A Grave Man

by David Roberts

  ‘I say, Miss Browne, you look perfectly splendid,’ said Roddy, sitting himself down on the sofa beside her. ‘That’s a topping dress. I mean, I know nothing about frocks and that kind of thing but . . .’

  ‘Be a dear and stop burbling,’ Isolde Swann said, perching her shapely bottom on the arm of the sofa. ‘Miss Browne has no wish to hear your views on fashion, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, of course. Sorry and all that. I’m afraid I’m a bit of an ass. Can’t think why you put up with me, Izzy old thing.’

  ‘I love you, that’s why,’ she said, patting the top of his head in a proprietorial way. ‘Don’t you agree, Miss Browne, that love makes you – what’s the phrase? – tout comprendre, tout pardonner?’

  Verity hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I have ever been in love . . .’

  ‘Oh, I say, I thought you and Lord Edward . . .’

  ‘I do believe, Roddy, you are determined to put your foot in it. I do apologize for this poor goof, Miss Browne.’

  ‘No,’ said Verity, flailing about, ‘I do love him but I don’t know . . . it’s all so complicated. You see, I live such an absurd life, my job . . . never in one place for more than a minute. It’s really not fair on any man. Oh dear, please let’s talk about something else.’

  She realized that this was the very first time she had acknowledged her relationship with Edward in public though it would be folly to think the announcement would come as a surprise to anyone who knew them. In fact, she had blushed to the roots of her hair, which was under a hairdryer at the time, when riffling through the pages of Tatler she had happened to see a photograph of Edward and herself taken at Brooklands with a coy caption referring to her ‘war wound’ but assuring readers that she was being tended by ‘the most eligible man about town, Lord Edward Corinth, younger brother of the Duke of Mersham’. She prayed Edward would never see it. It was just the sort of gossip he hated.

  ‘But surely the only important job a woman has is to look after her husband and bring up his children?’ Roddy said.

  With a great effort of will Verity did not shower him with abuse but merely replied, ‘I am sure that is true for many women but not for me, I am afraid.’

  To her relief he began to talk about the New Year’s Eve dance the Castlewoods always held at Swifts Hill.

  ‘You will come, Miss Browne?’ He turned to Castlewood. ‘Sorry, old boy, that was rather cheek but . . .’

  ‘No, Roddy’s right,’ Castlewood broke in. ‘Ginny was going to ask you. We would so like it if you could come. It is so rare for me to make new friends – when I do I hate to be parted from them.’

  He started to talk about his house, which was clearly the great love of his life. Taking Verity over to admire the radiogram, he told her, ‘I can put on a record in here and we can listen to it here, in my study or in the dining-room. It’s American. I saw it when I was last in New York and I knew I just had to have it for Swifts Hill.’

  He slipped a record, black and shiny, out of its brown sleeve, holding it delicately between his palms at the rim. Placing it on the turntable he said in a low voice, ‘One of my favourites. Shall we dance?’

  It was ‘Stormy Weather’, a favourite of Verity’s too, and for a moment she was inclined to accept his invitation if only to see whether he would dance with her. Instead, she laughed to show she knew he was joking and said, ‘Was I very rude?’

  ‘To Roddy? Not at all. I thought you were very restrained. I was full of admiration. He’s such an idiot but not vicious – at least, so I believe. I can’t understand what Isolde sees in him, though. She could have any man she wanted but she chooses . . .’

  ‘He’s very good-looking.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘In a sporty way,’ she added hastily. ‘Not my type but, you must admit, they make a beautiful couple.’

  ‘Well, indeed. You must have a long talk with Dominic. He has studied these things and he advocates – what does he call it? – controlled breeding. He thinks that we have to weed out the weaklings and bring forth a new generation of supermen. Have you heard of the German philosopher Nietzsche? Of course you have! He said – and I took the trouble to memorize the passage – “experimental science is the last flower of asceticism. The investigator must discard all his feelings, hopes and fears as a human person and reduce himself to a disembodied observer of events on which he passes no value judgement.”’

  ‘You mean you don’t have to take into account whether you are doing right or wrong? Surely, that’s just what makes us human? Some of us call it conscience.’

