As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

  “You see,” she cried, “he’s just a fraud, a poor old fraud.”

  Some of the younger Indian men took up her laughter, and, although there were still angry shouts, the menacing, chanting advance ceased.

  “Go on,” she whispered to the Swami, “get away while you can.”

  Raising his skirts to his knees, fox and lamb trussed about him by the mauve-ribbon sash, high-heeled shoes still held delicately in one hand, he ran for his life. The last sight of him was his bald head above the water as he swam the river.

  Well, she thought, and they say Eng. Lit.’s of no practical use. But before their mood could change, she herself hared over boulders and thickets, following the course of the river. She had to trudge nine miles back to Panaji. Her legs seemed made of iron as an incredible exhaustion came over her mind, her body and her spirit. She thought of the spells that Sauron had put upon Frodo and Sam so that they became too tired to move. And then she said to herself, enough of superstitious imagining. A story is a story is a story, even a good one like The Lord of the Rings.

  When at last she came in to her hotel room, the day had been so extraordinary that she felt no surprise when she saw Zoe sitting in the one armchair with Oliver on her knee, feeding him with apple purée from a tea-spoon.

  Zoe said, “Darling, before I give you a hug, I’ve got to be angry with you. Very, very angry. You had no right to leave this child with those two American freaks. Oh, I dare say they’re amusing enough to be with. But it’s an absolute basic rule with babies or children when their imaginations are beginning to work, that they must not come into contact with anyone who’s in the slightest degree crazy.” She frowned, then added, “Is it as serious as the Times seemed to say it could be?”

  The authorities, on the whole, had good reason to be satisfied with the day’s events. Some disturbances had taken place at the great temple of Vishnu at Shri Mangesh. Two worshippers had been injured by stones. But for the rest, communal disturbances—Hindu/Catholic, Hindu/Moslem, Moslem/Catholic—had been kept to a minimum. The agrarian rioters, against whom the main force of authority had been levelled, had never come within miles of the confines of the city; and only one death and two severely injured were reported from their confrontation with the police. A plant geneticist, who had shown himself unfriendly to India and unco-operative to Goa in particular, had mysteriously drowned in the Mandovi, killed, it was said, by followers of Vishnu. A hotel porter, a Bengali immigrant, who had disobeyed the curfew, had been killed in a bus. The Austrian Swami, long a figure of the greatest controversy, had disappeared from the scene. The larger part of his followers, including many of these offensive hippies, had been expelled—one, the red-bearded young leader of some dangerous mass ritual, had suffered injury on arrest, but he was leaving on an aeroplane with his leg in plaster. The Jesuit Father in charge of the organization of the procession at old Goa had written to the Chief of Police to thank him for his efficiency. There were a number of letters to the paper the next week comparing the sense of order in Panaji with the lawlessness to be seen in so many far richer Indian cities. An account strongly on the credit side.

  Epilogue

  Alexandra Comes Home

  ALEXANDRA could see, as she thought, every olive tree, every vine, every boulder of Cyprus as they passed over that island in a clear, pale, cool sunshine. “That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire”—what nonsense bad poetry was. But the Isles of Greece, however Sappho burned, were increasingly streaked and barred by wisps of cloud. When they reached Corfu, the sun blazed down upon them, but below there was nothing but miles and miles of slow-moving, white wool.

  It was then that Zoe, who had been so silent though efficient in the days of preparation for departure, began to talk and talk, as though, indeed, she were unwinding the wool below them, as she turned her ear-ring savagely in her ear.

  “I think we were right,” she said, “to cable to Sir James. After all, even if they were never close . . . but although he’s tough as nails, he’s very old . . . and one can never tell with shocks . . . so that it was the most extraordinary piece of luck your being able to forewarn by telephoning Rodrigo Knight. Not that I mean his being Sir James’s secretary isn’t an extraordinary thing in itself. I’m only so glad it’s working out. Although I shouldn’t have thought that any of your friends . . . but then there is this feeling that the sixties have been rather disastrous, and that we’re glad to turn our back on them.

