Clouds among the Stars

‘She watch the television. Sì, I give him the faraona from lunch and the bones of the coscetto d’abbachio we have for dinner.’

This was one of her specialities, a boned leg of lamb stuffed with onions, liver, sage and pearl barley, delicious but bloatingly rich. Evidently Cordelia had forgotten to give her my message. She opened the fridge door and Derek gave little shivering growls of anticipation. ‘Sausages!’ I heard Maria-Alba mutter. ‘Cos’altro! Dio ci scampi e liberi!’

I had collected Cordelia from the television in the coal-hole and my hand was on the front door when Derek gave voice to several ear-splitting bars of painfully high notes, like an amateur Queen of the Night. I could hear Ophelia’s voice in the drawing room, though not what she was saying. I heard her laugh scornfully. Cordelia and I sat in the car with Sergeant Tweeter and I tried not to worry. Five minutes later Inspector Foy ran down the steps and got into the front passenger seat. ‘All right, Sergeant.’ He sounded almost savage. ‘Let’s not dawdle. We haven’t got all night.’

Cordelia and I exchanged glances. It seemed that Ophelia had, after all, won the encounter. I could detect anger in the tilt of the inspector’s head. Even the bristles on his neck seemed to express a contained fury. No one said anything until we drew up outside a massive, red-brick Victorian gateway that was closed to the world by giant wooden doors. The inspector showed something to the uniformed man at the wicket, who looked carefully at each of our faces before he pressed a button that opened the huge gates and waved us through.

We stood in the brilliantly lit courtyard and, selfishly, I wished myself far, far away. Our household gods, Beauty and Truth, were conspicuous by their absence. Lights shone between bars from curtainless windows in high walls. They illumined nothing but dirt and barrenness. A black van, with its engine running, filled the air with sickening fumes. Not a trace of starlight could penetrate the polluted haze that composed the square of dripping sky above. Not a skeleton leaf nor a straggling weed softened the concrete paving blocks below. Several men in shirtsleeves were brushing a tide of water towards gratings in the centre. I found out later that there were several details of prisoners appointed to this task throughout the day. The slop buckets in the cells, built for one man and occupied by three, were emptied in the mornings only. Not unreasonably the prisoners were unwilling to be confined at close quarters with a pail overflowing with excrement so they threw the contents out of the window. Truth, also, was reluctant to put in an appearance in this breeding ground of despondency. It seemed obvious to me that if one were weak, stupid or wicked before, one would undoubtedly be weaker, more stupid and more wicked after spending any length of time here.

Inside, the shiny green paint of the corridors reflected the neon lighting with a glare that made me blink. There was a reek of disinfectant laced with urine and sweat that overlaid the smell of boiled greens. Every ten yards or so we stopped and the prison officer who was leading the way unlocked a gate in a grille that barred our path, then fastened it again behind us. I kept my eyes on the floor, which someone had washed with a dirty mop, leaving streaks of grime. I dreaded to see an eye glaring through one of the square peepholes that were in every door. I felt sick with horror at the prisoners’ plight and at the same time I was afraid of them. Surely those who are imprisoned can only feel violent hatred for those who are free? I was close to tears but anxious not to alarm Cordelia, who was walking ahead of me, lugging her cake in a plastic carrier. I had a ridiculous longing to hold the inspector’s hand but, thanks to Ophelia, he too was an enemy. Just as I thought this, he turned to look at me, said, ‘Are you all right?’ and winked.

That brief instance of kindness was exactly what I needed. Panic subsided and I felt, if not calm, at least able to control myself. I was thankful that the door to the interview room was not locked. The idea of my brilliant, princely father caged, was intensely hurtful; I did not want to see it.

He was standing by the window. It took a moment to realise that it was he. He was still wearing the borrowed clothes, and his hair was fastened into a ponytail. But more unfamiliar than this was his demeanour. His shoulders drooped forward and his hands hung loosely by his sides. There was none of the élan that characterised his bearing. His face was grey and puffy.

‘Pa, darling.’ Cordelia went towards him, her arms held wide. ‘You look just like Sydney Carton.’ Several times during the journey I had regretted allowing Cordelia to come, afraid that it was too harrowing an experience for a child. Now I saw that the theatricality of her nature was just what was needed. Except for the ponytail Pa did not look in the least like Sydney Carton, but it was a happy thought and his face brightened. Cordelia took his hand, assumed a frightened expression and a French accent. ‘Citizen Évremonde, will you let me ’old your ’and? I am but a poor, leetle creature and it will give me ze courage.’ Then she looked at him and did a dramatic double take. ‘Sacrebleu! Zoot, alors! Do you die for ’im?’

‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’

‘Oh, you will let me ’old your ’and, oh brave, brave stranger?’

‘Hush! Yes, my poor child. To the last.’

‘Am I to keess you now? Is ze moment come?’

