The House of Storms Page 6

  ‘It’s well after one o’clock now, greatgrandmistress. I most deeply regret that I simply won’t be able to process this duplicate retrieval form until we reopen tomorrow morning …’ In fact, the churches and clocks of Bristol were still busily bong-ing the hour, but this uppermaster, who was supposedly in charge of lost mail in Invercombe’s postal district, was well into his sandwiches when she was shown into his office. The little room stank of potted meat, and apparently it was standard practice here for all of what were referred without any apparent conscious irony as public services to take half days on a roster which she suspected was entirely designed to confuse. The uppermaster twirled his carousel of rubber stamps. He touched—and she really wished that he wouldn’t, with those greasy fingers—the duplicate yellow sheets which she’d laboured to have created. Why did he stay here at all, if the place was closing? But she understood guild etiquette. This uppermaster was a sleeve-garter wearer, a wielder of those rubber stamps. It was no use asking him to wade amid catacombs filled with lost post. Anyway, he’d be useless at it. Sighing, still just about smiling, she left him to his lunch, and the empty post office halls to their pigeons.

  Outside in the sunlit city, the odours of food mingled with old stone, bad drains, the frank reek of the open public urinals that the men here—and staring over the top at you—seemed suspiciously happy to use. The improbable buildings shouldered up to each other and the trams rattled high overhead and the people bustled, the affluent guildsmistresses mostly in fur coats of such nap and floss that Alice wondered if she shouldn’t be feeling cold in her own thinner attire. But it was all for display, just like those incredible glassed-in balconies of billowing coralstone which leaned out from the first floors of houses, where you could see and be seen without the bother of ever getting your shoes dirtied. London, for all its clamour, seemed orderly by comparison, and she missed the certainties of its wide thoroughfares. After Lichfield, after Dudley, after all the many adjustments which she had had to make in her life, Alice liked to think of herself as flexible, but she had to confess that Bristol and the entire west were still taking her by surprise.

  She found a cake shop with huge, gravity-defying constructions of spun sugar and whipped cream piled in its windows and went inside and waited, as even greatgrandmistresses must sometimes wait, to be served. The till was a huge instrument, incredibly polished, ringing up each purchase with showy glee, and then there was all the business of wrapping and a fuss over receipts, which were written by hand with tongue-extruding attention, and thumbed into several copies. Alice tried not to remember the duplicate forms at the post office. When it was finally time for her to be served, and once she had made herself understood to the strangely spoken assistant, she chose six individual cream tartlets.

  Although it was nothing like as warm here as at Invercombe, many Bristolians were taking lunch in the cathedral square, and, as Alice found a bench beside a tall perilinden tree which was just starting to unfold its silver leaves, she had to admit that there was plenty to see. There were Spaniards and Frenchmen, whom you might notice in London as well, but never quite looking this at home, and many Negroes, and a spidery familiar dancing to a hurdy-gurdy, and glimpses of ships beyond buildings, and the clamour of gulls. As certain as she had ever been in a public place that no one was watching her, Alice laid her cakebox on the bench and unpicked its knot and extracted six glace cherries from their pinnacles of cream. A squirrel slipped down from the perilinden tree and took the offered cherries from her fingers. It nibbled them with a calm delicacy which suggested it had been fed from expensive cake-boxes before, then washed its whiskers and hopped away. Alice unfurled the grease paper package from the pocket of her coat and arranged the six newly Ted hellebore berries, which looked even brighter and more luscious, in their place on the tartlets. Retying the package, she headed gaily towards Brandon Hill, where Grandmistress Celia Raithby lived.

  Alice supposed this business of getting to know people in the west had been unavoidable. She had been to a dance where flocks of ugly children had been allowed to eat and drink with the adults, then to vomit copiously across the parquet. She’d taken dinner with the dashing (or so he thought himself) Master-Enforcer Cornelius Scutt, who pomaded his grey sideburns and thought himself good with the ladies even though he was covered in age spots and was past seventy if he was a day. Doctor and Doctress Foot and the Reverend-Highermaster Humphry Brown, whom she’d thought she shooed away from Invercombe, had also circled and settled back again with the persistence of flies. It was all still somewhat irritating, but Alice knew, as she eyed the tall stalagmite grotto of the frontage of 28 Charlotte Street, that webs of duty and obligation fanned from here in Bristol all the way back through her life.

