No Laughing Matter (35 page)

‘Much. We can’t hope to get rid of the respectables until two.’

On the other hand some of his peevishness must have stuck, for when he was still sitting there, merely thinking what a success it all
was, and how right he had been to make the explorers and
conquerors
– from Pizzaro through Cook and Mungo Park to Stanley – come in a green version of their period costumes, Mary Clough came over and said:

‘Why are you looking so sulky? Is Jack being unfaithful or
something
?’

And at that very moment Jack came by, garlanded with green orchids followed by a group of debs, all green humming birds, who darted and swooped at him. From the cascades of waxy blooms he looked out like the most delicately Syrian of Emperors, exalted with the thoughts of the Mesan ceremonies.

‘I
think
,’
he cried, ‘that they’re trying to suck my nectar. A
new
experience,’ and he winked broadly at Mary and Marcus.

‘Jack winking!’ Mary cried, ‘Now that is good.’

‘Don’t you mean vulgar?’

‘Oh do leave off. You are an Edwardian. You fish away like my Aunt Rose. You know very well that all his friends care for you so much just because you’ve made him happy. In bed and out. And don’t ask which is more important, because to distinguish between those two sorts of happiness is one of the real sins.’

‘Well, haven’t I made him vulgar, too? All this!’ he waved his hand over the entire ball, Hampstead Heath and farther.

‘You haven’t created all London yet. Besides you know very well that when it’s on
this
scale, words don’t apply.’

‘And
I
thought I was a snob, minding Lady Westerton snubbing me.’

‘Oh is
that
what you were sulking about? How tiresome you are to mind such things! Anyhow, if it’s a question of being grand, my great aunt Sybil, who was a dreadful old thing but the biggest of bowwows, only had the Westertons on her big crush list.’

‘Oh, I know you’ve got hundreds of throw away grand aunts and uncles, Mary, but that doesn’t help me. I
could
order her out.’

‘You’re lucky she came here. The German Embassy’s her usual stamping ground.’

‘The German Embassy!’

‘Yes. Surely you’ve noticed her stuffy Brahms look? So many of that generation have it.’

‘The old bitch! If only she’d brought some German attaché along uninvited, then I could have told them both to leave.’

‘Marcus, aren’t
you
being a bit stuffy? Gatecrashers. Why even dowagers back in the twenties …! Oh, I see. Because he was a
German
. Oh, Marcus, how awful. Don’t please. You don’t remember the war like I do. That was the most wicked part of it. Oh, no, my dear, you really mustn’t say things like that.’

‘It’s nothing to do with wars, Mary. Jack is Jewish. That at least makes me responsible for who comes into this house or not.’

‘Responsible! Marcus! What words! And why do you think about Jack being a Jew? I think that’s terrible. None of his old friends ever do. Oh, Marcus, look at all the
fun
you give us just when everybody thought that sort of think was coming to an end. Well, if you want me to, use grand words, all the
beauty
!
Look at what you’ve done with this house, to make a Lutyens house look so elegant,
and
with
Marlcote
! Grand and beautiful, darling, if that’s what you want me to say.’

‘But I don’t understand you, Mary. You speak as if fun and beauty were somehow not responsible things. Anyway, while everything’s so un-beautiful and so un-funny in Germany for Jews like Jack, I’ve got a responsibility to
them.’

‘Oh, dear, Marcus! You of all people! Of course it’s all dreadful and wicked and hateful and incredible. And none of us could ever, ever compromise with it. That goes without saying. But let the politicians deal with it. Not all worldly people are like Lady
Westerton
. Look at Baba’s husband; he’s killing himself getting this wicked Baldwin policy changed. And there are dozens of others. That’s their job. But we’ve got positive things of our own to give. Oh, you do make me feel old! Poor Jack, if you treat him to this sort of thing.’

She stopped speaking abruptly, then:

‘I like the polly cage you designed for me. I do think it’s clever. Does it become me?’

‘Enchantingly, Mary. You always ought to wear feathered
crinolines
. Come and talk to my sister Margaret.’

‘What, is she here? Well, naturally I thought she might be, but I didn’t dare ask because you were so cross years ago when we spoke about her.’

‘Oh, wasn’t I awful in those days! Let’s go and look for her. I’m not sure about her new husband, are you? He’s rather a dish but B.M. I’m afraid. Anyhow it wouldn’t do, would it? One’s sister’s husband. I think it’s forbidden in the Prayer Book. To talk to he’s the bore of all time. But she adores him, well anyway makes noises as if she did.
You can never tell with Margaret. Did you know he was a tremendous archaeologist – King Tut and things? So he’s almost in place here just as himself.’

