Greg, who was all too aware of the academic’s need to publish, asked, ‘Did you mean it when you told your uncle I might be in a position I could regret later?’
‘Don’t say you haven’t thought it yourself.’
‘No pain, no gain,’ Greg said bravely.
‘What happens if it falls through?’ Katherine asked.
‘Well, thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s a really encouraging thing to say.’
‘It must have crossed your mind.’
Greg was silent for a moment, wrestling with anger. Of course Katherine was right to think he might have had doubts about his project. But it might have been kinder not to have mentioned it, especially in front of her uncle. He fought down a sharp response.
She continued, ‘What have you got, after all? Just that old man, who may be potty or have some ulterior motive. You know what the old are like when it comes to distorting the past to make themselves look important or pay off some ancient grudge. And otherwise – nothing.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.
‘What have you got, then?’ she challenged.
‘And why are you doing this?’ he repeated. He wanted to walk away from her, but it would have been ridiculous and, in any case, where would he go? Back to her uncle’s house?
‘If we’re going to argue,’ she said, ‘it’ll be a rotten Christmas.’
They had reached a path leading off from the river by a little bridge. She tucked her arm through his. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s OK. And you’re right anyway. I do sometimes have doubts,’ Greg told her, as they set off along the path.
‘I’m sure it’ll be marvellous. Have you got some new stuff?’
He thought of that line drawing of Sally, head turned, back bent under her mail sack, the slash of black that was her lipsticked mouth. He had brought it with him, in the bottom of his travel bag, he didn’t know why. He thought of Katherine, whose arm was in his, of her lithe, thin body, her long, fine, pale face, the abundant, fox-coloured hair. He realised he was comparing the two women, the flesh and blood one he was with and the other, long dead, two-dimensional, a mere line on a piece of paper drawn by a lover. He almost groaned, realising he didn’t want to talk about Sally Bowles to this woman who wasn’t Sally Bowles.
After tea at Merricombe and a good walk back his mood improved. He and Katherine went upstairs then, to snooze before dinner and make love.
They lay, chatting, and he told her about Eugene.
‘That’s wonderful!’ she exclaimed. He got up and found the picture. Katherine lay back, scrutinising it. ‘She must have been really something.’
‘That’s the impression I have. Now I’ve got to find Eugene, if he’s still alive.’
‘I don’t suppose he will be.’
‘He’d be in his early eighties. But everyone else I’ve spoken to has been about that age. A tough generation. I’ve written to his family’s lawyers.’
‘Where are they?’
‘In Atlanta. It looks like a respectable firm.’
‘Well,’ said Katherine, ‘you have done your stuff.’
Supper had been laid out in the kitchen by Mrs Chambers and was heated and served by Katherine and Greg. Over the meal Katherine started Greg off on the story of Eugene. Simon appeared interested and asked questions. Katherine ran up to get the picture of Sally, which he admired. ‘There’s talent there,’ he said.
Over coffee Simon said, ‘Now, chaps, if we can drag ourselves into the dull present, will you wrap me up warmly and push me to the pub?’
‘We could drive, if you like,’ Greg offered, but Simon said, ‘No, if you don’t mind. I like to go out at night and see the stars and, these days, I don’t often get the opportunity.’
And so they set out, Simon in his wheelchair, which did not really need pushing, Katherine and Greg walking on either side. The chair bumped slightly as they went down the drive between the trees. The sky above was big and clear.
The pub, quiet, well decorated and obviously very old, contained only two men in a corner and, by the fire, a well-preserved woman in her late forties, drinking gin.
‘I’ll bring them over, Mr Ledbetter,’ the landlord said, as they settled down by the fire.
‘Julia Wells, Greg Phillips,’ Simon said.
‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Another man. You’ll all come over tomorrow, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Simon agreed.
‘Just a few local bores and my son and his girlfriend,’ she said. ‘Roger the Bastard’s threatening to turn up, but I don’t believe he’ll make it.’
