The God of the Labyrinth

  I followed him to the bedroom—it would have been stupid to ask what he was doing. It was comfortable and warm. He laid her on the quilt of the large double bed, then removed her shoes. After this, he looked around the waist of the skirt and found the zip. I asked: ‘Is that wise?’ He said: ‘I’m not going to put her in my bed with these clothes on. You said yourself they stank.’ He found the zip and pulled it clumsily down, then yanked the skirt off her feet. She was wearing no underskirt—only the stock­ings, held up by suspenders, and the panties, whose waist-elastic was almost completely detached from the body of the garment. ‘Pretty little figure’, he said. This was an overstatement; she was thin, and the small belly was so flat that the hip bones stood out. He took hold of the bottom of the thin woollen sweater—it was of a muddy green colour—and raised it, then moved her on to her side so he could tug it over her head. She was wearing a bra that had once been white, and the straps at the back had been joined by a piece of black elastic tied roughly to the remains of the cloth. I felt the automatic masculine stirrings as I looked at her. He snapped the elastic with a tug. The small breasts were flat and undeveloped. He looked at me.

  ‘Shall we have her?’

  I said positively: ‘No. Let her alone.’

  He reached down suddenly and placed his hand on the front of my trousers; I started back as though he had hit me. He grinned.

  ‘You can’t pretend you’re not excited.’

  I mastered the impulse to hit him, and said: ‘Why don’t you put her into bed and let her sleep?’

  ‘No. She’d be disappointed.’ He pulled down the panties, and slipped his hand between her thighs. ‘Feel.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Look.’ He held out the hand to me. It was moist. He said:

  ‘I think I’ll have her.’ He unbelted his trousers, and pushed them down. My feelings were mixed. I was fairly certain that she was awake. But if she wasn’t, then I was an accessory to her rape. Since she hadn’t given consent, I was an accessory anyway. I leaned forward and pinched her shoulder. She did not move. Clive Bates was now chuckling in an insane manner. He prodded her breast with his finger. ‘Tell him you’re awake, sweety.’ He bent over, as if to kiss her, but instead took her lower lip in his mouth and bit it. With his enormous naked behind sticking towards me, he looked obscene. Then he pushed her thighs apart, and moved on to her. He guided his penis with his hand, gave a thrust, and went into her. Then he looked at me, with a blissful expression, and said: ‘Aa . . . ah!’ I turned and walked out of the room. Before I was out of the door, he was after me.

  ‘Now come, my dear Gerard, don’t be such a prude. You know you find it exciting. Why don’t you come and watch, then I’ll watch you?’ He stood there at the door, still in his evening shirt and bow tie, with his penis erect and shiny.

  ‘She’s not my type. I don’t want to sound offensive, but she’s not very clean.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ His face had gone pink and shiny, and his eyes were glittering with a feverish enthusiasm. ‘Still, we could bath her if you like?’

  ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘You’re just a prude, aren’t you, Gerard?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  He came and took my arm—the erection stayed undiminished, and I found it hard to keep my eyes away. He said wheedlingly:

  ‘I’ve done you a favour today. Listen, when the old man dies, I’ll inherit his manuscripts. I’ll let you take what you like.’

  The situation suddenly reminded me of Colonel Donelly, and it was too much. I said:

  ‘Look, if you want to screw her, go and do it. I won’t stop you. But I don’t want to. And I don’t want to bath her either.’ I said this quickly because I could see he had his heart set on a three-part orgy.

  ‘You won’t go away?’

  ‘No. I’ll wait.’

