Читать книгу The Squire Quartet - Brian Aldiss - Страница 22

Ascot, Berks, New Year’s Eve 1977

Near Ascot, and not far from the famous racecourse, lies the area of Hazeldene, a developer’s paradise of the thirties. It remains far enough from London by road and near enough to it by train to serve as a refuge for the semi-rich. Half-timbered leather-work shops abound and, on Saturday afternoon when the Jags are parked in front of their mansions, children and adults appear on well-groomed horses, to canter through stretches of bracken which have somehow survived among the desirable residences. Here Tom Squire’s old friend and publisher, Ron Broadwell, had his home.

It was the last day of the year, cold and windy, and the weeping silver birches tossed behind neat beech hedges. At seven in the evening, it had already been dark for two hours.

As Squire drove towards the Broadwell house, he recited a poem aloud:

’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the days …

The sun is spent …

The world’s whole sap is sunke,

The generall balme the hydroptique earth hath drunk.

He had once been able to recite the whole poem; now parts were gone from memory. He had recited it long ago to a Serbian girl called Roša – who had laughed heartily – as they stood on the steps of the Avala memorial outside Belgrade, one midnight, drunk. He smiled at the recollection. When Squire was at Cambridge, Donne and Eliot had been the fashionable poets, and he had never lost his love of them. There were no poets like them.

The Broadwell mansion, ‘Felbrigg’, was visible from the road, sprawling tentatively behind its paddock and a white ranch fence. A tarmac drive with real old-fashioned streetlamps burning at each end led to the house. Lights blazed in the windows. As he drove up, he caught the twinkle of lanterns on a Christmas tree; it held promise of a pleasant evening ahead.

Both Ron and his wife Belinda came to the door to greet him. Ron was a large solid man with a cheerful florid face, a crop of shaggy dark hair tinged with white, and a predilection for the good things of life. He appeared with a big cigar in his mouth. Belinda was a tall lady running unhurriedly to fat, a smiling woman with a miller’s face who, despite many years of marriage to Ron, still spoke with a slight Virginian accent. She wore a long black velvet gown with the air of one humorously aware she was doing something typical of her.

Belinda had previously been married to Ron’s partner in the publishing house of Webb Broadwell, but that marriage had lasted no more than a year. ‘Webb was great stuff as a publisher,’ she confided to Squire once. ‘But not so damned hot when it came to handling a shy virginal wife. I guess he performed better between bawds.’

They greeted Squire heartily, as he handed over to Belinda’s safekeeping an enormous box of Swiss chocolates. In the large bright hall, the Christmas tree glittered. Ron’s dogs barked excitedly in a distant part of the house. The air was spiced with the flavour of good things.

Squire gave Belinda a big kiss. ‘Mmm, good old Virginny – I feel better already.’

‘Very pleased you could make it,’ Broadwell said, hanging up Squire’s coat. ‘All the Broadwell tribe cleared off the day after Boxing Day, having eaten us out of house and home. So this evening we have plenty of room for the Squire tribe. Teresa phoned me from Malta this morning, and she hopes to join us about nine.’

‘Fine. At least there’s no fog to delay flights.’ They stood in the hall, smiling at each other.

‘Teresa said Malta was pleasant,’ Belinda said. ‘We hope that you and she will get things together again this evening, Tom. If she can enjoy Malta, she can put up with you.’

‘New Year’s Eve – ideal time for New Year resolutions,’ Ron said. ‘I’ll get her to one side and tell her about all the royalties you’re going to earn.’

‘Forgive our tribal customs. It’s kind of you to put up with us and act as neutral ground.’

‘Oh, we’re not all that neutral,’ Belinda said.

‘Come on,’ Ron said, ushering Squire into the living room. ‘We can get in two good hours’ drinking before Teresa arrives.’

‘Don’t overdo the booze,’ his wife cautioned, adding to Squire, ‘Keep your eye on Ron. The doctor told him to cut down on those cigars, and on the whisky.’

‘I’m as fit as a fiddle, lass. Played a round of golf this morning, didn’t I?’

‘Just behave yourself, that’s all I ask. Tom, we have a couple of house guests, and I believe you already know each other. Come say hello.’

In the fireplace, a cheerful log fire burned. To one side of the fireplace sat a woman, painting. She was a petite dark-haired lady in her forties, neat, plump, magnificently groomed and manicured, with a gold ribbon in the back of her coiled hair. She wore a biscuit-coloured terylene lounging suit and amber rings on her fingers. She was painting a very small picture on a small sketching block, using acrylics from a tiny palette lying by her right hand. She used a brush as delicate as a grass snake’s tongue. As Squire entered the room, she smiled resignedly at her work and laid aside the sketchpad.

Her husband, sprawling opposite her on a chesterfield, was totally immersed in a newly published Webb Broadwell coffee-table book, entitled The Sower of the Systems, a collection of apocalyptic paintings through the ages, by Leslie Lippard-Milne. He wore a crumpled brown suit, with brown-and-yellow striped socks showing between trousers and slippers. Squire knew the couple well. The man was the editor of Intergraphic Studies, Jacques d’Exiteuil, whom Squire had last seen, with his wife Séverine, only a few months earlier in Paris.

Becoming aware of approaching bodies, d’Exiteuil jumped up abruptly, dropping the Lippard-Milne book on the chesterfield and beaming at Squire. For a small, thin man, he managed to convey a lot of stature. Squire shook his hand till d’Exiteuil’s coppery locks trembled.

