The Dower House (18 page)

‘I said – Bullen-ffitch. And she's not exactly a friend, she's just someone I meet occasionally at launch parties and all those little Soho bistros that publishers love.'

‘Yes – quite. Wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her.'

‘And as for Felix Breit—' Eric began.

She cut across him. ‘Well now, don't say a word against
him
! He'll be a
useful
connection – if we move out there.'

‘That's a big “if”. Look! Another old Morris Ten!' He hooted and exchanged salutations with the driver.

‘D'you think so? I've already decided: Mad idea or not – we'll take it. And we'll move in next quarter-day.' After a silence she said, ‘Say?'

‘Me? Oh, gosh, I'm actually being asked my opinion! Well, I decided we'd move there the minute I was told that the floorboards wouldn't tolerate next year's fashion in heels.'

‘Done, then,' she said.

Back at the Dower House, Adam was summing up, ‘So Sally thinks they're useful. Faith thinks they're just about solvent enough for us. Willard thinks their
other
car, the Lagonda, will look just swell outside the front portico. But – most important of all – does anybody actually
like
them?'

The eager chorus of yesses surprised everyone.

‘Done, then,' he concluded.

Friday, 13 June 1947

Faith's throwaway remark that Felix had started his carving as an artist but had soon turned into a designer was so apt that Felix stopped work on the sculpture as soon as he had a dozen or so square inches of its final form ‘liberated' from its marble shroud. He got a photographer to come out from Hertford, take a few quarter-plates of it from various angles under different lighting, and develop and print by that evening. Next day he laid the results out on Fogel's desk, saying, ‘I know you've been impatient for me to finish, Wolf, but the truth is I was stopping myself. Something inside me
knew
from the beginning that to make a
finished
sculpture would be wrong. Absolutely wrong.'

The words had the desired effect on Fogel. Happy, Felix continued, ‘I had the concept weeks ago – my sculpture will be an egg – a giant marble egg, twice as big as an ostrich egg. It's a symbol of the creation of life . . . well, you understand perfectly, I'm sure. But to have this symbol . . . the same symbol – finished, completed, unchanging – at the beginning of
every
section . . . don't you see, it would be a song with no verses, only one chorus repeated again and again and again. Very boring.'

Fogel nodded unhappily. He saw the force of the argument and – simultaneously – ‘his' precious Felix Breit sculpture was vanishing under a publishing imperative he could not gainsay.

‘So,' Felix continued blithely, ‘have you decided? Is it certain that Arthur Taylor is the chief in-house designer for this series?'

Fogel shrugged – awkwardly, as he always shrugged when cornered for a binding commitment. ‘For the foundation volume . . . sure.'

‘OK – so we have six opening spreads for that volume – text on the left verso, image on the right recto. Then we create a setting – a
mise en scène
– for the opener, which is
Intimations of the Modern
, and we photograph the sculpture
in this exact condition –
' he tapped the photographs – ‘in that setting. Then for the next chapter –
The Salon of the Rejected
– we make another
mise en scène
and I carve it a
leetle
bit more and we photograph that . . . and so on through the book – through all five volumes. The egg becomes a
leitmotiv
to permeate the book but never competes with the art. And there is a tiny bit more revelation for each new
mise en scène
, to suggest the progress of art.'

‘Ah!' Fogel perked up. ‘So it will be finished for the last chapter of Volume Five, no?'

Felix pulled a dubious face. ‘Maybe not. My instinct – the thing you are paying me so much for – says we need a
big shock
at the end – because all new art must shock. All through the series the egg will be shown nearer and nearer to the moment of hatching – its liberated perfection. But in the last picture we
smash it to bits
! The egg has
already
given birth! Now its offspring stands on the threshold of an unknown future. Also it shows that art progresses by destroying art.'

‘I have a better idea,' Fogel said at once. ‘You finish the sculpture. We make a copy in porcelain. No glaze. We smash the porcelain – who can tell? And your sculpture is saved for posterity!'

