1982 - An Ice-Cream War (10 page)

“…charming girl, I think.” Dr Venables was speaking.

“Sorry, Dr Venables?…oh, the bride. I haven’t met her yet.”

“Yes, that’s right, you’ve been away. Lively, intelligent girl…I say, are you all right, Felix? You look a bit washed out.”

“I’m fine. The walk back ‘ll do me good. I think it’s something to do with the atmosphere in churches.”

Dr Venables smiled. “I’ll join you, if I may. There was some talk of sending a trap back to fetch me, but I dare say I’ve been forgotten in all the confusion.”

They walked out of the churchyard and turned up the lane that led from the village to the Manor. It was a bright day with a cool breeze and compact scudding clouds in the sky. Felix exaggeratedly inhaled and exhaled as they strode along.

Dr Venables lived and practised in Sevenoaks, though he had acted as the Cobb family doctor for as long as Felix could remember. He was a large, tall man in his fifties with a curiously smooth and fleshy complexion. He had a good head of hair and it showed no traces of grey. Felix suspected regular dyeing. His clothes were always elegant and well-fitting. His face would have been conventionally handsome had it not been for his corpulence and a certain slackness about his mouth, caused by a full, heavy bottom lip that seemed always to be hanging down from its pair and which was only held in place by a conscious setting of the chin. Felix liked him, and was always pleased to see him, though for no particular reason other than he seemed a sensible man who was prepared and happy to talk to him as an equal.

“So you weren’t too enamoured of the service,” Dr Venables observed.

Felix scoffed. “I think it’s ghastly. Not that I blame Gabriel and Charis,” he added quickly. “It’s just that occasions such as these bring out the worst in my family. I’d vowed that after Eustacia had married Nigel Bathe I’d never go to another wedding.” He paused. “Of course I wasn’t to know Gabriel would be the next,” he added thoughtfully.

“But
they’re
happy,” Dr Venables said. “You wouldn’t deny them their happiness.”

“No,” Felix said. “Of course not. It’s just that I don’t believe in it, somehow. The ritual, the…the false piety.”

Dr Venables smiled. Felix sensed he was being humoured.

“What
do
you believe in then, Felix?” he asked.

Felix stopped walking and looked about him. He went to the side of the lane and plucked two dog roses, a clump of elderberry and a stem of cow parsley. He held them out to Dr Venables.

“I believe in these,” he said with grim sincerity.

Dr Venables gave a great shout of laughter. “Why, Felix,” he said. “You…you sensualist you. You’re nothing but—what do they call it?—a neo-pagan. That’s what you are: a neo-pagan.”

Felix dropped the icons of his religion. He had been following Holland’s instructions to the letter. He didn’t believe in dog roses any more than he did the Church of England, but at least it was different.

“Well,” he said, conscious of the ground he had lost and trying to regain it. “At least it’s
there
. Visible. I can see them and feel them…” He remembered a line from Holland’s favourite, Ibsen. “One must go one’s own way,” he announced strongly, “and make one’s own mistakes.”

“Come on,” Dr Venables said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I think I know what you’re driving at. We’d better get a move on, though, or the party ‘ll be over.” They set off up the road.

“Now tell me,” Dr Venables said, “how are you looking forward to Oxford?”

Felix toyed with his pudding, pushing the meringue and cream around with his spoon for a while before deciding to abandon it. He sipped at the champagne he had left in his glass. He felt mildly calmer, restored in part by a speech of utter fatuity made by Sammy Hinshelwood, without even one good joke in it, and that had lasted ten minutes too long.

Nigel Bathe, sitting opposite him, had been advising him for the last five minutes not to waste his time by going to Oxford, and how he, Nigel Bathe, had never for one instant—not for a split second—regretted never attending that seat of learning.

“But Nigel,” Felix interrupted reasonably. “You are a soldier. Oxford would have been wasted on you. I have no intention of becoming a soldier, I assure you. Never. Not ever.”

“Hoo! I wouldn’t let your father hear that,” Nigel Bathe said smugly.

“What’s this, Felix?” Henry Hyams boomed, leaning across Albertine to thrust his whiskered face in Felix’s direction. “What are you going to be then? A slacker? Wah-hah!” He seemed to find this, as he found most things he said, extremely funny.

Felix wondered what profession would most annoy them. “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking of becoming a journalist.”

