The Dower House

by Malcolm Macdonald

  Nicole added, ‘They have two small children and a new baby.’

  ‘And the rent?’ Isabella asked. ‘On this flat?’

  ‘A hundred,’ Nicole replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Per year,’ Tony added with a grin. ‘And that includes insurance on the fabric of the house, by the way. Especially all the lead on the roof. Anyway, we’ll leave you to look over the place and see whether it would suit you. You’d also get the room immediately below this one, down in the basement – for a box room, workshop . . . whatever you want. When you’ve finished looking, go round the back of the house and up the stone steps there – that’s our front steps – Nicole and me. You’re welcome to tea and you can meet all the rest of us. After which, we’ll show you the grounds and talk about buses, shops, train services, doctors . . . all the pukka gen.’

  For the next twenty minutes, while the rest of the community assembled and Nicole set out the tea she and Tony had prepared, they heard the Brandons argue their way from room to room, back and forth several times. They could not make out every word but the gist of it was that Isabella made every conceivable objection while Eric advanced arguments at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. For instance, when she feared that the people in the flat above might hear every word they said, he pointed out, ‘That’ll be handy when I finally blow a fuse and murder you, darling. You can die knowing that your cries for help did not go unheeded. Unanswered – if they have any finer feelings – but not unheeded.’ Thecommunity listened eagerly, part in fascination, part in disbelief.

  ‘It’s like fights in cartoons,’ Felix said. ‘They hammer each other into the ground, slice each other like salami . . . and hux-flux they’re entire again and carry on slicing like before!’

  ‘But they do love each other,’ Nicole said.

  ‘Funny sort of love!’

  Nobody disagreed.

  The Brandons joined them at last and were introduced all round. Willard apparently knew them already.

  ‘A question,’ Eric said. ‘What colour would you say these trousers are?’

  Xupé and Fifi sniffed around his turn-ups, liking what they sensed there.

  ‘Grey?’ several voices replied. ‘Sort of bluey grey?’

  ‘Not green?’ he asked. ‘No one here in their right mind would call them green?’

  ‘Definitely not green . . . could be a faint hint of it . . . against crimson it might look green . . .’ The opinions were varied.

  Glancing triumphantly at his wife, he continued, ‘Next question – what about the garden? Is it communal or can one have one’s own strip?’

  ‘You?’ Isabella laughed scornfully. ‘Gardening?’

  ‘Not exactly, darling. I just want a little patch of my own where I can keep bees – or wasps – or whatever countryfolk do keep these days. I expect the war has changed a lot of hobbies.’

  ‘Hens would be more practical,’ she pointed out as she settled between Sally and Faith.

  ‘Only if they can live peaceably with my wasps.’ He sat on a Victorian chair that might have been made for Barbarossa. ‘This is rather grand.’

  ‘You live in Mayfair?’ Sally asked.

  Isabella ignored the question. ‘Rather too grand,’ she told her husband. ‘You look lost in it.’

  ‘No such luck, my dear.’ He turned to Sally, ‘Some might still think of Curzon Street as Mayfair, but it has gawn down aawwfully, dontcher know. We even get Americans hoping to live there.’ He grinned at Willard. ‘And we’re deafened by the heel-clacking of les filles de joie – pardon my French, Mrs Palmer – on the pavements outside. The damage they must be doing to all those Georgian floorboards does not bear thinking about. Still – they lift them soon enough.’

  ‘The floorboards?’ Marianne asked.

  ‘No – the heels. I say! I don’t think I’ve seen so much butter all in one bowl since nineteen thirty-nine!’

  ‘It’s not butter,’ Tony said proudly. ‘Nicole has a way of mixing all our butter rations and all our margarine rations with gelatine and water, and the result –’ he gestured at the bowl – ‘no one can tell it from butter. French people just have a way with food.’

  ‘D’you hear that, darling?’ Eric asked excitedly. ‘All the things you’re going to learn if we take this apartment! Really practical things!’

  She stared icily at him and said, ‘We’d lose our Mayfair telephone number. We couldn’t bring it out here to Hertfordshire. Have you thought of that?’

