The Triple Goddess (2 page)

As the sole person with whom Stace had a personal relationship, Arbella recognized her father’s inability to operate on two levels, professional and personal. She knew how solicitous he was towards her and concerned for her well-being, and that was enough for her. She took comfort in their closeness, which was manifest in the mutual concerns that they expressed to each other about their health and welfare at the breakfast table every day, and the mild remonstrances that took place. It did not bother her that every day resembled the last, for she depended upon the routine to mentally stabilize her before she had to step into the chaos and confusion outside.

‘Good morning, Daddy,’ Arbella replied, and coughed. ‘I’m the same as I was yesterday, neither better nor worse.’

‘You were later than usual coming in last night.’

‘Was I?’

‘Three and a half minutes past midnight...one approximates, of course. One knows, because your father had just left the library and gone upstairs. A girl your age needs sleep, not too many drinkies, and one does so wish you’d give up smoking.’

‘If you say so, Daddy, and perhaps one day I will. But please don’t ask Garforth to mix me up another of those awful prairie oyster things for my headache. The last one he made, following the recipe you gave him, I swear contained the hundred-year egg you brought back from your last medical fact-finding trip to China.’

Stace smiled tolerantly. ‘His lordship’s man in Beijing assures him that the combination of lime, ashes, and salt with which such oviparous productions are coated, plus the length of the burial period, causes a mutation in the proteins that is effective in counteracting the malady. Though not having drunk more than a glass of sherry, once in his wild and crazy youth, his lordship has had no reason to assay the efficacy of the remedy as a cure for hangovers. As to the strength of his constitution, it speaks for itself. Didn’t it work? Please advise. The fate of a Beijinger hangs in the balance.’

‘Well, it cured the headache but I had stomach cramps for a week. Please don’t fire him, though, Daddy, it’s possible the rare tuna I ate at dinner was responsible. But never mind me, how did you sleep? You seemed to have the beginnings of a cold yesterday, have the symptoms got any worse? If so, you must take something for them. You drive yourself too hard and omit to take care of yourself, and you get run down.’

Stace laughed at his daughter’s little joke. It went without saying that his lordship had slept very well; and, thanks to his daily regimen of taking forty-two mineral, vitamin, and other dietary supplements, he had not had so much as a cold for the past thirty years, three months and nine days. He had regular homeopathy treatments—
similia similibus curantur
—and sessions either with one of his two personal acupuncturists or both together, one at each end. So boundless was his energy that he had to meditate for five minutes and twenty seconds every hour to keep himself from taking off like a rocket. So multi- was his tasking that he had electrodes attached to his temples at night to keep him apprised around the clock of what was happening on the world exchanges. They scanned financial statements into a portion of his brain that he kept formatted and blank for the purpose, and awoke him if anything required his attention, such as someone shorting his stock.

‘Really!, her daddy’s darling. Your pater is quite well, you have no need to worry about him. Though, one does have to guard against those damnable mould spores that are prevalent at this time of year, and so pernicious to the alveoli of the lungs. One refers you to the monograph that one’s consultant, Botulisti, wrote on the subject. You’ll find it in the library. Unlikely as one’s poppet is to do so, your father would most earnestly caution you against venturing into the Square park after twenty forty-three. It is no coincidence...there is no such thing, of course, as coincidence...that that is the moment...such an imprecise word...when one is in the habit...such a general term...of coming in from one’s ten minute and twenty second after-dinner stroll.

‘One wears a mask, naturally. For those spores, if inhaled, irritate the trachea, the windpipe, and can at present only be treated, not with an anti-histamine as many doctors stupidly maintain, but a gargle of three parts root beer and one part each of valerian and baking soda.’

Arbella drank her coffee.

Stace continued, ‘Another remedy is in the offing, however, as science marches ever on, which gives cause if not for cautious optimism then a strait-jacketed tremor of excitement. An infectious disease professor at Princeton University has posited that the Grade-B allergic reaction induced by decaying vegetation might be neutralized with an infusion of sandalwood and a gram of powdered Asian sparrow liver, followed by the daily application for a week of a skin tonic made from the carapaces of dung beetles. These ingredients his lordship has been happy to obtain for him from his man in Djakarta after rejecting, as an alternative to the sparrow liver, an uncatalogued species of wort indigenous to Pinxiaou Province.

‘The results so far are, against all odds, promising; though it will take another five years—one apologizes for using such a terminological inexactitude—and a mountain of dung beetles before the therapeutic properties, if any, of the formula can be certifiably ascertained.’

His lordship’s daughter put down her cup.

Stace’s obsession with his health was well known. With the assistance of the scientists whom he kept on retainer, he was able to identify whatever outrageous pathogens of virus and bacterium were headed his way with malice aforethought and either block them; or, by taking arms against a sea of troubles, as that pussy Prince Hamlet had wimped out from doing, oppose and end them. Disease-bearing microbes and bacilli, parasites, and toxins, homing gleefully to their target, gnashed their teeth in frustration as they beat upon the doors of his lordship’s cells in vain, and were denied access to the VIP lounge of his immune system.

The baron’s triple-strength influenza vaccine was always ready at least a month before it became generally available. Many were the chills, fevers, and internal disagreements that Stace had avoided, thanks to early warnings and the precautions he took. If an emergency were to be announced on the pink-spotted telephone in his office, his lordship would leave for the airport, where his custom-fitted mid-air refuellable AWACS plane, stocked with physic from the converted armoury that was her father’s medicine cabinet, was on permanent stand-by to whisk him away and fly round the world until it was safe to return. At especially hazardous times, Stace had access to a decommissioned NASA spacecraft in which he would orbit the earth.