‘You didn’t bring your son John along?’ d’Exiteuil enquired. ‘He was with you last time we met in London, if you recall. He impressed me with his knowledge of the music of the Genesis pop group.’

‘I saw him a few days before Christmas. This evening, he is seeing the old year out with Fred Cholera and the Pustules. They’re a bit more punk than Genesis. Tomorrow, he sees the New Year in with a demonstration outside a power plant.’

He laughed and crossed to hold and kiss Séverine d’Exiteuil – always a pleasurable experience. She smelt delicious, as ever.

‘Dear Séverine, you smell like an orchard!’

‘You are as always so conservative, Tommy,’ she said. She was one of the few women outside his family who addressed him with the diminutive. ‘Whatever are nuclear power stations for but to demonstrate outside?’

He pretended to look astonished. ‘I’ve never voted Conservative in my life, Séverine. Couldn’t bring myself to do so. In the sixties, that happy time, it was fashionable for everyone to be radical, whether they combined it with seriousness or frivolity, whether they worked for Apple or the Beeb. But Conservatism lacked chic.’

Séverine laughed; they liked to tease each other as a substitute for anything more earthy.

‘All the same, whatever you say … I’m sure that as a privileged landowner you are just an old Tory at heart!’

‘Yes, Séverine, if Ruskin was a Tory, if William Morris was a Tory, then I also am a Tory.’

She was silent for a moment, regarding him smilingly but absent-mindedly. In that pause, her husband said crisply, from his side of the hearthrug, ‘I’m not so surprised that you link yourself with the names of Morris and Ruskin, Tom, because there is something lordly about you. We’re products of our environment, and you’re owner of Pippet Hall. But, from my viewpoint, Morris and Ruskin are practically Tory. You remember Herbert Wells’s dismissal of them – in A Modern Utopia, I think – as Olympian and unworldly, “the irresponsible rich men of a shareholding type”. A good phrase.’

‘Don’t knock shareholding, Jacques,’ Belinda said. ‘It’s a responsible job.’

After a warning glance at her husband, who lapsed into his wine glass, Séverine remarked, ‘Jacques and I have always been Communiste, as long as we have known each other. It was once the smart thing in Paris, thanks to de Beauvoir and Sartre. Now the trendy people opt for anarchy instead.’

‘Well, I’ve voted Tory all my life, and I certainly don’t intend to change now,’ Broadwell said, laughing. ‘This is a Tory country until publishing is nationalized, and I’m the Last of the Small Time Capitalists.’

‘Yes, but you aren’t chic, darling,’ said Belinda affectionately, draping an arm round her husband’s shoulder. ‘You eat and drink too much to be chic. If all these strikes continue and we run out of food, that could be good for you. Now why don’t you get that gift we have for Tom – but fast – and then pour us all another drink?’

‘Don’t you long to go back to the States, with all this trouble in Europe?’ Séverine asked Belinda. ‘We had a strike on the Metro, and then when we arrive at Heathrow the baggage men are striking and messing up everything. Last time, it was the computer men. The excitement has been put back into travel with a vengeance … When Jacques and I spent our year in San Francisco, everything was so smooth and nice.’

‘England’s a very nice place for Americans, even when it takes on some aspects of a banana republic,’ Belinda said. ‘It still has civilized virtues you don’t find elsewhere, except maybe in France. I remember all that the country has suffered this century in two world wars, and how it has lost an empire – given it away in a fit of absent-mindedness, more like; that helps me remain patient with the economy. I just wish you’d speak to the Reds in the TUC who disrupt industry.’

‘Those poor men really only strike for a better wage. Wage rates in England are shockingly low.’

‘Well, I guess I’m just an imperialist at heart, Séverine. If I had my choice, I’d be reincarnated and marry Curzon.’

‘You have enough trouble managing me, darling, never mind India,’ Broadwell said consolingly. He started distributing drinks and passed his wife a Cinzano Rosso and Squire a vodka-on-the-rocks.

Squire was studying Séverine’s miniature painting. It showed part of the room, with Jacques sitting on the sofa with his feet on the arm. On his shoulder rested a gigantic parrot, with beak of stone and brilliant plumage.

D’Exiteuil came over to Squire’s side, grinning and smoothing his little beard. ‘She’s a talented painter, but that bird is slightly menacing, to my mind. Tom, you know why we’re here? Ron will publish a special selection from Intergraphic Studies, the best essays, and lots of illustrations. It could lead to publication of the magazine over here. The hope is that we’ll catch a little of the lustre emanating from your good works when they appear. We also hope to persuade you to write the Introduction. Of course we will also be including your Humphrey Bogart article in the book. Is it a possibility?’

‘I should think so. If I can find something useful to say, and not merely write a vague endorsement. I feel written out of things to say at present – you know I’m just an amateur in this field.’

‘Not at all. I told Ron that it might be possible as a commercial venture to produce a limited edition especially for members of the SPA.’

‘Are you getting any further with arrangements for the conference you mentioned when I was with you in Paris?’

D’Exiteuil clutched his head. ‘My God, the trouble I am having! I am trying to get a grant from the International Universities Foundation, which exists mainly to bestow grants. Will they cooperate? No! They say the subject is not a subject. I think their secretary is mad, judging by his letters … But just before Christmas I had a communication from a Dottore Frenza, at the University of Ermalpa in Sicily. He’s a philosopher.’

