‘I suppose incompatibility. Not getting on with others.’
‘Ah but you get on. Perhaps it has not been too good between us. But it has been better like now and today.’
‘Why does Mr Arland think you come from Poland.’
‘As a matter of fact, as you say, that is a long story. I shall tell you sometime. But now you tell me something.’
‘What.’
‘About that day in the bogs. You don’t want to tell.’
‘No.’
‘I understand you were over there to learn something about life.’
‘Who told you that.’
‘Ah I have perhaps ways of learning these things. You have such big innocent eyes. With the beard coming on your face. Your voice it is getting deeper. And you do not know about women.’
‘I know about women.’
‘Ha ha, you know nothing.’
‘I do.’
‘I could teach you about women. As Mr Arland, he teach you Latin. But you might make it difficult.’
‘What would you teach me.’
‘You are so young. And there is so much to learn. Perhaps it would be better for a start, that I ask you what you would like to know.’
‘Are women cruel.’
Miss von B taking her long ivory cigarette holder which stuck out from her gold mesh opera bag. Delicately pushing a cigarette in its end. As she raises it held between the very tips of her fingers. She stands up to step to the chimneypiece. Putting down her glass and leaning to light the cigarette in the flame of a candle held in the blue pink and gold candelabrum just as the clock tinkled the time. And she regarded the tiny watch on her wrist.
‘Ah that clock is only two hours wrong.’
Picking up her glass again and turning, as she used to do in the front hall, and lifting her chin to blow out a puff of smoke. She crosses to the decanter.
‘May I, Master Reginald.’
‘O yes of course.’
Her eyelids flutter as she removes the stopper. Closes her fingers around the neck. Lifts and pours out the liquid into her glass. Squinting as smoke from her cigarette curls back in her eye. Squaring her shoulders back. Her chest rising and her bosoms stretching out white under the light blue gauzy fabric of her blouse. And she downs nearly all the brandy in one gulp. As something gets awfully stiff and pointing distinctly upwards in my trousers.
‘Yes perhaps they are. Women are cruel. They are much crueller than men.’
‘Are you cruel.’
‘Yes at times I am cruel. But if I am not cruel. Cruel people they are cruel to me.’
‘How old are you.’
‘Ah you ask the personal questions. How old do you think.’
‘You are thirty.’
‘Ha I am not going to tell you how old. How old is Mr Arland.’
‘He is quite old too.’
Miss von B’s eyes seem blue. When always they were colours I could not remember before. She smiles around her lips. And one brow rises. She stares down at me. Like a matador must do at a bullfight. Only I have never seen one. But Miss von B appears to be crossing the arena with her gently shifting hips. And she goes. With her long legs. So slowly. Back to her seat. With her brazen bosoms. To turn. Blazing them at my eyes. And then so carefully. To sit. And raise one thigh and knee over another.
‘Old. My dear boy. What do you mean. I am not old.’
‘Mr Arland is twenty six.’
‘That is young, my little fellow. Surely he is older than that.’
‘Mr Arland is a little balding on the front of his head and that makes him look older than he really is.’
‘He takes this what do you call it.’
‘Snuff.’
‘Ah, der Schnupftabak. His Taschentuch, it is brown from wiping his nose. Sexton says he is in love. With the little beauty on the hunt with the golden hair. That he follows on his bicycle when she is on her horse. And he goes with the banjo to play outside her bedroom window in the rain at night. Sexton says it make the cats and dogs of the village howl while he sings.’
‘Sexton is a shocking liar, sometimes. I don’t really think it is anyone’s business what Mr Arland does.’
‘Ah, you are loyal.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you are so young.’
‘Please stop saying I am young.’
‘But so you are.’
‘You are really trying to say that I do not have knowledge of the world.’
‘Yes perhaps.’
‘I have more sense and intelligence than people twice or three times my age.’
‘Yet you do not know about women.’
The candles flickering low. Miss von B raising her glass to me. Signalling for another brandy. I watched her return the chess pieces to the game box, one by one placing each in its proper place, and with her fingers gently on the veneer, close the leaves and snap the top shut. She rises tireless to adjust a drape or straighten a picture on the wall. And now I smell her faint perfume as I lean towards her to pour. And she asks raising her smiling face up to mine why I didn’t have one as well. And I spilt a little of the spirit in a glass and twirled it round as my father did. During other wintery evenings as he sat alone in the library in front of the fire, long sticks of incense burning on the chimneypiece, a cigar in one outstretched hand, a glass of brandy cupped in the other. As he lay back his head on the chair pillow, his eyes closed, listening to choirs and mournful singing chants on the gramophone. And once with his brandy bottle empty he sent me for another and I woke him as I clonked it on the table marble. His one eye opening and his monocle slipped to rest on his chin. And without moving lips or a muscle, he bid me pour him a dram. I took a considerable time to engineer the contents of the bottle into the glass, and he turned to see me sniffing my nose in the strange aromatics. And then told me to get another glass and pour myself a drink and bid me take a cigar from the humidor and light it up. I stood there sucking in the horrid smoke and feeling the liquid sting my mouth and burn my throat. Holding the distasteful things away. And he said be a man about it, take a good long puff and a good deep drink. I exploded coughing in smoke and spluttered out brandy across the room. My father put his monocle back in his eye and informed me.
‘Well you little bastard, you’re not much good at smoking and drinking either.’
Next morning I came back down again to the library before the shutters had been opened or servants attended the room. And as I made my way across to a window to let in some light I felt brittle broken matters underfoot on the carpet. And saw bottles and glasses smashed in bits. Chips knocked out of the marble where they had hit the chimneypiece. A side table with its ormolu embellishments blasted as Sexton would say to hell. The pages of books ripped out, strewn and torn all over the floor. And taste this brandy now as I had-planned to do again that morning till a strange fear made me leave that musty book lined chamber.
‘I have not had the occasion to know about women.’
‘Ah they are funny ones.’
‘Are you funny Miss von B.’
‘Ha who is to know or who is to care out here in all the rain. But please. Can we not now no longer say Miss von B. Is it not time now that we drop such formality.’
‘If you wish.’
‘I think it would be more camaraderie, for you to call me by my christian name. Yes.’
‘That might set a bad example. Crooks may come along and call you by your christian name.’
‘Ha Crooks. The crook.’
‘He is no such thing.’
‘Ah his room, in there he has a locked door. Behind the locked door is kept the whiskey. His breath all the time it smell of whiskey.’
‘That is the room where our butlers commit suicide and it is always kept locked. But your breath too I have noticed on many an occasion smells of drink.’
‘Ah but of course. I admit I have the little bit of sherry perhaps or I would commit suicide. Or would you want me to freeze to death. Tonight I am warm perhaps for the first time. But now you must call me Gwendolene. Ah you are a little love dove. So sweet. I want to take you up in my arms and be a mother to you.’