England Made Me (10 page)

Anthony got off the bed and began again to undress. But the room was cold (he shut the window), it was bare. He tore the coloured cover off
Film Fun
and stuck it against the wall with a piece of soap: a girl with large thighs dressed in a green bathing-suit sat in a swing with her knees apart. He tore out a photograph of Claudette Colbert in a Roman bath and balanced it on his suitcase. Two girls playing strip poker he put above his bed with more soap.

Well, he thought, that's a bit more comfortable, and stood in the middle of the room wondering what to do next to make the room like home, listening to the hot-water-pipes wailing behind the wall.

4

I awake and Erik sleeping and his hand cold on my side. All settled. He said to me ‘Laurin's ill,' but I knew it was not that. So tired he was. Never seen so tired now asleep so cold his hand. Anthony asleep now, the scar below the eye, the knife slipping upwards suddenly through the rabbit's fur, the scream, he went on screaming, no control the matron said. I woke in the middle of the night hearing him fifty miles away. Knew he was in pain. Father ill. They wouldn't let me go. The French exam all that day long the irregular verbs and twice the supervisor went out with me to the lavatory. I spoke to her and she said to me: ‘You mustn't speak until you have handed in your paper.'

Like an old married couple after thirty years. A silver copper what d'you call it golden wedding.

Erik said: ‘The strike's off. I managed it as well as Laurin could have done.' He said: ‘I told him a joke, asked after his family, gave him a cigar.' I said: ‘Was that all you gave him?' He said: ‘I gave him a guarantee that the wages in America would not be lowered.' I said: ‘Did you write it down?' He said: ‘No. I just gave him my word.' How tired he was.

Awake sleeping hand cold all settled.

He said: ‘What can your brother do?' Post-cards from Aden, the vacuum cleaner, the waitresses listening, ‘you made me love you,' that day in the music-hall he bought me a drink in the bar, the first I'd ever had, and Father said: ‘where have you been all day?' and he said: ‘walking in the park.' I was hopeless. I said: ‘He was always good at arithmetic.' Erik said: ‘There's nothing I can do for him. Tell me yourself. Is he good for anything?' I said: ‘He's good for nothing except winning tigers.' He thought I was cracked. He said: ‘Winning tigers?' I said: ‘He was emptying the shooting booths last night at Gothenburg until I stopped him.' I never thought that would appeal to Erik, not in his nature, joke, inquiry, cigar, cold hand against my side. He said: ‘I'll give him a job.'

‘I'll give you a job,' he said to me. The little dusty office in Leather Lane. He sat up very stiff in the only other chair with his gloves on and Hammond scraped and scraped to him. Pince-nez falling off the pointed nose, nibbling voice, rat face. He said: ‘She's always given satisfaction,' and upset the ink on his desk rising too quickly to open the door. A friend of my father's he felt responsible. The business bought up and the office in the hands of the breakers and my father dying.

When I left England my father said: ‘I wish Anthony were with you.' He said I must be careful, there would be temptations. But he had never been tempted, he didn't know what the word meant, lying there in his bed dying slowly, knowing nothing. The smell of medicine, the nurse at the door, the stained glass in the hall, in the mahogany bookcase a complete set of
Punch
in blue cloth bindings; his uncle had known Du Maurier and he remembered how people were shocked at
Trilby
. And he said to me one year: ‘I don't like Miss Mollison. A girl should not be seen at a play with her employer.' Honour the dead, these were the maxims he lived by, a little bit of England, Anthony wrote that he must have marble, I said ‘devoted, devoted children is too strong,' but Anthony said devoted was four letters cheaper and anyway it was seemly. But these were his maxims. Do not show your feelings. Do not love immoderately. Be chaste, prudent, pay your debts. Don't buy on credit. ‘Devoted' was too strong. On mother's grave ‘affectionate husband', he did not grudge five letters in the good cause of accuracy.

