‘Life is drudgery and boredom. I don’t see where the uplift comes.’
‘It’s not all gloom, Stephanie.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. The Saturday is beautiful. The flowers the girl is carrying, the sunset, the sound of the bell, it’s all a consolation.’
‘A false consolation.’
‘No, I don’t think so. A transitory consolation, maybe, but not false. The sunset is truly beautiful, the darkening sky is beautiful. Even the sound of the hammer and the saw is beautiful.’
‘One short episode of anticipated pleasure and then it’s Sunday, and the pleasure doesn’t arrive.’
‘But you said yourself the poem was lovely.’
‘Yes.’
‘So the poem, too, is beautiful. The heart is consoled by the sound of the evening bell, and consoled by the poem. The poem itself is the lasting consolation.’
‘Like a gorgeous shade of black.’
‘To me it’s not black, but if for you it’s black, perhaps that’s my fault. The fault of the translation.’
‘The fault of my brain, I’m sure.’
‘I’m sure not,’ he says, smiling, but his eyes stray away from her now, as if he were watching something fly slowly away in the sky behind her. His fingers curl round the laptop, pulling it an inch closer, and she knows that he wants her to leave. ‘When it’s published, the translation, I’ll send you a copy, OK? It’ll have the Italian text on the facing page. You’ll see what I mean. It isn’t black.’ His hand flies up to his face, smacking the gnat that has landed on his jaw. ‘Got him?’
‘Got him,’ she confirms.
‘Little buggers,’ he says, wiping his finger on the bench.
‘There’s hundreds of them right behind us,’ she tells him. ‘This isn’t the best seat in the house.’
‘Well, I have to get back to the rainforest. Deadlines loom. I should lock myself in my room for a while.’
‘So you don’t get interrupted by me.’
‘So I don’t keep interrupting myself,’ he corrects her, standing up. Holding the laptop and recorder in one hand, he takes her hand in the other and keeps hold of it. ‘Let’s talk again,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ she replies.
‘Do you have company for tomorrow night? At the dinner. Is your father on duty?’
‘He hasn’t said. Probably. He always is.’
‘Well, if you don’t have, and you’d like to join me, you’d be very welcome.’
‘Thank you. I’d like that.’
‘Good. So would I,’ he says, and he squeezes her hand before releasing it, seeming to mean ‘don’t be downhearted’, but as soon as he has gone she can feel the day becoming darker. The friends of her childhood return to her mind, and she thinks again of the days at the abandoned workshop, of the unblemished happiness of those days, with a wistfulness that soon becomes heavy, becomes something like grief, even though she knows that these thoughts are futile and selfish, that she has no right to them, when she thinks of Mr Morton’s life. But it’s like a chemical tide in her head, staining her mind with hopelessness, and there is nothing she can do to stop it. She sits on the bench, immersed in gloom, remembering the evening after her grandfather’s funeral, when her grandmother told her, standing by the mirror in the hall, that she had always felt forty until now, that when she looked in the mirror it was as though she were a younger woman, a woman in her prime, staring through a mask of ruined skin. ‘You don’t understand how time passes until it’s too late,’ she said to her, but she did understand. She looks at the garden and knows that this experience will never happen again, that she must make the most of it, of every minute. This morning is wonderful, and in knowing that it is wonderful she has been estranged from it. The present, the pleasure of the present instance, is immediately in the past, and now she sees the face of her grandfather, dead. He is in the chapel of rest, lying beneath the doe-eyed statue of Christ, with his face fattened with wads of cotton wool and smudges of make-up on his cheeks so he looks like an old-man doll, an effigy of her grandfather in the flesh. She doesn’t want to, but she sees his face as it was in the hospital, the skull with staring eyes and the merest covering of skin, when he turned to her and asked, too tired to point to his wife and his daughter, ‘Who are they?’ Stunned by morphine, he didn’t know who they were and he didn’t know her: all he knew was that he would soon be dead, and you could see the terror of it in his eyes. His head was like a stone on the pillow, and when her grandmother took his hand, unfolding his arms like hinged sticks, there was no sign at all that he could feel her touch. And she remembers sitting in the church beside her mother, whose hand shook in hers throughout the service, so strongly it was as though her muscles were being convulsed by an electric current, but she didn’t cry, not in the church. At the grave, she was crying then, when she turned round and beckoned her forward, and they stood together on the strip of plastic grass, looking down. Wiry little roots hung from the sides of the muddy slot of earth, above the box that had her grandfather in it, and near the top of the grave the neck of a green bottle stuck out of the soil. Her mother reached for her hand again while the slimy little vicar blathered on about the hope of the Resurrection. And at the car, she remembers, her mother stood facing her, holding both her hands, and her mouth opened to speak, but her lips shook and no words came out. Her grandmother stood apart from them, on her own, looking into the distance with the expression of a woman who has suffered an injustice that has made her too angry to speak.
