by Angus Wilson
The Samuels’ cocktail party, of course, had been asking for trouble, but his mother had insisted on going. If she disliked Alec Lovat, she hated Rosa Samuel. The Samuels were richer and more sophisticated than she was. But above everything she was jealous of Rosa. That innocent visit he had made to them in Essex in Summer 1942 had been the root of the trouble. ‘Rosa Samuel behaved very stupidly with Donald’ she had told Aunt Nora.
Rosa, in her own words, ‘had gone all 1912’. Her sleek, dark hair was piled up high on her head with some construction of scarlet fruit and feathers in it, and her scarlet velvet dress which spread out in a train round her ankles was cut up the side of its very tight skirt. Donald remembered that as she had come forward to greet them his heart had jumped with triumph, here at least he was on friendly soil, for Rosa had been his confidante and ally in all his battles. Almost immediately, however, he had felt sure that his mother would win. So, indeed, it had proved, for Rosa in her mingled shyness and dislike had foolishly set out to shock. She greeted them with a self-consciously amusing account of her return journey from Switzerland. It appeared that she had got into conversation with a young girl ‘with the face of the Little Flower, my dear’, but it had soon become clear that the relations of the saintlike creature with her elderly uncle were not entirely conventional. ‘Apparently, duckie’ Rosa had said in her deep yet strangulated voice ‘he makes her stand in nothing but her stockings and thrashes her with a cow hide whip. But the incredible thing was that she told me all the horrifying details in an off hand bored way, just as though she was describing a shopping expedition to the greengrocers.’ His mother had rocked with laughter. ‘Goodness gracious, Mrs Samuel!’ she had said ‘it takes a really moral person like yourself to imagine that the lives of people like that are anything but very boring.’ ‘Old bitch’ Rosa had said to him later in the evening ‘I know she was as shocked as hell, but you can never catch her out.’ His mother had not waited for her hostess to pass out of earshot before she had said to him ‘How it all reminds me of those Edwardian parties at Grandfather Carrington’s down at Maidenhead. All this silly smoking room smut, they want a good smack on the behind.’
‘I can’t help liking Rosa Samuel’ she had said, as they made their way home afterwards ‘she’s so very stupid, that it would really be impossible to dislike her. Someone ought to tell her about her clothes though, darling. Whatever had she got that ridiculous Christmas tree on her head for? and that scarlet dress! It was just like an early film of Pola Negri’s. I kept on thinking she’d bring a secret message out of her bosom.’ He had tried, he remembered, to turn the conversation on to a young woman archaeologist whom he had met at the party and liked; her clothes, at least, had been of the simplest variety. His mother however had been quite equal to this, indeed there was nothing she liked better than to have things both ways. ‘I thought she was a very nice girl’ she had said ‘It seemed such a pity that she had to wear those lumpy clothes and sensible shoes. You have to have such a very good complexion, too, to go without make-up like that. Anyone could see she was an intelligent person without all that parade. Dear me! they’ll be wearing placards next with B.A. Oxon or whatever it is written on them.’ A mood of compromise had descended upon him. Let me betray anything, let me sacrifice Rosa, let me forswear my belief in intellectual standards, he had thought, only let me be at peace with her, let us agree. He happened to have overheard a pretentious conversation about the theatre between three people at the party, and this he had told her, knowing that in so doing he was feeding her with ammunition for future attacks on his ‘clever’ friends. ‘I sometimes wonder if they know themselves what they mean when they use this jargon’ he had said. ‘They were discussing a play, mother, and Olive Vernon said she didn’t like it although she thought it was good theatre. “Good theatre” said her husband “I thought it was thundering bad theatre.” Then that stupid Stokes boy broke in “I really don’t think it was theatre at all, I mean you have to have some glitter if you’re going to have theatre and it was so drab.” “Oh! but that sort of drabness” said Olive in her silliest voice “surely is just a kind of inverted glitter.”’ His mother had been delighted with the story. ‘They really are a pack of ninnies’ she had exclaimed.
