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Claire thanked us for our attendance and excused herself for the
rude necessity of leaving, but she had to hasten to join Cyril for
the drive to the Royal Academy, where a glittering banquet in
his honour was in the offing, the Prince ofWales and the Prime
Minister being among the guests. Perhaps needless to say, I and
the other witnesses to Cyril's assumption of lordship had not
been invited.
On the other hand . . . There arrived this morning by courier
from Dibblethwaite a carefully wrapped package from Lord
Entwistle and an accompanying note from his lady. The note
said simply, 'Cyril thought you might want this. Best, Claire.'
'This', when unwrapped, turned out to be an exquisite pencil
drawing of Saskia, a nude, but a nude of the young Saskia, the
beautiful Saskia, as she had looked when I had first seen her at
a London party years and years ago. It was a miracle of draughts-
manship, drawn in the manner and in imitation of Ingres, with
Saskia in the pose of an unclothed 'Madame d'Haussonville', but
with an expression on her face that mischievously hinted at erotic
delight. Cyril had signed it. I turned the sheet over. He had
written there Miss Saskia Tarnopol, Chelsea, 1968, C. F. The ini-
tials, I knew, stood for Cyrillus fecit, a private joke: he used them
only with reference to the models he'd slept with.
212
Cyril was quite right, of course. I did 'want this'. I more than
wanted it; I was overwhelmed at the thought of possessing it.
Its possession fed a thousand fantasies, for in possessing her
youthful likeness I felt that I had possessed her when, as the poet
says, the youthful hue sat on her skin like morning dew. My eyes
actually teared. But Cyril was a sly old dog; his good deed was
surely intended to punish. How had he managed to bed her at
a time when she was so very much in love with Terence Addo,
the student from Ghana, 'the black Adonis'? How is it that she
gave no hint that she had met Cyril years before, when first I
had mentioned his name to her in the Reform Club, that time
when she and the divorcing Stan were taking a holiday in London
from life's complications; or when, many years later, she and I
had stood before the portrait of Polly Kops in Connecticut? And
when was it that Cyril had understood that Saskia meant some-
thing to me? Obviously, his generous gift was intended, mini-
mally, to assert that he had fucked her before me. But had he?
Was this another of his games with the historical record? Had
he simply added her face, taken perhaps from a photograph, to
the body of one of his Dibblethwaite models? Were the notes
on the drawing's verso merely persiflage?
Ordinary politeness required that I now get in touch with
Cyril. Perhaps that was all to the good. In the very act of thanking
him I might be able to winkle out an answer or two to some
of my questions. Or so I thought. I decided to wait until the
weekend before making my duty call. By then I hoped I would
have worked out my approach. How stupid it all seems now!
What hubris to suppose I could enter a game of his choosing
with a master player, one who made up the rules as he went
along!
In the event, I was too late. Cyril had already won the game.
The phone in Dibblethwaite was answered by Aggie, Claire's
daily. Her voice was trembly, but emboldened by her excitement
213
at the honour of being the chosen messenger, the necessary con-
veyor of grim news. His lordship had been taken poorly, proper
poorly, in the morning on his way to the loo. Collapsed, he had.
By the time she, Aggie, had arrived, bang on eight, her ladyship
was sitting in the back of an ambulance with Lord Entwisde
stretched out, the ambulance all but ready to leave. They were
off to the Leeds Royal Infirmary according to the driver. "E was
a right old geezer, was 'is lordship. You 'ad to laff.' Aggie man-
aged a sobbing chuckle. 'Said woonce 'e wanted t'paint my pri-
vates. "What!" I said, playing along, like. "You never want me to
pose in the nude! Oh, you wicked, wicked old man!" "Not pose,
Aggie," says 'e. "Just want to paint your privates. Any colour you
like, red, yellow, blue." 'E was a scream, 'e was, could-a been on
the telly. WeD, 'e was, wontee?'
I asked Aggie to leave a note saying that I'd called, that I'd
heard the news and that I would phone again in the evening.
Then I phoned the Leeds Royal Infirmary, but was given no
useful information at all. Lord Entwistle had been admitted, was
resting comfortably, was not allowed visitors (other than Lady
Entwisde, who was with him) and must not be disturbed.
It was eleven that night before I got through to Claire. She
sounded tired, but her voice was calm. Cyril had suffered a mas-
sive stroke, and by this afternoon he had slipped into a coma.
There was no reason to hope, and she had none. The Age of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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