Less Than Angels

by Barbara Pym

  ‘Sending flowers and that kind of thing?’ said Mark casually. ‘Oh, I know all about that.’

  ‘I do hope Mark will be all right,’ said Digby apprehensively, after they had seen him into a taxi. ‘The world can be very wicked, and I sometimes wonder whether he really has the strength of character to resist its temptations.’

  ‘I think he ought to be quite safe in Belgravia,’ Tom reassured him, ‘though it may make him dissatisfied with his surroundings here. Let’s have something to eat, shall we?’

  They fried some eggs and made coffee, after which Digby retired to his room to write a seminar paper for next term. Such things are of an ephemeral nature so it is perhaps unnecessary to record its title. It consisted of a mass of information culled from books, illuminated by what Digby considered a rather startling interpretation of his own. It is the ambition of all who read a paper of whatever kind to have it recorded that ‘a lively discussion followed’, and Digby worked with this end in view.

  Tom, on the other hand, had progressed beyond interpreting other people’s material; all he had to do was to present his own in a form worthy of a Ph.D. thesis. The end had been in sight when he had been embracing Deirdre by the river and now, suddenly, it seemed, after only two hours’writing, it was finished.

  He heaved a great sigh, reached for his cigarettes, only to find that he already had one in his mouth, then looked around for Catherine. But of course she was not there. He ran into the hall and dialled her number. She answered at once, and then he remembered that it was after midnight and the telephone was by her bed.

  ‘Were you asleep?’ he asked, when he had told her the news.

  ‘Nearly, but I’m glad you rang. I was going to give you a bottle of Pouilly Fuissé, wasn’t I?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘I can never say that name twice—you know that—anyway, it’s a white burgundy.’

  ‘How are you?’

  There was a slight pause and then Catherine said, ‘Oh, fine, thank you.’

  ‘We must meet soon. I’m going to visit my parents sometime, you know, so it must be before that.’

  ‘All right, and then we could have the Pouilly Fuissé.’

  ‘Why, have you got it now?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I bought it some time ago, when the idea first came to me.’

  ‘Oh, Catty … can’t I come round and we’ll drink it now?’

  ‘I think better not-wine does keep, you know. Good night, Tom dear, I’m so glad you’ve finished it.’

  She had hung up the receiver and just turned over and gone to sleep again, he thought resentfully, but in this he wronged her. She had to get up and make herself tea and read Dostoievsky until the first birds started to sing and it began to get light, before she could sleep again.

  Tom was a little upset to think that she had already bought the wine for the little celebration she had planned; the pathos of it disturbed him and yet Catherine was such a strong self-sufficient sort of person that one couldn’t really think of her as pathetic. She would see the whole thing with detachment and was probably even now planning a touching little story round the episode. All the same, he wished he hadn’t known.

  He stood in the hall, feeling very wide-awake and restless. Of course he should ring Deirdre. Then he remembered how late it was and imagined her mother or aunt, muffled in a dressing-gown, coming downstairs to answer the telephone, perhaps fearing that a relative had died or that Malcolm had had a motor accident. So that would have to wait till the morning. Digby was already in bed and Mark was at the dance. Tom almost wished now that he had accepted his aunt’s invitation and gone to the dance too. His restlessness made it impossible for him to go to bed and sleep and he decided that a walk might do him good, so he put on his raincoat and crept out of the house. Once outside, he strode along with great energy, feeling the burden of his thesis lifted from him. Why shouldn’t he go and have a look at his aunt’s house, where the dance would be at its height?

  Mrs. Beddoes lived in a terrace of large grand houses, all of which had once been lived in by wealthy families but which were now mosdy turned into flats or even government offices. Even though Tom had, ac Digby put it, seen the light and detribalized himself, he could not help feeling that there was something depressing about seeing rows of filing-cabinets in what had once been somebody’s drawing-room, wooden trestle tables standing on the parquet floors, wire trays and even a thick white cup and saucer glimmering faindy in the moonlight. If we lamented the decay of the great civilizations of the past, he thought, should we not also regret the dreary levelling down of our own?

