The Falling Thread, page 13
As Charles spoke, Eloise picked up a silver pencil from the desk and began cross-hatching on the back on an envelope. It formed an economical likeness of her brother. She shaded the dark knot of his necktie.
‘Yes, Charles, you see, they are all simply words,’ she said, putting the pencil down.
‘What I’m saying is that should you need money – capital I believe you call it – then Bessie and her connections might be of use.’
‘Have I not made myself clear?’
‘Abundantly.’
She extinguished her cigarette, brushing it lightly against the ashtray.
‘Rain’s stopped. Think I’ll take a turn around the garden.’
August
The window was covered by a wash of sandy grime. The sisters sat on opposite sides of the compartment, Eloise testing the seat’s springs with her palms.
‘I’m so glad you said yes, I know we’ll have the most marvellous few days.’
Tabitha smiled, narrowing her eyes at the grain of condescension in her sister’s tone.
‘It’s an awfully jolly crowd,’ Eloise said, inspecting herself in a compact. She ran her tongue along her teeth then snapped it shut. ‘There’s Bessie, and Maud Watson, whose cousin married a Cunard, and a few others. Valentin will be there, of course,’ she said with a counterfeit yawn, ‘and a man called Fairclough Monthugh. Canadian.’
Tabitha continued reading as the train let out a whistle and the carriage shunted forward then stopped. Eloise saw the guard blow his own whistle then wave a flag as a man ran along the platform.
‘He’s an economist up at Oxford, a touch slow-living for the merry gang Bessie likes to surround herself with. I met him in Chicago where he came to dinner at the Palmer down on the lake. Monstrous iron-and-brick confection. Bessie adores it; silver dollars in the barbershop floor, giant lanterns by the Ladies’ Entrance, you know the type.’
‘I’m not sure I do,’ said Tabitha, licking her fingertip and turning a page.
‘He’s not wealthy but I think he knows plenty of people who are – seems to represent their interests. What do you call that?’
Before Tabitha could reply the carriage gave a lurch forward and the people on the platform began to wave. Soon they were in open countryside, fields of rapeseed giving off a gluey-yellow shimmer.
‘Did I tell you I had a note from Bessie when we arrived at the hotel last night?’
The hotel was a shabby affair a few hundred yards from Paddington Station. ‘She said they are all excited to have us joining them. Mentioned you by name, said what a pleasure it would be to continue your acquaintanceship. Even sent her regards to our brother, which I thought gallant. Not one for grudges. Said she intended to send him something in recognition of his hospitality. Recognition – I thought that an interesting word.’
The lexical exactness had drawn Tabitha’s attention. She looked up from her book.
‘Yes, something of the battlefield about it, isn’t there?’
‘Distinguished service.’
‘Valour in the face of the enemy.’
It was an hour before the sisters spoke again.
‘What’s that you’re reading?’
‘The story of one lady’s life in Belarus and her subsequent journey to America.’
‘I don’t imagine she dined with the captain on her way over. Did I tell you Bessie threw a party one evening in her cabin? Had the quartermaster bring up a case of champagne. Word got round and before long there were two dozen of us crammed in there. A man was violently sick in her bathroom.’
Eloise rocked back in her seat, calculating something, hesitating, then looking directly at her sister.
‘Would you like to hear a revolting story?’ She folded one leg underneath herself and turned towards the window. Black trees flashed by, then a rolling set of open fields, a scarecrow, its stuffed head collapsed to one side.
‘In Paris I knew of a man with a penis the size of a marrow.’
‘Eloise!’ Tabitha glanced to the closed compartment door, the corridor beyond.
‘Well, I did,’ Eloise said, relishing being so brazen.
Tabitha had broken into a blush down the side of her neck which Eloise took as signal to continue.
‘He would take it out at parties and place it inside glassware. He told me that once a term the students at the Medical School would line up to see it under the guidance of a Dr Babinski.’
‘Eloise, please,’ said Tabitha, regaining a little of her composure.
‘Colour of a jugged hare.’
Eloise took a small pocketknife and an apple and from her jacket, dissecting it into thin segments which she placed on a clean white handkerchief on the seat beside her.
