by Angus Wilson
Gerald's back stiffened slightly; he'd had about as much of that sort of thing as he could take. 'Oh, good morning, Salad,' he said in his most officerly voice. 'I'm afraid I can't stop now. I'm late for an appointment.'
'It won't take a sec,' said Vin. He looked down at his costume. 'I hardly cared to call out to you in this negligee,' he added. 'You asked me to keep an eye on that Larrie Rourke. Well, he's liable to be in bad trouble any day.'
'Yes,' said Gerald, 'he appears to have stolen my wife's car. But since he's left her house, I don't know that it matters.'
'Oh, I don't know anything about that,' Vin said, 'but he's in with some Irish boys now. A very bad crowd. Burglars and things. He'll be taken up any day, I should think.'
'Well, since he's cut loose from my family it's hardly my affair,' Gerald answered.
Vin flounced his head. He was hurt at the Professor's manner. 'Oh well, I'm sure I don't know,' he said; 'I was only anxious to oblige. I should tell your son to keep away from him if I were you.'
'Thank you,' said Gerald. He started to get into the car, then turned and said, 'How's Mrs Salad?'
Vin smiled. 'Ever so lively, thank you. She's always hoping to see you.'
'Oh,' Gerald answered. 'I'll look in one of these days.'
Vin's eyes narrowed. 'That's nice,' he said. 'It's lucky she's such a patient old lady.' He turned and went indoors.
Gerald looked out of the window of the Montpelier Square house some days later. The rain running down the panes blurred his vision. Despite the summer season, he had been forced to turn on the central heating. Inside the house everything seemed warm and snug. The first contribution to the History - Hilda Ferguson's chapter on the influence of the Crusades on English social life - had arrived. It looked most interesting. It seemed to Gerald that he could start the chapter of The Confessor on Stigand's relations with Rome. The words were already formed in his head. A catalogue of the Wroxesley sale lay on the table - there were notes on two Guardi drawings he had never seen. Nevertheless, he rang and asked Larwood to have the car ready in five minutes. He gave the address of Harold Cressett.
It would have been less depressing, he thought, to have left some warm, sunbaked merchant's house in Pompeii to set sail for Ultima Thüle or the bright Lords' hall for the darkness of the voyage to Vinland. Indeed, the hideous hybrid terrain of the by-pass seemed more monstrous to Gerald when he reached it than all the fantastic lands of medieval travellers. Mr Barker's huge, motionless red face stared out of the window at the ruined glass-houses. One rolling eye was fixed on Gerald as he came up the path. So, Gerald thought, must Polyphemus have looked out at the voyagers from his cave.
Mrs Cressett answered the door - comfortable, neat, but ready to bar the way. The compensation money now seemed assured. Numerous well-wishers had sent them substantial cheques. The time had come when she would keep out intruders, snoopers, reporters, and other busybodies. Alice Cressett had never believed in knowing people - strangers, neighbours, family, or anybody else - you could never tell what they were trying to get out of you. A small kingdom ruled by herself with a rod of iron was what she liked, and all this contact with the great public tended to undermine her sense of omnipotence. It seemed also to have undermined Harold - he was getting out of hand. The sooner they got away from the smallholding and established the boarding-house in Cromer, the better she would be pleased. A nice little kingdom with ten or twelve chosen subjects - preferably old people - would just suit her natural talent for ruling.
She was not over-friendly to Gerald then, although her eye took in the car and chauffeur. When she learned that he was John Middleton's father she felt constrained to ask him in.
'I saw you on the television,' said Gerald, 'and I was so interested to learn that you had been at Melpham. You probably don't remember it, but I was there the day the discovery was made. You very kindly bound up my sprained ankle.'
'Oh yes, I remember, sir.' Alice's expression remained fixed and comfortable, like a mother doll carved out of wood. She led him into the parlour. 'How do you do, Mr Barker?' Gerald said. 'I remember well your driving me up to Melpham Hall. We had a very interesting little chat.' He seemed somehow impelled to lie about the events of that day.
Alice Cressett chuckled. 'Well, you won't have another,' she said. 'Father's paralysed. He's lost his speech. But he understands very well. Don't you, Father? You'd be surprised how much he does understand, sir.'