‘Ermalpa! What do they know about future culture?’

‘No, no, the situation has possibilities,’ d’Exiteuil said, shaking his head sagaciously. ‘Ermalpa University has a Faculty of Iconographic Simulation, with a few bright young men like Enrico Pelli. They are determined to run a conference in September, just to put themselves on the international map, so we at IS may join in. I will send you details when anything tangible results. You will have to be there.’

‘Can you persuade people to go to Sicily?’ Broadwell asked, arriving with a brightly-wrapped package.

‘Anyone will go anywhere if you pay their air fare,’ d’Exiteuil said, ‘Ancient proverb of the nineteen-seventies.’

‘Present for you, Tom,’ Broadwell said, thrusting the package forward.

Squire unwrapped it. Inside the Christmas paper was a ten-inch 78 record, with Irene Taylor singing ‘Everything I Have is Yours’ on the Decca label. On the other side, she was singing ‘No One Loves Me Like That Dallas Man’.

‘Lovely, thanks very much, Ron. Taylor has a perfect period voice.’

‘Like to hear it now? I picked it up in Bristol market just before Christmas. I don’t think it’s been played.’

They were sitting round the fire peacefully, sipping drinks and listening to the Irene Taylor record. Elm logs crackled, drowning the surface hiss – it was apparent that the record was much beloved by a previous owner. Stereo made it sound as if the lady was singing in her shower.

Squire sat beside Séverine, basking in her delicious aroma while she continued to paint. Seville in summer – perhaps it was just the association of names. Oranges, sunlight, a bed for two in an attic.

The Broadwell living room was decorated in rather a florid taste, the perfect extension of Ron Broadwell himself. Three Piranesi Carceri were mounted with wide green mounts and framed in exuberant gilt. The wallpaper was green-and-gold stripe. At the rear of the room, sliding glass doors opened into an extensive conservatory, most of the work on which Ron had done himself, aided by a son; there, a collection of exotic finches fussed from bough to plastic bough. Beyond the birds, in a wintry garden, lay an oval swimming pool, floodlit – presumably more to impress than invite guests.

The Piranesis excepted, the pictures in the room were modern. Two nice Mike Wilks fantasy cities, an alarming Ian Pollock, an Ayrton minotaur, all framed in aluminium. They hung above a long bookcase filled mainly with Webb Broadwell books – Squire identified the spine of his own Cult and Culture, it was the book which had persuaded the despots of television to invest in ‘Frankenstein’. It and Against Barbarism were the only other books he had written or was likely to write. An Introduction for Jacques he could manage.

The fireplace was declamatory but certainly knew how to burn logs. The semi-pornographic nineteenth-century Japanese woodcut over the mantelpiece was not a good idea. On a side-table were silver-framed photographs of the children, mostly smiling, now grown up, and their children, mostly waving, and dogs, mostly begging, interspersed with little silver articles which must have had utility in one culture or another – say before the invention of side-tables. It would have been more fun for visitors to have a random collection of plastic mazes available; there were brilliant mazes and puzzles on the market now which had so far escaped serious comment. But that was not exactly the object of furnishings and bric-a-brac. They existed more to make the householder feel secure and the visitor insecure. Not that Ron and Belinda actively thought that way; they simply followed Vogue and Homes and Gardens, a rack of which stood behind the piano.

When they had played both sides of the record, Broadwell showed d’Exiteuil an advance copy of Frankenstein Among the Arts.

‘We are also doing a limited edition, five hundred copies, all signed, with one hundred extra plates, bound in full crushed blue morocco, in slip case. Sixty quid a time.’

‘All very elegant, Ron. How many examples of the ordinary edition do you publish?’

‘We have a first print run of sixty thousand, almost all already subscribed, and a reprint under way, and the book club have taken another fifty-five thousand. That’s how we managed to include so much colour and keep the price within bounds. Nice, isn’t it? Publication day, Friday, 3rd March.’

D’Exiteuil shook his head ruefully, ‘Ah, success, success … You know that my sole book, a collection of essays, in English, called The Stupidity of the Rich, was merely a succès d’estime. Oddly enough, I see some of my more absurd ideas cropping up in this book, The Sower of the Seasons, which you published.’ He turned to Squire. ‘Tom, do you know Lippard-Milne?’

‘I know his wife quite well.’

‘Well, you see he has no guiding principle in criticism. Being English, he has a good critical eye, and is observant. That’s because you English all read your Bibles so much until a generation ago. You attended to the details, which were expressed in a fine language. Now the Bible has been rendered into civil servant English, and you are left without direction, and the whole perpetual instrument of Marxist analysis has yet to be taken up with the same expertise as it is wielded in France.’

‘Marxism naturally doesn’t suit us, any more than absinthe, garotting, or lederhosen,’ Squire said. ‘We have a monarchy, if you recall.’

‘Do you pretend that the Queen is obstructing literary criticism, Tommy?’ Séverine asked, and they all laughed.

‘No politics allowed here tonight,’ said Belinda. ‘Let’s all sink our differences at least until next year – which is only a few hours away. Come and eat now. I have just a little snack for you to keep the wolf away. We won’t wait for Teresa in case she’s late, but I’ve kept something for her.’

The little snack proved to be a pocket-sized banquet. They had just finished, and were returning to the living room, when there were sounds of a car engine in the drive, and the front-door bell chimed. The Broadwell hounds barked furiously from the kitchen.

