by David Nobbs
Later that afternoon, when it was time for Kate and Walter and Elizabeth to go home, and the whole family came to the door to wave goodbye, and they set off down Eaton Crescent, Kate felt a surge of certainty that this time she and Walter would live happily together until death did them part.
They might have done, too, but for Red Ron Rafferty, President of the National Union of Piston Makers, Flange Cutters and Scrag-end Offloaders.
Kate might never have met Red Ron Rafferty, but for a Sunday lunch party that she and Walter gave in the early summer of 1948. Well, it was really a family lunch to which Stanley and Jasmine happened to be invited.
Kate had been just a little upset with Walter over the invitation to Stanley.
‘I’ve invited an old chum of yours to lunch on Sunday,’ he’d said, over breakfast in the cavernous kitchen one day. ‘Stanley Wainwright.’
‘Oh heavens. Why?’
‘I thought you’d be pleased. I thought I’d show you that my horizons are expanding. The chap’s pretty well thought of, apparently.’
‘He’s internationally famous.’
‘Exactly. He’s coming to the works on Monday. I thought I might commission a sculpture for the forecourt. I thought you’d be thrilled if I started becoming a patron of the arts. You know him, and he’s famous, so he seemed the ideal chap, so I said, “Why not come up early and come for Sunday lunch?”’
Kate paused in the act of scraping the burnt bits off a slice of toast. Even Walter’s money hadn’t proved enough to buy a toaster that worked.
‘You haven’t invited him to stay?’ she said.
‘No. Don’t want to get too intimate.’
‘Nor do I. He can be extremely lecherous.’
‘Well, he’ll have his wife with him.’
‘I don’t imagine that would stop him.’
‘She’s called Jasmine.’
‘Oh Lord, is she? I can see her now. Vaguely oriental and sweet and utterly, utterly adoring. I think I’m going to be sick, and I haven’t even met her yet.’
‘Kate!’ He was quite stern.
‘What?’
‘Sometimes you let your cleverness run away with you. It isn’t clever to do that. And you are sometimes wrong. You were utterly wrong about Bunny.’
‘I wasn’t wrong not to like her, though, I mean, not even asking us to the wedding! Not even asking Bernard!’
‘We didn’t ask them to ours.’
‘That’s different. We’d been married before. Oh, Walter.’
She walked round the table to kiss him. It was quite a long walk, so the gesture was hardly spontaneous, but she kissed the top of his head several times and noticed that his unruly black hair was just beginning to thin.
‘Thank you, Walter. I think it’s a great idea about the sculpture and I’m most impressed,’ she said.
‘I didn’t want you to be impressed,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to be happy.’
The day of the lunch party was delightful, one of the first lovely days of summer, warm and gentle, with a light breeze bringing the smell of new-mown hay. There were eight of them for lunch, Kate and Walter, Stanley and Jasmine, Bernard and the three boys. Boys! Nigel and Timothy were both at university. Elizabeth wasn’t there. She’d made a friend at last, and was away, visiting that friend.
Kate remembered having drinks in the garden, but she couldn’t recall a thing they talked about. But when they went inside and were seated round the huge dining table, with Kate at one end and Walter at the other, she seemed able to recall every word.
‘How are you liking Copson Towers, Jasmine?’ Nigel shouted across the table. ‘Sorry to shout, but the acoustics are bad in some of the far corners.’
‘Yes, yes, Nigel, it’s a big room, very amusing,’ said Kate, ‘but don’t shout, darling, please.’
‘I think it’s all very . . . er . . .’ Jasmine had clearly been going to say ‘nice’ and then had second thoughts, in case Stanley erupted at the anodyne adjective, or hated the house. ‘ . . . very impressive.’ Jasmine looked very tiny, in front of the huge belly of the pseudo-medieval brick chimney. She was vaguely oriental and sweet and utterly, utterly adoring. ‘It’s not really called Copson Towers, is it?’
‘No,’ said Nigel. ‘That’s my little joke.’
‘And it doesn’t get any bigger,’ said Timothy.
The food was traditional, as Walter demanded, but excellent – superb rare beef, succulent Yorkshire pudding, home-made horseradish sauce, golden roast potatoes. The Nuits St George was mature and velvet, soft and subtle.
