England, England Page 8

‘Max, you missed the verb.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Feel. We want them to feel less ignorant. Whether they are or not is quite another matter, even outside our jurisdiction.’ Dr Max now had his thumbs stuck in the pockets of his taupe waistcoat, a gesture indicating to viewers a humorous scepticism. Jeff would have happily hung the fellow out to dry, but he pressed on. ‘The point is that most people don’t want what you and your colleagues think of as history – the sort you get in books – because they don’t know how to deal with it. Personally, I’ve every sympathy. With them, that is. I’ve tried to read a few history books myself, and while I may not be clever enough to enroll in your classes, it seems to me that the main problem with them is this: they all assume you’ve read most of the other history books already. It’s a closed system. There’s nowhere to start. It’s like looking for the tag to unwrap a CD. You know that feeling? There’s a coloured strip running all the way round, and you can see what’s inside and you want to get at it, but the strip doesn’t seem to start anywhere no matter how many times you run your fingernail round it?’

  Dr Max had taken out a little notebook and his silver propelling pencil was poised. ‘Do you mind if I a–ppropriate that? It’s frightfully good. The bit about the CD wrapper, I mean.’ He scribbled a note. ‘Yes? So?’

  ‘So we don’t threaten people. We don’t insult their ignorance. We deal in what they already understand. Perhaps we add a little more. But nothing unwelcomely major.’

  ‘And having recently had my bow-tie relocated by our i–llustrious leader, what, might I solipsistically enquire, would be the function of that larger body, namely the Official Historian, within which the bow-tie has been instructed to reside?’

  Jeff’s sigh was a sound from the marshalling yard. A simpleton with fancy phrases – the worst of both worlds. ‘The Historian is there to advise us on how much History people already know.’

  ‘Right,’ said Dr Max, with a professional languor.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Max, people won’t be shelling out to learn things. If they want that, they can go to a sodding library if they can find one open. They’ll come to us to enjoy what they already know.’

  ‘And it’s my job to tell you what that is.’

  ‘Welcome aboard, Dr Max. Welcome aboard.’ Behind them an unseen windjet stirred the palm-fronds. ‘And a tad more advice if I may.’

  ‘W–illingly.’ Dr Max aped the first-year student.

  ‘Too much scent. Nothing personal, you understand. I’m thinking of the Chairman.’

  ‘So glad you n–oticed. Eau de toilette, of course. Petersburg. Perhaps you guessed? No? I thought it somehow appropriate.’

  ‘You mean you’re a Russian in disguise?’

  ‘Ho ho, Jeff, I do like it when you pretend to plod. You need me to explain, evidently.’ Jeff raised his eyes to the atrium of Pitman House too late; Dr Max had already done the switch from student to professor. ‘The secrets of the great p–arfumiers were, as you may be aware, always closely guarded. Handed down from man to boy in secret ceremonies, written in code if ever trusted to paper. Then – imagine – a change of fashion, a break in the chain, a premature death, and they are gone, vanished on the air. It is the catastrophe that no-one notices. We read the past, we hear its music, we see its graphic images, yet our nostrils are never activated. Think what a point of entry it would be for one’s students if one could take the cork from a flask and say, Versailles smelt like this, Vauxhall Gardens like this.

  ‘You recall newspaper reports of the find in Grasse two years ago?’ Jeff evidently did not. ‘The blending-book in the blocked-up chimney? So romantic one almost didn’t believe it. The constituent parts and proportions of numerous forgotten scents listed in a decipherable manner. Each identified by a Greek letter which matched an order book already in the local museum. Incontrovertibly the same hand. So this, this,’ Dr Max cocked his neck in Jeff’s direction, ‘is Petersburg, last worn by some aristocrat at the court of the Tsar two centuries ago. Thrilling, yes?’ Dr Max could see that Jeff was plainly unthrilled, so offered a helpful comparison. ‘It’s like scientists cloning animals lost to the planet for millennia.’

  ‘Dr Max,’ said Jeff, ‘it makes you smell like a cloned animal.’

  ‘THE CENTRAL FACTS, Mr Polo, that is all we need. You know how sedimentary rock and flint arrowheads bore me.’

