The Revolt of Aphrodite (33 page)

O but it was a miserable period … I lay choking among my
frustrations
. “I know it is miserable” said the great man. “But sudden swerves aside are part of the pattern. The recovery will go on steadily, you will see. Do nothing to alarm her.”

I suppose that in an abstracted sort of way I had begun to hate Benedicta! Even now the idea surprises me; indeed it may not be true. A form perhaps of inverted love, a famished ingrown vegetable love fostered by exhaustion and the sense of perpetual crisis. I had several beautiful photographs of her hugely enlarged and framed—for my bedroom at Mount Street as well as for the office. Thus I was able from time to time to rest a reflective eye upon that long grave face with its confederate eyes. Emotions that refused to maintain any stability of pattern.

I went down for several successive week-ends, heart in mouth,
briefcase in hand, soft hat on head—to be greeted by the new
composed
Benedicta; a quiet, kindly, slightly abstracted woman whom I vaguely recognised. All her thoughts were for the infant prawn-like Mark, a mere series of bone-twigs as yet: but upon whose small thoughtful face I seemed already to see etched the first pull, so to speak, of the sparrow-chested intellectual he would doubtless
become
. They would send him to Winchester, he would be filled with notions, learn to control his emotions as well as his motions, become a scholar…. It was desirable, desirable. Later he could help me on lasers. Dear Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, bless the bed that I lie on. We sat on either side of the fire with the cot between us, discussing neutral topics like elderly folk sunning away a retirement. Benedicta. In the emptiness of my skull I howled the name until the echoes deafened me; but nothing came out of my mouth. It was almost with relief that I returned to my papers of a Monday—to the flat in Mount Street where Vibart and Pulley at least were visitors, where Marchant came to expatiate about the power of light to carry sound-waves—the principle which I was afterwards to adopt for Abel. A single laser beam etc. He covered the grand piano in blue chalk formulae and I had to have it French-polished again. But wait, there was one
surprise
.

Pulley came into my office on tip-toe, pale to the hairline with wild surmise. “Felix” he whispered, waving
The
Times
“unless you did it
he’s
still
alive.”

For a moment I did not follow his drift; then I followed the shaking finger down the column of Personals until, by godemiche, I struck …
a
mnemon.
I read out in astonishment:
Lazy
dwarf
with
sponge
cogs
seeks
place
in
animal
factor’s
poem.
I gave a cry. “No, I didn’t do it, Pulley. He must be
alive
.”
The word rushed about the room like a startled pigeon. Caradoc! But Pulley was speaking so fast now that he was spitting all over the place. “Not so loud” he cried in anguish. “If it’s true it means—O the silly fool—that he’s escaped; yet how typical not to be able to resist … O Felix.” His eyes filled with tears, he wrung his long soapy fingers together. “Why?” I cried, and he answered “If Julian sees this—do you think Julian would ever let him go? No, he’d set to work to find him, to inveigle him back, the silly old bugger.” I thought furiously. “Nonsense” I said,
seeing the whole thing in a flash. “We could easily tell Julian….” And the phone started to ring. We looked at each other like
schoolboys
caught masturbating. Pulley went through an extraordinary contortion, pointing to the phone, then to his own lips as they spelt out a message in dumb show. I nodded. The same idea had come to me. I picked up the instrument.

Julian’s quiet warm voice filled the ear-piece; he spoke in a calm, thoughtful, amused tone. “I wondered if you had seen
The
Times
as yet? It has one of those oddities of Caradoc’s in it today.”

“Yes,” I said “Pulley and I thought it up as a sort of obituary to an eccentric man.” There was a long pause and then Julian yawned. “O well, then. That solves the problem. Naturally I was a bit puzzled.” Pulley writhed. I said effusively. “O naturally.”

“You see,” said Julian dryly “one can be sure of nothing these days. There were several survivors from the crash; we’ve heard no more about them. Our man on the spot was away. And then of course some of his papers
have
been washed up.” I agreed to all this. “Well,” he went on, his voice taking a sly tinge “I only wanted to ask.” He rang off. We sat on, Pulley and I, discussing this new development in hushed tones. It was not long before the phone rang again and Nathan asked if Pulley was with me, as Mr. P. wanted to talk to him. I ran my fingers across my throat and handed him the instrument. Pulley, all subservience, sibilated his information into it, the sweat starting on his forehead as he spoke. Then he put it down and stared
thoughtfully
at the blotter before him. “He’s not convinced,” he said hoarsely “not at all. Wants me to fly out and get at the truth.” Then he flew into a characteristic rage and banging the newspaper with his palm said: “And this bloody fool is probably sitting in a brothel in Sydney, thinking he’s escaped from the firm. I ask you.” He rippled with moral rage.

