‘What are you doing?’ Sophie’s voice said behind me. ‘We ought to be going in.’
I realised she was talking to me, but I had become so taken up by the discovery of our old car that I murmured something back without really thinking. Then I heard her say:
‘What’s got into you? You seem to have fallen in love with that thing.’
Only then did I realise I was holding the car in a virtual embrace; I had been resting my cheek on its roof while my hands made smooth circular motions over its scabbed surface. I straightened with a quick laugh, and turned to see Sophie and Boris staring at me.
‘In love with this? You have to be joking.’ I gave another laugh. ‘It’s criminal the way people leave wrecks like this lying around.’
They continued to stare at me, so I shouted: ‘What a disgusting heap!’ and gave the car a few good kicks. This seemed to satisfy them and they both turned away. I then saw that Sophie, despite her show of hurrying me, was still preoccupied with Boris’s appearance and had now resumed combing his hair.
I turned my attention back to the car, anxiety mounting that I might have inflicted some damage with my kicks. Closer examination showed that I had done no more than dislodge a few rusted flakes, but I was already full of remorse at having shown such callousness. I made my way through the grass around to the other side of the vehicle and peered in through the rear side window. Some flying object had struck the window but the glass had stayed intact, and I stared through the spiderweb cracks into the rear seat where I had once spent so many contented hours. Much of it, I could see, was covered with fungus. Rain water had pooled in one corner where the seat cushion met the arm-rest. When I tugged at the door, it came open with little trouble, but then became stuck half-way in the thick grass. There was just enough of a gap to enable me to squeeze in, and after a small struggle I managed to clamber onto the seat.
Once inside, it became clear that one end of the seat had fallen through the floor of the car, and I found myself unnaturally low. Through the window nearest my head I could see blades of grass and a pink evening sky. Re-adjusting myself I tugged at the door until it was almost shut again – something obstructed it from closing completely – and, after a few moments, found myself in a reasonably comfortable position.
Before long, a deep restfulness started to settle over me and I allowed my eyes to close for a moment. As I did so, I found a memory coming back of one of the happier family expeditions undertaken in the vehicle, a time we had driven all over the local countryside in search of a second-hand bicycle for me. It had been a sunny Sunday afternoon and we had gone from village to village, examining bicycle after bicycle, my parents conferring earnestly in the front while I sat behind them in this very seat, watching the Worcestershire scenery go by. Those were the days before telephones were routinely owned in England, and my mother had had on her lap a copy of the local newspaper in which people advertising items for sale printed their whole addresses. Appointments had been unnecessary; a family like us could simply materialise at a door and say: ‘We’ve come about the boy’s bike’ and be shown around to the back shed for the inspection. The more friendly people would offer tea – which my father would decline each time with the identical humorous remark. But one old woman – who had turned out to be selling not a ‘boy’s bike’ at all, but her husband’s after the latter’s death – had insisted on our coming in. ‘It’s always such a pleasure,’ she had said to us, ‘to receive people like yourselves.’ Then, as we had sat in her little sunlit parlour with our teacups, she had referred to us once more as ‘people like yourselves’, and suddenly, in the midst of listening to my father talking about the sort of bicycle most suitable for a boy of my age, it had dawned on me that to this old woman my parents and I represented an ideal of family happiness. A huge tension had followed this realisation, one which had continued to mount within me throughout the half-hour or so we had stayed. It was not that I had feared my parents would fail to keep up their usual show – it was inconceivable they would have started even the most sanitised version of one of their rows. But I had become convinced that at any second some sign, perhaps even some smell, would cause the old woman to realise the enormity of her error, and I had watched with dread for the moment she would suddenly freeze in horror before us.