Gerald felt quite downcast at this check to his inquiry. 'I'm writing a book about Melpham. I'm a history professor, you know. I was hoping perhaps your father could have told me a little about the exciting circumstances of the discovery.'
Mrs Cressett looked more satisfied than ever. 'He could have done,' she said, 'but he can't now.'
'Oh, I expect he told you most of what he knew,' Gerald said. 'He was with Gilbert Stokesay, wasn't he, when they first came on the coffin?'
Mrs Cressett went to the sideboard and got out a bottle of beer and glasses. 'You'll take a glass of beer, won't you?' she asked. Then she said, 'He couldn't have told me that because he wasn't there. It was one of the village lads that was with young Mr Stokesay. Father only came later when they needed all hands to raise the coffin.'
'How strange!' Gerald said. 'I could have sworn that someone told me he made the discovery.'
'They told you lies, then,' she said.
Gerald sat puzzled for a moment, then he took a long chance. 'Oh! I know. I got that impression from your father himself when he drove me up there that day.'
For the first time Mrs Cressett shifted her ample bottom a little uncomfortably on the chair. 'Oh!' she said. 'Well, if you know so much there's no occasion to ask me.'
There was an awkward silence. Gerald thought of the paralysed mother in Thérèse Raquin and wondered if Mr Barker too might give a sign. 'I always hoped Canon Portway would publish his reminiscences. It would have been most valuable to have had his first-hand account of the excavation. I believe you were in his service a long time, Mrs Cressett.'
'More than twenty years, sir. And Father? Let me see. I believe he was over forty years with the family. You was more than forty years with the Portways, weren't you, Father?' She waited a moment to register the unspoken and then said, 'Ah! I thought so. More than forty years Father was with them, sir.'
'Did Canon Portway ever say anything to you about why he hadn't published more on Bishop Eorpwald's tomb?'
Mrs Cressett looked at him very straight. 'We were servants, sir,' she said.
'The best in the world, according to Mrs Portway,' Gerald went on.
Mrs Cressett seemed now to be anxiously listening for something. 'She was a very good mistress, sir,' she said. 'Ah, Father knows you're talking of her. He worshipped Mrs Portway, sir. Do you know how she is these days?'
'I'm afraid she was very ill indeed when I left her at Merano last month. They didn't think she would live!'
Mrs Cressett clicked her tongue. 'I don't know how Father'll take that,' she said. However he took it, Mr Barker still gave no overt sign. 'Did she speak of us on that day?' Mrs Cressett asked.
'Oh, yes,' Gerald replied, 'a great deal, and most warmly.'
'Ah!' said Mrs Cressett with satisfaction. She even filled up Gerald's glass.
'She seemed to think her brother-in-law was worried about some aspects of the excavation,' Gerald said. Mrs Cressett looked at him with an expression of polite but blank failure to understand. 'And Mr Rammage agreed when I saw him.'
He watched carefully to see the effect of Frank's name, but Mrs Cressett said rather strangely, 'Ah, you know all the lie of the land, sir. You spare no trouble.'
Gerald was about to follow up his remark when there was a noise at the back door. Mrs Cressett's listening attitude seemed to relax. She got up from her chair. 'Excuse me, sir,' she said and was gone.
Gerald looked at Mr Barker's red moon face and his staring eye. The eye looked back at him and once it swivelled round. No sign, however, came.
'I thought we'd have a little butter now,' Mr Cressett mumbled.
'Oh did you?' Mrs Cressett said. 'You'll get butter when I choose to give it to you.' Then her voice became slow and soothing again. 'You'll take it back and change it for marge,' she said. 'No, not now. John Middleton's father's here and he'll want to talk to you.'
As Mr Cressett came in, he smiled feebly at Gerald. 'We're very grateful,' he said. He was so used those days to being expected to feel grateful that he did not particularize.
Gerald laughed. 'There's nothing to thank me for. I've nothing to do with my son's good works. I'm only glad it all looks like turning out so well for you.'
'It looks like turning out badly for Mr Pelican,' Mrs Cressett said with relish.
