Read Online MASQUES OF SATAN by Reggie Oliver - Free Book Online
Authors: Reggie Oliver
Tags: Horror
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her plans, not because we approved them but because we knew that resistance was useless.
We were staying at the Grande, one of the big old Edwardian hotels on the sea front, but my mother noticed that ‘the ex-pats’, as she was now calling them, often took a pre-dinner aperitif on the terrace of the Excelsior, a similar establishment adjacent to ours. Accordingly, one evening we went for a drink at the Excelsior, positioning ourselves at a table near to where my mother had seen the expatriates drinking.
For once, everything went according to my mother’s plan. The couple arrived shortly after we had, sat down, and ordered their drinks, gin and Italian Vermouth, a fashionable pre-war cocktail. (‘Gin and It!’ my mother whispered to us, ‘it’s too perfect!’) My mother, who had been an actress in her youth, was the possessor of a very audible voice, so our conversation was soon overheard. Presently we saw that the lady was coming over to us. She seemed to hesitate momentarily, looming over us, before saying: ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you were speaking English.’ Her mouth was gashed with a thin streak of dark red lipstick, of a primeval 1920s shade.
So we joined them at their table, and they introduced themselves as Hugh and Penelope de Walter. I was a well-behaved boy at that time and, being an only child, had no siblings with whom to fight or conspire, so I think I made a favourable impression. Besides, because I had either inherited, or acquired by influence, my mother’s appetite for human oddities, I was quite happy to sit there with my sumo d’ananas and listen to the grown-ups.
The de Walters were, as my mother had correctly surmised, expatriates, and they had a villa at Monte Rosa, a village in the foothills above Estoril. De Walter had been in the wine trade, hence his acquaintance with Portugal, and on retiring in the 1950s had decided that England was ‘going to Hell in a handcart’, what with its filthy music, its even filthier plays, and the way the working classes generally ‘have the run of the place these days’. De Walter conceded that Salazar, the then dictator of Portugal, ‘might have his faults, but at least he runs a tight ship’. I had no idea what this meant but it sounded impressive, if a little forbidding.
Their life at the Villa Monte Rosa, so named because it was the grandest if not the oldest, dwelling in their village, was, they told us, more serene and civilised than any they could have hoped to afford in Worthing or Eastbourne. I wondered, though, if it were not a little lonely for them among all those foreigners, but said nothing.
I think it was after a slight lull in the conversation that the de Walters turned their attention on me. In answer to enquiries I told them where I was presently at school, and for which public school I was destined. De Walter nodded his approval.
‘I’m a Haileybury man myself,’ he said. ‘Are you planning to go to the ’varsity after that?’
I looked blank. My father came to my aid by informing me that ‘the ’varsity’ meant Oxford or Cambridge. I said I hoped so without really knowing what was meant.
‘Never got to the ’varsity myself,’ said de Walter. ‘I was due to go up in ’15, but a certain Kaiser Bill put the kibosh on that.’
The First World War was ancient history to me, a series of faded sepia snapshots of mud-filled trenches and Dreadnoughts, cutting through the foggy wastes of the North Sea, a tinkle of ‘Tipperary’ on a rickety church piano. Trying to imagine a young de Walter going to war all those years ago silenced me.
‘Do you have children yourself, Mr and Mrs de Walter?’ my mother asked.
There was an unpleasant little silence. My father, who was frequently embarrassed by my mother’s forthrightness, passed a hand through his thinning hair, a familiar gesture of nervous exasperation. The broken veins in de Walter’s face had turned it a very ugly shade of dark purple. Mrs de Walter
We were staying at the Grande, one of the big old Edwardian hotels on the sea front, but my mother noticed that ‘the ex-pats’, as she was now calling them, often took a pre-dinner aperitif on the terrace of the Excelsior, a similar establishment adjacent to ours. Accordingly, one evening we went for a drink at the Excelsior, positioning ourselves at a table near to where my mother had seen the expatriates drinking.
For once, everything went according to my mother’s plan. The couple arrived shortly after we had, sat down, and ordered their drinks, gin and Italian Vermouth, a fashionable pre-war cocktail. (‘Gin and It!’ my mother whispered to us, ‘it’s too perfect!’) My mother, who had been an actress in her youth, was the possessor of a very audible voice, so our conversation was soon overheard. Presently we saw that the lady was coming over to us. She seemed to hesitate momentarily, looming over us, before saying: ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you were speaking English.’ Her mouth was gashed with a thin streak of dark red lipstick, of a primeval 1920s shade.
So we joined them at their table, and they introduced themselves as Hugh and Penelope de Walter. I was a well-behaved boy at that time and, being an only child, had no siblings with whom to fight or conspire, so I think I made a favourable impression. Besides, because I had either inherited, or acquired by influence, my mother’s appetite for human oddities, I was quite happy to sit there with my sumo d’ananas and listen to the grown-ups.
The de Walters were, as my mother had correctly surmised, expatriates, and they had a villa at Monte Rosa, a village in the foothills above Estoril. De Walter had been in the wine trade, hence his acquaintance with Portugal, and on retiring in the 1950s had decided that England was ‘going to Hell in a handcart’, what with its filthy music, its even filthier plays, and the way the working classes generally ‘have the run of the place these days’. De Walter conceded that Salazar, the then dictator of Portugal, ‘might have his faults, but at least he runs a tight ship’. I had no idea what this meant but it sounded impressive, if a little forbidding.
Their life at the Villa Monte Rosa, so named because it was the grandest if not the oldest, dwelling in their village, was, they told us, more serene and civilised than any they could have hoped to afford in Worthing or Eastbourne. I wondered, though, if it were not a little lonely for them among all those foreigners, but said nothing.
I think it was after a slight lull in the conversation that the de Walters turned their attention on me. In answer to enquiries I told them where I was presently at school, and for which public school I was destined. De Walter nodded his approval.
‘I’m a Haileybury man myself,’ he said. ‘Are you planning to go to the ’varsity after that?’
I looked blank. My father came to my aid by informing me that ‘the ’varsity’ meant Oxford or Cambridge. I said I hoped so without really knowing what was meant.
‘Never got to the ’varsity myself,’ said de Walter. ‘I was due to go up in ’15, but a certain Kaiser Bill put the kibosh on that.’
The First World War was ancient history to me, a series of faded sepia snapshots of mud-filled trenches and Dreadnoughts, cutting through the foggy wastes of the North Sea, a tinkle of ‘Tipperary’ on a rickety church piano. Trying to imagine a young de Walter going to war all those years ago silenced me.
‘Do you have children yourself, Mr and Mrs de Walter?’ my mother asked.
There was an unpleasant little silence. My father, who was frequently embarrassed by my mother’s forthrightness, passed a hand through his thinning hair, a familiar gesture of nervous exasperation. The broken veins in de Walter’s face had turned it a very ugly shade of dark purple. Mrs de Walter
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