A Coat of Varnish (6 page)

He was an enquiring and, underneath, a pessimistic man. He took a gloomy view of human possibilities. In practical terms he was worried about his own country and about England, of which he was sentimentally fond. He made plenty of judgments, most of them glum. His striking rate was reasonably high, but it was not unknown for him to make mistakes. That seemed to give him as much gratification as when he was proved right, and he broke into an extraordinary honking grating laugh.

In spite of Luria’s dark realism, or maybe because of it, Humphrey was glad to have him near at hand those torrid weeks. Humphrey looked forward to their regular meeting each Saturday night. It was a pity that Lady Ashbrook had taken against him. He would have gained Proustian joy from that encounter with the past. And, patriarchal as he sounded, seemed, and often was, he was vulnerable enough to be hurt by what appeared a snub – which was exactly what it was.

Next afternoon, Saturday, 10 July, Humphrey, walking alone outside the gardens, had, when he waved and smiled towards Lady Ashbrook, quite a different reception. Her grandson was standing beside the bench. Humphrey had already heard from Kate that he had arrived and that Susan had met him. At the sight of Humphrey, he came soft-footed, moving like a games player, across the turf.

‘Come along,’ he said, face open and joyous, as though this was a specially good day. ‘Your presence is required.’

He was a good-looking young man in a way that foreigners thought characteristically English, though in England it was distinctly rare. He had fine brilliant fair hair, though the kind of hair which at twenty-nine – he was an exact contemporary of Paul Mason – was already thinning. His eyes were handsome, very large, not washed-out blue, but pigmented. His skin was fresh, healthily pale. People were known to say that he had everything. As Kate remarked, he had had too much love. Certainly he had been much pursued, by men as well as women. He took it all with good nature, and presumably with pleasure. He enjoyed looking after others, and took trouble about small things. As they walked towards his grandmother, he talked about her.

‘She’s bearing up extraordinarily well,’ he said.

‘What do you think of her morale?’

‘What do you?’ Loseby was quick to hear what wasn’t said.

‘Most of us wouldn’t have so much nerve. But how much is she paying for it?’

‘There’s an old German military saying,’ Loseby was talking quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter what your morale is. What does matter is how you behave.’

Loseby was a soldier, a captain in the Rifles, which was the family regiment. He was at that time serving in Germany, on a special assignment; maybe he had picked up that tough formula there.

‘I suppose you came over specially?’ Humphrey was also talking quietly as they approached the bench.

‘I had to see her, didn’t I?’

Then, coming up to Lady Ashbrook, his expression became unclouded, radiant, his voice buoyant. He announced: ‘Captured him. Here he is.’

‘Oh, Humphrey. It’s very nice of you to come,’ said Lady Ashbrook, exactly in the tone of Tuesday evening.

‘It must be much nicer to have Loseby here,’ said Humphrey.

‘I’m quite glad of any reasonably civilised company.’ She gave a sarcastic smile, but the tone was loving. Then, not to be too affectionate, she broke off: ‘Tell me, am I wrong, or is it really rather excessively hot?’

‘Grandmama! That is putting it mildly. I think I ought to take you in–’

‘Don’t you mean take yourself in, my dear boy? No, I think we can endure it a little longer. I don’t have too much sun, you know.’

The words were casual. She might have been implying that she wouldn’t have much more sun. Loseby’s words were as casual as hers.

‘Do have a heart, Grandmama. I’m not thinking of you, just me. I’m not as tough as you are, after all.’

In fact, on his forehead and cheeks the fine nordic skin was burning. He was wearing only a shirt and linen trousers, and some girl – would it be Susan? – would have to treat him with ointment that night.

‘Soon. We’ll go in soon, dear boy.’ Lady Ashbrook wouldn’t give him his own way. She was behaving like a spoiled and wilful beauty. Between the two of them, the old lady used to being wooed and the indulged young man, there was the air, Humphrey was noticing, of something remarkably like a flirtation. Loseby was better at handling her than anyone whom Humphrey had seen. It emerged in the conversation that he had brought her flowers and a case of champagne. Tomorrow he would arrange a bridge party for the early evening. Humphrey was invited. The champagne would come in useful. Meanwhile she was to drink half a bottle without fail before she went to bed tonight.

