The Cherry Blossom Corpse (6 page)

“You see Biggs's friend,” whispered Maryloo, bending close. “His name is Everard Manning.”

“Oh yes—you pointed him out to me yesterday.”

“Well, at one point in Arthur's magnum opus—you know,
Happy Tears—?”

“I know. Actually I've got a copy,” I said, a mite shamefacedly, but taking the paperback out of my pocket. “I picked it up at the bookstall.”

“Great. At one point, as I say, during the account of the most recent trends in the romantic novel, the pen is
seized
from the reluctant Arthur's paw by Another, who proceeds to pay tribute to the said Arthur and his contribution to the art of Romance. The seizer is Everard Manning.”

“Ah—buddy-pals?”

“Thick as thieves.”

I turned to the relevant passage and had a good chortle at the transparent vanity of literary gents. But the book proved compulsive, at least while surrounded by so many of the writers who were its subjects, As the bus rumbled through some not-very-interesting suburb of Bergen, I flicked around in it, and finally came across Amanda Fairchild.

“One of the undoubted new stars in the romantic firmament . . . delicate understanding of the human heart . . . exquisite sense of place . . . the very English understatement of the writing . . . her ability to convey quiet yet intense rapture . . . her willingness to work within, while at the same time enriching, the romantic tradition.”

Ho-hum, I thought. He even managed to include a specimen of Amanda's beautifully understated writing:

And as they gained the top of the Cathedral tower, her petite hand somehow found its way into Hereward's brown, commanding one, and the wind brushed their hair and caressed their cheeks as they stood there
in rapturous silence. And Hereward, gazing down on the streets of Exeter, and then out to the hills of Somerset, breathed into Petulia's thrilled ear: “This only has meaning for me because you are here with me to see it.” And he bent down and implanted a passionate kiss on her swan-like neck.

Ho-hum indeed. I began to suspect Arthur Biggs of tongue-in-cheek. However, looking forward to the front of the bus, where he was pontificating to his tame acolyte about God-knows-what, and ignoring his wife's attempts to draw his attention to the scenery, he hardly seemed to be the sort of man to have irony in him.

The scenery now took all my attention, and all of Maryloo Parker's as well. She was a lady, I suspected, who took the very commonsense view that “what were these junketings for, if not for—?” the activity she mostly had on her mind. However, we were now approaching landscape of breathtaking splendour—a contrasting blend of mountains, fields and fruit trees, and our appreciation of this contrasting pattern of greys, greens and pinks was focused—sharpened, rather—by the narrow roads, the hairpin bends, and above all the backings on to laybys perched over abysses. The bus driver did it as if it was all in a day's work, as no doubt it was, and he stolidly ignored the oohs and aahs and little screams of fear that came from the body of the bus. But I did have some sympathy with the girlish screamers. This looked like an area that was death to tourists: one lapse of attention, caused by the intense natural splendour, and one was over a precipice and well and truly part of that splendour. Even in a bus one's attention could only be on one's immediate situation and one's immediate surroundings. Maryloo sat there rapt.

“My Gahd, what I could make of this!” she breathed.
Then she thought: “Me and two hundred other delegates.”

We stopped for lunch at a little hotel perched on the hillside overlooking Hardangerfjord. It was a modern construction, dull and anonymous, and quite lacking the appeal of
Kvalevåg Gjestgiveri.
It had a large, plain lunchroom, however, and here we were fed boiled cod, boiled potatoes and boiled tinned peas. The peas, in all fairness, could hardly have been done any other way, but what they did to the cod was all the more bitter because it had probably been fished straight out of the fjord, before having all its taste boiled out with the water.

The buses had all arrived at the hotel together, and after standing for a few minutes admiring the stunning clear blue sky and the sloping orchards of blossoming trees stretching from mountain foot to the edge of the fjord we all trooped in to our dispiriting meal. I managed to get next to Mary Sweeny, which at least gave me the prospect of an agreeably vinegarish session. But I wished we could have got closer to another, fascinating combination, for about five places from us, facing each other and obviously raring to go, were Amanda and her interviewer of the day before, Ragnhild Sørby.

