1982 - An Ice-Cream War (7 page)

“She has her days.”

“Anyway I saw Charis yesterday. She’s fine.”

Felix tested the garden gate, noting the new latch. “I bet Cyril wasn’t too pleased about being turfed out.”

“Who?”

“Cyril.” Sometimes Gabriel was so slow. “Whose house this was.” Felix laughed. “Lord the air must have been blue.” But Gabriel had already walked ahead.

“Come on,” Gabriel shouted. “Cut along, Cobb, cut along.”

Felix caught up with him as they tramped over the dry crumbling furrows at the edge of a silently restless com field.

“Haven’t had a dip in the pond for years, have we, Felix?” Gabriel said. “D’you remember that day we pushed Eustacia in?”

“Useless Eustace,” Felix said. “Father leathered us though.” He picked up a stick and swished it at clumps of dusty nettles and delicate cow-parsley heads.

“Is that how you decapitate Pathans or fuzzy-wuzzies or whatever you call them, Gabriel?” He brutally hacked down a stand of ragwort in illustration.

“I wish it were,” Gabriel said. “I’m afraid I’ve wielded nothing more lethal against my fellow man than a polo mallet.”

“That’s good,” Felix cried. He always liked to celebrate Gabriel’s rare sallies of wit.

“I’ve stuck a few wild pigs, though,” Gabriel said.

“Disgusting habit. Did they squeal terribly? Do stuck pigs squeal?”

“I should say they do. I would squeal if somebody stuck me.” Gabriel looked serious for a moment. “I may soon be doing worse than that. We all may.”

“What? Worse than sticking pigs?”

“No. Raising arms against our fellow man.”

“What
are
you talking about, Gabriel?”

“The Anglo-German war. It’s coming, Felix. I’m sure of it.”

“Do they only take the
Daily Mail
in your mess?” Felix scoffed. “I’ve never heard such rot. There’s not going to be any war.” He ran ahead, leaping and bounding in a theatrical imitation of euphoria. “Holland says everyone is having far too good a time to go to war. Don’t you think this is the most wonderful time to be alive, Gabriel?”

Gabriel smiled. “Well I suppose I do. But then I’ve got my own special reasons.”

“So have I,” Felix said, “I think I’d rather be living now than at any other time. Don’t you think so? There’s so much in the air.” They climbed over a gate.

“Besides,” Felix went on, “they can’t have a war. I’m going to Oxford.”

“Oh well then, of course not. I’m sure the Kaiser will wait until you’ve got your B.A.”

They had reached the river. It ran turbidly between wheat fields, before some subterranean impediment caused it to take an unusually sharp bend. At this point five mature weeping willows grew over the large pool formed by the swerve in the river’s progress. The gentle current eddied and swirled, slowly cutting into the facing bank. On one side of the pool was a mud and pebble beach. On the other the overhanging bank shadowed a wide channel some six to eight feet deep. It was possible to climb the willow trees and drop into the cool green waters from a considerable height.

“Looks inviting,” Gabriel said, unbuttoning his shirt. “It seems to get bigger every year.” He slipped off his clothes until he stood naked.

“I hope there’s no country maiden passing by,” he said and climbed easily up the accommodating boughs of the willow trees, before launching himself with a whoop into the pool. He swam splashily across to the far side and sloshed out of the water on to the beach.

“Superb,” he called. “Come on, slowcoach. It’s not a bit cold.”

Felix stared for a moment at his brother’s powerful naked body, dappled with the knife-like shadows of the willow leaves. He had a broad slab of a chest covered in a sprinkling of fine blond hairs. His abdomen was flat and muscled and the line of his pelvis was clearly marked. His ruddy, pink cock and balls, tensed from the cold water, were compact in their nest of gingery brown hairs that spread across his groin over his heavy thighs. Water runnelled off his chest and stomach and dripped in a stream from his stubby cock. His scrotum, big as a fist, was wrinkled and firm.

Felix felt himself blushing. He folded his trousers and shirt with undue care and laid them at the foot of the willow. He was conscious of his white half-formed body, his thin chest, his little tuft of pubic hair. Gabriel seemed so solid in comparison, his body tapering from broad shoulders. Felix felt feeble and soft. He undid the cord on his drawers and let them fall to his ankles. He climbed the tree and almost immediately felt dizzy and insecure. He looked down at the swirling shifting mass of the water, the frolicking prisms of light, some twelve feet below. It seemed like a hundred and twenty. He hung on to a branch, gathering his courage. Gabriel stood waiting on the mud beach, arms akimbo.

