He stood for a few moments longer at the door, his eyes going over the group, which had pressed itself together as though to be introduced as a unit, as though feeling not sufficiently important singly to claim his attention. Max still had the welcoming smile on his face, but Simon had not once looked towards him. Fastening at last a deliberate eye on Eric, he said:
‘Who are all these people littering up my house?’ The gay, rather fluting emphasis went a little way towards mitigating the rudeness. Eric performed a rather elegant sequence of gestures with shoulders and hips, to indicate non-culpable helplessness. ‘People Max invited,’ he said.
Max now advanced somewhat unsteadily. He seemed to have become drunker since Simon’s arrival. ‘Friends and admirers of yours, my love,’ he said. ‘Gathered here.’ He advanced on Simon, taking short steps, his arms raised slightly and fully extended, as though to embrace him.
Simon stepped past him into the middle of the room. His face looked angrier now. ‘They may be admirers,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a single person here whom I have ever set eyes on in my life before.’
So far none of the guests had said anything. On the faces of all, however, was registered the awareness, not yet veering to resentment, that their presence was failing to gratify Simon Lang. Being prepared to revere, they had not thought they could be unwelcome. Only the man with the forked beard, who had by this time got to his feet, ventured a remark. He took a step or two forward out of the ruck and said with extreme affability, ‘Did you have a good journey down then, Simon?’ Foley realised at this point that the man with the forked beard was not in his right mind.
Simon ignored him completely. ‘My friends,’ he said, making his cheekbones stand out, ‘I am very grateful to you for coming along this evening, and I am sorry you have had such a long wait, though some of you seem to have borne with that tolerably well, tolerably well. The journey down from London was uneventful, the roads quiet, the weather fair. Just now I have a headache and I am feeling rather tired. I cannot entertain you now, but under other circumstances, of course … Thank you. I know you will understand.’ He ended these remarks with a practised, almost a benedictory, gesture.
‘That’s show-business,’ said the man with the forked beard, nodding his head resignedly. None of the others said anything much at all. They trooped out meekly as though they had known all along that the party would be over when Simon actually arrived. Nobody made any claim to Simon’s acquaintance.
Foley was making doorward shuffles with the others, when Eric signalled him to stay. So great had been Simon’s impact that it was only now that Foley noticed Moss had made no movement to go, had not even risen to his feet when Simon came in. He had a premonition of more trouble to come.
‘Well,’ said Simon, when the last of them had gone. ‘Let’s have a drink, if there’s any left.’ Standing at the drink table, pouring himself out a gin, he contrived to look suddenly haggard as well as dashing. Handling the bottle and the glass he revealed broad, spatulate fingers and thick wrists. He plopped three little white onions one after the other into his gin and swirled them round.
‘You’ve been a bit mean with the onions, haven’t you?’ he said to Eric. ‘Is this all there are?’
‘There were some,’ Max said. ‘I put them out.’
‘I think that man with the divided beard ate them,’ Foley said. ‘At least, I saw him standing there at one point, eating.’
Simon looked at him without expression.
‘Simon always has onions in his gin,’ Max said, to everybody else.
‘It’s rather an unusual drink,’ Eric said. ‘Distinguished, I always think.’
‘There are some more, Simon,’ Max said. ‘I always keep a stock in, just in case.’
‘Just in case?’ Simon said. ‘Just in case of what? In case your ragged-arsed friends feel hungry?’
The dog was recumbent just behind him, belly flat to the floor, its heavy jaws resting on its forelegs. Every time Simon spoke its ears moved.
‘I haven’t had an explanation yet,’ Simon said, into his glass. He sipped and then looked at Eric again. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ he said. Eric looked distressed. Max now emerged from the corner of the room to which he had retreated for another drink.
