Symposium (18 page)

‘Stop!’
cried Hurley.

The
foreman came forward with his documents. ‘Reed live here?’

‘That’s
me,’ said Hurley, ‘but you don’t bring that stuff here. I don’t have any room,
we’re already cluttered.’

‘Got to
deliver it,’ said the man while the other men sauntered round to hear what was
going on.

It went
on for over half an hour. The traffic in the street slowed down, and Hurley
went indoors and telephoned frantically to every storage warehouse in the
Yellow Pages. It was half-past twelve before the men were very beneficially
persuaded to take their consignment to the warehouse that Hurley had found
willing to take his goods at short notice. But even then, he had to lead the
van there in his car, and personally pay a deposit.

‘It’s
been one of those days,’ said Hurley to Chris when he got back. ‘Not a stroke
of work done.’ They were eating a sandwich lunch which Corby had prepared.
Corby made delicious sandwiches, full of real food, as he called it, not at
all like the cafeteria products. Corby’s sandwiches and fruit juice constituted
Hurley’s favourite lunch. Chris laced her fruit juice with vodka.

Charterhouse
was out and the daily maid had left. Corby, that skilled Mauritian of Indian
origin, put his lean brown face round the door: ‘Everything all right?’

‘Fine,
thanks,’ said Hurley.

When he
had gone, Chris said, ‘Corby’s worried.’

‘Why?
Haven’t we settled the menu for tonight?’

‘Oh,
the food — that’s all right. It isn’t that. It’s Charterhouse. Corby does
simply not take to him. He’s deeply suspicious but if I ask, suspicious about
what, he just shakes his head. He says we should be careful what we say in
front of Charterhouse.’

‘Careful
what we say? What on earth do we say?’

‘Of
course Mauritius still has a very primitive element, you know. Their
witchcraft. They sense things.’

‘Perhaps
Corby senses right,’ said Hurley. If he had not been so worn out by the
bureaucratic and other struggles over the furniture consignment of the morning
he would have had Corby in, then and there, to question him. ‘We shouldn’t get
too mixed up with their domestic feuds,’ he said.

Chris
said: ‘I told Corby we could have a talk about it tomorrow. I want to get my
hair done this afternoon and have a beauty-nap before the dinner.’ And she
said, ‘You know, I don’t want to lose Corby after all these years. There could
very well be something in what he says.’

Hurley
went to his studio to mooch over his work.

In the course of the
afternoon Chris received two phone calls. One was from Helen Suzy to say that
Brian’s daughter Pearl had arrived in London, a last-minute decision, and was
sleeping it off. Could Pearl come along and join them after dinner with a
couple of friends?

‘Yes,
of course,’ said Chris. ‘Delighted.’

The
second phone call was from Hilda Damien. ‘I’m taking the painting along to the
flat, myself, tonight. Yes, it’s manageable, with the help of the taxi-driver I
hope. There’s a lift, of course. The picture is so lovely I’d like you to see
it. I’m tempted to keep it for myself.’

‘Why
don’t you?’ said Chris.

‘I’m
sort of superstitious. I bought it for them and they should have it. Chris, I’m
really nervous about Margaret after hearing what you’ve found out.’

‘I
didn’t want to make ill-feeling,’ said Chris.

‘Ill-feeling,
no. Facts are facts. I’m glad to know, and I did already feel ill-will oozing
out of her towards me. Right from the start. It seems to freeze the air between
us. William’s such a fool, he keeps repeating that phrase, “Be careful, the
grapefruit could be bruised,” or something like that, which Margaret said to
him when they first met in Marks & Spencer’s. It’s childish.’

‘Does
he know anything about her past life, or about the Murchies?’

‘Honestly,’
said Hilda, ‘I don’t think he knows a thing. She hasn’t told him anything, I’m
pretty sure.‘

‘Well,
Hilda, I don’t think she’s committed any crime, after all.’

