Kitabı oku: «Moonshine», sayfa 4
‘So this is Roberta.’ Flecks of red lipstick had transferred themselves to her front teeth. ‘Of course you won’t remember an old woman like me.’ She was right. She had hard, inquisitive eyes which travelled from the collar of my shirt to the toe of my shoe, pricing as they went. During the remainder of our conversation they trawled the crowd over my shoulder hoping to net bigger fish, returning only occasionally to my face. ‘You went to dancing classes with my little Nancy.’
I remembered Nancy Chandler-Harries. A poisonous child with a squint, which she could not help, and a boastful manner, which she could.
‘Nancy will laugh when I tell her I’ve run into you and where. She said wild horses wouldn’t drag her along to a lunch at the Carlton House with a lot of old fuddy-duddies. But then Nancy is so popular and has so many demands on her time.’
I kept my face expressionless with some effort. ‘How is Nancy?’
‘She’s engaged to be married to the most charming boy. His family have the most marvellous place in Hampshire. He’ll inherit the title, of course. His family adore her. Of course, though naturally I’m prejudiced’ – she gave a deprecating laugh which did not convince – ‘I must say I think they’re lucky to have her … winning ways … instinctive good taste … firm hand … poise … charm …’ I stopped listening. I disapprove of violence under any circumstances but after this I could cheerfully have taken little Nancy outside and put out her lights for good.
There are moments when one becomes aware that one is alone in an unsympathetic world. I felt depressed to the depths of my being. I acknowledged that it must be my fault. It could hardly be the rest of the world’s. Yet who could deny that Mrs Chandler-Harries was a complacent, insensitive … I realized she was looking at me expectantly.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘Are you married or engaged?’
‘Excuse me, I really must … before the speeches begin …’
I turned away and began to move towards the door. Someone clapped their hands for silence.
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ Reginald Pratt was fiddling with a microphone. ‘Before we partake of this veritable feast’ – he waved a hand at the buffet table on which were stainless steel dishes of something sweltering beneath an apricot-coloured sauce: probably coronation chicken – ‘first I must say a few words about our late lamented Member, Sir Vyvyan Pennell. We extend our sympathies to dear Lady Pennell.’
The applause that followed was lukewarm.
‘Ghastly woman,’ murmured the man standing next to me, to no one in particular.
‘Sir Vyvyan did sterling work on our behalf and we shall all be the poorer for his sudden demise. That is to say …’ Reginald Pratt made a snorting noise, unpleasantly amplified. ‘… we would be the poorer were it not for the fact that we’re privileged to have in our new Member one who has done such … um … sterling work in the constituency of Hamforth East and comes to us as a new broom … blah … blah … blah.’
‘Hear, hear!’ came heartily from the audience.
Reginald continued to fumble through an obstacle course of clichés. I tried to get through the door but a large woman in a quilted waistcoat was leaning against it.
‘We are fortunate,’ Reginald Pratt continued, ‘to have as our representative in Parliament a man who combines the gift of the gab with an ability to get to grips with any number of subjects, ranging from …’ He consulted his notes. ‘… the need for more university places for the underprivileged to home ownership for council house tenants and—’
‘What about inheritance tax!’ someone called out.
‘That is to say, taxation, of course and … and artesian wells for the Sudan—’
‘Bugger the Sudan,’ muttered a man in green tweeds to the woman in the quilted waistcoat. ‘If you ask me this fellow’s a damned Socialist.’
Mr Pratt realized that his audience was becoming restless. ‘Well, you don’t want a long speech from me—’
‘Hear, hear!’ cried the wits.
‘Suffice it to say, I’ve known him a good while and there’s no doubt he’s an excellent chap and quite terrifyingly clever into the bargain. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Burgo Latimer.’
The man who had fed me peanuts took Reginald’s place at the microphone. He acknowledged the applause with a raised hand.
‘Thank you, Reggie. I must begin by paying my own tribute to Sir Vyvyan, who, unlike most Members of Parliament, was not in love with the sound of his own voice …’
Roars of laughter greeted this.
‘Too drunk to stand up,’ muttered my neighbour.