With difficulty they resisted snakes that wound round them,
peacocks
that raised whirring arcs to stop their passing, alligators that snapped; for a while they were caught up in a leaping dance of frogs. Across the entwined bodies of webfooted young men and women, Mary shouted to him:

‘Now what
was
naughty was your stopping Jack buying that Pevensey painting of Lionel’s. Monty’s furious. It’s one of Lionel’s best. And you know how well he’s been painting lately. You
must
have read what Monty’s been saying.’

‘He’s praised Lionel’s work every week for so long as I can
remember
. And it hasn’t got any better or any worse. He still paints without imagination let alone a spark of genius.
And
uses three shades of shit to do so.’

‘Oh, colour! You live in such a schoolgirl’s dream of Bakst. Lionel’s such a subtle and expressive painter. Expressive of plastic values, I mean, of course.’

‘Subtle! Really, Mary! Lionel’s one of the most pleasing friends we have. He’s a real person, intelligent, civilized and absolutely without nonsense. His paintings are exactly like him. But they aren’t any good. I mean any real good. And I
won’t
have them here with real paintings. That terrible Chanctonbury Ring with the Picassos and that bit of fake Cézanne of the Downs right beside Braque’s Homage to Bach. It’s too impossible.’

‘You speak as though you were the only person in England who did justice to Picasso or Braque. You
know
what Monty’s done to make people realize that Paris exists, and against what opposition and from the start.’

‘Yes, and then praises Lionel because he makes Pevensey Marshes look like the Camargue and Firle Beacon like a sea-sick memory of Cézanne’s Provence.’

‘You’re talking about an old friend, Marcus.’

But the chain of frog dancers now surrounded him in a ring from which she was excluded. ‘Betty Coed’s a smile for old North Western’ the band vocalists sang at them through their megaphones, ‘Her heart is Texas treasure, so ‘tis said.’

‘Whatever can it mean?’ Mary mouthed at him.

But although laughing, he was not to be deflected.

‘I’m talking about his
painting
‚’
he shouted, ‘That’s the trouble, you’ve mixed up friendship and art, the lot of you.’

He wasn’t sure whether she heard or not, for she cried:

‘Jack’s always been one of his most important patrons.’

Now they were thrown together again and he clung to her-jungle parasite.

‘If he’s short of money, you know that Jack will help at once.’ She threw off his exotic embrace. ‘Now that is vulgar,’ she cried, ‘ineffably vulgar.’

‘Well, I’m not giving way. Jack’s buying two wonderful
Kandinsky
compositions this year. And a marvellous, inventive, sad Paul Klee. And if there’s anything over he’s promised to buy those
Cardinals
in a Vault of Magnasco that Sachie found. To go with all the lovely fun pictures in my bedroom.’

‘Oh really Marcus. That awful religiosity and dead elegance. It’s just snobbery. And Klee too, for that matter – all that whimsy. And then you talk about a real master of plastic values like Kandinsky in the same breath.’

‘Plastic values! It’s his wonderful vitality, his rich colour.’

They stood still, facing each other beneath a sombre holm-oak. Against the dark foliage her delicate, high-cheek-boned face shone a furious shiny red beneath her wide crown of parrot feather and soft grey hair like any cook’s, like Regan’s. He wanted to kiss her but he realized the patronizing affection that prompted him, so, waving his arm in what he thought of as a haughty ancien regime manner, he asked:

‘Do you still want to talk to my sister?’

She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. She laughed:

‘Oh, you are absurd! No wonder Jack’s got it so badly for you. Why, why, why, just because at heart you’ve got the taste of the nineties, should I not want to talk to Margaret?’

And now here was Margaret advancing upon them.

‘I know you’ll think I’m making fun of Ethel Smythe, Mary,’ she said.

‘Oh, no, Ethel’s so robust. Anyway there’s nothing tropical about her. I thought you were a sort of Lesbian Robinson Crusoe with that parrot.’

Marcus and Margaret began to giggle.

‘Well, Mouse
did
love deserts, Mag. It’s a private joke really, Mary. Quite vulgar families have them, you know.’

‘I think it’s in rather bad taste,’ Margaret’s husband said, ‘The aunt in question’s only been dead a few months.
And
she left Margaret all her money.’

