The Avignon Quintet (149 page)

He had all the time in the world, that is what he had begun to feel. He could afford to take his time. But when he spotted a telephone booth he suddenly remembered that he did not yet know the exact address of Constance’s flat. But he soon found her in the supplement devoted to trades and professions, and reading over the address a couple of times unerringly memorised it.

This is where he would go when he was good and ready, to exact retribution from the woman who had so misused him both morally and physically. He closed his eyes the better to memorise the address.

FIVE

The Return Journey

W
ITHIN THE SPACE OF THIS RELATIVELY SHORT
absence from the town Constance found that the dispositions had somewhat changed, been reshuffled. The mid-morning “elevenses” of Toby and Sutcliffe had remained the only constant, but the company of the
billiardaires
, as Sutcliffe had christened what threatened now to become an informal club, had been increased by new arrivals. Blanford had graduated to a wheel-chair with a movable back which he could adjust to correspond to his waves of fatigue, or desire for a cat-nap. He found the atmosphere most congenial for his work, and he found that Sutcliffe argued best when he was allowed to be slightly absent-minded, half-concentrated on a tricky shot. He had his best thoughts paradoxically when he was occupied with something else – it was as if they were completely involuntary, arriving from nowhere: but every artist has this unique experience, of receiving throbs from outer space as pure gifts. Another member of the company was Max, who in a curious way felt a little lonely in Geneva and was anxious to take up old friendships; he played an excellent game of pool, and despite his new avocation as a yogi was still very much his old self, easy to tease in an affectionate way for he was so very humble, had always been despite the gaudy uniforms provided by Lord Galen. The gloomy and deteriorate old bar took on a new life; the moribund old man who ran it so very inexpertly invoked the aid of a niece or a daughter-in-law who started to produce eatable comestibles and superior brands of whisky and gin to meet the new custom. And this general disposition towards improvement had borne fruit, for among the new members of this confraternity were two of the secretaries who worked for Toby, and even Ryder, Sutcliffe’s head of section, who since his wife’s accident had taken to drinking rather heavily. Moreover, he was somewhat intimidated, or so he professed, by frequenting “sort of artist chaps”, because he was simply “an ordinary lowbrow service mind”. His misgivings were rudely set to rest by Sutcliffe.

“The word is a misnomer, it should be
autist
. I know that the animal is short of manners and lacks true refinement, but then he is tolerably happy with his vulgar streak. There are advantages in being a
parvenu
: one is shunned by people dying of the slow blood-poisoning of over-refinement. The poor artist is a fartist, and he belongs to an endangered species and needs the protection of the reservation. His compensations are secret ones. He belongs to the Floppy Few!”

“O Christ!” said the soldier in despair. “If ever there was someone in need of subtitles …”

But it was not always as bad as this, and he solaced himself with the more worldly company of Felix Chatto who had smelt out this informal morning gathering and graced it with his company several times a week. Geneva was short on really good company combined with complete informality, and that is what the smoky little bar had to offer, despite its impersonality and general ugliness. And the general relaxation of the atmosphere was also a sign that the long suppurating war was drawing to an end. New sorts of agency were beginning to make their appearance in the town – agencies for peace and reconstruction, not for war, espionage, subversion. The faintest shadow of a new atmosphere had begun to flower among the ruins of the epoch. Yet how exhausted they all were. (These thoughts are those of Constance.) Yes, even those who had apparently done nothing were worn down by the invisible moral attrition of war. In her own case she felt its separate weight added to the weight of the human experiences through which she had found her way with such difficulty, with so many hesitations. And now once more changes were in the air, the structure of things was shifting, disintegrating around her. Soon, she supposed dumbly, she would be on the move again, heading for some distant country, some new project. Only the thought that Affad was coming back halted her.

