Symposium

by Muriel Spark

  ‘There’s an affinity with Magnus,’ said Dan. ‘Perhaps we should keep them apart?’

  ‘Too late,’ said Greta. ‘You can’t stop her going to visit him.’

  Dan, enamoured of his daughter, couldn’t help fancying that, by contrast with Magnus, he himself stood out to advantage. He was aware that Margaret was now cultivating an exterior sweetness which was really not her own. Why? What was she covering up? — ‘I really do think’, Margaret had said, ‘that it’s necessary for one of us at least to visit Uncle Magnus. I don’t mind the drive. After all, we should sometimes think of les autres, don’t you agree?’

  Magnus came for the Sunday after Margaret’s return from the convent to Blackie House. Certainly she had an affinity with Magnus; it was an old alliance. Uncle Magnus, however, was not unpopular with any member of the family. Although he was decidedly mad, he was by far the least boring of all, which goes a long way with a brother, a sister-in-law and four nieces.

  ‘You should get married,’ Magnus said to Margaret when they were alone. ‘I’ve been thinking of it for some time.’

  ‘I know. Do you think I have got the evil eye?’

  ‘Think it? — I know it. It’s quite obvious. Even your block-headed parents and sisters have begun to notice.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Margaret, ‘I’m tired of being the passive carrier of disaster. I feel frustrated. I almost think it’s time for me to take my life and destiny in my own hands, and actively make disasters come about. I would like to do something like that.’ She sat on the sofa beside Magnus, tossing back her red hair, rather like a newly graduated student seriously discussing her future with her college tutor.

  ‘Perpetrate evil?’ Magnus offered.

  ‘Yes. I think I could do it.’

  ‘The wish alone is evil,’ said Magnus with the distant equanimity of a college tutor who has two or three other students to see that afternoon.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Margaret.

  The next Sunday Magnus arrived in a more manic state than Greta and Dan could usually cope with. The source of supply for his vivid shirts was something that neither Greta nor Dan had been able to fathom. When questioned, Magnus’s answers were either vague — ‘Oh, the shirts, they come my way.’ Or pure lies — ‘My shirts? —I just send the orderly to the village shop. They come in all colours.’ More recently, it appeared that Magnus had received parcels from Mexico and California as well as from the Charing Cross Road in London. There was no doubt that Magnus’s capacity for arranging his own life was formidable. It was only his overwhelming fits of wild and savage mania, lasting sometimes for as much as three weeks, even with the pills, that distinguished him from a normal Scottish eccentric and made necessary his permanence in hospital. But as he only put in an appearance during a more placid mental cycle, many of his contemporaries were convinced there was nothing much wrong with Magnus.

  That Sunday his shirt was purple with a scarlet tie.

  ‘Are you thinking of giving a television interview, Magnus?’ said Dan.

  ‘You’re referring to my shirt. Sheer envy. Look at yourself in your drab sweater from some popular department store. I wouldn’t be you if you paid me a fortune to do it.’

  Magnus went for a walk with Margaret after lunch. They kicked last winter’s leaves on the damp floor of the woods. The smell of spring came to meet them along the path. ‘I’ve made out a list,’ said Magnus, producing a folded paper from his pocket, and unfolding it.

  ‘What list?’

  ‘A list of eligible bachelors from rich families for you to marry.’

  ‘A list, a whole list?’ said Margaret, taking the paper from his hand.

  ‘You will only marry one, of course.’

  ‘But I don’t know these people.’

  ‘You only need know one. If I were you I would pick him out with a pin.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Pursue him. There are infinite ways. But, if you are to have any future, my darling Margaret, married you must be, and married well.’

