When looking for approval, you first notice that the “approvers” aren’t in agreement, keep contradicting themselves and shifting their own goalposts.
This is enough to make a warrior out of anybody.
How to choose your standards? How to design our path and feel confident about it?
As a child, I was a sunflower, looking for nourishment I could turn my face towards. People who dampened and depressed, who structured and suffocated, were to be avoided.
My parents claimed to be interested in physical health (and I wasn’t even completely convinced of that) but mum on the subject of mental health, which seemed to be the purview of adults who’d mastered the wherewithal to “step out of the rat race.”
As an elementary school student, I was certainly in a rat race. And it looked like a long haul. When we moved to Morocco and I was sent to a school where I didn’t speak the language, life got downright dangerous.
Luckily there were books. Agatha Christie in specific, who turned out to be the favored reading of travelers passing through Dar El Baraka, where we had been installed.
Agatha Christie is excellent training in the Art of Being a Warrior. Life in her books is dangerous, but since everyone is lying and pretending to be someone they’re not (“Society”) it’s difficult to tell where the threat is coming from. The Detective uses Clues and a knowledge of Human Nature to figure out The Truth.
This is riveting stuff for an eleven year old. These skills of judgment, analysis, research and truth-telling are essential for the Warrior.
I’m convinced the main attraction of the evangelical religious movement is that it offers the opportunity to be “born again.” But I believe that option is always available to you without the necessity of signing up to be a cog in a “movement.”
When I was twelve years old I read a James Bond novel in which he is washed up on a beach and needs to be nursed back into life without any of the previous appurtenances of his personality. I was very taken with this idea. Of course, it has literary antecedents in all the “castaway” and adventure stories of John Buchan and Robert Louis Stevenson. The question revolves around your essential self: do you have one? Or can even that be remodeled and rebuilt? This is the question warriors try to answer.
Warriors pare their needs down. We keep ourselves ready for action. We are shapeshifters and time travelers – if that sounds attractive to you, keep listening.
The first rebirth was rather brutal. At age 12, I was sent to live with my father’s sister and uncle and four boy cousins in Wayland, Massachusetts. Since these people didn’t believe anything my father believed I found this cross-training startling, and the more I behaved in my father’s image, the more I was punished. My uncle was enormously excited to have a pubescent girl in the household, snuck into my bathroom, groped and French-kissed me. I did my best to fend him off, while crushing on one of my cousins. In intervals, we exhibited social politeness. (I attended dancing class where white gloves were mandated for touching specimens of the opposite sex.) I also was taught to ski. Sort of. This hot-house atmosphere lasted only nine months.
My parents simply refused to listen to, believe in, or pay attention to any of this. I realized I needed to become a different person –the person I truly was, underneath, the person without all this reflexive training and behavior. And the question was, who was that?
The desire to participate in the world of art hit me early. As a young teen, I was fascinated by the internecine struggles of the Trojan War and the Wars of the Roses. History was a family story, history was a crime story. Books for children – the Narnia stories, for example, couldn’t match the explosive, desperate sweep of historical intrigue. I had a facility with English that allowed me to “opt out” of language drills – I read the encyclopedia instead, which was full of improbable information. I loved reading to the class, and the class loved to have me read to them.
When I entered boarding school at age 14 I really began to write in earnest. But the faculty did not like what I wrote. Moby Dick and the writings of John Steinbeck were seriously offered to me as models. This was the first moment I chose the Warrior Path. I complained that we were not reading any female authors and in fact, made a resolve never to read male authors again (I broke it for the Russians, who were feminine enough for me – especially Turgenev.) I liked Colette, so I read Francoise Sagan. I modeled myself on them – they were literally anathema at my school to such an extent that I decided not to go to college and pursued acting school instead.
That was a dumb decision literally no one helped me with but by that time I had discarded The Appropriate Path to such an extent I don’t know if anyone could have reasoned me out of it since Adult World seemed so desperately stupid to me. What I chose – I thought – was the world of inspiration where magic could be created, second by second.
When I was 11 I saw a 3,000 year old Greek play in a Greek stone theatre and was very taken by all its mechanisms of chorus and emotion. When we went back to the boat I sat down and wrote my own play, Chrysothemis, about Electra’s other sister. I couldn’t help it, I had to reflect that emotion back. It was a hot day and everyone else went swimming, but a Warrior would have finished that play. I finished the play.
Stoker’s screenplay started out as fan-fiction to Alfred Hitchcock’s much more enjoyable Shadow of a Doubt, which has a moral center, plus victims we care about and characters we can root for.
