by Unknown
‘Ah! So then what will you do?’
‘Specials. Millionaires and things like that. We’ve got an interesting special coming off next month which I’m partly here to see about. Grandad wants to capture the do-gooders market, he thinks it has enormous possibilities for the future – you know, all those leisured oldsters who sign letters to The Times in favour of vice. Now they and their stooges are for ever going abroad, to build up schools the French have bombed, or rescue animals drowning in dams, or help people to escape from Franco gaols. They’ve got pots of money and Grandad thinks no harm in extracting a percentage.’
‘I don’t think it’s right to cash in on people’s ideals, Basil, even if you haven’t got any yourself.’
‘Somebody’s got to organize their expeditions for them. Now me Grandad has thought of a particularly tempting line-up, see – an atom march. These do-gooders are not like ordinary Britons, they have feet of sheer cast iron and love a good long walk. But they’ve had Britain. They’ve done John o’ Groat’s and all that and they know every inch of the way to Aldermaston. So me Grandad thinks they might like to walk to Saclay, where the French atom scientists hang out – make a change. If that’s a success they can go on to the great atom town in the Sahara. We call it A.S.S. – they start at Aldermaston as usual – Saclay – Sahara. Well, Ma, I wish you could see the provisional bookings. It is a smashing pisseroo old Grandad’s got there. He’s busy now, working out the cost. He’ll make them pay a sum down, quite substantial – you see it’s a different public from our Spanish lot, ever-so much richer. Then the idea is to have some treats on the side which they’ll pay extra for – interviews with atom ministers and such like. I thought Father would come in usefutthere?’
‘I wouldn’t count on it.’
‘Oh well then, Northey can – ’
‘What can I do?’ She reappeared, with Philip. ‘Hot news,’ she said. ‘Bigman’s going to fall again (that’s French for President du Conseil) – not national parks, Sunday speed limit – so we shall see more of him. Goody gum trees.’
‘It’s gum drops, not gum trees,’ Basil said, scornfully.
‘Oh Lord,’ said Philip, ‘not another chap in fancy dress? What have you come as, may one ask? Really, Fanny, your children! Do you know, the Ambassador has just been obliged to go to the Quai in a taxi because David sent Jérôme with the Rolls Royce to fetch his Zen Master?’
‘No! It’s too bad of David – I can’t have him doing that sort of thing. Go upstairs, Northey, and tell him to come here at once, will you?’
‘Wouldn’t be any use – they’ll be Zenning away with the door locked by now. They go back to bed after breakfast to empty their minds again. Suzanne can never get in to do the room until luncheon-time. The mess is not to be believed. Have you been up there, Fanny?’
‘I had a feeling I’d better not.’
‘I went to have a chat with Dawnie yesterday when David was out. It’s rather fascinating. You’d never think so much deep litter could come out of one canvas bag. Then they’ve stuck up mottoes everywhere: “How miraculous this is: I draw water and I carry fuel” (it would be, if they did) and a picture of a hoop saying “The man and his rice bowl have gone out of sight.”‘
‘When you chat with Dawn what does she talk about?’
‘I do the talking. She looks sweet and says nothing. She can explain about the ten stages of spiritual dish-washing but she hasn’t much ordinary conversation. I love her and adorable ’Chang. If only David would bugger off and leave them both behind – ’
‘Northey, if you say that word again I shall send you straight back to Fort William.’
‘Northey,’ said Basil, ‘do you know any atom ministers?’
‘Yes, there’s a dear one called Busson in the rue de Varennes, terribly excited about his old bomb. He’s going to poop it off in i960.’
‘Is he indeed?’ said Philip. ‘Thanks for the tip, Mees. At last you’ve produced the solid fruit of all that spying you do.’
‘I read it in Aux Écoutes, to tell you the truth.’
Basil said, ‘Could you get permission for a few people to see him?’
‘What sort of people?’
‘Britons.’
‘Rather,’ said Philip. ‘He simply dotes on Britons, he’s always hanging about here, under the Union Jack, keenly waiting for one.’
‘Witty,’ said Northey.‘Yes, Baz, I expect so. You must put it in writing. You can get permission for anything in France if you send up a written request. Come to my office and I’ll type it out for you.’ She gave Philip a long look under her eyelashes which would have transported any of the followers and left the room with Basil.
When they had gone, I said to Philip, ‘Oh! the children! What a worry they are. Basil has got some horrible new scheme on foot. Never mind. Meanwhile I’ve decided that somehow or other I must get rid of the Davids.’
‘Now you’ve mentioned it – I didn’t like to – but how?’
‘So far I haven’t thought of a way. After all, our house is their home. We can’t turn them out if they don’t want to go, Dawn so pregnant and that darling ’Chang, and let David drag them off to China. Then it’s no good arguing with him, he has studied philosophy and knows all the answers.’
‘Besides, he’s such a humbug. All that rot about time meaning nothing – turns up sharp enough for meals, I notice, and the Guru is on the dot when Jerome goes for him – won’t miss a lift if he can help it.’
