As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

Alexandra saw no way of coping with all this. “Some little thing?”

  “Well, if it’d make you feel easier. There was two jars. They’re labelled ‘Cumin’ and ‘Marjoram’, but I used them for curry powder, and for cinnamon for his baked custards. They were the only thing he ever bought me for the kitchen. I expect Mrs. Grant chose them. But there you are . . .”

  Mrs. Edgerton had gone, having taken the pots from Alexandra’s clumsy hands and made them into a neat, easily portable parcel. Alexandra walked round the huge high rooms; wherever she touched the panelled walls some service lift made its appearance or some cupboard opened before her. What was revealed inside them, however, was always emptiness. They belonged to a vanished glory of the flats in an Edwardian past. They worried Alexandra—either, she thought, bodies will fall out of them like in those detective stories, or clergymen will be standing there in their underpants, like in those farces. Either way, she didn’t care to be involved.

  In any case, she was merely postponing the nasty moment—the moment when she opened the locker in the centre of his desk, the only locked thing for which there had been a labelled key among all the estate papers in the deed-box in the bank. Her apprehension of what personal secrets might be found there had forced her to snub and offend even Zoe by refusing to allow her to come to the flat.

  When she took out the drawer from the inner compartment, it contained two packets of letters tied in ribbons—the one very bulky, the other very thin. She felt furious. If they should prove threatening letters, she would go through any police embarrassment to send the man to prison.

  The larger bundle was all letters from the war years. Letters, it seemed, from a never-ending series of army camps; stilted letters, with references to platoon football matches, and other company sports, tight-lipped expressions of satisfaction at London’s courage in the air-raids, delight at Matapan and at the North African landings; inquiries about prep-school cricket-match results and gratification at Hamo’s long-jump success, a remonstrance about low marks in history, delight at a mathematics prize, an injunction about confirmation. “I told a chap called Anderson here that you were being confirmed, he said that it could ‘do you no harm’. It made me think that perhaps that’s where my generation have messed it all up. By being so negative. Try not to let that sort of spirit catch up on you. I don’t go to communion often, but when I do, it makes me, if only for a day or two, a different man. Something good enters into me. I’m afraid this term’s weather has been pretty foul. You must have had to cancel a lot of fixtures. English summer! . . .”

  Alexandra felt too embarrassed by the remoteness and the absurdity of it all.

  She undid the other bundle. It contained one letter in the same hand. She noted particularly, “Don’t let your grandmother or anyone else speak to you against your mother. It may be many years before you see her, since America is very far away. In years to come, you may wonder how I let it all happen. The answer is that from the start she was always far too full of life, too full of fun, too anxious to get the most out of things for a dull chap like me. So long as I can get up to Perthshire for leaves and just mess around a bit on the estate, I’m happy. But what sort of a life was that for her? And if she joined me at base, the officers’ wives’ world of bridge and gossip . . . And so I let her drift away . . . You’ll understand more of this in later years.” Another letter in a large, sprawling hand, read, “My darling, darling boy, if you never see me again, do try to think of the fun we had last Christmas. Do you remember how we laughed at Widow Twankey ironing that huge pair of drawers? . . .”

  Alexandra tore them both up, and a photograph of a kind of actress person in a sort of Spanish hat and a fringed Spanish cloak with her hand on her hip; she also destroyed the careful friendly letter from the Chaplain telling of Major Langmuir’s death at Arnhem and his popularity in the regiment. There was some kind of police information from Montreal about Hamo’s mother being found dead in her bed in a hotel bedroom—she destroyed this too.

  Alexandra thought of Mrs. Edgerton’s comments. And now this. Money and mothers. Marx and Freud. The determinism of that generation was too dispiriting! Determinedly she remembered only Hamo’s clumsiness and gentleness, his brilliant technical reasoning and his childish worldly knowledge. These were what had made him good and special, all the rest was conventional, psychological or sociological nonsense.