Stoker has a good, even beautiful movie buried in it but park Chan-Wook kept messing it up, very deliberately, probably under the pressure (and pleasure) of his personal fetishes. It starts WONDERFULLY – psychologically interesting, visually compelling, achieving an apotheosis of eidetic perfection hen a shot of hair dissolves into quivering grasses but jumps the shark on story sanity. Anyone who want to write about crime (and criminal psychology) need to STUDY it carefully or they risk sounding like nine year old girls guessing about sex – majorly clueless and missing all the real points – ultimately creating an uninteresting world too obviously made up.
Subjects like mental illness, spies, the foreign service, rituals of different countries, etc., can’t be persuasively invented, and threadbare simulacrums relentlessly reveal unpleasant truths about immature people who just don’t want their fantasies interrupted.
I used to write fantasies, too, until I began an in-depth study of crime. It changed what I wrote, how I think about the world, even how I live my life. Devlyn is a fantasy – but Find Courtney can actually happen. (Versions of it already have.) This is the reason I usually don’t like sci fi. It is possible to completely make up a world – for example Alice in Wonderland – but if it doesn’t satirize the rules of the real one it collapses like a bad soufflé. Michelangelo felt he couldn’t create a credible physicality of angels without studying dead bodies in morgues.
I understand that in Stoker our “Oldboy” doesn’t want to be “bothered” by all that stuff – he’s an “artist” who wants to create visual poetry so hypnotic it gets away with breaking the rules and it almost works! But by the end of the film real life insistently intrudes with its message that the “impossible” is ultimately boring.
The acting in Stoker is very good – especially Matthew Goode who seemed creepily young and was almost perfect – he would have BEEN perfect if the director had allowed him to be a little less vampiric and a little less “ka-razy” and a little more human. That would have made him more appealingly believable. But of course everyone has to submit to becoming an “archetype” to satisfy this director. India Stoker’s amoral, murderous sexuality has been a fetish for middle-aged men seeking to relieve their guilt (and excuse their behavior) for literally HUNDREDS of years. “Some girls” don’t have “proper feelings” so can be ruthlessly used and heartlessly exterminated.
Poor Mia Wasikowska! I have admired her ever since In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne – she deserves better. That said, I have to admit a personal failing – Nicole Kidman’s frozen weirdness always gets my back up. I have been rolling my eyes over her rigidity since Cold Mountain.
Mostly I feel sorry for actors who are talked into limiting the range of their gifts by these visual directors who set out to make a cohesive, visually stunning objet d’art, not a complex story about humans. As proud professionals they know how to give the director what he wants, thereby betraying their actual abilities which could create something much more intriguing, provocative and mentally long-lasting.
I watch a fair amount of crime and it’s always entertaining for me to speculate about how people could have gotten away with it. In this case, easily with a modicum of adulthood & sanity which seemingly bores our first-time scriptwriter (Wentworth Miller) who needs to be more “in your face”. Too bad. But I did enjoy seeing it because I relish being given a puzzle mistakenly assembled – in my view. Then I have the mental fun of putting it together more effectively myself – an amusing occupation for a winter afternoon Ah.
Candi admitted everything. According to the newspapers, who disclosed much more than the police, “Scorned Girlfriend Plots to Confront Wife.” Candi admitted only that her plan was to “get the truth out of Scarlet,” but Miss Bottomley started screaming when Candi entered the house – “I couldn’t shut her up and I just panicked.”
Mrs. Pourfoyle was indicted for “Malice Murder” – a capital offense. The murder weapon – brought by Candi all the way up from Wyvern House – was a table leg she wielded as a club.
Candi’s husband David announced he was standing by her. “Husband Claims Home-wrecking Cad Manipulated Lovelorn Girl.”
Was Ian the one who really wanted Scarlet dead? That was David’s argument! Would Ian be indicted? And how long would the generous, the fantastical, the life-altering disposition of Miss Bottomley’s estate remain private knowledge?
For these reasons and many more it was no surprise to receive a call from Scarlet’s solicitor, Pelham D’Arcy.
“Ian agrees to sign the divorce agreement we propose, without changes.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Scarlet sighed.
“He’s worried about being indicted for “transferred malice murder.”
“You mean they think he suggested killing me to Candi? I’ll never believe that.”
“The press is painting him as a lady-killer. He’s concerned about losing his job. A quick divorce removes his motive and makes him an eligible bachelor.”
Eligible Ian. Didn’t women flock to “lady-killers”, no matter what devastating facts they knew? Perhaps, thought Scarlet with her newly-acquired cynicism, they flocked BECAUSE of the “devastating facts.” Doesn’t every woman long to reform a roué? Horribly, I did, thought Scarlet. I fell for that. But she was a different person now. Still, the world thronged with eager victims. Ian wouldn’t be alone for long.
