After the Party

by Cressida Connolly

  ‘I think that’s taking things rather too far. I don’t believe they’d ever be malicious. Clumsy, perhaps,’ said Phyllis. Uncomfortable though it made her to hear her husband do her sister down, she was relieved that he at least didn’t seem to be angry with her for taking the children to the camp. Hugh could be slow to let a grievance go: she was only glad that he was not berating her on this occasion.

  ‘I thought you approved of camp, in any case.’

  ‘I did, for the rank and file. Build up a sense of camaraderie among them, that sort of thing. It’s very useful for morale-building, I see that. I’m not convinced it’s really for people like us though. Even the Old Man himself didn’t actually stay there. If it hadn’t been your sister’s operation the children would never’ve got so involved.’

  Phyllis supposed the ill feeling would blow over, given time. Eric and Hugh would be bound to run into one another at some meeting or other. The politics they shared and their sense of the urgency of the cause would surely help to rebuild bridges.

  With camp finished and all the children now away at school and building work underway at the site of the new house, Phyllis would have found herself rather alone had it not been for Sarita Templeton. She missed the children dreadfully. Hugh still went up to London for a day or two in the week, to see to business affairs and visit Party HQ. On those days when he was in Sussex he busied himself with paperwork connected with committees and other local Party matters and with overseeing the construction at Littlehampton. Phyllis was not very involved with plans for the new house. Every now and again Hugh would show her a drawing in one of his catalogues and ask if she approved: a door knob or some fire-irons or some such. She never found any reason not to. In the afternoons she walked by herself around the harbour and along the lanes. There were blackberries plumping in the hedgerows now and buddleia, giving off a faint scent like pencil sharpenings.

  She was grateful to be able to go to the Templetons’. Sometimes she and Sarita went riding, cantering up on to the Downs: on the warmer days in September they sat by the pool in their bathing dresses, taking the occasional dip. It was such fun to talk silly talk together, rather than the relentless politics that Nina went in for, or Patricia’s competitive social prattle. Often they chattered about favourite books. Who did they like best, of the fictional detectives: Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple; Lord Peter Wimsey or Roderick Alleyn? Phyllis confessed that she sometimes found Poirot insufferable.

  ‘I met a man at a dinner in London who had been on a dig with the husband. You know, he is a famous archaeologist, I think?’ said Sarita.

  ‘Max Mallowan, yes. What was he like, did your friend say? I don’t suppose he met her, too?’

  ‘I think only him. But apparently he told this man that Agatha herself sometimes gets annoyed with Poirot, because he is too smug.’

  ‘No! Do you think she’ll bring him down a peg or two, in the next book?’

  ‘I don’t know what this means,’ said Sarita.

  Phyllis giggled as she tried to explain. While they were on the subject of the pitfalls of language, Sarita confessed that she had never known how to pronounce the name Ngaio, even though she adored Ngaio Marsh’s books and, on balance, thought she preferred Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn to all the others. When she went into a shop to get one of her books, she wrote the name on a piece of paper and handed it to the sales-girl, so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

  ‘It’s knee-argo, I believe,’ said Phyllis. Sarita repeated the syllables.

  ‘Why? Why is it so funny?’ asked Sarita.

  ‘It’s your face. You looked as if you were trying some horrid new kind of cough sweet.’

