Jane Gardam - Last Friends

But perhaps you don’t remember me? We haven’t met since our early school days. Nor have I heard of you since 1941 September 15th as I recall, 2 days after the air-raid when my father and Canon Greisepert came to collect you from some-where in the Lake District and took you to your new school, Ampleforth College: the day after you had so cleverly, providentially, jumped ship, The City of Benares , as she set sail to drown, or rather cause a German U-Boat to torpedo and drown, over a hundred people, most of them children in Mid-Atlantic and including your headmaster and his wife, the Fondles.

I did not come with my father and Griesepert to find you, but stayed with mother who was ill. We lived inland from the bombing of the coast and here I still reside. I breed a few Highlanders.

I have never set foot in Ampleforth College although it is nearby. I went to Middlesbrough Grammar School and then to Middlesbrough Tech a few miles from home. I too have become a Barrister, but on the despised Northern Circuit. It serves me well.

My parents are dead. I still live (alone) in the old house that looks across to Herringfleet and the sea, and its only disadvantage is that it is far from the railway. I am less prosperous than you people in the South but I am still in touch with those at the Bar, and I go to stay with them as often as possible. I very much hope that you and I might meet again? Trains from York are frequent and I can get to York with the aid of a series of buses.

It has taken me a little time to realise that Terence Veneering MA (Oxon) is the Terry Venetski (or Varenski? How insular we were!) of my school days. You made a wise move, to my mind. There are some very dubiously-named members of the Bar at present, many of them dusky.

You would not recognise Herringfleet. Nothing is left of what we knew. No slum terraces, no cooking on the fire-backs. Muriel Street? Ada Street? Who were they? Muriel and Ada? No weekly animal-sacrifice for the Sunday joint takes place in the slippery back alleys. You may well remember, just before the War, some of us coming with bowls to buy the blood? A salt-black — a black salt smell?

There followed after the war the smell of the chemical works. It was very toxic, but we sat it out. It rolled down the coast and up here into the hills. I wish some artist might paint the chemical chimneys. There will be no record left soon. The poisons here are now quite muted, though still released at night.

Some sort of phantom of the smell rolls yet along the coast and up here into the hills at nightfall when they hope we are asleep. And all the trees along the Cleveland ridge — Captain Cook’s statue you will remember? — are dying.

If you do think of returning for a visit however, there is an excellent hotel in Yarm. It was once the Judges’ Lodging, where they all stayed on Circuit — maybe for Assizes — I don’t know. Sometimes, even now, you can come upon nostalgic members of the Judiciary drowsing there on vacation and hoping for some decent conversation. Rather terrible vermilion and ermine, portraits grace the staircase. It is a place where, if you visited, I should be delighted to come if you thought of inviting me to dinner?

But, first of course, it would be pleasant to come and stay with you in London in your hour of glory.

Sincerely yours, Fred Smith

PS: You will see from the Law Lists that I am now known as Fiscal-Smith. Fiscal is my own invention, as (perhaps) Veneering is yours?

* * *

Scene II Fade to a dark place under the rafters of a brothel and a dodgy dentist on Piccadilly Circus, London.

The room is unfurnished except for books and a canvas bed with a metal frame. Coloured lights swing past its dirty window all night long; a released rainbow after years of war-time blackout. Noise of traffic and shouting continuous. The noise of post-war, but still threadbare, London trying hard for joy.

Figure (Terry Veneering) is lying on bed fully clothed. It has long blond hair. It is very drunk. The room is carpetless. The wash basin is blocked.

A bashing on the door. The figure on the bed, Terence Veneering, top of the lists of the International Bar Examinations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, puts a cardboard box over his head and shouts that he is not in.

Girl’s voice : It’s not the rent. I’ve got a letter for you.

Terry

Veneering : Money in it?

Girl : How should I know? Come on, I’ll cook you a dinner.

Silence falls. At last footsteps retreat. Outside, the crowds are screaming in Piccadilly Circus, the ugliest piazza in Europe, for the return of the statue of Eros the god of love, removed for safety during the Blitz. The lights revolve upwards and in the rafters it is like a light-house. Round and round.

Slowly light fades away and noise of crowds, too. From this tall and narrow old house behind the hoardings you hear only the odd occasional street-fight, tarts shouting, students singing. Lights, lights, lights, after the years of darkness still seem a daring extravagance. The blond man on the canvas bed groans.

The letter from Fiscal-Smith has been pushed under the door. Terry Veneering has no shilling for the meter and it is cold. He staggers about. Finds a cigarette. Takes letter to window in case they’ve cut off the electrics. Reads the letter.

It is from a lonelier man than he is. This shows in the reader’s face, which softens slightly. (Voice-over of letter here perhaps?)

Then he moves, finds paper to reply. There is only a defunct and grubby Brief long-settled out of court.

* * *

Dear old Fred,

Well I never! Thanks old chum for the congrats. Often wondered what became of you. I went up to Oxford for five minutes before the War. After school — R.C. Ampleforth College, fees paid in full by the school itself, thanks to old Greasepaint (remember?). Then Oxford again. Followed by National Service, showing the flag around the Med. In white and gold and proud salutes. Nothing nearer heaven than then! The girls at all the ports, all waving us in! Malta — oh Malta! The priests shook holy water over us. And the processions and the flowers! Mind you, the mothers made the girls get home by nine o’ clock for Mass next morning. Every morning! Hard to leave behind, Fred. Hard to leave. I’ll go back one day. Place to die in. (I’m a bit drunk.)

I waved goodbye to the ship off Point and waited for passage home, when, bugger me, Royal Navy sends me off again to parade ourselves around the Far East to show that England is England Yet (pah!). Married there. Yes. Chinese girl — very rich. Boy born rather soon. Harry. I am not of The Orient and I guess a weird son-in-law.

My wife Elsie (yes!) is said to be the most beautiful woman in Hong Kong. She has a bracelet round her wrist of transparent jade. There since birth and will be all her life. It was the transparency of the seamless jade did it for me. God, I am drunk, Fred Smith!

By the way — look again. I was not top of the Bar Finals. I share the silly honour with one Edward Feathers. I expect you’ve heard of him? Or know of him? We were at Oxford together on return visit — cramming — after the War. We hardly spoke. He was the Olde Worlde star of the Oxford Union and I was never called upon to open my mouth there in debate because I am louche , Fred, louche . Feathers is one of those born to the Establishment. Cut in bronze, unfading. Big connections I’ve no doubt. He dominated his Year. Hates the Arts. Does not drink or wench. Bloody clever. We hate each other — God knows why — we pass each other now in the Inns of Court without a word. He of course has got Chambers already. I am still cap in hand — wig in hand — but I can’t afford a wig. Nor a cap, come to that.