‘Yes. God bless you! Very soon we shall meet again in a better place than this. Go ahead of me. I shall follow swiftly.’

Sydney Carton took the little seamstress, alias Cordelia, in his arms and kissed her. Then she kneeled and extended her neck, her arms thrust out behind her with a professionalism acquired from the many films about Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Mary, Queen of Scots she had sobbed through at the Hippodrome, Blackheath.

My father kneeled in his turn and lifted his eyes to a vision of the future. ‘I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, prosperous and happy in that England which I shall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom that shall bear my name. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see that child who bears my name, a man. My name is made illustrious there by the light of him. I see the blots I threw on it faded away.’ He closed his eyes and his face became radiant. ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.’ He allowed his head to drop slowly forward.

I felt my throat tighten. I can’t ever read about Sydney Carton going to the guillotine without crying, and my father managed to get into his voice all the triumph and despair of that moment. He was, without doubt, truly a great actor. After he and Cordelia had embraced passionately I kissed his cheek more diffidently. I wished I was less inhibited. It wasn’t because I was more truthful, far from it. I was the only one of my family who was no good at acting and if I felt self-conscious there was nothing I could do to hide it.

We brought my father up to date on the condition of the family. I would have avoided any mention of Ronald Mason but Cordelia, to her credit, was not sophistical and blurted it out. Luckily my father was inclined to be condescending rather than jealous.

‘Poor Ronnie. It is loyal of the old war horse to muster to the sound of trumpets. You may not remember, Inspector, the only Bonnie Prince Charlie with a strong Irish brogue. Every housewife from Sunderland to Wimbledon longed to be Flora Macdonald nestling in Prince Charlie’s manly arms, crooning love songs into his lace jabot, crossing the sea to Skye against a purple sunset. The truth was less romantic. Apparently it was filmed in the studio pool with a wave machine but even so, poor Ronnie was sick as a dog.’

There is nothing so effective in the short-term as sneering at someone else to make one feel better about oneself. Pa seemed to recover his spirits a little.

Inspector Foy smiled. ‘I remember he was a great favourite with my mother. ‘Now, sir, one or two more questions, if you don’t mind. I understand from Mr Sickert-Greene that you want to appeal against committal and change your plea to not guilty.’

‘Of course I didn’t do it! No one but a simpleton could imagine that I, Waldo Byng, am capable of murder! Sickert-Greene made a hopeless mull of it in court this morning. What on earth made him plead guilty but insane? Do I look crazy?’ Pa inflated his chest and narrowed his nostrils, as though indignation and insanity were mutually incompatible. ‘He actually believes I did it! I can’t think why I go on employing that silly old fool.’

The reason was because old Sickly Grin was a fearful intellectual snob. No ancient rabbi daring to pronounce the forbidden name of Yahweh could have looked more awe-stricken than Sickly Grin when he uttered the sacred moniker of Shakespeare. His voice dropped along with his several chins and even his knees appeared to bend in their Savile Row trousers. He was prepared to look after my father’s interests for practically nothing so he could boast of his intimacy with Waldo Byng, the great Shakespearean actor.

‘Mm.’ The inspector got out his pipe and stroked the bowl tenderly. He had nice square, strong-looking hands. ‘If I may say so, sir, I think it was a mistake to tell the chief magistrate that he was as guilty as you were of the murder.’

My father laughed bitterly. ‘The fellow’s a philistine. When I gave him the speech from Measure for Measure where Isabella pleads for Claudio’s life, he went as red as fire and started to gobble.’ My father began to recite. ‘“Man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As makes the angels weep.”’

‘It was the angry ape that annoyed him, I think.’ The inspector’s expression was reproachful and I believed, then, that he wanted my father not to be guilty. Pa looked sulky and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Well.’ The inspector seemed to have packed his pipe with tobacco to his apparent satisfaction. ‘It’s too late to worry about that. Let’s look again at the question of motive. Who might have wanted Sir Basil dead? The most common motive for homicide is sexual jealousy.’ He sucked wistfully at his unlit pipe but my father was unmoved. ‘Somebody discovers his or her other half’s been unfaithful and there’s a violent reaction. The killing’s unpremeditated. Those cases are relatively straightforward. Sir Basil’s housekeeper says he rarely went out and had no close friendships with either sex, as far as she knows. We can’t exclude sexual jealousy entirely but at the moment it seems unlikely. Having looked at Sir Basil’s will, I’m sure it wasn’t money.’ Inspector Foy stopped, looked at his pipe with something like disgust and thrust it into his pocket. ‘Let’s consider more complex motives – killings intended to protect some discreditable secret, for example. Blackmailers get bumped off because their victim can’t or won’t go on paying out. Since the legalisation of homosexuality, this sort of crime is on the decline. Was Sir Basil the kind of man who might hold other men to account for their sins or indulge in a little gentle blackmail?’

