Conference at Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons

  The party was now ready to start, but was delayed for a few moments longer by Mr Mybug, who had lingered to peruse a boring letter from Rennett about repairs to the kitchen ceiling (‘How can I be expected to have energy for My Own Stuff when I am continually hounded by these details?’ demanded Mr Mybug of Mr Jones, who was not listening), and who rushed up with his garments (contributed by the American Darn it – And Clothe Britain Guild) in some disarray. However, at last the cavalcade set off; headed by the brake, followed by Mrs Ernestine Thump in her little car driven by the depressed girl chauffeur, and with its rear brought up by Flora in the converted jeep. The latter was driven by an oiled youth from Howling village who had been pointed out to her as a cadet of the Dolour family, by name Hick. He drove with assured recklessness, and his manner was so aloof that she was pleased to use it as an excuse not to address him.

  Of Peccavi and Riska there was no sign.

  The brake kept just ahead of the jeep, and pretty soon Flora could detect that all was not well with its occupants. Arms were waving, faces empurpled, and even fragments of sentences floated down to her – ‘Heidigger’ – ‘angst’ – ‘l’homme est ce qu’il faut’ – ‘wahl’ – ‘the Common man’ – ‘the id’ – and streams of unintelligible symbols shouted by the physicists, some of whom were hanging helplessly over the side of the brake, overcome by that sense of the unreality of all perceived phenomena (and even of the visual sense enabling them to be perceived, if perceived they were) which frequently caused them to have hysterical fits. Mr Mybug, Mr Jones and Mdlle Avaler appeared to be arguing with Mr Hubris and Frau Dichtverworren, with Messe and Hacke nipping in with a nasty crack whenever they understood enough of what was being said to get one home.

  The Sage had apparently gone off into a trance (I can’t blame him, thought Flora, but it is a pity that he is missing this charming scenery).

  The vehicles were now ascending a steep chalk road, and suddenly she became aware of a moth-like fluttering on her foot. She glanced downwards, and saw black fingers just withdrawing from her shoelace, and, turning her gaze upon the follower, she was barely in time to detect him withdrawing his beady eyes from her face before he turned his head with a snake-like movement towards the dip in the downs where had suddenly appeared the sea. At the same time he salaamed towards the glittering mass, and it was plain that he had wanted to draw her attention to it.

  ‘Very fine, very good,’ smiled and nodded Flora.

  ‘Lovely smell o’ kippers,’ muttered the helper-out, removing his bowler hat and shutting his eyes.

  Reflecting that the appreciative spirit of her companions more than compensated for their lack of conversation, Flora devoted herself to preventing the hampers from sliding out of the jeep, which now began to descend into a narrow valley filled with woods. On the way they passed Peccavi and Riska, smacking at one another amid the ruins of the trailer and bicycle. Riska had a black eye, which might be due either to the accident or to Peccavi, and although the occupants of the brake looked at them with awed envy, no one suggested that they should be given a lift.

  In a moment the vehicles entered a wood of beeches thickened to almost tropical density and lustre of leaf by the moist valley air. Under such thick canopies there could be no grassy glades suitable for picnicking, and the dark leafy soil was damp, but along either edge of the road ran low banks riddled with warrens and covered in moss, and when the brake reached a spot where sunlight burst through thinner branches the driver (after fruitlessly suggesting to its furiously-arguing occupants that ’Ere Was A Nice Place) pulled up, and climbed down from his seat. Mrs Ernestine Thump at once dug her finger into the depressed girl driver’s neck, at the same time bawling at her down a speaking-tube, and Hick Dolour stopped the jeep and climbed out.

  ‘Fag?’ he enquired amiably of Flora, taking two from behind his ear.

  Flora unsmilingly but courteously declined.

  ‘Suits me,’ said Hick Dolour, and retired behind the mossy bank and went to sleep.

  The delegates were now alighting from the brake, still arguing, and Mrs Ernestine Thump rushed up to them and plunged in with a joyous splash, while Flora, the follower and the helper-out unloaded the hampers from the jeep and began to assemble the portable bar.

  ‘When do we “feed”?’ demanded Mr Mybug, bustling up with his bosom unbuttoned and disagreeably exposed on account of the heat. ‘I say, you ought to have been with us, Flora! Hacke was in superb form – coruscatingly malicious – God, that man has a tongue like a viper! And Messe is the perfect foil to him – slow, heavy, brutally impenetrable. It was a verbal beating-up; the best thing I’ve heard in years.’

