‘Oh, come now, Rach. That’s hardly fair.’
‘It’s completely fair. And I’m sick of it. You seem determined to fritter your life away dancing to the tune of that egomaniac.’
‘But she’s a great life-enhancer.’
‘It says something about your life that it needs to be enhanced like that.’
A frost settled over the kitchen, which did not dissipate until Amiss cut his finger and cursed loudly. By the time Rachel had done her ministering-angel duty with the sticking plaster, cordial relations had been restored. She unbent and related a story of office intrigue which Amiss enjoyed and responded to satisfactorily.
‘We’ve got the makings of a pretty promising intrigue too,’ he remarked over dinner. ‘I had a very interesting gossip with Henry Potbury.’
‘That old soak.’
‘Yes, but he’s a nice old soak, Rachel, and a gifted old soak and to me a kind old soak.’
‘Each to his own,’ said Rachel. ‘But at least that explains why you’re…’ She stopped.
‘Why I’m what?’
‘Let’s say half pissed.’
‘Hardly that, Rach. And be fair. It was a day when through no fault of my own I had lunch with Jack, as well as having to consort with Henry. I’m only the littlest bit pissed really, which is pretty impressive in the circs.’ He reached out and gave her a hug. ‘Come on, it’s hardly a big deal, is it? Just because you’re always as sober as a judge…Sorry. Bad analogy. If you think about it, it’s nonsensical to say sober as a judge. Lots of judges get pissed. In fact, the legal profession is full of piss-artists. What about sober as a Jew? I’ve never known a Jewish drunk.’
‘I don’t quite see that it makes sense for a Jew to be described as being sober as a Jew. Though I accept the validity of the analogy. We’re brought up to be moderate drinkers. So, however, are many lawyers. You’re making very sweeping statements.’
‘Don’t tell me. New Labour lawyers are moderate too.’
As he saw her irritated look, he bit back an appeal to her to stop being a prig and gave her another hug. ‘Let’s stop bickering. As I was about to say before I interrupted myself, Henry tells me that Papworth wants to dissolve the trust or at least amend the power of the trustees.’
‘I thought that was impossible.’
‘Apparently not. Difficult yes. But if the trustees themselves are amenable, it would be reasonably straightforward.’
‘And if they’re not?’
‘More difficult, but still possible if the lawyers are smart enough.’
‘So why does Lord Papworth want to break the trust?’
‘Sorry. Wrong Papworth. It’s Piers, the son and heir, who wants to sell the journal. And who’s going to be idiot enough to take on The Wrangler with the constraints that have been bleeding the Papworths dry?’
‘But why should the trustees cooperate?’
‘Henry certainly won’t. He says he’s not too sure of his fellow trustees, though. He said Lord Hogwood and Sir Augustus Adderly are total wankers and mesmerized by Willie, out of whose arse they think the sun shines. So if he’s for it, they almost certainly will be too.’
‘But why would he be for it? From all you’ve told me, it’s really in his interests to keep the arrangement he’s got.’
‘True, true. But Henry’s so suspicious of Willie that he thinks he wouldn’t put it past him, if the bribe was right, to change his position.’
‘Sounds pretty paranoid.’
‘Maybe he is. I don’t know. But I do know that Piers Papworth has been leaning on Henry and was extremely cross with him for being so totally opposed.’
‘He should approach him when he’s drunk,’ said Rachel. ‘Presumably he’d sign anything then.’
‘Henry’s a good man, Rachel. You’d like him.’
‘I doubt it, Robert. I doubt it very much.’
Chapter Ten
Wrangler parties were not just famous but notorious, being known not simply for the quality of drink and food provided at the expense of Lord Papworth—champagne punch, Russian vodka and caviar were the staples—but because over the years invitations had acquired a cachet that made them sought after by every snob in London with literary pretensions.
