Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (55 page)

‘So-so. Why can’t you enter a building if there’s a priest in it?’

Fersen smiled indulgently.

‘Come and sit with me, Mr Oakley, let us have a drink together, let us talk to one another.’

He drew me through the throng to a vacant table. It was done so gently, so charmingly, that to resist would have seemed churlish or brutal. Unasked, Mr Disvan accompanied us. Before I knew it, I was seated across from Mr Fersen and thanking him for a glass of brandy, selected from the many, untouched drinks donated by his Binscombe fan club.

Then, perversely enough, I was ignored. Fersen and Disvan started a scholarly discussion touching on the Latin poetry of someone called Ausonius, with particular reference to his Christian faith, or lack of it. It wasn’t exactly a subject to fire my soul, so I addressed myself pretty fully to the supply of free drinks spread before me. ‘Each to their own,’ I thought as the social lubricant got a grip and mellowed the edges of life.

Sadly, Mr Fersen eventually noticed my isolation and leant forward to ask me my opinion. The simple fact was that ignorance didn’t permit me to have one. To make things worse, for some mad reason, I decided to try and bluff my way through.

‘I think his love poetry is quite exquisite,’ I heard myself saying. (‘Not bad,’ I commented within the privacy of my own head, ‘profound but not too committal.’)

Mr Disvan gently pointed out that Decimus Magnus Ausonius (circa 310 to 395 AD) hadn’t actually ever tried his hand at love poetry. Then, while I spiralled to the ground in flames, there was a decent, respectful gap in conversation.

Fersen looked vaguely disappointed and sat back in his seat. The quiet continued. Anything I might have said would only worsen matters. Mr Disvan, innocent of petty human concerns like loss of face, stared levelly at me and smiled.

Like time spent tottering on the edge of a cliff, the silence went intolerably on until, at last, Fersen took pity on me.

‘What I presume you’re referring to, Mr Oakley,’ he said slowly, ascending from a deep study of the lampshade, ‘is the profound ambience of what might well be called “love” to be found in Ausonius’s poetry; the gentle affection for earthly life that suffuses his work. Is that not so?’

It occurred to me that this might be a trap, but I had very little to lose. Mr Fersen looked as kindly as Disvan was chillingly neutral. I took the chance.

‘Yes indeed, that’s precisely what I meant.’

Fersen nodded sagely.

‘I thought so. Yes, now that you mention it, that sentiment is very marked in the surviving works. There is therein, I confess, a sort of agape style love towards the glory of his universe—his vineyard, his estate, his philosophical pursuits, all the brief and sunny fleshly consolations to be snatched from time.’

He now studied me approvingly.

‘I’ll wager you’re the sort of man to empathise with such feelings, are you not, Mr Oakley?’

Disvan seemed to suddenly forget all about culture and poetry. He gave Fersen a volley of a glare and waved his finger at him in admonitory fashion.

‘I remind you of the concordat,’ he said with a softness of voice belied by his expression. ‘You are not on duty!’

It was all water off Fersen’s elegantly clad back.

‘Of course, of course,’ he replied affably. ‘I wouldn’t dream of abusing your hospitality. Please forgive me if... ‘

His voice trailed away as his attention seem to wander from our weak magnetism. Someone or something had caught his eye.

‘Meanwhile,’ he continued, rising from his seat, ‘perhaps you would excuse me; there is something I really must look into. I hope to see more of you tomorrow, Mr Oakley. I shall be most upset if you don’t come to my little transpositional party.’

‘Pardon?’

He took no notice.

‘Ausonius’s vision of love... a most interesting theory,’ he mused as he sauntered away and joined a group of young Binscomites up at the bar. They seemed to welcome him and he became enveloped in their throng.

I randomly selected another drink from the table and downed it. Mr Disvan looked at me over the white rampart of his Guinness.

‘I presume,’ he said, ‘that you’re going to ask who, what, and probably why.’

I told him he presumed damn right.

‘Well, they are eternal questions, Mr Oakley—and eternally unanswered.’

‘Particularly when asked of you.’

‘Quite possibly. Anyhow, Mr Fersen is a unique phenomenon, a “one-off”. There are no easy terms within which to confine him. At the moment he’s out of his context. Ask me again tomorrow when things will be clearer.’

I sighed.

‘Is there any point in asking why?’

‘Surely. You see, tomorrow evening, courtesy of Mr Fersen, for a little time out of time, Binscombe will be
sur la mer
, the Mediterranean
mer
to be precise. If you were to ask me, I’d sooner have the good old River Wey, but it takes all sorts to make a world, doesn’t it, Mr Oakley? Even a Mr Fersen type.’

‘You’re making no sense at all, Mr Disvan, if I may say so.’

‘Exactly, Mr Oakley. There isn’t really any particular sense to it. Why should there be in a randomly developed cosmos, eh? Bide puzzled a while longer, Mr O; tomorrow evening, in stark contrast to the modern Mediterranean, all will be clear.’

*  *  *

‘And what’s that medal for?’ I asked through the noise and chatter.

