Almost English

by Charlotte Mendelson

  At Combe not one person has gone this far. If they think ‘foreign’, they mean pale noblemen in Kensington, shooting themselves over gambling debts, but her family do not bet, or drink, or kill themselves. ‘English,’ she says.

  ‘Is that so?’

  She swallows her shame, like a bullfrog: ug. ‘But my father’s, well, my grandparents were, are—’

  ‘Spies?’

  It’s not funny, she wants to say, but she answers, with as much dignity as she can: ‘No. Actually they love the queen, and the Labour Party. They’re very patriotic. The English welcomed them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘They are very loyal.’

  Now he is not laughing. ‘Of course they are,’ he says. ‘Fascinating. I shall have to guess. Not German. Polish? You have that Russian doll loo—’

  ‘They were born,’ she says, blushing all over her body, ‘in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Actually,’ she confides, ‘so do I. But I don’t normally tell—’

  ‘Yes, quite,’ he smiles. ‘Just that phrase, Austro-Hungarian – it always makes me think of pointy helmets.’

  ‘I know. Exactly. In fact,’ she admits, ‘they used to ski to school. Not that they’ve said. I’ve just seen mittens.’

  ‘So, out of interest, where was this, precisely?’

  ‘The thing is,’ she says, ‘I don’t know. It seems mad. But it’s not discussed. I mean, I try to, you know, ask things, all the time. But they just cry.’

  ‘Your grandparents?’

  ‘All of them,’ she says, glossing over the true shame of her domestic arrangements. ‘Instantly. In fact just the other day’ – actually a year or more ago, why is she lying? – ‘I wanted to know if they’d grown up on a farm, or . . . it was about pets, actually, because I’d like . . .’ Change the subject. ‘Or a garden. We all love gardens,’ she says, gesturing sycophantically and banging her hand hard on a table corner. ‘No, it’s fine, ha ha! It’s fine. Um . . . so, I asked, and . . . tears. Immediately. Blubbing,’ which is a word she has been longing to try. ‘So I never find out anything. Look, are you sure you want to talk to me? You’ve got guests.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘You’re amusing me.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t go on,’ he says, grinning, and he folds his arms behind his head and stretches backwards. His chest looks very . . . virile, she decides, which is a disgusting thing to think about someone’s father.

  ‘I don’t usually talk about this,’ she admits. ‘In public. I don’t know why. I mean, about being . . .’ She drops her voice. ‘Foreign.’

  ‘So you don’t even know where they’re from?’

  ‘Were . . . or are, for my grandmother, yes. Maybe I’ve heard, but I can’t remember the actual place name. It kept changing around, I think, the barriers. Boundaries. They did their sums and reading in Russian and spoke Hungarian to their parents but the town was Czech, or no, that was my grandfather. Roz— my grandmother was the other way round . . . I think. And they speak Hungarian now, amongst themselves, but they say they’re from Cz— the Czech Republic. They call it Czecho. How can that be?’ Shut up now, she tells herself, but he makes her too nervous. ‘They’re weirdly loyal to it. We’re only allowed Czech mustard.’

  ‘D’you know, it’s rather good stuff.’

  She looks at him with new admiration. ‘I suppose it is. But now their town is in Russia. The Ukraine. No, Ruthen— Ruritania. Somewhere like that.’

  ‘Good God. Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘Me? No . . . sorry, why—’

  ‘Never mind. So, Hungarian, eh? The world’s most impossible language.’

  ‘Everyone says that. I mean,’ she says quickly, ‘it’s amazing that you knew. Do you . . . speak it?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she reassures him. ‘Well, I know forty words. Central heating is, well it sounds like kers-pontifootaish. Seriously.’ She has lowered her voice again, as if saying a dirty word. ‘Tomato is, well, porr-odichom. See? Mee-krohulam is microwave, raa-gogoomy is chewing gum, not that I’m allow— I mean, that’s how you say them, God knows how they’re spelled. We laugh at them, it sounds so ridiculous,’ she says. ‘At the words, obviously, not my grandmother. My mother and I. At least, we used . . .’ Her cheeks are burning again. ‘Even Tokaj, that wine, it’s all done in satchel loads, did you realize? Like három puttonyos means three, I think,’ she says, counting on her fingers. ‘Hang on, egy ketö három, yes, three satchels. Of grapes, I suppose. Sorry, where was I?’