  ‘It does sound fun. Do you think you could help unpack the sandwiches? It takes three people to assemble this bar, and the delegates are looking hungry.’

  ‘My dear girl, I’d love to, but as a matter of fact I promised Ernie Thump I’d keep a look out at the cross-roads for Bob Flatte. He’s going to give us themes from The Flayed on a recorder, you know, and Ernie’s afraid he’ll miss the way.’

  Flora suppressed the retort that Mrs Ernestine Thump’s fears had (musically, at any rate) long ago been realized, and waved Mr Mybug off with a pleasant smile, for she had observed the depressed girl chauffeur lingering near at hand, and deduced that she was about to offer her services. Mr Mybug bounded joyously away, and the depressed girl chauffeur drew near and muttered:

  ‘Shall I muck in –’ow about it, I meantersay?’

  Flora accepted the offer with gratitude, and soon they had the bar assembled, the drinks and glasses arranged, and Mr Jones installed behind it as barman, he having jeeringly waved aside a Managerial Revolutionary, who had written a thesis on The Psychology of the Alcoholic Norm and taken a six-months’ course in Alcoholic Dispensemanship, and timidly offered to help. The sandwiches, patties and pies were then unpacked, and, the cloth having been spread upon a comparatively flat expanse of mossy ground and the collation arranged thereon, the party seated itself in a large circle, and Mr Claud Hubris uncorked the first bottle of champagne, whose cork flew so high that it vanished glittering among the leaves of the beech boughs overhead.

  Flora had caused to be arranged a smaller cloth for herself and her companions at a distance from the main party, retired enough to be agreeable, but not so obviously withdrawn as to invite comment. Only Mdlle Avaler, on her way to the seat of honour beside Mr Hubris, paused to inspect their modest preparations (drawn, no doubt, by that curiosity on the part of intellectuals about the domestic arrangements of unintellectuals to which reference has already been made).

  ‘How cool an’ confortable you arre! Shell I come an’ sit weez you?’

  ‘The gentlemen could not spare you,’ smilingly replied Flora, hoping that the look of extreme terror which had appeared upon the countenances of the follower and the helper-out at Mdlle Avaler’s suggestion would not be observed by the young lady herself.

  However, the latter only screwed up her great sea-coloured eyes in a naughty smile and sauntered away to sit with Mr Hubris, and in a moment Flora and her companions felt sufficiently at their ease to begin upon the patties, Flora having already invited the depressed girl chauffeur to share their repast.

  The larger party had not long been settled at their eating, drinking, and arguing before Peccavi and Riska came bumping down the forest path, crying with shrieks of laughter that they had stolen two bicycles belonging to a priest and a nurse-person who had stupidly left them outside a church. They did not dismount at the edge of the group, but rode right across the table-cloth into the midst of the brilliant throng, Riska overbalancing on top of Professor Farine, who snatched her to him with a delighted roar and Peccavi being brought to earth by a bowl of orange jelly which deflected his front wheel. Their appetites and spirits were unaffected by this incident; Peccavi, indeed, was in top-hole form, accusing the ladies of all the most refined vices in a shout with his mouth full and pointing at them with a black, painty finger. When he paused for breath,
W. W. R. Token took over, relating stories told him off the record by his psychiatrist. The fun was beginning to be rather fast and the scientists were already furious, while lobster patties, caviar toast, and cucumber sandwiches vanished in enormous quantities, and at the bar Mr Jones was kept busy dishing out absinthe and champagne.

  Suddenly a shout drew attention to Mr Mybug, who was seen coming down the path accompanied by a tall bald man irreproachably dressed in grey, who carried a recorder, and looked very, very sad. Bob Flatte, the composer, had arrived to carry out his threat. Behind him staggered his secretary, bearing two suitcases containing the score of The Flayed.

  Flatte announced his intention of blowing the themes at once, as he had to return immediately to town for a rehearsal of his new work, and Flora had barely time to pass to her companions the ear-plugs which she had thoughtfully provided, before the secretary had hauled the score out of the suitcases, Flatte had fluttered through the first four hundred pages of it with a speed resulting from weeks of practice, found the place where the Weeping Skeleton theme enters, leant against a tree, and began to blow.

  For some fifteen minutes Flora and her party placidly ate their luncheon in a perfect silence, Flora occasionally glancing across at the brilliant throng, where Flatte was blowing away like mad and everybody looked absolutely miserable.