  Sarita’s daughter Emilia was taught by a governess, with a music teacher and French master brought in to augment her lessons. There had been vague talk of finding a school for the girl, instead of the home-tutoring she had at present. Perhaps she might go with Julia and Frances, but it had come to nothing: Phyllis thought her friend preferred to keep her daughter close by, at home. Then Sarita had the idea that it might be rather fun to ask the French tutor to stay on for an hour or so of informal conversation and she asked whether Phyllis would like to join them. It was a way of keeping up the French she had learned during her time in Belgium and it provided her with something to do, something of her own. They were to meet at eleven o’clock on Wednesdays, so that their lesson would finish at noon or so; then the tutor would leave and they would have luncheon. Perhaps, if Fergus wasn’t there and there was no one else present, they might even continue to talk in French while they ate. From the first it was evident that Sarita’s French was excellent, a legacy of the time she had spent in Paris with her first husband. Phyllis felt self-conscious and couldn’t remember the right words for anything. She would begin a sentence and then break off halfway, while Sarita and Monsieur Hubert waited politely. By the time she had found her feet the hour was almost up. Afterwards, French phrases kept jumping into her head: lorsque, il me semble, j’ai aucune idée. They must have been in her memory all along, forgotten, like an odd glove at the bottom of a drawer. As the weeks went on she became more fluent and more willing to speak: the words began to follow one from another almost automatically, like footsteps. Instead of coming to an end halfway through a sentence, unable to think how to phrase her thoughts, she was able to keep up with herself. Retrieving the words was fun, like remembering the rules of a childhood game.

  At lunch they were joined by Fergus, who sometimes had company of his own, friends he played polo with or who were otherwise involved with horses. Phyllis noticed that he tended to be rather short with his wife, which led to occasional moments of awkwardness at the table. Sometimes his rudeness was sharp enough to create a palpable intake of shocked breath from the other guests. But Sarita never gave any sign of being ruffled. She seemed to glide through everything with a permanent half-smile, as if she had received some good news in the morning’s post. Her manners were not the same as English manners: they were not invisible. Although there was no ostentation, there was nevertheless something pretty about her manners, like the steps of a formally restrained yet elaborate dance. Phyllis was always intrigued to observe the effect this had upon people. Sarita seemed to drain anything irritable or coarse out of people, to raise them towards her own standard. Men, especially, were charmed. With the apparent exception of her husband.

  It was at one of these lunches that the subject of the ball was first raised. The Templetons were known for their parties, which were the most lavish in the county and also had the reputation for becoming boisterous. The story of the pig which went over the parapet had passed into local legend; to some a source of horror, to others of amused indulgence. Disapproval of such antics tended to be greater among those who were not invited to the Templetons’ parties. Insiders were always more forgiving. Sarita herself had never passed comment, but Phyllis could not imagine that her friend could have found such a thing very funny.

  It was over lunch one Wednesday in early October that Fergus brought up the idea of their giving a winter ball. There was cause for celebration, he said: the Prime Minister had successfully averted the threat of war.

  ‘I don’t have a great deal of respect for the man, but when he got off the aeroplane from Germany waving that piece of paper, I must say he won me over,’ said Fergus. ‘This’ll shut the socialist warmongers up, for good.’

  ‘Better a strong Germany than the bloody communists in Russia taking over,’ said Fergus’s friend.

  ‘Quite,’ said Fergus. ‘A fair number of my pals are in the Anglo-German Fellowship, as a matter of fact. They’re thrilled with the Settlement, say it will put an end to any hostility between our two countries.’

  ‘My husband’s frightfully relieved, too. We both are, as a matter of fact,’ ventured Phyllis. ‘He fought in the war, you see. Naval intelligence.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Fergus.

  Sarita, who loved clothes and dancing, needed no persuasion about the party. There was
talk of bringing in a dance band from a London club: they all agreed that really good music made a party so much more fun.

  ‘Do people like to dress up, do you think?’ Sarita asked Phyllis.

  ‘In fancy dress, do you mean? Costumes?’

  ‘Oh God, not fancy dress again,’ said Fergus. ‘Last time everyone had to come as someone from the court of one of those French kings, powdered wigs and painted-on beauty spots and all that. It makes it all such a performance. People don’t want to have to go to Morris and Berman’s every time they come to a party. It’s just a nuisance.’

  ‘I think people love it, the opportunity to dress up,’ said Sarita.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Perhaps just a colour would be better. More simple,’ said Sarita.

  ‘That’s a much better idea,’ said Fergus. ‘Then the men can just wear white tie and get a cummerbund made in whatever the colour is. Blue, or what-have-you.’

  ‘White!’ said Phyllis. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely for a winter party, like snow or frost? Everyone’s got white evening gloves after all. And I love grosgrain, don’t you? One could get a white grosgrain ribbon and turn it into a sash.’

