by Brian Aldiss
She continued to look at him without expression before speaking. ‘I don’t like you in my bedroom, that’s the trouble. I told you that all that sex thing is over between us until the quarrel is settled and you apologize.’
‘OK, fine, Fenella. No sex. I understand. I have apologized. I do again. This is different. It’s party time. I have come to see you are OK and have on a nice dress to meet people. It’s getting late.’
He glanced nervously at his watch before clasping his hands behind his back. He was aware that he spoke to her as if she were a child to be humoured. About that, Fenella rarely complained.
The room in which she had taken refuge suffocated him. His mother-in-law, Morna Cameron, had provided most of its furnishings from her estate in Scotland. The brass bedstead rattled as he paced back and forth at its foot. The dressing-table which stood to one side in the bay window was a relic of Victorian days, its frontage of little drawers bearing complex wood inlays. It was laden with lace mats, cut-glass pots with silver lids, and cut-glass trays.
Like sentinels on opposite sides of the room stood two matching wardrobes, one for a lady, one for a gentleman. Their austere mahogany fronts imposed silence on the room. The lady’s wardrobe stood open, to reveal a line of dresses, hanging imprisoned and limp.
These relics from a British yesterday he did not share were not to Dominic’s taste. Nor was the tartan carpet underfoot.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Look at the time.’
Seeming to ignore him by not following his movements, Fenella merely stared ahead, in the direction of the window. ‘I don’t know all these people. Why are they coming? I didn’t ask them.’
‘We both sent out the invitations, if you remember. The pink invitations you selected in Harrods. The occasion is to celebrate the making of my first million. It’s a cause for celebration, Fenella, and the chairman of Schatzman’s Bank will be here. Josh Rund. You remember him. Put on your dress like a dear and let me see you in it.’
‘How are we to get three hundred people in here? I don’t want them coming upstairs. Besides, the reception rooms are filthy. I’m sure Arold never cleaned them as I instructed. He drinks too much, that’s Arold’s trouble.’ She gave a brief laugh. ‘I’d sack him but I know how you like him. What will the chairman think? You ask the chairman of a bank to a filthy house and you think that’s good for business? You don’t understand British ways, that’s half your trouble.’
He smiled, saying in a mollifying tone, ‘I don’t suppose anyone will notice a bit of dust. I guarantee the rooms were thoroughly cleaned. The important thing is to make everyone feel welcome, yah? Now, tell me you’re almost ready.’ Even to himself, his words sounded artificial; he could not force himself to be natural in her presence.
‘How can I do anything with you standing there talking? If only you’d leave me alone and stop bullying me, I could get on. The guests will soon be arriving. They don’t want to see me anyway. It’s you they’re interested in. It’s not my million.’
‘Correct. But it is our house. Our home.’ With a malicious smile, he added, ‘And of course you must be ready to receive your dear mother.’
She moved. She came closer to him and said, ‘Is my hair suitable? I didn’t like the way the man did it, and I told him so.’
‘It looks just lovely, dear. Put on those pearl earrings your mother gave you – don’t forget – and she’s certain to be pleased.’
‘Are you sure she’ll come?’
‘You invited her.’ He could not help giving her a look of loathing.
‘What are you accusing me of? I had to invite her.’
‘Good, good.’ He started shaking his head. ‘It will be nice to see her again.’ He had a quick glance at his watch.
‘Do you think so, Dominic?’
‘I said it, didn’t I? Now, be a dear and hurry to put on the dress.’
He looked back at her as he reached the door. There his wife stood in the middle of the room, one hand to her sallow cheek, giving him one of her lonely stares.
On impulse, he went back, put an arm round her waist, and kissed her. ‘Don’t worry. All will be fine, yah.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, you can twist me round your little finger, that’s the trouble. The things I do for you, you’d never believe.’
Dominic giggled. ‘Never.’
He went slowly downstairs. After some hesitation, he took a turn into his library and consulted Great Expectations again. As he did so, he heard an early guest arriving, and footsteps on the stone paving outside.
