Not to Disturb (5 page)

‘Take my advice, Lister,' says Mr McGuire, ‘and give it a
conversational touch.'

‘Whose conversational touch — mine or the
journalists'?'

‘Theirs,' says Mr McGuire.

‘Turn on the machine,' says Lister.

Mr McGuire does so, and the bobbins go spinning.

‘When I was a boy, fourteen,' says Lister, ‘I decided to
leave England. There was a bit of trouble over me having to do with Eleanor
under the grand piano, she being my aunt and only nine. Dating from that
traumatic experience, Eleanor conceived an inverted avuncular fixation, which is
to say that she followed me up when she turned fourteen and — '

‘It isn't right,' says Mr McGuire, turning off the
machine.

‘It isn't true, but that's not to say it isn't right,'
Lister says. ‘Now, Mr McGuire, my boy, we haven't got all night to waste. I want
you to take a short statement of similar tone from Eleanor and one from Heloise.
The others can take care of themselves. After that we have to pose for the
photographs.' Lister bends down, turns on the machine, and continues. ‘My
father,' he says, ‘was a valet in that house, a good position. It was Watham
Grange, Leicestershire, under the grand piano. I worked in France. When Eleanor
joined me I worked in a restaurant that was owned by a Greek in Amsterdam. Then
we started in private families and now I've been butler with the Klopstocks here
in Switzerland for over five years. But to sum up I really left England because
of the climate — wet.' Lister turns off the switch and stares at the
tape-recorder.

Mr McGuire says, ‘Won't they want something about the
Klopstocks?'

Lister says, impatiently, ‘I am thinking.' Presently he
turns on the recorder again, meanwhile glancing at his watch. ‘The death of the
Baron and Baroness has been a very great shock to us all. It was the last thing
we expected. We heard no shots, naturally, since our quarters are quite isolated
from the residential domain. And of course, in these large houses, the wind does
make a lot of noise. The shutters upstairs are somewhat loose and in fact we
were to have them seen to tomorrow afternoon.'

Mr McGuire halts the machine. ‘I thought you were going
to say that him in the attic makes so much noise that you mistook one of his
fits for the shots being fired.'

‘I've changed my mind,' Lister says.

‘Why?' says Mr McGuire.

Lister closes his eyes with impatience while Mr McGuire
switches on again. The bobbins whirl. ‘The Baron gave orders that they were not
to be disturbed,' Lister says.

‘What's next?' says Mr McGuire.

‘Play it back, Mr McGuire, please.'

Mr McGuire sets the reels in reverse, concentratedly
stopping their motion a short distance from the beginning. ‘It would be about
here,' he says, ‘that your bit begins.' He turns it on. The machine emits two
long, dramatic sighs followed by a woman's voice — ‘I climbed Mount Atlas alone
every year on May Day and sacrificed a garland of bay leaves to Apollo. At last,
one year he descended from his fiery chariot — '

Mr McGuire has turned off, and has manipulated the
machine to run further forward silently.

‘That must be the last of your Klopstock sound-tracks,'
Lister says.

‘Yes, it is the last.'

‘You should have used fresh reels for us. We don't want
to be mixed up with what Apollo did.'

‘I'll remove that bit of the tape before we start making
copies. Leave it to me,' says Mr McGuire, getting up to unplug the machine.

‘What is to emerge must emerge,' says Lister, standing,
watching, while Mr McGuire packs the wire into place and fastens the lid on the
tape-recorder. He lifts it and follows Lister out of the room. ‘It's a heavy
machine,' he says, ‘to carry from place to place.'

They descend the stairs to the first landing of the
servants' wing. Here, Lister leads the way to the grand staircase, followed
after a little hesitation by Mr McGuire who has first seemed inclined to
continue down the back stairs.

‘I hear no voices,' Lister says as he descends, looking
down the well of the great staircase to the black and white paving below. ‘The
books are silent.'

They have reached the ground floor. Mr McGuire stands
with his heavy load while Lister approaches the library door. He waits, turns
the handle, pressing gently; the door does not give.

‘Locked,' says Lister, turning away, ‘and silent. Let's
proceed,' he says, leading the way to the servants' quarters. ‘There remain a
good many things to be accomplished and still more chaos effectively to
organize.'

