Grand Days (57 page)

‘Now for the revolutionary fact: I am told that the sweep does the work of four men and eight horses.'

Edith looked around. Dame Rachel was now trying to catch Sir Eric's eye to stop the embarrassment. But Sir Eric was looking fixedly at the papers in front of him, as if frozen. He'd worked so closely with Ambrose as far back as the Peace Conference and then in the early days of the League. For Edith, it was an agony of empathy together with personal mortification. She had never been in a meeting caught in such a paralysing tension of embarrassment.

Ambrose, unaware of the mood of the meeting, went on with his speech. ‘With a tractor, the result is even more striking. The sweep is fixed at the front of the tractor and the lever for raising and lowering it is at the driver's right hand. The man at the wheel said he could do a steady eight miles an hour. He said he had not broken a single prong during the season. I confess that the machine looks as if it would perpetually be dropping part of its load and as if the prongs would always be catching in the ground and breaking off, but these things do not occur.

‘There is one problem, and I rush to admit this. The sweep is wider than most gates. But in countries with no fences this should not be a problem — that is, in the poorer countries which desperately need such an invention.

‘What I am saying is this: if we can speed up agricultural production worldwide by eight times, we can feed eight times more people, roughly speaking. Hence, banishing hunger for all time.

‘So, in conclusion, with your permission Sir Eric, I would ask the meeting, with respect, to consider urgently putting information about this sweep before our new Subcommittee of Agricultural Experts and before all governments across the world.

‘I have since sought out the man who patented it and he would be happy to arrange for a demonstration in Geneva for all interested governments.'

He beamed out a smile which begged for applause and for compliments. Maybe for a standing ovation. Ambrose must have sensed at this point that there was considerable unease in the meeting and that he had not convinced them, had been somehow off the mark. No one was looking at him directly; no eye would meet his eye.

She forced herself to look across at him and smile, but it was a pained smile. He mouthed something back to her — maybe something like ‘Am I going well?' — but she looked away.

After an agony of silence he started up again, ‘I suppose the meeting is worried about the sweep being too wide for farm gates. I knew that this would worry some people and it worried me. One of the answers is that the widening of gates could be subsidised by the better-off farmers and governments …' he began to scramble, ‘… or if that proves impracticable then the farmers themselves might consider widening their gates. Not a big job. After all, what originally back in the mists of time determined the width of a gate? The width of a gate is not God-given.' He stared into space as if wondering whether to go on further into the history of gates and then turned away from that direction.

‘Surely no one could say that this is an expensive item. It costs about twenty-four pounds sterling.'

He faltered again as some of those at the meeting began now to frown at him while others began leafing through their
papers. Someone should have thanked him and let him go, but no one moved. Sir Eric was still staring at his papers and consequently Ambrose stood in the room with his notes in his hand beside the photographs on the display board. These now caught his eye.

He tapped the board. ‘You can study the photographs which I took personally. Not too brilliant in terms of focus, but the points I have mentioned are illustrated by them well enough … to recap: the New Century Hay Sweep is the answer to hay-gathering. Hay-gathering and preservation is the secret to the feeding of animals through winter. Maybe I forgot to mention that. Oh yes, that is important. Keep that in mind. Hay is the secret to good husbandry, good husbandry is the secret of good farming, good farming is the secret to famine, the elimination of famine is the secret to the ending of disease and war.'

He stood before the Directors, now sensing that something had gone wrong but clearly unable to make any assessment of what it was that had gone wrong. He groped through his notes, maybe thinking that it was some piece of information which he'd missed out that would make everything more convincingly complete and sway the meeting.

Edith felt a squirming discomfort in her muscles, wanting for the situation to stop but not knowing how to stop it.