  She turned to reading the unopened mail. A Mr. Lacey sent back a cheque for a hundred pounds—“I have to confess complete failure in tracing the young lad who interested you. I’m sorry but not surprised. These landless peasants move about like monkeys. One minute here, the next gone. You will be shocked to hear that the Jonkheer had a stroke some weeks ago. There’s talk now of a Japanese president for the Club. Ensworthy’s as sick as I am at the thought. We both think of resigning. However, this will hardly interest you . . .”

  A Mr. Subramanian simply returned his cheque for the same amount, with a short note, saying, “I was unable to perform the task you asked of me. I herewith return your cheque. I confess that I am happy to be free of such a commission . . .”

  A Mr. Dissawardene wrote at greater length. His wife, it seemed, had been most active in attempting to trace a certain Muthu. “We are more zealous than you suppose, Mr. Langmuir, in our concern for those who serve us.” His daughter and son-in-law, it appeared, forbade mention of Hamo’s name, but his wife often expressed wonder at what Dr. Malcolm (whoever that might be) had been after. “For myself, I am old enough to know that human motives are too complicated and too many for our understanding. A wise old judge from the U.K. used always to tell me this in court, but I did not listen. In those days I thought I could understand everything . . .”

  A Mrs. Kovalam wrote that it had not been possible to trace the family from which the drowned boy came. Anti-social elements of this kind were seldom stable members of society, frequently they were little better than nomads. In any case the social benefits scheme . . . Meanwhile she returned to him his cheque for £100.

  Alexandra destroyed all these letters and all the returned cheques. She thought, his ships come home with a vengeance. She saw him, as Mrs. Edgerton had described him, singing and splashing in the bath, surrounded by floating paper ships. And they had all sunk.

  But now she came upon a bulky package addressed from India in his own hand. She began to read it laconically. Then she sat down in a chair and tried to puzzle out the accompanying reports. Over an hour later, fortified by coffee she had made for herself, she was still reading them.

  Then she telephoned to Sir Alec at the Institute. The telephone conversation didn’t at all appease her. She said: “Very well, if you refuse to take it seriously, I shall have to speak to Sir James Langmuir.”

  To Rodrigo she said, “I’m sorry, Roddy, but if you don’t do this for me, I shan’t see you again.”

  Half an hour later, Sir Alec’s secretary telephoned to her to say that he would be glad if she would come to meet him and some of Hamo Langmuir’s colleagues. Would Monday afternoon suit her; it appeared to be the only time that Sir James Langmuir could be present? She said that it would.

  *

  Entering his little cluttered office—cluttered because he never used it except as a sort of left-luggage office, not because it was worked in—Nelson Hart saw a little, white-faced creature with shoulder-straight hair, in a long expensive-looking fur coat and below it huge wide green trousers. Her eyes stared angrily, her mouth pouted sulkily. A rich hippie! He could hardly think of any kind of girl he could less easily talk to, but from all that had been said since Hamo’s death, by Sir Alec, and by inference by the old boy Sir James this morning, this girl who had got the money had been the Lodger’s thing in life. He felt awful enough about the man’s terrible death, but to have maligned him all those years—though, save for a faint hint of breasts, it really might not have been “maligned” at all, these girls like boys!—but she was clearly angry, there must have been some bad balls-up somewhere.
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br />   He said abruptly, having meant to make any other opening but this: “The meeting was this morning, I’m afraid. You’ve missed it.”

  She said—and he thought, oh, my God, she’s going to cry—“But they specially asked me to come this afternoon. It was all for me it was fixed. Or, at least, to suit Sir James.”

  He said, a little more relaxed, “That’s the trouble, I’m afraid. He changed the time at the last minute. He’s a terrific tycoon, you know. Parleying with the Prime Minister, organizing the world’s rubber supply in his spare time and all that.” She didn’t respond to his facetious tone. “Please, do sit down. I am sorry, I’m the only one here. Sir Alec cleared off after lunch. Organizing the world’s maize supply.” Then realizing that he’d made the same kind of joke twice, he said, “Sorry.”

  She said, “Oh, it’s not your fault. And it’s kind of you to receive me.”