“When’s he going to sign?”
“It’s contingent on meeting you alone. I told them it would have to be at our offices.”
“All right. Let’s get it over with.”
“I suggest you wear your police whistle.”
Could Pelham be serious? Surely Ian wouldn’t try anything violent – but she knew he would expect to physically touch her and she shrank from the thought. She knew him that well.
“Is that a serious suggestion?”
“I’m very serious. If you don’t bring it, we’ll have to bell you like a cat.”
“I’m sure Enid will let me borrow it. If he signs, then where are we?”
“Then we get a decree nisi, which is provisional for one year. They usually rush these things through to get it out of the papers but it depends on the judge. Every now and then you get a Huey.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s Bob’s and my shorthand for an impossible judge. I must say the publicity makes this very unlikely.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s an open secret that everyone hates our divorce laws. Literally everyone. They’re just on the verge of either breakdown or reform.”
Scarlet shuddered. So many things you didn’t think of when you stood before the altar, wide-eyed and innocent!
“I’ll bring the whistle,” she promised.
She took care to wear it well-concealed. No point red-ragging Ian. She had never figured out his level of self-control. Was everything he did well-planned, or was he ruled by a raging id? Well, thought Scarlet, I don’t care. I don’t have to care. She imagined a future of trying to explain to Nick why Daddy did the things he did. Why he wasn’t like Pom. Adorable, sensitive, reliable Pom, who talked things out, who listened, who cared. Who changed, day by day, evolving to love better. To live better.
Ian looked different. Older, battered, his eyes bloodshot. Scarlet thought she smelled whisky underneath the cigarettes. Was he drinking every morning now, or was it just because he was seeing her? His suit hung on him in a peculiar manner, as if he had given up on any real nourishment. He and his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe, whose suit also was ill-fitting, could have been a vaudeville act – one so fat and the other starving-lean. Then again, perhaps Ian just wanted Scarlet to feel sorry for him.
Mr. Jellicoe seemed very obliging and impressed by his surroundings. He shook damp hands all around.
Ian looked at Scarlet with deep hunger. I’m the one who “got away”, she thought. The only one. She was glad of the whistle.
They were guided to the Partners’ Room. At ten in the morning, no sherry was on offer. Ian refused everything, even water. Scarlet accepted a cup of tea to have something to do with her hands, until she noticed they were trembling. Then she set her teacup down hastily.
Pelham made a point of seating them at opposite ends of the table. He closed the door softly. Ian began. “Scarlet, I want to let you know how sorry I am.”
He waited for a moment as if to allow her to speak. But what could she say? She had already decided there was no point in being accusatory. When he was her ex-husband and the “occasional” father of her child perhaps they could concoct a relationship. At the moment, the situation was hopelessly fraught.
He spoke again as if covering her silence. “I never guessed…what she’d do. I didn’t listen to her natterings.”
There went her resolve about accusations. She was just too angry. The words boiled out of her. “You treated her like a joke, but the joke is on every one of us. Poor Candi wanted to be treated like a wife without realizing how cruel you are when you’re sure of someone. You ignore them, you devalue them. You fobbed her off with lies while you went your smug and merry way. I think you secretly enjoyed making her crazy. I think you wanted to see just how crazy she would get. Makes it easier to get rid of them, doesn’t it?”
She half-expected him to fire up or at least smile that he’d gotten her goat but he hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. Scarlet struggled to contain herself. After a moment, he spoke.
“Don’t compare yourself with her. You’re nothing like.”
She could see the oil bubbling beneath his surface. Planning, planning, all along. He schemed to flatter her, fawn on her, throw himself on her mercy. He was testing, testing, for any way in. She should never have bothered giving him her honesty. It was all a game with Ian, and any game with Ian was just too dangerous. She summed up as best she could, “No one likes being lied to. A word of advice: it torpedoes relationships.”
He rose.
“You’re right, I’m wrong. I managed everything badly. I want to turn over a new leaf.”
She rose as well, feeling a bit panicky. Was he planning to chase her around the table?
“There’s Nick,” she said finally.
“Of course, there’s Nick. But we won’t be together – with him – all the time.”
Creepy! We’ll never be together with him at all. If I can help it. She summoned up her strength. “I don’t see that. I’m afraid we have little in common.”
“How can that be? Don’t you remember the two young Oxford students working on St. Euphrosyne, with all our hopes and dreams and ambitions?”
“I do,” she said. “I thought you didn’t.”
He seemed calculating as to whether he could to rush her. He leaned forward, light on his feet.
She pulled out the police whistle.
