Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

by Angus Wilson

  'And all along one side of the leg there are,' Stéphanie paused, 'how do you say? ulcers. Big ulcers. Red!' She rolled the words out in the astonished lady's face. 'And he is so young, this boy, only fourteen years. Ah! comme il a souffert, le pauvre petit! But never a cry. And he has his reward. C'était Notre Dame de Lourdes qui l'a guéri.' As the lady producer said afterwards, there was no doubt that the influence of Claudel in France at the moment was colossal.

  Marie Hélène sat rather stiffly on one of the striped couches and talked. 'Do you think that Anouilh is passé?' she asked. 'I think he has lost his elegance. I find a terrible lack of esprit in his last play.'

  Timothy was having a very familiar argument with Caroline Jevington. 'My mother's quite as embarrassing as yours,' he said.

  'Nonsense,' said Caroline, 'you just listen to Mummy now.'

  Mrs Jevington, large and blonde but dead and elegant - the English version of Marie Hélène - was holding forth from another sofa. 'Well, I think anyone who's experienced the creative process ...' she said.

  Timothy turned to Caroline. 'Yes, you're right,' he said.

  Gerald, overhearing this, smiled. They're both quite right, he thought. Nevertheless, he decided to say nothing. To be confidential with the very young would be unbecoming in a man of his age. He decided to go home. As he collected his hat, he whistled 'A Room with a View'. It was a tune he and Dollie had often danced to.

  Coming out into the moonlight to find Larwood and the car, he suddenly saw Elvira standing there by the front steps. Her dark hair was more tousled than ever and she was staring through puffy eyelids. She's been crying or drinking, or both, he thought. When she saw him she deliberately looked the other way. He was about to go on with the thought that other people's business was not his; but he rebuked himself for his selfishness. She was clearly unhappy to a mood of desperation; Robin had suffered enough for his pomposity for one evening. If I'm as frightened of the security of my own happiness as this, he decided, it isn't likely to be very durable. He must not allow his new-found acceptance of life to degenerate into a patronizing, passive compassion. However much I involve myself, I'm quite free from them, he reassured himself.

  Going over to Elvira, he was about to speak, when she turned on him a set, hysterical face. 'Oh, good evening,' she said. 'Were you just leaving?'

  'Yes,' Gerald replied. 'Can I give you a lift anywhere?'

  'Thank you,' Elvira replied, 'but there's no need. I'm quite under control, you know. I don't need your old-world gallantry. I haven't come to break up the party or anything. I want to see Yves Houdet. I've decided to make them some restitution for all they did for dear Lilian. Silly of me, isn't it?'

  'No,' said Gerald, 'I think it's very kind of you.'

  'Oh, do you? How funny! I think it's very stupid. It's a kind of superstition really. If I give them the money, Robin'll come back to me. Freud, you know. Only I think we've discussed all that.'

  'Why not let's discuss Freud again?' Gerald asked. 'Let's have supper over it. Houdet's very much involved in this party. You can see him tomorrow.'

  Elvira laughed hysterically. 'Do you mind if I say no?' she cried. 'I mean to any more suppers with you. I can't really think they've helped much.' She turned her head away and began to cry. 'Oh God! This is so bloody. It won't leave me alone. I'm so unhappy.'

  Gerald took her arm, but she shook him off savagely. 'Do you mind not being such a bore?' she said, 'because it would help if you went away.'

  He turned to go and she ran up the steps into the hall. He turned and followed her. 'At least let me bring Houdet out here to you,' he said.

  She sank down on a bench among some late-comers' hats and cloaks. 'Perhaps it would be better,' she said, and began to repair the ravages of weeping with make-up.

  Yves was rather drunk by now. He greeted Elvira with a passionate kiss on the lips. To Gerald's horror, he then took her arm. 'Come along in, Miss Portway. There's plenty of big people here. People you ought to know.' When Elvira drew back, he cried, 'What the hell? You and Robin have quarrelled. So what? There's nothing like a party to make up quarrels.'

  'I suppose not,' Elvira replied, laughing hysterically, and she allowed herself to be led in. At the door of the drawing-room, she turned towards Gerald. 'Oh God!' she cried, 'what absolute hell it all is!' Gerald felt compelled to follow her.

  As Elvira came into the room, Timothy said to Caroline Jevington, 'That's her.'

  'Who?'

  'That Elvira Portway person.'

