Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘You’ve never met George,’ he says. ‘Ed is far more dashing.’

While Geraldine busies herself with plans for the wedding, Larry is given a crash course on the family company, Elders & Fyffes, in all its current aspects. The London headquarters has recently moved from the Aldwych to 15 Stratton Street in Piccadilly. The rooms are unfamiliar to Larry, but the faces are all the same. Everywhere he goes he meets a general smiling delight that he is to join the firm at last.

‘You know why they’re so happy?’ his father asks him. ‘It’s not because of your pretty face. It’s because they expect you to take over after me, and that means things will go on being run in the same way.’

‘So they shall,’ says Larry, ‘if I have anything to do with it.’

‘Subject, of course, to our ultimate masters in New Orleans.’

This means the mighty United Fruit Company.

‘I thought they pretty much left us alone to run the show,’ says Larry.

‘They do. That was the understanding, back in ’02, when the company nearly went under, and my father turned to them for help. Andrew Preston was running United then, and he was a man of his word. But Preston is long gone. There’s a fellow called Zemurray in charge now. Very different kettle of fish.’

‘Zemurray?’

‘I think he began as Zmurri. Russian, I believe.’

‘And you don’t trust him.’

‘I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. But so long as we make money for him, I think he’ll leave us alone.’

As part of his familiarisation process, Larry makes a tour of the main company facilities. He walks the quays of the purpose-built docks at Avonmouth, and at Liverpool. He inspects the purpose-built temperature-controlled railway wagons, and several of the huge depots where the fruit is kept in chilled storerooms until ready for delivery. He goes on board Zent III , the company’s most recently acquired vessel, originally built in Norway and operated by Harald Schuldt, a German importer, before being seized as a war prize. The Fyffes fleet numbers fourteen ships, down from the twenty-one before the war, but more than enough for the current depressed level of trade. He studies figures that show the problems the company faces, due to shortages in Jamaica and government restrictions.

‘We believe the answer may be to go back to the Canaries,’ says William Cornford, ‘which is of course where the company started.’

‘The cargo side seems to be very modest,’ says Larry.

‘More trouble than it’s worth,’ says his father. ‘Our ships are built as specialised bulk carriers.’

‘Even so,’ says Larry, ‘we should take a look at it.’

The talk of tonnages and leaf-spot disease is familiar to Larry from his father’s mealtime conversation. He finds that he slips into the company surprisingly easily, soon comfortable in the Stratton Street offices. He begins to understand how the company has become his father’s family.

His father, noting this with some complacency, says to him, ‘You see it now? You were born for this.’

The sun shines on the day of the wedding. George shows up in a grand old Rolls-Royce, accompanied by Ed and Kitty and Pamela.

‘Where on earth did you get that?’ exclaims Larry.

‘It was my father’s,’ says George. ‘I only get it out on special occasions. It uses far too much petrol.’

Barbara Blundell is thrilled.

‘I do like the aristocracy to put on a show,’ she says.

Louisa has stayed at home, feeling unwell. Kitty whispers the details to Larry.

‘It’s very early days, but she thinks she may actually be pregnant!’

Kitty herself is very pregnant.

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘If it’s true, it’s a miracle,’ says Kitty. Then taking his arm for support, she walks away to a spot where they can speak in private. ‘I’m just so happy for you, darling. You deserve a family of your own. Is Geraldine as wonderful as I want her to be?’

‘If I tell you she’s the opposite of Nell in every way,’ says Larry, ‘that should give you some idea.’

‘But I did like Nell’s honesty. She had a way of saying just what she thought.’

‘Oh, Geraldine’s honest. But she’s also moral, which Nell never was. You’ll see when you meet her. She has high standards.’

‘And she makes you happy?’

‘I adore her,’ says Larry. ‘The more I know her, the more perfect she turns out to be.’

‘She couldn’t be too perfect for you,’ says Kitty. ‘You deserve the best.’

Ed in tailcoat and grey waistcoat and white tie looks as handsome as Larry has promised. Geraldine’s father, older, shorter and plumper, looks almost decrepit by his side. ‘Stand up straight, Hartley,’ his wife says. ‘You’re not to sag.’

‘Another one on the way, then,’ Larry says to Ed.

‘Mid-December, they tell me,’ says Ed. ‘An early Christmas present.’ He looks round all the bustle of last-minute arrangements. ‘Doing it in style, I see.’

‘That’s Geraldine,’ says Larry. ‘Or perhaps I should say her mother.’

Rupert Blundell wanders about looking uncomfortable in a morning suit, smiling but not fraternising.

‘You look bewildered, Rupert. Is it really that bad?’

‘Do I? I don’t mean to. A great occasion.’ His eyes are on Ed. ‘That’s Ed Avenell, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course. Come and say hello.’

Larry takes Rupert over to Ed and they shake hands and say yes, they remember each other, but it’s clear Ed has no idea who Rupert is.

‘Rupert was with Mountbatten,’ Larry says.

‘Good work on the VC,’ says Rupert.

Rupert’s father joins them, seeking the quiet haven of masculine company.

‘What a lot of fuss,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Makes me wish I was a Quaker.’

‘Look at you three!’ Larry exclaims. ‘Anyone would think you were all waiting to see the dentist.’

‘Sorry,’ says Hartley Blundell, straightening his posture. ‘Attention! Ready for the salute!’

Ed smiles at that. Courage under fire.

‘I really appreciate this,’ Larry murmurs to Ed when he gets the chance. ‘It’s your idea of a nightmare, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not all that fond of people in crowds,’ says Ed. ‘But I’m rather fond of you.’

They move on in due course to the church in a convoy of cars. Larry’s father travels with the bride’s mother, and so gets the benefit of her close knowledge of the Duke of Norfolk.

‘When he plays in the town cricket team, his butler is the umpire, and when he’s bowled out, which he always is in no time at all, the butler raises his hand and announces, “His Grace is not in.”’

William Cornford smiles polite appreciation.

‘Class distinction means nothing to me,’ Barbara Blundell confides. ‘I take as I find. But I do love the quirky traditions you get in the great houses. They add colour to life.’

The church of St Philip, like Westminster Cathedral, like the Sacred Heart in New Delhi, is a new building conceived in an old style; in this instance French Gothic. As Larry stands at the altar rail waiting for the bride to arrive he finds himself thinking about English Catholics and their churches, and how odd it is that a faith that defines itself as rooted in tradition should have to function in new buildings. Of course in France, in Italy, all this is different. There the evocations of the saints ring out in pillared aisles once walked by the saints themselves. He thinks of his father’s love of the great French cathedrals. Then, for no reason, he thinks how odd it is to be getting married.

Why am I doing this?

He asks the question not because he has any doubts, but because he’s suddenly aware he doesn’t know the answer. From the moment he took Geraldine in his arms, and stained her white dress with blood, he has known that this is what must happen. It has never presented itself to him as a decision. From the start it has been for him a solution to his puzzles about the future: puzzles of love, and sex, and status, and identity, and no doubt many more, all resolved by this one act. He is becoming a husband. He is forming a clearer picture of that misty realm that reaches before him, his grown-up life.