Ignatius Gribb spoke after a silence. -My dear Irina, he said, for such a bright exterior, your mind is very dark.
But Elfrida was looking absorbed. Flapping Eagle, immersed in the two strange, pale women, forgot the harangue in the next room.
– I don’t like it, said Elfrida. It’s too pretty, too neat. I do not care for stories that are so, so tight. Stories should be like life, slightly frayed at the edges, full of loose ends and lives juxtaposed by accident rather than some grand design. Most of life has no meaning-so it must surely be a distortion of life to tell tales in which every single element is meaningful? And for a story to distort life is nothing short of criminal, for it may then distort one’s own view of life. How terrible to have to see a meaning or a great import in everything around one, everything one does, everything that happens to one!
She paused, looking slightly ashamed of her speech which was after all, a direct antithesis to the neatness of her own life. Irina answered, with a mischievous smile:
– Darling, you put too much store by my tale. It’s only a tale, after all. Tales are really very unimportant things. So why should they not bring us a little innocent pleasure by being well-shaped? Give me shapeliness over the lumpen face of life, every time. What do you say, Mr Eagle?
– I’m not sure, said Flapping Eagle. It depends whether you believe that all the small circles of the world are linked together in some way, or not.
– No, no, no, no, no, expostulated Gribb. You miss the point entirely. The crux is this: the word importance means “having import”. That is to say, having meaning. Now Elfrida, who believes tales to be important things, says she would prefer them to be less full of meaning, that is to say, less important. Whereas the Countess, for whom these same tales are very unimportant things, likes them to be well-made, that is to say, meaningful selections from the “lumpen face of life”, that is to say, importful selections, or important. Thus both ladies contradict themselves. A simple matter of semantics, you follow. If tales are important, they must be well-shaped. If they are not, they cannot be. And vice versa.
He subsided into silence. Flapping Eagle had lost the thread of his argument early in his outburst; he suspected Elfrida and Irina had, too. He looked up to find Cherkassov and Moonshy standing in the doorway. Moonshy’s appearance surprised him; he was quite unlike his voice, a stocky bearded man of middle height.
– Mr Moonshy has come to pay his respects, said Cherkassov. He’s just leaving.
Moonshy said: -I have come to say I am leaving, not to pay my respects. Particularly not to him, he said, nodding towards Ignatius Gribb. Self-important hypocrite that he is. It is your ideas, Mr Gribb, that are chiefly responsible for our bondage. I am leaving now, he said sharply, turned on his heel, and marched out.
– Well, said Elfrida.
– What could he mean? asked Irina. Surely he cannot be saying that Ignatius’ rejection of the, the myths of Calf Island is in some way wrong?
– I’d always thought, said Ignatius, that it was superstition that was supposed to provide the opiate of the masses.
Flapping Eagle was watching Irina and Elfrida. Neither of them seemed at their ease. Cherkassov was mopping his brow even more feverishly than usual.
– Ignore him, said Cherkassov hurriedly. He’s a confused man.
Flapping Eagle thought: Unless the superstitions are grounded in fact. In which case, to deny them would indeed be a form of bondage.
The clattering began again next door.
Irina Cherkassova rose to her feet. -If we have all finished, she said, I think we may be more comfortable next door. Elfrida? The two ladies retired. Ignatius, Count Cherkassov and Flapping Eagle moved into a third room, which doubled as Cherkassov’s library and bedroom. The dining-room, deserted by the diners, was filled by the cacophony which clamoured through the wall.
Flapping Eagle had given careful thought to the question of how he should best position his choice of prime interest; and this, together with Gribb’s support, helped to make the discussion little more than a formality: especially, Flapping Eagle suspected, since Aleksandr Cherkassov wasn’t really interested in being more than a rubber-stamp.
– I think of it, said Flapping Eagle, as a way of exploring the history of Calf Island. You must understand that I have been rootless for a very long time now; and if I am to put down roots here it would be a great help to me to find out as much as possible about the town, and the island, and the mountain.
– Quite, quite, said Cherkassov.
– Besides, added Flapping Eagle, I’m good with my hands, you know. Mending things, building things. One picks up a lot of knowledge while travelling. So I’d be glad to offer my services to anyone in K who might need anything built or repaired. For one thing it would help me get to know people.
– Fine, fine, said Cherkassov.
He conferred briefly in a corner with Ignatius Gribb. In these matters Gribb did carry some weight, even if he was rather slighted socially by the Russian aristocrats.
– Mr Eagle, said Cherkassov, I approve. If Ignatius feels the exercise would do no harm, then I concur. We owe him a great deal, you know. He has helped us set up a… bearable… community. Thanks to his acute, demystifying intelligence.
– Thank you both, said Flapping Eagle.
– Welcome to K, said Aleksandr Cherkassov, extending his thumb.
Flapping Eagle thought: I’ve arrived.
They had rejoined the ladies. Elfrida came across to her husband and said:
– Ignatius, I was just telling Irina about this curious thing last night. Were you awake? Did you feel it?
– What, my dear, asked Ignatius, with an air of patient tolerance.
– Why, the… the sort of blink. As though for a moment one wasn’t there.
– Ridiculous, said Gribb.
– No, said Flapping Eagle, Mrs Gribb is quite right. It was like a hiatus… a break in time.
– Look, look, look, said Gribb impatiently, the thing is a logical impossibility. If you’re saying there was a moment when everything ceased to be, you’re contradicting yourselves. When everything ceases to be, so does time; thus there cannot be a moment of non-existence, or indeed any time-period of non-being.
– Well, there was, said Elfrida obstinately.
– My darling, said Gribb irritably, how can you claim that everything ceased to be for an instant, and at the same time say that it was so? The term being relates to existence; non-being cannot exist, and therefore that moment cannot have been.
He looked smugly satisfied with his argument. Flapping Eagle decided to let it slide; Gribb was not a man with whom discussion was possible. Elfrida, too, appeared to accept his rationale, but was probably a little rattled.
Irina sent her grey gaze towards Flapping Eagle as she said: -Forgive me, everyone; I’m just going into the garden for a moment; I forgot something there this afternoon and I don’t want the mist and dew to get at it.
She left, A moment later, Flapping Eagle asked to be directed to the lavatory. Count Cherkassov showed him the way and left him there. Flapping Eagle noted with approval that it would be possible for him to climb through the window and thus join Irina in the garden without attracting any attention. He bolted the door behind him.