‘The man was an alcoholic,’ said the woman in the quilted waistcoat. ‘It said in his obituary he made his last speech in nineteen sixty-nine. God knows why he was paid a salary.’
‘I can’t claim such modest reserve,’ continued the new MP for Worping. ‘I intend to speak in the House on Friday on the subject of terrorism in Europe. The recent murder by the Red Brigades of the unfortunate Mr Aldo Moro, a crime as pointless as it was inhuman …’
Mr Burgo Latimer had his audience’s attention immediately. Everyone there was concerned about threats to civic order. He made a short, eloquent speech and looked thoroughly at home in his surroundings. He radiated confidence. The chest of every man listening seemed to swell with the certainty that they had their finger on life’s pulse. Despite the stuffiness of the room every woman looked rejuvenated.
The applause afterwards was enthusiastic. The woman in the quilted waistcoat darted forward to secure her seat. I was through the door in a moment and breathing the salty air of freedom. I spent an enjoyable three-quarters of an hour in Worping’s two antique shops, bought a cream jug which I could ill afford but which I was almost certain was Worcester, and ate a tomato and cheese roll, watching the breakers pounce like cats on to the shingle and attempt to claw the pebbles back into the sea.
I merged with the crowd as the lunch ended. My father was flushed with wine, coronation chicken and the sort of self-congratulatory, status-confirming conversation he enjoyed. He had not noticed my absence.
‘Not a bad do, on the whole,’ he said as we sped home. ‘Though I’m not sure about the new chap. I don’t like a politician to make jokes. Running the country’s a serious business. You can be too clever.’
‘Surely cleverness is always a good thing.’
‘Not when it means you can’t see the wood for the trees. Latimer’s the kind of Conservative who wants to appeal to the lower orders with a lot of socialist-type reforms. Putting more money into state education. It won’t wash. People don’t want their taxes spent on reforms they’re not going to benefit from.’
‘If what you say is true, he obviously isn’t that clever.’
‘Well, he thinks he’s clever. That’s what I mean. It’s the same thing.’
‘Not at all. Everyone secretly thinks they’re clever. But a few people really are.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t chop logic with me, Roberta. It’s a damned unattractive trait in a woman.’
We travelled the rest of the way in silence. The telephone was ringing as I walked into the hall. I picked up the receiver. I was still angry but I attempted to sound even-tempered.
‘Hello?’
‘Roberta? This is Burgo Latimer. Will you have dinner with me tonight?’
‘Dinner? I couldn’t possibly—’
‘Please don’t say no. If I don’t have a decent conversation with somebody human I may go mad. I’ve had all I can take of the burghers of Sussex. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anyone on this earth who feels remotely as I do about anything. It’s a lonely feeling. Surely you know what I mean?’
I remembered liking his voice before, that hurried way of speaking, as though his mind was working furiously.
‘Should you be a Conservative MP if you feel like that?’
‘Can you think of a single job in which you don’t have to put up with people whose company you don’t enjoy?’
I thought of my own job. Of my boss, who was known to everyone as Dirty Dick because he was ineptly lecherous; of Marion in the antiquarian books department who was a poisonous gossip; of Sebastian in Musical Instruments who was morbidly touchy and difficult.
‘How do you know we have anything in common? I don’t suppose I said more than twenty words.’
‘That’s because I did all the talking. I want a chance to repair that. Besides, I knew before the twenty words. One does know these things.’
Was he right? It was true that I had felt disappointed to discover that he was, of all breeds of men, a ‘scurvy politician’, historically despised, universally mistrusted. I remembered that he also had a wife.
‘I’m afraid I’d rather starve to death than set foot in the Carlton House Hotel again.’
‘There you are! We do feel the same. I think you’ll find where we’re going the food will at least be all right.’
‘You seem to presume your invitation’s irresistible.’
‘I’m hoping against hope.’
The truth was, I was not only lonely myself but also horribly bored. Oliver was dear to me but not much of a companion as he was asleep most of the time I was awake. My parents limited their communication to exchanges of practical information and complaints. Mrs Treadgold and I had a handful of conversational topics – my mother’s progress or the lack of it; Mrs Treadgold’s own health which was undermined by every germ, allergy and chronic disability to be found in her medical dictionary; and the previous night’s television programmes – which we ran through dutifully each day. The friends of my childhood had left Sussex years ago and fled to London or abroad.