  ‘Or ermine,’ said Sarita. ‘It’s not too much trouble to get your dressmaker to put a little ermine trim around the neck of a dress, or a collar. So pretty, like a skater. Or an evening cape, perhaps. It would look very nice. Very nice. It’s a good idea, Phyllis, thank you.’

  ‘I should think you could run the Foreign Office,’ Fergus turned to Phyllis.

  ‘Oh, but I wasn’t trying to be diplomatic,’ she said.

  ‘White Ladies! They’re terrifically good,’ Fergus’s lunch guest interjected.

  ‘Of course! Very important to give everyone a really stiff cocktail, get the thing going,’ said Fergus.

  ‘Gardenias,’ said Sarita. ‘We must get gardenias, then everything will smell delicious.’

  ‘How lovely that will be,’ said Phyllis. ‘Perhaps it will snow! Then everything outside can be white as well.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Fergus. ‘People might not be able to get here, if it snowed, they’d be slithering all over the lanes. We don’t want a party that no one can come to.’

  Parties weren’t the sort of thing Hugh was very enthusiastic about. Phyllis had gone back to Bosham full of chatter about the ball, but he’d given her a blank look and changed the subject. Only when she mentioned the reason Fergus had given for the party did he become a little more enthusiastic. Just a couple of weeks before, Hugh had attended a demonstration for peace in Shepherd’s Bush, at which Mosley and his followers had been refused permission to march, much to their indignation. ‘They forbid us to demonstrate for peace, but they’re only too glad to permit the Labour Party to demonstrate for war,’ Hugh had said. ‘If German-speakers in some remote corner of Czechoslovakia wanted to be reunited with their fellows, what business is it of Britain’s?’

  Mr Chamberlain’s journey to Munich had been a rare act of courage and commonsense, they both agreed.

  Phyllis went upstairs to change out of the good shoes she had worn to the Templetons’. But instead of going into her own bedroom, she found herself continuing along the landing and into her son’s empty room. She could smell his little-boy smell, slightly bitter, like the shell of a cracked nut. On the chest of drawers was a pile of name-tapes, with ‘E. C. Forrester’ embroidered on each in scrolling blue thread. They looked very small. She had been sewing them into his things the night before he went off to school and then ticking them against his trunk-list:

  pyjama tops and bottoms × 2

  Aertex short-sleeved grey shirts × 4

  grey knee socks × 6

  … and so on. Edwin’s name was how he would be recognized in this new, strange place; whereas here at home he was known by his scampering steps on the stairs or running in and out of the hall; by his gappy grin; by the little hollow at the nape of his neck where Phyllis liked to plant a kiss when he got out of the bath before bedtime, his young limbs slippery until the towel smoothed them dry. With a pang she remembered that he wouldn’t in fact be known as Edwin at all, but as Forrester, the new boy among many other new boys, all with their ears slightly red, their hair newly cropped; all of them eager in their slightly stiff new uniforms, all trying to be brave. A couple of days before term started he had said: ‘Do I have to go, Mummy?’

  And she knew she’d hesitated a moment too long before responding, that she should have answered straight away, so that he wouldn’t see the doubt in her.

  ‘Everyone has to go to school, darling. I’m sure you’ll meet all sorts of nice and interesting boys. And it won’t be long until first exeat.’

  ‘That girl doesn’t. The one in the big house.’

  ‘Emilia, do you mean? But her mother’s not English, you see, she probably has different ideas about things. And anyway, Emilia’s a girl. Girls often don’t go away to school till later. It’s the same for Frances, after all. She’ll be a new girl this term, too, remember. She’s in the same boat as you.’

  But Frances was older and would be joining her sister; she wouldn’t be the only one at her new school. The girls had each other. Phyllis could see that, although neither she nor Edwin had said so. He hadn’t answered her at all. Now she opened the top drawer and tucked the unused name-tapes on one side. A folded vest or two lingered, with some slightly too small flannel pyjamas. When they’d arrived at Bosham she had lined all the drawers with new waxed paper. The futility and optimism of that act now seemed faintly absurd to her.