Two old people are coming along the path, walking slowly arm in arm, gingerly, as if the path were on the lip of a cliff. The woman is wearing a dress that might have been fashionable half a century ago; her husband’s blazer hangs from his shoulders as though from a wooden hanger. His hair, combed crosswise, lies in thin rungs over his reddened scalp. They stop to examine something at the foot of a tree. The woman points and hammocks of loose muscle sway under her arms. They smile at whatever it is they have seen, and at each other, then they look at her with exhausted eyes, and smile before continuing on their way, into the shadows of the trees, which will be alive for years after they are dead, and will be alive for years after she herself is dead. This tree will be in leaf and she will be nothing but bones under grass somewhere, like the old couple and the people in the painting, while the garden keeps growing. She thinks of the dead people, the thousands of dead people who have walked under these trees, and it is absurd to be thinking this way, she tells herself. She is ridiculous, sitting in a garden on a summer afternoon, thinking of a funeral, of her dead grandfather and her mother weeping, of the anonymous dead who once walked here. Today is beautiful. She can see that it is beautiful. There are plump red roses, there is the plush grass of the lawn, there the bottomless blue sky, there the sunlight on the oat-coloured walls of the hotel. She smells the mown grass and the roses. She knows that this place is beautiful, but it is as though she were reporting the fact to herself, as if she is not fully in the present, not as she should be, not as Mr Morton is in it, as Mr Morton seems to be in it. It is ridiculous to be like this, and the way she behaved with David was ridiculous too, and it was ridiculous that when she tried to think of David, last night, all she could think about was the two pathetic drunks. She thinks of David now. He is there, she tells herself, but she cannot move. Paralysed by dejection, she looks at the building. The walls have a blur over them. She pinches her arm at the crook of the elbow. She is here, she tells herself, she is here. Look at the garden, look at the sky, look at the colours in the trees, she tells herself, pinching the scab until it bleeds.
nineteen
‘And when the bonfire had subsided he led his guests inside, one hundred of them, for a banquet in this very room. So it’s fitting that we should end here, where in a sense the Oak began, and that this closing meal should be a homage, if you like, to that opening night and to Walter Davenport Croombe. I hope that you have had an enjoyable evening. On behalf of myself and the staff of the Oak,
let me say that it has been our pleasure to welcome you. Whether this be your first visit to the Oak or the last of many, our thanks and best wishes,’ he concludes, raising his glass. Almost fifty glasses rise in response and an outburst of applause fills the dining room. A muted shout of ‘Bravo’, as if at a final curtain call, comes from a table towards the back, where the scagliola pilasters that were raised by Walter Croombe gleam with a deep brown lustre, like oiled stone, in the light of the lamps and the last of the twilight. He surveys the room, the contented faces, the final welter of dishes and rumpled napkins and half-drained glasses, and he tries to picture the enormous table with Croombe’s hundred guests seated round it, then notices a hand raised by the window, beckoning him over.
‘First-rate do,’ says Mr Gillies, shaking his hand fiercely. ‘Really top-notch.’
‘Worth every penny,’ says Mrs Gillies, looking to their companion for his assent.
‘Yes, indeed,’ Mr Keble dourly contributes, removing the cellophane from a cigar.
‘Fine speech,’ says Mr Gillies. ‘Just the right note.’
‘Very touching,’ adds his wife.