‘Well … I don’t know. It seems rather odd. We hardly know each other …’
‘I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.’
FIVE
‘You’ve missed some wonderful scenery,’ said Kit.
I opened my eyes. I had been asleep.
‘Where are we?’
‘In the car-park of the pub where we’re stopping for lunch. I’d better put the hood up. You never know in Ireland when it’s going to rain.’
‘But it’s gloriously sunny.’
‘That doesn’t mean a thing. You’ll see.’
While Kit fastened the canvas roof I took stock of our surroundings, yawning. The inn, which stood on the main street of a small village, was low, white-washed and charming. Behind it rose dark trees and, behind them, more mountains.
‘Look at those mountains. That pair like raised eyebrows.’
‘Rather as you might expect, they’re called the Paps of Anu. She was a goddess of fertility.’
‘Of course. I should have known. But, being a woman, it never occurred to me that they bore the remotest resemblance to breasts.’
‘Can we men help behaving like children in a sweet shop when you women are so delicious and desirable?’
I examined myself in the rear-view mirror. Neither epithet could with truth have been applied to me. ‘I’ll need a little while in the Ladies’ with soap and a comb to get the smuts off my face and my hair to lie down.’
‘You go ahead. I’m going to nip across to that telephone kiosk to let my host know I’m about to descend on him.’
‘Supposing he’s away? Or he already has guests?’ I still felt guilty about having disrupted Kit’s plans.
‘He never goes away. And the house is large and infinitely accommodating. Don’t worry. The Irish are tremendously relaxed about these things. Dean Swift once travelled into the country to have dinner with some friends at the house of a stranger. Swift was a difficult, acerbic sort of fellow, as I’m sure you know, and he grumbled all the way there, but he was so delighted with the welcome he received, the standard of cooking, the excellence of the cellar, the elegance of the house and the arrangements made for his comfort, that he stayed for six months. Ireland’s changed since those days but the Irish themselves are as gregarious as ever.’
‘I can’t imagine many people I’d want to have to stay for six months. Certainly not someone as exacting and irritable as Swift.’
‘I shall do my best to be neither of those things.’
Ten minutes later I emerged, much tidier, from the cloakroom to find Kit sitting at a table in the bar, smoking a Gauloise, a bottle of wine in a plastic paint bucket full of ice at his elbow. I sat beside him and took a sip of wine, which was not good but not bad either. The bar was fairly dark and despite the warmth outside a fire burned in the hearth. We were the only people there.
‘This is lovely.’ I meant not just the wine but the liberating feeling of being a stranger in an unknown land.
‘I hope it’s cold enough. The Irish mostly drink beer and whiskey. An ice bucket is an unknown quantity outside the big towns.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I think it’s all charming.’ I admired the artwork, several religious pictures in primary colours, a photograph of the Pope in a cardboard frame decorated with tinsel and a reproduction of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World.
‘T’ere ye are at last, madam.’ A waiter came over to our table and winked at Kit. ‘Worth waiting for, wasn’t it? Madam’s as lovely as a rose. And what’ll you both be eating now? We’ve chicken or fish. But I’m t’inking the fish is a little past its best. I don’t say it’s off exactly but it’s got a smell on it I shouldn’t care to bring t’rough the house.’
It was the first time I had heard the famous brogue in its native setting: th pronounced as t and s preceding a consonant softened as in ‘pasht its besht’. It was beguiling.
We decided on the chicken and I asked for a glass of water.
‘I suspect the fish doesn’t exist,’ said Kit when he had gone. ‘Only he wanted, in a true Irish spirit of hospitality, to have an alternative to offer us.’
‘Really? How friendly and kind. Rather different from the English attitude, isn’t it?’
‘The Irish and the English have little in common. Except that neither nation is celebrated for its food. If I were you I’d have cheese instead of pudding. There isn’t much you can do to ruin a piece of good Irish cheddar. The last time I ordered apple pie in a country pub it was brought to my table in its cardboard box to reassure me it wasn’t a cheap homemade effort. The waitress kindly squirted the blob of cream from the aerosol can in front of me. You can understand it, really. When the majority of the population once lived on potatoes and buttermilk anything from a shop seems like luxury. The white tags on tea-bag strings are known as “wee glamours”.’
