1982 - An Ice-Cream War (27 page)

Charis looked round at him. She wiped away a tear with a knuckle. “I’m sorry,” she said more brightly. “I’d sworn I wouldn’t cry.” She sat up. Felix removed his hands from her shoulders and wondered, absurdly, what to do with them. He shoved them in his pockets and went over to the fire.

“Thank you, Felix,” Charis said.

He spun round. “Oh. Nothing.”

“You’re right about Gabriel. That’s what I thought too. But you know how it is: you need to hear it from someone else.”

“Yes, quite.” Felix looked down at his shoes. He wanted to squirm under the assault of her sincerity and gratitude. Why on earth should
he
know why Gabriel couldn’t write? He couldn’t even understand why he’d
married
this girl.

“He was extremely fond of you.
Is
. Is extremely fond of you,” Charis said.

“I’d better be getting back,” he said uncomfortably. Any talk like this about him and Gabriel stirred up his emotions. He found himself suddenly wondering what it must have been like for Gabriel. A bayonet. Bayonet wounds in the abdomen…

Charis saw him to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow probably,” she said. “I’m always over for luncheon.” She put her hand on his arm. “Thanks again, Felix. I’ve been so miserable, you know. I feel a bit better tonight.”

“Ecclesiastes!” Major Cobb shouted. “Chapter six, verse eleven.” There was a rustle of paper as the assembled servants found their places in their bibles. The major stood in front of a large map of Africa. Red and black pins faced each other across the borders of British and German East.

“‘For who knoweth what is good for man in his life’,” the major called out in a clarion voice, his eyes fixed on the library ceiling. He obviously knew the text by heart. “‘All the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow’.” Here the small eyes descended and his gaze danced around the room. Felix pretended to be reading over his mother’s shoulder. “‘Spendeth as a shadow’,” the major repeated. “‘For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun’.” As he read the last line the major’s voice got simultaneously slower, deeper and harsher. Despite himself, Felix shivered. What a horrible old man, he thought.

“He’s obsessed with this East Africa place and Gabriel,” his mother had whispered as they filed into the library for morning prayers. “He’s been like this for weeks now. He keeps reading the same lessons from Ecclesiastes and Job. The servants have complained to me, but there’s no telling him.”

“Let us pray,” commanded the major.

Afterwards Felix went out into the garden for a walk to calm himself down. He’d only been back twenty-four hours and already he felt like leaving. Thank God Amory’s exhibition wasn’t far away. He wondered how soon he could leave for London. Holland had said he should stay. Amory…

He walked down the avenue of pleached limes. They were looking a bit out of control, green twigs and new shoots springing up all over the place. He cut across the lawn towards the fishponds and met a small boy who was lugging a bucket of corn and breadcrumbs in the same direction. It was the same boy who had carried his cases up to his room when he arrived.

“Hello there,” Felix said, trying to recall his name. His face was smooth, bullet-shaped.

“I remember you,” Felix said. “You’re Cyril’s boy.”

“Thas right, sir.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Feeding the carp, sir. In the ponds.”

They walked down to the ponds together. The boy slung the grain out into the middle and almost immediately the water began to boil as the heavy fish powered up from the depths to fight for the food.

“Some big ones there, eh?” Felix said. He smiled to himself. Fuckin giants, was the way Cyril had described them. Big fuckin beggars.

“Thas right, sir,” the boy said.

“How’s your dad?” Felix asked taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

“Oh my dad’s dead, sir.”

Felix felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He dropped his cigarette and bent to pick it up. It was soaked from the dew in the grass. He threw it away.

“What happened?”

“Don’t righty know, sir. Killed in the war. For King and Country my mam says. In France, like.” He picked up the bucket and walked off back across the lawn to the kitchen.

Felix watched the big fish cruising slowly to and fro just below the surface, searching for any remaining grains.

“Hello.” He heard a voice and looked round. It was Charis. “Just been fed, have they?” She looked up at the clouds. “Not much of a day. Where’s the spring? That’s what I want to know.”

“Did you know Cyril was dead?”

“Cyril? Who’s Cyril?”

“The gardener. Chauffeur at your wedding. Used to live in your cottage.”

“Oh yes. About a month ago, I think. Um, Arras. No. Ypres, wasn’t it?”

“Why in God’s name wasn’t I told?” Felix exclaimed angrily. “He was a friend of mine.”