  But now there was music, the throbbing rhythm of a rumba or samba—he had forgotten these dances—and he came upon his aunt’s house, a red awning and carpet laid over the pavement from the front door, and all the windows brilliantly illuminated. The dancing would be at the back and he could remember or imagine the scene-the bare shoulders of the girls in their cloudy tulle dresses, the flowers, the fishing-nets too, he supposed, the loud well-bred voices, the music, the laughter, and somewhere the tinkle of a champagne glass falling in a hundred fragments on the floor. And in the middle of it all Mark, the poor student, like a kind of male Cinderella, whirling round with a beautiful girl in his arms.

  What was there to prevent him—a nephew of the house—from walking in and joining in all this gaiety? He stopped by the red carpet, trying to make up his mind. Then he looked down at his shoes, his old suède creepers with rubber soles; he couldn’t dance in those. And probably his old grey flannels and leather-patched tweed jacket would look out of place, too. Was it just his clothes, then, that were keeping him out of paradise? It must be something more than that…’

  ‘Now then, my lad, what are you up to?’

  The gruff but not unkindly voice of a policeman interrupted Tom’s meditation, making him feel that some explanation of his presence was necessary.

  ‘My aunt’s house,’ he said. ‘She’s having a dance. I was just wondering if I should go in.’

  ‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ said the officer in a soothing tone.

  ‘It sounds fantastic, I know,’ said Tom, ‘but it really is my aunt’s house. Still, I suppose I ought to be going home.’

  ‘That’s it. You won’t do any good standing here.’

  Tom supposed, from the kindly, humouring note in the policeman’s voice, that he must appear like some harmless lunatic found wandering at night, not even loitering with intent, he thought, a little bitterly. They wished each other good night and Tom went on his way.

  Shortly afterwards, or so it seemed, he was conscious of the sunshine on his face, and Mark, still in his hired dress clothes, standing over him with a cup of tea. It was morning and the dance was over.

  Mark was very full of the success he had had with the débutantes and of one in particular who had seemed anxious that they should meet again.

  ‘I hope she’s rich,’ said Tom sleepily.

  ‘Oh, yes, I found that out straight away. She and the girl friend she lives with have a flat in Curzon Street and she said she might be taking a secretarial course or doing some modelling but that Daddy didn’t really want her to, only everyone did something nowadays . . ,’ he drifted out of the room.

  ‘What hidden talents spring up in one’s friends,’ said Digby. ‘I didn’t know Mark could imitate a young girl so well. I hope hell be able to follow up this promising start,’

  ‘He’d better send her some flowers and follow it up quickly with an invitation to lunch at one of our drearier places. She’ll find it amusing and different,’ said Tom.

  It was odd to think that he himself had once been on the threshold of that kind of life and that he had thrown it all away, as it were, to go out to Africa and study the ways of a so-called primitive tribe. For really, when one came to consider it, what could be more primitive than the rigid ceremonial of launching a debutante on the marriage market?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  During the next few weeks some chang
es took place in the circle of the young anthropologists. Jean-Pierre le Rossignol, after a visit to Bournemouth to study the English on holiday, returned thankfully to France. Brandon and Melanie Pirbright set out for the field to gather material about the married life of a primitive people, giving in exchange generous information about their own, which filled the natives with delight and astonishment. Tom, after a gay evening drinking the bottle of Pouilly Fuissé with Catherine, setded down to revise his thesis and prepare it for the final typing. He saw Deirdre as often as was necessary for his well-being and happiness, which was just a little less often than she would have liked. Primrose and Vanessa set off for a holiday in Italy, while Digby and Mark gathered strength to visit their parents in Nottingham and Wolverhampton respectively.

  Catherine had decided that she and Deirdre could now meet again as friends, and one morning sat waiting among the mosaic peacocks for Deirdre to join her in a simple lunch.

