The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy полностью

‘Not without thinking,’ said the Doctor. ‘But leave it. It’s what you look like that matters. God knows you’re clean! It’s a good start. I am trying to put myself in your place. It takes an effort – ha ha! – I can’t do it.’

‘Alfred.’

‘My love?’

‘How many do you think would be ideal?’

‘If we chose well, Irma, I should say a dozen.’

‘No, no, Alfred, it’s a party! It’s a party! Things happen at parties – not at friends’ gatherings. I’ve read about it. Twenty, at least, to make the atmosphere pregnant.’

‘Very well, my dear. Very well. Not that we will include a mildewed and wheezy beast with broken antlers because he comes twentieth on the list when the other nineteen are stags, are virile and eligible. But come, let us go into this matter more closely. Let us say, for sake of argument, that we have whittled the probable down to fifteen. Now, of this fifteen, Irma, my sweet co-strategist, surely we could not hope for more than six as possible husbands for you. – No, no, do not wince; let us be honest, though it is brutal work. The whole thing is very subtle, for the six you might prefer are not necessarily the six that would care to share the rest of their lives with you; oh no. It might be another six altogether whom you don’t care about one little bit. And over and above these interchangeables we must have the floating background of those whom I have no doubt you would spurn with your elegantly cloven hooves were they to make the least advance. You would bridle up, Irma: I’m sure you would. But nevertheless they are needful, these untouchables, for we must have a hinterland. They are the ones who will make the party florid, the atmosphere potential.’

‘Do you think we could call it a soirée, Alfred?’

‘There is no law against it that I know of,’ answered Prunesquallor, a little irritably perhaps, for she had obviously not been listening. ‘But the Professors, as I remember them, are hardly the types I would associate with the term. Who, by the way, do comprise the Staff these latter days? It is a long time since I last saw the flapping of a gown.’

‘I know that you are cynical, Alfred, BUT I would have you know that they are my choice. I have always wished for a man of learning to be my own. I would understand him. I would administer to him. I would protect him and darn his socks.’

‘And a more dexterous darner never protected the tendo achilles with a double skein!’

‘Alfred!’

‘Forgive me, my own. By all that’s unforeseeable I am getting to like the idea. For my part, Irma, I will see to the wines and liqueurs, the barrels and the punchbowl. For your part the eatables, the invitations, the schooling of the staff – our staff, not the luminaries’. And now, my dear, when? This is the question – when?’

‘My gown of a thousand frills, with its corsage of hand-painted parrots will be ready within ten days, and …’

‘Parrots!’ cried the Doctor in consternation.

‘Why not?’ said Irma, sharply.

‘But,’ wavered her brother, ‘how many of them?’

‘What on earth does it matter to you, Alfred? They are brightly coloured birds.’

‘But will they chime in with the frills, my sweet one? I would have thought if you must have hand-painted creatures on your corsage, as you call it – that something calculated to turn the thoughts of the Professors to your femininity, your desirability, something less aggressive than parrots might be wise … Mind you, Irma, I’m only …’

‘Alfred!’ Her voice jerked him back to his chair.

‘My, province, I think,’ she said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘I imagine when it comes to parrots you can leave them to me.’

‘I will,’ said her brother.

‘Will ten days give us time, Alfred?’ she said, as she rose from her chair and approached her brother, smoothing back her iron-grey hair with her long, pale fingers. Her tone had softened. To the Doctor’s horror she sat on the arm of his chair.

Then, with a sudden kittenish abandon, she flung back her head so that her over-long yet pearl-white neck was tautened in a backward curve and her chignon tapped her between her shoulder-blades in so peremptory a way as to make her cough. But directly she had ascertained that it was not her brother being wilful, the ecstatic and kittenish expression came back to her powdered face, and she clapped her hands together at her breast.

Prunesquallor, staring up, horrified at yet another facet of her character coming to light, noticed that one of her molars needed filling, but decided it was not the moment to mention it.

‘Oh Alfred! Alfred!’ she cried. ‘I am a woman, aren’t I?’ The hands were shaking with excitement as they gripped one another. ‘I’ll show them I am!’ she screamed, her voice losing all control. And then, calming herself with a visible effort, she turned to her brother and, smiling at him with a coyness that was worse than any scream – ‘I’ll send their cards to them tomorrow, Alfred,’ she whispered.

FIFTEEN