Strange Music (36 page)

‘For God's sake, don't take the bait!' Willard told her. Then, turning to Eric: ‘The first one will do – what you mean.'

‘Well, obviously, your inner self won't be identical to your outward self – because it would be like advertising that you're a monochrome, one-dimensional character. So it
could
be the exact opposite of your outward self. For instance,
your
inner self, Willard, could actually be quite a decent fellow! And Chuckles's inner self could be the sort of woman who's always looking for faults and criticizing everyone—'

‘Stop being such a pompous ass and just answer the question!' Isabella shouted at him.

‘See!' He was delighted. ‘She's got the idea, already. She's so quick! But your inner self needn't be the opposite. It could be an
alternative
you – the you that got nipped in the bud when you came down in favour of . . . being an architect . . . marrying an architect . . . taking up sculpture . . . tape recording. Just decide which alternative-you never got a look-in after that. Or it could be a
frightening
you – the
you
you never
dared
to become but whose potential existence still haunts you . . . even thrills you – the public hangman . . . a criminal mastermind . . . a mistress of
Le Roi Soleil
. . . or – hold on to your hats! –
a Tory archbishop
!' He smiled around at them benignly. ‘Or d'you think I'm being too restrictive?'

Angela repeated her question. ‘What's the difference between all that and the
meaning
of all that?'

‘I'm out of here,' Willard announced – then, to Angela: ‘You'll regret asking that!'

Eric went on calmly: ‘The meaning of what I mean involves a speaker – me – and a hearer – you. This dualism neatly links Descartes to present-day Positivists via Kierkegaard.'

‘Thanks!' Angela followed Willard to the door. ‘That's really all I wanted to know. See you at the Barn.'

‘You see!' Isabella said triumphantly.

‘Angela was taking revenge on Willard for shutting her up, my dear. I was but her humble instrument.'

‘She shut you up, too, though!'

‘Of course! It's like a game of Tag –
if
you can take the hint? What was that about “see you at the Barn”? Is her scandalous inner self taking over already?' he asked hopefully.

Tony said, ‘We're all invited over to the old Tithe Barn for drinks. She must have assumed you'd already heard. Willard's flying to Stockholm tomorrow so he won't be coming. Marianne will, for a bit.'

‘Before you lot go – do take a pew – what's all this about Chris and Felix and a Slade student up the spout? I don't want to put my foot in it.'

Tony, Nicole, and Faith exchanged awkward glances. ‘Didn't you tell him?' Faith asked Isabella.

‘No,' she replied calmly. ‘He'd only go and put his foot in it.'

All eyes turned to Eric, who said, ‘I fear that
in my ignorance
I might put my foot in it. By contrast, my darling Chuckles fears that
with my ignorance
dispelled
I might put my foot in it. You know – something very strange happens to the science of Logic, just in this corner of the house. Isn't anyone going to enlighten me?'

‘How much d'you know?' Faith asked.

‘Only what I hear Chris and Julie screaming at each other through my studio ceiling.'

‘Really?' The three of them leaned forward eagerly.

‘The bugger knows more than we do,' Tony said.

‘I gather that Chris enjoyed a bit on the side with some girl called Debbie, who's just done her Slade diploma show and she tried to get to Chris through Felix and then Angela got involved and worked out that if Debbie thinks she's got a bun in the oven it's more likely due to an hysterical insecurity rather than to an historical insemination – how'm I doing?'

‘Spot on, mate,' Tony replied. ‘What are they screaming about up there?'

‘I'm more interested in what they're not screaming about – or not openly. It's layer upon layer and only the top one is verbal.'

‘Here we go!' Isabella sighed. ‘I'm off to do my nails if we're going out.'

