Thus Was Adonis Murdered (3 page)
Read Thus Was Adonis Murdered Online
Authors: Sarah Caudwell
“Quite disgraceful,” said Ragwort.
“Taken her mind off getting hijacked, anyway,” said Cantrip.
“Aesthetic considerations,” said Selena, “have prevailed over concern for her personal safety. It reflects very well on her.”
“Aesthetic, forsooth,” said Ragwort.
The captain has announced that we are about to take off. He has recommended us to read the safety booklet. I have done my best; but it is all in pictures, with nothing to explain them. There is a picture of a female passenger sitting upright, then an arrow, then a picture of her leaning forward with her head in her hands. Is the only thing required of me in an emergency to lean forward and put my head in my hands? If so, I shall be equal to it. I may, however, be missing some deeper significance. The artist intends, perhaps, to depict an act of contrition—the lady is preparing to meet her Maker. That is a less agreeable idea.
Some miles above Paris.
Later.
Things are much improved. My lungs have been filled with health-giving nicotine. The due proportion of gin has been introduced into my bloodstream. I have been given food in little plastic trays. I have decided that the Art Lovers are not going to hijack the aeroplane.
The blonde girl, it is true, has still that translucent pallor which I associate with idealism. It now occurs to me, however, that it is more probably due to travel sickness.
The man sitting next to her may indeed be an American; but, though many hijackings are committed by Americans, it by no means follows that many Americans commit hijackings. One must avoid the fallacy of undistributed middle.
The armour-plated matron has vented her martial spirit in complaining to the stewardess about the food. She is displeased with both the quality and the quantity. Her views on the former would make her, one might think, indifferent as to the latter—but not so: she declares it uneatable and demands a second helping.
My spider-legged neighbour, on the other hand, is pleased with everything. This, he says, is the life. “Got to hand it to the travel agent johnnies,” he says. “Do a chap proud on a package like this. Good plane, good food, decent-sized noggin to drink, bang-up dish to sit next to. That’s the life for Bob Linnaker, all right.”
He seemed to intend a compliment.
“The travel agents,” I said, putting on what I hoped was a Ragwort-like expression, “had no tide to include me in the package. If they claimed to do so, your remedy is under the Trade Descriptions Act.”
At this he laughed immoderately and said that I was a sharp one. I fear I am not perfect in my imitation of Ragwort. I must study carefully, when I return to London, how he achieves that austere narrowing of the eyelids and daunting compression of the lips.
“I am afraid,” said Ragwort, “that Julia, however much she may practise, will never achieve the appearance of truly formidable propriety. Her shape is against it.”
“I think that Julia has rather a nice shape,” said Cantrip. A certain tenderness softened his witch-black eyes: he was no doubt thinking of times before the spider episode.
“Precisely,” said Ragwort, his features composing themselves in that expression of cold decorum which would have been so useful to Julia. “It is the sort of shape, to put the matter with all delicacy, which gives rise to a misleading inference of sensuality.”
“Not all that misleading,” said Cantrip, continuing nostalgic.
“Most misleading,” said Selena, “to those most apt to draw it.”
As for the two young men, I can tell you nothing more—our relative positions prevent me from observing them. I wish I could see the face of the thin one. The face is for me of the essence of attraction. No matter how graceful the figure, if the face lacks aesthetic charm, I can feel no spark of passion. It is, I know, absurd—you will make fun of me for being a sentimental woman: well, that is how I am, Selena, there is no help for it.
“Would one say,” said Ragwort, “that Julia was sentimental, exactly?”
“Incurably,” said Selena.
My neighbour still seems to believe that proximity is the sole condition of friendship. He addresses me as his dear. In reply, I have addressed him coldly as Mr. Linnaker; but he is undiscouraged. Actually, he says, it’s not Mr., but Major, though he doesn’t bother with it now he’s in Civvy Street. Anyway, to his friends he’s just Bob. This puts me in a dilemma: to call him Bob will seem an admission of friendship, to call him anything else will seem uncivil.
He has also taken to patting my knee. This is making me rather peevish. I try to be tolerant of other people’s innocent pleasures; but it is, after all, my knee. Still, it is hardly feasible, when sitting next to somebody on an aeroplane, to move unobtrusively away.
