I told him that if he couldn’t get Jasper out, I certainly couldn’t get him out. I was sorry for him now, but there was nothing I could do. I walked out of the shop and went on walking, leaving Plimson with Asmodeus and the old browser. I stopped my ears and mind to the screams. Next day I read in the papers that Plimson had died that afternoon of heart failure. No reference to a little black statuette was made. One gathered from the reports that Aidan Plimson was a well-known character but that his passing, for various reasons, was unlamented; so why do I still feel guilty?
Know Your Enemy! was never put on the market, but I know that people have somehow managed to get hold of unofficial copies of the game. A website known as Blackcath.com has mysteriously appeared, though I have not been able to find out who hosts it or how it is maintained. I have visited it several times in the hope of picking up some clue to Jasper’s whereabouts, even for a mention of his name. The messages to be found there are densely cryptic so that anyone lacking the inside knowledge would think the site was dotty but harmless. On one occasion I visited the site with my speakers switched on, a precaution I now carefully guard against. Initially I was intrigued, as the background noise at first seemed to be very similar to that found in a large cathedral—whispered invocations, distant choral recitals, the echoing clack of leather shoes on stone floors—but there was something wrong. Listening to the choir I found that the sequences of chords were always unresolved and the end of each phrase was unnaturally swallowed up in silence. Then I understood: everything was being played backwards, everything, that is, but the faint cries of utter despair which could be heard behind the other noises. My hand went to the volume control to turn off the dreadful noise. As I fumbled desperately with the dial a simple sentence among the usual litter of cabalistic signs and phrases flashed up onto the screen. The sentence read:
‘Do not try to trace me.’
THE BOY IN GREEN VELVET
I met Uncle Alfred for the first time at my father’s funeral. I was eight years old and just about to go to a preparatory school in Oxford. I had known that my father had a brother and that his name was Alfred—never Alf—but further than that, nothing. I was an inquisitive boy and might well have asked my parents about him had I not been somehow aware that enquiries about Uncle Alfred were not welcome.
My father had been a chemistry don at St Saviour’s College, Oxford and my mother, at the time of his death, was on the point of becoming Headmistress of a girls’ high school in Banbury. They were brisk, kind people who had organised their lives with immaculate good sense and efficiency, so it seemed like an affront to their rational world when my father died very unexpectedly of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of forty-three. I remember people saying that my father’s death was ‘so unfair,’ but I did not think like this. It was horrible and it happened: that was all there was to be said, as far as I was concerned.
A pompous funeral service in St Saviour’s College chapel was followed by a short committal at a crematorium and it was here that my Uncle Alfred put in his appearance. I was first aware of him from my mother’s reaction. Throughout the day she had been in a state of uncontrollable, almost hysterical grief. It had surprised and worried me, because my mother was a calm, disciplined person, and, even when she first received the news of my father’s death, her reaction had been more stoical. I was barely beginning to understand the processes of my own bereavement, let alone anyone else’s. In retrospect I realise that she was suffering from delayed reaction: only on the day of the funeral did the full enormity of a life without my father hit her.
We had taken our places in the crematorium chapel, waiting for the service to begin. I was on one side of my mother in the pew; her sister Margaret was supporting her on the other. I was studying the stuff of my mother’s black coat and watching it quiver and shake from the sobbing body inside it. I had no idea what to do, so I left it all to my Aunt Margaret whose line in clucking and soothing noises seemed to me more suitable to a sick animal than my mother. I kept my eyes on the black coat, not wishing to see any more of my mother’s red-rimmed eyes and collapsed face. Suddenly the black coat seemed to stiffen; the body inside had stopped shaking. My mother sat upright and I heard her say: ‘Good God! What’s he doing here?’
‘Isn’t that Alfred?’ said Aunt Margaret.
‘Sssh!’ said my mother, and then to me, ‘Don’t look round!’