“Jump, Felix. Leap in. It won’t hurt.”

Felix let go of his reassuring bough and fell.

Felix dried his hair with the towel and ran it one last time over his naked body. A beam of afternoon sun broke through the willow leaves and warmed his left hip and thigh. Holding the towel in front of him he covertly ran his hand over his cock and balls, feeling the sensations swarm and jostle. If Gabriel hadn’t been present, he thought, he would have frigged there and then, in the open air.

Gabriel pulled on his shirt and tucked it into his flannels. He held out his arms and breathed deeply.

“Ah, splendid,” he said. “I used to dream about this sort of afternoon when I was in India.” He ran both his hands through his damp hair. “Got a comb?” he asked smiling.

Felix was silenced for an instant with a sudden tingling surge of inarticulate love for his brother. He felt numb and weightless with its power. He swallowed. “No,” he said. “Silly. I should have brought one.”

“Never mind, never mind.” Gabriel clawed his hair into shape with stiff fingers. He looked at Felix.

“Felix, you know I wanted to talk to you about this best man business?”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel. I’ve been working on my speech for days. Very funny, have everyone in stitches. Nothing improper, mind you.”

“Oh.” Gabriel looked pained.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Well, you know I asked you to be best man because I thought that Sammy—Sammy Hinshelwood, in my battalion—wouldn’t be on leave…”

“Yes. I don’t quite see.”

“Well, he is. On leave. He told me last week. He telegraphed.”

Felix felt his face tighten.

“Well, old chap, I’ve known Sammy for ages, and that was the original plan and—”

“You’ve known me for ages too.” Felix somehow managed a laugh.

“I would have told you earlier but it’s all been so hectic. Sammy’s down here now staying at the pub in the village. Charis knows him too. She’d like Sammy to…We had the rehearsal last night and everything. I said you wouldn’t mind. But look, old fellow, I’d like you to be chief usher, if you would. Be an awfully big help.”

Felix pulled on his drawers and tugged his shirt over his head. He relaxed his facial muscles for the instant his face was covered, then clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. Stupid rotting wedding, he thought, as his head pushed through the collar. I don’t care.

“Don’t worry, Gabe,” he said with a bright hard smile. “I can see your problem. No, fine. Glad to do your ushering for you. It was a pretty dreadful speech anyway, I’m sure.”

Felix gazed out of his bedroom window at the south lawn and the fishponds. He saw Cyril, the gardener, trudge across it from the orchard, a heavy bucket in his hand, on the way to feed the carp. As if to complement Felix’s mood the brilliant day had suddenly clouded over, as it can in an English summer, and had become cool. The fishponds, before a deep and placid blue, were now mouse-grey and crinkled by a breeze.

“Charis knows him too. She’d like Sammy to…” The words hummed in his head. He knew who to blame for his bitter disappointment. Damn Charis, he thought. Damn bloody Charis. During the walk back from the willow pool he had been brittle and gay, expressing all sorts of outlandish opinions on White Slavery, the Cailloux case in Paris, the assembly of the fleet at Spithead and had loudly announced his plans to take dance lessons in order to master the Tango and Maxixe. This was a Felix Gabriel knew well, and he had laughed and humoured him, apparently glad to see him back on iconoclastic form.

Once back in his room Felix had punched his pillow, sworn and impulsively ripped his best man’s speech into pieces. He was annoyed to find his eyes smarting with tears of frustration and hurt. He resolved to be steely and cynical at all costs. No one should guess how he felt let down and betrayed. Sammy Hinshelwood. Another wretched soldier, boisterous and hearty. How he detested the army!

He lay on his bed and smoked a cigarette, watching the blue braided fumes curl and disintegrate above his head. His trunks from school had arrived while he was away at Holland’s and they had not been unpacked, as he had requested.

Unlocking one, he took out some books and a cardboard cylinder. From this he removed a coloured poster. It was an offer from de Reske cigarettes, one of the brands he smoked. On receipt of six empty packets the poster was sent free of charge. It portrayed a young couple sitting at a table. A slim young man in evening dress leant forward, cupping his chin in one hand, his other behind him, languidly resting on the seat back, a smoking cigarette held between two fingers. He gazed dreamily into the eyes of an equally slim woman, who leant forward also, thereby causing her considerable bosom to press against the low-cut bodice of her silk gown.

