Oxford Blood (10 page)

'At least Muffet is pretty enough outside as you can observe for yourself,' he went on, 'if all venom inside. But Cousin Andrew is so terribly unaesthetic, isn
't he? I wish he would wear Muf
fet's mask, which incidentally I take to be disguise from brother Rufus' righteous fury if he finds out she's come to the dinner. So likely Bernardo won't tell everyone in Oxford. As for Cousin Andrew's celebrated views, give me the West Indians any day. There's a fantastic black girl at New College unfortunately her radical prejudices make her reject all my advances. Looking at Cousin Andrew makes one realize all over again that blood isn't everything.'

It was the only allusion he made to the note and the book on her dressing-table.

The presence of Andrew Iverstone had the effect of making Jemima concentrate more than she would perhaps have done otherwise on Professor Mossbanker's ramblings on the subject of wealth and happiness. She still hoped to avoid the social burden of an introduction to the MP but it was not quite so easy. Andrew Iverstone had not maintained a prominent position in public life over a number of years by undue sensitivity on social occasion where liberals were concerned. Particularly when they had access to the media. His invitations to 'a civilized lunch' issued the day after a journalist had criticized him savagely in public were notorious: somehow the journalist was never quite so savage about Andrew Iverstone again.

'Of course I can't bear the fellow's views, perfectly ghastly but you have to admit he's not afraid to meet his critics. Never mind, the lunch was delicious - gulls' eggs! and a fantastic claret later - all the same I gave him a frightful bashing' - Jemima had heard this speech on more than one occasion. The lunch guest never seemed to notice that Andrew Iverstone's public utterances, unlike their own, remained quite unaltered by the frightful bashing he had received.

Now Jemima found herself receiving the treatment.

'Miss Shore, I would never have expected to find
you
at an evening entitled "Gilded Rubbish".' Even in his dinner jacket - no fancy dress risked - Andrew Iverstone gave the impression of lifting an imaginary hat to Jemima.

'But darling, I told you, Jemima is really absolutely one of us.'

Daphne Iverstone, prettily dressed in spotted powder blue and white chilfon, twittered from somewhere near her husband's elbow. Andrew Iverstone ignored her.

'It's providential. I was so interested in that programme of yours about Asian women and the dramatic conflict between our culture and theirs. You might be surprised to learn how many Asians regard me as a kind of father confessor. They really do want to return to their own culture.' Andrew Iverstone twinkled his little eyes and his fair eyelashes, short but very thick, fluttered. 'I thought we might discuss the matter over a civilized lunch.'

'How truly kind. Actually my programme was about the assimilation of Asian women, bearing in mind their traditional values. I think you must have another programme in mind. I should hate to have lunch, especially a civilized lunch, under false pretences.'

It was helpful that throughout this exchange Proffy had not ceased 
philosophizing on the subject of Dives and Lazarus. Jemima turned back to him with relief. Proffy was capable of drinking from an empty glass without noticing; he could also cheerfully eat off an empty plate while talking, as well as dipping his spoon into his neighbour's pudding as he had done at La Lycee. None of this diminished the rapidity of his conversation. Jemima did not notice what happened to the elder Iverstones as the more orgiastic aspects of the evening began to develop. But as she sat herself gracefully down on the river bank alone, Proffy suddenly appeared from nowhere. He picked up the conversation concerning wealth again as though it had never been interrupted.

'Dives - a very happy and contented man!' he exclaimed several times, pumping the night air with his hand. 'Whereas Lazarus undoubtedly needed the services of a psychiatrist, supposing he could have afforded one. People don't understand that it's most agreeable wearing purple and fine linen, particularly if you have a beggar at your gate to eat up your crumbs. Purple for the rich man: oh yes, indeed. When Saffron succeeds to that Elizabethan gem, perhaps I shall try to persuade him to allow me to come and live at his gate as the token beggar to ensure him happiness, yes, yes - but what about the children?' he paused, then rattled on. 'Not perhaps with all the children. I don't think Eleanor would like it either. Lazarus has no family in the Bible. But I shall be there, with my official sores for his dogs to lick. I wonder what
kind
of dogs they have at Saffron Ivy? Rather large dogs I daresay. No, on second thoughts, I think I will persuade Eugenia to bring the children, at any rate during the holidays, they're fond of dogs I expect, children are so sentimental about animals, and they can take some of the burden of being licked off me. Take them for walks and that sort of thing!'

