The Tumbled House Read online

  Usually Michael was proud of the way his father managed these occasions. It was a well-oiled model of the way things should be done. But tonight it jarred and jarred. He felt trapped in an environment that didn’t interest him, and trapped by Roger, who as usual got all his own way in the major things while giving ground on the less important. What Michael was fundamentally interested in was machines … bridges, blue-prints, problems of power and structural stress. More than ever in the last few days he had realised his father’s inflexible persuasiveness. For all his kindness and generosity, you were given the illusion of freedom but not the reality. You were moved about like a flag on a map.

  Michael found himself tonight also resenting the way Roger so quickly and so easily thawed Marion Laycock’s shyness and got her on his side. It was done so gently that it was like sleight of hand. And for some reason he resented it more because he saw it was a man-woman relationship regardless of the difference in their ages.

  He considered how his father would have approached Bennie if he felt as he did. Not by trailing her round half a dozen night clubs and then making clumsy lap-dog passes at her on Hampstead Heath. That was the unforgiveable blunder. Any moron could have told him that Bennie was not that sort of girl. The point was he knew himself. But something had got into him and carried him on.

  The avocado pear stuffed with crab came and went with the Puligny Montrachet. Michael left most of his food but drank the wine.

  “Michael feels that too,” said Roger, passing the ball, and the girl, neatly back to him.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said. “ I wasn’t listening.”

  “I was only pointing out.…”

  What humiliation he had come to! A hundred times since Tuesday night he had gone through the sequence of events, the conversation, the tone of her voice, the feel of her lips, the brief firm clutch of her hand when she said good night. He had never been so angry, so anxious to undo what he had done. But when you are angry with yourself there is no scapegoat.

  Perhaps it was already too late to recover lost ground. She’d no wish to see him again. Pat Wilenski had answered the phone every time he had rung. He was certain Bennie had been there the first time.

  He suddenly heard Marion speaking to him and turned a half-tortured face to her.

  She said. “ I only asked if you liked being at Cambridge.”

  None of the smiling look in her eye that she had for Roger. “ I’m not at Cambridge,” he said. “ I was sent down three weeks ago.”

  “Oh,” she said, not blinking at that. “ Bad luck.”

  “Not really. Mainly bad management.”

  Roger said with a smile: “Michael’s been following in distinguished footsteps.”

  “It is practically the only distinction worth gaining there nowadays,” said Michael.

  Sir Percy looked at him, and there was a moment’s uncomfortable silence before Roger came in with: “I was never lucky enough—or if Michael prefers it unlucky enough—to get near any university. I began teaching at a private school when I was eighteen, though looking back I can’t think what I can possibly have known myself.”

  “What were you sent down for?” Marion asked Michael directly, when the conversation had broken up again.

  “I disagreed with the Master.”

  “I thought wild oats had gone out of season.”

  “Oh, we still contrive to have our simple boyish fun.”

  She flushed but didn’t say anything more.

  The young lamb disappeared with the Mouton Rothschild ’ 49. When the sweet came Sir Percy congratulated Roger on his cook, and Roger had to confess modestly that he was responsible for most of it. Laycock, a widower for six years, was full of admiration for Roger’s surprising talent, and the talk waxed ever friendlier. Only at Michael’s end had the blight settled.

  Michael had again left the succulent food congealing like an insult on his plate, but he had again drunk the wine, and gradually he began to come round and feel more at ease; there was after all an E.P.N.S. lining to life.

  He heard Roger say: “I’m more than ever interested in this project of yours about a newspaper or a magazine, Laycock. Being a journalist myself, I know some of the pitfalls and I envy you the financial power.”

  “Yes, well it hasn’t got very far yet,” said Sir Percy, dabbing his napkin to his mouth. “ One thing I wanted to ask you tonight—what is your opinion of The Daily Globe?”

  Roger hesitated for the first time. “As you probably know, it’s been losing ground for two years.”

