‘Anneliese,’ he cried. ‘No, no, no! Come back.’
Anneliese pulled my hand and dragged me after her. ‘The twins, we must help them, oh the smoke, the smoke!’
‘No, Anneliese,’ shouted the man. ‘No! Stop!’
‘The smoke, oh the smoke! We have to help the poor twins!’
‘Sir, sir, stop her, I beseech you!’
The man was old and ran towards us with a feeble gait. Anneliese dragged me to the door across the corridor from which earlier we had heard the sound of children’s laughter and the music box.
‘No, Anneliese, no!’ cried the man.
‘The twins, the twins . . . oh the burning . . .’
The old man was almost upon us but arrived a half-second too late. Anneliese opened the door to the room and gasped. She stood trembling violently on the threshold and her hands flew to her face; she wept. The man caught her in his arms and comforted her. I looked into the room. It was a child’s bedroom but one that had evidently not been used for many years; white drapes were spread over the furniture and the air had a stale, musty smell. On the mantelpiece there was a photo of two children in Edwardian sailor suits. The room also had a faint smell of smoke. The man led the weeping woman away.
We were shown to a modest hall and seated at a long table beneath shields emblazoned with lions and stars and griffins, and cross-hatched in red and white chevrons like military sentry boxes. Calamity looked ill at ease in a dress that did appear to be very much like a Western bridal gown. The Count arrived accompanied by his three daughters and Monsieur Souterain, their lute tutor. The children were nine, ten and eleven years old and wore richly brocaded and pearl-studded gowns in white taffeta. They were skinny and gaunt, with dark intense gazes that stared out from the violet shadows of their cheeks. They introduced themselves with slow languorous curtsies. Salome, Porphyria and Medea. The lute tutor bowed politely and the Count glanced at Calamity with a look of mild surprise that seemed to be directed at the dress. ‘In our country we normally wait until the big day,’ he said. And then, mindful of having committed a minor offence against etiquette, hurriedly changed the subject. ‘You must tell us all about Aberystwyth.’
We talked for a while of the Pier and the bandstand and Clip the stuffed sheepdog in the museum, but although the Count interjected now and again with polite enthusiasm it was clear our efforts failed to ignite a fire of interest in his dark eyes.
‘The camera obscura is the biggest in Europe,’ said Calamity.
‘How interesting,’ said the man whose family had invented an entire Hollywood movie genre.
‘Yes, and on a clear day you can see Snowdon. And we’ve got a nice castle . . .’ She looked up at the stone eagles and griffins and escutcheons and swords, the chain mail, the old masters and tapestries depicting hawks and riders galloping the flower-embroidered plains of medieval Europe and said, ‘It’s not quite like this, though.’
‘I’m sure it’s delightful,’ said the Count.
‘Do you know the people in the town crossed themselves when they saw us?’ I said.
The Count scoffed. ‘It’s just a joke, they do it because of our family’s history. They find it funny. I suppose it is in a way but one does get tired of it.’
‘Are they still unhappy about the impaling?’ said Calamity.
The Count shrugged. ‘The impaling thing is rather overdone if you ask me. It was just a normal part of keeping order in those days. There have to be laws otherwise there is anarchy.’
‘We heard your ancestor once impaled a donkey,’ she said with a regrettable lack of tact.
The children emitted gasps and the atmosphere froze. The Count threw his napkin down in disgust, causing the knife to rattle against his plate. ‘You know, that, if you will permit me the observation, is such a tiresomely British thing to say. My ancestor impaled an estimated ninety thousand people in the early fifteenth century, not to speak of countless other atrocities, and yet the one crime we are never allowed to forget is the damned donkey. I know you have a reputation as a nation of animal lovers but this is absurdly sentimental.’
I felt the cold moist swab of a lizard’s tongue on the back of my hand. I looked down with a slight shudder. Porphyria was rubbing my skin with her fingers in the same way that a buyer in an Arab bazaar checks the quality of cloth. She made a soft gurgling sound. I jerked my hand away. She stared deep into my eyes, her gaze filled with a mocking glint of corruption, and incanted a ditty:
. . . and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
Conversation around the table died as she spoke and the last words were said to a hushed audience. There was a pause and then Monsieur Souterain raised his hands artificially high, to the level of his nose, and clapped in counterfeited enthusiasm. ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ he cried. It seemed to me, in the absurd exaggeration of his applause, that he lived in daily fear of some terrible fate that fell in the gift of the children to visit upon him. Porphyria twisted her head up and around, throwing the tutor for the briefest fraction of a second a sniff-encased look of withering contempt. The clapping stopped, the final cycle arrested in mid-air by that heart-piercing look. Robbed of their purpose, his fingers fluttered like those of a concert pianist playing Paganini and then retracted into the palms of his hands. He lowered them and stared with a chastised air at his cutlery.
Porphyria eyed him briefly and said to her vanquished tutor, ‘Phwee!’
There was a pause.
‘I need to go to the little girl’s room,’ said Calamity.
The Count flashed in anger. ‘Who told you about that? There isn’t one. It’s a lie!’
‘I mean, the you know . . .’
‘Papa!’ said Salome. ‘She means the water closet.’
The Count smiled. ‘Oh yes, of course. Forgive me. It’s at the top of the stairs, next to the nursery.’
Calamity turned to offer her thanks but the girl poked her tongue out, quickly, while the Count was looking elsewhere. Monsieur Souterain caught the gesture but, instead of offering admonishment, made a forlorn attempt to ingratiate himself in Salome’s favour by offering complicit glances and feigning mild shock at her naughtiness. Salome disdained the offer of an alliance and in a move of exquisite cruelty gave the tutor a long-drawn-out quizzical look that directed everyone’s attention to the odd face he was pulling. His spirit crushed, Monsieur Souterain returned his attention to his turbot and for the next few minutes the silence in the room was broken only by a tinny Morse code as the fish knife in his trembling hand rattled against bone china.
We ate in silence. Porphyria started rubbing my flesh again. I took out one of the garlic capsules and put it in my mouth. I bit and breathed at her. The result was dramatic. She jumped back and began coughing violently. Her hand flew to her mouth as if she was about to be sick and the other hand sought furiously in the folds of her heavy dress; she found her purse and snapped it open, taking out an asthma puffer. She drew deep and long breaths on the inhaler, interspersed with agonising groans.
‘It’s nothing, do not be alarmed,’ shouted the Count trying to restore calm. The tutor took the girl to the window and opened the casement. She continued to cough and gasp.