Through Streets Broad and Narrow (41 page)

By the time Caroline came down wearing a narrow golden belt and sandals with a black dress and attached black hood over her shining hair, there was some sign of organization, though not nearly enough. She was angry; she lighted a cigarette, helped herself to a drink and stood by the piano, tapping its top with the heel of her hand.

She said, “Everybody's quite useless. Everybody! If we're going to have a party let's have one and not a soup kitchen. If many more people come before we're due to start, there just won't be room to do anything. So please all go outside until we've moved the furniture. No, Palgrave, not on the sofa! We're just going to move it. We simply must have some clear space for people to eat and drink in. I don't really think we'll be able to manage any dancing, it's a question of breathing only at this stage.”

But gallant and imperative though she was she could accomplish little. In ones and twos, then in groups, more and more people arrived laughing their way past the boxes and cases, stooping beneath the plaster stallion as they pressed in from the winter's cold to the warmth and light of the long, L-shaped room.

Palgrave, dislodged twice from the piano in the rectangular annexe off the main room, had settled back there with the poet and the painter, all three sadly but tenderly calling each other by their Christian names. It was quite distinct, this party within the party, with the names being enunciated at intervals, affectionately, chidingly, with mock astonishment or appeal and always with the underlying
tristesse
.

“But Palgrave—”

“No, Jan, that was at Jocelyn's.”

“Emlyn, you couldn't possibly!”

It persisted throughout the evening, symbolically cut off from all that happened in the large remainder of the room; yet not isolated since the real party infiltrated in there, not only by persons but by the reflections from the many mirrors.

Palgrave's corner reminded John of those birdcages in which
invaginated fish bowls are incorporated on the tops so that the occupants may sit preening and billing on perches surrounded by swimming fish; a conceit at first shocking, then bewildering, finally amusing; even though, as a situation, it is never easily accepted, since the viewer has always to remind himself that the birds are not wet nor the fish dry. And from Palgrave's cage came the notes of the piano continually pausing on the muted cries: the “Jans,” “Oh, Palgraves,” and the “Emlyns”; while beyond the triumvirate, around them, swung the reflections of the other guests: the girls in their night paint, the young men, the transient groups, breaking up and re-forming, restlessly.

The party was never organized; it never really began at any particular moment and who was to say when it ended? Certainly not Caroline, who, with Palgrave, since he had helped Greenbloom to pay for it, was joint hostess. For she was as unaware of its real purpose as was he, though she had never Palgrave's intention of isolating herself from it. Quite soon, when she had overseen the moving of the furniture and casually welcomed some of the guests, she abandoned her attempts to achieve any sort of order.

She told John, “I'm ‘moithered' with it. I don't know what any of us are supposed to be doing at all. After your idea I did get someone to label my
Yahoo
stallion “Neutrality” as a sort of gesture to Ireland, the Germans and this American man you're bringing. But Palgrave's being so witless with all those Englishmen that I think it's best just to let it be nobody's party in particular.”

“Yes, that's probably best.”

“I'm only hoping the press don't get ear of it. It'll be the end of my flat if Daddy sees any photographs or reports in the paper.”

“It's just a party,” John said. “Great fun!”

“Well, I hope so, but somehow I don't know that it
is
going to be such crack at all. Somehow I don't like the atmosphere. I know there are more people to come and that it hasn't really got going, but don't you feel a sort of tension?”

“Good heavens, no! Do you, Mike?”

“What?”

“Tension,” John repeated. “There's no tension, is there? Caroline thinks it's not going well.”

“It hasn't started,” Groarke said.

“Isn't he ominous? Whenever do you think Christian Luthmann will arrive? And your American friend? I do wish we could persuade Palgrave to abandon his piano session. It helps in one way but in another it's somehow rather—segregating. If your main guests don't arrive soon we'll just have to hand round the
vols-au-vent
, otherwise people will drink too much on empty stomachs and that's fatal.”