At the sight of it he sat down heavily and put his head on the table.
“Oh, Scarlet, Scarlet.” He began to weep.
She felt stunned. She had never seen him cry. She was surprised it was even possible. Could he be faking this? Then she suddenly realized with a flash of insight that, from her point of view, the problem wasn’t that his emotions were false, but that they were ephemeral.
“I’m sorry, too.” She advanced toward the door. “Haven’t we said everything?”
He looked up, tear-streaked. “Do you hate me?”
She was startled. She had hated him. That feeling was ephemeral. “No.”
“Will you tell Nick to hate me?”
Now she felt irked. “Of course not.”
He gazed at her slyly.
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll look on me as the fun dad, the devil-may-care seducer who knows how to get whatever he wants?”
He’d been arguing inside his own head, cruelly mimicking her voice.
“I’ll take my chances.” Nick would know Pom. He could choose; trustworthy love or untrustworthy disappointment. Choice – once well-informed – is up to each of us.
“I’m forgiven?”
This was strange. Odd word from a self-confessed unbeliever. The trial hadn’t even been held. Was he planning to call her as a character witness?
“Not yet,” she said briskly. “You haven’t signed this document.”
She put a hand on the doorknob. “Aren’t we done here?”
He seemed almost confused, as if she’d spoke an unknown language. He rose awkwardly, holding out his hand. He had the sense to say nothing.
She took his hand slowly and he immediately grasped it with his other one, as if he wanted her to feel his strength.
She realized she just didn’t like the man.
She turned away. She wrenched her hand back and, very unwillingly, he let it go and picked up the pen.
Dawn was just breaking as Scarlet came home. She took a long, hot bath and dressed, but the warmest sweaters and tights could not block the chill that had settled in her bones. The kitchen had become a crime scene. Enid switched her sphere of operations to the tiny kitchen off the ballroom. She could toast bread. Milk could be placed against the cold windowsill to keep it fresh.
Scarlet crawled into bed with Nick. He still was healthy, wide-eyed, fresh, new and needy. He had no idea how horrible the world really was.
“She’s gone,” Scarlet told Enid. “The brain injury was just too awful.”
“What made you wake?”
“I’m not sure. I had a dreadful dream. Something about Miss Bottomley lost on a raft. I must have heard a sound from downstairs.”
“Miss Bottomley screamed. I heard it too. That dreadful woman must have attacked her to stop her noise.”
Candi had lots of reasons for attacking people. All given to her – thought Scarlet grimly, by my dear husband.
The policeman climbed up the stairs to see the women. He didn’t look like a detective but more like a department store floorwalker with his shiny bald head and a sharp-cut suit.
“Scotland Yard,” he introduced himself. “Inspector MacBlythe. May I get the details of your story?”
“We’ll meet you in the sitting room,” sighed Scarlet. She climbed reluctantly out of bed and walked to the chintz settee she had so admired just a few brief weeks ago. She had thought she knew trouble and sorrow then, but in reality she had been only too naïve in the ways of misery. Fatally so. How could she could have ever guessed what depths of viciousness simple selfishness and greed could release!
The Inspector was not as surprised by the existence of a night guard as the bobby had been. “This place is a treasure house,” he said. “It’s at least a two-man job.”
“I wish we’d thought of it,” Scarlet wept. “The security man seemed so confident.”
Enid freshened the tea.
“What connection are you to Mrs. Pourfoyle?” MacBlythe was coming to the meat of the matter. “When I found out she and my husband were having an affair I told him I wanted a divorce. She quit her job and moved into our country house – at least that’s what my solicitor tells me. But last week she came up to London and threatened me as if I was the one blocking the divorce. But Ian’s been the blocker. It seems he’s got other girlfriends, one actually living with him in his flat. Again, according to my solicitor.”
MacBlythe took down all Pelham D’Arcy’s and Ian’s information, and moved over to Enid. Nick began to cry and Scarlet gladly sprang to her feet to remove him from the room.
Pelham called when the police had finished with him and requested an interview – “you and Enid both.”
“Oh, good,” said Enid. “I don’t want to be alone. Let’s have dinner out, afterwards.”
“I’m too tired for anything but fish and chips,” said Scarlet, who really didn’t want to see people.
“That’s fine with me.” Dear Enid, obliging as always.
Bob Thomas and Pelham met them in the Partners’ Room, which had a long table, imposing portraits and deep comfortable wingback chairs. Nick slept angelically in his carrycot. Scarlet imagined someday trying to explain all this to him.
“Well, this is a terrible thing,” said Bob Thomas, pouring tea all around. From an antique silver set, Scarlet noticed. She and Enid refused sherry. “Is the woman mad?”