But it was too late; I already had. Standing in the aisle was a tall man in a dark blue velvet-collared overcoat. I think I would have known it was my Uncle Alfred even if I had not been told. The resemblance to my father was not in anything obvious, except perhaps for the shape of the mouth; it was more in the way he held himself, his head thrust forward, chin raised, blinking watchfully at the assembled mourners. It had been absolutely my father’s stance in moments of deep abstracted thought, except that Alfred’s version was more pronounced, like a caricature of my father’s mannerism.
In the few seconds allowed to me before my mother told me sharply to stop staring, I took him in greedily, vividly. That first sight of him is still my clearest visual memory of Uncle Alfred.
He was some seven years older than my father and approaching fifty, but his skin was smooth and shiny. He had virtually no hair and his head was an almost perfect oval. I wondered later whether my father’s beard, his general shagginess of dress and grooming, had been a calculated antithesis to his brother’s sleekness. The beakiness of Uncle Alfred’s nose, together with his habit of making small quick movements with his head (another characteristic shared with my father), gave him a birdlike appearance. For a fleeting moment our glances met and I was aware of two pale grey eyes searching mine with a look of intense but utterly detached interest.
After the service everyone stood around in the crematorium courtyard, pretending to admire the flowers and exchanging awkward banalities. My mother by this time no longer needed her sister. Calm and smiling she thanked people politely for their attendance, but when she saw Alfred approach she stiffened and seemed to make herself a couple of inches taller by an act of will.
‘Alfred!’ she said when he was about four feet away from her. Her tone was that of a teacher addressing a disobedient pupil and the intention was to stop him in his tracks, but it had no effect. He came right up to her and before she could take evasive action he had sandwiched her hand between his two, which were gloved in pearl grey suede. I saw her jerk her head back in anticipation of a kiss which he did not proffer.
‘I came because I saw the notice in the Times,’ he said. ‘Nobody had informed me.’ If there was an implied rebuke it was in the words, not in his tone of voice which betrayed nothing. His speech was low and well-modulated.
My mother said defensively: ‘I’m afraid I had no idea what your address was, otherwise . . .’
‘It was on the card I sent you at Christmas.’
‘Was it? I didn’t know . . . Anyway, what with everything . . .’
‘I quite understand. I wasn’t in any way . . .’
‘No. Naturally.’ There was a pause and I became aware of my mother struggling with herself. Eventually she said: ‘I do hope you can come back to the house.’
‘Of course I will,’ said Uncle Alfred in an unctuous tone, as if he were conferring a great kindness. My mother merely sniffed. I think for the first time in my life I became aware that a conversation can signify more than the literal meaning of its sentences.
‘Hell!’ said my mother when he had withdrawn from earshot.
In the car on the way back to the house I pestered my mother and Aunt Margaret for information about Uncle Alfred. I felt I was entitled to it now that I had seen him in the flesh. What was his job? Apparently he was a musician, but he did not need to work because he had ‘inherited all the family money’. I detected no envy or resentment in these words, only scorn at his drone status. Aunt Margaret, who was rather more neutrally disposed towards Uncle Alfred than my mother, told me that some of his compositions had been performed and
he had once written a ballet score for Covent Garden. (Called Olabolika, and based on the drawings done in Bedlam by Richard Dadd, with a scenario by Osbert Sitwell, it was one of Frederic Ashton’s least successful ventures.) ‘He was crazy about the theatre,’ my mother added. ‘Still is, as far as I know.’ With a sophistication beyond my years, I asked if he was unmarried. I knew from snippets I had picked up from adult conversation that people who had to do with theatre and ballet were often ‘not the marrying kind’. No, he was not married. ‘But he did live for quite a while with that little ballerina,’ my Aunt added carelessly. ‘What was her name? She was rather sweet, as I remember. Now what happened to her? Didn’t she—’
‘George,’ broke in my mother. ‘When we get home, would you mind making yourself useful by handing round sandwiches and things? It’s a dreadful bore, I know, but I think it’s best to keep busy on these occasions. All right, darling?’