  ‘All too well, Sir Jack.’ Mark enjoyed such occasions, the display and the joust of them, the spirit of subservient dominance that was involved. No notes, no documents, just a set of curly blond facts in a curly blond head. Showing off to the others while gauging Sir Jack’s shifting response. Though ‘gauge’ implied precision; in reality, you entered the dark tunnels of his mood like a potholer with a short-beamed torch.

  ‘The island,’ he began, ‘as Sir Jack pointed out two weeks ago, is a diamond. Otherwise a lozenge. Some have compared it to a turbot. Twenty-three miles in length, thirteen across at its widest point. One hundred and fifty-five square miles. Each corner at a cardinal point of the compass, more or less. Was once joined to the mainland, back in the days of sedimentary rock and flint arrowheads. Could find out, but pre-television, anyway. Topography: mixture of rolling chalk downland of considerable beauty and bungaloid dystopia.’

  ‘Mark, again this false distinction between Nature and Man. I have warned you. Also the long words. What was that last phrase again?’

  ‘Bungaloid dystopia.’

  ‘So undemocratic. So élitist. I might have to borrow it.’

  Mark knew he would. It was one of Sir Jack’s ways of complimenting you. And he had tartishly sought the compliment. So far, so good. He picked up his narrative. ‘The place is pretty flat on the whole. Good-looking cliffs. I thought the Committee might like a souvenir.’ From his pocket he took a small glass lighthouse filled with bands of differently coloured sand. ‘Local speciality. From Alum Bay. Twelve or so colours. Easy to replicate, I’d say. The sand, I mean.’ He placed the lighthouse on Sir Jack’s desk, inviting the possibility of comment. None came.

  ‘Otherwise, some things called chines, which are a bit like ravines where streams have cut away the chalk cliffs on their way to the sea. Much used by smugglers, vide infra, or rather, audi infra. Flora and fauna: nothing particularly rare and endangered. A detail about squirrels: they only have the red variety because it’s an island and the grey buggers never managed to catch the boat. But I can’t see anyone making a fuss about them. Oh yes, and slightly bad news, Sir Jack.’ He waited for a tufty, black, grey-threaded eyebrow to lift. ‘They do have puffins.’

  ‘All together now,’ cried Sir Jack merrily: ‘Fuck the puffins!’

  ‘Right,’ Mark continued. ‘What else has it got? Oh yes, the filthiest cappuccino in the whole country. I found it in a small seafront café in Shanklin. Worth preserving the machine if we are planning a Museum of Torture.’

  Mark paused, then felt the silence. Idiot. Done it again. He’d known it even as he’d done it. Idiot. You never followed Sir Jack’s joke with one of your own. You could precede, so that he could top you, but following implied competition rather than sycophancy. When would he learn?

  ‘What’s it got we can use? A little bit of everything, I’d say, yet at the same time nothing too mega. Nothing we can’t dispense with if need be. So. One castle, rather nice: ramparts, gatehouse, keep, chapel. No moat, but we could bung one in easily enough. Next, one royal palace: Osborne House, as noted by Dr Max. Italianate. Opinions differ. Two resident monarchs: Charles the first, in captivity at said castle before his execution; Queen Victoria, in residence at said palace, where she died. Feature possibilities in either, I’d say. One resident famous poet: Tennyson. A couple of Roman villas, famous mosaics, which seemed to me and to greater authorities crude in comparison with European equivalents. A large number of manor houses of different periods. Various parish churches; bits of wall-painting, some monumental brasses, a quantity of fine tombs. Many thatched cottages, perfect for
tea-shops. Correction: most of which already are tea-shops, but suitable for upgrade. No modern buildings of note except Quarr Abbey, circa 1910, a masterpiece of early twentieth-century Expressionism, Belgian brick out of Gaudi, Catalonia, Cordova, Cluny, designed by a Benedictine monk, I take such opinions from Pevsner, as you know. But specialist change of user, I would recommend.