‘Not really?’ I laughed. ‘I think that’s delightful.’
Kit smiled at me. ‘I must say it’s cheering to be with someone who’s so ready to be pleased.’
‘I expect I sound idiotic. It’s just that recently things have been rather … difficult. This seems so different. It’s a relief to have left it all behind.’
‘You’ve had a bad time?’
‘It was my own fault. One must expect to take the consequences if one behaves stupidly. But that’s all in the past. Don’t let’s even think about it.’
‘I wish you’d trust me.’
‘It isn’t that.’ I stared hard at a picture of Christ standing on a hectic, crimson cloud. ‘I don’t want to tell you because …’ I paused. ‘The truth is I’m ashamed.’
‘That sounds intriguing.’ When I did not say anything he added, ‘But I’m not to know why?’
I shook my head.
The waiter brought us a plate of sliced bread, already buttered, and my glass of water. Despite the glass being chipped and smeary I smiled and thanked him. He clapped his hand to his waistcoat pocket, roughly where his heart was. ‘O-ho! She’s a dazzler!’ He gave Kit another wink. ‘Yer t’e lucky man now,’ he whispered mockconspiratorially. ‘They’re saying in t’e kitchen t’e two of ye must be on yer honeymoon.’
‘I wish we were,’ said Kit.
‘Arrah!’ The waiter’s voice was warmly sympathetic as he rested his hand on Kit’s shoulder. ‘She’s keeping ye waiting, toying with ye like a cat wit’ a mouse, but ye’ll appreciate it all the more when she gives t’e green light. Bless ye both.’ He hurried away.
I drank some of the water which was warm and swimming with specks of rust. I hoped it was rust. ‘I’ve heard of Irish charm but I didn’t expect to be flattered into a state of mild hysteria.’
‘He’s laying it on a bit thick.’ Kit laughed. ‘It’s a national game, playing the stage Irishman to tourists: the rollicking, red-nosed loveable rogue; the lazy, boozy, belligerent, professional Celt. And there’s something true in it as well. As a race the Irish are friendly, hospitable, good crack – that means company – and on the whole they do like to talk and get drunk. They prefer to say what they think will please, which I rather like. But there’s often a degree of self-parody beneath all that passion and melancholy that can catch you unawares.’
‘So I’m to disbelieve the flannel but take it as a gesture of goodwill?’
‘It’s a game but it’s quite good fun to play it.’ Kit’s eyes held mine expectantly. ‘Though nothing’s much fun for you at the moment, is it? I know I’m in danger of seeming offensively inquisitive but I wish you’d tell me what the problem is.’
‘Oh, please, let’s not talk about me. I’m heartily sick of the subject. And you’d be horribly bored, I promise you.’
Kit’s expression became regretful. ‘I’ve a confession to make,’ he said. ‘I hoped you’d trust me so I wouldn’t have to. But I hate the feeling that I’m deceiving you. After I’d telephoned Phelim O’Rahilly – who, by the way, is raring to see me so you needn’t feel guilty about my change of plan – I went into the village shop to buy a bar of chocolate to sustain us during this afternoon’s drive. The English papers had just arrived. Even upside down I could see it was a good likeness.’
I suppose I must have developed something of a phobia about newspapers because I felt the blood drain from my face at the mere mention of the horrible things. My fragile pretence of lightheartedness crumbled. ‘Oh,’ I said, pressing my lips together to prevent them trembling.
‘So, Miss Roberta Pickford-Norton, all hope of concealment is at an end. However, you are under no obligation to say anything.’
‘But anything I do say may be used in evidence against me?’
Kit shook his head. ‘Despite the inflammatory nature of the reporting, it hasn’t changed my view of you by one tittle or jot. I know what journalists are. And politicians.’
‘Is it bad?’
Kit raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes.
Some instinct made me say, ‘You bought it, didn’t you? Let me see it.’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘Hand it over.’
