INSPECTOR: It’s not uncommon, sir. Too lazy and undisciplined to get their own house in order, these parasites come over to proper countries to eke out a living – or in this case, seemingly, to drive good honest aristocrats out of their chateaus.
BABS (covering her eyes): Oh, they’re hideous! I can’t bear to look at them!
INSPECTOR: Don’t worry, Ma’am. Where these miscreants are going, no one will be troubled by them for a long, long time.
HORST (sneering): Up yours, copper.
INSPECTOR: Why, you impudent – (makes to strike him)
FREDERICK: Stop!
(Everyone turns to FREDERICK in surprise)
FREDERICK: Maybe they are lazy and undisciplined. But society is to blame too. These men deserve a second chance. I want to offer them a job working on my vineyard.
INSPECTOR: These are dangerous men, Your Excellency…
FREDERICK: Maybe so. But it’s what Father would have wanted. It’s what this vineyard means. (To the BOSNIANS) What do you say, lads? It’s tough, backbreaking work and you won’t get rich from it. But are you game?
(The BOSNIANS disengage themselves from INSPECTOR ROBINSON and cross the floor to kneel at FREDERICK’s feet.)
BOSNIANS: My liege.
FREDERICK (laughing): Arise, arise! We’re not stuffy aroundhere. Well! It looks likewe’ll have a harvest after all!
LOPAKHIN (to himself): Gah!
BABS: Oh, how wonderful!
(The door bursts open. It is MAM’ SELLE, the comical French maid.)
MAM’ SELLE (dramatically): Your Excellency, I have kicked the dog.
INSPECTOR (startled): I beg your pardon?
BABS (laughing): Don’t worry, Inspector! She means she has cooked the duck!
FREDERICK: Oh Mam’ selle – you are a duffer!
(They all laugh and leave together, except LOPAKHIN, who remains in the room. )
LOPAKHIN: Well, ‘Your Excellency’, it looks like your old-fashioned brand of idealism has won the battle. But I know your Achilles’ heel now – your fragile sister, Babs… and I won’t rest until I have her, and your precious vineyard is nothing but rubble…
I threw myself into my work. What else could I do? I must have called the house a hundred times; Bel wouldn’t even come to the phone. Depending on whom I talked to, she had just stepped out, or wasn’t feeling well, or was in the bath; she seemed to be perpetually in the bath these days. Beyond that – whether she had swallowed her pride and returned to playing Ramp, repeating her small act of rebellion nightly in front of an audience, or whether she was cloistered away in her own misery, shunned by the others – I had no idea. ‘She left her bag here,’ I’d say. ‘Tell her to call me if she wants it dropped over.’ They’d promise to pass on the message, and that would be all I could do until the next day, when the process would be repeated.
As for Mirela, whenever she answered the phone I hung up straight away; even though a part of me burned to talk with her, plead with her, in the same way that murderers are said to feel compelled to revisit the scene of the crime. I couldn’t go out to the house myself for fear of running into her; so, as November stretched on towards Christmas, and the streets filled up with fairy lights and shifty-looking men selling spruces and pines from the backs of flatbed trucks, I buried my guilty conscience in work, and I tried not to think about anything else.
Fortunately there was plenty of work to occupy me. November-December is the busiest time of the year for those of us in the Yule Log business, and Processing Zone B was pushed to the limit. Everything seemed to be operating at double speed. Cigarette breaks were abandoned for the month, and we often worked overtime so that we could meet our quotas: Edvin, Bobo, Pavel, Arvids, Dzintars and me bent silently conscientiously over our machines, while the trucks waited rumbling at the loading bay, and Mr Appleseed patrolled the tiles with his pointer held behind his back. By now I had picked up a smattering of Latvian and mastered the vagaries of the sugar-frosting machine to become an exemplary Bread Straightener; I can point to my own modest part in Processing Zone B’s late rally to overtake C-shift and claim the Productivity Hamper. Not only that, but I used my position of influence and good command of spoken English to raise staff grievances and try to improve conditions for the workers. Over lunch, while Mr Appleseed was ranting about how he’d never have believed there could possibly be a crowd of wasters worse than the Latvians until he’d met these new Estonian bastards, I would delicately and imperceptibly steer the conversation around to the showers.
‘What about the showers, Fuckface?’
‘Well, there aren’t any…’
And Mr Appleseed, to give him his due, listened, and promised to bring it up at the next management briefing. Meanwhile, I agitated among the workers themselves, disseminating ideas I had heard the builders talk about back in the house. It wasn’t always easy. Most of the time they would just look at me as if I’d proposed we all relocate to the moon. ‘Don’t you want a job?’ they would say. ‘Do you want them to send us all home?’
