The Last Houseparty (5 page)

IV

1

W
aiting for the train on Saturday morning, Sir Charles Archer leaned both hands on his black cane and stared along the railway line. Though still as an image, his pose expressed inward restlessness, or hunger; he might have been waiting for the train to bring him his bride. That mysterious smoky and oily breeze, which even on still days railway stations seem to conjure up, more like an outdoor draught than any natural wind, breathed gently past him; but he leaned into it as if it had been a gale and he on some cliff-top look-out, peering seaward. In front of him, but invisible from the platform, the long and dreary township of High Wycombe wound through its valley to the west.

“How's the army treating you, my boy?” he said suddenly.

“Very decently, sir,” said Vincent. “I'm enjoying it.”

“They teaching you to kill effectively?”

“I'm teaching other chaps now. I've been posted to our new TA battalion in Hackney.”

“So you will march to battle at the head of costermongers and clerks. Charming. Who are they planning to let you slaughter first?”

“The c-current assumption is that it'll be the Germans.”

“You'll enjoy that too?”

“I think I shall enjoy fighting.”

“And accept the necessity to kill as unfortunately incidental to the fighting?”

“Looks like it. I mean, suppose I spent my life in the service and ran out a general, without ever having been involved in a proper shooting war, in theory that'd be the best thing that c-could have happened, but I'd be bound to feel I'd missed something, wouldn't I?”

“By ‘the best thing that could happen' I take it you are referring to the good of the country at large.”

“Well, yes, sir.”

“Then you are mistaken. Peace is of course beautiful, but a country such as ours needs a war, approximately once a generation, in order to retain its moral strength. It needs to put forth its full energies in battle, or it will begin to lose its own sense of its destiny. The question is not whether we should fight, but when, and whom. This war that you envisage will happen five years too early, but that is not the worst thing about it. Let me ask you whether you find it natural to regard the Germans as the enemy you are being trained to kill.”

“I think so, sir. Dash it, I don't mean that. It's not natural to k-kill anyone.”

“It is, my boy. But go on.”

“Well, the Germans … I mean, we were fighting them when I was born. They k-killed my father—and Hal's. And you must have done for a few, sir.”

For the first time for several minutes Sir Charles moved more than his lips. It was in any case natural for interlocutors, even near strangers, to find themselves standing in a position where they could see only the left side of his face, though no conscious effort seemed to be needed on the part of either person to make this happen. Now the large and bonily magnificent countenance swung to face Vincent, so that the great blotchy naevus that smeared the right cheek from eye-corner to jaw-bone came into view.

“It was a bad dream,” said Sir Charles, his heavy purr slowing to a drawl. “I have woken up. I have woken up.”

“Still, it looks as though that's what we're g-going to be in for again, sir,” said Vincent. “Even if it isn't what we want, supposing Herr Hitler …”

“Adolf is only one man,” said Sir Charles, returning to his former pose. “I've had several chats with him, and I think I know what makes him tick. He's a politician, first and last. Remember that he's got to carry his country with him.”

“I saw a newsreel of the last Nuremberg rally.”

“I was there, my boy. I was there. And very impressive it was. But remember those roaring mobs are not the real Germany. If only people would get it into their heads that a modern nation is nothing more nor less than an economic system, a network of industries. The people who run the real Germany are the big industrialists. I tell you, Vincent, Germany's industrialists, many of whom I number among my friends, have absolutely no intention of letting Adolf off the leash, though they will let him bark as much as he likes. I suggested as much—I put it in those very words—to Herr Ribbentrop only last month, and he laughed and agreed with me. So … Ah, there's the bell at last … I must say, I wish Zena had consulted me before dragging this young Arab in. Tell me about him.”

“I've only met him once, sir, playing c-cricket. I've never talked to him alone. I'm not sure I'd be able to put my finger on Sorah on the map.”

“A dot half-way up the Persian Gulf on the left-hand side. The only decent harbour on that coast, so it controls one of the main routes to Mecca from the east. They aren't supposed to tax the pilgrims, but they find ways. They have something of a reputation for luxury among the Arabs—rather like Sybaris among the early Italians—based on a specialist slave trade they run. Girls from Persia.”

