‘Not always,’ said Colin. ‘That would make it too elaborate. So we just give it a few passing acknowledgements. Now drink up – and we’ll go and eat.’
2
‘This Stilettoed Eel is terrific,’ said Chick. ‘Where did you get the idea from?’
‘Nicholas had it,’ said Colin. ‘There’s an eel – or there was an eel, rather – that used to go into his wash-basin every day through the cold-water tap.’
‘What a funny thing to do,’ said Chick. ‘Why did it do that?’
‘It used to pop its head out and empty the toothpaste by squeezing the tube with its teeth. Nicholas only uses that American brand with the pineapple flavour, and I don’t think it could resist the temptation.’
‘How did he catch it?’ asked Chick.
‘One day he put a whole pineapple there instead of the toothpaste. When it was only the tube it would suck out the toothpaste, swallow it, and then pop its head straight back. But with the pineapple it wouldn’t work. The harder it pulled, the farther its teeth sunk in. Nicholas …’
Colin held back the rest of his sentence.
‘Nicholas what?’ said Chick.
‘I’m scared to tell you the rest. It might take away your appetite.’
‘Carry on,’ said Chick, ‘my plate’s almost empty, anyway.’
‘Well, Nicholas came in at that very moment and sliced off its head with a razor blade. Then he swiftly turned on the tap and out came the rest.’
‘Is that all?’ said Chick. ‘Give me some more then! I hope it left a large family in the tank.’
‘Nicholas has put out a tube of raspberry-flavoured toothpaste to see …’ said Colin. ‘But tell me more about this Alyssum you were talking to him about …’
‘I can just see her now,’ said Chick. ‘I met her at one of Jean Pulse’s lectures. We were both lying flat on our stomachs under the platform – and that’s how I got to know her …’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Oh, I’m no good at descriptions,’ said Chick. ‘She’s pretty …’
‘Ah!…’ said Colin.
Nicholas came back. He was bringing in the turkey.
‘Sit down and eat with us, Nicholas,’ said Colin. ‘After all, as Chick was saying, you’re almost one of the family.’
‘I must see to the mice first, if Mr Colin has no objections, sir,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I’ll be back in a moment. I’ve already carved the turkey … And here is the sauce …’
‘Wait till you taste it,’ said Colin. ‘It’s a sauce made from creamed mangoes and juniper berries piped into little pouches of plaited veal. You blow into them like bagpipes and the sauce comes out like toothpaste.’
‘Super!’ said Chick.
‘You wouldn’t like to give me some clues about the way in which you entered into your relationship with her? …’ Colin went on.
‘Well …’ said Chick, ‘I asked her if she liked Jean Pulse Heartre and she told me that she collected all his works … Then I said to her “So do I” … And every time that I said something to her, she answered “So do I”, and vice versa … Then, finally, just as an existentialist experiment, I said to her “I love you very much”. But that time she just said “Oh!” …’
‘So the experiment was a flop,’ said Colin.
‘I suppose so,’ said Chick. ‘But all the same she didn’t go. So then I said “I’m going that way”, and she said “I’m not”. But she went on “I’m going this way” …’
‘Extraordinary,’ nodded Colin.
‘So I said “So am I” …’ said Chick. ‘And after that I went everywhere that she did …’
‘And the consequence was? …’ said Colin.
‘Hmmm! …’ said Chick. ‘Well, it was bedtime …’
Colin gulped hard and swallowed down a bottle of red wine before he recovered.
‘I’m going skating with her tomorrow,’ said Chick. ‘It’s Sunday. How about coming with us? We’re going in the morning because there won’t be too many people around then. I’m not all that keen,’ he remarked, ‘because I’m a rotten skater, but we can always talk about Heartre.’
‘I’ll be there …’ promised Colin. ‘And I’ll bring Nicholas … Maybe he’s got some more nieces …’
3
Colin stepped down from the tube train and went up the escalator. He came out on the wrong side of the station, turned left and went right round it before he could get his bearings. He used his yellow silk handkerchief to find out the direction of the wind. It immediately swept all the colour out of the handkerchief and spread it over a large lumpy building which suddenly took on the appearance of the Rinkspot Skating Club.