  Eric said, ‘Therefore . . . ?’

  ‘What d’you mean “therefore”?’

  ‘I mean, why bring it up now – at this particular juncture?’

  ‘It’s a fact.’

  ‘Therefore . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t keep saying “therefore”? A fact is a fact. It’s just a fact.’

  ‘Oh! A fact! I see-ee. Look, if this is going to become a habit – dropping in the odd fact to clog the stream of an otherwise smooth conversation – perhaps we should get a little notebook to jot down these facts as they arise. It would be a shame to overlook them merely because they happened to be utterly irrelevant. We could even clasify them on the spot. You know: Facts that are interesting but not relevant . . . Facts that are relevant but not interesting . . . Facts that are so bleeding obvious it’s not worth mentioning them . . . that sort of thing. Eh?’

  Isabella turned wearily to the rest of the company. ‘We waited God knows how many months – or years – to be connected. And Eric absolutely depends on the phone.’

  They all looked at Eric, who shrugged and said, ‘Apparently.’

  ‘You do!’ she insisted.

  He, aware now that their conversation had embarrassed some of the others, put on an apologetic smile and murmured, ‘So I do.’

  ‘It never stops ringing,’ Isabella added.

  But that was too much for Eric. ‘OK, let’s just consider the last five calls – all of which I had to take – that is, I had to put down my brushes and cross the room to open the cupboard and extract the phone.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘A query from a weaving firm in Lancashire; a mannequin asking if some show in Kingston was still on; an incomprehensibly middle-European woman from Aquascutum confirming an appointment for next week (as far as I could make her out at all) . . .’ He broke off, aware that everyone was looking at Felix. ‘Sorry, chum,’ he continued, ‘Nothing personal. Someone from Kangol Berets wanting you to OK an ad they’re about to place; the butcher – reminding us yet again that you haven’t brought in the coupons you promised him; and the secretary at the Central asking if you’d come and give a series of three talks to their costume department.’

  ‘That’s six, darling.’ Isabella pointed out.

  ‘A fortiori, my dear!’

  ‘You keep your telephone in a cupboard?’ Sally asked.

  ‘They sent the wrong colour,’ he explained.

  Isabella corrected him, ‘Someone ordered the wrong colour.’

  ‘Colored phones in this land of socialist conformity?’ Willard asked.

  ‘Oh there’s a little man in South Audley Street who paints them,’ Isabella explained. ‘Or coats them with some sort of plahstic skin. He’s awfully good.’

  ‘And is six foot tall,’ Eric murmured to no one in particular.

  ‘People know what I mean when I say he’s a “little” man, darling.’ She beamed all round. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘In England,’ Marianne said, ‘it seems to mean you don’t have to pay them very much.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,’ Isabella conceded. ‘It also means they’re not some ghastly great anonymous corporation.’

  ‘I don’t think telephones – of whatever colour – will be a problem for us much longer,’ Willard said.

  Stirrings of surprise all round. ‘You don’t?’ Adam asked.

  ‘I think we’ll all be getting them in a few weeks – anyone who wants one. Coming back from Garden City today, I saw a guy up a pole, fixing a
line into that big, white mansion down in the valley. I chewed the fat with him a while and he said they had four lines into this house during the war, when it was a school. They’re disconnected in the exchange now but they’re still there. And they’d be happy to string up four more, especially if we have important business.’ He looked directly at Isabella. ‘D’you have any big-name clients, ma’am?’

  ‘Well . . .!’ She gazed around in embarrassment.

  ‘I know,’ Willard said sympathetically. ‘I hate name-dropping, myself, too – as I was saying to Winston Churchill only yesterday. But sometimes we simply have to bite the bullet.’

  ‘Would Marks and Spencer do?’ she asked. ‘Or Harrods?’

  ‘Well, they’ll just have to do,’ Willard said to general laughter. ‘A letter on their office notepaper explaining that there are priority business reasons for your needing a phone would be a great help. It doesn’t matter if it’s only signed by the janitor. The important letterhead is what counts.’ To the others he added, ‘We’ll be on the Hertford exchange so I’ll go light a fuse there tomorrow.’