The Norwegian had been sat in her place before we arrived. No doubt she had
done
Hardanger in blossom time often enough before, or perhaps she was a glutton for boiled cod. Anyway, there she was sitting waiting when over billowed Amanda and insisted on sitting directly opposite. About as welcome as a breeze from Chernobyl, she ignored the scowls and the scufflings and apparently launched straight into a detailed discussion of the Sørby woman's article. Clearly it was a discussion that pulled no punches, and I wished I could have heard more of it.

Amanda had a small, slightly mousy figure in tow,
who sat beside her and acted as a lay figure in the dialogue, rather as Arthur Biggs tended to use the people around him as lay figures. She was young, obviously dependent on Amanda, and she nodded periodically. Mary Sweeny whispered to me that she thought this was Amanda's Australian editor.

But if only I had been nearer the clash of battle! As it was, I only heard snatches, as the conversation died down for a few moments among the people between us.

“But darling!” I heard, as we waited for the boiled cod, “if a woman is to find her happiness with other women, why does that mean she should dress like a
frump?”
She cast a kind look at Frøken Sørby. “I don't quite see why
frump
ishness should attract other women, any more than it does men.”

Ragnhild Sørby, dressed in jeans and a chunky pullover that looked as if it had been knitted with shredded tree bark, leaned back and then lunged forward to reply vituperatively, but high, embarrassed conversation breaking out around her prevented me from hearing.

“How
old
would you say Amanda is?” whispered Mary Sweeny over the table.

“Oh golly, I don't know. A well-preserved fifty?”

“Add five, I'd have thought.”

“Wait a minute, I think there's a biographical index at the back of
Happy Tears . . .
Yes, there is.” I riffled through the pages and found the place. “Fairchild, Amanda—and then in brackets Maureen Jane Shottery. Perfectly good name, but not euphonious enough, I suppose. Let's see: ‘Amanda Fairchild was born and brought up in Tiverton—'
no date.
I'm not surprised. Amanda wouldn't think it womanly to tell anyone the date, nor indeed gentlemanly to ask. Let's see: ‘Went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and had a ten-year career on stage, including Helena in
Look Back in Anger
at Greenwich in 1960, Goneril with the Lincoln Rep in 1966 and Shakespeare tours for the British Council. Since taking up writing romance in 1967 she has brought out over fifty books, and now writes two a year.' Hmmm. No indication there of age. She could be anything from twenty to thirty-five to play Helena. The stage career seems to have rather lacked distinction, don't you think? Still, she really has churned out the books.”

At that moment there was a momentary lull in the conversation around us, and I caught more of Amanda's lengthy put-down.

“Women's commitment to
peace,
darling? But what
non
sense! Women have always had the greatest enthusiasm for
war,
especially as we've never actually had to fight in them ourselves. Look at all the woman prime ministers we've had in the world recently—terrible warmongers! Appalling battle-axes! Look at the women in the First World War who used to go around distributing white feathers to men not in uniform. The trouble with you, my dear, is that you build an absolute
sky
scraper of belief on a foundation of
myth!
Pure myth!”

As the battle was drowned again, I whispered to Mary Sweeny:

“Really she's doing quite well. That's why she made the boy go over the thing this morning: actress's instinct to get well rehearsed! I rather wish I'd pitted her against my wife on that subject.”

I was frustrated at not being able to hear more of this welter-weight contest, especially as the most interesting conversation I
could
overhear was Arthur Biggs pontificating to his friend, his wife, and assorted acolytes. He was going on and on about the literary scene, about Spender and Holroyd and Brophy and Drabble, and someone called Wilson, though whether this was Angus or A. N. or even Edmund I never found out. He then
went on to give a disquisition on the feminist Gothic, which apparently was the wave of the future in the romance field. I could only imagine it meant mad husbands in the attic. His style of discourse had an undertow of sneer, which somehow included not only his subject but his audience as well. He was the sort of man who, when he lent you a book, would say: “I thought it was pretty awful, but you may enjoy it.” It was disgusting to see his puny shafts received with nods and smiles by his audience, and quite nauseating to note that his wife was the most enthusiastic nodder and smiler.

