The Revolt of Aphrodite (4 page)

* * * * *

T
he news of Caradoc’s coming was conveyed to me by Hippolyta one fine Sunday afternoon; once more bidden to tea, I found her in a corner of the Bretagne where she kept a suite permanently available, playing patience among the palms. She looked a little less forbidding this time I thought, though she was fashionably turned out in the styles of the day. Bejewelled, yes, but this time without much
warpaint.
Moreover she was short-sighted I noticed; raising a lorgnon briefly towards me as I advanced, she smiled. The optic changed her clever aquiline face, giving it a juvenile and somewhat innocent
expression
. The eyes were noble, despite their arrogance of slant. She was immediately likeable, though less beautiful this time than last. I compared her mentally to her reputation for extravagant gesture and detected something which seemed at variance with the public
portraits
, so to speak. Somewhere inside she was a naif—always a bad sign in a woman connected with politics and public life.

“You remember we spoke? He is coming—you may have heard of Caradoc, the architect? No? Well….” She suddenly burst out laughing, as if the very mention of his name had touched off an absurd memory. She laughed as far back as a tiny gold stopping on a
molar and then became serious, conspiratorial. “The lecture will be on the Acropolis—will your machine be able …?” I was doubtful. “If there is wind it won’t be very clear. But I can make some tests in the open air? Sometimes very small things like dentures clicking, for example, ruin the quality of the sound and make the text difficult to recover on playback. I’ll do what I can, naturally.”

“If you come to Naos, my country house, in the garden…. You could practise with your instrument. He will come there. I’ll send you the car next Friday.” I reached for a pencil to give her my address, but she laughed and waved away my intention. “I know where you live. You see, I have been making enquiries about you. I did not know what your work was or I would have offered my help. Folk-songs I can get you two a penny.” She snapped white fingers as one does to summon a waiter in the Orient. “On my country properties I have singers and musicians among the villagers…. Perhaps this would interest you later?”

“Of course.”

“Then first make this speech for us.” She laughed once more. “I would ask you to stay and dine but I have to go to the palace this evening. So goodbye.”

That evening the fleet came in and Iolanthe was summoned back to the naval brothel in Piraeus leaving me alone to pursue my studies with Said. Three of my little orient pearls had been manufactured now, and I was mad keen to find a deaf man to try them out on. Koepgen had said that he knew a deaf deacon who would be glad of a mechanical cure so that he would not flounder among the responses! But where was Koepgen? I left messages for him at the theological school and at the tavern he frequented.

* * * * *

N
aos, the country house of Hippolyta in Attica, was large enough to suggest at first sight a small monastery skilfully sited within an oasis of green. By contrast, that is, to the razed and bony hills which frame the Attic plain. Here were luxuriant gardens rich with trees and shrubs within a quarter of a mile of the sea. Its secret was that it had been set down, woven round a double spring—a rarity in these parched plains: oleander, cypress and palm stood in picturesque contrast to the violet-grey stubbled hills, their fine soils long since eroded by weather and human negligence. The dangling rosegardens, the unplanned puffs of greenery made full amends for what was, at close sight, a series of architectural afterthoughts, the stutterings of several generations. Barns climbed into bed together, chapels had cemented themselves one to another in the manner of swallow-nests to unfinished features like half-built turrets. One huge unfinished flying buttress poked out nature’s eye, hanging in mid air. One step through the door marked W.C. on the second floor and one could fall twenty feet into a fishpond below.

