Carnforth's Creation (6 page)

As she burst into the marquee, he was speaking into a cabaret microphone, apologising for ‘a stupid joke’. He had known nothing in advance, and would never have engaged “Fogg’s Portable Freak Show” had he been wise to such inanity. His announcement was marred by the distant trilling of an ambulance bell, and the persistent laughter of a
minority
of the younger guests. Almost weeping with relief, Eleanor sat down on the nearest gilded chair to try to compose herself before joining Paul at their table.

*

When Lord Carnforth had first invited him to perform at Castle Delvaux, Roy Flannery had been in two minds about accepting. Too close to ‘singing for his supper’ for a kick-off, and it’d also been on the cards he was being asked along so Paul could ‘amuse’ his friends with his own house-trained pop singer. But since Paul had finally started leaning on Exodus to push his solo career, Roy hadn’t thought it wise to play hard to get. Rich punters could shop around, and if Paul did that, Roy reckoned his chances of making it, with his track record, would be on a par with a spastic’s for winning Wimbledon.

Being at Delvaux, hadn’t been much fun so far. Every time Lady Eleanor talked to him, he felt he was being inspected; not nastily, but as if she was frantic to see something in him, which she’d heard was there, but could never get a glimpse of however hard she looked. Paul got under his skin in a different way; one moment socking him with the whole upper class bit – reserved, polished, blasé; the next, turning it upside down with a kind of don’t-be-fooled-by-anything grin, that came and went so sodding fast he wasn’t always sure he’d seen it. Even when he’d sussed out that Paul wasn’t so much giving a party as pulling in an audience to fuck around with, he hadn’t felt much better about him.
Something
fairly creepy about lashing out on pop, as an ‘up yours’ gesture to the silver-spoon-suckers he’d grown up with. And with him being a marquess, they’d probably all line up afterwards, asking for more millionaire’s pranks when he could spare the time.

Half-an-hour before he was due to sing, Roy had left the marquee to take a look at what was going to listen to him. The kind of crowd that’d make a gala performance line-up look like the studio audience in a regional heat of
Come
Dancing,
was ambling towards him at garden party pace. Then
suddenly
he’d been on the edge of a fantastic war movie. Flashes, explosions, enough smoke to hide a battleship, and, after some very uncool screams, lots of elegant folk pelting
towards
the tent like it was the last boat at Dunkirk. After that the tussle on the tower. A set-up job, but good enough to fool
plenty in the state they were in. It’d certainly done lots to her ladyship, who’d gone galloping down the course like a Derby winner.

Next a calm interval, while those who hadn’t sloped off home (and do them credit, most of them hadn’t) sat down to have their nosh: no rubbish either, lobster, caviare, four star hotel stuff. Then up on the roof of the tent Roy had seen a film flickering, no sound, but just about every famous film kiss any pundit had clapped eyes on: Valentino, Flynn, Lana Turner, Presley, on and on. One thing in common: people getting it together with their lips. ‘At some point (he didn’t see the exact moment) the film speeded up and changed. Famous boxing knock-outs; this time people knocking hell out of each other’s faces. Lots of recent footage in colour; plenty of blood and yuck, and sound coming through now: thump, spludge, and getting louder. And all the time, guests trying to chew their lobster thermidor. Bad taste on a scale that made Lord Paul a piss-artist in a class of his own.

Roy already knew the act before him, but hadn’t realized how it would come over. After the boxing, music by Mozart, though the cabaret stage was too dark to see the musicians. Then on with the lights, strobes and coloured spots. The players were kitted-out in the kind of freaky face-paints worn by the Stones for
Jumping
Jack
Flash.
They were playing straight, but moving round like the sexiest act in town, helped by three birds in swimsuits crooning into a mike; not quite the Swingle Singers, but not far behind. Whether Paul was blasting the black tie image of classical performers, or having a go at pop overkill, Roy couldn’t tell. Either way it was funny, which the next ‘entertainment’ wasn’t – though it was plenty else.

A screen was pulled aside to reveal a middle-aged actor and actress, eating posh, while a butler and a maid grovelled around. Both diners were fat, and wore nothing but corsets and pants. And sodding silly they looked; flabby oldies, acting grand in their undies. The woman was specially good at guying the milady’s charm and grace, which money seemed to make the ugliest old bags think they could carry
off. Roy had seen plenty in the marquee.