‘Did you really think you could get the better of him?' Faith asked as they left the building for lunch at Schmidt's. ‘You'd have to get up three days early to do that.'

‘I just resent it that he'll be getting the first post-war Felix Breit sculpture
and
my best efforts over these five volumes.'

‘Even if you
gave
it to him, it might do no harm. One of the directors of the Home and Colonial told me that if only the law allowed it, they would sometimes sell sugar, flour, milk, etcetera at a loss.'

‘That would be crazy.'

‘No. Everyone has to buy those things so the word would spread like a bush fire. And then the shop assistant would say “We have Bath chaps in peak condition, moddom – off-ration, of course . . . And long spaghetti at last . . . shall I just slip a packet in with your delivery?” . . . and so on. And the sixpence profit on these choice items would easily cover the penny loss on the staples. If they ever abolish resale-price maintenance, that's what will happen.'

‘Thank God I'm not in trade.'

‘But you
are
, my pet. As Fogel says, “Vee are all prostitoots nowadays.” He's one of the greatest party-givers in Hampstead. Within three months your sculpture will be seen by every important man and woman in London's artistic and literary circles – not to mention bankers . . . captains of industry. How can that be bad?'

As they rounded the corner, where Rathbone Place wiggles into Charlotte Street, Felix caught sight of Angela just as she was entering Schmidt's. ‘Tell you what,' he said to Faith. ‘Why don't we try that little working-class Greek café just off Goodge Street?'

‘Oh but I've set my heart on Schmidt's,' she pleaded – but her smile told him that she, too, had spotted Angela up ahead. She giggled and took his arm. ‘I think it's about time I met her, don't you?'

‘There's nothing between us,' he assured her.

‘Yes . . . well . . . I was watching you that day when you first set eyes on her! Tell me what you know about her – anything – in the next hundred yards. And walk slower.'

‘I'll tell you something odd. Maybe shameful. Don't ever breathe a word about it to her – but she and I
did
meet once, before the war. We had a date – just one afternoon together, in a rowing boat on the Wannsee. She did the rowing. I was quite a chubby little chap then. Lazy, too. And I mentioned the occasion to her a couple of weeks ago and she clearly did remember it and then I panicked and pretended I'd forgotten all the details. And later, when I wanted to admit I hadn't been quite honest . . . the moment had passed. How do I undo all that? The longer I leave it, the harder it gets.'

Several other diners entered and left the restaurant before Faith answered, ‘I think you'll be the best judge of that – knowing when the time is right.'

Inside, he made a good show of surprise at seeing her. ‘Hallo, Angela! I've missed you – where have you been? Sorry – may I present Miss Faith Bullen-ffitch? Faith . . . Miss Angela Worth.'

They shook hands. ‘Please to join me,' Angela said. ‘Felix has told me much of you, Miss Bullen-ffitch.' She gestured to Fritz to reorganize her table for three.

‘You have the advantage of me, Miss Worth. He has told me very little of you – but all of it very interesting. You work at the
BBC
, I understand? At Broadcasting House?'

Angela shook her head and turned to Felix. ‘That's the answer to your question. I've been up at Ally Pally, as we
BBC
types call it. For the last three weeks.'

‘Alexandra Palace!' Faith interpreted for Felix. ‘I've pointed it out to you on the train.' She turned back to Angela. ‘Television? When are they going to make it a
national
thing? It's ridiculous that only London can get it. The audience is so small there's no budget – so the programmes are appalling – so nobody wants to lash out on a set. It's absurd.'

Angela nodded. ‘Are you interested in television, Miss Bullen-ffitch? It'll be less than a year now before the service goes national.'

Fritz planted water-filled tumblers on the table, one before each. ‘
Das Menu.
' He started to proffer it but then tucked it firmly under his arm. ‘
Das kennen Sie, ja,
' he said.

‘
Menu!
' Felix mocked, thinking the word far too grand for Schmidt's limited, austerity offering.

