Dolly and the Starry Bird-Dorothy Dunnett-Johnson Johnson 05 Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuffed dishtowels under it. A stream of oaths flowed from under the stove, broken by a flurry of activity. Jacko jabbed with his broomstick, swiveled, rolled over the bran heap and stabbed at the legs of a table. Charles crouched twitching beside him while Johnson, moving from cupboard to table, began methodically to wall in the floor space with Supermercato packets of groceries. A doorbell rang somewhere in the Dome and Charles said, with prescience, “That’ll be Innes.” Johnson began methodically to put the packs back again. We all got to our feet.
    That was all we had done when Innes shoved open the door, after batting it a few times against the dishcloths, and looked with surprise at the bran mash on the floor and Jacko propped on his broomstick and heavily profiled in cereal.
    “We were taking an impression for posterity,” said Charles with great simplicity. “What can we do for you?”
    Innes looked around at us all. Then he looked straight under the table and shouted.
    Johnson Johnson yelled at the same moment. They leaped forward together, colliding heavily into the cereal; Johnson, his arms outflung, was a yard nearer the table than Innes, who lay blowing into the bran and then rose uncertainly onto his knees.
    “Hell,” said Johnson with feeling. He looked at us. “That was a rat. Did you see it go past you?”
    The door was wide open.
    “Yes,” said Jacko. “It’s all right. It went out the front door.”
    “We wondered,” said Charles, “who had been spilling the bran. Are you all right, Innes? Have some coffee.”
    “And some brandy,” I said.
    “I think,” said Johnson, “I had better be going.” He was holding his wrist.
    “You’ve hurt yourself!” Innes said.
    “No,” said Johnson reassuringly. He doubled up and then sat down quickly. “Charles and Ruth will look after me anyway.. Unless I’m keeping you all back from something.”
    We all said no, and Innes delivered his message, which was a pressing invitation to Jacko from Maurice. Jacko said sulkily, “I can’t go to his flaming party. Someone has to stay with the 50-Inch.”
    “Look,” I said. “Go and have a couple of hours. You needn’t drink. I’ll look after the plates if you’ll put out the chart and coordinates.”
    He was dying to go. “We tossed for it and I lost,” he said appealingly.
    “I know. But if the weather had been thick you would have been able to come. I don’t mind,” I said, and I meant it. I avoided catching Charles’s eye in order to continue to mean it. Jacko was still arguing in an unconvinced way when Innes left and we all made a dive for Johnson who was doubled up screeching with laughter and continued to laugh while we got his coat and tie off and finally opened his shirt.
    He had a winter-weight woolen vest underneath it, and Poppy. I helped him dress while Jacko lit out for Mouse Hall to return her. I admired Johnson’s jersey.
    He was pleased. “I have an uncle who knits them in Margate.” He added, with a faint wistfulness, “Is Maurice Frazer giving a party?”
    One forgets how famous Maurice is. Long before he bought the villa and the garden and the observatories, Maurice had wintered in Italy on the proceeds of his work in the theater. Everyone in Roman society came to see Maurice. And English and French society. And American. And South American, even. And every pretty girl in the civilized world, whether in society or not. Maurice is seventy or more and Timothy, who looks after him, is his hostess. They are past scandal, but never past gossip. Maurice’s is the finest center of gossip in Europe.
    I said, “Would you like to go?” because it was easy. Anyone with his wits about him can get into Maurice’s. But to be asked twice to Maurice’s you must be very good company indeed.
    You observe therefore, humble pie, Ruth Russell quite as naïve in her own way as Jacko. I did my stint in the dome; I went home and dressed up like a bottle of Mille Fiori d’Alpi and I