The Wrong Set and Other Stories

by Angus Wilson

  It was something like a blow to prestige, then, when the dance seemed to hang fire. The lack of gaiety even disturbed Claire Talfourd-Rich, whose position as ‘injured wife’ was so generally respected in the hotel that she could usually glide like Cassandra through any celebration. She looked strikingly injured tonight, her marble-white skin, and deep set dark eyes funereal against the heavy white silk ankle length gown with its gold wire belt. Bruce, too, was giving her every provocation with Stella Hennessy – though to her trained eye it was clear that Stella’s babyish nagging would soon kill that affaire – not that she any longer really noticed his infidelities, her mind was too intent upon the cultivation of a Knightsbridge exterior with a Kensington purse, but a certain dull ache of self-pity at the back of her consciousness made her hold to the marriage with sullen tenacity. To cry woe as you moved among the motley was one thing, to form part of a group of hired mutes quite another, and Claire soon found herself declaiming against the failure of the evening to ‘get going’. ‘It’s too shamemaking’ she said in her deep contralto, she had managed to get that new book Vile Bodies from the library and was making full use of the Mayfair slang before it was too widely known in S.W.7. ‘It’ll be better soon when all the old tabbies go to bed’ said Enid, and sure enough a moment later Mrs Hyde-Green made preparations to depart. ‘I can’t bear to tear myself away from the fun’ she said, and it was clear that she really meant it. ‘But early to bed, you know. I’m sure I could do with a lot more wealth’ she added with a sigh. Soon she had collected a party of the more staid around her to take a last cup of tea in her sitting-room, for she was an old-established resident and had three rooms with a lot of her own furniture. Miss Tarrant, the receptionist, was kindly included in the party, so that on the staff side, too, there was a sense of relief. Only old Mrs Mann declared that she would stay to watch her daughter dance.

  Mrs Hyde-Green’s departure saved the situation. Liquor flowed freely and by ten fifteen, as Enid pointed out, nearly everyone was a wee bit squiffy. Stella’s eyes were round with innocence as she called out to Claire in her baby drawl. ‘What shall I do with this man of yours? He keeps saying the most impossible things. The trouble is, Mrs Talfourd-Rich, that he’s been too well taught.’ Only drink could have allowed her to let the bitch so far out of the bag. ‘Pipe down, Kiddie, pipe down’ said Bruce, but Stella only giggled. ‘We’re making rather an exhibition of ourselves, aren’t we?’ she said with delight. The pretty waitress Gloria had gone very gay. ‘Take it away’ she cried to the band. Her shoulder strap was slipping and a bit of hair kept flopping in her eyes. It was difficult to snap your fingers when your head was going round. She and young Tom the porter were dancing real palais de danse and ‘Send me, darling, send me’ she cried. Bruce felt only too ready to oblige, he had no desire to stay with Stella all the evening if she was going to be difficult; these bitches were all the same after a bit. Soon he was dancing with Gloria, his shoulders moving exaggeratedly, for he prided himself on fitting in with all classes. ‘Send me’ Gloria kept calling out. In the hinterland of old Sir Charles’ mind some classroom memory earlier even than the glories of his colonial governorship was stirred. Waving a bridge roll unsteadily, his swivel eye fixed on the ceiling ‘The lady’s repeated demands to be sent’ he cried ‘remind me of the Hecuba. You know the lines’ he said to Mrs Mann. ‘It’s funny’ she replied ‘Ruby’s the only one here with a bandeau tonight.’ No one was by to tell her that it would have been curious in 1925, but was far from strange in 1931. ‘Queen Hecuba, you know, in her distress asks to be taken away’ Sir Charles continued ‘and then you get that wonderful accumulation of words in which the Greeks excelled. Labete, pherete, pempet’, aeirete mou’ he cried excitedly. ‘The old boy’s three parts cut’ said Bruce and he pressed Gloria closer to him. ‘We all think he’s cuckoo’ she giggled. ‘You know you’re a very lucky girl to be dancing with a handsome man like me’ Bruce continued, it was one of his favourite lines. ‘Says who?’ Gloria cried. ‘Lovely maidens have cast themselves from high towers for my sake’ he went on. Of course it was all silly talk, but you couldn’t help liking him, he was good looking, too, with his little moustache, even if he was a bit old and baggy under the eyes.

