Death of a Cozy Writer

“Yes. It’s about his new play. That he wants me to be in.”

“Spear-carriers being thin on the ground in the West End?” said Sir Adrian.

“Not as a spear-carrier, goddammit.” His fist hit the table and a fork careened into a glass. Red wine spread slowly across the immaculate white tablecloth. Already, he hated himself, but he could not seem to stop. “I was never a spear-carrier.”

“Agnus owes me a favor. I could put in a word.” This from Ruthven.

Albert swung on him, unleashing the hounds of fury he could not quite bring himself to set loose upon his father.

“Shut. Up. I don’t need any favors from you.”

Anger pushed him further, desperately, to extremes. As he turned again to his father, he said, with elaborate insouciance:

“As it happens, Agnus wants me for the role of Clarence in his new play. A pivotal part, he says. He came to me”-and at this point, Albert stepped into role, completely forgetting he was invent-ing-“ to my flat. Last Monday night.” He nodded and set down his drink, as if having just settled a difficult point about the earth’s being round. “For a meal, he came. We had an Alsatian stew he’d told me was his favorite.”

“Oh!” cut in Sarah, knowing he was making it all up, and trying to shovel him out before he got in too deeply. “Bacheofe. Is that difficult to make?”

“Not at all. You know me, not much of a cook, but I just managed.”

Lillian and Ruthven exchanged glances.

“How very odd,” said Ruthven. “Lillian and I dined with Agnus Monday night.” Ruthven, busy dissecting the Stilton as he punched a new hole in his brother’s ego, did not even bother to look up.

“Then it must have been Tuesday night,” Albert snapped.

“Besides,” Ruthven went on inexorably, “isn’t Agnus a vegetarian? Rather tiresome of him, I think. It took us forever to agree on a restaurant.”

Sarah glanced from brother to brother in alarm, wondering if Albert’s eyeballs might actually detach from his head as he wound himself into an apoplectic froth. She didn’t need to look at her father to know what his expression would be.

For she could easily trace the thread of the conversation back to its source. Anyone without experience of Sir Adrian might have thought he had played a passive role in the conflict, with Ruthven the aggressor and Albert the easily aggrieved. An outsider might have been forgiven for thinking her father’s look of bafflement genuine: the hapless parent, mystified by the cutthroat, murderous dislike among his children, in spite of his own best efforts as peacemaker.

How, she wondered, did Father always so easily ignite the spark that led to a full-fledged conflagration?

“You have no right to say anything to me,” Albert was saying now.

“Oh, really. And you have rights?” Once again, Ruthven couldn’t be bothered to look up from his meal, which only pushed Albert nearer the edge.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Yes, I do have rights, dammit to hell.”

But Albert, catching the plea in Sarah’s eyes at that moment, with a monumental effort held his tongue.

“Don’t be tedious,” said Ruthven. “I was only trying to help.”

“I’ve had enough of this-this Happy Meal,” said Albert. For the second time that day, he stood and stormed with great dignity out of the room, only slightly spoiling the effect by tripping over the carpet fringe and nearly landing on his head.

Into the deadly silence that ensued Sir Adrian, having turned Cain against Abel once again, said:

“My book is going well. Quite well indeed. My publisher, that slave driver, will be very pleased. Would you like to hear a brief synopsis?”

“No.” This from several voices in unison. Only Violet said, “That would be lovely, dear. I confess I am rather curious.”

Only Natasha noticed when Sarah crept away from the table, missing her favorite pudding, in search of Albert.

***

She found him in the bottom of the garden, in the boxwood maze, sitting on the cold stone bench in the center. This bitterly cold night the plants wore a dusting of ice that sparkled under the moonlight like broken glass. The back of the house rose in the distance, a thin, undisturbed coat of snow resting like sifted sugar atop its crenellated towers and across its vast formal lawns. The wind that had shredded the sky earlier in the day had dropped, allowing thick, snow-laden clouds to lour overhead; a light powder fell in a steady perpendicular curtain. It all looked more than ever like the enchanted garden that had been part of their make-believe games as children.

Albert wore a heavy coat against the cold, along with padded mittens like boxer’s gloves. She was surprised he’d had the presence of mind to protect himself from the weather. He clenched and unclenched his fists in the outsized gloves, whether in anger or in an attempt to keep warm, she couldn’t tell. His face in the moonlight was planed in shadow and light, more like marble than flesh.

“I’ll kill that shit some day,” was all he said.

“Which one?”

Albert emitted a harsh laugh, shaking his head.

“You could always make me laugh, Sarah. Sometimes even intentionally. My God, I am afraid for you sometimes. The world will tear you to pieces.”

“Don’t worry about me, Albert. I may be tougher than you think.”

He eyed her doubtfully.

“Which one, you ask? Such a wide field to choose from, isn’t there? But at the moment, Ruthven. The world would be such a better place without him.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve often thought so myself. Him or George. At least, the universe would register that an irritant had been removed, somewhat like getting a cinder out of one’s eye.” She tapped an index finger against her upper lip meditatively, like a housewife trying to decide whether to paint or wallpaper the sitting room. Ruthven or George? George or Ruthven?

“I really didn’t mean George, at the moment,” said Albert.

“One of the great romances, there,” said Sarah.

“George and Natasha? You must be joking. And now, baby makes three. Great God. A little niece or nephew for us all. I don’t suppose Father will waste any time changing the will again, now there’s a Beauclerk-Fisk dynasty in the offing.”

“I actually was speaking of George’s love for himself. Now, there is a love that will last ’til the end of time.”

“Ha! Quite right. Still, Natasha seems to have got a leash on him, for the moment. At least, she seems to know how to play against his ego.”

“It won’t last,” said Sarah sadly. She traced a heart in the snow on top of the stone bench, then roughly obliterated it. “George is too unstable. The child will only make things worse, and I think Natasha knows it. But-it’s Father who is the center of the storm, as usual. Playing us off against each other, playing with us. It’s so silly, this whole charade about the marriage. Why does he play these stupid games?”

Albert tore his gaze away from the house, which seemed to have held him spellbound.

“I’ll kill that shit some day,” he said again.

“Albert, you mustn’t even think such a thing, much less say it. About any of them.”

“Why not? What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know. I suppose because-because people may believe you mean it.”

“I do mean it.”

“No! Whether you mean it or not, you mustn’t say it aloud.

People mustn’t know, don’t you see? I mean, if anything were to happen to Ruthven, or George, or Father, you’d be blamed. Don’t you see the danger?”

Albert looked at her closely, at the lines of anxiety furrowing her brow. She was frightened, he could see that.