King of the Sea

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Lawrence, though his Fellowship of the Royal Zoological Society was available to one and all at the drop of a mere guinea or two, felt he should make some gesture to justify it. "The cassowary," he announced before the kiwi cage, "so called because at the mere sight of a casserole it will run a hundred miles without even pausing for breath." Two fellow Fellows within earshot glowered at

him. "Steady now, my boy," Frank warned, doing his best not to smile.

Lawrence gave the sedate old gentlemen a contrite bow. "Come," he said soberly, herding his family away, "I must show you our latest acquisition in the finches cage the double-breasted backchat."

Once round the corner, by the entrance to the ape house, they exploded with laughter. Fortunately, the Fellows there were in a lighter humour, being heartily engaged in a face-pulling competition with the orang-outang. A few minutes later the ad hoc judging committee gave Lawrence the palm, a 2

judgment confirmed by the creature himself, who spat a hearty and evil-smelling quid on his cheek. "I've seen them in the forests in Sumatra," Frank wandered toward snakes.

said as they very shy there." Neil saw his sister frown. "What's the matter?" he asked, seeking some cause in the nearest cage. "I've just realized... I mean, we come here three or "They're

on

the

four times a year and we see all these animals all neatly separated in their cages and we start thinking this is where they belong. But they don't, do they. When Papa said that, about seeing them in Sumatra, I suddenly realized they actually belong in the forests, and not just in ones or twos but by the hundreds." "By the thousands," Frank told her.

She rounded on Neil. "Oh, you are lucky! To be able to travel and see all these things. That's what I'm going to do 1 travel." Neil put an arm round her. "Cut off your hair and

sign on aboard Swallow as cabin boy. I'll keep an eye on you." Lawrence, with a wary eye on his father, said,

"Sign on aboard the Hilda of Troy and Papa can keep an eye on you." "Now that's quite enough of this frivolity," Hilda

said sharply. "Cut off her hair, indeed! Francis, say something to them." "Enough!" Frank said, reasserting something of his

old self. It felt rusty.

They sauntered on into the snake house where their varying interests broke them into two groups again; Frank, who would rather have been with his sons by the crocodiles, felt obliged to stay with the ladies near the python, whose cold silken skin they loved to touch and stroke.

rprised Mama went into the ape house," Lawrence said. "D'you remember that time a vervet monkey started tossing himself off and she tried to distract our attention - 'Oh look over here, children! only to find her parasol pointing at a great bull chimp shagging the arse off one of his harem!"

"Yes!" Neil chuckled. "And all the Fellows staring at her in horror! Trust you to remember exactly what sort of monkey it was."

"I often used to think of that little chap. Felt quite sorry for him. No mate of his own. Forced to watch that brute of a chimp at it day and night. Knowing he could do it with so much more grace and charm." Neil smiled and patted his arm consolingly. "Fellow sufferers, eh."

"Happy days!" The reply held a grand ambiguity. "Ah! A sufferer no more, then? Is that it?" Lawrence hesitated, poised between flippancy and seriousness. "I'll tell you later," he said. "Perhaps you can help."

Catherine was glad her brothers had drifted away. She had devised a splendid way to test her father's response to the name of Jenny Bright without even hinting that she herself even knew of the young lady's existence. She took her chance now. "Last month we came here with Miss Kernow," she said, "and the llama was sick all over Jenny Seabright's sketchbook. Miss Kernow said the llama was an art critic."

There was a distinct twitch in her father's arm, the moment she mentioned the name - which she was rather proud of having invented; it didn't sound like a made-up name at all.

"The Seabrights, dear?" her mother asked. "Where do they live?"

"They don't, as a matter of fact. Not any more. They were in a hôtel..." "An hôtel." "An hôtel. They were only waiting for a passage to

India." She made no further mention of the name - but then she didn't need to. It had entirely served its purpose.

T HEY STAYED ONLY an hour or so at the zoo and then took a cab home, arriving in time for lunch - or luncheon, as Hilda insisted. Afterwards the two young men went out for a stroll on Highbury Fields; their sister came with them. She was at last returning Aunt Daphne's photograph album.

"I can hardly believe the change in the old man," Neil said as they reached the edge of the green. "Commodore of the line," Lawrence pointed out.

"Perhaps everyone changes when they get what they've worked for all their lives. Actually, that's a funny phrase, isn't it - 'worked for all one's life'? I can't imagine working for anything, I mean any one single thing, all my life, can you?" "Very easily," Neil assured him.

"Me too," Catherine chipped in. "What's even more surprising, in a way," Neil went on, "is his reluctance to talk about the Great Storm. I mean, think of all the other hairy escapes he's had. They were our bedtime stories almost. But this one. nothing! The biggest storm in our lifetime. I'll bet they're still talking about it on the Baltic."

Lawrence chuckled. "Not half as much as they a at Lloyd's." A sudden thought struck him. "Perhaps are this time he really came face-to-face with death. I mean, think of it! Trying to run a ship aground backwards down a narrow channel between two great shoals of rock in a hurricane! That's not face-to face with death, it's nose-to-nose. Who knows what that does to a man? We can't imagine it. What goes through your mind at a time like that?"