  Bertha, the crazy Welsh kitchenmaid with the bandy legs was dancing with page in a very marked manner. ‘I don’t know what you young fellows are at’ said Sir Charles to Grierson, the youngest student from Barts, ‘letting a boy of that age monopolize the women.’ Grierson protested that he was only two years older than page, but Sir Charles soon had him dancing with Bertha. ‘You’re nice’ she said, and years of yearning spent in institutions sounded in her voice ‘Press closer’ she added and she rubbed her thighs against his, Sir Charles had no idea that page was an expert swimmer and he examined his life saving medal with keen interest. He himself was a daily Serpentine man. ‘The main thing is to keep practising your crawl!’ he said paternally.

  Tom the porter’s Irish glance had soon detected Stella’s discomfiture. She was hot stuff all right, he thought, and then to be the friend of the manageress might be very useful. ‘You look beautiful tonoite, Mrs Hennessy, if you’ll pardon the familiarity’ he said ‘That grey stuff – chiffon d’ye call it? – looks like the lovely sea mists.’ But Stella had fought too hard to maintain her class position to have it obscured by poetic words. In any case with her sexual flirtation was far too closely bound up with social ambition. ‘You’ve had more liquor than is good for you’ her carefully lipsticked cupid’s bow snapped at him, and her baby eyes were as hard as boot buttons. ‘Ye little God a’mighty bitch’ he muttered.

  ‘Ten Cents a dance that’s what they pay me, gosh! how they weigh me down’ the band played and Gloria sang with the tune. She was almost lying in Bruce’s arms as he carried her through the slow foxtrot. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she thought, to be a dance hostess and to make your living dancing with hundreds of men every night. ‘Though I’ve a chorus of elderly beaux, stockings are porous with holes in the toes’ she sang on, ‘I’m here till closing time, dance and be merry, it’s only a dime.’ ‘By God that’s a true song’ said Bruce, choking slightly as he thought of the tragedy of it ‘Poor kids, what a god awful life dancing with any swine that likes to pay.’ Suddenly Gloria saw it like that too and she began to cry. ‘Bruce’ she said ‘Bruce’, and she buried her head in his shoulder. ‘There, there, baby’ he replied soothingly.

  Bertha’s red curls danced in the air as she bobbed up and down holding young Grierson tightly to her, and her teeth showed forth black as ebony as she smiled at him. Cinderella had found her Prince Charming, the orphan girl’s dream had come true. ‘What are you looking all round the room like that for, my sunshine boy?’ she asked. ‘You don’t want anything to do with that trollopy lot. Keep your eyes on me.’ From the horror of his fixed gaze she might have been the Medusa. Page, too, was staring in alarm at Sir Charles, as the old man’s hand banged against his chest. ‘You’ll have to broaden those shoulders, my lad’ the old man was saying ‘You wait. They’ll get you into uniform yet and teach you discipline. A bit of the barrack square that’s what you need.’ Old Mrs Mann kept smiling to herself. ‘I really think your mother’s the tiniest bit geschwimpt’ said Enid to Ruby – she had picked up the phrase on a Rhineland holiday. ‘Are you all right, Mother?’ asked Ruby, but the old lady had turned to Claire Talfourd-Rich, who was standing by her chair. ‘Isn’t it a funny thing’ she said ‘Ruby’s the only one here with a bandeau tonight.’

  Tom the porter stared across at Claire. There was no doubt she was beautiful enough, with her dark eyes and her sleek black hair. She was a proud bitch all right, a different class altogether from that manageress. It would be something worth talking about to make her, and she’d be worth making too. ‘Would ye do me the honour of giving me a dance, madam?’ he said, his Irish blue eyes all a-dancing, just the straightforward, sensible boy that he was. ‘That’s very nice of you, Tom’ drawled Claire ‘I should love to.’ ‘Did an
yone ever tell you that you were a fine dancer?’ Claire asked, as half an hour later they were still waltzing together. ‘I think it’s that beautiful look of yours in your lovely white dress that’s brought out the lilt in me’ Tom said, and he looked so straight at her that she felt that she couldn’t be offended with the boy. You’re in, Tom my boy, he thought, you’re in.