  She wasn’t quite sure when she’d first encountered Grand-mistress Celia Raithby here in the west, but had come to detect something beyond dumb friendliness in the grandmistress’s manner during a recent afternoon soiree in the green rooms at Hotwells, which she still hadn’t been able to get to the root of until Celia beckoned her away beneath the privacy of a leaning palm.

  ‘So, so nice that us two girls are living close to each other now,’ the woman had cooed.’ Greatgrandmistress. Or perhaps I should say—’ And she really had said this, fluttering her fan and expanding her bejewelled décolletage, for she looked the sort to read cheap romantic novels. ‘—plain old Alice Bowdly!’

  Even then, it still hadn’t all come back to Alice. After all, Cheryl Kettlethorpe had been as thin as this creature was fat, and it had all been a long time ago.

  ‘Don’t you remember, that pact we made as we sat beside Stow Pool?’

  Of course, there had been no pact, but the likes of Celia—or Cheryl, as she now remembered—always liked to wrap up their demands in paddings of coy sentiment.

  ‘We won’t talk about it now. Not here, eh? But I think we girls should get together and have a proper chat. Oh, don’t look so worried, dear …’ She’d tapped her nose in that way which westerners liked doing. ‘I’m the absolute byword for discretion.’

  Now, Alice inspected the tiled surround of the front arch for something resembling a bell pull. All she could find was what looked like a brass cheese grater. She pressed the button beneath it, and was somewhat startled when a metallic approximation of Celia’s voice crackled back at her.

  ‘Do come in.’ Something went thunk. The big door drifted open. ‘Across the hall and you’ll see a lift. Take it to the top floor…’

  A lift—in a private house? But this was the modern Age, and Bristol was awash with electricity from the big dam at Clifton. The hall was all stars and moons, with glimpses through doorways of blotchy red furniture, and more of that cake shop marble. Unless this was all some immense bluff, Celia really had done as well for herself as she liked to pretend. Unnervingly, the lift clattered up beyond the top of the house into greater light, and Alice stepped warily out on to what she supposed was the roof, and was hit by a tempest of colour.

  ‘There you are!’ Celia Raithby beckoned Alice from an armchair. ‘You’ve brought something for me!’

  ‘Just a few cakes.’ Alice laid the box on a glass table and shrugged off her coat and sat down and waited for her senses to finish reeling. The place was roofed with a tracery set with thousands of panes of multicoloured glass. Beyond, shifting with every slight movement of her head, lay a fragmented Bristol.

  ‘I’m so glad I bought this house,’ Celia sighed. ‘This rooftop’s such a comfort to me. The plantsmasters bring me their latest creations before they’re made available to the public at large.’

  There were white, dew-brimming, bowl-shaped flowers big enough to wash your face in. Lanternflowers glowed like brands. ‘Doesn’t it get a little hot here in summer?’

  ‘Oh, no. All the glass is hydraulically removable. We’re not quite as backward here in the west as you easterners think …’

  ‘And that device on the door?’

  ‘Imagine, to be able to talk to someone at
a distance, and then just to hear their voice and no need to worry about whether you’ve just done your face. I understand the principle could work at longer range as well.’ Celia chuckled. ‘Just think, the whole world could be chattering away to each other whenever it wanted, instead of us fortunate few with our mirrors and telephone booths. But that would never do, would it?’

  Alice had to agree that it probably wouldn’t. She’d already gained a rough idea of the route Cheryl Kettlethorpe had taken to get to be Grandmistress Celia Raithby, and now she heard a lot more. Twice married and twice widowed, victor of several of expensive lawsuits against aggrieved relatives, Celia was certainly a fighter, although she hid that as well now as had the giggly young girl whom Alice had once encountered parading the streets of Lichfield in search of needy men. Sex had been the major currency then, and there had been far less flimflam about it, but Celia still seemed to see life in much the same way.