"They say a drowning man sees all his life pass before him," Catherine said, looking up, first at one, then the other.

"Whatever it was," Neil replied to Lawrence over her head, "you may be sure we'll never know." They came to a fork in the path, the right branch of

which led up to Aunt Daphne's. "I'll go on my own from here," Catherine said, holding out a hand for the album, which Lawrence had been carrying for her. He passed it over with a rueful smile. "I never did get a look at it," he commented. "Anything of interest?"

"Not really. See you at Evensong." She took a pace or two and then thought better of it. "Actually, there was just one." She opened the book and showed them the photograph of their father as a young seaman staring at the girl she now knew to be called Jenny Bright.

"God, that's a long time ago!" Lawrence exclaimed. "Is it him?" Neil asked, moving the book to a position where the leaf shadows no longer dappled it. It is, too. Who's the fair young maid?"

"No names under it," Lawrence commented. "That's unlike Aunt D. Ask her." He snapped the book shut and passed it back to his sister. "D'you think I should?" she asked, biting her lip.

"No harm in it." He grinned. "Why? D'you think there's a shameful secret hidden there? The old man's first true love?"

"He does look rather smitten."

They laughed at her romantic ideas. "I'll bet he was smitten a dozen more times before he settled for Mama," Lawrence assured her.

"Just like you, eh?" She laughed and dashed away up the path, her hair streaming out behind her. "Yes, like alone. you, eh?" Neil echoed when they were

They strolled on beneath the trees toward the sun and open space on the west of the green. Lawrence stared after their sister, who was now walking sedately across the road to the Dowtys' house. "I wonder does she know anything?" he mused. Neil heaved a sigh.

Lawrence turned to him. "What's up with you?" "What a family we are! Secrets, secrets everywhere. And loyalties, too. I don't know. I think I'm the only one who doesn't have secrets. What a dullard you must all think me!"

"But didn't you know that?" Lawrence asked disingenuously. "It's what we've always said about you. Beast!" he cried as Neil gave him a short jab in the kidneys. "Shall we stop and smoke a cheroot?" "You're hitting these things rather hard," Neil

commented as he puffed his own alight. "You never used to smoke so much. It'll be the bottle next." "Don't!" Lawrence shuddered. "You don't know

what you're saying." Neil watched the smoke drift lazily away, bright blue against the warm, dark shadow beneath the trees. "Tell me then," he said. "Isn't that what this stroll is for?"

"I'm in the most b****y awful mess, Neil. That's what. And it's all my own fault." Then, hardly pausing to draw breath, he scampered through the events following Emma's dismissal and his setting her up in rooms.

e you shagged her yet?" Neil asked brutally. "Have "No." "You b****y fool! It's what she expected. How

d'you imagine she feels?" "I know all that. I mean we do talk about it a lot." "Talk! What good is talk?"

"I just wanted ... I don't know something different. That's what I wanted to explain to you." "How can you afford all this, by the way?" Neil suddenly remembered he wasn't supposed to know about Lawrence's gambling.

"Oh..." His brother waved a hand vaguely at the grass and sky. "Bit of luck in the office sweepstake." "How much?"

Lawrence thought rapidly. "Forty guineas." Neil gave a whistle, then a chuckle. "So the Beast has forty guineas rattling in his pocket and the first thing he thinks of is a bit of fluff! Well, that's no surprise. But why don't you want to slip between the sheets with her?" Lawrence exhaled a long, weary column of smoke.

"That's what's so hard to explain. I do want to slip between the sheets with her - of course I do. But there's something more than that. Something about really getting to know her. I mean ... don't you think it's extraordinary? We grow up surrounded by females mother, nannies, aunts, sister, sister's chums, maidservants and yet we have no idea what they're really like, have we? There's no real closeness, like there is with another fellow."

"For the simple reason it's not even possible." Neil's tone made it clear that although he was trying very sympathetically he simply could not understand his brother's dilemma.

"But it is possible. I had a glimpse of it those first few days with Emma. And she saw it too. The possibility of a real ... I don't know... a real meeting of mind and spirit. And that's what I want to try and establish before our sordid bodies get in on the act." "The act?" Neil echoed with a laugh. "That's the point, old Beast. The Act is the only one possible between men and women. What you're seeking is a chimæra. She's got more sense than you."

"But she saw it," Lawrence insisted. "She saw it and it frightened her. I saw it and it ... delighted me. More than delighted. It was like ... oh, haven't you ever been in love?" "Ah! Is that what you think it is?"

"I'm not going to talk if all you can be is flippant." "I'm not being flippant. I'm just talking common sense. Look - women are put into this world for a purpose to have babies and look after homes and keep civilization from going to the dogs. Or the horses. Or the sweepstakes." He stooped low and peered into his brother's eyes, forcing an unwilling laugh from his lips. "I know all that," Lawrence said tetchily.