He read Shakespeare and Scott and Dickens and did acrostics all the days of his life. A little bit of England. He was disliked by his servants. He was an honourable man. His palm was warm as mine is warm. He may have loved Anthony too in his own way. Why did I dislike him so?

These were the reasons. I will be precise and remember clearly. He would have appreciated that. It is the dead hour of night when graves give up their dead. He did not care for
The Bride of Lammermoor
. He said it was exaggerated, the work of a sick man. And
Troilus and Cressida
was not, he was certain, by Shakespeare, for Shakespeare was not a cynic. He had a profound trust in human nature. But be chaste, prudent, pay your debts, and do not love immoderately.

These were the reasons. Anthony learning (the beating in the nursery, the tears before the boarding school) to keep a stiff upper lip, Anthony learning (the beating in the study when he brought home the smutty book with the pretty pictures) that you must honour other men's sisters. Anthony learning to love with moderation. Anthony in Aden, Anthony in Shanghai, Anthony farther away from me than he had ever been, Anthony making good; yes, he loved Anthony and he ruined Anthony and he was tormented by Anthony until the end. The telegrams, the telephoned messages, the face grinning over the bed-rail: ‘I've resigned.'

Now in the darkness be fair, Erik sleeping; hand cold on my side, all settled, only the Strand, a strip of water and a street between us – seem standing darker than last year they stood and say we must not cross, alas, alas.

He said: ‘winning tigers,' he said: ‘I'll give him a job.' I cannot understand. I would wake him and ask him but he is tired, he would think I want him. Only once I wanted him, an ambassador to dinner, and I drunk and the first-secretary pulled at my dress while they talked business in the other room. I said: ‘What's the good? How can we? They'll be back any minute. Have some more brandy?' He was as tall as Anthony, Erik's height, he had a duelling scar under his right eye (in the mirror over the mantel it was the left eye), he taught me to swear in his language and we laughed; I wanted to let him do what he wanted to do, but they were talking business in the next room, and I said: ‘do you skin rabbits?' and he thought I was cracked. That night I wanted Erik, I wanted anyone, I wanted a man I could see from the window while I undressed sheltering at the quayside. Erik said: ‘they'll take the loan, they'll take the loan,' and he couldn't sleep and I couldn't sleep, and soon we were happy and tired together because of that man's scar and the other man's loan. And that night.

Anthony near Marseilles, father dying, the electric light burning until seven in the morning under a heavy shade, the nurse reading, the kettle boiling, the sterilized swabs ready in a basin covered with gauze. My year in hospital. Putting the iodine where the vaseline should have been.

The blue vase broken and Anthony said: ‘But still we've got the tiger.' Would it have been the same tonight to Erik if I had said: ‘winning blue vases, winning cigarette cases marked with an initial A,' would he have said, even then: ‘I'll give him a job?' Tiger burning bright in Tivoli, immortal eye, the hand against my side, feet touching mine; even there the women watched him when he turned, when he smiled, what shoulder and what art, to see the rockets throwing down their spears. I saw the girl's eyes on him in Gothenburg, the badly-painted face, the trust, the innocence, the cunning that asks to be betrayed. Those we love we forget, it is those we betray we remember. Did she smile her work to see? He said: ‘I'll give her the tiger.' And when my heart began to beat in the Bedford Palace in Camden Town (he told father ‘we were walking in the Park') I loved him more than I had ever done before. The days of oranges were over, but he bought me peanuts.

And I watched with twisted sinews of the heart, with jealousy, the female tumbler falling towards the boards, the tights, the toothy smile, peroxide queen. It was my sixteenth birthday; I stared at the clock; and when it showed 6.43 I said: ‘It's my birthday,' and when it showed 6.49 I said, ‘Many happy returns.' A comedian came on the boards wearing check trousers drawing a toy lamb.

These memories one turns over like an old couple after thirty years, who have shared first love first hate first drink first treachery when I said: ‘You will miss your train.' The bitter draught. He couldn't drink the beer, spluttered, turned away, face saved by rising curtain, but the sherry I drank and held my breath and never made a sound. Afterwards eating apples at Mornington Crescent to take the smell away.

