Walcot

by Brian Aldiss

  You all seated yourselves under festoons of pre-war paper decorations. Balloons, already wrinkling, nestled dangerously against the central electric light. Every plate played host to a Christmas cracker. Arms were gladly linked, the crackers pulled. Cries of delight, or laughter, greeted the puny gifts falling from the interiors of the crackers – little rings, minute combs, flimsy bracelets, a bakelite camel, dice, metal puzzles.

  Riddles were read aloud: ‘What sounds like a mouse, squeaks like a mouse, but is not a mouse? Answer: Two mice.’ Groans and laughter.

  ‘When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar.’ More groans and laughter.

  Paper hats were applied to heads: red, green, blue, or mauve. A genial atmosphere prevailed while bowls of soup arrived, to be followed by a large goose besieged by sausages, enthroned on a large plate with gravy for a moat, followed by a convoy of dishes of bread sauce, redcurrant jelly, potatoes, mashed or baked, together with carrots and brussel sprouts grown in the frosty garden beyond the french windows.

  Joey and Terry clapped their hands in applause. Everyone took it up and clapped loudly. Ada, flushed and triumphant, set the tray down before her and said, ‘Happy Christmas Everyone, and Steve, we are so glad you are safe home and can be with us.’

  You were gratified, and helped your uncle distribute glasses of redcurrant juice to everyone – or water from a glass jug if preferred.

  Supported by your father, Elizabeth called for silence.

  ‘We shall say grace … Grace for this Ada spread … This lovely spread provided by Ada … Ada and Claude. The pretend wine is a present from our friends … The Wades … our friends the Wades.

  ‘The Wades family. The family lives quite close, outside Lyndhurst. It’s quite close. And we are invited – all of us are invited – to Hall at the tea … tea at the Hall, is what I mean. To tea and dinner. Did I say that? A boar dinner, we are promised. With a performance of Shakespeare … Shakespeare. Of his play. All’s Well –’

  Elizabeth was interrupted by applause – again from Joey and Terry.

  ‘Yes, boys. My daughter Belle will be taking part. A role in the play. We should … what? Yes, we should leave here at half-past three. In our cars at half-past four … after a rest. A sleep, after this lovely meal. And now –’

  All bowed their paper-clad heads as Elizabeth said quietly, ‘We thank Thee, Lord, for bringing us safely … safely so far through the war. Yet another war. And we pray that defeat … that defeat … that defeat will not be our lot. So we pray for Winston Churchill. The health and survival of Mr Churchill.’ The old clear voice paused before continuing.

  ‘And for what we are … what about to eat, we thank … thank God and the Fleet.’

  ‘Amen’, said the family, with feeling.

  ‘This doesn’t suit me,’ grumbled Mary Fielding. ‘I mean, I didn’t bargain for this extra journey. Have we enough petrol? Who are the Wades anyway?’

  Martin explained that Lord Lyndhurst, Benjamin Wade, was a member of the House of Lords, and was now engaged in important war work, in which it seemed Claude was playing a vital part.

  ‘That shouldn’t affect us,’ said your mother.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ma, it’s Christmas. I don’t hold with an old High Tory like Lyndhurst, but it may not be too bad. And we get a free meal.’

  ‘His lordship is responsible for providing furniture for the NAAFI,’ Joey interposed, knowledgeably. ‘Important war work.’

  The signs were that a visit to Gracefield House might indeed be not too bad. The fading light of day revealed a magnificent edifice sprawling at the end of a long drive, its four stories crowned by towers, pinnacles and crenellations; windows severe on the ground floor, windows jocular on the fourth. Not a light showed because the blackout was in force; seemingly completely deserted, the great house enjoyed an added majesty as it gathered gloom about itself.

  Before the cars of the family had been neatly parked side by side, the doors in the front of the house were thrown open, emitting a strong fan of light, and an aged butler came slowly down the steps, flashing a torch, to greet and guide you all.

  Your party were shown into a brightly lit hall from which several brightly lit rooms led. A large Christmas tree stood to one side, loaded with glittering points of light. A large dog of Irish wolfhound persuasion came slowly up and greeted the visitors without comment. To your eyes, it was an astonishing wartime exhibition of wealth and privilege.

