So he relented, and began. ‘Watch me carefully,’ he told them.
It was pretty simple stuff, but my God how they got it wrong! Within seconds they were all outdoing each other in hopeless incompetence and lunatic improvisation, while Thomas laboured to correct them, singing the tune to them the while; and the more they got it wrong, the funnier—funnier! it wasn’t even slightly funny to begin with, if you asked Thomas—they found it, as did those who were watching them, until they all collapsed back onto the sofa where they’d begun, or the floor around it, in a heaving helpless heap. Laugh! They nearly died.
Simon marched over to them and picked up his bewildered son and swung him around in a half-circle. He could only just manage it—Thomas’s infantile phase was now pretty well concluded. ‘Nice work, old chap,’ he said. ‘Good try. Now you know what it’s like working with actors. Dreadful, aren’t they? Frightful people. Won’t listen. Can’t learn. Hopeless.
’ ‘Oh, not fair!’ the actors cried. ‘We did try. We were doing our very best.’
Thomas, still in his father’s arms, looked down at them pensively. ‘Well,’ he said; ‘don’t give up the day jobs.’
Laugh? They nearly died, again. Much more nearly.
63
‘The Beauforts seemed in good form,’ said Louisa to Robert, later on, chez eux.
‘Hmmm,’ said Robert; ‘yes.’
‘Flora looked quite lovely.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Didn’t you think?’
Robert looked up. He was still holding the magnifying glass through which he had been looking at some ancient Greek coins which had been collected by his grandfather. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Oh dear,’ said Louisa. ‘I knew you weren’t really listening.’
‘I was, really,’ said Robert.
‘What was I talking about, then?’
‘Ah, now that was just what wasn’t quite clear to me.’
‘Although you were really listening.’
‘I was waiting for you to get to the point, you see. I was sure there’d be one, sooner or later.’
‘How would you have known when I reached it, if you were only really listening?’
‘Well, your voice would have changed. Naturally.’
‘I give up.’
‘No, don’t do that. Just tell me exactly what you want to say.’
‘Well then. Lydia told me this story.’ Louisa retailed it, laying out both the alternative interpretations, as adumbrated in the salt-beef bar.
Robert listened, his gaze fixed on the coins. ‘Hmmm,’ he said.
‘Hmmm? Is that all you can say, hmmm?’
‘Seems entirely adequate to me.’
‘You think she was just an actress, then.’
‘Could be, I suppose. Could be. But no, I think on balance that the other interpretation is the likelier.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, on balance.’
Louisa was astounded: she had expected Robert to choose the less sensational version, he being in her eyes the epitome of the rational not to say sceptical intelligence. Robert was employed by the Bank of England in work so esoteric that the layperson could have no hope of grasping what it entailed, even less what benefit it conferred and on whom; Robert had therefore, and for other cause too, the reputation of one who could not be distracted or deceived.
‘You think, then,’ she said wonderingly, ‘that Simon Beaufort is actually having an affair.’
Robert picked up another coin and peered at it. ‘Chaps like that are bound to have extra-marital love affairs,’ he said. ‘Or so the statistics indicate.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘One reads of these surveys, showing the incidence per thousand of population of adulterous liaisons. Startlingly high, as a matter of fact. Now, since chaps like me don’t, chaps like Simon must.
’ ‘When you put it like that,’ said Louisa weakly. Robert said nothing, but went on peering at his coin. Then Louisa had a thought. ‘How do you know,’ she said, ‘that chaps like you don’t?’
‘Too boring,’ said Robert. ‘Or too busy, or both.’
‘But you’re not boring.’
‘I am busy, though.’
This was undeniable. The Bank of England was a hard mistress. ‘I should be grateful for that,’ said Louisa faintly.