  For the benefit of readers who are not familiar with the work of Flatte it may be remarked that The Flayed is typical of his latest and most powerful manner, and deals with the tragedy of two types named Stan Brusk and Em Wallow, living in a Bedfordshire village. Em is Stan’s girl, but he loses her to Bert Scarr when the latter comes to work in the local tanning factory. Stan Brusk is a sadist who derives pleasure from tanning hides and has twice been publicly reproved by the foreman for gloating while at work. In a powerful recitative and aria Stan defies the foreman, describes the pleasures of tanning, and at last falls down exhausted under a vat.

  A series of sinuous themes follows, intended to represent the smells from the vat winding over his unconscious body. In the dinner-hour Em creeps in with a pie, which she does not know has been poisoned by the fumes from the vat. Bert Scarr then enters. He and Em sing a duet, in which Bert confesses that he has always had a secret craving to be flayed like one of the hides in the factory and Em expresses her horror and scorn of him. At last she falls under the vat on top of Stan, who recovers consciousness and misunderstands her action. Em, Stan and Bert are then overcome by fumes from the vat, and dream they are in Hell.

  The Weeping Skeleton’s song which follows has been said to refute, once and for all, the accusation that Flatte’s operas lack light relief. The song may not express humour as it is generally understood, but to deny that the theme of four minor chords given out in glissando form by the first violin and repeated in fugue form by solo instruments one after the other until it ends abruptly on the drums is expressive of a rationalized and resigned humour (perhaps most akin to irony) is merely imperceptive.

  Em recovers first and revives Bert with a piece of the pie. The foreman comes in accompanied by a chorus of Operatives and Tanners and accuses Bert of slacking. Bert, already poisoned, and driven by his neurosis, jumps into the vatful of skins and is suffocated. Em eats some pie and dies. Stan stabs the foreman with his penknife (a present from his mother on his seventh birthday and symbolizing her neurotic hold over him) and the foreman dies. While Stan is singing the Flagellation Song and driving out the chorus of Operatives and Tanners with a whip, his mother, Widow Brusk, enters. After she has sung an aria in which she confesses that Stan is the illegitimate son of a taxider-mist who seduced her in early youth, thus accounting for her son’s sadistic obsession, Stan symbolically attempts to skin her and they both become insane. The opera then ends. It was to represent English music at the International Music Festival in the following year.

  At length signs of restored animation upon the countenances of the audience and their gestures of admiration and gratitude, combined with Flatte’s offhand nod, informed Flora that the treat was over, and she collected the ear-plugs (the follower attempted to keep his, but was gently dissuaded) and replaced them in her handbag.

  ‘Please could I ’ave another sangwidge?’ suddenly asked the depressed girl chauffeur. It was the first time that she had spoken above a murmur.

  ‘Pray do,’ and Flora handed her the cucumber ones.

  ‘Thanks – thenks ever so, I meantersay.’

  ‘No doubt Mrs Thump is so much occupied that you have few opportunities for regular meals?’ pursued Flora, with sympathy.

  ‘’Tain’t that, so much, but she believes in fasting. She says it keeps the mind alert.’

  ‘Indeed. Do you live at Mrs Thump’s house?’

  ‘I do since the family gave up the Chester Square house. I say,’ and the chauffeur giggled as she waved her glass, ‘I do like this – this here champagne. It’s delicious – smeshin’, I meantersay. I’ve often heard Daddy talk about it. Could I possibly have a spot more?’

  ‘Of course.’ Flora replenished her glass from the three bottles supplied for her party by Mr Jones. ‘Is this the first time you have tasted champagne?’

  ‘Yes. Daddy – Dad, meantersay, he couldn’t never afford it, see,’ and she drained her glass.

  ‘A misfortune indeed. Is he – er – unemployed at the moment?’

  ‘Well, he is rather. He’s the Earl of Brackenbourne, as a matter of fact,’ confessed the chauffeur, leaning towards Flora and earnestly wagging one finger, ‘and I’m Lady Geraldine Tresswillian. Don’t you love my little W.C. accent? I had two terms at RADA learning to say “eow”, only when I’m tired or I’ve had one over the eight it slips up, see? Mustn’t let Ma’am hear, must we?’ she added confidentially, glancing towards Mrs Ernestine Thump. ‘I have to call her Ma’am and she calls me Willian. Everybody thinks it’s William, and that sounds queer. But it can’t be helped,’ she ended, smiling round upon them and holding out her glass for more champagne.

