Jane Gardam - Last Friends

‘I remember her.’

‘Oh, yes. Singapore. She was — well, you saw her.’

‘Not until about ten years later. She was so beautiful. To me she was beyond desire,’ said Filth.

‘D’you remember,’ said Veneering, ‘how when anyone saw her for the first time, the room fell silent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Chinese. Ageless. Paris thrown in. Perfect French. Poise.’

‘We all wanted poise in women after the war. The women who’d been in the war were all so ugly and battered. The rest were schoolgirls and they slopped over us. We thought nothing of them. We were looking for our mothers I think, sometimes. Beautiful mothers.’

‘Elsie was like your mother?’

‘No. My mother was a figure from — beyond the Ural mountains.’

‘She gave you your blond hair?’

‘No. Not exactly. She could have organised the Ural mountains.’

‘Elsie—?’

‘Just stood there at some meaningless party. Tiny pea-green silk cheongsam. Made in Paris. They were rich. Her father hovered. Seldom spoke. Watched me. Had heard I had a future. Knew I had a bit of a past but could speak languages. Bit of a reputation at Oxford—. Knew I had no money. I needed, wanted money. Women — well, enthusiastic. He invited me with the family group — I didn’t know that — to a dinner to eat crabs in black sauce on the old North Road. This is Hong Kong now. I think. Everyone shouting and clacking Chinese. I was already good at it. Showed off. Unfortunately got drunk — but so did they. So did Elsie. She wore these little jade bracelets on her wrists, fastened onto rich girl-babies. Tight, sexy. Just sat there. You know what it’s like. Round table. Non-stop talk. Suddenly all over and everyone stands up. Shouting. Laughing. Family — well, you know, unbelievably rich and — well — cunning. I found myself taking her home. It was considered an honour.’

‘You needed a friend, Veneering, to get you out of that one.’

‘I know. D’you know, I remember thinking that it would be good if Fred — little Fiscal-Smith — had been there.’

‘Well, I had to go back and marry her.’

‘Couldn’t old Pastry Willy and his Dulcie have helped?’

‘Not then. Well, they might have done. I don’t think they wanted to know me. I had swum through life after the war as I’d never have done on board The City of Benares . (Yes, thanks. A small one.) We were pushed into it in those days by — well by the Church. There is a Catholic church in Singapore. It survived. It is thronged. It was home. Somehow you keep with it. And so amazing that Elsie was Catholic. Or so they said. And we had a son.’

‘I remember your son. Who didn’t? Harry.’

‘Yes. He was a wild one. He had my language thing. I sent him to the same English prep school as the Prince of Wales. Elsie’s family flew him back and forth. He was—. He was, such a confrère . Such a brilliant boy—.’

‘I remember.’

‘Then they thought he was dying. Cancer in the femur.’

‘I heard something—.’

‘Betty — your Elizabeth — well, you must know. Looked after him. It wasn’t cancer. Back in England. Tiny, wonderful little hospital in Putney. I couldn’t be there in time.’

‘And his mother—?’

‘Elsie was in Paris. A hair appointment.’

‘And after that, you still stayed with Elsie?’

‘Yes. Well. I stayed with my boy.’

* * *

‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Filth.

‘Elsie died,’ said Veneering. ‘An alcoholic.’

‘I am so sorry. We did hear—. But you had the boy.’

‘Oh, yes. I had the boy.’

‘I had no child,’ said Filth. ‘Come on. Bedtime.’

‘Your supper smells good,’ said Veneering. ‘My mother could cook.’

‘I never knew mine,’ said Filth. ‘Now are you all set for your visit to Malta? Strange place. I envy you,’ and he waited to see if Veneering would say, ‘You should come with me.’ But Veneering did not.

‘Actually,’ said Veneering, ‘Elsie got very fat.’

‘She needed your love,’ said Filth.

* * *

But late that night, after his orderly, reflective bath-time, the evening lullaby of the rooks harsh and uncaring, Filth thought, He needed more than Elsie could give. He needed Betty. And Betty was mine.

* * *

The next morning Veneering’s hired car for the airport swished along his drive at six o’clock and he didn’t even look down at Old Filth’s great chimney as they sped by. It was raining hard and still not really light.

Interesting evening, though. Never talked to the old fossil before. Maybe never known him. Or each other. Maybe once could have talked about women with him before the Betty-Elsie days. I might have helped him there. The ones who could never have talked to each other were Betty and Elsie. Perhaps the seeds of hatred had always been in them?

And this black and wintry morning in the cold rain Filth was realising that, at last, he was seeing Betty from a little distance. As a man, not even loving her particularly. Seeing her away from this eerie village, thick with history, hung with memories like those ghastly churches in Italy hung with rags. Rags and bandages and abandoned crutches, abandoned because prayer had been answered, wounds all healed, new life achieved. Betty Feathers lay dead in Donhead St. Ague church-yard. The monumental husband was, at what must be the end of his life, turning out to have a persona apart from his wife. Level-headed, a comrade, all passion spent. Urbane enough to play chess with his life-long sexual rival, and forget.

What idiot years they had passed in thrall — whatever thrall is — to this not exceptional woman. Not a beauty. Not brilliant. Stocky. What is ‘falling in love’ about ? And her attitude to life — it was antique.

She could love of course, thought Veneering. My God I’ll never forget the night she was with me. And she said so little. When I think of Elsie! All we hear about the silent, inscrutable Chinese! Elsie screamed and screeched and spat. She flung herself up and down the stairs in front of the servants. Hecuba! All for Hecuba! Didn’t care who heard her. Put off little Fiscal-Smith for life. White, as he watched her. Bottles flying. Jewels flung out of windows. How flaccid she became. Rolls of fat. She had the bracelets cut away. Her wrists above began to bulge and crease. She couldn’t understand English — not the words. Her ‘English’ was faultless. But what it meant! In Chinese there is no innuendo, irony, sarcasm. Bitch-talk she could do. She asked Betty, who was in her twenties, if she was a grandmother and Betty said, ‘Oh, yes I have seventeen grandchildren and I’m only twenty-seven’ and Elsie had no idea what she was talking about. The most hateful thing about Elsie was her fragile hands. She would pose with them, cupping them round a flower, and sigh, ‘Ah! Beautiful ’ and wait for a camera to click. Life was a performance. A slow pavane.

For Betty it was a tremendous march. A brave and glorious and well, comical sometimes, endurance. All governed by love. Passion — well she’d forgone passion when she married. Her own choice. She’d taken her ration with me. She wouldn’t forget that night. Hello — Heathrow? Still raining. Why the hell am I going to Malta for Christmas?

* * *

Veneering was staying in what had been the Governor’s residence, or rather in the hotel wing of his ancient palace. Throughout the network of the cobbled streets of Valetta the rain poured down, turning them to swirling rivers. There was thunder in the winter rain. No-one to be seen. Cold. Foreign. Post-Empire. Oh, Hong Kong!

The hotel, or palace, stood blackly in a court-yard that was being bombarded by the rain and the huge doors were shut. Veneering sat in the taxi and waited while the driver with a waterproof sheet on his head had pounded at them and then hung upon a bell-rope. At last, after the flurry of getting him in, tipping the genial driver well — but not receiving quite the same excessive gratitude as long ago — Veneering stood in a pool of rain on the stones of a reception hall that rose high above him and disappeared into galleries of stony darkness. He was then led for miles down icy corridors with here and there a vast stone coffin-like chest for furnishing, the odd, frail tapestry.