Robert stopped peering at the coin and looked at her, still holding the magnifying glass. ‘The rules about fidelity were made by chaps like me,’ he said. ‘We really meant them to be kept. We really thought that having such rules, and observing them, was more important than what is now called self-expression. Or self-realisation. Or whatever it is. Steady, dutiful, tidy, conscientious chaps we are. Completely lacking in charm and gaiety, of course. We leave all that sort of thing to our womenfolk, bless ’em. But you know all this.’
‘Ye-e-es,’ said Louisa. ‘But meanwhile, supposing that gay and charming Simon is having it off with another woman, what about poor Flora?’
‘What, indeed.’
‘It makes me feel quite queasy.’
‘There’s a lot to be said for the rules.’
‘Yes,’ said Louisa sadly. ‘Practically everything, really.’
64
‘I wasn’t sure you’d be back yet.’
‘I got back a few days ago.’
‘For some reason I thought you were due at the end of the week.’
‘The beginning, as it happens.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
It mattered like hell: or something did. She was slaloming away from him, out of his sight—one minute beside him, the next, with an awful whoosh, gone. Or so he felt.
‘I thought you’d have a snow tan.’
‘Didn’t you know? That’s not fashionable any more. We all cover up like mad with factor 25.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Do we all cover up together: do we all cover each other, laughing companionably, conspiratorially, all together, up on our mountain peaks? What the hell.
‘So you had a good time?’
‘Super.’
‘That’s good.’
‘How about you?’
‘I had a good time too.’
The family, and the fairy lights; the Christmas tree with the three children around it, their faces bathed in enchantment. Friends, and feasts, and parcels; shrieks of infant joy. The present for Flora: the very, very special present for Flora. Happy Christmas, my dearest.
‘Super,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink? I’ve got some duty-free malt whisky here.’
‘Wouldn’t say no to that.’
They drank. It really was the business, wasn’t it? She was like an ice queen whom he couldn’t touch. It was worse than starting at the very beginning again. He looked at her. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he heard himself saying.
She looked back at him. ‘In what sense?’ she said.
He looked into his glass. Then he looked very seriously, steadily, at her. ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘What do you think we should do?’
She shrugged. ‘What’s all this should, all of a sudden?’ she asked. ‘When did we ever bother with should?’
‘Fair question,’ he said. So it was.
‘Would you rather stop seeing me?’
‘No.’ Would he? No.
‘Then it’s quite clear, isn’t it?’
‘Clear enough,’ he said. Not quite clear, but clear enough.
‘Have another drink,’ she said, pouring.
‘Not too much, I’m driving.’
‘Ah, yes.’
He drank. She got up again and drew the curtains and then sat down once more, and waited for him to act. She could of course have taken the initiative, but she didn’t so choose. Simon understood all this, waiting, as the minutes went by, for the time to arrive when he could naturally, authentically, act—and wondering, as the minutes went by, where, exactly, he was. The line had become so fine that he couldn’t bloody see it any mo
re; could only guess, moment by moment, where it might be. Assuming, of course, that it was actually there at all.
65
Flora had a system. As soon as her children were ten years old, they were allowed to earn extra pocket money by doing household chores over and above the tidying of their rooms on the accomplishment of which task payment of the basic dole itself depended. ‘You don’t get owt for nowt,’ said Flora.
‘It’s not fair,’ said Nell.
‘What’s not fair?’
‘Just because she’s thirteen,’ said Nell, ‘she’s getting all that extra money for cleaning the baths and basins. It’s not fair.’
‘And I do some of the kitchen cleaning too,’ said Janey. ‘Not just the baths and basins.’
‘You see?’ said Nell. ‘I know how to clean those things. I could do it easily.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ said Janey. ‘You’re too young.’
‘I’m afraid you couldn’t, darling,’ said Flora. ‘Not properly.’
Nell looked almost tearful. ‘It’s not fair,’ she said. It was a wonderful system, all right, where children begged for employment as domestics.
‘And so could I,’ said Thomas.
Nell turned on him. ‘No you could not,’ she said. ‘You’re much too young.’
