by Angus Wilson
Elvira made a note of this, then she said, 'I wasn't going to mention inevitability. I don't care about London the Octopus and the provinces. I just meant why are you going to Macclesfield?'
'But, good heavens! Why not? I've nothing against Macclesfield, it's a most important place.'
'Yes, I suppose so,' said Elvira. 'I think I meant just why? Why any of it?'
John frowned, took out his pipe, and sucked as he lit it. 'That's the sort of pointless question the people you go about with ask,' he said, then, waiving her possible objection, he added, 'Oh! I know very well what the point's meant to be, but I still don't think there's any point.'
'No,' said Elvira, 'I know you don't. Well, don't let's discuss it now. God! how I hate after lunch.'
'You sit up too late,' said John, laughing.
'We were discussing Malraux,' Elvira said, as though that explained anything necessary. 'There was an American there who knew him in his Commie days. And Hardy was back from New York with some frightfully funny stories about the New Criticism boys.'
'I haven't seen Hardy for over a year. I suppose he's just the same as ever.'
'Yes,' said Elvira, 'I don't know why, but he hasn't got less interesting since you stopped seeing him.'
'You are in a bitchy mood,' John still laughed.
Elvira got up and put some papers away in a filing-cabinet. She moved with the heavy gait of one about to make a difficult pronouncement. 'I'm sorry,' she said; 'I expect it's Christmas.' Then, going to the window, she looked out on the wet waste of Sloane Square. Late Christmas shoppers were pushing their way into the doors of Peter Jones; its wide expense of glass gleamed sadly with the watery sun's reflection. At the other end of the Square someone dashed from a taxi into the theatre. Water poured from the taxi roof as it lurched off. It spelt death to Elvira.
'They're very late,' she said, coming back into the room.
'Who?' asked John.
'Johnnie,' she said, 'I've made a Christmas resolution. You're always saying I'm so drearily unconventional, so I shan't keep it till New Year. I'm going to give you a month's notice.'
'Good heavens!' John sat up in his chair. 'Why?'
'Oh God!' said Elvira, 'it's so awful. You really are surprised. You see, you just don't notice people any more; you're so busy being Miss Lonelyhearts to your public.'
John thought desperately for the best approach. 'I did notice you were depressed,' he said, laughing, 'but I put it down to drink, my dear.'
'No, Johnnie,' said Elvira. 'It's no good. It doesn't work anymore. I still like being with you, but I know everything you're going to say. I can't bear it.'
'Don't you think,' asked John, 'that we might approach the matter from a less personal angle? You're the ideal secretary for me. You've been with me for four years and I've absolutely no complaints. ...'
'You've got Miss Harrington and Joan,' Elvira interrupted, and when John was about to deny their value, she went on, 'In any case, I must approach it from my personal point of view and not yours. I took the job because you interested me. Oh! I don't mean your being an M.P. Though that was interesting too, because it was a new world to me. But when you resigned in November, I'd about had politics, as much as the Labour Party'd about had you.'
John was going to protest at this version of his dramatic and courageous resignation, but he thought better of it.
'Well then?' he asked.
'Well,' said Elvira, 'it isn't interesting anymore.'
'Is it Larrie?' asked John abruptly.
'Oh! God, of course not,' said Elvira. 'He's a crashing bore and I wish he wouldn't come to the office. But he'll get tired of that soon.' She took out her lipstick and did her mouth.
John got up and straddled before the electric fire. 'Is it Robin?' he asked in a rather self-conscious voice.
'Oh! Johnnie!' said Elvira, throwing the lipstick on the desk angrily. 'Don't put on that knowing air and don't be so dramatic. I've known for a long time that you knew I was having an affaire with Robin. I thought you didn't say anything because it wasn't your business, and all the time you've been thinking how clever you were and waiting to produce your knowledge at the dramatic moment. No, it isn't Robin. I do my work or don't do it because it interests me or bores me, not because of my private life.'
'I know my dear brother doesn't think so highly of me. I thought perhaps he'd infected you with his opinion,' said John stuffily.
