Tom Murphy Chapter 5

All the town knew Vicky McLean, the daughter of the Mayor. As she had been to finishing school in the Mother country, she left the town a bright gossipy little girl.
She returned a young lady. The town joke was her London education had turned a healthy child into a glass doll. If you dropped her, she would break into a thousand glass pieces.

I did not know what the joke meant until the Rosenblum children and myself met her one evening at the town skating-rink. The dismal and empty night town lit up like a Christmas tree on every Saturday night. No magnet drew the town folk as alluringly and swiftly as the skating-rink.

There, beneath a high ceiling of glowing magic lanterns, between glittering walls festooned with ferns and imperial crests, to the melodies of German waltzes and English airs, the town's people skated and spun their hearts and the night away.

The banker saluted the butcher to the gramophone accompaniment of The Blue Danube.
The children's spinning dazzled and delighted their grandparents. The Rosenblums and myself, having paid our sixpence rental for skates, stood at the sideline and watched the spectacle.

I recognised Vicky waltzing beside an elderly respectable lady and a handsome young man. I had seen her once asking for Daddy in the Mayor's office. I boastfully pointed her out as the daughter of my employer. I gazed at her charm in a rather proprietorial way.

Now I understood about the thousand glass pieces. Maria was too busy dreaming up the atmosphere to pay attention to a single sparkling spectacle. Gustav began to stare at Vicky. I became rather alarmed at the hard cold stare he gave her.
Then Gustav gripped my arm.

Among these peasants, she is the single star, he said to me.

I thought that was arrogant, but then I immediately realised what he meant. In the midst of the towns-folk, toasted by the sun and coarsened by work and anxiety, her skin, her blue eyes, her blond hair, and her white teeth were radiantly translucent. She was in a white muslim dress and blue sash with her hair flowing from under a white cap. She was tall and slender.
Gustav impulsively swept towards this star, with Maria and myself in tow. Vicky turned and spoke to the two people with her. Her lilting voice thrilled my ears with its distant echo of my English teacher reciting the great English poets.

That man must be her boy friend,
said Gustav, crestfallen to me after our free-wheeling skates had parted us from the threesome.

But I was sharper eared and had picked out the truth. I assured Gustav the young man was her brother and the elderly lady was their mother. Gustav smiled in a doggy sort of way that alarmed me again.

When the skating rink closed and we handed in our skates, I wanted us to lose these mayoral dignitaries in the crowd. I was mortified when Gustav continued to follow them into the street. Then at last we lost them as they drove away in the mayoral hearse.

You must know I am in love with Vicky,
said Gustav firmly as we walked through the now empty dark streets.

The love between men and women remained a mysterious country to me. I had seen pictures and knew rumours, but I was detained it seemed, forever at the border. I did not count the wall crashing and screams from Dad and his housekeepers as love. But I felt Gustav was, in this foreign matter, showing no sense at all. I was pleased to help him.

You can't love Vicky when you have only just seen her, I replied.

Gustav pointed with his finger at his glowing eyes.

These things cannot be explained, I know I can communicate with the chosen ones through these eyes. Vicky already knows I am in love with her and she is returning my love.

I was awed by these mysterious powers of my friend. Then I saw Maria holding her mouth with her hand. Now I didn't know what to think about this surprising disclosure. Gustav had to relieve himself in the public lavatory. While we were waiting, I seized the chance to question Maria about her brother. Maria laughed in her naturally hysterical way.
Then she recovered and said,

My brother has never forgotten something that happened when we were very little.

She told me the story. When they lived with their mummy and daddy in an apartment in Dresden, Gustav read in the children's page a card trick. He thought the trick was you asked someone to shuffle a card pack and then take one out. Then by studying this person you could correctly name the card.

Gustav promptly played the trick with his mummy and daddy, his sister and grandmama. He correctly named every card. They became annoyed and insisted he show them the trick. When he did so, mummy pointed out he was supposed to have a secret partner to give him the correct hand signs. Daddy was into spirit things and got very excited. He told Gustav he was one of the chosen to bring about a better world.

But after Gustav heard all that, he could no longer name the cards correctly. Then everyone became furious and began to cheek him that he was a silly little boy making up stories to annoy the grown-ups. Gustav stuck to his version of the story until no one would mention it again.

I was too young to say anything, but I secretly remember the story and Gustav's version is completely right,
said Maria.
Unless like Gustav I too have invented the story, and now believe it. Gustav now believes he can read Vicky's mind. She is chosen too, and they can read each other's minds.

I seized the opportunity to ask about these newly mentioned Rosenblums. I found out there was an older sister Angela who refused to leave Germany.

She is married to a Count in Dresden and thinks that she is safe,
said Maria.

She wiped away a small tear. I thought it would be impolite to ask what Maria meant when she said her sister thought she was safe.

Daddy was murdered by men with guns in our hallway.

I was startled and sad for them.

Gustav and I hid under the kitchen table, and wouldn't come out and look until the next morning.
Then Daddy had been taken away, and his blood had been mopped up.
We never talk about that with Gustav.

Did the police find out who they were? I asked.

They were the police, said Maria.

I felt the pavement crash under me. Policemen were the good guys. I did sometimes wonder about Dad, but in a million years I could not have imagined him doing that.

What does Angela look like? I asked.

Like a Hollywood star, said Maria.
You have seen her photograph just above my pillow.

I now recalled Angela. She posed in a golden frame among the Hollywood stars. I had thought she was the only true star and all the others were gilded cardboard compared with her. For some time she had been haunting my dreams.

Diamond irises, golden jewellery, a coal-black and silky dress, and a dead furry animal decorated a Snow Queen. What enthralled me the most was a reddish scar that stretched down her haughty white cheek.
Someone, I thought, had actually dared to slap the Snow Queen. There was nothing that resembled the other Rosenblums but those irises and that long fleshy nose.

I now remembered something else about that framed photograph. Next to it was a tatty photograph pinned to the wall. It showed a girl in a bathing suit.
Under it there was a caption, Angela At Thirteen.

Mine are already bigger.