The bump on the side nearest Colin was the indoor swimming pool. He went past that, and on the other side penetrated into the petrified organism by going through a double set of plate glass swing doors with bronze handles. When he showed his season ticket to the Commissionaire it winked at him through the two little round holes that had already been punched in it. The Commissionaire smiled back, but nevertheless gave a third brutal punch to the orange card and the ticket was blinded for life. Colin hurriedly put it back into his wallodile crocket and turned left into a corridor with a rubber floor that led to the changing cubicles. The ones at the level of the rink were all full. So he went up the concrete stairs, bumping into some very tall people on their way down cutting extraordinary capers and trying desperately to behave naturally despite the obvious disadvantage of being perched on vertical metallic blades. A man in a white polo-necked sweater opened a cubicle for him, pocketed the tip Colin gave him for his pains but which Colin was sure he would spend on pleasure because he looked like a liar, and left Colin to rest in peace there alone, after having carelessly scribbled his initials with a piece of chalk on a little blackboard specially put there for that purpose. Colin noticed that the man did not have a man’s head, but an ostrich’s, and couldn’t understand why he was working in the ice-rink instead of at the swimming pool.
An oval sound rose from the rink, overlaid by the music of loud-speakers scattered all around. The skaters’ trampling had not yet reached the sonic booming of those hectic moments when the noise it makes can be compared to a regiment marching over cobbled roads through squelching mud. Colin looked round for Alyssum and Chick, but they did not seem to be on the ice. Nicholas was coming to join him a little later; he still had some work to do in the kitchen in preparation for lunch.
Colin undid his shoelaces and noticed that his soles had gone. He took a roll of sticky tape from his pocket, but there wasn’t enough left. So he planted his shoes in a little puddle of condensation on the concrete seat and sprinkled them with concentrated fertilizer to make the leather sprout again quickly. He slipped on a pair of thick woollen socks with wide yellow and purple stripes, and put on his skating boots. His skates had blades that were divided in two at the front so that he could easily make changes of direction.
He went out of his cubicle, and downstairs again. His ankles twisted slightly on the corrugated rubber that lined the reinforced concrete corridors. Just as he was about to risk himself on the rink he had to spring back to avoid being knocked over. A skating draughtswoman, at the end of a magnificent whirlwind spread eagle (which she termed a double elephant), laid an enormous egg which split open at Colin’s feet.
While one of the serf-sweepers was cleaning up the scattered fragments, Colin noticed Chick and Alyssum who had just arrived on the other side of the rink. He waved at them, but as they did not see him he set off to meet them without taking the gyratory movement of the rink into account. The result was the rapid formation of a tremendous heap of people rushing to complain. Every second they were joined by a vast agglomeration of others, desperately beating their arms, their legs, their shoulders and their whole bodies in the air before collapsing on to the pile of the first fallen. As the sun had melted the surface of the ice, there was a horrible squelching under the heap of bodies.
In no time at all ninety
per cent of the skaters were on the heap and Chick and Alyssum had the rink to themselves – or almost. They went up to the swarming mass and Chick, recognizing Colin by his cleft skates, grabbed his ankles and extricated him from the seething crowd. They shook hands. Chick introduced Alyssum and Colin put himself on her left as Chick already occupied the dexter flank.
They brushed themselves down when they reached the far side of the rink to make room for the serf-sweepers who, giving up all hope of finding anything but worthless rags and tatters of disconnected personalities in the mountain of victims, had got out their squeegees to wipe out the hundreds of stiffs, and shoved them into the gully while singing the Rinkunabulan Anthem composed by Beatrice Webb in 1892, and which goes something like this:
Withdraw, sweet skaters, from the icy scene –
Within a trice the serfs will sweep it clean …
The whole ceremony was punctuated with exclamation marks from the whooter which were intended to instil, in the depths of the most devoted souls, a shudder of incoercible terror.
