I'm Dying Laughing (57 page)

Before they decided where to go for their holiday, the Trefougars invited them to go along with them to Belgium for a short trip. Later they were going to Switzerland, then Italy. Perhaps they could travel together, expenses shared; Stephen by this had become friendly with Johnny Trefougar and the Trefougars, like all their friends, knew all their troubles, political, domestic, literary and financial. Trefougar had introduced Stephen to an excellent broker and had first-rate financial connections in all the capital cities. He was a great speculator, said Johnny: he had tips and helped his friends too with currency troubles and restrictions. Stephen and Trefougar came from the same setting; Trefougar was a little poorer but with more manner. Trefougar’s sister had gone to school in England, married a viscount before the family lost its money in the ’29 stock-market crash.

Trefougar said, mincing, ‘Since then I’ve been a worker.’

Stephen said quaintly, ‘Since then I’ve been a red. Lord, it didn’t look as if the States were coming back ever; it looked as if the reds were the straight ticket. It wasn’t till 1940 that we raised our head again. With Roosevelt began and died the forgotten man.’

Stephen had not had a crony, even a friend, since college days. He drove out with Trefougar in his magnificent new car, they took tea at the Ritz, at the Scribe, met people. Trefougar found someone who introduced Stephen to a ‘funny little man’ who was something particular at the Louvre, another ‘funny little man’ who was something in economics at the Sorbonne, a ‘funny little man’ who was editor-in-chief of a serious literary paper, another ‘funny little man’, rather a big man physically, who had just been elected to one of the literary academies and was chief literary man in a famous publishing house in Paris. Stephen was joyful. At the same time, daily, hourly, he ran in and out of the house making contacts with people introduced by letter or telephone by Vittorio. He felt his life was full.

He looked forward to this drive with the Trefougars and to meeting more funny little men who would serve his purpose in one way or another in Belgium, Basle, Florence and Rome. Emily grubbed away at her typewriter until he said, I want a wife, not a typewriter’; she made the money but Stephen was weaving a necessary pattern in a new society. Their whole lives would be woven into that pattern. His long, thirsty dignity, his famished ambition, misunderstood by the backwater of New York radicals, was being satisfied in Europe. He liked Europe; and they understood him. Suppose Trefougar were strange, his wife enigmatic, their politics anti-Soviet, suppose it was strange indeed that an attaché should have that expensive car and live so well—his connections explained it. Did he do little commissions for friends? Who would not? Everyone in this world, left or right, made use of diplomatic protection if they could get it. Even the Resistants.

Emily thought otherwise. She was pleased about the funny little men. Stephen might get a job. Stephen was angered by this.

‘Do you expect me to walk in, hat in hand and beg for a job from people in that position? These are contacts. What can they offer me? Clerical jobs? One of Vittorio’s friends,’ he continued, looking at her with spite, ‘offered me a rewrite job in a telegraph agency. Where did I hear that before? Why should I do better than a bright little boy of sixteen? Look at my training, my education, my experience. I must get a job in which I wouldn’t look ridiculous. People won’t employ a man like me in subordinate positions. They feel uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable. The other employees feel uncomfortable.’

Emily said, after a moment, ‘Well, who’s going to drive? Maybe they’re both crazy. I’d feel funny getting into a car with those two and leaving the children behind. I’d think, Oh, hell, I’m crazier than they are. Supposing we get smashed up on the way?’

Stephen thought Emily simply wanted to stay in Paris to see Vittorio. He said, ‘Do you want the children to get smashed up too? Well, we can go by train and meet the Trefougars in Brussels.’

No, the Trefougars were passionately interested in taking them along. Stephen thought they were afraid to be alone with each other. Emily said, ‘I don’t want to be a buffer state. I don’t want to leave my children here and go motoring with two maniacs.’

Stephen was angry. If there was a maniac it was that idiot Violet and not his friend Johnny. Stephen said, ‘You only want to stay behind to canoodle with Vittorio; you’ll have him here every night for dinner.’

Emily brightened. She laughed, ‘I never thought of it. Besides, he’s fey. He’s probably in Rome again. And what about Christy’s Latin?’

In the end they agreed to go with the Trefougars and take Christy with them.

‘Send Christy to Uncle Maurice; he knows Latin. If you don’t want to leave him with Suzanne.’

