Clouds among the Stars. Victoria Clayton

of animals and, anyway, it was apparent from the size of Mark Antony’s girth that he was already well catered for.

      I spoke urgently to the policeman on duty, not our nice PC Bird but the grumpiest of the three who took it in turns to prevent us being made sorry we had been born. He had noticed the man but assumed he was a crank. When I rang Inspector Foy he was sympathetic but regretted that resources would not permit him to send out a police car to search for Mark Antony.

      I had recently failed my driving test for the fourth time for being insufficiently in control of the vehicle but this did not prevent me from taking out Bron’s car illegally, with only Cordelia as passenger, and combing the streets of Blackheath. After an hour of hopeless searching we were both crying so much that I failed to see a bollard and we had to drive away hastily, leaving confirmatory evidence of the justice of the last examiner’s pithily worded strictures.

      After this, life looked as black as could be and I think it was this that prevented me from seeing what was happening to Maria-Alba. At first I thought her extreme volatility was due to distress at the disappearance of Mark Antony, of whom she was very fond. But when she started seeing the Virgin Mary on the basement stairs and having long hectoring conversations with her about the rights and wrongs of the Catholic Church, I became seriously worried. The others were no help at all in this latest crisis.

      To while away the hours of their incarceration Bron and Ophelia played Honeymoon Bridge in the drawing room for enormous if imaginary stakes. Portia spent all her time in her room, reading things like Swallows and Amazons and The Magic Pudding, chosen, she explained because she could be certain there would be no sex scenes, as she could not bear the idea of even the chastest kiss. Cordelia and I occupied the dining room where we were constructing a cat-sized four-poster bed for Mark Antony to sleep in when he came home. This was to distract Cordelia from her first plan, to keep a candle burning in every window of the house. I was certain this plan would result in him having no home to return to. Secretly I was convinced that he would not come back and whenever I thought of what might have happened to him I felt miserably sick, and scowled and brooded and sulked as much as anyone.

      I was just stitching some gold braid to the delicious blue velvet we had found for Mark Antony’s curtains when I heard screams of rage coming from the basement. I ran down to discover Maria-Alba beating the stair carpet with the soup ladle, so violently that the handle broke and the bowl flew off, hitting me painfully on the shin.

      ‘Diavolo! Diavolo!’ she howled, almost incoherent with angry weeping. When Cordelia appeared at the top of the stairs, her golden locks illuminated by the hall chandelier, Maria-Alba fell on her knees and implored il Spirito Santo to be merciful.

      Reluctantly I rang her doctor. He was out, and by the time he called back, a few hours later, Maria-Alba was her old self again, exhausted but perfectly rational. But the next afternoon, at about the same time, Maria-Alba was on her knees before the washing machine, weeping and begging it to forgive her for strangling Father Alwyn. I tried to reason with her but she was convinced I had come to arrest her. When PC Bird, who was on duty that afternoon and with whom we had become friendly, came to the back door to thank her for the tea and to return his mug, she shrieked with terror. To my surprise he turned pale and put his hands over his ears. Considering what ghastly things police officers are required to witness it struck me that PC Bird was going to have to toughen up. I went to call Maria-Alba’s doctor.

      I had to hang on for ages while the doctor’s receptionist rang round his various haunts. I returned to find PC Bird, glassy-eyed and gibbering, wandering about the kitchen declaring that he could see tiny faces of beautiful girls on the cupboard doors. I assured him they were just door knobs but when he began to clutch his head and moan that he was being blinded by brilliant stars exploding like fireworks, that were something ruddy marvellous but at the same time bloody awful, then I began to put two and two together.

      By the time Inspector Foy and Sergeant Tweeter arrived, one of the reporters had joined us in the kitchen, exclaiming that everything in the world had turned a bright, beautiful yellow and that he was floating in the scent of lemons. This encouraged PC Bird to assure us earnestly that he was a lemon.

      ‘All right. So it’s some kind of hallucinogenic substance.’ Inspector Foy began to pick up bottles at random and sniff the contents. ‘Obviously taken unintentionally.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Four thirty. Who had cups of tea?’

      ‘Everyone except Cordelia and two of the reporters who bring flasks. I had a mug of tea and I feel fine. Oh, I know – of course! It’s the sugar! Maria-Alba always has three spoons. Only two of the reporters take sugar. And poor Dicky, I mean PC Bird – sorry, but everyone calls him that – has four.’

      The inspector dipped his finger in the blue-and-white sugar jar and licked it. ‘Tastes all right to me but I’ll take it for analysis. I wonder, though …’ He got out his pipe while he was thinking but when he lit a match poor Dicky knuckled his eyes and whimpered that a big fiery dragon was coming to eat him up, so the inspector was forced to abandon it. ‘Look after that man,’ he instructed Sergeant Tweeter.

      Dicky began to sob brokenly into Sergeant Tweeter’s tunic, which embarrassed its owner horribly. Meanwhile Maria-Alba was cradling the pieces of the broken ladle in her arms and singing it a lullaby, while the reporter, under the impression that the kitchen table was a large chocolate cake, was trying to eat it with a spoon.

      The inspector sounded just a little rattled. ‘I can’t think with all this noise going on. Get that man into the car and wait for me. Calm him down. Sing him a nursery rhyme or something.’ Sergeant Tweeter’s ruby-coloured face darkened further and he dragged the poor sufferer away. ‘It’s something like LSD. That’s it. Sugar lumps!’ We opened every jar and box in the place until we found a large cache of lump sugar in an old biscuit tin.

      ‘We never usually have sugar in lumps,’ I said, puzzled. ‘Maria-Alba, shush a minute!’ I showed her the tin. ‘Where did you get them?’

      Her expression grew solemn and wondering. ‘Diamanti! Scintillanti! Siamo ricchi!’

      ‘No, not diamonds – unfortunately. Sugar. Zucchero.’

      ‘Sì, sì. Jack! Jack!’

      ‘Jack who? We don’t know anyone called Jack.’

      ‘No, no, no!’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘Jack!’

      Suddenly I got it. ‘I see! Not Jack but giacca! It means jacket. They must have been in Chico’s coat! We’ve been trying desperately to save money. She probably thought it would be wasteful to throw them away.’

      ‘If they’re all impregnated with LSD there must be a thousand pounds worth here,’ said the inspector. ‘Dex and his chums would be keen to recover them. Who else takes sugar in their tea?’

      ‘Not Ophelia – nor Portia – oh dear, Bron!’

      The inspector picked up the biscuit tin. ‘You go and see to your brother. I’ll check on the other reporter. Come along with me,’ he addressed the one who was trying to eat the table. ‘We’ll see you safely home.’

      The reporter looked at the inspector with astonishment. ‘Why, if it isn’t Rita Hayworth! Well, I never!’ he giggled. ‘I’ve always fancied you rotten.’

      I ran up to see how Bron was. He was lying on the sofa in the drawing room, screeching with laughter.

      ‘I’ve never known him be so stupid.’ Ophelia was sitting at the table, building a house of cards. ‘I can’t get any sense out of him at all. I suppose he must be drunk but I do think he might have shared it round. He’s always so selfish. There!’ The construction collapsed with the last card. ‘I wish I knew what was funny. I’m bored to sobs.’

      ‘He’s on a trip. The sugar lumps in the tea had LSD in them.’

      ‘Really?’ Ophelia was interested for a moment. ‘How long will it last? Where did you get them from?’

      ‘Several hours, I should