Manly Pursuits

by Ann Harries

  He pushed his face close to mine and smiled reassuringly: ‘I have your education at heart, my dear Francis. I am taking you to my club, where you will meet men of Empire, soldiers and explorers, hunters and traders, who have lived for years in colonial outposts. They meet to exchange experiences, you could say. I feel their stories of native habits and customs, to say nothing of the local flora and fauna, would be of interest to you.’

  It is an indication of my naivete that I was prepared to believe that it was towards some form of Geographical Society or Travellers’ Club that we were heading, even though I was fully aware that Oscar had never expressed an interest in this area of human endeavour; indeed, I expressed regret that he had not thought to include Mr James in this expedition, whose knowledge of the wildlife of colonial outposts far exceeded mine.

  A thick fog had settled upon the centre of London, but this murky weather in no way deterred the crowds who thronged the streets at that late hour, their faces scarcely visible in the dim gas-light. In Piccadilly, a woman shoved her head at the window of our carriage to bare her broken teeth at us in a suggestive manner, while a number of half-grown youths lolling on the steps of Eros watched her performance with a sneering interest. With some difficulty our vehicle struggled through swarms of high-hatted men and sumptuously dressed women released from the Piccadilly theatres, and clattered up the curve of Regent Street, past the Café Royale, until we suddenly turned into a narrow, ill-lit side street.

  Before long we stopped outside a door which was clearly well-known to the coach-driver, and Oscar nudged me out. ‘We’ll find our own way home!’ he called to the driver, a message that to me did not augur well: I felt in my pockets for money with which to pay for a cab later on, should this expedient become necessary.

  Oscar knocked upon the door with the ivory handle of his cane. His tapping seemed to be some sort of code, as the door flew open almost immediately to reveal a gigantic doorman in full black-up, wearing no more than a leopardskin loincloth and a silver earring.

  ‘Good evening, Lizzie, how are you?’ enquired Oscar.

  If I had been disturbed by the decorations of Oscar’s house, I was thrown into a panic by the wholesale disregard for culture, country or era exhibited upon the walls of the foyer in which I now found myself. African masks hung side by side with Indian tapestries, while whips, spears, assegais and shields clustered round golden Buddhas, Islamic mosaics, Amazonian stuffed parrots and other foreign booty designed, no doubt, to make the visitor feel he had been magically spirited away from the familiar ambience of London into an environment where unusual codes of behaviour would be tolerated.

  ‘Evening, Your Highness!’ cried Lizzie (for this indeed seemed to be the name of this ersatz Zulu warrior) in cheerful Cockney tones. ‘Sign the visitors’ book here, please, sir.’ He addressed me with a total disregard for the incongruity of his appearance (or name). As I bent over to do as he requested he lowered his lips to my ear and murmured: ‘All virgins tonight, sir, every one of ‘em!’

  This piece of information was followed by a brisk beating of his hands upon a primitive African drum, in response to which a small person appeared from behind a curtain. The small person bowed deeply, though with a satirical air.

  It was impossible to ascertain the gender of this child, who could not have been more than ten years old. He or she wore a flaming red fabric twisted around its narrow belly, and his or her hair was curled into wild black ringlets, obviously dyed for the occasion. Some attempt had been made to paint the child’s body chestnut brown, but woeful streaks of pale liquid revealed the underlying racial tendency. The child in turn led us to a set of double doors which he (I see him for the moment as a male personage) flung open with considerable expertise. A great billow of smoke – mostly tobacco – at once enveloped us; my eyes began to water. I thought of running out, but Oscar had taken my arm and steered me into a room which was lit by one feeble candle upon a table in the middle of the floor. A man with a short dark beard sat by this table. He was addressing a group of some thirty or forty other men who sat or stood round tables in almost complete darkness. A tray bearing champagne in an ice-bucket had materialised in the hands of our youthful guide, who now pranced through the dark to a table occupied by two gentlemen. Not one word did this child utter, but threw us what seemed to me a girlish look as she left the table.

  ‘Good evening, Harris!’ cried Oscar, with no thought to the disturbance he was causing. ‘May I introduce you to my cousin Francis?’

