Stiff Upper Lip (8 page)

“Of Course Not.”

“There they all are, old and tried companions, remaining unchanged in a changing world. Little Gem Mouflet, for instance, dancing away every day in private, ready to give one confidence. Dear little Gem, how does she do it? I have often meant to drop in and ask her to teach me the Conga, but somehow never found the time. Then those Americans advertising madly for rhinoceros horns and renovated harmoniums (authentic). Then those neat exchanges of Bible quotations and code messages. ‘Meet you under the clock at Victoria, Pip. Bring it with you.' Bring what? One wonders. Often I have had a mind to turn up at Victoria out of curiosity just to see what Pip would bring, but somehow one is too rushed. Then further down one comes upon the religious zealots predicting the end of the world or inviting you to buy un-vivisected mink, or inveighing against alcohol. They seem against everything delicious—though they are right about mink. But who keeps cutting up mink anyhow? They must keep it pretty dark. It should sound sinister but somehow in
The Times
nothing does; even those dark invitations to colonic lavage in South Ken, which would alert the
Sureté Nationale
in a twinkling are somehow simply beguiling. One simply thanks God that they are not compulsory in the Service and passes quietly on. They all seem to be part of the Great Scheme.”

Antrobus paused reflectively for a long moment before continuing in a lower and grimmer tone: “Into this essentially ordered and rational scheme came Toby, with no refinement, no feelings for other people—particularly Top People. In he burst with his dreadful half-page advertisements for all the filthy things he was patenting. Retch, the wonder baby-syrup was the first:
‘DOESYOUR BABY SOUND LIKE A WIND-TUNNEL? LET SCIENCE HELP YOU WITH RETCH.'
At first it was only once a month or so, though this was bad enough. But I used to take the
Telegraph
on that day. My secretary always warned me in time. But gradually the pressure increased. Toby's horrid brain children multiplied:
IN A NUCLEAR AGE YOU CAN AVOID FALL OUT ONLY WITH AN IMHOF PRAM.
Figure to yourself our faces. Then came Sludge, the marvel among detergents. I grew to dread those huge diagrams of blocked drains. But that was not all. It grew worse. Toby scaled heights of horror undreamed of before. If I remember rightly it was Clog's turn next. It was, apparently, the only full cream perm, so smooth so delicious. With starting eyeballs we gazed upon the picture which illustrated it. A crêpe neck with everything but the marks of the noose on it. It turned the stomach old man. And since then it has gone on getting worse. I will pass over Scratcho, the only toilet paper in the world, as being beneath contempt. But I have only to mention Gorge, Drool and Burp to give you an idea of what has been happening down at Blackfriars. I see you have gone quite white. Yes, well you may. You can see now what has been happening. Why this very week came a series of ghastly scents for which The Moulder Of Minds had invented names like Armpit, Malentendu, and Piston-Slap. You can imagine the effect on the Office. I tell you we have all got circles under our prose.”

He paused panting. It was indeed a terrible indictment of our late colleague. “But this Felony, Antrobus,” I said at last. “What form did it take. Did you assault him?” Antrobus shook his head. His eyes gleamed. “Better than that. I struck a real blow at the smircher. Mark my words, it will be at least a tenner or a fortnight for being stuck outside the Ritz. I tell you, the sky simply went black around me. My action was pure and unpremeditated. Part of the road was up and there was a pile of those metal studs they put down at crossings. You know the kind? Sharp steel ends. There was also a navvy's mallet lying nearby. It was the work of a minute to drive the studs home into the cringing rubber of Toby's filthy tyres. He was still inside swilling Benedictine and gin I suppose. But by God when he comes out with those dragoman's moustaches there will be a policeman waiting for him. Mark my words.”

“You punctured him, just like that, in cold blood?”

“Utterly. In all four wheels.”

“Bravo, Antrobus. The Office will be proud of you.”

Antrobus blushed self-deprecatingly and coughed behind his hand. “I say, you really think so?”

“I most certainly do.”

“I'm awfully glad to hear it. It's my first Real Felony, you know, and I was in two minds about keeping it dark.”

An idea had suddenly struck me. “I tell you what,” I said. “Let's get a cab and drive up and down outside the Ritz to watch Toby get progged. Shall we?” Antrobus' face lit up with a fitful and hesitant smile. “Could we do it without being seen?”

“Of course. I wouldn't miss this for worlds. Come on.”