As the maid was serving something, an actor in a gorilla suit sprang out from behind some ferns and seized her. Hobbling to the rescue, the butler got a knee in the groin for his troubles. As the gorilla started ripping off the maid’s clothes, Lord and Lady Fatgut sat scoffing as before. When the butler made a last effort to stop the girl losing more than her knickers, the guzzling gent looked up, took on board what was happening, and floored the old geezer so that the ape could finish the job. Seeing her almost in the nude, the gent grabbed a gun from under the table, blasted the gorilla, and flung himself on the girl. His wife went on stuffing herself. End of mini-drama. Blackout.

Roy reckoned a critic might just be thick enough to think the ape was Fatgut’s repressed sex drive, and the maid a wanker’s day-dream, but he hadn’t reckoned on anyone else taking it seriously after the knockabout ending. Paul should have kept it straight and lethal. But maybe he’d missed something, because people were actually leaving. Barracking and booing too. Amazing.

But Roy didn’t have time to look around, being on next. Not an ideal scene, singing with taped backing, in fact bloody dire, but he’d said he’d do it. A moment later, Paul was dragging him by the arm, frantic to get things moving, before the whole guest-list voted with their feet. Since he was due to sing several of his rawest blues numbers, Roy guessed he could blot out the catcalls.

It was like being in limbo; a nightmare so horrible she would
have
to wake up soon. But Eleanor knew she would not wake up. Paul had talked about making fantasies real, and was doing it. What was happening was so ruthless and grotesque that to describe it as an outrage against good manners would be like calling murder nasty. Watching people like the Fernleighs and the Darlingtons leaving their tables, hearing shouts of ‘disgraceful’, ‘rubbish’, and worse, Eleanor drifted into regions so far from her ordinary
comprehension
that normal emotions were impossible.

Peculiar lights again, drenching everything in violet.
People rushing across the cabaret stage, some in striped tights, some in wigs, some in unlaced corsets; gesturing and gibbering, like lunatics on a spree. She shut her eyes, and the insane procession seemed to pierce her lids. Bruno’s soothing voice was telling her Paul was a latterday Restoration rake sneering at gentility in the name of aristocratic pleasure; though he was trying to help, she felt irrational fury. How could explanations have any bearing? ‘Go away,’ she heard a choked voice, utterly unlike her own.

The purple had vanished, the dancers too; now a steady spot held Roy Flannery in a goldfish bowl of light. Robbed of resistance, Eleanor observed his stillness and concentration. Like an athlete before a race, she thought vacantly. Against a background of faint chords, she heard him mumble
inaudibly
(the title of a song?); the chords grew louder; then one of the loudest most anguished screams she had ever heard, ‘Bay-bay-bay-ay-ay-ay-ay-beh!’, rising to a searing metallic whine, then dying to a hoarse whisper, ‘Whyyyyyiiii do ya treat me so bad? Don’ I deserve no consideration for the times we ha-a-a-a-d?’ A banal theme, endlessly repeated, soft at first, but building slowly to a climax as loud and feverish as the opening. A voice that grated at times like a rusty hinge, that ached, then warbled softly. At times the rhythm
battered
her, at others, unaccountably, she experienced an odd frisson, as if a feather were brushing her spine. And Paul was taking up this young man, meaning to change him. But whyyyiiii? The question echoed with the song. Because Paul was too obsessed with originality to do anything ambitious on his own account? Preferring instead to make others do things for him? An artist …
working
on Roy … she couldn’t place the words, but remembered them; just as she recalled Roy’s defence of his opinions. But wasn’t that Paul’s way,
delighting
in difficulty, valuing nothing won without a struggle? Marrying
her
… doing
this
:
inviting resistance so he could crush it. But if she fought; if Roy tore up his contract; if Paul’s fantasies failed?

The music was still hammering, Roy’s voice soaring above it, skimming its surface, plunging under; and whether it was
in response to the sound, or relief to have an aim, she did not know, but she was seeing Roy through a mist of tears. He was standing very still, one leg thrown back, his body twisted; almost as if he were chained, yet striving to break free. The impression, though strong, was short-lived, for with the song’s ending, he stepped casually aside, swept the mike from its stand, and began a pretty song that sounded like a hundred others.