Loseby gave out affection as naturally as a sunny child. It was genuine affection, Humphrey didn’t doubt. With his grandmother, was it also love? There could be an element of cupboard love, of course. He was the only relative she cared for. Where else should her money go? It could be that he was making sure. Easy-natured men were often better than the calculating at looking after themselves. And yet it was very difficult to act love as well as he did.

One thing he wouldn’t do. She wanted him to sit with her that night until she went to bed.

‘I’ll stay with you till seven. Then I really am obliged to go.’

‘Too early.’

‘I’m so sorry, Grandmama dear. I’d get out of it if I could.’

‘Do so. You have some talent for excuses, you always have had.’

Loseby gave his radiant shameless smile. ‘Not this time, I’m afraid. It’s a date. Fixed up weeks ago.’

‘I suppose it’s an assignation,’ she said.

‘You can suppose most things, can’t you?’ he replied. ‘By the by, did you really talk about assignations in your wicked days?’

‘We didn’t talk as much as your friends do,’ said Lady Ashbrook. ‘We should have thought it took the edge off things.’

‘Oh, we talk about going to bed. Loudly. No secrets. But if anyone thinks of getting married it has to be whispered. That really is rather shameful. So it’s a dead secret.’

‘Are you thinking of it?’ She sounded accusing, apprehensive, maybe jealous.

‘Dear Grandmama, I’ll tell you if I ever do.’

The exchanges went on. Under all his willingness to please, he was as stubborn as she was, and she couldn’t tease, persuade, force, cajole him into staying with her throughout the evening. There was one device she didn’t use, which Humphrey guessed might have worked. That was the blackmail of pity. She didn’t for an instant deploy that. She didn’t so much as hint that, in her state, she wanted someone loving near her.

Later in the afternoon, Humphrey made his way to the habitual Saturday rendezvous with Alec Luria. Their meeting-place was a public house which the inhabitants of this part of Belgravia referred to as their local. There was nothing special about the pub, which was situated in the street running from the end of Eaton Square towards Buckingham Palace Road. Luria liked it and was fond of explaining how good the English were at making themselves comfortable: there was no equivalent to such a pub in any other country he had lived in. There was a large sedate saloon with three cosy alcoves, leather-covered chairs and benches, unexacting and quiet. That evening, at six o’clock, there were about twenty people scattered about the saloon, perhaps more, most of them residents from close by who had called in for a drink before dinner.

It was a peaceful time. Humphrey and Luria settled themselves, as usual on a Saturday evening, in the far corner, legs stretched under the table in front of them, on the table pints of beer. Luria, though he had his taste for English pubs, had no such taste for English beer; but this was part of the ritual and he endured it.

They were having a conversation with voices subdued but actually animated. Humphrey wanted to get some hard information about Tom Thirkill. This was part of Kate’s concern for the Thirkill daughter which had become a link between Kate and Humphrey – the kind of link they could enjoy while staying mute about themselves. So Humphrey had involved Luria, who had more acquaintances in London than most Englishmen, and who also wasn’t an innocent in financial dealings, as Humphrey was. Luria had dutifully made enquiries, which he didn’t pretend not to revel in. He was explaining, and he was one of the best of expositors. His view was that all such buying and selling of companies and playing the exchanges market had their obscure side. Granted that Thirkill had certainly done nothing criminal, and probably nothing improper. He might have been a shade indiscreet, particularly as the English had become prudish about anyone making money. Except themselves through sweeps or strikes, said Luria, with melancholy sardonic eyes. Thirkill had clearly attracted much political enmity, both from the Tories – natural enough – and from his own left wing – natural enough again. Further, he seemed to have attracted an unusual amount of personal enmity. ‘Well, you know him, don’t you?’

‘Only slightly,’ said Humphrey.

‘You ought to have some insights there, though.’ Luria appeared to regard the problem with a kind of resigned satisfaction.

People of good judgment did tend to suspect the man, Humphrey remarked. He didn’t mention the name of Kate. Luria was a friend, and to be trusted; but Humphrey would speak to no one until the chances were better than they appeared now. He was a superstitious man.

Thirkill was a good, safe, friendly topic. They were both relaxed. Luria courteously refused another drink, but Humphrey bought himself a second pint of bitter. Then they were disturbed.

