Page 53 of The Christmas Invitation
18
Raking the Embers
I was still furious with Rollo, so on Monday morning I rang him up from the studio.
‘It’s me,’ I said abruptly when he answered.
‘Darling!’ he began fulsomely in his most mellifluous voice.
‘Don’t you darling me after ringing here and trying to give Clara the idea that we’re in a relationship, just so you could wangle your way in and interview Henry!’ I snapped. ‘Andyou interrupted Clara when she was working.’
‘But I had to do something, becauseyoudidn’t seem to want to prepare the ground for me at all.’
‘No, I bloody well didn’t want to prepare the ground! And how the hell did you get the phone number for this house?’
‘You can get any phone number these days,’ he said ambiguously. ‘You never replied to any of my messages, so there was nothing else for it. I mean, this interview with Henry Doome isimportant, Meg.’
‘Only to you – and in your dreams! There’s no way I’m letting you use me to get your foot through the door.’
‘Oh, come on, Meg,’ he wheedled. ‘A real friend would already have smoothed the way, ready for when I turned up.’
‘A real friend wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place. Youusepeople, Rollo, and I’ve had enough.’
The message didn’t seem to get through, because he said, ‘Did you tell this Clara that weweren’tin a relationship?’
‘Clara Mayhem Doome, Henry’s wife. And yes, I did, but she’d guessed what you were after, anyway.’
‘I expect I can still work that angle; she’ll just think we’ve had a lovers’ tiff,’ he suggested.
I was about to put him right about that in no uncertain terms when he added, curiously, ‘What’s Henry Doome like? He’s supposed to be a total recluse.’
Something came over me.
‘He shuts himself in his study from morning till night and rarely speaks to anyone except family.’
‘I thought you were going to paint his portrait?’
‘I am, but I’ve had to take a vow of silence while I’m working, never turn my back on him and only wear the colour green.’
There was a pause. Then he said uncertainly, ‘Are you making that up?’
‘Of course not. He’s alittleeccentric. I mean, he won’t talk toanyoneunless they’re wearing green, so it was a wonderful stroke of luck that I’d dyed my hair dark emerald before I came here.’
‘Why green?’
‘Oh, I was bored with it and wanted a change.’
‘No, I meant why isHenry Doomeso fixated on that colour?’
‘I think it must be because of the Green Man,’ I improvised quickly.
‘Which green man?’
‘You know,theGreen Man, the ones from old folklore that you see on cathedral doorknockers with leaves sprouting out oftheir mouths. Symbolic of growth and rebirth and spring and stuff, I expect.’
Rollo abandoned the topic and said confidingly, ‘The thing is, Meg, I mentioned to my American publisher that I might be able to get a brief foreword from Henry Doome for my new anthology and they’reverykeen on the idea.’
‘More fool you, then, for counting your chickens before they’re hatched.’