I could try reading the Finance Act. That would surely give an impression of quite implacable respectability. I must, at some stage, give some attention to the Finance Act: I promised William, if he would allow me to go to Venice, that my Opinion on Schedule 7 would be ready within forty-eight hours of returning. Yet somehow, despite the interest of its subject-matter and the elegance of its style, the Finance Act does not at the moment appeal to me.
The only refuge seems to be the lavatory. I don’t suppose I can stay there for the rest of the journey—other passengers would become vexed; but it would be a temporary respite from the Major. And I should be able to get a look, on the way, at the face of the thin young man.
“The next paragraph,” said Selena, “is rather difficult to read. The writing, even by Julia’s standards, is unusually irregular. She also seems to have spilt gin over it. Do get some more coffee, Cantrip.”
Ah, Selena, Selena. “The face of the thin young man” I have written, as if of some commonplace and worldly thing. How casually my pen first wrote that phrase, not knowing of what it wrote: with what trembling ardour do I inscribe it now. “The face of the thin young man”—ah, Selena, such a face. A face for which Narcissus might be forsworn and the Moon forget Endymion. The translucent skin, the winging eyebrows, the angelic mouth, the celestial profile—lament no more, Selena, the drabness of our age and the poverty of our arts—over the time that has brought forth such a profile not Athens, not Rome, not the Renaissance in all its glory shall triumph: Praxiteles and Michelangelo kneel in admiration.
I grow too faint with passion to continue. It is a dreadful thing, at such a moment, to lack the benefit of your advice; but I shall post this immediately on arrival, so that you may know as soon as possible of the agitation which now affects my spirits. I remain, in the meantime,
Yours, as always, Julia
PS. The above, I need hardly say, is entirely without prejudice to my devotion to the virtuous and beautiful Ragwort, to whom please convey my respectful regards.
“I think Julia’s quite struck with this blond chap,” said Cantrip—he is noted for his insight into the feminine heart. “She hasn’t gone on like this about anyone since that Greek barman they took on to help out in Guido’s in June.”
“If then,” said Selena. “I don’t think she’s mentioned Praxiteles since the out-of-work actor in February.”
“The whole letter,” said Ragwort, “is perfectly disgraceful. I am very relieved that we have reached the end of it.”
I would not impute to any of my readers a less refined sensibility than belongs to Ragwort, or for any frivolous reason risk offending it. I have none the less thought it right to set out Julia’s letter
in extenso,
containing, as it does, descriptions of various individuals who will be mentioned later in my narrative, including her supposed victim.
There was a coolness. Selena said that she did not in the least blame Timothy but added that one might have known how Henry would go on about it. Ragwort was satisfied if the Bar Council saw no objection—and confessed to a little surprise on hearing they had not been asked. Cantrip used the expressions “blackleg” and “teacher’s pet.”
All this because Timothy was going to Venice—unlike Julia, at someone else’s expense. His absence from coffee on my first morning in London had been due, as the attentive reader may recall, to an application for his advice by the senior partner in a leading firm of solicitors. The senior partner—Mr. Tiddley or Mr. Whatsit, I am not sure which—was one of the trustees of a discretionary trust. “Quite a nice little trust,” the senior partner had said modestly; worth, on the most recent valuation, just under a million pounds. The principal beneficiary, advised to take certain steps to mitigate his prospective liability to capital transfer tax, had been found recalcitrant. Timothy’s assistance was required to persuade him of the seriousness and urgency of the matter.
To do so, moreover, in person. Attempts to explain in writing—and a number of long letters had already been sent on the subject—had been met with an obdurate refusal to perceive the need for action. It happened that the beneficiary, though normally resident in Cyprus, would shortly be going to Venice to settle the affairs of his recently deceased great-aunt, who had made her home in that city: an admirable occasion, thought the senior partner, while his mind was directed to such matters, for him to consider also his position under the English trust, established by his late grandfather. It would therefore be most kind if Timothy—for a fee, it went without saying, which would reflect not only the intrinsic value of his advice, but also the inconvenience to him—“Oh, quite,” said Ragwort—of being absent for several days from London—if Timothy would go to Venice. Timothy, kindness itself, had consented.