  “I know the directors slightly,” Sir Percy said. “They’re all wealthy men but they obviously won’t want to go on dropping money indefinitely.”

  “I think they’re willing to, to some extent, because they believe in their policy.”

  “Which is a quality newspaper with a popular appeal. Yes … if the loss doesn’t become too great. What would your solution be?”

  “I think every editor in Fleet Street would give you the same answer. They’d say that The Globe is trying to pursue two contradictory objectives, and to become a real success it would have to choose which of the two it really wants most. If it’s to aim at a mass circulation it cannot have quality; if it is to have quality it cannot get a mass circulation.”

  “That’s a very cynical outlook.”

  “Most editors are cynical, I’m afraid.”

  Sir Percy savoured the last of his wine. “ The Daily Telegraph seems to get away with a compromise policy all right.”

  “Well, I think The Globe could succeed on its present lines if the problem were tackled in a different way.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t believe any newspaper can carry on on an even keel for any length of time. It must go up or down. And the essence of any upward movement must lie in the vigour of the editorial policy. Not directly by its editorials but by what it makes of the news.…”

  “What are you going to do now?” Marion said, trying not to bring hostility in her voice but blunt through embarrassment with this silent young man. “Are you going to be a journalist too?”

  “No,” said Michael. “ I’m going to be a publisher and issue salacious memoirs at extravagant prices.”

  He did not mean this as an off-putting remark: he tried to be lightly amusing but for some reason everything he said tonight sounded heavily sarcastic, even to himself. She flushed again. Once more Roger stepped in. “Michael’s now with Bartlett and Leak. They’re a good imprint, one of the old-fashioned houses that still take their job seriously.”

  “What do you do?” Laycock asked pleasantly.

  “I haven’t started yet, sir,” Michael said. “ But I think for the first ten years my job will be making the tea.”

  “The directors of The Globe,” said Percy Laycock reflectively, “have repeatedly refused offers to buy the paper, made by one of the big combines. But they would welcome fresh capital if it comes from the right source. In their view I imagine I would be the right source, because we have much the same beliefs. With a substantial investment, say a quarter of a million, I could find myself in virtual control of a London daily paper.” He glanced at Roger self-consciously to see how he was taking it. “Perhaps you think that ambition rather naive. After all, it’s a long way from chain stores to the newspaper world.”

  “I don’t look on it as naive in the least,” Roger said. “In such a position one can be one of the most powerful influences for good or ill in the world today. But you’d need the most expert advice before taking such a step. If you’re serious I’d be glad to see that you got it.”

  “Ah.” Sir Percy laughed. “ You encourage me. I might even be serious. It’s a curious thing, I reckon I’m ready to run far more risks now than I did when I was a young man.”

  “After all, sir,” said Michael, “ you have nothing to lose but your chains.”

  There was a dead silence. It was more than a silence, it was a vacuum. In those few seconds Percy Laycock’s face altered its shape
from the rounded contours of middle-aged success to the angular lines that had once driven him on his way.

  “Young man,” he said. “There are various ways of making one’s living in this world. I am not ashamed of the way I’ve made mine——”

  “Michael’s a young fool,” said Roger, for once interrupting his guest and trying to speak lightly. “ He’s come back this year with a kind of undergraduate humour which I find infinitely trying.” Speaking as if Michael wasn’t there he added: “A couple of years in the city will cure him. I’m sure he didn’t mean any offence.”

  “Naturally I didn’t wish to take it,” said Laycock. There was a pause while he waited for Michael to speak and while Michael struggled with an insane sense of laughter. Then he went on: “In actual fact there’s no reason why I should, since I agree with him. In a good cause, if I find a good cause, I’m quite willing to risk losing some of my chains.”

  The Laycocks stayed till eleven. Then Sir Percy telephoned for his car, and in a few minutes picked up his sticks and limped out escorted by his daughter. The evening had not been a success. After dinner Sir Percy went out of his way to be pleasant to his host, but there was about him that slightly strained air which shows when agreeableness is imposed by the will.