  ‘It’s for the greater good, Miss Browne. Individual morality just confuses the issue. Who cares what you or I think is good or bad?’

  At that moment Dominic Montillo came up to them and with his rather braying laugh said, ‘Castlewood, did I really hear you talking about Nietzsche to a pretty girl?’

  ‘We were just saying how beautiful Isolde and Roddy are – as a couple, I mean.’

  ‘That’s right! And they will have beautiful children. Does that appeal to you – as a Communist – Miss Browne?’

  ‘Playing God and breeding beautiful children?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t believe in God so you must believe that man is god. Take a look at Roddy. You see he has a square-shaped head while Isolde’s is oval.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Indeed it is. When you have time, you must let me show you some of the fruits of my research. A round head is a clear sign of degeneracy. Square or oval are strong shapes.’

  ‘And what is mine?’ she asked, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. ‘It looks round to me.’

  ‘No, oval . . . square . . .’ For a moment Montillo was at a loss. ‘If I may, I will take some measurements sometime?’ She had managed to embarrass the good doctor and had no intention of helping him out.

  It had occurred to Verity that, at dinner, there would be more women than men which would be awkward but, just as the butler announced that dinner was served, they were joined by the local doctor and another man to whom Verity took an instant and instinctive dislike even before he opened his mouth. He was very thin – mere skin and bone, stubble on his face and very little hair on his head. His teeth were bad and it was difficult to guess his age – not yet thirty, she guessed, but if he weren’t so hunched and had more flesh on his bones he might look younger. Whereas the doctor had donned a creased and ancient dinner-jacket, the young man, whose name was Graham Harvey, arrogantly flouted convention and wore grey-flannel trousers secured by a rope belt, an open-neck white cotton shirt and plimsolls, worn through at the toes. It was such a blatant statement of contempt for the conventions of polite society that she expected Sir Simon or Virginia to send him packing but instead they welcomed him warmly as one of the family. Virginia explained that he rented a cottage on the estate and was writing a book.

  Verity went into the dining-room on Sir Simon’s arm. She felt him clutching her a little too tightly for comfort and hoped he was not going to be a bore. It was another extraordinary room. Her eyes went straight to the ceiling of which the recessed central portion was entirely covered in aluminium leaf on a blue background, with built-in concealed lighting which made the aluminium shimmer. The floor had a marble perimeter surrounding a buff-coloured carpet. The fireplace consisted of polished, ribbed aluminium panels surrounding an electric fire from which light – imitation logs illuminated from within by light bulbs – but no heat emanated. The fireplace was surrounded by black marble inlaid with a Greek key pattern. This was repeated on the ebonized doors to the room. On the walls hung three genuine Turner seascapes alongside a circular barometer and an electric clock.

  Verity was seated, rather to her embarrassment, next to Sir Simon who naturally sat at the head of the table. To her alarm, Graham Harvey was on her other side. She gulped as she felt her host place a hand, fleetingly, on her knee. She had a feeling this was going to be a meal she would remember. The dining-room chairs were upholstered in pink leather. It
looked odd – almost comic – but it certainly set off her Schiaparelli dress and, of course, the designer loved pink.

  ‘Do you like it – the room?’

  ‘Oh, was I staring, Sir Simon? I’m so sorry but I have never seen anything like it.’

  ‘But do you like it?’ he repeated.

  ‘You have to give me time to absorb it all but, yes, I do. It’s very elegant. May I ask who designed it?’

  ‘Peter Malacrida – a friend of ours. Italian. Have you met him?’

  It so happened that she had, in the Ritz in Paris. He was one of Belasco’s drinking partners. An Italian playboy who also wrote for various newspapers and had written a couple of successful plays. She had not realized he was also an interior decorator.

  ‘Yes, I met him in Paris – the Marchese Malacrida?’

  ‘That’s right. He also designed our house in London.’

  Verity remembered how elegantly Malacrida had tried to detach her from Belasco and the difficulty she had had in convincing him that he would be unsuccessful. She was glad he was not here to tell stories.

