No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  ‘Your newspapers are mostly owned by Jews, aren’t they?’

  ‘Well,’ said Willy, ‘I wish you could have seen the concern our newspapers showed when your king was so ill. That’s all. And the German nation as a whole. We admire your Royal Family. And the Prince of Wales! What an asset for England. Britain’s best business representative, eh?’

  Gladys had seized these moments to deflect Mr Andersen on to Sylvia Heathway and antiques; now Alfred called her finally to guide the German trade out of the choppy seas into smooth waters.

  ‘You’ve got some good stories of the Prince of Wales, Gladys, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I have had to supply secretarial and domestic staff for Fort Belvedere sometimes. You’ll be surprised I think to hear how much the Prince knows exactly what goes on in his own household. For instance …’

  The attentive faces of the Garmischs showed that he at least had not lied when he announced the German admiration for the Royal Family. As Gladys spoke of the Prince’s mixture of boyish irreverence and sudden hauteur Sylvia Heathway was saying: ‘Oh, as far as provincial France is concerned, Mr Andersen, of course you’re right. There are the most extraordinary treasures still to be picked up. But even there the enormous amount of imitation in the last century means that you’ve got to watch like a hawk. I am sure you know that so much of the genuine Louis Quinze came over here with the émigrés during the Revolution. I remember …’

  Fair weather at last. And then when dancing time came, Gladys found to her delight that Willy Garmisch was a beautiful waltzer. He too had obviously not expected her to be so light and rhythmic. And now she was quick-stepping ‘I’m putting all my eggs in one basket’ with Alfred – always for her the culmination of the evening.

  She was concerned that he might be angry, but he said: ‘My God, what a sour kraut Willy’s missus is. I’m only sorry you had to cope with her. Though funnily enough she doesn’t dance half badly.’

  Indeed dancing seemed to lubricate all the Anglo-German friction; and as for Mr Andersen, he and Sylvia Heathway would have been yapping about Louis Quinze and Louis Seize until the cows came home if Alfred hadn’t broken the party up.

  Later that night (or rather early the next morning) as Gladys knelt by the bed massaging Alfred’s feet, for he paid a price whenever he indulged in dancing, he pulled her towards him and held her head against his chest.

  ‘I’m going to give you a bit of a shock, darling, but you mustn’t start objecting until you’ve heard me out.’ He held her away from him and looked into her eyes, ‘Promise?’ he asked, ‘Promise?’ Her heart beats came painfully fast, but she promised.

  ‘All right then. You only had to feel the undertones of tonight’s conversation to see where we stand with Germany. For myself I think there’s quite a lot to admire in Hitler. And, as a business man, I genuinely believe that war would be madness. As a matter of fact I think our Government will keep us out of it. But you can’t be sure.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we could be so stupid, Alfred. Anyway they couldn’t call on you again, darling, after all you did last time.’

  ‘Good Lord! No. But it isn’t that I was getting at. I’ve been thinking a lot about your agency business. I know how you love the work, but one thing’s certain, if we get even a near to war situation there isn’t going to be any more choosing jobs and that sort of thing. Especially for the young. They’ll be directed where they’re wanted. And that goes for girls too. Quite right, I think. Lack of discipline is one of our troubles. But all that’s theoretical stuff. I’m a practical man and what I’m worried about is where does that put a job like yours? The days of private employment agencies are probably over.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Alfred. The employment situation’s improved a bit. And then more women of our class are earning their own livings …’

  ‘Now wait a minute, girlie. You promised to hear me out. I kidded you earlier on about retirement. And, of course, I shall see you’re left all right if anything happens to me. But you’re an independent cuss, you know …’

  ‘I have my insurance, Alfred. It’s not large. But I’m not in the grave yet …’

  ‘Of course, if you’re not going to listen …’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well then. Shall I tell you something I’m doing myself? I’m putting a whole lot of my property into portable assets. I’ve bought a hell of a lot of jewellery for Doris. Not that she can wear it, of course, but as a security. And so on. Now I think that you couldn’t do better with this new business of yours than to go into antiques.’