  ‘God knows,’ he says, but he is smiling. ‘Would you like another drink?’

  ‘Please. Nothing sounds sensible. They even say Hon-garion,’ she confides. ‘And you can’t work anything out, because it’s so, well, unLatinate—’

  ‘Only marginally Finno-Ugric, is it, although—’

  ‘Exactly! Wow. That is so, so right. So if I want to know what they’re on about I have to extrapolate.’

  ‘Extrapolate? Interesting,’ says Alexander Viney, inclining his head as if towards a respected colleague.

  ‘So why,’ she persists, ‘do you know all this?’

  ‘You are very direct. Well, I had an acquaintance from that general area.’

  ‘Oh! Really? I’d love to meet him, her . . . them. I mean—’

  ‘Why? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Marina was going to explain that she misses her Hungarians; that she thinks certain words in their accent, for comfort; that in term time she so longs for their voices that her heart leaps when she hears a foreigner on the streets of Combe, and is always disappointed. But he is laughing at her, so he doesn’t deserve it. He’ll go off now to talk to his more impressive guests and she will guard her grandparents’ privacy.

  He doesn’t go anywhere. Alexander Viney is still smiling, his eyes narrowed, as if he is trying to deduce something from her face. ‘So,’ he says, ‘the mountains – the Carpathians, as you’ll know . . . or you don’t know.’

  ‘Not . . . no.’

  ‘Well, you should.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Forests, castles, goose-girls, wolves. Princes. Mountain lions.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Sorry. God I’m so dim, I—’

  ‘So they’re from there? Anywhere I might have heard of?’

  She narrows her eyes. Is it possible that he could be thinking that her relatives were princes? She wants to be honourable and honest; all the same, she can hardly admit that they were probably gnawing old potatoes and sleeping in pigstyes. She will not betray them. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t know of any, you know, castles, or whatever. Or maybe only very small ones.’

  He looks at her. ‘You’re probably right,’ he says, and she blinks. ‘Interesting. I don’t know if you’ve found that those places tend to breed a certain sort of person. Very formal. Very archaic. Endless hand-kissing, apparently, and—’

  ‘Oh, we don’t do that,’ she reassures him. ‘Hardly ever. But the rest is so right. You do know.’

  ‘And of course they’re proud. Are you proud? And easily insulted, nursing grudges, ferocious about the family’s honour . . .’

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I’m not like that.’

  ‘Of course not. Have you read George Mikes?’

  She stands straight. He should know the kind of person he is dealing with. ‘My great-aunt knows George Mikes,’ she says.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he says.

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Oh.’

  ‘Hierarchical too. Keeping things from the children.’

  ‘What do you . . . oh, I see. Yes, they do. Completely. Wow – I’ve never thought before it’s a sort of, you know, a racial thing. I thought it was only mine.’

  ‘Just a guess.’

 
; ‘No, honestly, this is so exciting. You can’t imagine. I’ve never met someone who knows anything about them before. I mean, in real life. It’s like being given instructions.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s amazing. I just didn’t know it was normal. So your friend comes from exactly where?’

  ‘There, where you’re talking about. Transylvania. What? You must know this, surely.’

  ‘Tran . . . you’re teasing me.’

  ‘I assure you I’m not. Look, if you can’t stomach that, you can say Transcarpathia or Ruthenia even. Child, it’s basic central European geography. Don’t look so insulted.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she says. ‘Transylvania, seriously? I, I—’

  ‘Hey!’ says Guy, appearing at her side and nudging her hard with his elbow. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Perfectly fine, thank you,’ says his father, but he looks annoyed. The fire heats her fiercely from one side. ‘I’m interested in my new friend’s roots,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Guy hesitates.

  ‘Although you’ll need to be careful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Alexander Viney keeps his eyes on her. ‘Scimitars. Pet bears. Vlad the Impaler. Hungarian women are a handful.’

  ‘She’s not Hungarian. Is she?’

  ‘Marina?’

  ‘You don’t sound Hungarian,’ Guy says.