Emily frowned. ‘I don’t want Maurice to regard Christy as his own. I’m bringing up Christy to be my boy. Giles and Olivia can stay here with the servants. Suzanne can come every day.’

‘No, no, Christy must be along.’

When the big Alfa Romeo car started from the house, Emily sighed and said, ‘Oh, I feel liberated, though. Leaving all that behind. It isn’t my life really. I know something will happen, too; but I won’t be there to see it.’

They thought Violet had a hangover. She was at first irritable, then rude; later she screamed. She shouted at her husband, at other drivers at every crossing: she wanted to take all kinds of short cuts. She wanted Johnny to pass every car. She took no notice of speed-limits.

‘We’re different. You damn well know it. You’re only going slowly to irritate me. You know I’m not feeling well.’

The Howards, who often behaved quite like this themselves, sitting in the back seat with Christy between them, were ill at ease, frightened too. They had not been going long before, in trying to double round a big car, they almost ran into oncoming traffic; brakes shrieked, there were recriminations. They were not yet out of the Paris area. ‘Damn French. Don’t know how to drive,’ said Violet.

Emily leaned across and breathed to Stephen.

‘Let’s change our minds. I’d rather lose them for life; and take a taxi back.’

Trefougar with his eyes on the road, began speaking to Stephen, ‘I’d like to know what you think of Daniel Hoogstraet, you’ll meet him. He’s supposed to be the smartest change man in Brussels. He’ll do anything for you if he likes you. I never heard a complaint. He’s absolutely reliable, no signatures, no witnesses, but absolute reliability and anything goes. If he likes you, he’s your man. He’ll probably start talking books, he collects books, first editions. If you could let him have one of yours, he’d do a lot for you.’

‘Oh, I have first editions, nothing but; what I want is a second edition,’ said Stephen.

Violet complained of a jumpy tooth. Her husband must drive fast but not shake her.

‘Can I drive both fast and slow?’ said Trefougar patiently.

Violet said he was trying to humiliate her and screamed bloodthirstily at a truck which kept hovering in the rear.

Emily laughed feebly and asked her family if they were hungry. They had breakfasted early. It was now nine-thirty. She hinted, ‘We won’t eat till Brussels perhaps.’

She reached behind, and undid a packet of beautifully made chicken sandwiches with little pots of salad and a special dressing, mayonnaise with chopped chives and hard-boiled eggs. Stephen did not want to eat. The Trefougars were too nervous to eat. Emily and Christy ate several sandwiches and drank coffee from the thermos; and then all was put away.

Emily said to Christy, ‘Now darling, tell us what you know about Cicero.’

‘Why Cicero?’ said Violet acidly.

‘Go on, go on, Christy. Cicero was—Now, who was he?’

‘Cicero was, ah, was a Roman orator.’

She said energetically, ‘And writer; and not a, but the greatest orator and best stylist of all time. What did he write?’

‘He, eh, he wrote orations—’

‘Delivered orations!’

‘Eh, spoke orations and wrote letters; he wrote his orations down afterwards.’

‘When did he live?’

‘He lived, eh, in the same time as Julius Caesar, Brutus—’

‘Ah, Brutus was a traitor against Caesar. But Cicero—?’

Stephen said, ‘He hedged!’

‘Stephen!’

Stephen laughed.

They stopped by the roadside, near a cafe, Violet saying now that she was hungry. The Howards got out their little lunch again, and the Trefougars got out the lunch Violet had prepared. It consisted of small square-cut sandwiches with rough edges, made of ham and corned beef, with butter, no pickles, no mayonnaise, no parsley, no red peppers, no silver wrapping and no little silver forks, nothing that Fernande had prepared for the Howards. Emily, with proud, laughing face, surveyed all that they put on the tablecloth brought for the purpose (a plain white-and-red check tablecloth such as you see in Swiss restaurants). Then she put out her own delicate, elegant sandwiches prepared by Fernande and ate them, passed them to her own family, laughing every time the Trefougars took one of their sandwiches, following it with her eyes to their mouths. They ate little, being anxious to get on; and she laughed as they put up their sandwiches again in greaseproof paper, not as her own, in silver foil. Her own small tablecloth was a fine, thin, white damask.

As soon as they were back in the car, Emily once more interrogated Christy.