Mr Keble, grimly inhaling the tobacco’s perfume, nods his agreement.
‘Thank you,’ he says. Behind him, imperfectly audible through the thicket of other voices, Edward is talking. ‘His aunt…’ he hears, ‘a batty old nun…’
Timidly Mrs Gillies touches his sleeve. ‘Could we take a menu, do you think?’ she smiles, as if the request were extravagant. ‘As a souvenir.’
‘Of course,’ he replies and Edward is saying something about sunny weather: ‘…a sheet on the floor of her cell, so she could dance on the sunlight.’
‘Could you make that two?’ asks Mrs Gillies. ‘I’d like to give one to a friend. Would that be possible?’
‘Certainly.’
Taking a fresh menu from the table by the door, he looks across the room at Stephanie and Edward. One would think they had known each other for years, and as he watches them talking he wonders why his daughter has said nothing to him about the conversations that Edward has told him about, nor mentioned that she has visited him at home. Recalling the sight of them talking in the garden, he feels a mild irritation, even a little jealousy, yet he is pleased as well, of course, seeing her so happy this evening – and in a way proud, too, that she should have formed so unusual a friendship, and have been so readily befriended. Leaning forward on her elbows, cradling a beaker between her hands, Stephanie listens intently, her eyes wide.
He gives the menus to Mrs Gillies, then wanders down the room, stopping to exchange a few words with Mr and Mrs Shand and Mr Densley. Over Mr Shand’s head he sees Mrs Ainsworth taking a camera from her handbag. She points it at her husband, at the windows, at the fireplace. ‘Must have a shot of the boss,’ slurs Mr Ainsworth as he passes their table. ‘She wants one of you and the old boy,’ he explains, pointing at the portrait of Walter Croombe.
Standing beside the painting, smiling for Mrs Ainsworth, he sees Stephanie frowning at him as if he were doing something idiotic.
‘Thank you so much,’ says Mrs Ainsworth, shaking her head at her incorrigible husband.
‘Glad to oblige,’ he tells her.
‘She’ll want it signed,’ adds Mr Ainsworth, for which his wife slaps his hand.
A knife, unused, has fallen under the table. He picks it up and carries it to the trolley, examining the dozens of tiny nicks on the silver handle. They are like the lines on an aged face, he thinks, and again he overhears Edward: ‘I’ve never been so insulted in my life,’ Edward blusters, then replies to himself, in a different voice, artlessly bright: ‘You ought to get out a bit more, then.’ Lurching back in her chair, Stephanie laughs, beaming at Edward’s face.
He goes into the kitchen, where David and Annie are sitting on the steel table, chatting. On the hob rests a frying pan, in which a puddle of fat is turning grey.
‘Everything all right here?’ Mr Caldecott asks, directing the question at him alone. ‘On top of things, are we?’
‘Think so,’ he replies, sliding off the table.
‘Good, good,’ says Mr Caldecott, eyeing the pyramid of pots beside the sink.
‘Just having a breather.’
‘Evidently.’
‘But no mad hurry, is there? I mean, we’ve got all night to clean this lot up.’
‘We don’t want you clattering around the kitchen when everyone else is tucked up in bed, do we, David? Not in anyone’s best interests,’ Mr Caldecott smiles, but in his look, in nearly every look he gives him now, there is an accusing question, as if he’s waiting for him to tell him what’s going on with Step.
‘I’ll get on with it.’
‘That might be a good idea,’ says Mr Caldecott, picking up a spoon that’s been left on the chopping board. He inspects it, emphasising his displeasure, then opens the dishwasher and slots it into the rack.
‘What they going to do with all this stuff, Mr C?’ Annie asks, waving a hand at the shelves.
‘I’m not sure. No reason why they shouldn’t keep the plates and pans, I suppose.’
‘But the bedding and all that. What happens to that stuff? The stuff what they don’t want?’
‘Keep some of it. Auction some of the rest. Throw some away.’
‘Some of them sheets is in good nick. Shame to chuck them. Could you ask for me, what they’re going to do? Cause some of this stuff’d come in handy.’