“There c-can't be much of that these days, sir.”

“Officially, none. Unofficially … you are aware that half-hearted suppression of trade in any commodity increases the profits of the middleman? If there are too many girls coming through Sorah—they're said to be pretty well children by our standards—the Emir instructs his officials to be zealous for a while. The flow slackens, and the price per child rises. You know, I find it curious to consider that this young man's education in the art of passing himself off as a gentleman should have been paid for by the sale of children to gratify the perversions of savages.”

“Oh, cuh … cuh … cuh …”

Sir Charles's voice had deepened to a richly throbbing bass, perhaps only an indication of his relish in the dramatic manipulation of language. When he turned to smile at Vincent his eyes seemed to have gained colour and to twinkle with only slightly malicious charm. Or it might not even have been malice, merely inquisitiveness at the shape of a mind that could not savour an irony he himself enjoyed.

“I was teasing, my boy,” he said. “The trade is very nearly suppressed, as you say. And in any case the Emir is anxious to show himself a good friend to Britain. There is an American company exploring for oil, too, and if they find it the Emir will be able to suppress the trade entirely, I imagine. No, it would be truer to say that the Prince's education in the ideal of a Christian gentleman had been paid for by a levy on the poor who make the journey to Mecca. Just as curious as irony, but less repellent. At last! Next time I see Tuffy Gallacher at White's I shall take great pleasure in twitting him on the performance of his railway.”

Very slowly, almost as though the driver was uncertain that this was the right station, the train steamed in, stopping with a long, exhausted sigh.

“Your chap will no doubt be travelling first,” said Sir Charles. “One cannot be sure about the Blechs.”

There were not many passengers. Vincent stood back from the train, craning along the carriages, his usual look of faint anxiety now quite marked. After all it was perfectly possible that two brownish young men would alight, and then how was one to be sure of recognising a figure last seen four years ago at the length of a cricket pitch? In fact there was no chance of mistake. A porter homed on a first-class compartment and heaved out three large new cases. A small man stepped down and gazed around him.

At Lord's the Prince had looked two or three years younger than his age, lissom and soft-featured. The softness was still there but the lines had changed, becoming definitely bulbous; and he had grown a neat black beard. He was wearing grey flannels and a college blazer. As soon as he spotted Vincent walking towards him he sprang forward, hand held out.

“Hello, Masham,” he said. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you, sir. Very g-glad you were able to c-come.”

“None of this ‘sir' business, please. I gather from your aunt—she is your aunt, eh?—that the only formalities take place this evening.”

“Zena would manage to make a c-coronation feel informal. That's all your bags? We're meeting some other people off this train … He's found them, by the looks of it.”

Vincent led the way down the platform and introduced the Prince to Sir Charles.

“Honoured to meet you, your highness,” said Sir Charles. “Allow me to present Professor and Mrs Solomon Blech.”

The Prince had been on the verge of saying something, probably another request to forsake protocol. Now he underwent a marked change, almost a spasm. The effect was like that occasionally seen when an actor in a repertory company suffers an aberration and makes his first entrance under the impression that he is still in last week's play. The charming laugh, the suggestion of tennis, freeze on his lips as he stares round the gaunt set and at the other members of the cast, all visibly racked with the tragedy they have been enacting. The Prince continued to turn towards the Professor, but withdrew several inches as he did so. Blech, a short, rotund man, bowed Austrian-fashion.

“I have corresponded with your highness's uncle, the Kemalah,” he said. “I hope His Holiness is in good health.”

He spoke rapidly and softly, running the words together but putting a heavy stress on some syllables, apparently at random. His mien was perfectly solemn, but his small bloodshot eyes blinked frequently as he spoke, giving him a look of inquisitive delight, a child's dangerous innocence. But clearly he knew his way about the world, for the mention of the Kemalah of Sorah acted like a letter of recommendation and had the effect of allowing the Prince to translate back into the sphere of light comedy.

