The Power of the Dead (27 page)

“Has he published anything yet?”

“Yes, a novel of Oxford, a very funny one. I liked it. Desmond Macarthy told me he thought that Tony Cruft was an original writer. We’re not far from his place now.”

The taxi was going up Essex Street. It turned into a small quiet square, with a garden and trees in the centre.

“He we are. Wonderfully hidden away, isn’t it? I’ll ring twice, and they’ll throw down the key. They’ve got the top flat.”

A window opened, a man’s face appeared, a key tinkled on the flag-stones, the face withdrew.

“Quick work,” said Phillip.

They searched for the key, while a smaller face watched from above.

“If it had a white streamer it would be seen easily, Piers.”

“Can you find it?” a girl’s clear voice called from above.

The Crufts were delightful. The author was a young man of modest aspect, cool, self-contained, with a quiet manner
concealing
an intent watchfulness. He was remotely friendly. He had a face of good proportion, the brow reminding Phillip of the Polish boy chess champion he had interviewed during his Fleet Street days: a double-plated brow, as it were, like that of a miniature Napoleon, the temples in balance: a thinking brow in the sense of immediate awareness, of sharp perception, but lacking, perhaps, the supreme gift of divining the concealed truth of another made pretentious by fear.

The four sat at a small square table and played cards. Mrs. Cruft, who looked to be about eighteen but with the self-possession of a woman without age, told Phillip that she had bought the table in the Caledonian market for a shilling, and Tony had repaired it, making it firm on its feet. It had a glass top which he had fitted to cover an old map of the district. On a side-table was a cluster of humming birds brilliant of hue under a glass dome, near another dome of waxed fruit. An odd clock in a dark wooden case ticked on the wall: the cover revealed an original impression of Parliament Square by night, in mother-of-pearl. The full moon above the river, the tiny circle of the clock face in the tower by the bridge, the flowing tide below, all faintly reflected the electric light bulb set in an early Victorian chandelier with
dependent
glass prisms.

“The barrow boys are
so
sweet, to find such heavenly things for me. The trouble now is that I simply dare not go there any more, one simply cannot disappoint them. The room, as you can see, is so small.” She sneezed. “Oh dear, I’m going to do the nose trick again. Give me your handkerchief, Tony.” She pulled the bandanna from her husband’s breast pocket, and used it
loudly. “You forgot to say ‘Bless you’,” she said, stuffing it back into the pocket.

Cruft continued to sit still. His face was composed and
expressionless
.

“Have you by any chance read James Joyce’s
Dubliners
?” Phillip asked him. Phillip had read
The
Dead
by the decayed boat-house beside the Longpond, on the way home from visiting the sheep on the new layer of Lobbett’s. The story had held him, moved him deeply. The scene at the evening party given by the old ladies, the livingness of all the characters, the unstressed drama of the writing—here was life transmuted by art: and the final scene of the snow falling in the streets as the party-goers went home, filled with memories of the past—the snow falling all over Ireland, ‘from the Bog of Allen to the mutinous dark waves of the Shannon estuary’ lifted one into the very spirit of life. He knew that he, too, had the same gift, the same power to bring back a lost world.

“Joyce is a writer of genius.
The
Dead
is a marvellous short story—the last one in the book. Edward Cornelian told me that every young writer should read it.”

There was a silence which might only be described as respectful, as from a good-manner’d host to an enthusiastic stranger.

It was time to go. Piers got up, saying, “I always enjoy myself here, Virginia. It’s been great fun.”

Cruft, without a word, telephoned for a taxi.

On the way back Phillip said, “I suppose I was too emphatic about
The
Dead
?”

“Not at all. But Tony’s talent is for satire.” He leaned forward. “Driver, stop at Pardew’s, will you.” The taxi took them to a wine cellar.

“Let’s crack a bottle of port, and forget our problems. I suppose of the four of us sitting round that table you’re the only one with the real urge to create.”

“I thought Cruft had a fine head. Oh Piers, might we have a half-bottle?”

“He’s a social critic, first, I fancy. But very funny.”

When the half-bottle was gone Piers said, “How right you are about education. I must write a book about Eton. Virginia also wants to write about her stifled childhood. Tony thinks that it should be satirised. His favourite book is
Alice
Through
the
Looking
Glass
.
I told her to read your
Pauper
Spirits
.”