There ensued a brief conversation between Simon and Julia about the likelihood of Julia’s ex-husband Roger the Bastard’s arrival on Christmas Eve. To Greg, Simon’s attention seemed strained. Then Julia began to describe her argument with the farmer next door to her, whose sheep had made incursions, again, into her garden. ‘So what do you do for a crust?’ she asked Greg suddenly.
‘Just now I’m researching a book about the Second World War,’ he explained. ‘It’s a biography, of sorts, called Sally Bowles and her Circle.’
‘I’m very ignorant, I’m sure,’ Julia said, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve never heard of her. Who was she?’
Briefly Greg explained.
‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ Simon asked her. ‘A bit before your time, I suppose, Julia.’
‘A bit before yours even, Simon, I suppose. You’d have been – what?’
‘I grew up with people telling me they were fighting the war for me,’ he told her.
‘It must be very interesting,’ Julia said to Greg. ‘Do you find it a problem being American and writing about English people?’
‘Yes,’ Greg told her. ‘There’s a lot I don’t understand. I have to work at it.’
‘I read such a wonderful biography the other day – Virginia Woolf,’ said Julia, with an effort for she was by now a bit drunk. ‘So interesting, all those people. You’ve got a picture by one of them, haven’t you, Simon?’
‘I think you may be thinking of Vanessa Bell,’ he said.
‘Something like that. One of Allie’s, was it?’
‘Yes, it was,’ he said. ‘But, Julia, we must be going. I’m so sorry, dear, but you know how tired I sometimes get.’
‘It’s only half past nine,’ she remonstrated.
‘I know, but it just sweeps over me. I’m getting on a bit and shortly I’ll have to go to the lavatory – and between ourselves, I prefer my own to the one here. Katherine, would you help me put on my coat?’
And so they went back to the house, with Simon gazing up again at the clear, starry sky.
‘Are you really tired, Simon?’ Katherine asked, as they went.
‘Well, Julia’s getting drunker faster these days,’ he replied, ‘and she can be a bit of a bore when she’s had one too many. It’s not fair on Greg to subject him to hour after hour of the local divorcée.’
‘She seemed very pleasant,’ Greg said.
‘Oh, she is – very pleasant.’
On their return Simon said, ‘I’ll leave you to it – I’m off to bed, I think.’ He wheeled himself away to his room, which lay next to a small study on the side of the house opposite the drawing room.
‘We might as well watch that film on TV,’ Katherine said. She went to an alcove and moved an old screen to reveal a television set on a stand. ‘It’s the kind of screen they hid the chamberpots behind in the eighteenth century,’ she said.
‘You can’t read Latin all the time,’ Greg said, for he had noted that Simon’s current book, which lay open on a small table by his usual chair, was Virgil.
‘Or, in my case, any of the time,’ said Katherine, and plugged in the TV.
But Greg fell asleep during the film and when he awoke he was alone in the silent room. Only one lamp burned. Suddenly he realised he was alert, almost watchful. Relax, Greg, he told himself. You’re on holiday, and went upstairs and got into bed beside Katherine.
Next day they all drove into Dorchester to do last-minute shopping and some sightseeing. Simon’s wheelchair fitted quite neatly into the car’s boot.
When they got back Simon said again that he was tired and would take a nap before supper. Katherine settled down with a book, while Greg went out to the kitchen to see if he could help Mrs Chambers, who was preparing that night’s supper and the Christmas dinner. The kitchen smelt of roasting meat. ‘You could do these sprouts,’ said Mrs Chambers, ‘if you don’t mind. You do know how to do sprouts, don’t you?’ she added suspiciously.
‘I’m an old hand,’ said Greg, and sat down at the kitchen table. After that he prepared a salad to go with their supper.
‘Just heat the soup,’ she said, ‘and everything else is on this table. I want to get away to collect our turkey from the farm. Can you take Mr Ledbetter his cup of tea about six? The tray’s laid. All the Christmas food is in the fridge. Katherine will know how to manage.’ She picked up her bag and went to the kitchen door. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Greg, getting on with the sprouts.
