The Lamorna Wink

It was Marshall Trueblood hello!-ing him awake before it was Diane. Having reached blindly for the telephone, Melrose quickly convinced himself that this whole episode was part of his dream and the receiver was being pressed against his ear by invisible hands. He continued to lie in bed, eyes closed, feeling no responsibility at all for his end of this telephone conversation.

“-me that! You’re doing it all wrong, Diane! Give-”

The dream figures appeared to be Diane Demorney and Marshall Trueblood, having some argument over-what? He rolled over and the receiver rolled with him, still held by faerie hands.

“-my hat! Come back with-”

Diane was clear as could be in his dream, wearing those black Raybans and that hat with its floppy brim so big you could see nothing but her mouth and chin.

“When you give me the phone! Then you-”

Screech!

Melrose turned back again. Good lord, that nearly woke him up.

“Melrose! Melrose!” yelled Diane. “We know you’re there, you said hello.”

“Hello,” he said. He heard himself snore, little ladders of breath sucked in, breathed out, snuffles like a pig rooting.

“Listen old sweat, you’ve really got to get back here! Vivian’s-what? Stop it! Stop!”

Here was the smooth-as-glass voice of Diane, as if she hadn’t just let out a screech a moment ago. “Melrose. He’s here! He’s-give that back!” Tussle, rustle.

“Me, again, old bean. Look we don’t want to-”

“Lord Ardry!”

Melrose jolted in his bed. What voice from the past was this? What damned fool dream person? Scroggs, that was who!

“No, she don’t look too good, sir, that’s my-”

Who don’t? Again the pig snuffle-snuffle breath catching at the back of his mouth.

“Good? Would you look good if someone were drinking your blood?”

Trueblood’s voice. Melrose’s dream self frowned mightily. He didn’t like the sound of that, no. His dream self walked away.

A clatter, raised voices in the distance, the telephone receiver audibly wrenched from someone’s grasp, Trueblood’s voice gaining eminence. “It’s Giopinno, old sweat. Count Dracula. He’s here. He’s finally come. We’re all wearing our wooden crosses and garlic!”

Snuffle snuffle, root root.

30

Melrose turned another page of the Telegraph, looking for the next installment of the neighborly feud over a parrot. It had really escalated while he was away.

Having arrived in Bletchley as safely and soundly as the Great Western Railway could manage; having deposited her luggage (steamer trunks, train cases, hatboxes, and the detritus from the Titanic), and having hooked up with her new friend, Esther Laburnum, Agatha now sat in the Woodbine over tea, asking Melrose if he was, finally, tired of this “absurd foyer” he had made into Cornwall and that arctic-cold, barnlike Seabourne place.

She helped herself to a heart-shaped meringue.

“What about your own ‘foyer’ into Cornwall? This county is surpassed only by Armagh in its lack of reverence for Queen and Country. Armagh, incidentally, is where Jury has made his ‘foyer,’ and I wish he’d come back.”

“What are you doing?” Agatha’s eyes were slits.

“Doing? Helping myself to one of these delicious meringues, that’s what. It’s not the last on the cake plate, not to worry.”

“You know what I mean. You’re mocking me, God knows why!” She was marmalading a scone with Chivers Rough Cut.

“God knows why is correct. I certainly don’t.”

Her eyes were slits. “Anyway, as I said, all Long Piddleton thinks you’re dotty, coming to Cornwall to live in a big empty house, and you should go back.”

“It’s really nice to hear I’m missed.” He knew she’d stomp all over that.

“Missed? I didn’t say they missed you, only that you’re being extremely irresponsible and foolish. Diane thinks”-and here she pulled a page of newspaper from a carryall dotted with mangy-looking cats-“you’re putting yourself in danger. Here.” She thrust it toward him.

“Quoting Diane, are we? Is this the same Diane you called moon head?” Melrose looked at the horoscope column, broadly outlined for him (in case he’d gone blind in Cornwall), and his own birth sign, Capricorn, also outlined and bearing only half a star before it. Diane wrote (if you could call it writing) the horoscope column for the Sidbury paper and of late had been apportioning certain numbers of stars, one through five, to each sign for that particular day. Five stars meant you could walk on water; four, a super day; and so on down the list. To get only half a star signified doom, the absolute worst day imaginable (except of course for the person who didn’t get even a half, but there were none of those, not even Melrose. Yet.).

BE CAREFUL!!! THE JOURNEY YOU HAVE EMBARKED UPON IS

FRAUGHT WITH DANGER. HAVING ALREADY CARRIED OUT

ONE ABSURD PLAN, YOU ARE IN DANGER OF UNDERTAKING

ANOTHER WHICH MIGHT SPELL THE END!

“So you see,” said Agatha.

“See what? You’ve always made fun of Diane’s horoscopes, so why point to this as though it vied with the Book of Revelation?”

“I’ll say only this: Don’t be surprised if Trueblood and the Demorney person turn up on your doorstep.”

This did interest him, for it made him think of last night’s dream. He crushed the paper in his lap. “Why would they do that, for heaven’s sake?”

“Now you’re interested! Well, it will do you no good at all. I’m finished.” She did not mean with her tea, for she turned to where Johnny was serving another table and held up her hand, gently turning it back and forth like a cheery hello from the Queen.

Melrose returned to his paper. “Are you settled in at Lemming Cottage?”

Her look was sharp. “Lemon Cottage, as I’m sure you know.”

“True. I just had a blinding flash of all its guests heading full throttle toward a cliff.”

“Very funny.”

“Just a little foyer into humor.”

“I should think you might take all of what’s happening more seriously.”

Melrose looked around the small room, where every table was occupied. “Take what seriously? Are you taking anything seriously, except that Sweet Lady you’re washing down the scone with?”

What Agatha was shoving into her mouth was a Woodbine special, a wonderful confection of a long thin meringue holding a layer of dense chocolate, itself topped by a layer of chocolate mousse. The crispness of the shell was a counterpoint to the rich layers of chocolate. Melrose looked at the sheet from the Sidbury paper and wondered if he could start a food column.

Agatha pinched up the last morsel of meringue, saying it was quite tasty indeed. “I should like the recipe for this.”

The wish being father to the thought, she set about getting it, hailing the overworked Megs to her side. She told her to see about the recipe for the Sweet Lady, to ask the cook for it.