The Belting Inheritance (16 page)

“I haven’t heard of that,” Elaine said.

“How would you, when it hasn’t been produced? It takes eight hours to play, they say I’ve got to cut it. What the hell, I told them, Shaw’s
Methuselah
took longer, and you know what they said to me? They said ‘You’re not Methuselah’.” He guffawed. It occurred to me that another reply would have been “You’re not Shaw,” but I did not say so.

The Secte, which was the name of the theatre, was in Montmartre, off the Place Pigalle, and it was of a kind new to me at that time, although I have visited a good many similar theatres since then. It was in a large basement room, and there were perhaps a hundred seats, some of them very close to the small stage. Norman bustled about as soon as he got inside, talking to a crop-headed narrow-waisted young man who wore tight trousers. He came back and announced triumphantly that the seats were okay, although since the theatre was only half-full this was not surprising. We had been in our seats only a couple of minutes when the play began.

I had never heard then of
Love’s Comedy,
or
Comédie d’Amour
as the programme naturally had it, and my ignorance was excusable, for I doubt if many even of the devoutest Ibsenites have seen it performed. It was written in 1862 but not actually performed, even in Norway, for another decade. The last English performance took place in 1909, and I should think it unlikely that the play had ever before been staged in Paris.
Love’s Comedy
presents one of the essential Ibsenite dramas or conflicts, between the forces of art and society. Falk, a young poet, is in love with Svanhild, who shares his contempt for the petty everyday world around them. The conflict is repeated in the lives of everybody else in the play – a student, a clergyman, a clerk – they are all married or intending to marry, and with marriage abandoning the poetic pretensions which they had at one time. In the end Falk and Svanhild agree to part in the interests of Falk’s genius, precisely because they do love each other. She tears off his ring, throws it into a fjord, and cries:

My task is done!

Now I have filled thy soul with song and sun.

Forth! Now thou soarest on triumphant wings.

Forth! Now thy Svanhild is the swan that sings!

To the abysmal ooze of ocean bed

Descend, my dream – I fling thee in its stead.

Whether or not
Love’s Comedy
had a revolutionary effect on verse drama, whether indeed it influenced
Marco Polo Shoots the Moon,
I shall never know. I can’t even be sure whether we saw a well-acted version of it, although there seemed to me to be a good deal more declamation and gesticulation than I care for on the stage. At some time during the first act I was nagged by a feeling that something in the play was of special significance for me, and the attempt to discover this significance became at last so overwhelming that I could hardly sit in my seat. Something about
Love’s Comedy
held a message for me, and I did not know what it was.

Dissatisfaction was expressed by others, for different reasons. “Shall we go?” Betty asked after the second act. “I’m hungry.”

Norman was shocked. “We ought to stay, Bets, or Paul’s going to be upset. You know how temperamental he is. I said he should join us afterwards, is that all right?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if I can last out. I thought you said Paul was a genius.”

Max Miners said, “Paul’s one hell of a nice feller. I don’t care whether he’s a genius as a director or not, or what sort of friends he’s got. He’s a nice feller.”

“Who’s arguing about it? He was just sold to me as a genius, that’s all.”

It seemed strange to me that they should talk about the director rather than the play, but I have learned since then that some people interested in the theatre always do that. I asked Sally Metz what she thought. I might have guessed.

“I don’t know, I just don’t know. For me there are too many words and they’re not always in the right order.”

That was a criticism sufficiently sibylline to be safe, but I suppose the safest attitude of all was that of Carl, who didn’t speak a word the whole evening that I heard. Elaine was silent too, and I was struck by the difference between her usual aggressiveness and her defensive attitude in the presence of these not very intimidating people. It seemed to me that she was not enjoying herself as I was. I asked her during this interval whether she wanted to go.

“Do
you
want to go?”

The serenity induced by the
pastis
combined with the sense that the play contained a message for me inspired my answer. “No, I’m very happy.”

“It’s a good thing somebody’s happy. I suppose this is all really subtle detective work, and you’re on the verge of making some marvellous discovery.”

She was perfectly right.