“Oh, that terribly crude humour!”

“I like your high spirits. Would you care to come with me to the Game Pie for eggs and bacon? Do say if you would prefer to go to bed.”

The night club was at the end of a small courtyard, in what might once have been a coach-house. A score of young men and women were inside: among them Phillip saw Gillian, whom he had met with Piers at the cattle market. She was standing by the table which extended almost the entire length of one wall, and pouring stout down her throat. It was a slightly shocking sight: that young and pretty girl holding her head back and appearing to get rid of the liquid without swallowing.

“Hullo, Gillian,” said Piers. “Won’t you join us?” She sat down between them, and turned to Phillip.

“How is Rosebud?”

“Oh, she gives the best milk.”

“And those two darling calves?”

“They’re on the meadows, ‘growing into meat’, as the herdsman says.”

Across the room a girl with fair hair was standing beside an elderly man and looking at Gillian, who beckoned her over.

“Here he is,” Phillip heard Gillian say. Then, “Piers, do you know Felicity Ancroft? This is Piers Tofield. And Phillip
Maddison
——”

“How d’you do.”

“How d’you do.”

Piers’ voice said, “Waiter, bring a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and four glasses, will you.” He turned to Gillian. “Won’t you and Miss Ancroft join us for eggs and bacon?”

“Will I not,” she replied, with false gaiety. “Not a crumb or a drop has passed these lips since a half-pint and a sandwich in the Coal Hole at one o’clock. Have you seen Stephen? He’s supposed to be taking me to the Waterbridges’, and said he’d be here at
half-past
ten on the dot.”

It was now nearly half-past eleven.

“We’ve been with the Crufts.”

Phillip thought Gillian looked startled. For a moment she lowered her guard of gaiety and looked empty. Was she in love with Piers?

Piers said, “I always think that one’s first glass of champagne is like one’s first mistress, to be taken in gulps, which means I suppose that the bottle gets empty rather quickly. Zum Wohl.” He drank.

“There’s always another bottle, I agree,” she replied gaily. Then turning to Phillip, she said as though sharing a secret, “Felicity adores your books. She’s been telling me that Beatrice Harrison’s nightingale was simply marvellous tonight. We’re at Savoy Hill, together. Don’t you adore the nightingale? In
Wiltshire
just now she says you must be simply
ringed
with song. Isn’t that the
mot
juste
? Such a clever gel. What are you, of
all
people, doing in London now?”

“What are
you
doing in London?”

“London is my bread and butter.”

“Oats, too,” said Piers. “Don’t forget the oats.”

Phillip felt the shyness of the fair girl upon himself. They sat on the form beside the table. Four places were laid for the food. The room was beginning to fill up. A short fat young man with a pink face and dark calculating eyes smothered in a smile came over to them, and without look or nod at Piers said to the fair girl, “Hullo, darling. What a very great pleasure it is to me to see you here again. I’ve been here every night specially on purpose to see you ever since we did that dance together, the Black Bottom if I’m not much mistaken? Are these your gentlemen friends—if so, will you all take a drink with me?”

“Another time,” she said, with a smile of lips only.

The pink face disappeared.

“Who’s your bounding friend?” asked Gillian.

“I don’t remember seeing him before.”

This modest reply caused instant merriment in Piers, whose laughter was so loud that heads turned their way. “Ha ha ha! I’ll try that myself one day. Gets a rise once in a while, no doubt. Called you darling, too, I noticed. Been reading Mr. Anthony Cruft’s paragraphs in the gossip columns, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The waiter arrived with a tray of eggs and bacon.

“Get that down you,” said Piers to Gillian. “Stephen’s always late after the second night shift. The back door of the Coal Hole is too much to pass on a warm night. Keep the girls waiting, that’s the idea. Let me fill your glass.”

“God, I was hungry,” said Gillian. “I felt myself beginning to go back into Time like Prousty-wousty. Have you read
Prousty-wousty
?” she said to Phillip, looking into his face beside hers.

“Don’t talk. Eat,” said Piers. “If one doesn’t sleep, one must eat.”

“I’m drunk,” she burbled happily, looking into Phillip’s eyes. “They’re such a deep blue. True blue.”

