Chapter 9 Chez Blinkhorn #3
Perhaps when the Festival job was over, Flynn thought, he could get his own dog, find some outdoor employment where it could accompany him.
He imagined himself striding across purple heather or grassy hills, breathing in the clean air, a knotty stick in one hand, a collie by his side.
Not a farm. Too much slaughtering and butchering.
Though perhaps an arable one. Golden wheat waving in the wind.
Big plough horses. The harvest safely gathered in.
He realized that he was extraordinarily drunk.
And incredibly tired. It was almost impossible to keep his eyes open.
“More cow?” Archie asked, startling him awake.
—
Just when Flynn thought the torture was over, Cynthia produced “dessert.” Flynn’s mother would have staunchly insisted on the word “pudding.” Archie himself called it “afters,” a hangover from school, apparently.
“Ampleforth,” he said. “Catholic, you know. Long time ago now, of course. Like so much in life, best forgotten.”
The dessert made no promises. It was some kind of egg custard, cold and slightly curdled and decorated with yet more glacé cherries.
Flynn wondered if Mitzi had purchased a job lot of the things after the war.
Before serving coffee—percolating noisily on a sideboard—Mitzi disappeared to “powder her nose,” while Archie remained at the table, gazing at the dregs of a second bottle of Malbec in his glass.
Flynn took this intermission as an opportunity to clear the table of some of the squalid remains of the meal and return them to the kitchen, where Cynthia had recommenced her strange crooning as she made a start on the washing-up.
The kitchen was no more than a scullery and “washing-up” was a bit of a euphemism, as Cynthia was simply dipping plates into a bowl of dirty, greasy water before dropping them into a rack, a method that made Flynn’s gorge rise.
“Hello,” she said, pausing in her slovenly labours. “Did you want something?” She flushed again, although it might have been from the heat in the kitchen.
For the first time since Flynn had met her, she looked straight at him.
He was stupefied. She had the most extraordinary eyes.
Large, yes, but it was the colour—an astonishing, unusual green.
Jade. Pellucid, he thought, wondering where that word had come from.
It was the kind of adjective you would find in the worst of the Poems. The same rare, precious jade as Giles Dangerfield’s eyes.
Dangerfield had Cynthia’s eyes—or, to be more accurate, she had his.
Surely too unusual to be a coincidence. Another chap’s by-blow, Archie had said.
The eyes didn’t transform her face—not at all; they served to render more painful the contrast with the doughy features they were set amongst. She didn’t seem to notice his surprise. “Thank you,” she said, when he deposited the dirty plates.
“I’m sorry you’re stuck in here,” he said. “Can I help?”
“No, you’re a guest,” she said, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word.
She brushed a lanky lock of hair away from her blotchy face and smiled.
In novels, Flynn thought, Cynthia’s face would suddenly have been transformed by that smile.
It would have revealed an inner beauty or happiness or some such nonsense.
In real life, however, she was unaltered.
(But those eyes! he thought. They could launch a flotilla of battleships all on their own.) “Can I have a fag?” she asked shyly.
“Don’t tell Daddy, he doesn’t like me to smoke.
” Flynn produced a packet of Players from his pocket and Cynthia abandoned her washing-up and moved nearer to him so he could light her cigarette.
Alarmingly, she didn’t retreat once her cigarette was lit.
The kitchen was tiny and her heavy, freesia-scented body pressed up against his flank.
It was like having a large, placid animal leaning against him.
Was it sexual? The idea was disturbing, especially as she smelt like his mother.
He inched away as politely as he could. “Best get back in there,” he said.
“You should be careful, you know,” Cynthia murmured.
“Careful? Of what? Of whom?”
“Just careful, that’s all.”
—
A lot of fuss was made about him leaving—the fetching of his coat and hat and so on.
There was a parting gift of a beef sandwich, the leftover meat wrapped in greaseproof paper.
He was reminded of birthday parties in his childhood when the small guests would be sent home with a piece of cake in a paper napkin.
Infinitely more palatable than the rosbif.
Flynn did eventually manage to extricate himself from the Blinkhorns’ clutches. Amidst the great clamour of unnecessary farewells, he noticed that the photograph of the Mosleys’ fancy-dress party was no longer sitting on the sideboard.
Both Mitzi and Archie trailed along the hallway behind Flynn. This time he did hit his head on the low-hanging crystal drops. “There’ll be taxis at Victoria if you can’t get one on the street,” Archie said. “They’re like hen’s teeth around here at this time of night, I’m afraid.”
“Will you be all right?” Mitzi asked. From the frown on her face, the question came less from a place of care and more from doubt as to his competence to get himself home.
“ ’Course he’ll be all right,” Archie said, patting Flynn (rather forcefully) on the shoulder. “The chap’s got a gun.”
“I don’t have a gun, Archie,” Flynn protested. Mitzi had already retreated behind a closed door.
“Then, here,” Archie said, opening a drawer in the console that was taking up much-needed room in the hallway.
He produced a handgun, holding it by the barrel.
Before Flynn had time to protest, Archie thrust the handle into his hand, saying, “Take this one. US Army–issue Colt. The Yanks in London in ’45 were giving them away on every street corner for a couple of quid.
It’s always a useful kind of thing to have. ”
“Archie, I don’t want a gun.” They executed a little tug-of-war dance in the over-populated hallway as Flynn tried to give the gun back and Archie kept encouraging him to take it.
Flynn feared that the gun might be loaded and he would end up shooting Archie, but eventually he managed to free himself and Archie took the gun back, saying, “Suit yourself, old chap.”