‘This is good stuff, Walter,’ said Stanley. ‘This is wonderful stuff.’ Nigel and Timothy began to drink their wine a great deal more carefully. ‘How much did this set you back?’
First mention of money, thought Kate.
‘One pound six shillings a bottle,’ said Walter proudly.
Kate saw Bernard’s eyes widen at the thought of spending so much money on a bottle of wine. He tasted the wine very seriously, rolling it round his tongue. She smiled at him lovingly. There were black bags under his eyes, and she didn’t like the sallowness of his complexion. There was a suspicious mark around the flies of his dark flannel trousers, and there was the usual saliva around his teeth. She had to admit that he didn’t enhance her table, and she could almost – almost – forgive Oliver and Bunny for not inviting him to their wedding.
‘You’ve certainly got some place here, Walter,’ said Stanley. ‘I’m not surprised Nigel calls it Copson Towers.’
‘I have a name for my mother,’ piped up Maurice, largely because he thought it was about time that he spoke.
Kate could sense a sudden tension round the great table, as everybody prepared to be embarrassed by a fourteen-year-old. Maurice went slightly pink and lost the courage to carry on.
‘Come on, Maurice,’ said Timothy, not unkindly. ‘What do you call her?’
‘I call her Kate of the Two Settees,’ said Maurice, going red. ‘Like Anna of the Five Towns.’
Kate felt quite proud of Maurice. It was a lovely description. And yet . . . and yet . . .
For a moment nobody said anything. What Maurice had said wasn’t hilarious, so it would be patronising to roar with laughter, but it really was pretty good, and he was going very red now and thought he had a massive flop on his hands.
‘That’s very good,’ Kate said, meaning it. ‘I like that,’ she added, not meaning it.
She thought that Nigel looked angry, but he smiled and said, ‘No, Mother’s right, Maurice. That’s very good. Far better than my Copson Towers. Mother, from now on you are Kate of the Two Settees.’
Walter poured more wine. Stanley was drinking fast, and so was Timothy. Maurice said, ‘Can I have half a glass without water rather than another glass with water. I want to see if I’m mature enough to appreciate it.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Kate of the Two Settees. ‘I think you’ve earned it.’
‘I saw a mutual friend last week, Kate,’ said Stanley. ‘Daniel Begelman.’
Kate found herself resenting Stanley’s use of the word ‘mutual’ in connection with Daniel.
‘He’s very excited about the creation of Israel. He says it’s going to be his artistic salvation, and they’re going to live there. He’s had a terrible time. They wouldn’t even use him as a war artist, and they used everybody.’
‘I like the concept of war artists,’ said Timothy. ‘ “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” “Joined the Queen’s Own Highland Light Watercolourists, son. First day in the trenches, our captain said, ‘Right, chaps. I want you to get over to Gerry’s left flank and paint the bastard. Don’t let him see you or he’ll go all self-conscious. I want the truth. I want real corporals, not acting corporals.’ ”’
It was inventive and amusing, as Timothy could be when on form, but Kate didn’t feel like laughing. She found it impossible to laugh about war. And Nigel, who had been to war, laughed but not, she felt, with his eyes.
‘Why wouldn�
��t they use Daniel?’ Kate asked.
‘They didn’t say. He thinks it’s because he’s too uncompromising. Olga things it’s anti-Semitism. I just don’t think he’s quite good enough, simple as that.’
Kate wondered if Bernard noticed how this remark upset her, because he suddenly changed the subject most abruptly, saying, ‘Do you play much sport at the varsity?’ in the affected tone she had heard him use once before, about his trip to Vienna with Rodber. It made her want to cry to hear Bernard using this pretentious voice. It made her realise just how insecure he was.
‘I know I ought to be sporty, with my physique,’ answered Nigel, ‘but I’m not very interested, and I don’t have a lot of time. You have to work hard when you read science at Oxford. It isn’t quite like reading languages at Cambridge.’ He looked across at Timothy with loving scorn. Timothy stuck his tongue out at him. I have to remember how young they still are, thought Kate. ‘I play mind games. Chess. Bridge. My mother disapproves.’
‘Nigel!’ said Kate.
‘Well, you do.’
‘It makes me sound so priggish. I just feel that there’s so much unhappiness in the world, so many problems to be solved, so much stupidity, that people with fine minds ought to save them for the real tasks.’