‘Oh — yes!' He seemed to think that he'd found a solution to his dilemma. ‘Questions — of course! Are there any questions? How silly — of course you must have questions. I am no farmer, but bowl them up.' And then, speaking to himself, said the word ‘questions' as a reprimand, as if to say, how silly of me to forget to call for questions, that of course everyone was waiting to be invited to ask questions — that was what was wrong. ‘You must be bursting with questions. Don't worry — I don't expect you to know about agriculture.'

Nearly everyone was looking now at Sir Eric, their gaze almost demanding him to bring the embarrassment to a close. He looked up slowly. ‘Thank you, Ambrose. Very informative. We must, you understand, get on with our agenda, and I'll be in touch in due course.' She had never heard Sir Eric refer to anyone by their first name.

Ambrose was nonplussed that there were no questions, no applause, and perhaps at hearing his first name.

‘But … ? Of course, I am glad, Sir Eric, that you found it so informative — when I was there in the field, in Wiltshire, in the sunshine, I found it remarkable — dazzling — that I should've come across the answer there in a field of hay in Wiltshire. I am so glad that you all see what I mean …'

He was struggling to find conviction now, hoping that soon he would hear the right words of acclamation spoken by Sir Eric or by someone in the group, the words which would recognise his discovery and applaud it.

‘Yes, well, good man, keep on with your philosophising, and now we must be on with our work here.' Sir Eric sounded as if he were talking to the man driving the tractor, not to a former close colleague.

It was as though one of the cranks had climbed over the Palais walls and into the very heart of the League.

‘Perhaps, Sir Eric, if there are questions which occur to anyone, they could contact me down in Siberia?' He beamed out his entreating smile. ‘Glad that all is now forgiven and so on and so forth.' He still stood there, unable to break away from the place where he so desperately wanted to be and where he wished to belong.

Edith could stand it no longer and she got to her feet, feeling that she had to take responsibility for Ambrose as he stood at the edge of his chasm. She went over to him, taking
his arm, saying quietly, ‘Thank you, Ambrose, that was useful,' and led him to the door.

‘You're convinced then?' he said grasping at her words, then looked behind him. ‘My photographs …' He made to go back into the room. She stopped him, saying that she'd get Jules to bring them down to him, adding, ‘People might like to study them.' She wanted him out of the room.

At the door, he looked across again at Sir Eric and the others and waved. She guided him out, closing the door behind them.

‘Of course,' he said, ‘they'll want to study them. It's a delightfully simple idea, isn't it?'

‘It is, indeed.'

‘One second — something else to tell.'

Before she could stop him, he ducked back in the room. She called, ‘Ambrose — no.' But he poked his head into the room and said, ‘One point — forgot it — to convert the horse sweep to a tractor sweep costs only ten guineas. Sorry. Forgot. Thanks again, chaps.'

She was about to go after him and tug him out of the room, but he came back to her. He still had an ingratiating, boyish smile.

He was now optimistically insensible to what had happened. ‘I think they liked the idea of the hay sweep but they may need time to understand the philosophical point — that all is related — like the planets — and that all is soluble — all is … well, all is whatever.' He laughed. ‘That's
it
: “All is whatever”.'

It was almost a glimpse of the old self-teasing Ambrose laughing at himself, but it wasn't really the old Ambrose. It was not the laughter of someone confident in the uncertainty of life. His laughter and his expression were different; they expressed the forlorn hope that what he'd said was not something about which to laugh, but was indeed a remarkable expression of genius.

Out in the corridor, he still kept on. ‘In Australia it would be fine. No gates there.'

‘I expect that it would be.' She smelled his breath for the first time, and detected no alcohol. She wished he'd been drunk and that it could all be explained by that.

She almost steered him down the corridor, standing until she was sure he was going. He turned twice to wave.

She stood until he had turned the corridor corner. She was struck by an unworthy feeling, that she'd been embarrassed by the idea that the others might still associate him with her, and that she'd made a mistaken move by getting up and seeing him out. Still, what mattered was that her decent self had got to its feet and helped him. And surely long ago gossip had made sure that everyone knew that they were no longer in any way a couple. She went back into the room. She heard someone say, ‘Yes, with Curzon for a time …'

Sir Eric looked at her and said, ‘Thank you, Berry, nicely done. Now let's get on.'