A series of gaunt and yet dignified rooms had been thrown down pell mell about a central cruciform shape, rambling up two floors and petering out in precarious balconies which looked out on the
ravishing
mauve slopes of the foothills. On reflection one established the origins of the whole place. Clearly Hesiod had started it as a grange for his cattle; Turks, Venetians, French, Greeks had carried on the work without once looking over their shoulders, enlarging the whole place and confusing its atmospheres. In the reign of Otho utterly nonsensical elaborations had tried to render it stylish. While one corner was being built up, another was crumbling to ruins. Finally those members of the family lucky enough to have been educated in France had added the ugly cast-iron features and awkward
fenestration
which would, one presumes, always make them nostalgic for St.
Remo in the ’twenties—Marseille tile, Second Empire furniture, plaster cherubim, mangy plump mouldings. Yet since every feature was the worst of its epoch and kind the whole barrack had a
homogeneity
, indeed a rustic dignity which endeared it to all who came, either to visit or inhabit it. It was here that Hippolyta held court, here that her old friend, sheepish Count Banubula, worked in his spare time cataloguing the huge library hurled together rather than collected by several generations of improvident
noblemen
more famous for their eccentricities than their learning.
Wood-rot
, silverfish, death-watch beetles—all were active and industrious though nobody cared except the poor Count, tip-toeing along
creaking
balconies or shinning up precarious ladders to rescue a rotting Ariosto or Petrarch.

Here Hippolyta (the Countess Hippolyta, “Hippo” to us) lived when she came home—which was rarely; for the most part she
preferred
Paris or New York. Other members of the family (with whom she was not on speaking terms) also came from time to time,
unheralded
, to take up residence in various dusty wings. (There was one ancient and completely unexplained old lady, half blind, who might be seen crossing a corridor or scuttling off a balcony.) Two younger cousins were ladies-in-waiting at court, and also
occasionally
put in an appearance attended by beaky husbands or lovers. Hippo made a point of not letting her own visits coincide with theirs; it was we, the members of her little court, who usually ran into them—for there was always someone staying at Naos;
permission
was freely given for any of us to spend a summer or winter there.

Here then in Naos, of a spanking summer evening, I was carried to the lady with my devil machines. (Tapes A70 to 84 labelled G for Greece have been fed back into Abel.) Well, she was clad in Chinese trousers of fine Shantung, inlaid Byzantine belt, and an impossible Russian shirt with split sleeves; she lounged in a deck chair by the lily pond while a hirsute peasant clumsily assuaged our thirst with whisky and gin. She was smoking a slender cheroot, and was
surrounded
by a litter of fashion papers and memoranda gathered in coloured folders—esoteric Greek pothooks which I feared might be the beginnings of a book. Two huge pet tortoises clicked across the paths and came bumping into the legs of our chairs, asking to be fed;
and this Banubula undertook with an air of grave and scrupulous kindness shredding lettuce from a plate. My little toy was greeted with rapture and some amusement; Hippolyta clapped her hands and laughed aloud like a child when I reproduced a strip of conversation harshly but clearly for her consideration, while old Banubula cleared his throat in some surprise and asked whether it wasn’t rather
dangerous
, such a machine? “I mean one could take copies of private
conversations
, could one not?” Indeed one could; Hippo’s eye shone with a reflective gleam. The Count said in his slow bronze-gong voice: “Won’t Caradoc mind?” She snorted. “He knows these machines; besides if he is too lazy to write it all out, if he prefers to extemporise … why, it’s his affair.”

There was silence. “I saw Graphos today” she said, a sudden
expression
of sadness clouding her face. Presumably she was referring to the politician? I said nothing, nor did they. In the moment of embarrassment that followed we heard the noise of the car drawing up, and the figure of Caradoc emerged among the oleanders—the stubby frame hunched up with a defiant and slightly tipsy-looking mien; he carried a much-darned Scotch plaid over his arm, and in his hand a leather-covered flask from which he drew encouragement as he advanced. No greetings followed, much to my surprise; Hippolyta just lay, the Count just stared. Staring keenly, menacingly under shaggy white eyebrows, the architectural mage advanced, his deep voice munching out segments of air with a kind of
half-coherent
zeal. At first blush he seemed far too sure of himself, and then as he came closer the impression changed to one of almost
infantile
shyness. He spread his arms and uttered a single phrase in the accents of a Welsh bard: “What it is to work for these beneficed Pharisees!” Giving a harsh bark of a laugh full of ruefulness he sat down by the pond, turning the bottle over thoughtfully in his fingers before pushing it into the pocket of his cape. A heavy air of constraint fell over the company and I realised that it was caused by my
presence
; they could not speak freely before me. I unshackled my machine and excused myself. But through the window of the
ramshackle
lavatory on the ground floor I heard, or seemed to hear, Hippolyta give a low cry and exclaim: “O Caradoc, the Parthenon! Only Graphos can fight it.” Caradoc gave an incredulous roar in the
accents of the Grand Cham. “They told me nothing, they never do. Simply to come at once and bring Pulley for costings. I was hoping to build Jocas a seraglio. But this…. No, I won’t believe it.”