He saw the look of surprise on her face. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve just found out. It’s come as a shock.” He shook his head in bitter disbelief. He apologized again. “Mother should have told me. But I expect she had a lot on her mind. Poor old Cyril. God, he was excited about going.” He paused. “Is it all right if I smoke?”

Charis said yes and he lit another cigarette.

“Oh God, God,” Felix said, running his hand around the back of his neck. “Holland’s right.”

“Holland?”

“He’s a friend. You remember? I stayed with him last summer.”

“You were at school together.”

“Yes.” He turned away from the pond and they walked back up the ramp of lawn to the house. “I shall be seeing him soon, I’m glad to say. He’s asked me up to London.”

“Oh.” Charis stopped walking.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Didn’t your mother write to you? No, she couldn’t have. It’s my birthday on the twenty-ninth. She’s having a dinner party for me, perhaps a little dance.” She suddenly sounded very downcast.

“I, we, were expecting you’d be here. I think a lot of the family are coming.” She looked him directly in the eye.

“Couldn’t you postpone your visit to your friend?” she said. “Just until after the party?” She was making a direct appeal, he saw, and a personal one. She had a nerve, he thought. He felt thoroughly uncomfortable. Why were people always forcing duties on him?

“We thought,” Charis said, “that you could act as my partner. Gabriel not being—”

“I’m so sorry,” Felix said firmly. “But I can’t. I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to change my plans.”

29 March 1915,
The Café Royal, London

The Domino Room at the Café Royal was full to capacity. All the seats around the marble-topped tables were occupied. The babble of conversation was deafening. The rich gilt and plaster mouldings of the ceilings and pillars were almost invisible through the swirling clouds of cigarette smoke. Condensation formed on the huge mirrors that lined the walls. A warm rug of beer, cheap perfume, wet overcoats and cigar smoke enfolded the excited patrons.

Felix leant back and puffed on his cigarette. He was trying to look extremely relaxed, but in reality he was entranced. He’d never seen so many
louche
women. Had never sat beside couples who embraced and caressed each other in public. Had never counted so many red lips and blackened eyes. The entire room seemed to tingle with the electric potentiality of sex.

“I can’t think where Enid is,” Holland said. “Look,” he pointed out a tall man with a bushy beard and crumpled suit. “That’s the artist chappie who’s painting her.” He shrugged. “Maybe she’ll turn up at Amory’s.”

“This is an extraordinary place,” Felix said. “Who are these women?”

“Oh, art students,” Holland said nonchalantly. “Models,
quelques putains
.”

“Lord,” breathed Felix. The night before they had been to a show at the Criterion. Coming out into Shaftesbury Avenue Holland had pointed out, one by one, all the prostitutes wandering among the crowds of theatre-goers. They had counted more than three dozen by the time they reached the underground station at Piccadilly Circus. With an air of world-weary languor Holland told him about London’s more notorious thoroughfares: the Strand and New Oxford Street commanded the highest prices, Bloomsbury and Charing Cross were distinctly less reliable, and as you went further east price and quality dwindled away to desperation level.

“Shall we go?” Holland suggested. They rose and edged their way out through the mass of bodies. After the heat and press of the Café the night air outside was deliciously cool and fresh. A fine drizzle was falling. The blackout made it hard to distinguish anything and at first all Felix was aware of was the astonishing noise of London’s traffic.

A cab tout procured them a four-wheeler which took them down to the Embankment via Piccadilly Circus. The inside of the cab smelt of polish and old leather. Felix gazed out of the window—rubbing a face-sized porthole in the condensation—at the crowded streets.

The cab stopped outside a rather drab tenement in Cheyne Walk. Holland paid off the driver and Felix stood on the pavement outside a grocer’s shop. His cheeks felt hot and he held his face up to the cool spray of the drizzle, closing his eyes for a moment. His pulse seemed to be beating unreasonably fast and he wanted to make sure he was calm. He heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves as the cab moved away. He felt himself swaying and opened his eyes again, before he lost his balance. Perhaps the three brandies and water in the Café Royal had been a mistake. He touched his cheeks and forehead with the back of his hands. Still hot.

“Where’s Amory’s flat?” he asked Holland, who was wiping drops of rain from his spectacle lenses.

“Two up,” he said. “Above the grocer’s.”

They went through the small door beside the shop. There were no lights on the stairs and there was a strong smell of apples and decaying vegetable rinds. They climbed up two flights. From behind a door they could hear the noise of conversation and what sounded like a guitar.