  Harris and I shook hands briefly and, my eyes having adapted to the gloom, I recognised his companion to be an elderly Lord of the Realm. We were not introduced, but Oscar murmured to me, as we somewhat ostentatiously settled, ‘He loves first editions, especially of women; little girls are his passion.’ I was glad of my champagne. Even in the darkness, Harris’s eyes sparkled with a light that reflected not so much the flickering candle in the centre of the room, as an inner brightness suggesting immense energy and intellect. He motioned to Oscar to be quiet so that we could hear the words of the man at the table. I took the liberty of enquiring (in an undertone) the speaker’s identity.

  ‘Frederick Selous, the hunter,’ whispered Harris.

  My heart somersaulted.

  But it was not the name of the famous explorer, rumoured to be the model for Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain, that set my blood racing through my veins at a dangerous speed. I realised I was in the presence of the elder brother of the world’s leading ornithologist, Edmund Selous, whose observational diaries on the behaviour of field birds had recently appeared in the Zoologist – notes of such extraordinary insight and meticulousness that I had been obliged to revise my own records of birdsong, which seemed irresponsible by comparison. Selous the younger was of an even more reclusive disposition than myself – ‘monkish’ was the word most often used to describe him, a word which, strangely enough, is applicable to many who have chosen the discipline of ornithology.

  In the meantime, Selous the elder was delivering a bloodthirsty resume of his hunting life in Africa. ‘So – in the space of six months I shot twenty-four elephants, nineteen buffalo, two zebra, five black rhino, four white rhino, four warthog, two giraffe, one hippo, one lion and fifteen assorted antelope,’ he informed us in a voice devoid of emotion; but I found it difficult to concentrate on his big-game anecdotes as I privately formulated a request to meet his elusive brother. The talk was drawing to a close, in any case, and Selous drank deeply from a beaker of wine. At once Harris leapt to his feet.

  ‘It would seem to me that in the world of big-game hunting, enough is clearly nothing like enough,’ he declared, with all the confidence of a man used to speaking to the rich and famous. ‘Am I right in supposing that this is your addiction – and we all have our addictions’ (a chorus of catcalls greeted this remark, for Harris’s addictions were scandalous) ‘… that, in fact, there can never be satisfaction: that even as you shoot the zebra you want to be shooting the giraffe, and as you shoot the giraffe you long to be toppling the elephant?’

  ‘In much the same way as you go about your conquests, Mr Harris,’ replied Selous suavely. ‘Except in my case, I also send home rare specimens to museums and universities. I don’t believe your own excesses contribute to the higher studies of animal behaviour.’

  Shouts of laughter followed this remark, which seemed mightily to amuse Harris as well. ‘One day I shall document my own insights into the animal behaviour I know and understand,’ he announced, tilting his body at an extraordinary angle, ‘but for the moment I worry about your elephants. To slaughter these marvellous creatures merely for their tusks seems to me a criminal act of wastage. May I ask what you do with their carcasses?’

  ‘I agree the wastage is excessive,’ said Selous, with a hint of regret in his voice. ‘If there are no natives about, the carcasses have to be abandoned to the predators. Ivory is the only thing obtainable in this country with which to defray the heavy expenses of hunting; and if you depend on th
e gun for a living it behoves to do your best when you get a chance.’

  ‘Exactly what I do, sir!’ exclaimed Harris, straightening up. ‘I always do my best when I get a chance!’

  I sensed a restlessness at the tables. Respect for the explorer and hilarity at Harris’s badinage was giving way to anticipation of something else: Selous felt it himself and vacated his chair to join a group of companions in the gloom. Two of these men were young and playful, judging by their impatient, but vigorous, movements, as if the constrictions of sitting in one place for a long time were proving too arduous for their high energies. The other gentleman, his face buried in shadow, was a giant of a man who, by contrast, sat slumped in his chair; he rose mountainously to congratulate the returning explorer and the two men at once became engaged in deep conversation. Now the conversation swelled, and laughter broke in waves from each of the tables, almost in turn, as if a wonderful joke was being passed from one table to the next. Our little personage – of whom there were several, all equally genderless with naked torsos and dusky ringlets – plied us with more champagne and smiles. Oscar seemed peculiarly excited: his hands shook as he raised his glass, and the epigrams flowed at an alarming rate.