'Didn't the story of Dives and Lazarus end rather badly?' enquired Jemima, 'for Dives, that is. Didn't Dives find himself in Hell, looking up at Lazarus in Abraham's bosom?'

'My dear girl,' cried Proffy. 'Surely you don't believe everything you read in the Bible. A highly corrupt text. I assure you Dives was immensely happy until the day of his death, when he was promptly received into Abraham's bosom as a reward for his kindness to Lazarus.'

'Money, like blood, isn't everything—' began Jemima. She was stopped by the sound of a loud splash or perhaps two splashes, coming from the river. There was the sound of wood crashing on wood and some kind of splintering, as it might be two boats colliding. From the noise of it, a fight was taking place.

There were shouts. Jemima distinctly heard the word 'Pember' and then: 'Look out - Christ, what
have
you done?'

Then a girl's hysterical voice cried out: 'It's Saffer. He's covered in blood. I think he's dead.'

9

An Envious Society

The screaming girl was Fanny Iverstone. As she ran out of the shadows, Jemima saw dark patches on her gaudy dress: patches of blood, black in the moonlight. At that point, as if on some ghostly cue, the moon went behind a thick black cloud and for a moment the only light came from the coloured dancing globes of The Punting Heaven, still streaming across the lawn as the noise of the
Liebestod,
which had succeeded
Rheingold
(ancient Flagstadt? modern Linda Esther Gray?), bellowed out.

They've got him, they've got him,' she was crying. 'Proffy,
do
something.'

The continuing sense of chaos was made worse by the fact that the grandeur of the music, the glorious voice of Flagstadt (yes), went on soaring above it all. When someone at last saw fit to switch off the homemade Wagnerian tape, special to the occasion, the babble of cries and voices left behind sounded quite puny in the silence.

Fanny went on sobbing hysterically as Bernardo Valliera - recognizable by his leopard-skin - and another man called something like Luggsby ran towards the river. Proffy, who had stood quite still and for once silent through all this as though in a state of shock, eventually put his arm round her. The emergence of the revellers from the grass and a couple from the most distant punt, both male it appeared, together with a powerful searchlight turned onto the scene from the boats, meant that the evening had lost all its classical Poussinesque magic. A comparison to Stanley Spencer was more appropriate. Several of the girls were shivering. Everyone was suddenly aware that it had become very cold.

It seemed an extraordinarily long time before the ambulance arrived. Before that, Saffron's motionless blood-stained body was borne out of the bushes at the edge of the bank where he had been found lying by four of his friends, using the door of the boathouse as a kind of bier. As the 
searchlight fell on his face travelled across his body, still partly clad in its gold finery, the Wagnerian comparison to Siegfried was irresistible; would his arm suddenly rise and would he sing of the past before dying?

Who was his Brunnhilde? Fanny Iverstone? But she hardly looked the part; not romantic enough. Tiggie Jones in a way-out modern version? Or perhaps Muffet Pember who, mask abandoned, was sitting distraught on the grass, quite alone, dishevelled red hair round her shoulders. She looked infinitely pathetic in her leopard-skin bikini; nobody had thought to put a coat round her shoulders. Jemima, who wanted to do something to help and was frustrated by her inability to think of anything practical, went and covered her with her cardigan.

Muffet looked up. Her first words reminded Jemima that Muffct's correct role in
Gotterdä
mmerung,
if she was to pursue the comparison, was that of Gutrune, bride of Siegfried and sister of Siegfried's slayer Gunter.