Later, he made the tea and put it on a tray, which he took to Simon’s bedroom. He tapped on the door and, getting no reply, opened it. The small bedroom was empty, though the curtains were still drawn. There was Simon’s bed, and beneath the window a small, elegant table on which stood a lamp. There was an old, gilt-framed mirror on one wall.
Beside it hung several drawings. Greg walked over and looked at them. There was a Leonardo cartoon, or something very like it, a Beardsley sketch – and two black and white drawings he seemed to recognise. One showed a small child standing, blank-faced, by a ruined wall, the other a weary soldier, leaning against a tree-trunk smoking, his helmet, an American helmet, on the ground before him. Greg stepped up. Both pictures were initialled, as was his own sketch of Sally Bowles, with a small, precise EH in the bottom right-hand corner.
Astonished, but feeling he should not have been prying in his host’s bedroom and that he certainly didn’t want to be caught doing so, Greg left the room and took the tray back into the kitchen. There he leaned against the sink, thinking. When Simon had looked at his own portrait of Sally by Eugene, he had not mentioned that he had two sketches, very similar, from the same era by the same artist. Greg could think of no reason for that but decided it would be rude to challenge his host. He left the tray in the kitchen and went into the drawing room, where he found Simon and Katherine talking. He told Simon, ‘Mrs Chambers left some tea for you.’
‘Would you mind very much bringing it in?’
‘Not at all,’ Greg said, and returned to the kitchen, picked up the tray and took it into the drawing room.
Yet as they sat and talked, and over supper, he still found himself wondering about the sketches by Eugene Hamilton on Simon’s bedroom wall, and why he had not mentioned them.
That evening they took the road down to the village again. Julia’s house, explained Simon, was in fact the church’s old rectory. It lay on one side of the village green, next to St Timothy’s. Julia’s father, he said, had been rector at one time and on his retirement had purchased the rectory from the Church commissioners, who were happy to relinquish ownership of the large, old-fashioned house.
It was big and comfortable, untidy and, Greg thought, more welcoming, though less grand, than Simon’s house. A large sitting room was cluttered with small tables and pushed-back over-stuffed furniture. On the walls were various Victorian engravings, some nearly invisible oil paintings and a copy of The Fighting Temeraire.
The room was crowded. Simon appeared to know almost everyone there, Katherine knew a few people and Greg no one. Simon, in his chair, disappeared quickly into the throng.
‘Jim Maclaren – vet,’ said a big man beside Greg. ‘You’ve forgotten me, Katherine. We met three years ago on another Christmas Eve.’
‘Oh, yes. Greg Phillips, Jim.’
‘Hi,’ Greg said, shaking hands. ‘So, what does one say to a vet at a party?’
‘Usually that your dog’s developed a funny tremble, or the budgie’s hanging its head.’
‘Can’t help you there,’ Greg told him.
‘That’s a relief.’ They began to talk about sport; the vet was a keen American football fan who had been to the States for the Superbowl. A large woman then came up to talk about her basset hounds, and Greg was left alone, looking round the room. Charlie, from the pub, was talking to a clergyman; a thin woman with a huge string of pearls was holding forth to two men in tweeds by the fireplace; a girl in leggings with a ring in her nose was talking to a young man in jeans and an Arran sweater. Simon himself was engaged in a conversation with a woman in a tartan shawl seated on a sofa. They were laughing.
Katherine, by the window with a tall man, spotted him and beckoned him over, but he went to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. The tall man appeared. ‘You’re Greg,’ he said. ‘Katherine’s friend. I’m Roger Wells.’ They shook hands. ‘I’m Julia’s ex-husband,’ he explained. ‘I just dropped by to say happy Christmas and hand over the cheque. Sometimes I wish I was a woman. You married?’
‘Not so far,’ Greg told him.
‘Don’t do it,’ advised Roger. ‘Look at me – business going through hard times and still paying Julia to live in the manner she’s accustomed to.’ He gobbled down some canapes, which sat on a tray on the table. ‘I might as well eat all I can, eh? After all, I’ve paid for it.’
Julia came through the kitchen door and, catching the last words, cried, ‘Do shut up, Roger. After all, it’s Christmas.’