  A few weeks later Margaret was shown into one of the well-planned London offices of Warren McDiarmid, chief executive of the firm McDiarmid & Rice, owners of grocery supermarkets and television stations throughout the south of England, with many affiliates in the business of car-radios, video-cassettes, washing machines, microwave ovens, jacuzzi baths and other commodities that added, almost weekly, a new company to their list of trade enterprises. Warren McDiarmid was the only son of Derwent McDiarmid, the senior partner of this vast commercial empire. Margaret had picked him out with a pin from the list of possible candidates for marriage provided for her by Uncle Magnus. How he had got to know who were the rich, young and unattached bachelors available in the country, was, yes, a mystery; but not so much a mystery when the amount of time on his hands was considered, and, not least, the demonic will and single-minded purpose of the mad. Magnus had money and means to buy all the glossy and gossip-column papers he needed; he could send out for anything he wanted amongst such harmless items. He had radio programmes to listen to, Stock Exchange news to follow, television programmes.

  But it had taken him only three weeks to compile, which was certainly an achievement.

  When Margaret picked Warren McDiarmid she obtained a photograph of him from a publicity agency and, finding his face bearable, rang up his office and asked to speak to him. She was passed to his secretary.

  ‘I would like to interview Mr Warren McDiarmid,’ said Margaret, ‘for the Independent Magazine.’ She had chosen this paper because she had decided that if she was found out they would be nicer about it than the others. ‘I’m participating in a series of articles about top yuppies, or very successful young businessmen, and Mr Warren McDiarmid is a must,’ Margaret said.

  Warren McDiarmid agreed to give her half an hour, between twelve forty-five and one-fifteen. He was just back from Frankfurt.

  ‘How do you travel, Mr McDiarmid?’

  ‘Oh, private jet,’ he said. ‘One has to, in my field.’

  He was about twenty-eight, very shaven and gleaming with after-shave. The trouble was, he didn’t once look at Margaret. She might have been a squat, fat woman of sixty instead of a slender tall girl in her twenties with wonderful long red hair. He was looking at a place slightly to the left of the wall opposite his desk, where a classical seascape that had a definite Sotheby’s look had been hung.

  Perhaps he was wondering if the firm had bid too high.

  ‘And do you enjoy being successful, Mr McDiarmid?’

  ‘Oh yes, rather, it gives one another dimension, especially if one can have a free hand as frankly one does in my case.’

  ‘Have you personal plans for the future? — I believe you’re unmarried?’ said Margaret.

  He looked at his watch, round, flat, gold, as it was, while he replied: ‘They always ask one that. Marriage. There’s no hurry for one to marry of course. On the other hand, inevitably of course in time one will marry and have children.’

  Margaret scribbled in what she hoped looked like shorthand which, in fact, she had no knowledge of. ‘And do you enjoy living in London, or do you prefer the country?’

  ‘Well, of course in London one lives on the job. But if one has a place in the country, especially in the deep country, Devon, Norfolk, Scotland, it’s a damn good thing for one to get away for the weekend and fish, shoot, whatever.’

  ‘And you prefer Devon to Scotland? Or Norfolk? Which would be your choice?’

  ‘In my case one has places in all three.’

  (Scribble, scribble …)

  ‘Do you like music, Mr McDiarmid?’

  ‘Oh, one goes to Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, when time permits. And now Miss Murchie — ‘(he had got her name right!) — ‘I’m afraid I have to go. One is so much under pressure. My secretary will pass you to my press and publicity agent who I’m sure will fill you in with anything else you want to know. Delighted to have met you.’

  Margaret wondered if pe
rhaps later, he would say to himself, ‘What a fool I was not to ask that girl to dinner!’ She wondered; and would never know the answer. She was lodging in a hostel. There, she threw away her notes, took out Magnus’s sheet of paper, smoothed it on the table in her room, shut her eyes and stuck in another pin.

  MARGARET was disappointed when the pin fell between two names on the list. She would have preferred a straightforward message. She went north to visit Magnus in his hospital and to make a report.

  Magnus was quite horrified to hear that the young magnate Mr Warren McDiarmid had not responded to Margaret’s charms. He was indignant.

  ‘You are so young, so radiant, and with your colouring, and you’re, so how shall I say? — moist and dewy. How could he resist?’

