I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows (10 page)

“Come on, then, give me a hug,” she said, opening her arms wide.

“You smell like Christmas,” I said, noticing for the first time the large protuberance that stood between us.

“Eight months!” she said, taking a step back and throwing open her winter coat. “Have a gander.”

“A gander at Mother Goose?” I asked, and she laughed appreciatively. Nialla had played the part of Mother Goose in the late Rupert’s puppet show, and I hoped my little joke would not stir up unhappy memories.

“Mother Goose no more,” she said. “Just plain old Nialla Gilfoyle (Miss). Jobbing actress, comedy, tragedy, pantomime. Apply Withers Agency, London. Telegraph
WITHAG
.”

“But the puppet show—”

“Sold up,” she said, “lock, stock, and barrel to a lovely chap from Bournemouth. Fetched me enough to rent a flat, where Junior here can have a roof over his or her head as the case may be, come January, when he or she finally decides to make his or her grand entrance.”

“And you’re starring in this?” I asked, waving my hand to take in the theatrical hubbub in the foyer.

“Hardly starring. I’ve undertaken the less-than-demanding role of Anthea Flighting, pregnant daughter—in a nice way, of course—of Boaz Hazlewood—that’s Desmond Duncan.”

“I thought he was a bachelor. Doesn’t he court Phyllis Wyvern?”

“He is, and he does—but he has a past.”

“Ah,” I said. “I see.” Although I didn’t.

“Let me look at you,” she said, grasping my shoulders and retracting her head. “You’ve grown … and you’ve got a little color in your cheeks.”

“It’s the cold,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” she said with a laugh, “let’s go inside before the acorn on my belly button freezes and falls off.”

“Miss Nialla,” Dogger said as I closed the door behind us. “It’s a pleasure to have you back at Buckshaw.”

“Thank you, Dogger,” she said, taking his hand. “I’ve never forgotten your kindness.”

“The little one will be along soon,” he said. “In January?”

“Spot on, Dogger. You’ve got a good eye. January twenty-fifth, according to my panel doctor. He said it wouldn’t hurt me to sign on for this lark as long as I gave up the ciggies, got plenty of sleep, ate well, and kept my feet up whenever I’m not actually in front of the camera.”

She gave me a wink.

“Very good advice,” Dogger said. “Very good advice, indeed. I hope you were comfortable on the bus?”

“Well, it is a bit of a jolter, but it was the only transportation Ilium Films could lay on to get us from the station in Doddingsley. Thank God the thing’s such a hulking old bulldog. It managed to hang on to the roads in spite of the snow.”

By now, Marion Trodd had shepherded the others away to the upper levels, leaving the foyer empty except for the three of us.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Dogger said, and Nialla gave me a happy twiddle of the fingers like Laurel and Hardy as he led her away.

They had barely disappeared up the staircase when the doorbell rang again.

Suffering cyanide! Was I to spend the rest of my life as a doorkeeper?

Another gust of frozen flakes and cold air.

“Dieter!”

“Hello, Flavia. I have brought some chairs from the vicar.”

Dieter Schrantz, tall, blond, and handsome, as they say on the wireless, stood on the doorstep, smiling at me with his perfect teeth. Dieter’s sudden appearance was a bit disconcerting: It was somewhat like having the god Thor deliver the furniture in person.

As a devotee of English literature, especially the Brontë sisters, Dieter had elected to stay in England after his release as a prisoner of war, hoping someday to teach
Wuthering Heights
and
Jane Eyre
to English students. He also had hopes, I think, of marrying my sister Feely.

Behind him, in the forecourt, the Cottesmore bus had now been replaced by a gray Ferguson tractor which stood
putt-putt
ing quietly in the snow, behind it a flat trailer piled high with folding chairs which were covered almost entirely with a tarpaulin.

“I’ll hold the door for you,” I offered. “Are you coming to the play tonight?”

“Of course!” Dieter grinned. “Your William Shakespeare is almost as great a writer as Emily Brontë.”

“Get away with you,” I said. “You’re pulling my leg.”

It was a phrase Mrs. Mullet used. I never thought I’d find myself borrowing it.

Load after load, five or six at a time, Dieter lugged the chairs into the house until at last they were set up in rows in the foyer, all of them facing the improvised stage.