‘I keep a stock of them in, bottles and bottles,’ Max said, ‘in case we get a visit from you, darling. In case Simon Lang honours us with a visit, drops in unexpectedly some decade or other, he’s like that of course, not a bit conventional. You never know with Simon. They get frightfully mushy, of course, after a while, onions I mean, not actors, even though preserved in brine and kept in a cool place. They actually begin to ferment after a year or two. I could have onion wine if I wanted to, all the year round.’
‘Try it, duckie,’ Simon said, and no film-goer had ever heard this note of brutal contempt in his voice. ‘Do try it. Pickle your little liver for you, less expensively than my gin. It’s all mine, you know,’ he said, turning his head and addressing the others. ‘She’d be on the parish if it weren’t for me, trying her luck along the Fulham Road. I don’t know why I keep on with it. She stinks of gin and knickers and then she wonders why I prefer to drink with the boys.’
Max, weaving his head slightly from side to side, more than ever resembled a frail duellist on guard against rude cudgels. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we met one of your boys tonight. Such camaraderie is touching, Simon, you sound so butch to anyone who doesn’t know you. Such a bond as there obviously is. Clearly you have grappled them to you with hoops and hoops. You should be all wearing your sou’westers, darling, running before the gale and having cups of cocoa. It’s all such a sham, Simon. What you would really like, of course, is to be in full drag and have a bloody great stoker after you.’
‘By God,’ Simon said thickly, ‘I won’t have this in my own house!’ The dog behind him heard the anger in his voice and growled a little. ‘Turning my house into a whorehouse,’ Simon said. He had flushed darkly with rage, but for some moments said nothing more, seemed indeed somewhat at a loss. A certain unimaginativeness, a stupidity in fact, had been apparent in the crudely frontal attack on Max, in the immediate recourse to the obvious advantage Max’s dependent position gave him. And this impression was strengthened now rather absurdly when after a longish pause Simon took a step or two forward and pretended to look closely at the front of Max’s body. In a tone he struggled to make urbane and with a sort of baffled smile, he said, ‘I believe you are growing breasts, Max.’
It was so venemously irrelevant that Max himself giggled a little and did not immediately reply. And it might have passed off thus if Moss had not chosen this moment to intervene. He seemed to take this remark of Simon’s more seriously than any of the others, in spite of Max’s giggle.
‘No, he is not,’ he said. The contradiction, delivered in Moss’s flat tones, sounded absurdly positive for the point at issue, like the stubborn assertions of children when they dispute verifiable facts.
‘Who the hell is this?’ shouted Simon. ‘You are turning my house into a whorehouse. What bloody tout is this?’ His face glistened with the exertions of his rage and his voice was developing a tendency to shrillness. The dog behind him had raised its muzzle, and kept up a continuous, minatory growling.
‘He’s an impossible person. He’s been causing trouble all the evening,’ Eric said. ‘When do you moult?’ he added spitefully, looking at Moss’s hairy jacket.
‘Do you think you’re doing Max a favour, keeping him here?’ said Moss, who had not moved nor altered the tone of his voice. ‘He’d be much better off without you. You only keep him here because you can’t give up anything. Don’t you know that you can’t own other people? Max has more talent than you have, in my opinion. You are a marsh-mallow, in my opinion.’
There was no time to wonder what Moss intended by this extraordinary term which he must surely have dredged up from a controversial childhood, because Max began to speak again, advancing towards Simon with a sort of bravado. M
oss’s intervention had disturbed his puny, duellist’s poise, and his face now was desperate and jeering.
