To the Devil - a Diva! (18 page)

Aunt Helen eyed the two of us with great interest. ‘Quite a coincidence,' she said archly. She turned to me sharply. ‘Professor Cleavis is on a walking tour of Norfolk. He was given my address by a great friend of his. He was very keen to join our number tonight.'

‘He was?' I asked.

‘Professor Cleavis is a student of many subjects,' she said. ‘Including the Left Hand Path.'

‘I thought it was Old English and the Icelandic sagas,' I said, quite frostily. ‘At least, that was all he imparted to me.'

Cleavis chuckled at this, and gulped greedily at his drink. ‘Ah, well, we don't tell our undergraduates everything, do we? Not even those special enough to be asked to join the Smudgelings.'

‘Indeed,' I frowned. My mind was reeling. Cleavis was a Christian! A famous one! He was renowned for his Godbothering sermons in The Spectator! He had written whole books upon the interminable subject of his unshakeable faith in God.

I refrained from quizzing him further in the presence of
Great Aunt Helen and within earshot of the grizzled Grand Master (who was still buttering up Magda) and instead I wondered dryly: ‘Whatever would Professor Tyler say?'

I was glad to see Cleavis blanch and twitch at the name of his austere chum. Tyler was the founding member of the Smudgelings and no mean Christian himself. There was no way Cleavis would want Tyler getting wind of his latest field trip.

‘It's the long vac,' Cleavis said dully. ‘What I get up to is my own business.'

Ever the skilled hostess, Aunt Helen piped up just then: ‘I am sure my nephew is delighted to see you again, Professor Cleavis. You must forgive his gaucherie.'

‘Oh,' Cleavis's eyes were gleaming with mischief. ‘That's quite all right. He's a very talented young man. We must allow him his rough edges.'

Rough edges! I was bridling, I can tell you.

Aunt Helen took herself off to a gilded side table, where she struck a brass gong with a large drumstick. As the room fell excitedly silent she clasped her hands together and took on a beatific mien.

‘Friends,' she announced. ‘It is time for us to descend to the cellars. The hour approaches.' Then she chuckled, to undercut the sententiousness of such a pronouncement. ‘I've had the basement done up especially for the occasion. I trust you will find it pleasing.'

There was a scattering of spirited applause and then a general exodus from the drawing room.

The true party was about to begin.

This being the first of these kinds of affairs I ever attended, I wasn't sure about the form. I stood around somewhat
awkwardly in the crowd once we had descended the stone staircase. At my side Magda was behaving a good deal perkier than I felt. She was looking about at the vast cellar space with great interest. Indeed, the rising tension and anticipation in the gaggle of cultists was very like that at the beginning of the sales season. It was as if we were being led into something rather like a bargain basement. Where everything would be up for grabs at shocking prices.

The walls were hung with rich fabrics in black, gold and red. Ghastly shadows were flung hither and thither by the leaping flames from ornate braziers. There were delicious aromas wafting our way: of crackling on pork, of barbecued meats and, indeed, there were long tables laid with an immense feast. The products of the kitchen staff's hard labours amounted to far too much food for even our generous number.

There was, of course, an altar. I shivered to gaze upon that stone block at the end of the room. Although it wasn't that different to the platform from which my old headmaster had once proselytised, there was something about that ominous slab that filled me with dread. On it awaited an array of shining utensils. They looked very well cared for and surgical. On the wall behind there was a crucifix,
life-sized
and hung, of course, upside down.

The vicious-looking Grand Master had dropped his mask of urbanity and was clasping his big hands with glee. ‘Oh, Helen, dear heart. You have done us proud.' There was a murmur of garden party appreciation from the others. I was wondering which publishing firm the Grand Master worked for. I couldn't help it. He was a powerful man. He may well hold the keys to my future success. Even with the heady
scents of that cellar crowding my nostrils, I could smell the ripe promise of fresh-cut folios, calf-bound hardbacks, printer's glue.