  ‘I knew that thou wert of the Brahmin caste as soon as thou didst speak, daughter,’ suddenly said the Sage, who had emerged some moments ago from a nearby glade where he had been engaged in meditation and seated himself cross-legged upon the fringe of Flora’s party. ‘Thy words were those of the Sweepers, but thy voice is soft as the night wind in the pine trees of the Hills.’

  ‘Sweet,’ answered Lady Geraldine, beaming upon him.

  ‘Wot’s it like, workin’ for ’er, gel?’ hoarsely enquired the helper-out.

  ‘Perfectly bloody, of course, but of course I’m frightfully lucky to have the job at all. I mean, with my normal accent and no typing or shorthand or economics or Commercial Spanish, and only a year in France and Uncle Augustine to teach me Greek (he’s Master of Saint Osyth’s), I mean I was marvellously lucky even to get an interview. And it is three pounds a week and occasional meals. I say, do you mind most awfully if I go to sleep?’

  She extended herself upon the ground and shut her eyes, and Flora removed her peaked cap and motioned to the follower to waft a chestnut fan, which he had gathered, to and fro above her delicate plain young face, but unfortunately at that moment Mrs Ernestine Thump, catching sight of oriental countenances, came plunging over to shake hands with their owners and congratulate them on Pakistan, to the extreme terror of the follower (who took her for an incarnation of Kali Goddess of Vengeance) and to the complete indifference of the Sage, who had never heard of Pakistan.

  Mrs Ernestine Thump then decided that she would pay one of her visits to Little Drinking, which happy constituency was frequently shaken to its core by such unheralded descents on the part of its Member (‘Remember, if I Represent you, you Represent me, and we must both be on our best behaviour,’ as Mrs Ernestine Thump would declare to her constituents with a threatening laugh). She therefore stumped away to her car, bawling to her chauffeur to accompany her, and bawling to Bob Flatte in passing an offer to drop him, his secretary and the score of The Flayed at the nearest railway station.

>   Lady Geraldine, after one wink at Flora, became the depressed girl chauffeur again and went across to Mrs Ernestine Thump’s car, and the Sage and the follower retired into a glade to go through the elaborate purifification ritual made necessary by the handshake from Mrs Ernestine Thump.

  Luncheon now being over and digested and the afternoon well advanced, it was decided among the delegates to proceed with the readings from contemporary works and unpublished writings by members of the Conference, and then to drive homewards. Accordingly Mr Mybug, who had devoted tireless energy to bringing about this result, eagerly stood up to open the proceedings with a reading from The Dromedary.

  The author was a Bessarabian who was (temporarily, his admirers trusted) in a Home. The book apparently dealt with one day only in the life of a perfectly ordinary Middle East dromedary, but by voraciously rummaging beneath its seemingly innocuous paragraphs, the International Thinkers had discovered that the Dromedary was really the Universe, and the contents of its three stomachs (raw, digested, and all ready) were the Past, the Present and the Future. The Arab who tended it was really Man. Ah, but who was the Chief Date, the incalculable and apparently sinister but sometimes apparently benevolent figure who, at every turn (and there were a good lot of turns), by-passed or flummoxed the Arab, Bhee? Combining as it did the emotions roused by a game of Hare and Hounds with those inspired by the crossword puzzle in The Times, The Dromedary would have been considered by the International Thinkers well worth (had such a low thought ever entered their heads) the ten-and-sixpence demanded by its publishers.

  Lolling against a young beech whose personal appearance contrasted strongly with his own, Mr Mybug in a low intense voice began to read:

  ‘Soon Bhee woke up in his bed and heard the lorn voice that to most men was no more than a dromedary’s grunt – ‘Who will swill out my den? My den is damp and Bhee is still drunk’. Love, love, the words said too to him, but, sad and dry as ever after his bout, he could only think that today he must call upon the Chief Date to see if his dog, or perhaps it was the dog of the Chief Date, had come home. He did not know his way to the tent that he had been told was the tent of the Chief Date, for the tent that he had seen last night did not look the same as the tent he saw today. There was a dog by the fire when he went in but the Chief Date did not look up from his work on the mosaic. Bhee did not know if it was the same dog, and when the Chief Date quickly took off his fez, Bhee saw he was a man he had not seen before, but he had a look of the Chief Date and might have been him without his fez. The mosaic looked as if it might be the same mosaic. Bhee sat down on the carpet and the dog made to bite him.’