  ‘Trust me. Blood of the Hun. This one may look like Frieda Kahlo in a filthy mood, but . . .’

  Guy is pulling her away. His father is still watching her.

  ‘We will talk further, my little friend,’ he says, and then he winks.

  14

  ‘Zsuzsi, dar-link, do you vant a kavitchka?’

  ‘Nem.’

  ‘Rozsi dar-link, do you vant a kavitchka?’

  ‘Igen, köszönöm.’

  ‘Szívesen. Laura,’ says sweet kind trusting Ildi, who thinks her evening holds no more than coffee and Murder on the Nile, ‘do you vant a . . .’

  But Laura sits in a welter of panic; Peter is coming back. In the past, if ever she missed him, she would remind herself that in his absence Marina was safe. Now that she has become unmistakably fully grown, he will want to introduce his daughter to his grim friends: renegade French teachers; embittered driftwood carvers; professional life-class models; poets. Laura has met these disgusting men already, knows about their numberless tragic girlfriends, their cigarette-rolling habits, their arrogant attitude to hygiene. The thought of them anywhere near Marina makes her grip her chair until her knuckles whiten.

  Never, she thinks. No way. Life is bad enough without him in it. If I measure the damage his return would do against his absence, it is better for us all if he stays away.

  It is like being on television: An Adult Dinner Party. Everyone murmurs politely. The room is full of candlelight, magnified by silver and glass and mirrors, so that it is impossible to tell how much is actual flame. They eat the food of yesteryear: smoked salmon mousse, parsnips and roast potatoes, rib of beef. Nobody comments, although it is all delicious. There doesn’t seem to be quite enough.

  ‘This is lovely, gorgeous, thank you,’ she says, to fill in the silence after she has dropped her knife, and the heat of the room falls upon her. Alexander Viney sits far away across a pool of mahogany, hair glinting like fur as he bends his head to the blonde woman beside him. ‘Horatia,’ she hears him say; Marina nods knowledgeably, prepared to murmur Admiral Lord Nelson’s dates, but he does not notice. On his other side is Lucy Viney, which seems a terrible waste. He puts his arm over her shoulder, and she leans against him.

  ‘Family,’ he says, pouring more wine into their glasses. ‘Nothing like it. Aren’t they beautiful?’

  Marina catches Mrs Viney’s eye and smiles. ‘Yes,’ she says, and her voice sounds like a choirboy’s, pre-pubescent.

  She is sitting, like a squatting slave child, on a chair slightly lower than the others, next to Olly, a student in land management, who asks if she knows Minty or Ivan, then concentrates on his food. On her right is Jerry, who is, she now realizes, familiar only because he is a famous politician; he understandably ignores her. The interesting-looking dark woman, Janey Dalrymple, has not once turned in her direction either, despite Marina’s hopeful smiles. Pressed between strangers, an awareness of nearby adult bodies – the radiant heat burning from the politician’s arm, the small private movements Mrs Viney makes with her hand – is forced upon her. Her nervous breathing is crude in comparison, her tongue moves too loudly. Mr Viney, she suspects, would understand this. Although her head is so hot, beneath the table she is frozen, like a mermaid. And her leg is shaking. She has only just discovered that she is terrified of dogs. Whenever smelly Beckett comes near her, a limping barrel of hair and drool, she has to grip the sides of her seat.

  This, however, is the least of her problems. Zsuzsi and the others are so keen on manners but, she wants to tell them, they have left her ill-prepared. What use was their training if all she can do is hold open doors and give up seats and defer respectfully to old foreign ladies? Here it is quite different: she is an adult, with no idea how to behave among her kind. She has already made a mess of hand-shaking. Timing is difficult. Who was meant to sit first at the table, all women, or just older women, or men older than her and who serves whom, and when do you start eating? She brought her champagne to the table and had to pour it into a wine glass to avoid rebuke, which then ruined her chances of working out the right ones for anything else. Also, she has too much cutlery; she considers trying to use a knife and fork to eat her bread, just to use some of it, mercifully sees sense and then is shocked to see Mrs Viney using her fingers to wipe up the sauce on her plate. She keeps getting her compliments wrong; her spindly little chair creaked when she sat on it and, to cover her embarrassment, she said how pretty it was, and Lucy Viney said, oh God, that one, urgh, hideous, and Mrs Viney said, ‘It’s mostly plarstic, anyway.’