Ron Broadwell opened the door. Teresa was not there as anticipated. Instead, her mother walked in, smiling. Madge Davies was smartly dressed in a brown wool coat trimmed with fox. With her was Squire’s Uncle Willie, dressed in his customary navy blue overcoat but wearing what, even on close inspection, was a rather snappy tweed hat.

As the two of them shook hands with everyone, and removed their outer garments, Uncle Willie explained that they had intended to meet Teresa at the airport, but her plane had been delayed.

His cheeks were reddened by the cold outside, but he was very brisk; Mrs Davies seemed at first unusually subdued.

‘Teresa managed to phone through to us from Rome airport,’ Willie explained. ‘For some reason, she chose to return from Malta via Rome. Madge and I guess she had some business there, because she’s doing very well, selling to the US and so on. We think she’s arranging some special packaging. The Italians are good at packaging. Her Rome–Heathrow plane was delayed because of a strike of fuel-tender men. As soon as she gets to Heathrow, she’ll catch a taxi here.’

Séverine raised one of her immaculate eyebrows at Squire. ‘You remember what I said about putting the excitement back in travel. It soon won’t be safe for a woman to travel alone. I can’t wait for that day …’

‘It’s just a handful of communist agitators in each country,’ Willie explained.

‘The capitalists will go on saying that until their system finally breaks down completely,’ d’Exiteuil said. ‘May we play that charming little Taylor record again, Ron?’

‘Go ahead,’ Belinda said. ‘I suppose you think “Everything I Have is Yours” is some kind of commie signature tune, Jacques?’

‘I certainly didn’t expect to see you, Mother,’ Squire said, touching his cheek to Mrs Davies’s cheek. She was wearing a perfume he identified as one of Teresa’s. ‘Uncle Willie even less. I thought he’d be in Norwich, tucked up safely in bed with his cat.’

‘Well, dear …’ She looked embarrassed, and allowed the Broadwells to usher her into the living room. ‘What a charming house you have here, Mr Broadwell, and so wonderfully warm. I suppose that as a publisher… I don’t believe in economizing on the heating, but my flat in Grantham is always so chilly. Double-glazing doesn’t seem to help. You’re all double-glazed here, I expect, of course.’

‘Tell them, Madge,’ Willie prompted.

Madge adjusted her white hair, and said, looking mainly at Squire, ‘Will, at my age, I’m quite … I feel it is rather an imposition to come into a strange house and immediately … sort of … what was that poem about it? Anyhow, Tom, you know that Ernest and I were always very fond of your Uncle Will. Ernest especially. I remember the occasion when we first met him in Norwich, that was in the old Haymarket, no, in the Carlton Hotel, which was then very smart – it’s been pulled down now – and Ernest said afterwards, “I trust that man”, he said. Well, Tommy, old as we are, Will and I have decided – it’s almost a year since poor Ernest was knocked down and killed – he was never what you’d call a strong man – to get married and live together.’

As everyone clapped, Squire put on a puzzled expression and asked, ‘But which are you going to do, Mother – get married or live together?’

Amid the laughter, Willie said, ‘Madge and I are determined to start anew, as far as that’s possible at our advanced age. She’ll sell her place, I’ll sell up mine, and we’ll buy a little bungalow, possibly in Hunstanton. Settle down like Darby and Joan, whoever they were.’

Shaking his uncle warmly by the hand, Squire offered his congratulations. He embraced Mrs Davies.

‘Tom, I hope you won’t find anything too …’ She hesitated for a phrase which had vanished without trace.

‘Does Teresa know?’

‘We told her before she went off to Malta. I mean, your uncle and I are just going to be close friends.’

‘I shouldn’t trust him if I were you, Mother.’

‘It’s thirty-four years since Diana died,’ Willie said defensively. He brought out his pipe and lit it.

Broadwell moved to get more drinks. Mrs Davies’s news was received with amused pleasure. She herself became flustered and apologetic and reminiscent and flirtatious.

When Broadwell returned with champagne, she thanked him and said, ‘If Will and I are to be united, it is important to us that Tom and Teresa – you see, she’s still a child to me, Mr Broadwell, although she’s in her forties, and she and I have always been very alike in our tastes. Not all perhaps, but many. She’s always been artistic. Next year is going to be a good one for Tom, I know, so he can afford to be kind to Teresa and try and understand her point of view. As his publisher, you can exert a good influence on him, I’m sure.’

Ron Broadwell laughed. ‘That’s not a view people generally have of publishers!’

‘It’s dreadful how everyone seems to quarrel nowadays. I’m sure it was never like it is today – I don’t know what’s happening in the world. I heard just this morning that the Persians are demonstrating against the Shah. That man’s done so much for his country, it does seem ungrateful. I saw him in London once, several years ago, and he looked so distinguished.’

They all drank a toast to Madge and Willie.

‘I must remind you that Teresa will not return to Pippet Hall,’ Squire told his mother-in-law a little later. ‘You must understand my position. I will not eat humble pie for ever, although I would like our life to resume as soon as possible. Do you have any notion of my present difficulties? I think you should speak to Teresa, Mother. She can manage her new business from the Hall, if that’s the problem.’

‘Oh, dear, that’s not the problem. I’m afraid you brought this on yourself, Tom, all this unfaithfulness, it’s dreadful. Such things never happened in the twenties, when I was young.’