He was still somewhat reluctant but I dragged him to a taxi and we set off. It was all just as he had said it would be. “Such joy is seldom granted us,” muttered Antrobus as we crouched on the floor of the taxi, hats over our faces, drinking in the beautiful scene which was being enacted outside the Ritz. Such a crowd, too. There was Toby perspiring and swearing and fanning himself with his boater. There was the mother-of-pearl Rolls kneeling down like a camel. There was a large, a deliciously large policeman, obviously in perfect health, making notes in a book and repeating with an air of disbelief the fatal words: “O you
was
was you?” leaving little doubt that this time the smircher had been well and truly smirched.

“So scrumptious, such bliss,” said Antrobus. He closed his eyes and his lips moved in silent thanksgiving for a moment. It was indeed a sigh to hearten one. We both felt the better for it, indeed positively inspired. Involuntarily we started singing (but very softly, lest the cabman hear us) the opening verses of the Foreign Service Anthem whose words are by the immortal Harry Graham.

We were playing golf

The Day the Germans landed.

All our troops had run away,

All our ships were stranded,

And the thought of England's shame

Nearly put us off our game.

A Biography of Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) was a novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet, his acclaimed series of four novels set before and during World War II in Alexandria, Egypt. Durrell's work was widely praised, with his Quartet winning the greatest accolades for its rich style and bold use of multiple perspectives. Upon the Quartet's completion,
Life
called it “the most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time.”

Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Durrell was an avid and dedicated writer from an early age. He studied in Darjeeling before his parents sent him to England at the age of eleven for his formal education. When he failed to pass his entrance examinations at Cambridge University, Durrell committed himself to becoming an established writer. He published his first book of poetry in 1931 when he was just nineteen years old, and later worked as a jazz pianist to help fund his passion for writing.

Determined to escape England, which he found dreary, Durrell convinced his widowed mother, siblings, and first wife, Nancy Isobel Myers, to move to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935. The island lifestyle reminded him of the India of his childhood. That same year, Durrell published his first novel,
Pied Piper of Lovers.
He also read Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
and, impressed by the notorious novel, he wrote an admiring letter to Miller. Miller responded in kind, and their correspondence and friendship would continue for forty-five years. Miller's advice and work heavily influenced Durrell's provocative third novel,
The Black Book
(1938), which was published in Paris. Though it was Durrell's first book of note,
The Black Book
was considered mildly pornographic and thus didn't appear in print in Britain until 1973.

In 1940, Durrell and his wife had a daughter, Penelope Berengaria. The following year, as World War II escalated and Greece fell to the Nazis, Durrell and his family left Corfu for work in Athens, Kalamata (also in Greece), then Alexandria, Egypt. His relationship with Nancy was strained by the time they reached Egypt, and they separated in 1942. During the war, Durrell served as a press attaché to the British Embassy. He also wrote
Prospero's Cell,
a guide to Corfu, while living in Egypt in 1945.

Durrell met Yvette Cohen in Alexandria, and the couple married in 1947. They had a daughter, Sappho Jane, in 1951, and separated in 1955. Durrell published
White Eagles Over Serbia
in 1957, alongside the celebrated memoir
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
(1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize,
and Justine
(1957), the first novel of the Alexandria Quartet Capitalizing on the overwhelming success
of Justine,
Durrell went on to publish the next three novels in the series—
Balthazar
(1958),
Mountolive
(1958), and
Clea
(1960)—in quick succession. Upon the series' completion, poet Kenneth Rexroth hailed it as “a tour de force of multiple-aspect narrative.”

Durrell married again in 1961 to Claude-Marie Vincendon, who died of cancer in 1967. His fourth and final marriage was in 1973 to Ghislaine de Boysson, which ended in divorce in 1979.

After a life spent in varied locales, Durrell settled in Sommières, France, where he wrote the Revolt of Aphrodite series as well as the Avignon Quintet. The first book in the Quintet,
Monsieur
(1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize while
Constance
(1982), the third novel, was nominated for the Booker Prize.

Durrell died in 1990 at his home in Sommières.

This photograph of Lawrence Durrell aboard his boat, the
Van Norden,
is taken from a negative discovered among his papers. The vessel is named after a character in Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer.
(Photograph held in the British Library's modern manuscripts collection.)

One of Nancy Durrell's photographs from the 1930s. Pictured here is the
Caique,
which they used to travel around the waters of Corfu. (Photo courtesy of Joanna Hodgkin, property of the Gerald Durrell Estate.)

This photograph of Nancy and Lawrence Durrell was likely taken in Delphi, Greece, in late 1939. (Photo courtesy of Joanna Hodgkin and the Gerald Durrell Estate.)