'You're wrong, as a matter of fact,' said Elvira. 'Robin's immensely impressed by our act. But I'm not going to discuss Robin. Look,' she said, trying to explain, 'you came out of the war with ideas, with some capacity for thinking. You'd even written one or two good short stories, and then the Labour landslide of the election made you an M.P. when you'd never thought you'd be elected.'
John laughed. 'You can hardly blame me for trying to cope with the situation.'
'No, you started off as an excellent M.P.,' said Elvira. 'As you know, I'm old-fashioned enough to be on your side there against Hardy, and all the anti-political crowd. But in a way, you were glad. You'd had a couple of stories turned down by the highbrow magazines, and politics was a good way out. Then, bit by bit, you found you weren't holding your own in the political world, so you went in for this individual business. Helping individuals against State tyranny, the unit against the monopoly, talent against money power, the old radicalism, and all that. It was all right up to a point, when it was simply attacking abuses in the House, but then you found radio and the newspapers. And then it wasn't all right, at least not for me. I'd started in with something interesting and ended with Peg's Paper. You made a lovely public figure and you made lovely money. And then to cap it you made your dramatic resignation.'
'Elvira, you can't have been with me through all that ghastly time and think it was sheer publicity.'
John was not angry at Elvira's charges. Most of his thoughts were the result of sympathetic association, and as soon as he heard any statement, even one hostile to himself, he began to see its truth, even to elaborate it.
'I didn't say publicity,' said Elvira. 'There you are, you see, you'll drift into any view put forward. If I told you that you were a public fraud, you'd take on that role and exaggerate it. But you're not, you just move along into any standpoint that's going and play the part to perfection - budding intellectual, good Labour Party man with ideas, public figure fighting the little man's cause. But it only needs someone who really thinks about the subject, someone who's not just interested in the role, to come along and oppose you and you drift into something else.' She waved her cigarette in the air, as though to dispel his fears with a magic circle. 'Don't worry, Johnnie,' she said, 'I'm not prophesying ruin. You'll get by - indeed, you'll probably drift from strength to strength, but I don't want to go with you.'
'The trouble is,' said John, 'that the simple issues of people's lives I'm concerned with now aren't smart enough for you, Elvira. You want "good talk" with Hardy and his friends, and little clique jokes about Camus and Heidegger, or whatever they're talking about now,' he added, as he saw Elvira smile. 'You're an intellectual snob.'
Elvira got up and moved towards the door.
'Saved by the bell,' she said. It was a phrase of her father's which came strangely from her lips. 'Thank God! You see, Johnnie, where you've got to. Even a year ago you wouldn't have used a dreary, middle-class expression like that. You've full of comforting, protective catchwords. You've become a bore, Johnnie. For me, that is. For your great public, you're absolute heaven.'
John picked up a letter from a lady in Lincolnshire whose watercress farm was threatened by a new drainage scheme. Another Cromwell defying centralized tyranny, he thought, then reflected that Cromwell had been foremost in fen drainage. But the letter had served its purpose; the terms of its references to him had dispelled the insidious effect of Elvira's picture. He looked up, surprised, as Gerald followed Elvira into the office.
'I was ready to leave rather early,' said Gerald, 'and I thought perhaps I could pic
k you up here. Inge will be pleased if we get down there early. Family Christmas, you know,' he added in explanation to Elvira, from whom he found it difficult to keep his eyes.
'You don't know my father, of course,' said John. 'I always forget how repugnant the activities of public life are to you, Father. It was brave of you to venture into this office. This is Miss Portway.'
Elvira looked at Gerald with pleasure; it was enough that he reminded her of Robin. Gerald was only concerned that his face did not reveal his interest in her. That sort of thing was all too liable to happen when one got old. His sensual desire, however, was mixed with a certain irritation as he heard her name. The past seemed insatiable in its encroachments upon his life today. However ... 'Are you related to Canon Portway?' he asked.
'Remotely,' said Elvira. 'He was a sort of great-uncle or something. My grandmother was the "great" Lilian,' she added sharply.
Gerald was surprised at her tone. 'One of the few great actresses of my lifetime. You inherit her beauty,' he said.