‘Really, Mother? You surprise me. Historians regard the twenties as a period of noted licence, if not licentiousness. Twenties, forties, sixties, the even-numbered decades, all periods of so-called low morals, separated by outbreaks of so-called morality.’

She smiled placatingly at him.

‘Well, whatever it is, I think it’s all wrong. You’ve only to read the papers. They’re full of it. Something’s gone wrong with the nation. People don’t know their places any longer. All your encouragement of these so-called arts doesn’t help, either. You should know better in your position. I don’t blame you especially, Tom, but don’t you think all this dreadful rock and roll demoralizes young people? When Ernest and I got married all those years ago, we started out with such high hopes. We worked hard, we went to church, we kept ourselves properly to ourselves … Now, oh, England has become – well, I feel it is hostile, I don’t recognize it. Some mornings I feel the world’s going to collapse. Now you and Teresa …’

She left the sentence dangling, as being too dreadful to finish.

He regarded her with sympathy. ‘I feel just the opposite. But perhaps the instability of the world was demonstrated to me rather early in life. I think everything’s all right, despite the newspapers. It’s true we confuse material and moral values. It’s true husbands and wives fall out. It’s true the divorce rate is going up and the birth rate down. It’s true there is a quality we call evil in individuals, which gets magnified by theories and ideologies which have power to rule our common sense. But still humans aren’t bad, and we’re rather lucky to be living together on this snug little planet. Your announcing your engagement to Uncle Willie makes us all feel even luckier.’

Mrs Davies pursed her lips. ‘I don’t understand you, Tom. How you can be so happy away from your wife, I don’t understand. You used to be so loving. Make it up with her this evening – to please Willie and I.’

Squire took a judiciously deep drink of his champagne.

Mrs Davies set her glass down on a side-table, among small silver objects, resting her ringed and wrinkled hand over it. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening. But then, you always were a mystery to me. You’re so intellectual, I suppose. Then there was that rather unpleasant business in Yugoslavia you were involved in – I never could understand that. And I remember when you got married you insisted on having that red Aga installed, whereas poor Teresa had set her heart on a white one. She’s not happy either. Her business is going wrong – she and her partner are in trouble, and I know she owes lots of money all over the place, even New York. Isn’t New York bankrupt, too? I don’t pretend to understand these things, and she won’t confide in me any more. I even have to feed the dog.’

As if the word had been a signal, two enormous spaniels, liver and white, burst into the room. They made straight for Mrs Davies, springing on her with the mindless abandon of their kind. As her hand was knocked, the champagne glass went flying, to finish in pieces against the wall. She lay back on the sofa with her hands before her face, and the dogs trampled over her as if over a small muddy hill. Belinda appeared among them, dragging them off by their collars and cursing them cheerfully.

‘Oh, you canine delinquents! Mrs Davies, how can I say how sorry I am? I hope you like dogs. They were shut in the back hall, weren’t you, you bums, and they made a spirited dash for companionship, freedom and you, not necessarily in that order. Would you like something to eat?’

Willie appeared chivalrously to assist his bride-to-be, the broken glass was cleared, the dogs were returned to captivity, more champagne was poured, and, as the fuss died down, Squire managed to deflect his uncle into Ron Broadwell’s study.

‘I should have written you a note, my dear Tom, but you have been rather elusive. I do hope our news doesn’t come as too much of a shock? Madge is a good woman.’

‘Not at all, no.’

‘We’re going to stay in town tonight. At Brown’s. Haven’t stayed at Brown’s for years. It’s still very comfortable. Separate rooms, of course.’

‘Of course. Now, Uncle, I want a little plain talk with you. Perhaps I’ve been rather slow on the uptake—’

Willie looked unhappy. ‘Do we have to talk personally, Tom? After all, it is New Year’s Eve. Doesn’t your publisher have a telly?’

Squire stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘My present position is unsatisfactory. I cannot endure it much longer. My life is no life. I’m in a grey area. I shall be under general scrutiny, no use pretending otherwise, when the “Frankenstein” series starts its run at the end of February; the gossip columnists are after me already. You know all about Teresa’s and my situation – and about Laura Nye. Well, in case you didn’t know it, I renounced Laura as promised. I did so in September, three months ago.’

Uncle Willie had become cautious and took refuge behind his pipe. He sat down on the arm of a chair, adopting a lawyer-like attitude.

‘October, the way I heard it.’

Making an impatient gesture in the air, Squire said, ‘October, then, for God’s sake! That’s still two months ago, Uncle. Whenever it was, I renounced her. I loved Laura, Uncle, and she loved me.’

‘You’re your father’s son, Tom. She was half your age.’

‘And you’re getting married again in your bloody seventies. Try to understand. It was real. And I gave it up for Teresa’s sake.’

The older man shook his head. ‘In my experience, no good ever comes of renunciations. No good at all. They have a reputation for being noble, and I suppose it’s made you feel noble. But my experience in law has shown me that renunciations lead only to bad blood and recrimination, often over years.’

The words took Squire by surprise. He sat down opposite his uncle.

‘Anger, disappointment, a trail of disaster,’ Willie said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Very well, Uncle, I am angry, I am disappointed. Laura gave me a great deal – qualities I don’t get elsewhere. I admit, I have admitted to Teresa, that I was in the wrong. I feel very bad about it. Yet Teresa still plays difficult, still will not come back. Do you know why not because, if so, I want to know too.’