  ‘I’ll leave the door open.’ He rushed off into the bedroom, and I saw him fling himself on her again. I thought she raised her knees to receive him. I went and found a bottle of wine in his cupboard, and poured myself a large glass. The sounds from the bedroom left no doubt he was enjoying it. They were interspersed with groans, and comments like: ‘Oo . . . oh, you little bitch . . .’ Finally, the noises stopped. I went on eating cheese and olives, and reading a copy of Waite’s Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross which I found on his bookshelf. I began to feel sleepy. It would be untrue to say I was not, to some extent, sexually aroused. The girl’s extreme passivity had aroused my curiosity, and curiosity about a girl is very close to the desire to take off her clothes. Now as I sat in the armchair, the memory of her torn panties and exposed genitals came back and produced excitement. Under different circumstances, I could have made love to her. What put me off was the personality of Clive Bates, and his attempt to enroll me as a co-rapist.

  It was after midnight and I thought of returning to my hotel. There were movements from the bedroom, but I did not look up. Then Clive Bates was standing on the rug, completely naked, holding the girl in his arms again.

  ‘I’ve brought her for you.’

  ‘That’s kind, but I have to go.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t go.’ He knelt down, and laid her on the white bearskin rug, at my feet. She was also quite naked now. The pubic hairs were a reddish-gold colour, and some of them clung wetly to her skin. Then he went out of the room. I bent over and touched her arm. I said: ‘Are you awake?’ She made no movement. There was water running in the bathroom. A few minutes later, Clive Bates came out of the bathroom, carrying a red plastic bucket with steam coming from it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to give her a bath.’

  The water was scented. He took a sponge out of it, squeezed it, and then soaped it with a great cake of lemon-coloured bath soap. He parted her thighs, and began carefully to wash her, ignoring the water that ran on to the rug. Then he took a towel and dried her. After this, he carefully washed her breasts, then her belly, thighs and knees. Then he turned her on her face, parted the cheeks of her behind, and repeated the operation. When he had dried her, he bent down and kissed it, then looked up and said: ‘There, it couldn’t be cleaner.’

  ‘All she needs now are some clean clothes.’

  ‘Oh, I expect we can arrange that.’

  He stood up.

  ‘There, she’s all yours.’

  He turned and walked out of the room, and closed the bed­room door. It was a temptation. Watching him caress her with the sponge had given me an erection. I bent over, and touched her breast. It was cold. I stood up and crossed to the bookcase, then tiptoed to the bedroom door and pushed it open. There was a thump, and Clive Bates was sitting on the carpet, looking bewildered. His erection was back again. I said: ‘Excuse me. I just wanted to get something to cover her.’ I went to his bed, took off the eiderdown, and went back to the girl on the hearth­rug. As I covered her over, I thought I noticed a smile on her lips.

  I heard the bedsprings creak in the other room; I sat down and opened Waite on the Rosicrucians. Then I got sleepy, and must have dozed off; I woke up when the book slipped off my knees. I looked at the clock; it was two thirty. Suddenly, Florence sat up. She looked at the eiderdown.

  ‘That was nice of you.’

  ‘Not at all.’ We both spoke in low voices.

  She said: ‘Well, I s’pose I better go.’

  ‘Like that?’

  ‘No.’

  She went across to an antique chest of drawers in the corner, and pulled one open. She began to toss underwear on to the floor. She pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out a pair of shoes. I said:

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  ‘Abaht once a week on average.’

  Without embarrassment she climbed into a suspender belt—this time, one that looked new and fashionable—and then pulled on stockings. After this, she pulled on panti
es, and slipped into a bra, which she asked me to hook. I crept over to the bedroom door and looked in, but this time there was no doubt that Clive Bates was fast asleep. Florence had pulled on a nylon waist slip of the same pastel shade as the bra and panties; to my inexperi­enced eye, it looked expensive. She went to a cupboard near the door and took out a long plastic bag on a hanger, which proved to contain a lime-green two-piece suit. She went to the mirror over the fireplace and brushed her hair with a brush she had taken from the drawer; her hair was now dry, and when brushed, it was the same red-gold I had noticed elsewhere. She made up her face with a few pats of a powder puff and strokes of lipstick. When she turned, I hardly recognised her. She still looked young; but I would now have guessed her age at twenty. She wore the well-cut clothes as if she was used to them.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Er . . . yes.’