After the Theatre

The Taverne Maximilien Robespierre served food late in the evening, and made some concessions to patrons when it did so. The anteroom was still blood red, but the lighting in the long inner room had been changed. It was now of some mysterious golden shade that made men look bronzed and healthy, while contriving to leave women still palely elegant. One end of the room was reserved for those who drank and played chess, and the other was set with check cloths for those who wanted to eat. A long table had been kept for us, and Betty led the way to it. A man wearing a chef’s hat popped his head out of a cubby-hole beside our table and she said that we would have the usual. To us, when his head had popped back again, she said, “There’s a menu as long as your arm, but steak
au poivre
is the only thing he can cook well, that and bacon and eggs. And he was sold to me as a bloody genius too.”

She must have ordered more drinks, because I found in front of me a glass containing the now familiar thick green liquid. Water dripped slowly into it through a container, clouding the liquid and subtly changing its colour. I watched the process in fascination, then held up my hand and the dripper was taken away. I sipped the drink, looked up, and saw a man weaving a way through the tables towards us, rather uncertainly. It was Uncle Miles.

It says much for the calmness induced by
pastis
that I accepted his presence there as something perfectly natural, and merely raised a hand in welcome. Betty, however, got up and embraced him. Uncle Miles responded with a peck at her cheek.

“You look just the same,” she cried. “Except for the hair. But I like it, do you know I think it gives you real distinction?”

Uncle Miles rubbed his hands together in anticipation of a little joke. “You always did say I was bad-tempered, didn’t you, couldn’t keep my hair on.”

Betty ignored this. She put an arm round him. “This is my ex, and I want to tell you all he’s the sweetest man I ever lived with. You just sit down and tell me what you’re doing in Paris, and have a drink.”

Uncle Miles giggled. “I’ve already had two or three. But I won’t say no. First, though, I must have a word with our mutual friend.”

“Chris? I don’t mind telling you, Chris is a marvellous boy. He’s just sat through the most bloody boring play without falling asleep. You know his friend Elinor, don’t you?”

Elaine had put on her spectacles. “Elaine. Elaine Sullivan.”

“We met one day in Folkestone.” Uncle Miles turned to me. “I expect you wonder how I come to be here, but it’s really terribly simple. You shouldn’t have gone off like that.”

“You got my note?”

“Yes, and you left that bit of paper with the address of the Hôtel Oeil d’Or, so we guessed you’d be staying there. When I called there M. Pasquin said you’d told his wife you were coming here. So here I am.”

There was a sudden pop beside my ear. Glasses were being filled with champagne. “It’s not every day you meet up with an ex,” Betty said.

“I say, champers.” Uncle Miles swallowed the contents of his glass at a gulp.

I pushed my glass across to him and ignored Elaine’s basilisk glare across the table. “Here, have mine. I shall have more snake juice.”

The green liquid was poured, the dripper began its work. “I don’t see why you’ve come,” I said, and added in case this sounded discourteous, “Although I’m pleased to see you.”

The bubbles had got up Uncle Miles’ nose. He wrinkled it. “We don’t know how to tell Mamma. The news about David, I mean. I’ve come to bring you back.”

To this I found no reply. Just then the steaks arrived, and we began to eat them. More champagne was opened. Uncle Miles was in ecstasies.

“Isn’t this a mistake, with red-blooded meat? Never mind, it’s a treat anyway.” He raised his glass to Betty, who clinked glasses with him. Max Miners protested that he wanted burgundy.

“Oh, you do,” Betty said. “You don’t like the champagne.”

Max flapped a pinky-black hand. “It’s just not right. Nobody with a palate could drink it with steak.”

“They couldn’t?” Betty had spoken calmly, but her voice was suddenly raised to a shriek. “So perhaps you’d just like to get yourself out of here. You’re abusing my hospitality.”

“If that’s what you want. If I go I don’t come back, you know that. You think you can insult a man just because of the colour of his skin, but you’ll find you’re wrong. There’s a day coming – ”

Betty used a quadriliteral that I had never heard a woman use before. At another time I might have been shocked but on this particular evening it seemed part of the whole dreamlike situation. The response from Max Miners was a flood of abuse which I suppose I had better not set down. Uncle Miles stood up. He was a head shorter than Max, and he held on to the back of his chair for support, but his voice was deep as a gong.

“Now, sir, just remember that you’re speaking to a lady.”

The painter goggled at him, and then walked away. Uncle Miles sat down again, rather shakily. Betty was wiping her eyes. “Miles, darling, you’ll be the death of me, I haven’t been called a lady for years. Still, that’s one genius got rid of. Oh, my God, here comes another.”

