Colour mammoth seatI felt the mental stutter of inebriation when I looked up to see a jet flying high above. They asked me if I was coming, and I was on the verge of getting in the ambulance and accompanying him to the emergency room before I decided that it bordered on intrusiveness and abandoned the idea. ‘Who?’ It felt good eating all that food and sitting outside in the stupid but beautiful day. No one came to talk to me because of my dress and shoes. It was the perfect disguise in that part of L.A., the shabby, faded look. I finished dressing, put my father’s gift into a big blue purse, and headed for the kitchen. “How much you owe him?” Retire. You talk to me like I’m a senile princess. But I might very well go to my room, just so I don’t have to apologize to that pushy snob until tomorrow. Is it so desirable? ‘An that doesn’t sound like a cult to you?’ Yes, they do. He gets out of bed and goes into the living room, returning with a lit candle, which he puts on the nightstand. He looks at me in bed and stands there unmoving, for what feels to me like a long time. “What?” the broad woman asked. Woolford glared at him. in a beautifully produced book belonging to my dad. “Not yet,” came a soft voice. “He is not finished with those men.” Westminster has houses everywhere. On every new trip, I discovered them. He is far from knowing all of them: be they in Ireland, in Dalmatia, or in the Carpathians, there is a house belonging to Westminster, a house where everything is set up, where you can dine and go to bed on your arrival, with polished silverware, motor cars (I can still see the seventeen ancient Rolls in the garage at Eaton Hall!) with their batteries charged, small tankers in the harbour, fully laden with petrol, servants in livery, stewards and, on the entrance table, always scattered everywhere, newspapers, magazines and journals from all over the world. She praised him so highly that Sibbi and I became allergic to him. Typical Mom. She had a way of sneaking embarrassing thoughts into our heads, thoughts that you wouldn’t ever want to be associated with. The sound in the late afternoon started as a pattering of light feet but soon rose to a louder trampling, accompanied by frantic shouts in English and African tongues. Duncan leapt to look out the door in time to see two large pigs trot by, snorting derisively as African field hands chased them. He went in. “Don’t look like it.”. |