‘Yes – yes,’ I said rather impatiently. Poor David, it was too easy to criticize and laugh at him and really got us no further.
‘Need your house be his home now that he is married?’
‘I suppose the boys never seem grown up to me. Yes, I like them to feel that it is. Nothing would matter if it didn’t upset Alfred, but he has got such a lot of worries now and I can see that David is fearfully on his nerves. I must protect him – I must try and get them to go back to England. David can always earn a living there with his qualifications.’
‘What are they using for money?’
‘A tiny little pittance I give him.’
‘Can’t you cut it off and say he must find work?’
‘His pathetic allowance? No, really I don’t think I could.’
‘One doesn’t have to be a fortune-teller to see they’ll be here the full seven years.’
‘I’m not sure, Philip. I often get my own way – Lady Leone left quite quickly, did you notice? Oh!’ I said, sitting up in bed and seizing the telephone. ‘Davey! We must get him over – I’ll ring him up now this very minute!’
Chapter Fourteen
DAVEY arrived post-haste, in the early afternoon of the following day. ‘Quite right to send for me. Oh – this room?’ he said displeased, when I had taken him upstairs. He had had the Violet Room before but it was now occupied by David and Dawn and I had been obliged to change him over. I sat on his bed. ‘I’ll tell you the reason. It’s all to do with why I asked you to come.’
‘Don’t begin yet. I must go for a walk. The thing about having three kidneys is that you need a great deal of exercise. Until you have had it you are apt to see things out of proportion.’
‘That won’t do. We are all trying to keep a sense of proportion. Can I come with you? I’d love a walk. Is there anywhere special you’d like to go to?’
‘Yes, there is.’ He opened his medicine chest and took out a piece of glass. I looked at it, fascinated, wondering what part of his anatomy it could be destined for.
‘My housemaid broke this off a candelabra I’m fond of. I want to see if the man in the rue de Saihtonge who used to blow glass is still there. I last saw him forty years ago – Paris being what it is I’m quite sure we shall find him.’
‘Where is the rue de Saintonge?’
‘I’ll take you. It’s a beautiful walk from here.’
It was indeed a beautiful walk. Across the Tuileries, through the Cour Carrée, and the Palais Royal and then past acres of houses exactly
as Voltaire, as Balzac, must have seen them, of that colour between beige and grey so characteristic of the Île de France, with high slate roofs and lacy ironwork balconies. Though the outsides of these houses have a homogeneity which makes an architectural unit of each street, a glimpse through their great decorated doorways into the courtyards reveals a wealth of difference within. Some are planned on a large and airy scale and have fine staircases and windows surmounted by smiling masks, some are so narrow and dark and mysterious, so overbuilt through the centuries with such ancient, sinister rabbit-runs leading out of them, that it is hard to imagine a citizen of the modern world inhabiting them. Indeed, witch-like old women, gnome-like old men do emerge but so, also, do healthy laughing children, pretty girls in stiletto heels and their prosperous fathers, Legion of Honour in buttonhole. Most of the courtyards contain one or two motor-cars – quite often D.S.’s or Jaguars – mixed up with ancient handcarts and pedal bicycles. The ground floors are put to many different uses, shops, workshops, garages, cafes; this architecture has been so well planned in the first place that it can still serve almost any purpose.
Davey and I walked happily, peering and exclaiming and calling to each other to come and look. I said, ‘Bouche-Bontemps and the other Frenchmen I see always talk as if old Paris has completely gone; Thébphile Gautier died of grief because of what Haussmann did here; a book I’ve got, written in 1911, says that Paris has become an American city. Even so, it must have far more beautiful old houses left than any other capital in the world. We have walked for half an hour and not seen one ugly street.’
‘What I think sad about modern buildings,’ Davey said, ‘is that when you’ve seen the outside you know exactly what the inside will be like.’
‘Northey said that, about Notre Dame. But I admit she was in a hurry to get to Lanvin.’
The rue de Saintonge itself is inhabited by artisans. Its seventeenth-century houses, built originally for aristocrats and well-to-do burgesses, have not been pulled down (except for one block where the Département de la Seine has per petrated a horror) but they have been pulled about, chopped and rechopped, parcelled and reparcelled by the people who have lived and worked in them during the last two hundred years. Here are the trades which flourish in this street:
Workers in morocco, fur, indiarubber, gold, silver and jewels; makers of buttons, keys, ribbons, watches, wigs, shoes, artificial flowers and glass domes; importer of sponges; repairer of sewing-machines; great printer of letters; mender of motor-cars; printer; midwife. There may be many more hidden away; these put out signs for the passer-by to read.
At the end of the street we came to Davey’s glassblower, still there, covered with smiles; He and Davey greeted each other as if it were only a week instead of forty years since they last met. The piece of glass, produced from Davey’s pocket, was examined. It could be copied, quite easily, but there would be a delay of perhaps two months.