  To Roger with his almost feminine perceptions the evening was a constant rearguard action. For the first time for years he knew that he himself was talking too much. He had become known as a conversationalist not only because of the intelligence of his own talk but because of the intelligence with which he listened to other people: but tonight the silences could not be used; they had to be filled, and often they were filled to excess. So he did not press Sir Percy to stay for a last whisky. He went with them to the door. Sir Percy thanked him for a delightful dinner and a most pleasant evening, and they went out to their waiting car.

  While they were going Michael stayed in the drawing-room lighting a cigarette. He still felt fuddled and light-headed. He knew he had behaved rather badly tonight but he was certainly unprepared for the livid face with which Roger returned.

  “You damned ignorant ill-mannered young fool!”

  Michael put his lighter away and looked at his cigarette to try to hide his surprise. He had never been spoken to by his father like that before. “ Oh, come off it, Dad. Don’t blow the thing up into—into something more than it was.”

  “Listen,” said Roger, coming to him. “On this evening I have spent three carefully arranged preparatory meetings, fifteen pounds on wine and food, several hours of cooking, forethought, for my own future and for yours, a great deal of personal and nervous energy. I bring to this house a man worth a million pounds, uncommitted, friendly, receptive to intellectual company, and with an only daughter. And because of you, because of your ignorant, lumpish, loutish manners, because you got out of bed the wrong side this morning or your nanny forgot to change you, the whole evening is thrown on the dust heap. But what do you care, you conceited, bumptious, ignorant, overgrown schoolboy! Nothing, so long as you can sulk and try out your shoddy sarcasms.”

  “Good God,” said Michael, frightened now and resenting his fright. “ I wasn’t feeling too fit, that’s all. Everything I said they took the wrong way——”

  “You weren’t feeling too fit because you’ve been on the tiles three nights running. You weren’t feeling too fit because for one solitary evening you had to please someone else and not yourself!”

  “I’m sorry if you see it that way.” Michael pushed his hair back, his own temper rising. “I didn’t expect him to get on his dignity. And the girl was so dull——”

  “The girl was dull because you frightened her or offended her every time you opened your clumsy mouth. D’you realise where you could have been in two years if you’d married her? Head of your own publishing firm or head of practically any other undertaking you chose to take up——”

  “Well,” said Michael, “you can buy some things at too high a price.”

  “Listen, Michael. One can well marry for policy and not for a pretty face. You can have your mistresses after if you want to. But a chance like that won’t often come your way.”

  “She seemed awfully receptive to you,” said Michael, suddenly flaring up. “ If you feel that way about it, why don’t you marry her yourself?”

  He thought his father was going to hit him and dropped his cigarette. Then, annoyed again at his own fear and angry at the damage that fear had done to his self-eseem, he bent to pick the cigarette off the carpet.

  “It will be a good thing,” said Roger, “when you’re in your own flat. A taste of poverty will make you realise that life isn’t all bed and Bennie Marlowe.”

  That touched the rawest spot in all the world. “You can leave Bennie out of this!”

  “Can I? You love-sick fool! You’ve done everything since last Sunday except weep! But you won’t do any good with her, my boy. Better to stick to your cheap tarts——”

  “Shut up!” shouted Michael, to drown not only his father’s voice but the voice within himself. He swung away, pushed past Roger to the door, hesitated there trying to think of the right reply, his face twitching. There’d never been anything like this between them before; their friendship had been a sheet anchor; the worst disagreement a few cool-tempered words.

  “I’ll see that the rent of your flat is paid,” said Roger.

  “I wouldn’t have your money,” said Michael. “I’ll fend for myself on twelve-ten a week. Many an overgrown schoolboy has done that before.”

  He went out.

  Chapter Eight

  Wolseley Dorrit was flying back to Montreal on the Friday evening, so Don drove him to London Airport. When they got there the plane from Istanbul was due, so he waited for Bennie, to drive her home.