Those skaters who were left applauded the initiative that had been shown, and the trap closed over the rest. Chick, Alyssum and Colin said a short prayer and began to gyrate once again.
Colin looked at Alyssum. By some strange trick of Fate she was wearing a white tee-shirt with a yellow skirt. She had white and yellow shoes, with ice-hockey skates. She had smoked silk stockings and short white socks rolled over the tops of her little boots whose fluffy white laces had been twisted three times round her ankles. On top of all this she also had a sharp green silk scarf and masses of thick blonde hair from which her face peeped out. She looked out at the world through wide open blue eyes, and the boundaries of her being were delineated by a skin that was radiant and golden. She possessed round arms and calves, a narrow waist and a bust that was so perfect it might have been a photo.
Colin looked somewhere else in order to steady himself. When he had managed this he lowered his eyes and asked Chick if the Stilettoed Eel hadn’t given him indigestion.
‘Don’t talk to me about it,’ said Chick. ‘I stayed up all night fishing in my bathroom to see if I could find one too. But there only seems to be trout in my place.’
‘Nicholas ought to be able to do something for you,’ said Colin, reassuringly. And then, addressing himself more particularly to Alyssum, ‘You have an extraordinarily gifted uncle.’
‘He’s the pride of the family,’ said Alyssum. ‘My mother’s never got over being married to a mathematical wizard with nothing more than a first in calculus while her brother has done so well for himself in life.’
‘Your father’s a wizard with a degree in maths?’
‘Yes, he’s a don at the University and a member of the Magic Squared Circle …’ said Alyssum. ‘It’s awful. And he’s thirty-eight! You’d think he might have made some effort. Luckily we’ve always got Uncle Nicholas.’
‘Wasn’t he going to come this morning?’ said Chick.
A heady perfume rose from Alyssum’s shining hair. Colin moved away a little.
‘I think he’s going to be late. He was full of inspiration this morning … If you’d both like to come back home for lunch with me, we’ll find out what it was …’
‘Fine,’ said Chick. ‘But if you think I’m going to accept an invitation like that, then you must have a very strange conception of the Universe … Find a fourth first! I’m not going to let Alyssum go to your place or you’ll seduce her with the magic of your clavicocktail – and I’m not standing for that.’
‘Oh …’ protested Colin. ‘Hark at the things he’s saying! …’
He didn’t hear any more because an inordinately lengthy individual, who had been giving a demonstration of speed for the past five minutes, had just slipped through his legs by leaning forward as far as possible and the rush of air that he created lifted Colin several yards above the ground. He clutched the edge of the first floor gallery, got his balance and after doing a backwards somersault the wrong way round, landed back at the sides of Chick and Alyssum.
‘They ought to be stopped from going too fast,’ said Colin.
Then he quickly crossed himself because the culprit had just skated straight into the wall of the restaurant at the other end of the rink and flattened himself against it like a marshmallow jellyfish picked to pieces by a destructive child.
The serf-sweepers once again did their duty and one of them planted a cross of ice on the spot where the accident had occurred. As it melted, the Master of Ceremonies played a selection of religious records.
Then everything went back to normal. And Chick, Alyssum and Colin went round and round and round.
4
‘Here’s Nicholas!’ cried Alyssum.
‘And there’s Isis!’ said Chick.
Nicholas had just turned up at the pay-desk, and Isis had just appeared in the rink. The former went to the upper floors; the latter to join Chick, Colin and Alyssum.
‘Hallo, Isis,’ said Colin. ‘This is Alyssum. Alyssum, this is Isis. You know Chick.’
There were handshakes all round and Chick made the most of this to slip away with Alyssum, leaving Isis in Colin’s arms, in which position they both immediately took off.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ said Isis.