  “I think that’s what made Leslie decide to go all out for money. He felt that all his ideals about teaching were a sort of nonsense, or so he told me. I mean that really a great number of them are unteachable. And that anyway there are other ways of living than the narrow literate ones we’ve tried to impose. Well, he’ll tell you if he comes to England. But I don’t expect he will, because he works from five in the morning until midnight, or so Perry writes. But apparently the hotel’s colossally successful and he’s already started a second and plans a whole chain. Of course he makes everything very comfortable and Corfu has sunshine which is what most people are after. I mean all these executives, who are working themselves to the bone, just want to relax completely for the fortnight or so they allow themselves. They only want sun and comfort and they’ll pay anything for them.”

  Alexandra forced her way in. “It was covered in cloud when we passed over it just now.”

  “Was it? Oh! was it? Well, I expect it’s an off day. But, of course, Leslie’s only symptomatic. I do think you will find there’s a new sense of purpose about when you get back.” She looked distastefully to where Ned was drawing on his plaster-encased leg to amuse Oliver. To her pleasure, Oliver’s attention was not long engaged. He was enchanted with his new grandmother and the noise she made. He kept looking at her and saying “Zoo”. It was his first word.

  “Of course, it’s not my sort of world, Ally. I shall always be a radical of a kind. But then I’ve never had to think of money, you see. But there’s no doubt it is most people’s mainspring. And perhaps we’d better face it. I mean, Concepcion, for example . . . I don’t blame them, but they did let me down most appallingly, as soon as this well-paid factory job at Coventry came along.

  “Well, you can see it even in Perry—I mean this film, especially with Kit Coates as director, is going to make three times what the book brought in—and heaven knows that was enough! So I mean all that about the Corporation and Auntie’s high standards in a world of declining taste did have to go by the board. It was so marvellous that just when he handed in his resignation, Leslie should have been starting up in Corfu. It was ideal for Perry. And he’s got a boat there.

  “It’s brought them together tremendously. They rather needed to gang up because they were faced with this Little Mam problem. She sold up the restaurant quite unexpectedly and said she wanted to see more of her sons. It was the worst moment possible, just when they were starting new lives. They’ve staved her off somehow, but I’m afraid she has been a bit hurt. Of course, it simply isn’t an old people’s world. Not that she’s really old, but all that small-scale business . . . Anyhow, she’s staying with me for the moment. And I make a fuss of her. She can be quite fun. But she’s been too busy bringing them up, you know, to be a real person.

  “Now that’s something you can’t say about Great-grandmother. You know how they were when you went down there. Well, there’s no talk of death now. He’s finished the memoirs. And then Sarawak or Borneo or wherever it was he gave the constitution to, had some celebration and they invited him out for it. But he didn’t take her. It was terribly selfish and she was very hurt. But I think she ought to have known. After all, she had always been very much a hostess for him. That was their generation. Anyhow, I invited her to stay at Number 8. And she’s been there ever since. Eighty-eight, and not a thing wrong with her, but rather formidable.

  “It’s fascinating, of course, the sophistication of her generation. I mean the gaps in it. She had to read Perry’s novel when it was a best seller everywhere.
And she recognized me in Honey. Oh! There, I keep forgetting you’ve never read it. Well, that’s the central woman. But do you know she had absolutely no idea that the man Honey had an affair with was a queer. So she couldn’t make any sense of the book. Little Mam got it in one. But then she would, with Leslie.

  “Heaven knows where Perry thought it up. I never had any connections with homosexuals. Except poor darling Hamo. Oh the waste of that, Ally! But I mustn’t talk to you about it. You’ve obviously got so much to digest about that which mustn’t be interfered with by surface people like me.

  “But it was a stroke of genius on Perry’s part. Because, of course, Honey’s marriage has been taken as a sort of symbol of the fruitlessness of the sixties. You can imagine how Kit Coates will play that up. I only hope he doesn’t coarsen it.

  “But enough of other people. I want you to rest and rest and take your time . . .”