“You’ll have to go.”

“I shall have to I suppose.”

Go he did. I drove him up to the airport myself next morning grateful for a chance to escape from the office. Pulley was dressed as if for the Pole, his pink stoat’s nose aquiver at the chance of having a holiday from an English winter. Dismay and uncertainty had
replaced
our original excitement, for enquiries had revealed that the
mnemon had been posted in New York—perhaps before Caradoc had started on his journey. I watched with affection the gangling figure of Pulley trapesing across the tarmac, turning to give one awkward wave before climbing into the bowels of the aircraft.
Outside
the bar I saw Nash hanging about, waiting for an incoming flight, and we decided to have a coffee together. He looked at my face quizzically and said: “Things are not going too well as yet are they?” I made a face and briefly sketched an ape swinging from a chandelier. “Frankly, Nash, I have almost made up my mind to get a divorce. Nothing else will meet the case.” Nash drew in his breath with a groan of dismay. “O Lord” he said “I shouldn’t do that. O No.” Then he cheered up and added: “As a matter of fact I don’t think you could even if you wanted. Felix be patient awhile.”

Patient! But it was really my concern for Benedicta which kept me bound hand and foot. I drove back recklessly, half soliciting a crash—always the weak man’s way out. But safely back once more I allowed the tranquil little lift to carry me upwards to my office. My fervent secretary looked up and said: “Promotion has been ringing you every few minutes since I came in.” Promotion department
consisted
of three exophthalmic old Etonians, who lived in a perpetual susurrus of private jokes, and an intrepid Bremen Jew called Baum who smoked cigars and looked freshly circumcised each morning. Between them they schemed up ways of marketing Merlin products. Baum’s voice was deep and full of forceful enthusiasm: “You
remember
the idea of having the biggest Impressionist exhibition of all time at London Airport—sponsored by us?” Vaguely I did. I vaguely remembered the memorandum which began “In our age nothing has proven itself so useful to merchandising as the genuine cultural product. Merlin’s has found that nothing pays off so well in terms of publicity as the sponsoring of art exhibitions, cultural gatherings, avant-garde films.” The latest of these ideas was to sponsor an Impressionist exhibitions of mammoth dimensions at the air
terminal
—offsetting these cultural trivia with a huge display of Merlin products. “Well, yes, Baum, what about it?” Baum cleared his throat and said: “Well, guess who we’ve got to open it? I have the telegram of acceptance before me.”

Iolanthe! It seemed extremely improbable. But, “her new film
opens in London at the same time and she has agreed to come. Isn’t it wonderful?”

It was indeed—a wonderful conjunction of commercial and
aesthetic
interests. Buy a lawn-mower while you sip your culture. “Good” I said. “Very good. Masterly.” Baum crooned. “The entry will be free” he said. I waved my paws and barked like a chow. “What did you say Charlock?” Woof, Woof. Iolanthe’s new film was called
Simoun,
the
Diva.
Somewhere, down deep inside, a new and urgent irritation against Julian had begun to materialise. It had its point of departure in a chance aside of Benedicta’s, when she said: “And Julian is in full agreement that he should go to Winchester.” He was was he? I studied with savage attention that fluent hand which had engraved a few words upon a recent paper of mine. I tried the old graphologist’s trick of tracing the writing with a dry nib,
trying
to feel my way into the personality of the writer; absent yet omnipresent, what sort of a man could this quiet voice represent? And did he simply regard me, like everyone else, as a sort of catspaw to be telephoned whenever he wished to issue an order? Why would he not meet me? It was insulting—or rather it would have been if everyone else had not been in the same boat. And yet … that voice could never tell a lie, one felt; it inspired the confidence of an oracle. Julian was good. I tried to brush aside my annoyance as a trivial and unworthy thing. Who knew what pains and sorrows Julian himself had had to endure? And where would I have been had it not been for his far-sightedness? It was thanks to him that my professional career…. Nevertheless it came over me by degrees—the idea that I might force the issue, actually waylay him. Face to face I could
discuss
Benedicta, and the issues which had grown up around us and were threatening my concentration on the tasks vital to the firm. Damn the firm!

When the office closed that evening I took a taxi to the little square in which he lived—there was nothing secret about his address, it was in
Who’s
Who.
Sepulchral trees, a little snow. The Rolls and the liveried chauffeur at the door raised my hopes of finding him in; but I did not wait to ask the man, who sat stonily at the wheel with the heating purring. I took the lift to the second floor and rang twice. I was let in, already prepared to see Ali, the Turkish butler—a heavy
torpid man with the head of a stag-beetle; prepared too to hear the soft plosive jargon he talked, squeezing the words up into a cleft palate.