  ‘Just the kind of place for two women to meet for lunch,’ she said when Deirdre had arrived, ‘nothing to drink and not all that much to eat—no red meat, no birds, but poached eggs and welsh rarebits, the kind of nourishment that builds the backbone of this great country of ours. And we must help ourselves, too. Need you clutch that parcel to your breast, whatever it is? I should leave it behind to mark your place.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I will,’ said Deirdre doubtfully. ‘I suppose it will be all right.’

  When they returned to the table with their food she seemed anxious about the parcel in a rather ostentatious way, so that Catherine felt that she was expected at least to make some comment and perhaps even to ask what it was.

  ‘It’s Tom’s thesis,’ said Deirdre in a reverent tone. ‘He’s just given me a copy to read. Look,’ she unwrapped the paper, ‘four hundred and ninety seven pages. How does he do it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Catherine, ‘writers of fiction would tell you that one just goes on and on until one reaches page four hundred and ninety seven, but of course we don’t have to write at such prodigious length and might well find it a bit of an endurance test. A thesis must be long. The object, you see, is to bore and stupefy the examiners to such an extent that they will have to accept it—only if a thesis is short enough to be read all through word for word is there any danger of failure.’

  ‘Oh, Catherine …’ Deirdre laughed a little uncertainly. ‘Actually I know I shall find this very interesting,’ she added, assuming the slightly patronizing tone that a specialist may when speaking to a non-specialist.

  ‘Well, don’t get scrambled egg all over it,’ said Catherine, lifting the manuscript from the table. She turned a page at random. ‘It would, however, be dangerous at this stage to embark on any extensive analysis…’ she read. ‘ Oh, what cowards scholars are! When you think how poets and novelists rush in with their analyses of the human heart and mind and soul of which they often have far less knowledge than darling Tom has of his tribe. And why do they find it so difficult to begin or start anything—they must always commence- have you noticed? I hoped I had cured Tom of that, but I’ve obviously failed.’

  There was a pause, as if Catherine’s words might have a deeper significance which both women recognized. I should have let him go on writing ‘commence’ if he wanted to, Catherine thought. I wonder if that was what drove him away in the end? It is said to be the small things that do that, the straws on the camel’s back. Perhaps I should rejoice to imagine him, free and triumphant, defiandy writing ‘commence’.

  ‘Catherine,’ Deirdre began.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who is Elaine?’

  ‘Ah, Elaine. What makes you ask?’

  ‘Tom was talking about her one evening when we were having dinner.’

  ‘Poor Deirdre, was it one of those rather miserable meals, where you both look down into your glasses and trace patterns with forks and move the salts and peppers about?’

  ‘Yes, it was a bit like that,’ Deirdre smiled. ‘I do try to understand, but Tom isn’t always very easy, is he?’ She went on quickly, perhaps not wishing for an answer to her question. ‘I gathered Elaine was an old girl friend or something.’

  ‘Yes, Tom’s first love, and of course living in the country and not meeting many suitable people she hasn’t married anyone else. She’s very fond of dogs, golden retrievers I think they are.’

  ‘Oh. Is Tom fond of dogs?’ asked Deirdre rather desperately.

  ‘Quite, I think. He would pat a dog if one happened to be conveniently near. I suppose being brought up in the country would make one fond of the larger animals—I mean large dogs and horses as opposed to cats and Pekingeses.’

  ‘Oh, well…’ Deirdre gave a brave little smile.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry too much about Elaine,’ said Catherine reassuringly. ‘I think Tom likes the idea of her more than anything. There’s something very sweet about the memory of one’s first love—when you’re a bit older you’ll understand.’

  Deirdre’s eves filled with tears.

  ‘Good heavens, what is happening at the counter,’ said Catherine brightly, ‘such a fuss!’

  ‘It seems to be Father Gemini and Miss Lydgate,’ said Deirdre. ‘They’re linguists, you know and do a lot of work together.’

  Catherine and Deirdre were near enough to be able to hear what was going on. Father Gemini seemed to be in some difficulty with the ordering of his meal.

  ‘With croquette?’ asked the woman behind the counter, in an almost threatening tone.

  ‘What does she mean?’ he asked.

  ‘She is asking if you want a potato croquette with your mince,’ shouted Miss Lydgate in a clear impatient tone.