‘Have you ever seen one?’ she asked as she ran her tongue along the blunt edge of the knife, eyes tightening at the tartness of the juice.
‘A jugged hare? Yes, we had them for supper regularly in Windermere.’
‘No, Tab.’ Eloise paused, staring at her sister until her eyes met her own. ‘A cock.’
Tabitha snapped her book shut and said, ‘If you continue with this lewdness I will have to insist you move to another carriage.’
Eloise lifted the handkerchief with its sliced apple and offered it to Tabitha.
Outside a man was unsteadily making his way along the corridor.
‘Now look, that gentleman is looking for an empty compartment,’ said Tabitha, gesturing with a piece of apple. ‘Should he prove unable to find one I suspect he’ll join us. So no more talk of jugged hares or jugged anything for that matter. And tell me, Ellie, really, this costume of yours … ’
‘I’m not entirely sure what you mean.’
‘The gentleman’s jacket, the shoes.’
‘Do you think it unladylike?’
‘I simply wondered what it all meant.’
‘I’m not really sure it means anything.’
Bessie was on the platform waiting for them. Eloise stood at the carriage window, leaning out as the train came to a halt. She waved at Bessie then turned back to Tabitha who stood with their suitcases.
‘I hope she’s brought refreshment.’
Bessie offered Eloise a hand down, then embraced her. She was wearing a smock fastened with a rustic leather belt and a set of jet beads, a scarf tied around her head like a Russian peasant. There were perspiration marks under her arms.
‘Have you a porter?’ Eloise asked.
‘Bourgeois rot,’ said Bessie. ‘Fairclough was good enough to drive me down in the motor car I’ve somehow managed to acquire.’
Eloise glanced at Tabitha and grinned. She noticed Tabitha was carrying both their cases, unlinked Bessie and took her own case from her sister.
‘Here, let me, fair’s fair,’ she said, relinking Bessie, leaving her sister to walk alone behind them.
Fairclough Monthugh stood leaning against the wheel arch of a light olive motor car. It looked very new and expensive. Before Bessie could introduce him to Tabitha, Eloise stepped forward and extended her hand,
‘Hello, Fairclough.’
Fairclough folded his newspaper and wedged it under his arm. There were faint marks from the driving goggles around his eyes.
‘Fairclough, this is Tabitha Wright,’ Bessie said, gesturing to where she stood with the cases.
‘My pleasure,’ said Fairclough. He was a tall man with thinning sandy-coloured hair, a long nose with flared nostrils, the exposed septum glowing pink where the light hit it. He wore a pair of plus fours and a thick cotton shirt, sleeves rolled above the elbows. He had a slight tremor, Tabitha noticed, as he held out his hand.
‘Quite the machine,’ said Eloise, inspecting the wheels; pristine and glossily black.
‘Engine blocks manufactured up in Newcastle, radiator in Wolverhampton. Remainder put together in a place you call God’s Own Country. A dream to drive. Would you like to try?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Eloise who, before Fairclough could renege, had jumped into the driver’s seat. Fairclough tossed her the goggles, removed a wicker basket from the boot, then secured their cases. He helped Bessie then Tabitha into the back, then passed the basket to Bessie.
‘Crank her up,’ said Eloise, fingers stiffening around the wheel.
‘No need,’ said Fairclough, climbing into the passenger seat. ‘She’s electric, switch is down there by your feet.’
‘Oh my,’ said Eloise, reaching for the switch, ‘many a broken wrist averted.’
The engine fired up with a gurgling rattle followed by a pop from the back seat of the car. Fairclough let off the brake. Eloise glanced over her shoulder.
‘None for you until we’re home,’ said Bessie as the motor car rattled over a steeply cobbled section of the road.
‘Miss Wright?’
Before she could answer Bessie thrust a mug into her hand, splashing champagne onto her as she filled it. Eloise sounded the klaxon, causing a clergyman in a black hat and two boys pushing bicycles to scatter from the road.
