Jane Gardam - Last Friends

The boy had disappeared when he eventually emerged into Lincoln’s Inn and its water tanks. Ah well. Got the message. New Statesman first priority. The literary Editor there a woman. Sounded daunting. Not young. Apparently somebody. Chat her up. Who’s afraid? Not I who knew Mrs. Veronica Fondle — and I drowned her. This one had said on the phone that she promised nothing except a sandwich together in Lincoln’s Inn Fields sitting on the grass to talk about his future. ‘You sound so very young, Mr. Veneering. Did you not think of staying at Oxford — life as an academic?’ (She ain’t seen me yet!)

No, Mrs. Beetle-Bags, I did not. I don’t want to interpret the world, I want to put it straight. To spread the globe out flat like pastry on a slab like Ma made. Pick it up, slap it down, turn it over like a Tarte Tatin in Le Trou Normand in Hong Kong. Oh hell, that was wonderful! I don’t want a careful bloody life. Why am I turning to the right? This place in St. Yves Court — St. Yves, the Breton lawyer. And saint. (Might write a book on him?) Augustus’s chambers—

Where there is nothing but a gaping door and windows and a heap of rubble on the pavement with a rope round it and a red lamp you light with a match. And it’s eight years on. 1953—Christ! However did we win the War? No-one will ever know. I’ll tell my grandchildren.

Or will I? Will I reminisce? Will they give a fuck for historic Britain? Little ragged-edged, off-shore island and not my country anyway. Go to Russia soon, let’s hope. Everywhere fighting their neighbours to the death. Death doesn’t bring life — ever.

He saw his house-master at his Roman Catholic school saying, ‘Sharpen up, Veneering. The Resurrection?’ Oh, fuck.

He took his eyes off the heap of rubble and looked up steps to a tall row of early-Victorian houses where doors and window frames gaped empty. In front of each house was a heap of rubble similar to that at his feet: beams and floorboards and shelving and corner-cupboards and lead fire-backs. Nearby there was a little marble chimney-piece. It had a small deep-carved circle at the top of each pillar. Around 1740, he thought. He lusted after it. A man was loading all the rubble into a lorry.

‘Can I have that?’

‘What — that broke fireplace?’

‘Yes, how much?’

‘Take it for free. How you goin’ to get it home?’

‘I will. Leave it aside.’

He stood looking at the silken marble skin under the grime. Smooth as jade. He saw the translucence and perfection of the surface under the dirt of the war. He thought there must always have been people who stared at such things. He imagined his wife’s terrifying family at her birth, fastening the tiny jade rings around her baby wrists. Her shackles. He thought of his mother, pushing tripe about in the black frying pan on the coal fire. Her worn hands. He thought of all that his mother had had no knowledge of. Her tiny world where she, among all her family and friends, had alone pondered and sought helplessly for explanations.

Augustus was standing on the top steps of one of the un-restored houses. At the bottom of the steps near him, a girl’s bike was propped on one pedal, its basket on the handlebars full of flowers. A girl pushed past Augustus and came running down the steps towards the bike. She passed Veneering by like a whip-lash, but he had the impression of happiness, good temper, laughter, excitement. She leapt on the bike, balanced, kicked the pedal and hurtled away out of sight. She was bare-legged, sandaled, in a crazy new-look skirt that did not suit her (legs a bit short — though good). She had not seen him.

Augustus called from above, ‘Please come in, Mr. Veneering. I hope you are in time.’ A dreadful look was cast upon the fur-lined sleeveless jacket.

‘Mr. Willy can see you now. I hope.’

But there seemed to be nobody there.

The room was large but far from ready. The windows were newly glazed but still with builders’ finger-marks. There was no carpet. Bookshelves were not yet filled. There was a big plain desk with little on it except an enormous concoction of cellophane-wrapping with a bunch of spring flowers in the midst, and a book.

A voice said, ‘My god-daughter left them. The girl you were watching getting on to her bicycle.’

The man was small with a pasty face and sitting rather out of the light in an alcove beside a roundabout book-case. He had a sweet smile.

‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.’ Veneering found that he was tugging down the waist-coat. Pushing back his hair.

‘Veneering?’

‘Yes, er — you sent for me.’

Mr. William Willy said, ‘I have been asked to establish a new set of Chambers for specialising in engineering and construction Law. There is to be a great deal of building work—‘sky-scrapers,’ bridges, roads — which we hope will continue to be in the hands of British lawyers. English engineers are still very much the best, except for the Italians, and in Hong Kong and Singapore for instance, there are some huge contracts brewing for what we call “The Far East” and the Americans call “The Orient”, which shows a certain romanticism in them I suppose. I am Shanghai-born, Mr. Veneering. I am not a romantic. I understand you speak Mandarin? And you are a travelling man?’

‘Well, only post-war Navy. Round the China Sea. Showing the flag. Yes, I do speak Mandarin. I find languages easy.’

‘So you will travel?’

‘Yes. I have few allegiances.’

‘But you have a wife and small son in Hong Kong, Mr. Veneering.’

After a thoughtful space Veneering said, ‘This isn’t generally known. But yes.’

‘Would you stoop to practice in the Construction Industry? They often call it “Sewers and Drains”. High fees, international experience but you would be doomed to personal obscurity. No honours.’

‘I haven’t really thought. . ’

‘About whether or not you care about obscurity?’

The pale-faced man walked to the window behind his desk and turned his back on Veneering and looked across London.

‘You haven’t really started thinking yet. You and Feathers.’

‘If you are inviting Feathers,’ said Veneering, ‘then I’m not interested.’

‘And nor, I’d guess, is he. He has connections of his own. You of course could become an academic. Or you would make a very good journalist. Maybe at The New Statesman ? I expect you are left wing? But you — I have made enquiries — like big money. And power. The power in the East of your father-in-law’s family?’

‘This is like the night I arrived at Ampleforth and the monks grilled me,’ said Veneering.

‘Ah, yes. That was the night The City of Benares went down. You were very lucky to escape. Have you second-sight, Mr. Veneering? That is always useful. You might be very useful all round.’

‘I don’t talk about it. No — I jumped ship because — I wanted to go home. But I thought nobody had been told about that business.’

Augustus came in and took the god-daughter’s flowers away to put them in water, leaving the book.

‘Your name is not really Veneering, is it?’

‘However do you know that. .?’

‘Because I know my Dickens. You can’t use a good name twice. It is a joke. Veneering was a nasty man. . ’

‘I haven’t actually read. . ’

‘But you are not a nasty man. I knew your father. His name was Venitsky. Was it not?’

Silence.

‘Your father, whatever his name, was I think from Odessa? A blond Odessan — very unusual. He had been a hero. He was left totally alone for years, at great risk, abandoned, crippled, fearless to the end. They got him of course. Not that I am suggesting that the whole purpose of the German air-raids in the north-east was to eliminate one defunct — shall we say specialist er — thinker? Political activist? Your father was a great man.’