Pack of Cards Read online

  Ellen goes up to her room, which is on the top floor. On the way, she passes the open door of Sophie's room. Sophie, within, can be seen seated at a dressing-table with tears pouring down her cheeks, a staggering sight, the incarnation of tragedy. Her grandmother, disturbed, ventures to ask if there is anything she can do, to be told, in tones of choked stoicism, that there is nothing, nothing, no one can help, it would be impossible to explain to anyone, it is to do with her friend, or rather ex-friend, Mike, and furthermore there is this dress she was to wear which is stained all down the front, ruined … Her grandmother nods understandingy and withdraws.

  In her own room, Ellen unpacks her overnight case, hangs up a dress, and goes to the bathroom for a wash. She pats the hot-water tank in exploratory fashion; a hot-water bottle, she suspects, might be a comfort later on, but the water is not very hot. She will have to see about a kettle.

  Downstairs, there are sudden bursts of loud music, as from a fairground. Louise is to be heard, also.

  Ellen changes into her tidy dress and does her hair. Then she sits for a while on the edge of her bed, apparently looking out of the window over the ranges of grey London roof-tops. She was sixty-three last birthday, a small, neat person, a little fatter than in youth, her hands brown-mottled, her teeth not all her own. She sits so still, is so relaxed, that to an observer the room might appear to be empty. She watches the slow progress of an aeroplane along the line of a roof and thinks, in utter tranquillity, of her husband, ten years dead. She tells him, as is her habit, what has been happening to her today, and with the telling there is a faint, fragrant gust of sexual memory. Come now, she tells herself, this won't do, I am not here to be unsociable, and she gathers herself to go downstairs.

  The house is strung up now, like a bow, any minute something might snap. As Ellen progresses downwards, people slip past her, dash from room to room, drop things. Louise comes from her bedroom, in a long dress, screwing on ear-rings, and says oh, there you are, mum, I say you do look smart, come down and Michael will find you a glass of sherry, would you believe it, the fridge has decided to play up again, now of all times. And she is gone down the stairs at a gallop, her skirt looped over her arm, her neat muscular calves visible beneath. Her mother remembers that at school she was good at games. It is not wise to mention this, though; for some reason that recollection is ill-received nowadays. Louise has a partnership in a small art gallery.

  At eight, the guests begin to arrive. They arrive simultaneously on both floors – the young presenting themselves at the basement door, in twos and threes, furtive of manner, being admitted in silence, without greeting; Louise and Michael's friends climbing the steps to the front door, shedding coats in the hall, loud in greeting and comment. They are presented to Ellen: this tall thin man who is a psychiatrist, Tony Hatch, and his dark, shrieking wife; the small round unattached man who works at Sotheby's; two more couples whose allegiances she cannot for a while get straight, since they all arrive together and treat one another with indiscriminate familiarity. We are all such old friends tonight, declares Louise, flying from drinks cupboard to guests, it is lovely, everyone knows everyone else, I don't have to do any of that tiresome sorting people out. Except of course you, mum, she adds – and you are such a splendid adaptable lady, aren't you? She beams upon her mother and the other guests smile kindly. Ellen, who is not deaf, though it is apparently expected of her, has already heard Louise in the hall explaining that her mum is here for the night which actually is not the snag you'd think because she is really marvellous for that generation, nothing bothers her, she is amazingly well-adjusted, you'll love her.

  Drinks are drunk. Ellen sits on the sofa beside the psychiatrist who tells her with boyish candour that he and Josie are recently married, just this year. He is in his early forties, and wears jeans and a jacket that reminds Ellen of her husband's old tropical bush-shirt. He is a little stout for the jeans and during the course of the evening the zip of the fly is to descend, which worries Ellen, not for herself but because embarrassment in others distresses her. As it turns out, though, there is no cause for distress; he is never aware of his plight. He talks to Ellen with nostalgia of his first wife, his divorced wife, who was the most super person; across the room, the new wife bites her fingernails and occasionally shouts out some personal comment; the niceties of social intercourse do not seem to interest her.

  The volume of noise from the basement is increasing; several times Louise, or Michael, go to the stairs and remonstrate.