‘Of course not,’ I’d say. ‘I’m just saying we need to organize ourselves to make sure, you know, we don’t
get sold down the river. To get a fair shake of the stick.’
‘What river?’ they’d say. ‘What stick?’
But I persisted; and at times when it seemed especially hopeless I would tell myself I was doing it for Bel, offering it up to her like a kind of prayer, as if somehow it would reach her and steal over her and she would without quite knowing why stop despising me and want to talk to me again.
In the evenings I laboured over my play. Practically speaking it was a lost cause, given the new regime at the theatre; furthermore, ever since the Bosnians had been discovered, my villain Lopakhin had been upping the ante. Currently he was dancing such rings around Frederick that I was beginning to wonder if the latter was really up to the job. Still I pressed on, thinking that if I could just say what I wanted to say, here on a blank piece of paper, a miraculous change would be effected and the universe would be restored.
And then one night, I suppose about two weeks or three after that wretched tryst, the telephone rang. Somehow I knew it was for me: I threw down my pen and dashed into the living room. But it was only Mother, calling to harangue me for not RSVPing to some dinner invitation she’d sent me. It was a stormy night outside and the connection was bad: the line woofed and hissed with interference and I had trouble making out what she was saying.
‘Which dinner?’ I said.
‘The dinner, Charles, for goodness’ sake, the Telsinor dinner, the invitations were sent out over a week ago.’
‘Well I didn’t get one,’ I said, riffling through the correspondence sitting in the fruit bowl: bills, bills, final demand…
‘That really is most galling, because I entrusted them a week ago at least to that –’ Here a roar of wind enveloped the building and the connection was submerged in whistles and pops – ‘… see to it personally that they were delivered right away.’
‘What?’ I said, putting a finger in my ear. ‘Where are you calling from? You sound like you’re in the middle of a hurricane.’
‘I’m on my mobile,’ she said. ‘It’s new. I said I gave them to that friend of yours to deliver, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have got yours…’
‘What friend?’
‘Oh, that fellow. The postman, Macavity the Mystery Cat, or whatever his name is.’
I experienced a familiar sinking feeling. ‘He’s no friend of mine,’ I said.
‘That is infuriating,’ Mother said again. ‘I shall have to look into it. Well, anyway, it’s Thursday night at eight sharp, black tie – I mean black tie, Charles, it is a formal occasion, so none of your comedy dicky bows, if you please –’
‘But what is it?’ I broke in. ‘You still haven’t told me what it –’
‘Telsinor,’ her voice crackling down the line like an ancient gramophone recording. ‘I’ve said it three or four times, it’s to officially launch the partnership with the Centre. Nothing overly grand, a dozen or so guests. However, Mr O’Boyle has very kindly agreed to attend in person, so it will be an opportunity for us to thank him for all his generosity.’
‘Oh,’ I said unenthusiastically. I didn’t see what point there was dragging me along, and I was about to say as much when Mother beat me to it. ‘I should add, Charles, that I had misgivings about inviting you. Grave misgivings, in fact. I had hoped, naively perhaps, that your stint at the Civil Service might teach you a thing or two about responsibility and pulling one’s weight. But to judge by the incidents at the premiere that has not been the case.’
‘What incidents? You can’t blame me for any of th—’
‘The Golem business, Charles, that’s your little hobbyhorse, isn’t it? But anyway, I don’t intend to discuss the matter now, other than to say that what took place that night was inexcusable. You are a grown man living under your own roof, however, and if you insist on ignoring your Higher Power and taking the slippery slope to perdition that is your business. It is no longer my place to intervene. What I will not tolerate is the deleterious effect you are having on your sister. You know quite well that she has had difficulties, and yet you continue to fill her head with romantic nonsense. But no matter –’ raising her voice to drown out my protestations of innocence of any kind of influence over any aspect of Bel’s life – ‘no matter, I decided I would invite you anyway, because I wanted to show Mr O’Boyle our gratitude not only as a theatre but as a family. Because this affects us personally, Charles. As you know, they are pledging a significant sum towards the renovation of the house. More importantly, it seems that they are willing to make a commitment to clear all arrears outstanding and secure it financially for the foreseeable future, meaning that the house will remain in the family name into the next century. Whether we deserve it or not is another question, of course. Nevertheless, I want the whole family to be there to commemorate the occasion, even those black sheep who seem to prefer to skulk about the peripheries. Also,’ she added judiciously, ‘what I have just said notwithstanding, I thought you ought to see your sister before she leaves.’
A jolt passed up my arm. ‘Before she what?’ I shook the handset as the connection descended again into fizzing. ‘Before she what?’