  ‘Antiques! Are you mad, Alfred? Why not pigeon fancying, or nursery gardens or some other thing I know absolutely nothing about? Antiques! I’m interested in people. Surely you know that.’

  ‘Well, you’d get a very interesting crowd to deal with in the antique business, all sorts of eccentrics …’

  ‘Very eccentric they’d have to be to trust my judgment about antique furniture.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you’d want to run that side.’

  ‘And who are you suggesting should?’

  ‘Now don’t start making a hullaballoo before I’ve finished. I happen to know that Sylvia Heathway has been very near to a complete breakdown. The one thing she must have to save her from going over the edge is a real interest in life …’

  He paused but Gladys said nothing.

  ‘If she were to start up again in antiques on her own as she’s talked of doing, she’d probably go bust in half a year. She’s got no business sense at all. She doesn’t even begin to understand what hit Tubby. All the sharks in the business would be round her in a week.’

  He paused again and Gladys said, ‘Are you having an affair with her?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, kiddie. Even if you don’t understand what I feel about you, surely you don’t think I’d go after a haggard creature like her, got up like a tart?’

  She asked again, ‘Are you having an affair with her, Alfred?’

  He looked at her so directly that she had to believe him.

  ‘No. I am not.’

  ‘Well, then whatever…. Of course, it’s very sad. But you’re not a charity organization. And nor quite honestly am I. You told me yourself that her husband had only himself to blame.’

  ‘Did I? Then I was lying. Tubby Heathway killed himself because I ruined him. Oh, no, it wasn’t as dramatic as that, of course. All legitimate business. But he was a competitor and I deliberately undersold him. It was fair business and I’d do it again. But I had no idea he’d panic and kill himself. Now, do you see why I want to help her?’

  ‘Yes, but … Oh, dear, Alfred, how can you have made me feel so happy and it was all a trick?’ Gladys could not stop her self from crying.

  ‘It’s not a trick. I’m not even asking you to leave the Agency if you feel so strongly. I’m just buying the business in your name. Let Sylvia do all the work. So long as you keep an eye on the books. You can do it in your spare tune on your head. And the profit’s yours.’

  ‘If I ever did such a thing, I couldn’t do it like that. I’d have to learn the business and go into it properly. I’ll only suffer for my own mistakes.’

  ‘Well. All the better. It’d be the greatest help to me. You saw this evening with Andersen, and he’s by no means the only one. It would help me a lot if I could advise clients where to buy and sell old things. Antiques are all the thing nowadays, you know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you know anything about it.’

  He pulled her on to the bed next to him, then he lay back and laughed. ‘My God! You do make a chap work hard, don’t you?’

  She laughed also, but she said: ‘Well, this is important, Alfred. It’s my life.’

  ‘Gladys,’ he began again, ‘When Doris agreed a few years back that she could never be a full wife to me, she said, as I told you, that she understood how I needed you in my life. But she said a lot of other things. Above all that you were obviously t
he woman who understood my temperament and my ambitions …’

  ‘I don’t think I want to hear what Doris said.’

  He sat up and groaned. ‘All right. Skip Doris. Very well, I’m beat. I can only say that I’m asking you to do this for me. I’ve given you a hundred good practical reasons. But if they don’t appeal to you, just do it for me.’

  ‘I’ll think about it and let you know.’

  He lay back again and chuckled like a small boy. He mopped the sweat from his forehead.

  ‘If working hard for something deserves success!’

  He rolled over on to her and began to kiss her. From beneath his mouth she mumbled: ‘I haven’t said I will, you know.’

  ‘That’s all right, you will.’

  She mumbled again, ‘Now why do you think that makes me love you? And why are you right?’

  ‘Perhaps because I know women.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘As usual with our evenings, darling, it’s all gone. The fun’s over. Tomorrow you have to go back to responsibility and the treadmill.’

  She looked at him in amazement, but he obviously spoke as he saw the situation. So there seemed nothing to say.

  For over a fortnight he was too busy to see her, so that she had plenty of time to think it over. It was such a delight when she did see him to be able to say yes. After all, he had given her such good practical reasons; then again, as he pointed out, she would make her own hours now, could help him out more with business lunches and so on, see more of him in short. She remained unsure of why he set so much store by the scheme.

