Peculiar Ground

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

  Guy surprised him. ‘I’m a trained lifeguard. Best thing my ridiculous school did for me. There’s always shift work going at swimming pools. I can work on my beautiful body, and learn German by flirting with the boys. Wet dream!’ He paused for a laugh, but didn’t get it. Jamie was genuinely interested.

  ‘I could do that,’ he said. ‘I swim. I’ve swum across Loch Lomond.’

  ‘Well, then you could,’ said Guy. ‘So I’ll spend my mornings being pickled in chlorine, and my nights being droned at by the Krautrockers. And perhaps I’ll write a novel in the afternoons.’

  People kept arriving. Lil made a late entrance, gleaming in purple and gold, and left soon thereafter. She didn’t regret handing Wychwood over to Flossie – not one bit – but she didn’t much like being there as a guest. She brought with her a stout man dressed, unlike anyone else there, in a neat dark suit. Nell recognised Nicholas – bald now, but suave as ever.

  The dancing, in what used to be the dining room, slowed as the night faded. Francesca, in Jack Armstrong’s arms, leant back so that her hair brushed the hands he had clasped behind her. She looked, as usual, like an image dreamed up by an Edwardian pornographer. Her exquisite profile lay parallel with the ceiling and her bruised-plum slither of a satin dress withdrew like the calyx of a rose, helpless to cover her bosom (alabaster pale, of course).

  Flora, dancing with Antony, said, ‘My goodness, that girl is a show-off. I like that, don’t you? So relaxing to find someone who doesn’t need reassurance.’ And turned expecting a complicit smile, and saw instead that Antony was staring at the couple with the shocking vulnerability of one plagued by lust. What? Antony? Surely. Not even Francesca. Oh. No. Jack. That weird white creature.

  Poor Antony. Or perhaps not so poor. Jack’s eyes were closed as he swayed to Leonard Cohen’s mumbling. But when he opened them they weren’t clouded by the erotic swoon he seemed to be miming: they were bright as cut steel in the disco lights. Flora saw him send a wink direct at Antony, who saw Flora seeing it, made as though to ignore it, and then rallied deliberately and said, ‘Actually it’s her partner I’m interested in.’

  Flora said, ‘Good luck, then.’ ‘Oh no,’ said Antony. ‘Well. There was a time. Haven’t seen him for years. But yes, anyway, thanks.’

  The music changed. And soon there was Jack coming up to them. And there was Francesca looking as though she had been unpleasingly shaken awake, and Nicholas bustling over to accost her, and to tell her they’d met before in Porto Ercole.

  Helen was leaving with a tall man, handsome, grey hair, Roman nose. He was gripping her upper arm as though leading her away for questioning. Perhaps she wasn’t so emancipated after all. Passing the estate office in the old yard, they met Hugo on his way out. Hugo didn’t come to Flora’s parties any more. Chloe had said before the last one: ‘Are you sure they want you there? Flora hasn’t invited you, has she?’ And he’d had to admit, to her and – with shock – to himself, that no, she hadn’t. All the same, he often seemed to find some pressing reason for dropping into his office on party nights. Now, he was looking round to see where his dog had got to – another Wully, only just released from Armstrong’s strict training regime, and inclined to be skittish. He had his back to Helen and her companion. There was a moment when they were all three having to dodge to avoid colliding. The two men looked straight at each other, visibly shocked. Neither spoke. ‘Let’s go,’ said Helen’s escort, and went on without her.

  ‘What was that about?’ said Helen.

  Hugo shrugged, but as she turned to go he said, ‘Roger’s not … Well, it’s none of my business. But … I wouldn’t have too much to do with him.’

  ‘Oh I know,’ she said. ‘He’s a scoundrel. I rather like that sort of thing.’ But as she climbed into Roger’s car a memory tugged at her, a rose garden, a child butting against her legs, a story about a gun. ‘So how do you know Hugo Lane?’ she asked.

  In the long drawing room Spiv uncrossed her fish-netted legs and rose from the sofa where she had spent much of the evening. She crossed to where Selim stood with Nell. ‘That’s my summer settled, then,’ she said, faking nonchalance. ‘He says I can slave for him. I’ll be in New York with my father, so … A fifteen-minute chance at fame.’

