Last Friends (Old Filth Trilogy) (18 page)

* * *

‘Elsie?’ he said. ‘Do you really want to know about Elsie, Filth? More dignified if you’d never asked. Rather surprised at you. And I wasn’t a hero of the
Benares
. I ran away before she sailed. Not brave at all.’

‘Good God, it’s not what we all believe.’

‘Ran off across Liverpool till I heard her hooter sounding off goodbye. Three days later she was torpedoed. Well, I probably wouldn’t have drowned. Some didn’t. Two in this village didn’t. Those fat twins. Never speak. I was sent away afterwards to a Catholic boarding school—I’m Catholic—because my family had copped it the same night in an air-raid. Then I started at Oxford and got called up for National Service post-war.

‘I missed that,’ said Filth. ‘Done the army. Older than you.’

‘Then off to the Med in the RNVR. Six months paradise. Every port. Showing the flag. God, the girls! Standing screaming for us on every quay. No reason not to spring into their arms. No Penelopes sitting sewing blankets back home and wishing we were there to take the dog out. Heaven. Then, just about to sail for Portsmouth—floods of tears and gifts and promises of eternal love—and they sent us
on
!
On
—out East to the Empire of the Sun. Hong Kong. Singapore. Unbelievable pleasure. Sun. No chores. Splendid naval rations, enough money, Tiger beer and all of us like gods, bronzed and fit and victorious, dressed in white and gold. Parties at governors’ residences. Parties, parties. I never read a book. I never thought beyond the day. I had no home to hurry back to. I met Elsie.’

‘I remember her.’

‘Oh, yes. Singapore. She was—well, you saw her.’

‘Not until about ten years later. She was so beautiful. To me she was beyond desire,’ said Filth.

‘D’you remember,’ said Veneering, ‘how when anyone saw her for the first time, the room fell silent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Chinese. Ageless. Paris thrown in. Perfect French. Poise.’

‘We all wanted poise in women after the war. The women who’d been in the war were all so ugly and battered. The rest were schoolgirls and they slopped over us. We thought nothing of them. We were looking for our mothers I think, sometimes. Beautiful mothers.’

‘Elsie was like your mother?’

‘No. My mother was a figure from—beyond the Ural mountains.’

‘She gave you your blond hair?’

‘No. Not exactly. She could have organised the Ural mountains.’

‘Elsie—?’

‘Just stood there at some meaningless party. Tiny pea-green silk cheongsam. Made in Paris. They were rich. Her father hovered. Seldom spoke. Watched me. Had heard I had a future. Knew I had a bit of a past but could speak languages. Bit of a reputation at Oxford—. Knew I had no money. I needed,
wanted
money. Women—well, enthusiastic. He invited me with the family group—I didn’t know that—to a dinner to eat crabs in black sauce on the old North Road. This is Hong Kong now. I think. Everyone shouting and clacking Chinese. I was already good at it. Showed off. Unfortunately got drunk—but so did they. So did Elsie. She wore these little jade bracelets on her wrists, fastened onto rich girl-babies. Tight, sexy. Just sat there. You know what it’s like. Round table. Non-stop talk. Suddenly all over and everyone stands up. Shouting. Laughing. Family—well, you know, unbelievably rich and—well—cunning. I found myself taking her home. It was considered an honour.’

‘You needed a friend, Veneering, to get you out of that one.’

‘I know. D’you know, I remember thinking that it would be good if Fred—little Fiscal-Smith—had been there.’

‘Well, I had to go back and marry her.’

‘Couldn’t old Pastry Willy and his Dulcie have helped?’

‘Not then. Well, they might have done. I don’t think they wanted to know me. I had swum through life after the war as I’d never have done on board
The City of Benares
. (Yes, thanks. A small one.) We were pushed into it in those days by—well by the Church. There is a Catholic church in Singapore. It survived. It is thronged. It was home. Somehow you keep with it. And so amazing that Elsie was Catholic. Or so they said. And we had a son.’

‘I remember your son. Who didn’t? Harry.’

‘Yes. He was a wild one. He had my language thing. I sent him to the same English prep school as the Prince of Wales. Elsie’s family flew him back and forth. He was—. He was, such a
confrère
. Such a brilliant boy—.’

‘I remember.’

‘Then they thought he was dying. Cancer in the femur.’

‘I heard something—.’

‘Betty—your Elizabeth—well, you must know. Looked after him. It wasn’t cancer. Back in England. Tiny, wonderful little hospital in Putney. I couldn’t be there in time.’