'Everyone thinks it's my fault,' she sobbed. 'But I didn't tell Rufus I was coming here. I'm not such a bloody idiot, am I?' Muffet gazed rather angrily at her. It occurred to Jemima that Muffet, apart from her unusual Pre-Raphaelite colouring, was not really all that pretty: her brown eyes were quite small; her neat little nose was quite sharp and snipey. When one looked at her closely Muffet Pember looked more shrewd than naive. Perhaps she was not so pathetic after all. Jemima remembered Saffron's words: 'all venom inside'.

'Do you mean that it was your
brother
who attacked Saffron?' asked Jemima sharply. Beyond the fact that Saffron had been assaulted with a boat hook and had a large gash on the back of his head, Jemima had not managed to gather many details of the attack. Despite the great loss of blood - the AB group blood - from the scalp wound he was however very much alive and his pulse was strong.

'No, of course it wasn't,' said Muffet, sounding even more indignant and less woebegone. 'It was just an awful coincidence. Rufus and Nigel and their friends came up the river in a couple of canoes to - well, I don't know exactly what they came to do' - slightly coy tone - 'and before they could do anything, before they even landed, Fanny found Saffer all covered with blood. I know it sounds rather odd,' Muffet finished lamely. 'But it was just an awful coincidence. I mean, why should Rufus use a boat hook?'

'Why indeed?' asked Jemima rather grimly. Muffet seemed to imply that other methods of assault - the fight in the restaurant for example -were lawful. At this point they were joined by Fanny Iverstone, hysterics now remarkably vanished and a coat - Proffy's ? No, too smart - flung over her stained dress. Under the circumstances Jemima admired her control, as she had admired her breezily bossy character on the occasion of their first meeting. It took some strength of character to be smoking a cigarette by the river, when you had discovered the blood-stained body of your cousin a very short time before. Even if Fanny's hand was shaking, her conversation made sense. Nor did she seek to blame Rufus Pember.

'Somebody
must have had it in for him,' said Fanny. 'But not necessarily Rufus. He was just lying there. And then I heard the splashes. The trouble is, you know what Saffer's like. People absolutely loathe him. All that money. And then he never tries to hide it, when most people here are so poor. Lots of people hate Saffer who've never even met him. I'd hate him myself, I expect, if I'd never
met
him.'

'Well you don't hate him, do you? Not exactly.' Muffet still sounded sulky. Nor was she apparently grateful for Fanny's defence of her brother. Altogether, not a very appealing little character, thought Jemima.

The next day Jemima related this conversation on the telephone, along with all the other lurid details of the evening, to Cass in London. Considering Cass' doleful prophecies about Jemima's presence at the Chimneysweepers' Dinner, he was remarkably tolerant towards her revelations, showing more interest in the possible identity of Saffron's attacker than in Jemima's own experiences during the evening. The jealous cracks about Saffron were also missing.

It was not until later, when she was walking with her usual aesthetic satisfaction down the long curve of the High Street on her way to visit that well-known moralist Kerry Barber at St Lucy's, that this absence of jealousy struck Jemima as significant. A sense of fairness in Cass - one of his marked characteristics as curiosity was hers - meant that he generally abandoned any questions concerning her private life when his own would not bear examination. So Jemima, ineluctably, began to wonder who
...
All at once the elegance of the curved street, paraded graciously down towards Magdalen Bridge like an Edwardian beauty at the races, failed to move her. Ignoring for once the classical facade of the Queen's College, she felt like Emma during the Box Hill expedition: 'less happy than she had expected'.

Jemima put her mind resolutely forward to the prospect of her encounter with Kerry Barber at St Lucy's. The bells of evensong were sounding as she passed St Mary's, the University church, and soon other bells began to chime in. Jemima did not imagine that the groups of the young - all undergraduates? at any rate all young - lounging and scurrying along the pavement were on their way to evensong. Nevertheless, for all the evening sunshine now casting its romantic stagey shadows on pillar and alley, there was something uncomfortable at the heart of the idyll. At any rate to Jemima's fancy; another kind of disquiet replaced the vague dissatisfaction about Cass's absent affections.