  ‘You know, Uncle Magnus, you are really somewhat cut off from the way things go. With men like McDiarmid there’s no such thing as irresistible as business deals. He said he left the house at five every morning to be at his desk at five-thirty to do three hours before eight-thirty. That means he gets up out of his bed at four-thirty, or does he never take a shower and a cup of coffee in the morning?’

  ‘He’ll blow his brains out,’ predicted Magnus. ‘One day when things get too hot for him he’ll take a gun and blow out his brains, rest assured, my dear. He is no man for you. How old is he exactly?’

  ‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.’

  ‘To think that I was just over forty when I was reprimanded for streaking over Chelsea Bridge. Believe me, I wasn’t too old even at forty. We used to take off our clothes and we used to streak, that’s what we used to do. And now this imbecilic young magnate sits there looking at his watch, you are eating up his precious time, and time is money. Talk to my press agent, he says. No, Margaret, no, I’m sorry. He’ll blow his brains out. Probably he’s embezzled a fortune.’

  ‘Well, now,’ said Margaret. ‘I closed my eyes and jabbed with the pin. The damn thing fell on a space between two names: William Damien and Werther Stanhope.’

  ‘In my opinion Stanhope would be the better match. He trades with Japan.’

  ‘What does he trade?’ said Margaret.

  ‘Know-how,’ said Magnus. ‘Know-how is a prime commodity. The trouble with Stanhope, he’s rather tiny. Of course, small men can have power. Terrific power. Personally, I’m afraid of small men, and for a Murchie, that’s saying something. But on the other hand they do seem to like tall brides.’

  Margaret enquired about William Damien. ‘Now he,’ said Magnus, ‘now he …’ Magnus opened the door to a small cupboard underneath the television in his sitting-room. From it he extracted a bottle labelled ‘The Tonic: three tablespoons a day with water’. He poured himself a drink of the liquid, good malt whisky as it was, and continued his discourse. ‘Damien is a scientist. Nice and tall for you, my dear. He is not rich himself, but his mother is an Australian business-woman of fabulous means. Mrs Hilda Damien owns newspapers, department stores, and all that goes with them. William has no head for business. He lives modestly, but he is the heir. Now you fix your eye on little Stanhope, he is a clear case of an eligible bachelor, something of a playboy by reputation, but obviously ripe to settle down. He’s thirty-two, never been married before. Obviously, you would have to strike quickly with Stanhope before he’s snapped up. But William Damien — well, he has some sort of a liaison going, but according to gossip it will break up before long. They are not suited, always having wild rows. If you could catch him, then of course later you could take care of the mother. Now it’s time for my snooze.’

  His eyes were shut before Margaret had left the room. She took out a comb from her bag, combed her long hair in front of the mirror, and went to the door. Just as she was leaving Magnus opened his eyes and said, sleepily, ‘At school I was good as Lady Macbeth. It could be in the family.’

  When she had left the Jeffrey King nursing home she drove to turreted Blackie House. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she told her mother. ‘Flying around the country like this. I have to be back at the office nine-thirty Monday morning. Eunice and Flora never think of visiting Uncle Magnus. No sense of les autres. And now look how they’ve turned on me. First they blamed me for being mixed up in Granny’s death; next they were sorry for me; now I’m to blame for Sister Rose’s death. I wasn’t anywhere near those deaths, those murders.’

  ‘It’s just unfortunate,’ Greta said. ‘Why don’t you give up your job and have a holiday?’

  ‘I’ve got rather a good job at the moment,’ Margaret said. ‘And I like London.’

  ‘But you might meet a nice young man. I’m sure you could invite some young people here. Sooner or later you’ll meet Mr Right.’

  ‘You mean, get a husband like Flora’s, a husband like Eunice’s?’ said Margaret in her melodious voice. ‘Let me tell you I find both Bert and Peter infinitely boring. If they were my husbands I’d tip prussic acid into their tea.’.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ said Greta, busying her hands with plumping up the cushions. ‘Even for a joke.’