How different she had been with Commander and Mrs Stokes who dined with them the following evening! The Stokes, whom she had met during his absence, had proved to be a dull and somewhat self-satisfied couple and it had been clear from the start that they were to be a kind of private joke between them. Whenever Mrs Stokes had said something unusually snobbish, his mother had taken great delight in catching Donald’s eye, whilst, at the end of a particularly long story of the Commander’s about life aboard the Nelson, she had smiled sweetly and said ‘Well, that’s most interesting. I feel as though I’d been afloat for years, don’t you, Donald?’ After their guests had gone she had sat down and roared with laughter. ‘You really are wicked, Donald’ she had cried ‘making me laugh at the poor creatures like that. They’ll never set the Thames on fire, but still they’re better than those silly intellectuals we met at the Samuels. Ah! well, thank God for a sense of humour, without it the evening might have been very dull.’ How he had longed to say that even with it the evening had not been very interesting.
Politics, of course, had come under discussion when Uncle Ernest came to lunch. The open ruthlessness of his Uncle’s particular brand of city conservatism always outraged his social conscience and they had soon been engaged in a heated argument. His mother had been so amusing at both their expenses. ‘You haven’t given the Labour people a chance, Ernest’ she had declared ‘They’ve had no time to do anything yet. Remember that it’s all quite new to them. Most of them have been mayors or town councillors or some other dreadful smug thing and they’re bound to be a bit dazed now they’ve got to do domething. Why by this time next year they’ll be as sound old Tories as even you could want.’
The visit of Aunt Nora, of course, had brought the usual row with it. He flattered himself that he recognized the sense of duty and real kindness of heart that inspired these determined visits to that impoverished and irritating woman. It was true that Aunt Nora would have felt snubbed if they had not been to see her, but when he reflected that her silliness would lead his mother to say a hundred snubbing things before they had left ‘Rose Cottage’, it was not surprising that he had always found these expeditions depressing and pointless.
It had been without eagerness, then, that he walked through Richmond Park towards Aunt Nora’s house. The day, he remembered so vividly, had been sunny and cold and he had stood for a moment to gaze at the twisted grey elm trunks and their tracery of black boughs outlined against the sky. ‘It would be nice,’ he had said ‘to spend a day in the country before the holiday is over.’ ‘I dare say’ his mother had replied ‘but that’s no excuse for being late for Nora. You know how she looks forward to this visit.’ Suddenly the futility of the whole week had impressed itself upon him. ‘Damn Nora and damn you,’ he had shouted ‘I never do a bloody thing I want to.’ ‘Really, Donald, that’s ridiculous. The whole week’s been given up to amusing you. In any case we sometimes have to do our duty, even though we don’t like it.’ The calm common sense of her reply had been more than he could bear. It was too unfair that she should always have her cake and eat it in this way, he had felt. He had let out at her where he knew it would hurt most. ‘Oh, for God’s sake spare us your quotations from Samuel Smiles. I know all about your religion’ he cried out ‘but the whole thing’s meaningless. I don’t believe you have any real faith, just a lot of sentiment and cherished illusions you’ve kept from your childhood.’ His mother had begun to cry, for, as he well knew, in attacking her religion he had dealt her a serious blow. She had a number of ethical principles and these she held firmly. She had also a certain private devotional life which centred round the prayerbook she had been given at her confirmation. He had looked into this book when he was younger and had found between its leaves some love lette
rs from his father written during their engagement, that happy period of her life before the physical contact of marriage had come to awaken and shock her, when she lived in that state of emotional flirtation, which she had tried to recreate with him. Of real religious beliefs concerning God and immortality she was quite uncertain, and far too afraid of her doubts to probe further. In speaking so violently, he had attacked the secret citadel of her life and she had only been able to find refuge in tears.
In a sense it had been his only victory of the week for after it she had been most anxious to make amends. She had realized that she must have annoyed him very deeply to provoke him to such an attack. ‘My poor darling’ she had said ‘you must certainly have your walk in the woods.’ They must go to his favourite Epping on the Friday she had announced.
