A Conspiracy of Friends, Page 2

  Berthea could identify the moment when she admitted to herself her dislike of her son, Oedipus. It came at a curious moment, while she was talking on the telephone to Oedipus, who, having recently been adopted as a parliamentary candidate, was giving a party for constituency volunteers. These were the people who stuffed leaflets into envelopes and trudged around the streets putting these envelopes through the letterboxes of the voters. They were worthy people, Berthea thought; committed citizens who had ideas about the world and how it should be governed. They were not her type, of course; Berthea could not engage in the problems relating to drains and primary schools that fired the imaginations of these people, but she recognised the importance of such matters and could listen, though with a slightly glazed expression, while the faithful volunteers expostulated on them at some length. Most of what they said, of course, had an underlying theme, which was that society should, if at all possible, be given better drains and primary schools. This was unobjectionable enough—indeed it was positively laudable—but Berthea could not help but notice that such people devoted rather less energy to the issue of how we were to earn or make the things that we wanted to give to those who currently lacked them. If that issue was raised with the enthusiasts, as Berthea occasionally tried to do, then it was their turn to become glassy-eyed.

  Initially, Berthea had had no idea why Oedipus had invited her to this particular party. It might have been pride, she thought; to give her the chance to see the adulation which he received from some of these volunteers.

  “That nice Mr. Snark,” she had overheard one of them say, “he’s so sensitive.”

  She had looked wide-eyed at the maker of this comment and felt a strong urge to correct her. “But he’s far from nice,” she wanted to say. “He really isn’t.”

  She knew, though, that she could not say it, not even to herself … And yet, having thought the words, had she not uttered them to herself?

  But she accepted the invitation to the party, which was held in the rooms in a run-down office building that the landlord, a Liberal Democrat, made available at a reduced rent. And then, once she had accepted, Oedipus disclosed his hand.

  “Do you think you could possibly bring along a bottle or two?” Oedipus asked over the telephone.

  Berthea was accommodating. “Certainly. It’s a bring-your-own affair, is it? Would you like me to make cheese straws too?”

  “Cheese straws? If you want to. I suppose some of them might like a cheese straw or two.” He paused. “But wine would be more useful, I think. Could you manage a dozen bottles, do you think?”

  She absorbed this request in silence.

  “Mother?” asked Oedipus. “Still there?”

  She tried to keep her voice even. “Yes. How many people are you expecting?”

  “About thirty.”

  She made a mental calculation. The conventional wisdom was that one allowed one bottle of wine for every three guests. This meant that the majority who wanted, say, two glasses over the evening would get them, with a bit to spare. Now if Oedipus was inviting thirty people, and was expecting her to bring a dozen bottles, it meant that he himself would be providing no wine at all. This was tantamount, she realised, to his getting her to fund his party for his volunteers. The only reason he had invited her, she decided, was to get her to buy the wine. He had not asked her because he thought she might enjoy herself; he had not asked her because he was fond of her; he had asked her because he wanted something from her. And that was the way it had been not only with her but with everyone; all the way through. Oedipus was a user of people, including his mother.

  And that was the moment when she realised that she disliked her son. At the end of the telephone conversation, having agreed to do as he asked, she went through to her bedroom and looked despairingly in the dressing-table mirror. It was a technique that she had often recommended to patients: Look at yourself, she would say. Look at yourself in the mirror and then tell yourself what you see.

  She stared into the mirror. A middle-aged woman, quite handsome, with high cheekbones and eyes around which … well, wrinkles had begun to move outwards, little folds in the flesh, tiny fault lines; an intelligent face—she had to admit that—the face of one who had been trained for years to understand others … And now the time for self-understanding and honesty had come. “I do not like Oedipus,” she said, whispering the words. “I do not like my son.”

  The effect of this admission was curious. Immediately she admitted it, she felt a weight lift from her. She was no longer in awe of him. She no longer felt guilty. She was free.

  She went to the party, and was met by Oedipus at the door. He looked at her anxiously.

  “Everyone’s here,” he said, sounding slightly peevish. He glanced behind her, as if expecting her to be accompanied by a retinue of some sort.

  “Just me,” she said. “Nobody else.”

  He frowned. “The wine?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, that. Sorry, I was a little bit short of cash and decided not to get it. You’ll have to make do with what you’ve brought along yourself. I’m sure that’ll be fine.”

  “But I didn’t bring any,” he hissed. “The guests have nothing to drink.”

  Berthea smiled. “But there’s a tap in there, isn’t there? What about water? Surely Liberal Democrats are quite happy with water.”

  He raised his voice, attracting glances from a small knot of party volunteers standing near the door. “It’s not funny!”

  “Isn’t it?” asked Berthea airily. “Actually I think it’s really rather amusing. The same problem as the wedding at Cana of Galilee.” She paused. “Perhaps there’ll be a miracle and the water will turn—”

  “What have weddings got to do with this?” snapped Oedipus. “You’ve really let me down, Mother. I trusted you, and this is how you repay me.”