  Hugh hoped the new house would be ready by Christmas, but the building work was held up – partly, so far as Phyllis could see – by the fact that he kept changing his mind about the plans. Exasperated, he laid out the revised drawings on the dining-room table at Bosham one afternoon, and asked his wife to cast her eye over them.

  ‘I don’t think it really matters whether the scullery has a window or not,’ she said.

  ‘That’s where you’re incorrect, I’m afraid,’ said Hugh. ‘Any room where steam is generated requires ventilation, or one can get terrible problems with condensation. There’s quite enough water outside, frankly. One doesn’t want to risk trapping vapour within.’

  ‘Oh. Well, do you think we could take a bit off the downstairs cloakroom for the scullery, then?’

  ‘Is that wise? We need somewhere for boots to go.’

  ‘But why? It’s not as if we have a huge collection of boots, I mean we don’t hunt or anything. It’s only five pairs of gumboots we need to make room for. And actually neither of the girls ever wear theirs, so it’s really only yours and mine and Edwin’s. You’d still have plenty of room for them along that wall, look, with coat-hooks above. All you’d have to do is to move the washbasin in with the loo. Then you could take that bit off and incorporate it into the scullery. The two windows would balance, from the outside, they’d be the same size, I mean. I don’t know, it’s just a thought.’

  ‘I rather think you may have solved the problem,’ said Hugh. But he still sounded doubtful.

  At the beginning of November, after their French conversation class, Sarita had a proposition to make to Phyllis. Suppose Phyllis were to accompany her to Paris, just for two or three nights: Sarita wanted to have a dress made – something lovely – for the White Ball in December and Phyllis would be doing her the most tremendous favour if she would agree to come too; otherwise Sarita would be lonely by herself. They could practise their French and Sarita could show her friend some of her old haunts.

  Phyllis felt herself pinken with excitement.

  ‘I don’t know what Hugh would say, I’ll have to ask him first,’ she said.

  ‘Please explain to him that you would be coming as my guest, as a personal favour to me,’ said Sarita. ‘Or would you like me to telephone to him, perhaps?’

  ‘Would you? I think he couldn’t possibly say no to you. He shouldn’t mind too much; as a matter of fact, I don’t imagine he’d e
ven notice I wasn’t there. And I should so love to come.’

  Phyllis couldn’t resist ringing Patricia to tell her about the jaunt.

  ‘But what on earth for? Do you suppose she’s meeting a lover?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she just wants to go dress shopping and see the sights.’

  ‘Yes, but one can do that in London.’

  ‘If she was meeting someone, why on earth would she drag me along?’

  ‘As an alibi, silly. She thinks she can buy your silence.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have to pay me for it. But she’s never mentioned an admirer. I really don’t think you’re right.’

  ‘Well, why would she, mention someone I mean?’

  ‘Because we’re friends. We talk about things.’

  ‘You are funny, Pill. You can be so naïve sometimes.’

  Patricia hadn’t called Phyllis the long-ago nickname – Pill – for as long as she could remember. At one time both her sisters had called her this, partly in mockery, partly from affection. She had almost forgotten about it. It took her by surprise to hear it again and she knew it meant that Patricia’s huff following the dinner party row was over. The relief at their new détente made her choose to overlook the fact that Patricia was being frankly patronizing. Sarita was a polished flirt, but she had never so much as hinted at anything more. Really, Patricia was almost as bad as Venetia Gordon-Canning! Some people just had a one-track mind.

  Hugh hardly so much as murmured about the trip. It would barely inconvenience him, since their cook would come in as usual and do his lunches, as well as dinner for the one evening he would be at home. He planned to attend a Party meeting in Chichester on the final night, so he’d dine at an hotel then; and Patricia said she’d ask him on the middle night, so he’d at least have had one properly cooked dinner during his wife’s absence. The women were to sail from Newhaven; Sarita had taken a cabin. They would go on by train and a driver would be waiting for them at the Gare du Nord.