What fascinated and stimulated Felix about this picture was the marked disproportion of the woman’s breasts to her elegant frail form, and the way she leant forward, provocatively offering them in their décolleté, as some kind of reward for her companion’s sophisticated taste in choosing to smoke de Reske.

Felix spread the picture on the hearth rug. He weighted one side with an ashtray and rubbed his groin area experimentally through his cotton trousers. Normally the visual and physical stimulus produced instantaneous results, but on this occasion it seemed merely a bored mechanical exercise. He picked up his ashtray, repackaged his advertisement and resumed his seat by the window, staring emptily at the lawn, the ponds and the fields beyond, now shadowed by the passage of evening breezes.

Later Hester, the upstairs housemaid, drew him a bath. He bathed and changed for dinner. The family, he knew, would be gathering in the inner hall in preparation for the evening meal, but he felt not the slightest inclination to join them. He sat down at his desk and took out some writing paper from a drawer. He scored out ‘Stackpole Manor’ on the letter head and wrote ‘Bleak House’ in its place. He would write to Holland, his friend and inspiration from school, the only person who could understand him, who could appreciate and share his mood.

My dear Holland, (
he wrote
)

My head aches and a drowsy numbness pains my neck. I am home again. This despicable house is like some vast malodorous carcass dropped in Kent, silvery with putrefaction and occupied by sleek pale complacent maggots, most of whom are wearing military uniforms. My family, God save me from my family. There is not one ‘soul’ among them. (I except, as always, brother and groom Gabriel—though he is not himself. On perusing a copy of my wedding speech he told me it was far too inflammatory and provocative for the intolerant and sensitive ears of my assembled relations. Platitudes, he said, all that we require are platitudes and homilies and perhaps one or two well-known jokes. I of course refused to alter a single word and have, as a result, been demoted from best man to chief usher. I am unrepentant.)

Shall you know the others? Cressida, my eldest sister, unmarried and rapidly stoutening, humourless and intolerably bossy, who now runs the household leaving my dear mother free to pursue her ‘enthusiasms’. As I write, the driveway is filled with motors of every type and description. Then Yseult, pale and simple minded. Shamelessly compliant and cowed by her grotesque husband, the booming Falstaffian Lt Col. Henry Hyams. They are accompanied by their egregious child, Charles, my nephew, currently depriving me of the use of my elegant dressing room. Next we have the twins; Albertine (quite nice, I admit, and cheerful) and Eustacia (horribly embittered) and their respective spouses. Albertine trapped the hon. Greville Verschoyle—another soldier, captain or major, or something. Eustacia contrived to snare, only last year, Lieutenant Nigel Bathe—with an ‘e’, mark you. The Nigel Bathes must be the most unpleasant couple I know. Soldiers, soldiers everywhere. One of the advantages, for daughters, of having a father who’s a major and spending their lives in garrison towns. Even dear Gabriel is a soldier. Revolting Charles will become one, I’m sure. Leaving only me and my two delightful but very noisy nieces (Hattie and Dora: why do they name them after scullery maids?) uncalled to the colours. I have saved the best ‘til last. I have talked of my father before, have I not? I have still to see him, though I have been here all day—

He was interrupted by the brassy crescendo of the first dinner gong. He put down his pen. He had described his family to Holland many times before, but the letter had been therapeutic. He felt quite restored.

He checked his reflection in the cheval-glass that stood in the corner of his room. His hair…Holland had abandoned hair cream and macassar so Felix had followed suit. They were growing their hair longer too. Prudence, however, dictated that tonight would not be a good time to draw his father’s attention to its length. He took a bottle from his trunk and poured some oil into his right palm, rubbed his hands together and smoothed them over his head. He combed his hair again, slicking it down close to his head. With his little finger he dislodged a congealed strand so that it fell across his forehead. He made a silent wager that his father would tell him to get his hair cut. He straightened his bow tie. The second gong sounded in the hall.

At the door of his bedroom he bumped into Charles, similarly attired in a dinner suit. Charles was a thin child with sad eyes and a weak chin. He had inherited none of his father’s potent geniality.

“Where on earth do you think you’re going?” Felix demanded, impeding Charles’s progress down the corridor.