  Guests lined up to wish Lord and Lady Lyndhurst the compliments of the season. When it came to your mother and Martin’s turn to shake his hand, she announced, ‘Martin’s working in Clement Attlee’s office now, your Lordship.’

  Lyndhurst showed his old tarnished teeth in a grin. ‘I’d keep quiet about that, if I were you, my girl.’

  Martin, red in the face, shook Mary’s arm as they turned away. ‘You ninny!’ he said.

  A huge volume of noise emanated from every corner of the house. The butler showed you into the room from which the greatest noise came. With a whoop, Joey and Terry dived into the fray – the fray consisting of a surprising number of people, older men, younger women and many children; the children chasing each other about the legs of their elders.

  A piano was being played. The pianist was an elderly man in tie and tails, striking the keys with vigour. He turned a shining face on the crowd, nodded and embarked at once on the carol, ‘God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen’. The whole room joined in the singing with enthusiasm. You, Claude and Ada began immediately to sing, your parents coming in a bar-or-two later. You wished you had persuaded Sonia to join the party.

  An aged servant circulated with a tray of glasses of mulled wine, while Elizabeth was shown to a seat in an alcove, from where she could survey the crowd.

  ‘I never saw so much wine,’ you said.

  ‘When in Italy, we drink wine. Always wine,’ said Elizabeth.

  Shortly after the singing, a man of about sixty, with a ruddy, outdoor type of face, jumped on to the platform on which the piano stood and announced that tea and Christmas cake were being served in the next room. ‘Don’t eat too much cake, my dears,’ he advised. ‘Remember dinner is to follow anon.’ Then the play would begin at nine sharp, after which there would be dancing.

  Mary asked if the figure was Lord Lyndhurst. She was told not to be stupid: it was His Lordship’s younger brother, Kim Wade, the famous artist, known, said Claude, as a bit of a blighter. He said this approvingly, and winked at Mary as he said it.

  As people filtered from the room, its furnishings became more apparent. It was oak-panelled, the panels adorned with a number of oil paintings, most of them allegorical in character and framed in heavy gilt frames. The ceiling beams were elaborately carved.

  ‘Where in the devil did all the money come from?’ your father asked his brother-in-law, enviously.

  Claude replied that the Wades had several generations of wealth behind them, but that, ‘just when things were looking rather dim’, Felix Wade had secured a monopoly on the import of guano from South America. Besides being a natural fertilizer, the guano could be used to make explosives, as it had done in the First World War.

  Belle slipped away wordlessly, with a smile, missing the generous tea to attend a last-minute rehearsal of the play.

  Hospitality was certainly lavish. At the dinner, forty-four people sat at long tables while saddle of wild boar was served.

  ‘They shot it on the estate,’ said Claude. ‘Enough to make any boar wild!’

  The meat was served with quince sauce, and vegetables almost unheard of at the time were heaped on plates: lentils, celeriac and beetroot tumbling against each other in seasonal good humour. The pink slices of boar fell apart under busy knives. This feast! In wartime! Unimaginable!

  ‘The chef is a French refugee,’ a man by the name of Algie Cholmondeley told you. ‘Certainly knows his onions – and his garlic.’

  All agreed it was a delicious meal. You remembered the wild boar you had eaten with Palfrey
and the Geldsteins. Even without the tracklements it had tasted wonderful, devoured in the depths of that unforgettable forest.

  The curtain up on All’s Well That Ends Well lifted at ten minutes past nine. The audience was considering being seated, and you were accompanying your grandmother. Lyndhurst had settled close to the stage, slumped in an armchair, with Augusta his wife beside him. There were cushions at his back. You took a look at him and decided that the founder of this unexpectedly generous feast was senile. However, chatting to the old man were an old lady with a high lace collar and a pretty young woman with bobbed hair. Attracted by the latter, you went over to speak to the little group.

  The pretty young woman told Lyndhurst that you were one of the heroes keeping Britain free. ‘I hear he has spent half the war so far camping out in a French forest, shooting all and sundry who came anywhere near.’