That small band of dratted musicians had pursued us into the cellar and now they were resuming their cacophony. At this signal my great aunt took command. Her colour was high and her tones imperious. Her rheumy eyes had taken on a manic intensity as she exhorted us to eat our fill; to gorge and surpass our puny human appetites. Gluttony was the order of the day and her distinguished exotic guests fell to the task con brio. No evidence of cutlery nor napkins; they seized up whole glazed hams and roasted birds and ripped into them bare-handed like a pack of wild dogs. Soon their faces were smeared with gravy and fat and blood juices as they crammed their grinning faces. They scattered the groaning trestles in a gory, unappetising debris.

Magda was pitching in with the rest of them. She who was usually such a picky eater. She who claimed to have the appetite of a sparrow was engaged in a tug of war over a platter of baked eels. She and a swarthy-looking gentlemen were scrapping good-naturedly and spraying green ichor all over the place as they stuffed themselves.

And then, soon enough, began the item on the evening's agenda dedicated to the orgy.

Now, I don't propose to go into all the details of this rather shaming sequence of entertainments. Indeed, I am renowned as a writer who knows just when to draw the prudent line; when to include just enough relevant detail to provide that certain ring of authenticity. I intend always to give the merest hint and flavour of debaucheries. I never wanted to be prurient or self-indulgent. I certainly never wanted to draw
any of my readers to explore the Left Hand Path or any of its disgusting rites for themselves.

I was tackling a sticky chicken wing when I caught an eyeful of my great aunt throwing caution to the winds and shucking off her Satanic robes. Cries went up as others followed her lead and before I knew it, they were falling upon each other with the same unsavoury relish that had undone the banquet. I found myself caught up in their morass of heaving and squirming – and mostly bloated, raddled – flesh. Hands were tugging at my slippery frock; some of the more urgent, persistent ones seeking to pull it over my head. No prude I, of course: I'd been one of the most enthusiastic participants during Games at school. But this lot weren't doing anything for me in this particular rutting season.

I noted with grim satisfaction that Magda had been ushered away – ceremonially – by the Grand Master. She was standing patiently by the sacrificial altar. As the evening's sole initiate she was to be spared the more prosaic
hurly-burly
of the orgy.

So I found myself dragged down into the rubbery, heaving mass of their bodies. They were redolent and tacky with salad dressings, marinades, meat juices and who knew what else. The moaning was terrible to hear and really, I thought, those lascivious groans must have been mostly put on, or at least evidence of swift indigestion. I was trying vainly to keep myself to myself, but hands kept grabbing at me and, as in the way of these things, my human body let me down. But at least I looked as if I was taking zestful part.

Professor Cleavis came swimming through the jellylike rolls of fat and prising his way through convulsing, scissoring
limbs. ‘Young Soames!' he hissed to me. He was florid of complexion and his bald pate was gleaming.

It seemed to me – even in the throes of my bogus passion – that the professor was attempting to communicate something to me. Something clandestine. It was difficult to concentrate on exactly what he intended, however. I was still most distracted by the sight of my scrawny, gallivanting great aunt.

The words that eventually came to me were: ‘I'm not here for the reason you think, Soames.' Somehow Cleavis had managed to sidle up to me. He was all barrel-chested and clammy, his voice terse in my ear. Evidently so as not to attract suspicion to ourselves he was stroking my inflamed flesh. I complied and waited for him to explain further, sotto voce. Rather odd, to be caressed and fiddled with in public by the fellow who taught to you to read the Nordic myths in the original.

‘I am here undercover,' he said tightly, reaching for my traitorous manhood. I tepidly returned his false attentions and at first I didn't pick up the import of his words.

‘Undercover?' I gasped.

As he was then – as I believe the latterday parlance has it – blowing me, I had to wait until he could tell me: ‘It isn't what you think.'

‘I see,' I said.

There was a fair bit of singing and chanting while the company regained its collective breath. I think we were all feeling the effects of those foaming green cocktails, along with the heady incense that was gusting about the place. I rather gathered that my beloved's initiation was last on
the bill this evening. She was standing by the altar looking altogether piqued. I wasn't sure if that was because she felt left out, or if it was at the sight of her fiancé, struggling to get back into his satin robe, all dishevelled and bespattered as I was. Cleavis was standing right behind me, dressed again, with his fair hair awry. I thought we'd dissembled pretty well amongst all the goings on. A commendable job at seeming as if we were in the swing of things. Just then he was patting my arse and telling me we'd have a good talk about it later.