“Give them another five minutes,” John said; and Groarke, with uncharacteristic sympathy, suggested that he would take over the bar and see that nobody anticipated events.

“How sweet of you! You're just the man to do it. I don't mind a bit if people get drunk later, I just don't want them to get drunk now—before it starts.”

John said, “I've been thinking; is this your first party in the flat?”

“It's the first real one of any sort. I've been so busy with everything—”

“Well then, perhaps it would be better to think of it as a housewarming rather than a political party. If you start telling people that, they might relax more quickly.”

She clapped her hands. “That's splendid, we'll tell everyone that it's really only a housewarming. I do so like there to be a good reason for things, don't you? It seems rather pointless, otherwise, for us all to be here when so many people are dying in Europe and getting bombed in London. I was just beginning to wish—”

But she never expressed what it was she had been beginning to wish; for at that moment, beyond the glass doors of the entrance, the stallion flashed into dazzling relief from the headlights of a car which had drawn up in the narrow mews. Simultaneously everyone turned to discover the source of this bilious blaze, reflected as it was from the ceiling, from the mirrors on the walls and from the horse itself where it towered over the surrounding boxes in the mist thickened by the car's exhaust. They saw the chauffeur, his grey uniform chlorine-coloured in the yellow light,
get out and open the rear door, his air of saluting as Luthmann picked his way past him and past the stallion to the entrance.

The piano played on mournfully, Palgrave and his companions, insensible of the pause or thinking perhaps that it presaged applause, singing the chorus of “Cockles and Mussels”:

“Alive, alive o-oh! Alive, alive o-oh!

        Singing cockles and mussels, alive alive-o!

As Groarke went forward with outstretched hand, Luthmann said, “Good evening, Michael! So we are having some singing? I was a little delayed by some bad news from home; but I trust I am not too late?”

“Not really,” Caroline said, “it's only that everyone else is early.”

Luthmann stopped then and Groarke with his dreadful awkwardness said, “Christian, this is Caroline—”

“My hostess? Miss Smythe-Thomas?” He took her hand and kissed it a little clumsily. “I like very much your horse, gnädige Fraulein.”

Groarke said, “I'll get you a drink.”

“That is a very good idea.” His eyes questioned John for a moment and Caroline said, “This is John Blaydon, I really don't know how we're going to introduce everybody, but you must meet Palgrave because he's sharing the party with me.”

“I have heard of you, I think,” Luthmann bowed to John, “from Michael. You are a student of Medicine too? The Englishman?”

“Both,” said John as Luthmann raised the glass Groarke had given him.

“I am a German. We are in neutral territory. Prosit!”

“Good health!”

The piano had stopped and people were talking again. Jan Benjamin came forward with delight.

“Christian, dear Christian, the party's complete!”

“Good evening, Jan. I did not know you would be here.”

“But we're all here, the entire backstage Gate Theatre; and Palgrave! You
must
meet him. Palgrave, here is Christian Luthmann. What a magnificent entry you made, Christian. We three
were round the corner; but the hush, my dear, was dramatic to a degree. How is the war going?”

“It goes very well.” Luthmann paused to greet Palgrave who was limp-handed and smoking fussily. “For Germany!” the German said, taking in the Swastika behind the bar. “I do not know how it is going for England because I have not yet heard the B.B.C. six o'clock news.”

Caroline said, “Oh, please don't let's get political.”

“It was a joke. Like the English Lord Haw-Haw joke. You see, I know these little things.”

“It was in bad taste,” John said.

“What is this ‘in bad taste'?” the German demanded with a good smile. “Here we are, the guests of neutral people who expect us to uphold our nations. For you, being an Englishman, you have an objection perhaps? But for nobody else. Come, we will shake hands on that.”

“Frankly,” said Benjamin, “I'm an Englishman too and I think the whole affair's dreadfully boring.”

“Good,” said Luthmann to John. “That is an Englishman of sense; he finds impending defeat boring. Let us be merry, for tomorrow we may die. At this moment the Luftwaffe may be flying towards Dublin under the impression from the British radio jamming that it is Belfast. We could die as we stand, drinking. It is very comical to think of.”

