Nicholas jumped at the unexpected attack and his glass slipped from his fingers. He grovelled under the table to retrieve it and emerged flushed and panting.
“Clumsy fool!” sniffed Honoria. “Ring for McPhee to come and mop up.”
“No, it’s all right, I can do it.” He went down on all fours and scrubbed frantically at the carpet with his handkerchief. The last thing he wanted at this moment was the presence of a third party. “There, it’s all right now, no stain at all... good job it’s white and not red...” He scrambled to his feet and grabbed at the back of his chair, conscious that he wasn’t feeling quite himself. His heart was thumping and his head swimming.
Honoria gave one of her cackling laughs. “Didn’t like that, did we?”
“That wasn’t fair, Aunt Honoria,” he protested. “You shouldn’t say things like that, even in fun.”
“I wasn’t speaking in fun. It’s the plain truth and you know it.”
“No, really...”He put a finger inside his collar and waggled his head, trying to clear it. “Could we have some air, it’s getting awfully close in here.” Without waiting for permission, he went to the window, opened it, and took a couple of deep breaths. He had some difficulty in getting back to his chair. Shouldn’t drink so fast, he told himself unhappily. Especially after last night. Too many benders lately.
“I thought you should know,” Honoria continued, “that I have disinherited you. If I were to leave you my money you’d only squander it, so I’ve made a new will. I’m leaving an annuity to McPhee and the rest will go to charity.” Her eyes sparkled with malicious glee as he gaped at her, dumbfounded. “So you see,” she went on, “you’ve been to all this trouble for nothing.”
Nicholas was devastated. Had all his careful scheming been a waste of time? “I don’t understand,” he faltered. “What do you mean — what trouble?”
“Poisoning my wine,” said Honoria calmly, taking the last olive.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” said Nicholas, trying to sound indignant. He passed a hand over his eyes. The old witch! She’d rumbled him!
Well, he wasn’t sorry. Even if he wasn’t getting her money, she deserved what was coming to her after being so stingy towards him all these years. Not that he was going to give her the satisfaction of owning up. He rose from his chair, swaying slightly.
“I’m leaving,” he declared. “Next time we meet I shall expect an apolly... an apology!”
“Next time we meet — that’s a g-good one!” cackled Honoria, sounding as tipsy as he felt.
A sudden dart of logic pierced the confusion in his head. “If you thought I’d spiked your wine, you wouldn’t have drunk it!” he said triumphantly.
Honoria leaned forward in her chair. With her shrivelled, blue-veined hands she lifted the two empty wineglasses from the table, switched their positions, and set them down again. “But I didn’t drink it.” Her voice was a soft growl, like a cat with a mouse. “You did.”
“Good God!” croaked Nicholas. “When did you...?”
K. K
by Liza Cody
A painter by training, Liza Cody began her fiction writing career during a particularly cold winter when her studio was too cold to use. Perched in front of the fire, she produced, in longhand, the first book of the Anna Lee mystery series, a book that won the John Creasey Memorial Prize in Britain, and received an Edgar nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. Five further Anna Lee novels followed, all critically acclaimed. The story with which Liza Cody makes her debut for us is as distinguished as her longer fiction. It was written in 1988 and is currently being produced for BBC radio, but has never before been published in this country...
Let me tell you something: on a hot day at Fantasy land life can be hell for King Kong. You have to wear long johns for the itching, and by the end of the day they’re soaked. I lost pounds on sunny days. Not that it showed. A woman my size has to lose stones for it to make any real difference.
I’m not complaining. If you take all the facts into consideration, I was lucky to have the job. The facts, of course, are my face and figure.
I was always going to be tall. When the accident happened I was thirteen years old and already five foot ten.
It’s no handicap to be tall. There are plenty of models and basketball players over six feet. But after the accident I began to eat, for comfort really, and you can’t comfort yourself to the extent I did without putting on a lot of weight.
King Kong, at the beginning, was supposed to be a man. But I got the job because I was the only one who fitted the costume. King Kong is a star. I hadn’t even applied for King Kong. No, my hopes were pinned on Hettie Hamburger, one of the cafeteria troupe. But at the last moment, only a couple of days before the grand opening, they switched me with Louis.
Louis, they said, was a little too limp to make a convincing King Kong. “All the rehearsal in the world won’t turn that nancy into a plausible monster,” the artistic director said. They think just because they can’t see our faces we can’t hear what’s said about us. But we can.
“What’s that hulking great hamburger doing at the end of the line?” he said, when he came to inspect the cafeteria. “You can’t have a threatening hamburger. It’ll put the kiddies off their food.”
I thought it was the end for me. If you fail as a hamburger there’s not a lot of hope left. But the artistic director, thank heaven, had a little imagination. “See if she can get into K. K.,” he said.
I could. “Terrific,” the artistic director said. “Dynamite. Put her by the gate for the opening. She’s a natural.”
We opened very successfully, with me and the Creature from the Black Lagoon welcoming the crowds. The kiddies screamed and giggled as I lolloped around growling. They wanted to stroke my fur and have their pictures taken with me.
I can’t tell you how lovely this is for someone like me. Without a monster costume no one wants to take my picture at all, and the kiddies cross the road rather than come face to face with me on the pavement. I love kiddies, but I’ve got to be realistic. It’s unlikely I’ll ever have any of my own. Children are frightened by disfigurement and it’s one of life’s little ironies that they have only come to love me now that it’s my job to frighten them. I’m a wonderful monster, if I do say it myself. Who would have thought that someone like me could succeed in show business?
But it isn’t like that for everyone. My friend Cherry, for instance, used to get very depressed. “I’m a dancer,” she used to tell me. “A good dancer. Well, quite a good dancer. Not a bloody hot dog. It’s an insult, even if I am over thirty.”
She’s over forty, actually, but she’s right: she’s still very pretty in spite of being a little on the plump side. It’s a shame to hide her in a hot dog.
“I’ll give that agent of mine a piece of my mind,” she used to say, “you see if I don’t.” Well, maybe she did or maybe she didn’t. The only thing I know is that two years later she’s still a hot dog, and a good one at that. She says the tips are getting better all the time. She doesn’t positively enjoy the job the way I did, but she doesn’t complain much anymore.
Performers at Fantasyland divide up quite neatly into Freaks and Food, and I think it’s fair to say that of the two, the Freaks are happier in their work. They are the entertainers and the extroverts.
But they are quite territorially minded, too. I had a jungle, about half an acre of mixed conifers and rhododendron bushes with a climbing frame artfully disguised as creeping vines. You wouldn’t catch Godzilla in my domain. He roams the area around the gift shop, while the boating pool belongs to the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.