Alan Hollinghurst - The Spell

“Is that right,” said Mike, none too pleased to be lectured on the matter by someone who’d only been in the county five minutes.

Margery smiled graciously. “Do you peal yourself?” she asked, with a tiny throat-clearing to bridge her doubt about the verb.

Adrian’s long fingers smoothed and balanced his bow-tie. “I used to ring. I rang for Cambridge. But I fear a tendonitis made me something of a liability in the chamber later on.”

“Well I ran for Cambridge,” said Mike, in one of his mordant asides. “No bloody g.”

“I think tonight we may hear a full grandsire major.”

The noise was muffled in the room, but still all-pervasive, and Danny found himself listening to the dense sonic aura of the overtones, which seemed like some acoustic perception you might have in the trance of an E; though the hypnotic thing was the evolving eight-note phrase, which imposed itself on the conversation, and broke up your thoughts.

Adrian, who had rapidly reverted to schoolmaster mode, was explaining some niceties of change-ringing to Justin. “So the conductor, as he’s known, calls out “bob” at the lead ends to produce a new row, from which further changes can then be rung.”

“What, ‘Bob’…?” – Margery tried it distantly, as though recalling someone she had once been fond of. She looked into her drink. “I suppose there must be dozens of changes.”

Adrian simpered for a second or two. “Well, with eight bells the number of possible changes would be factorial eight.”

“That’s eight times seven times six times…” Robin said.

There was a pause for thought. Justin said, “So if they rang the full grandmother’s footsteps it would be over four million changes…!”

“Fucking hell…” muttered Mike, and emptied his glass.

“No, no,” said Adrian, with a bright nervous giggle. “But it would be well over forty thousand, obviously.”

“Well, they’d better not do well over forty thousand tonight,” Mike said, getting up and standing over Adrian while he gulped down the rest of his drink.

Alex was very quiet, and Danny wondered if he knew what was coming. He probably did, he was very sensitive; and he’d been through this kind of thing before. Danny looked casually at Justin, whom he found alien in many ways, and saw that they were about to share the shabby distinction of having thrown Alex over. He knew from his break-up with George what the pain might be like. And he noticed that having been through it himself he felt somehow authorised, and even empowered, to inflict it on someone else. It was the hard currency of human business. Slightly giddy from his own philosophy, he reached up to take his second cold drink.

Adrian said, “I do think we’re so lucky in having this marvellous castle in the village.” He had the surprised talkativeness of a buttoned-up person abruptly filled with alcohol.

“I hadn’t realised just how lucky we were,” murmured Margery.

“There’s not much to the castle, is there?” said Justin doubtfully.

“My darling Justin has never actually seen the castle,” said Robin, with a funny gloving of his gibe. “But he’s only lived here a year.”

“No, ten months, actually, sweetie, and three days,” Justin said. “Anyway, I never thought it wise to go down Ruins Lane.”

Adrian, who was disconcerted by jokes, said, “I found poor Miss Lawrence wandering up there yesterday. She had no idea where she was going.”

“There you are,” said Justin.

“She needs taking care of,” said Mike, with a certain softening of tone. “What are the so-called fucking social services doing?”

“She’s as mad as a house,” said Justin. “Did I tell you I saw her talking to a beetle?”

Danny smirked, and drew a finger through the wet on his glass. Mike said to him, “You’re very quiet tonight, young feller-me-lad.”

“He’s always quiet,” said Margery. “It’s nice.”

Justin said, “It’s the country air that tires him out. He’s not used to all this oxygen, are you darling. He normally goes round in a cloud of LSD, don’t you darling.”

“I don’t think you smoke LSD,” said Adrian.

“No, you don’t,” said Alex.

“I’m sure Danny doesn’t, anyway,” said Margery.

Adrian said, with the casualness of the shockable, “Do you see anything of all this drugs business up in London?”

Danny felt it would be absurd to lie. “Oh yeah,” he said warmly. He could be nice to them, he guessed, but he hated the silly compromises that were forced on you when you entered the remote moral atmosphere of closety old bores. As he didn’t say anything else, Adrian nodded and coloured and said,

“You do…yes…” (Yes, thought Danny, in a spasm of frustration and worry, and I can get in free to any club in London, and get off my face for days on end, and have anyone there I want.) “Yes. I saw a lot of it in South America, of course. There was cocaine everywhere, which I believe cost almost nothing. I must say, I was never tempted to try it.”

“Really…?” said Alex, who was leaning forward to catch Danny’s eye.

“I didn’t know you’d been in South America,” said Mike, irritated by this claim on his curiosity. “Whereabouts?”

“Oh, very much so. I was with the British Council in Caracas, and then in Lima for four years. This was in the late fifties, after Cambridge.”

“After your ringing years.”

“Yes…”

“They used to say they were all flower-arrangers in the British Council,” said Mike.

Adrian looked down for a moment, to give this remark time to clear, and went on, “I’ve got some very lovely folk-art that I brought back, some of which you’ll see when you come to “Ambages.” I have a beautiful Peruvian hanging in my bedroom.”

The words themselves hung in the air, lightly and evenly stressed, against the background clamour of the bells, and it was Margery who started to laugh first, an almost noiseless polite snuffle, and then a cackle came from Justin, Danny heard the chug-chug of Alex’s laugh, and then he got it himself, through the glaze of his preoccupation, and started to giggle breathlessly, with an edge of hysterical relief, before Mike gave out his rarely heard whimper. It was never quite clear whether Adrian had seen the joke. The amusement was too general for him to go against it, and he sat smiling bashfully, looking sideways at the floor.

After a while, Margery struggled to make a long face, and said, “Adrian, I’m so sorry,” with the insincere regret that follows a burst of instinct.

Embarrassed, and obliged to show willing, Adrian said, “Well, Danny, perhaps you should go to South America. People sniff cocaine in Lima like you and I drink sherry.”

Danny nodded with another after-tremor of laughter. “Yeah, that might be good.” He looked away. “Actually, I’m going back to the States next month. I think that’s more the sort of place for me.”

When he looked up again, Justin was making a “Get her!” face, and Robin said with a tender frown, “It’s the first I’ve heard of it.” Alex, of course, he couldn’t see – only the convulsion of his legs uncrossing and crossing the other way. “You’re going to your mother’s?” Robin mastered the situation.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Danny. “She says she can always get me a job out there again.”

“And where is that?” said Adrian.

“San Diego…”

“No, I don’t imagine I’ll ever fly again,” said Mike, loudly and slowly, as though that were the really interesting aspect of the matter. Danny saw Justin looking gently in Alex’s direction – to the others, of course, this sudden birthing of a plan was neither here nor there.