No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  ‘Oh, it wouldn’t be Jack’s party at all. In fact I doubt if there’s anyone here you know. Although it may not do you butterflies any harm to hear what responsible people are up to. Let me see who’s young. I know. Dulcie Stewart.’

  She had taken him over at once to a smartly dressed blonde girl.

  ‘Dulcie, here’s Marcus Matthews, a rich butterfly who might be most useful to you if he wasn’t under the worst of influences. Get him along to your club.’

  She had made one of her Edwardian grimaces and waddled off.

  Dulcie Stewart said: ‘Oh yes, well do come. I mean if Lady Westerton vouches for you. I mean we do have to be a bit careful because new ideas scare the pants off people, don’t they? After all, that’s England’s trouble.’

  She spoke to him in a bright but condescending way, laughing quite irrelevantly, as though she were running the coconut shy at a garden fête.

  ‘It’s not exactly a club, really. But we get together once a week and discuss in a room over a pub in Shepherd Market. Some of the absolutely necessary questions. For example, last week two or three chaps who knew about that sort of thing put forward their ideas about how to stop the unemployed going to pieces. I mean, after all, even those of us who don’t actually do jobs have got a duty to stop the rot if we can. Of course we’re only the younger crowd. You’d be rather a grandfather.’ It was clear from her smile that she thought he would like this observation. ‘But we do get people along to talk to us who matter – people like Colonel Deniston.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is. He’s never mattered to me yet. Should he have done?’

  Her expression as she looked up at him, disgusted by this conventional flippancy, was so stupid and self-satisfied that he felt compelled to go on annoying her.

  ‘Oh, don’t think I’m against colonels. Some colonels are very beautiful,’ but then from the collapse of all her smiles he almost feared there might be a tiresome scene. Luckily a very over-dressed, double breasted, waistcoated ‘city’ young man, who it seemed was in Lloyd’s, joined them and Dulcie gave all her attention to him, swinging about in a sex-hungry way as she talked that Marcus found peculiarly off-putting. Immediately he had excused himself to bring her another medium sweet sherry. As he made his way back through the crowded room he began to feel that these little poisoned darts of talk would lay him dead on the floor before he could give Dulcie her fresh drink. He kept his eyes resolutely on the two paintings that he had come to see.

  Amid the faded mass of japonaiserie and fake dixhuitième, in a drawing-room that had clearly always been too drained of colour even before the sun and the dust had done their worst, the Bonnard and the Segonzac flaunted their purples and blues and greens. How could Ozzie have been so mad as to leave them to this old trout? True, they weren’t by any means his sort of paintings. And he’d vowed, apart from an odd Laurencin or some other bit of ‘fun’, not to buy anything but abstracts for the next years. But yet to leave those Bonnard peacock curtains and the red of the Segonzac sitter’s dress in those dead surroundings! To leave them to the old trout just because she was his aunt! That was the worst of these aristocratic old things, even ones as nice as Ozzie, on their death beds and other solemn places they reverted to the most stultifying conventions. But still, if what he had heard was correct…. Excited by thoughts of possession he gave Dulcie her drink and immediately interrupted the ardent conversation she was holding with the young man from Lloyd’s.

  ‘Do you know if it’s true that Lady Westerton is wildly in debt?’ Even through his longing for the paintings, he could see their horrified expressions. Quickly he amended his question. ‘Is the poor old thing really very hard up nowadays, do you know?’

  ‘I suppose most people one knows are hard up so long as we have to maintain an army of idle men,’ said Lloyd’s.

  Marcus could not immediately think what this army was. Was this young man one of those insane people who wanted to go to war for some cause or other?

  ‘It’s the appalling effect on them,’ Dulcie said, ‘that we’re concerned with. I say, I suppose this sherry does come from the Nationalist territory. I’m horribly vague about Spanish geography despite all the news one’s read in this last year. It must do, the Reds hardly hold anything now except Madrid, do they? Young men in their ‘teens and ‘twenties losing all self-respect, hanging about street corners, when simple physical exercise could keep them in decent condition.’