III

‘It must have happened quick. I wonder if they felt
anything?' says Heloise. ‘Maybe they still feel something. One of them could
linger.'

Lister says, ‘I can't forbear to ask, does a flame feel
pain?'

‘Lister and young Pablo,' says Mr Samuel who is moving
round the servants' room with his camera, ‘stand closer together. Lister, put
your hand on the chair.'

Lister puts his hand on Pablo's shoulder.

‘Why are you doing that? It doesn't look good,' says Mr
Samuel.

‘Leave it to Lister,' says Eleanor at the same time that
Lister says, ‘I'm consoling him.'

‘Then Pablo must look inconsolable,' says Mr Samuel.
‘It's a good idea in itself.'

‘Look inconsolable, Pablo,' says Lister. ‘Think of some
disconsolate idea such as your being in Victor Passerat's shoes.'

The camera clicks quietly, like a well-reared machine. Mr
Samuel moves a few steps then clicks from another angle. He then moves a lamp
and says, ‘Look this way,' pointing a finger to a place in the air.

‘Pablo smiled the second time,' says Eleanor. ‘You want
to be careful.'

‘Mr Samuel knows that the negatives are mine,' Lister
says, ‘don't you, Mr Samuel.'

‘Yes,' says Mr Samuel.

‘Where is that wreath?' Lister says. ‘Where's our floral
tribute?'

‘On the floor in my room,' says Heloise.

‘Go and fetch it.'

‘I'm too tired.'

‘I'll go,' says Hadrian, going. As he opens the door a
long howl comes from above.

‘Sister Barton failed to give him his injection tonight,'
says Lister, ‘and I wonder why.'

‘Sister Barton is upset. She didn't touch her supper,'
says Clovis.

‘She's suffering from fear, quite a thrilling emotion,'
says Lister. ‘People love it.'

‘I sent up cold chicken breast and lettuce cut into
shreds the Swiss way, which she imagines in her inexperienced little heart to be
the right way,' Clovis murmurs. He is standing with one hand on the belt that
encircles his narrow hips. Several gold medallions hang from chains on his
chest. Mr Samuel's camera trains upon him, as he seems to expect it to do. He
lowers his lids. ‘Good,' says Mr Samuel, moving round to Heloise.

‘Head and shoulders only,' says Lister at the same time
as he answers a buzz on the house-telephone. ‘Him?' says Lister into the
telephone. The answer fairly prolonged and intelligible apparently to Lister, is
otherwise that of a bronchial and aged raven, penetrating the room, until Lister
says, ‘All right, all right,' and hangs up. Then he turns and says, ‘We've got
the Reverend on our hands. He's come on his motor-bike from Geneva. Sister
Barton has summoned him to soothe her patient.'

‘I smell treason,' says Eleanor.

‘How do you mean?' Lister says. ‘She always has been an
outsider, so treason isn't the word.'

‘Well, she's a bitch,' says Heloise.

‘Here he is,' says Lister, as the sound of a motor
approaches. ‘Pablo, open the door.'

Pablo goes to the back door but the sound of the motor
recedes round the house towards the front. ‘He's gone to the front door,' Lister
says. ‘I'd better go myself.'

He passes Pablo, saying, ‘Front door, front door, leave
it to me,' and, crossing the black and white squares of the hall, admits the
Reverend.

‘Good evening, Lister. I thought you'd be in bed,' says
the white-haired Reverend who carries a woollen cap in his hand.

‘No, Reverend,' says Lister, ‘none of us is in bed.'

‘Oh well, I came to the front thinking you were in bed.
The light's on in the library, I thought the Baron might let me in.' He looks up
the staircase. ‘He sounds quiet, now. Has he gone to sleep? Sister Barton called
me urgently.'

‘Sister Barton did wrong to bring you out, Reverend, but
I must say I'm relieved to see you, and it just occurs to me after all, she may
have done right.'

‘Your riddles, Lister.' The Reverend is tall, skinny and
wavering. He takes off his thick sheepskin coat. He wears a clerical collar and
dark grey suit. He is quite aged, seeming to give out a certain life-force which
perhaps only derives from the frailty of his appearance combined with his clear
ability to come out on a windy night on a motor-bicycle.