  And then she repeated it all over again, twice, in slightly different words and order before they reached London airport.

  At Cromwell Road air terminal, they put Ned into a taxi for King’s Cross and the mysterious North, to Zoe’s obvious relief, and to Oliver’s total lack of concern. It shocked Alexandra a little that a child should be so unforgiving, just because poor Ned had neglected Oliver when he had stomach trouble, or so it seemed.

  Peering out of the taxi window as they came towards Baker Street, Alexandra had to crane on and on before she found, suddenly and meaninglessly, the sky, above an incredibly tall glass and concrete office thing.

  “Oh God, Mama, what a boring slab! . . . Where are they all? Whole squares and streets have gone. Beautiful ones.” It was the one promise she had made to herself, with her new-found wish to cultivate a visual sense—to enjoy London.

  “It’s Langmuir House,” Zoe told her, “a new office block. The largest in London, I believe. Something to do with Sir James.”

  Alexandra said violently, startling her mother, “I’d like to pull every stone of it down.”

  *

  Way up on the roof were little black dots. Sir James was mixing well with the workmen for the topping-out ceremony. Rodrigo observed him as usual with admiration for his arrogant bonhomie. His downing of pints of beer seemed to be as much designed to make his fellow (but subordinate) directors appear condescending as to make the building-workers feel at ease. Their ease he clearly took for granted, because they were part of the process of building which was now complete. He was simple and direct with them from foreman downwards, for where his relationships were transitory, he always found a general topic—in this case, the week’s League results—and a general mood—in this case, friendly gratitude for work done—and left it at that. Even with the architect, he was straightforward and easy. When Rodrigo had pointed out the gross mediocrity of the design, Sir James had been delighted.

  “That’s the sort of thing I want you to tell me. Although it hardly needs a modish eye to see it. It was intentional. My choice. Directors of companies looking for premises in the extended West End expect to find what the estate agents call prestige properties, that is, for offices, so-called modern. Characterless but lavish. I saw at once that to get it we needed a bad architect with a well-known name, or, as you more kindly say, a mediocre one. In Rattenbury we found our man.”

  But to Rattenbury, whom he need not see again, he was now chatting easily; they talked of mutual friends at Rattenbury’s club, and exchanged racing tips. Only with those with whom he was in constant communication did Sir James bother to be tricky, and with them, in varying manner, with Rodrigo himself indeed, he practised his usual game of tenterhooks—every variation of sudden change from friendliness to reserve, from intimacy to withdrawal, from listening attentively to abrupt interruption. It was how he “was”, how they expected him to be, yet he never let them get really used to it.

  For Rodrigo it was a constant source of admiration, in particular because it was wedded to real elegance. His suits set the mark by being “right”, yet never to be labelled—somewhere between country gentleman and diplomat, yet also somewhere between the styles of the older generation and the younger, always with a touch of vulgarity to ridicule the conventional, yet essentially correct to reprove the socially uncertain. His face, too, enhanced his manner, wine-flushed yet sun-tanned, grey-haired but with a boyish lock or two, protruding blue eyes staring apoplectically, but with little laughter lines and creases that smoothed the anxious stare into light-heartedness. Two things were totally absent from his face—all pathos and all concern. He moved with a light easiness, hurried without a puff of breath, yet his stocky little body was on the heavy side. Good food and good wine in plenty were in perfect harmony with regular squash, regular swimming and sauna baths. If the dandy were to soil his fingers with money-making—and it seemed increasingly to Rodrigo that any dandy must do so in order to express himself in the modern world—then Sir James had found the answer.

  Rodrigo whispered into his ear, “I think Eliot Wilshaw wants to make a speech.”

  Sir James turned abruptly from Rattenbury’s account of racing in Sydney. “We’ll go now,” he said to the company in general, “These ceremonies are delightful. So long as they are not protracted. Good-bye.”

  The company, from the youngest building worker to the oldest director, except Eliot Wilshaw, clearly felt absolute conviction of the sentiment.

