‘He used to knock golf balls into a net at Barnes. But he told me he had given that up.’
‘Pity, pity. Not surprised, though,’ said the General, ‘Nothing disturbs feeling so much as thinking. I’m only repeating what the book says, but I didn’t spend thirty odd years in the army without discovering that for myself. Got to have a plan, of course, but no use knotting yourself up in it too tight. Must have an instinct about the man on the other side—and the people on your own side too. What was it Foch said? War not an exact science, but a terrible and passionate drama? Something like that. Fact is, marriage is rather like that too.’
‘But surely that was what Widmerpool was trying to make it? To some extent he seems to have succeeded. What happened sounded terrible and dramatic enough in its own way.’
‘I’ll have to think about that,’ said the General. ‘I see what you mean. I’ll have to think about that.’
All the same, although I had raised this objection, I agreed with what he said. Marriage was a subject upon which it was hard to obtain accurate information. Its secrets, naturally, are those most jealously guarded; never more deeply concealed than when apparently most profusely exhibited in public. However true that might be, one could still be sure that even those marriages which seem outwardly dull enough are, at one time or another, full of the characteristics of which he spoke. Was it possible to guess, for example, what lay behind the curtain of his own experience? As I had never before conceived of exchanging such a conversation with General Conyers, I thought this an opportunity to enquire about a matter that had always played some part in my imagination since mentioned years earlier by Uncle Giles. The moment particularly recommended itself, because the General rarely spoke either of the practice or theory of war. The transient reference he had just made to Foch now caused the question I wanted to ask to sound less inept.
‘Talking of the army,’ I said. ‘What did it feel like when you were in the charge?’
‘In where?’
‘The charge—after French’s cavalry brigades crossed the Modder River.’
The General looked perplexed for a moment. Then his expression altered. He grasped the substance of my enquiry.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘When the whole cavalry division charged. Unusual operation. Doubted the wisdom of it at the time. However, it came off all right. Extraordinary that you should have known about it. That was the occasion you mean? Of course, of course. What was it like? Just have to think for a moment. Long time ago, you know. Have to collect my thoughts. Well, I think I can tell you exactly. The fact was there had been some difficulty in mounting me, as I wasn’t officially attached to the formation. Can’t remember why not at this length of time. Some technicality. Ride rather heavy, you know. As far as I can remember, I had the greatest difficulty in getting my pony out of a trot. I’m sure that was what happened. Later on in the day, I shot a Boer in the shin. But why do you ask?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to ask, for some reason. Infantilism, perhaps. A primordial image.’
The General agreed, cordially.
‘You are an introvert, of course,’ he said.
‘I think undoubtedly.’
‘Introverted intuitive type, do you think? I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Anyway,’ said the General, ‘keep an eye on not over-compensating. I’ve been glad to tell that story about Widmerpool to someone who can appreciate the circumstances. Haven’t made up my own mind about it yet. I’ve got a slow reactive rapidity. No doubt about that. Just as well to recognise your own limitations. Can’t help wondering about the inhibiting action of the incest barrier though—among other things.’
He moved his leg once more, at the same time shifting the weight of his body, as he pondered this riddle. The angle of his knee and ankle emphasised the beauty of his patent leather boots.
‘Well, I mustn’t keep you up here away from the others any longer,’ he said. ‘Lots of people you ought to be meeting. You are going to be a very lucky young man, I am sure. What do you want for a wedding present?’
The change in his voice announced that our fantasy life together was over. We had returned to the world of everyday things. Perhaps it would be truer to say that our real life together was over, and we returned to the world of fantasy. Who can say? We went down the stairs once more, the General leading. Chips Lovell was talking to Miss Weedon, perhaps tiring of her company, because he slipped away at once when I came up to them, making for the drink-tray. Miss Weedon gave her glacial smile and congratulated me. We began to talk. Before we had progressed very far, Molly Jeavons, whose absence from the room I had not previously noticed, came hurriedly towards us.
