Family and Friends (12 page)

Outside, they blink a little in the cold afternoon air. A weak whitish sun is making its last appearance of the season, and leaves fall silently from deserted trees. Max, coat over shoulder, strides ahead: Mr Markus places his Homburg hat over his heart, bows to Betty, and summons a taxi. Betty’s mind is filled with confusion. She realizes that she will never be in control of a man like Max, and for once she does not care. But, not being in control, she does not know how to proceed, how to bridge the gap between walking along the Boulevard Saint-Germain with this stranger and enacting the fantasies which have been in her mind for as long as she can remember, now that she comes to think of it. For a while they walk in silence, Max always slightly ahead, Betty already slightly propitiatory in her attempts to catch up with him. After a few minutes she gives up the attempt and walks several paces behind him.

Max is in fact wretched and is covering up his wretchedness with bluster. He can only outwit circumstances by mocking them and by mocking everybody else. The more settled and secure they are, the more he interrogates them, laughing with incredulity at their polite replies. He desires a great deal yet it is not in him to ask for anything, so that when Betty suggests a cup of tea, he assents with a show of indifference which he does not feel. Naturally, Betty has chosen to desire a cup of tea outside Rumpelmayer’s, which she vaguely remembers from Sofka’s reminiscences, and once they are seated, under the pink shaded lamps, and they are both tackling the chestnut meringues which they find very much to their taste, she relaxes and retrieves her self-assurance. ‘Are you in the film business too?’ she asks, applying a violet georgette handkerchief delicately to the corners of her mouth. Max Markus utters a brutal and derisive laugh, designed to disconcert. ‘Of course I am,’ he replies. ‘Did you think I was an accountant?’ Actually he is a sort of office boy, but there is no doubt that he has capacities of some kind and the assurance that goes with accomplishment, whether it is real or only in the mind. It is homesickness that makes him coarse, and having to live up to his looks and be polite to his uncle, on whom he is dependent. In fact, fortunately for them both, Max Markus and his uncle see eye to eye in the making and framing of images, and when they walk along a street together, in this foreign Paris, and when the uncle points his cigar at an odd doorway or a cat creeping around a concierge’s feet or a child carrying a long stick of bread the nephew assents eagerly, and, without words, describes with his hands, and a little advance or retreat, how it should be seen. They are in love, already nostalgically, with the life of the street, which they will transport to America. In this way, Max Markus finds himself studying Betty who, with fork
poised, slowly turns a rosy pink under his gaze. Actually, what he sees is the outline of her hair against the lamp from the next table, and the deep indentations of her eyes, which he would light from beneath. Then he looks again, as Betty desires him to, and sees, with little surprise, that this young woman is in love with him and that he will be able to do with her what he wants.

What he wants, it appears, is roughly the same as what Betty wants: a full-fledged love affair lived entirely on the surface. In the darkening late afternoon he walks her back to her flat, he with his hands in his pockets, she with her hand through his arm. They stop at a bar for a drink and already they are launched on the pattern of their future behaviour: they are rather like that apache team that poor Frank is supposed to be thinking about. It takes them a very long time to get back to Betty’s flat, and the words they have exchanged are entirely preoccupied, Betty with her thoughts, Max with his. In Betty’s flat, their eyes brilliant with the progress of the evening, they finally turn to one another and take each other’s measure. When they kiss, they are passionate, knowing. Max has been passionate and knowing since he was fifteen years old but Betty has not. Sitting on the edge of her bed, Max utters one last laugh, this time ruminative, reflective, before pulling Betty down beside him, and silencing any protests she might have been about to offer for the rest of the night.