The journal’s politics pulled in the aristocracy hand over fist, bringing in their train the social-climbing Right and those of the Left who adored the frisson of rubbing shoulders with enemies of noble birth. At Wrangler parties were to be found choleric columnists of the far Right and paranoid conspiracy theorists from journals on the far Left.
Politicians particularly loved being known to be present: invitations marked them out from fellow MPs as men of letters. ‘Didn’t see you at The Wrangler party,’ an MP who wrote occasional essays on his gritty childhood in the dark north would observe to a despised fellow politico who had hoped to be invited because he wrote the odd book review. He would watch with glee as this upstart with pretensions to be a pillar of the literary Left squirmed and muttered unconvincingly about having been otherwise occupied.
Six or seven glasses of Wrangler punch was guaranteed to strip away the veneer of civilization so carefully cultivated by those who sold their exaggerated and hyped-up opinions for a living. The occasion when the antique president of a right-wing Think Tank ennobled by Margaret Thatcher for the rigorousness of his condemnation of all that was liberal denounced a competitor—whose road-to-Damascus conversion at the lady’s feet had taken him overnight in one swift vault across the political spectrum—of being an ideological counter-jumper, stayed in the memory of those present for many years to come. Indeed it stayed in the memory of many who hadn’t been there at all but thought they had, so graphic were the accounts at literary dinner parties of the unedifying wrestling match between two old buffers who had taken no exercise in years.
Since both of them were monumentally unpopular, and most of audience were in a state of happy alcoholic irresponsibility, no efforts had initially been made to pull them apart; the moment when the accuser lost his wig and the defendant his trousers raised an almighty cheer. It had been the bright idea of Lord Fortescue, a noted dog breeder, to empty over the heads of both contenders the contents of a punch bowl. ‘Always works,’ he said complacently, as the two let go of each other abruptly, and—blinded and winded—allowed the kinder among the audience to help them to their feet.
Six weeks before D-day, Lambie Crump had summoned Amiss to discuss the guest list. Into the third hour Amiss was very fed up, for it was clear he had no role other than as an audience. His remark that if the unprecedented decision was being taken to ask the whole Cabinet, it seemed strange to invite only half a dozen Conservatives, was met with an abrupt, ‘Well, that is how it will be.’ Lambie Crump seemed merely to want an audience as he drooled over the names of the previous year, appended giggling comment or reminiscence, and sometimes struck people out willy-nilly because they were passé, vulgar or just not amusing any more. But Amiss had put up with it uncomplainingly, this being the occasion when he had at last exacted from Lambie Crump the long-resisted concession to replace Jason by an entryphone and allow the lad to train for computer duties in the subscription department. Lambie Crump had fought a last rearguard action by insisting that Miss Mercatroid would never put up with such a loss, but Amiss had been able to cite her in support, for he had already bribed her with a therapeutic chair that would no longer leave her back in nightly agony.
Having covertly examined the account books for the previous year, Amiss had discovered that the party had cost more than £30,000. Discreet enquiries about the caterers had revealed that they were a couple of sprigs of the aristocracy who were highly efficient, commercially astute in using their names and contacts, but extremely expensive.
The day after the guest-list discussion, having ascertained that Lambie Crump was in a good mood because he was off
to a ducal household for the weekend, Amiss called into his office and asked hesitantly: ‘Do we have to have the Gascoignes catering for the party? Aren’t they a little on the pricey side?’
Lambie Crump looked at him aghast. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Just a little shopping round.’
‘You seek to turn The Wrangler party into a cheap-wine-and-nasty-vol-au-vent affair?’
‘No, of course I don’t. I just thought we might find people who could give our guests food and drink just as good for rather less than one hundred pounds a head.’
‘This is very disturbing. Lady Amanda Gascoigne is a personal friend. She knows how to do things. Now about that proposal of yours to’—he looked at the piece of paper in front of him and with distaste said—‘acquire comptometers and in other regards alter some of our accounting practices, one would wish to consider it in a calm frame of mind.’