Colin thought it was nice to see her again too. During her eighteen years of life Isis had managed to equip herself with chestnut hair, a white tee-shirt and a yellow skirt with a sharp green scarf, white and yellow shoes and a pair of sunglasses. She was pretty. But Colin knew her parents very well.
‘There’s a tea-party at our place next week,’ said Isis. ‘It’s Wry-Tangle’s birthday.’
‘Who’s Wry-Tangle?’
‘My poodle. So I’m asking all my friends round. You’ll come, won’t you? Will four be all right? …’
‘Of course,’ said Colin. ‘I’d love to come.’
‘Bring your friends too!’ said Isis.
‘Chick and Alyssum?’
‘Yes, they’re nice … See you on Sunday then!’
‘Are you going already?’ said Colin.
‘Yes. I never stay anywhere long. And I’ve already been here since ten o’clock, you know …’
‘But it’s only eleven!’ said Colin.
‘Ah, but I was in the bar! … See you! …’
5
Colin hurried through the glistening streets. The wind was keen and dry, and little patches of ice snapped, crackled and popped underfoot.
People hid behind anything they could find – the collars of their overcoats, their scarves, their muffs – and he even saw one man who had wrapped himself in a gilded birdcage with its little door pressing down on his nose.
‘I’m going to the High-Pottinuice’s tomorrow,’ thought Colin.
That was Isis’s parents’ name.
‘And tonight I’m having supper with Chick …
‘I’ll go back home to get ready for tomorrow …’
He took a big step to avoid a join in the pavement that looked particularly dangerous.
‘If I can do twenty steps without walking on the joints,’ said Colin, ‘I won’t get a pimple on my nose tomorrow.’
‘But it won’t make any difference,’ he said, jumping on to the ninth joint with both feet, ‘because that kind of superstition is stupid. I won’t get a pimple whatever I do.’
He bent down to pick a pink and blue orchid that the frost had brought out of the earth.
It smelt like Alyssum’s hair.
‘I’ll be seeing Alyssum tomorrow …’
But that was something he shouldn’t think about. Legally Alyssum belonged to Chick.
‘I’m bound to find a girl tomorrow …’
But his thoughts still lingered on Alyssum.
‘Do they really discuss Jean Pulse Heartre when they’re alone? …’
But perhaps it was best not to think about what they did when they were alone together.
‘How many articles has Jean Pulse Heartre wr
itten during the last year? …’
At any rate, there wasn’t enough time for him to count them all before he got home.
‘I wonder what Nicholas is making for this evening …’
When you came to think about it, the likeness between Alyssum and Nicholas wasn’t all that extraordinary since they both belonged to the same family. He was slyly creeping back to the forbidden topic and he quickly thought about something else.
‘How I wonder what Nicholas – who is so much like Alyssum – is making for this evening …’
‘Nicholas is eleven years older than Alyssum. That makes him twenty-nine. He’s a tremendously gifted cook. He’s going to make a casserole.’
Colin was almost home.
‘Flower-shops never have shutters. Nobody ever thinks of stealing flowers.’
That was logical enough. He picked a grey and orange orchid with a delicate trembling tendril. Its colours shimmered in the light like shot silk.
‘It’s just like the mouse with the black whiskers … And I’m home!’
Colin went up the stone staircase that was wrapped in its thick winter woollies. Into the lock in the door of silvered glass he introduced a little golden key.
‘Hither, my faithful lackeys! … Your master is returned! …’
He flung his mac on to a chair and went to look for Nicholas.
6
‘Nicholas, are you going to make a casserole tonight?’ asked Colin.
‘Good Lord,’ said Nicholas, ‘Mr Colin didn’t ask me to. I’d thought of something quite different.’
‘Caterwauling cockleshells!’ said Colin. ‘Why must you always talk to me perpetually in the third person?’
‘If Mr Colin will give me permission to explain my reasons, sir, I should like to state that I find any familiarity permissible only after the barriers have been consistently respected on both sides – and that certainly is not the case here.’
‘You’re a bloody snob, Nicholas,’ said Colin.