  ‘What else? Cowes Regatta indeed, as Jeff pointed out. King Charles’s bowling green, Tennyson’s tennis court. A vineyard or two. The Needles. Various obelisks and monuments. Two large prisons, complete with prisoners. Apart from boat-building, the main industry used to be smuggling. And wrecking. Nowadays it’s tourism. Not a top-dollar destination, as you might have inferred. Old proverb to the effect that there were no monks, lawyers, and foxes on the island. Tennyson said that the air on the Downs was worth sixpence a pint – I wish I had sixpence, or a pint, for every time I’ve read that. Swinburne the poet buried there. Keats visited, so did Thomas Macaulay. George Morland, if you’re interested. H. de Vere Stacpoole, anyone? Offers on the table? The Blue Lagoon? No, I thought not. Novelist and resident of Bonchurch. Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know that H. de Vere Stacpoole donated the village pond to Bonchurch in memory of his late wife.’ Mark reported this final fact in a neutral tone, hoping to set something up for Sir Jack. He was not disappointed.

  ‘Fill it in!’ chortled Sir Jack. ‘Concrete it over!’

  Mark had a moment of silent satisfaction. At the same time, he felt there was something ritualistic and inauthentic about Sir Jack’s cry. It was Sir Jack being ‘Sir Jack.’ Not, in one sense, that he wasn’t always ‘Sir Jack.’

  ‘And yet, pause awhile. Who are we, I ask myself, to lightly mock a man’s devotion to his wife? We live in a cynical age, and that, gentlemen, is not my trade. Tell me, Mark, did Stacpoole’s wife die tragically? Shredded on a railway track? Raped and butchered by a gang of vandals, perhaps?’

  ‘I’ll find out, Sir Jack.’

  ‘It might make a feature. Good God, it might make a movie!’

  ‘Sir Jack, I should say that some of the research material I’ve been working from was sourced a bit on the antique side. I haven’t actually seen the pond. For all I know it might have been filled in ages ago.’

  ‘Then, Marco, we shall dig it out again, and re-create this moving legend. Perhaps the famous red squirrels gnawed through a telegraph pole which decapitated her?’ Sir Jack was Jolly Jack indeed this morning. ‘Summarize, Mr Polo. Summarize your exotic travels for us.’

  ‘Summary. I’ve put all the history stuff in my report. Hope it passes muster with Dr Max. But to cite a writer by the name of Vesey-Fitzgerald’ – he left a micro-pause in case Sir Jack wanted to revel in the pomposity of old-style names – “Once the Garden Isle, it is now purely a tourist resort.” That of course was some time ago. And now …’ He looked across at Sir Jack, begging the compliment. Sir Jack did not fail him.

  ‘And now, if I might make so bold with a phrase, it is a bungaloid dystopia where you can’t even get a decent cappuccino.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Jack.’ The Project Manager gave a bow into which those present could read irony if they wished. ‘In short, perfect for our purposes. A location dying for makeover and upgrade.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Sir Jack thumped his foot-bell and a barman appeared. ‘Potter! H. de Vere Potter, you know that magnum of Krug I asked you to put on ice? Well, return it to the cellar. We’ll have cappuccinos all round, with the finest froth your machine can deliver.’

  ANOTHER DRINK, a dinner invitation based on obviously fraudulent premises, a film, another drink, and, much later than with most men, they were at a point of decision. Or if not that, then the point at which a decision had to be taken about whether or not a larger decision had to be taken. To her surprise, Martha felt no impatience, none of the restless, psoriatic self-consciousness of some previous visits to this location. Two nights ago, he had kissed her on the cheek, except that the part of her cheek he chose, or ended up with, had been the corner of her mouth; yet she didn’t feel, as she might once have done, make up your mind, stop sitting on the fence, kiss me or don’t kiss me. Instead, she just thought, That was nice, even if I did sense you almost getting on tiptoe. Well, lower heels next time.

  They were on her sofa, fingers half touching, still room for escape, for sensible second thoughts. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’d better make it clear. I don’t get involved with men I work with, and I don’t go out with younger men.’

  ‘Not unless they’re shorter than you and wear glasses,’ he replied.

  ‘Nor with men who earn less than me.’

  ‘Unless they’re shorter than you.’

  ‘Nor with men who are shorter than me.’

  ‘Unless they wear glasses.’

  ‘I actually haven’t got anything against glasses,’ she said, but he was kissing her before she got to the end of the sentence.