‘Now, Christy, you know your Grandma is thinking of sending you to Cambridge or Oxford. Now, tell me what you know about the ancient Britons. That’s something you’ll have to know. Come on, the ancient Britons—’

‘The ancient Britons, ah, were Celts—’

‘And they had no culture.’

‘They had no culture, they, ah.’

‘Did they have any agriculture?’

‘Yes, they dug the soil with antlers and they mined with antlers—’

‘And what did they wear?’

‘They wore—ah—funny clothes—’

‘They painted themselves with woad and danced before Caesar. They ate hips and haws. Christy, now learn something. The ancient Britons were a stupid, dumb, primitive, barbarous people. They didn’t know how to cook or to make clothes. They didn’t know anything. They made woad, that’s blue mud and they put blue mud on themselves for clothes and to keep off the lice. They didn’t know how to fight, they folded before everyone, the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, they ran away to the hills and those who remained became slaves and serfs, they washed the togas and cleaned the sandals of the Romans. They were cowards. Now what was their religion?’

‘Their religion? They had the Druids,’ Christy said.

‘Yes, the Druids! They were a sort of medicine men. They had human sacrifices. They burned sheep and goats and men for their gods. They crushed men to death between paving stones. You can see those stones on end at Stonehenge. When you go to England, Christy, you’ll see that. And they made cages of willow-twigs and put men in them and burned them to death. They didn’t have any navigation, they learned it from the Romans. They had little baskets they went to sea in. Of course, the Vikings took them over. Now can you remember all that, Christy?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.

‘Well, now, start from the beginning and say it all just as I told you.’

‘Oh, shit, it’s shit, don’t let me catch you saying a word of it,’ said Stephen.

Stephen and Emily had a hot argument about the historical facts contained in her history of the British. The Trefougars said nothing. They quarrelled so much that Emily said she wanted Violet to sit with her because she was British and she knew Emily’s story was true. Violet made no objection and Stephen sat in front with Johnny Trefougar.

Johnny suggested that they should leave the women and Christy in Brussels to go shopping or to the art museums, while he and Stephen went on to Antwerp for Trefougar’s business. About this Stephen had guessed more than he said. He waited discreetly for Trefougar to make it plainer. Trefougar was quite plain. For the moment he was smuggling gold. Violet knew something about this and that partly accounted for her hysteria, Johnny said. At the frontier Violet behaved very wildly, demanding to be let through without examination because of their diplomatic status. Emily was quite calm and even laughed, while Johnny and Stephen behaved with natural dignity.

Stephen had told nothing of the true purpose of the trip to Emily. He had invested about $3,500 in a partnership with Trefougar to bring in, illegally, gold ingots of one kilogram each. They were protected by Johnny’s status.

All went well. They drove to Antwerp, leaving the woman and the boy behind. They ate well, went to the theatre, had a splended time in Brussels and so back again after the weekend. Stephen came to admire Trefougar’s self-control, nonchalant ambition, calm daredevilry. His control did not break down till they were nearly 200 kilometres from the frontier, when Johnny kept stopping and began drinking heavily. Stephen took no notice of this, for so far Johnny had driven like an ace, without a fault, swift and mild. But just outside Compiegne, Johnny began to behave wildly, shouted and, unexpectedly, he smashed them against a tree. He was himself in shock, but the only aid he asked of passing motorists was for them to send someone at once to pull them into Compiegne. Emily had a chipped wristbone, Christy a broken ankle, Violet had been thrown backwards and seemed to have hurt her neck but was otherwise well. They sat there, with Stephen gathering in the valises which had been thrown out and about, when suddenly, out of the back, shot some of the small ingots of gold.

Emily looked, understood partly, but she was upset with her own pain, and even more upset about Christy’s injury. Stephen insisted upon the boy’s being taken to Chantilly for treatment, along with Emily; but at this moment there arrived an exchange car. The ingots by this time having been safely stored in the valises, they changed to another car in which Stephen drove them to Paris, where he took them to a ‘safe’ doctor, designated by Trefougar.

‘Why all this?’ stormed Emily, who had only partly understood.

But Stephen said, ‘Supposing Anna hears about this? Christy is too dumb to understand but supposing you, for instance, with your longing for full confession, say something indiscreet, that we’ve been taking gold around the country, crossing frontiers with contraband, with half-mad smugglers, smashing up Christy. Where will it end? You just shut up about the whole thing.’