He nods towards the library door. ‘Is the Baron alone? —
I know it's late but I'd like to pop in and have a word with him before going on
upstairs. I've many times sat up later talking to the Baron.' The Reverend is
already at the library door, waiting for Lister merely to knock and announce
him.

‘They are a party of three,' says Lister. ‘I have orders
from the Baron, I'm sorry, Reverend, that they are not to be disturbed. Not on
any account.'

The Reverend, happily breathing the centrally heated air
of the hall, sighs and then cocks his head slightly with sudden intelligence,
his eyes bird-like. ‘I don't hear anybody. Are you sure that he has
company?'

‘Quite sure,' says Lister moving away, sideways,
backwards, indicating decisively the pathway that the Reverend must take. ‘Come
in with us, Reverend, and warm up. A hot drink. Whisky and water. Something
warm. I would like to talk to you personally, Reverend, before you see Sister
Barton.'

‘Where? Oh, yes.' The Reverend's eyes are losing their
previous thread of reasoning and lead him in the precise footsteps of Lister's
polished shoes.

‘Good evening. I have something here,' the Reverend says
to the assembled room, putting his hand in his pocket, as Lister leads him in.
‘Before I forget.' He brings out a small press-cutting and puts it on a ledge of
the television table, sitting down near it. He feels in his inside coat pocket
and pulls out his spectacles.

‘Good evening, Reverend,' and, ‘Nice to see you,
Reverend,' say Heloise and Pablo respectively while Hadrian comes in bearing,
platterwise under an airy cloud of cellophane, a large round flower-arrangement
that looks as if it began as a wreath of laurel-leaves and was filled in
according to taste with various rings of colour — red roses, double daffodils,
white lilies, an inner ring of orange roses, and finally, at the bull's eye, a
tight bunch of violets.

The sight seems to recall something to the Reverend. He
moves his long bones to the process of getting up and says, ‘He hasn't died has
he?'

‘The Reverend means him in the attic,' says Heloise.

Eleanor says, ‘I'll put them under the shower and give
them a slight spray. Keep them fresh.'

Lister, while assisting the Reverend to relax back into
the seat, says, ‘We're having our photographs taken, Reverend.'

‘Oh!' says the Reverend. ‘Oh, I see,' and, plainly, he is
practised at habituating himself swiftly and without fuss to newer and younger
notions however odd or untimely. He seems to be considering this as he warms to
the room. Mr Samuel brings his camera round and clicks at the pensive head, the
loose and helpless hands of the Reverend. ‘Good,' says Lister, bringing an
elegant silver-cupped glass of softly steaming whisky on a tray from the
kitchen, and stirring it with a long spoon. ‘Do another,' he says to Mr Samuel,
standing back meantime, withholding the glass from the Reverend who has begun to
stretch out his hand to receive it. The camera clicks smoothly upon the gesture
of benediction. Then the Reverend gets his hot toddy.

‘Good evening — or rather it's good morning, isn't it,
Reverend?' says Mr McGuire who comes in from the pantry office with his heavy
tape-machine. ‘This is a pleasure,' says Mr McGuire.

‘Mr McGuire — good evening. I was in bed and the phone
rings. Sister Barton is asking for me. It's urgent, she says, he's screaming. So
here I am. Now I don't hear a sound. Everyone's gone to sleep. What are the
Klopstocks up to, there in the library?'

Mr McGuire says, ‘I really don't know. They're not to be
disturbed.'

‘The Klopstocks and Victor Passerat,' says Heloise.

‘Heloise, it is not relevant who the guest is,' says
Lister. ‘It might be anybody.'

Pablo has returned with Eleanor from the bathroom
quarters where they have left the funeral flowers. He sits on the arm of
Heloise's chair. The Reverend looks at the couple and reaches out for the
newspaper cutting. He puts on his glasses. ‘I brought this along,' he says. And
again looks at the couple. He looks at the scrap of paper and looks hard at
Pablo. ‘I cut it out of the
Daily American
for the Baron to read. It is
quite relevant to the practices that go on in this house, and now I'm here and I
see the Baron is busy, it seems to me that I can read it to whom it may
concern.' He looks at Pablo.

‘Let's have it,' says Pablo, leaning nearer to Heloise.
She strokes her belly which moves involuntarily from time to time. Lister,
seated at the table, silently points to the tape-machine and looks at Mr
McGuire.