  After a tour of the grounds, the Brandons set off for home. ‘I know the French are all a bit weird,’ Isabella said before the house was even out of sight, ‘but I’m surprised at him, Tony. He’s supposed to be a top-class architect. But look how they’ve arranged the furniture! I mean – what’s the first thing you see when you come through the door?’

  ‘That rather fine landscape hanging between the two big windows?’ Eric guessed – knowing it was the last thing on her mind.

  ‘Oh, well, you would. Any normal person . . . Look! There’s that bloody spider again. You must get him out the minute we get home. Just look at it!’

  ‘I think it’s a she-spider.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  ‘There were two of them when we left London – and now there’s no sign of the other and she’s looking suspiciously gorged. It happens even in spiderland.’

  ‘For God’s sake keep your eyes on the road! Anyway, the first thing you see when you enter that drawing room is the back of the sofa.’

  ‘Good heavens – you’re absolutely right,’ he told her. ‘That’s awful. In fact, I think you should do a little sketch for them – show them how they could get the front of the sofa to face the fire without the back of it facing the door. In fact, I’d quite like to see that myself.’

  ‘And I thought French women were supposed to have a certain flair with clothes? You’d never believe it – looking at her. Even the Swedish one – Marianne – was more stylish. D’you think she’s expecting? I’m sure of it. And Nicole. It’s a good omen.’

  ‘Damn! I didn’t ask either of them. I’m so sorry, pet. We must get that notebook, you know. And we’ll have a page where you list all the questions I should ask a woman on first meeting her: Are you preggers? And so on.’

  ‘Yes, darling, very funny. Anyway, I think there’s no love lost between Nicole and the Swede, don’t you? And I must say, I’m not at all sure about that couple with the children. Living right above us. Arthur and May Prentice. They’re not quite our class, d’you think? Not that I’d hold that against them, of course. He’s in television, so we wouldn’t want to fall out with them.’

  ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘Well, the whole place is rather bohemian, you must admit. They do need someone to raise it a little.’

  ‘Like you? And me?’

  ‘These things are important. It’s a wonderful place to bring up children – our children, too. But there must be some sense of order.’

  ‘If we took the gatelodge we could work our benign influence from a distance. When the Dower House children get tired of chaos they’ll know they can find a haven of peace and order chez nous. And we’ll inspect their fingernails and behind the ears before we let them in.’

  After a frosty silence she said, ‘Did you really take all those phone calls for me?’

  ‘No.’ He gave a self-satisfied grin. ‘You know I didn’t – or else I would have passed them on to you. I thought you played along jolly well.’

  ‘But why did you say you did?’

  ‘You have to admit – they are the sort of calls I might very easily take and pass on to you. I just wanted them to know that my wonderful wife is, in fact, a woman of some consequence – contrary to all appearances.’

  She reached across and hugged his arm. ‘Darling! You do have your uses.’ Then: ‘What d’you mean – “contrary to all appearances”?’

  ‘Hang on – tricky corner, this.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re drinkers – Willard and Marianne,’ she went on. ‘I thought he had a bit of a beer belly, didn’t you? A lot of Yanks were like that, in the war. Maybe that’s her trouble, too. And I wonder if Adam and Sally’s marriage is going to last. She’s obviously a super organizer he hasn’t a clue. Did you see his work desk as we passed their window? She’s out of the top drawer. So is that Faith Manningham-Buller.’

  ‘They need to iron out this bit of road,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll try going back via Hendon. And it’s Bullen-ffitch.’

  ‘Well, I know she’s a friend of yours and she’s the one who put this mad idea in your head, but I wouldn’t trust her too far – whatever her name is . . .’

  ‘I said – Bullen-ffitch. And she’s not exactly a friend, she’s just someone I meet occasionally at launch parties and all those little Soho bistros that publishers love.’

  ‘Yes – quite. Wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.’