Father deceived again. Affectionate children. But there was such sweetness in the deceptions we did together.

That year I was in the hospital being trained he came to see me and asked whether the matron would buy a vacuum cleaner. Down from the ward, the tables washed with ether, the swabs counted in the right basin, the gauze, the shaded lights, to Anthony waiting, the winter sun on the pavement going west, he whistled a new tune. I had fifteen shillings and he had five. The cinema, the club in Gerrard Street, the last drink, he wouldn't let me have another, nice girls don't drink. Dear fool. The matron said unsuited to nursing, and when he went abroad I went to Leather Lane. Book-keeping, shorthand, the prize for speed presented by himself, by rat-faced Hammond. From that moment, I might tell my biographers, I never looked back. Plotted for this, planned for this, saved for this, that we should be together again.

Awake hand cold all settled. You may sleep now.

No new issues the market steady. You may sleep now. The early firmness maintained, averages higher, more interest, it's rising, response to call, it's rising, returned to favour, rising, it's rising, no reacting, rising, Anthony our bond, our bond Anthony, what profit taking, our bond, our futures are steady, the new redemption, rising, rising.

Don't be afraid. Don't hesitate. No cause of fear. No bulls on this exchange. The tiger bright. The forests. Sleep. Our bond. The new redemption. And we rise, we rise. And God Who made the lamb made Whitaker, made Loewenstein. ‘But you are lucky,' Hammond said that day in Leather Lane, ‘Krogh's safe. Whatever comes or goes people will always everywhere have to buy Krogh's.' The market steady. The Strand, the water and a street between us. Sleep. The new redemption. No bulls, the tiger and the lamb. The bears. The forests. Sleep. The stock is sound. The closing price. We rise.

PART III

1

M
INTY
knew the moment that he got up in the morning that this was one of his days. He sang gently to himself as he shaved, ‘This is the way that Minty goes, Minty goes, Minty goes.' Although he had a new blade he did not cut himself once; he shaved cautiously rather than closely, while the pot of coffee, which his landlady had brought him, grew cold on the washstand. Minty liked his coffee cold; his stomach would bear nothing hot. A spider watched him under his tooth glass; it had been there five days; he had expected his landlady to clear it away, but it had remained a second day, a third day. He cleaned his teeth under the tap. Now she must believe that he kept it there for study. He wondered how long it would live. He watched it and it watched him back with shaggy patience. It had lost a leg when he put the glass over it.

Above his bed was a house-group, rows of boys blinking against the sun above and below the seated figures of the prefects, the central figure of the housemaster and his wife. It was curious to observe how a moustache by being waxed at the tips could date a man as accurately as a woman's dress, the white blouse, the whalebone collar, the puffed sleeves. Occasionally Minty was called on to identify himself; practice had made him perfect; there had been a time of hesitation when he could not decide whether Patterson seated on the housemaster's left or Tester standing rather more obscurely behind, his jaw hidden by a puffed sleeve, best acted as his proxy. For Minty himself did not appear; he had seen the photograph taken from the sickroom window, a blaze of light, the blinking blackened faces, the photographer diving beneath his shade.

‘This is the way that Minty goes.' He picked a stump of cigarette from the soap-tray and lit it. Then he studied his hair in the mirror of the wardrobe door; this was one of his days; he must be prepared for anything, even society. The scurf worried him; he rubbed what was left of the pomade upon his scalp, brushed his hair, studied it again. Minty was satisfied. He drank his tepid coffee without taking the cigarette from his mouth; the smoke blew up and burned his eyes. He swore so gently that no one but himself would have known that he swore. ‘Holy Cnut.' The phrase was his own; always, instinctively, like a good Anglo-Catholic, he had disliked ‘smut'; it was as satisfying to say ‘Holy Cnut' as words that sullied, Minty believed.