This proved quite a conversation stopper. After a few very silent moments, Bernard, who might have taken her up on it if he’d had more energy, persisted with his sport theme.
‘And what about you, Timothy?’ he asked. ‘Any sport in your life?’
‘Hockey,’ said Timothy. ‘I love hockey. It’s an awful game to watch, but a wonderful game to play.’
‘Your Uncle Oliver played hockey for Wales,’ said Bernard. ‘He scored the winning goal in their 4–3 victory over Uruguay in Montevideo.’
‘My word. What an achievement to tell your children about,’ said Stanley sarcastically.
‘Yes, I think it would be. Unfortunately his only child was born dead,’ said Bernard.
There was a horrified silence.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Bernard. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘More meat, anybody?’ asked Kate.
It seemed that everybody except Jasmine wanted more meat. And everybody except Maurice wanted more wine. Jasmine frowned at Stanley as he allowed his glass to be refilled.
‘So, Walter,’ said Stanley Wainwright, ‘what do you want from me tomorrow? A tribute to the world of the piston?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Walter. ‘It’s hilarious, isn’t it? Uncultured Midland businessman, let’s take the piss.’
‘Walter!’ said Kate. ‘Language! Maurice is fourteen.’
‘I do know what piss is,’ said Maurice.
‘I’m not taking the piss at all,’ said Stanley. ‘I admire you. Living in a place like this, serving us wine like this. I’m in the wrong business.’
‘You certainly are not,’ said Walter. ‘You charge hundreds for a commission.’
‘Supply and demand,’ said Stanley Wainwright.
‘And that’s what mine is,’ said Walter.
‘I don’t think you can compare the two,’ said Bernard. ‘Stanley deals in works of art. You can’t put an exact price on that.’
‘You could very easily,’ said Walter. ‘So much an hour, plus materials.’
‘Stanley isn’t a jobbing gardener,’ said Jasmine. ‘He’s a great artist.’
‘All right,’ said Walter, who was slightly flushed from the wine and the heat, ‘so his hourly rate will reflect his talent and reputation and be more than the rate claimed by some wanker who displays in the village hall.’
‘Walter! Language!’ said Kate. ‘What’s wrong with you today? What sort of example are you setting Maurice?’
‘It’s all right, Ma,’ said Maurice. ‘I know what a wanker is.’
‘That’s why I don’t want your father to talk about it,’ said Kate.
‘I don’t resent your making money out of your art,’ said Walter. ‘I just resent your suggesting that I’m greedier than you. Awful greedy businessman. Wonderful spiritual artist. You’re a greedy man trading on your fame and fortune.’
Stanley Wainwright unwound his great body from his chair and Kate was reminded of her first sight of him in the tea shoppe in Penance.
‘Right,’ he thundered. ‘Right . . .’
‘Oh, please sit down, Stanley,’ implored Jasmine. ‘If you’re going to storm out, finish your Nuits St Georges first.’
Stanley glowered at Jasmine, glared at Walter, glanced greedily at his glass, and sat down. Kate wanted to say, ‘Jasmine, I underestimated you. That was cleverly done.’
‘Stanley’s always storming out these days,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s selfish. I have a sweet tooth and I never get to stay for the dessert.’
‘I’m afraid I am rather volatile,’ said Stanley complacently, ‘but then I’m an artist.’
‘I apologise,’ said Walter. ‘I overstepped the mark. But I don’t think artists have the right to lecture businessmen because they make money. I don’t look up to the world of art because it’s above greed and money. I look up to it because it’s clever and inventive and beautiful and life-enhancing and exciting and fun, and I get as angry about businessmen who despise art as I do about artists who despise businessmen. I do have a problem, and I’m going to shock you here. It’s with my wife. I love my wife. I’ve proved it. I haven’t just married her once, I’ve married her twice. She’s a wonderful woman. I take her interests seriously, but she doesn’t take my work seriously. It’s one-way traffic.’
‘Walter!’ said Kate, shocked. ‘I do.’
‘Do you buggery!’
‘Walter!’
‘It’s all right, Ma, I know what buggery is.’
‘Where do you learn all these things, Maurice?’
‘School. Pretty disastrous concept, really, school.’