Willie chewed his lower lip and looked embarrassed. ‘My dear Tom, Madge and I now naturally want you two youngsters back together again more than ever. You must understand that, and it’s more than sentiment. There’s the fate of the Hall and everything—’

‘I don’t wish to talk about the Hall. Answer my question, please. What is Teresa playing at?’

‘Don’t start bullying me. That won’t help, just because you’ve messed up your affairs.’

‘Give me a straight answer, then. Madge has just told me that Teresa’s business is virtually bankrupt, and that she and her partner are broke. All news to me – bad news. I didn’t even know she had a partner. Who is it? Who’s the partner?’

‘I thought you knew.’ Evasively.

‘Who is it? I’m asking you.’

‘Look, Tom, keep your voice down. Oughtn’t we—’

‘Who’s the partner, Uncle? Tell me. Not her mother?’

‘Vernon Jarvis, of course.’

‘Who’s Vernon Jarvis?’

‘You know who Vernon Jarvis is. You’ve met him. Teresa told me you’d met him.’

‘Jarvis? Christ, that little sod whose brother wanted to run in Moscow. Yes, he sneaked into the Hall once, one morning, shortly after I got back from Singapore. I bumped into him in the passage … Uncle, are you telling me that that fellow is screwing my wife? Is that what’s going on? Jarvis?’

Uncle Willie rose, put his pipe down and started shaking his head and rolling his eyes. ‘Tom, Tom, don’t get excited. You must already know all this. Why ask me? It’s none of my business, only what I’ve heard from Madge. Why pretend not to know? First you were away, then you went off and gave him a clear field.’

‘He has been screwing Teresa? He still is? That’s what she’s up to … God, I didn’t know. I never suspected – why should I?… Has that little bastard been in Malta with her? Oh, God, no … She was so bloody self-righteous, so bloody self-righteous about the way I carried on, spying on me with field-glasses, and all the while she was getting him up to the house. I can hardly believe it of her. Teresa. In our house, our rooms … God, I’d have killed them both, I swear, shot them like dogs, if I’d have caught them …’

He choked. A bottle of Bell’s whisky stood on Broadwell’s mahogany bookcase. Squire went over to it, poured a generous measure into his empty champagne glass, and drank it neat.

‘It’s too much. The husband’s always supposed to hear these things last. Why didn’t you warn me?’ His cheeks blazed red.

Uncle Willie was also flustered. ‘Damn it, I did try to warn you. In summer of last year, June or whenever it was you came up to my office in Norwich. And other times.’

Squire let out a long groan. ‘My guilt, I suppose; I remember – I believed you were warning me to watch my own behaviour. I thought you were laying on a few preachments. Why not simply say outright, “That little shit Jarvis is fucking your wife”? Then it might have got through to me.’

He stood calming himself, stretching his arms, gazing bitterly out at the darkness beyond the window-panes.

His uncle came behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘She doesn’t mean anything. She still loves you. She just needed comfort. Jarvis is what you’d call a temporary measure, I’m sure of that.’

Turning, Squire said, ‘So she doesn’t mean anything by it? A few fucks are neither here nor there, is that it? Well, I’d accept that theory, you see, I’d be bloody well prepared to accept that theory – but how come when I had a few fucks here and there she made my life such a misery? All that moral gush I had to wade through? And you damned well siding with her, you utter hypocrite, just because you’re planning to get your leg over her mother!’

‘Tom, Tom, I’m only saying—’

‘The bitch! There’s no excuse … God!’ He drank off the rest of his whisky and started pacing. ‘The promptness with which she must have got back at me. As if she was waiting for the excuse … You don’t have to be a male chauvinist to see through Women’s Lib and all that tripe. Biology takes care of that. There are biological and ontological differences in sexual behaviour between men and women which no cultural cosmetics can disguise. It’s a simple fact of existence that a man can father far more offspring than his mate can bear. A woman is limited in her potential for reproduction by her capacity to nurture her young – not to mention those long tedious months of gestation.’

‘But that’s—’

‘Throughout the history of the human species, males compete to fertilize the bloody females, and not vice versa. You may have observed as much yourself. Why else do men always look at women and women at themselves? We’ve got no instinctual investment in fidelity as a sex – we sow our seed whenever the opportunity arises. If it wasn’t so, the bloody rats would be strutting about in charge of the planet.’

‘Oh, calm down, Tom. She could be here any minute. She’s still your wife.’

‘Fucking well try telling her that!’

‘Don’t spoil New Year’s Eve! Think of these other people. I’m going. I’ve had enough of your Army language.’

Squire took to pacing again.

‘Take Teresa’s and my case. We married, we had children. We had four children. I suppose you remember Georgie, who died at the age of two – that was in 1956, of all miserable years – because Tess and I still do, if you don’t. We cared for them, educated them expensively – so that they could turn anarchist and bugger up the country and consort with the likes of Fred Cholera. All that represents a considerable existential investment on the part of this male!’ He struck his chest. ‘So I am under evolutionary pressure to protect myself against being cuckolded, and to reject other brats, fat devouring cuckoos, sired on my spouse by any passing male who fancies her, never mind some little shit whose brother plans to run the four hundred metres in Moscow.’

‘Don’t get worked up again. Where did I put my pipe?’