  The sound of a Mozart piano concerto wafted through a panel in the walls. Music, as her host had promised, was laid on. It ought to have been horribly vulgar but somehow it was too eccentric for that. It was not to her taste and it was not ‘English’ but she was enjoying it as theatre.

  To change the subject she asked Sir Simon if he was planning any more expeditions. ‘It was so exciting when they almost reached the Pole.’

  ‘I’m too old myself to go on expeditions but my Foundation, which I set up to further scientific and social work, is financing – at least in part – an Anglo-German expedition to the roof of the world.’

  ‘The roof of the world?’

  ‘Tibet! To the sacred city of Lhasa, the Forbidden City. Tibet is the last truly secret place on earth. Not even Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer, reached Lhasa. Have you read James Hilton’s Lost Horizon?’

  ‘Shangri-La, whose people had the secret of eternal youth?’

  ‘Yes, an icy dream-like place in the high mountains with answers to questions man has always sought.’

  Castlewood was becoming very excited. His eyes shone and his soup was still untouched. She noticed that, at the other end of the table, Montillo was listening intently while nodding and smiling as Virginia told some story about Mah-Jongg.

  ‘What sort of answers?’

  ‘Miss Browne,’ he looked suddenly grave, ‘it is my belief – our belief – that Tibet is the cradle of our Aryan race.’

  ‘But the Tibetans aren’t blond and blue-eyed,’ Verity expostulated.

  ‘No, but my friend Bruno Berger has given me a copy of an extraordinary book, Die Nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanene Aliens. It proves that our Aryan ancestors went east from the Nordic heartland in northern Europe through Persia and deep into central Asia – to Tibet. Sometime I shall show you photographs of Tibetan noblemen – they do look Aryan . . .’

  ‘My dear, finish your soup. We are all waiting.’ Virginia was warning her husband that he was on his hobby horse and that not everyone was listening with sympathy.

  As if to prove his antisocial credentials, the young man beside her said, ‘That’s all tommy rot, Castlewood. It’s the sort of mad theory the Nazis like.’

  Sir Simon opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it and sank back into his chair.

  Verity looked at her neighbour with interest. These were the first words he had spoken at dinner and she wondered exactly who he was. A licensed fool, perhaps, to insult his host without being reprimanded? Having delivered his opinion of Sir Simon’s scientific theories, he relapsed into sulky silence. Verity, to cover her embarrassment – although neither man seemed in the least embarrassed, merely belligerent – asked Sir Simon a question about the building of the house. She sighed with relief as her host, in good spirits again, described the trials and tribulations of creating Swifts Hill. He was clearly a dreamer – not woolly and unpractical but a driven, even ruthless dreamer. He espoused projects and ideas that appealed to the romantic in him. He said himself that he liked the word ‘impossible’ when applied to some idea he had because he could then prove that it was after all possible. Swifts Hill itself might be minimal in design but the building of it was the expression of an idea as fantastic as any medieval castle. To emphasize what he thought was important, he leant right over to Verity and put his hand on hers or on her arm, as though he had to touch her in order to communicate his enthusiasm more directly than through mere words.

  Sir Simon’s volubility covered the silence of two of his guests. Maud Pitt-Messanger was steeped in profound gloom and said not a word. She was grieving for her father, no doubt, but her depression seemed too severe to be solely derived from her loss. Graham Harvey, too, seemed gloomy but his eyes glittered and Verity felt he was preparing himself for another outburst and, sure enough, he was.

  When he had stopped talking about Swifts Hill, Sir Simon asked her about Spain. He knew the country well but had not been there since the outbreak of the civil war. She told him something about what she had seen but was careful not to get into politics. She guessed that her host might well support General Franco and the Rebels and had no wish to get into a slanging match on the subject. However, she found herself describing the destruction of Guernica and the death of her friend, the photographer, Gerda Meyer.

  Before her host could make any comment, Graham Harvey, seeming to drag the words unwillingly from somewhere deep inside him, said harshly, ‘You think of yourself as a Communist, do you not, Miss Browne?’

  ‘I do because I am,’ she answered crossly. ‘Would you like me to show you my Party membership card?’

  ‘And yet you sit at the tables of the rich, dressed in what I believe must be a very expensive frock . . .’