Once they turned off the M4 or M40, Dominic Mayor’s guests found themselves in an uncomfortable landscape reflecting many of the get-rich-quick tendencies they themselves exhibited. The country round about Shreding Green was low-lying and dispirited and afflicted by something greater than itself: progress.
The upper windows of the manor, from which Fenella Mayor was gazing despondently, looked over an unkept wasteland of twenty acres which Dominic had bought up to save them from developers. Beyond the wasteland could be seen two filling stations, the towers of an ‘urban development’, pylons, and a new industrial estate, to which Federal Express lorries shuttled along on the narrow roads, brushing past Iver’s quota of Range Rovers.
The area was pocked by building sites. The fashion was for so-called ‘greens’: arrangements of small brick houses, their mock-Georgian doorways guarded by carriage lamps, huddling in a geometrical pattern. Where planted, infant trees stood like policemen beside garages with up-and-over Regency doors. A new pub, the Avengers, stood only two miles from the manor’s front gates. For the occupants of these ‘greens’, newly-weds, gays, and other combinations, a massively utilitarian shopping centre was in the course of construction in Langley.
This newness was peppered with ‘For Sale’ signs. Nothing was consolidated. Marlborough Green, Royal Thames Green, Princes Park Green, all manifested empty houses, uncut lawns, tokens of distress. Some of the intended boutiques in the shopping centre had never opened. Sainsbury’s had stayed away. Many of the town houses had an abandoned air. Many of the people who had moved to Shreding last year wished to move away this year: they did not like the neighbours, they had lost their jobs, or they were moving up or down the social scale; Shreding for them was either too posh or too naff. This was the dawn of the 1980s and the hour of the estate agent. Stagflation ruled.
Tokens of an earlier time remained. Among reservoirs and driblets of river, leafier enclaves prevailed, expressed in golf courses, studs, and riding-schools. Winding lanes, up which container transports now lumbered, led past thirties bungalows which the retired owners, besieged, had surrounded by the blight of the seventies garden, cupressus leylandii.
One or two of this retired class came to the party, happy to have as a neighbour someone as rich as Dominic Mayor. But the guests on the whole were enjoying the flood-tide of their youth. A bald head or a greying one among their number was an anomaly, genially tolerated much as the occasional black was tolerated. After the hired man helped them park their cars, they teemed into the manor, cheerful and confident, to be greeted by blasts from a live group, Mortal Wounds, and waitresses with trays of drink.
The most eminent bald head belonged to Josh Rund, chairman of Schatzman’s Bank. Josh, at forty-five, was considerably older than most of the other guests. He and Dominic greeted each other in the hall with a measure of real affection. Josh had backed Dominic when he was an unknown nineteen-year-old, and Dominic had then proceeded to funnel money into Josh’s recently founded merchant bank. They had triumphed over uncertain times together. After Dominic switched from computer whizz-kiddery to short-term trading on the financial markets of the world, he had grown mushroom-rich. The Iraq-Iran War was proving equally good for Josh Rund.
The two men had something else in common. Both had married older women. Elegant Suzy Rund, dressed in a glittering black gown for the occasion, was still blonde in her mid-fifties, and greyhound thin.
‘Where’s Fenella?�
�� she asked Dominic as she clutched his hand. He could hardly believe the rosiness of her cheeks was rouge.
‘She has somewhat headache. She’ll be down soon.’ The pupils of her eyes were large, commanding attention. It occurred to Dominic that she was on drugs.
That also they had in common. Also, like Dominic, Suzy and Josh were not born in England. England had made them. England was their home, their refuge. But it was not in their blood. Deep in their minds were other languages, other landscapes.
When a waitress came up with a tray of champagne, Suzy, Josh and Dominic each took a glass, raising them solemnly to each other.
‘Here’s to many more years of Tory misrule,’ Josh said, and drank deep. Dominic took a sip and then set his glass aside. They fell into discussion of the latest political scandal.
The young men at the party were of what journalists had christened the yuppie class. They dressed elegantly and with some discretion, to be outshone by the frolicsome ladies who accompanied them. Many of these ladies were independently rich. The stock exchange was still predominantly a male preserve. Professions in photography, design, couture, publishing, and the art world had opened up to women. Their lives were more interesting and, on the whole, more precarious than those of the market-slaves they accompanied – who, like Dominic, often worked an eighteen-hour day.