  Berthea looked at him coldly. Was this how Liberal Democrats addressed their mothers? It was all very well occupying the moral high ground on electoral reform, but what really mattered, she thought, was how you treated your mother. Conservatives, she had observed, were very good to their mothers, and to their nannies as well. And Labourites were equally fond of their mothers, and sometimes made their mothers government ministers or put them in the House of Lords. So kind! Sometimes, though, they could be a little less than understanding when mothers made reactionary or bigoted remarks, as mothers sometimes do. But that was a small fault, as faults go.

  4. In a Spirit of Failure

  IF OEDIPUS SNARK was a flawed character, the same could certainly not be said of William French, Master of Wine (Failed). That particular failure—his regrettable performance in the MW examinations—was his own fault and nobody else’s, and he certainly did not try to shift the blame. He had become intoxicated in the practical tests and completely confused the attribution of the sample wines. He recognised that it would have been a travesty had he passed, and he knew that he had a great deal of work ahead of him if he were eventually to obtain the treasured qualification.

  Whereas Oedipus was unpopular with all those who got to know him at all well, the warmth of feeling that people had for William only grew as they spent time with him. It was difficult to put one’s finger on the reason for this, but it was a quality of kindness, perhaps, that people most noticed: kindness, leavened with a large measure of charity in his attitude to others. One realised, of course, that William had a problem with finding direction in his life, but that counted for very little when one looked at the broader character of a person who had a strong sense of where he was going. The ranks of such persons were not entirely occupied by the ruthless, the selfish and the insensitive—but those characteristics were certainly well represented there.

  His friend Marcia Light, who owned the outside-catering firm Marcia’s Table, was well aware of William’s lack of direction. For some years after William had been widowed, she had wanted him to marry her. She used every ploy known to woman to secure this end, but eventually admitted to failure.


  “It’s not going to happen,” she had confided to a friend one day as they prepared a large selection of canapés for a reception at the Norwegian embassy. “The problem is chemistry. The chemistry’s either there or it isn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Are you sure?” her friend asked. She was an incurable romantic and believed, in the depths of her soul, that any man could be enticed as long as one knew what his appetites—in the culinary sense, of course—were. “There are ways, you know …”

  Marcia knew what her friend was driving at. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “Yes, there are men who just want domestic comfort, who want somebody to cook for them. William’s not like that.”

  “Pity,” said the friend.

  “Yes. But there we are. He’s looking for something else.”

  William would not have disputed that assessment. He was aware of his problem of direction; he was aware of the fact that at the end of each day he made his way home to a flat in Corduroy Mansions that had developed a rather unlived-in feel; he was aware that if he were to attempt to sum up what he had achieved over the last six months, or even the last year, it would not be a long list of achievements. Indeed, he would be hard-pressed to find even a single thing to put on such a list.

  Of course, there were very few occasions on which one was required to make a list of one’s achievements. Some people went for years without listing their triumphs; others did it more regularly, often under the pretext of sending out a Christmas letter to their friends and acquaintances. William received a growing number of such letters each year, and he often blushed to the roots of his hair as he read the shameless blowing of trumpets that these entailed.

  The previous year he had received a five-page letter in which an entire page was devoted to each member of the family. “It’s been a rather successful year, as it happens,” wrote his friend. “You may have read of my appointment in the newspapers, but in case you missed it I have scanned it in and attached it as appendix A! Well, that came as a surprise because I really shouldn’t have got the job for another five or six years, and I’m afraid I did rather leapfrog—or I was leapfrogged—over at least ten people who were my seniors in the company. The chairman made a very generous remark about cream rising to the top … A bit of a joke, of course, but a sweet thing for him to say nonetheless. I do hope it sugared the pill for those who might have hoped to get the job but didn’t (and I realise as I write this that a few people in that category will be reading this letter). Anyway, there was that, and then a few months later, in July, we had a simply wonderful piece of family news—the beatification of our late Great-Uncle Martin! It came as a complete surprise because, although we knew that there were quite a few people supporting his cause, not being Catholics ourselves we didn’t know the ins and outs of it. The current Pope, however, is said to be very keen on the project, as was the last one, and so they have given the whole business a fair wind. Now being beatified is not the same as being canonised, but it’s the first step and sometimes they fast-track these things. So I gather that there’s a reasonable possibility that he might be made a saint if not in my lifetime then at least in the lifetime of the children, which would be rather nice as we currently don’t have any saints (real ones, that is!) in the family. I gather that the ceremony in Rome is very moving and that they have special candles made for any members of the family who can get to the service.

  “Of course, they need proof of a few miracles to get the thing nailed down, and I’ve told our Jane that the fact that she got seven A Level passes at A grade last year is not a miracle attributable to the Blessed Martin Blaise but more the result of hard work—and she has worked very hard over the last few years—and a certain amount of native intelligence. She was made a member of Mensa, as it happens, this year. For those of you who may not know about it, Mensa is the society for the super-intelligent. You have to do a very tough test to get in and, naturally, you need an IQ of the highest level. I served for some years as the secretary of our regional Mensa branch, and enjoyed it greatly. I could always be certain that the fellow members to whom I wrote about subscriptions and so on would understand my letter!