“Felix!” Albertine said, in tones of genuine horror. While the three of them ran down the profession of journalism, Felix looked up to the head of the table to where Gabriel and his new wife sat. Felix had been introduced to her before the reception. She had a slim, underdeveloped figure, Felix had noted. Her hair was set in the latest fashion and he’d heard Eustacia pass the opinion that, for a bride, she was wearing too much powder and rouge. Now she was speaking rapidly and energetically to his mother who was nodding her head slowly in reply. To Felix she didn’t seem particularly beautiful or pretty, and he wondered what it was that had attracted Gabriel to her; why he should have settled for less.

Five minutes later, Henry Hyams leant confidentially across the table and said in a low voice, “Shall we repair to that inner sanctum where menfolk may indulge in their favourite weed?”

“And where none may say them nay, more to the point,” added Nigel Bathe glancing up the table at Eustacia.

The luncheon party was breaking up. Gabriel and Charis were being introduced to family friends by Mrs Cobb, the children were scampering around on the terrace, the major seemed to be asleep. Felix got to his feet and went to join his two brothers-in-law in the inner hall. Cigars were produced and lit, Henry Hyams dispensed brandy. Greville Verschoyle slipped into the room two minutes later.

“Brandy, Greville?” Henry Hyams offered.

“Rather. Some beano, eh? The major’s trying to collar a partner for billiards. Made my escape just in time.”

“Where’s Hinshelwood?” Nigel Bathe asked.

“Caught up in the bridal party, worse luck for him.”

“I thought you were meant to be best man anyway, Felix,” Henry Hyams said.

“That was the idea. But it was just a contingency plan. In case Sammy couldn’t get leave.”

“Bloody awful speech, I thought,” Greville said, as Henry Hyams lit his cigar.

Felix wandered over to the window and looked out over the drive. He felt a sense of bleak sadness spread slowly through him like a stain. Now Gabriel had gone, nothing could ever be the same here again, he thought. Ever. He heard a burst of raucous laughter from his brothers-in-law and turned back to look at the group. He felt like an anthropologist or explorer contemplating some foreign tribe. Henry Hyams was pouring more brandy. Felix went over to get his glass refilled.

“I should think old Gabriel’s looking forward to tonight,” Greville said with a smirk. “What’s the plan exactly? Are they stopping for the night in town? Or going straight to Deauville?”

“Deauville?” exclaimed Nigel Bathe in outrage. “Why on earth are they going to Deauville?”

“It’s called a honeymoon, Nigel,” Greville said. “They’re having a honeymoon in Deauville. It is Deauville, isn’t it?”

“Good
God
,” Nigel Bathe uttered, appalled, his sense of injustice causing his nostrils to twitch in disgust.

Henry Hyams ignored him. “It’s Trouville, actually. Just next door. No, they’re going straight over. Being driven to Folkestone. Steamer, then a train to Paris. Then on to Trouville.”

“Be a bit awkward on the train, won’t it?” Greville said.

Henry Hyams went purple in the face as he tried to prevent the mouthful of brandy he’d just taken snorting out of his nose.

“Are the Cobbs paying for this?” an aggrieved Nigel Bathe demanded. “That’s what I want to know. We only went to Brighton.”

Henry Hyams was swaying around as if in a railway carriage travelling at speed, lunging repeatedly at an imaginary bride. Greville Verschoyle was stooped over, pigeon-toed, pounding his knee with a fist, his face screwed up around his fat cigar in a rictus of mirth. To his surprise and shame Felix felt himself blushing. He left the room unobtrusively, hearing, as he closed the door behind him, Nigel Bathe plaintively demanding explanations.

“Look, come on you chaps. Do stop it. How can anyone afford Normandy in high season on a captain’s pay? That’s what I want to know. Has the gel got money of her own or something?”

Felix paused outside the door. He thought about going back into the dining room but decided against it. He walked instead up the passageway to the main hall. There it was cool and quiet. Through the front windows was a glimpse of the lawn, lime-green in the afternoon sun.

Felix was annoyed to find that he still felt offended and ashamed: offended to hear the men talking like that about Gabriel; ashamed that he—who prided himself on his worldliness—should be offended. He shook his head and allowed a bitter little smile to pass across his features. He couldn’t remember feeling so apart from his family: not one of them understood him, not one had an inkling of how his mind worked. Not even Gabriel, who—

“Hello, am I wanted or something?”