‘She’s
perfectly innocent, of course, as far as one can gather. But what malign vibes
that girl gives out! Do you think she could plot some evil against me? I’m a
bundle of nerves. William dotes on her. I don’t want to antagonize him by
talking behind her back, as it were. That red hair —’

‘If I
were you,’ said Chris, ‘I would keep the picture and go right back home. You’re
a sensible woman, you’re a brilliant woman and everybody knows it. Keep right
out of their way. I’ve never known you like this before.’

‘And
not go to the Murchies’ for the weekend?’

‘No,
not go, definitely.’

‘I want
to give the young couple the picture, anyway. I’d better do that. It might
sweeten her up. A flat in Hampstead and a London painting by Monet, what more
can she want?’

The pheasant
(flambé
in
cognac as it is) has been passed round a second time and most people have taken
a tiny touch of everything, so good to taste, with peas, small carrots, small
sausages rolled in bacon, sauté potatoes. Charterhouse has taken round a
serving plate, Luke has followed with another. Hurley has served the wine at
his end of the table, Chris at hers, helped willingly by Brian and Ernst on her
right and left.

There
is no more clatter of a serving fork to the floor. The plates have been taken
away and now, in the Continental order of serving — cheese before sweet,
preferred by Chris, rather than the reverse English order which Hurley likes
better — arrives Stilton cheese, salad, not too swiftly, absolutely silently,
with very attractive old Wedgwood plates.

While
they are talking amongst each other, most of the guests and the two good hosts
are, with another part of their minds, thinking of Margaret. To the
accompaniment of good food and wine everything seems less drastic, including
the position in the world of Margaret with her long red hair and blue beaded
dress.

Chris
thinks, we can’t possibly be involved in a witch-hunt. She’s a perfectly
attractive girl. ‘I do so agree,’ she says to her neighbour, Ernst, who has said
it would be sheer madness to put your money into the Channel Tunnel.

‘Of
course,’ says Ernst, ‘the Channel had to go. Like the Berlin Wall. But
investing in the Tunnel is something else again. The maintenance. And the
French franc, oh my God!’ He is looking at Margaret, wondering where, in Brussels,
he could have seen her before. Some night spot? At Antwerp, one of those
wonderful restaurants near the docks? Or nowhere? Newly married into the Damien
fortune, as he understood. He looks round for Luke and is consoled to see him
standing still by the sideboard.

‘And
there I was. Ten-thirty this morning, ‘Hurley is telling Ella Untzinger, ‘with
a houseful of furniture on my hands. That’s all I need. So I just said, “Stop.
Stop right there. Don’t open that van. If you care to step inside the house,” I
said, “you can see for yourself we have already furniture and to spare.” So
what do I have to do? I have to spend the whole morning trying to find a place …’
He is thinking, She wouldn’t be bad to paint, if I could get her out of that
pre-Raphaelite pose with her spectacular hair and see more of her prominent
teeth. I could go back off into portraits, any time. She would be a really good
subject if she’d sit still and take off those absurd clothes.

Ella
says, ‘The thought of moving house is appalling. We’re moving to a flat in
Bloomsbury and we’ve decided to be ruthless. Furniture can be an impediment to
one’s active career, it can actually impede spiritual and artistic development.
Beware of furniture, Hurley.’ Ella looks over her shoulder to where Luke
stands, waiting for his next round of services. Charterhouse has appeared
beside him. Ella hears Luke say something about ‘Mrs Damien’ and, curious,
makes an effort to hear the rest. ‘She’s not here, not the mother. The
red-haired one is the young … a mistake.’ The voice was lost in the other
sounds of the room. She is indignant with Luke for having behaved in such an
offhand manner the other day. After she and Ernst have set him up, more or
less, in London, with advice and meals and drinks and evening jobs to help his
university career, he has started to behave like a spoiled brat, a whore. She
is thankful, at least, he has turned up tonight and not let her down. But it
must be the last time, she is sure it is the last time.

‘Venice’,
Roland is saying to Helen Suzy, ‘can often be wonderful in November. The crowds
of tourists have gone home. You can also get around quicker. It may just be
that some of the museums and galleries are closed down, they say for cleaning
or for reorganization and so on but it’s only to give the staff a rest. How you
go about getting into a gallery that’s closed down is, you write a little
appeal to the curator at the back of your card and send it in. Have you got a
visiting card?’