O
N THE EVE
of the move to Bryanston Square, Sofka sits in her drawing-room for the last time, and with uncharacteristic nervousness, twists a handkerchief between her hands. It is not that she regrets leaving this house, although it has seen her happiest times; but the house has recently witnessed an unpleasant incident which makes it uncomfortable, as though it were a witness to a life of ease which is no longer appropriate. One afternoon, Sofka has been disturbed by a sound of voices at the front door, and then by the housekeeper asking her if she will come. Sofka, surprised, has gone to the door and has seen there, standing patiently on the step, a woman who seems vaguely familiar. This woman is dressed in decent black, a black coat which has been very expensive in its time, a rather stylish black straw hat, and a silk scarf, in excellent taste, open at the neck. All this bears the signs of stringent upkeep, perhaps beyond the bounds of its natural life. The woman’s face is pale, expressionless, but composed; the pitiless blue eyes are direct. From a large tapestry bag at her feet, the woman produces some pieces of exquisite lace: collars, handkerchiefs, a shawl. ‘Madam,’ she says to Sofka. ‘I have these things for sale. I have no money. You understand.’ And with great dignity, and still with the pitiless gaze, she waits for Sofka’s response.

‘Irma,’ says Sofka, after a long pause. ‘Irma Beck. Is it you?’

At this the woman’s face crumples, the eyes close, veiling the hideous gaze, and her body sways towards the open door, righting itself only as helping hands assist her and support her into the drawing-room. With a great effort, equal on both sides, Sofka and the woman sit with coffee-cups and discuss in measured terms what is to be done. Of the past, by common consent, they do not speak. It is too dangerous, too painful. Collapses might take place, youthful hopes might be remembered, wave after wave of reminiscence might be activated, and the woman gives Sofka to understand that nothing now must be cherished; only a dry appraisal of the possible is to be allowed. At last, and fearfully, Sofka enquires, ‘Your children?’ For the first time the woman relaxes, and smiles. ‘Safe,’ she says. ‘Here.’

Rather than submit the woman to the indignity of receiving money, as if she were a beggar, Sofka arranges to visit her the following day, having carefully noted her address and calculating in her mind that she will use Lautner as an agent to transfer funds to this woman. In the meantime, they will continue to be two ladies who used, in the past, in another country, to know one another very slightly and who will keep up the acquaintance in as civilized a manner as can be guaranteed by the circumstances in which they find themselves.

As the woman, with bag intact, rises to leave, she extends her hand, and Sofka takes it. Then, wordlessly, the two women move into each other’s arms and embrace, and wordlessly, composing themselves, they part.

Since that day Sofka has felt a tremor when she sits in her drawing-room or when she hears a step outside the front door. She has been able to ignore the two foreign girls in the kitchen, because they are young, and although
given to outbursts of sobbing when certain pieces of music are being played, are also impudent and ruthless and beautiful, and will make their way in life. Indeed, in this house, they are more or less at home; under Sofka’s guidance they are learning to be excellent
maîtresses de maison
and although they are not of an age to take pride in these things they will soon be very accomplished cooks. The housekeeper grumbles about them but she is near retiring age and is allowed to grumble anyway; she has been doing so for some time. When they move from the house to the flat in Bryanston Square, Sofka will take the opportunity to release her from service, with a handsome present that will enable her to go home to Somerset, as she has long wanted to do. She will take the two girls, Lili and Ursie (Ursula), with her to Bryanston Square. It will be a reduced household, and a rather different one. But the girls, Lili and Ursie, harsh hectic girls with unpredictable moods and extravagant loving impulses, have long fulfilled some emotional need of Sofka’s; they serve in a sense to replace those children of hers who have gone, and they supplement, in some vital way, the excellent qualities of those children who remain.

It is, of course, the children who are gone whom Sofka mourns. Handsome Frederick and wicked Betty have taken all her heart with them, the one to Bordighera, the other to America. Of course, she is happy that they have married, although it seems to her terrible not to have been at Betty’s hurried wedding in Paris, completed in a rush just before catching the boat. And to hear about it in a letter! It all happened so fast, pleaded Betty, and I am so happy. Promise you will come to America as soon as the war is over. Max sends love. Evie, in Bordighera, sends love too, and a request for various English commodities, not knowing these to be in short supply. Evie, as might have been expected, takes care of all the correspondence,
leaving Frederick with no voice, maintaining him as an agreeable presence with no adult obligations other than to be charming and to amuse. In this way, Evie has proved to be the ideal wife for him. It is Evie, even when heavily pregnant, who is the guiding spirit behind the Hotel Windsor (soon to be cut off from all communication with home) and who busies herself with supplies and with staff and with matters of fuel and maintenance, while Frederick is usually to be found in the bar, a welcoming and hostly figure, to whom the ladies gravitate, their faces upturned like sunflowers when they hear his voice. He is particularly accomplished at the kind of flirtation which assumes deep inward intimacy but which never strays beyond the accepted formulae; his long years of practice have made him adept at this, and also untouched by it. He is, in many ways, completely happy.