There was a commotion, a hubbub mixed with chanting from outside the street door, diametrically opposite to their own corner. A crowd surged into the room. More yells, more chanting, so much that Humphrey was confused. The room pullulated with the crowd and the noise. It was hard to see individual faces. Perhaps there were thirty or forty in the crowd, some still jamming the far door. All young, so far as he could make out, as he tried to clear his eyes. One or two looked in their twenties. Others very young, sixteen, seventeen? Beards, profuse hair, a few girls hanging on to shoulders. Chant reiterated, unlike human speech. Humphrey couldn’t make it out.

Then he had it. It was like the mindless chanting of a football crowd. This was mid-summer. They presumably had come from Victoria tube station half a mile away. Some were wearing sweaters with the legend ‘We Are the Champs’. This was a mob from one of the limited-over cricket matches, started and finished in one day. A lot of them were angry drunk. Glasses were swept from the bar. A couple rushed behind, screamed at the barman, punched him in the face, grabbed bottles of whisky, and knocked off the necks. Others snatched glasses from the tables, swore at anyone around, and sank the drinks. One elderly man was resisting. Raucous cries – ‘Get lost’, ‘Stuff it’, ‘Do him’. His hat was on the bench beside him. One of the slightly older men seized that, put it on, and pranced round. The elderly man was standing now. He was knocked back into his seat, and had beer poured over his head and shoulders.

Other customers were sitting stupefied, quiescent, immobilised. It was as if they didn’t notice what was going on.

At last Humphrey collected himself enough to call to the barman: ‘Gerald Road quick.’ Gerald Road was the local police station. The mob wouldn’t know that, but they were inflamed by any signs of interference, even of life. The barman, face bleeding, slipped away. Raging, half a dozen youths were milling round Humphrey’s table. Both he and Alec Luria were able-bodied men, but it was no use trying to fight at those odds. Humphrey had handled troops in his time, but nothing like this. He tried to recapture his army tone. ‘Get away. You’re all in trouble. Sit down.’

Shouts of hate– ‘Do him!’, ‘We’ll do you.’

Luria, like Humphrey, was by this time standing up.

‘You’re doing yourselves no good,’ he said in a strong bass voice. ‘I advise you to quieten down.’

‘Fucking sheeny.’ That was a cockney accent. Most of the others were North Country, but the gang had picked up some camp-followers.

Humphrey was shouting to the room for help, but none came. Then there was a susurration near the door. ‘Fucking pigs.’ Two policemen, in shirt-sleeves, came in. That wasn’t a result of the barman’s call. It was later known that a passer-by had seen the mob screeching and surging down the street and had warned a police car.

Some youths were escaping, but hate was still active. The policemen were attacked. A big lad was threatening one of them with a broken bottle. More police cars were arriving. Now the crowd was melting. Kicking over tables, smashing glasses, putting feet through glass panels, they pelted out into the decorous streets. Police cars followed them. It wasn’t often, Humphrey remarked as they returned to quietness at their table, that police cars conducted a chase round Eaton Square.

‘I was shaken,’ said Alec Luria.

‘Not to be expected in this part of London.’ Humphrey was beckoning the barman to clean up the table. His glass had been broken, and he was asking for another drink.

‘I think we might go.’

‘No, not yet,’ Humphrey said, as though this were an occasion for maximum phlegm. ‘Not to be expected after a game of cricket. I’m inclined to doubt whether anything like that has happened round here before.’

‘I found it very frightening.’ As wasn’t common in talks between those two, Luria was being more direct than his friend.

‘So did I.’ He had seen that Luria wasn’t a coward: it was better to talk in the same tone.

‘We mustn’t fool ourselves.’ Luria was brooding.

Humphrey said: ‘The curious thing was, it was so paralysing. At least for me. More so than going into action (he meant military action). Then you had an idea what you were supposed to do.’

‘One of the frightening things,’ Luria went on brooding, ‘was that no one stirred – all these men sitting round the room. That is frightening. There was a gang at home, up in Riverside Drive, decent locality, carving a girl up on the sidewalk – and solid citizens looking on from windows. Not doing a thing. Too much like what went on here. I keep telling you, people have damn well ceased to feel.’

‘They don’t want to get mixed up, they’re afraid,’ said Humphrey.