  Out of the hall cupboard she took an overcoat that matched the suit, and an umbrella of the same colour. Finally, she settled a small red beret on the side of her head. She switched off the electric fire, then the light, and we went out, closing the door softly behind us.

  I asked: ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t go back. You at the Shelbourne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll come back there and see if they’ve got a room. I can’t be bothered to go out to Malahide.’

  Her accent was still recognisably London, but no longer cockney.

  It had stopped raining, and we walked back through the empty streets. I asked her if she had ever known Clive Bates’s grandfather.

  ‘Oh yes. He used to live out at Malahide. That’s where I met Clive. The old boy’s just as bad.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He likes ’em young. He used to leer at me when I was only ten.’

  She seemed quite willing to talk, and she talked casually, in a business-like way, not as though she was making revelations. Clive had seduced her when she was twelve—that is, he had offered to give her the money for an expensive bicycle if she came to his room half an hour after school for a few days. She was the illegitimate daughter of a bus conductress, and was badly dressed and underfed. Although she did not say so plainly, it was fairly evident that Clive was attracted by the torn clothes and runny nose. The loss of her virginity was a painful shock. Clive had treated her very well, soothed and caressed her, made her feel confident. Then one day, after he had carefully undressed her and smeared her with olive oil, he suddenly drove with all his might and removed her maidenhead with one violent stroke. She screamed and cried for half an hour, until he went down­stairs and brought up the bicycle she had wanted for so long. The appointments in Clive’s room continued, and the old man soon joined in. They paid her well, and the old man talked to her mother about adopting her. The mother knew what was going on, of course; but the money was too good to reject.

  Clive’s only objection was that she spent too much money on clothes. It was part of his fantasy that she should be a shabby urchin. He used to wander round the second-hand clothes bar­rows on the quays and buy up grubby clothes. These would arrive in the post, together with a short note telling her where to meet him, and at what time. She had to be picked up, and to behave as if she had never seen him before. Whenever possible, he brought someone else along, and enacted the curious rape scene that I had witnessed. I asked her if his friends ever accepted the invitation to possess her while she was apparently unconscious. She said:

  ‘Oh yes. You’re only the second who’s refused.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. Sometimes they get so worked up watching one another they carry on all night. If I’m lucky, the two men take a fancy to each other and leave me alone.’

  ‘Is Clive homosexual, then?’

  She said: ‘Oh, he’s everything.’

  The desk clerk seemed to know her; she took the key, and we went upstairs together. On the second floor, where our ways parted, she said: ‘Shall I come and talk to you?’ I knew what she meant. I said: ‘I think you ought to get some sleep. You’ve had a hard night.’ She grinned at me. ‘You’re nice. I wouldn’t mind . . .’ She stood on tiptoe and put her arms around my neck. I kissed her, and felt a sudden stirring. She said: ‘Goodnight’, and walked off down the corridor. I repressed the desire to follow her, and went to my own room. Before going to bed, I took half a dozen vitamin B tablets and drank a pint of water. It made no difference. I woke in the morning with a dry mouth and a head that throbbed like a dynamo.

  Two cups of coffee and some hot buttered toast made me feel more human. I sat in bed, reading the morning paper and wondering if a trip to Malahide Castle would be worth the time and energy, but more tempted to put the ‘Do not disturb’ notice on my door and sleep for the rest of the morning. The telephone rang, and it was like a circular saw cutting into my fragile con­centration. I wondered if it was Clive Bates, and was tempted not to answer it. It rang again, and I picked it up. A man’s voice said: ‘Mr Sorme?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘This is Alastair Glenney. You wrote to me.’

  I said: ‘Good heavens. How d’you do? It’s kind of you to call.’

  ‘Your wife told me you were at the Shelbourne. Look here, what are the chances of your coming to London?’

  ‘It’s possible. What had you in mind?’