“Come into the kitchen and have some of Mrs. Mullet’s famous cocoa,” I said. “She floats little islands of whipped cream in it, with rosemary sprigs slit for trees.”

“Thank you, but no. I’d better get back. Gordon doesn’t like it if I—”

“I’ll tell Feely you’re here.”

A broad grin spread across Dieter’s face.

“Very well, then,” he said. “But just one whipped-cream island—and no more.”

“Feely!” I hollered towards the drawing room. “Dieter’s here!”

No point wasting precious shoe leather. Besides, Feely had legs of her own.

NINE

“
WELL
,
WELL
,
WELL
,”
MRS
. Mullet said. “And ’ow’s everythin’ at Culver’ouse Farm?”

“Very quiet,” Dieter told her. “It is perhaps the time of year.”

“Yes,” she said, although each of us knew there was more to it than that. It would be a grim old Christmas at the Inglebys’ after the events of last summer.

“And Mrs. Ingleby?”

“As well as can be expected, I believe,” Dieter said.

“I promised Dieter a cup of cocoa,” I said. “I hope it won’t be too much trouble?”

“Cocoa’s my speci-
al
-ity,” Mrs. Mullett said, “as you very well knows. Cocoa is never too much trouble in any ’ouse’old what’s run as it ought to be.”

“Better make three cups,” I said. “Feely will be here in … six … five … four … three …”

My ears had already picked up the sound of her hurrying footsteps.

Hurrying? She was flat out at the gallop!

“Two … one …”

An instant later the kitchen door was edged open and Feely sidled casually into the room.

“Oh!” she said, widening her eyes in surprise. “Oh, Dieter … I didn’t know you were here.”

Hog’s britches, she didn’t! I could see through her like window glass.

But Feely’s eyes were as nothing compared with Dieter’s. He fairly gaped at her green silk getup.

“Ophelia!” he said. “For a moment I thought that you were—”

“Emily Brontë,” she said, delighted. “Yes, I knew you would.”

If she didn’t know he was here
, I thought,
how could she know he’d mistake her for his beloved Emily?
But Dieter, love-struck, didn’t notice.

I had to admire my sister Feely. She was as slick as a greased pig.

Although I know it is scientifically impossible, it seemed as if Mrs. Mullet could boil milk faster than anyone on the planet. With the Aga cooker already as hot as an alchemist’s furnace, and by stirring constantly, she was able, in the blink of an eye, to conjure up steaming cups of cocoa, each with its own tropical island and mock palm tree.

“It’s too hot in here,” Feely whispered to Dieter, as if she could keep me from overhearing. “Let’s go into the drawing room.”

As I moved to tag along, she shot me a look that said clearly, “And if you dare follow us, you’re a dead duck.”

Naturally, I waddled along behind.

Quack!
I thought.

“Did you celebrate Christmas in Germany?” I asked Dieter. “Before the war, I mean?”

“Of course,” he said. “Father Christmas was born in Germany. Didn’t you know that?”

“I did,” I said. “But I must have forgotten.”

“Weihnachten, we call it. Saint Nikolaus, the lighted Christmas tree … Saint Nikolaus brings sweets for the children on the sixth of December, and Weihnachtsmann brings gifts for everyone on Christmas Eve.”

He said this looking teasingly at Feely, who was sneaking a peek at herself in the looking glass.

“Two Father Christmases?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

I gave an inward sigh of relief. Even if I did manage to bring one of them down and keep him from his rounds, there was still a spare to carry out whatever was left of the long night’s work. At least in Germany.

Feely had drifted to the piano and settled onto the bench like a migrating butterfly. She touched the keys tentatively without pressing down, as if playing the wrong combination would make the world explode.

“I’d better be getting back,” Dieter said, draining his cup to the dregs.

“Oh, can’t you stay?” Feely said. “I’d been hoping you’d translate some of the annotations on my facsimile edition of Bach’s
The Well-Tempered Clavier.
”

“They should call it
The
Bad-Tempered
Clavier
, when you play it,” I said. “She swears like stink when she hits a clinker,” I explained to Dieter.

Feely went as red as the carpet. She didn’t dare swat me in front of company.

With her flushed face and her green outfit, she reminded me of something I’d seen in a recent color supplement. What was it, now …?