  *

  ‘But you have been here before, haven’t you, Mr Matthews? ‘Sukhanova called to him as they poured out of the delegates’ charabancs into the courtyard. She added, ‘Mr Matthews is an old friend of ours.’

  M. Garcin in his Midi accent asked, of the man who interpreted for the French, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit?’

  He spoke as always, even about the most trivial matters, in an ironic self-protective tone, and his little black eyes glanced suspiciously at Quentin. To the interpretation of Sukhanova’s remark, he said: ‘Ah! Très bien. On l’a déjà dit,’ and he converted his suspicious glance into a half smile that might or might not have implied more suspicion.

  ‘Paranoids’ Pantomime!’ Quentin thought, and this valuation took in all but a few of the large crowd streaming across the courtyard. He did not exclude himself, but he must attend to his now rather stale little battle with Sukhanova, so as gaily as he could, he called back: ‘And I never cease to envy the girls who once boarded in this beautiful building! But last time I was here with my old friend Professor Yudenich, Sukhanova. Where did you say he was?’

  ‘Oh! Mr Matthews. Always Professor Yudenich! Where is he? Why is he not here? The poor Professor has been ill. He’s gone away to get well. Socchi? Yalta? I don’t know. We don’t have to leave our addresses when we go on holiday, you know, in the Soviet Union.’

  Sukhanova’s voice moaned away at him in light badinage which yet implied, as it did to all foreigners, a sad patronage of their ignorance. Her eyes looked as tired and depressed as she no doubt felt. For a moment Quentin almost desisted in his little game. Poor woman! If she found all this sightseeing with social scientists as tiring as he did. And on top of that, the vanity and self-regard of all the delegates! It seemed too hard to try her with this little baiting game as well, one that might so easily be dangerous for her. For she, like the others, was glassily, stickily frightened, for all her maddening mechanical jollity. Of this he was more convinced each day of the congress, almost all their hosts lived in terror, not just the sad, constant alarm that he knew and accepted as the price of a great Revolution’s necessary vigilance, the price of the capitalist spy system, but some special fear that came at them down corridors, round the corners of streets, behind every connecting door of every room. Whatever was happening he must not further it by being frightened off, even out of pity for their hostage hosts. He must register his knowledge and condemnation.

  Then he asked himself had he come here, after the unspeakableness of the Führer’s heroic land, expecting in his relief for too much; or, perhaps, bringing some infection of a dark, irrational fear within himself?

  The disquieting answer came as always from the Russian side. ‘But if you have not got your friend Professor Yudenich here, dear Mr Matthews, we have a new friend for you in Professor Weissheim, the great authority on the gypsies. Did you know that here in the Soviet Union we have many different groups of gypsies with most colourful and interesting customs? But in Germany it seems the National Socialist Fascists are getting rid of their gypsies, and Professor Weissheim has come to us from Marburg.’

  Always the same answers – look at Germany, look at Mussolini, look at the Fascist beasts. He smiled across at Erwin Weissheim whom he liked, but he returned to the charge.

  ‘And Mrs Rakitin, I miss her too.’

  Sukhanova disregarded this.

  ‘Mr Matthews has also been turned out by Hitler, Professor Weissheim. No one must dare to tell the truth in the Third Reich.’

  Quentin thought that Erwin Weissheim’s blue eyes grew a little clouded, a little weary at this repeated introduction.

  ‘I know Comrade Matthews’ work. I know what he has tried to say for the forces of freedom in my country in the English newspapers. I know …’

  ‘We know and respect each other well, Professor. I wish you could have met Mrs Rakitin. In her work as a child magistrate she had no doubt a lot to do with gypsies …’

  But now Sukhanova in desperation spoke to the guide: ‘Come on, Comrade, tell the delegates about the Smolny Institute. You’re not here to go to sleep.’

  She beckoned her English speaking flock around her so that they might hear her interpretation of the guide’s words. The French speaking delegates gathered on the other side of the entrance hall around their interpreter.