Sitting in the back of the old car, I tried to recall how that afternoon had ended, but I found my mind wandering instead to another afternoon altogether, one full of pouring rain, when I had come out to the car, to the sanctuary of this rear seat, while the troubles had raged on inside the house. On that afternoon, I had lain across the seat on my back, the top of my head squeezed under the arm-rest. From this vantage point, all I had been able to see from the windows had been the rain streaming down the glass. At that moment my profound wish had been that I would be allowed just to go on lying there undisturbed, hour after hour. But experience had taught me my father would at some stage emerge from the house, that he would walk past the car, go down to the gate and out into the lane, and so I had lain there for a long time, listening intently through the rain for the rattle of the back door latch. When at last the sound had come, I had sprung up and begun to play. I had mimicked an exciting tussle over a dropped pistol in such a way as to make clear I was far too absorbed to notice anything. Only when I had heard the wet tread of his feet go right to the end of the drive had I dared to stop. Then, quickly kneeling up on the seat, I had peered cautiously out of the back windscreen in time to see my father’s raincoated figure, pausing by the gate, hunching slightly as he opened his umbrella. The next moment he had stepped purposefully into the lane and out of view.
I must have dozed off for I awoke with a jolt and saw that I was sitting in the back of the ruined car in complete darkness. In a slight panic I pushed at the door nearest me. At first it remained stuck, but then shifted a little at a time until I was able at last to squeeze myself out.
Brushing down my clothes, I looked about me. The house was brightly lit – I could see glittering chandeliers inside tall windows – and over beside our car Sophie was still fussing with Boris’s hair. I was standing beyond the pool of light cast by the house, but Sophie and Boris were virtually floodlit. As I watched, Sophie leaned down to the wing mirror to add some finishing touches to her make-up.
Boris turned to me as I emerged into the light. ‘You’ve been ages,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m sorry. We ought to be going in now.’
‘Just one second,’ Sophie muttered distractedly, still bending over the mirror.
‘I’m getting hungry,’ Boris said to me. ‘When do we go home?’
‘Don’t worry, we won’t stay long. All these people, they’re waiting to meet us, so we’d better just go in and say hello. But we’ll leave pretty quickly. Then we’ll go home and have a good evening. Just ourselves.’
‘Can we play Warlord?’
‘Of course,’ I said, delighted the little boy seemed now to have forgotten our earlier altercation. ‘Or any other game you fancy. Even if we start playing one and half-way through you want to stop and play a different one, because you’re bored or because you’re losing, that’s fine, Boris. Tonight we’ll just change to whichever one you want to play. And if you wanted to stop altogether and just talk for a while, about football, say, then that’s what we’ll do. It’ll be a marvellous evening, just the three of us. But first let’s go in and get this over with. It won’t be so bad.’
‘Okay, I’m ready now,’ Sophie announced, but then she bent down to the mirror one last time.
We passed under a stone arch into the courtyard. As we made our way towards the front entrance, Sophie said: ‘I’m actually looking forward to this now. I feel good about it.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just relax and be yourself. Everything will be fine.’
19
The door was opened by a stout housemaid. As we wandered into the spacious entrance hall, she muttered:
‘It’s nice to see you again, sir.’
&nb
sp; Only when I heard her say this did I realise I had been to the house before – that in fact it was the same one Hoffman had brought me to the previous evening.
‘Ah yes,’ I said, looking around at the oak-panelled walls, ‘it’s nice to be back again. This time, as you see, I’ve brought my family.’
The maid did not reply. Possibly this was due to deference, but when I glanced quickly at the woman standing sullenly by the door, I could not avoid sensing hostility. It was then that I noticed, on the round wooden table next to the umbrella stand, my face peering up from amid a spread of magazines and newspapers. Going up to the table, I pulled out what I saw to be the evening edition of the local newspaper, the entire front of which comprised a photograph of myself – taken apparently in a windswept field. Then I spotted the white building in the background and remembered the morning’s photo-session on the hilltop. I took the newspaper over to a lamp and held the picture under the yellow light.