  'Oh!' cried Caroline, 'I don't think I've ever seen anyone's mistress before. She's rather old. She must be about thirty. And rather fat too. I can't see why your father should want to have her.'

  Yves led Elvira over to Robin. 'Here's a little girl come to say she's sorry,' he said. Robin went white with horror.

  'I hear you've got all the big people here,' Elvira cried. 'Do let me see them. Where are they?' Then, looking round, 'But these aren't big people at all, Yves. These are frightfully, frightfully unimportant people. Darling Marie Hélène, she always manages to get the really unimportant people. It's her great social gift. They're what are called stuffed shirts, Yves. You'll understand that. You speak American so perfectly.'

  'Sure I understand it,' Yves said, but he moved away as he saw what he had brought about.

  Robin turned on Gerald angrily. 'What the hell do you mean by bringing her here?'

  'I didn't,' said Gerald.

  'Oh! the absolute bliss of old-world chivalry,' Elvira cried bitterly, then, seeing Marie Hélène, she waved her hand and called out, 'Hullo, Marie Hélène. I see you've got all the gang here.' She turned to Gerald and said, 'It's rather enchanting to think of them as the gang, isn't it?' she asked.

  Marie Hélène's yellow face was flushed with pink as she came over to them. 'I don't think you should be here, Elvira,' she said. 'Please ask her to leave, Robin.'

  'Oh, Robin darling, do,' Elvira cried. 'It would be such absolute heaven for me to be able to say no. Hullo, Johnnie!' she called. 'Are you here talent-scouting? I didn't know you interviewed corpses in your little shows.'

  'How delightful to see you, Elvira,' John said, all tact that evening. 'And how unexpected.'

  'Yes, isn't it? Because Robin and I aren't lovers any more? We're washed up, as they say on the movies. But I just miss hearing him talk about his dear family so much, I had to come and see them.' She burst into tears, but resisted all attempts to lead her out.

  Suddenly Timothy came over. He bent his lanky height down upon her. 'Let me take you home, Miss Portway,' he said. Whether it was that she shared in the general astonishment or not, she did in fact let him take her all the way to the door of her flat. She cried all the way. Timothy's worldly sang-froid won him Caroline Jevington's deepest admiration.

  The B.B.C. lady was transfixed by Madame Houdet as by a gorgon. Stéphanie spoke in French now. 'Ah! mon dieu! Comme il était courageux, le pauvre homme! Mais, quand même, qu'est-ce qu'il pouvait faire avec ses deux jambes paralysées et sa sœur qui était phtisique? Le bon dieu seul...'

  'Sure I know André Gide,' Yves said to a wealthy stockbroker. 'He was a great artist and a great man. Of course, he had his funny little ways. Well, you know. But it was pretty embarrassing for me sometimes. I didn't happen to have been born that way. All the same I wouldn't have refused him - I'm always ready to oblige a great artist - but I didn't want him to be hurt, that's all.'

  Gerald was once more making his way out when M. Sarthe buttonholed him. 'Now,' he said, 'here's an Englishman who can tell us what was in the old queen's mind as she lay there dying on her cushions. I will tell you,' he went on. 'She was not thinking of the young Essex. No! no!' He shook his finger in Gerald's face. 'Her heart was with Leicester, the only man she ever really loved.'

  There seemed no possibility of getting away from M. Sarthe's obsession with women in history. Gerald stood there, trying to make his mind a blank, but fragments of the discourse insisted on breaking through. 'Ah, those littl
e beauty-spots with which our grandmothers sought to enchant, how poorly they imitated nature. Moles! There you have something really piquant. What a charming little book it would make - the moles of famous women. The little star-shaped mole on the belle cuisse of Diane de Poitiers, the mole like a little black pearl on the gorge superbe of Olympe Mancini, the strange heart-shaped mole of la Dubarry, known only to her most intimate lovers. ...'

  Gerald's sensual nature was repelled by this arch treatment of women's bodies. 'And don't forget the mole on Oliver Cromwell's nose,' he murmured.

  'Excuse me,' said M. Sarthe. But Gerald's attention had been drawn to the door.

  He heard a familiar voice coming from the hall. 'I must see him, I tell you. I must see him. Will you say it's his friend Larrie Rourke?' The voice was a plaintive whine. Larrie, like Elvira, was in tears.