It seems a little hard to Sofka that it is the most interesting of her children who have disappeared. She sees no connection between these two factors, although it is a connection often pondered, in deep secret, by Alfred. Unlike Frederick, Alfred has retained his looks, but the various discomforts which kept him aloof as a young man have intensified; he is now handsome, prosperous, and unforgiving. His years of unimpeded hard work have put a great deal of money into the bank but have brought no joy to him. With the disappearance of his brother and sister he feels the burden of unshared responsibility descend upon him; he is usually described as a devoted son. Certainly his gravity, his composure, would seem, to the uninformed observer, to suggest the acceptance of a way of life to which he has contributed so much. Even a certain testiness and a tendency to issue orders, at home as well as at the factory, bear witness to the cares and burdens of a man of affairs. Those affairs are, even now, secret and important, as the factory has been requisitioned,
and Alfred with it. He is working for the government, and not even Sofka knows what he is doing. With the information that he would not be allowed to join the army but must do this essential and secret work at home, Alfred’s last hope of escape disappeared. He was looking not so much for a means of serving his country as for an honourable discharge from family matters.

With a return of his old distaste, and with the irritability of his new imprisonment upon him, Alfred compensates by at last behaving like the rich man that he is. It is his idea to move back to Bryanston Square, having had some dim memory of living there as a small child, before the move to the house. He is the sort of man who composes himself by surveying his acres. The flat in Bryanston Square is greatly to his taste, although not to Sofka’s, being almost entirely masculine in character. It was vacated in a hurry by a man in oil, seeking quieter pastures, and his handiwork is everywhere. Alfred feels particularly at home in the cigar-coloured drawing-room with the brown velvet curtains; after he has strewn his oriental rugs over the dense sheepskin carpet, and then, regretfully, taken them up again and removed them to his bedroom, Alfred feels there is little more to be done in the way of decoration. The oil man went in for strong dark colours; in addition to the brown drawing-room, there is a red dining-room, rather like the mouth of hell. Alfred masks the walls with his collection of framed political cartoons, which makes the room resemble the cloakroom of a gentleman’s club. The common parts of the flat are dark green. All the bedrooms have a dull but expensive wallpaper, as if to signal that a lighter aspect of life might be enacted within their walls. The whole place is extravagantly warm and comfortable, if not exactly sympathetic. Behind the door to the kitchen quarters, Lili and Ursie can occasionally be heard shrieking with
laughter. Whether they are laughing at the décor of the flat or at Alfred is very hard to tell. Sofka loves the sound of their irrepressible giggling so much that she never tries to discourage them.

Although the family has no intention of leaving London, despite its discomforts, Alfred almost immediately sets about looking for a house in the country. Perhaps he has been disappointed by the rapidity with which they have all come to terms with Bryanston Square. He has visions, largely nourished by reading, of the sort of home he has never known; this sort of home is bound up with a certain concept of the land, of rootedness, which is proving strangely elusive. In such a home, thinks Alfred, he will find his true centre; the aches and sorrows of childhood will disappear at last, never to return. For they have stayed with him, these sorrows. The effortfulness of being the model son has never quite disappeared, and the handsome face and the prosperous habits have never quite replaced the child in whose good character his mother took such a pride. Sometimes Alfred has a dream in which he is running through a dark wood; at his heels there are two beautiful golden dogs, his familiars, and with them he is running through the dark wood of his pilgrimage towards the golden dawn of his reward. It is this strange dream that has determined Alfred to look for his real home.