‘Oh, Tuffy, dear,’ she said. ‘Do go down and see what is happening in the basement. A policeman has just arrived to interview Smith about a postal-order. I don’t think he can have come to arrest him, but it would be saintly of you if you could clear it all up.’
Miss Weedon did not look very anxious to investigate this intrusion, but she went off obediently.
‘Smith really is a dreadful nuisance,’ said Molly. ‘I don’t mind him drinking more than he should, because he carries it pretty well, but I don’t like some of the people who come to see him. I hope he hasn’t got into trouble with one of them.’
Jeavons joined us.
‘What’s the matter now?’ he asked.
‘A policeman has come to see Smith.’
‘Is Smith off to the Scrubs?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said; and to me: ‘What on earth were you talking to General Conyers about? I thought you were going to spend the rest of the evening together in my little room. I suppose you have heard your friend Mr. Widmerpool’s engagement is off. Just as well, I should think. Mildred really goes too far. I’ve asked him tonight. I thought it might cheer him up.’
‘You have?’
‘You speak as if you didn’t want to meet him. Have you both had a row? Here he is, in any case.’
After so recently hearing an account of his departure from Dogdene, I almost expected Widmerpool to display, morally, if not physically, the dishevelled state described by the General. On the contrary, as he pushed his way through the people in the room, I thought I had never seen him look more pleased with himself. His spectacles glistened. Wearing a short black coat and striped trousers, his manner suggested that he was unaware that such a thing as failure could exist: certainly not for himself. He came up to me at once.
‘The door was open and I walked in,’ he said. ‘I think that is what Lady Molly likes. Various people were talking to a policeman in the hall. I hope nothing has gone wrong.’
‘Selling tickets for the police sports, I expect.’
‘I expect so,’ he said. ‘Curious how our situations have been reversed. You are getting married, while Mildred and I decided in the end it would be better not. We talked things over quietly, and came to the same conclusion. I think it was all for the best. She has returned to France. She prefers to live there. That was one of the bones of contention. Then, of course, there was also the disparity in age. Between you and me, I was not anxious to take on those two sons of hers. They sound an unsatisfactory couple.’
Miss Weedon now returned from her scrutiny of Smith and the policeman. With her accustomed efficiency, she appeared to have mastered the essential points of this entanglement. She spoke severely, as if she were once more a governess reporting unsatisfactory behaviour on the part of her charges.
‘Smith had his name given as a reference,’ she said. ‘Some man he knows has been arrested. A small embezzlement. Smith is very upset about it. In tears, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh, bless the man,’ said Molly. ‘Why did I ever say I would take him on again, when Erridge left England? I swore he should never again enter the house after he broke the Dresden coffee-pot. Do go and see, Teddy.’
‘The bloke must have been hard up for a reference, if he had to give Smith’s name,’ said J
eavons, thoughtfully.
He moved off without undue haste, accompanied by Miss Weedon, whose demeanour was grave. Jeavons’s face implied no hope of setting right any moral mishap of Smith’s.
‘My mother agrees that my decision is for the best,’ said Widmerpool.
‘She does?’
‘She liked Mildred. Thoroughly approved of her from the family point of view, for example,’ said Widmerpool. ‘At the same time there are sides of Mildred she felt doubtful about. My mother never attempted to hide that from me. You know, Nicholas, it is wise to take good advice about such a thing as marriage. I hope you have done so yourself. I have thought about the subject a good deal, and you are always welcome to my views.’
Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant
For Harry and Rosie
1
CROSSING THE ROAD by the bombed-out public house on the corner and pondering the mystery which dominates vistas framed by a ruined door, I felt for some reason glad the place had not yet been rebuilt. A direct hit had excised even the ground floor, so that the basement was revealed as a sunken garden, or site of archæological excavation long abandoned, where great sprays of willow herb and ragwort flowered through cracked paving stones; only a few broken milk bottles and a laceless boot recalling contemporary life. In the midst of this sombre grotto five or six fractured steps had withstood the explosion and formed a projecting island of masonry on the summit of which rose the door. Walls on both sides were shrunk away, but along its lintel, in niggling copybook handwriting, could still be distinguished the word Ladies. Beyond, on the far side of the twin pillars and crossbar, nothing whatever remained of that promised retreat, the threshold falling steeply to an abyss of rubble; a triumphal arch erected laboriously by dwarfs, or the gateway to some unknown, forbidden domain, the lair of sorcerers.
Then, all at once, as if such luxurious fantasy were not already enough, there came from this unexplored country the song, strong and marvellously sweet, of the blonde woman on crutches, that itinerant prima donna of the highways whose voice I had not heard since the day, years before, when Moreland and I had listened in Gerrard Street, the afternoon he had talked of getting married; when we had bought the bottle labelled Tawny Wine (port flavour) which even Moreland had been later unwilling to drink. Now once more above the rustle of traffic that same note swelled on the grimy air, contriving a transformation scene to recast those purlieus into the vision of an oriental dreamland, artificial, if you like, but still quite alluring under the shifting clouds of a cheerless Soho sky.
‘Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,’
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?’
In the end most things in life – perhaps all things – turn out to be appropriate. So it was now, for here before me lay the vestigial remains of the Mortimer where we had first met, the pub in which our friendship had begun. As an accompaniment to Moreland’s memory music was natural, even imperative, but the repetition of a vocal performance so stupendously apt was scarcely to be foreseen. A floorless angle of the wall to which a few lumps of plaster and strips of embossed paper still adhered was all that remained of the alcove where we had sat, a recess which also enclosed the mechanical piano into which, periodically, Moreland would feed a penny to invoke one of those fortissimo tunes belonging to much the same period as the blonde singer’s repertoire. She was closer now, herself hardly at all altered by the processes of time – perhaps a shade plumper – working her way down the middle of the empty street, until, framed within the rectangle of the doorway, she seemed to be gliding along under the instrumentality of some occult power and about to sail effortlessly through its enchanted portal:
‘Pale hands, pink-tipped, like lotus buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell . . .’
Moreland and I had afterwards discussed the whereabouts of the Shalimar, and why the locality should have been the haunt of pale hands and those addicted to them.
‘A nightclub, do you think?’ Moreland had said. ‘A bordel, perhaps. Certainly an establishment catering for exotic tastes – and I expect not very healthy ones either. How I wish there were somewhere like that where we could spend the afternoon. That woman’s singing has unsettled me. What nostalgia. It was really splendid. “Whom do you lead on Rapture’s roadway far?” What a pertinent question. But where can we go? I feel I must be amused. Do have a brilliant idea. I am in the depths of gloom to be precise. Let’s live for the moment.’
‘Tea at Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant? That would be suitably oriental after the song.’
‘What do you think? I haven’t been there for ages. It wasn’t very exciting on my last visit. Besides, I never felt quite the same about Casanova’s after that business of Barnby and the waitress. It would be cheaper to drink tea at home – and no less Chinese as I have a packet of Lapsang.’
‘As you like.’
‘But why did they dwell on the cool waters? I can’t understand the preposition. Were they in a boat?’
A habit of Moreland’s was to persist eternally with any subject that caught his fancy, a characteristic to intensify in him resolute approach to a few things after jettisoning most outward forms of seriousness; a love of repetition sometimes fatiguing to friends, when Moreland would return unmercifully to some trivial matter less amusing to others than to himself.
‘Do you think they were in a boat?’ he went on. ‘The poem is called a Kashmiri Love Song. My aunt used to sing it. Houseboats are a feature of Kashmir, aren’t they?’
‘Kipling characters go up there to spend their leave.’
‘When we lived in Fulham my aunt used to sing that song to the accompaniment of the pianoforte.’