“That old villain!” he cried. “Still raking in the shekels, as you would say, Professor.”

He turned smiling to Mrs Blech, who curtsied as she touched his hand. She was a pale, harried-looking woman, taller than her husband. She emanated a sense of suppressed nerves, as though the station platform were swarming with snappy little dogs which she had to pretend, for form's sake, not to notice. She clung to a worn green cello case. The Blechs' only other baggage appeared to be a cloth suitcase and two brown paper bags.

“I'm afraid the chauffeur's sick,” explained Vincent. “I have to drive.”

“Then I'll come in front with you,” said the Prince, almost as though it were a social adventure to ride in front of the Daimler's glass partition. This was probably just as well, for though there were two seats in the back, each running across the full width of the car, as well as the little folding chairs that popped out of the floor—so that in theory eight passengers could fit in behind the partition—Mrs Blech would not be parted from her cello and Sir Charles, constrained by the metal-ribbed corset he had to wear, also took up a good deal of room. It was distinctly tactful of the Prince not to add to the problems by asking them to fit royalty into the jig-saw.

“I've never been allowed to drive this bus before,” said Vincent as the large engine took the Daimler breathily away. “It feels more like a ship than a car.”

“Or a camel,” said the Prince. “You know, Masham, I'm delighted to have met you again. I have dreamed of you from time to time. That second innings! My century at Lord's! Gone! Never another chance!”

“Sorry about that.”

“I do not even know that it has been good for my character, as they promised. Do you still play? I don't.”

“In the army, yes. The funny thing is that I've lost my leg break. I still do the flipper and the g-googly, but for some reason my ordinary plain tweaker won't tweak.”

“That is symbolic of our progress to the tomb. I say, Masham, I've often wished the Prophet had played cricket. He'd have had some interesting things to say, don't you imagine? Now tell me about this man Archer. Blech I know of.”

“Sir Charles? Oh … well, he's a journalist and an MP, but he's a bit more than that. There's a small g-group in the House who follow him, but I don't think they have much effect. Still, he has a lot of influence in other ways. He had a terrific war, you see. In the end he was so badly blown up that he has to wear a sort of steel corset thing all the time. And he's a marvellous public speaker. Even so, it's difficult to say why people think he's important, but they do, and so he is.”

“What is his interest in Professor Blech?”

“He wants to talk to him, I imagine. He's not well off. He makes his living by his journalism, and that depends on knowing what's g-going on. Apparently Professor Blech is the chap to tell you about the Zionist view on the Palestine problem, so …”

“He is an enemy of my people, Masham. I say, this car makes a remarkable amount of smoke.”

“That's the trouble with these sleeve-valve engines—they're famous for it. But as a matter of fact I think there must be something a bit rummy with the transmission. I noticed it c-coming in, but I thought it was only that I wasn't used to the fluid flywheel. Now it seems to be g-getting worse.”

Soon it became clear that something was indeed wrong with the Daimler. The soggy suspension, combined with the fluid flywheel, always gave an illusion of smoothness, almost of floating on a mildly swelling ocean; but as they climbed the steep road on to the chalk escarpment south of High Wycombe they trailed behind them exhaust smoke blue as a thunder cloud. The car slowed and slowed until it could barely have overtaken a bicycle, and the needle of the fuel gauge dropped visibly. At last the scaly pattern of roofs that snaked along the valley fell out of sight and they moved into the uplands, only to wallow more noticeably as they picked up speed. The morning was bright and warm, the road almost empty. In the rear compartment Professor and Mrs Blech sat in opposite corners of the back seat, Mrs Blech with her eyes closed as if already desperately trying to master the car sickness which the Daimler almost instantly induced in certain passengers. Professor Blech completely ignored her distress, leaning forward and speaking with great volubility and many small gestures to Sir Charles, who sat sideways on the front seat, twisting stiffly round to listen. In the driving compartment the Prince had returned to the subject of Palestine, speaking now with a low dispassionate voice which contrasted strongly with the boyish dash with which he had referred to his two disastrous innings at Lord's.