‘Much too young yourself,’ said Thomas. ‘Much—too— young.
’ ‘Belt up, both of you,’ said Flora. ‘It’s no good having rules, Nell, if they’re not kept, and this is a rule. Even ten is quite young. And it’s only a few months away. May. Less than six months. Enjoy your childhood while you can.’
‘I want to grow up,’ said Nell.
Flora looked at her steadily. ‘Show me your homework,’ she said. Nell went to fetch it, and Flora had a look. Poor, precious little Nell.
‘Why don’t I ever get any homework?’ asked Thomas. ‘It’s not fair.’ His mother and sisters all laughed. ‘Well it isn’t,’ he said. ‘It isn’t fair.
’ ‘You might get some next year,’ said Flora encouragingly.
‘Fergus gets it,’ said Thomas.
‘There you are, then,’ said Flora. ‘He’s only a few years older than you.’
‘He’s only three years older,’ said Thomas. ‘And he stays up late, too, and watches television after nine o’clock. And he goes swimming by himself, in the sea, and he shoots, too, in the country.’
‘I wouldn’t believe quite everything Fergus tells you,’ said Flora.
‘He does shoot, though,’ said Thomas. ‘He told me that particularly.’
‘Well,’ said Flora, ‘I’m afraid that was fanciful. It’s against the law, for a start, for someone of that age.’
‘Fergus doesn’t care about the law,’ said Thomas.
‘Yes, I noticed that,’ said Flora. ‘It’s a jolly good thing that the law cares about Fergus.’
‘Does the law care about me?’ said Thomas.
‘The law cares about all of us,’ said Flora. ‘In one way or another.’
They discussed the law, until it was Thomas’s bedtime; and later, Nell’s; and at last, Janey’s; so passed another evening in the Beaufort household when Simon missed the children, and they, of course, him. Flora sighed, and began a new piece of tapestry; then she watched Newsnight (Paxo up) and went to bed. I’m not really worried, she told herself; I’m not really anxious. Nothing is wrong, really. That is—I’ve done all I can. I’m sure I’ve done all that I possibly can.
66
‘The thing I never really noticed before,’ said Simon to David, ‘is that you start off by doing one thing, but pretty soon you find that you’re actually doing something entirely different.’
‘Yes, I think I know what you mean,’ said David. ‘More or less.’
‘I mean,’ said Simon, doggedly, ‘that whatever your expectations are, whatever your suppositions are, they’re bound to be inadequate—I mean, the reality you end up with is always different from anything you could have foreseen. And you sort of wake up one day and you look around you, at this situation you’ve got yourself into, and you say, how the fuck did I end up here?’
‘And then you try to get the hell out,’ said David.
‘No,’ said Simon; ‘no, not necessarily. But even if you do—the point of the joke is, that even if you were to get out, you’d end up in the same basic situation—i.e., one you couldn’t have foreseen— asking the same question all over again: what the fuck, etcetera.’
‘Yes,’ said David. ‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Sure you do,’ said Simon. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘My round,’ said David. ‘Same again?’ Blimey, he thought, as he went over to the bar to get the drinks.
He came back with the two full glasses and some crisps. ‘Get stuck in,’ he said to Simon. ‘Salt and vinegar. They didn’t have any hedgehog flavour, I’m afraid. Don’t know what this place is coming to.’
Simon ignored the crisps and picked up one of the glasses and drank.
David, after a second’s hesitation, stealing a glance at Simon’s face, picked up the other and did likewise. ‘That was a good party of yours the other day,’ he said. ‘Sarah was going to send a note— hope she did. Note to Flora. Lovely Flora.’ He raised his glass ever so slightly, stealing another quick glance at Simon the while.
‘Yes,’ said Simon, ‘she is that. Got lucky there.’ And with these words his face became quite intensely gloomy.
Double blimey, thought David. ‘Kids looking pretty pukkah too,’ he said. ‘Got lucky there as well, what?’
‘Yeah,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t deserve it.’