‘I was just going anyway,’ he said. ‘Do you want to pop over to the pub with me for half an hour?’ he asked Greg.
Greg shook his head reluctantly.
‘Just half an hour,’ Roger said. ‘I’m very depressed. I’m due to spend Christmas with my mother and sister. They’re here, backing up Julia about what a swine I am. I’ve sold my flat to support the business so when I get back to London I’m camping with friends. Come on, you’ll be doing me a favour, stopping me from adding to the Christmas suicide statistics.’
‘OK,’ said Greg. They left the rectory and walked across the village green to the pub.
‘Look at that party,’ said Roger, sitting down with his pint. ‘Alimony, inheritances, golden handshakes, early retirements – there wasn’t a bugger in that room except Jim Maclaren doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.’
In Charlie’s absence, the pub had taken on a noisier air, perhaps because it was Christmas Eve. Voices were louder; the juke-box was playing country and western music. ‘This place must seem weird to you,’ said Roger.
‘I was in Britain a few years ago, on a scholarship to Cambridge,’ Greg told him.
Roger ignored this remark. ‘There’s something awful about this village, I always think,’ he continued. ‘You’re staying with Simon, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ Greg said, his mind going back to the drawings by Eugene Hamilton on Simon’s bedroom walls.
‘He’s a weird bugger, too. Not surprising, I suppose, with his legs gone. Still …’
He had sunk his beer and Greg got up to buy two more, though he was only half-way through his own. When he sat down again he asked, ‘What’s your business?’
‘Ships’ engines, mostly. It’s tricky at the moment, but the orders are coming in. I think we’ll weather it. What about you?’
Greg told him briefly about the biography.
‘My dad was in that lot,’ Roger said. ‘Killed in the Normandy landings before I was born. My mother married again, rich bloke, nice man. He’s dead now, too. She and Sis are living on his cash. That’s what I say. Oh, to be born a woman next time around.’ He looked at Greg enquiringly. ‘Or something.’
Greg responded, foolishly, ‘I guess you have to be one or the other.’
‘Not nec
essarily,’ Roger told him, in a significant tone. ‘Take old Simon. He got that house and its appurtenances from this queer bloke everybody thought he was having an affair with – when he died, of course. House, pictures, furniture, land, the lot. Now, if I’d been a bloke like that, well…’
The barmaid came over with two more pints. Roger paid. ‘I hope I haven’t put my foot in it,’ he said. ‘I take it you’re Katherine’s boyfriend.’
‘Yes. We met when we were students. I’ve just come back and we got together again.’
‘Right, didn’t want to be offensive,’ said Roger. ‘Each to his own and all that. No, this guy, Simon’s benefactor, so to speak, was, gossip hath it’ – he stumbled over the words – ‘involved with this other guy, the traitor they’re bringing back from Moscow.’
Greg stared at him. ‘You don’t mean Adrian Pym?’ he asked. ‘Is he coming back to Britain?’
‘So it seems. I caught it on the car radio coming up. I suppose they announced it today because it’s Christmas Eve – they always do when they don’t want a fuss.’
‘It’s definitely Pym?’
‘Yes. The guy they wrote the books about. You must know the story. He and another bloke spied for the Russians, then fled. They lived in Moscow for years, then one of them died. They’re saying this bloke, the one who’s still alive, is an old man now, sick, wants to come home and so on and so forth. Immunity from prosecution – said that all right, didn’t I?’ he congratulated himself. ‘The old pals’ act, if the truth were known, I bet,’ he added, lifting his pint.
A girl lurched against Greg’s chair, ‘’Scuse me, I’m drunk,’ she said. The juke-box started up ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. A group at the bar were singing ‘The Wild Rover’.
Greg was surprised. ‘That was quick,’ he said, more to himself than Roger. He added, ‘I saw him in Moscow recently. He’s part of what I’m researching. The war years.’
‘Secrets to Moscow, Le Carré stuff, letter-drops on Hampstead Heath,’ Roger said vaguely.
After the Cabaret Page 20