“And your accommodation,” said Ragwort, “will also be in a style commensurate with the value of your advice. Danieli’s, I suppose. Or perhaps the Gritti Palace?”
It appeared that the estate of the deceased great-aunt included a little palazzo just off the Grand Canal. The beneficiary had been good enough to indicate that Timothy would be welcome to stay there.
“Most agreeable,” said Selena, wrinkling her nose.
“Delightful,” said Ragwort, raising an eyebrow.
“Makes one sick,” said Cantrip.
The thing that made Selena wrinkle her nose, Ragwort raise an eyebrow and Cantrip sick was not mere envy of Timothy’s good fortune. What chiefly irked them was its effect on Henry, who for several days had not ceased to comment on it as an instance of the wonderful rewards heaped on the just—being those who do not spend their mornings drinking coffee—by comparison with the unjust—being those who do. In the eternal struggle of Counsel against Clerks to gain a moment in which the former may call their souls their own, some yards of ground had been lost. Coffees were curtailed, lunches abbreviated, dinner engagements cancelled.
But they are tolerant, good-natured young people in 62 New Square, their minds always open to equitable compromise. Upon Timothy’s undertaking that on the eve of his departure, that is to say on Friday, he would buy dinner for all those adversely affected, it was agreed that no more should be said of the matter. I pointed out that I myself had some claim to be among his guests; to which he answered, very nicely, that he had not imagined I could think myself excluded.
We were to meet in the Corkscrew, a wine bar on the north side of High Holborn, popular on the grounds of proximity with the members of Lincoln’s Inn. Our entertainment was to include two further letters from Julia, which even Selena, in the conditions obtaining in Chambers, had not yet had time to read.
At seven o’clock, I was the first to arrive. I sat down at one of the little round oak tables and lit the candle provided for its illumination. The bar of the Corkscrew is designed for those who prefer a certain murkiness: long and narrow in construction, it admits, even at noon, the minimum of daylight; most of what does get in is absorbed in the dark ceiling and wood-panelled walls; there is left, after this, just so much as may comfortably be reflected in the surface of a polished table or the glint of a wine glass. To light a candle there is almost in itself enough to inspire in those gathered round it a sense of cheerful conspiracy.
I did not have long to wait for company. Timothy, arriving with Ragwort and Selena, stopped at the bar to acquire a bottle of Nierstein and a bowl of biscuits. The other two joined me at once in the circle of candlelight.
“Why biscuits?” I asked. “Timothy is just going to buy us an excellent dinner.”
“We’ll be eating late,” said Ragwort. “It’s Cantrip’s night for reading the
Scuttle.”
It is thought prudent by the proprietors of the
Daily Scuttle
that their publication, before it goes to press, should be read by a lawyer. They are subject to the endearing superstition that they will protect themselves, by this ritual, against all claims and proceedings for libel, blasphemy, obscenity, sedition, contempt of court, scandalum magnatum or any other crime or civil wrong known to English law. In the evenings this work is contracted out on a freelance basis to various indigent members of the Junior Bar. Though the law of libel and so forth is not peculiarly within the province of the Chancery Bar, the post of Friday reader, for reasons now lost in antiquity, is always held by one of the members of 62 New Square. It is currently occupied by Cantrip. If hunger compelled us to begin dinner without him, good fellowship would not allow us to end it in like manner. We would therefore be dining late. In the meantime, the Corkscrew would enjoy our custom.
It is poignant to reflect that as we sat drinking Nierstein in the convivial quarter-light of the Corkscrew poor Julia must already have been trying to persuade the Venetian police that the presence of her Finance Act at the bedside of the corpse—but I must not anticipate the orderly development of my narrative. We drank untroubled by knowledge of Julia’s difficulties: it was the last occasion for some time that we were able to do so.
As to the unhappy consequences of Timothy’s going to Venice, no more, of course, was to be said. Still—
“Are you really sure it is proper,” said Ragwort, “to see the lay client without a solicitor present? To explain, you know, in words of one syllable what you are telling him?”