Anthony Powell - A Question of Upbringing

“He and Jimmy Stripling don’t care for each other much, do they?”

“To tell the truth, we all pull Sunny’s leg when he comes down here,” said Peter. “He’ll stand anything because he likes picking my father’s brains, such as they are.” This picture of Sunny Farebrother did not at all agree with that which I had formed in my own mind; and I should probably have been more shocked at the idea of teasing him if I had entirely believed all Peter had been saying. The fact that I was not prepared fully to accept his commentary was partly because I knew by experience that he was in the habit of exaggerating about such matters: and, even more, because at that age (although one may be prepared to swallow all kinds of nonsense of this sort or that) personal assessment of individuals made by oneself is hard to shake: even when offered by those in a favourable position to know what they are talking about. Besides, I could hardly credit the statement that Peter himself — even abetted by Jimmy Stripling — would have the temerity to rag someone who looked like Sunny Farebrother, and had his war record. However, later on in the same evening on which we had talked together about the Peace Conference, I was given further insight into the methods by which the Stripling-Farebrother conflict was carried on.

Mr. Templer always retired early. That night he went upstairs soon after we had left the dining-room. Jean had complained of a headache, and she also slipped off to bed. Jimmy Stripling was lying in an arm-chair with his legs stretched out in front of him. He was an inch or two over six foot, already getting a bit fleshy, always giving the impression of taking up more than his fair share of room, wherever he might be standing or sitting. Farebrother was reading The Times , giving the sports page that special rapt attention that he applied to everything he did. Babs and Lady McReith were sitting on the sofa, looking at the same illustrated paper. Farebrother came to the end of the column, and before putting aside the paper shook down the sheets with his accustomed tidiness of habit to make a level edge. He strolled across the room to where Peter was looking through some gramophone records, and I heard him say: “When you come to work in London, Peter, I should strongly recommend you to get hold of a little gadget I make use of. It turns your collars, and reduces laundry bills by fifty per cent.”

I did not catch Peter’s reply; but, although Farebrother had spoken quietly, Stripling had noticed this recommendation. Rolling round in his chair, he said: “What is that about cutting down your laundry bill, Sunny?”

“Nothing to interest a gentleman of leisure like yourself, Jimmy,” said Farebrother, “but we poor City blokes find it comes pretty hard on white collars. They have now invented a little patent device for turning them. As a matter of fact a small company has been formed to put it on the market.”‘

“And I suppose you are one of the directors,” said Stripling.

“As a matter of fact I am,” said Farebrother. “There are one or two other little odds and ends as well; but the collar-turner is going to be the winner in my opinion,”

“You thought you could plant one on Peter?”

“If Peter has got any sense he’ll get one.”

“Why not tackle someone of your own size?”

“I’ll plant one on you, Jimmy, once you see it work,”

“I bet you don’t.”

“You get some collars then.”

The end of it was that both of them went off to their respective rooms, Stripling returning with a round leather collar-box; Farebrother with a machine that looked like a pair of horse-clippers made from wood. All this was accompanied with a great deal of jocularity on Stripling’s part. He came downstairs again first, and assured us that “Old Sunny’s leg was going to be well and truly pulled.” Babs and Lady McReith now began to show some interest in what was going on. They threw aside The Tatler and each put up her feet on the sofa. Farebrother stood in the centre of the room holding the wooden clippers. He said: “Now you give me one of your collars, Jimmy.”

The round leather box was opened, and a collar was inserted into the jaws of the machine. Farebrother closed the contraption forward along the edge of the collar. After proceeding about two inches, there was a ripping sound, and the collar tore. It was extracted with difficulty. Everyone roared with laughter.

“What did 1 say?” said Stripling.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” said Farebrother. “That collar must have been washed too often.”

“But it was practically new,” said Stripling. “You did it the wrong way.”

Stripling chose a collar, and himself ran the clippers along it. They slipped from his grip half-way down, so that the collar was caused to fold more or less diagonally.

“Your collars are a different shape from mine,” Farebrother said. “They don’t seem to have the same ‘give’ in them.”

Farebrother had another try, with results rather similar to his first attempt; and, after that, everyone insisted on making the experiment. The difficulty consisted in holding the instrument tight and, at the same time, running it straight. Babs and Lady McReith both crumpled their collars: Peter and I tore ours on the last inch or so of the run. Then Farebrother tried again, bringing off a perfect turn.

“There you are,” he said. “What could be better than that?”

However, as three collars were ruined and had to be thrown into the waste-paper basket, and three more had to be sent to the laundry, Stripling was not very pleased. Although the utility of Farebrother’s collar-turner had certainly been called into question, he evidently felt that to some extent the joke had been turned against him.

“It is something about your collars, old boy,” Farebrother repeated. “It is not at all easy to make the thing work on them. It might pay you in the long run to get a more expensive kind.”

“They are damned expensive as it is,” said Stripling. “Anyway, quite expensive enough to have been made hay of like this.”

However, everyone, including his wife, had laughed a great deal throughout the various efforts to make the machine work, so that, angry as he was, Stripling had to let the matter rest there. Farebrother, I think, felt that he had not provided a demonstration very satisfactory from the commercial point of view, so that his victory over Stripling was less complete on this account than it might otherwise have seemed. Soon after this he went upstairs, carrying the collar-turner with him, and saying that he had “work to do,” a remark that was received with a certain amount of facetious comment, which he answered by saying: “Ah, Jimmy, I’m not a rich man like you. I have to toil for my daily bread.”

Stripling was, no doubt, glad to see him go. He probably wanted time to recover from what he evidently looked upon as a serious defeat over the collars. Peter turned on the gramophone, and Stripling retired to the corner of the room with him, where while Stripling’s temper cooled they played some game with matches. It was soon after this that I made a decidedly interesting discovery about Lady McReith, who had begun to discuss dance steps with Babs, while I looked through some of the records that Peter had been arranging in piles. In order to illustrate some point she wanted to make about fox-trotting, Lady McReith suddenly jumped from the sofa, took my arm and, sliding it round her waist, danced a few steps. “Like this?” she said, turning her face towards Babs; and then, as she continued to cling to me, tracing the steps back again in the other direction: “Or like that?” The transaction took place so swiftly, and, so far as Lady McReith was concerned, so unselfconsciously, that Peter and Stripling did not look up from their game; but — although employed merely as a mechanical dummy — I had become aware, with colossal impact, that Lady McReith’s footing in life was established in a world of physical action of which at present I knew little or nothing. Up to that moment I had found her almost embarrassingly difficult to deal with as a fellow guest: now the extraordinary smoothness with which she glided across the polished boards, the sensation that we were holding each other close, and yet, in spite of such proximity, she remained at the same time aloof and separate, the pervading scent with which she drenched herself, and, above all, the feeling that all this offered something further, some additional and violent assertion of the will, was — almost literally — intoxicating. The revelation was something far more universal in implication than a mere sense of physical attraction towards Lady McReith. It was realisation, in a moment of time, not only of her own possibilities, far from inconsiderable ones, but also of other possibilities that life might hold; and my chief emotion was surprise.