‘That has no importance,’ said Davey, in his perfect, literary French, ‘my niece here is our Ambassadress – when it’s ready you will send it round to her.’
More smiles, compliments, protestations of love: ‘How we thought of you, when London was bombed.’
‘And how we thought of you, during the Occupation. Thousands of times worse to have them marching about the streets than flying about overhead.’
‘Yes, perhaps. My son deported – my son-in-law murdered – c’est la vie – !’
Back in the Tuileries gardens we sat down in order to begin our, what statesmen call, discussions about David. I described the arrival of the Holy Family and their subsequent behaviour. Davey was very much interested. ‘My dear! The unkind French! So how did they take it?’
‘Sweet and polite as they always are, to me anyhow.’
‘I wish I could have heard what they said to each other, afterwards. Of course I saw Mockbar’s account of the Zen Buddhists and paid no attention, but for once there seems to have been a grain of truth in his ravings. I say, look at that statue of an ancient Gaul. What can he be doing?’
‘He seems to be eating a Pekinese – or perhaps he’s kissing it?’
‘No – it’s his own beard, but why is he holding it up like that with both hands?’
‘Most peculiar.’
‘You might have let me know that my godson was married.’
‘Nobody let anybody know. The Bishop of Bury saw it in the paper – Alfred rang him up and they mourned together. Oh, Dave, isn’t the modern world difficult!’
‘Ghastly. No standards of behaviour any more.’
We sat sadly looking at the Gaul.
Presently Davey said, ‘I expect I know what we shall have to do for David. It must be the old, old pattern of emotional unstability and absence of rationalism plus a serious defection of the glands. He will almost certainly have to have a series of injections and a course of psychotherapy. I count on the Jungfleisches to find us a good man – where there are Americans there are couches galore. Madness is their national industry. What’s the joke?’
‘In other words, send for the doctor. Davey, how like you – !’
‘No, Fanny. Did I order doctors for Pauline? Did I get rid of her?’
‘All right, I admit. And there may be something in what you say. But I’m wondering if he will co-operate. He’s become so difficult.’
‘He’ll be delighted to. He is evidently an exhibitionist – that is shown by the beard, the pipe, the strange clothes and Chinese baby. The more attention paid to him the better pleased he’ll be. Say what you like about the modern world, we must give three cheers for science. Look at me! If I’d been born fifty years sooner I’d have been pushing up the daisies by now.’
‘Very likely, since you would have been a hundred and sixteen. Uncle Matthew always says you are the strongest man he has ever met.’
‘It is too bad of Matthew when he knows quite well how delicate I am.’ Davey was seriously annoyed. He rose to his feet and said he must go home and have a rest before dinner.
‘We’ve asked some people to meet you.’
‘Oh dear! You always seem to dine alone, so I made a little plan with Mildred. One can count on interesting conversation there.’
As Davey and I came to the Place de la Concorde we saw that there was something going on. A mob of men in mackin toshes, armed with cameras, were jostling each other on the roadway outside the Hotel Crillon. Mockbar leant against the wall by the revolving door of the hotel. I never can resist a crowd. ‘Do let’s find out who it is they are waiting for,’ I said.
‘It can only be some dreary film star. Nothing else attracts any interest nowadays.’
‘I know. Only, if we don’t wait we shall hear afterwards that something thrilling occurred and we shall be cross.’ I showed him Mockbar. ‘There’s the enemy. He looks more like a farmer than a gossip writer.’
‘Lady Wincham – how are you?’ It was the Times correspondent. There was a moment of agony when I could remember neither his name nor Davey’s. I feebly said, ‘Do you know each other?’ However my embarrassment was covered by the noisy arrival of policemen on motor-bicycles.
‘Who is it?’ I shouted to the Times man.
‘Hector Dexter. He has chosen Freedom. He and his wife are expected here from Orly any minute now.’
‘Remind me – ’ I shouted.
‘That American who went to Russia just before Burgess and Maclean did.’
I vaguely remembered. As everybody seemed so excited I could see that he must be very important. The noise abated when the policemen got off their bicycles. Davey said: ‘You must remember, Fanny – there was a huge fuss at the time. His wife is English – your Aunt Emily knew her mother.’
More police dashed up, clearing the way for a motor. It stopped before the hotel; the journalists were held back; a policeman opened the door of the car and out of it struggled a large Teddy-bear of an American in a crumpled beige suit, a coat over his arm, holding a brief-case. He stood on the pavement, blinking and swallowin
g, green in the face; I felt sorry for him, he looked so ill. Some of the journalists shouted questions while others flashed and snapped away with their cameras. ‘So what was it like, Heck?’ ‘Come on, Heck, how was the Soviet Union?’ ‘Why did you leave, Heck? Let’s have a statement.’
Mr Dexter stood there, silent, swaying on his feet. A man pushed a microphone under his nose. ‘Give us your impressions, Heck, what’s the life like, out there?’