Mr McGuire heaves the machine on to the table while
Lister says, ‘I don't quite gather all this, Reverend. Would you mind explaining
again?'

Mr McGuire is plugging his wire into the wall.

The Reverend now looks over his glasses at the
tape-recorder. ‘What's that?' he says.

‘It's the new electronic food-blender,' says Lister.
‘We're all computerized these days, Reverend. The personal touch is gone. We
simply programme the meals.'

‘Yes, oh yes.' The Reverend suddenly looks sleepy. His
head droops with his eyelids, and his hands with the newspaper cutting held in
them move jerkily a fragment lower.

‘Reverend, you were explaining about the newspaper item,'
Lister says, drawing on a cigarette. ‘Naturally, we are all receptive to any
precepts you may have to cast before us, real swine that we are, we have gone
astray like sheep. Every one his own way, numbered among the goats. Normally —
'

‘Yes, sex,' says the Reverend, wakeful again. He looks at
Pablo, then at Heloise, then back to the cutting.

Lister says, ‘Normally it isn't a topic that we discuss
between these four walls.'

‘You have to be frank about it. No point concealing the
facts,' says the Reverend severely.

Lister raises a finger and the discs of the machine begin
to spin.

The Reverend says, ‘I brought this for Cecil and Cathy
Klopstock to see. I think it might have something in it to help them with their
problems. I hope it will help you with yours, every one of you.' Then he reads,
‘ “New anti-sex drug” — that's the headline. “Edinburgh, Scotland — Medical
science has come up with a drug that keeps sex offenders under control, a doctor
has reported to the Royal Medico-Psychological Association. The head of
Edinburgh trials of the German drug told association members of the case of the
40-year-old man who had sexually assaulted a number of girls. The man had a
history of indecent exposure, homosexual activity and a need for sex daily. But,
three weeks on the new drug, cyproterone acetate, damped down his urges, the
expert said. Three other subjects were given the drug. All the men reported
being happier.” And so on, and so on. — Well,' says the Reverend.

Lister raises a finger and the machine stops. ‘You have
given out an interesting statement, Reverend,' says Lister. ‘It should be heard
and seen by all as a comment on many things that have been going on under this
roof.'

‘That's what I thought,' says the Reverend gloomily,
putting away the press-cutting in his pocket. ‘I'd better go home,' he says,
then.

‘The wind has died down,' says Hadrian.

‘He should spend the night here,' says Eleanor. ‘He can't
go all the way back to Geneva on that bike.'

‘Quite frankly, I got out of bed,' says the Reverend. ‘Go
and tell Klopstock I'm here.'

‘They are not to be disturbed. I had strict orders.'

‘I hope they aren't carrying on in the library. In the
library! What time is it?'

‘Just past quarter to three,' says Lister.

‘I should be in bed. You should all be in bed. Why did
you bring me all this way?'

Lister goes to the house-phone, lifts the receiver, and
presses a button. He waits. He presses again, leaving his finger on it for some
minutes. At last comes a windy answer.

‘Sister Barton,' says Lister into the phone. ‘Why did you
bring the Reverend all this way?'

The Reverend says immediately, ‘Oh, yes, of course, my
poor boy upstairs,' while Lister listens patiently.

The Reverend is creaking himself out of his chair.
Clovis, who has been sitting with his arms folded and his little mouth shut
tight, jumps to help him.

Lister is heard to say, ‘There was no need,' and replaces
the phone.

Lister says to the Reverend, ‘Sister Barton says that him
in the attic needed you, but now he's gone to sleep.'

At that moment a long wail comes from the top of the
house, winding its way down the well of the stairs, followed then by another,
winding through all the banisters and seeping into the servants' hall. ‘She's
woken him up,' says Hadrian. ‘That's what she's done.'

‘It's deliberate,' says Eleanor. ‘She wants to bother the
Reverend, that's all.'

‘I wonder why?' says Clovis. ‘What's her trend?'

‘Take me up,' says the Reverend.

Heloise has gone to bed. She is propped up with pillows,
drinking tea. At the foot of her bed, sitting on either side, are Pablo the
handyman and Hadrian the assistant cook, both of them as absolutely young as
Heloise.