He paused in the street and offered there and then a version of the piece as loudly trilled by his aunt, interrupting himself once or twice to emphasise contrast with the rendering we had just heard. Moreland’s parents had died when he was a child. This aunt, who played a large part in his personal mythology, had brought him up. Oppressed, no doubt, by her nephew’s poor health and by thought of the tubercular complaint that had killed his father (who had some name as teacher of music), she was said to have ‘spoiled’ Moreland dreadfully. There were undeniable signs of something of the sort. She had probably been awed, too, by juvenile brilliance; for although Moreland had never been, like Carolo, an infant prodigy – that freakish, rather uncomfortable humour of only musical genius – he showed alarming promise as a boy. The aunt was also married to a musician, a man considerably older than herself whose generally impecunious circumstances had not prevented shadowy connexions with a more sublime world than that in which most of his daily life was spent. He had heard Wagner conduct at the Albert Hall; Liszt play at the Crystal Palace, seen the Abbé’s black habit and shock of iron-grey hair pass through Sydenham; drunk a glass of wine with Tchaikowsky at Cambridge when the Russian composer had come to receive an honorary degree. These peaks are not to be exaggerated. Moreland had been brought up impecuniously too, but in a tradition of hearing famous men discussed on familiar terms; not merely prodigies read of in books, but also persons having to knock about the world like everyone else. The heredity was not unlike Barnby’s, with music taking the place of the graphic arts.
‘Perhaps this was a houseboat of ill fame.’
‘What an enjoyable idea,’ Moreland said. ‘At the rapturous moments referred to in the lyric one would hear the water, if I may be so nautical, lapping beneath the keel. An overwhelming desire for something of the sort besets me this afternoon. Active emotional employment – like chasing an attractive person round some wet laurels.’
‘Out of the question, I’m afraid.’
‘What a pity London has not got a Luna Park. I should like to ride on merry-go-rounds and see freaks. Do you remember when we went on the Ghost Railway – when you dash towards closed doors and tear down hill towards a body across the line?’
In the end we decided against Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant that day, in
stead experimenting, as I have said, with the adventitious vintages of Shaftesbury Avenue, a thoroughfare traversed on the way to Moreland’s flat, which lay in an undistinguished alley on the far side of Oxford Street, within range of Mr Deacon’s antique shop. Once there, after climbing an interminable staircase, you found an unexpectedly neat room. Unconformist, without discipline in many ways, Moreland had his precise, tidy side, instilled in him perhaps by his aunt; mirrored – so Maclintick used to say – in his musical technique. The walls were hung with framed caricatures of dancers in Diaghilev’s early ballets, coloured pictures drawn by the Legat brothers, found by Moreland in a portfolio outside a second-hand book shop; Pavlova; Karsavina; Fokine; others, too, whom I have forgotten. The few books in a small bookcase by the bed included a tattered paper edition of Apollinaire’s Alcools; one of the Sherlock Holmes volumes; Grinling’s History of the Great Northern Railway. An upright piano stood against one wall, although Moreland, so he always insisted, was no great performer on that instrument. There were always flowers in the vase on the table when Moreland could afford them, which in those days was not often.
‘Do you mind drinking wine from teacups, one of them short of a handle? Rather sordid, I’m afraid. I managed to break my three glasses the other night when I came home from a party and was trying to put them away so that the place might look more habitable when I woke up in the morning.’
Following a preliminary tasting, we poured the residue of the bottle down the lavatory.
‘If you were legally allowed three wives,’ asked Moreland, as we watched the cascade of amber foam gush noisily away, ‘whom would you choose?’
Those were the days when I loved Jean Duport. Moreland knew nothing of her, nor did I propose to tell him. Instead, I offered three names from the group of female acquaintances we enjoyed in common, speaking without undue concern in making this triple decision. To tell the truth, in spite of what I felt for Jean, marriage, although looming up on all sides, still seemed a desperate venture to be postponed almost indefinitely.
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 2 Page 23
