Mefisto (9 page)

Felix seldom travelled in the car, preferring to walk, even in winter weather, with his hands in his pockets and his coat swinging open. But he was delighted with Uncle Ambrose, and studied him enthusiastically, this large swarth moist man, with his queasy smile and his tight suits and his aura of talcum powder and pain. On mornings when Mr Kasperl was late, Felix would come down and lean in the window of the car and hector him gaily, with roguish winks and jabs. Uncle Ambrose responded with a befuddled, panic-stricken grin, nodding and mumbling. Felix looked at me wide-eyed, in mock wonder.

– So many relatives you have! he said. Why, they’re everywhere.

Aunt Philomena did not know whether to be jealous of Uncle Ambrose now, or proud of him. Ambrose, at Ashburn! Who would have thought it? Emboldened, she intensified her assaults on Mr Kasperl’s stony solitude, but in vain, he sat alone with his thoughts by the window in the hotel dining room as he had always done, taking no notice of anyone. She turned to Felix then, lying in wait for him in secluded spots about the hotel, sitting up very straight with her neck stretched out and her lips pursed, a cup of coffee at her elbow, a cigarette with an inch of ash on it clipped tightly between two tensed, tremulous fingers. Felix listened to her attentively, with a bland, dreamy smile.

– Oh, Ambrose! she would say, with a dismissive sniff. The things I could tell you about poor Ambrose …

And she would gabble on, in rising tones of vehement sincerity, while a puckered skin formed on her coffee, and the ashtray on the low table before her sprouted a thicket of incarnadined butts, the least damaged of which Felix would save, and store away pensively in his tobacco tin.

The photographic studio, a winter afternoon, the gas fire hissing. I liked it here, the clutter, the quiet, the chemical smell, the grainy light that seemed, at this dead end of the year, to drift down from the ceiling, a strange, dense element, like pale smoke. Another world lay all around me here, a jumble of images. How sharp they were, how clear, these pictures from the land of the dead. I examined them minutely, one by one, as if searching for someone I knew, a known face, with blurred grin and unfamiliar quiff, looking up from that picnic table, in summer, in sunlight, among trees. I would not have been surprised, I think, if that face had been my own, so real did that world seem, and so fleeting, somehow, this one. Sophie, sitting by the fire, turned her gaze towards the door with an expectant smile. I had not heard a sound. Felix came in.

– Hello, Hansel, he said. Why, and Gretel too!

He looked from one of us to the other, grinning. He was carrying a white gown draped voluminously over his arm.

– See what I found, he said.

It was a wedding dress, elaborately embroidered, the heavy silk frayed and rusted with age. Sophie with a joyful yelp rose and took it from him, and held it against herself and laughed, turning this way and that. Felix put a hand to his heart and cried:

– Ah, thou still unravished bride of quietness!

He produced a crumpled white veil and placed it on her head with a flourish. She laughed again, her tongue rolling on her lower lip, and ran from the room. We heard her racing up the stairs and through the bedrooms, searching for a mirror. Felix chuckled, and crossed to the gas fire and rubbed his hands before the flame, his eyes lifted to the window. A fistful of rain swept against the glass with a muffled clatter. Rooks were squabbling outside in the darkening trees. He hummed the Wedding March, and grinned at me over his shoulder and softly sang:

He chuckled again, and wandered idly about the room, picking up things and tossing them aside. He glanced at me slyly and said:

– What are you thinking about, bird-boy?

– Nothing.

I was thinking that I would always be a little afraid of him.

– Nothing, eh? he said. Well that’s a lie, I know. You’re thinking dirty things, aren’t you?

He made a monkey face and crouched and capered, howling softly. I had to laugh. Sophie came back then, dragging behind her the trunk of fancy-dress costumes from the cupboard under the stairs. She had pulled on the wedding dress over her own skirt, and wore a battered top hat that Felix had found in the attic. The dress was too small for her, and hung askew, hitched on one hip, her wrists and ankles sticking out. She delved in the trunk and brought out a dusty tailcoat and a pair of striped grey trousers, and offered them to me. But Felix had other plans. He made a rapid sign to her, and she laughed, and pulled off the dress and gave it to him. He turned to me.

– Come on, sweetie, he said, you be the bride.

I backed away, but he followed me, laughing, and flung the dress like a net over my head. I shivered at the chill slither of silk. From the pleats and secret folds there rose a smell of camphor and of wax, and something else that was unnameable, a faint, stale, womanly stink. The bodice pinched my armpits, the skirts hung heavy against my knees. Sophie laughed and clapped her hands.

–
Salve
! Felix cried.
Salve, vagina coeli
!

He fixed the veil on my head, and Sophie produced a lipstick and painted my mouth, frowning in concentration and biting the tip of her tongue. She rummaged in the trunk again and brought out a dainty pair of white shoes with high heels. She knelt before me and took off my shoes, and smiled up at me, cradling my moist heel in her hand.

– Tarra! Felix trilled. The slipper fits!

I ventured forward unsteadily in the spindly shoes, my calves atremble. I felt hot and giddy. A spasm of excitement rose in me that was part pleasure and part disgust. It was as if inside this gown there was not myself but someone else, some other flesh, pliable, yielding, utterly at my mercy. Each trembling step I took was like the fitful writhing of a captive whom I held pressed tightly to my pitiless heart. I caught my reflection in a cracked bit of mirror on the wall, and for a second someone else looked out at me, dazed and crazily grinning, from behind my own face.

– Radiant, Felix said, clasping his hands to his breast. Just radiant. Why, Miss Havisham herself was never half so fetching.