Amiss recognized a bargain when it was being offered to him. ‘OK, Willie. I wouldn’t wish to upset you. If you like, I’ll sort out the details of the party with Lady Amanda.’
Lambie Crump smiled. ‘You’ll find her quite delightful.’
***
‘Even there,’ Amiss reported to Rachel, ‘I managed to cut the bill by twenty per cent by persuading Lady Amanda the guests wouldn’t notice if she substituted Iranian for Russian caviar and used a cheaper champagne than Krug and just a three-star brandy for the punch. I asked her not to tell Willie about this, because he found economies so wearisome and vulgar and Lady Amanda—who has a sharp eye for the main chance—agreed without demur. “Willie likes nothing but the best,” she said, “but sometimes, of course, that is the enemy of the good. Dear old Willie doesn’t quite live in the real world.”’
‘It’s still an awful waste of money,’ said Rachel.
‘But it’s fun. And it’s traditional. And Papworth doesn’t grudge it.’
‘It’s still inexcusable to spend so much.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rachel, do you have to take on the puritanism of your new masters?’
‘Since you went to The Wrangler, Robert, you seem to think that anyone who doesn’t get drunk and throw money around is a life-denying puritan and a bore. Fortunately, my colleagues still think I’m good company. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the study to catch up with some work.’
***
The weather was fine, the guests were happily disporting themselves inside and outside The Wrangler offices and there were no signs that anyone had noticed any diminution in the quality of the food or drink. Amiss was in a benign frame of mind. He had had a happy reunion with the Duke of Ormerod, had been flirted with by a luscious young hackette who seemed to think a manager was a person of consequence, had eavesdropped on half a dozen entertaining conversations and was about to insinuate himself into the group surrounding two truculent old novelists, when from behind came a tap on the shoulder and a, ‘My dear Robert,’ and he turned to see Lord Papworth, who had in tow a middle-aged man whose large ears and Roman nose suggested a close family relationship.
‘This is my son, Piers, Robert. Piers, here is Robert Amiss, the manager, who has done so much over the past few months to stem the losses here.’
‘Not enough,’ said Piers Papworth, as they shook hands. ‘Sorry, that sounds ungracious, but the extravagance of this party always pisses me off. Look at that.’ He gestured towards one of Lady Amanda’s uniformed waitresses, who was tempting a nearby group with a tray of blinis, while behind her stood another, carrying a silver jug of punch. ‘Presumably the Papworth estate has to pay extra to have pretty ones.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Amiss. ‘I can’t imagine Lady Amanda Gascoigne ever contemplated hiring anyone plain.’
‘Last fucking straw,’ said Piers Papworth. ‘Us adding to the ill-gotten gains of the bloody Gascoignes,’ and with a nod he elbowed his way through a gaggle of critics and disappeared into the crowd.
Lord Papworth shrugged resignedly. ‘Sorry, Robert. It’s not that Piers doesn’t appreciate what you’ve done. It’s just that he won’t be satisfied until The Wrangler operates at a profit.’
Amiss looked over his shoulder. ‘In that case, he’d better take a contract out on Willie.’
‘Don’t tempt him. Or me, for that matter. I’m finding his political line harder and harder to take.’
‘You’re not alone. You could probably share the cost of the hitman with several others.’
‘I take comfort from that thought.’ He looked around him covertly. ‘A word in your ear, Robert. Is Willie drinking a lot?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I had the most peculiar phone call from him last week. Raving about all of you. Yet when I alluded to it a few days later he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Obviously I said I must have been mistaken and didn’t push it. Chap had clearly forgotten all about it.’
‘There have been a few incidents of that kind. Henry and I have had two or three such calls.’
‘Keep an eye on it, will you? It’s bad enough having the deputy permanently soused without having the editor making abusive drunken phone calls. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. I hope tonight goes all right. Now, if you’ll forgive me…’
As Lord Papworth took off, Amiss’s arm was gripped firmly and he was pulled into a corner by Baroness Troutbeck.
‘What do you want, Jack?’