‘For these reasons, deep-seated, deep as artesian wells, the male has a far greater concern than the female in the fidelity of his mate. For these reasons, the male suffers from his partner’s infidelity more strongly than the female does. For these same reasons, the male often responds to external interference by shooting the unfaithful female and the offending interloper, if he can catch him. Aren’t most murders sexual murders? And I’ve bloody well been apologizing to my unfaithful female!’

In an attempt to mollify his nephew, Uncle Willie clasped Squire by his arms, and gazed at his dark face.

‘There now, no talk of shooting and killing people! You’re not in Yugoslavia now. It’s terrible to hear you carrying on like this at your age. I told you that renunciation was not good for the soul. You must forgive Tess – she wants to come back, despite everything.’

‘Take your hands away, Uncle. I’m not going to forgive her for your asking. Indeed, I’m not sure I can forgive her at all, after the way she went at me for a lesser offence.’

‘Well, dear boy, the same offence, the same offence. Be fair.’

‘I’ve told you why I think infidelity is a lesser offence in men. I don’t care what the libbers say – it’s subscribing to silly wishy-washy ideas like that, or opposing nuclear energy, or believing communism can solve human problems, which has got the country into its present rotten position. In any case, she’s now going to come running to me for money to bale her and her lover out of trouble, isn’t she?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me, is it? Be reasonable.’

‘I won’t give her a penny, he can pay up or bloody well be declared bankrupt. Imprisoned, with luck.’

More shaking of the avuncular head. ‘I have advised Teresa on financial matters, I admit, and the position as far as I understand it – which isn’t far, by the way – is that you, her legal husband, are responsible for her debts …’

Squire looked round wildly, as if hoping to see a pair of loaded duelling pistols hanging conveniently on the wall.

‘There’s no way in which I will take the bitch back or settle her debts for money squandered on behalf of that nasty little sneak, Jarvis. When I think of the way she has humiliated me …’

They heard the distant chime of the front-door bell.

‘That – that may be Teresa now,’ Uncle Willie said. ‘Tom, my dear boy, I know this is most upsetting for you, and I’d have felt just the same in your position, once upon a time. But please don’t make a scene in someone else’s house.’

‘Why not, for God’s sake? Ron’s only my bloody publisher, isn’t he?’

Squire went to the study door, flung it open, and advanced along the passage. He paused before entering the front hall, gathering himself, checked at the sound of his wife’s voice, that familiar voice so poignant that his anger faded before it. She was explaining something to Belinda.

‘… and then there was a bomb scare at Heathrow and we all had to be searched …’ Hearing her voice, he recalled her once-and-eternal innocence.

He continued into the hall. Beyond Belinda’s plump back, he saw his wife, wrapped in a shortie Swedish coat with hat to match and looking tall in crimson high-heeled boots; with her stood a young man, grinning slightly, in a Russian-type fur hat and ankle-length grey tweed coat. Whiskery sideboards made a pincer movement across his cheeks, in an attempt to cut off his nose from his mouth. It was Jarvis.

Squire had not expected that. He stopped as Teresa saw him.

‘Oh, darling, there you are!’ cried Teresa. ‘We are so late, I thought you’d be gone.’ She moved towards him in a tentative way: so tentatively that Jarvis, also coming forward, overtook her, sticking out a boney hand.

‘Glad to see you again, Mr Squire. I’ve been taking care of Teresa.’ He smiled with all the teeth at his command. ‘What a journey we’ve had!’

So overcome was Squire by this effrontery that he accepted the hand before realizing it. The touch of it immediately roused him and he withdrew his own.

‘So you’re the creature who’s been fooling around with my wife and sneaking into my home when I was away! Get out immediately!’

Jarvis opened his mouth rather wide and stuck his fists on his hips.

‘If you’re going to be unfriendly, two can play that game.’

‘Don’t you dare make trouble here, Tom,’ Teresa said.

‘Oh, don’t mind us,’ Belinda said, closing the front door. ‘Feel at home.’

Squire said, ‘Teresa, you’re mad bringing this fellow here!’

‘Don’t you order me to get out, Mr Squire,’ Jarvis said, his confidence returning. ‘It’s not your place any more than it is mine. I’ve got every right to be here. I’m looking after your wife, and so what? You weren’t so much of a success in that line, gallivanting round the world.’

He showed signs of continuing his discourse, but Belinda said coolly, ‘You do not have as much right to be here as Mr Squire, young man, whatever your name is. Just for the record, Mr Squire was invited here and is our guest. You were not invited and you are not our guest.’

‘Belinda! I was going to introduce you. Vernon has brought me all the way back from Malta. We’ve been travelling for hours …’ Teresa looked close to tears.

‘No doubt he took you all the way to Malta, too,’ said Belinda. Ron Broadwell appeared in time to hear this last exchange.

‘Any trouble?’ he asked.

‘Ron, this fellow has the impertinence to turn up here with my wife on his arm. I shall not stay if he does. You’ve arrived with her, Jarvis, you can take her away again – back to Malta, for all I care.’

Jarvis said, ‘If you weren’t old enough to be my father, I’d bash your face in.’

‘You can try if you like. You’d get a few surprises.’

‘For two pins I would, you self-satisfied—’

Broadwell moved forward, his bulk making the advance an impressive sight. ‘I’m not having an intruder spoiling our evening. You must make up your own mind what you are doing, Teresa. Of course, you’re welcome to stay on your own.’

Teresa stamped her foot and shook her fists. ‘My God, Tom, how you disgrace me – in front of friends. Vern only wanted to be your friend …’

Turning to Jarvis, Broadwell said, ‘You aren’t welcome here. Get out and go home. Close the door behind you. Go on, vamoose!’

