The Green Flash (29 page)

‘But the house might let?'

‘It might. But there's obviously not much demand for such a godforsaken place.'

‘You could live there yourself.'

‘Do me a favour.'

‘You can't sell it?'

‘Yes, I asked Macardle, who looked very pained but eventually admitted that I could apply to bar the entail. I think that's what he called it. Then it can be sold.'

‘And shall you do that?'

‘What else?'

‘It seems a pity. And the title.'

‘I shall keep that.'

‘What has made up your mind?'

‘They have. The other Abdens.'

She laughed her broken laugh. ‘Can you not think of some less cross-grained reason?'

‘D'you know what Alison said? That's Malcolm's widow. She thought I was very much like an Abden – not in looks but in character.'

‘Well,' Shona said, looking at me. ‘I think I know what she means. But it need not be something to be ashamed of.'

‘She was probably trying to rib me out.'

‘I suppose it has never occurred to you to consider taking your aunt's advice?'

‘As to what?'

‘Becoming a Catholic to please the family. To preserve a tradition.'

‘Shona, you're joking.'

‘Yes, I am. I suppose.'

‘Well, either you are or you're not!'

She yawned behind her hand. ‘My mother was Russian Orthodox – though she had dropped it all by the time I was born. I am brought up pagan, though I suppose a few of the old habits survived in my mother's behaviour. By the time I am twelve I am the complete atheist. Communism did its work well, and I have not had occasion to change that since.'

‘Very laudable.'

‘Is it? Yes, I suppose. We stand on our own feet. That is so good. You are the same.'

‘I am the same.'

‘But sometimes I read history and wonder what the answer really is. It is not only Russia that has lost its religion, it is the West too. I think so. Perhaps I am stupid. Sometimes I think the human race suffers today not merely from a lack of religion but a lack of superstition.'

‘Is there much difference?'

‘Oh, I know all the horrors and cruelties that have been perpetrated in the name of religion and superstition down through the centuries.'

‘So what are you trying to say?'

She patted my hand. ‘ I sometimes wonder if the existence of superstition does not have its good side; the sensation of there being something more powerful than oneself, more powerful than – or at least independent of – the state; this is surely a salutary feeling. No? The need to look over one's shoulder, which may be necessary in the communist states for other and wrong reasons, does not exist in the West for other and perhaps right ones. But it's good to have a sanction outside oneself. We have all become orphans.'

I grunted. ‘Maybe yes, maybe no.'

‘Yes, because there is no father figure, no day of judgement, no retribution, no expectation or fear of ultimate justice left. We run about like children, don't we, doing what we like, building what we like, smashing what we like, indulging as we like. There is no one even to rebel against. There is no one to call us to bed.'

‘You surprise me,' I said. ‘ You always surprise me, Shona.'

‘That is good.'

She looked older than I remembered her a week ago. It took me a few days to get used to her again. Perhaps it was Alison Abden with her boyish haircut and her long brown eyes and her elegant legs.

The usual working day also took a bit of getting into after my trip to Ross and Cromarty – more so than after the break in the West Indies. Then we had plunged in together, Shona and I, reluctant to be back but willing to get stuck in. This was not a holiday, this trip to Scotland, it was a glimpse of a different world, a barren world, a boring world, an irritating world; but after it what I was doing to make a living seemed once again awfully tinsel-smart.

For instance, arguing with the advertising agency about the position of one of our adverts in some of the magazines – Shona always insisted that our full-page advertisements should be printed opposite the astrology page; she said that was the one page every woman read. For instance, considering again the use of royal jelly, and the claims made for it, and the advantage of the name from a psychological angle.

Soon after this a minor crisis blew up in the firm. Charisma had come out in the British market with two hundred thousand spent on publicity, and it had gone well. One of the allied products was a foundation cream called Charisma Bio-cream E, and before I left we had had one or two complaints about it. An isolated customer here and there claimed it caused skin allergies, but I didn't think the number or the style of grievance important enough to do anything about. Then, at one of the weekly meetings at Stevenage, John Carreros unexpectedly showed, looking raddled and old, and attacked me for passing up these complaints.