  In bed, when words started again, Paul found his brain a sponge for happiness, his tongue a tearaway. ‘You didn’t ask me about my principles,’ he said.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Oh, I have principles too. About women I work with, women who are older than me, women who earn more than I do.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you must.’ She felt chastened, as if she had been not so much predatory as crass.

  ‘Certainly do. I have principles in favour of all of them.’

  ‘As long as they’re not taller than you.’

  ‘Now that I can’t abide.’

  ‘And have, oh, darkish brown hair cut rather short.’

  ‘No, must be blonde.’

  ‘And like sex.’

  ‘No, I much prefer a woman who just goes through the motions.’

  They were murmuring twaddle, but she felt that in any case there weren’t rules about what you couldn’t say. She felt he wouldn’t be shocked, or jealous; he’d simply understand. What she said next wasn’t meant to test him.

  ‘Someone once had his hand where yours is.’

  ‘Bastard,’ muttered Paul. ‘Well, bastard with good taste.’

  ‘And do you know what he said?’

  ‘Anyone with five percent of a human heart would be lost for words. They wouldn’t be able to say anything.’

  ‘Accurate flattery,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing how good it makes you feel. Every country should have it. There’d be no more wars.’

  ‘So what did he say?’ It was almost as if his hand asked the question.

  ‘Oh, I expected he was going to say something nice.’

  ‘Accurate flattery.’

  ‘Exactly. And I could almost hear him thinking. And then he said, “You must be a 34C.” ’

  ‘Idiot. Moron. Anyone I know?’

  She shook her head. No-one you know.

  ‘Complete moron,’ he repeated. ‘You’re obviously a 34B.’

  She hit him with a pillow.

  Later, coming out of a half-doze, he said, ‘Can I ask a question?’

  ‘All questions answered. That’s a promise.’ It was a promise she was also making to herself.

  ‘Tell me about your marriage.’

  ‘My marriage?’

  ‘Yes, your marriage. I was there when you came for the interview. I was the one you didn’t notice. When you were doing your dance with Sir Jack.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t tell anyone …’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘I always allow myself one tactical lie per interview. That was it.’

  ‘So you don’t have to get divorced before you can marry me.’

  ‘I think there are bigger impediments than that.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Not liking sex much.’

  When he came back from peeing, she said, ‘Paul, how did you know I was a 34B?’

  ‘Just my incredible instinctive knowledge and understanding of women.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, apart from that.’

  ‘
Well, you may have noticed I was all thumbs undoing your bra. I’m afraid I couldn’t help reading the label. I mean, I wasn’t trying to.’

  Before they went to sleep, he said, ‘So, to summarize the minutes of the meeting, if I change my job and get a salary rise and falsify my birth certificate and hang on a door to make myself taller and get contact lenses, you might think of going out with me.’

  ‘I’ll consider it.’

  ‘And in return you’ll work on your impediments.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Oh, like being married and not liking sex.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and felt a sudden, unjustifiable melancholy come over her. No, a justifiable one, since it said, You don’t deserve this, whatever it might be. It’s just come by to mock you.

  ‘Unless … I mean, I don’t know, perhaps you’re going out with someone.’

  ‘Yes, I think I am,’ she replied and, feeling his arm tense up, added quickly, ‘now.’

  The next morning, after she had woken him early so that he could cross London and arrive at Pitman House from the normal direction and in the normal clothes, she thought: Well, yes, maybe.

  THE SUBJECT of Dr Max’s test was a 49-year-old man. Caucasian, middle-class, of English stock though unable to trace his ancestry beyond three generations. Mother’s origin Welsh borders, father’s North Midlands. State primary education, scholarship to public school, scholarship to university. Had worked in liberal arts and professional media. Spoke one foreign language. Married, no children. Considered himself cultured, aware, intelligent, well-informed. No educational or professional connection with History, as requested.

  The purpose of the interview was not explained. There was disguising mention of market research and a prominent soft drinks company. Dr Max’s presence was not alluded to. The questions were put by a woman researcher in neutral clothes.

  The Subject was asked what happened at the Battle of Hastings.

  Subject replied: ‘1066.’

  Question was repeated.

  Subject laughed. ‘Battle of Hastings. 1066.’ Pause. ‘King Harold. Got an arrow in his eye.’