All right, I said, take your pinch. I suppose you are only doing your duty. The young policeman had been making notes all the time.
The detective said, Take a note that Mr. Pulling behaved most helpfully and that he voluntarily surrendered the urn. That will sound well in court, sir, if the worst happens.
When will I get the urn back?
Not later than tomorrow if all is as it should be. He shook hands quite cordially as if he believed in my innocence, but perhaps that was just his professional manner.
Of course I hastened to telephone to my aunt. Theyve taken away the urn, I said. They think my mothers ashes are marijuana. Wheres Wordsworth?
He went out after breakfast and hasnt come back.
They found marijuana dust in the fluff of his suit.
Oh dear, how careless of the poor boy. I thought he was a little disturbed. And he asked for a CTC before he went out.
Did you give him one?
Well, you know, Im really very fond of him, and he said it was his birthday. He never had a birthday last year, so I gave him twenty pounds.
Twenty pounds! I never keep as much as that in the house.
It will get him as far as Paris. He left in time for the Golden Arrow, now I come to think of it, and he always carries his passport to prove hes not an illegal immigrant. Do you know, Henry, Ive a great desire for a little sea air myself.
Youll never find him in Paris.
I wasnt thinking of Paris. I was thinking of Istanbul.
Istanbul is not on the sea.
I think you are wrong. Theres something called the Sea of Marmara.
Why Istanbul?
I was reminded of it by that letter from Abdul the police found. A strange coincidence. First that letter and then this morning in the post another the first for a very long time.
From Abdul?
Yes.
It was weak of me, but I did not then realize the depth of my aunts passion for travel. If I had I would have hesitated before I made the first fatal proposal: I have nothing particular to do today. If you would like to go to Brighton
Chapter 5
Brighton was the first journey I undertook in my aunts company and proved a bizarre foretaste of much that was to follow.
We arrived in the early evening, for we had decided to spend the night. I was surprised by the smallness of her luggage, which consisted only of a little white leather cosmetics case which she called her baise en ville[42]. I find it difficult myself to go away for a night without a rather heavy suitcase, for I am uneasy if I have not at least one change of suit and that entails also a change of shoes. A change of shirt a change of underclothes and of socks are almost an essential to me, and taking into consideration the vagaries of the English climate, I like to take some woollens just in case. My aunt looked at my suitcase and said, We must take a cab. I had hoped we could walk.
I had booked our rooms at the Royal Albion because my aunt wished to be near the Palace Pier and the Old Steine. She told me, incorrectly I think, that this was named after the wicked marquess of Vanity Fair[43]. I like to be at the centre of all the devilry, she said, with the buses going off to all those places. She spoke as though their destinations were Sodom and Gomorrah rather than Lewes and Pathcam and Littlehampton and Shoreham. Apparently she had come first to Brighton when she was quite a young woman, full of expectations which I am afraid were partly fulfilled.
I thought I would have a bath and a glass of sherry, a quiet dinner in the grill, and an early bedtime, so that we would both be rested for a strenuous morning on the front and in the Lanes, but my aunt disagreed. We dont want dinner for another two hours, she said, and first I want you to meet Hatty if Hattys still alive.
Who is Hatty?
We worked together once with a gentleman called Mr. Curran.
How long ago was that?
Forty years or more.
Then it seems unlikely
I am here, Aunt Augusta said firmly, and I got a card from her the Christmas before last.
It was a grey leaden evening with an east wind blowing on our backs from Kemp Town. The sea was rising and the pebbles turned and ground under the receding waves. Ex-President Nkrumah looked out at us from the window of the waxworks, wearing a grey suit with a Chinese collar. My aunt paused and regarded him, I thought a little sadly. I wonder where Wordsworth is now, she said.
I expect youll hear from him soon[44].
I very much doubt it, she said. My dear Henry, she added, at my age one has ceased to expect a relationship to last. Think how complicated life would be if I had kept in touch with all the men I have known intimately. Some died, some I left, a few have left me. If they were all with me now we would have to take over a whole wing of the Royal Albion. I was very fond of Wordsworth while he lasted, but my emotions are not as strong as they once were. I can support his absence, though I may regret him for a while tonight. His knackers were superb. The wind took my hat and tossed it against a lamp-post. I was too surprised by her vulgarity to catch it, and my aunt laughed like a young woman. I returned, brushing it down, but Aunt Augusta still lingered at the waxworks.
Its a kind of immortality, she said.
What is?