  There was breakfast. Underhill and Mrs Duggary saw to that. Mrs D had had her own dancing days before she got involved in church work. She knew how ravenous you could be for chips, walking back from the dance hall with the other girls. You wouldn’t let a young man see you guzzling like that, but ooh the sting of the vinegar on chapped lips and the grate of salt. Nothing more delicious. There were some men who saw you home, and that was a bit of a feather in your cap of course, but you almost wished they hadn’t because their breath wasn’t nice and the kissing, well, let’s just say you’d rather have had the chips. Perhaps if she’d smoked herself she wouldn’t have minded so much, but she’d never fancied it. Loved food always. Cared about tastes more than anything. Lucky she’d ended up in a kitchen. Mrs R had been a bit difficult sometimes, but with Flora she could talk. She taught Flora how to make a soufflé, and apple snow. Flora gave her things she’d not seen before. Cardamom. Worked a treat with rice pudding. Food brings people together. In the end they all have stomachs, don’t they. Even the boys with mascara and the girls, so bossy. Drugs might be the thing now (they think we don’t notice, but of course we do) but you still want dinner, don’t you? Even if it’s at a funny time. And breakfast. Anyone who’s been dancing for four hours can do with some nice hot kedgeree.

  Or sausages, or kippers and scrambled eggs. On the little round tables crowding the dining room, toast, sliced thin, cooled to flabbiness in silver racks. Mauve and magenta scented stocks wilted gradually. Voices grew slurred, or subdued. No one much was dancing any more. The leaving started, and then – oh no! – the birds.

  Jamie drank himself stupid, stumbled upstairs and found a bed to lie on, a four-poster. Later some of the others came looking for bags and coats, and, finding him there, draped themselves around him.

  ‘I used to sleep in this room when I was a child,’ said Nell.

  ‘Weren’t you frightened, here alone?’

  ‘There’s a bell. Do you see? That rope and tassel. If I pulled that someone would come running.’

  A joint was going round. ‘We wouldn’t use each other’s toothbrushes,’ said Guy. ‘And yet here we are all putting this soggy thing into our mouths.’

  ‘It doesn’t count. Like kissing,’ said Spiv. ‘There’s nothing really wrong with spit as long as you don’t think about it too much.’

  Selim passed the joint on when it reached him. To him there most certainly was something wrong with sucking on other people’s saliva. He looked at Spiv with the slightest possible tremor of distaste. Unfair, because although she was unusually forthright she committed no transgressions against morality or cleanliness that might not also have been committed by Nell, who seemed to Selim pure as the dewdrop at the heart of an anemone.

  Jamie woke up, and took a drag. ‘What is this shit? It’s powerful.’

  ‘There’s just the teensiest bit of opium in the mix,’ said Manny. Manny, with his hyacinthine mane, thought he looked Dionysian. Somehow, though, he failed to bring it off. The mane could have done with more frequent washing, and Manny was too calculating of eye and too paunchy of figure for a personification of pagan self-abandon. His velvet jacket, spangled with tiny printed stars, flapped open not because he was elegantly careless but because it was too tight. He got his kicks delivering crowds of protesters to demonstrate in support of the revolution – any revolution. But, as his father repeatedly and irritatingly told him, he had the mind of a capitalist entrepreneur. For now, he dealt in drugs.

  ‘Oh no. Oh Manny, why didn’t you say?’ Nell was remembering a night in a strange house way up the Cowley Road, shuddering and weeping for terror at what was happening to her body and, perhaps even more, for shame. As though the word opium had been enough to trigger a repeat, she disent
angled herself and set off for the nearest bathroom.

  There, nearly an hour later, Jamie found her sitting on the floor, her forehead resting against the cold enamel, her hands still shaky. She was pale. Her hair was bedraggled and she’d wrapped herself in a bath-towel for warmth. Jamie, who’d never really looked at her before, was moved. Self-possessed, smartly got-up girls annoyed him, however much he might fancy them. But this piteous waif …

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

  ‘No. How about you?’

  ‘Manny’s such a bastard. I loathe that stuff. Why do we all have to be poisoned just to keep him company?’

  Nell, struggling to contain another spasm, didn’t speak. Indignation might be one of Jamie’s commonest moods but it didn’t come naturally to her. What a stupid way to end the night.

  ‘Has Selim left?’