In less severe situations, when there was only a low-grade alert, he would take a helicopter to his mountain-top retreat, and breathe the pure air there; or spend days submerged in a diving-bell on the Continental Shelf. Sometimes he operated from a Saharan compound amidst the Bedouin and caravanserais, striding up and down and bellowing instructions in the air-conditioned coolth under refractive tinted glass, or from a non-allergenic divan. The baron knew when to go north to the germ-free Arctic, where he had his own igloo, a grand and spacious affair, and south for warmth without humidity to dry his lungs.

At home, throughout Stace’s London headquarters, and even in his car, the air was filtered, frozen, and then reheated to the correct temperature with an infusion of cell-friendly antioxidants and nutrients. Consequently, amongst the domestic staff at Eaton Square either the cook or the housemaid always had a cold, which she was at great pains to conceal: one audible sternutation—there were sneeze and cough detectors throughout the house—god forbid that it should be near food or a toothbrush, and she would be at the Job Centre without a character reference.

The only downstairs member of the household who was never unwell was Sanders the valet: Sanders inhaled so many chemical fumes in the dry-cleaning plant in the basement—it was hermetically sealed and there was a decontamination zone at the entrance—that anything trespassing upon his system was annihilated.

Stace’s formal education had ended early and his business career begun before his character had had a chance to mature. He was unable to make social chit-chat or express himself in other than professional terms. But his lack of people skills had not held him back from becoming a renowned entrepreneur. His balance sheets had always shown huge profits. Amongst the companies in his financial empire a number had received King’s Awards for Industry. He prided himself on his uncanny ability to assess the viability of a commercial venture as accurately as the barometers registered the atmospheric pressure at his premises and the thermometer did his own temperature.

If one thought about it, and it would have been a sad fact that so few did, had it not brought him such advantage over them, adherence to his methods was a guarantee of success. So many people envied his lordship, and yet if only they were to imitate his work ethic they could not fail to prosper—not to the degree that he had, of course, but enough to ensure their financial security and independence. Knowing this would have made Stace feel positively charitable, had he not regarded philanthropy and those who practised it so negatively.

All of the baron’s operational outposts, naturally, bristled with computer and telecommunications equipment. Satellites beamed life-size holograms of his lordship’s corpus into his London headquarters, so that his minions should never think that he was not in control, and monitoring their activities on his behalf; and sometimes what they did with their leisure time as well. A former chief executive who was yukking it up with a hostess at the Miranda Club off Carnaby Street in Soho at two o’clock in the morning had been dismayed to find Lord Stace sitting in his lap and informing him that he had just joined the ranks of the unemployed...though at the time his boss was verifiably in Argentina.

To maximize the output of the general staff, all employees from senior vice president to janitor were educated in their chairman’s precepts and operating techniques. Although the cost of these classes and seminars was deducted from salary, Stace regarded it as a testament to the value of the lessons learned that nobody complained.

Stace was inordinately proud and protective of his only daughter and youngest child, who was streaks ahead of the rest of his brood in intelligence and capability. The three boys had left home as soon they could, intent upon setting out upon the road that they believed would lead to even greater glory than their father had achieved, were such a thing possible. Which it was not, and they quickly lost heart and, unable to support themselves, accepted positions in their father’s companies; where, in the absence of any undeserved preferment, none of them had risen higher than middle management.

Arbella was different. As bored and listless as she appeared to be most of the time, she had as strong a will as her father when she cared to exert it. Lacking his idiosyncrasies, she was not only spirited but sensitive and imaginative. There was a hint of her true character in the bantering way with which she reproved him, when he had gone on too long and boringly about some topic, or organ, close to his heart…the vital pump itself…panaceas for industrial unrest…his pancreas.

‘Now then,’ said Arbella. ‘I think we’ve had enough on medical subjects for today, Daddy, if you don’t mind, fascinating as they are to hear about over the breakfast table.’

Stace smiled indulgently. ‘These are no mere bromide theories, my dear. The truth bears any number of repetitions, that is his lordship’s nostrum.’ (His lordship never considered that by ruthlessly editing such recapitulative pronouncements, which made the utterances of the novelist Henry James seem Neanderthal by comparison, he might have added even greater productiveness to his day.)

Arbella looked out of the window at the teeming rain. ‘Papa, though it’s only a few steps to the car you must promise to wear the heated lining in your raincoat today, and your thermal scarf and gloves and broad-brimmed waterproof hat. It’s not just wet but very cold. And don’t forget your inhaler. See to it, Garforth, would you? You know how careless he is.’

Stace’s smile broadened. The family pheromones were in fine fettle, that was clear, and it was time to go to work. As usual he saw his daughter to the door: she insisted on walking every day to Sloane Square Underground station, rhinoviral Mecca and Petri dish of micro-organisms though it was, come rain or shine.

Shortly after waving goodbye to her from the window with a silk bandanna, Stace—encased and muffled to the eyeballs—exited himself, the Bentley made its glissando away from the curb, and his lordship turned his mind to the minutiae that would occupy him for the remainder of the day.

*

Her eyes her nose her hair her lips her teeth

Were all special order, very top-drawer,

And as we worked she glowed from underneath.

You had demanded not a single flaw,

Down to construction of the tiniest

Feature, each detail of her perfect frame.

You called yourself a human Architect,

And said You had endowed us with

A gift to rival the talent of Pygmalion.

We were amazed to hear such praise for

Our steady hands and modest skills,