Glaring angrily at her husband, Teresa said, ‘We came here in perfect innocence. I wasn’t going to turn Vern away after all our troubles today. You ought to try Alitalia some time. I knew it was the wrong day to travel; the stars were against it, but I wanted to see you on New Year’s Eve. Now you show how little you care, telling Vern to take me away, treating me—’

He had swung away in disgust, but now he turned back. ‘What did you want to see me for, Teresa? You’ve shown no inclination these last months. I suppose you want to borrow money?’

She grasped Jarvis’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, Vern, I didn’t mean to drag you into this. He always tries to humiliate me. I loved and trusted you once, Tom. As for you, Belinda, I knew you were never a friend of mine—’

‘Oh, yes, I was,’ Belinda said sharply. ‘I was a good friend of yours, because I’ve never hinted to you that not for one moment did I think you did at all a good job of being Tom’s wife. Now you’ve found someone of your own kind, perhaps Tom can find someone to make him happier. That’s what we all hope.’

Ron laid a hand on his wife’s arm. She glared like a cat about to pounce, and then put an arm round him.

‘Such fun to be totally honest for once,’ she said: ‘Sorry, Teresa.’

But Teresa had already turned back to her husband. ‘You of all people accusing Vernon of fooling around with me behind your back. Why can’t I invite him home? He only came for coffee and a business chat. I’ll invite in who I like. I wanted him to see my work. I’m not going to be cooped up while you do what you please with any woman you fancy.’

Jarvis was also talking. Squire found he had ceased to listen. Before the spectacle of his wife attacking him and defending Jarvis, all the fight had gone out of him. He was thinking rather abstractedly about closing up the Hall, perhaps even selling up – why not? Maintaining it was just a struggle – and going abroad somewhere, living on capital and royalties. Maybe California. Or one of the Adriatic islands. Mali Losinj. But even if they were Yugoslav, they were still communist. Singapore? Malaysia. Without Laura?

Jarvis was still talking, wagging a finger, maintaining a long self-righteous discourse, chiefly concerned with how his popularity with women was sustained because he treated them right, although he didn’t think it was fair to marry. Furthermore, he cultivated Teresa because she was good at her craft and they would make a success of the business they were developing if only their capital hadn’t run out unexpectedly. Even that was because of his generosity. He was too generous.

Squire realized that Séverine and her husband were listening with fascination – the scent of her perfume reached him. Much as he hated this occasion, he recognized that he could laugh about it with her afterwards. Possibly rather a long time afterwards.

He noted also that Teresa’s mother and Willie had made themselves scarce. His dry mouth reminded him how welcome alcohol would be.

‘Perhaps we should go and have a drink somewhere,’ he said, cutting in on Jarvis’s speech. ‘We’ll sort this false nonsense out once and for all. There’s bound to be a pub open in Ascot tonight. I won’t impose this disruption on my friends any longer. But if you are determined to consort with all and sundry, Teresa, then we must make arrangements accordingly.’

‘I didn’t say—’ Teresa began, but Jarvis silenced her. ‘I’m not drinking with you, Mr Squire. Not after the way you’ve insulted me in front of these people. And damaged my reputation. I intended you no harm.’

Squire laughed with a poor parched sound. ‘You’d better understand that you’ve done me considerable harm – and Teresa also. If you don’t want to talk, why not simply blow back into the night, the way you came?’

At this point, Ron Broadwell heaved himself forward, clapping his hands. Belinda took Squire’s arm and squeezed him. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.

‘Did you two come in a taxi?’ Ron asked Teresa, flinging open the front door.

‘Of course not. Vern had his car at the airport. And where’s my mother? Tom, you’re turning me away – realize that, you’re turning me away. I warn you, I don’t like it, and I shan’t stand for it.’

‘Goodbye, Teresa,’ he called.

‘Terry, let’s scram out of here,’ Jarvis said, tugging at his coat. He added menacingly to Broadwell, ‘And I’ll plant one on you if you shove me.’

‘Do you wish me to turn the dogs on you?’

The front door slammed. Broadwell ushered his wife and Squire into the living room to the fire, ostentatiously wiping sweat from his forehead.

‘I thought the blighter was going to attack me, I really thought he was going to hit me. You heard what he said? Well, Jacques, Séverine, you see how we English live. It’s all drama – the land of Shakespeare.’

The French couple smiled and shrugged and expressed their sympathies with Squire. ‘It happens all the while in France,’ Jacques said. ‘Maybe with stabbing in addition.’

Broadwell went to the window, drew back the curtain, and watched to see Jarvis drive off. Uncle Will and Mrs Davies stood by the fireplace, holding hands without speaking.

‘We’d better leave after all that,’ Willie said, glumly.

‘I never thought she would actually go with him,’ Squire said. He felt his lips pale and sat down. ‘I never thought to see that. She sided with him … I need a drink.’

Mrs Davies began to weep. ‘Take me away, please Willie … I never expected to hear a daughter of mine treated like that by her husband. We ought to go after them. Oh, oh, how awful everything is … Tom, you’re so cruel … Poor Teresa …’

‘I’ll get you a drink, Mrs Davies,’ Ron Broadwell said. ‘We all need one. Big ones, at that. And – Happy New Year, everyone, by the way!’

It was midnight. Distant bells began to peal.