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Kate Gray came briskly down the street, stopped outside Ducane's house, rang the bell, and was instantly admitted.

She knew that Ducane could not be at home since he was going directly from the office to spend the evening with Octavian. Kate had come to make her personal investigation of Ducane's manservant.

'I want to come in and leave some things for Mr Ducane and to write him a note,' said Kate, advancing promptly into the hall. 'Could you let me have some writing paper please? And perhaps I could leave these things in the kitchen. Thank you, I know the way. I am Mrs Gray. You are Fivey, I believe.'

Fivey had followed Kate into the kitchen and was silently watching her unload from her basket a box of marrons glaces and a bottle of slivovitz, her offerings to Ducane and her excuse for calling.

'You keep things very neat in here, Fivey,' she said approvingly.

'Very neat and clean indeed. It's a pleasant kitchen, isn't it. Now these things are for Mr Ducane. You know he won't be home until late this evening, he's over with my husband.'

Kate surveyed Fivey across the table. She found him very unexpected indeed. Ducane's attempts at describing, in answer to a question of Kate's, his man's personal appearance had been vague and had made Kate anticipate something a little coarse and brutish. Brutish perhaps Fivey was, but with the picturesque romanticized almost tender brutishness with which the Beast is usually represented in productions of Beauty and the Beast, a large touching cuddly animal which had always seemed to Kate in her childhood greatly to be preferred to the tediously handsome prince into which it had to be metamorphosed at the end. Kate marked the apricot skin, so strikingly blotched with big brown freckles, the huge inflated shaggy head, the abundant hair and moustache the rich colour of a newly opened conker, the long long slanted eyes of the purest spotless light brown, the long straight line of the lips. He must comb it, she thought. I wonder if I could persuade Octavian to grow a moustache, I never realized it could be so becoming.

Kate became aware that she had for some moments been staring at Fivey, who had been staring back. She said hastily, 'Could you bring me some paper please, to write my note on.'

Without a word Fivey disappeared and returned in a moment with some paper. Kate sat down at the table and wrote Dearest John. His hands are spotted too, she thought, lifting her eyes far enough to see one of them. I wonder if he is spotted all over. She put in a comma and poised her pen. She could not think of anything to say to John. She went on Here I am, and crossed it out. She wrote 1've'just been to Fortnum's and I've got you some nice things. She said to Fivey, 'I don't think after all it's necessary to leave a note. Just tell Mr Ducane I delivered these.'

Fivey nodded and Kate slowly crumpled the note up. Something had gone wrong. She made out that what was wrong was that Fivey had not spoken. Ducane didn't say he was dumb, she thought.

She said, 'I hope you're happy here with Mr Ducane, Fivey?'

'Mr Ducane is a very kind gentleman.'

'Good heavens!' cried Kate. 'Mr Ducane never told me you were Irish!' There was no mistaking the voice. 'Why I'm Irish tool'

'I took the liberty of recognizing your accent, ma'am,' said Fivey. His face was impassive and the slanted brown eyes were intently fixed on Kate.

'How splendid, I come from County Clare. Where do you come from?'

'I come from County Clare myself.'

'What an extraordinary coincidence!' cried Kate. 'Well, that's a real bond between us. Where in Clare are you from?'

'On the coast there '

'Near the Burren?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'How astonishing I I come from quite near there. Are your people still there?'

'Only my old mother, ma'am, with her little house and a cow.'

'And do you often go back?'

'It's the fare, ma'am. I send my mother a little bit of my wages, you see.'

I must give him the fare, thought Kate, but how? He looks rather a proud man. Of course I can see now that he's Irish.

'Have you been in England long, Fivey?'

'Not long at all, ma'am. I'm a country boy.'

A real child of nature, she thought. How very simple and moving he is, a true peasant. Ducane didn't describe him properly at all. And she thought, I do rather wish he was our servant. I wouldn't at all mind having Fivey.

'London must be a bit intimidating. But I expect you'll get used to it.'

Kate, who by now felt very disinclined to leave the house, got up and began to prowl about the kitchen, patting cups and stroking saucepans and peering into bowls. She was beginning to feel quite at ease in the presence of Fivey as if warm rays from his reassuring beast-like presence were both caressing and stimulating her nerves.