  Dinner is had in the dining-room, which glows agreeably with candlelight and furniture polish and silver. Louise and Michael have some nice things. Ellen sits between the man from Sotheby's and one of the other husbands (she has sorted out now who is attached to whom, for what that is worth). The man from Sotheby's turns to her and says (in pursuit of the tail-end of a subject that had been bandied around earlier, upstairs) what does she think about the Mentmore sale, and does she feel that the government should or shouldn't have stepped in earlier, but while she is giving proper consideration to what she thinks (and she does, in fact, have a number of thoughts on the matter) it turns out that what he really intended was to tell her what he thinks, which he proceeds to do. Ellen listens with attention; he is telling her, in fact, a great deal more than he realises. I … he says … my opinion is that … personally, I feel … consulted me earlier … Ellen nods thoughtfully. Down at the other end of the table, the second wife of the psychiatrist screams that Tony is getting a bald pate, just look at him, look at his pate! Everybody laughs; the psychiatrist blows his wife a kiss; the husband on Ellen's right says that Josie is a riot, she is such a direct person, she says just what comes into her head.

  By now, everybody has had a good deal to drink, except Ellen, for whom a glass of sherry has always been quite enough.

  There is a muffled crash, from below; Louise, who is listening to an anecdote told by the psychiatrist, leaves the room, sharply, a frozen smile on her lips. She returns and serves the salmon trout with what seems an unnecessary amount of clatter. Everybody says what a lovely treat.

  Ellen, who has got up to help Louise pass the vegetables, asks if Paul has had something earlier, or what, and is told that he is absolutely fine, he is up in his room with a plate of bangers and beans, of course he is rather out on a limb tonight, poor love, neither one thing nor t'other. Michael, who is circulating more wine, says it is a tiresome time for him, poor chap, he longs to be out in the great wide world like the others.

  The psychiatrist has finished his anecdote, and the man from Sotheby's is now having his turn; people are very given to interruption, Ellen notes, they do not so much listen as interject. She watches the young woman opposite her, who has been trying for the past hour to make various points about herself, without success, chiefly because she has to compete, at the end of the table, with Louise and the psychiatrist's wife, both of whom have louder voices. The psychiatrist's wife, at this moment, bawls to Michael that Tony gets awfully randy in hot weather, it's a real sweat. Ellen, interested, is trying to define her origins (Ellen likes to know where she is about people). She thinks she can detect, beneath that stridency, a residual hint of the west country, and would like to know if she is right – in a momentary lull she leans forward and asks the girl where her home is, but she is busy now picking her teeth with a fingernail and does not hear, or does not care to.

  Downstairs, there is a steady thump of music, with intermittent louder bursts; Louise occasionally frowns, but her reactions are becoming slower. A sound of splintering glass escapes her altogether, engaged as she is in banter with the man from Sotheby's. She forgets to pass the biscuits with the pudding; Ellen rescues them from the sideboard and puts them on the table.

  They move back to the sitting-room, for coffee. Ellen, following Louise down to the kitchen to give a hand, peeks through the half-open door of Toby's room at a scene of semi-darkness, peopled with murky, shifting presences like an aquarium. Louise, juggling a trifle unsteadily with
hot water, coffee and a strainer, is muttering darkly about having a good mind to go in there and just have a thorough check … Sophie comes in, hand in hand with a boy, wreathed in smiles; she says ‘Hello, gran’ warmly, and her grandmother says, ‘Good, so everything's all right now’; Sophie beams uncomprehendingly.

  They take the coffee upstairs. In the sitting-room, there is an impression of dishevelment, as though everyone had slumped a notch or two, in every sense. Michael has been handing out brandy; the psychiatrist's wife has her shoes off and is sprawled over the arm of the sofa; the man from Sotheby's is reading a book; there is talk, a little incoherent, Ellen thinks. She picks up, without anyone noticing, a couple of glasses that are threatened by people's feet.

  Coffee is dispensed. Ellen takes the opportunity to go upstairs to the bathroom for a minute; on the way, she looks in at Paul's room. He sits cross-legged on the floor, in a dressing-gown, the dismembered De Havilland Mosquito around him. He says, ‘You were quite right, gran – I've got the tail on now, all but.’ Together they examine his achievement; he points out a further technical hitch; Ellen, who is steady-fingered, is able to complete a tricky matter of inserting a door. Regretfully, she goes downstairs again.