  An ancient, gnarled face looked up at you. One eye was rather milky, but the scrutiny was sharp enough. ‘I have a penchant for heroes, having been one myself, so to say, when the century was a great deal younger than it is now,’ said the old man in a husky voice. ‘What’s your name, young feller?’

  When you told him, he reached out a bony hand, the grip of which proved remarkably firm. ‘Be nice to this young man, Augusta,’ he advised his wife, who was standing stiffly just behind him. ‘He may get himself killed before this confounded war is finished.’

  ‘Do you ride?’ Lady Augusta asked. She had a large, aquiline nose which dominated her face. ‘You must come for a canter. We can lend you a mare if you lack one yourself.’

  You thanked her, noting that the pretty young woman had seized the opportunity to disappear.

  However, the pretty young woman pretty soon started screaming. It transpired that she was somewhat married, and had brought her Toddler along to the party. There was also a young husband, or someone playing that role, who had disappeared from the scene without greatly distressing her.

  Now the Toddler was also missing. Some of the guests at once engaged in a sort of treasure hunt, crying ‘Toddler, Toddler!’ here and there. Other guests were offended by the fuss and preferred that the Toddler should remain hidden. ‘Out of sight, out of way,’ remarked one sporting type.

  ‘Perhaps it has toddled outside,’ said Lady Augusta, coldly. ‘Where frostbite awaits it.’

  ‘Not to mention the odd boar,’ added Claude, with relish.

  The thought of her Toddler outside and frost-bound caused the pretty young woman to shriek again. She looked, you thought, even prettier with her lovely mouth open and her lovely arms waving.

  After a while, a sofa was pushed aside, to reveal the Toddler sprawled there. It was contentedly chewing a bone from His Lordship’s terrier’s bowl. The terrier lay close by the Toddler, watching the performance with every appearance of amiability; his tail wagged in slow approval, at least until one of the sporty types kicked the animal out of the way.

  The pretty young woman snatched up her child and gave it a good smacking to express her relief at its safe return.

  ‘All’s well that ends well, then,’ Lyndhurst was heard to remark. He cackled at either his adroit reference to the play about to be performed, or at the pained cries of the Toddler.

  You found yourself laughing sycophantically at this attempt at humour.

  The audience settled down – even the pretty young woman and her Toddler settled down – as the play began. An elegant young Bertram strode forth behind the improvised footlights to recite the prologue:

  ‘This is a Christmas frolic we cut short

  For Shakespeare always has so much to say.

  What’s left are frolics of a naughty sort

  But set in our New Forest, just outside,

  Not in Will’s France – now occupied.

  We only hope that you’ll enjoy our play!’

  On trooped the courtiers, among them Helena, played by Belle Hillman, looking resplendent, red hair piled high with intertwined pearls, dressed in a stunning low-cut costume of white. Even more astonishing for this generally mute young lady, she spoke her lines musically, without hesitation. Unfortunately, her appearance was spoilt by the arrival on stage of the wolfhound, Chancellor, who proceeded to relieve himself against the curtain, to the delight of many in the audience.

  In this abridged version of Shakespeare, Helena played her trick on Bertram, climbing at night, under cover of darkness, into Bertram’s bed, as a substitute for his supposed beloved, Diana.

  Bertram did not notice the difference in the women. He announced boldly, to the hilarity of most of the audience, ‘I had my pleasure anyway – in the dark of night, all cats are grey.’

  Because of his previous declarations, he was then persuaded he must marry Helena.

  One of the minor courtiers assisting Helena in the deception was a character played by Terry Hillman. Other roles were filled by Lyndhurst’s family or friends.

  In conclusion, Helena spoke directly to the audience.

  ‘My saucy tryst defies the pitchy night,

  And now with tripping foot we’ll make the dance

  Disperse our darkness till the winter’s worn.

  For time will bring on verdant spring again

  And briar shall bear green leaf as well as thorn.

  All’s well that ends well, and our play’s well done.

  Good night, fare well, and blessings, every one!’

  Down came the curtain, to rapturous applause.

  As the players took their bow, you heard your mother, in the row behind you, remark on the unpleasant nature of the play. ‘Quite unsuitable,’ she said. ‘Insulting to women.’