  “Don, how nice! And how convenient. Couldn’t you do this oftener?” She slung her shoulder bag on the back seat and settled into the one beside him.

  “It’s all part of the Marlowe Car Hire Service. What was the flying like?”

  “All right. The corn is ripe already round Ciampino. I’d adore to live in Italy.”

  “You don’t look as if you’d had much sun recently. All this hoisting up in one country and down in another three or four times a week must get pretty jangling on the nerves. I should loathe it.”

  “Well, you hate flying anyway.”

  “Only modern man could devise an occupation that at the same time is both boring and dangerous. I hope Wolseley will be all right.”

  “Wolseley is a great deal safer up there than I am on the road with you.”

  “Thanks.” Don braked sharply at a traffic light and his tyres squealed on the road. “I suppose I was born out of my time. On the whole I should like to have been the pet musician of some fat Hanoverian prince. One lived at least at the whim of a music-lover.”

  “What’s this I hear about your being taken on at Covent Garden?”

  “Six months only, but it’s a gift from heaven. Nine hundred pounds will keep the wolf a bit further from the door.”

  “It’s odd,” Bennie said. “Anyone not knowing would think you were wealthy: a well-known young conductor, and Joanna a TV star.”

  “Which just shows how wrong anyone can get. It’s being ‘casual labour’ that does it. Even for this job I get paid probably less than a Smithfield porter.”

  Bennie knew how much he disliked discussing his lack of earning power, how much he disliked seeing Joanna do the occasional advertising programme; yet sometimes the very fact of avoiding discussion led them into difficulties.

  “I gather that Daddy’s estate won’t amount to much.”

  “Practically nil, according to Whitehouse. Anyway, he kept us handsomely and educated us. One shouldn’t expect much more than that. Oddly enough, I don’t think he’d made provision for the year’s lag in surtax when he retired. When you’ve been earning £20,000 a year and suddenly drop to nothing … I know last year when he was down he said rather wryly that if he’d known his book was goi
ng to make so much money and that he was going to be so poor, he would have kept some of the royalties for his own use.”

  “Don, when did he tell you he was going to retire?”

  “It was a few weeks after I got engaged to Joanna. I must say I was surprised; I’d always thought his interest in philosophy was a side-line and that his life was wrapped up in the law. But I didn’t query his decision. If that was what he wanted to do, then obviously he should do it.”

  Bennie took off her cap and shook out her hair. “D’you think we were a peculiar family, didn’t hold together enough?”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve wondered. I suppose when Mummy was killed that broke the linch-pin.”

  “How else could it be? A busy man left with a daughter of seven and a son of fifteen. Maybe he got more busy afterwards, to try to forget.… I don’t think we were much different from what any other family would have been.”

  Yet he thought as he spoke that if it hadn’t been for Moonraker probably they wouldn’t have had this conversation. Life moved in a series of superficial moments strung together painlessly so that the days and the years slipped away, and only afterwards sometimes you paused and looked back and wondered if banality had been enough. Bennie was right; his moments of real contact with her and with his father had been painfully few; a mountain of trivial content disguised the fact, so that one didn’t know it had been like that until too late. But could it have been any different? Once they had swung apart, once they were not together in everyday contact, didn’t the weight of events personal only to each one spring the hinges too wide?

  Bennie said: “ Did you see The Sketch today? They smoked out Miss Chislehurst and tried to persuade her to give them an interview. She obviously wasn’t having any, but what little she did say showed she was on Moonraker’s side.”

  “My feeling is that the rest of the Press don’t quite know which way to take this attack at present. They suspect that The Gazette has brought off a first-class scoop, but on the whole they’re a bit uncertain about the repercussions, and so for the time being they’re standing on the sidelines. The Globe commented yesterday on Dad’s high reputation and said that the present law of libel as it applied to dead persons was chaotic and highly unsatisfactory.”