by Ruth Edwards
‘Afternoon duty is quite pleasant: I can usually get quite a lot of reading done in the library because there’s little activity on the gallery after three o’clock. Glastonbury is usually asleep—in fact, apart from mealtimes, he seems to be rarely awake. Fagg and Blenkinsop gossip and doze, sometimes joined by Fishbane, and the occasional non-resident looks in for afternoon tea. I’m off duty at five and staff supper is at seven.
‘On the nights I’m on duty I work from seven-thirty to nine-thirty. I turn up for staff meals but I don’t really eat at them because young Pooley is so guilty about what he’s condemned me to that he keeps on having parcels of goodies delivered. I share the spoils with Sunil, to whom I’ve spoken vaguely about an eccentric rich friend. We are waxing fat on a diet of Fortnum & Mason’s cold meats, game pies, smoked fish and cheese. It’s amazing the difference it makes. He even puts in the occasional bottle of claret. I have absolutely no conscience about taking this stuff from Ellis, who incidentally has shunted Plutarch off to a luxurious cattery and is still wrestling at getting the hairs out of the carpets. We’re meeting tomorrow. I’ve got a lot to tell him and Jim and by then they should have seen our chairman.
‘When I have evenings off, I tend to stay in the club lurking in the shadows reading: I am disinclined to meet friends. It’s too difficult to explain what I’m doing and I can’t face lying. Nor do I really want to go home. I only get depressed when I’m there, thinking that you should be there too. “Self-pity,” I hear you cry, all the way from New Delhi, so I won’t indulge in that any more. Oh yes. Speaking of not indulging, you’ll be pleased to hear that this place is conducive to staying off the ciggies. Lots of the old boys smoke and nobody objects, so I don’t get into my anti-anti-smoking mood.
‘There is another unexpected bonus with this job. I had decided when in Rome to do as the Romans or in this case, more appropriately, when in Babylon do as the Babylonians—no, I don’t mean I’m having orgies in the servants’ quarters, or letting Gooseneck have his way with me. What I’m doing is getting stuck into erotic literature and pornography: the club has a fascinating, not to say incredible, collection, and I can’t imagine the opportunity is likely to arise again. I haven’t quite grasped what the acquisitions policy is here. Ffeatherstonehaugh’s does not have a librarian. Mr. Fishbane, he whom no woman should approach before he has had his breakfast, is the driving force behind the library committee. He is not a man of esoteric tastes: his seem to accord with those one would associate with a long-distance lorry-driver: lots of straight girlie magazines, only the more common perversions, e.g., mild S & M. If my deductions are correct, Fishbane has been in charge of buying only for about three years, because for the previous three the magazines being ordered were very rum indeed. I can’t quite imagine where they were getting them from. Job lots from Amsterdam by the look of them. They’re what you might call a very catholic collection: flagellation, paedophilia, coprophilia (sorry, I forget you’re not an aficionado—the sexual dimension of shit—J. Joyce had leanings that way), along with the usual nuns-and-donkeys sort of stuff. In fact, a police raid on ffeatherstonehaugh’s would lead to a great deal of embarrassment. However, that buying policy seems to have existed for only a very short period and to have been an aberration, as indeed is Fishbane’s reign. For up to then, even if the old buggers in the club were lewd, they had a certain style. The erotic material they bought in had literary pretensions. Indeed, the club’s collection of erotica is very fine indeed. Probably the most extensive in this country outside the British Library.
‘I’m zapping through old classics from de Sade and Fanny Hill right through to William Burroughs and Henry Miller—all the dirty books one has heard of but never read. Though most of them are to my boring straight tastes profoundly unerotic, the process is interesting none the less and I have a new hero: the Earl of Rochester. Have you come across him? A seventeenth-century libertine who wrote excellent satirical verse (he’s the author of the famous epigram about Charles II: “God bless our good and gracious king/Whose promise none relies on;/Who never said a foolish thing,/Nor ever did a wise one”—one of the reasons I like him so much is that allegedly he recited it extempore to the king) and some great, great poems about sex. How about this?
Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
Both equally inspired with eager fire,
Melting through kindness, flaming in desire;
With arms, legs, lips, close clinging in embrace,
She clings me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.
The nimble tongue (Love’s lesser lightning) played
Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed
Swift orders that I should prepare to throw
The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.
‘Good, eh? That’s one of the polite ones. Lots of them are seriously lewd. I must learn some to shock Ellis with.
‘What does amuse me is that although all the erotica and pornography are readily available, hypocrisy triumphs in the way they are stored. The pornographic magazines are all in narrow drawers in the library, the erotic classics are in grave bindings, and the drawings are never put on display. Indeed the magazine tables proffer The Economist, the Spectator and a clutch of literary magazines, although I’ve never seen any of them being read. If what you want is to peruse a publication like Big Women, you’ll find it in a discreet magazine rack in a corner of the Smoking Room. Oh, and before I leave the matter of ffeatherstonehaugh’s and pass on to more general issues, I’ve at last cracked the surname problem. You will remember that when we last spoke you said the Ramsbum. Gooseneck business was impossible, and that was even before I had met my colleague Blitherdick, the wine waiter who had been on holiday when I arrived. It was at that stage that I too decided that it was beyond any rational explanation. I happened to find myself with the Commander on the gallery one afternoon: the other usual suspects were missing. He was in a highly sociable mood and, bereft of any equals, was addressing me on the subject of the decline of western civilisation and the loss of old standards. When he’d been banging on for several minutes about immigration, infiltration, dilution of the great Anglo-Saxon race and a lot more of the same. I seized the opportunity, rather neatly I thought, to observe that indeed things had come to a pretty pass when the name Patel was as common as Smith in England.
‘“One of the reasons I like this club, sir,” I said, “is all these extraordinary old Anglo-Saxon names that one rarely comes across any more. I never thought to find in the same establishment a Gooseneck, a Ramsbum and a Blitherdick.”
‘This observation caused the Commander to fall into roars of drunken laughter at the innocence of this poor poltroon of a servant. “It takes an egghead,” he cried, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Anglo-Saxon, my arse. They’re jokes. Way back at the beginning of the club’s history there was a Ramsbottom as hall porter, and the wags in the club shortened it to Ramsbum. Ever since, the hall porter is always called Ramsbum. Same thing with Gooseneck. The first head waiter had the silliest name of any applicant: Goosen, not very silly I grant you, but enough. So because he had a scraggy neck he was christened Gooseneck.”
‘“So Blitherdick?” I enquired.
‘“Blatherwick originally. Quite a distinguished name.”
‘“Excuse me, sir,” I said, “but don’t people mind being given these names?”
‘“Mind? Mind?” he said. “Bloody cheek they’d have to mind. Should be honoured bearing the names of their distinguished forebears. You young people, no idea have you? No sense of history. Don’t know what the…” And then mercifully he lost interest and fell asleep and I was able to go back to my researches in the library.
‘I must pause in a minute. It is almost half-past six and I am due to meet Sunil in our room for a quick snack. Ellis has sent us some veal and ham pie and a few half-bottles of champagne: I must keep playing on his guilt. Sunil won’t drink the champagne of course
. He spends all his free time studying and he doesn’t cloud his brain. He may be a secular Indian, but by Christ, sorry, by Ganesh, he’s got an Indian attitude to work. He says he will have time enough to relax and carouse when he’s had a smash hit with his first novel. I said I hoped it wouldn’t involve him in being menaced by hoards of vengeful Hindu fundamentalists. He said if I thought he was going to be the Hindu Salman Rushdie, I was mistaken: he saw himself more as a Hindu P. G. Wodehouse. Anyway, he pointed out, by and large Hindus have a sense of humour. So have I, but sometimes it gets sorely strained. Yesterday, I incautiously sat down in the library in a chair just vacated by Colonel Fagg, and discovered later that the back of my entire uniform was covered in snuff. I had to go upstairs and take the uniform off to brush it, as otherwise it would have been deduced that I had sat in the chair of a gentleman. Perhaps when I leave here I’ll join the Class War party, though I’ll have to insist they spare Ellis when the revolution comes…’
Chapter Nine
‘The Vice-Admiral’s back, sir.’ Pooley was so excited he was almost squeaking. ‘He says he’s free any time this afternoon.’