'Have a marrow glace,' she said. She tore the box open and thrust it across the table towards him.

Fivey's large spotted hand descended and, still staring at Kate with unbroken concentration, he conveyed the marrow to his mouth.

He does stare so, she thought, but I rather like it. Bother, now I've opened that box I can't give it to John. I'll have to take it away with me. Or else give it to Fivey!

She resumed her prowling. 'What's that?' She pointed to a bowl-like steel sink with a round gaping orifice at the bottom of it.

'A waste disposal unit,' said Fivey with his mouth full of marrow.

'Oh. I've never seen one. Let's dispose of some waste.'

Fivey came over to demonstrate. He took a soggy newspaper bundle out of the rubbish bin, dropped it down the hole, and turned a switch. There was a formidable grinding sound.

'It's rather alarming, isn't it,' said Kate. As she leaned forward over the machine she rested her white nylon gloves for a moment on the edge of the bowl. Then, with a flash like the escape of a fish, one of the little white gloves slid down over the slippery steel surface and into the dark churning void below.

After it, with almost equal quickness, went Fivey's spotted hand, but not quick enough to save the little glove from its fate. Half a second later Kate had gripped Fivey by the wrist.

'Oh, be careful, be careful!'

They stood quite still for a moment staring at each other.

Kate drew back a little, drew him back still holding the thick hairy wrist in a firm grip. Then she released him, sat down, and reached out automatically for the bottle of slivovitz.

She said, 'That quite shook me. You must be terribly careful with that dangerous thing. I think I need a drink. Could you get two glasses?'

Fivey put two glasses on the table and sat down, not opposite to Kate but beside her. With a hand that trembled slightly Kate poured out the slivovitz. She had forgotten its quite extra ordinary sexy smell. She could still feel the texture of Fivey's hairy wrist engraved upon the palm of her hand. She turned towards him and they drank. her, ms arinx in ms rignt nano, ms iert nano upon the tame. The big extended relaxed hand looked suddenly to Kate like a couchant animal. It's all very odd, thought Kate, I'd quite forgotten the taste of slivovitz, it's wonderful, wonderful. She laid her own hand down very slowly and carefully on top of Fivey's hand, moving it about slightly to feel the hair, the skin, the bone. They continued to stare at each other.

Then with a kind of formal deliberation, as if he were about to take hold of her for a dance, Fivey put down his glass, moved Kate's glass out of the way, edged his chair nearer, and began to slide his arm round her shoulder. The chestnutcoloured moustaches grew nearer and nearer and larger and larger. Kate closed her eyes.

'Octavian, do stop laughing, I think you're awful!''You mean to say the fellow actually made a pass at you?''No, darling, I've already explained. I made a pass at him!''And then you slipped him a tenner to visit his old mother!''It was the least I could do.''Kate darling, you're mad, I adore you!''I must say I was rather surprised myself. It must have been something to do with his being Irish. Or something to do with my glove falling into the waste disposal unit.''Or something to do with the slivovitz!''Oh God, the slivovitz! We drank the whole bottle! I've got the most ghastly headache.''Anyway, you've proved he's heterosexual!''I don't know about that. He might be both. He's terribly sweet, Octavian, just like a marvellous animal. And such a simple nature, straight out of the Irish countryside.''His conduct seems to me to have been far from simple. London is full of men who would faint with joy if they could get around to kissing you after a year's acquaintance, let alone twenty-five minutes flat!''Oh Octavian, that heavenly moustache!''Well, you're in a proper fix now with Ducane, aren't you, with his valet as your fancy man!'Well, yes, I din – Uetavtan, do you think 1 ougm to tell Ducane? It's rather awful, isn't it?''Fivey's not likely to tell him, anyway!''It depends what terms they're on. Maybe they're in bed together at this very moment, discussing it just like us and laughing their heads off!''Come, you don't think that.''No, of course I don't. But it's all most embarrassing. Whatever would the others think if they knew what I'd been up to while they were soberly shopping!''Think of the scenes at the dinner table. The surreptitious glances. The hands touching when the soup arrives. I shall enjoy every moment of it!''Oh dear! Do you think John would be hurt?''Yes, I do think he would be hurt. And he'd never believe you started it. He doesn't know you like I do! And he might sack Fivey.''You mean he wouldn't understand?''No.''Well, in that case I can't tell him, can I? I'd hate to get poor Fivey into trouble.''Did you leave a note for Ducane?''No. And I took away the bottle and the rest of the marrons!''And you didn't tell Fivey whether or not to say you'd called? You're a very inefficient intriguer. You'd better ring him up tomorrow morning!''I can't. Oh Octavian, I am dreadful. No, I'll just have to leave it, and if John mentions my having called I'll say something vague.''Well, you've certainly entertained me. Never a dull moment with you around. Ready?''Ready, darling. Oh Octavian, it's such fun being married to you.'