The force of the wind was causing my hair to be flung right back. My tie was fluttering stiffly out behind an ear. My jacket was also flying behind me so that I looked to be wearing a cape. More puzzlingly, my features bore an expression of unbridled ferocity. My fist was raised to the wind, and I appeared to be in the midst of producing some warrior-like roar. I could not for the life of me understand how such a pose had come about. The headline – there was no other text at all on the front page – proclaimed: ‘RYDER’S RALLYING CALL’.
Somewhat nervously, I opened the newspaper and was confronted by a spread of six or seven smaller pictures, each a variation on the one on the front. My belligerent demeanour was evident in all but two of them. In these latter, I appeared to be presenting proudly the white building behind me, displaying as I did so a strange smile that revealed extensively my lower teeth but none of the upper. Scanning the columns beneath, my eye caught repeated references to someone named Max Sattler.
I would have examined the newspaper further but, suspecting as I did that the maid’s hostility had to do with these very photographs, I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. I put the paper down and came away from the table, resolving to study the report carefully at a later opportunity.
‘It’s time we went in,’ I said to Sophie and Boris, who had been hovering in the middle of the hall. I had spoken loudly enough for the maid to hear and fully expected her to lead us through to the reception. But she made no movement and, after an awkward few seconds, I smiled at her saying: ‘Of course, I can remember from last night.’ With that I led the way into the house.
In fact the building was not at all as I remembered it, and we quickly found ourselves in a long panelled corridor quite unfamiliar to me. This proved not to matter, however, for a hubbub could be heard as soon as we had gone a little way down, and before long we were standing at the doorway of a narrow room packed with people in evening dress holding cocktail glasses.
At first glance the room appeared to be of a much smaller scale than the grand ballroom in which guests had gathered the night before. In fact on closer inspection I saw that originally it had probably not been a room at all, but a corridor, or at best a long curving vestibule. Its curve was such as to suggest it might eventually describe a semi-circle, though it was impossible to ascertain this glancing in from the doorway. I could see on its outer side the huge windows, now covered by curtains, going on round the curve, while the inner wall appeared to be lined by doors. The floor was marble, chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and here and there around the room were art objects displayed on pedestals or in elegant glass cabinets.
We paused at the threshold, taking in this scene. I looked about for someone to come and usher us in, perhaps even announce our arrival, but though we stood and watched for some time no one came to us. Occasionally some person would come striding hurriedly in our direction, but then at the last moment turn out to have been making for some other guest.
I glanced at Sophie. She had an arm around Boris and both were staring apprehensively at the crowd.
‘Come on, let’s go in,’ I said nonchalantly. We all took a few steps into the room, but then came to a halt again a little way inside.
I looked around for Hoffman or Miss Stratmann or anyone else I recognised, but could see no one. Then, as I continued to stand there looking from face to face, the thought came to me that a great many of these same people might well have attended the event at which Sophie had been so appallingly treated. Suddenly I could see all the more vividly what Sophie had had to endure and felt a dangerous anger rising in me. Indeed, as I continued to look around the room, I could spot at least one group of guests – standing together almost where the room curved out of our view – who almost certainly had been among the major culprits. I studied them through the crowd: the men with their self-satisfied smiles, the pompous way they took their hands in and out of their trouser pockets as though to demonstrate to one and all how at ease they were in a gathering of this sort; and the women, with their ridiculous costumes, and their way of shaking their heads helplessly when they laughed. It was unbelievable – utterly preposterous – that such people should presume to sneer or look down on anyone, let alone on someone like Sophie. In fact I saw no reason not to go immediately up to this group to give them a firm dressing down under the full gaze of their peers. Murmuring a quick word of reassurance in Sophie’s ear, I set off across the floor.