  ‘My husbands, poor things, frankly weren’t up to much in that department. And there was never the faintest chance of my staying as slim and petite as you still are, my darling. I can read my seamstress’s measuring tape as well as the next woman.’ She gave her motherly cleavage a pat. ‘Secretly, most men yearn for a little extra meat on the bone, even if they’re not always quite sure what to do with it. When I saw you, I thought—that’s my old friend Alice Bowdly! But then, it can’t be—because she hasn’t changed! How do you do it, darling?’

  Alice opened her mouth to say something about a strict diet, exercise, discipline, but Celia was already jingling her bracelets.

  ‘Whatever it is, I couldn’t possibly manage it. I’m weak as water when it comes to anything nice. And are there or are there not cakes in that box?’

  The box fanned out, exhaling scents of sweetness and things dairy.

  ‘We should have a drink as well.’ Celia waddled over to a large, softly humming cabinet. Inside were glasses, bottles, trays. Popped, glugged out and fizzing, the wine added its own sweetness to the already cloying air. The wine had the colour of urine, and somehow hinted at the same scent. Here in Bristol, you were never far away from the pissoir. The bottle, Alice noticed, bore no label. Neither had the wine at the dances, and even some she’d inspected in Invercombe’s own cellars. What, she decided to ask Celia, was the problem in the west? Was there a shortage of paper and glue because of all the stupid forms and receipts they so favoured? Were the Spaniards and the French ashamed of their produce?

  ‘Celia, who’d been avidly studying the cakes on the table, sat back with a look of near surprise dimpling her face. ‘You really haven’t heard of the small trade?’

  ‘No.’ Irritating though this woman was, this wasn’t the time to pretend to know things she didn’t. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Well, there’s a question and a half…’ Celia grew almost thoughtful for a few moments. Unspoken phrases played across her nimble red lips. ‘It’s a question of… As a matter of fact, it’s quite hard to say exactly… But there are rules, aren’t there? Silly rules—especially as regards the payment of revenue. Not that we shouldn’t all pay our taxes. But there are limits, aren’t there? After all, the rules wouldn’t be so ridiculous in the first place if they didn’t expect us to bend them…’

  Slowly at first, then quickly, the fog was clearing. ‘You mean this wine is contraband?’

  ‘Alice!’ Celia looked as if she was about to lean across the table and slap her wrist. ‘You do have the most unfortunate way of putting things. Take a piece of advice from me and simply think of it as the small trade.’

  Alice nodded. As was often the case, the euphemism told you far more about the subject than did any more direct phrase.

  ‘Where to begin?’ Celia’s fingers danced across the tartlets. She glanced back towards Alice. ‘But I think you should have first pick.’

  Alice reached towards the vermicelli and angelica-flecked construction nearest to her, but a quick manoeuvre by Celia’s doll-like hands presented her with the one furthest away. ‘I’m sure this looks the nicest.’

  Alice studied the baleful glare of the hellebore-cherry, then began, with cautious adjustments, and without the help of a spoon or a napkin, to consume it.

  ‘All that rubbish about self-denial, eh?’ Celia scooped up a tartlet from the middle row and ate it with licks and nibbles and small gasps of pleasure. ‘You’ve done so well,’ she murmured through a full mouth. ‘I mean, I’m just a twice-bereaved widow, a mere grandmistress. But you’re the greatgrandmistress of one of the major guilds. Yet you bear it all so lightly. And you have a family as well. Or at least a son, although I hear the poor lad’s not quite as well as he might be. But all those houses! All that wealth! And such influence! You really must—oh, and this is just so delicious—tell me everything about it.’