I said quietly enough: ‘Oh come. With almost everything we put out there's the occasional gripe. Isn't there? I can quote you chapter and verse.'

‘With a new product it is different,' said John. ‘I think the reaction has been bad.'

‘What is the proportion?' Shona asked. She was sitting beside me, her hair in a casual knot. Frock of heavy cream silk, short, with a daffodil scarf, cinnamon-coloured tights, white sandals. She had known about the reports but for once had allowed me to influence her.

Parker said: ‘The complaints are about two in a thousand.'

‘What is the unacceptable proportion?' Leo Longford asked.

‘Two in a thousand I would argue, with a new product,' said John.

‘There's a spate of orders coming in from the shops,' I said. ‘Many of these complaints are entirely phoney, as you well know. Some young biddy has spent too much; her husband raises hell, so she brings back the cream to the shop complaining that it doesn't suit her. It's a good way to get your money back.'

‘These cannot all be such cases,' said John.

‘Well, half the girls who buy this stuff really need treatment for acne, not a skin food.'

‘That is a risk in our business. But I do not think this is a risk we can take.'

We all waited. In spite of the growth of the firm, the expansion of its board of managers, Shona still had the last say.

Presently she gave voice. ‘I'm sorry, David, I agree with John. The whole consignment must be retested. It can be done in a few weeks.'

‘By which time,' I said, ‘the effect of the TV advertising will be entirely lost.'

She nodded. ‘ It is a difficult decision, I know.'

‘Why not let what has been issued go through, while tests are made on the rest of the consignment?'

‘I'd agree with that,' said Leo. ‘It seems a reasonable compromise.'

Again we waited. ‘ No,' said Shona. ‘ It must be withdrawn. I think it is a matter of principle. We have set ourselves the highest standard and we must adhere to it.'

The meeting went on for another hour before we broke for lunch. I was feeling fairly peevish because the countermanding of my orders made me look a ninny. There was a nearby pub which catered very well, but I made an excuse and didn't join the others. I went out to get into my car and saw that John was also not joining the party.

He said: ‘Are you going in to London, David?'

‘Yes.'

‘May I thumb a lift, as the saying is? I have business at the Hanover Club before I return to Richmond.'

I opened the passenger door for him without comment. As we started off he said: ‘ I have not had an opportunity to congratulate you on your title.'

‘I didn't notice.'

What I did notice was that his hair had gone white these last two years, and that his hands shook.

‘Yes,' he said, noticing I'd noticed. ‘ Parkinson's disease.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Sorry. Shona didn't tell me.'

‘Shona does not know. It would make little difference if she did know. She no longer cares for me at all.'

‘I certainly wouldn't say that.'

‘Wouldn't you? Anyway, it is relatively unimportant. This is not a killer disease, you know. It only makes life difficult and renders you more prone to other complaints.'

‘Too bad.'

‘Yes. For the young and healthy, ‘‘ too bad'' is a convenient phrase to cover most of the diseases of the old. Although I am not
very
old by modern standards. I am sixty-six.'

‘Oh?' I said politely, and drove on.

After that there was silence for a while. I had fixed to go fencing with Shona tonight and she was to come back to my place after. Now I felt like cutting out the scene just for a day or two. Maybe I'd go along to the Cellini Club and see if I could get a rubber of bridge with Roger Manpole.

But did this rather silly argument this morning, in which I had been bested by John Carreros, really amount to anything? It was too petty to put on a big Achilles scene all for the sake of a few thousand pounds' worth of goddamned foundation cream.

‘I did not know,' John said, ‘in fact had no idea, that you were likely to inherit a title.'

‘Neither did I.'

‘I suppose it will make a considerable difference to your way of life. I have no doubt we shall be losing you.'