 

After work, she talked with Claude, who was now Ambrose's superior. Claude knew what she was talking about. He agreed that Ambrose needed help.

‘His work is no longer really good enough. I've talked to him — gently — but he's declining.'

‘Why don't you do something!'

‘Me? I can hardly go to someone like Westwood and tell him that he's shell-shocked or whatever. It's hard enough being his superior. In other circumstances, he'd be
my
superior.'

She asked about Ambrose's friends.

‘He's become something of a recluse. I can't think who I would designate as his close friend.'

She recalled seeing him drinking alone in the Bavaria. Sometimes someone would drift over to him to say hello.

‘Anyone who talks to him simply stands at his table and chats but they never sit,' Claude said.

‘You and I do that to him.'

‘Precisely,' Claude said.

Immediately after his demotion he'd still drop into the Bavaria as if nothing had changed, as a way of keeping up appearances. At first she'd thought he was coming there to be pathetic, to indict her, but Edith realised that she had no idea who knew or who didn't know about the reasons for his fall.

Claude said nervously, ‘Have a talk to him, Berry. I know it's hard to do. Might have to pack him off back to England. Let the FO have him back. His relatives, maybe.'

‘He has no relatives that I know of.'

‘I can't manufacture relatives or friends for a chap.' Claude tried to be light but she could see that he was feeling the sadness of it.

 

In her rooms at the pension, she collapsed in her armchair, her eyes closed, reliving the nausea of the meeting.

It was growing on her that she was obliged to do something about Ambrose and this agitated her. But too often people one knew at work, or socially — or worse, former lovers — were observed to be breaking down but no one talked with the person about it; everyone pretended everything was all right, acquaintances just let the person slide into catastrophe until they were taken seriously ill. She'd wondered about herself at times. After
the stoning of the Palais Wilson, when she'd gone to Chamonix — she had hidden the fact that she was a bit odd. In those cases a holiday, or the passing of time, had cured her.

There was the added difficulty of taking such an action with a former lover. She searched her mind for another person she could ask to intercede, to go to him and help, but she couldn't think of anyone on whom she could off-load the responsibility. Claude had dodged it and, as he'd confirmed, Ambrose had become somewhat isolated. She imagined that his old associates were probably steering clear of him. She would have to go to him.

What could one do to help a person in decline? She could lead him to seek help from a physician or a clinic. One could offer solace — if the person was a friend. One could amuse and keep the person cheerful for an hour or so. One could participate in the person's illusion that everything was unexceptional. Drink with them while they died in drunkenness night after night.

She had to get it off her mind now, and heavily she forced herself up, put on her coat and went out again, dog-tired. She would take him to dinner.

She rang the bell and Ambrose came to the door and let her in, obviously delighted by her visit. She hadn't been there since the night they'd parted ways.

He was welcoming and seemingly in good spirits.

‘How good of you to call — what a pleasant surprise. During the afternoon I was expecting some of the others to drop down and talk about the hay sweep. No one came by.'

The apartment was dusty but tidy, still very much the way they'd done it together back in the mad, giggling days. There was a smell of cooking, well, of toast burning, and under that, a smell which she would describe as the smell of a man, a man alone, of self-neglect.

He wore a dressing robe over his work clothes. He still had on his tie. He had an open bottle of Scotch on the glass-topped round table, drink in hand. He had changed his shoes and had on his tasselled loafers.

He hugged her, she offered her cheek for a kiss but he kissed her lips, still holding his glass. ‘I was drowning my indigestion,' he said, waving the Scotch glass.

‘You always said that if you had indigestion Scotch only stirred up the frogs in the swamp,' she said for want of something to say, taking off her coat.