'I hope that's all,' Elvira replied.
'Oh, in quite a different style,' Gerald hastened to say. 'Lilian Portway was never...' he was about to add 'my sort of choice ', but ended 'quite human to my idea.'
'Unfortunately,' Elvira answered, 'my experience of her was quite otherwise. I'm sorry. As you see, I don't care for her. Ethereal-looking grandmothers aren't in my line. She's so noble, she's even sent me a Christmas present, although we don't speak. I hate that sort of thing from people who behave like goddesses.'
The malaise that the revival of Melpham as a topic had aroused in Gerald compelled him to go on. 'I stayed with her in my under-graduate days at that lovely house at Melpham,' he said.
'Oh, yes,' Elvira replied shortly.
John came to their rescue. 'Well, she's safely settled in the Tyrol now,' he said, 'with an aunt of Marie Hélène's for a sort of companion. That's how I came to meet my perfect secretary.' He smiled at Elvira.
Gerald saw that this topic, too, did not appeal to Elvira. He disliked 'choosey' women as a rule, but the promise of Elvira's figure seemed superior to any defects of temperament.
'My daughter-in-law Marie Hélène knows everyone. She's the perfect cosmopolitan,' he said sharply. 'Look here,' he went on. 'You must have invented that fellow Pelican. There can't really be a civil servant with that name.'
John laughed. 'He's all too real, I'm afraid,' he said. 'You should ask Cressett.'
'You've certainly got a wonderful case,' said Gerald. 'Of course, the Minister'll have to take responsibility, but Mr Pelican won't easily wriggle out. What sort of chap is the wretched Cressett? My heart bleeds for him, like that of all your readers,' he said, with a touch of irony in his voice.
John noticed this, but before he could answer, Elvira said excitedly, 'Oh, we don't meet our correspondents. That might destroy the illusion. We're concerned with injustice to individuals. Nice abstract individuals - Pelican the wicked bureaucrat and Cressett the exploited little man. We don't want to get mixed up with personalities.'
Gerald frowned. He disliked pretty girls who showed hysteria, particularly in the form of strong opinions. Irritation with John, however, seemed to him so reasonable an emotion that he quickly returned to the more pleasant spectacle of her physical form.
'Well, I know nothing about it,' he said. 'I wouldn't read the newspapers if it wasn't for this ridiculous idea that's been implanted in all of us about being well informed. Conscience stirs me every now and again, and then I come into the middle of something like this Pelican business and believe everything I'm told. People like me should be governed by our betters.' He looked at John sharply, hoping that he had aroused annoyance. It infuriated him to think of this attractive girl in his son's office.
John was, in fact, roused to the intense dislike of his father that always lay below the surface, but its effect was to push him into a decision. If Elvira was going to leave him, he would get rid of her first. His work came before such personal considerations.
'Elvira's on the side of the big stick in these things,' he said.
Having made the decision to part with her, his voice took on a sneering note that surprised himself, but he felt that it was in keeping with his new line. 'She moves in very highbrow circles, Father, where dear old Nietzsche's all the thing these days.'
Elvira felt an abysmal sense of defeat. After four years, to have made so little impression that he could dramatize her out of his life. If John was convinced by every individual he came in touch with, Elvira always felt emotionally guilty for every emotion she aroused in others.
'Actually, Johnnie's doing a very useful job,' she said to Gerald, then felt ashamed of her betrayal of her views. Gerald's smile, however, seemed to reassure her. She found herself liking him immensely and wondered that Robin as much as Johnnie seemed only to care for that tiresome mother of theirs.
'Mrs Salad sent you her love,' said Gerald to his son.
'God! how the wicked prosper!' said John. 'You ought to meet her, Elvira; she's the living example of that Marxist myth, the lumpen proletariat.'
'She sent you a message,' said Gerald. 'She thinks you do too much for people who can't be helped. She's never liked the poor, you know.' He laughed. 'Her grandson's one of your fans. Met you somewhere or something. I can't remember what it was all about. Vin his name is.'
