were being started here? What new beginnings? He had a sudden ache of longing to be with them, driving through the dark, putting as many miles as possible between him and Priddion’s Farm in Monken Hadley.
221. Driving late at night through the city, you were searching the airwaves, looking for a radio station that was not playing popular music of the late twentieth century. As you fiddled with the dial you heard a melody and a wise husky voice that made you break your rule for a moment and listen. It was Mat ‘King’ Cole who was singing and the simple lyric lodged effortlessly in your head. ‘The greatest thing / You’ll ever learn / Is just to love / And be loved in turn.’ Why did this make you so unutterably sad? Was it simply the effortless melancholy in Nat’s dry, lung-cancery voice? Or did it touch you in another way, search out that small abiding hidden pocket of need we all carry. Then you turned the dial and found some sensuous, delicate Fauré which distracted you. The greatest thing you’ll ever learn.
The Book of Transfiguration
An insistent hand on his shoulder shook Lorimer awake. Slowly he realized that his mouth was rank, his body was poisoned with alcohol and his head was gonging with a pure and unreasonable pain. Leaning over him in the darkness, wearing only a dressing gown, was Torquil. From somewhere there was coming a keening half-scream, half-wail, like the ululations from some primitive mourning ritual. For a moment Lorimer wondered if this was the noise of his abused brain, protesting, but then he registered swiftly enough that it emanated from deep in the house: it was another person’s problem, not his.
‘Lorimer,’ Torquil said, ‘you’ve got to go. Now. Please.’
‘Jesus.’ Lorimer wanted more than anything else to clean his teeth, then eat something salty, spicy and savoury and then clean his teeth again. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half-five.’
‘Good God. What’s happening? What’s that din?’
‘You’ve got to go,’ Torquil repeated, stepping back from the bed as Lorimer rolled out on to his knees, from which position he levered himself upright after a little while and dressed as quickly as he could.
‘You’ve got to take Irina with you,’ Torquil said. ‘She’s ready.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Well…’ Torquil expelled his breath, tiredly. ‘I went to Irina’s room and we–’
You and Irina?’
‘Yes. I snuck in there about three – why the hell do you think I got her here? – and, you know, we, we had it off. We “made love”. And then I fucking fell asleep and so did she.’ He looked at his watch as Lorimer swept his kilt and sporran into his grip. ‘Then about half an hour ago Sholto came into our bedroom – Binnie’s and mine. The little bastard had wet his bed.’
‘I see.’
‘He never wets his bed here. Never,’ Torquil said with genuine fury. ‘I can’t think what brought it on.’
Lorimer carefully zipped up his overnight bag, not wanting to say anything, not wanting to interject a plea of clemency on Sholto’s behalf.
‘So Sholto says, “Where’s Daddy?” Binnie gets worried. Binnie looks around. Binnie gets thinking. The next thing I know I wake up bollock-naked beside Irina and Binnie’s standing there at the end of the bed with the duvet in her hands screaming. She hasn’t stopped.’
‘Christ. Where is she?’
‘I’ve locked her in our bedroom. You have to get that girl out of here.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Oliver and Potts?’
‘I need them. Potts is in there with her. She’s Binnie’s oldest friend.’
‘Really? Is she? Right, I’m ready.’
Irina was crying softly in the hall, dressed, her face strangely bland, free of her paint and powder. She said nothing, allowing Torquil and Lorimer to usher her gently outside to Lorimer’s car. Outside it was icy cold, with a frost so heavy that even the gravel beneath their feet did not crunch, it was set so hard. Their breath condensed rather beautifully about them in evanescent lingering clouds.
‘Good luck,’ Lorimer said, wondering why he wished it. ‘I mean, I hope you –’
‘She’ll calm down,’ Torquil said, shivering, pulling his dressing gown tight around him. ‘She always has before. Mind you, it’s never been quite so… graphic, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’d better go in,’ Lorimer said, ‘or you’ll catch your death.’
‘Fucking freezing’ Torquil peered in at Irina, his expression bland and disinterested as if he were searching an open fridge for a snack. She did not meet his gaze. ‘Tell her I’ll, you know, be in touch or something.’ He reached into