Many of them, of both sexes, had broken away from provincial homes they despised. They now lived in expensive London apartments, rich while still in their mid-twenties, a relatively exclusive body of gate-crashers in society. They drank and laughed this evening: tomorrow at nine many would be back scanning the green figures ghostly in their VDUs.
Dominic moved among them, carrying his wine glass, not drinking, chatting to all and sundry, exchanging gossip.
He noticed immediately when Fenella started down the stairs, and went over to escort her down the last few steps.
‘What a mêlée. I don’t know anyone,’ she said, looking about rather short-sightedly. ‘Aren’t they noisy? What are they talking about?’
‘Come and meet some of them, dear. There are the Hartridges. You remember them? Do you want some wine? Champagne?’
‘You know it gives me a headache. Is everyone here? I’ve let you down again, Dommy, haven’t I? I should have stood by you like a good wife. No wonder you hate me.’
‘Don’t start that again, there’s a dear person. Just enjoy yourself.’
He took her over to meet Pete and Dru Hartridge. The Hartridges had formed a very successful leisure consultancy in the City, and could send overworked executives at a moment’s notice to an unknown beach in Martinique, a grouse moor in the Scottish Highlands, or a health farm in Esher, with escorts if needed. As Fenella began talking with sudden animation to Dru, Dominic studied his wife’s dress. Suzy Rund looked so marvellously right in her black number; Fenella looked ridiculous in her gauzy mauve – or was that word violet? – outfit. The hemline was the wrong length and unfashionable. The spray of artificial flowers at the shoulder was absurd. He felt bad.
She caught his eye. ‘Do you like the dress, Dommy darling?’
‘Correct. You look really marvellous in it, dear.’
‘Yes, it’s brilliant, darling,’ Dru said. ‘I was noticing it. A most unusual colour. Just your colour, soft, totally mysterious.’
He turned away, and there was Suzy Rund. She saw the look on his face and grabbed his arm, laughing as she did so.
‘I’ve been watching you, Dominic, you scoundrel. It’s your party and you’re not drinking.’
‘Suzy, do all the people lie? How do you understand which is praise or which is “taking the piss”?’
She laughed, with a real note of gaiety. ‘Isn’t praise always insincere? I hate it, personally, myself. But the English with their downbeat humour – you can’t tell it one way or the other. Don’t worry.’
‘Maybe I do need a drink!’ He snatched a glass of champagne from a passing tray. ‘Let’s get outside a minute.’
‘I’m happy to do it. Josh is talking shop to the Patels. You realize I am about the only woman here who does no work at all. Instead I live on my husband’s immoral earnings.’
‘Oh my God,’ he said in sudden good humour. ‘Come outside, Suzy, and let me kiss you. How I love to hear that laugh of yours. And your pale lips. I never laugh, you know that?’
Night had fallen. The outside of the house was floodlit. Guests were still arriving. Dominic waved to them, while steering Suzy Rund behind a sheltering clump of pampas, where he flung his glass into a flowerbed.
He stood on tiptoe to kiss her.
‘Put your hand in here,’ she said, leaning towards him. ‘Not much tit, I’m afraid.’
‘I love it. How hot your tits are.’ He pressed his mouth to her left nipple. ‘Oh, Suzy, you’re such a life-giver.’
‘Lifesaver, you mean. I’ll be fifty-five next January. I feel so desperate. Josh isn’t interested.’ She pushed him off and adjusted her dress.
‘Has he a mistress?’
‘No. I’ve checked. He’s just lost interest. It’s money, of course – money kills everything. Christ, Dominic, what do people do? No, sorry, no feeling my cunt. Just kiss me. It’s the human warmth I want. Then we must get back.’ They nuzzled each other, till she turned to sneeze, cursing the cold.
‘I adore you, Suzy. You’re human.’
‘Keep saying it. I know you’re in a fix with Fenella, Dominic. I just want to say I’m sorry. She has an unfortunate personality.’
They stood against each other, sighing, unwilling to break away.