Gerald said, 'I was talking to your wife about the old days at Melpham. I suppose Mr Gilbert was backwards and forwards most of the time from Bedbury, Mrs Cressett. Did Mr Barker ever work over there?'
Mrs Cressett got up and, taking a handkerchief, she blew her father's nose. 'We don't know the half of what you did, do we, Father?' she asked. Then she said, 'If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll leave you to talk to my husband. He brought the wrong things back from the shop and I must go and change them.' Mr Cressett seemed about to speak, but she gave him a look and was gone. Gerald was left to talk uneasily to Harold Cressett and to pray in vain that Mr Barker might be miraculously revived to give a sign.
After five minutes or so Mr Cressett found his self-confidence, which under the spell of his own voice became considerable; he embarked upon a lengthy and very factual discourse upon the government of the British colonies. Coming from one of Mr Cressett's outdated sources, it would have been most valuable to a student of the Empire before the Statute of Westminster; for seekers after contemporary knowledge, it would have been nothing; for Gerald with his preoccupation it was irritating beyond measure. After a quarter of an hour, he managed to excuse himself and depart.
The day after his return to England, Gerald had telephoned to Elvira, but he could get no reply. He felt it his duty to inform her of her grandmother's condition and he tried again each day. At the end of a week he was answered by the charwoman, who told him that Miss Portway was away on holiday. He left a message asking her to telephone him as soon as she returned.
The morning after his fruitless visit to the Cressetts she rang him up. 'I was told that you wanted to speak to me.' Her voice sounded edgy and unfriendly.
'Yes,' Gerald replied, 'I was very anxious to let you know how I left your grandmother. She was ...'
'I don't know how she was then,' Elvira said, 'but she's dead now.'
Gerald said, 'I see. I'm very sorry. I was afraid it might happen.'
'Oh God! what a silly thing to say.' Elvira's voice became deafening. 'Why the hell didn't you send me a telegram?'
Gerald found it difficult to explain why he had not. In truth, he had feared getting a rasgreatlyrry from Elvira after the way she had always spoken of her grandmother. 'I didn't want to give you a shock,' he said.
'Oh!' Elvira answered. Her voice was exaggeratedly flat now. 'Well, I got one. Three telegrams from the Houdets waiting for me and a letter telling me the news in full.' Gerald did not like to point out that there would apparently have been no point in any telegram he might have sent. 'Naturally they think I've behaved like a bitch,' Elvira said. There was a pause, then she added, 'And so I have.'
'I shouldn't take too much notice of their views,' Gerald said.
'Oh! Why?' Elvira asked snappishly.
'The impressions I got..."
'You seems to get a lot too many impressions,' Elvira interrupted. 'They've had to put up with all the trouble. If you're going to tell me that they're ghastly, I'm sure they are. But that isn't the point, is it? It's a matter of decent manners.' Gerald could think of no reply, but Elvira spoke again. 'The most ghastly thing is that she's left her money to me and nothing to those frightful Houdets. It's a completely bloody situation. In fact the poor old cow has bitched everything up after her death just as she did when she was alive.'
Gerald said, 'Don't be too bitter about it all, Elvira; she'd had her life. I don't think she was sorry to die.'
'Thank you for your views,' Elvira said. 'You don't seem to have helped to keep her alive. The Houdets as much as say that your fussing her about that Melpham business brought the stroke on.'
'Good God!' Gerald cried. 'What absolute nonsense!'
'It sounds like quite good sense to me. Oh! I've only myself to blame. I urged you to go and bully her over all that ridiculous Melpham business. As if it mattered about that damned bishop. I would fall for all that scholarship guff. Oh God! the boredom of it all.'
Gerald controlled his anger. 'I'm sorry,' he said.
'It's a habit your family have,' Elvira replied. There was a big pause. Gerald thought she was about to ring off, but suddenly she said, 'I've broken with Robin. So pat yourself on the back. You were quite right. I couldn't stand all this "sensible" business any longer and, of course, I was quite right. And Robin's got into a mess and can't get out of it. And anyhow I accepted it and he can't put everything on to Timothy because our love-life's gone wrong. In fact, Robin's got to stand by his family, so he's quite right. Hooray for him! You see I know the right bitter note to take. And it's all absolutely bloody!'
