Anthony Powell - The Valley of Bones

‘What’s happened?’ she said. ‘I was going to ring you up, but I’ve been dreadfully entangled with other things. Besides, I’ve only just arrived here. Now all this has upset everything.’

If Buster did not already know about Robert, that was not very enlightening, but he was probably sharp enough to have grasped the situation by this time.

‘It’s about your mother,’ he said. ‘It’s all damned awkward. I thought the sooner you knew the better. There was a lot of difficulty in getting hold of your address. When I found by a lucky chance you were in the neighbourhood of Thrubworth, I decided to try and see you, in case I lost the opportunity for months.’

‘But what is it?’

‘Your mother is behaving in a very extraordinary way. There are serious money difficulties for one thing. They may affect you and Charles. Your settlements, I mean.’

‘She’s always quite reckless about money. You must have learnt that by now.’

‘She has been unwise about all kind of matters. I had no idea what was going on.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘That’s one of the points. She has closed both houses and gone to live in a workman’s cottage to be near Norman.’

‘Norman Chandler?’

‘Of course.’

‘But I thought Norman had joined the army.’

‘He has. He has been sent to a camp in Essex. That’s why your mother has gone there. What’s more, she wants to divorce me.’

This news certainly surprised Flavia a lot.

‘But—’

‘I’ve nowhere to go,’ said Buster, speaking with great bitterness. ‘When I was last in London, I had to stay at my club. Now this news about a divorce is sprung on me. Your mother went off without a word. All kinds of arrangements have to be made about things. It is too bad.’

‘But does she want to marry Norman?’

‘How do I know what she wants to do?’ said Buster. ‘I’m the last person she ever considered. I think Norman, too, has behaved very badly to allow her to act in this way. I always liked Norman. I did not in the least mind his being what he is. I often told him so. I thought we were friends. Many men in my position would have objected to having someone like Norman about the house, doing the flowers and dancing attendance upon their wife. Norman pleased your mother. That was enough for me. What thanks do I get for being so tolerant? Your mother goes off to Essex with Norman, taking the keys with her, so that I can’t even get at my own suits and shirts. On top of all that, I’m told I’m going to be divorced.’

At that point there was another loud knock on the front door. This must be Stevens. I went to let him in. Umfraville followed me into the hall.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘tell me quickly what’s happened to Buster to upset him so.’

‘Mrs Foxe had a friend called Norman Chandler — a little dancer she adored, who was always about her house. He was quite a good actor too. It looks as if she has got fed up at last and kicked Buster out.’

‘Buster is going to get me into this secret set-up at Thrubworth. I’ve decided that.’

‘How’s it going to be managed?’

‘I once took a monkey off Buster at poker. Apart from his other misdemeanours, I’ve never seen my money. I know where I can make things unpleasant, if Buster doesn’t jump to it and get me fixed up. Boffles Stringham once said: “Mark my words, Dicky, the day will come when Amy will have to get rid of that damned polo-playing sailor.” That day has come. There are some other reckonings for Buster to pay too.’

Another knock came on the door. Umfraville went back to the sitting-room. I admitted Stevens.

‘I’m a bit late,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to bustle back.’

‘There’s rather a commotion going on here. My brother-in-law, Robert Tolland, has just had his leave cancelled. He wants to get back to Mytchett tonight. Will it be all right if he comes with us? We pass near his unit and can drop him on the way.’

‘Of course. If he doesn’t mind having his balls crushed in the back of the car. Is he ready?’

‘He’s just gone off to pack. Then there’s a naval officer making a scene with his step-daughter.’

‘Bring ‘em all on,’ said Stevens. ‘We oughtn’t to delay too long. I’d just like to have word with that lady about her brooch.’

We went into the sitting-room. By that time things had quietened down. Buster, especially, had recovered his poise. He was now talking to Frederica, having presumably settled with Flavia whatever he had hoped to arrange. Flavia and Robert had retired to a sofa and were embracing. Stevens said a word of greeting to Frederica, then made at once for Priscilla. Frederica turned again to Buster.

‘I’m glad to hear Erry is behaving himself,’ she said.

‘I agree we were all prepared to find your brother rather difficult,’ said Buster, ‘but on the contrary — anyway so far as I am personally concerned — he has done everything in his power to make my life agreeable. He has, if I may say so, the charm of all your family, though in a different manner to the rest of you.’

Umfraville interrupted them.

‘Come and talk shop with me for a moment, Buster,’ he said.

They went into a corner of the room together. Isobel and I went into another one. It was clearly time to get under way. If we did not set out without further delay, we should not be back by the required hour. Then Isobel went rather white.

‘Look here,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry to have to call attention to myself at this moment, but I’m feeling awfully funny. I think perhaps I’d better go to my room — and Frederica or someone can ring up the doctor.’

That was the final touch. In a state of the utmost confusion and disquiet we left them at last, arriving in Aldershot just in time, having dropped Robert on the way.

‘Not feeling much like going on the square tomorrow, are you?’ said Stevens. ‘Still it was the hell of a good weekend’s leave. I had one of the local girls under a hedge.’

When, during those rare, intoxicating moments of solitude, I used to sit in a window seat at Castlemallock, reading Esmond, or watching the sun go down over the immense brick rampart of the walled garden, the Byronic associations of the place made me think of Don Juan:

I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,

And that’s the reason I’m so melancholy …

The long gallery at Castlemallock, uncarpeted, empty of furniture except for a few trestle tables and wooden chairs, had these built-in seats all along one side. Here one could be alone during the intervals between arrival and departure of Anti-Gas students, when Kedward and I would be Duty Officer on alternate days. That meant little more than remaining within the precincts of the castle in the evening, parading ‘details’ — usually a couple of hundred men — at Retreat, sleeping at night by the telephone. We were Gwatkin’s only subalterns now, for this was the period of experiment, later abandoned as unsatisfactory, when one platoon in each company was led by a warrant-officer. If an Anti-Gas course were in progress, we slept alternate nights in the Company Office, in case there was a call from Battalion. I often undertook Kedward’s tour of duty, as he liked to ‘improve his eye’, when training was over for the day, by exploring the neighbouring country with a view to marking down suitable sites for machine-gun nests and anti-tank emplacements. Lying in the window-seat, I would think how it felt to be a father, of the times during the latter part of the Aldershot course when I had been able to see Isobel and the child. She and the baby, a boy, were ‘doing well’, but there had been difficulty in visiting them, Stevens’s car by then no longer available. Stevens, as Brent prophesied, had been ‘Returned to Unit’.