“Yes. Yes.” Like the cry of a sea-bird. That was all. By the time I returned the whole picture had changed; the constraint had vanished. They had exchanged whatever they had needed to, and though there were still tears in the eyes of Hippolyta she was laughing heartily at something the Cham had said. Moreover his assistant Pulley had now joined the company—a lank north-country youth of yellowish cast, with huge hands and teeth. He said little. But he yawned from time to time like an eclipse of the sun.

A dinner table had been set out among the oleanders on a nearby terrace; the still air hardly trembled the candles in their silver sockets. Wine soon oiled the hinges of the talk. The Cham, after a short period of reservation, frankly gave me his hand.

“Charlton, you said?”

“Charlock.”

“Well, Charlton, here’s my hand.”

Then he turned in business-like fashion and began to mash up his food with vigour, talking in loud and confident tones as he did so. No reference was made to my function, and I made none, treading warily; but towards the middle of the meal Hippolyta made a gesture inviting me to record, and I obeyed unobtrusively, while Caradoc continued with a grumbling one-cylinder monologue. He was in a curious mood it seemed, uncertain whether to allow the wine to make him gay or whether to become testy and morose; presumably he was still troubled by whatever she had told him, for he
suddenly
said, in an aside: “Of course I shall never cease to be grateful to the firm—how could one not be? It has allowed me to build all its cathedrals, so to speak. But one can build cathedrals without being a religious man? Anyway I don’t propose to be upset until I know for certain what is in Jocas’ mind.” Then, as if to pursue the metaphor he turned to me and said: “I’m talking about Merlins, my boy. Easy to join but hard to leave. Nevertheless there comes a day….” He sighed heavily and took Hippolyta’s hand. “Now” he said “we must make a real effort to enjoy ourselves tonight. No good can come of worrying. I propose to lead an expedition to the Nube, and I invite
the lot of you as my guests. By the navel-string of the Risen Lord we shall have a marvellous time. Eh? Do you know the Nube,
Charlton
?”

“The Blue Danube? By repute.”

“It is a home from home for us, eh Pulley?”

He consulted the circle of candle-lit faces as he barked out the phrase. There seemed little enough response aroused by this
proposition
. He was pained. As for the Blue Danube, it enjoyed a mild repute among frequenters of houses of ill fame. Its name, in frosted bulbs, had been changed for it by wind and weather; the letters had either fallen out of their frames or gone dead. All that remained for the wayfarer to read against the night sky now was the legend The Nube, ancing, aberet. “I should like to come” said I, and received a friendly thump from the Cham. He was delighted to receive support from some quarter. His good humour returned. “It is run by an adorable personage, daughter of a Russian Grand Duke, and
sometime
wife to a British Vice-Consul, most aptly so entitled, and she calls herself Mrs. Henniker.” Hippolyta smiled and said: “All Athens knows her.” Caradoc nodded. “And with justice; she has the cleanest girls in Attica; moreover there is one Turk called Fatma.” He embraced a large segment of air to suggest her dimensions. “A heroine is Fatma.”

All this was becoming less and less esoteric. Caradoc dished us all a stoup of red Nemean and cajoled us with prophecy. “You will see,” he said “Graphos will get in and save our bacon.” She smiled, yes, but sadly; shaking her head doubtfully. “I’ll give you the big car” she said. “But I won’t come. In case he phones or comes to see me. But I expect you’ll find all your friends at the Nube, including Sipple. He knows you are arriving today.” Caradoc registered approval, commended the cheese he was cutting up (“This Camembert has lain a long time, not in Abraham’s bosom but in the hairy armpit of the Grand Turk himself”) and added, with his mouth full: “Give me Sipple the clown any day.” Pulley explained that Sipple was an “undesirable”.

“But irresistible, my favourite
numéro
” insisted the Cham. “A man of parts.”