“It’s drinking on an empty stomach,” said Piers. “All you girls are alike, starving yourselves in order to look as flat as boards. Hullo, Stephen.”

The escort had arrived. After a glass of champagne and a plate of caviar spread on biscuits the newcomer left with Gillian.

“Goodnight. Thank you so much,” said Felicity, with a startled look at Phillip.

“Must you go?” replied Piers, half getting up. “Well, good night.” Then he said to Phillip, “Gillian worries too much. The great thing is to take life easily.”

“The cut worm must forgive the plow, as Blake wrote.”

“Better to join up with another worm.”

“I suppose all living creatures need stability and reassurance. All the species work together in a true partnership.”

“Let’s have another bottle. The Ancroft girl likes you.”

“D’you mind if I don’t drink any more?”

“This place is far too crowded nowadays. Too many
hangers-on
. Nancy boys, too. Let’s go to the flat and I’ll make coffee. Can you bear to wait while I drink some brandy?”

They drank brandy and coffee. Piers began to look actively happy.

“Extraordinary how women have an instinct for romance. Gillian said that when the Ancroft girl was reading your book she thought that the otter was a symbol of some tremendous secret love.”

“How strange. I thought she looked rather like my first wife.”

“I noticed how she kept looking at you.”

Piers swallowed his brandy and said, “Could you bear to wait a few moments while I telephone?”

A saxophone was playing beside the piano at the other end of the room. Couples began to dance. The pink-faced young man had attached himself to a girl with remotely frantic brown eyes. The tune was a mixture of dreaminess and sauciness.

“Hullo,” said Piers, returning immediately, “I thought Brenda had gone lesbian, but perhaps she’s only bored. Or he may be the chap who delivers her snow.”

“Cocaine?”

“She usually gets hot water from her radiator and gives herself a jab sitting in her car. No beak could very well ask what a girl’s doing by herself in her own motor. The line was engaged. I wonder who was on to Virginia. I’ll try again now.”

Phillip looked around for the fair girl, but could not see her Piers was telephoning for ten minutes. Coming back he said, “Let’s have one more brandy.” His eyes were unusually bright. “I’ve been talking to Virginia,” he said, in his impersonal, almost casual voice. “Tony has begun his book on Cranmer the martyr, and she can’t do anything to upset his work. So she can’t see me for the next few weeks. Let’s leave this place.”

On the way back to St. James Street he confided in Phillip. “What would you do, if you were in my place?”

“I’d wait, and not rush into anything.”

They sat up talking until dawn, Phillip lying under the table, his feet above his head, completely relaxed as he told Piers about Eveline Fairfax, and how, if he had gone off with her, he would have missed meeting Barley.

Piers said, “It must be hell for Tony, knowing that his wife wants to go off with someone else.”

*

Phillip said goodbye to Anders at the Barbarian Club at 1.45 p.m., noting that some of the members were still noisy at the bar, and walked east to make a reconnaissance, as he thought of it, of Romano’s restaurant. Arriving at its green incurved glass front he imagined the splendours of the ’nineties, and wondered if its position had caused its decline after the spacious Edwardian age. For it was situate in the narrow neck of the Strand, where traffic blocks occurred, with their engine noise and smoke.

He walked up and down until the hands of the clock above Charing Cross station pointed to five minutes to two. Once again he went towards Wellington Street, with its memories of the Royal Opera House gallery, eight years ago now: it seemed a lifetime. Those days in Fleet Street had become poignant with their passing; so it was with Romano’s—with everything made by hands, thought over, longed for, failed, and achieved. What writers had once laughed and found happiness in Romano’s! He knew of it only from articles in popular literary weeklies, from the pages of which he had lived in scenes that were vanished; this happy rendezvous of writers, rare beings whose awareness of life had been based on loyalty and maintained by a few simple virtues, as Conrad had
written. Life for an artist must always become poignant once it was passed: here the sad, lost-child Barrie had dined with Hardy the silent, but revered for his proven quality; here Conrad had come, from Hythe in Kent, to meet H. G. Wells; later with Stephen Crane, and W. H. Hudson who had escaped awhile from an immewed life—immewed the exact word, from falconry: the falcon shut up in a dark stable, held by its jesses to a stump in the floor, no longer lord of the skies—poor Hudson, who ‘writes as the grass grows’, Conrad had said, living his last years in a London boarding house.