Luthmann had thick, dull-gold Aryan hair. He had a splendid neck, a bounding body; great vitality in it. He was a most attractive person. John took his proffered hand, very warm and dry and Luthmann put an arm round his shoulders. They drank together.

“You see, Michael,” Luthmann said to Groarke, Caroline and the others, “under our skins we are brothers. We meet in a neutral place with charming women, with ravishing girls, we have a drink of good Scottish whiskey, we both wish our country to win even though one of us already knows that his nation is already defeated. And then, when we laugh, when our blood prevails, we are immediately united. But united.”

He drank again and swept forward at Palgrave. “Come, we will sing. I have heard of your playing, Palgrave. You run a band,
very hot stuff, in Offaly where I know a charming girl friend.” He stopped suddenly and turned on Caroline, pretending that he could not see her, “But where is our other host, the girl with the delightful stationary horse?”

“Hostess,” she corrected him. “I can't come yet, really. In a few minutes—”

“But you will!” he ordered. “Surely you cannot refuse the pressure of a guest even though, with so ravishing an example before him of neutrality, he mixes his sexes.”

And she went with them, with Palgrave and Jan Benjamin, allowing herself to be drawn forward by the hand he had lodged in her waist. But she called out, “Michael, dear, do get yourself behind the bar there now that we really seem to have started; and John, would you tell Mrs. Mahoney to start sending in the
pâtés
.”

From the annexe John and Groarke heard Luthmann's confident voice. “We will sing an Irish song and an English song and a German song. That will be correct so that all may be patriotic. The German song we sing will be a song of the Wehrmacht: “
Wir Fähren gegen Englandt
.” His laughter, very strong and gay, quite unobjectionable, merged into the opening bars of “Does Your Mother Come From Ireland?”

Groarke followed John into the kitchen. He said, “Come outside.”

“I will in a moment.” John instructed Caroline's housekeeper, “Oh, Mrs. Mahoney, forgive us butting in, but Miss Smythe-Thomas wants the food served now. Shall I ask someone to come and give you a hand?”

“If they'll just take in the trays from by the door. There's not room in here for all them young people.”

“We'll be back ourselves in a moment.”

“Don't count on that,” Groarke said to him as they went out into the yard.

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because something's gone wrong. What time is Greenbloom getting here?”

“I thought
you
knew.”

“He went off to meet Beste just before I left the Shelbourne,”
Groarke said. “They were on the telephone before that. I gathered there might be some news from Rome.”

John leaned against the stallion. Palgrave was now singing “The Mountains of Mourne.” Through the glass doors his thin tenor reached them, interrupted by the laughter, the sudden high voices of the guests. The patterns of people in there shifted quite near at hand, yet remotely as a rehearsal seen from an emtpy auditorium.

John said, “You've been so tight-lipped about it all. Every time I've asked you how things were going with Luthmann you've told me to wait. You never even told me whether he took the money or not.”

“He took it.”

“What did he say?”

“He would see what could be done.”

“When he said he'd been delayed by bad news from home, surely he wasn't referring to Eli? It's too soon. There wasn't going to be any definite news for at least a day or two—according to the original arrangements.”

From his pocket Groarke took an envelope folded small. “He gave me this when I shook hands with him.”

John opened and read the enclosed note. It was typed on an unheaded sheet of writing paper and was unsigned.

A good joke, Michael, but one which might have comprised us both. I shall be delighted to meet your friend Greenbloom's brother when he arrives to take up his appointment next week. We will talk later. Consider other matters as settled for the moment.

“It seems so damned amateur,” John said. “Indiscreet.”

“That happens to be Luthmann's skill. Don't you realize he's an official, ‘good sort,' a try-anything-once man? That's why he got the job here. Did you imagine they'd have sent some heel-clicking Prussian to
Dublin?
His job is to be jolly, open-handed frank and honest.”