  Whenever Alexander Viney glances her way, Marina tries to look intellectual, yet remote. Mrs Viney, on the other hand, keeps giving her reassuring smiles. Once she even winks. By the time they are on their rhubarb fool and brandy snaps, Marina has stopped trying to join in her neighbours’ conversation. She has forgotten Guy. She looks at Mrs Viney and thinks again: Please.

  Olly the student has been growing ever sleepier and stranger. Gradually, something shocking occurs to her: could he be drunk? She blushes with shame for him, and disgust. Thank God Rozsi isn’t here, she thinks, then she realizes that this is exactly the kind of error the Fates are waiting for. If she rings home tomorrow and finds that her entire family has been slaughtered, we all know whose fault it would be.

  At last, after brandy and port and sloe gin, and Bath Oliver biscuits, which are an enormous disappointment, the dinner ends. Is it possible that she is a tiny bit drunk too? She knows what should happen now, but no one is doing it. ‘Do we adjourn?’ she whispers to the politician, who reels back in theatrical amazement. Her toes are wet with Beckett’s slobber. Bed, she thinks: my cottony room, my dressing table, my rural views.

  But Guy has other plans.

  ‘Don’t put on the light,’ Marina says. ‘I need to sleep.’ The smell of so much fresh air is like being inside his childhood; it almost cancels out her worry that he will suddenly decide to look in her washbag and find her crime. Hungry for her bed, she wanders round in the moonlight, touching a fossil on the windowsill, thinking about castles and dark fir forests, which merge in her mind with the soft brown deciduous haze outside, the terrace and infinite little rooms. Now, able for once to overcome her terror of The Turn of the Screw, Peter Quint’s pug face behind the curtain, she stands close to the window, her nose leaving a greasy mark on the glass, and looks out for hedgehogs on the dewy lawn.

  It is so easy to imagine where she should have come from: the turrets, the merry woodcutters among the palace birches, all in silhouette against an oily rainbow sky. She wants to be proud of the family peasant-cot, but the dirty crouchin
g truth is that she is ashamed. She would not have been a beautiful simple maiden. She would have been the witch.

  ‘Come here,’ Guy says, but she hesitates.

  He walks up to her, takes her hand and puts it on the front of his chinos, where he is hard.

  That, she thinks, is an erection.

  Night. It is almost twelve, an hour at which, in London, nothing good can happen: only violence, suffering, furtive struggles in alleyways. There is too much fear and danger in the world for a parent to bear.

  Laura walks on tiny stepping stones across a rushing torrent, picking her way between the terrors of daily life. Midnight is one of the worst times: a shameful childhood blight which, disappointingly, she has not grown out of. At home, worrying in her semi-bed, she survives it by avoidance, closing her eyes to the china clock on the opposite wall, her ears to the swishing past of cars in the rain. She awaits the telephone, the knock at the door until, at last, it is twelve-thirty, and Marina can be judged to have survived another day.

  How funny, she thinks now, that Alistair Sudgeon, object of so much longing and hope, does not know this about her, yet Peter, with whom the later years were mostly endurance, used to tease her about it, which she hated, until the fear had almost gone.

  Idiot, she thinks. He’ll have forgotten it now. Things were better as they were, without false hope, which is why, as the church on Pembridge Villas strikes the fatal hour, Laura is crouching by the communal bins of Westminster Court in the frost, wearing a nightdress, coat, mittens and substantial knickers, teeth chattering like a child’s as she fails to burn her former husband’s letter in an empty tin of plum tomatoes.

  One after another, the matches blow out. She is shivering dramatically. London roars at her back. All evening the letter has lain concealed in her spurious work folder, in an envelope from the milkman until, with the others at last in bed, she reread it by the glow of the street lamp where the curtain gapes, looking for clues.

  There were no clues. He sounded surprisingly sane. He knew she must hate him; he referred to his many friends who abandoned wives, children, babies and, as she pursed her lips, he wrote, ‘I always thought they were pricks, and they were, and now I’m one too.’