Chapman's Odyssey (23 page)

Perhaps Rose envied her sibling’s gift of acerbity, and perhaps Alice sometimes thought that her own path through life might have been less bumpy if she hadn’t judged others so harshly, Harry, the consummate supposer – if there was such a term – supposed.

— Roast chicken, Alice? What a wonderful surprise.

— The children expect it. I cook chicken on their birthdays and at Easter and Christmas. It’s our family luxury.

She stifled a sob on the word ‘luxury’.

— Oh, Alice, my dear –

— Frank always made the same awful joke, year after year. ‘Not chicken again, woman,’ he’d say. And I’d pretend to be cross with him.

Jessie looked at her brother, who smiled back.

There were four sixpenny pieces hidden in the Christmas pudding, and by some miracle Jessie found two in her portion and Harry two in his.

— I shall know where to come if I ever need to borrow money, said Aunt Rose, beaming at her niece and nephew.

— I haven’t gone away.

It was the rarest of summer afternoons. The sky was unclouded and the heat was bearable.

Harry Chapman was at his happiest. He had written well that morning, and now here he was in the stands at Wimbledon waiting for the men’s singles final to begin.

On to the court came the reigning champion, Roger Federer, but alongside him was a player from a different, bygone age. Who could it be? The man wore glasses and seemed to have none of the physical grace of his elegant rival.

— Mr Drobny has elected to serve, the umpire informed the excited crowd.

Mr Drobny? Was Harry going to see the phantom at last? The heroic Jaroslav, the Czech out of Egypt who had once lived in England, was about to challenge the young conqueror, the possessor already of ten Grand Slam titles.

— Federer leads by four games to one.

Harry Chapman was now relying on the umpire for news of the match’s progress, because the sunlight of early July was blinding him. No matter how much he squinted or blinked, he could see nothing but an unending whiteness.

— Mr Laver leads by five games to two in the final set.

Ah, that respectful ‘Mister’. That’s how it used to be in the gentlemanly olden days.

He waited, in anticipation, for the next umpirical – was there such a word? – pronouncement.

— Federer leads Mr Tilden by two sets to one.

Yes, yes – it would have been ‘Mr Tilden’, then. Nowadays the Ladies, God bless them, are still addressed as ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ at Wimbledon. ‘Ms’ has yet to be heard on those hallowed courts.

— Six all. Tie break.

But who was playing whom?

—
Égalité
.

Why was the umpire suddenly reverting to French?

—
Avantage, Mademoiselle Lenglen
.

No, this couldn’t be. This simply couldn’t be.

—
Jeu
.

Someone was being applauded, but he couldn’t determine who it was. Voices were saying that this was championship point.

— Deuce.

A collective groan, expressing concern and frustration, echoed round the Centre Court. Harry Chapman made his own feeble contribution to it.

— Advantage, Rosewall.

What on earth was going on? Rosewall, Federer’s equal in elegance, had retired in the 1970s. He had been Harry Chapman’s hero then, as Federer was now.

— Racket abuse. Second caution, Mr McEnroe.

— You can not be serious, shrieked the furious contestant.

— I was never more serious in my life. I swear on my mother’s immortal soul that I am as serious as I shall ever be. I am the very epitome of seriousness. But wait a moment – did you say ‘serious’ or ‘Sirius’? If the latter, I have to inform you that, yes, I can not be Sirius, since Sirius is the brightest star in the sky after the sun, lying in the constellation Canis Major. For your additional edification, I can also inform you that Sirius is a binary star whose companion, Sirius B, is a very faint white dwarf. Sirius is known, variously, as the Dog Star, Canicula and Sothis. Ergo: I am serious, but I can not be Sirius. Shall we continue with the match? Resume play, if you please. Federer to serve.

He was standing with Graham in the Accademia in Florence. They were looking at Michelangelo’s statue of David when Graham began to laugh.

— What’s so funny?

— It’s that hand on his hip. You’d think he was cruising Goliath. I can just hear him saying ‘Come on, big boy. Have you got a special something for me?’ I’m sorry, Harry. I’m a heretic.

As they walked towards the Ponte Vecchio, Harry remembered being a silent worshipper in May 1949 in the public baths with the swimming pool that reeked of chlorine. That other David, Cooke by name, was still there in his mind, striking the same nonchalant pose as he’d done that day when the pigeon-chested Harry emerged from the water he had yellowed blinded by sun and glass.

— I like the notion of Goliath being rough trade.

— None rougher, Harry. Ask David. He reckons Golly, as he calls him, is an absolutely gorgeous brute.

— Graham?

— He’s answering a call of nature, Mr Chapman, said a nurse he didn’t recognise. — He’ll be back very soon.

— Where’s that gushing nurse? And the bullet-headed doctor who calls his patients ‘Sunshine’?

— Nurse Dunckley has left us. Mr Russell, if that’s who you mean, has been taken ill. I am Evelina, by the way. I am from Finland, before you ask.

— What time of day is it?

— Eight thirty on Wednesday evening.

— Thank you, Evelina.

— I hope and pray that this Graham person, whoever he is, isn’t taking advantage of you.

— Taking advantage? What do you mean, Mother?

— You’re such a child where people are concerned. You let them tread all over you. You’ve never been cautious enough.

— Cautious?

— Yes. They say nice things to you and you believe them. I’ve watched you being taken in. Harry, you’re as daft as silly old Rosy Glow at times. She sees the sunshine where she ought to see the rain, and you are just as blind as she is.

— Am I?

— Yes, my boy, you are. I worry about you, I honestly do. Life isn’t a book, though I bet you wish it was.

