and I think Quentin is rather worried about that too. And I mean, is it true you’ve written a novel about us, Fleur?’
Chapter Seven
I have the impression that I was tuning into voices without really hearing them as one does when moving from programme to programme on a wireless set. I know there was a lot of activity at Hallam Street. Eric Findlay and Dottie ganged up against Mrs Wilks, arriving at Hallam Street together one morning when Sir Quentin was out at the local Food office trying vainly to get extra tea and sugar rations on behalf of the Association. I remember plainly on that occasion Dottie asking me irrelevantly if I had heard from my publishers. I said I had received a printed acknowledgment of the proofs and now I was waiting for publication. Dottie said, ‘Oh!’
Another day came Mrs Wilks in her pastel hues, and her veils, and a wet purple umbrella which she refused to give up to Beryl Tims. She had lost her fat, merry look. I had noticed the last time I saw her that she was losing weight, but now it was quite obvious she had either been very ill or was on a diet. Her painted-up face was shrivelled, making her nose too long; her eyes were big and inexactly focused. She demanded that I change her name in the records from Mrs Wilks to Miss Davids, explaining that she had to be incognito from now on since the Trotskyites were posting agents all over the world to find and assassinate her. I remember that Sir Quentin came in while she was raving thus, and sent me out on an errand. When I came back Mrs Wilks was gone and Sir Quentin was leaning back in his chair, eyes half-closed, with that one shoulder of his slightly in advance of the other and his hands clasped before him as if in prayer. I was about to ask what had been the matter with Mrs Wilks when he said, ‘Mrs Wilks has been fasting too strictly.’ Whereupon he turned to something else. He was very much on the defensive about his little flock. One day, about this time, I made some scornful remark to Sir Quentin about Father Egbert Delaney who had been remonstrating with me on the telephone about Edwina’s presence at the meetings. Sir Quentin replied loftily, ‘One of his ancestors fought in the battle of Bosworth Field.’
My job at Sir Quentin’s, now that he had taken the actual autobiographies out of my hands, was taken up largely with Sir Quentin’s other, quite normal, private and business affairs. He seemed to dictate unnecessary letters to old friends, some of which I suspect he never sent, since he would often put them aside to sign and post himself. I felt sure he now wanted to establish the idea of his normality in my mind. He apparently had business interests in South Africa, for he wrote about them. His villa at Grasse was greatly on his mind, it having been occupied by the Germans during the war; he was anxious only to find out by which Germans. ‘Members of the High Command and the Old Guard I have no doubt.’ He had an interest in a paint manufacturers who were compiling a history of the firm, One Hundred Prosperous Years; I helped with the dreary proofs. I doubted if he needed me at all, except that I was useful in coping with the members when they took to dropping in or telephoning as they now did more and more phrenetically.
It was about this time that he said to me, ‘What have you got against the Apologia?’
I forget how I answered him precisely. I wasn’t at any event about to be drawn into a discussion of that exquisite work or any other with Sir Quentin. All I wanted to know was what he was up to. And besides, I had been thinking about autobiographies in general. From the personal reminiscences of the members I had perceived that anecdotes and memoirs are only valuable if they are extremely unusual in themselves, or if they attach to an interesting end-product. The boyhood experiences of Newman or of Michelangelo would be interesting however trivial, but who cared—who should care—about Eric Findlay’s
Chapter Seven
I have the impression that I was tuning into voices without really hearing them as one does when moving from programme to programme on a wireless set. I know there was a lot of activity at Hallam Street. Eric Findlay and Dottie ganged up against Mrs Wilks, arriving at Hallam Street together one morning when Sir Quentin was out at the local Food office trying vainly to get extra tea and sugar rations on behalf of the Association. I remember plainly on that occasion Dottie asking me irrelevantly if I had heard from my publishers. I said I had received a printed acknowledgment of the proofs and now I was waiting for publication. Dottie said, ‘Oh!’
Another day came Mrs Wilks in her pastel hues, and her veils, and a wet purple umbrella which she refused to give up to Beryl Tims. She had lost her fat, merry look. I had noticed the last time I saw her that she was losing weight, but now it was quite obvious she had either been very ill or was on a diet. Her painted-up face was shrivelled, making her nose too long; her eyes were big and inexactly focused. She demanded that I change her name in the records from Mrs Wilks to Miss Davids, explaining that she had to be incognito from now on since the Trotskyites were posting agents all over the world to find and assassinate her. I remember that Sir Quentin came in while she was raving thus, and sent me out on an errand. When I came back Mrs Wilks was gone and Sir Quentin was leaning back in his chair, eyes half-closed, with that one shoulder of his slightly in advance of the other and his hands clasped before him as if in prayer. I was about to ask what had been the matter with Mrs Wilks when he said, ‘Mrs Wilks has been fasting too strictly.’ Whereupon he turned to something else. He was very much on the defensive about his little flock. One day, about this time, I made some scornful remark to Sir Quentin about Father Egbert Delaney who had been remonstrating with me on the telephone about Edwina’s presence at the meetings. Sir Quentin replied loftily, ‘One of his ancestors fought in the battle of Bosworth Field.’
My job at Sir Quentin’s, now that he had taken the actual autobiographies out of my hands, was taken up largely with Sir Quentin’s other, quite normal, private and business affairs. He seemed to dictate unnecessary letters to old friends, some of which I suspect he never sent, since he would often put them aside to sign and post himself. I felt sure he now wanted to establish the idea of his normality in my mind. He apparently had business interests in South Africa, for he wrote about them. His villa at Grasse was greatly on his mind, it having been occupied by the Germans during the war; he was anxious only to find out by which Germans. ‘Members of the High Command and the Old Guard I have no doubt.’ He had an interest in a paint manufacturers who were compiling a history of the firm, One Hundred Prosperous Years; I helped with the dreary proofs. I doubted if he needed me at all, except that I was useful in coping with the members when they took to dropping in or telephoning as they now did more and more phrenetically.
It was about this time that he said to me, ‘What have you got against the Apologia?’
I forget how I answered him precisely. I wasn’t at any event about to be drawn into a discussion of that exquisite work or any other with Sir Quentin. All I wanted to know was what he was up to. And besides, I had been thinking about autobiographies in general. From the personal reminiscences of the members I had perceived that anecdotes and memoirs are only valuable if they are extremely unusual in themselves, or if they attach to an interesting end-product. The boyhood experiences of Newman or of Michelangelo would be interesting however trivial, but who cared—who should care—about Eric Findlay’s
Similar Books