Oh, yes! That was it …

“You look like the flag of Portugal,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone so that you can wave good-bye.”

I knew that I would pay for my insolence later, but Dieter’s hearty laugh was worth it.

The house, generally so cold and silent, had suddenly become a beehive. Carpenters hammered, painters painted, and various people looked at various parts of the foyer through makeshift frames formed by touching thumbs and extending their fingers.

An astonishing number of lights had been put into place, some hanging from clamps on skeletal scaffolding and others mounted on spindly floor stands. Black wires and cables twisted everywhere.

Wig-wagging my extended arms for balance, I navigated my way carefully across the room, pretending I was walking across a pit of sleeping snakes—poisonous snakes that could awaken at any moment and …

“Hoy! Flavia!”

I looked up to see the ruddy face of Gil Crawford, the village electrician, grinning down at me through the framework of a high scaffold that had been rigged to span the great front door. Gil had been of much assistance in bringing back to life some of the more Frankensteinian of the electrical devices in Uncle Tar’s laboratory, and had even taken the time to drill me in the safe handling of certain of the high-voltage instruments.

“Always remember,” he had taught me to recite:

“
Brown wire to the live
,

Blue to the neutral

Greenery-yallery to the propensity

So’s you don’t wake up in Eternity.”

When it came to wires and eternity, Gil was said to be something of an expert.

“ ’E was a Commando durin’ the war!” Mrs. Mullet had once whispered, while gutting a rabbit on the kitchen table. “They was taught ’ow to gavotte people with a bit o’ piano wire round their necks.
Gzaaack!
”

She’d grimaced horribly, her eyes rolled up, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth by way of illustration.

“ ‘Quick as a wink,’ Alf says. Next minute the victim finds ’isself sittin’ on a cloud with an ’arp in ’is ’and, wonderin’ where in ’eaven’s name the world’s ever got to.”

“Mr. Crawford!” I called up to Gil. “What are you doing here?”

“Keeping the old hand in,” he shouted back above the din of the hammering.

I put one foot on the ladder at the scaffold’s side and began, hand over hand, to haul myself up.

At the top I stepped off onto the broad planks that formed a makeshift floor.

“Used to work this film lark when I was an apprentice lad.” He grinned, rather proudly. “Keep my dues up just in case. You never know, nowadays, do you?”

“How’s Mrs. Crawford?” I asked.

His wife, Martha, had recently invited me for tea while she ferreted out, from a box of cast-off valves, an obsolete rectifier for a radio-frequency fluorescing tube—for which she would take not a penny. It was a debt which I had so far been unable to repay.

“Topping,” he said. “Fair topping. She’s minding the shop so’s I can come out on this caper.”

He worked as he spoke, fastening a second long-snouted spotlight to a tubular cross member with a couple of clamps.

“Busiest time of year it is, too. Sold six wireless sets and three gramophones this week alone, so she did, a four-slice toaster, and an electric egg-cozy. Fancy!”

“You must have a lovely view of things from up here,” I observed.

“So I do,” he said, tightening the last bolt. “Funny you should say so. It’s the same thing that German fellow from Culverhouse told me as he left. ‘Far from the madding crowd,’ he called up to me. Talks over my head but he’s a good lad for all that.”

“Yes, his name is Dieter,” I told him. “He meant Thomas Hardy.”

Gil scratched his head.

“Hardy? Don’t know him. From around here, is he?”

“He’s an author.”

Like any bookworm’s sister, I knew the titles of a million books I hadn’t read.

“Ah!” he said, as if that settled it. “You’d better scramble down now. If the chief sees you up here, both our gooses will be cooked.”

“Geese,” I said. “Latshaw, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said quietly. “Geese,” and turned his attention to a box of colored filters.

I had nearly reached the bottom of the ladder when I became aware of a face too close for comfort. I jumped to the floor and twisted round to find myself standing almost on Latshaw’s toes.

“Who told you you could go up there?” he asked, his ginger mustache bristling.

“No one,” I said. “I was having a word with Mr. Crawford.”

“Mr. Crawford is on time-and-a-half for a short call in the holiday season,” he said. “He has no time for idle chitchat—do you, Mr. Crawford?”

This last part he called out loudly enough for everyone to hear. I stepped back and glanced up at Gil, who was fussing with his spotlight, but he must have heard.