“Temporarily maddened,” contributed Pelham, who was more accustomed to the vagaries of divorce.
“Well, she’s committed murder, is what she’s done,” said Bob Thomas.
They all agreed it was an unconscionable thing as they sipped their tea. There was a knock on the door and Pom thrust his head inside.
“Pom, I’m in a meeting!” gasped Scarlet.
“I asked Mr. Bronfen to join us,” said Bob Thomas. “Tea? Sherry?”
Pom accepted a small sherry. He sat next to Scarlet and held her hand tightly, under the table. “All three of you – Mr. Bronfen, Mrs. Rumson and Mrs. Wye – are beneficiaries under Miss Bottomley’s will.”
Light burst onto Scarlet when she realized, he is talking about me! She had forgotten she was Mrs. Wye. Suddenly she was on a par with Lady Lechmere in her attorney’s eyes. She had been upgraded.
“Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “But won’t they contest it?”
“Who?” inquired Bob Thomas calmly. “There are no interested parties. She was literally the last of her line. The property would have reverted to the Crown.”
“Mr. Inkum-“
“Mr. Inkum would not dare. The papers he attempted to get Miss Bottomley to sign were so outrageously self-interested he would be drummed out of the profession if anyone complained.”
Reality began to sink in. She sadly recalled Miss Bottomley’s delighted exclamation, “Do you know, I am a very rich woman?”
Pom and Enid and Scarlet gazed at each other, dazzled.
Bob Thomas cleared his throat. “There are six trusts concerning real estate, art, publishing and commercial properties. Mrs. Wye is the discretionary trustee and I am the advisor.”
And he proceeded to explain.
Scarlet was openly clutching Pom’s hand as they staggered out of the lawyers’ office. “I’m gobsmacked,” said Enid. “What a lovely human being she was.”
“And how we’re going to miss her,” gasped Scarlet.
Pom guided them into a nearby bistro – “do you like pizza? You must try it,” and ordered a bottle of chianti.
“To Miss Bottomley’s foresight and generosity,” toasted Pom.
Nick’s eyes were big as he looked from each to each in the candle flame.
“But we couldn’t protect her!’ sighed Scarlet. “It’s because of me she’s dead, don’t you see?”
“How could you ever have guessed that Candi would do such a thing?”
“I couldn’t!”
“Any thug could have broken in and attacked poor Miss Bottomley at any time. She could have been assaulted on the street! She was all alone before we came.”
“But the time was so short. Too short.”
“Time is always too short,” said Pom and he squeezed Scarlet’s hand meaningfully.
That very night Scarlet had the strangest dream. She was picnicking with Pom – a Watteau-like scene of countrified perfection. They lolled on a riverbank, dressed in party clothes with the best offerings of Fortnum & Mason spread out at their feet. But it seemed however much they laughed, lifting their glasses to each other, some desperate dread lurked right below the surface. Suddenly in the stream beside them Miss Bottomley appeared on a raft. Night-clothed, disoriented and woebegone she lifted up her hands in supplication before being swept away. Neither Scarlet nor Pom could react. Scarlet felt her clothes an enormous weight, her limbs immobile, she could not even force her lips into a scream. The terror was so immense Scarlet struggled to wake up.
“This must be a dream,” she told herself, and so it was. Scarlet fell back against the pillows as exhausted as if she’d been fighting, not sleeping. Yet she felt some relief. She had been given another chance. She must not waste it. What had she forgotten? It was something connected with Miss Bottomley. Her preoccupation with Pom was causing her to neglect Miss Bottomley. Something – something – she forgot to do. But as so often happens, the dream words melted away on the sand before she could read them.
Was Miss Bottomley calling out for her? There was only one way to find out. Scarlet struggled into a dressing gown and slippers and hurried down the stairs.
She heard it before she saw it, pushing against the baize kitchen door — some desperate struggle in the lighted kitchen. Scarlet braced her body against the door to see a slight figure kneeling over Miss Bottomley with a flail, beating and beating. Blood was everywhere, swirling patterns rising and falling to the very ceiling. The room stank like a charnelhouse.
Scarlet sprang forward, grabbed the black clothed creature whose eyes beneath a ski mask swiveled up to confront her. Those eyes – mad with rage – were Candi’s eyes. Scarlet tore off the mask to reveal Candi’s demonic face. Candi shrieked – “You!” and attacked her.
The club slipped from her hand and fell to the floor while the women struggled in a desperate embrace. Scarlet felt strong, but stupid and slow – the other woman was wiry and crazed.
“I’ve got to knock her out somehow,” Scarlet thought and with all her power forced Candi’s head against of the cast-iron Aga stove. Again and again she cracked it until Candi went down.
