The Promise Ese (50) “Oh no, strange man, my fingers – I need them.” “Please, Kate, please. It will be a blessing. A good luck token for your life with the hon. G. Cochrane.” “Oh, only…” She teetered at the mouth of compliance before taking the dive, rotating his rough glass to the scissor-edge and, unflinching, cutting delicately like a surgeon into her pink finger, the left index. “Now do we touch them together?” They pressed their fingers like a cantilever, as though it was the secret sign of the triangle. Hector revelled in Masonic hanky-panky. Katherine thrilled slightly. “But now we must include my lion Richard. You agree? A triad of three sides, a triangle has three perfect angles.” She shunted Hector to the lofty statue and reached up to the toe of its boot. “As far as I can reach…now…” They stamped their bleeding fingers onto the marble. “I don’t believe it Rabbit,” he blurted, bouncing boyishly. “The curse that has dogged me, the red stain.” “Of shame.” She steadied him. “Of course you have felt ashamed for years.” “Ah, ridiculous.” “Yes, now see how ridiculous we seem to passers-by. Bind up your finger.” Ever practical, she made a cotton handkerchief shell for her own wound, while Hector, speechless yet emotionally swollen bandaged his finger clumsily in the huge handkerchief that gushed from his clothes. The wasps hovered over the spot of fresh blood. Children slapped their rubber-ball against the block base. People throughout the park seemed to double-up with laughter. The sunlight’s intensity vibrated with waves of adulatory insects. The sun itself blurted its beams. Budding leaves were twitching pennants and the grass a carpet of flower-petals crushed under many feet and over-poweringly fragrant. Ducks on the pond strutted like regatta yachts burst from ice-prisons. “I knew, I knew it would work.” His voice jiggled. He put away the glass and perched on the bench, his trembling subsiding into placid, peaceful, solid happiness. Katherine sat beside him, calmly clasped his hands and said: “This is as it must always be – brothers. That judgmental thing of Solomon was not the real you. Its Huck Finn stuff, this polar exploration business. It’s the fun part that got most of you through. The fun…mm…now why not go home and give some to your dear wife…those special kisses.” He snapped out of his euphoria, her patronizing tone having dumped reality upon him and thought more soberly of the many forms of madness. Chapter 2 Mac edged into the office ante-chamber where Hector was perusing an assortment of newspapers. Some shelves behind him overflowed chaotically with Antarctic flotsam yet the Bosses eyes were clear-sighted, having adopted the distant, hawkish, all seeing attitude of an horizon watcher. As the voyage drew nearer London and land drifted from range. Mac hated to impress obstacles within the vision but Lady Hickox De Lune would not be denied. Her high heels told a story. She shuffled her feet impatiently. Mac elbowed the information, her introduction towards the man seated on the camp-bed. As soon as it broke through his horizon he jumped up and raced to the doorway in order to behold her feline shape – big! What of Morris? Away, thank Christ…. “Clara!” “Fat, am I not? Its not what you think…” How did she know what he was thinking? He was thinking she looked pregnant “Well if its not, you have been eating whole buffalo.” “That’s my little baby.” She moulded the cloth of her coat about the bump and kissed Hector on the nose. Mac sighed loudly, went into the ante-room himself and drew the curtain on the unanticipated complication. So Ms de Lune had been lurking in the depths throughout. And all the hullabaloo about being ‘free at last’ was mere fantasy on the Bosses behalf. His expeditions began as bids to untangle a mess of strangulating wires then turned to escapes with cutters from the wires like briars. “Edgar if it’s a boy, the lovely Edgar from Lear...” Mac over heard her rather flat twang lilting with love and Hectors mixed tones speeding up. “I can’t be certain whether he suspects or not,” she said jerkily as he demolished her screen of joy and pride. ‘He’ll bloody well know for sure when he sees it. Babies resemble their parents.” “Ours may not. Hec, darling, I thought you’d be pleased” “You mustn’t call me that in public.” “But we aren’t in public”. “Mr Mackintosh is listening.” His voice cried into the office annex. “Make tea, Mr Mackintosh.” * * * “I know, we can flee to South America,” he said. ‘What, live in some cheap hotel and eat nothing but rice’ “The people over there were good to me in 1916. I’ll resume the speaking circuit. You can play golf and a nurse can teach the baby to speak Spanish. In fact we can buy a ranch and eat suckling pig, if food is what bothers you and dress up for the carnival. As good as a ball. You’ll miss not going to balls, but the English society is as puffed up as it is here. They gossip and play cards.” He fingered his keepsake compass which he carried about in an opposite pocket to his star which he needed to maintain contact with even if it tore his pants. “ Where’s Hickox anyway?” “Shifting all our souvenirs into the Mayfair place. God we went everywhere except to your South or the far North for that matter, but Japan, is as exotic as the poisonous fish they prefer, as exotic as an ice floe, I’ll wager. We saw their geese dancing and scores of shrines. It’s Madama Butterfly to a tee with geishas gummed up with paint clack-clacking and serious little men.’ He stared out the window. “Don’t you want to hear about our travels all over the world, Hec? We could have done the same together if circumstances had been different. By the way, Pat wants his money back. He loaned you something for that letter.” “He gave me the money, that was my understanding.” Just a few days before, the sundering of the Hunt hex had exhilarated him. Now…now his arm hurt, his throat felt tight, delightedly he could feel the star’s razor teeth biting into his palm. “No Clara – no I am going to toss it all aside, all your concerns. Even if I am the legitimate father, this is not my child. It’s Hickox’s. He pays for it. I’m sure he wants to marry you. I’ve taken Walter of your hands. I’ll have him write the commentary for my next movie. The south sea islands, this time with natives dancing and tits wobbling.” He raised his eyes. “By God I’ll not have you spoiling things, my dove…” Shouts of invective began to splutter from him. Grudging, sticky, tangled in wire, flailing shouts. “Why are you here? Do you want Emily to play midwife? Did Hickox send you? There’s probably a pasty-faced detective lounging below the window ‘casing the joint’ Oh my, its mud sucking me down…” Clara sat stock still. “Hector,” she said quietly. “Come and feel our baby moving.” He balanced his star-glass on her full belly. “I see he has black hair, most babies do.” “How can you tell?” “This glass is a magic porthole.” “Hec, dear, are you alright…?” * * *
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