When we saw dishes of tinned pears being handed round, Mary Sweeny and I got up and spent the rest of the lunch-break walking around the hotel, talking about Amanda and photographing cherry blossom. When we got back on the bus most people—especially Amanda, I noticed, who felt she had won a famous victory and didn't mind telling people so—were in high good humour, and on the way back to Bergen Maryloo Parker was able to combine admiration for the scenery with sexual advances of an engagingly frank nature. I confess I was torn between a feeling of how despicable such an interlude would be, granted that I was only going to be separated from Jan for a couple of days, and another feeling that what she was offering was uncomplicated, would have no repercussions, and might be very pleasant indeed.

I had not resolved this split by the time we arrived back at Kvalevåg. And in the event my night was to be filled with another activity, equally familiar, but very different.

W
HEN, AT ABOUT HALF PAST FIVE
, we arrived back at the
Kvalevåg Gjestgiveri,
the Romantic party had been increased by two. Cristobel had invited her monk to dinner, and Arthur Biggs had done the same for his toady Everard Manning. Cristobel asked the proprietress very timidly if that was all right. Arthur Biggs announced it, and ordered a separate table. I got the impression that he was rather miffed by Lorelei Zuckerman's solitary splendour, and wanted to assert his right to a similar distinction.

I had by now been introduced to Cristobel's monk. He was called Bernard Palterton, and he was slim, sandy-haired, and pleasant in a diffident kind of way. We did not discuss either of his vocations, religious or romantic,
but he did tell me that he had published three books, and had three more completed, so he seemed to be something of a natural at the trade, in a sausage-machine kind of way. You notice I was already, in my slightly Victorian fashion, sizing up young Bernard's potential as a provider for my sister. Well, it was high time she got married.
More
than high time, a real Victorian would have thought.

At dinner we were all quite jolly at the main table. I gave an account of my part in the pursuit and arrest of the Balham Knife Murderer, and they all showed commendably strong stomachs as they ferreted out the gory details. Crime writers, I suspected, would have been much more squeamish, but this lot wanted it all, down to the last inch of intestine. Amanda, it is true, did contribute the information that the poor man had been jilted by his fiancée at an early age, but I countered that since his childhood hobby had been cutting up kittens, the jilting should probably be seen as a result rather than a cause of his revolting activities. We ate on with relish.

Maryloo Parker was separated from me by nine or ten places at table, so she was unable to train on me her experienced artillery. Thus far I was saved from a decision.

Lorelei Zuckerman sat, as always, alone, in a hideous deep purple dress that did nothing for her. I rather thought she acted on the principle that there was nothing that would do anything for her, and flaunted the fact. Certainly one could say she made an effect. The meal that night was an excellent pork chop, followed by a baked sponge. Sip, sip, chomp, chomp she went through it, though with no other obvious signs of enjoyment. Felicity Maxwell went over from our table to offer to cut up the chops for her. Lorelei considered for a couple of seconds, uttered a simple “No,” and Felicity retired, dismissed but not apparently offended.

Things were slightly merrier at the other separate table, but not much. Arthur Biggs had put on his literary historian's hat, and was giving a mini-lecture on the works of Ouida and Marie Corelli. It was listened to by his wife and Everard Manning in respectful silence, except for the fawning gestures of response—a nod, an appreciative smile, a deprecating shake of the head. Never had I seen anybody with a more rigorously trained appreciation society. The lecture passed on to Elinor Glyn, and still the nods and smiles came on cue. Chomp, chomp, slurp, slurp, nod, nod.

Dinner finished around twenty past seven. Lorelei Zuckerman was the first to leave. She took a perfectly audible last sip of her brandy and water, and shouted to Felicity. The latter had finished eating some time before, and had sat awaiting the call. She pushed back her chair and went over to hoist la Zuckerman out of hers. She was gentle but very capable physically, and she soon had her on her feet. As they were progressing out, I saw the Kenyan raise his eyebrows at Felicity and point to the exit. She shook her head, and mouthed “Half an hour.” I tactfully pretended not to have heard this, but a minute or two later I heard the man explaining to his neighbour that he had been invited to have a drink in Lorelei's room, and was intending to get from her gen on how to break into the American market. I admired his courage. Talk about “into the valley of death”!