Then she heard a siren, ear-splitting – and saw Enid aghast in the doorway.
“What happened? I pressed the panic button!”
“Call for an ambulance – Miss Bottomley’s been hurt.”
Before she attended to Miss B she must hogtie Candi with kitchen clothesline – no risking another assault. Candi seemed completely out of it but she was breathing.
Miss Bottomley’s eyes were open. She was wearing the cursed red anorak over her nightclothes – bitterly Scarlet rued their casual swap. How much trouble this had caused! She had already received one warning about the dangerous potentialities of clothing confusion but she’d failed to grasp its meaning.
“What happened?” gasped Miss B. “Did I fall?”
Scarlet, hot with tears, pulled her wounded employer into her lap and began rocking her like a child. “You’re going to be all right,” she chanted. “We’re taking you to hospital.”
The night guard appeared in the doorway, his mouth agape.
“What happened?”
“Somehow this woman got in and attacked Miss Bottomley. Enid called the police and ambulance.” “Oh, my lord,” said the poor man, “Must have been when I went to the phone for hourly report.”
Miss Bottomley gasped and gurgled. She clutched Scarlet’s hand so hard it was difficult to surrender her to the medics. As Scarlet climbed into the ambulance she could hear the night guard explaining to anyone who would listen, “I had to make my report.”
Why hadn’t she been informed that his post would be unwatched for minutes every hour? It was ludicrous! She grabbed his arm.
“Don’t you dare let the attacker go,” she commanded. She didn’t trust him anymore, but at least Candi seemed immobilized. Scarlet could hear the police siren, but the ambulance couldn’t wait. Rocking back and forth she asked herself, Why had it occurred to literally no one, that a single guard couldn’t possibly cover the entrance? What about bathroom breaks, not to mention the hourly reports from the corner phone the client had not even been informed about? She gritted her teeth, but the person she most blamed was herself. She could kick herself for not thinking it through.
How easily we accept reassuring appearances without enquiring deeper!
At the hospital, Miss Bottomley was rushed away and Scarlet was given a blanket to cover her bloodstained nightclothes. She longed for the comfort of Enid’s presence but knew Enid must remain at Norfolk Crescent for Nick. She’d have to get through this alone.
“May I speak to you, ma’am?”
It was a London bobby, helmet removed, holding his notebook.
“Sure,” said Scarlet in her exhausted American drawl.
“What occurred precisely? Best you can recall?”
“I must have heard something. I really don’t know why but I got up, thinking Miss Bottomley –“
“The injured party?”
“Yes. She’s my employer. I thought she needed me. When I ran downstairs I heard them struggling. This woman Candi Pourfoyle must have come through the back entrance – there’s a guard on but he says he was making a phone call.”
“There’s a guard?” interest in his gray eyes.
“Well stone masons are building a new entrance at the back and there isn’t a door so they set a guard there. But he’s no good!” She bit her thumb angrily. “I wish I’d known he was going to be no good.”
“Cup of tea?” A sympathetic sister approached.
“Yes, please.” Scarlet accepted the white china cup – you could see the sugar they’d sloshed in. It was lukewarm but enormously comforting.
“You recognized the attacker?”
“Candi Pourfoyle, I told you. “
“And she is?”
“My husband’s girlfriend. I don’t know if she thought Miss Bottomley was me or not – poor Miss B. was wearing my anorak – but Candi would have to come through the kitchen and Miss B often fell asleep sitting by the Aga –“
“Hold on now, please. What exactly did you see?”
“They were both on the floor. Candi was beating her with a club – blood everywhere. I pulled her off, knocked her out and tied her up with clothesline. Enid heard the ruckus and called police.”
“You knocked her out? Did you have a weapon?”
“No. I wish I had. But I bashed her head against the stove.”
The bobby patted her knee. “That’s a ghastly experience,” he said sympathetically. “Dreadful.”
And it’s only going to get worse, Scarlet could tell from the doctors’ faces as they pushed through the operating theatre doors. She stopped trying to be strong and burst into tears.
Thus began the busiest week of Scarlet’s life, but at first, the happiest. The weather was sharp and clear emitting occasional puffy snowflakes; the sky was wide and open and even in London one could see forever. The streets were festive with Christmas lights and bustling shoppers. There were visits to the Victoria and Albert museum where Kirby Crousam gave Scarlet, Miss Bottomley and Pom a guided tour. Scarlet had never imagined early, high and late Victoriana could all be equally interesting. They thoroughly enjoyed an auction at Christie’s where Miss Bottomley wanted to bid on everything but allowed herself to be guided to a gorgeous big green and grey Larry Rivers at an excellent price – dinners at Simpson’s, drinks at The Gay Hussar and ices at Largo’s.