‘And his mother—?’

‘Elsie was in Paris. A hair appointment.’

‘And after that, you still stayed with Elsie?’

‘Yes. Well. I stayed with my boy.’

* * *

‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Filth.

‘Elsie died,’ said Veneering. ‘An alcoholic.’

‘I am so sorry. We did hear—. But you had the boy.’

‘Oh, yes. I had the boy.’

‘I had no child,’ said Filth. ‘Come on. Bedtime.’

‘Your supper smells good,’ said Veneering. ‘My mother could cook.’

‘I never knew mine,’ said Filth. ‘Now are you all set for your visit to Malta? Strange place. I envy you,’ and he waited to see if Veneering would say, ‘You should come with me.’ But Veneering did not.

‘Actually,’ said Veneering, ‘Elsie got very fat.’

‘She needed your love,’ said Filth.

* * *

But late that night, after his orderly, reflective bath-time, the evening lullaby of the rooks harsh and uncaring, Filth thought, He needed more than Elsie could give. He needed Betty. And Betty was mine.

* * *

The next morning Veneering’s hired car for the airport swished along his drive at six o’clock and he didn’t even look down at Old Filth’s great chimney as they sped by. It was raining hard and still not really light.

Interesting evening, though. Never talked to the old fossil before. Maybe never known him. Or each other. Maybe once could have talked about women with him before the Betty-Elsie days. I might have helped him there. The ones who could never have talked to each other were Betty and Elsie. Perhaps the seeds of hatred had always been in them?

And this black and wintry morning in the cold rain Filth was realising that, at last, he was seeing Betty from a little distance. As a man, not even loving her particularly. Seeing her away from this eerie village, thick with history, hung with memories like those ghastly churches in Italy hung with rags. Rags and bandages and abandoned crutches, abandoned because prayer had been answered, wounds all healed, new life achieved. Betty Feathers lay dead in Donhead St. Ague church-yard. The monumental husband was, at what must be the end of his life, turning out to have a persona apart from his wife. Level-headed, a comrade, all passion spent. Urbane enough to play chess with his life-long sexual rival, and forget.

What idiot years they had passed in thrall—whatever thrall is—to this not exceptional woman. Not a beauty. Not brilliant. Stocky. What is ‘falling in love’
about
? And her attitude to life—it was antique.

She could love of course, thought Veneering. My God I’ll never forget the night she was with me. And she said so little. When I think of Elsie! All we hear about the silent, inscrutable Chinese! Elsie screamed and screeched and spat. She flung herself up and down the stairs in front of the servants. Hecuba! All for Hecuba! Didn’t care who heard her. Put off little Fiscal-Smith for life. White, as he watched her. Bottles flying. Jewels flung out of windows. How flaccid she became. Rolls of fat. She had the bracelets cut away. Her wrists above began to bulge and crease. She couldn’t understand English—not the words. Her ‘English’ was faultless. But what it meant! In Chinese there is no innuendo, irony, sarcasm. Bitch-talk she could do. She asked Betty, who was in her twenties, if she was a grandmother and Betty said, ‘Oh, yes I have seventeen grandchildren and I’m only twenty-seven’ and Elsie had no idea what she was talking about. The most hateful thing about Elsie was her fragile hands. She would pose with them, cupping them round a flower, and sigh, ‘Ah!
Beautiful
’ and wait for a camera to click. Life was a performance. A slow pavane.

For Betty it was a tremendous march. A brave and glorious and well, comical sometimes, endurance. All governed by love. Passion—well she’d forgone passion when she married. Her own choice. She’d taken her ration with me. She wouldn’t forget that night. Hello—Heathrow? Still raining. Why the hell am I going to Malta for Christmas?

* * *

Veneering was staying in what had been the Governor’s residence, or rather in the hotel wing of his ancient palace. Throughout the network of the cobbled streets of Valetta the rain poured down, turning them to swirling rivers. There was thunder in the winter rain. No-one to be seen. Cold. Foreign. Post-Empire. Oh, Hong Kong!

The hotel, or palace, stood blackly in a court-yard that was being bombarded by the rain and the huge doors were shut. Veneering sat in the taxi and waited while the driver with a waterproof sheet on his head had pounded at them and then hung upon a bell-rope. At last, after the flurry of getting him in, tipping the genial driver well—but not receiving quite the same excessive gratitude as long ago—Veneering stood in a pool of rain on the stones of a reception hall that rose high above him and disappeared into galleries of stony darkness. He was then led for miles down icy corridors with here and there a vast stone coffin-like chest for furnishing, the odd, frail tapestry.