David laughed. ‘As if deserts had anything to do with it,’ he said.
Now Simon laughed too. ‘Can’t think what’s got into me,’ he said. ‘Must be all this churchgoing. I knew it was dangerous.’
‘It’s all right for women,’ David said. ‘They can handle it. But it’s all a bit much for us men. We’re not up to it. Not good enough for it, I suppose. It only confuses us. Better leave it to Flora and the kids.’
‘I suppose it’s all right for Flora,’ said Simon doubtfully.
‘Put it this way,’ said David. ‘She’s so good already, it can’t really make any difference, can it?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Simon, still doubtfully. ‘I just—don’t— know. It could be one of those situations where you don’t know what’s actually involved until it’s too late. Quite apart from the fact that we could end up with a plastic Virgin Mary lit up from the inside and a full-colour photograph of the Pope in a frame and the whole bang shoot.’
‘No,’ said David, ‘I shouldn’t really think it’ll come to that. Not Flora. No way. I wouldn’t worry. Forget it.’
‘Okay,’ said Simon. But you couldn’t be altogether confident that he would.
‘How are those actors behaving themselves?’ said David.
‘Oh, they’re brilliant,’ said Simon. ‘I have to say, they’re brilliant.’
‘Brilliant casting,’ said David. ‘That’s what it is.’
‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘That must be it.’
‘Cheer up, old cock,’ said David.
‘Sure thing,’ said Simon. ‘Have another?’
67
‘Can’t think what’s got into Simon,’ said David to Sarah. ‘I wouldn’t have put him down as the introspective sort, would you?’
‘All artists are introspective, aren’t they?’
‘You’d call him an artist, then, would you?’
‘Isn’t a director an artist?’
‘Er, I’m not sure.’
‘Of course he is.’
‘I’ll bet Cecil B. de Mille wasn’t introspective.’
‘Bet he was.’
‘Busby Berkeley?’
‘Obviously. Don’t be dense.’
‘But Simon? Simon Beaufort?’
‘Him too. Anyway, what was he introspecting about?’
‘Oh, you know, life, that sort of thing.’
/> ‘Poor Simon.’
‘Poor what?’
‘You know, you get that feeling—it could all go so wrong.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘You know, Simon—there’s this knife-edge feeling, with blokes like him; everything looks so cushy—well, cushy enough—but you get this feeling that, well, one false move—one moment of inattention, or one small miscalculation—and it could all go so wrong.
’ ‘Well, surely it’s the same for all of us. Chaos theory.’
‘Yes, of course, but with Simon—with chaps like that—it’s more precarious. More of a knife edge. Really—well—no room for error. None. No give in the system. Know what I mean?’
‘I can’t think why you should feel this particularly about Simon, for God’s sake.’
‘No, I don’t either, particularly. I just do.’
‘I suppose you’re being intuitive, Sarah. You want to watch that.’
‘Oh, I do.’
‘Simon, eh. Well, just as long as he doesn’t fall off his knife edge before he finishes my thing.’
‘Oh, no. He’ll finish that no matter what.’
‘That’s all right then.’
‘I hope he’ll be okay. I like Simon. He’s a sweetie, really.’
‘Is he?’
‘I reckon so.’
‘You’re being intuitive again.’
‘What else can a woman do?’
‘She can be prime minister.’
‘Better she should stick to being intuitive.’
‘Amen!’
68
‘This is a surprise.’
‘Don’t you like surprises?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘This time?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I’ll make you sure. I’ll make absolutely sure you’re sure—’ He took her in his arms; he made quite sure that she would like this surprise.
‘Are you sure now?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think so.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. He lit a cigarette. She took it from him and smoked it for a while. Long shifting columns of light slithered across the ceiling and then vanished as cars passed in the street below. It was the hour of cars passing, on their urgent way to something important. Suddenly she turned from him and switched on the bedside lamp.
A Pure Clear Light Page 14