“Halted her” is not true either, for at the very heart of her emotion, the seat of her loving awareness of him as a man, she was aware that something had gone wrong and that she did not know how it could be put right; it was like a break in an electrical circuit, it would need mending by both sides. But if they were not together? There was the rub. To still her sense of overwhelming boredom she had begun to spend more time with Blanford, indeed whole afternoons talking to him on his balcony or lying beside his bed. Not infrequently they were joined by the massive figure of Sutcliffe, tired of pacing the waterfront on misty afternoons. It was curious, too, to hear them discussing the interminable sequences of the “double concerto” as Blanford called their novel now. He took the concerns of form very seriously and reacted with annoyance to Sutcliffe’s jocose suggestions, namely that the whole thing would be much tidier as an exchange of letters. “We could have fun, spelling God backwards! You could sign yourself OREPSORP and I could sign myself NABILAC. It’s the other side of the moon for Prospero and Caliban – between us we could really control things. I mean Reality or YTILAER. With many an involuntary chuckle and lots of spicy new dialogue like: ‘A stab of grog, Podsnap – I mean Pansdop? Don’t mind if I do, mate. Couldn’t care less if I did!’ In this way
enanteiodromion
, everything would be seen to be turning into its opposite, even our book which would take on a mighty shifty strangeness, become an enticement for sterile linguists to parse in their sleep.”

“But hard on the reader, surely,” pleaded Constance. “And of an unhealthy schizoid cast of mind.”

Aubrey said, “I am deliberately turning the novel inside out like a sleeve.”

“Then back,” said Sutcliffe.

“Yes, then back.”

“I have treated people like you, sometimes even much worse. But with no success, alas. And I was brought up on rigorous fare like Ivanhoe and Proust which enjoyed classical exactitude as to form …”

“But that is Culture,” said Sutcliffe in his most reproachful manner. “Or if you prefer, ERUTLUC. You see, we have never been interested in the real world – we see it through a cloud of disbelief. Ni eht gninnigeb saw eht drow!” He intoned the phrase majestically and explained that it was simply the backspelling of “In the beginning was the Word!”

“So we are back to culture, are we?” she said. “And we are not the only ones. Lord Galen is being deeply troubled by the word as well.”

Blanford said, “I know. He has been to see me about it. But first let me tell you about Cade my manservant who has started to encounter him at night when he prowls about the city. Cade, when he is deeply thinking, puts on an extraordinary facial expression which reminds me of that sculpture by an artist whose name I have repressed called ‘Romulus and Remus founding Rome’. That is how intense it is. Then after a time he clears his throat and says, ‘Sir, may I speak?’ and when I nod, goes on, ‘I saw
him
again last night!’ A hush. ‘Him who?’ I ask and he says with slyness, ‘Lord Galen. He was in one of the houses. They were laughing at him. They asked me if he was really a Lord because he calls his balls his “heirlooms”. Of course, I said, that’s why he is worried about their performance. He ’opes for a son and heir. I trust I was right, I done right.’ ‘Cade, you done right.’ ‘Thank you, Master Aubrey.’”

“I shall ask Toby to take Galen to the Swiss perverts’ restaurant where they only serve fried grapes in order to break down your reserve. Is he really worried about his heirlooms?”

“No. It’s to do with culture. And it is very human and touching. He has been told to see man in the raw!”

Indeed there was a good deal of truth in this, and it had largely come about because of Galen’s latest and most illustrious appointment.

He sidled into Blanford’s room at the clinic looking like the Phantom of the Opera; there were dark circles under his eyes. He was slightly out of breath and very much out of composure as he cast about for a way of expressing his disturbed feelings. “Aubrey!” he said, with a suspicion of a quiver to his underlip, “I felt that I must consult you, and I hope you will have time to hear me out. Aubrey, I am at a great crossroads in my professional life.” He sat down on a chair, and placing a briefcase full of books on the floor at his feet, fanned himself with his hat – as if to quell the fires of anxiety which were consuming him. “My dear Lord Galen, of course,” said Blanford with a rush of affection and sympathy, and put out his hand which Galen grabbed and shook with gratitude. “What is it? What can it be?”

Galen allowed his breathing to rediscover its normal rhythm before unfolding his tale. “Today, Aubrey,” he said at last, “I am at the top of the tree, I have the plum job of all – I am the Coordinator of Coordinated Cultures!” He waited for it to sink in before continuing, “And yet I can’t for the life of me discover what culture
is
, what the word I am in charge of
means
. I know that I pass for a well-educated man and all that. But I am supposed to work out a report which will deal with the whole future of the European book, for example, for we control all the paper. Someone has to decide what is good of our culture, and that is me. But how can I decide if I don’t know what it is? And from every side they come bringing me what they call ‘cornerstones’ to look at. ‘You must include that in your recommendations, it’s a
cornerstone
,’ they keep saying. I am surrounded with cornerstones. And some of them – well, I have never been so disgusted in my life.” He groped among his affairs and produced a copy of
Ulysses
by Joyce. “Aubrey! Upon my honour what do you think of this … this cornerstone?”