  The telephone rings. The neighbours, it appears, are less than happy about the noise emanating from the basement. Louise makes soothing remarks and assurances of action; putting the receiver down she says that really it is a bit thick, I mean, it's only once in a blue moon. She goes to the stairs and bawls, ‘Turn that thing down, do you hear, Toby …’ The noise is reduced by a decibel or two.

  Ellen goes down to see if there is any more coffee; she has been inspecting one of the male guests, unobtrusively, and thinks it would be a good idea if he had some, at least if he is intending to drive home. She glances again into Toby's room; there are many more than thirty people there, it seems to her. She makes coffee, humming to herself; she straightens a picture that has gone awry; she peeks into the freezer and is surprised by the orderly array of bags and parcels within, labelled and classified. ‘For Xmas dinner,’ she reads, ‘6 helps’. A boy, unfamiliar to her, slinks into the room, takes something from the fridge and slinks out again, with a deprecating smile.

  Upstairs, there is further deterioration. The man from Sotheby's talks, but no one listens. Michael, on the sofa, has his arm round one of the girls. Louise, on the floor, talks intently to the psychiatrist. Someone else says something about Dorchester; the psychiatrist's wife looks up suddenly and shouts, ‘Dorchester? I know Dorchester – Tony and I first copulated at Dorchester, in the back of a car.’

  Ellen thinks, you poor dear, what a time you do have. She pours coffee for the man she feels could do with it; he is effusively grateful, but forgets to drink it.

  The neighbours complain again.

  At midnight, Ellen gets up and goes quietly from the room. To those who register her departure, she says a polite goodnight.

  The light is still on in Paul's room. She goes in. They get to work. The De Havilland Mosquito is almost finished. A quarter of an hour later, it is complete. They contemplate it with pleasure. Almost casually, Paul produces the box containing the Heinkel 447 which he has not yet opened. They look at it; it presents, they agree, an interesting challenge. After a minute or two they open the box. They spread the pieces out and study the instructions. They look at one another: it is half past twelve.

  Conspiratorially, Ellen says that if they are going to do it a cup of cocoa might be nice; also, she would like to get into something comfortable.

  She goes up to her room and puts on her housecoat and a pair of slippers. On her way down again she is joined by Paul and the two of them pad down the stairs. They pass the sitting-room, from which, now, there is the sound of music (quieter, though, and different in style from the music below). Ellen remembers her glasses, which are on the mantelpiece; she slips in to get them, with a murmur of apology, but in fact no one pays her any attention. The psychiatrist's wife would seem to be weeping; someone else is asleep; there is a kind of heaving on the sofa which Ellen does not stop to investigate.

  In the hall, they are passed by Louise, who is saying something sourly about someone being stoned out of their mind. She must be talking to herself, though, for the sight of her mother and younger son does nothing for her, in any sense. She lurches back into the sitting-room.

  It is a good deal quieter now, in Toby's room. The door is closed.

  Ellen and Paul make a large jug of cocoa, which they load on to a tray, along with mugs, and a plate of cheese and biscuits. They open up the freezer, because Paul fancies there is probably an ice-cream; others appear to have been here first, though – there is a certain dishevelment, and depletion of the bags and parcels. ‘For Xmas dinner’ has gone, Ellen notices, and so, to Paul's annoyance, has the ice-cream. He stands for a moment in the middle of the kitchen, hitching his dressing-gown (which has lost its cord) around him; he sighs; he says, with a toss of the head that includes both the room next door and the sitting-room above, ‘They are all being a bit silly tonight, aren't they?’ After a moment he adds, ‘I suppose they can't help it.’

  Ellen says she doesn't think they can, poor dears. She suggests a mousse that she has found in the fridge as an alternative to ice-cream.

  They take the tray upstairs, comfortable with anticipation. There are fifty-three people in the house now. Ellen and Paul alone are in a state of unsullied consciousness.

