conversation seemed more witty than I'd have expected, the entertainment more stylish, the dancing feverish but physically satisfying—all in all, it buoyed my spirits beyond measure.
When we first got there, a band was playing some tune with a syncopated beat that my companions seemed to know, for two or three of them sang snatches of words in between swallows of their first drinks. With the next number, several of my companions got up to dance, and shortly after that, the band took a short break, to return with a fanfare and the announcement of the singer.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the band-leader purred to the crowd, “the Blue Tiger is just thrilled to present, fresh from her triumphal tour of Paris, Berlin, and New York, our own home-town girl . . . Miss Belinda Birdsong!”
The singer with the unlikely name appeared in a sudden burst of spotlight, dressed in a shimmer of white, head bowed; the hall erupted in applause, cat-calls, hoots, and intoxicated laughter. It was evident that Miss Birdsong was well known here. And as soon as she opened her mouth to sing and the sound died down a bit, it became clear why.
She was a Personality, in the tradition of Lily Langtry and the like who had come to the city through the dance-halls and cabarets of the West. Pretty if not beautiful, saucy yet preserving an air of innocence, Miss Birdsong had the crowded hall wrapped around her nicely manicured little finger. And I had to laugh myself, when I recognised her first song—I'd heard just that tune coming from a peculiar dive in Delhi some weeks before, a 'Nineties ditty about a bird in a golden cage.
It was apparently her trademark song, because the patrons made no attempt to dance to it, even those already out on the dance-floor. Instead, they hung on her every syllable and note. When it ended, a wave of cheers arose that put the earlier cacophony in the shade; when that finally died away, the singer started another song, and this time, the couples on the floor started to move.
I knew none of the modern dances and would have sat most of them out, but Flo would not permit it, and demanded that Donny pull me out onto the floor. That night I learnt the ridiculously satisfying moves of the Charleston, as well as several variations, and between the various males in our party, and later from adjoining tables, I spent a respectable time gyrating beneath the lights. It is a dance of unbridled energy, making it impossible to feel anything but strong and filled with the invulnerability of youth. It was breathless and pointless and fun, and the thirsty work of it made the champagne flow. In time, another singer took Miss Birdsong's place, a rather raw-boned female with an uncertain voice and a practiced line in raunchy jokes, but then the local heroine returned, wearing scarlet sequins this time, and saw out the rest of the night.
I was, truth to tell, disappointed to call the evening to an end. Donny drove us all (or mostly all—I thought we numbered fewer than we had, and a couple of those newcomers) to Flo's house, where he opened cupboards and drawers with the readiness of long practice and whipped up cheese omelettes, after which Flo hacked uneven wedges off a slightly stale cake and served them with a bowl of strawberries dipped in sugar, and mugs of cocoa.
In the end, Donny piled the rest of us back into his blue Rolls and drove through a city where only the milkmen and paper boys were stirring. When I walked into the dim hotel, I looked around for the clock, and found to my astonishment that it was nearly four in the morning.
Holmes was still awake, so we'd talked for a while before turning out the lights. I was too elevated to sleep much, and rose a few hours later to take a walk through the waking city. It was very beautiful, San Francisco, its uneven terrain and highly varied inhabitants making it both distinctive and worldly. It resembled London, in that it seemed to be made up of hamlets that had been joined but which had not lost their individuality. Here, however, the air was clean, the buildings fresh, and working men met one's eye straight on (an egalitarian reaction one tended to find only in the docks area of the English capital).
I came back to find Holmes, astonishingly, still abed. And also, unfortunately, watching me as if I were about to relapse into the previous afternoon's quivering mass. The only answer to that sort of concern is to assume a brisk manner and an assertion of strength, and although it did not entirely convince him—his ongoing fixation with the amount of food I required, for example, was vexing—it did allow him to draw away sufficiently that I could breathe. It may even have reassured him, when I responded to his mother-hen overprotectiveness by declaring that I would do as I please, whether that involved finishing my plate of food or going to see the Lodge on my own. He was not pleased at the latter decision, but as I said, I think my spirited defence of the choice he found reassuringly normal.
As a result, he made no attempt to linger during Saturday afternoon, leaving me alone in the big house while he went about his own business. When he came back before I had finished in the house, I found that he'd persisted in his fixation and spent the afternoon interviewing the neighbours—although I couldn't be completely annoyed, because in the course of his interviews, he had come up with the solution to the second of the dreams. It was, I had to grant him, a nice piece of work, and he seemed pleased with himself when we went to dinner with Mr Long. Then this morning, he'd appeared to be so convinced of my rehabilitation, he had not even insisted on hovering over me when Flo and Donny were delayed. He had merely told me to have a good time, said he'd see me on Wednesday, and left.
And if I'd regretted his absence the moment I climbed into Donny's motor, the regret had faded under the bright day and the coastal beauty and Flo's friendly and not unintelligent conversation. Perhaps this trip would not be a complete disaster, after all.
The road continued to flirt with the sea, coming near and ducking away again, before we turned definitively towards the hills and the engine noise deepened with the climb. My body knew the twists and turns, the scattered farms and cattle lots rang a familiar note in my heart, but the hollow space at the core of me grew: I should not have come; Holmes was right, it was a mistake; it would be bad if I were to find something of my family still inhabiting the Lodge; it would be worse if I did not. I wanted to seize my savaged hair in both hands and scream aloud, just to relieve the building pressure, but I knew that if I screamed, it would be impossible to stop.
So I sat and quivered, staring in hope and apprehension, responding to Donny's questions with silence or a brief gesture—a flick of the finger to say, “Go right, here” or a nod to say we were on the correct road. I was conscious that Flo was watching me out of the corner of her eye, wary as a horse about to startle, but at some time in the previous couple of miles I had also become aware that Flo was riding in the place my mother had sat, and my mother had usually done something—very soon now, she used to . . . what?
We cleared a corner and the hillside of trees dropped away, and I threw off my rug and shouted, “Wait! Stop!”
Donny slammed on the brakes, causing Flo to choke on her chewing gum and the heavy motor to skid to the edge of the loose gravel roadway, but he managed to stop the machine before its front tyres entered the drop-off. I swallowed hard to push my heart back out of my throat—I emphatically didn't like being a passenger—and then scrambled over the side of the car to the ground. Donny turned off the engine. Silence took over, broken only by the crunch of their shoes on the gravel as they joined me, the
Mother used to call out for Father to stop, so she could see the view.
The trees were lush, dark redwoods interspersed with brash young maples, the native oak, and some leathery-leafed tree with peeling red bark. At precisely this point on the road, as if stage curtains had been parted by a pair of huge hands, the forest drew back, revealing a sparkle of blue water.
But something was missing. I stepped to the side, then further, until the very tip of a dock came into view behind the trees. I wondered if the dock had been truncated, by decay or purpose, or if it was simply that the trees had grown up and obscured its length. Studying the vista, I decided the latter was the more likely explanation: The end of the dock appeared to be as square as ever, and the slice of lake revealed by the parted boughs seemed narrower than it should be. I nodded, satisfied, and climbed back into the motor.
Flo and Donny glanced at each other, and I realised belatedly that some kind of explanation might be in order, considering that I'd nearly sent us off the road with my sudden shout. Their hearts were probably still racing.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'd forgotten until we reached this point that we always stopped to take a look at the lake. If I'd noticed what a state the road was in, I'd have suggested it more gently.”
“No problem,” Donny said. “My baby's got good brakes.”
He was, I believed, speaking of the motorcar.