  Verity was unnerved by this brutal attack and expected Sir Simon to come to her rescue but he seemed unperturbed and merely smiled at her, perhaps hoping for a ‘scene’. She had the feeling he wanted to see her angry and, for this reason, she refused to be. She noticed that Maud was watching Harvey intently, though whether with approval or disapproval it was hard to say.

  ‘If my eyes do not deceive me, Mr Harvey, you sit at the same table as I do and, if you think wearing dirty trousers and worn-out gym shoes makes you a member of the proletariat, think again.’ She was pleased with her response and thought she had never disliked anyone more than this streak of a man, thin to the point of emaciation, whose unpleasant body odour made her feel nauseous. By this time the whole table was silent, listening to what the young man had to say.

  ‘I have heard Castlewood talking about you,’ he said with studied insolence. ‘I gather that you are to marry a minor aristocrat. He showed me a photograph of you both in what I believe is called a society magazine. I don’t wish to be rude,’ he smiled for the first time but it was more of a smirk, ‘but just because you found yourself in Guernica and “scooped” – isn’t that the word? – your journalistic rivals, that doesn’t make you a Communist – not in my eyes. Not though you carried a card given you by Lenin himself.’

  It was such a blatant attempt to rile her that Verity’s anger was dissipated. She did the best thing possible and broke into laughter which was echoed – with relief – round the table. Sir Simon might be disappointed at being done out of a row but he clearly admired the way she had overcome her difficulty. ‘I can’t take you seriously, Mr Harvey. Who are you trying to impress?’

  ‘That puts you in your place, Graham,’ Sir Simon said with a laugh. ‘I agree with Miss Browne. You are a poseur. I don’t recall what you have done to further the revolution. Unless . . . he’s writing a book Miss Browne – an attack on the Government, I believe. They must be shaking in their boots – assuming he ever finishes it. Are you near to finishing it, Graham?’

  Verity was interested to see that her antagonist seemed unabashed by Sir Simon’s teasing which verged on the cruel. He replied with some dignity, ‘As a ma
tter of fact, I wrote the final words of the final chapter before coming here tonight. It was why I had no time to change, for which I apologize.’

  ‘Graham! How exciting,’ shrilled Virginia. ‘When may we read it?’

  ‘Not yet . . . not for a while,’ he said coldly. ‘I read your book on the civil war, Miss Browne. I thought it . . .’ he paused and Verity wondered what insult would follow, ‘very interesting. I have not myself been to Spain but I have talked to many who have and they bear out what you say . . . for the most part.’ He sank back into silence and – a minute or two later – Verity caught him with his eyes closed and wondered if he were asleep.

  After they had finished eating, Virginia caught her husband’s eye and rose from her chair. She led the ladies out to ‘powder their noses’, as she put it coyly, leaving the men to ‘put the world to rights over their port’. It was a convention Verity always found absurdly old-fashioned and, normally, rather insulting – as if she might be expected to have nothing to contribute to the post-prandial conversation. She knew, from what Edward had told her, that the conversation was usually unenlightening, very often degenerating into a list of prejudices and bigotries spiced with ugly sexual ‘jokes’ which according to Freud – so Edward had informed her – reflected the English upper-class male’s fear and, possibly, hatred of the female sex.

  On this occasion, however, Verity was grateful to leave the dining-room to the men and even flashed Sir Simon a smile as he drew back her chair to facilitate her escape. When they reached the drawing-room, Verity took a cup of coffee and made a beeline for Maud who had flung herself, inelegantly, into an armchair well away from Virginia, Mrs Cardew and Isolde who remained by the coffee tray. She picked up a magazine but Verity could see that, as soon as she decently could, she would slip away to her bedroom. Before she did, Verity was determined to ask the questions she had wanted to put to her ever since she had entered the house. She sat herself down in a chair opposite Maud and stirred coloured coffee sugar into her cup as noisily as she could. Maud pretended not to notice her presence and pressed The Field to her face – she was obviously very short-sighted – hoping her persecutor might take the hint and leave her in peace. Unfortunately for Maud, Verity never took hints of this kind.