  ‘Now we are here in the Smolny Institution. Catherine the Second added this building to provide a boarding school for girls. But, of course, in those days, only the daughters of the nobility received such a fine education. The importance of the building lies elsewhere. It was here that the Soviet Government sat until the capital became once more Moscow as it had been in the days before the Romanovs. Here V. I. Lenin lived and worked and directed the Revolution in the fateful days of November 1917. The room in which he worked has been preserved as it was then. We shall now go to see that room. Turn to the left, if you please, along the corridor.’

  Miss Amy Taylor, the Co-op expert on distribution, ran a comb through her bobbed hair in readiness for what was clearly to be an impressive moment, but she could not forbear asking one of her questions.

  ‘Did you say, Miss Canova, that this was only part of a larger building?’

  ‘I am Sukhanova,’ their Russian friend with a sweet smile, told her wearily. ‘Yes, this building is an addition to the earlier building, the former Smolny Monastery, built in the baroque style.’

  ‘By the great architect of Petersburg, Rastrelli,’ Quentin added.

  He felt at once ashamed of himself. What importance had baroque architecture beside. Lenin’s achievements, what the hell did he care anyway for baroque architects? And Miss Amy Taylor, as could be seen from her blank, rather pretty freckled face, cared less. To descend to needling with points of minor aesthetic interest was to have sunk pretty low. Then ahead among the crowd he saw the short white hairs and wrinkled flesh of the nape of Zemskova’s neck. She was walking on her own but as some delegate pressed forward upon her heels, she turned. He smiled and gave a little wave of his hand. Her old grey eyes went completely blank, although her nicotine stained mouth twitched slightly. She had aged enormously, as he had seen in their one conversation, but he had noticed then no signs of senile twitches. He felt a new resolve not to give in.

  It was difficult, however, in the stuffiness of the corridors, with tired feet and bored mind, with the close pressing of stout over-dressed men and thickly clad
women, all too human in the great summer heat, not to relax into vacuity if one was to avoid claustrophobia. He concentrated on placing and naming the delegates, but now as they queued up to go through to that little fateful room he realized again that of the Russian delegates he knew only a handful. In his own field of housing old Kursky was there with his wife, and there was an unpronounceable penologist, and Melgunov, the transport man, and a few others, mostly subordinate people. Of the Leningrad University people only Professor Polovtzev and Doctor Breit were there. The numbers who were not…. Now, suddenly the little room itself, the desk, the chairs, the stove, the small, Spartan bed – he remembered how when he had seen them before, despite his dislike of political emotionalism, he had been forced to swallow again and again to prevent tears coming into his eyes. At the sight of such dedication, such clarity of purpose, such inflexible will, all the ruthlessness, the undoubted chaotic absurdities of some of the early Revolutionary decisions, the megalomaniac traits were so swallowed up as to become as nothing. He had felt an overpowering admiration for the man who could force millions of human lives and wills and all the chance events of this so vast a country into one dogmatic bottle as small as the room he organized the bottling from. But now as Sukhanova’s cooing tones took up the tale he revolted from the whole thing, as though he had been told of a very neat but brutal rape.

  ‘On the morning of 7 November 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, deciding that the moment had come for action, left the villa where he had been staying since his arrival from Finland …’

  ‘The villa that used to belong to the Tsar’s mistress, the ballerina, wasn’t it?’

  Sukhanova paused for a moment. ‘Yes. But please do not interrupt, Mr Matthews. Now I shall lose the guide’s words.’

  She appealed with a look to the audience, many of whom frowned at him. A picture came into his mind of beautiful young girls in tutus, dancing towards him on their points, arms waving. Catherine’s young noblewomen. Hardly in Swan Lake. He shook his head to keep awake in the stuffy atmosphere. After all, those girls, beautiful young creatures in hoop petticoats and powder (did young girls wear powder?) with their ripening breasts, were also leaders in a revolution. Boarding school! Experiment of the Enlightenment. A long step to woman’s emancipation, to the bob of Miss Amy Taylor, or the boyish crop of that attractive bitch, Andrée Paulhard – she would have suited Lenin’s ruthlessness.