On honey [a blurry mess]. Very happy. Meet the missus. Little Dick.
My eyes fixed on the words honey and missus; they presaged only one possible awful possibility: my brother Richard had married and had decided to come to Europe to introduce his wife. It was the grandest of grand tours.
“Dear God,” I uttered in a low tone.
“Your brother coming!” Sophia effused, and Anastasia clung more urgently to her body.
“So, it would appear,” I replied, my mind spinning as I contemplated the assault on my way of life, and privacy.
“And his wife!” chimed Sophia, her face radiant with familial expectation. I should add that Sophia harboured hopes for me in the marriage stakes; I am sure that she and her friends had identified various local women for whom I would be the perfect groom. Once I had seen Sophia and two of her friends, thereafter in my mind the ‘weird sisters of Corfu’, chatting in the road; from their hushed tones and gesticulations I surmised that they were either cat burglars or marriage brokers. One carried a string shopping bag in which a cabbage hung forlornly, ‘That could be my head’ I had thought; they were clearly marriage brokers.
“Next Tuesday Sophia. Will the house be ready?” I asked timidly, hoping for a reply in the negative.
“Yes,” she beamed, ignoring my pleading eyes. “My friend Maria will help me with the laundry and cooking. No problem.”
Maria was one of the weird sisters who indeed could have been a witch, possessing a mass of tightly curled hair, a gold tooth that glinted sinisterly (I thought so!), and piercing jet-black eyes. Lord Byron refused to remain in her presence, which for a cat, I considered damning evidence.
“Did Little…Richard sound happy?” I ventured.
“He disappointed you not at telephone,” she replied, “he ask where you were.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him you were helping police with their enquiry, like you said.”
“No, no, no! Not helping the police with their enquiries Sophia, that means something quite different in English, but talking to the police about an idea for a book set on Corfu, a thriller.”
“OK.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about be careful in the prison shower.”
“And did he say why he is visiting the countryside?”
“Sorry?”
I held out the first slip of blue notepaper; she peered at it as if she had never seen it before. Then, as she connected the question to the evidence, her face brightened.
“Not countryside, hotel,” she said. A lightbulb popped in my brain; Richard was evidently sparing no expense, if the hospitality of agents and publishers entertaining their most successful writers in the Vesper Bar was anything to go by. There was one missing piece of information: I had no idea what his wife’s name was.
“What did he say about his wife? What is the good lady’s name?”
Sophia’s brow furrowed, and her eyes flickered from side to side, as she reconstructed the telephone conversation. This was entirely to be expected, Sophia had a photographic memory and could recall even the most trivial of conversations several weeks after they had taken place, which was both a boon if I had mislaid an important document, and ill fortune if I had forgotten making a promise to do something. She tapped the end of her nose with one finger; this was also to be expected and denoted that she had reached a conclusion.
“He didn’t say. He only say that she look forward to meeting you, as you famous writer.”
I must say that I was both flattered and alarmed; I wondered what impression of me Little Dick had given his wife. To my knowledge my books were available in Australia, but international royalties were low; the public libraries in Sydney held a few copies of The View from Primrose Hill and The Descent from Primrose Hill, but these had sparked little interest and less revenue. As a child I had on one occasion told my family that when I grew up, I wanted to be Noel Coward; Little Dick looked at me with the wide-eyed innocence of a five-year-old and said: “Don’t be silly, you haven’t got his talent.” It was a crushing remark, and one that had put our relationship back years. He had evidently, I hoped, forgotten that he had said it, as I could not think of how Mrs Richard Gardner had formed such a favourable view. Clearly, she did not work in publishing, which was a relief; but Sophia could impart few other details.
“Call him Mr Gardner, that way you find out her name and the time of the flight.”
Copyright © David Alexander 2024