‘I apologise for my language,’ said Walter. ‘My civilisation’s only skin deep, and I want Kate to help me with that. But it can’t just be a one-way process. You’ve never once come to see the works. You’ve never taken any interest.’
‘I haven’t wanted to come,’ said Kate, ‘not because I don’t respect what you do, but because I know I wouldn’t understand a thing I see. I must say I do question the whole basis of our education, and the way we choose the subjects that suit us and that we find easiest. It’s ludicrous, in 1948, in the middle of the century of the machine, that anybody should be allowed to be so ignorant about machines, and physics, and chemistry. I want to come tomorrow morning, Walter. I’ll brave my ignorance.’
‘I can’t do tomorrow morning,’ said Walter. ‘I’ve got Stanley coming tomorrow. If he still wants to.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Stanley, ‘and I’ll knock ten pounds off my price if you can find another bottle of this Nuits St Georges.’
‘Well, there must be somebody who could show me round,’ said Kate.
‘Talking of Nuits St Georges,’ said Bernard, ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for our parents, Kate, denying themselves utterly the pleasures of alcohol, I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m glad you said, “I beg your pardon?”’ said Kate, ‘because it shows that you know that I’m not going to agree. Yes, the Nuits St Georges is wonderful, and there’s never been a drop of alcohol in 16 Eaton Crescent, but they’ve never had as argumentative a meal as this. Who’s for treacle tart and who’s for apple pie?’
Ron Rafferty was a big-boned Irishman from Cork, with sandy hair, a melting smile and a touch of haughtiness in his carriage. He was in his late thirties. His every movement spoke of his pride in himself and his scorn for . . . not for Kate, he had too much natural courtesy for that, but for the task he’d been landed with that morning, his role of tour guide to the Managing Director’s wife.
The vast sheds were throbbing with noise, pulsating with activity. In the foundry the heat was intense, the glimpses of the power of the roaring flames were awe-inspiring, the noise was deafening, the danger was palpable.
Ron took Kate across vast floors between huge, noisy machines and great furnaces with hot breath. He led her up steep ladders on to galleries which looked down on people who were specks dwarfed by technology.
‘Ladies first,’ he said with a humorous glint in his eye at the bottom of each ladder. She was certain that he looked up her skirt as she climbed, but not certain enough to rebuke him for it. He stopped in the noisiest places to explain the most obscure processes to her. Fifty-one years later she could remember none of the technical terms and suspected that fifty-one days later she wouldn’t have remembered them. She only heard isolated phrases on the day itself. ‘ . . . die-cast aluminium . . . machining the lands . . . compression rings . . . connecting rods . . . gudgeon pin . . . maximum piston speed limited by the inertia factor . . . some have hemispherical heads, some have domed . . .’ Well, something like that, but it was as much Greek to her as Greek would have been to him. It didn’t make sense to her, she wanted it to make sense to her, Ron Rafferty knew that it didn’t make sense to her and she suspected that he didn’t want it to make sense to her and that he knew that she suspected that he didn’t want it to make sense to her.
She could think of no question to ask that wouldn’t reveal the depth of her ignorance. Even ‘What’s that?’ was fraught with danger, let alone ‘How do the gudgeon pins connect to the compression rods?’ She would doubtless ask ‘What’s that?’ about the most obvious thing in the works, or a fire extinguisher, and his scorn would know no bounds.
And so they toured the works, this strong Welsh lady who wanted to be liked, and this strong Irish man who didn’t care whether he was liked or not and was therefore the stronger on the day. Kate felt like a bemused minor Royal without the arrogance. She was the visiting socialite who strikes an alien note. She was the little woman. She was an inconvenience in Ron Rafferty’s diary.
‘Well, now you know all about how it’s done,’ said Red Ron Rafferty at the end of the tour, smiling with enough blarney to melt a stone.
She smiled too. ‘You know perfectly well that I know nothing about how it’s done,’ she said. Her head was aching, her ears were pounding, she had never known such noise as on that morning. ‘I respected what I understood and what I didn’t understand. I shall never make the mistake of underestimating the skill, strength and dedication of the people I’ve seen working here today. Thank you very much for escorting me. I shall tell my husband that you’ve done it perfectly. Thank you, Ron.’