  I had just summoned up enough courage to approach Selous’s table, when a tall, military-looking gentleman strode across to the vacated chair and grinned at us suggestively. He held in his hand a few sheaves of paper. His presence caused the audience, as I suppose we were, to burst into enthusiastic shouts of encouragement.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Selous, for that interesting account of your experiences in Africa. I would now like to read a poem I have written about some of my experiences in India. I believe some of you might have heard it before.’

  Wild cheers followed these words, and once the audience had calmed down a little, the military gentleman, a handsome enough young officer with an erect bearing, began to read. His poem, written in the Byronic style, attempting to encapsulate a witty thought in each rhyming couplet, began harmlessly enough as he described the different parts of India to which he had been posted. My thoughts were still with Selous the younger, and my dark-adapted eyes rested longingly on the other side of the room.

  But as my mind dwelt on the new methods of field-bird classification developed by the reclusive young ornithologist, I became aware of a quickening of excitement in the audience, an intensity of concentration upon the lines delivered by the young officer that seemed to me unusual even for poetry readings. I began to listen.

  ‘And now the scene shifted and I passed

  From sensuous Bengal to fierce Peshawar

  An Asiatic stronghold where each flower

  Of boyhood planted in its restless soil

  Is ipso facto ready to despoil

  (Or be despoiled by) someone else: the yarn

  Indeed so has it that the young Pathan

  Thinks it peculiar if you would pass

  Him by without some reference to his arse…’

  I was startled by the celerity – even the violence – with which my body responded to the gross words which then began to flow from the young man’s lips, as he described every lewd detail of his intercourse with young Pathans. Yet at this stage of the evening I was still able to observe my physiological reactions through the cool prism of science, and marvelled that a sequence of verbal images could so potently stimulate that part of the brain designed to control only the basic bodily functions which one would have considered to be impervious to poetry. Had someone written a paper on this interesting topic? I wondered, even as I felt my bland body transform into an inferno of powerful sensations.

  When the young man had finished reciting his catalogue, which in terms of number was not unlike Selous’s, except that it had rhyme, the entire audience groaned in appreciation. Our little person refilled our glasses. And I heard Oscar breathe to Harris: ‘No, no, Frank, enough can never be enough!’

  My fingers dug into my pockets and found the coins which I reckoned would pay a cabby to drive me back to Battersea. But as I rose from my seat – somewhat unsteadily – I discovered that a new drink had been set before me, which Oscar urged me to raise to my lips. Frank and the Lord of the Realm had already lifted their glasses, which contained the same milky-looking liquid, so good manners (and a certain mellowing of my normal social anxieties) compelled me to raise mine as well.

  I had not tasted absinthe before. I can only suppose that its effect upon my nervous system must have been similar to the grand mal convulsion experienced by the epileptic. As I felt the liquorice-flavoured drink roll down my throat, my body actually lurched into uncontrollable spasms (my brain now abandoning all attempts at scientific investigation), after which I began to hallucinate wildly. Whether these hallucinations were due to the effects of the absinthe or a possible epileptic seizure not even my physician is able to say, but the bizarre memories I have of the remainder of that evening can have no connection with reality, of that I am certain.

  For could it be possible that I then saw the Lord of the Realm straddled across that very table, his buttocks exposed to the air, while Lizzie whirled above these pale mounds a rod of twigs which he proceeded to whip downwards, causing the noble Lord to call out in pain, as rod audibly met soft flesh. The howl was misinterpreted by Lizzie as a demand for further flogging, which he administered with great energy and no pity. As further proof of the illusory nature of this experience, my companions seemed to be enjoying their friend’s discomfiture, and made no attempt to run to his assistance. ‘Stolen from Winchester School,’ laughed Harris (or so I seem to remember). ‘They boil their rods in grease there and leave them up the chimney to grow hard!’