  Marcus was completely bemused. He could only guess that the political signposts he knew of from his politically minded friends would be of no help to him in Dulcie’s land, whatever it was.

  ‘I’m not political in the least,’ he said, ‘and I’m not going to apologize for it. But if you mean that that sanctimonious old horror Chamberlain should be ashamed of the dole, I quite agree. But then what can you expect of an awful old provincial? He gets all his orders from the mayoress of Birmingham. Oh, it’s quite true. Didn’t you know that?’

  Dulcie didn’t smile at all, but the Lloyd’s young man gave a smirk.

  ‘Chamberlain’s tied down by more than Birmingham, I’m afraid. He has to sing to the tune of his international paymasters.’

  Marcus was surprised at such scandalmongering from such dreary ‘nice’ young people. He awaited further details with interest, but Dulcie took up the conversation.

  ‘Of course, a decent system of labour camps would solve the whole thing. A friend of mine who knows says there’s masses of forestry work that needs doing. Work of real national importance. And they’d be able to drill and play organized games.’

  ‘Who would?’

  Dulcie looked at him as though she now understood that his strange manner had been a symptom of the imbecility that too often attacked the very rich.

  ‘You do live out of things. What’s your job?’

  ‘I collect paintings.’

  She turned to the Lloyd’s man: ‘There you are, you see, Lionel. That’s what Hamish said at the last meeting. There is still an idle rich here and until we’ve got rid of it, we can’t really curse the rottenness at the other end of the ladder.’

  Once again the Lloyd’s man was more polite. ‘You’re too dogmatic, Dulcie. There are heaps of valuable chaps who simply don’t know what’s what. You’ll learn a lot from the Colonel this evening,’ be told Marcus. ‘He will give you an idea of what the papers simply don’t tell us. And of what needs doing.’

  All that Marcus now felt was a strong dislike for Dulcie. He giggled in her face.

  ‘I hope you don’t think you’re going to make me drill.’

  ‘Actually,’ she replied, ‘I was talking seriously. About the unemployed. Labour camps are the only answer.’

  It was the almost dotty, starry look in her blue eyes as she made this judgement that brought home to Marcus exactly what political company he was in. He felt ashamed to have believed, in his innocence, that such views were only held by black shirted bruisers and corner boys. He must at least show some fight.

  ‘And what if they don’t want to?’

  ‘Beggars can hardly be choosers,’ said Lloyd’s, ‘No national work, no national dole. That’s fair enough. But in fact, you know, they’ll welcome it if the case could be put to them without agitators getting at them first. I believe the Colonel’s going to tell us quite a lot about what they’re doing in Germany in that way. What they call the arbeitsdienst.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anything so disgusting. People through no fault of their own are out of work. You pay them a pittance. Then not content with that you want to make them do physical jerks.’

  ‘Well, it’s that or watch decent Englishmen turning into degenerates,’ Dulcie cried. ‘A friend of mine who knows the seamy side of the West End says that most of these pansy boys start as unemployed.’

  ‘Which,’ said Lloyd’s, ‘suits the Reds and their friends beautifully. There’s nothing they’d like better than a degenerate England.’

  ‘Who are their friends?’ asked Marcus, while
he contemplated whether he could hit Dulcie and get away before Lloyd’s hit him.

  ‘The Jewish bankers and financiers, of course.’

  He could see that Dulcie had been forbearing not to add ‘silly’. Trying to control the trembling that his anger had brought on, he said in a voice that he intended to be loud and bold, but which came out as high and hysterical: ‘I think you’d better know that I’m a pansy boy. And the man I live with is a Jew.’

  Some people nearby turned in shocked disgust towards them. Lloyd’s and Dulcie were too overcome with embarrassment at being seen with him to react more violently. And now a croaking filled the room as Lady Westerton announced:

  ‘Will all you people take your glasses through with you? You know the way. Colonel Deniston is ready to begin his address.’

  Ostentatiously Marcus moved against the tide of scented old Jezebels and debollocked generals, but he could feel by the chafing of his thighs to his chagrin that his retreat was of the most mincing kind. However at last his feeble little protest was over and, released by a seedy old butler, he found himself in the autumn sunshine of Cadogan Square.

