“Daddy, tell Cornelius to stop!”
Uncle Philip stands up and smacks Cornelius round the back of the head so hard his head falls forward into his dinner. Prunella and Estelle are laughing. Cornelius runs out of the room, covering his face.
I am sat next to Mr Hookeye. I notice he has turquoise eyes which remind me of coloured glass, as though he were a character in a stained glass window.
“I am quite glad I have never had children,” he says, looking directly at me.
Mr Grubweed replies, “Mine are little brats. I am hoping to get these two,” (pointing to Prunella and Estelle) “married off in the next few years. Horatio Beetle will do very nicely as a son-in-law. We Grubweeds may not have an illustrious ancestry, but we’ve got money. Lady Beetle can’t turn her nose up at that.”
“Do you teach at the university?” I ask Mr Hookeye.
“No. I am a doctor. I am the Professor’s personal physician.”
“How is the old fart?” Uncle says.
“In a foul mood, it seems.” He gives my Uncle a knowing glance.
“Well, I’m sure his mood will pick up within time.”
“It had better,” Hookeye says, glaring disapprovingly at the cabbage on his plate.
The conversation over dinner goes into some length over Lady Beetle and her son, Horatio. Lady Beetle is a widow whose husband died of a stroke a few years ago. My Uncle describes her as a handsome but cold woman and Horatio as the “prize”. He is looking forward to the party at the Beetle mansion, where he can show his daughters off.
When pudding arrives, Mr Hookeye is already looking bored and declines and so my Uncle takes him into the study to discuss business. We children are left with the towering trifle. Boo Boo eats only the custard layer and feeds the sponge to the dog. I very much want to listen to what Uncle and Mr Hookeye are saying and so excuse myself and put my ear to the study door which is slightly ajar. They are arguing about something I can’t make out. The Professor is angry with them both for something. Uncle shouts, “That old devil, he’ll drag us both to hell!” and then the door is shut and I run back to the dining room where I find Prunella lying on the floor with Boo Boo holding the trifle dish on her head and Estelle screaming. Uncle comes running in shortly after with Mr Hookeye.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?”
Prunella stands up, wiping trifle from her face, crying. “That nasty little bitch, Daddy. She attacked me!”
“Yes, Daddy. Prunella is telling the truth,” cries Estelle. “I saw everything.”
Uncle Grubweed picks Boo Boo up and takes her upstairs and tells her to go to bed. Guardian follows and slumps himself outside the door. I follow and wait a while before going into Boo Boo’s room. She is sitting on her bed, playing with her frog puppet.
“Boo Boo, what happened with Prunella?”
“She kicked Guardian,” she says, and looks away from me and continues playing quite happily with the puppet.
I go back downstairs and find Mr Hookeye smoking his pipe in the herb garden.
“Quite a bad-tempered little sister you have,” he says.
“Don’t speak about Boo Boo like that,” I say, surprised by the anger in my voice.
“England puts angry little girls away in madhouses.” And for the first time he smiles, rather pleased with himself.
That night I hear whispering in Boo Boo’s room again. I hear laughing like bells. I dream I am back in the world of water, on the little sailing boat. The water is a mass grave of bodies, shifting in heaped piles of corpses. Bobbling, green and slimy. The sky above me is darkening, clouds become black chimneys. The sun is being eclipsed. The policeman is with me on the boat, standing next to me. Before the sun disappears I see another boat navigating through the dense rolls of rotten flesh. On its mast hangs a moon-shaped lantern, which glows liquid soft blue light and its white sail is covered in red hearts. Mr Loveheart is its captain and he is waving at me.
I wake up to the sound of screaming. I immediately go downstairs to investigate. It is Mrs Treacle who is hysterical. She is standing in the kitchen over the dead body of Mr Icarus Hookeye. His decapitated head is positioned a few feet away from him, next to a wicker basket of potatoes, with a look of astonishment fixed in his eyes.
State of shock?
An urgent telegram is sent to Scotland Yard for the assistance of the police. The reaction of the household is unusually varied. Cornelius, Estelle and Prunella are quite excited by the strange death and are eventually confined to their rooms for their own safety with their mother. Grandpa thinks it is hilarious and is brought downstairs to sit in the living room as he wants to hear everything that is going on.
Uncle Grubweed panics and leaves the house to inform the Professor. Mrs Treacle and Sally refuse to go back into the kitchen, and Boo Boo is quiet as a mouse, playing with Guardian near the woods.