‘—cially keen on it,’ she resurfaced, ‘nevertheless it seems a matter of simple good manners as much as of maturity. Please stop whatting me, Charles, it’s most annoying –’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I burbled, ‘but what was that you said? About Bel leaving?’
‘Yes, leaving,’ Mother said impatiently. ‘Honestly, doesn’t anything reach you in your little cocoon out there? She’s going to Yalta for six months with the Kiddon girl. Some sort of a Chekhov masterclass. You know Bel and Chekhov.’
My mind felt like it had been dropped into a hornets’ nest, with far too many questions to sort into any kind of coherent order. ‘What?’ I said faintly.
‘Yalta, Charles, it’s in Russia. She’s been planning it for weeks. You see this is what happens when you cut yourself off –’
‘But when is she – I mean to say – when?’
‘Friday, I told you, that’s why we’re having the dinner Thursday night. A sort of a double celebration.’
Blood roared in my ears: I sank to my haunches and leaned against the door. ‘The Kiddon girl had some friend at the opening night of Ramp,’ Mother was saying. ‘She approached Bel shortly afterwards and offered her a place on this excursion, although don’t ask me why, after that performance…’
‘For six months?’ I whispered. ‘In Russia?’
‘I know, it’s costing an absolute fortune. I did have my doubts, especially as the girl seems barely capable of tying her shoelaces at the moment without it turning into a German opera. But the hope is that a few months in her own company might give her time to pull herself together and perhaps even rejoin us here on Planet Earth. And the Kiddon girl assures me that these people are quite reputable, it’s quite prestigious, in fact –’
‘Who?’ I said.
‘This body, I believe it’s called the Knipper Foundation –’
‘No, no, the – Kiddon, who is this Kiddon girl you keep talking about?’
‘You know her, Charles, Kiddon – what is her name? Jessica. She was in school with Bel. Her father is some sort of a noise at Deloitte and Touche.’
‘Well, I’ve never heard of her,’ I said. ‘And if you ask me the whole thing sounds quite preposterous, letting Bel go flimmering off around Russia with some perfect stranger –’
‘She’s not a stranger, Charles, I’ve spoken to her on the telephone myself and she seems a very sensible and level-headed girl who will I hope be a good influence on your sister,’ putting just enough stress on the word to make her meaning clear. ‘Please don’t be difficult about this. I do think it’s for the best.’ She paused. ‘She hasn’t been very happy here lately,’ she said.
‘But wasn’t she going to tell me?’ My voice was giving way on me now. ‘I mean, wasn’t she even going to say goodbye?’
‘I don’t know, Charles,’ Mother said wearily. ‘Why must you pester me
with these questions? If you’d simply RSVP like everybody else it would save us all a lot of trouble. Now are you coming to the dinner or aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes, obviously, but –’
‘Good. Eight sharp, remember.’ Mother’s voice acquired a metallic echo as the reception began to break up. ‘Formal, Charles. And bring a guest. Candida Olé tells me Patsy’s back from her voyages, it might be nice if you –’ There was a far-off crash and the line went completely silent.
To the casual observer it might have appeared that I was overreacting. But I knew Bel – I was the only one who did; I was the only one who could comprehend what a gesture like this meant. Yalta, for heaven’s sake! Who on earth ever went to Yalta? No, I could read between the lines. This was her fresh start, and she was making it alone; and even if she did come back in six months – six months! – she would not be coming back to us.
The rest of that evening is something of a blur. I have a vague recollection of going to the petrol station and buying four or five bottles of the abhorrent German Riesling, after polishing off that Bulgarian Cabernet; I have a sketchy image of me sitting cross-legged on the living-room floor in the wee hours of the morning, drinking the last dregs of some sort of unspeakable wine-in-a-carton I had found under the kitchen sink, presumably intended for famines or droughts or that kind of emergency situation, weeping deliriously as I went through her suitcase: spreading her clothes out over the carpet, tipping the contents of her little make-up bag on to the table – lipstick, vaporizer of Chanel something-or-other, crumpled tissue, the Telsinor phone everyone had been given, coins, the beads of a broken bracelet, and at the very bottom the silver disc she’d taken to wearing lately, winking at me in all of its childlike, ineffable simpleness, as if it held the answer to everything…
But it’s quite possible I just imagined it; and the next thing I knew it was eleven thirty-eight on a Wednesday morning and I was standing with shaking hands by the conveyor belt, which had just come to a halt.
Everyone was looking at me, expecting that I had jammed up the frosting machine again; to me, too, this seemed like the most plausible explanation. But I hadn’t. The machines had just stopped. And Mr Appleseed, now that we cast about for him, was nowhere to be seen. We took off our gloves, shrugged and muttered. Then the tannoy squawked and a voice boomed into the room, summoning us to the Bread-Cutting Zone for a meeting.