  He thought, well, it is really, because his prolamin analysis was being interrupted. He must keep it as short as possible. But he said, “Oh, good heavens! I worked very closely with Hamo Langmuir. He was the most brilliant man we had.”

  He thought, I’ve never really believed that he was very good, his limitations were too serious; however, it’ll do for shorthand.

  She said, “Yes, I know. You’re Nelson Hart, the plant physiologist.”

  “He talked to you about his work, then?”

  “No, no. We hardly ever saw each other.”

  He thought, oh, then, I didn’t malign him, but what does it matter; anyway, why the hell’s she so upset?

  He concentrated on the fact that prolamin analysis was more important than this. He said, The meeting was rather technical, you know, although we simplified it to put our views over to Sir James. All the same, I don’t think Hamo would have expected you to . . .”

  “But it was me who insisted on his report being discussed. I found the copy you see in his papers. And, oh, well, it all fitted in. You see I talked with him just before he went to his death. He felt he’d got in a muddle and he had. But, well, the report wasn’t part of the muddle. No, it was the other way—trying to clear it up. I know it was.”

  She saw that he could make nothing of all this. She tried again. “He wanted so urgently that you should endorse it. He felt that your part of the work was so vital. I could tell that from his detailed report to you. He must have admired you greatly.”

  Coming here in the tube she had rehearsed everything carefully; she had felt that she understood the new rice project in detail, but as that gloomy commissionaire had brought her through all those strange rooms with plants growing, great monstrous and beautiful things, some commonplace, some exotic; as she had glimpsed all these complicated machines in endless rooms off endless corridors, she had realized that she had understood nothing. Now, faced with this key man in Hamo’s plan, she decided that she could say nothing that would not be silly.

  She said, “Nobody here has taken any notice of what he asked for. That Sir Alec as good as told me that it was all nonsense—‘Our programmes are decided on a broad basis, Miss Grant, and after very mature deliberation. Not sudden emotional impulses’—Oh, I can’t do Scots, but he was awful. That’s why I pulled strings and things to get Sir James here. I wanted to explain about Hamo and what his life had meant and how this was the logical result of it.”

  He thought, just as well you weren’t here, my dear. He said, “Oh, I see. Well, look, I think you have no serious reason to worry. To begin with Sir Alec’s a sort of front man. Though don’t quote me. Admin and so on. He hasn’t done any serious scientific work for twenty years, if then. Of course he didn’t want any change of programme. It would mean too much hard work and possibly upsetting too many people in the ministries and foundations. But we knew nothing about it. I mean Hamo’s colleagues. As soon as we’d all read his report, we found it full of the most exciting possibilities. It’s just the very fact of dealing with the socially unpromising that gives it so much potential purely scientific promise. Or so I suspect. It means we’re leaving the comfortable old tram-lines. Did you ever see a tram? I never did. And so we all said this morning. Every one of us, I think,” he added after a pause, “you would have been happy to hear how every one of Hamo’s colleagues paid tribute to his work.”

  He’d got it out at last, he thought, and he relaxed his stomach muscles in relief. She brushed it aside.

  “But what’s the decision?” she demanded.

  “Oh, that’ll take a little time. My firm impression was that we shall go ahead with Langmuir’s scheme. With possible modifications. Some of them due to the absence of his own very marked personality. But let me say at once that you’re the person responsible. You were quite right, I see it, now you’ve told me. Getting on to Sir James was a master-stroke. He was obviously furious that he’d never been told of Hamo’s request—‘My great-nephew, one of the most brilliant men of our time . . .’ I’d never seen him before, but he’s a formidable old monster. And, of course, Sir Alec crumpled up. He always does when anyone stands up to him. And now it’s all in Sir James’s hands. He’ll put it up to the Rapson and the Ministry and so on. And with every scientist in the place having spoken up for it, I don’t see what other decision they can make. No, I’m pretty sure that in a couple of months’ time we shall be working on these new rice hybrids.”

  She was crying now and blowing her nose and looking simply ghastly, he thought. He said in what he could hear with embarrassment was a hearty voice, “Well, would you like to see where Hamo worked? There’s a lot of his stuff in progress still . . .”