The dining room reminded him of the English House of Commons, and he was the only guest. The menu was not adventurous. There was a very thick soup, followed by Malta’s speciality, the pasta pie, the pie-crust substantial, and then a custard tart. A harsh draught of Maltese red wine. There was no lift to take him back to his room which was huge and high, the long windows shuttered, the bed a room in itself with high brocaded curtains that did not draw around it. In one of them a hole had been cut for the on-off switch of a reading-lamp that stood on a bedside table that was a bridge too far. The sheets were clean but very cold. Rain like artillery crashed about the island. There was thunder in it. He lay for a long time, thinking.

But in the morning someone was grinding open the shutters and the new day shone with glory. Palm trees brown and dry but beautiful rattled against a blue sky and racing clouds. At breakfast, with English marmalade and bacon—and bread of iron—there was a pot of decent tea strong enough for an old English builder. A man on the other side of the breakfast room with another pot of it lay spread out like a table cloth over a rambling, curly settee. His feet reached far into the room. He said, ‘Hullo, Veneering. It
is
Veneering isn’t it? I’m Bobbie Grampian.’

‘Good Lord! Yes, I am Veneering. I’m said to be unrecognisable.’

‘Not at all. We’re all said to be unrecognisable. It’s just that there’s no one much left to recognise us. Staying long? I’m here with Darlington.’

‘I used to live near there.’

‘No, no. Chap. Darlington. Always been here. He wants to be a barrister’s clerk. Viscount or something. He’ll be delighted—.’

‘Hasn’t he left it a bit late? I’ve been retired about twenty years.’

‘Eccentric chap. Lives in the past.’

‘Are you still dancing? I mean reeling, Bobbie?’

‘O, God, yes. Never without the pipes. Mother’s gone I’m afraid.’

‘Well yes. Are you in the same house?’

‘Where you came that night? Kensington. Splendid evening—or was it the Trossachs?’

‘Actually I never quite got there.’

‘Remember you doing the reels—. But you inherited those marvellous Chambers! People pay to visit them now. Listed. Apparently once belonged to John Donne.’

‘John Donne? The poet?’

‘Wasn’t he the King of Austria?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Yes, “John Donne of Austria is marching to the War”. Dear old G. K. Chesterton. He was a Catholic.’

‘I think that was Don John.’

‘Yes? I’m very badly educated. Very sexy man John Donne. Sexy poetry.’

‘He was Dean of St. Paul’s.’

‘Extraordinary. To think you inherited a royal dwelling. Sold it I suppose? Get rich quick. What d’you think of this hostelry? Bit like after the war. What a funny new-old world we’ve lived through.’

‘Well,’ said Veneering, ‘it’s large and cold. I came here for Christmas cheer. A break from Dorset winter.’

‘Alone? Oh, most unwise. We must get together. There’s a Caledonian Club I’m sure, and I have the pipes. Ah—and here’s the man. Here’s the man!’

Unchanged since Betty and Edward Feathers’ honeymoon, a shambling person shuffled towards them demanding porridge. ‘Hullo?’ he said. ‘Know you, don’t I? Golf? Are you on your own?’

‘It’s Veneering,’ said the Scot.

‘Oh.’

‘Veneering. The retired judge. Friend, no, contemporary, of The Great Filth. Come here for a Christmas break.’

‘Ye gods! Very few of us left. Splendid. Anything special you want to see? Some wonderful ancient tombs, and so on. And the skeletons of pygmy elephants. No?’

‘Well I would rather like to see the cliffs again. There was a fresh-water spring.’

‘Place we used to go to for picnics. Very
British
place. Take you there now if you want. You’ll be able to see to the horizon and down to the depths. Heaven and hell, ha-ha. You coming with us, Grampian?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Ready then, Veneering? Porridge good here isn’t it? Actually Veneering, I have something to ask you.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve always had a hankering to be a Barrister’s clerk. Don’t know why. I can organise, and I like the Ambiance.’

(He must be eighty!)

‘You may have heard of me. Always around.’

‘What was—is—your profession?’

‘Never had one. It wasn’t a thing all the expats wanted after the war you know. Bit knocked about. Prison-camps and so on.’

‘You were in one of the camps?’