I dont mean the waxworks here in Brighton, they are rather a job lot, but in Madame Tussauds[45]. With Crippen[46] and the Queen.
Id rather have my portrait painted.
But you cant see all round a portrait, and at Tussauds they take some of your own clothes to dress you in, or so Ive read. Theres a blue dress of mine I could easily spare. Oh well, she said with a sigh, its unlikely Ill ever be famous like that. Idle dreams She walked on, I thought a little cast down. Criminals, she said, and queens and politicians. Love is not highly regarded, except for Nell Gwynn[47] and the Brides in the Bath.
We came to the saloon doors of the Star and Garter and my aunt suggested that we take a drink. The walls were covered with inscriptions of a philosophic character: Life is a one-way street and theres no coming back; Marriage is a great Institution for those who like Institutions; You will never persuade a mouse that a black cat is lucky. There were old programmes too and photographs. I ordered a sherry and my aunt said she would like a port and brandy. When I turned round from the bar I saw her examining a yellowed photograph. There was an elephant and two performing dogs drawn up in front of the Palace Pier behind a stout man in a tail-coat wearing a top hat and a watch chain, and a shapely young woman in tights stood beside him carrying a carriage whip. Theres Curran, my aunt said. Thats how it all began. She pointed at the young woman. And theres Hatty. Those were the days.[48]
Surely you never worked in a circus, Aunt Augusta?
Oh no, but I happened to be there when the elephant trod on Currans toe, and we became very close friends. Poor man, he had to go to hospital, and when he came out, the circus had gone on without him to Weymouth. Hatty too, though she came back later when we were established.
Established at what?
Ill tell you one day, but now we have to find Hatty. She drained her port and brandy, and out we went into the cold blow of the wind. Just opposite was a stationers which sold comic postcards and she stopped there to inquire: the metal stands for the cards rattled and strained and turned like a windmill. I noticed a card with a bottle of Guinness on it, and a fat woman in a snorkel floating face down. The legend read Bottoms Up![49] I was looking at another of a man in hospital saying to a surgeon, But I said circumcision, doctor, when my aunt came out. Its just here, she said. I knew I wasnt far wrong, and in the window of the very next house a card in front of some net curtains read HATTYs TEAPOT. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. There were photographs by the door of Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra and the Duke of Edinburgh which seemed to have been signed by their subjects, although it seemed unlikely in the case of the Duke.
We rang the bell and an old lady answered it. She was wearing a black evening dress and a lot of jet objects jangled when she moved. Youre too late, she said sharply.
Hatty, said my aunt.
I close at six-thirty sharp except by special appointment.
Hatty, its Augusta.
Augusta!
Hatty! You havent changed a bit.
But remembering the young girl in tights carrying the whip and looking sideways at Curran, I thought there had been greater changes than my aunt made out.
This is my nephew Henry, Hatty. You remember about him. They exchanged a look which I found disturbing. Why should I have been discussed all those years ago? Had she let Hatty into the secret of my birth?
Come on in, the two of you. I was just going to have a cup of tea an unprofessional cup of tea, Hatty added and giggled.
In here? my aunt asked, opening a door.
No dear, thats the waiting-room. I just had time to see an engraving by Sir Alma-Tadema of a lot of tall naked ladies in a Roman bathhouse.
Heres my den, dear, Hatty said, opening another door. It was a small overcrowded room, and everything seemed to be covered with fringed mauve shawls, the table, the backs of chairs, the mantel there was even a shawl dangling from a studio portrait of a stout man whom I recognized as Mr. Curran.
The Revered, Aunt Augusta said, looking at it.
The Revered, Hatty repeated, and then they both laughed at some secret joke of their own.
The Rev. for short, Aunt Augusta said, but that, of course, was only a coincidence. You remember how we explained it to the police. Theyve still got a photo of him, Hatty, stuck up in the Star and Garter.
I havent been there for years, Hatty said. Im off the hard liquor.
You are there and the elephant too, Aunt Augusta said. Can you remember the elephants name?
Hatty was putting out two more cups from a china cabinet. There was a fringed shawl over that too. She said, It wasnt a common name like Jumbo. Something classical. How one forgets things[50], Augusta, at our age.
Was it Caesar?
No, it wasnt Caesar. Do you take sugar, Mr. ?
Call him Henry, Hatty.
One lump, I said.
Oh dear, oh dear, I had such a good memory once.
The waters boiling, dear.
The kettle was on a spirit ring close to a big brown teapot. She began to pour out.