‘From Shona's? I don't think so.'

‘Of course it will be an asset now to have your name on our letterhead. But I should think you will have far too many obligations to continue to play your present active part.'

‘Perhaps I should make one thing clear, John. The title brings no money; so I'm not likely to be among your pampered rich.'

‘Come, come,' said John, trembling fingers filling his pipe with the usual hay. ‘ You will soon make a good marriage. You must be among London's most eligible bachelors now. It is a foregone conclusion.'

‘Foregone by whom?' I asked politely.

He shut up then, and we drove on into London. We droned up Park Lane and waited for the lights at Brook Gate. Then he said suddenly: ‘I don't think Shona looks well, do you?'

‘I thought she looked extremely well.'

‘She works too hard. All the extra responsibility of the enlarged company has been a great weight on her shoulders.'

‘Which Leo and I and others have helped her to bear. She doesn't delegate readily, but she's learning to do so more and more.'

The lights went green but it was a long tailback. He said: ‘You know, she is only ten years younger than I am.'

I stopped when the lights turned yellow, and a taxi behind gave an impatient toot.

‘I don't think I can wear that story. She's forty-six –'

‘No. Fifty-six.'

I shook my head. ‘Forty-six. Don't come that on me. I've seen her passport.'

‘On which a false age is stated.'

‘Rubbish. You can't do that. She was born in 1930.'

‘1920. I ought to know.'

We were off again down Upper Brook Street, and were stopped at the next lights, by Claridge's.

‘Drop me at the Hanover, will you?' John said. ‘I fancy a rubber or two of bridge. Thursdays is their day. Would you care to come in?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘I didn't ask you again after that first time. I fancied you thought you were a little too good for us.'

‘Also you hated my guts.'

‘Not in so many words. I found you a little too brash and smart for my friends in the club.'

‘Some of them,' I said, ‘were only just alive.'

‘Well, that is probably true. To a young man, anything over fifty is dead meat. Shona is dead meat, David. Mark my words. She pretends – oh, she puts a splendid face on it – but you can't convert old flesh into young, however hard you try. She's dead meat to you, David, mark my words.'

‘I'll let you know when I feel that. It's very warm-hearted of you to point all this out to me.'

John shrugged. ‘Perhaps I should have told you when you first became infatuated with her. Perhaps I was not so bitchy then.'

We drew up at the Hanover Club.

‘Incidentally,' I said, ‘if what you say has any truth in it, Shona takes a risk every time she comes in or out of the country.'

‘Oh, the passport is quite genuine. Indeed it has been renewed since then. It was the naturalization papers that were forged. It cost her five thousand pounds, which was a lot of money in those days.'

‘Pull the handle towards you,' I said.

‘And so unnecessary, don't you think? What is the good of lying about one's age? – life always catches up with one in the end. Thanks for the lift.'

‘Don't mention it.'

II

I said to myself, it makes not a blind bit of difference. If you are a woman's lover – and more than half
in
love with her – what the hell odds does it or should it make if she is twenty-three years older than you instead of thirteen? The woman is still there watching you with those cool, fondly assessing eyes. (Annoying at times but unchanged.) Nor has her face or her body changed. Shona was ageless – a bit like She in the Rider Haggard books (which incidentally I'd never read). Ayesha, the ageless.

Of course she'd done me up brown on this. But it was not specially me. It was a con she had thought up years ago (while I was still at school) to put over on the world at large. She had deceived her other lovers in the same way. But
we
had been so close; particularly in Barbados. Why could she not then have said …

But, the deed having been done, what woman
would
have said, David, my real age is fifty-six, breaking all the eggs in the basket? Probably she more than half believed her passport by now. Living with a man of thirty-three, even forty-six was a bit to confess to. To have admitted her real age would have put the years on her like a sack of coal. Psychologically and physically overnight. Her whole life, her whole mental balancing trick was geared to the age she had given herself. John was a prime bastard ever to have let it out.