‘Shut up and listen.’ The focus of her attention was a tall, angular thirtysomething in an expensive fuchsia suit, with thick gold jewellery on her ears and neck, a huge diamond on her right hand and hair so big, blonde and expensively cut as to have walked straight off the set of a Hollywood soap opera. She was made up to match: the fuchsia lipstick and matching talons were alarming in their stridency. In a harsh Australian accent with American overtones, she was mesmerizing Wilfred Parry, the willowy young academic and part-time Wrangler literary editor, whom Amiss had come to loathe.
Parry’s credentials as a promising member of a famous English department required him to hide his true instincts by dressing up the traditional in obfuscatory cant and making it seem original in a world of post-structuralists, post-modernists and post-revisionists. He was, in Amiss’s view, striving to be the first post-fogey—a position that allowed him to dress, think and share the prejudices of fogeys while maintaining a position of ineffable academic and intellectual superiority.
The baroness was watching enraptured. Amiss quickly saw why.
‘So you’re devoting your life to books,’ said the fuchsia woman to Parry. ‘I think that’s great. I think that’s really great. I think books are wonderful. I love books. Books are my companions, books are my friends. Friends are good too, friends are great. And when your books are your friends, you’ve always got friends. Don’t you agree with me, Wilf?’
‘Yes,’ he stammered.
Amiss—who had never seen Wilfred Parry at a loss for the word that would illustrate his cleverness—chortled inwardly.
‘Now have you got any poems about friendship that are your particular favourites?’
‘Nothing comes to mind,’ he said defensively.
‘Come on, come on,’ she said. ‘A bloke like you must have lots at your fingertips. Who’s your favourite poet?’
Parry froze. ‘Er, er. Perhaps William Empson.’
‘Who? Never heard of him. That’s the trouble with you intellectuals. You’re not interested in the common people. In what ordinary people relate to. What’s this bastard ever written about friendship?’
‘Er, I don’t know.’ Wilfred, who could see that a small crowd had gathered, was beginning to look desperate. ‘Not the sort of thing he writes about really.’
‘Name me someone else you like who does.’
Amiss was almost beginning to feel sorry for Parry, who looked as if he had gone beyond the
stage of being able to think about anything.
‘What about Tennyson?’ she barked.
‘I suppose there is an argument…’
‘What do you mean an argument? Wasn’t “In Memoriam” the best poem about friendship ever written?’ She jabbed him in the chest.
‘Er, yes. I know what you mean.’
‘Do you? And here’s another poet for you. What do you think of the lines: “Alas, the friendship that begins in spring / Is often gone before the summer’s out.”? Come on. Whatdaya think of them?’
An expression of mingled embarrassment and fear crossed Parry’s face.
‘Er…’
‘You didn’t like them? But they mean a lot to me. My mother wrote them. But you’re looking down your nose at them, aren’t you?’
‘No, no. They were fine. Very moving.’
Fuchsia burst out laughing and slapped him on the back. ‘You know what you are? You’re full of bullshit. Those lines are crap. You know they’re crap. I know they’re crap. Why don’t you just come straight out with it the way we do in Oz? What a bunch of sissies you pommies are!’ And pausing only to look at him and emit a loud snigger, she turned on her four-inch heels and went to find another victim.
Pale and perspiring, Parry caught Amiss’s eye, and giving him a sickly smile, tottered away.
‘Who is that splendid creature?’ demanded the baroness.
‘No idea.’
‘Find out.’
‘I’m not your errand boy, Jack.’
‘Yes, you are. And I need to know. I smell money and at St Martha’s we can always do with plenty more of that. If she’s as rich as she looks I’ll ask her down.’
***
‘Sharon McGregor,’ said Lambie Crump.
‘Who?’
‘A visitor from the Antipodes. Her manners have the exuberance of those colonies.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Amiss, observing the lady patting on the head a famous ex-editor of a national institution and asking him how he filled his days now that he was past it.
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