‘Yes, you see, Simon,’ he said. ‘Someone believes in me. You never thought anyone would take my part against you, did you, not against the great Simon Lang, the well-known procuress, the doyenne –’
Simon swung his arm suddenly. There was the sharp sound of a slap and Max stepped back a pace. The dog sprang up and seemed about to attack Max in its turn, but Simon spoke to it and it subsided slowly, its lips wrinkled back in a prolonged, soundless snarl. Max buried his face in his hands and a single sweet-toned sob broke from him. Then, while the others were staring aghast, while Simon was still half turned to admonish the dog, Moss acted. He rose from his seat with a ponderous springing action, covering the distance between Simon and himself in two long strides. Using the impetus of his body, as well as the full weight of his arm and shoulder, he struck Simon a swinging upward blow, high on the cheek, just as he was turning to face them. It was a formidable blow, rather sickeningly audible throughout the room. Simon was a heavy man but he was knocked back several feet and would perhaps have fallen, but for the wall. Without a pause Moss shifted the weight of his feet and caught the springing dog with a kick full on its muzzle, which deposited it near its master. Blood thinned by saliva ran from its jaws. Foley remembered suddenly the heavy metal toe-caps Moss always wore. The dog, however, with the indomitable nature of its breed, seemed to be gathering itself for a fresh attack.
‘Get that brute under control,’ said Moss, ‘or I’ll kill it.’
Simon stood still against the wall with his hand to the side of his face, which shock had emptied of all expression. ‘Down, get down, Roland,’ he said indistinctly through his hand.
Moss watched him carefully. The fist with which he had struck was still clenched. ‘You won’t be hitting Max again, ever,’ he said quietly.
The final divergence now took place between Simon’s public and private personas. He would never have taken a blow like this in one of his films. He had had some hard, brutal, slogging fights on the screen, sometimes against considerable odds, taking and dealing out twenty or thirty such knocks as this, but he had always fought on, even when victory seemed remote. And he had always, as far as Foley at any rate remembered, finally emerged victorious. A bit of blood, a displaced necktie, the congratulations of the township, the honourable embraces of the principal virgin. Now, however, he showed no signs of intending to retaliate. He removed the hand from his face after some time, and straightened himself.
‘I didn’t know you had hired a bully to protect you,’ he said. His left cheek was mottled red. ‘The police will deal with him,’ he said. He looked at them for some moments with vague eyes and Foley realised that he was still partially stunned from the blow. ‘Come, Eric,’ he said finally. ‘We will find an hotel for the night.’ At the door he paused and turned. ‘By this time on Monday,’ he said, ‘I shall expect this house to be vacant, unless I get a full apology and assurance you will never see this person again. You can clear out, Max, for good.’
Max, still silently weeping, made no answer. Simon turned again and was gone, Eric and the wounded dog following with a sort of appalled docility behind him. They heard the slam of the car doors outside, and the sound of the car being driven away.
Max raised his head. His face was blubbered with tears. ‘It’s not the first time he’s hit me,’ he said.
‘It’s the last time, though,’ Moss said with solemn exaltation. ‘This is the beginning of a new life for you, Max.’
‘He’s always been too free with his hands, always,’ Max said. ‘People don’t know.’
‘He’s a bully,’ Moss said. ‘You are well rid of him.’
Max said with invincible pride, ‘Do you know, he once pushed a whole table over with all the tea-things on it, and scalded my arm.’
‘Don’t think about him any more. This is the beginning of a—’
‘He’ll never get the lawyers, of course.’ Max said. ‘He wouldn’t.’
‘Never mind about what he will do. It’s what you’re going to do that matters.’ Moss spoke urgently, perhaps perceiving now the precariousness of his own position. Simon would not be easily dislodged. ‘You are not going to apologise, of course,’ he said, looking hard at Max.
‘Apologise to Simon?’ Max smiled. ‘Everyone apologises to Simon. Do you think it matters?’ He reached for the gin bottle.
‘I shouldn’t drink any more now, Max,’ Moss said firmly. ‘We’d better have a talk, get a few things straight.’
Max, with his hand on the bottle, looked at him in dismay. Moss turned to Foley and said with distant politeness: ‘Would you mind leaving now? I shall stay here tonight. I don’t want to leave Max alone just now.’