Eric blew a kiss at her departing back. ‘The bottom layer,' he said, ‘is that Julie is establishing her supremacy over Chris once and for all. This is all non-verbal. She's now the alpha female, as zoologists call it, and he's the ex-alpha male up there and she's looking round for some way to consolidate her victory. She needs an audience.' He chuckled. ‘We're not so very different from wolves, you know – which explains how we were able to hive off a wolf cline thirty/forty thousand years ago and turn them into dogs.' He looked at Faith. ‘I was talking to Huxley about it after the last editorial meeting. Fascinating stuff. It seems that an alpha wolf will often let a lower-order male share the den with his mate, the alpha female, as a sort of “uncle” to the cubs. This uncle never mates with the alpha female. Never. And it sometimes happens the other way round – the alpha female permits an “Auntie” female into the den. Again with no hanky-panky and how's-your-father. It's a way for the alphas to say, “You lesser beings are no threat to me but you could have your uses!” And that's what I'm hearing from upstairs.'

‘What?' Tony, Nicole, and Faith looked at one another in bewilderment.

Isabella came bounding back into the room. ‘What's all that nonsense?' she asked.

‘In plain English . . .?' Faith urged.

‘In plain English, the alpha female is telling her beta-mate that she wants this Debbie girl, who will be very much a delta female, to take up the spare room in their flat, since her parents have cast her out in the snow.'

‘It's June,' Isabella said.

‘Which makes the snow quite metaphorical, darling. Personally, I think the poor girl will be an epsilon semi-moron if she accepts, but that's the lie of the land right now.'

‘Is she crazy?' Tony asked.

The three women were less certain; something in Julie's behaviour struck a chord with them.

‘How d'you train a dog to stop chasing chickens?' Eric asked. ‘You hang his latest carcass round his neck and keep it there as a reminder of his crime, day and night, until it rots and falls away. Debbie is to be that carcass around Chris's neck. Debbie, demurely sleeping a foot away from him but in the next room (touch her if you dare) . . . Debbie in man's pyjamas, slopping along the corridor, her eyes full of sleep and her hair in rats-tails (touch her if you dare) . . . Debbie's angelic little jaw and Cupid's lips chomping Rice Krispies across the breakfast table (kiss them if you dare) . . . she's going to be the purification and domestication – not to say castration – of the dear old Chris we all love and admire.' He looked down and, using a right-hand fingernail, scraped nothing in particular from under his left thumbnail, adding, as if to himself, ‘Unless his friends rally round and save him, of course.'

Saturday, 21 June 1952

The Sun King was an early arrival. ‘Good God,' he said, ‘what
are
you?' He knew
who
she was, of course.

‘I'm the concubine –
the
concubine, please note – of an Ottoman sultan. What else? My one fear was that
you
would come as the Sultan himself, which would certainly have set the tongues wagging. So I'm relieved to see your wife as Marie Antoinette. Although,' she dug a finger into his expanding waistline, ‘she shouldn't let you eat so much cake!'

‘But,' he objected, ‘you . . . a concubine? It's really the inner you?'

‘Ve are all prostitoots now, Fogel. Actually, Madame Rowhani gave it me, last October in Istanbul.'

‘Also,' said Alex, as Lawrence of Arabia, naturally, ‘she has the legs for it. So why not? The same is true, by the way, of our Lady Lion Tamer in the fishnet stockings. I wonder if that whip is real?'

‘There's one person who wouldn't dare doubt it.' Faith gestured toward the greenery-yallery Grosvenor-Street-Gallery foot-in-the-grave young man who was, figuratively, clinging to the tails of her frock coat. ‘She has the whip hand there, by now.' And she went on to explain to the Fogels how Chris had been tamed by Julie, including the
coup de grâce
: taking in Debbie Kennedy as a lodger.

‘Debbie's inner self,' Alex remarked, ‘seems to be a National Hunt jockey.'

‘One-all wouldn't you say?' Pierrot-Eric asked, picking up the conversational fag-end as he joined them. ‘How will the Lion Tamer respond?'

Isabella's inner self, apparently, was Pierrette, in a very fetching creation, reminiscent of Balmain or Jacques Fath, which was why she had so uncharacteristically agreed without a murmur to Eric's suggestion of today's theme. Everyone saw the joke, of course, though no one could be certain that
she
did.

‘How would
you
know whether or not she's a jockey?' Alex asked. ‘Is this personal experience speaking?'

‘Inside information.' Eric winked. ‘Her cousin's a National Hunt jockey in Ireland. He's always worth a bob or two to win at Cheltenham, by the way. The course suits him.'