  Gradually, as drink broke down the barriers of self-consciousness, the classes began to merge. The servility of the staff began to give way to the contempt that they felt for the pretentious raffishness of their superiors. To the residents the easy moral tone of the staff was more surprising, for how were they to know that conditions of work in the hotel could only attract the scum of that great tide of labour which the depression had rolled into London. But like called to like. The Colonel’s lady and Lily O’Grady were both ‘lumpen’ under the skin.

  Over the heads of the dancers, as they formed a circle to welcome 1932, floated the balloons, red, blue, green, silver, sausage-shaped, moon-shaped. Claire pressed Tom’s hand tightly and her booming contralto sounded above the other voices in ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Bertha’s New Year resolution was a thick whisper in the ear of young Grierson. Enid, who was nearby, started in surprise for she thought she heard an awful word that ought not to be spoken. Mrs Mann’s resolution, too, was mumbled but she wanted, it seemed, more bandeaux worn in 1932, whilst Ruby resolved never to go to another dance. Sir Charles held a balloon in his hand ‘I trust there will be greater comradeship in the coming year’ he said pompously. ‘Following the example of Achilles …’ but before he could finish his sentence the balloon burst in his face to the sound of page’s delighted giggles. Bruce, sitting alone – for Gloria had gone for a moment to you know where to adjust her shoulder straps – was overcome by melancholy and resolved to have no more to do with women. Tom caught at an old music hall memory ‘Oi resolve to hang on to that beautiful rainbow wherever I see’t this year’ he said, and remarked with relief that the meaningless sentiment seemed what Claire had expected from him. She leaned back, with her eyes half shut, and, blowing smoke rings, she produced the same smartly cynical resolution that she had used for the five preceding years. ‘I resolve’ she drawled ‘to do good wherever I see a chance’ and added with the same perennial laugh ‘to myself’, but somehow the flat little cynicism seemed to have more meaning to her than ever before. There really did appear to be something besides clothes that might interest her, as she looked deep into Tom’s eyes. The hard, babyish tones of Stella Hennessy interrupted their reverie. ‘I had no idea you were a Socialist, Mrs Talfourd-Rich’ she said, her eyes great circles of surprised blue. ‘You seem quite resolved to break down class barriers. I shall have to make my New Year resolutions about labour problems too’ she added curtly and she gave Tom a threateningly contemptuous glance.

  But Stella Hennessy was to have more serious difficulties with the staff before the dance was over. A quarter of an hour later she passed the little waiting-room in the annexe, on the way to her office. Through the half-open door she could see by the faint light of the window that there were two figures on the couch – Bruce lay half across Gloria, whose dress had fallen from the shoulders to reveal full breasts which he was fondling. Stella drew back to pass unobserved. Gloria began to giggle drunkenly ‘I s’pose that is what you do to old Mother Hennessy’ she said. Bruce belched slightly ‘Christ’ he said ‘that old cow! Why I’d rather squeeze milk out of a coconut.’ Stella felt quite sick; for a moment she almost doubted whether the drudgery of her life was worthwhile even to keep Paul at Malvern.

  ‘If it’s a crime, then I’m guilty, guilty of loving you’ sang Tom in his low, crooning Irish tenor. ‘You’re disgustingly handsome, you know’ said Claire. After all there was nothing socially wrong about Lady Chatterly or Potiphar’s wife so why not? ‘I’m dazzled to look at you, you’re so beautiful’ Tom replied. It was all so like a film that he felt quite carried away by his own words. ‘Ye’ve no roight to waste all that beauty’ he went on. Breaking through the layers of social snobbery and imitated sophistication, dissipating even the thick clouds of self-pity which had covered her emotions for so many years, physical desire began to awake again in Claire. She thought of how often she had said that she only dressed to please herself, it’s a bloody lie, she realized, I’d far rather dress to please men. ‘Will ye let me come to ye tonight?’ said Tom hoarsely then he remembered with dismay that she shared a double room with Bruce. ‘Oi’ll show ye where ye can foind me, where we can be happy together.’ Through tears of pleasure Claire smiled at him. ‘Perhaps’ she said ‘Perhaps.’ Across the ballroom Sir Charles was throwing streamers at page. ‘Fear wist not to evade as love wist to pursue’ he intoned, but for once Francis Thompson was wrong, for when Sir Charles looked again page had disappeared through the green baize door to the service wing. ‘You’re not dancing, Ruby’ said old Mrs Mann ‘and your bandeau’s slipped, darling.’ ‘Blast the bandeau’ cried Ruby, and tearing it from her head she threw it into the old lady’s lap ‘I haven’t danced the whole bloody evening’ she cried and, in tears, she ran from the room. ‘I thought Ruby was a little overwrought’ said her friend Enid. From the little service room near the dining hall there emerged a triumphant Bertha, leading a dejected Grierson. Her face was lit with happiness, life had given her all she asked. But young Grierson looked very white and as he approached the main staircase he was violently sick. ‘Steady the Buffs’ called his fellow student from Barts. ‘Pardon me, Chaps, whilst I see old Jerry to bed.’