  As they were driven away, Sir James said, “You were quite right to tell me. We needed American investment to start these office blocks. But we can’t have American long-windedness every time a new building’s finished. Wouldn’t do at all.”

  *

  As they neared Number 8, Zoe said suddenly, “Look, darling, we must get onto a better footing than this. Officially, of course, I’m not in Corfu because I jibbed at the Colonels. And that’s true as well. But I’d have swallowed even them really, although I know one shouldn’t, if Perry had wanted me. But he didn’t. He’s taken his secretary, a girl with the name of Nipple or something. I think he may want a divorce.”

  To Alexandra’s worry, she found her hand taken by her mother’s and pressed. She returned the pressure.

  Zoe said, “Thank you, darling. It has been rather a horrid time for me. You see I love him so much. And the old girls’ unspoken sympathy about the house all day isn’t the greatest of help.”

  Alexandra made a solemn pact with herself to try to reach and to help Zoe; she also made a firm decision to get away from Number 8 as soon as possible.

  *

  They walked about among the massive pieces of furniture in the huge, high rooms. For some reason Mrs. Edgerton, on hearing of Hamo’s death, had shrouded all the furniture in dust covers. These she had half removed in order to show his heiress round the flat. It meant, Alexandra felt, that she had really no idea of what was there and what wasn’t. Every chair, every sofa, every table was so impersonal, so heavy, so totally without style. Not vulgar, not pretentious; just lifeless. She saw suddenly, with her new visual sense, that things could be awful, not because they were wrong, but also because they were nothing. It made Hamo’s life even sadder for her. A kind of austere, rigid nothingness pervaded the flat—a frightened neatness. No wonder the divine idiot trying to break out had fallen into muddle and disaster. There must surely be some centre, some shabby centre to this apparent emptiness. Something sad and hidden.

  She must get rid of Mrs. Edgerton. Now. For if there were dirty photos or compromising letters or whatever they were called, it would be the most awful thing if this worshipping housekeeper should see them. And she must get rid of her for good, as obviously they wouldn’t what was called “suit one another”.

  She had no need to worry. From the start, Mrs. Edgerton (Hamo had always said Mrs. E. so that Alexandra was surprised to find that it was only an initial) had made her new independent status clear by saying “Miss Grant” and not, as on those lunch and tea-parties of childhood, “Miss Alexandra”. As now: “As you know, Miss Grant, Mr. Langmuir has left me an annuity s
o that, with my savings, I shall be quite independent. My sister wants me to join her in Angmering but I’ve never cared for the seaside—Piccadilly Circus in the summer and the back of beyond in winter. I shall probably settle near my niece in Leicester. But I shall take my time to look around. I shouldn’t bother you with such things—you’ll have quite enough with the estate—but sometimes people worry about what happens to what they used to call dependants. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get along. Two women in one house never did.”

  Alexandra could have kissed her. But holding on to her new resolve, to try to reach people, to live less in herself, she said, “I talked to him, you know, the day he died. It was incredible. He knew he was in danger but all he could think of was the desperate poverty of the Indian farm-labourers.”

  It was a shorthand account; but it was all she cared to or could serve up for the world.

  “Ah! I wouldn’t understand that, Miss Grant. You see I only knew Mr. Langmuir before all this abroad when he was as regular as clock-work in his habits. Like a timetable only a good deal more reliable. One thing he did let himself go with—his bath. Singing and splashing! And then to drown in that river! Well, we mustn’t be morbid. Oh, by the way, there’s all this unopened mail.”

  “Isn’t there anything in the flat, any furniture you’d like, Mrs. Edgerton? I mean, you know, as that thing you get when people die?”

  “Well, furniture’s hardly a memento, is it? Besides, it’ll be a bit too heavy for my purposes. To be honest, I think it was a bit gloomy for Mr. Langmuir. But there, he was a gentleman weighed down by inheritance, money and the rest of it. It never allowed him any real sort of freedom. All this work and fixed habits. But he was the kindest, most courteous gentleman to work for and that’s all that concerned me.”