Ivoria by Tanith Lee (uplifting novels .txt) 📕

There is no reply.

Of course not.

Serena steps away, pushes the tray with her foot almost up against the door, strikes the match and lets it go among the torn crumples of waxy paper.

A spurt of blue then greenish flame results. Then a little pop comes from the oil. The chemicals in the paper quickly add a properly smoky tindery smell.

Serena and Nick draw back against the outer door. What will happen if the old woman does not believe them, does not smell the burning? Or if she does and still she will not respond.

He thinks the oil fire will most likely burn itself out, unless, naturally, anything splashes from it to the carpet, or the flames, which now transparently crackle, an invisible force devouring the faces and slender bodies of screwed-up Beautiful People, also contact the wood of the door. Or Serena may simply career through the flat, sloshing the last of the oil and showering lit matches. What then?

The slight smoke makes him want to cough. Serena does not cough.

He wonders what Pond would do. Nothing, maybe. Pond has not bothered to get back in touch. Even among the stacks of unanswered messages Nick’s mobile stored before it gave up, Pond’s voice had been notable only by absence. No doubt he has heard via the media of the knifing and wishes to avoid involvement.

Nick’s mind truly wanders now. He is considering the messages he has received. Debby (unanswered) and Sonia (also unanswered) and Lilian, from whom he had not expected a call, but whom he has not answered either. All of them concerned, wary. There were others. Most of them had tried to get in touch. Not Jazz. Somehow, strangely, he had thought she might.

Something manages a tiny explosion in the tray. Or it is the metal buckling.

The hallway is steeped in haze. Serena’s eyes are running, as his do now he becomes aware of it. He can, additionally, smell singeing carpet and underlay.

The lock of the bathroom door slowly sounds. The door undoes. And through the fog Jonquil Franks looks round it at them, small, secretive, cautious, like an evil mouse-gargoyle.

“I got a bottle of lavvy cleaner,” it says. “‘S bleach. Watch yourselfs. Not want it in your young face, eh? Eh? Or blinds you.”

Then she steps out, and Nick sees Jonquil Franks has become herself again, complete with the Domestos. She simply flicks one glance at the fire in the tray, lets out one bark of amusement, shoves the tray away with her foot. The fog does not impede her.

“I’ve write it down for you,” says Mrs Franks, and she throws a little notepad across at Serena. Serena starts, jumps, and Mrs Franks barks once more. She says, “That where Kitty gone. Greece. Why I should protect her? Enough I’ve had of it, her men come round here shouting, cuz she upsets ’em, and you with your posh, who you think you are, eh? And ruin my carpet. Well, she gets me new carpet then maybe I forgive her. But you can go and mucker her about. An’ if you comes back, I get policy onta yer. Wot she done you? It’s men she buggers up. How she bugger you, eh, eh? Get out.”

Serena has gripped the notepad. She glides right back against the front door. Her malicious power has melted. Nick hesitates. He says to Jonquil Franks, “What colour is Kitty’s hair?” He is startled to hear what he has said. It is a ridiculous thing to have asked.

Yet oddly Mrs Franks answers. Perhaps it is enough a non sequiteur that she can work with it.

“Brown,” she says. She grins her razorous biter’s teeth. “But it won’t, never now. Red or black or blonde she’ll be.”

Then Serena has opened the front door and is outside. Nick follows her. As the door shuts Mrs Franks, rather like last time, shrieks her malediction after them: “Piss onna pair of you, ya filthy pigs!”

Outside Serena is already running away over the lawn towards the two trees and the road. She has not waited for Nick. When he reaches her in the street she is holding on to one of the trees and crying. They had sent the cab away, so now they must, when eventually she is able to stop her grief and hysteria, use her mobile, or walk along to the main road. Or the tube. She makes no protest when he picks up the notepad, which she has let fall on the ground.

He lifts the cover. This has on it the picture of an ice-cream under a sunshade. But the first page is blank, also the next. Nick thinks, leafing through, all the pages are blank. But the last page is not. Jonquil Franks’s writing is extraordinary, low and sloping, with loops, like something bent over and running through coiled wire. She has, however, written more than an address, even a Greek address. Although admittedly such an address seems to be there too.

A car drives slowly past them along the road. A face stares interestedly out at Serena. The press? (Dead celebrity’s sister mourns in a public place…)

“Serena,” Nick says.

She snaps to attention. “Get a cab.”

“Give me your phone, then. I didn’t bring mine.”

“You are useless,” she tonelessly tells him. “So am I.”

He takes the phone and calls a cab.

He has slipped the notepad in his coat pocket.

Another staring car drives slowly by…

Spring

Delta

The rigmarole at the airport - increased security, removal of coins, watches, mechanical alarms over belt buckles, a metal button… the long, long waits, drinking coffee, eating peanuts … the early start catching up, and the insistent demands en route of the cabby, wanting to be informed of every aspect of the destination, and the reason for going there - silenced, finally, when Nick told him a funeral was to take place and that he would rather not talk, thanks… the thought too that maybe the cabby was a reporter