‘I’ll ask,’ he says, then Eloni comes through the door and goes straight back out through the other door, followed by Mr Caldecott. A minute later she’s back, with a brandy glass, with Mr Caldecott close behind, apparently annoyed with her as well.
‘Well, perhaps I’m more easily pleased,’ says Mr Morton. ‘There’s so much more to offend you when you can see what’s around you.’
‘Olde England-land,’ she protests. ‘It makes me feel ill.’
‘What can I say? I’d agree with you, probably, if I could see it. But I like it. It’s quiet, the garden’s restful, your father is a perfect host, the bed is possibly the most comfortable lump of furniture on which I’ve ever had the good fortune to recline. And you said you liked it,’ he reminds her, raising a finger in kindly reprimand.
‘Did I?’
‘You did. At my flat.’
‘Oh yes. The building, yes. Parts of it. But it’s what it stands for that gets me. All this nostalgia and snobbery.’
‘Don’t be too hard on nostalgia, Stephanie. We’re all guilty on that count,’ he says, raising an eyebrow so pointedly that she cannot be sure if she’d ever said anything to him about her friends and the days at the ruined workshop.
‘Yes, OK. But this is nostalgia gone berserk. It’s a monument to nostalgia. Pure escapism.’
‘Indeed it is. Isn’t that what holidays are for?’
‘And escapism at a price.’
‘There’s that, yes.’
‘Consolation for the well-off.’
‘I take your point.’
‘And I just can’t see how anyone with half a brain could go for all this dootsie world-of-Jane-Austen junk.’
‘This what?’
‘All these leaded windows and dark wood and crappy old pictures.’
‘Yes, but the adjective you used?’
‘What? Dootsie?’
‘Yes. Meaning?’
‘Quaint, smug, fussy. Chintzy. Something like that.’
‘Dootsie,’ he repeats, smiling. ‘Never heard it before. Where’s it from?’
‘A friend of mine uses it all the time. She’s Irish.’
‘OK,’ he says, and he leans back in his chair and turns his head slowly to the side, as if testing the new word against the ambience of the room. ‘Dootsie,’ he murmurs, still smiling. He has a sip of his wine and then, as he cradles his glass in his hands, his smile becomes more thoughtful, becomes suggestive of reminiscence.
‘What?’ she enquires quietly, shocked by her intrusiveness.
�
�I was just thinking that I do know someone who would go for all this dootsie stuff. A man with more than half a brain.’
‘Not possible,’ she replies, exaggeratedly dogmatic. ‘Who?’
‘An Italian academic. The father of a friend of mine.’
‘And why would he like it?’
‘Because he’s a fervent Anglophile.’
‘Why’s that?’ she asks, seeing her father ambushed at one of the tables by the pathologically jolly woman with the puce blouse and the necklace of huge imitation pearls.
‘Well, when he was a young man he came to study politics at the LSE. He spent three years here and returned to Italy a man transformed. The English sense of fair play, the dogged English spirit, the English legal system, English etiquette – the English way of doing things was now the touchstone in all things. When he got married, the honeymoon had to be in England. When they had children, the children had to become little Anglophiles. Holidays in England. At bedtime they had Pinocchio plus the lives of English heroes: Drake, Nelson, Faraday, Florence Nightingale, Scott. They had to learn great speeches from Shakespeare by heart: Portia and Juliet for the daughter, Mark Antony and King Henry for the son. At this stage, difficulties were encountered. The boy –’
Her father hesitates between their table and the next, and Mr Morton stops, sensing his presence. ‘I’m sorry,’ her father whispers, creeping to the unoccupied chair. ‘I interrupted. Do go on.’
‘Join us,’ says Mr Morton. ‘You’re in the nick of time. I was starting to ramble.’
‘No, go on,’ she urges. ‘You were in the middle of a sentence.’
‘Yes, please,’ says her father, replenishing Mr Morton’s glass while giving hers a suspicious glance.
‘The boy –’ she prompts him.
‘I was just telling Stephanie about someone I know,’ he says to her father. ‘An Italian professor.’
‘Who forced his kids to learn English.’
‘A sensible plan, I’d have thought,’ her father comments.
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