“I can see your dilemma,” said Aubrey, thinking of the scabrous parts of Joyce’s masterpiece. But to his surprise what Galen said was, “It’s the most anti-Semitic book I have ever read. Absolutely
virulent
.” Aubrey was quite bemused for he had never read it in this way. “Just how?” he asked in genuine perplexity and Lord Galen hissed back, “If as they tell me the earliest cornerstone was Homer with his hero Ulysses, representing the all-wise and all conquering traveller, the European human spirit so to speak, why this book is a wicked take-off of Homer, a satire. According to Joyce the modern Ulysses is a Dublin Jew of the most despicable qualities, the lowest character, the foulest morals; and his wife even lower. This is what our civilisation has come to …” He made the noise which is represented in French novels phonetically as “
Pouagh!
”

He poured himself a very stiff whisky and made a forlorn gesture of impotence, as if invoking either the sky or perhaps the shade of Joyce himself to descend and resolve his dilemma. But Blanford was genuinely aroused by this extraordinary analysis, the first of its kind, and lost in admiration mixed with astonishment that such insight came from someone like Galen. In a flash his mind seized on the notion and fitted it into a scheme which might satisfy a philosopher of culture of the kind of Spengler. European Man as the gay artificer Ulysses who had endured until Panurge took up the tale once more and made it live. And then the Dionysiac force gradually spent itself and the Spenglerian decline and division set in. Expiring volcanoes went on smoking with names like Nietzsche, Strindberg, Tolstoy, but the ship was going down by the stern … Lord Galen was there, floating in the sky with his arms outspread, a look of agonised perplexity on his face, crying, “Our culture! What is it? I wish someone could tell me.” In his hand another “cornerstone”, another virulently anti-Semitic analysis of European culture with its bias towards materialism and the inevitable exploitation of the underprivileged by the “capitalists”. Céline! The form of Lord Galen settled once more like a moth upon the end of the bed to continue his exposition. “Now at last this beastly war caused by that rotter Hitler is actually coming to an end and we can hope for peace, we can work for peace. Aubrey, my dear boy, can’t you see what hope there is in the air? A real hope! But if our culture goes on being celebrated by fanatical anti-Semites we shall end in another bloodbath – O God. My goodness, what have the Jews done to merit it? After all we gave you our bomb to drop on the Japanese. Our very own bomb which we could have kept to ourselves, or else charged you an enormous royalty on its use while keeping the patent private. Don’t you see? But this problem came at me head on when I got my new post. For about ten years, as far as we can see, there will have to be some sort of priority system of control for paper stocks. Not only sanitary paper, Aubrey, but also school textbooks as well as newspapers and books of art. Above all ‘cornerstones’. The question to ask oneself is always ‘Is it a cornerstone or not? If not, out!’ The whole thing has become a nightmare and has caused the whole of my committee days of acrimonious argument, and myself anxiety and sleeplessness. But I owe it to European culture to get it right. I must pass the books which are fruitful and proscribe those which aren’t. But how to decide? It’s all very well to suggest, as someone did, that we might get a book like this
Ulysses
rewritten in a more acceptable and forward-looking manner by someone like Beverley Nicholls, but that would be interfering, and I don’t hold with mere temporising measures. You cannot rewrite a cornerstone or even bowdlerise it; I quite agree and would never condone it. But how to be sure what is what? I received a petition from the committee which said: ‘In our view our Chairman for all his experience of commerce and diplomacy has a somewhat narrow view of culture and ordinary life. In our view he should perhaps go out into the world a little and see man as he is, in the raw, in order to judge the culture of which he is only a part.’ I try not to get too easily nettled and I accepted the criticism in good part. Well, I must go out more into the world. But first I rang up Schwarz and asked him if he knew why everyone was so anti-Semite, and he said, yes, he did. It was because of monotheism and monolithic radical philosophies based on the theory of values. It was Judaism, he said, that irritated everyone so. He added that I was behaving like a paranoid minority syndrome in allowing myself to get upset. Aubrey, I have been called many things in my time but never a syndrome. I rang off in despair. This is what you get when you search quite disinterestedly for the meaning of a word like culture in our time.”