Symposium (4 page)

All the
time he was thinking this, he was talking. ‘We were sorry to miss your wedding.
We didn’t get back in time from New York. Your mother was there of course,’ he
said to William.

‘Oh,
yes, she came.’

‘All
the way to Inverness?’

‘St
Andrews,’ said the girl.

‘Oh,
yes, St Andrews. Lovely place. So clear, a beautiful light. And how is Hilda?’

Hilda
Damien, William’s mother, lived in Australia. She was a friend of Hurley’s
life-companion Chris Donovan. Hilda, too, was now immensely rich, having made
her own money through her own cleverness. Twenty years back she was already a
widow of very small means. She now owned five newspapers and a chain of
department stores. A magnate, was Hilda.

‘She
came just for the wedding,’ William said. ‘And then she flew right back. But
she’ll be here again shortly to settle about our new flat.’

‘I
expect you got a fine wedding present?’ Hurley fished.

‘Yes,
exactly that. We got a flat in Hampstead. It’s being done up.’

‘Good.
You’re lucky.’

‘Aren’t
we lucky?’ said Margaret.

‘Hilda’s
a good sort,’ said Hurley.

‘Absolutely
immersed in the philosophy of
Les Autres,’
said Margaret.

‘What?’

‘Have
another drink,’ said William, taking Hurley’s glass to fill it with ice, vodka
and tonic.

‘The
philosophy’, said Margaret ‘of
Les Autres
is a revival of something old.
Very new and very old. It means we have to centre our thoughts and actions away
from ourselves and entirely on to other people.’

‘Oh,
meaning the others. Why is it expressed in French?’

‘It’s a
French movement,’ said Margaret. ‘Well, Hilda, as I say, exemplifies
La
Philosophie des Autres.
She really does.’

‘Good,
well, we’ll see you on the 18th. Ten of us, informal.’ Hurley left half of his
drink, and William saw him to the door.’

‘Isn’t
she wonderful?’ said William. ‘An amazing sweet character. Do you know where we
met?’

‘Where?’

‘Marks
& Spencer’s. I was buying fruit. Do you know what she said? — She said, “Be
careful, those grapefruits look bruised.” And so they were.’

‘Good
luck,’ said Hurley Reed.

‘I          DON’T
give it a year,‘ said Hurley Reed. He was referring to William
Damien’s marriage. He was dining alone with his Chris, after visiting the
Damiens. Chris wanted to know more. ‘Who are the Murchies? She was a Miss
Murchie.’

‘Who
knows?’ said Hurley. He told her what he thought she really wanted to know.
‘Quite nice looking, but terrible teeth, they quite spoil her. I think she’s
shy or something. There’s something funny. Her get-up wasn’t natural for a
young girl at six-thirty on a normal evening. She had green velvet, a wonderful
green, and a massive background of red and gold leaves all arranged in pots.’

‘Maybe,
knowing you’re an artist, she thought you might want to paint her?’

‘Do you
think so?’ Hurley pondered this seriously for a while. ‘People do have crazy
ideas about artists. But surely not … Oh, God, you would have thought she’d
have more confidence, because William’s highly, deeply, broadly, narrowly,
every direction, in love with her. She seems very positive, thoughtful but
sunny and agreeable. A mixture, in a way.’

‘Why
don’t you think the marriage will last?’ said Chris.

‘I
don’t give it a year,’ he said. ‘Something tells me. Perhaps it will be more on
his side than hers. He perhaps won’t make the break but I feel it will come
from his side. There’s so much money there, besides.’

‘Hilda
doesn’t hand it out to her children. She settles them in life then lets them
get on with it. Very sensible.’

‘She’s
bought the couple a flat in Hampstead.’

‘I
know. It’s a wedding present. But nothing beyond that. She told me on the
phone; she said, let them work like I did.’

‘A good
idea.’

‘Did
they thank you for our candelabra?’ said Chris.

‘No.
Perhaps she hasn’t had time to sort out the presents and write, and so on.’

‘The
young never write,’ said Chris. ‘They never thank. But it shouldn’t depend on
her alone. William should thank, too. What’s wrong with him?’

‘They’re
just back from their honeymoon. Give them a chance,’ he said.

‘But
the name Murchie,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard it before in connection with
some affair, some case in the papers; something.’

‘Me,
too,’ he said. ‘It’ll come to us sooner or later.’

They
went into the sitting-room for their coffee, sinking together into the beige
downy cushions which were part of their domestic intimacy. Chris had in her
hand some notes about their forthcoming dinner party, to which, as always,
they were giving great thought.

‘Now
the Suzys have accepted.’ she said. ‘The Cuthbert-Joneses couldn’t come,
they’ll be at Frankfurt the whole month. Maybe just as well. So I phoned the
Untzingers. She’s almost sure they’ll both make it. We’ll know by the middle of
next week. If not, we can think again. Anyway, Ella fixed us up with that
student of theirs to give us an extra hand.’

‘Who
else is certain?’ said Hurley.

‘Roland
Sykes.’

‘Ah,
the melancholy gay.’

‘But
he’s very good at a dinner,’ she said. ‘You can put him next to a tree and he
will talk to it.’

‘And
the rest?’

‘That
leaves Annabel. She thinks she can come. You know she wants to do a feature
about you some time in the early spring. I know it isn’t like American
television but Annabel’s show counts, it does count.’

‘Sure,
it counts.’

‘She’s
intelligent, too,’ said Chris. ‘In fact we’ve got an intelligent party,
especially if both the Untzingers can come. I thought we would start with
salmon mousse.’