  Between sticky bites, Alice did her best to keep up her side of the conversation, but the fact was that Celia wasn’t interested in any subject but herself, and then how she and Alice were so alike, and what great friends they might be, and how they might now depend on each other. It was true, Alice inwardly conceded, that the disclosure of their mutual origins might cause Celia some harm, but not that much. Not with her husbands both dead and her life established here in the west, where the only standards were double ones. Alice, on the other hand, was still building her life. It was a work in progress. Of course, she’d been lax in not recognising the grossly changed Cheryl Kettlethorpe in Celia sooner, but at the same time she could detect no obvious desire for straightforward blackmail in this woman’s florid manner. After all, she looked blissfully content here, surrounded by giant blooms and stuffing herself with tartlets. Did she really need any more money and status? More likely, she was somewhat lonely amid all the possessions she’d grasped from her dead husbands. Her desire for friendship, and with that extra frisson of a secret shared with a greatgrandmistress, was probably genuine. But Alice knew how these things went. Something always came up. Little favours. Even—for, on second thoughts, no one ever had quite enough of the stuff—straightforward requests for money. All of it couched in the usual this-is-what-friends-do-for-each-other banalities when underneath both sides knew that a knife was being held to your throat. She forced herself through a second tartlet in the certain knowledge that Celia would finish off the rest, pretended to take another sip of the dreadful wine, then asked if she might possibly be excused?

  Alice extended the excursion by peering around doors and down stairwells, but it seemed as if Celia really had emptied the house of servants. Inside the palatial toilet, she vomited up the tartlets. The two hellebore berries, which she’d swallowed entire like fat pills, required several flushes and a wodge of toilet paper to sink. Heading back for the rooftop after rinsing her mouth and face, Alice really did feel cleansed. Her plans had assumed that she would consummate her spell several hours and many miles away, but now she was curious …

  Celia was on her fourth and final tartlet, and the last red berry had already vanished into her cream-smeared mouth, when Alice sat down again.

  ‘So we really are totally alone here?’

  Celia sucked a blob of cream from her index finger. ‘But there’s no need for all this secrecy, Alice. I’d never tell a soul. In a way, you know, you remind me of my Clive. Did I mention that he was my second husband … ?’

  And off she went again. Me, me, me. That particular husband had acquired his wealth from what she termed a colonial estate, which Alice knew meant enslavement under the burning sun for thousands of Negroes just so there could be enough sugar to keep the likes of Celia fat. It was all so typical of this city which lay around her, fragmented beyond the glass like the tipped pieces of a jigsaw. The notices on walls advertising bear-baiting and gargoyle fights. The coffee-coloured complexions of so many of the servants, and even lesser guildsmen, which told their own story. The ostentatious piety. The rampant bureaucracy. The small trade. Of course, it was all part of the rich pageant of which this great nation was composed, but, as she sat listenin
g to Celia, summoning the white anger for the spell she was about to cast required little effort. Yes, she would stay at Invercombe and put up with as much as was necessary until Ralph was finally better, but she decided that there was something essentially rotten about the west.

  ‘Sorry … ?’ Celia licked glittering crumbs from the edges of her lips. ‘Didn’t quite catch that.’

  ‘Just shut up and listen for a moment, will you, Celia? I want to make absolutely sure that I get this right.’

  Celia perched her fingertips on her knees and leaned forward in her chair.

  Alice took a breath. She cleared her throat. She felt almost self-conscious. The spell was guttural and arcane.

  ‘Well … ?’ Clearly puzzled, Celia sat back. ‘I don’t quite see … ?’

  ‘It really doesn’t matter now, Celia.’

  ‘Hmm …’ Celia tilted her ample neck as if considering whether she agreed. Then, almost imperceptibly at first, she started shaking. ‘Hmm …’ But now the sound was an animal one, wrenched from her throat.

  Alice stood up. Celia was juddering, her hands clenching her chest and belly as if striving to rip out the source of whatever was happening to her. Her gaze, as her eyes bulged and her face paled beneath all the layers of make-up, roamed the flowers and the glass and the furniture. She let out a groan, and weird, luminously wyreglowing vomit pooled across her lap and bosom. She made to rise, but her legs weren’t up to it and she keeled through the glass table, which sprayed in shards around her. Alice took a step back as Celia lay juddering in the wreckage and the characteristic Bristol smell of piss and faeces began to flood the rooftop air. Celia half rolled over through the glass, and blood also bloomed as the convulsions began to subside.