“Here we are,” Holland said, and made to knock at the door.

“Just a second, Philip,” Felix said, moving to the grimy landing window. “Over here.” Holland came over. “What does my cold sore look like?” Felix asked, presenting his face to whatever faint light managed to cheat the dirt and cobwebs on the window pane.

“It doesn’t look too bad, does it? Not too obvious?” To his joy the sore showed some signs of clearing up. A dark and crusty scab had formed. At least it didn’t look like some moist and repulsive canker even though the scab had been a dominating feature in the looking-glass earlier that evening.

“Hardly see it,” Holland said. Felix wasn’t sure if this referred to the absence of illumination or the insignificance of the sore, but was happy to stay with the ambiguity: he couldn’t afford to over-burden the frail raft of his confidence any further.

Holland knocked on the door. It was opened by a burly young man with a heavy pipe dragging down the corner of his mouth. “Ha ha,” he shouted over his shoulder. “
Le petit frère
has arrivayed.” Holland moved past him without a word, Felix bestowed a nervous half-smile.

Like the Café Royal the small sitting room of the flat was crowded with people in a fog of cigarette smoke. Felix noticed a dangerously sagging ceiling blackened at one end with old soot from the fire. One window gave on to a view of untidy back lots. The other overlooked the Embankment gardens and the Chelsea Jelly Factory across a glimmering stretch of the Thames. The room was dark (Felix breathed a sigh of relief), lit only by a few candles. In a corner on a wooden chair was a girl with a guitar, with a small audience sitting raptly at her feet. Other shadowy people perched on a horsehair settee or leant against the walls and spoke to each other in very loud voices. An open door revealed a room with two beds which was occupied by the overflow from the sitting room. On a gatelegged table—half open—in front of the Thames window was a cut glass punch-bowl, a basket of oranges, plates of nuts and a half-dozen straw-cupped flasks of Chianti. There was no sign of Amory.

Holland and Felix moved with some difficulty towards the table, stepping over legs, ducking between conversations.

“Chianti or punch?” Holland asked.

“Ooh. Chianti please.” Felix felt his eyes stinging from the smoke. He lit a cigarette and took a gulp of wine. It tasted harsh and vinegary.

“Hey! Filippo!” came a great shout. Felix whirled round in alarm. He saw Holland being embraced by a large bearded man dressed entirely in black. Behind this person stood Amory.
Entirely naked
. The shock lasted a second or two until Felix realized she was wearing a skimpy dress of flesh-coloured tulle. Her brown hair was piled on top of her head in a complex fir-cone effect and secured by a thick jewel-studded ribbon. Her thin face was heavily powdered, her heavy-lidded eyes touched with kohl. Felix felt his legs tremble with desire, love and anticipation. The tulle dress hung from thin satiny straps revealing a large expanse of her hard chest. Her bosom was noticeable by its absence, but Felix didn’t care. It was those half closed eyes that drove him wild, as though the effort of keeping them open was proving too much for her.

The dark bearded fellow was still pounding Holland’s back and uttering cries of ‘Hey!’, ‘Wah!’ and ‘Yes!’ Amory brushed past him and refilled her glass with punch. She smiled at Felix.

“Hello,” she said. “Have you come with Philip?”

“Yes. I—,” Felix began but she had already turned away.

“Philip, I think it’s most rude of you not to introduce your friends. Oh do leave him alone, Pav.”

Holland broke away from Pav’s embrace. “This is Felix Cobb. But you’ve met him, Amory. And, Felix, this is Pavelienski something or other. The great artist. We all call him Pav.”

“Wahey!” exclaimed the great artist and punched Holland in the arm.

“Hello, Pav,” Felix said. He exhaled cigarette smoke in what he hoped was a firm, nonchalant-looking stream.

“Hello,” he said to Amory. “We met last summer once or twice.”

“Oh yes?” Amory said, pouring more Chianti into his glass. “We did?” She moved away, summoned by a distant conversation. Felix gulped more Chianti. Pav accepted one of his cigarettes. The artist had long black hair and a thick beard with spirals of grey in it. And all the more revolting for that, Felix added to himself uncharitably. He sensed he was in the presence of his rival. He gazed at the wine in his glass. A single hair floated on the surface. He wondered if it were one of Amory’s. He decided not to fish it out: he’d drink it down, digest this small particle of her being.