‘Not
salmon mousse,’ said Hurley.

‘What
then?’

‘Can’t
we think of something original?’

‘You
think of something original.’

‘I’ve
been working all day in the studio. I’ve hardly got the paint off my fingers.
What have we got a chef for?’

‘Oh, do
we really want to leave it to him?’

‘I
suppose not. Him and his
nouvelle cuisine.
Nobody feels satisfied when
they’ve eaten his tomatoes made into tulips and his wild asparagus made into
Snow-White’s cottage.’

‘I
thought we could have pheasant with the trimmings, then salad, cheese and
crème
brûlée.’

‘That
sounds delicious. I only think it’s not original enough since we do have Corby
in the kitchen, and everyone knows it.’

‘I’ll
think it over,’ she said. ‘If you have any ideas let me know.’

‘Do you
know about the philosophy of
Les Autres?’
said Hurley.

‘No,’
said Chris. ‘What does it involve?’

‘Well,
according to Margaret Damien it’s a new French movement based on, I think,
consideration for others. Like, I suppose: others first, me second.’

‘I’ve
been practising that all my life,’ said Chris. ‘Haven’t you?’

‘I
guess so,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I’ve expressed it in too elementary a way. Maybe
there’s more to it than one might think.’

‘Les
Autres,’
mused Chris. ‘Something new.

‘You
could ask her about it,’ Hurley said, ‘on the 18th. She says that Hilda Damien
is immersed in it.‘

‘Hilda?’

‘Yes,
she said Hilda’s taken it up.’

‘What
absolute rot. Hilda doesn’t take up philosophies and ideas. She’s a very busy
active woman. The girl must be mad.’

It is the 18th and it
seems to Hurley Reed that the dinner is going well. Pheasant seems to have been
a good idea, after all, although Hurley had feared it would be boring. Chris
had pointed out that it all depended on the quality of the pheasant, and how it
was cooked.

Many
were the ideas for this course put forth by Hurley and Chris on those evenings,
in those few weeks, before the party, when they customarily discussed whatever
concerned their ordinary lives. They could have been eating
aiguillette de
canard,
consisting of long, very thin slices of duck in red berry sauce,
with peas and braised celery. Served with Côtes du Rhône.

But
they are eating pheasant, and Hurley notes that the party is going well. For an
artist (or possibly this is an integral part of his special type of artistic
nature), he is scrupulous about the treatment of his guests when he entertains
them to dinner. He dresses well on such occasions: a velvet coat and dark
trousers. Chris Donovan loves entertaining with all her heart. It isn’t often
that Hurley can spare the time but, once he has put aside an evening, he plans
it well in advance. They talk about it, over and over, the two of them, till
they get all the details right. And so there is always a special sort of lustre
— it is not quite an honour, indeed it is almost something finer and sweeter
—attached to an invitation to dinner with Hurley and Chris.

Chris
Donovan says to Ernst Untzinger, on her left, ‘Ask Margaret about the new
philosophy of
Les Autres
that she’s keen about.’ It is a good excuse to
get Ernst to talk to Margaret Damien, his other neighbour.

Hurley
now is involved with Ella Untzinger, on his left, whom he suddenly finds is
charming. She has that upside-down type of mouth, so that if you were to
picture it the other way up, the lower lip would smoothly smile upward, while
the upper would wavily fit in place: with Ella, all is reversed, and Hurley,
like many others, finds it enchanting. Helen Suzy, on his right, is now
chatting merrily to her neighbour Roland Sykes, not that that will get her
anywhere, Hurley imagines. However Hurley continues, with fascinating Ella, the
conversation already inaugurated with Helen Suzy.

The
subject is marriage. Forget St Uncumber. Go on to something else, on the same
lines, for Ella has been following the talk between Hurley and Helen Suzy about
marriage in general, and, in fact, Hurley can’t very well change the topic.

‘And
you,’ he says to Ella while the pheasant once more goes on its rounds, ‘what
are your views on marriage?’

‘Well,’
says Ella, ‘I’m a Catholic.’

‘Which
means that marriage is final?’ says Hurley.

‘I’m
afraid so.’

‘Why
are you afraid?’ Hurley enquires. ‘You should fear nothing if you’re a Catholic.
Otherwise, what’s the point of being a Catholic? My dear Ella, I speak as a
Catholic myself. I can’t agree, and I speak as a Catholic, very much so, that
marriage is final.’

‘How do
you work that out?’ says Ella. She is clever, and knows that any challenge to
the Catholic religion has to be absolutely worked out.

But
Hurley, now helping himself, last man of the ten, to a second piece of
pheasant, has thought well on this subject. He himself has never married. Partly
because of his own temperament, partly because his beloved Chris Donovan, for
family and tax reasons, never wanted to be married. Hurley gives Ella the fruit
of his thoughts:

‘The
vows of marriage’, says he, ‘are mostly made under the influence of
love-passion. I am talking of modern marriages where the partners have been
free to choose for themselves. They are in love. I am not talking about
arranged marriages where the parents, the families, have combined to bring
about the union. Good. We have a love-match. Let me tell you’, says Hurley. ‘that
the vows of love-passion are like confessions obtained under torture. Erotic
love is a madness. Neither of the partners know what they are doing, saying.
They are
in extremis.
The vows of love-passion should at least be liable
to be discounted. That is why it is possible, and in fact imperative, for a
Catholic, who is supposed to belong to the most rational religion, to believe
in divorce between people who have been in love, the marriage vows being made
in a state of mental imbalance, which amorous love is. There is a reservation,
under Catholic laws of annulment, that allows for madness.