Everyone said: ‘never mind - it really doesn’t matter,’ and ‘super that you’re here at all.’
They were getting used to her. Arno, closing the front door, found a pigskin case and brought it in.
Guy was right, of course, in thinking Felicity was not ill. The fact was that she had taken a line just before leaving home and a second in the car. Normally things went better with coke. You got a spiralling zing of light and airy confidence wafting you up on a stairway to Paradise. High-kicking the glitter dust en route to the stars.
But this time the reverse had happened. Felicity was experiencing a monstrously exaggerated sense of her own vulnerability. She felt like one of those poor soft-shelled creatures washed up by an ebbing tide and left dying on the sands. She shrank from the figures looming over her. They had hot stretchy eyes and rubbery mouths and kept changing their shapes. One reached out and touched her, and Felicity howled in terror.
Guy said: ‘Bloody hell,’ and they all turned on him again.
Just over an hour had passed since the dramatic advent of Felicity’s arrival. The first course had been cleared away to make way for an egg custard and Suhami’s birthday cake. The latter was a square ‘cider’ cake made by Janet with apple juice and soya marzipan. It had an ‘S’-shaped candle and a frill of recycled sludge-green toilet paper.
Nine people sat down for dessert. May had withdrawn in preparation for her regression but Trixie had been persuaded to join the company. This had been achieved partly through Janet’s persistent keyhole-cajoling and also by her cunning stimulation of Trixie’s curiosity. Janet, knowing Trixie’s passion for clothes, had dwelt long and inventively on the dazzling spectral beauty of Felicity’s evening dress. She had also, instinctively feeling it would please, described the row with Suhami and Guy’s subsequent discomfiture.
Trixie had not meant to come out till he had gone for good. Crouched in her room in a sweating funk, she had pictured a thousand times Guy’s fury on discovering the loss of his Trinitron. In each subsequent recreation he became a little angrier and more violent so that, by now, she was braced for him to come tramping up the stairs bellowing ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum’, smash her door down and eat her alive.
Then, when Janet said he hadn’t changed for dinner, Trixie began to entertain the hope that he might not yet have noticed the pills’ disappearance. And even if he had would he wish to upset Suhami further by causing another scene? Also (and this is when she decided to go down), what was to stop her saying she knew nothing about the matter? No one could prove otherwise. Certainly the things couldn’t be produced for she had thrown them out of the taxi window in guilty panic. So now here she was, sipping a little bullace supreme, gazing emerald-with-envy at the dress and occasionally sliding an apprehensive glance down the table at Guy. Eventually she caught his eye and received such a grotesquely false smile and vigorous wave that she wished she had not.
Christopher was talking. Telling them all about his last assignment (a documentary on Afghanistan), and the endless troubled trekking in the Chagai Hills, when a soft booming sound like a foghorn out to sea was heard.
Heather said, ‘The conch,’ and turned to Felicity adding kindly, ‘we have to go.’
Ken and Heather had by now reluctantly accepted Felicity’s corporeity whilst still regarding her as ‘sent’ in some mysterious and omened way. Since May had left the table, Heather had taken charge: filling Felicity’s mug (half warm goat’s milk, half Acorna) and also, from the overflowing goodness of her heart, doing some discreet counselling. A homely blend of psychological uplift, astrological prediction and tips on recycling negative vibrations. Felicity had listened with an expression of intent seriousness on her sleepwalker’s face, interrupting only to clap her hands when the cake was cut.
‘Come along then.’ Heather helped her up.
‘Where?’
‘We’re going to the Solar. You’ll see the Master. Won’t that be nice?’
‘Yes,’ said Felicity, screwing up her eyes in an attempt to discover precisely where the edge of the table was. ‘Will there be dancing?’
‘Spaced out,’ said Ken, taking the other arm. He added in an aside, ‘Picture the Bangladeshis that dress would feed.’
The others were already moving off. Trixie laughing, talking loudly, linking arms with a surprised but delighted Janet. Suhami with Christopher who was carrying her bag and Tim who stopped in the hall to gaze entranced at the lantern and refused to move until Suhami promised he could come back afterwards. Guy wandered alone, somewhere beyond the pale.
Arno, noticing this, overcame his natural aversion and joined the man, introducing himself. He even held out his hand but with such an air of brave and self-conscious resolution that Guy looked for a lion tamer’s chair in its fellow.
Arno. What sort of name was that? Neither one thing nor the other. Like one of those far-flung islands that turned up in the shipping forecasts. Force 9 gales in Ross, Arno and Cromarty. Guy ignored the hand, saying coldly, ‘You’ve got custard on your beard.’ Then he defiantly produced a Zino Anniversaire, the baguette of the cigar world, and lit up.
The Solar was at the far end of the gallery. A long room with high beams and a floor of black bitumen. Placed upon it in two impeccably straight rows and precisely equidistant were twenty-four large, thinnish cushions in loose covers of coarse bleached cotton. These parallel lines directed the eye to a small dais raised on three steps and covered in oatmeal tweed carpet. There was a chair on the dais with a carved back and at the foot of this a small collection of objects: the conch shell, a little brass gong and a much larger wooden fish so highly polished that the scales gleamed like a caramel toffee. As it was getting dark, the light - concealed inside a low hanging paper lantern - was switched on.
The Master, wearing white, was already in situ, resting on the carved chair. Tim ran across the room and curled up at his feet. The rest disposed themselves either sitting on the steps or standing behind the enthroned sage.
Guy was relieved to find he was not once more expected to squat on a cushion. He turned to look at Craigie who was welcoming Felicity with a smile of concerned sweetness. Noting the man’s fragile looks and snowy hair veiling his stooped shoulders, Guy marvelled at his own previous gullibility. How could he have been taken in, even briefly, by such an obvious poseur? Now, seeing that everyone was settled, Craigie was picking up the fish. He parted its widely hinged jaws and brought them together with a loud clack.
May appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a plain mauve linen shift and had removed all her jewellery save for a silver unicorn pendant. Her broad feet were bare and her hair, unbound and brushed smooth, hung almost to her waist. She walked towards them in a slow, very measured way - carrying herself tall and straight as if balancing an invisible amphora.
On the floor, in between the furthest six cushions and about ten feet from the dais, an appliquéd quilt had been spread out. May lay down on this, assuming a sacred expression, and folded her arms across her breasts. Then after a moment she sat up again.
‘Actually, I got a bit cold last time in that Viking longboat. Do you think I could have my little pelerine? It’s in my bag.’
On the platform Christopher reached down.
Suhami said sharply, ‘That’s mine.’
‘Of course it is. Sorry.’
‘Over by the door,’ called May.
Christopher collected May’s bag and took it to her, opening it as he went, pulling out a cream ribbed cape. ‘Is this the thing?’ He placed it round her shoulders where it lay in little folds like uncooked tripe.