John recalled all too clearly his meeting with Larrie's friend Vin. If he had only known that he was also called Salad! However, he giggled nervously and said, 'I meet so many undesirable people.'
Elvira, hearing the giggle, thought immediately of Larrie and wondered whether she ought not to put aside her views and stay with John in case he ran into trouble. These things could be so tricky and John was so stupidly cocksure.
There was nothing she could do though, she decided.
'I mustn't keep Larwood waiting too long,' said Gerald. 'He's taking us down, but I've told him he can come back tonight for his family Christmas. Robin'll have his car if we need one. Anything that'll save us from your mother's driving.'
'I could have run you down,' said John, 'if I'd known it was inconvenient for Larwood.'
'You drive too fast,' said Gerald; 'anyway, Larwood's paid for some inconvenience. Goodbye, Miss Portway; I shall be sad if we don't meet again.'
'I'm sure we shall,' said Elvira, taking his hand.
When the two men were safely out of the office, she picked up the telephone and dialled.
'Mr Middleton, please,' she said. And a minute later, 'Robin, darling? I've told Johnnie. Yes, he will, I'm sure. Well - I only managed it by being bloody nasty really. He'll be all right when he's thought up reasons to give his friends, only he's done such an act about my being with him for ever that it's a bit difficult. No, not really. A bit sharp, but that was all. He couldn't say much because your father was there. No, I thought he was enchanting. Just like you. Well, not really like you, because he has a moustache and is older, but awfully sweet. I told you. I'm going to a sort of party. No, of course not, it'll be hell without you. Oh! I know you have to go there. Anyway, it's part of the way we have to go on. No, no, darling, I just said "have to"; I didn't mean it. Well, as long as you don't enjoy yourself too much or forget me for a minute. And don't be nasty to your father. Well, as a matter of fact I have taken a fancy to him. He's much nicer than any of the rest of your family. Well, not perhaps than Johnnie, but less embarrassing, anyway. No, darling, I'm not really depressed. I'm like that at Christmas anyway, even without all this business of your having to go down to Marlow. I should think your mother must be awful at Christmas. Oh! not especially. I don't like any old women much, as you know. No, darling, I will. Anyway it's only until Tuesday. I only hope I shan't have that pain I had the last time you went away. Well, you ought to be flattered really, but I do see that you wouldn't be. Goodbye, darling; I'd like to say dream of me, like that girl in the dairy, only it sounds rather dirty.'
Elvira put down the telephone and stared into the ashtray. H
er feelings for Robin were not at all intellectual.
Robin Middleton ran up the stairs of his large Hampstead home like a schoolboy after talking to Elvira. Then, outside the bedroom, the depression of reality slowed his step. His wife Marie Hélène was packing his dressing-case as he came into the room.
She was in an ostentatiously calm and efficient mood that allowed her to exercise all the tyranny of fussing without being accused of it.
'That was Elvira,' said Robin, who used sincerity to his wife as his only protest against her existence.
'Yes?' said Marie Hélène, and going to the door of the bedroom she called across the corridor, 'Timothy, stop reading and get on with your packing.' As a good Catholic, she remained an excellent wife to Robin without condoning a moment of his adultery.
Timothy appeared at the door, already at sixteen nearly six foot, trying by excessive neatness to disguise his gangling figure. He blinked through his steel-rimmed glasses and said, 'The packing's done,' and went back to his book. Robin laughed affectionately. He was sure of his son's love, but suspected that his respect went with community of religion to his mother.
Marie Hélène said, 'His manners want so much improvement.' She spoke the word 'manners' with the reverence she felt for it. 'I've bought your mother's present,' she went on. Her English was nearly faultless, but she pronounced certain words like 'present' in italics as though she thought they were slang words. In fact, she had a belief that such words were 'popular speech' and that it was distinguished to use them. The dictionary word was 'gift', but its use would have been bourgeois. She was herself of rich petit-bourgeois Lyonnais origin and much possessed by it. 'Do you want to see it?' she added. But when Robin said 'Yes', she merely sat down on one of the upturned suitcases. 'Do you think that this year your mother will make a scene when Timothy and I go into Henley for Midnight Mass?'