After Eloise had navigated the cobbled lanes around the station, then the countryside between Halsetown and Zennor, by mutual agreement she brought the vehicle to a halt beside a field where women were harvesting strawberries, working along the sandy rows between low dense green bushes. Fairclough swigged the last of his champagne, then raced to the driver’s side to take the wheel. Bessie noticed a sign for Rhubarb and insisted on being let out, telling them she would see them at the house.
‘And who else do we have staying?’ Eloise asked, glancing back to see Bessie, skirt hitched above her ankles, striding gamely across the field towards the farmhouse.
‘Valentin, of course,’ said Fairclough, hunched forward over the wheel.
‘The Watsons?’
‘No. Away. Europe.’
‘And in their place?’
‘Siddhartha Chatterjee and his wife Florence. Medical doctor. Forsaken the Hippocratic oath in favour of writing a novel.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Gives the impression of being terribly high-born. Bessie thinks his wife slightly, well, double-A S double-A C.’
‘Double-A S double what?’ asked Tabitha.
‘Avoid at supper at all costs,’ laughed Eloise.
‘There’s a couple from the Rhineland. Seem to spend most of their time swimming or in their room, get exceedingly drunk in the evenings, bicker terribly.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Don’t speak very much English – Bessie seems to communicate almost exclusively through mime.’
Eloise lit two cigarettes and passed one to Fairclough, who reached over without taking his eyes from the road.
‘Who else?’
‘The waifs,’ he said, blowing smoke towards his window, ‘between whom I find it almost impossible to distinguish. They’re either sisters or lovers or runaways or some combination of the three. Bessie refuses to tell me anything about them.’
Fairclough glanced over his shoulder to Tabitha.
‘Don’t worry, Miss Wright, it’s all much tamer than it sounds.’
‘Any more?’ asked Eloise.
‘That’s the lot. As far as I know. Oh, and Valentin is now a sculptor.’
As they turned down the lane towards the house they were met by high-sided hedgerows, a sense of the sea nearby, a subtle increase in the volume of light. Fairclough sounded the klaxon, sending dark birds scattering from the hedges. The party decanted themselves from the motor car, the metal engine parts condensing in pops and cracks.
‘Oh yes, this is lovely.’
Eloise leaned against the bonnet, finishing her cigarette as Tabitha went through the lychgate and stood beside a wisteria with pendulous, pale violet stems. She cupped one and brought it close to her face.
‘Poison,’ Fairclough called out as he unloaded their cases.
Tabitha let go, looking embarrassed.
‘Well, only mildly,’ he said with a smile.
Fairclough led the sisters round to the back of the house where a semicircular lawn gave onto a steep sea cliff. There was a tall palm tree breaking into spiky heads, which had begun to brown and harden. Beyond the palm a precarious-looking set of steps, frayed rope for a handrail, led to the cove and the sea below, blue-green in the afternoon sun. In the distance there was a rocky island with a white lighthouse in need of repainting.
‘Bessie has taken the place for three months,’ said Fairclough, ‘though from the way she talks about it, it’s hard to tell if she thinks it quaint or faintly onerous.’
‘How could such a place ever be onerous?’ asked Tabitha.
‘She claims the lighthouse keeps her awake at night.’
There was a croquet set abandoned mid-game, hoops bent back in the grass, bright balls clustered around the post. A man with cropped hair and a wiry chin beard, wearing a linen suit and a pair of hobnail boots, approached. He stopped to pick up a mallet.
‘Mr Stock here is another of Miss Montana’s protégés,’ said Eloise.
Valentin Stock gave a shallow bow, turning the mallet upside down, using it to rest his weight on, suddenly dandyish.
‘Mr Stock began life as a Futurist but is now an avowed Neoprimitive.’
‘I’m not sure I know what either of those are,’ said Tabitha, ‘but it sounds a definite improvement.’
Valentin’s pale eyes moved quickly over her.
‘You are with us how long?’ he asked in an accent Tabitha could not place. He began to pat his pockets, retrieving a crumbling, half-smoked cheroot.
‘Five days,’ said Tabitha.