‘I should say there was no man less likely to do such a thing.’ Pa looked amused at the idea. ‘He wasn’t interested in other people. He was much too self-absorbed. But you could say that of most actors.’ It was evident that Pa considered himself an exception.

Inspector Foy selected a pencil from the pen tray on the table, took a penknife from his pocket and began to make a fine point. Balked of his pipe, he needed another focus for his attention. I wondered whether this was a ploy to soothe the nerves of his suspects and distract them into making damning confessions. I dismissed at once the idea that he might be jittery himself. The inspector was almost monumentally calm as he smiled at Cordelia, then at me. The situation seemed quite unreal. We might have been discussing the plot of a film.

‘So we’re left with a mixed bag of motives – let’s call it personal animosity. This includes everything from disputes between neighbours rowing over the height of a hedge to professional jealousy.’

Pa looked scornful. ‘I can assure you that Basil’s small talents were insufficient to make me lose a moment’s sleep.’

‘All right. But I have to examine even the remotest possibilities. I’ve interviewed every member of the cast. They all described your relationship with Sir Basil Wintergreen as being – well, the mildest expression was “competitive”. Apparently there was no love lost.’

‘My dear Inspector, it is clear you know nothing of the theatre. All actors are toxically jealous and grudging of others’ success. Sometimes friendships survive despite it. Often there is unqualified dislike and contempt. But never, as far as I know, does it lead to murder. Sooner or later, along comes a critic who will do one’s dirty work far more effectively. Now look here. I’ve had enough of this. I’ve gone along with things pretty well, I think, but I’d like to go home now. This is a ghastly place, quite unfit for even a hardened criminal. Get me out of here, will you?’

‘It’s not as simple as that, sir. The law moves slowly. It has to, to avoid making mistakes.’

‘But I didn’t do it!’ There was something like panic in Pa’s voice. Cordelia leaned against him and tucked her hand through his arm. He patted it absently.

‘There was something else, wasn’t there, that came out at this morning’s hearing? Something which Harriet won’t know about.’ The inspector frowned at a notice instructing anyone who cared to read it that all articles of furniture, stationery and crockery were the property of HM Prison Services and removal of ANY item would be counted as theft. ‘Evidence that, when combined with your fingerprints on the only possible weapon, would have made any bench in the land decide to commit you for trial, regardless of the plea entered. Let’s run over it again, just in case there’s something we haven’t thought of. Do you remember passing anyone as you went on stage to rehearse the putting out of your eyes?’

Pa looked impatient. ‘Must we? I went through it all in court. I’m sick of talking about it.’ The inspector folded his arms and gave my father the look he had given Ophelia – a firming of the lips and a drawing together of the eyebrows. It was surprisingly effective. ‘Oh, all right,’ said Pa very grumpily. ‘You know perfectly well that Sandra was there, with Gemma, the wardrobe mistress. And there was a blonde girl, probably another understudy. New, anyway. Not bad-looking. A bit flat-chested. Can’t remember her name. They were chatting together. Sandra was leaning against the cyclorama –’

‘That’s the curved wall at the back of the stage?’

‘Yes.’

‘But they couldn’t actually see the stage itself from there?’

‘Not unless they had X-ray eyes. The backcloth was down. What I didn’t tell the magistrates was that Sandra leaned forward as I went by, so I accidentally brushed against her breasts. They all twittered like starlings.’ Pa smiled as though the memory was an agreeable one. The inspector continued to run the blade of his knife up and down the lead of his pencil as though nothing was so important to him as getting the point needle-sharp.

‘You went on from stage left?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? Stage right was more accessible. You wouldn’t have needed to go round the back.’

‘I told them in court … Oh, all right.’ Pa sighed and continued with exaggerated emphasis as though speaking to someone of limited understanding. ‘There was an A-frame trolley stacked with flats carelessly parked at stage right, blocking the wings.’

‘No one could have got on to the stage that side?’

‘Not without an element of risk. Those trolleys are notoriously unstable. Full of flats, the weight is enough to kill a man.’

‘Sandra says that just before the murder she went on to the stage to retrieve her knitting. Sir Basil was on the stage, running through some lines. She remembers this clearly because he glared at her as though she had no right to be there and she was annoyed. She’s quite certain he was alone. A minute or two later you came along. She says she remembers that because you smiled at her and pinched her – cheek.’

‘I may have done.’ Pa put on his supercilious face. ‘If you mean I squeezed her behind, I probably did. These things mean nothing in the theatre.’

‘No one else passed them, either entering or leaving the stage. The next thing anyone remembers is hearing you shout. They ran on stage to find you kneeling by the body.’ The inspector looked at me. ‘You see the inference the court was bound to draw from that?’

The blade of the knife slipped and the point of the pencil snapped. I felt the hair on my scalp rise. I would have taken Pa’s other hand but he was smoothing his hair with his palm as though comforting himself.