Kit drew the paper from under a cushion. It was one of the less reputable newspapers, though the distinction is fine.
The headline was: Labour Backbenchers Demand Resignation of New Minister for Culture. In smaller print was the caption: War hero’s daughter in love scandal. The photograph beneath was of me driving out of the front gates of Cutham. I was looking straight at the camera, my eyes staring and my lips drawn back in a snarl. There was a caption beneath the photograph. Roberta Pickford-Norton, 26, leaves ancestral home for Belgravia party. Next to it was a studio photograph of a woman in a striped shirt and pearls, who leaned her chin on her hand and smiled into the lens. Beneath it, it said Lady Anna Latimer, 35, daughter of the Earl of Bellinter. I read the article.
Lady Anna, the minister’s wife, has assured friends she will stand by her husband despite being devastated to discover he has been engaged in a year-long relationship with blonde bombshell, Pickford-Norton, whose father was decorated for bravery for his part in the battle for Tobruk in 1942. Slim, green-eyed, convent-educated siren, Pickford-Norton, is well-known in aristocratic circles for her wild behaviour and outspoken views. She told reporters, ‘Who gives a **** about his wife? She’s middle-aged and past it and anyway fidelity is a naff, middle-class thing.’ The Labour Party is united in calling for Latimer’s resignation but the Prime Minister, Margot Holland, who was clearly angry to find herself embroiled in scandal barely seven weeks after taking office, said in her statement yesterday, ‘Burgo Latimer is a gifted, hard-working and conscientious member of the team, who has a great deal to contribute to the future of both the party and the country. This is muck-raking by the Opposition of the most discreditable kind.’ Sources close to Pickford-Norton have denied she is pregnant by Latimer. Lady Anna, who is childless, is believed to have recently undergone the latest treatment for infertility: in-vitro fertilization. Continued Page Two.
I opened the paper to see a photograph of Burgo, striding along the pavement towards 10 Downing Street, looking preoccupied. I felt such a sense of loss, such a longing for him that I almost burst into tears.
‘I don’t want to read any more.’
I stood up and thrust the paper on to the fire. It burned brightly, then fell into the grate. Kit went to work with the poker to avert the burning down of the inn.
‘Sorry,’ I said dully. ‘It was your paper. I ought to have asked.’
‘You did the right thing. That’s all it was fit for.’
‘Most of it isn’t true. I’ve never in my life said anything about Burgo’s wife, even to him. What could I possibly say? I’ve never met Anna and Burgo hardly ever talked about her. I’m not remotely aristocratic. My father comes from a long line of undistinguished army officers and clergymen. Nor was I going to a party in Belgravia. I was going to the surgery to get some Valium. Not at all glamorous.’ I tried, unsuccessfully, to laugh. ‘My father wasn’t decorated, nor was he a hero. I went to a Church of England school. Nothing’s true. Except – except that I did have a love affair with Burgo. And I suppose that’s all that matters.’
‘Millions of people have affairs. Why should you be ashamed? My mother’s had more lovers than birthdays and I don’t believe my father minds a bit as long as nothing gets in the way of his own philandering.’
‘Yes. Well, as you say, adultery is commonplace. But when you see your name in every newspaper, from broadsheet to gutter press, and you know that people the length and breadth of Britain are calling you a heartless, scheming whore, you feel profoundly hurt. It seems I’ve done something so terrible that anyone feels justified in saying the vilest things about me. Yesterday a well-known female columnist wrote an article deploring women who let down the sisterhood. She mentioned me by name, saying that in a few years my lifestyle would show on my face. Lying and cheating and fornicating would plough deep fissures from brow to chin, my body would become diseased from sexual excess and my hair would fall out from over-bleaching. While Lady Anna would deepen in beauty like a fading rose … It was rubbish from beginning to end but I can remember it almost word for word. Hatred was in every line. I’m frightened by so much hostility. I couldn’t recognize myself in the woman she condemned. I feel I don’t know who I am any more.’
To my dismay, my eyes filled with tears. Kit took my hand. It is wise to be wary when men offer brotherly comfort. It is generally a prelude to something far from brotherly. But Kit’s grasp was warm and consoling. He neither squeezed nor stroked, he simply held my hand in his while I worked hard at being sensible, grown-up and self-controlled.