  Oh my God! thought Gerald. Well, this is nothing to do with me. He then remembered Vin's admonitions. 'Damn,' he said in M. Sarthe's face and walked out into the hall.

  Larrie was sitting among the hats and cloaks. His great eyes looked appealingly out of a thin, white little face, locks of his curly hair were plastered to his forehead with sweat. 'Oh, Professor Middleton,' he cried, 'do you know where Johnnie is? I must see him. I'm in terrible trouble.'

  'I'm afraid John is not here.'

  'Oh Jesus!' Larrie cried. 'They told me at his flat I'd find him here.'

  Gerald, embarked on a lie, decided to stick to it. 'He's gone,' he said. 'Do you want some money or something?'

  Larrie looked up at him. A cunning look came into the orphan eyes. 'I don't believe you,' he cried. 'You're not telling the truth.' He rushed into the drawing-room, a bizarre figure in his dirty old T-shirt and his slept-in jeans. Some of the guests looked at him in surprise. Robin came over. "What do you want?' he asked sternly.

  'I'm looking for Mr John Middleton,' Larrie said, but, before Robin could answer, he saw John and rushed across to him. 'Johnnie! Johnnie!' he cried.

  Robin walked up to his brother, his mouth trembling. 'I'd be grateful if you'd keep your street pick-ups out of my wife's house,' he said in a whisper of rage.

  John seemed not to notice, he took the boy's hands. 'Larrie, this is wonderful,' he said.

  Larrie smiled wistfully at him. 'Oh, I'm in such trouble, Jolinnie. Can we go somewhere where I can talk to you alone?'

  'Of course,' said John. 'I've got the car outside.' He took the boy's arm and led him from the room.

  'You didn't believe what she said about me, did you?' Larrie asked.

  'I didn't care about anything,' John said, 'only to see you again.'

  As they passed through the hall, Gerald put a hand on John's arm, 'Do be careful what you're doing, John,' he said.

  Larrie looked up at him with hatred. 'He told me you weren't here, Johnnie; he tried to send me away.'

  John turned and stared at Gerald. 'I wish,' he said slowly, 'that you and my mother were both dead.' Then he led Larrie down to the car.

  Strangely enough, the dead bourgeois elegance of Marie Hélène's party had been little ruffled by these family scenes. The guests were too absorbed in their habitual interchange of cultured nullities. Only perhaps here and there someone, pausing for a moment to recover their strength before ordeal by chatter, was aware of some slight strain or disturbance in the atmosphere. It was not unusual, however, at parties for the odd guest to break through the general glaze, which increasing consumption of champagne set upon the company, with a moment's aggression or hysteria. If Kay or Elvira or Larrie were noticed at all, they were accounted among such weaker heads. Indeed, Marie Hélène's soirée would have been a complete success had it not been for a jarring incident at the end of the evening. Yves by this time, though not as drunk as he used to be in Merano, was farther gone than the rest of the company. He found himself in the garden with Mrs Jevington as a growing cloud obscured the moon. 'The creative process is a very extraordinary thing,' she was saying, when he made a very unmistakable and grossly physical pass at her. It was so long since the sculptress had regarded sex as anything but a subject for conversation that she was too surprised to pass it off with worldly ease. Not too many people heard her loud expostulation, but enough to create a scandal. It led, at any rate, to a nipping off of Caroline's budding affaire with Timothy.

  Marie Hélène, though disgusted with Mrs Jevington's lack of savoir-faire, saw clearly that Yves would have to go. She set her mind to securing this at the cheapest rate possible, and also, if it could be done, to seeing that Stéphanie remained in her useful new role. Where money was concerned she had little pride. What little she had she swallowed and wrote to Elvira. She banked on Elvira's contrition over the scene she had made to dispose her favourably to recompense in general. She made great play with the disappointed expectations of Madame Houdet, the years of work she had given to Mrs Portway. But to reduce Elvira's sense of guilt from the general to the particular, she dwelt on the constant misery caused to Robin by Yves' presence. It must be admitted that it troubled her conscience to do this, but she felt that the circumstances called for desperate measures. She added that she proposed giving a sum of money to Yves herself, although she did not name the sum.