Gerald said, 'So that's why Robin's so elusive since I came back. Look, Elvira, I'll go and see him.'
'Would you mind,' Elvira cried, 'not doing that? I know it's asking an awful lot when you have all that perfectly wonderful worldly experience ready to give away for nothing, but if you could just leave my affairs alone for a bit I would be grateful.' Gerald suddenly felt that he might cry, but he accused himself of self-pity and prevented the tears. 'I think,' he said, 'it might help if you tried to keep your temper.' As usual, however, he had found courage to dash cold water a little too late. This time Elvira had rung off.
He decided that the strain of talking to people at luncheon would be less than the strain of having no one to talk to. He set out to walk to his club. June had brought one of the rare sunny days of that summer; after the heavy rains, the Park gleamed with fresh colour. He saw neither trees nor flowers. Only as he was crossing to the gates of Hyde Park Corner did he notice a bed of his favourite ragged, pink and green parrot tulips. He wondered with disgust how many more revolting flowers these horticulturists were going to cultivate; those damned things looked like that marbled linoleum second-rate people had in their bathrooms. He decided that he would send Elvira some flowers - not these sort of things: decent, conventional dark-red roses. She could throw them down the lavatory if she liked, but he would have done the conventional thing. He would go to Fortnum's for them. He was sick of meeting the sort of people he didn't usually meet in his life and hearing about the sex lives of people who had nothing to do with the sort of life he led. He hailed a taxi. All this walking about and thinking was quite unsuitable at his age.
The first person he met at Fortnum's was Marie Hélène. When Marie Hélène went out shopping, she dressed as though she was going to lunch at Fortnum's, and did, in fact, lunch there. She was wearing a bottle-green watered-silk coat and a monstrous little hat of bottle-green feathers. Against it her face looked peculiarly yellow. If I was Robin, Gerald thought, I'd see to it that she had a dose of salts every day. It always annoyed him that she insisted on shaking hands. Good God! he thought, the woman's been in England long enough to learn not to do that.
'How pleasing to meet one's father-in-law in the morning,' she said. 'Pleasing' was one of the English words that she believed to be elegant. Gerald supposed that he should answer, 'Pleasant to meet my charming daughter-in-law at any time of the day,' but he thought I'm damned if I will. Faced with Marie Hélène, he began almost
to enjoy his mood of ill-temper. He asked, 'How's Timothy?'
'Beginning to fall in love at last,' she said. 'Thank heaven! He's already asked me to give two theatre parties for him next holidays. Imagine, Timothy asking for a party.' She curved her thin mouth and dilated her camel's nostrils in amusement. 'I was really beginning to despair. Nothing but books. Not, of course, that I want him to grow up a barbarian, but there are limits even to culture.' She paused for a moment and gave her father-in-law a searching look, for she suddenly remembered that someone had suggested to her that 'culture' was not an elegant word. However, Gerald did not appear disturbed, so she went on, 'In any case, I longed for his first love affair. It's so amusing to see them in love at that age.'
It was a view that Gerald could not share, so he asked, 'Do I know the girl in question?'
'The Jevingtons' eldest girl?' she queried, and, when he shook his head, she told him, 'Quite charming people. He's a barrister. She sculpts. Rather lovely things. Thank heaven, it's nothing disagreeable,' and when he did not seem to appreciate the good fortune enough, she added, 'Oh, but it can be, Father. Sometimes boys of Timothy's age fall in love with the most unsuitable girls.'
As she was talking, Gerald decided not to send Elvira flowers after all. It's none of my business, he thought.
Marie Hélène meanwhile had decided how pleasing it was to have so elegant, so distinguished-looking a father-in-law. I shall cultivate him, she thought, I shall take him up. As a start she decided to ask him to lunch with her on the spot. She had an idea that to give one's father-in-law lunch would be somehow amusing and she sought constantly to do things that could be classed under the heading of that elegant word 'amusing'. 'Come and lunch with me. It's delightful here at luncheon-time.'
Gerald was appalled. First Robin, now Marie Hélène. What did they think he was, a pauper? He pleaded an urgent engagement. She looked so put out that he felt he had been rude.