Or perhaps Magda looked piqued because now the Grand Master was handing her a golden blade and expertly stretching out a chicken on the spanking new slab. The bird had kicked and squawked feebly when he pulled it from the cage, but now it was pathetically supine. Its beady eyes were staring up at my dearest. The lamb in the basket on the floor didn't look too happy either.

Magda didn't mess about. She drew the knife across the chicken's neck with a fastidious little chopping motion. The Grand Master was ready to catch the blood in a golden bowl, which he bade Magda quickly drink.

Then, before she'd even finished swallowing and choking the filthy brew down, my Great Aunt Helen had hopped onto the raised dais and was announcing that now it was her turn.

She said some hasty words about an ancient and sacred tradition and how everyone present should feel honoured to see this rite performed. Beside her, the Grand Master was fondling a very odd-looking device. It was a tubular metal object terminating in what looked very like a pastry cutter.

‘Good God,' Cleavis gasped, right in my ear. ‘The old girl wasn't joking.'

Now my great aunt was calling me to the podium. There was a light ripple of applause and Cleavis gave me a quizzical look as I was pushed to the front of the sweaty rabble. Before I knew it I was up by the altar and my aunt had hopped nimbly to lie full-length on the mess of chicken blood and feathers. The Grand Master nodded at me and passed the pastry-cutting affair.

Magda was staring at me horrified. I hadn't warned her about this part. I hadn't really thought it would come to anything. Yet now here I was, poised above my grinning aunt like a drunk and imbecilic surgeon.

‘The Grand Master will show you exactly what it is you have to do, Fox,' she said, brimming with confidence. ‘And precisely where to punch the hole.'

‘Very well,' I said thickly. My tongue was all swollen inside my mouth.

‘But know this, Fox. Know this, everyone …' Her voice rose in thunderous tones. ‘Fox is committing one of the rites practised by members of our family for hundreds of years. The aperture he is about to knock into my skull will free me. It will allow clear passage for dark spirits, between the universe itself and the microcosm that is my own mind.'

‘And,' I said nervously, ‘It won't hurt you, will it?'

She even managed a ribald laugh. ‘My dear, I've had it done at least twelve times before. All around the circumference of my skull. You ask the Grand Master there.'

The evil-looking Master nodded solemnly at me.

I hefted the dullish golden pastry-cutting apparatus thoughtfully and saw how it worked. It was indeed a stamping mechanism with a round, savage blade at the end. When one pressed the switch at the other end, it would
punch a disc the size of a florin out of the patient's head.

Magda let out a squeal. ‘You can't do it, Fox. A bit of a feast and an orgy is one thing, but …'

‘Shut her up,' my aunt seethed and the Grand Master shot my darling a poisonous glance and she froze on the spot. Then he pointed silently at the space right between my aunt's watery eyes and just a little way up. Bang in her forehead.

I raised up the pastry cutter.

I could hear the revellers take in a quick, startled breath.

And I admit a tiny part of me was enjoying all the drama. I was at the centre of it all. And if she said it was harmless and this was her thirteenth time having it done, then it must be safe, mustn't it? It must be a foolproof and fairly easy if unconventional operation. And—

CHUNK.

That was the exact noise of the implement plunging neatly, briefly, into Great Aunt Helen's forehead. I gulped. She was still. A thin, meagre dribble of dark blood started down her ashen face. I lifted the pastry cutter away very gently and gritted my teeth as I heard the grinding of bone sliding against bone.

There it was. I'd put a hole in her head.

She was smiling at me. Everyone was completely silent. But then the Grand Master started laughing.

‘Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! It's thirteen o'clock!' he howled mockingly. ‘Thirteen times! Thirteen holes all around her filthy old noggin!' Then he was shrieking – as is the wont of these people – maniacally.

I didn't know what he was on about. My great aunt was still smiling, as if she'd had all her dreams come true at once. As if, indeed, the whole of the invisible universe was
rushing into her skull and expanding there, for her benign delectation.