  Larrie had not been exaggerating when he told John that he was in terrible trouble. He had drifted from lodgings to Salvation Army hostels and Rowton Houses after leaving Inge. He was too frightened to seek out John; too work-shy to go to Frank; too miserable and hysterical to resume his old street life in more than a haphazard way. As Vin had told Gerald, he had got into very bad company, if 'badness' can be measured in terms of weakness and stupidity. He had met two older Irishmen, but only so much older that they had both reached the age of twenty-five. They were, as Vin had said, burglars, but inefficient, inexperienced burglars. They persuaded Larrie into doing a job on a house in Kensington, and then, having just enough sense to see that they could not dispose of the 'stuff' without being traced, they left him with a heavy suitcase to carry. Larrie was quite without any idea of what to do, so he took the case to Frank Rammage's and asked if he could leave it in his old room. 'I knew you'd keep the room, as you promised, Frank,' he said, 'just as you knew I'd return here. If there's still work that you can find me, I'll be glad to do it, for it's work I need.' He told Frank that he had to go up West, but that he would be back that night to sleep in his old room. He had just enough self-control to get through this piece of play-acting, but when he turned the corner into Earl's Court Road, hysteria seized him and he began to run. He ran all that evening until he had tracked John to Marie Hélène's.

  It was a week later that the police, in the course of their investigations, visited Earl's Court Square and, after a long interview, arrested Frank Rammage on the charge of receiving stolen goods. He appeared in the box at the magistrates' court - pink and plump and bewildered. He seemed particularly distressed at the sordid condition of the two young Irishmen who stood beside him. He was committed for trial, but released on bail. At the Old Bailey, however, the police withdrew the case against him, stating that they could offer no evidence that he had received the goods knowing them to be stolen.

  The judge, in dismissing Frank, permitted himself the unusual luxury of a word of admonition.' It would seem,' he said,' that you have been involved in this case largely through your own folly. You have taken upon yourself the task of housing criminals and vagrants with some scheme of reformation in your mind. However well-intentioned this may be, I would remind you that there are a number of excellent, organized bodies concerned solely with this task. You would be wise to leave such work to them. You may be more unfortunate next time and find yourself involved in the results of a crime.' The two Irishmen received sentences of eighteen months each. Rourke, the third man concerned, was stated by the police to have left the country.

  Frank returned to Earl's Court Square in a daze. He resented the judge's remarks and he began at once to 'turn out' an upstairs bedroom as the best cure for brooding on his grievance. While he was busy t
here, Mona, the depressed ex-tart, looked in. She had with her a girl in the tightest of jeans and the largest of slop sweaters. 'This is Bobbie,' she said. 'I want you to fix her up with a room, Frank.'

  'Are you working, duckie?' Frank asked.

  'Yes. She's got a job in a café,' Mona said.

  'Well. There might be one in a week,' said Frank, 'but there's nothing now.'

  'Bobbie's been in trouble,' Mona said, and she watched to see Frank's expression change. Surely enough he looked more hopefully at the girl, though his tone was still snappish as he said, 'Oh well. We can fix you up with something, I dare say. You can have a li-lo in Mona's room tonight.' The girl produced some notes. 'Put that away,' Frank said. 'You'll need all your money the first week of your work. You pay me next week.'

  As the women departed, he resumed his scrubbing, but without the same angry violence.

  It was lucky that Larrie had a passport all ready for the once proposed summer vacation abroad with John, for now he had to take the holiday without any preparation. They set off for Spain, where they could make the money last longer. Larrie was full of talk as they drove southward. He'd make it all up to John; he'd never forget his friend's kindness; he'd join the Foreign Legion; he'd get a ship at Barcelona; come what might he would never leave John; this was the man's life he'd always wanted, to travel and see the world; sure he'd have no difficulty with foreigners, wasn't he half Spanish himself? and had he never told John the story of his Spanish mother? he'd stand no foreigners taking the mickey out of him; and so on. He insisted that Johnnie should have the holiday that they had once proposed. John pointed out that they could ill afford to hire a car or to waste time dawdling their way through France. Larrie would listen to none of it. Hadn't Johnnie said he wanted to see these caves? Didn't his Johnnie like driving a car? There was no bloody cops that'd stop Larrie Rourke's friend from having what he wanted. John pointed out again and again that there was no danger whatever from police, this was not an extraditable offence, but the less the danger the more Larrie insisted on playing the thrilling game of evading the law. They were made to turn down side roads, to lose their way in complicated routes, and, eventually, in an excess of Larrie's zeal, to sleep in woods and fields.