Felix looked round. It was Charis. She had just emerged from the large drawing room to the left of the hall where the presents were being displayed.

“No,” Felix said, indicating the front door. “I thought I might snatch a breath of fresh air.”

Charis smiled. “We haven’t had much of a chance to get acquainted, I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s all been so hectic. In fact we must be off soon or we’ll miss the boat…” she paused. “Gabriel said I should get these,” she held up two silver hip flasks. “They might be useful, he thought, if we went on a picnic.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Felix said. The thought of Gabriel and Charis on a picnic filled him with an irrational jealousy. He felt a spasm of intense dislike for this dark slim girl pass through his body. What did she know of Gabriel? he asked himself scornfully. How could she possibly know what he was really like?

“Still,” Charis continued breezily, “I expect we’ll get to know each other better. Later.” She paused, clearly a little put out by Felix’s lack of response. “We won’t be far away,” she went on. “The cottage.” She smiled again warmly. “It’ll be so nice to get to know you properly. Gabriel’s told me so much about you.”

She talked on, but Felix was no longer listening. His face felt hot. Gabriel and this girl, talking about
him!
Gabriel sharing confidences…But Charis had stopped.

“I say, is everything all right, Felix?”

“Yes. Yes of course,” he gave her a light frozen smile, little more than the pushing of his top lip.

She looked at him concernedly. For a second he stared back, noticing her features with a microscopic intensity: her white powdered skin, the faint down of hair in front of her ears, the moist redness at the corner of her eyes, the shine of saliva on her teeth, the blue veins in her throat.

She touched her forehead. “It’s been a long day,” she said with a final effort to be friendly. Then she looked down. “Well, I mustn’t…I suppose I’d better see if Hester’s finished the packing.” She looked up, seeming to have regained her cheery composure.

“I
will
look forward to living here,” she chattered on. “We’ll have half the summer left, nearly. The three of us. Gabriel, me and you. Now I must run along. See you later, before we go.”

She turned and left. Felix watched her go.

Felix stood with Dr Venables among the other guests outside the front of the house. They were waiting for the departure of the bride and groom. On the gravel before the front door stood the large Siddley-Deasey, its motor running and Cyril sitting in the front seat wearing his chauffeur’s peaked cap. Four heavy pigskin cases had been brought out by servants and strapped to the rack at the rear of the car. The gusty wind had cleared the sky of clouds and a warm afternoon sun shone on the bare heads of the guests and thickened the smoke of the post-prandial cigars.

Felix had composed himself after his ‘fit’ in the hall and had re-established a mood of jaundiced cynicism with which to see out the rest of the day. Nothing Gabriel or his ‘wife’ could do now would affect him in the slightest.

The front door opened and the twin objects of his indifference appeared, flanked by the major and Mrs Cobb. There was a burst of cheering and applause from the guests. As they stepped down onto the gravel, Hattie, Dora and Charles ran up with paper bags of rice and confetti. Little Dora, whose aim was erratic, threw in the stiff-armed lobbing way of young children and hurled a handful of rice full in the major’s face.

The major, who had been on the point of addressing a remark to his wife—and who had his mouth half-open for this purpose—found his eyes, nose and mouth suddenly stung and filled with a scatter of rice grains. He staggered back, whirling round in shock, shaking his head, blinking and spitting, but two or three grains had lodged themselves in his throat and a bout of severe barking coughs was found necessary to dislodge them. Felix watched in pitying amusement as his mother energetically thumped the major’s back while he hawked and retched—purple-faced—onto the gravel.

The oblivious crowd, meanwhile, swarmed past them and gathered round the motor car into which Gabriel and Charis had clambered.

Dr Venables offered Felix a handful of confetti from the paper bag he was holding.

“I won’t if you don’t mind,” Felix said.

Dr Venables looked at him quizzically. “Are you sure every-thing’s all right?” he asked.

Felix looked exasperated. “Everyone seems particularly concerned about my health today.”

“Suit yourself,” Dr Venables said, and pointedly tossed a handful of confetti at the car.

Gabriel and Charis sat in the rear seat, smiling radiantly at everyone and shouting their goodbyes. Felix heard his name called.

“Bye, Felix!” Gabriel shouted.