He patted his pockets again, finding a box of matches. There was the sound of a vehicle coming to a halt outside. From where they stood they could see a lorry, dust settling around the wheel arches.
‘My stone,’ said Valentin.
*
Fairclough carried the stems of rhubarb into the house as Valentin spoke with the men from the quarry, gesturing with his mallet over to the stables. They set to work lowering the slabs of grey polyphant onto a barrow. When the driver approached Valentin with the invoice, he raised the mallet in the direction of Bessie.
Fairclough, back from depositing the rhubarb, said, ‘Here, I’ll take it.’
‘Game old girl, ain’t she?’ said the driver, lifting his cap and running his sleeve along his brow. He had a chin of yellow-grey stubble, nose threaded with wide red veins.
‘Flagged us down in the middle of the road. Gave me the fright of my life, one minute the lane was clear next she steps out from nowhere, waving her scarf. Good thing Clemo here spotted her. Can’t say for certain I would have.’
‘Good job indeed,’ said Fairclough.
‘There’s three ton of stone on that thing,’ said the driver, sensing he wasn’t being taken entirely seriously, ‘you know what the braking distance is for that, because she clearly don’t?’
*
The wall’s herringbone slates were dotted with sea pinks. Beside it there was a couple looking out towards the lighthouse, the woman pointing as the man shook his head.
‘Mr Chatterjee, this is Miss Tabitha Wright and her sister Eloise, whom I have told you so much about.’
The sun obscuring his face. He hesitated before turning. He had very dark eyes and neat leonine features, a slight stoop, his black hair parted starkly and unpomaded. He was wearing a blue cotton suit, a pair of gold spectacles. He held a straw boater which seemed an encumbrance.
‘Miss Wright, this is my wife Florence.’
‘We were admiring the panorama,’ Florence said. She wore a wide straw hat, under which one could just make out her face: its snub nose and small, slightly pinched mouth.
‘Florence thought she saw a whale.’
‘Darling, I’m certain I did.’
‘Porpoise perhaps, whales I very much doubt,’ Bessie said as if this were just the latest of many corrections she had been called on to make.
‘Chatterjee is going to write the first great novel of our century.’
Chatterjee, abashed, looked down at his shoes.
‘Oh do write me into it,’ said Eloise, leaning to shake Florence Chatterjee’s hand, then turning to curl a plume of smoke away from the party. ‘But make me taller. A few inches. I should like to be as tall as Tabitha here.’
‘Only in fiction,’ said Tabitha at which the four women laughed and Chatterjee again glanced at his feet.
‘He seems sweet,’ said Eloise when eventually she caught up with Bessie.
‘Sometimes,’ said Bessie, ‘he writes the most wonderfully caustic letters; serves them up saignant shading into bleu. None are spared. I’m thinking of sending him to Rome for a spell, escape that beastly wife of his.’
The sisters followed Bessie to a pair of deckchairs facing the lighthouse, damp outlines visible through the canvas. Bessie walked in front of the sunbathers.
‘You’ve been swimming?’ she said, miming a slightly frenetic crawl.
‘Very much so,’ said the man, realising there were others behind him and standing. Bessie signalled for Eloise and Tabitha to join her.
‘Eloise and Tabitha Wright, Johannes and Eliana Althoff.’
Eliana stood now too; she was tall and athletically built. She wore a black mohair bathing suit, had strong pale thighs, and a sharp, sun-kissed face with thin lips. Beside her Johannes was more softly featured. The damp worsted of his bathing suit clung to his body. His bare legs were tanned and covered in coarse blond hair.
‘Johannes is an aviator,’ said Bessie, who mimed the uneven motion of an aeroplane.
‘Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches,’ said Johannes. He looked at Tabitha then let his gaze linger on Eloise, as if his lack of English made him somehow invisible.
‘Claims he’s the fastest man this side of Nova Scotia. First person to fly solo across the Carpathians – they’re all clamouring to have him in one of their machines, isn’t that right, Yoyo?’
It was unclear to the sisters how much of this he understood.
‘Well, we shall leave you to your sun worship,’ Bessie said, pointing at the sun for emphasis.