He needed to tell her, now, that some of the books he loved were full of disturbance and chaos and unresolved dilemmas – quite like life, in fact – but the words wouldn’t come to him.

— Mother, he remarked instead, — it was your resistance that inspired me to write. Let me continue, uninterrupted. I’ve always wanted to do fictional justice to people who aren’t cultivated. So many novels are concerned with rarefied creatures, blessed or cursed with high intelligence, but my concern was, and is, with the Franks and Alices and Jessies and Roses, the ones who are seldom honoured with beautiful sentences and paragraphs. You challenged me to love you with your endless gibes and you turned me, superficially, into a parody of your cynical self. You gave me the worst of you, but I was determined to dig and dig, archaeologically, until I chanced upon the best in you, the best you buried. And I found it, Mother, in the book I wrote after your death. I care to think I granted you a few beautiful sentences at least.

There, he had told her. Would she respond to his heartfelt outpouring with a ready sarcasm? He would soon find out.

— I don’t know much about beautiful sentences, whatever they are. And I can’t say as how I follow your drift, Harry. But there’s none of your usual mockery in your voice.

He refrained from saying there was none in hers, either.

— Harry, my son, whispered Frank, suddenly appearing at his wife’s side. — It’s good to see and hear the pair of you going easy on each other. I’d hoped you’d grow up to be a stranger to moodiness, but my hope was dashed a bit, wasn’t it?

‘A stranger to moodiness’ – there was that phrase again, on the lips of his laconic father, Private 36319 Chapman, survivor of the horrors of Passchendaele, which was Passion Dale to his young son’s ears.

Moodiness, garbed in red and black, had visited Harry Chapman in that desolate time that began with Frank’s burial.

— Hello there, Harry Chapman. I’m Moodiness.

— Hello.

— I’ve been a friend of your mother for many a long year.

— You don’t need to remind me.

— So shall we strike up an acquaintance?

— Why not?

— Just for the hell of it.

— Exactly.

— That’s the spirit, Harry.

Harry Chapman looked on as Frank and Alice embraced, in the way they must have done before he was born. He couldn’t recall their being this affectionate during his childhood. Such a display of mutual tenderness might have happened in private, once their children were in bed and soundly asleep, but nowhere else. Harry smiled that he was audience, at last, to Frank’s love for Alice, and Alice’s for Frank.

— Don’t go any further, Alice cautioned her eager husband. — A certain little nosy parker has his eye on us.

— Get along with you, son. Your mother and myself have some unfinished business to attend to.

— Have you answered your call of nature?

— Yes, Harry. Thank you for asking.

— My mind’s all over the place.

— Not to worry.

— Is it still Wednesday?

— Just about.

— Will there be chimes at midnight? What a silly question.

— It’s a very silly question.

The youthful waiter led him to the same table by the same window in the same bright and sunlit room.

He sat in the same capacious chair. There was a place card on the white tablecloth in the name of Lucius Licinius Lucullus.

Harry Chapman was about to observe that the restaurateur had made a mistake when he remembered that Lucullus was a wealthy Roman famous for his lavish banquets. The card was a joke, a prank, to amuse the honoured guest.

The meal began with
antipasti
: artichokes; Parma ham; dried beef from Lombardy; and a salad of fennel and cucumber.

When the waiter arrived with the fish courses, he had aged by a decade. That was Harry Chapman’s supposition.

There were langoustines, clams, seared tuna, fried scampi and calamari, sardines and lobster fritters for Harry to enjoy.

What a feast, he remarked to the waiter, whose hair was now greying at the temples.

At Easter, he ate roast suckling lamb, to the accompaniment of church bells, and then – as the leaves turned vivid red and golden brown on the trees – a whole pheasant was set before him. The bird was of an astonishing sweetness, having been marinated in milk and Muscat wine. The waiter was stooping slightly when he returned to take the plates away.

He was bent over the next time he came into view.

— Would His Excellency care for a lemon sorbet to clean his palate?

— That’s a lovely idea. Would you be kind enough to pour a measure of vodka over it?

— Your wish is my command.

The waiter was supporting himself with a stick now.

— You don’t look very well, said a concerned Harry Chapman.

— Duty is duty, sire.

In what seemed like hours later, the old man’s duties were fulfilled. He had lost all his teeth and most of his white hair. He sank to his knees with the words:

— Mine has been a lifetime of service. Let me go to my rest.

The famished Harry Chapman, alias Lucius Licinius Lucullus, cast his greed and selfishness aside and took the dying waiter in his arms.

— You deserve your rest, if anyone does.

— I still want you to tell me, loud and clear, that this Graham person, whoever he is, isn’t taking advantage of you.

— He isn’t, Mother. It’s the other way round. It’s me who is taking advantage of him.

— How’s that?

— This is how. He is the ideal companion. Ours is a marriage of curious minds. When we first met, three years after Christopher found lasting refuge from his foul temper, Graham was mourning the loss of a loved one. Early on in our relationship we dispensed with something I have never talked to you about. You once described it as ‘what goes on down there’. Well, we tried ‘what goes on down there’ and it didn’t really work and ‘what goes on down there’ quickly became ‘what went on down there’ and we laughed it out of our thoughts.

— I wish I could believe you.

— Try to.

— Yes, Alice, believe what your son is telling you, Aunt Rose intervened.

— Believe him, Mum, Jessie pleaded.

— I’ll give it a try, Alice Chapman said quietly. — That’s all I can promise to do.

—
Aimez-vous Brahms?
an unexpectedly cheerful, even hysterical Christopher was asking him.