  ‘It would be stupid to talk to you about the kindness of the management, wouldn’t it?’ said Stella Hennessy, and her little rosebud mouth rounded as she spoke, making her look like a baby possessed by a malevolent devil. ‘Your class has never understood the meaning of gratitude. After this evening’s disgusting exhibition you won’t, of course, get the week’s notice that you people are always talking about. I could send you away now, at once, but we will say tomorrow morning early. Do you hear me?’ she said, suddenly raising her voice, for Gloria was staring so strangely ‘or are you too drunk?’ Indeed the girl might have represented Drunkenness in a morality play as she sat opposite the office desk to which she had been summoned, the pink satin dress was half torn from her shoulders, pink artificial flowers and locks of brown hair fell alike across her face, her lipstick had smudged on to her cheeks, her tongue continually passed over her dry lips. Yet even in this condition she looked so young that Stella’s face was suddenly distorted with rage and jealousy. ‘You filthy creature’ and hysteria seized her. ‘Get out, get out’ she screamed. Gloria rose with drunken dignity. ‘You silly old cow’ she said, refinement giving way to full cockney. ‘You won’t send me away, you won’t, not on your ruddy life. I know too much about you, my treasure, old Mother have me if you like Hennessy.’ Bruce moved away from the frosted glass door of the office. It wasn’t pleasant to hear women recriminating like that. He could not help resenting their apparent forgetfulness of himself in their hatred of one another. No place for men, he thought, as he moved slowly back to the dance floor.

  Claire was standing by a pot of hydrangeas, the return of physical desire had animated her features as he had not seen them since the early years of their marriage. He walked over to her. ‘Hullo, Pookie’ he said ‘care for a dance?’ The use of her pet name after so many years came strangely to Claire, she knew quite well that his sudden interest was only an interval in the usual routine of their lives, she knew that there was no reciprocal feeling in herself, that she would regret the loss of her new hunger for Tom, but habit was very strong and it shut down upon her emotions, she could not resist an opportunity to strengthen the frayed marital tie. ‘Of course, darling’ she said, stumping out her cigarette. When Tom came back with the whisky she had requested, he saw them dancing together – so that drunken fool had pushed his way in. ‘Now we haven’t forgot the dance ye promised me, Mrs Talfourd’ he said and he winked very slightly over Bruce’s head. Claire never achieved su
ch a successfully strangulated Knightsbridge tone as when she answered. ‘Oh Tom, how awful’ she said ‘I’d quite forgotten. I haven’t told you, darling’ she said to Bruce ‘how sweet Tom has been in looking after me all the evening. But now this wretched husband of mine has deigned to turn up, I suppose I shall have to reward him by keeping an eye on him.’ ‘Thanks for looking after my old trouble and strife’ said Bruce, as they moved away ‘I’ll do the same for you some day, old man, come you’re married.’ ‘Christ! the bitch’ murmured Tom ‘and I thought I was in.’ There were only a few more dances before the band packed up, but everyone agreed that the Talfourd-Richs were the finest couple on the floor, indeed the evening would have been nothing without them. ‘Well after all’ drawled Claire ‘if one can’t put oneself out for the servants for one evening. It isn’t very much to ask. Only one evening in the whole year.’ Sir Charles looked so miserable, as with a red paper crown on his head and a wooden rattle in his hand he prepared to go to his room. ‘Alas, yes, dear lady’ he said, ‘The Saturnalia is at an end.’

  REALPOLITIK

  JOHN HOBDAY sat on the edge of his desk and swung his left leg with characteristic boyishness. He waited for the staff to get settled in their seats and then spoke with careful informality.