  ‘Great fun,’ said your father, firmly. Your grandmother turned her stiff neck to say to Mary, ‘How charming. A real Christmas. Real diversion. And Belle – so articulate.’

  ‘That is so,’ Mary agreed, looking severe.

  A large gong was struck. The audience faded into the next room to mingle with the players. Much wine was tipped into many glasses.

  A four-piece band wearing evening dress struck up with the latest lively tunes, As Long as You’re Not in Love With Anyone Else, Tuxedo Junction, The Hut Sut Song, Elmer’s Tune and Night and Day. It was the first time in your life you had heard live music, or seen it professionally played.

  You stood on the edge of the dance floor, half pleased, half waiting, for what, you knew not. Terry passed, expertly guiding Belle, who still wore her Shakespearean costume.

  A slender girl in an aquamarine two-piece, whom you had seen talking to Lord Lyndhurst’s wife earlier, appeared at your side. With her short bobbed hair went plenty of make-up. She had a pretty Roman nose. She took you by the lapel in a proprietorial way.

  ‘Hello, Hero. Why aren’t you dancing? Surveying the battlefield? I guess you don’t jitterbug?’

  You had never heard of the jitterbug. You answered in a manner you considered appropriate for her amount of make-up. ‘I’m a bit out of touch – almost a caveman. Until very recently, I was in France, being heroic.’

  ‘You lucky thing. I bet the food was gorgeous. I used to love Paris.’

  ‘Food was a bit short where I was.’

  ‘Shame. When my pater was an attaché at the Quay d’Orsay, I practically lived off cassoulet, greedy little thing that I was …’

  ‘I was rather far from the Quay d’Orsay. Hiding out in a wood in Brittany, in fact.’

  At that she stared at you, summing you up, transfixing you with a pair of the bluest eyes you had ever seen. She raised her bright-nailed hands, giving a shudder which shook the major portions of her body. ‘The provinces! So, no jitterbugging, eh? The Palais Glide it is, then.’

  As you took to the floor in a foxtrot, she announced herself as Abby. She said she was a friend of Belle’s. She was one of the Wade crowd – a niece of Ben’s, she said, but down here just for the party. She lived in an apartment in Chelsea, with two other girls.

  ‘Have you sort of given up on the army?’

  ‘Oh
no, I’m on leave. Are you rich?’ you asked.

  ‘Not rich enough,’ she said.

  ‘What do you do – apart from eating cassoulet?’

  ‘Oh, this and that. I plan to have a shop, more or less. High class, not for the rabble. Worse luck, the premises were bombed out.’

  ‘So you’re not a Socialist, then.’

  ‘For God’s sake, no! Do stop quizzing me, darling.’

  She asked you what you made of what she called the mob churning about the floor. Seeing you made very little of it, she supplied a description. There were plenty of women shuffling round the dance floor – ‘mainly old bats’, she said – but few men, and those mainly of under-conscription age. You, she said, were the exception that proved the rule.

  ‘Quite a find,’ she added. ‘And I’ve got you. In a manner of speaking.’

  As Joey drifted by with his arms about an older woman, Abby nodded towards him. She said that Joey and his brother were two youngsters taking advantage of the system.

  ‘The system! I know they have what they call a system. What is it, actually?’

  She came closer, looking up into your face, a gesture you were finding immensely appealing. ‘It’s simple. Look at Belle. Hasn’t she opened up – literally?’ She squeaked with laughter. ‘Belle’s one of theirs. Plus a lot of older women in this room. They’re dashed grateful, don’t you know? Husbands away or dead by now. Why do you think Belle has blossomed? She’s the latest to benefit from their system.’

  You were amazed, and sought to conceal the fact.

  ‘You’re telling me that my cousins – well, they go to bed with Belle? She’s their aunt!’ Directly you had uttered the protestation, you had to think about what you were saying.

  ‘Both of them together, I’m told. It’s their system. Then they don’t get too involved. Some of these old bags would cling like leeches to anyone young and randy.’

  You experienced mild shock at hearing the word ‘randy’ issue from such encarmined female lips.

  ‘But you’re … How do you know this?’