Poor mother. I think she genuinely thought I was as grief-stricken over my father’s death as she was. At that moment I was still too bewildered to feel anything except perhaps the vaguely comforting sensation that I was now the most important person in my mother’s life.
By the time Uncle Alfred arrived at the house I was busily handing round refreshments. It was a good thing to be doing because it kept me from being stuck with one person. I suspected everyone of wanting to smother me with sympathy which was what I least wanted. Suddenly I found myself face to face, or rather face to paunch with Uncle Alfred. Even the superb tailoring of his dark blue double-breasted suit could not disguise the ungainliness of his figure.
He took a glass of sherry from my proffered tray and sniffed it. Putting it to one side, he took the tray from me and set it down on a nearby table, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. I did not feel intimidated so much as disquieted by the interest he took in me.
‘So. George . . .’ he said in his round theatrical voice. He paused, as if expecting me to respond.
‘Hello, Uncle Alfred,’ I said feebly. This amused him for some reason.
‘Hello, indeed!’ Then he remembered the occasion. ‘This is a sad day. Sad day. Your father and I . . . We didn’t . . . communicate, perhaps, as often as we should have done. Different worlds.’ He waved his hand at the room and looked round, as if to illustrate the fact that he was in alien territory. No secret was made of his disdain at the functional furnishings, and the pictures which were all reproductions of well-known masterpieces in cheap frames. Suddenly, as his gaze took in the mantelpiece, his expression changed. For a moment there was a look of shock and guilt on his face, like that of a child who has been caught rifling through the drawers in an adult’s bedroom. A second later the mask was on again.
‘Ah,’ he said very casually. ‘You have the Boulle clock, I see.’ I had not heard the name before, but I knew what he meant: an elegant eighteenth-century clock decorated with brass and tortoiseshell marquetry which stood proudly in the centre of our mantelpiece. It was known to us as ‘the antique’ because it was the only old thing in the house.
‘It’s an antique,’ I told him.
‘It is indeed,’ said Alfred condescendingly. ‘And did you know it was quite a family heirloom? By rights it should be . . . I must talk to your mother about it. Perhaps now would not be the best moment. You must both come and visit me in London. Would you like that? I could show you my antiques. I have quite a collection. Here’s my card.’
He presented me with a visiting card. His name, Alfred Vilier, Esq., was on it, his Chelsea address and his telephone number. I was impressed.
‘Feel the surface of the card,’ he commanded. I felt the smooth silky pasteboard and the slight roughness of the raised lettering. ‘Can you feel that? Now I’ll tell you something. If you can feel the embossed lettering, that means the card has been produced by an engraving process rather than mere printing. You can always tell a gentleman by the fact that his cards have been engraved rather than printed.’
My mother had already tried to imbue me with a steely common sense about matters of class, so I knew this was pretentious rubbish. That is to say, I knew that if I told my mother what he had said (which I did not) she would dismiss it as pretentious rubbish. Soon after that Uncle Alfred left the house, never to visit it again.
**
A few weeks after the funeral my mother had a letter from Alfred. She did not communicate its contents to me, but I heard her talking to Margaret about it on several occasions. They had a habit of returning again and again to a topic that interested them, mulling it over, looking at it from all angles and, when there was indignation to be expressed, expressing it at enormous length.
The letter concerned the Boulle clock. It began by stating in a roundabout way that because the clock was a Vilier family heirloom, it was technically the property of Uncle Alfred, he having inherited all the family effects on my paternal grandfather’s death. However, magnanimously, he was not going to press his claim, but he would like to have it in order to ‘keep the family collection together’. Would my mother be prepared to sell it? A generous sum was suggested. My mother and Margaret agreed that Alfred’s letter was both insulting and suspicious. They concluded that the clock was obviously worth far more than he had offered, but they took no steps to confirm whether this was so. (I later discovered that he had suggested a very fair price.) After much discussion Mother and Aunt Margaret decided that the best course was not to reply to the letter at all.