Angela asked for her usual salami and salad; the other two went for a
Wienerschnitzel
and surrendered their ration books for clipping.

‘I work in publishing, as you probably know,' Faith said. ‘But every time I hear the word
television
something inside me leaps up at it. “Less than a year” might suit me down to the ground. D'you know an illustrated magazine called
Forward!
Miss Worth? My present boss is its publisher.'

‘Mister Fogel. Yes, I see copies lying around editorial desks at Broadcasting House.'

‘But do you ever look at the contents? It's a mixture of a fairly academic text, slightly popularized, but made highly accessible by brilliant graphics. I feel in my bones that some such thing could also be done in television, too. Graphics.'

This final statement was so abstract, and so unlike Faith – who always cut to the heart of the matter – that Felix suddenly realized how serious she must be. These ideas were miser's gold to her. Angela must have caught something of it, too, for she said, ‘One day – and quite soon I think . . . five or six years – we can record
TV
like we now record sound – on tape. Commercially. Then . . . well, so many things will become possible.'

Unspecified ‘graphics' . . . unspecified ‘so many things'! They were
both
doing it! Like dogs (and unlike bitches) they were scent-marking their respective territories. Felix almost laughed aloud.

‘I
adore
your dress!' Faith said. ‘Especially the pattern. Not English, surely? Did you run it up yourself?'

‘It's my own print.' Angela tried to sound modest. ‘A discharge print on self-coloured cloth. I do evening classes in textile printing at the Camden Town Working Men's Institute. Two nights a week. You can't just work-work all the time.'

‘I totally agree,' Faith began.

‘She kills foxes,' Felix put in.

‘I ride to hounds,' she said wearily. ‘I don't care two hoots if they put up a fox or not.' Her eyes narrowed. ‘D'you know what I
really
enjoy? I love to see three gentlemen riders refuse a fence, just before Jupiter and I go thundering between them and simply
fly
it for a gold medal! No, it's better than any old gold medal.'

Angela laughed. Her eyes were shining. ‘Oh,
yes
!' she exclaimed.

‘So how does the
BBC
work?' Faith spoke as if the question followed on quite naturally. ‘Is it all Civil-Servicey or would I need a friend to dig a hole on the inside and pull me through?'

‘Are you now jumping
ship
for a gold medal?' Felix asked.

‘Of course not,' she replied impatiently. ‘But one should never get into anything without knowing where all the exits are.' She turned again to Angela. ‘How did
you
get in, for example?'

‘I was invited. Have you heard of
tape
recording?'

‘I think so.'

‘It was invented in Germany by
BASF
. We used it at the
UFA
film studios in the war so I knew more about it than anyone at the
BBC
.'

‘Yes but how did
they
know that? Who put
you
and
them
in touch? I like to know how these things
work
.'

Angela, aware that Felix was about to protest, said, ‘I don't mind. I was a political prisoner and all political prisoners were seen by Allied intelligence people before they resettled us.'

‘You scratched their back – they scratched yours, eh?'

Angela laughed. ‘What a language! Do you ever say anything straight?'

‘I mean you each helped the other.'

‘Yes, I understood. They soon realized that what I knew about tape-recording was still
years
ahead of the
BBC
.'

‘And what made them think of the
BBC
?'

‘Intelligence people? Perhaps because a lot of them work there.' She shrugged. ‘I don't know.'

‘Work there? Intelligence people? At the
BBC
?'

‘They filled a whole floor of Broadcasting House in the war – and they're still there, most of them.' After a pause she added, ‘You don't think the government dares leave the
BBC
in the hands of
itself
, surely?'

‘I suppose not.' Faith grimaced.

‘Changing your mind about working there?' Felix asked. He admired Angela's performance. These ‘intelligence people' were the ones who had lost – or
claimed
to have lost – her transcript of that meeting at the Interpol
HQ
– the minutes that sent her to a
KL
for years. But she gave no hint of it in her voice or manner. He knew precisely where, when, and why she had acquired such skill, but it still left him filled with admiration.