  ‘I do not know. How should I know? I do not understand this,’ said Father Gemini testily. ‘I do not like this place,’

  ‘Well, go and sit down and I’ll bring yours,’ said Miss Lydgate roughly.

  Father Gemini left the counter sulkily, seeming almost to drag his feet like a petulant child, and sat down at a table very near to Catherine and Deirdre. Eventually Miss Lydgate joined him and put food-mince on toast with carrots- before him. He looked at it suspiciously and then began to prod it with his fork before conveying some to his mouth.

  Catherine wondered again as she so often did why it was that so-called ‘well-bred’ people had such very penetrating voices. It could not be thought, in these days, that they were accustomed to giving orders to servants. Miss Lydgate could be heard all over the room and Father Gemini matched Iiis tone to hers. It was perhaps a good thing that Deirdre should be diverted from too much brooding over Tom and Elaine, and she and Catherine were virtually compelled to give up their own conversation and listen to that of Miss Lydgate an(‘Father Gemini.

  ‘Well, this is a better lunch than you’d get at St. Anthony’s,’ declared Miss Lydgate, naming the London house of the missionary order to which Father Gemini belonged.

  ‘We do not trouble there about what we eat,’ he replied, still rather sulkily. ‘There the matters of the spirit are of more importance.’

  ‘That may be, but you have to eat,’ retorted Miss Lydgate ‘Even the saints had to take food. Locusts and wild honey, you remember St. John the Baptist.’

  “There are not locusts in Kensington,’ said Father Gemini, perhaps irrelevandy.

  ‘No, of course there aren’t. What I meant was that if you’re going to have food you may as well prepare it in the best way,’ she said, but did not enlarge upon this point, perhaps remembering the ramshackle household arrangements of Miss Clovis and herself and possibly, even, some rather dreadful meal which Father Gemini had eaten at their table.

  ‘I do not think you have eaten with us at St. Anthony’s?’ asked Father Gemini in a sarcastic tone. ‘No, I do not think so. No woman has eaten there.’

  ‘Oh, well? shrugged Miss Lydgate, as if she would hardly count herself as being a woman, ‘I don’t see how that affects my point.’

  There was silence between them for a few moments, during which they finished th
eir mince and went on to trifle.

  ‘I shall not be here much longer in London,’ said Father Gemini at last. ‘It will be good to go back again to Africa.’

  ‘Well, you will be here until Christmas.’

  ‘It is possible that I go before that. My plans can change themselves.’

  ‘What do you mean? How can you afford to go out again until the money comes from America?’ asked Miss Lydgate impatiently.

  Father Gemini smiled secretively into his beard. ‘It could come from another place. America is not the only country from which money can come. And there may be enough for me to take Father Serpentelli with me.’

  Miss Lydgate snorted. ‘I can imagine what results you’ll get from him. Why, he can’t even distinguish an open ‘e Where will you get this money?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘I cannot say. I must not say—yet.’

  ‘Oh. Then where will you go when you do get it? To the same place as before?’

  ‘No, no—I have covered that ground most carefully. For the rest are living there only pygmies.’ He gave the words a contemptuous emphasis. ‘It would waste time to study them. I shall go to the hill tribes.’

  ‘The hill tribes!’ Miss Lydgate shouted, banging her spoon on the table. ‘A few hundreds living on each hill and each group speaking a different language, totally unrelated to that of any of the others!’ She seemed about to burst with excitement. ‘ Magnificent! You know, of course, that Fairfax was there in the thirties?’

  ‘Yes, I know it.’ If he had been familiar with the expression Father Gemini would no doubt have answered ‘so what?’ at this point. Instead, he declared rather smugly, ‘But I have not been there.’

  ‘No, of course not. And Fairfax himself would be the first to admit that he was no linguist.’

  ‘Do you think he would be the first to admit it?’ asked Father Gemini smoothly. ‘I do not think so, not the first:

  Catherine began to giggle and turned to Deirdre with some apt comment, but she laughed only in a half-hearted way.