William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

They went into the hall. It was unnaturally dark after the glare outside, and deliciously cool. The hall was tiled in black and white marble. A wooden staircase swept up from the middle and divided itself in two against the wall, beneath what had once been a large window. This, however, had been bricked in as a result of Uncle Gerald’s extensions, and now the only light came from two small casement windows on either side of the front door. Double doors led off to reception rooms to the right and left and other doors had been knocked through the back wall to gain access to the new apartments. From one of these ushered Felix’s mother with plaintive cries of, “Felix, darling, darling, you’re home.”

Felix allowed himself to be enveloped in his mother’s plump, odorous arms. She was a large soft pink woman, dressed, as ever, in the latest fashions. Today she wore a heliotrope satin tea-gown, fastened at the side with a large hook.

As he had grown older Felix had come to realize that his mother was a redoubtably silly and sentimental woman. But, equally, as this awareness had established itself so had a steadily growing respect for the certain innate qualities of shrewdness and intractability she exhibited. He saw that she treated her marriage to his father as a relentless challenge, an unending struggle under appallingly adverse conditions to get her own way. At first this manifested itself only in the naming of her children, but lately, as she had come to know her enemy, or as he had grown more senile and eccentric, evidence of her own long suppressed personality came increasingly to the fore. She dressed in the most unsuitable clothes, followed interests that, in the earlier years of her marriage, would have been banned forthwith, and, for this was her greatest weakness, surreptitiously indulged in her taste for the modern. She had installed refrigeration in the kitchen, electrified the house, bought motor cars and, her current campaign, was trying to move from coal fires to hot water heating.

Felix was, he now accepted, a living proof of this silent life-long insurrection. As her youngest son, and through lack of interest on his ageing father’s part, he had been indulged and brought up in a way quite different from that of his brother and sisters. Felix also realized that this triumph of his mother had prompted the animosity that existed between him and his sisters and the mutual near-contempt that he and his father held for each other. From his mother’s point of view, the kind of person he now was — independent, self-assured, above all, different — stood as a monument, living testimony to her own spirit and pluck. But it brought with it its own share of problems.

However, Felix thought, as he allowed his mother’s love to wash unobstructed over him, he was glad she had persevered. And besides, he reflected, there was no telling that he might have turned out as he had anyway. Gabriel had been the focus of his father’s ambitions and attention all his life and yet he had barely been corrupted by militarism. The two were as close as brothers could be. Parents, he decided, had only a superficial impact on their offspring. As Holland said: you either had the right soul or you hadn’t.

He turned his attention back to his mother, who was pushing the lock of hair off his forehead and being sceptical about his health.

“Are you well, Felix? Darling, I do like your shirt and tie. Don’t you think he looks tired, Gabriel? Do you want to lie down, my dear?”

“No thank you, Mother. I’m fine.”

“Did you have a pleasant time with the Hollands? You didn’t do too much I hope.”

“Rest assured on that point, Mother. Holland and I do as little as possible. Am I in my own room?”

“Of course. Nearly everyone’s here. Yseult and Henry, and little Charles. Oh, he’s in your dressing room. I hope you don’t mind. We’re so crowded. And Albertine and Greville. Did you see the girls outside? We’re just waiting for Eustacia and Nigel…” She paused. “Do you want to see your father, dear? He’s upstairs, in his study.”

“Not really,” Felix said breezily. “I’ll see him at dinner, shan’t I?”

After lunch — a veal mould, cold meat and pickles — Felix and Gabriel went for a walk in the garden. From the back of the house a long lawn sloped gently down about fifty yards to three large ornamental fishponds, planted round with bushes and stocked with fat, slow carp. On the right was an ornamental rose garden separated from the lawn by a neat briar hedge. Carefully aligned screens carried a riotous freight of ramblers. A path avenued with pleached lime trees led through the screens and flower beds to a dark yew bower, decorated with spanking new classical busts. Neglected for a few years, everything now evidenced the most careful cultivation. Ornamental gardens, Mrs Cobb intuited, would be back in favour soon. On the left of the lawn was an orchard with wooden beehives scattered about it. Beyond the orchard a beech and oak wood grew.

“Heavens,” Felix said. “What a heat!” He took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. It was one of those flabby, corpulent midsummer days.

“Fancy a swim?” Gabriel suggested.

“Good idea, that man,” Felix said. “Just let me change. I’ll get some towels.”

Ten minutes later Gabriel and Felix — now dressed in white flannels, open necked shirt and rope-soled tennis shoes — climbed over the eve-gate at the foot of the orchard, walked across the small bridge that spanned the stream feeding the fishponds and set out along a mud path that led through the wood. About a quarter of a mile from the Manor they stopped at the garden gate of a small stone cottage. The lawn had been freshly mown and the flower beds newly hoed and replanted. Even what Felix could see of the driveway on the other side looked re-gravelled.

“What do you think?” Gabriel asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like it? It’s where Charis and I are going to live. Father and Mother’s wedding present.”

“Oh. Very nice. But didn’t Cyril live here?” Felix referred to the Manor’s young gardener and odd-job man.

“Yes. He’s been moved to the village. We had to do a lot of work on the place. Cyril and co. lived in a fair old squalor.” Gabriel paused, looking over his new home with pride. “Charis hasn’t seen it yet.”

“Where is she by the way?” Felix asked. “She is around somewhere, I take it.”

“Yes, you great oaf. She’s staying over at Melton with Aunt Mary.”

“Aunt Mary? God help the poor girl. Whose idea was that?”

“Not much alternative, I’m afraid. Bride and groom have got to be kept apart. Her papa can’t come over from India…Aunt Mary’s not that bad.”

“She has her days.”

“Anyway I saw Charis yesterday. She’s fine.”

Felix tested the garden gate, noting the new latch. “I bet Cyril wasn’t too pleased about being turfed out.”

“Who?”

“Cyril.” Sometimes Gabriel was so slow. “Whose house this was.” Felix laughed. “Lord the air must have been blue.” But Gabriel had already walked ahead.

“Come on,” Gabriel shouted. “Cut along, Cobb, cut along.”

Felix caught up with him as they tramped over the dry crumbling furrows at the edge of a silently restless com field.

“Haven’t had a dip in the pond for years, have we, Felix?” Gabriel said. “D’you remember that day we pushed Eustacia in?”

“Useless Eustace,” Felix said. “Father leathered us though.” He picked up a stick and swished it at clumps of dusty nettles and delicate cow-parsley heads.

“Is that how you decapitate Pathans or fuzzy-wuzzies or whatever you call them, Gabriel?” He brutally hacked down a stand of ragwort in illustration.