He was not sure about Julian’s movements, and had received no instructions for the evening. I asked if I might wait awhile. I had already phoned Julian’s club to ascertain whether he were dining there or not. There was a fair measure of probability that he might come back here, if only to change for dinner—suppose him to be invited out. It was not late.

I examined the fox’s earth with the utmost attention, surprised to find how at home I felt in it. It was a sympathetic and unworldly place—a relatively modest bachelor flat with a fine library of classical and medieval books, opulently bound and tooled. A bright fire of coal burned in the grate. The three armchairs were dressed in brilliant scarlet velvet; on an inlaid card-table with its oasis-green baize centre stood a decanter, a pack of cards, a pipe, and a copy of the
Financial
Times.
The tips of his slippers peeped out from under one of the chairs. A sage-looking black cat sat upon a low wicker stool gazing into the blaze. It hardly vouchsafed me a glance as I sat down. So this was where Julian lived! He would sit opposite me over there, in a scarlet chair, wearing slippers and cooling his mind with the arid abstractions of the world markets. Perhaps he even wore a skull cap? No, that would have spoiled everything. The cat yawned. “For all I know
you
might be Julian” I told it. It gave me a contemptuous glance and turned back to the fire.

A small upright piano gleamed in the far corner of the room. A bowl of fresh flowers stood upon it, together with some bundles of sheet music. The tall goose-necked alabaster lamps with red
parchment
shades made a pair, echoing and chiming with the red velvet chairs. Yes, it was atmospherically a delightful room; the good taste was unselfconscious and unemphatic. The pictures were few but choice. Everything hinted at a thoughtful and eclectic spirit. One felt that its owner was something of a scholar as well as a man of affairs.

So I sat, waiting for him, but he did not come. Time ran on. The servant brought me a cocktail. The fire burned on. The cat dozed. Then I noticed, standing on the little escritoire in the corner, a small
framed photograph. It had been clipped from the
Illustrated
London
News‚
and it depicted a group of people leaving St. Paul’s after some national memorial service or other. The size of the screen was not very fine and the result was a somewhat vague photo; but I noticed Julian’s name among those printed in the caption. At last a picture of him! I went carefully along the second row, name by name, until I came to the fifth figure. It gave me something of a start, for the
picture
was surely that of Jocas. Or so it seemed. I cleaned my spectacles, and taking up a magnifying glass which lay to hand I subjected it to a close and breathless scrutiny. “But it is Jocas” I exclaimed aloud. It was damnably puzzling—there were the huge hands, even though the face was shaded by the brim of a hat. I found the servant standing
behind
me, gazing over my shoulder at the picture with an expressionless attention. “Is that really Mr. Julian?” I asked, and he turned a glossy and vacant eye upon me, as if he hardly understood. I
repeated
the question and he nodded slowly. “But surely it’s his brother Mr. Jocas Pehlevi; there’s some error.”

He moved his tongue about in his mouth and pressed some air up into the cavity below his nostrils. He had never seen Jocas, he said; as far as he knew it was Julian all right. I was nonplussed. Of course it could have been a mistaken ascription, a journalistic error. “You are sure?” I said again, and he nodded expressionless as a totem. He shuffled off and left me staring at this singular picture. I finished my cocktail and set the glass down. Then my eye caught sight of another small door in the further wall. It was ajar. I pushed it open and took an inquisitive look into the tiny adjoining room to which it gave access. It was a little work room, with an overflowing desk. But what surprised me was that on the further wall, beautifully framed, was a gigantic picture of Iolanthe, an enlargement from her Greek film. She stood, looking down, hands gravely clasped, on the temple plinth of the Wingless Victory, with all Athens curving away under her to the sea. I had hardly time to take this all in before a clock struck somewhere. I was dying to explore further—I wanted to see the bedroom, have a look at the clothes in the wardrobe and so on. But the noise startled me in burglarish fashion; I turned, and then the telephone began to ring in the hall. I heard Ali answer it with his gasping and grunting delivery—he must be conveying the fact of my
presence. And sure enough, he appeared in the door and beckoned me away from my investigations towards the phone. How familiar were the lazy precise kindly tones. “My dear Charlock, fancy you being there. What a disappointment for me.” Sometimes it was Felix, sometimes Charlock. “It was another vain attempt to see you” I said lamely.