  Sitting back in the Daimler he stared at the pits in Prescott’s neck that no doubt would bear witness throughout the man’s life to the acne of his youth; but he could think of nothing but Jack. There were English people – ghastly awful English people, it was true, but people not absolutely marked as criminals or thugs, people whom one might meet at boring Belgravia cocktail parties – who would insult Jack, imprison him, for all he knew kill him, just because he was a Jew. He had agreed that, if there were to be the least danger of war – and there clearly was – the pictures should go to New York and go now. But he had tried not to listen to Jack’s occasional hints at their own emigration. It seemed hysterical and, after all, if war came, they would all be killed within the first week by poison gas or some other horror. The paintings must be preserved, that was a basic duty, but you can’t live life thinking all the time about your own skin. He had developed a hatred of pampering himself, much though he loved luxury, from the days of 52 onwards when he’d been on the streets. But now he saw that this stoicism was a silly nonsense for Jack and all Jews who could get away. He hated not to judge other people by his own rules for himself, especially just because, like Jack, they had circumcised cocks or had worn ridiculous little tassels and caps as small boys. But when ‘nice’ people revealed the obscenities of their minds and wills, such easy moral rules were no longer possible. Now he saw suddenly that people were going to get in the way of things that mattered, of the Kandinskys and Baksts. Jack, to begin with – he would have to manage Jack, to make the prickly, sensitive, rude, loving, guilt-ridden man whom he cared for above everything, not ashamed to run away. At the thought of ‘managing’ Jack’s safety he felt exhausted; at the thought of these disgusting ordinary people who out of envy or stupidity or vulgarity hated Jack, he felt sick.

  The car was held up to allow a small group of demonstrators to cross from Byron’s statue to Apsley House. He could not see who processed for the press of onlookers and the linked policemen, but he caught sight of a banner that read, SCHOLARSHIPS NOT BATTLESHIPS, and he heard voices shouting, ‘Stop Hitler’s War on Children’, or so it sounded. He could make no sense of it. Almost before Prescott spoke, he had some premonition of what he would say. At the very same moment he caught the eye of this stocky young man in a faded purple suit and white silk choker who was standing, picking his nose, on the island.

  Prescott said: ‘Giving the police trouble again, sir. They’re holding some sort of meeting down at Trafalgar Square. Layabouts’ paradise. Of course, it’s foreigners behind it.’

  Disgust and lust fought for possession of his bowels. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Prescott. And you can drop me here. I’m going to walk in the park. Tell Dempster I shan’t be in to dinner after all.’

  He waited until the Daimler had passed well on its way to Marble Arch before he smiled and beckoned with his head to the young man to follow him down to the Dell. He had remembered picking someone up there in his own down and out days.

  ‘Rabbits! What appallingly silly faces they do have, don’t they!’ he had said then by way of an opening.

  But the purple young man said, ‘You wouldn’t think you’d see them – wild rabbits right in the heart of London, would you?’

  Ah, well, in England, differences of technique like most other things could be tracked back to class.

  *

  The northwest wind blew strong but fresh across the heath, over the downs of the main course, and into the dip where the small course lay concealed in warm intimacy. Here, coming slap up against the members’ stand, it whirled around, stirring up dust, blowing newspapers and ticket ends to dance in horse-dung-scented air, destroying the cosiness of the little informal meeting. Gladys, seated precariously on her shooting stick, had to hold on to her wide-brimmed straw hat. That came of Alf’s insistence these days on her dressing Ascotwise for the most unsuitable occasions. She put her hand on his arm to steady herself.

  ‘I’m too big-bummed for these things, Alfred.’

  But he looked up from his racecard and frowned disapprovingly at her words. He never used to worry about being genteel. Seeing his anxious, frowning red face bent over the card and hearing his usual stomach rumble, she felt ashamed to be criticizing the poor, overworked, clever old darling. The more power he got each year the less he slept and the more he burped. Fumbling in her bag she found a bottle of soda mints and, patting three or four into her hand, she handed two to him.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, kiddie.’