‘Vice-admiral? What vice-admiral?’
‘Vice-Admiral Sir Conrad Meredith-Lee, sir. Don’t you remember? The chairman of ffeatherstonehaugh’s general committee?’
‘Oh Lord, yes. That again. All right, Ellis, I expect I can find time this afternoon. Let’s say three o’clock. I presume you want to come?’
Pooley nodded wordlessly.
‘Where does he live?’
‘Albany, sir.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Milton. ‘Very nice too. Pick me up at two forty-five.’ He bent his head once more to the pile of paper in his in-tray.
***
‘I’m afraid Colonel Fagg has taken an objection to you, dear boy,’ said Gooseneck to Amiss that lunch-time. ‘He claims you look as if you have Itie blood.’
‘Because I’ve got dark hair, Mr. Gooseneck?’
‘That’s a good enough reason if he’s taken an objection to you. Has there been an incident of any kind? He said something about an insolent pup.’
‘It wasn’t anything I said, Mr. Gooseneck, but I suppose I don’t always keep my face impassive when the snuff takes over, as it were.’
‘You mean when it starts dribbling down his chin?’ asked Gooseneck.
‘And when he smears it on his shirt.’
‘Or rubs it on his ear?’
‘Or a gobbet sticks in his nose.’
‘In any event, you should exercise self-control,’ said Gooseneck. ‘You don’t want to lose your job, do you?’
‘Oh, no. I can’t afford to.’
‘Well, if I were you I would cultivate the gravitas of Jeeves. Fagg’s already muttering threats and he’s a very powerful figure in this club. If he wants you out I can’t save you.’
At this moment Fagg entered the dining-room and marched straight to his usual table. With a sinking heart Amiss went over to take his order. A ray of sunlight came through the window and lit up the specks of snuff that had wafted from Fagg’s clothing as he sat down.
‘What are you gaping at, boy? You look like a damned wop. Can’t keep your eyes to yourself.’
Amiss thought of the indignities he had so far endured and surmounted; this was a mere pin-prick.
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Just for a moment the sun was in my eyes and I couldn’t see properly. And for the record, sir, my father fought under Monty at Alamein.’
The red glare left Fagg’s eyes: the floating snuff seemed to settle snugly into the folds of his suit.
‘Desert Rat, eh? They were a fine body of men. All right, then. All right. But get your hair cut and look like a proper Englishman. Now get me the turtle soup.’
***
Milton and Pooley entered Albany, the great eighteenth-century house off Piccadilly that contains the most exclusive and convenient apartments in London. The Vice-Admiral lived at the back, and he opened his front door a few seconds after Pooley rang the bell. Who’s Who had revealed him to be seventy-four: in the flesh he could have passed for ten years younger, despite having a head entirely free of hair. As he led them into his large and sunny sitting-room, his scalp gleamed in the light.
Lining the walls were a couple of hundred maritime paintings, ranging in size from tiny to huge and in subject from peaceful rowing boats to titanic struggles between enemy fleets. The theme was picked up in the ornaments, which in their turn ranged from the kind of small plaster ship one won at a fairground, to a vast silver centrepiece of a battle cruiser. The books on the coffee-table concerned naval battles, and many of the photographs on the occasional tables featured men in naval uniform.
‘Sit down, sit down.’ Meredith-Lee waved them to a comfortable sofa and sat down in an armchair opposite.