  Further hallucinations of an equally perverse nature hover yet in my memory. The little persons were making great shows of affection towards certain gentlemen, even going so far as to perch on certain knees and fiddle with certain moustaches. These gentlemen tolerated this impertinence with smiling faces, clearly much entertained by such childish games.

  In the midst of these observations, much was my astonishment to find our table’s small servant suddenly cuddled into my lap and extending a slender arm round my neck. So light and insubstantial was this creature, more like a cat than a human, that I felt its movements rather than its weight; there was a pleasing delicacy in the texture of the experience, if I can put it that way. And could its teeth be nibbling at my earlobe, its tongue darting about like a kitten at a bowl of milk? Overwhelmed by curiosity, I allowed my hand to slide beneath the flaming fabric, to determine the virgin sex of the little urchin, as one might of a rat or a puppy.

  Great Granary 1899

  I was surprised to find myself included among the favoured half-dozen at the top of the table, placed between Milner and Mrs Kipling, with the Jesuit priest opposite. Jameson, Kipling and an empty seat made up our number, with the Colossus presiding at the head of the table. Harris sat a little further down, mother and daughter on either side; he had acknowledged my presence with a suave, unsurprised bow, murmuring that we should meet afterwards. It seemed extraordinary to me that this notorious bon viveur, womaniser and friend of Oscar Wilde should be an acquaintance of the Colossus; on the other hand, I was aware, through Oscar, that Harris, a brilliant fellow who spoke twelve languages fluently and edited several journals, was privy to the confidences of virtually everyone who counted in government, society and the arts. As to the identity of the missing person, we were given no clue, and, accordingly, made no comment. No one seemed curious, and I wondered briefly if our host had some prank in mind.

  I have attended many a sumptuously laid high table at various Oxford college halls, but I have to say that the table glass on this occasion must have been worth a small fortune. Accustomed as I am to the brilliant glitter of Waterford crystal goblets of various shapes and sizes, geometrically arranged on the right-hand side of every plate, I was at first perturbed to note that the display of glass at the Colossus’ dinner lacked the precision of identical place settings upon the vast swat
he of lace tablecloth. I soon appreciated that this was because each set of golden cutlery was accompanied by a unique combination of eighteenth-century Dutch or English wine glasses: some with intricate patterns cut into their cups; some with elaborate engravings; some with spiral air twists in their stems; some with gilded brims; and, at each plate, an engraved German beaker mounted in silver. The plainer glassware, bearing only my host’s monogram, was nowhere to be seen.

  And the wine that filled these glasses was like no other wine I had tasted in this house. With each sip, a sensation of well-being flooded through my fragile veins, accompanied by a growing belief that each sip rendered my presence ever less corporeal, and that eventually I would become utterly invisible and impervious to small-talk.

  I was wrong. Mrs Kipling leaned towards me. ‘You found your way, then?’

  Mrs Kipling reminded me of someone. As I framed a polite reply to her polite question, I felt her matronly energy warm my blood. Something in my stomach began to relax for a moment, even as I watched Milner out of the corner of my eye, and patted my inner breast-pocket, inside which lay Miss Schreiner’s Petition. But Milner, who, on sitting, had given me no more than a perfunctory nod, afraid, perhaps, that I might bring up the topic of bicycles, was deeply engrossed in talk with Mr Kipling on his left.

  ‘I wonder if he will bring out the pokaals with the dessert,’ said Mrs Kipling.

  I looked at her in astonishment. For out of her no-nonsense brown eyes, from the very depths of her sensible, kindly being, stared my long-dead mother. It is not often that I speak to women; even less often do I meet with women who do not repel me.

  ‘P-pokaals?’ I stammered.

  ‘Loving-cups. From Holland. He brings them out for special occasions. They’re priceless. At least two hundred and fifty years old. They should be in a museum.’ Even the New World drawl had my mother’s brisk intonations.

  ‘I should be too terrified to drink from one,’ said I, swallowing the contents of my slightly less valuable glass and casting a furtive glance at the still-preoccupied Milner. ‘So let us hope that he won’t do any such thing.’ My heart was pounding, but pleasurably for once. I allowed Huxley to refill my glass almost as it left my lips.