He was suddenly aware of someone coming round the pampas bush, and stood back from Suzy.
It was Arold Betts. He flung one of his salutes, at the same time giving a quick glance at Suzy. ‘Evening, Mrs Rund, I thought as it was you. Bit nippy for the time of year. Mr Dominic, suh, you told me to inform you. Mrs Cameron is just arriving this minute, suh.’
A strong smell of drink surrounded him.
‘Get inside, please, Arold. I’ll deal with Mrs Cameron.’
‘Very good, suh. Orders is orders.’
As he disappeared, Dominic stared at Suzy. The semi-darkness softened the lines of her face, making her look younger.
‘Take good care of your dear self,’ he said, and went to confront his mother-in-law.
Morna Cameron was a tall bony woman, given to wearing thick tweed suits which made her look even more sizeable. She loomed over Dominic. Although she was now in her eighties, age had not impaired her activities or her temper. She moved constantly between an estate in Scotland and a flat in Kensington. The latter proved a useful base from which to descend on daughter Fenella.
Fenella had become Morna Cameron’s chief interest since the death of her husband five years previously. There was also a son, James, Fenella’s brother, but he had long since escaped from the family’s spell and was living in California, growing mushrooms with great success and never writing home.
‘I have a strong suspicion your man was drunk,’ were her words of greeting to Dominic as he came up and attempted an embrace.
‘It’s good to see you, Mother,’ he said. ‘Do come in. It’s nice of you to come. Fenella’s longing to see you.’
‘I’m surprised she didn’t bother to come out and greet me.’ Her Scottish accent was slight.
‘She’s waiting inside. The party’s going well.’
‘It’s very noisy. The Beatles, I suppose.’
‘It’s Mortal Wounds.’ He showed her into the house.
‘They’re all the same to me.’
‘Mortal Wounds are very popular this year.’
The old lady adjusted her hearing aid. ‘Everything’s a terrible noise. Just noise. It’s no good speaking to me in here, Dominic. I can’t hear a thing.’
This last remark was thrown out as they entered the main reception room, now full of groups of people, all laughing and talking. Clicking his fingers, Dominic summoned a waitress to his side. The girl stood
there, waiting for Mrs Cameron to take a glass. Instead, the old lady embarked on a long story about some trouble she had had in a shoeshop in Kensington. Dominic clasped his hands behind his back, nodding, muttering sympathetically. He gazed dully at the scene. Time went by.
‘But there – what do you expect today?’ It was Mrs Cameron’s punch-line, good for any number of downbeat stories.
Some couples were dancing at the far end of the room, enjoying tapes while Mortal Wounds took a break and a puff.
Dominic could feel his tension rising as Mrs Cameron finally refused a glass. She was looking about her with the air of disapproval which rarely left her. Her face with its guardian wattles on either side of pursed lips was covered with a light sandy fluff, as though perched on the margins of a desert. Behind her spectacles with their desert-coloured frames, her old flinty eyes were alert for targets for her displeasure.
She settled first for the décor. ‘All this white, Dominic, it’s so depressing.’
He knew her weak points. ‘It’s very expensive. And fashionable.’
‘You should have restored the manor to its former glory. White walls go with poverty. I know an excellent man in Edinburgh, a specialist in all things Jacobean. You and Fenella should have asked me for advice.’
‘We brought over an Italian from Milan.’
‘Milan,’ she echoed contemptuously. ‘Malcolm took me there once. Didn’t care for the place.’
Malcolm was her dead husband.
Dominic had, he would concede to friends, overdone the white. White was everywhere, set off by crimson upholstery and the occasional crimson carpet. But white was what he had wanted. White was neutral. He couldn’t stand the old British stuff which Morna and his wife liked.
‘Umberto Fascetti. I’m sure you know his name, Mother.’
Morna Cameron made no answer. She had sighted her daughter. The hairs of the desert trembled.
Fenella was still talking to Dru and Pete Hartridge, being very animated about it. Pete was nodding and smiling rather automatically, saying, ‘Quite, quite,’ at intervals. When Fenella found someone to talk to, she always latched on to them, for fear of being left to face new people.