‘Keep an eye on Felix today,' Angela begged Marianne. ‘If you can actually see through those pince-nez, that is. What are you supposed to be?'

They were arranging smörgåsar on trays, ready to take down to the stands that Willard and Tony were even then putting up on the side lawn, in what was now a firm tradition of these Dower House midsummer events.

‘Isn't it obvious? How did German schoolmarms dress before the war?'

‘Before the
First
World War – like
that
. But is it the inner
you
? Really?'

‘Sally always calls me “the schoolmarm of our partnership” because I'm to one who makes her tidy everything at the end of the day. And sees that the Rotring pens are refilled . . . and stuff like that. Dare I ask what you are?'

Angela looked down at her dress and laughed, with a tinge of embarrassment. ‘It seemed such a good idea, but it hasn't exactly worked out the way I thought. My inner self is all the
sounds
of my life, from which I make my living.'

Her dress was made of tier upon tier of flounces, each with what looked like a randomly torn bottom edge. ‘But they're not random at all,' she explained. ‘Each one is a sound wave. These ones up here' – she passed a hand down over the bodice – ‘are pure tones of an octave. This one's middle C—'

‘A good thing it's where it is and not a bit lower down, or Eric would make some comment about it, I'm sure! Middle C? Oh, never mind. What are the lower ones, around the dress – they just look ragged?'

‘They're all based on traces of sounds I recorded around the Dower House. This one's Alex's Bentley ticking over . . . and rooks in the bluebell wood . . . and the milk float delivering, the bottles clanking in the crate . . . and, oh, yes – this is Felix snoring, which he wouldn't believe until I recorded it.'

‘Yes, I can see how it might have seemed a wonderful idea on paper!'

Angela grinned ruefully. ‘Well, don't say any more about it. I'm stuck with it now and so I'll just go through with it. Can I sneak one of these egg and caviar things? They're scrumptious.'

‘As many as you want. Rationing and Willard do not coexist in the same universe, so there's plenty more.' She eyed her friend shrewdly. ‘And why should I keep an eye on Felix today? It's too early for the seven-year itch, surely?'

‘Well . . . don't let this go any further, but I had to talk him out of choosing an
SS
officer as his inner self!'

‘What? Herre Gud!'

‘I know. You could have knocked me down with a feather.'

‘But why
that
? Of all things!'

Angela let out an explosive sigh. ‘He . . . how did he explain it? It was so . . . such
Kvatsch
! He said he became so numbed in the
KL
that he could watch the guards beat another prisoner to death and feel absolutely nothing – not even relief that they hadn't picked on him. And he said it dawned on him that that sort of indifference was
exactly
what the guards must have felt. They didn't even seem to take pleasure in what they did. They, too, had no obvious feelings. So then he wondered how big a gulf really existed between him and them, and—'

‘Oh, my God! Poor man!'

‘I know. I know. He said that, with just a little nudge in the opposite direction when he was seventeen . . . eighteen . . . he could have been one of the guards himself. So he thinks that sort of potential must be still inside him somewhere.'

‘But it's . . .
Kvatsch
, like you say.' She raised both hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘Seven years . . . and still . . . all that damage.'

Angela nodded. ‘A different seven-year itch!'

‘So what
is
his inner self now? What did you persuade him . . .?'

‘A voyager. Ahazuerus, the Wandering Jew? The Flying Dutchman? Pilgrim? Some sort of wayfaring man, compelled never to rest while there are new discoveries to be made.'

‘Well, well, well!' Marianne was impressed. ‘Your idea?'

She shook her head. ‘Eric's. I couldn't think of anything to shake Felix out of . . . well, it would have been a disaster.'

Marianne handed her a cheese-and-anchovy
smörgås
. ‘D'you think these are OK? I thought the cheese on its own was a bit bland.' She chuckled. ‘You know what Adam's inner self is – apparently?'

‘What? Yeah, it tastes fine.'

‘Sally told me. A Welsh Baptist preacher! He's wearing his old demob suit with the flies sewn together. And the trouser pockets. And he threatens to preach against anybody caught doing things they shouldn't in secret corners.'