  At ten past two in the morning they are well into the Heinkel, but they have quite run out of glue, as feared. Separately, they scour the house. Paul goes through the drawers of his mother's desk (which involves shifting the man from Sotheby's, who is asleep in front of it, no mean feat for an eleven year old). Louise does not seem to be around, nor yet the psychiatrist; nor, indeed, Michael, or the psychiatrist's wife. Paul draws a blank, so far as the desk is concerned, and turns to the drawers of the sofa table; he ignores the goings-on on the sofa, which do not interest him.

  Downstairs, Ellen is systematically searching the kitchen. She comes across a girl, deeply asleep (or something) between the dresser and the sink, and covers her with a rug that she fetches from the cloakroom; the child is inadequately clad as it is. She rummages in drawers, and on the shelves of the dresser, and at last, in triumph, turns up a nearly full tube of something that will certainly do. She sets off up the stairs, and then becomes aware that the gramophone in Toby's room is most irritatingly stuck; no one seems to be doing anything about it. She goes into the darkening room, and gropes her way across, to where in the muted light of a table-lamp, the record is hiccuping away; on the way she stumbles several times on recumbent forms. ‘Sorry, dear,’ she says. ‘Excuse me just a minute …’ She adjusts the instrument, and goes out again.

  She meets Paul on the stairs and they go up together.

  At three-thirty a policeman, who has been tipped off by a disgruntled would-be gatecrasher, knocks on the front door. He has reason to believe that there is consumption of … But when the door is opened to him by an elderly woman, wearing her dressing-gown and holding, for some reason, the superstructure of a model aeroplane, he loses his nerve, apologises, and says there has probably been a mistake.

  As the dawn seeps upwards into the sky, extinguishing the street lights and redefining the London roof-tops, they finish the Heinkel. It has gone almost without a hitch; it is a triumph. They sit back, weary but aglow with satisfaction, and contemplate their craftsmanship. The house is quite quiet now; they must be the only ones still capable of celebration. Paul goes down to the kitchen and fetches a bottle of cider, the sole survivor of the night. He pours them a helping each, in tooth-mugs, and in silence and in mutual appreciation they drink to one another.

  Corruption

  THE JUDGE and his wife, driving to Aldeburgh for the weekend, carried with them in the back of the car a Wine Society carton filled with pornographic magazines. The judge, closing the hatchback, stared for a moment through the window; he reopened the door and
put a copy of The Times on top of the pile, extinguishing the garish covers. He then got into the driving seat and picked up the road atlas. ‘The usual route, dear?’

  ‘The usual route, I think. Unless we spot anything enticing on the way.’

  ‘We have plenty of time to be enticed, if we feel so inclined.’

  The judge, Richard Braine, was sixty-two; his wife Marjorie, a magistrate, was two years younger. The weekend ahead was their annual and cherished early summer break at the Music Festival; the pornographic magazines were the impounded consignment of an importer currently on trial and formed the contents of the judge's weekend briefcase, so to speak. ‘Chores?’ his wife had said, and he had replied, ‘Chores, I'm afraid.’

  At lunch-time, they pulled off the main road into a carefully selected lane and found a gate-way in which to park the car. They carried the rug and picnic basket into a nearby field and ate their lunch under the spacious East Anglian sky, in a state of almost flamboyant contentment. Both had noted how the satisfactions of life have a tendency to gain intensity with advancing years. ‘The world gets more beautiful,’ Marjorie had once said, ‘not less so. Fun is even more fun. Music is more musical, if you see what I mean. One hadn't reckoned with that.’ Now, consuming the thoughtfully constructed sandwiches and the coffee from the thermos, they glowed at one another amid the long thick grass that teemed with buttercup and clover; before them, the landscape retreated into blue distances satisfactorily broken here and there by a line of trees, the tower of a church or a rising contour. From time to time they exchanged remarks of pleasure or anticipation: about the surroundings, the weather, the meal they would eat tonight at the little restaurant along the coast road, tomorrow evening's concert. Richard Braine, who was a man responsive to the moment, took his wife's hand; they sat in the sun, shirt-sleeved, and agreed conspiratorially and without too much guilt that they were quite glad that the eldest married daughter who sometimes accompanied them on this trip had not this year been able to. The daughter was loved, but would just now have been superfluous.