As I made my way through the crowd, I saw that the room did indeed turn a slow semi-circle. I could now see also the waiters standing like sentries all along the inner wall, holding their trays of drinks and canapés. Sometimes people would jog me and apologise pleasantly, or I would exchange smiles with someone trying to push through in the opposite direction, but curiously no one appeared actually to recognise me. At one stage I found myself squeezing past three middle-aged men who were shaking their heads despondently at something, and I noticed that one was holding under his arm a copy of the evening newspaper. I saw my windswept face peeking from behind his elbow and wondered vaguely if the appearance of the photographs could in some way account for the odd way our arrival had thus far been ignored. But I was now virtually next to the people I had been making for and gave this idea no further thought.
Noticing my approach, two of the group stepped aside as though to welcome me into their circle. They were, I realised, discussing the art objects surrounding us, and as I came into their midst they were all nodding over something the last speaker had said. Then one of the women said:
‘Yes, it’s so clear you could draw a line across this room, just after that Van Thillo.’ She pointed to a white statuette on a stand not far from us. ‘Young Oskar never had the eye. And to be fair, he knew it, but he felt a duty, a duty to his family.’
‘I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Andreas,’ one of the men said. ‘Oskar was too proud. He should have delegated. To people who knew better.’
Then one of the other men said to me, smiling pleasantly: ‘And what is your feeling on this, sir? About Oskar’s contribution to the collection?’
I was momentarily taken aback by this enquiry, but I was not in a mood to be deflected.
‘It’s all very well you ladies and gentlemen standing here discussing Oskar’s inadequacy,’ I began. ‘But more important and to the point …’
‘It would be going too far,’ a woman interrupted, ‘to call young Oskar inadequate. His taste was very different to his brother’s, and yes, he did make the odd mistake, but all in all I think he’s brought a welcome dimension to the collection. It breaks up the austerity. Without it, well, this collection would be like a good dinner without the sweet course. That caterpillar vase over there’ – she pointed through the crowd – ‘it really is rather delightful.’
‘It’s all very well …’ I began again heatedly, but before I could get further, a man said firmly:
‘The caterpillar vase is the only one, the only one of his choices that earns its place here. His problem was that he had no sense of the collection as a whole, the
balance of the thing.’
I could feel my patience running out.
‘Look,’ I shouted, ‘just stop this! Just for one second stop this, this inane chatter! Just stop it for one second and let someone else say something, someone else from outside, outside this closed little world you all seem so happy to inhabit!’
I paused and glared at them. My assertiveness had paid off for they were all of them – four men and three women – staring at me in astonishment. Having at last gained their attention, my anger now felt deliciously under control, like some weapon I could wield with deliberation. I lowered my voice – I had shouted a little more loudly than I had intended – and continued:
‘Is it any wonder, is it any wonder at all that in this little town of yours, you have all these problems, this crisis as some of you choose to term it? That so many of you are so miserable and frustrated? Does it puzzle anyone, anyone from outside? Is it a surprise? Do we, we observers from a bigger, broader world, do we scratch our heads in bewilderment? Do we say to ourselves, how can it possibly be that a town such as this’ – I could feel someone tugging at my arm, but I was now determined to have my say – ‘that a town, a community like this should have such a crisis on its hands? Are we puzzled and amazed? No! Not for a moment! One arrives and immediately what does one see all around? Exemplified, ladies and gentlemen, by people like you, yes, you here! You typify – I’m sorry if I’m being unfair, if there are examples yet more gross and monstrous to be found under the rocks and paving stones of this city – but to my eyes, you, sir, and you, madam, yes, as much as I regret to break it to you, yes, you exemplify everything that’s so wrong here!’ The hand tugging at my sleeve, I realised, belonged to one of the women I was addressing, who for some reason was reaching behind the man standing next to me. I glanced a second in her direction, then went on: ‘For one thing, you lack basic manners. Look at the way you treat each other. Look at the way you treat my family. Even myself, a distinguished figure, your guest, look at you, far too concerned about Oskar’s art collecting. In other words, too obsessed, obsessed with the little internal disorders of this thing you call your community, too obsessed to display even the minimum level of good manners to us.’
The Unconsoled Page 31