Eighteen

Pierce and Uncle Theo and Mingo were down on the beach together. Uncle Theo was sitting up, with Mingo's head and front paws on his lap. Pierce, who had been swimming, was extended upon his face, his arms limply stretched out above his head. For some time now Theo had been contemplating the lean stretched out body beside him, first wet, now dry, and baked to a light and almost uniform shade of biscuity brown.

As there were no natives in sight Pierce had been swimming naked. Uncle Theo sighed deeply, consuming the sigh inside himself so that it should not be audible.

Uncle Theo's right hand was automatically twisting and caressing Mingo's woolly fur. Mingo was generally agreed to be more like a sheep than a dog, and the twins were convinced that he must have sheep ancestry. Mingo's eyes were closed, but a faint vibrating of his hot body, a sort of internalized tailwag, showed that he was awake. Uncle Theo's gaze brooded upon the limp hunched shoulders, the jutting shoulder-blades, the slim sweeping waist, the thin yet firm hips and the long straight legs of what Willy Kost had called 'a certain kouros'. The soles of Pierce's feet, which Uncle Theo tould just see by leaning forward a little, were pleasantly wrinkled and dusted over with sand. They would be nice and curious to touch, the skin hardened and yet tender. They would taste of sea salt.

Uncle Theo's left hand, in the small space between himself and the boy, fingered the mauve and white pebbles on the beach. These stones, which brought such pleasure to the twins, were a nightmare to Theo. Their multiplicity and randomness appalled him. The intention of God could reach only a little way through the opacity of matter, and where it failed to penetrate there was just jumble and desolation. So Theo saw it, and what was for the twins a treasury of lovable individuals (it grieved the twins that they could not distinguish every stone with their attentions and carry it into the house) was for Theo an expanse of abomination where the spirit had never come.

Does nature suffer here, in her extremities, Theo wondered, or is all dead here? Jumble and desolation. Yet was it not all jumble and desolation, was it not all an expanse of senseless random matter, and he himself as meaningless as these stones, since in real truth there was no God?

The pebbles gave a general impression of being either white or mauve, but looked at closely they exhibited almost every intermediate colour and also varied considerably in size and shape. All were rounded, but some were flattish, some oblong, some spherical; some were almost transparent, others more or less copiously speckled, others close-textured and nearly black, a few of a brownish-red, some of a pale grey, others of a purple which was almost blue. Theo, rooting among them, had dug a small hole revealing layers of damp and glistening pebbles beneath the duller sun-baked surface. He lifed one up to look at it. It was a flattish grey stone with a faint fan-like fossil marking upon it. It was not worth keeping it for the twins whose vast collection already contained many such.

Theo rubbed it dry on his trousers. Then with great care and gentleness he laid it upon Pierce's spinal cord, near to the waistline, balanced upon one of those vertebrae whose delicate curving line his eye had been tracing. Pierce groaned faintly. Theo picked up another stone and laid it upon Pierce's right shoulder, and then placed another upon the opposite shoulder to balance it. Absorbed now in his task, he shifted Mingo a little and began to cover Pierce's back with a symmetrical design of flattish stones. As he laid each stone very carefully down, drying it first and warming it a little in his hands (the surface stones were too hot for comfort) the tips of his fingers encountered the warm flesh, sandy and slightly gritty to the touch. The climax of this activity, to which Uncle Theo looked hungrily forward, and which he provoked himself by deferring, was the moment when he should oh so gently and lingeringly place a stone upon the summit of each of Pierce's buttocks.