The Queen of the Tambourine Read Free

am feeling very miserable and shall end this letter,
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    Sincerely,
    Eliza
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    November 10th
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    Dear Joan,
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    Three months have passed and I am writing to Thailand in the hope that this is your next port of call. I dare say that you will have stayed some time in Kurdistan to await your jewellery. I was too sick for some time—sick at heart—to write about the end of that bizarre episode.
    But perhaps now.
    After finishing a letter to you, which I wonder if you will ever see, I walked out on to the doorstep to hand over the packet to the Kurd. Charles had brought over from across the road the little Victorian lacquer box from your bedroom mantelpiece, leaving, no doubt, a sad little gap among the pot-pourri bowls, the enamel-faced clock, the patch-box that says “My love I’ll treat with kisses sweet.” Oh, DO YOU NOT REMEMBER THESE , Joan? Poor old Charles!
    I poured the jewels out into a sacking coffee-bag from Harrods, with a drawstring, and, as I did so, Charles and Henry as one man rose and left. They did not speak to the Kurd as they stepped over him, holding out their briefcases before them as they went, talking nonchalantly together. I said to the Kurd, who seems to have no name, “I don’t know how you intend to get these through the Customs I’m sure,” and he proved that he knew some English because he opened the emerald green dress he was wearing above his breeches to reveal his chest and hung the bag in among the hair. Then he kissed my hand and went away. Richard Baxter opposite put a shielding arm round Dulcie as they both came home from shopping.
    Joan.
    Joan—I’m not really, altogether, the fool I make myself out to be.
    I ham myself up, don’t I?
    Joan, I’m frightened. I don’t know why.
    Joan, don’t you think you should at least ring Charles from somewhere? He’s such a good man.
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    Love, Eliza
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    Nov 20th?—I don’t know
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    Dear Joan,
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    It is three in the morning and I am alone in the house because Henry and Charles have gone away on a Diocesan Weekend Theology Course. The lights are out at thirty-four.
    Joan, I have to tell you something. I am in love with Charles.
    Please, please come back. I didn’t want this to happen. I have nobody to consult, only the nuns and the Dying.
    I don’t want to be a husband-stealer.
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    Eliza
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    Nov?, Saturday
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    Dear, dear Joan,
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    I am absolutely overcome by the wonderful present that has just arrived from Cambodia. I cannot imagine how you reached Angkor Wat and hope you are being careful. The situation there has never been stable in twenty or more years. I never got there. I always longed.
    I have never in my life possessed anything so beautiful as this glorious golden robe. I sit clutching it and stroking it. No word except “ from Joan ”—I do wish you had written a letter. I do so want to hear about the Kurd and if you got the earrings and pearls safely. I expect you sold them if you can buy such glamorous presents. Charles never mentions how he thinks you can be managing for money. Simon, when I once asked, said, “No problem, she nicked the cutlery,” but I will not believe that.
    Oh Joan, what a dress! I simply don’t know when I shall wear it. I suggested to Henry that we might get tickets for Glyndehourne next year, just the three of us, but he and Charles stood staring at me as if I was mad. They are both growing more ascetic day by day. When they left for work this morning, I went across the road to find Sarah who is home for a few days, and there she was, all alone far down in the garden by the summer house, out on the sittingplace playing her flute among the dahlias and late, late roses, all the bees still humming, winter forgotten to arrive.
    The flute stopped in the middle of a bar. She said, “Eliza!”
    I said, “Oh do go on, Sarah, it was lovely,” and she