Past Imperfect

‘They won’t,’ said Damian easily. ‘What makes you think I’d make a mistake of that magnitude twice.’

‘Stop this!’ Suddenly Serena was as angry as I had ever seen her. ‘Stop this right now!’ Her eyes were blazing, but of course it was too late.

Lord Claremont quietened her with a sharp gesture of his hand, then looked his opponent in the eye and took another sip. Next, slowly and with some style, he lowered his glass and smiled before he spoke. In truth, his languor was not enough to conceal that he was very drunk. ‘Now, you look here, you little shit-’ This actually made half the people at the table jump, like mice they all jigged up and down in a row. Lady Claremont gave a sort of low groan, which sounded like ‘Oh, no,’ but might have just been a sound of mourning, as she leaned forward with one hand raised, and Valerie Langley let out a kind of wailing ‘What?’ to no one in particular.

But, by now, Damian was standing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You look here, you pompous, ridiculous, boring, idiotic, unfu

Lord Claremont himself appeared stu

But Damian was having none of it. We were way past that stage, by now. ‘How dare I? How dare I? Who on earth do you think you are? What insanity gives you the right to talk to me in that ma

At this point, most ill-advisedly, Lady Belton decided the time had come to intervene. ‘You disgraceful boy.’ She spoke loudly, addressing the company as well as Damian to make her point, but unfortunately in an imperious, fluting ma

Damian spun round and in the blink of an eye, to our universal horror, he suddenly snatched up a knife from the breadboard on the table. It was a large, wide kitchen knife that might be used in a butcher’s and certainly lethal. The whole episode was now turning into a full-blown nightmare, which none of us felt able to control. Please don’t misunderstand me. I was perfectly sure at the time that he would not use it to harm anyone, that wasn’t in him. We weren’t in any danger. But he knew how to play with it, flicking it about to punctuate his movements and speech, to make the moment tingle. In this he judged correctly. If we were still before, we were paralysed now.

Slowly and sedately Damian stalked Lady Belton down the table. Seeing him approach, she gripped the side arms of her chair and forced herself hard against its back. For this one and only time I felt a bit sorry for her. ‘You pathetic, old harridan, you scarecrow, you freak, what possible business is it of yours?’ He waited for an answer, as if this were a reasonable question. She looked at the blade and said nothing. ‘You insane piece of wrinkled baggage with your demented snobbery and your ugly dresses and your even uglier pseudo-morality.’ He was level with her by now and he stopped, leaning in slightly as if to get a better look at this sad object of his curiosity. ‘What is it about you? Wait a minute. It’s coming back to me.’ He touched his bottom lip with the tip of the knife as if tussling with a knotty problem. ‘Wasn’t your father a bit dodgy? Or was it your mother?’ Again, he stopped as if she might answer and confirm his diagnosis one way or the other. Instead, she stared at him, a bright glimmer of fear twitching beneath her hauteur. I must concede that this was a brilliant stroke, a real rapier thrust, that would have gone right up under the ribs. The truth was Lady Belton’s mother had not been tellement grande chose, but she thought no one knew. Like many people in her position, she believed that because nobody ever gave her their true opinion, they literally had no knowledge of the things she wished concealed. But we did know it. We all knew it, that her mother had married up and then been left with a baby girl when she was abandoned by her noble spouse, who took off for green fields and pastures new, and never came, or looked, back. Doubtless this went some way to explaining Lady Belton’s unhinged snobbishness. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Damian. ‘Nobody would know you’re a mongrel. Just a laughable and imbecilic bully.’ She listened to him, but still she said nothing. She seemed to be breathing heavily, as if after a long run; her cheeks were palpitating and appeared to be more red and blotchy than when he started. I wondered if she might be about to have a stroke.

I could not let it continue. However inflated Lord Claremont might be, however insane Lady Belton, this just wasn’t cricket. I stood. ‘Come on, Damian, that’s enough,’ I said. I could feel a slight sigh of relief among the group, as if I had marked the limits and we would now return to sanity. It was not to be.

Damian turned. Facing him, I at last understood that his anger had made him mad. Temporarily mad maybe, but mad. It ca

‘Damian, for pity’s sake, he’s your friend-’ This came from Dagmar. I was touched that out of all of them she alone should try to defend me in the face of this onslaught. Perhaps Serena might have, but one glance told me she was in her own private hell.

Damian looked first at Dagmar, then at all of them. ‘What? You think he’s my friend? You think he’s your friend? He’s not your friend.’ He shook his head, continuing to walk up and down the table like an armed panther. I could see two of the maids hovering in the shadows, watching, but no one at the table moved. They had seen the treatment of Lady Belton and they had no wish to be next before the guns. ‘He despises you. Do you think he finds you fu