Foley followed this suggestion with some relief. Certainly he had no desire to listen to Moss and Max getting things straight. What Moss obviously in any case meant was warping things his own way. He wondered if Moss really understood what a wrenching this would mean for Max. He wondered if Moss really understood anything. Still, it was not his business. He drove back slowly and thoughtfully. The evening had been full of incident but he could not quite believe any of it. It was vivid but lacked probability. Almost he felt he had been imposed upon. It was not until he was putting the car away that it occurred to him that he was going to be quite alone in the house.
15
Moss did not put in an appearance the following day. Nor the day after. Foley stayed at home possessed by a languid sense of crisis. He worked listlessly for a while on some pixies, but most of the time he spent reading the Cellini book or listening to the wireless, which seemed to be all palm court strings on the British stations and lewd French voices everywhere else, talking about de Gaulle. An unflagging wind blew from the sea and the powdered clay of the farmyard swirled everywhere, mixed with hens’ feathers and the year’s first crop of fallen leaves. Morning and evening a red-faced, cursing Royle herded his bullocks through.
Foley spent long periods in the attic with his cherub lamps. The sight of them clustering above reassured him, like a familiar constellation seen in the wastes of the sky. Standing among them he experienced a suspension, a stillness, the distancing of all need for decision. The slight discomfort of posture made necessary by the overhead positions of many of them promoted those feelings of reverence and loneliness associated with the interiors of cathedrals. The silence was skeined with minute crepitations, mice capering behind the walls, the sorties of spiders, the shifting of dust. Foley dusted the gilt limbs with his feather brush, setting up amongst them ecstatic vibrations, fugitive gleams of light. In the midst of this multiple shuddering and shining he was aware of the action of his own heart. The bland sightless faces seemed to express a wantonness, a dimpled lubricity. Foley felt the stirrings of idolatry in this room filled with the creations of his commercial enterprise.
Apart from this he did little but wait for a sign. He neglected to eat now that Moss was not there to cook for him. Old Walter turned up on the Sunday afternoon, wanting to know what there was to do. Foley had not the remotest idea – all that had been Moss’s concern. Besides, the sight of Walter was painful to him, reminding him of that afternoon with Gwendoline. He gave the old man ten shillings and sent him away.
He wondered continually what Moss and Max could be talking of, how they could be passing the hours. Moss of course would be consolidating his position, bullying Max, preventing him from crawling back to Simon. It was the sort of admonitory role that he would relish, the self-appointed keeper. But what about Max? What was his role, now that Simon, stricken, had declined below the horizon?
By Monday afternoon he could bear his inactivity no longer. He took the car and went down to the village, having made the reservation that he would not visit Barbara Gould, would not go near her house at all. He still remembered with shame his slithering performance under that bright pleased stare of hers which, without being malicious exactly or ironical, was so be
littling. When he tried to fix precisely the nature of this regard of Barbara’s, the nearest he could get to it was familiarity. He felt that she was completely acquainted with the sort of person he was.
He left his car in the large municipal park above the village and walked the half-mile or so down to the harbour. It was most inadvisable to take a car further down at this time of year, especially such a large and cumbersome car. This was the peak of the season and the village was packed with visitors. He was surprised to find The Smugglers’ Den locked up and apparently deserted. He tapped on the window and looked inside. The barrels and nets and lamps were all set out in their proper places and the skulls hung at spaced intervals, softly gleaming. The walls were newly whitewashed and there was no sign of a painting on them. There was no sign of Bailey. He tapped again and after a further pause heard noises from the interior. Bailey appeared from some inner recess and came shambling towards the door. He was in shirt-sleeves and was wearing candy-striped braces, pink and white, which hoisted his trousers well up towards his armpits. After some preliminary fumbling with what sounded to Foley like a chain, he opened the door. He regarded Foley flatly and without apparent recognition for some moments. His little eyes looked slightly glassy.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said at last. ‘You’d better come in.’ A heavy breath of whisky enveloped Foley. He stepped inside the café and heard Bailey busy again with the chain behind him.
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