Friday had proved to be a wet and dismal day but nothing would deter her from making the expedition. ‘Nonsense! the walk will do you good’ she had said in answer to his protestations. They had been marooned in the Forest during a violent rainstorm and had been drenched to the skin. On Saturday she had woken with a bad cold, but had remained on her feet with a depressing and determined cheerfulness. That night she had complained of sharp pains in the chest and on the next day she had developed pneumonia. Was it unnatural, he wondered, to have felt so little about it. No, surely, things had gone too far between them for him to have felt anything but an ashamed relief. The fight she had put up had roused his pity and admiration, though. She was a tough little woman and she had a strong will to live, but she was, after all, fifty-eight, and Death had taken her all the same. She had only been conscious once during the last two days of her life and Donald had been at her bedside. He had hardly been able to recognize the little, thin, blue-grey face, or the vague, alarmed kitten’s eyes, for she had known that she was dying and she had been very frightened. He had wished so much to comfort her, but he had only felt very, very tired. She had signed to him to bend down beside her and had run her hand feebly over his hair. ‘My poor boy’ he had just been able to hear her murmur ‘My poor boy will be very lonely without Mother.’
Yes, life had been very hectic after her death, Donald thought as he stretched his limbs sensuously. His days were his own now to do as he liked, though it was strange how difficult he found it to decide what to do with them. That was to be expected with a new found freedom, it was bound to take a little time, the main thing was that he was free. She had said that the walk in the Forest ‘would do him good’, he thought sardonically, – poor Mother it was not really the sort of joke that she would have cared for. It was with a smile on his lips that he slipped into sleep …
He was at a reception, many hundreds of people were there and he was talking animatedly. They were in a long, lofty room with great, high windows and heavy curtains; it appeared to be in some medieval castle. Gradually a storm blew up outside, the winds howled and the heavy curtains flapped about in the huge room, like enormous birds; it began to grow very dark. The other people in the room huddled together in close, little groups, but he was left standing alone. Soon the people began to fade away and it grew darker and darker. Somebody ought to be with him, he could not be left alone like this, somebody was not there who should have been there. He began to scream. He awoke with his face buried in the pillow and he felt dreadfully lonely, so lonely that he began to cry. He told himself that this sense of solitude would pass with time, but in his heart he knew that this was not true. He might be free in little things, but in essentials she had tied him to her and now she had left him for ever. She had had the last word in the matter as usual. ‘My poor boy will be lonely’ she had said. She was dead right.
ET DONA FERENTES
‘I’LL have a cigarette too, Mother’ said Monica to Mrs Rackham ‘it’ll help to keep the midges off. That’s why I always hate woods so. Oh don’t worry, Elizabeth’ she added as she saw her own daughter’s look of alarm. ‘That’s why I hate woods, but there are hundreds and hundreds of more important reasons why I love them – especially pine woods. To begin with there’s the scent, and you can say what you like, Edwin’ she smiled up at her husband, who was frowning as he cut inexpertly at a block of wood with a pocket knife ‘about its being a hackneyed smell. But apart from the scent, there’s the effect of light and shade. The only time that you can really see the sunlight out of doors is when it shines through dark trees like these. When you’re in it, you’re always too hot or too dazzled to notice anything. So you see darling’ she turned again to her daughter ‘I do love pinewoods.’ For a moment she lay back, but the smoke from her cigarette got into her eyes and soon she was stubbing it out on the bed of pine-needles beneath. ‘How I do hate cigarettes’ she cried ‘and how I do hate hating them. It puts one at such a social disadvantage. Oh! it’s all right for you, Mother, everyone in your generation smoked, and smoked determinedly; and it’s all right for Elizabeth, when she’s eighteen – don’t let’s talk of it there’s only two years – nobody will even think of smoking, it’ll be so dowdy; but with women in the forties like me there was always that awful choice – to smoke or not to smoke – and I chose not to, and there I am of course on occasions like parties and things with nothing to do with my hands. Now let’s all lie back and relax for a quarter of an hour’ she went on and the nervous tension in her voice seemed even greater than before as she said it ‘and then we can have a drink before lunch. Don’t you think it was clever of me to remember to bring gin? People always forget it on picnics and yet it’s so lovely to be able to have a drink without needing to be jolly. I hope nobody is going to be jolly, by the way. I forbid anyone to be jolly,’ she said with mock sternness and then turning to her son who was watching a squirrel in a nearby tree ‘Richard, darling, take that knife away from your father before he does himself an injury.’