‘No,
but Brian has.’

‘That
will do. So long as they think you’re special, they’ll let you in. In Venice
and in Naples you can do everything if you’re special. In between, Tuscany,
Umbria, Lombardy, being special is a way to get nowhere. In Rome everybody is
special so priorities cancel themselves out; if you aren’t in the Vatican your
uncle is; if you aren’t in a government office you will be next week. Do you
speak Italian?’

‘No,
but Brian does a bit.’

‘Well,
that’s fine. Get him to scribble a few words presenting his compliments to the
egregious director of the museum, if it’s closed. If the director is not there
himself one of his myrmidons will let you in.’

Chris
notes with satisfaction that Roland is capably fulfilling his role of ‘talking
to a tree’; Roland himself is far from thinking that Helen is a tree. What a
waste, he thinks, that this slim girl with her boy-short hair should be going
to Venice next week with raddled Lord Suzy, an intensive-care case of
loquacious boredom. It would be nice, Roland thinks, to take this pretty,
flat-chested, boyish gawk round Venice himself. And as for Margaret Damien, she
makes him shudder, sitting there with her simper as if she were still a Sister
of Good Hope. If I was really bitchy, he thinks, as Annabel supposes I am, I
would ask her here and now, quite openly, ‘Weren’t you attached to that convent
where the young novice was killed? — I’m sure I saw you on the television.’

There
is a changing of plates at the table. Luke and Charterhouse seem to float, it
is a ballet. White sparkling wine is poured into those twinkling crystal
glasses which are meant for it. In comes the sweet course which the English in
their lunatic way call the pudding, whether it be leaden with suet or fluffy to
the last rarity, no matter; on this occasion it is
crème brûlée. ‘Crème brûlée’,
observes Annabel, ‘is actually a Creole dish.’

‘I
didn’t know that,’ says Chris.

‘I wish
I knew how to make it,’ Annabel says. She looks across the table to Margaret,
the new bride. ‘Can you cook?’ she says.

‘Only
basics,’ says Margaret. ‘I took a three-week course. And you?’

‘When
I’ve got time,’ says Annabel, ‘and someone to eat the food with, I like to
cook a meal.’

‘It’s a
question of
les autres,’
Margaret says. ‘One can’t live unto oneself.’
She is thinking how much she craves to be back in Scotland with her father
looking terrorized through his smoke-glasses into the distance and her mother
weakly trying to cope with her horse-racing debts and her menopause; there,
Margaret is at home and feels it. She longs for the weekend, the coming Sunday,
and sees quite clearly how easily Hilda can go into the pond, a push, with
Uncle Magnus kneeling, holding her down. She thinks: What am I doing among
these people, what am I doing here? And, while the chatter goes on around her,
and William smiles lovingly and a little fearfully in her direction, it is a
relief to let her mind dwell with savagery on Hilda. Her brain fills with a
verse of a wild ballad:

Awa’, awa’, ye ugly witch,

Haud far awa’ an’ lat me be!

For I wouldna once kiss your ugly mouth

For a’ the gifts that ye could gie.

‘Actually,’ she says to
Annabel, ‘I’ve got the chance to go back to my job, and I think I’ll take it.’
She describes to Annabel the job at the petroleum company.

‘That
sounds interesting,’ Annabel says. ‘What did you do before that?’

‘Oh,
this and that,’ says Margaret, and looks slightly belligerent.

Annabel,
thinking of those television shots of Margaret in the convent, holds her peace.
A female Jekyll and Hyde, she thinks. And she wonders, What were precisely the
crimes of Mr Hyde? One is never really told.

Brian
Suzy is saying, ‘These thieves actively want us to sit round our dinner tables
discussing them. They desecrate our property largely to show off to each
other.’

‘I
thought’, says William, ‘that they express contempt only when they don’t find
much to steal.’

‘They
could have stolen more from me,’ says Brian. ‘But of course we were in the
house at the time. The police will get them of course. They’re a gang; they
generally go where the people are absent.’