‘I must say I wonder how many old boyfriends of Helen’s are going to pop out of the woodwork this afternoon,’ Hilary said. ‘Still, one must be prepared for such things when one marries a beauty.’
‘Married? You are married to my darling?’ Farid seemed only now to catch on and in the same instant that he asked the question thrust one hand into Hilary’s and wrapped the other arm round his broad shoulders.
‘Yes, yes, of course we are married,’ Hilary answered rather crossly. ‘We did the deed at Caxton Hall five weeks ago though we have not as yet managed to synchronise our schedules sufficiently to arrange a honeymoon.’
‘But that is marvellous. I thought that you were just embarking on a little affaire du coeur.’
‘Well, that too indeed,’ Hilary managed. ‘But we decided that we wanted to put the affair on a more permanent basis.’
‘Members desirous of taking their seat,’ chanted a voice from somewhere and a dignitary led in a little procession through the double doors: two tall stooping men in scarlet robes trimmed with white fur and between them a tiny figure with fair hair in the same robes.
‘Desirous,’ murmured Farid leaning forward to drink in the scene with his arms spilling over the knobs of our pew-front, ‘I think I am desirous. Doesn’t she look wonderful, your wife. A mere child still.’
And so she was, or not a real child but like a child drawn by an artist, perhaps a medieval artist who had just progressed beyond drawing children as midget adults. She looked much as she had looked the first time we met, when she came through the shimmery mist with Farid’s little boy (who must now be an overfed playboy like his father if someone hadn’t had the sense to shoot him). You would never have guessed that anyone could make her go to pieces, certainly not a man, which hadn’t prevented men from trying, though only Moonman had succeeded. In fact, it was little more than a year, certainly less than two, since she had fallen into my arms at Firs Cottage, swollen-eyed and sozzled.
Then it came to me – an awful thought – that it was Hilary who had got her off the booze, in fact put her back together again. And this was more shocking than that Moonman should have been the love of her life. All the same, her looking so well again made me feel something which on examination could only be described as happiness. Perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. Noticing signs of misery or decay in anyone you once loved was a nasty little injection of death, and conversely seeing Helen as fair as she had first been, even in this geriatric reserve, even married to Hilary, was an inkling of youth, a false inkling of course but you couldn’t have everything.
‘Isn’t her hair wonderful?’ Hilary whispered. ‘She doesn’t dye it at all, doesn’t need to.’
‘Wonderful,’ I said.
‘She’s done so much you know, makes me feel awfully unadventurous.’
The ill-assorted threesome bowed, the two ungainly men low and slow, Helen giving a brisk nod a little out of time with them, the sort of nod you give a colleague who has just come back from a slightly extended lunch break. They moved forward a couple of yards and bowed again, then moved forward once more and bowed a third time.
‘Tell me,’ Farid said, ‘your wife, you invited her to this party and then, boom, here she is. Is that how one does it? But of course one must be beautiful.’
‘Normally, a considerable record of public service is necessary before any such elevation could be considered, but these days the party is eager to advance one or two younger men and women who may be expected to earn their spurs in the saddle, so to speak. I am speaking here of the political party naturally, not the working party of which I spoke earlier.’
‘Parties, parties,’ murmured Farid.
‘Then it so happened that we bumped into the Leader at a New Year’s party. He was most impressed by Helen, not just the way she performed on Fincher but her whole background – food science, mining – she’s just the sort of person they will be needing, apart from being a woman of course.’
‘And the miners’ strike,’ I said, ‘what about her part in that?’
‘Old unhappy far-off things, Gus, they’re drawing a line under that one as you know.’
The threesome had now handed over a scroll to a rather stouter elderly man in black robes who was seated on a huge pouffe which could have accommodated three or four other persons. The stout elderly man then read out something, possibly from the scroll, but his voice was so indistinct that the only words I caught – perhaps because he called them out louder so that you could hear how languid his voice was – were Baroness Hardress of Minnow Island. Then I think he mentioned the county, which I was keen to hear because I could not remember whether Minnow Island was in Middlesex or Surrey, but Farid was chattering again and the words were lost to me. At that moment there was a murmuration of yer, yers from the Pompeii victims on the red benches, one especially harsh, prolonged and sonorous – Yer, yer, YERRH – which seemed tinged with mockery of the proceedings, perhaps of all human proceedings. The threesome then began their retreat, bowing or nodding again, this time more in unison. They were too far away for me to see whether Helen’s expression gave any hint of what she thought of this ancient mummery. Probably she didn’t care. She might have been right. All the same, it did seem a funny place for a serious person to end up in. But then as often as not, the golden city on the horizon turned out to be a ghost town when you reached it. Arrival was usually a let-down, the journey was the thing.
On the way out, I ran into Bobs coming down the stairs from the gallery.
‘I’m not staying for the drinkies, she asked me, but I thought I’d cramp her style.’
‘Where’s Beryl? I didn’t see her.’
‘She’s not coming, she doesn’t approve. We’ve all tried to explain that Helen’s not doing it for herself, they need her because of her special expertise. But Beryl’s not an easy one to budge, like her mum in that way of course. Anyway she doesn’t go a bomb on old Hilary.’
‘You look pale,’ I said, not meaning to, but struck by the fact that it wasn’t the light that had taken the bounce off him.
‘Oh I’ve got this cancer thingy. Luckily I’m on to this ace chap who says I’ve got absolutely the best sort to get, if you’re going to get it at all of course. Look, you must buzz on in. I’ll catch you later.’
And in an instant he was gone bounding on past me down the next flight of stairs. He seemed to know his way round this warren, but then it was possible that he didn’t and I would run into him five minutes later charging back in the other direction.
For my own part, I needed to ask several people the way to the tearoom and even so made a couple of wrong turns before finally catching sight of a familiar figure, strange how familiar she was since I had seen her only a handful of times, none of them recently. She was a little bent, but still fine-looking in that way that always reminded me she was actually more beautiful than her daughter.
‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘It’s only going to be a small party. Beryl’s not coming. She doesn’t approve.’
‘So I hear.’
‘Who told you? Bobs, I suppose. That little man, he’s still a total waste of space. I was not pleased to see him in the gallery. At least he’s had the decency to stay away from the party. Hilary’s being extremely good to him. I expect you think Hilary’s rather pompous. You probably laugh at him in the office. But he keeps going, he’s got stamina. That’s what I like in a man. Martin didn’t have it, you know, my late husband. He thought he was a serious person, but he didn’t really understand that you can’t be serious unless you keep on at things. I thought Helen was going to turn out like him, but I’m glad to see she hasn’t.’
‘So you approve of all this?’
‘Of course I do. You need a few people with a bit of sense in this place before they do away with it.’
‘Come on, Mum.’ Helen took her by the hand. ‘Hilary wants you to sit next to him.’
She had removed her robes and was wearing a neat magenta coat and
skirt which showed off how slender she was. She was glowing with health and efficiency – somehow the phrase floated into my mind from the old airbrushed nudist magazines we used to hide under the mattress – and I thought of her diving off the rock in Africa and how she hadn’t been at all airbrushed and an ache of pointless longing overcame me as she passed me a plate of mixed sandwiches.
‘You look wonderful,’ I said.
‘I go to the gym, it’s quite easy once you get in the habit of it.’
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Copyright © Ferdinand Mount 2001
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First published in Great Britain in 2001 by
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Fairness Page 36