‘That just shows how little outsiders understand, doesn’t it Marcus? Aunt Mouse would have been tremendously honoured, Douglas. Oh, I do think this is a wonderful ball, Marcus.’

‘Yes it is, isn’t it, Mag? Do you think I ought to have asked the Countess?’

‘Of course not. There’s no “ought” about such things anyway. And especially when she was such a beast to you always. She’ll be green with envy.’

‘Oh, I do hope so. Marcus has given a green ball again, Billy. I’m green with envy.’

He threw a liana root around his neck for a sable stole. Margaret bent over him and produced Billy Pop’s muzziest tones to which she added a slight brogue.

‘Ye need no ball at all me darlin, for tis as green as the shamrock ye still are.’

‘Oh, Mag, an Irish Billy Pop! How appalling!’

‘Yes, there were things that Divine Providence thought too
unspeakable
to visit even upon the wretched Matthews children.’

*

She said: ‘No, darling, if you’ll forgive me, I really won’t. I’m sun drunk and lazy and happy. And although I know it will be quite wonderful, I’d rather come again and see it all, not sticky, not with a glare like this. And there is a glare even though it’s nearly five. But then if there weren’t, this wouldn’t be the solar paradise that’s getting me ready for Gide and Malraux, and Mann and all the other ferocious peace and freedom lovers in Paris. As for dinner, have something there, dear, so that you can poke about until the last boat leaves. And then I needn’t go to the saloon. I shall just put on a dress and eat that delicious lobster out here on deck, with a slivovitz or two, to
complete
the sun’s bacchic rout of a decorous English gentlewoman.’

‘It isn’t only the temples, Maggie, and the Peristyle, there’s some very fine Romanesque in the Cathedral and a riot of baroque palaces dilapidated and crumbling enough even to satisfy you.’

‘Please don’t make me, Douglas. This is all working out so very
well. And it isn’t as if we shan’t have time to do a hundred Splits together in the coming years.’

‘A middle aged couple doing the splits. It sounds worrying.’

‘Oh, you’ve no idea the energy I shall have when middle age comes. A second Mistinguett. Once we’ve brought that beast to his knees. That’s the only thing that worries me here. I almost feel that I can hear him bullfrogging away over there in the Palazzo Venezia.’ And she waved her hand vaguely to the west. He bent down and kissed her, and ran his hand along her thin sun-burned arm.

‘Ow!’ she cried.

‘Sorry. Now you’re
not
fussing about that speech?’

‘Oh, no, that’s all composed. Peace, freedom, art, all put in their places. And an encouraging word for the Lion of Judah thrown in.’

‘Nor those reviews? You knew what Desmond MacCarthy would say. You gave me his review word for word the afternoon you finished the novel. And look how understanding that chap Muir’s been. And that great long piece in the
Literary
Supplement.
’

‘No, no. All the reviews are forgiven and forgotten, thank God. And for all praise I’m duly grateful. Now go along, or they’ll close the Museum and you’ll never be able to tell me what Diocletian’s wife looked like.’

Grey rock it had been all day as, lying in the sun, she had travelled up from Dubrovnik; grey rock except for the short call at the island. Limestone, the guide book said. But change a letter here and there and it could as well have been timestone or lifestone, for it seemed to Margaret all that day as she lay there, and still seemed as she sat back in the deck chair, to offer her some place of refuge between the cruelty of those words written, printed and not now by any means to be recalled, and the terror of those other words not yet spoken, not even finally formed, but hardly less, by any means that left a shred of decency, to be evaded. She sat on the deck and saw only cursorily the town walls, the cranes and the custom house all losing their outlines in the dying sun, for she was watching herself, a tiny figure, a modern primitive, a schoolchild’s pinhead woman, a Lilliputian – yes, a Lilliputian, for every finger, every hair, every nail was there in little, enough to delight Queen Mary – some sort of human ant scaling these endless cliffs, a mere speck seated on one of the huge boulders,
absurdly
standing on the sheer vertical cliffside, or clinging to an ugly, twisted, windswept pine tree precariously growing in a rare cranny –
a Pearl White of the kinema series of her youth. Yet leap from the deck and swim in the green sea as she would, she could not become one with that minute Margaret Matthews, left to die in shipwreck, falling from heights in a nightmare, for there remained all the while, inert and heavy with despair, her own real body here on the deck.