His kitchen was a Vermeer oasis of pewter and glass. He put coffee in the percolator. Coffee from the Himalayan Hills. The packet bore the Harrods label. Well, he simply had to have the best. Some of his smart acquaintances were boycotting Harrods, but he personally didn’t disapprove of Mr Al Fayed. Lillie-Lysander couldn’t help having affinity with people who did outrageous things and defied the Establishment.
As he turned on the radio, he peered at the clock – not eight yet? It was still dark outside and the lights in the kitchen were on. Was there a storm coming? No, he didn’t feel like listening to the radio. It was exactly twelve minutes to eight. Thought For The Day would start any second, and that was the last thing he wanted. He had an aversion to high-minded bores. Liberated ex-nuns and suchlike. The next moment, remembering that it was eight in the evening, not in the morning, he laughed, a somewhat high-pitched giggle.
He was getting confused. Papaver somniferum was turn-ing out to be more powerful than he expected, but oh the joy and ecstasy supreme before oblivion had taken over! He reached out for the radio once more and found Jazz FM. It was a little-known Cole Porter song they were playing. ‘A Shooting-Box in Scotland’. Lillie-Lysander hummed along with the singer: ‘Having lots of idle leisure,
I pursue a life of pleasure -’
Actually that wasn’t true. He didn’t have lots of idle leisure. He did work. He listened to the incredibly boring confessions of mortally ill elderly gentlemen. He then reported to the elderly gentlemen’s scapegrace nephews. He could actually run that as a regular service, he supposed. A double-crossing father confessor seeks employment. Would under-take most delicate and unusual of tasks. No religious scruples -
Lillie-Lysander felt so light-headed, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started soaring up to the ceiling. The Times lay on the kitchen table. He hadn’t been able to so much as glance at it. He put on his reading glasses but the next moment he started recalling how he had pinched the ampoule from Ralph Renshawe’s bedside table. He had been tempted. He had always wondered what it would feel like.
The wicked flourish like a green bay tree. Well, yes. Quite. He was in excellent health and brimming with ideas.
Lillie-Lysander kept his eye on the clock, imagining that Robin, true to his inconsiderate nature, would be either late or early, but Robin was as good as his word. Forty-six minutes later his friend was lounging on the sofa, his legs stretched out before him. Robin had taken off his long charcoal-grey coat but left his white muffler fluttering rakishly at his throat. He wore a black Dior jacket, a cashmere roll-neck and slim polished boots. He looked smart in a French, nouvelle vague kind of way.
Lillie-Lysander put the small tray with the silver coffee-pot and two cups on the round malachite table between them. Robin’s foxy face looked merely blank but he must feel far from happy. Well, it had been Robin’s intention to spend Christmas in the Seychelles. It was his uncle’s money that he had felt sure would pay for it since his uncle would be dead by the end of November, early December at the latest. Robin had probably been envisioning himself bouncing around in speedboats feeding caviar to the fish. Now of course he would have to review his plans.
‘All his money?’ Robin sipped coffee from the delicate eggshell cup with the gold border, which Lillie-Lysander had handed him. ‘Surely not all his money?’
‘Every penny of it,’ Lillie-Lysander said with ill-concealed relish. ‘Those were his exact words.’
‘He’s lost his mind. Do sit down, Lily. It puts me on edge seeing you hovering about. And would you stop rustling that newspaper?’ For the first time Robin was showing signs of emotion.
Lillie-Lysander balanced himself gingerly on one of his little flat-seated heraldic chairs and took a sip of coffee. The chair was part of a set, which he had bought at Christie’s. He had been enthralled by the elaborate armorial painting on the chairs’ backs. ‘You can always contest the will,’ he said.
‘And who’s going to foot my legal bills? Would you? Incidentally, does the lucky slut know about his intentions?’ ‘No. He hasn’t told her yet. He hasn’t said so, but I think he intends it to be a surprise.’
‘A surprise… What precisely did he say about me?’
‘Well, um, he said you have been a disappointment. He said he hoped you would understand why he was doing this -’
‘Would I?’
‘You were still young and -’
‘Young?’ Robin gave a rueful smile. ‘I will be forty-one soon.’
They were the same age but beside him Robin looked positively boyish, or rather, as the Gallic flavour of his clothes suggested, comme un garcon. Did he like les garcons? Lillie-Lysander wondered. Robin had courted a baronet’s daughter twenty years before, at least that was what he had told him – a girl called Samantha, they had been practically engaged, but she had gone and married someone else who was in politics. Once at the Midas, Lillie-Lysander had seen him arm in arm with two exceptionally good-looking young Spaniards. He had introduced them as his ‘neophytes’. On that particular occasion Robin had been rather drunk. But then Lillie-Lysander had also encountered Robin at the gaming table, holding hands with a stunning-looking black girl. The girl had been long-legged, smooth-skinned and pouted a lot. She looked like a model and Robin appeared quite taken with her. Robin had introduced her as Mascot – or had he called her his mascot? She had certainly brought him luck that night, Lillie-Lysander remembered.
‘Your uncle referred to the money your father left you,’ Lillie-Lysander went on. ‘He said your father had left you extremely well provided for.’
‘My father didn’t leave me well provided for. Or if he did, that was a very long time ago.’
‘Your uncle said that if you’ve frittered away your father’s money, his decision might be an incentive for you to get a job. He said you had no history of lawful employment. He called you an idler and a waster. He said you were leading a parasitic existence.’
‘How well my uncle knows me.’ Robin frowned. ‘A job would be a bore and a bind… So he’s serious about dis-inheriting me?’
‘Yes. He is convinced he has made the right decision. He did ask me for my opinion though.’ Lillie-Lysander paused. ‘I said that this was a very serious matter and he shouldn’t rush things. I told him that he should give the matter careful consideration.’
‘That was kind of you, Lily, but I don’t imagine my uncle was swayed by your views on the subject?’
‘No. Actually it made him laugh. This brought on a coughing fit. It nearly killed him -’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ Lillie-Lysander was watching Robin carefully. ‘Your uncle started gasping – choking. It was ghastly – absolutely ghastly. Nurse Wilkes ran over. Your uncle did look as though he were breathing his last. He recovered eventually, but for a minute or two I was quite worried that I might have killed him.’
Robin loosened his muffler. His face remained expressionless. ‘You were worried that you might have killed him. You realize, don’t you, that if you had – that if my uncle had died there and then, as a result of your perfectly innocent remark – you would have been talking to a multi-millionaire now?’
Lillie-Lysander inserted a cigar into his cigar holder but did not light it. He sat very still. Something like an electric current had run through his body. He had had a powerful sense of deja vu. You would have been talking to a multi-millionaire now. He had expected Robin to say something like that. Yes. He had the oddest feeling that a curtain had lifted and they were once more on the stage. They were in a play together and he had given Robin a cue…
Lillie-Lysander felt the beginnings of a peculiar elation. He went on speaking, but for some reason he found it hard to concentrate. ‘When your uncle recovered, he reminded me that he might die at any moment. He pointed out that careful consideration, as I had put it, would be an extravagant luxury, which he couldn’t afford. He was going to see his solicitor tomorrow morning at eleven; he had already made arrangements. Mr Saunders was coming to Ospreys at eleven in the morning.’