Weaving through the crowd in the Taverne (it was now almost full, and there was a considerable hubbub of conversation) came the crop-headed young man from the theatre. Behind him glided another young man, of an elegant willowy handsomeness. He wore a long gold earring in one ear and a large emerald ring on one hand.

“Paul, what you did was terrific, but I’ve got to say it, you were let down by your actors,” Norman Beaver said. Paul raised his eyebrows, not at all disconcerted by the criticism, which was voiced as though it were praise. “I think you know everybody, Betty of course, Sally and Carl, you know Betty’s putting on a show of his stuff. And – ”

“Chris Barrington and his friend Elinor,” Betty said. “And my old man, my ex, come all the way over here to see me. I don’t know about the others, Paul, but I thought your old Ibsen was lousy.”

“You’re always frank,” Paul spoke without enthusiasm. “Paul Delmain. Maurice Fallon.”

They sat down, Delmain next to Norman Beaver, his companion beside me. Elaine leaned across the table. It was the first time she had addressed me since we returned to the Taverne, and I leaned over towards her, so that we must have presented the appearance of puppets simultaneously jerked together.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“His name, Maurice Fallon. Pasquin told us.”

I remembered then, perfectly. I turned to the young man. “I think you know a friend of mine.”

His eyes were a bright shallow blue. “What?”

“Blakeney. Percy Blakeney.”

Uncle Miles beat on the table with a spoon and sang:

“Champers with steak, champers with steak,

That’s a discovery all of us make.”

Fallon gesticulated. The light caught the emerald on his hand. He said in heavily accented English, “What are you trying to do?”

“Trying to find him, that’s all.”

“Then you better look in the right place.”

“He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

“A friend.” His laughter was shrill. Paul Delmain looked anxiously at us.

“He’s back in Paris now. I thought he might have been in touch with you.”

“With me. Why should that be?”

“You used to see a lot of him, so I was told. I thought he was a friend of yours.”

“Not of mine. Why should I care for him?” He brought his face close to mine. “He is taking perhaps some more
lessons.
He is being taught some more
magic.
”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Delmain had been talking to Norman Beaver. Now he broke off to address Fallon rapidly in French. The sense of it seemed to be that Fallon shouldn’t get upset. What he said had no effect. Fallon spat at me, not intentionally I am sure, but I could feel the spittle on my face. “You should look for him in the rue Peter Paul, he will be learning more magic.” I had no idea what he meant. The expression on his face changed to one of contempt. “But he will not be interested.”

“Why not?”

He drew back a little, looked over as much as he could see of me with a gaze that was like a rake of claws, and repeated scornfully, “Oh no, I do not think he will be interested.”

The ring in his ear swung a little, and I followed its movement. Delmain was on his feet. Fallon flung down his napkin and got up too. Delmain inclined his cropped head stiffly.

“Norman. Betty. We are going.”

I knew I had said something wrong, but couldn’t be sure what it was. It seemed to me that there must be something more to be learned from Fallon. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t go.”

They might as well not have heard the words, and perhaps they didn’t. “Good riddance,” Betty said. “Another genius gone. I’ve had geniuses.”

“What did you say to upset Paul’s boy friend so much,” Norman Beaver asked me.

“Boy friend?”

“What did you think?”

The words came to me like a revelation, the whole evening had been a revelation, but what had it revealed? I understood only that action was vital, and urgent. “We must act.”

“I was an actor once,” Uncle Miles said.

I tried to stand up and discovered one of the other qualities of pastis, that while increasing the acuity of the mind it has a most disconcerting effect upon the legs. My legs felt as though they were not there, and it was certainly impossible for me to stand upon them. I sat down again, put my hands on my legs to make certain that they existed, and repeated what I had said. Elaine was looking at me oddly. Betty asked if I was all right, and I was delighted to hear the clarity with which I answered her.

Immediately afterwards I felt my trunk moving sideways. The sensation was a strange one, for I had the impression that I was watching this from outside and that I actually saw my body’s slow keeling over on to the table, although of course this cannot really have been the case. My left elbow knocked over some glasses, and then the whole top part of my body rested on the table. I heard voices, but they seemed to come from far away. The need for action receded and I was conscious only of serenity, abiding peace.