*

Shortly after midnight, Matthew and Bridget were walking back towards the house. Of the original three or four
hundred
guests, only a handful had stayed on to enjoy the increasingly licentious atmosphere. Before the night was out, Matthew expected there to be nude swimming, nude donkey races (he had heard positively that there would be donkey races of some sort), and much unpremeditated coupling among the shrubs. As if it mattered, he thought idly, feeling drunkenly detached. The evening had been a preposterous squandering of money and talent; perverse, vulgar, a little silly, but … admit it, brave, funny; maybe at times
unforgettable
. No reason at all for people who read newspapers every day, gulping down atrocities with their coffee, to rush home in a rage. For the first time in years he felt admiration for Paul. The scent of flowers, the night air, and Bridget’s even temper all added to his benevolence.

‘Matty?’ he heard her murmur.

‘Mm.’

‘I want you to think hard before you say anything.’

‘I’m not sure if I can think at all.’

Her silence slid like a shadow across his sunny mood.

‘Paul wants to give us something,’ she said at last, working hard to convey enthusiasm and reassurance. ‘A picture actually.’

The band in the marquee had started to play hits from the Forties and early Fifties; Matthew could hear the bouncy strains of
Buttons
and
Bows
echoing across the gardens. In the distance he could see a group of guests staggering drunkenly, ignored by a passing waiter.

Matthew said, ‘If Paul wants to change my life with an absent-minded gesture he can …’ The right phrase would not come.

‘He
can,
of course he can,’ cried Bridget.

‘He can piss off, is what I meant.’

‘I thought you might say that.’ Her voice was quiet but harsh. ‘I’m not sure that he need “piss off” as you elegantly put it, because … I think I’m going to accept it.’ An unexpected sob forced its way between her lips. ‘Why do you have to be so impossible, Matty? Why read anything bad into such incredible generosity?’

‘You think you can take something worth what … a few thousands anyway. Take it without obligation?’

‘
I
can’t make films for him,’ she replied. ‘You’re not involved.’

‘But when you sell it? When we move house?’

‘What would that mean to him?’ she wailed.

‘To him?’ he gasped. ‘I’m talking about what it’d mean to
me
.’

Suddenly she was clutching his lapels, tugging violently. ‘And what about
me
? Is my integrity going to save the world? Why should I be saddled with your hypocrisy …?’ She pushed him away. ‘Fine for you to screw around and think that’s nothing if you’re fighting for the poor, the starving, the …’

Matthew had reached the lower steps of the terrace, and was still running, when it occurred to him that Paul could still be in the marquee; could be in so many places that he might as well sit down and cool off before going on looking. Head in hands, he heard the band launch into
Mountain
Greenery.

*

‘You’re being ridiculous, Elly,’ Paul told his wife as she hurried down the great oak staircase.

She had changed into a coat and skirt, and was carrying an overnight case. On the next landing, Paul blocked her descent. Without speaking, she put down her case and sat on it. Behind her towered Rubens’s Salome receiving John the
Baptist’s head. Raucous laughter rose from the hall below.

‘Can I drive you where you’re going?’

‘I’ll drive myself.’

Paul did not try to dissuade her. After a silence he
remarked
, ‘Did I ever tell you about the tenth marquess’s chloroform parties?’

Without looking at him, she said, ‘They hanged children for stealing in
his
day.’

Paul moved aside, and walked beside her as she went on down. ‘Very good,’ he murmured. ‘But don’t forget, my ancestors never won anyone’s praise by being respectable. They won it by using leisure to gratify their tastes.’ She started taking the steps two at a time, but he matched her. ‘Nice tastes like art and scholarship; not so nice ones like orgies and gambling.’ He offered these words gently, only raising his voice when she showed no indication of having heard. ‘They believed in personal freedom. They didn’t pretend to want to …’ He broke off and watched her hurry down the broad stairs.

Apparently resigned to let her go without more ado, Paul changed his mind when she was yards from the open doors. ‘Can’t we be different just
one
day of the year?’ Still she did not turn. ‘You won’t happen again; none of us will,’ he called out, checking himself on seeing people in the hall. Their upturned faces goaded him. ‘And what do most of us
do
about it?’ he roared. ‘Small goals, easy satisfactions. No swank, and … no balls.’ He doubted whether she could hear him, but fired one more salvo. ‘You think the joker who built this place was hooked on humble pie? He wanted
eyes
to
pop
out
.’