they encircled them.
‘Dance! For God’s sake dance!’ said Sheilah.
Tim took her cold body in his arms and they began to dance. There was a strange acrid smell in the air. The other dancers made no sound, and Tim could not see their faces. They moved so fast that he could see only a dark blur, as if they were veiled in soot.
‘Faster!’ said Sheilah. Tim obeyed, even though he was already exhausted.
‘Kiss me!’ said Sheilah, and she put her lips to his. Tim felt the familiar burning sensation when their lips touched. Her mouth opened wider and from the caverns of her throat came the fiery heat of an Inferno.
* * * * *
The rest of the company were having a drink after the show in the bar of the Pontybwlch Hydro. Suddenly Judy, the leading lady, said: ‘Hello, where’s young Tim tonight?’
Owen smiled. ‘Believe it or not, he’s gone up the Sunnybeach for a Grab a Granny Night.’
‘Good God,’ said Judy, ‘I thought Sunnybeach had finished after that terrible fire last summer. You remember: in the Arcadia Ballroom when all those people were killed. Didn’t you tell him about that? In fact — my God, you sick bastard, it was a year ago tonight! ‘
Owen’s mock horror was very comically done and made some of the company laugh out loud. Those who didn’t — and they included Tamsyn — were grateful that they had shown restraint when Tim was found the following morning lying on the Western Shore with a mouth full of ashes.
The Children of Monte Rosa
I
IT WAS MY MOTHER who first noticed Mr and Mrs de Walter as they strolled along the promenade. She had a talent for picking out unusual and interesting looking people in the passing crowd, and often exercised this gift for my amusement, though mainly for my father. He was a journalist who was always going to write a novel when he could find the time.
My parents and I had been sitting in a little café on the front at Estoril where we were on holiday that year. In 1964 it was still unusual to see English people in Portugal, particularly the North, and the couple my mother pointed out to us were so obviously English. ‘They’re probably expatriates,’ she said. As I was only eleven at the time I had to have the term explained to me.
They must have been in their late sixties, though to me at the time they simply looked ancient. They were of a height but, while she was skeletally thin, he was flabby and shapeless in an immaculate but crumpled white linen suit. He wore a ‘Guards’ tie — this observation supplied by my father — and a white straw Panama with a hat band in the bacon and egg colours of the M.C.C, which I, a cricket enthusiast, identified myself. A monocle on a ribbon of black watered silk hung from his neck. He had a clipped white moustache and white tufted eyebrows which stood out from the pink of his face. His cheeks were suffused with broken veins that, like fibre optic cables, were capable of changing the colour of his complexion with alarming rapidity.
His wife was also decked out in the regalia of antique gentility. Her garments were cream-coloured, softly graduating to yellow age at their edges. Their general formlessness seem to date them to the flapper era of the 1920s, an impression accentuated by her shingled Eton Crop which was dyed a disconcerting shade of blue. Her most eccentric item of dress was a curious pair of long-sleeved crocheted mittens, from which her withered and ringed fingers seemed to claw their way to freedom. The crochet work, executed in a pearl-coloured silky material, was elaborate but irregular, evidently the work of an amateur, making them resemble a pair of badly mended fishermen’s nets.
My mother, who was immediately fascinated, was seized by an embarrassing determination that we should somehow get to know them. I have a feeling she thought they would make ‘good copy’ for my father’s long projected novel, or a short story at least. My father and I went along with
‘Dance! For God’s sake dance!’ said Sheilah.
Tim took her cold body in his arms and they began to dance. There was a strange acrid smell in the air. The other dancers made no sound, and Tim could not see their faces. They moved so fast that he could see only a dark blur, as if they were veiled in soot.
‘Faster!’ said Sheilah. Tim obeyed, even though he was already exhausted.
‘Kiss me!’ said Sheilah, and she put her lips to his. Tim felt the familiar burning sensation when their lips touched. Her mouth opened wider and from the caverns of her throat came the fiery heat of an Inferno.
* * * * *
The rest of the company were having a drink after the show in the bar of the Pontybwlch Hydro. Suddenly Judy, the leading lady, said: ‘Hello, where’s young Tim tonight?’
Owen smiled. ‘Believe it or not, he’s gone up the Sunnybeach for a Grab a Granny Night.’
‘Good God,’ said Judy, ‘I thought Sunnybeach had finished after that terrible fire last summer. You remember: in the Arcadia Ballroom when all those people were killed. Didn’t you tell him about that? In fact — my God, you sick bastard, it was a year ago tonight! ‘
Owen’s mock horror was very comically done and made some of the company laugh out loud. Those who didn’t — and they included Tamsyn — were grateful that they had shown restraint when Tim was found the following morning lying on the Western Shore with a mouth full of ashes.
The Children of Monte Rosa
I
IT WAS MY MOTHER who first noticed Mr and Mrs de Walter as they strolled along the promenade. She had a talent for picking out unusual and interesting looking people in the passing crowd, and often exercised this gift for my amusement, though mainly for my father. He was a journalist who was always going to write a novel when he could find the time.
My parents and I had been sitting in a little café on the front at Estoril where we were on holiday that year. In 1964 it was still unusual to see English people in Portugal, particularly the North, and the couple my mother pointed out to us were so obviously English. ‘They’re probably expatriates,’ she said. As I was only eleven at the time I had to have the term explained to me.
They must have been in their late sixties, though to me at the time they simply looked ancient. They were of a height but, while she was skeletally thin, he was flabby and shapeless in an immaculate but crumpled white linen suit. He wore a ‘Guards’ tie — this observation supplied by my father — and a white straw Panama with a hat band in the bacon and egg colours of the M.C.C, which I, a cricket enthusiast, identified myself. A monocle on a ribbon of black watered silk hung from his neck. He had a clipped white moustache and white tufted eyebrows which stood out from the pink of his face. His cheeks were suffused with broken veins that, like fibre optic cables, were capable of changing the colour of his complexion with alarming rapidity.
His wife was also decked out in the regalia of antique gentility. Her garments were cream-coloured, softly graduating to yellow age at their edges. Their general formlessness seem to date them to the flapper era of the 1920s, an impression accentuated by her shingled Eton Crop which was dyed a disconcerting shade of blue. Her most eccentric item of dress was a curious pair of long-sleeved crocheted mittens, from which her withered and ringed fingers seemed to claw their way to freedom. The crochet work, executed in a pearl-coloured silky material, was elaborate but irregular, evidently the work of an amateur, making them resemble a pair of badly mended fishermen’s nets.
My mother, who was immediately fascinated, was seized by an embarrassing determination that we should somehow get to know them. I have a feeling she thought they would make ‘good copy’ for my father’s long projected novel, or a short story at least. My father and I went along with
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