  Margaret’s job in the publicity office of the petrol company in Park Lane was mainly to do with research into the history of sales and auctions of the famous paintings which the company purchased from time to time. It was not very complicated. Mainly she obtained, or consulted in libraries, the catalogues of sales and ownerships as far back as could be ascertained. Her colleagues were friendly. The married ones asked her to dinner. There was one unmarried man who took her to a discothèque from time to time; one married man who wanted to touch her, to sleep with her, all the time. It was when Margaret said something soulful about les autres that one of the girls in the office said, ‘I’ve heard that before.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a French movement.’

  ‘No, but I’ve heard it on the television. Someone awfully like you was talking about the philosophy of Les Autres. I’ve always thought that it was right to think of others, be considerate and that.’

  ‘Was it a religious programme?’ said Margaret.

  ‘Yes, I think it was. Some nuns.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that show,’ said Margaret.

  Her time was mostly occupied in following William Damien’s movements from a safe distance. ‘Safe’ meant that she left her car at certain hours in the nearest car-park and walked around the block where he lived in a four-storey modern building. She calculated the position of his windows from the names on the street intercom. The very fact that she was in no way a professional sleuth, only a beginner, was very much in her favour. Any blunders she might make — and, indeed, did make — precluded any probability that she was in fact checking William’s movements.

  He never even noticed her. As it happened, and it was not so strange that it did happen, since the name Damien spoke for itself whereas William was fairly obscure, someone in Margaret’s office was related to a couple who not only knew William but knew ‘who he was’. That is to say they knew that William was heir to a vast fortune.

  It had come about that a minor French painter of the turn of the century called François Rose, whom nobody had heard of, had been promoted by the auction rooms some months ago. The petroleum company for whom Margaret worked had it in mind to buy a François Rose depicting several bunches of luscious grapes piled on the bulbous belly of a reclining nude woman. Margaret was given the task of investigating its sales history. She found that it was the property of an Australian collector, Hilda Damien, who was putting the painting up to auction as she couldn’t stand it any more. Margaret’s assistant piped up: ‘My sister May and her husband are great friends with her son William. You know, he has a job and maintains himself on his own pay.’

  This, Margaret knew already. But she was able, through this girl, sister of May, to fill in a great many gaps that Uncle Magnus’s information had left open wide. With her assistant, Margaret was casual, even scornful: a sure way of eliciting more insistent information. ‘Look,’ said Margaret, ‘I’m not here to study or consider the habits or the characters of the sons of the owne
rs of paintings that the company is going to buy, maybe. And it’s a big maybe. All I want to know is what Hilda Damien paid for the picture.’

  It was not all Margaret wanted to know. The son, apparently, had arranged the original deal, two years ago at least.

  ‘Is he married?’ Margaret demanded of her helper, as if it was all in the day’s work.

  ‘No. He’s living with a girl.’ Margaret’s assistant could not contain herself from this moment on. ‘They’ve been living together a year or two, but it’s no good. They have fearful rows. It’s a love-hate relationship.’

  ‘She loves his money but hates him?’ Margaret suggested vaguely, meanwhile sorting out something in her handbag.

  ‘Really, he has no money. The mother doesn’t give him any, nothing at all. He has to live on his pay. Sometimes they’re quite hard up. His girlfriend has to contribute to the expenses. I think she’s going to quit. In fact May says she’s going to quit. There’s something odd about him, besides. Something childish — oh, God save us from that sort.’

  Margaret found the college where William was employed on research. She knew the day when, finally, his girl flounced out, with two suitcases in the vestibule of the flats, waiting for a taxi, getting the driver to heave them into the taxi, and up there at the parted curtain of the window watching them drive away, was William. The girl didn’t come back. Margaret waited three weeks.

  ‘The Damien boy and his fiancée have had a bust-up,’ was one of the statements in a shiny gossip column.

  Margaret now followed him all over the place, and she wound up in Marks & Spencer’s fruit section.