‘You’re looking overwhelmed and I’m not surprised. I have to explain to everyone that I’m not so much of a monomaniac as this collection makes me seem, but when my old man died, thirty years ago, he left me his paintings. Somehow the word got round that I was mad about maritime art. Ever since then, whenever I left a job or anyone gave me a present, I was given more of the same. Tell you the truth, I’m sick to death of the lot of it, but I can’t think of anything to do with it that won’t have my old man haunting me and have other people’s feelings hurt. However, that’s not your problem. What is?’
‘Ffeatherstonehaugh’s, Sir Conrad,’ said Milton. ‘Particularly the death of Mr. Trueman.’
‘Mmmm,’ said the Admiral. ‘So you don’t think it’s a clear case of suicide do you? I’ve been brooding about that myself ever since I heard. Didn’t somehow seem to tie in with Trueman. As for ffeatherstonehaugh’s, well, what d’you want to know? Damned if I could make out quite what’s going on and I’ve been trying hard enough.’
‘But you’re the chairman,’ said Milton.
The Admiral reached for the pipe that lay on the table beside him, took out a tobacco pouch, filled the pipe carefully, lit it, sucked in the smoke and blew it out luxuriously. ‘I think I’d better tell you the whole story right from the beginning.’
He settled back in his armchair and put his feet on the coffee-table. ‘I was very fond of ffeatherstonehaugh’s from the time I was introduced to it by a pal of mine in the late 1940s. I’d been to sea for a few years. I was in my late twenties and, like any sailor, I liked a good time when I was on leave. You’re too young to remember, but that was the time of austerity. There was still rationing, it was nearly impossible to get a decent meal in London, and the whole atmosphere was very puritanical. My pal Pinkie Blenkinsop took me one night to ffeatherstonehaugh’s.’
‘This is Commander Blenkinsop?’
‘That’s right,’ said the Admiral, ‘but he was fun in those days. Not the opinionated old soak he’s become. Anyway, I’d never come across a place like it. The food was magnificent, because it was supplied from members’ country estates; the service was marvellous, because the staff were so well treated.’ Milton and Pooley caught each other’s eyes and tried not to register disbelief. ‘They were so well paid too, that even at a time of servant shortage people were queuing up to work there. The building hadn’t been touched in the war, the wine-cellar was intact and the whole atmosphere was one of joyousness and laughter. It could be a bit vulgar, I grant you, but Rabelaisian, nothing nasty.’ He puffed furiously on his pipe and gazed dreamily at the ceiling. ‘The first night was better fun than I think I’d ever had. We had a great feast and lots to drink and afterwards there were recitations and a great singsong, and those that wanted to played poker. It wasn’t like one of those stuffy clubs where the only card game you’re allowed to play is bridge, and it’s threepence a hundred. And although women weren’t provided—it wasn’t a brothel or anything—you could bring them in if they were good fun, and if they stayed over, a blind eye was turned. It was not like most gentlemen’s clubs, if you know what I mean. It seemed to be run for the benefit of chaps who wanted a good time—not chaps who w
anted to re-create their public schools. No silly rules. You could wear what you liked and the only bans were on people being boring or obnoxious. It was fun, it had style: I thought it was paradise. I joined that night. That was another thing about ffeatherstonehaugh’s. Most clubs, you have to go through a long rigmarole of being proposed and seconded and vouched for by other members and having your background scrutinised, and weeks and months go by before you’re elected. With ffeatherstonehaugh’s, if you came in as a guest and they liked you, you could be elected by acclamation on the spot.’ He fell into a reverie.
After a few moments Milton remarked, ‘It sounds extremely pleasant, sir. Rather more lively than it would appear to be nowadays.’
The Admiral jerked himself back into consciousness of his surroundings. ‘By God, you’re telling me,’ he said. ‘Bloody place is like a morgue nowadays.’ He stood up and went over to an escritoire and took a piece of paper out of a drawer. ‘I photocopied this a few weeks ago. It’s a poem by a fellow called the Earl of Rochester that used to be recited when someone was elected. It’s a bit rude, but it’ll give you an idea of the club ethos then: it’s called “The Debauchee.”’ He handed the sheet to Milton.