  ‘And as for Felix Breit—’ Eric began.

  She cut across him. ‘Well now, don’t say a word against him! He’ll be a useful connection – if we move out there.’

  ‘That’s a big “if”. Look! Another old Morris Ten!’ He hooted and exchanged salutations with the driver.

  ‘D’you think so? I’ve already decided: Mad idea or not – we’ll take it. And we’ll move in next quarter-day.’ After a silence she said, ‘Say?’

  ‘Me? Oh, gosh, I’m actually being asked my opinion! Well, I decided we’d move there the minute I was told that the floorboards wouldn’t tolerate next year’s fashion in heels.’

  ‘Done, then,’ she said.

  Back at the Dower House, Adam was summing up, ‘So Sally thinks they’re useful. Faith thinks they’re just about solvent enough for us. Willard thinks their other car, the Lagonda, will look just swell outside the front portico. But – most important of all – does anybody actually like them?’

  The eager chorus of yesses surprised everyone.

  ‘Done, then,’ he concluded.

  Friday, 13 June 1947

  Faith’s throwaway remark that Felix had started his carving as an artist but had soon turned into a designer was so apt that Felix stopped work on the sculpture as soon as he had a dozen or so square inches of its final form ‘liberated’ from its marble shroud. He got a photographer to come out from Hertford, take a few quarter-plates of it from various angles under different lighting, and develop and print by that evening. Next day he laid the results out on Fogel’s desk, saying, ‘I know you’ve been impatient for me to finish, Wolf, but the truth is I was stopping myself. Something inside me knew from the beginning that to make a finished sculpture would be wrong. Absolutely wrong.’

  The words had the desired effect on Fogel. Happy, Felix continued, ‘I had the concept weeks ago – my sculpture will be an egg – a giant marble egg, twice as big as an ostrich egg. It’s a symbol of the creation of life . . . well, you understand perfectly, I’m sure. But to have this symbol . . . the same symbol – finished, completed, unchanging – at the beginning of every section . . . don’t you see, it would be a song with no verses, only one chorus repeated again and again and again. Very boring.’

  Fogel nodded unhappily. He saw the force of the argument and – simultaneously – ‘his’ precious Felix Breit sculpture was vanishing under a publishing imperative he could not gainsay.

  ‘So,’ Felix continued blithely, ‘
have you decided? Is it certain that Arthur Taylor is the chief in-house designer for this series?’

  Fogel shrugged – awkwardly, as he always shrugged when cornered for a binding commitment. ‘For the foundation volume . . . sure.’

  ‘OK – so we have six opening spreads for that volume – text on the left verso, image on the right recto. Then we create a setting – a mise en scène – for the opener, which is Intimations of the Modern, and we photograph the sculpture in this exact condition –’ he tapped the photographs – ‘in that setting. Then for the next chapter – The Salon of the Rejected – we make another mise en scène and I carve it a leetle bit more and we photograph that . . . and so on through the book – through all five volumes. The egg becomes a leitmotiv to permeate the book but never competes with the art. And there is a tiny bit more revelation for each new mise en scène, to suggest the progress of art.’

  ‘Ah!’ Fogel perked up. ‘So it will be finished for the last chapter of Volume Five, no?’

  Felix pulled a dubious face. ‘Maybe not. My instinct – the thing you are paying me so much for – says we need a big shock at the end – because all new art must shock. All through the series the egg will be shown nearer and nearer to the moment of hatching – its liberated perfection. But in the last picture we smash it to bits! The egg has already given birth! Now its offspring stands on the threshold of an unknown future. Also it shows that art progresses by destroying art.’

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Fogel said at once. ‘You finish the sculpture. We make a copy in porcelain. No glaze. We smash the porcelain – who can tell? And your sculpture is saved for posterity!’

  ‘Did you really think you could get the better of him?’ Faith asked as they left the building for lunch at Schmidt’s. ‘You’d have to get up three days early to do that.’

  ‘I just resent it that he’ll be getting the first post-war Felix Breit sculpture and my best efforts over these five volumes.’