Miss Bottomley even talked them into attending a pantomime where she clapped as excitedly as a child.
The front door had been endowed with a coded lock and two peepholes – one specifically placed at Miss Bottomley’s height – not that she ever bothered to answer the door any more. Now that she had Enid. All three residents approved and declared this entry was “much less bother”. A “panic button” was installed promising to start up a loud siren signal anytime the Norfolk Crescent Irregulars felt themselves threatened.
Pom behaved like a perfect gentleman, but he looked less haunted and so Scarlet relaxed into guiltless joy. He studiously avoided body contact with Scarlet but his eyes maintained a reassuring glow of intimate promise. Scarlet was mentally relieved but her body was less cooperative – her whole soul ached for him. According to Pelham, the divorce case proceeded swimmingly: Ian had expressed relief to see from their divorce proffer that Scarlet wanted only maintenance for Nick and was offering nanny-supervised visitation. Scarlet felt confident Enid was not Ian’s “type”, and that if he pretended that she were, Enid would see through his gambit.
“Between you and me I think he’ll sign,” said Pelham. “He’d be a fool not to with what we’ve got on him. Ian will agree to be the guilty party and only the judge will ever have to know the details of the harrowing time you’ve been through. Should be over fairly soon when they accept our bargain.”
Scarlet welcomed the days when Miss Bottomley conferenced with Bob Thomas leaving her free to drop into Coltsfoot & Briggins and liase with Mr. Mountjoy. She finally met the elusive Jemima Plympton “pleased to meet you I’m sure” and was given an introduction to the printer, Prollops & Daughters. She was rejoiced at this Dickensian name and accepted it as a very good omen for their future venture! She had already contacted Francesca Joringel, asking to see her manuscript.
The interview she coveted, however, was with Mr. Beebee, head of the advertising firm Coltsfoot & Briggins had used for, quoting Mountjoy, “donkey’s years.” And what she had found out as Mr. Beebee made his pitch caused her to think nobody but a donkey would ever use this firm, but rather than tell them that, she resolved to ask Pom at the first opportunity if he knew anyone in advertising. She had already discovered through happy experience that his art school connections were invaluable.
Once again, she was lucky. On her way out, she saw a young woman – she couldn’t have been more than twenty – showing a portfolio to the bored receptionist who almost certainly had no clout whatsoever.
“I’m sorry,” said the woman frostily in a not-sorry way, “Mr. Beebee’s in meetings.”
Scarlet held the door open for her as the girl marched dejectedly out.
“You’re casting your pearls before swine,” Scarlet remarked.
The girl flushed, “They don’t want to hire a woman, that’s the truth. I doubt they have a single woman working there other than that bloody receptionist.”
“The more fools they,” said Scarlet. “That’s what keeps them living in the past like a pack of dinosaurs. And the same thing that happened to the dinosaurs is going to happen to them. The ideas they showed me were hideously hidebound. Positively strangled at birth.”
The girl looked at her with more interest as they stepped into the elevator together.
“I’m Lalage Sumner-Locke,” she said. “I just finished up at Durham Technical College and my parents gave me two weeks at a hotel as a graduation gift to see if I could get a job in the City.” Scarlet knew this naïve introduction would have been counted against her anywhere except in front of a member of The Norfolk Crescent Irregulars.
“My publishing firm is planning a hardbound reprint of the Miss Clew books of sixty years ago. I wonder if you’d read the books and mock up a advertising plan to get people excited about them.” “I think I’ve heard of those!” gasped Lalage. “My aunt read them through regularly every year. I’d certainly love to try my hand.”
And so Lalage Sumer-Locke came to tea in the Norfolk Crescent kitchen, showed everyone her amusing portfolio and was given ten pounds – “This gives me an extra two weeks!” – and a full set of Miss Clew books.
“She was lucky to have found you,” commented Enid and the two women cleared up afterwards when Lalage had departed and Miss Bottomley, worn out from a morning with Bob Thomas (“Money’s a terrible responsibility!”) had gone to lie down.
“I was lucky to find her! What did you think of the portfolio?”
“I loved the Piccadilly swan lording it over the Mayfair ducks! She’s clever, that one!”
This cleverness was confirmed when, the very next day, Lalage phoned from the Royal Park Hotel (“My parents said I could stay anywhere with Royal in the title”) and suggested she’d also like to illustrate the books.
“The illustrations can be part of the advertising,” she said. “We’ll seize on say, ten moments or however many you want – show an exciting scene – and get people caught up in speculation. “Can Miss Clew escape this time? Is Miss Clew’s number up? Can the world exist without Miss Clew?” That sort of thing.”