  But she shook her head. “I shouldn’t understand.” Then she smiled. It was unfair to land him with this. She would make a joke: “Besides I’ve got to look at some houses. I’ve got to live somewhere grand, you know. Now I’m an heiress.”

  He thought, oh, my God, a rich bitch in hippie clothes. He said, “I’ll get the commissionaire to show you the way out.” He telephoned and while they waited, he said, “Let me make a formal apology about the meeting. But I’m sure they tried to let you know. In fact, I think I heard something about their telephoning to you.”

  “Probably. I was out all yesterday looking for houses. I can’t possibly go on living at home.” Then realizing that she had obtruded the personal, she returned to her joke, “Looking for somewhere grand takes so much time. Grand houses are so big to look over.”

  At the reception-police-guard-place, another commissionaire approached her: “Miss Grant? Sir James Langmuir left this letter for you.”

  Dear Miss Grant,

  I was most disappointed not to have the opportunity of meeting you this morning. Rodrigo Knight telephoned you many times, I believe, to tell you that we had to make a last-minute change of plan for our meeting.

  I have to thank you for a number of things. First, for giving me some notification, before I saw the newspapers, of Hamo’s death. Secondly, for advising me of this report of his which an inefficient administration at the Institute had apparently mislaid! Above all, for your stalwart part, which I heard about from roundabout sources, in helping Swami Sant Sarada to escape from an undisciplined and deluded mob.

  I can’t say I’m altogether sorry, apart from the inconvenience to you, that our first meeting should not have taken place at what was really a rather routine technical committee. I want greatly to hear from you about Hamo whom I believe you saw a few hours before he died. We did not see each other often, but like his father, my nephew, he was a thoroughly honourable chap and, without any doubt, a brilliant man in his own field. I only wish you could have heard the tributes paid to him by all the specialist scientists today. I am so very anxious for your impressions of the Swami Sarada—surely one of the most remarkable men of our age. He writes to me that you urged him to concern himself with the Atlantean occult sciences. Apparently you are not yourself an adept or even a seeker. One can only suppose that you were being used as a voice. But this in itself, added to all the rest, makes me very anxious to meet you. Why do
you not telephone to Rodrigo Knight and let him arrange a quiet luncheon or dinner for the three of us?

  By the way, we decided at this morning’s meeting to hold a memorial service for Hamo. There is no doubt that many scientists, and not only from the Institute, would like such a thing. For the first time my office with the somewhat absurd title of Grand Scrivener Extraordinary which I hold in a City company will be of practical use, for it gives me a chance to hold a service in that rather beautiful church Saint Thomas à Becket, Mutton Lane. I shall give the address myself. Cards will be sent, of course, to yourself and your parents. Would you let Rodrigo know of any other names? I shall see you then, and shake hands, but that will only make our luncheon or dinner the more necessary.

  Alexandra spent the whole half-hour tube journey reading this letter again and again for signs. On the whole she felt it spoke against Sir James’s support of Hamo’s scheme, certainly it treated it with a monstrous lack of concern. Or, perhaps, that was merely part of the secrecy that all tycoons used for matters under discussion. After all, that Nelson Hart had . . . And clearly that Sir Alec had blundered badly . . . But then the condescension of the letter was so appalling. She felt sure now that he had changed the meeting time deliberately to avoid any plea from her for the real meaning of Hamo’s views. All the calm that she had known since Oliver’s birth, or in the months before it, was vanishing rapidly. She was filled with anger. When she got back home, she telephoned at once to Sir James’s office, but she asked to speak not to Rodrigo, but to one of Sir James’s business secretaries.

  She said, “Will you please tell Sir James that I’m afraid that I can’t lunch or dine with him. I’m house-hunting all day, you see, and then I have a young child so I don’t go out at night. But will you say that Swami Sant Sarada, he’s called the Austrian Swami by the way, is at least three-quarters charlatan. Have you got that? At least three-quarters charlatan.”