‘Surely you don’t plough fissures,’ said Kit, after a while. ‘You plough furrows, or lines perhaps, but fissures occur from hard surfaces splitting from weakness in their composition—’ I may have looked reproachful for he interrupted himself to say, ‘Sorry. It’s the job, you see. You have to weigh every semicolon for sense and fitness. Something those journalists couldn’t begin to do, even if they wanted to.’
‘Probably it’s just my pride that’s been wounded.’ I slid my hand away and tried to speak lightly. ‘As a child I desperately wanted to be good, above all things. I spent hours on my knees begging God to make me heroic and saintly: a cross between Gladys Aylward and Thérèse de Lisieux. I longed to radiate seraphic purity.’
‘I must say you don’t strike me as being especially prim and proper. There’s a light in your eye that I’d say was a warning to the faint-hearted.’
‘Wholly misleading, in that case. I like to be in control of things, not luxuriating in sensuality.’
‘Hm. Pity. Are you sure? When I look at this slender hand’ – he picked up mine again and turned it over – ‘I see the nails painted dark red, the skin smooth and white.’ He tapped my ring. ‘Emerald and diamonds, aren’t they? Now my aunts – my father’s sisters – whom I always think of as the embodiment of virtuous women, corseted by self-discipline, have strong square callused hands with nails cut savagely short, a little dirty from washing the dogs and digging up the herbaceous borders. They are strangers to hand cream. Ditto rings. Your hands are much more like my mother’s, of whom, naturally, they strongly disapprove.’
I retrieved my hand. ‘The ring belonged to my grandmother. I like beautiful things, perhaps more than I ought, but I’m not a hedonist. I don’t believe that the pursuit of pleasure is the highest good.’
‘What is, then?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose … behaving in a way which causes the least harm. One shouldn’t be indifferent to the effect one’s behaviour has on other people. It’s impossible to talk of these things without sounding like a prig. What do you think?’
‘I’m not so high-minded as you. I think if you enjoy yourself then you’re less likely to be a burden and a nuisance and more likely to be amusing. If that’s hedonism, then I approve of it.’
‘I’m not high-minded at all. As I’ve demonstrated rather publicly.’
‘So now you feel you’re forever disqualified from sainthood?’
‘It seems so.’
‘So what’s the real story? I don’t believe you dragged a protesting, happily married man from the arms of his miserable, barren wife.’
‘Apparently she’s determined not to have children. One of the few things Burgo told me about her was that she dislikes them and is afraid of getting fat.’
‘And do you think that’s true?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be? It’s not a particularly attractive attitude but it’s perfectly rational.’
‘Are men generally truthful when discussing their wives with their mistresses, do you think?’
‘I suppose not. But Burgo’s not quite like other men. Oh, I know people always say that when they think they’re in love,’ I added when I saw scepticism in Kit’s blue eyes.
‘Are you in love with him?’
‘Who knows what love is? Mutual need? Desire? Vanity? Illusion? I wish I knew.’
‘What’s he like, then?’
What was Burgo really like? I wondered.
The landlord appeared at that moment with our food. The chicken had been boiled to an unappetizing grey, a match for the overcooked cabbage. I knew if I did not eat I would get a headache and feel faint by the evening but the newspaper article had killed my appetite.
‘It’s bad, but not that bad,’ Kit said when I put my knife and fork together, having managed less than a quarter of what was on my plate. ‘Surely you can get those potatoes down? Come along, I’ll butter them for you and they’ll taste better.’ He unwrapped a square of butter, which had come in a foil packet with the rolls, and spread it over the vegetables as though I were a child. To please him I forced down a few more forkfuls. ‘That’s a good girl. Now eat that bit of chicken breast just to show you forgive me for upsetting you. I’m an ass and I’m really sorry.’
‘You’ve been my absolute salvation.’ I ate the chicken. ‘I’m sorry to be so pathetic.’
‘All right, so we’re both thoroughly remorseful. Now, Scheherazade. If you wish to avoid strangulation, carry on with your tale.’
I began to tell Kit about Burgo.