“I love it,” said Scarlet. “How are you getting along with the books?”
“I’m loving them so much I have to put them down and force myself to draw. I’m on The Jade Monkey Puzzle right now.”
“Keep up the good work,” said Scarlet.
She was interrupted by Branner of Palace Security.
“That back entrance going to take us longer, miss,” he explained. “We need to sub-contract a masonry job – mortar’s so friable you can put your fist through it.”
“So, you’ll be opening up the wall, then? How can you keep us safe?”
“We’ll hang tarpaulins. And of course, there’s the night guard, ma’am.”
Forever after, Scarlet was to regret not demanding extra guards. Was it possible to be too happy? It could make you careless.
Walking towards the kitchen Scarlet found herself wondering at the joy she felt from Pom’s sheer presence, the lightness he imparted to her step. Quite the opposite of Ian whose mind seemed to have hardened into such an inscrutable wall and whose dry, dusty heart had been devoured by pride and greed . Her spirits literally hit the floor when he was around. Scarlet eerily felt that she and Pom seemed always to be thinking the same thoughts – she could literally feel his ideas quivering in the air, yearning for contact with her to make them visible to the world at large.
Miss Bottomley was drawing on her gloves, getting ready for her banking trip.
“It’s just my own things here,” she said, gesturing at her modest bedroom – more like a nun’s cell than anything the rest of the house contained. “And I like the kitchen furniture. So once again your idea was sound: just tell him anywhere but here – unless you’re attached to the furniture in your own room, of course. You can exempt anything you’d like to personally own.”
“I am fond of the desk in my room,” said Scarlet. “Thanks. You’ve been very generous.”
Mr. Crousam paid Pom and Scarlet no further attention as he wandered from room to room, making notes. They could spend the whole morning together.
“We’ll have to think up a new excuse after this,” said Pom and Scarlet laughed and squeezed his hand.
“How about those auctions Miss Bottomley is so eager to attend?”
“Good plan,” Pom agreed. “Do you think we could get away with one auction and one gallery visit per week?”
“Or perhaps two,” said Scarlet and Pom pulled her back behind a Coromandel screen and kissed her. Ecstasy!
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t done that,” Scarlet gasped huskily as she fell against him.
“Why’s that?” he murmured, playing with her hair.
“Because it changes everything.”
But Pom was kissing her face and Scarlet was kissing back. Time itself melted, goals melted, there was no future, only this eternal sense of glorious happiness – Pom loved her, she loved him, she was the luckiest girl in the world.
“Why are you crying?” he asked gently, wiping away tears with his lips.
“Because this is a disaster,” she cried, “I’m in the middle of a complicated divorce – if I have a lover – if I have a boyfriend – aren’t I as bad as Ian?”
“Surely not,” he said. “Your husband is rejecting love. We are finding it.” But he halted long enough to allow her to back away from him, straighten her clothing and question frantically, “Can’t we pretend this never happened?”
“But it’s the truth,” said Pom. “I love you and you love me. I want to shout it from the housetops.”
“Don’t you dare. It can’t happen if I want Ian to sign the divorce agreement I need, can’t you see? Let’s agree to put this on hold. No love talk –“ she gasped, “And no touching.”
He backed away, putting his hands up. “Forgive me. I’m sorry. I’ve waited thirty-three years to find you, I can wait a few more months.”
“It will go much faster than that if Ian sees he has no choice,” sighed Scarlet, then asked, “Thirty-three years?”
“That’s how old I am,” said Pom. “Are you appalled?”
“No,” said Scarlet. “I’m – hopeful. But I’m also frightened. Frightened.”
He held up his hands, kissed her forehead and left.
No sleep for Scarlet that night, as tossing and turning, she contemplated a divorce on Ian’s terms. She’d experienced marriage on his terms and it hadn’t been tolerable. She must not let him get the upper hand.
The new world Pom offered was spectacular, exciting and completely unexpected. In the moment of his warm erotic presence she had wanted him totally – they had been near a bed, she would have fallen into it. And she was certain the experience would have been wonderful, their attunement was so perfect. But she had also been looking forward to her job, her new life in Miss Bottomley’s house as a single woman and she didn’t want to forgo those exciting experiences either. No, it was just too soon with Pom. She hadn’t yet learned how to properly care for Nick or care for herself, and she had just acquired s new charge: Miss Bottomley. The only way forward was slowly, one thing at a time. But as her hand reached down to touch herself she couldn’t help but vibrate to the promise of joy she had experienced.
Alysse Aallyn 