  ‘Yes. He said he knew you could stay here.’

  ‘I suppose. What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Want to come outside?’

  Selim’s car was parked by the estate office. Jack’s particoloured Triumph Herald – raspberry-pink and white – was alongside it, blocked in. Jack and Antony came walking together under the archway into the darkened yard. They stood facing each other. Antony spoke at length, his long hands clasped together at the level of his waist. Jack’s eyes went everywhere. He shrugged. He shook his head. At last he leant forward as though to put a hand on the taller man’s shoulder. Antony flinched, stood tensed for a long moment, then turned and walked back towards the house.

  Jack watched him go, silhouetted against the lights, then reached for cigarettes. He stopped to fumble with his lighter. The tiny glow fell on a patch of holly-green metal. Jack halted. He walked around Selim’s car. Saw the number plate. Squatted down in front of the car and began to run his hands over the chrome of the bumper, the headlights standing proud of the chassis, the B with its speed trail. He sat down on the ground, legs sprawled apart, and let his head drop back against the great car’s body.

  Selim arrived with Guy and Manny.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Selim, ‘I’m blocking you in. I’m so fearfully sorry.’ His manners were always correct. When he was stoned they became exaggeratedly punctilious. He went on and on, piling self-blame upon contrition. Didn’t know where to go. Got out in a hurry and flurry and failed to spot the little pink car. What an ass. Please forgive. Going now. At once.

  ‘It’s all right, man,’ said Jack. ‘I love this car. I absolutely fucking love it.’

  And now Guy remembered. ‘Well I never,’ he said. ‘Jack, isn’t it?’ They’d seen each other, here, as teenagers. They’d seen each other again more recently, in the vaults beneath Charing Cross station, both bare-chested, sweating, T-shirts swaying from the waistband of tight leather trousers, eyeing each other up as they danced. ‘And the car. It’s like the one you used to drive here.’

  ‘It’s not just like it, man. It’s the very one.’

  ‘It’s Selim’s. Selim, this is Jack.’

  Jack said again, ‘I love this car. I think I love it more than anyone I’ve ever known. Where’s it been?’

  ‘I bought it from an old Austrian lady in Park Town,’ said Selim. ‘Her sister had just died. She knew Nell’s family somehow.’

  ‘You just don’t know,’ said Jack, ‘how gorgeous it is.’ By now it was evident to all the others that he had been crying. It was true he loved the car, and equally true that he had never known how to respond so simply and ardently to any offered human love.

  ‘Come over tomorrow,’ said Selim. ‘You can drive it.’

  ‘Can I buy it? Please say I can buy it. I’ll give you whatever you paid for it, plus twenty per cent.’

  ‘Done,’ said Selim. He thought he was dealing with a madman. ‘You can have it. I’m leaving the country for good in ten days’ time. Then it’s yours.’

  Jack pulled himself to his feet, and became diffident. ‘Where shall I meet you?’

  As Selim turned the unwieldy car in the narrow yard – it took eleven moves to get it round – the headlights swung across Spiv, in the arms of a man of whom little could be seen but broad shoulders in a leather jacket, and a lot of curly hair. Manny leant out of the window and wolf-whistled. Without disengaging herself, Spiv waved her hand behind her back, giving him two fingers.

  ‘I guess she doesn’t want a lift then,’ said Selim.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Guy. ‘Or if she did, I’d volunteer to take her place.’

  ‘A bit old for her, isn’t he?’ said Manny, who had had his moment with Spiv, and still felt aggrieved that a moment was all she seemed to want of him. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Our Spiv is a very adult young lady,’ said Guy. ‘Mature beyond her years.’

  ‘He’s called Mark something,’ said Selim. ‘He lives around here. Mr Rose introduced me. They work together. Apparently he makes beautiful furniture.’

  In most circumstances dawn is a time of freshness and renewal, of city streets quiet and washed, of relief from the dreary truthfulness of night-thoughts. With the light comes absolution. Tomorrow is, generally speaking, another day. Not so the morrow of a party.

  In the long drawing room at Wychwood a couple lay asleep on a Chinese Chipperfield daybed like a grounded palanquin. They had dragged a bearskin rug over themselves: the beast’s stuffed muzzle rested between them, a materialised nightmare. The girl’s black eye make-up was blurred across her cheeks. She snored. A vase had been overturned. Pink roses and branches of philadelphus lay higgledy-piggledy by the puddle on the stone-flagged floor. There were cigarette butts in the ash of the dead fire, stubbed out in the pots of lilies, doused in wine glasses.