  But luckily now they were off and she could think of nothing but gold and green hoops. And there they were – gold and green hoops down the course.

  ‘Oh, Marie Stellons or whatever your name is! Oh, you blighter you’ve let me down.’

  ‘I’m always telling you not to throw your money away on these outsiders.’ Alf sounded really cross. But now gold and green hoops were gaining, past purple and yellow stripes, past red and grey hoops, and, Oh God, coming up to second place, coming up to flush with maroon and black.

  ‘Stella Maris, Stella Maris, Stella Maris wins.’

  ‘Oh, Alf, I’ve won a hundred quid.’

  But he hardly did more than grunt.

  Of course, if he’d lost money himself, well that would be different, everyone hates losing. But he hadn’t. He’d won on the first two races, it seemed; and he hadn’t even laid a bet on this race. Not even to congratulate her; she’d never known him like this before. She decided to disregard him and climbed up the steps to the Tote to claim her money. As she folded the notes away into her bag she thought, if I didn’t have these little bits of excitement, these little bits of luck, I don’t know that I could stand him sometimes. Clearly her luck was in. She made a little prayer to the luck provider to let it flow over from today into tomorrow. If my luck holds, she thought, I’ll get those two Chelsea figures at the sale tomorrow, and Sylvia’ll get that marqueterie table she’s after (hideous thing!). But she willed for it strongly because you must wish for others if you’re to hold on to your own luck. Then casting round for others to wish luck to, she said aloud: ‘And for Mr Ahrendt’ so that a man with ginger moustaches and a brown bowler stared at her. Lucky that Alfred wasn’t there. Oh, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if old Ahrendt’s picture did turn out to be by this chap Grünewald? He and the old girl looked so thin and they’d obviously sold every bit of porcelain, every stick of furniture they’d managed to bring over. She agreed with the luck god to undo her own luck, and Sylvia’s for that matter, if old Ahrendt could get all that money. Ten thousand pounds, the Christie’s man had murmured, non-committally of course. The old pair would be all right for life.

  Coming down the steps again she saw suddenly a heavy, red faced old man with a desperate look in his eyes making his way to the telephone. Then she realized with horror that he was Alfred. And she had never even thought to wish him some of her luck. She firmly
opened her race card and began to study the form of the horses for the next race. So Daffy Down Dilly had been carrying a couple of pounds more last time out…. That was the only way of doing it. Look how she’d mugged up her porcelain over the last two years – first English and now, though only for background, continental. Everything, as Alfred said, should be systematic. Luck was superstitious. She felt almost ashamed of the twenty new five pound notes in her bag.

  She was still studying form when she felt an arm round her waist and, looking up, saw Alfred, his eyes smiling, the lines of his face all upturned in laughter.

  ‘You’re getting to be an obsessive punter. Just because you win a hundred quid by picking a winner blindfold with a pin …’

  ‘But I’m trying to be more serious, Alf. I’m studying form.’

  ‘No, put it away, darling. I can’t have you becoming a gambler. Let’s go and have a plate of cold salmon and a bottle of bubbly. They’ve got a very good Heidsieck here.’ And at the table ‘Come on’ – he smothered his fish in mayonnaise – ‘tell us the best news from home. What happened about that old girl’s Chelsea Neptune?’ But before she could answer, ‘I think it’s in the bag. I think I’ve pulled it off. I’m almost certain of the collateral now. If only the bloody bank manager hasn’t got an attack of Hitleritis.’

  She supposed that he meant the new trading company but his affairs moved so rapidly that she was not always sure.

  ‘Oh, Alf, I am pleased. Tell.’

  But no, he said, much better to wait until we’re past the post. Meanwhile what news of the shop, what about this sale, where was this big pot’s place, at Bottisham, where was that?, and so on. She told him about the two Chelsea figures, she explained about the Commedia dell’ Arte. He seemed delighted.

  ‘Clever girl. How you’ve learned it all! I might start buying myself, one day, you never know.’

  ‘Oh, I wish you would, Alf. Anything that would give you a hobby.’

  ‘You’re my hobby.’