Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

‘Why?’ said Wilfrid.

‘Well… there’s to be a memoir, you know… the story of Uncle Cecil’s life, and Granny V wants Sebby to write it. So he needs to talk to all the people who knew him.’

Wilfrid said nothing, and started on a game, and a minute later, staring into the pond, said, ‘A memoir…!’ under his breath, as if they all knew it was a mad idea.

‘Poor Uncle Cecil,’ said Corinna, in one of her calculated turns of piety. ‘What a great man he was!’

‘Oh… well…’ said Daphne.

‘And so handsome.’

‘No, he was,’ Daphne allowed.

‘Was he more handsome than Daddy, would you say?’

‘He had enormous hands,’ said Daphne, looking round at the first bark of the dog, which must mean Dudley, and everyone coming.

‘Oh, Mother!’

‘He was a great climber, you know. Always clambering up the Dolomites or somewhere.’

‘What’s the Dolomites?’ said Wilfrid, stirring the fishpond tentatively with a short stick.

‘It’s mountains,’ said Corinna, as Rubbish busied in through the rose arch behind them, went rather fast round half the circle, and came back, nose low and lively over the flagstones, scruffy grey tail flickering. Wilfrid pointed his wet stick bravely at him and Corinna commanded, ‘Rubbish!’ but Rubbish only gave them a perfunctory sniff; it was almost hurtful to the children how little they counted for in the dog’s stark system of command and reward, though a relief too, of course. ‘Bad dog!’ said Wilfrid. Sometimes Rubbish explored by himself, sometimes he joined you flatteringly for the outset of a walk and then doubled off on business of his own, but mainly he was Dudley’s running herald, hounded himself by his own shouted name. Daphne waited for the shouts, ignoring the dog, and rather disliking it; but no shouts came and in a minute Rubbish, oddly polite, stepping forward and stopping, gave a long cajoling whine, and when she looked round there was Revel under the arch.

He made a little picture of himself, in its frame. ‘My dear,’ said Daphne, ‘you made it!’ as though she’d encouraged him rather than put him off. She felt she put a hint of warning in her welcome, in the look she gave him, which searched his charming sharp little face for signs of distress. He almost ignored her, bit his lip in mock-penitence, while his dark eyes went from one child to the other. He made everything depend on them – he was the opposite of the dog. ‘Rubbish told me I’d find you here,’ he said, coming forward to kiss Corinna on the silky top of her hair, pulling Wilfie quickly against his thigh, while the dog barked brusquely and then, its duty done, trotted back towards the house without looking round.

‘Uncle Revel,’ said Wilfrid, taking the surprise more easily than his mother, ‘will you draw a brontosaurus?’

‘I’ll draw anything you like, darling,’ said Revel. ‘Though brontosauruses are rather hard.’ He came towards Daphne, who stood up, without quite wanting to, and felt his cheek and chin harsh against hers for a second. He said quietly, ‘I hope you don’t mind, I rang up Dud and he said just to come.’

‘No, of course,’ she said. ‘Did you see someone? Did you see the photographer?’ She felt somehow that Revel’s visit, if it had to happen, should be kept out of the papers – and of course, if the photographers saw him they’d want him: he seemed to her to come emphasized, transfigured, set apart by success in a light of his own that was subtly distinct from the general gleam of the April day. Everyone was talking about him, not as much perhaps as they were about Sebby and the Trade Unions, but a good deal more than about Dudley, or Mrs Riley, or of course herself! And now he’d had a frightful row with David, so the gleam about him was that of suffering as well as fame. Surely the last thing he needed was to see himself splashed all over the Sketch .

‘There was a chap in a greasy trilby I don’t think I’ve seen before,’ Revel said.

‘Hmm, that’ll be him,’ said Daphne.

‘And I think I spotted your brother and his wife.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Daphne, rather heavily.

‘Fair, balding, wire-framed glasses…?’

‘That sounds like Madeleine…’

‘But nice-looking,’ said Revel, with the little giggle she loved. ‘Madeleine more severe. Heavy tread, awful hat. If I may say so.’

‘Oh, say what you like,’ said Daphne. ‘Everyone does here.’

‘Is Uncle George here?’ said Wilfrid.

‘He is,’ said Revel. ‘I think they were going up to the High Ground.’

‘How perfectly obstreperous of him,’ said Corinna.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Daphne.

‘How entirely preposterous,’ said Corinna.

‘Well, perhaps we should join them,’ Daphne said. And taking charge, she went out under the further rose arch, with the children eventually following, and Revel ambling between them and Daphne, speaking in the pointed way one did with other people’s children, to amuse them and amuse the listening parent in a different way. ‘Certainly I don’t think any brontosauruses have been spotted in Berkshire for several years now,’ he said. ‘But I’m told there are other wild beasts, some of them fiendishly disguised in smart white trousers…’ Daphne felt the magnetic disturbance of his presence just behind her, at the corner of her eye as she led them up the steps and passed through the white gate under the arch. You were wonderfully safe of course with a man like Revel; but then the safety itself had something elastic about it. There were George and Madeleine – so odd that they’d set straight off on a walk. Perhaps just so as to be doing something, since Madeleine was unable to relax; or possibly to put off seeing Dudley for as long as they decently could.

The High Ground was an immense lawn beyond the formal gardens, from which, though the climb to it seemed slight, you got ‘a remarkable view of nothing’, as Dudley put it: the house itself, of course, and the slowly dropping expanse of farmland towards the villages of Bampton and Brize Norton. It was an easy uncalculating view, with no undue excitement, small woods of beech and poplar greening up across the pasture-land. Somewhere a few miles off flowed the Thames, already wideish and winding, though from here you would never have guessed it. Today the High Ground was being mown, the first time of the year, the donkey in its queer rubber overshoes pulling the clattering mower, steered from behind by one of the men, who took off his cap to them as he approached. Really you didn’t mow at weekends, but Dudley had ordered it, doubtless so as to annoy his guests. George and Madeleine were strolling on the far side, avoiding the mowing, heads down in talk, perhaps enjoying themselves in their own way.

The children hastened, at a ragged march, towards their uncle and aunt – and seemed unsure themselves how much of their delight was real, how much good manners; Corinna by now took delight in good manners for their own sake. George stood his ground, in his dark suit and large brown shoes, and then squatted down with a wary cackle to inspect them for a moment on their own level. Madeleine, wrapped in a long mackintosh, held back, with a thin fixed smile, in which various doubts and questions were tightly hidden.

‘Aunt Madeleine, I’ve learned a new piece to play for you,’ said Corinna straight away.

‘Oh,’ said Madeleine, ‘what is it?’

‘It’s called “The Happy Wallaby”.’

‘Well, my dear,’ said Madeleine, as if seeing something faintly compromising in this, ‘we’ll have to see.’

‘She’s been practising, haven’t you, Corinna,’ said Daphne, and saw her glance at Wilfrid.

‘And Wilfie’s going to do his dance,’ Corinna said.