  Nell followed Jamie through the glass doors. The magnolia leaves, with their rust-coloured velvet undersides, clattered against the panes.

  ‘Come and join in. These dimwits don’t even know the rules.’ Benjie was hailing them from the croquet lawn.

  A girl in a painted organza dress had thrown down her mallet and lain on a stone bench, her skirt trailing to the ground, fan-shaped like the biscuits Mrs D always sent in with the rhubarb fool. Two young men, one apparently in tears, walked along the edge of the ha-ha, silhouetted against the wan new day. The early light made them all look ashen as ghosts.

  ‘No thanks,’ called Jamie. ‘We’re going swimming.’ Nell felt a frisson of irritation – what right had he to speak for her?

  They walked up the path through the shrubbery. They had been there together once before. In their first year, Jamie had tagged along with Spiv when Nell, hating it, had succumbed to her mother’s insistence that, after only a few weeks at Oxford, she invite everyone she’d met so far out for Sunday lunch at Wood Manor. Afterwards they walked up the Grand Vista to Wychwood, conversation suddenly eased (the cider had helped). She had led her little band into the garden through the side gate. As they passed the pool Jamie had said he wanted to swim, even though it was almost winter, and startled everyone by stripping to his Y-fronts and plunging in at the deep end, his stocky shape transfigured. In flight and in the water, he was neat and competent.

  Now he said, ‘You remember that first time I was here?’

  ‘You swam then, too.’

  ‘Yes. Your mother was very nice to me that day.’

  A pause. He looked at her. He had surprisingly pretty eyelashes.

  ‘I do, I really do want to swim,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, so do I.’

  Again he stripped off his clothes, again leaving his underpants on. She followed suit. Thank goodness she was wearing a bra. He dived. She jumped. He worked his way noisily up the pool, doing a strenuous crawl, his short thick arms flailing, his face turning always to one side only, sucking greedily at the air. Nell came behind, her sedate breaststroke making not a sound, not a ripple. The nausea had left her, but she was still stoned. Light buzzed, sound glittered, she was preternaturally aware of her ribs, of bones beneath flesh. The new-risen sun sent a beam of light straight through the wrough
t-iron gate in the yew hedge, throwing a shadow veil of baroque lace over the Buddha who presided, in his pagoda, behind the diving board at the pool’s far end.

  By the time they got out it was day. They wrapped themselves in the threadbare towels which smelt faintly of the rush matting, found a tartan rug (Nell knew it belonged to Flora’s dog, another Lupin, but said nothing) and huddled beneath it side by side on the swing-seat. Their arms were pimply with chill.

  ‘I once thought I’d killed someone here,’ said Nell.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, not really. I was only about eight.’

  ‘Tell me.’ Jamie half-turned away from her, lay down with knees raised and rested his head on her thigh.

  ‘He’s older, almost my parents’ age,’ she said. ‘He was staying here. Actually he was here again tonight.’

  ‘Last night,’ said Jamie, eyes closed.

  ‘I used to listen to the grown-ups talking, all the time. That weekend everyone was talking about spies. And I got it into my head that Antony was a spy.’

  ‘Antony? From the Ashmolean?’ Jamie had opened his eyes.

  ‘Mmm. It was just nonsense. I can’t even remember what made me think it. It was to do with Berlin. Some of the men had been there during the war. My father was too, just afterwards. Was yours? Did he fight?’

  Jamie ignored the questions.

  ‘So … Who did you think he was spying for?’

  ‘The Russians, I suppose. Although I wouldn’t really have known.’

  Nell was wishing she hadn’t named Antony, whom once she had wished dead. Just a week or two before, she had met him in St Giles’s and he had taken her into the Ashmolean and down into a basement, along with a girl she was with, and shown them both a marvellous piece of Roman gold, a pin the length of a kirby grip and topped with a tiny boar’s head. She was touched, and a bit awkward. It was the other girl who said afterwards, ‘Do you think he’s awfully lonely? I think queer men are sad, don’t you.’ How had she known that about Antony?