  ‘It’s rather long to explain over the phone. But I’m absolutely fascinated by all this stuff about Esmond. I’ve got an idea I might be able to help. You know Golspie was sold?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Two years ago. They forwarded your letter. My elder brother was killed in Switzerland—drowned in a boat­ing accident. Things turned out to be so complicated—death duties and all that—that we decided to sell Golspie. It’s owned by a Canadian called Miller. I know there are great chests full of papers there. And of course, they still belong to me.’

  ‘Do you have access to them?’

  ‘Oh yes. This Miller’s quite a decent chap. If you could get to London, we could both go up there.’

  I thought quickly.

  ‘When would you be free?’

  ‘Any time at all. I’m not working at the moment.’

  ‘If I took a plane to London today, would you be free?’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely. I’d be delighted to see you.’

  I took his telephone number, told him I’d ring him back, and hung up. First, I rang the airport. There was an Aer Lingus flight at twelve thirty-five, and I would have to be at the airport half an hour earlier to pick up my ticket. I confirmed the book­ing, then rang the desk to ask for my bill. After that, I rang Diana, but could only get on to Mopsy, who had been left in charge of the cleaning woman while Diana went to have her hair done. I told her to tell her Mummy I would be flying to London and would ring later. Then I rang Alastair Glenney back, and said I’d be at Heathrow at 1.45. It was a rush, and my head throbbed warningly, but I made it, scrambling on to the plane five minutes before take-off. I dozed during the trip, and woke up suddenly as the pilot announced our landing.

  In the airport building, a voice over the loudspeaker asked if Mr Sorme would go to the Aer Lingus desk. I went there, and found a tall, fair young man waiting for me.

  ‘Mr Sorme? I’m Alastair Glenney.’

  He was younger than I had assumed—hardly out of his teens; his hair was long, and the blue jeans and donkey jacket were not what I would have expected on a peer of the realm. He was extremely good-looking; with shorter hair, he could have made a fortune as a male model.

  I said it was kind of him to meet me. He said:

  ‘Not at all. If you hadn’t come to London, I’d have come to Ireland.’

  We walked about a mile to where his mini-minor was parked. On the way back into London, he amplified what he had told me over the phone. His brother Gordon had died at
the age of twenty-eight, a year after getting married. They were the last surviving Glenneys, and Golspie had become the joint property of his brother’s wife and Alastair, who was still at St Andrews. Death duties were heavy, and when Gordon’s affairs were settled, there was little left but Golspie House (although Alastair had an independent income that came from a grandmother). Golspie was a white elephant, and the agent told them it was hardly worth the trouble of selling—that the price it would fetch would hardly cover the legal costs. Nevertheless, they decided to sell. And within a few weeks they received an incredibly large offer from a Canadian businessman who wanted a ‘Scottish castle’ to retire to. They closed the deal quickly; Alastair decided this was the time to try to realise his ambition of forming a pop singing group, and moved to London. The group had not materialised, and he was living quietly in Holland Park and studying photography in the hope of becoming a Press photographer.

  I asked him how he had become interested in Donelly.

  ‘I think I’d better let Angela explain that. That’s my sister-in-law—Gordon’s wife. She’s waiting back at the flat.’

  I must admit that I experienced a certain disappointment. Alastair Glenney was obviously a pleasant young man, but he hardly seemed to fit into my search for Donelly. But I thought that it would add a touch of irony to my Introduction to Memoirs of an Irish Rake to mention that the present Lord Glenney was an unsuccessful pop singer who hoped to get into journalism. At least he seemed to be interested in his family’s history; he outlined what had become of them in the nineteenth century, and how Lord Alexander Glenney—his grandfather—had married an American heiress in 1901 and temporarily restored the family fortunes. His father had reduced them again by living in London and keeping half a dozen mistresses.

  We arrived at his flat at about half past three. It was a soft, golden afternoon, and I experienced a sudden sense of well-being as I stood on the pavement in Holland Mews and watched him lock the car. A girl stood at the window watching us, and he waved to her. ‘That’s Angela.’