‘The
Croix de Guerre
said Fersen with genuine modesty. ‘There was a great deal of confusion in Marseilles in ‘44. When the smoke cleared and the bodies were put away, the French felt I deserved it for some reason. Personally, I only recall treating both sides with equal courtesy, with equal robust goodwill. It just shows you there’s no justice, doesn’t it.’

‘And that pretty token?’ asked Lucretia Patel, applying the very slightest pressure with her elegant forefinger to the golden sunburst affixed to Mr Fersen’s lapel.

I felt as green as his superbly tailored jacket. Samuel Patel, a man I counted as a friend, despite his high morals, had several times warned me off his delectable young daughter. However, he’d seemed unperturbed at her disappearing into the night with Fersen the previous evening. Nor did he register the moist gleam now residing in her eyes. It was so unfair.

‘Live another thirty years, earn wisdom, and then you will understand,’ he had said when I’d had a brief whine to him about this outrageous discrimination.

Meanwhile, Fersen smiled in a self-deprecating way and declined to explain the splendid decoration. The audience around his table urged him on.

‘Well,’ he conceded at last, ‘I believe it’s called the Order of the Blessed Henry IX, first class. The Jacobite movement awards it for outstanding service towards the restitution of the Stuart monarchy.’

‘And what did you do to deserve it?’ I asked, a shade sourly.

‘Oh,’ he murmured, indicating with delicate flicks of his be-ringed fingers that we were discussing mere trifles, ‘a little influencing here, a nudge there...’

‘An abdication in 1936,’ interrupted Mr Disvan; ‘a hushed-up constitutional crisis in 1979.’

Mr Fersen smiled again but kept discreetly silent.

That had been his role throughout the whole party. He was a provoker of conversation, an inciter of action; that much but no more. I had to admit it worked wonderfully. All was going well under his invisible guidance.

His work now done, Mr Fersen left us all agog and glided off to another section of the Argyll where things might be in danger of flagging.

‘Can you never forgive him, Mr Oakley?’ said Disvan, appearing at my side.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Mr O; right now your face would curdle fresh milk. Forgive him for being what he is.’

‘Which is?’

‘Everything you will never be. At the same time, you could forgive yourself for enjoying his party—the strain is showing.’

As ever, Mr Disvan was more or less right. The effort of trying to have a miserable time was getting a bit much. I loosened up a little.

‘That’s better,’ said Disvan approvingly. ‘Control of your jealousy will minimise the danger to you.’

I span so rapidly I spilled my drink. Suddenly my brand new white linen suit had a red wine motorway map down one side.

‘Danger? What danger?’

‘Ever the magic word to you, Mr Oakley. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

‘But now that you have...’

‘All I’m saying, Mr Oakley, is that you should be satisfied with what you are. Mr Fersen is an amusing sort of chap, but that’s all. When all’s said and done, your life is... okay, a bit humdrum perhaps, but basically okay. Why put it all at risk?’

‘I do wish you’d speak English sometimes, Mr Disvan,’ I said sadly, attempting to mop my trouser leg with a serviette. ‘Not all the time, I’m not asking for that, but maybe one statement in seven, say.’

Mr Disvan didn’t seem to bear a grudge.

‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘I did try—and you’ll find out for yourself anyway. Enjoy the party, Mr Oakley.’

I was going to say that I’d been doing that, despite myself, but Disvan had wandered off.

Mr Fersen had called this his ‘Capresi evening.’ Quite how authentic it really was I couldn’t say, never having graced the shores of Capri (apparently Fersen’s main residence) myself. That said, the overall effect seemed pretty ‘spot on’ to me.

The gods and the landlord had indulged Mr Fersen by, respectively, arranging a warm, star-bright evening and closing the Argyll for the night.

Fersen’s contribution was the limitless chilled red wine, the bowls of pistachio nuts, the canopy in the beer-garden, exotic seafood snacks and a wide screen video showing of AFC Milan (or someone) playing embarrassingly good football.

Fersen had surveyed these completed arrangements and pronounced them perfect.

‘Sunday evening, my promenade is over, I arrive at the village bar,’ he’d said, relishing every syllable. ‘Children, let us begin.’

Whereupon festivities had started with a whirl. The locals seemed straightaway at home in this far from home. Even Disvan and the landlord, who thought England ended at Binscombe parish boundary, were happy to join in and let themselves be hijacked far away. I had the not so sneaking suspicion that all this had happened before, perhaps many times. This led naturally to the question of why I’d not been invited on past occasions.

I caught up with Fersen as he was oozing charm all over Mrs Bretwalda (a madly dangerous thing to do as the human volcano, Mr Bretwalda, was also present) and put the query to him.

‘Goodness knows,’ he said casually. ‘Mr Disvan is always in charge of the guest list. If you were left out, what can I do to make up for the oversight..?’

Somehow, in the course of this swift speech, Fersen had contrived to put his arm round my shoulder in a just-this-side-of-decency friendly manner. With surprising strength, he guided me away and over to a vacant table.

‘We never did have our little chat, did we?’ he said, smiling blandly. ‘So let us now make amends for that and other past omissions.’

To add to my unease, I noticed that Daisy Bretwalda was giving me the blackest of jealous looks. By contrast, her husband had what I called his ‘crocodile smile’ on. Neither contained comfort.