Sophie put on the clawhammer coat and tipped the top hat at a jaunty angle, linking her arm in mine. Felix bowed before us, blessing the air and mumbling.

– In the name of the wanker, the sod and the holy shoat, I pronounce you bubble and squeak. Alleluia. What dog hath joined together, let no man throw a bucket of water over.

He bowed again solemnly and closed his eyes, moving his lips in silent invocation, then turned his back to us and raised his arms aloft and intoned:

–
Hic est hocus, hoc est pocus.

He farted loudly.

–
Nunc dimittis.
Amen.

Sophie pressed my elbow tightly to her side and leaned her head against mine, shivering with laughter. I was as tall as she in my high heels. I caught her warmish, lilac smell. Felix rubbed his hands.

– That’s that, he said. Now for the photo.

He brought a wooden box-camera on a tripod and set it up in front of us, and bent and peered through the lens, wagging his backside and shuffling his feet.

– Watch the birdie, now! Snap! There.

He thrust the camera aside and danced to the door.

– Come, gentles, he cried. Come, Cinders, foot it featly now!

He flung open the door and backed into the hall with his arms lifted, conducting himself in song.

I tottered forward on quaking ankles. Sophie, weak with mirth, leaned on my arm, I thought we both would fall. I turned my head and kissed her swiftly, clumsily, on the corner of her mouth. She laughed, her breath warm against my neck.

– Ah-ah! Felix said, wagging a finger. No kissy-kiss!
Das ist verboten.

He retreated before us, singing, and wildly waving his arms. Behind him, a man in a camel-hair overcoat came out of the library and halted, staring at us. Sophie dug her nails into my arm. In the sudden silence Felix stopped, and looked behind him, his smile turning to a smear. He let fall his arms.

– Why, he said under his breath, if it isn’t Prince Charming!

He was a tall, sleek, black-haired young man with broad shoulders and small feet and a small, smooth head. He wore spectacles with thick lenses, which made his eyes seem to start forward in stern surmise. He had a big pale nose, and a little black moustache like a smudged thumb-print. His expensive black shoes were narrow, and highly polished. His fawn overcoat appeared somehow overcrowded, as if a tall man were crouched inside it with a small, imperious companion sitting on his shoulders. I struggled out of the dress and flung it behind me. He looked from my bare feet to Sophie’s top hat, his eyebrows raised, then fixed his bulging stare on Felix and said:

– Mr Kasperl.

Felix made a sort of squirming curtsey, laughing breathily and kneading his hands.

– Oh, no, he said, no, I’m not Kasperl.

The stern eyes grew sterner.

– I meant, where is he? I know who you are.

Again Felix bobbed and laughed.

– Oh, I see, he said, I see. Well, he’s at the mine, I’d say.

There was a pause. The tall young man put his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and looked about the hall.

– The mine, eh? he said.

He seemed sceptical. His gaze settled on the hanging strips of wallpaper and he frowned. He turned back to Felix.

– You know who I am?

Felix smiled obsequiously.

– Yes, I think I …

– D’Arcy’s the name. I’m here on behalf of certain interests. You understand?

– Certain … ?

– Yes. Certain parties. I’ve just come down.

He kept his fish-eyes trained on Felix for a moment, with a forceful, meaning look. Felix tittered. There was another silence. Sophie stirred, and gave a little sigh, letting go my arm.

– Well then, D’Arcy said, suddenly brisk, let’s have a look around, shall we?

He turned on his heel and marched up the hall. Felix made a face at his back, wagging his head and grinning, his tongue lolling. Sophie swept past him, and followed D’Arcy into the drawing room.

– Huh! Felix said. Behold the handmaid of the Lord!

In the drawing room she was opening the shutters. She turned to D’Arcy with a brilliant smile, as if she had let in the light for him alone. D’Arcy eyed her dubiously.

– And you, he said, what is your name?

She shrugged, still smiling. Felix coughed, and put a hand over his mouth and said:

– Deaf, I’m afraid.

A wrinkle appeared on D’Arcy’s smooth pale brow.

– Deaf?

Felix nodded, assuming a sad face.

– As a post, yes. Dumb, too.

D’Arcy glanced in my direction.

– And …?

Felix nodded again.

– Very sad, he said. Very.

D’Arcy looked at him searchingly in silence for a moment, then turned abruptly and left the room. Sophie quickly followed him. Felix, bent double in soundless laughter, clutched my arm.

– Oh my, he wheezed, what a chump!

But he was not so blithe as he pretended.

D’Arcy had gone upstairs, with Sophie at his heels. We followed. D’Arcy strode from bedroom to bedroom, casting a disapproving eye about him at the dust and the disarray, breathing grimly down his nose.

– Do you people
live
here? he said incredulously. Felix pointed a thumb at the ceiling.

– Up there.

– Up …?

– In the attic. This house has many mansions.

He laughed. D’Arcy’s glance was cold.

– Oh yes? he said.

– Airy, you see. Wonderful views. And then, the stars at night, like … like …

D’Arcy walked to the window and stood looking out into the twilight, his hands clasped at his back. Behind him Felix made another grotesque face, put his thumbs in his ears and waggled his fingers, sticking out his tongue. Sophie frowned at him.

– This is not satisfactory, D’Arcy said almost mildly, as if to himself. This is not satisfactory, at all.

He turned to Felix.

– Is it? he said. Nothing done, no repairs, filth everywhere, people going about in rags, barefoot.

Felix smiled, holding out his empty hands.

– It’s not paradise, I grant you, he said. But it does for us, sir.

– I’m not interested in what does for
you
, D’Arcy said, with a terrible stare.