More weeks went by before another letter came from Uncle Alfred, again on the subject of the Boulle clock. He perfectly understood if my mother was unwilling to part with the clock, but he was concerned about its safety, it being a family heirloom. Were there proper safety locks on her windows to deter burglars? In addition he had noticed that some of the brass inlay had begun to peel away from the tortoiseshell background. If this was allowed to go on, the clock might become irreparably damaged. He knew an excellent restorer of Boulle work in London and would be very happy to pay for its repair. This time my mother wrote back a curt letter stating that she was perfectly capable of looking after her own clock and that there must be no further correspondence on the subject.
My first term at my preparatory school came and went. The reports were good and, as a reward, my mother decided to treat me to a day in London. We would visit the Science and Natural History museums in the morning, have lunch at the Victoria and Albert and round the day off with the National Gallery later in the afternoon. My mother was a relentless educator, and I was not totally averse to being educated. We were only just beginning to recognise where our paths diverged: she preferred knowledge, I beauty. As it happened, our proposed day out was a good compromise between the two.
We spent longer than we thought we would at the Victoria and Albert. I was entranced by the ceramics and the furniture. It had not really occurred to me before that household objects could be things of beauty, and at one point my mother remarked sourly that I would grow up to be like Uncle Alfred if I wasn’t careful. It was past three o’clock before my mother persuaded me that we must move on, but I insisted that we should have one last look at the medieval ivories. I was fascinated by these minute depictions of religious scenes, their breathless, harsh intensity, combined with a kind of purity.
We were so intent on a crucifixion triptych, my mother explaining, I looking, that we were very startled when a voice behind us said: ‘Good afternoon!’ We turned round to find Uncle Alfred in immaculate Prince of Wales check, leaning on a malacca walking stick and observing us.
‘I do apologise,’ he said. ‘Did I startle you?’
‘Not at all,’ said my mother. ‘What an unexpected pleasure!’ This was a little overdone, but my mother never liked to show herself at a loss. Aplomb was a vital part of her armoury as a teacher.
‘You like the ivories?’ Alfred asked me. I nodded.
‘We were just leaving,’ said my mother.
‘Splendid! In that case you must come and have tea with me. It’s not far. We’
ll take a taxi.’ He turned to me. ‘Would you like to go in a taxi?’ I looked at my mother. She was about to protest, but Alfred stopped her. ‘I insist. In fact I would take it very much amiss if you refuse. Young George here obviously has a taste for beauty. He must see some of my things. It would be very instructive for him.’ It was a close call, but this last appeal to education just about tipped the balance in his favour, and my mother gave in. I was delighted but chiefly because of the taxi ride: my mother never wasted money on taxis.
In the taxi on the way to Glebe Place Uncle Alfred showed himself to be a man of formidable charm. I wouldn’t say that by the end of the journey my mother had been won over, but the edge of her hostility had been blunted. He made no attempt to flatter her directly, knowing that this would be greeted with suspicion. Instead he devoted all his energies to bringing me out of my shell, listening to my opinions, and then developing them in such a way that they sounded wise and mature. It was a brilliant performance, like a man playing tennis on both sides of the net: lobbing over an easy ball, then rushing to the other side to help his opponent play a devastating return. I think my mother was even more beguiled by him than I was.
The house in Glebe Place was, of course, exquisite. The walls, painted in rich dark colours, were covered with pictures, many with a theatrical flavour. There were framed playbills, costume and stage designs, and old coloured prints of actors in extravagant poses, bedecked with tinsel. On shelves and mantels, china harlequins leapt, columbines smirked and pantaloons stooped. It was a visual feast, especially for a child, but I do not think it is merely hindsight that makes me remember the overall effect as somehow oppressive. Those capering clowns and attitudinising tragedians in pottery, print and bronze all seemed to be clamouring for one’s attention. It was like walking through a silent, gesticulating crowd.
The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and other Strange Stories Page 19