  “On the subject of letters, I received an absolutely charming one from … well, modesty forbids my telling you exactly who it was from, but you might have seen his latest film—which I thought was really rather good. We were at the premiere, as it happens, where I bumped into …” And so it continued.

  William realised he could never write a letter like that; he was far too modest and … Well, the other side of it was that he had nothing to write about. He would never get into Mensa, just as he feared he would never get his MW. William French, MW (Failed), Mensa (Failed): well, at least it was honest, and perhaps it would be no bad thing if more of us admitted to our shortcomings more readily—and in a spirit of genuine failure.

  5. The Wali of Swat, Etc.

  NO, THOUGHT WILLIAM, what I need is purpose. It was all very well taking each day as it came, reacting to things that happened, but what sort of life did it amount to in the end? People who led lives like that suddenly discovered at the end of the day that they had nothing to show for their time on this earth except a pension—if they were lucky—a house—again if they were lucky—and children who might or might not have much time for them. That was it. And what would the obituary writers say of such a life?

  William liked to read the obituary columns in the newspapers, not out of any morbid interest but because he appreciated potted biography. There were such extraordinary lives being led, he felt; it was a tribute to the inventiveness of humanity that people could devise such varied ways of passing the time. Unlike me, he thought, whose obituary might run to a few lines at the most and would make for very dull reading. William French, wine merchant, it would begin; and then what? There was no distinguished university record—no university record at all, in fact; there was no military service—unless one counted a short spell in the Woodcraft Folk as a teenager, and that organisation was decidedly unmilitaristic in its outlook. His life had not even been touched by controversy; the obituaries of those touched by scandal often made very edifying reading, particularly if they recorded a comeback. The unfortunate Mr. Profumo, who suffered banishment because he did not tell the truth to the House of Commons, spent years thereafter doing good works and was justly rewarded in the end with a glowing obituary. Of course, he had the misfortune to mislead Parliament before it became standard practice for Parliament to be misled—on a daily basis—by half-truths and massaged figures.

  William’s favourite obituary was that of that great and good man, the Akond of Swat, also known as the Wali of Swat. His obituary in The Times following his death in 1987 was full of colourful detail. The Wali, who ruled over a territory that eventually ceased to exist, disliked lawyers and heard his subjects’ legal cases personally, his door being open to all. He grew roses and wore elegant English suits. The obituary concluded: “In the eyes of his people, in an age of pygmies a giant has just passed away.”

  We could not all be a Wali of Swat; nor, thought William, could we be a Richard Branson, creating airlines here and there and flying in immense balloons, or a Louis Mountbatten, running military campaigns in that titanic struggle against a real Axis, presiding over a crumbling Raj, dispensing advice to kings and presidents. By comparison with such lives, our days were inconsequential indeed, and yet even though our canvas was small, still we could paint a masterpiece—as long as we were content for it to be a miniature.

  The real issue was that of acceptance. Most of us, thought William, are in the same boat as I am. Most of us have not done anything remarkable, nor are we likely to. Most of us are destined to lead life on a relatively modest scale. Yet that does not mean that we should resent the apparent smallness of our lives, which are as large, in their way, as the lives of those caught up in great events. A moral dilemma is equally absorbing whether the stakes are the destiny of nations or the happiness of one or two people—at the most
. And the same was true of a love affair: romantic heroes may have their romantic heroines, and the resulting romances may take place against exotic backdrops, but the essential matter—the attraction of one to another, the search for completeness, the sad, insistent human longing—was the same wherever and however it occurred, had the same dignity, the same magnificence. The moping, lovesick teenager, blissfully unaware that his or her feelings were precisely those that his parents—and everybody else—had felt, might slip into solipsism, but surely must be forgiven because his teenage love affair, short-lived though it might be, was every bit as important, as magnificent, as that conducted by Romeo and Juliet or by Pyramus and Thisbe.

  William glimpsed this insight. Doing what all of us should do from time to time, but which the demands of quotidian existence prevent us from doing—sitting down and taking stock of what his life was about and what it meant—he suddenly realised that if he felt that he had achieved nothing it was because he had failed to cherish what he had in fact done. He had filled his days doing ordinary, unexceptional things and thought nothing of them. But they were far from nothing: even the act of making his morning cup of tea as he looked, bleary-eyed, over the rooftops of Pimlico amounted to a small miracle: that there should, in this cold void of space, be a small blue planet on which he, a rather complex collection of cells, should be delighting in the dried black leaves of a plant that grew half a world away; that surely was astonishing and worthy of celebration and awe. And that was even before one started to address the mystery of consciousness—that this collection of cells, engaged in the making of tea, should trigger enough electrical activity to produce consciousness, of all things, even while being unable to explain exactly what consciousness was.