‘It wouldn’t be a very serious injury, Mother, and then Elizabeth could show her prowess as a First Aider or whatever they’re called in the Guides’ said Richard, but nevertheless he moved slowly towards his father. Before he could offer assistance, however, a tall fair-haired youth had sprung forward.
‘Allow me, please, Mr Newman’ he said, the stiffness of his foreign English relieved by the charm and intimacy of his smile ‘I am very able to cut wood with these kind of knives.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Sven’ said Monica ‘there you are, darlings, you see, Sven has manners. I’m surprised you weren’t able to learn a few, Richard, when you were staying with him in Sweden. I’m afraid we lost all our manners here while we were busy fighting the war.’
Two sharp points of red glowed suddenly on the Swedish boy’s high cheekbones and his already slanting eyes narrowed and blinked.
Edwin Newman glared angrily at his wife, his prominent Adam’s apple jerking convulsively above his open-necked shirt. He placed a hand on Sven’s shoulder.
‘You have given us so many useful lessons since you arrived, Sven, if you use the same charm to re-educate us in everyday courtesy, we shall be fortunate’ he said.
‘You are too kind to say these many good things to me, Mr Newman’ replied the boy ‘I hope I shall not quite fail to deserve them.’
‘You two ought to be talking in Latin’ said Richard ‘You sound like Dr Johnson, Dad, when he met famous foreign scholars. By the way, Grannie, have you been getting at Sven about his reading? I can’t persuade him to read anything decent like De Quincey or Dickens or Coleridge. He seems to think for some reason or other that he’s got to wade through “Rasselas” in order to “appreciate literature” as he calls it. I must say I shouldn’t have thought even you would have inflicted that torture upon anyone.’
Mrs Rackham’s heavy square-jawed face lost its look of grimness for a moment as she spoke to her beloved grandson.
‘I am delighted to hear of a blow being struck at this neo-romantic nonsense. Like Miss Deborah I think that nothing but good can arise from reading the works of the great Lexicographer. Continue to read Rasselas’ she said to Sven ‘and you may yet know wh
at the English language should really sound like. Take no notice of Richard’s attempts to lure you into reading Dickens. He only wants you to fall under a railway train like a famous English retired officer, Captain Brown, whose unhealthy interest in Boz led him to that horrid end.’
‘That just shows how little you understand about it, Grannie. Captain Brown was reading Pickwick and Pickwick’s nothing to do with the real Dickens. Anyhow it was Pickwick in weekly parts which couldn’t happen now.’
‘Isn’t it time you two stopped all this Who’s Who in Literature’ said Edwin, ‘In any case, if Sven’s going to waste time on novels surely he might read modern authors like Huxley or even Lawrence.’
‘Dear Edwin’ replied Mrs Rackham ‘Even I know that Huxley or even Lawrence’ and she imitated her son-in-law’s hesitant tones ‘daring though they may be are not modern authors.’
‘In any case I am reading Rasselas because it is demanded for the higher examination. I am not really so greatly interested to read books.’ Sven lay back and stretched his arms out to a spot where the sunlight had broken through. ‘I think I prefer more to follow outdoor games when the sun shines, like Elizabeth does’ and he smiled lazily towards the clearing where Elizabeth was staking little wooden sticks around a clump of late bluebells.
