As Far as You Can Go (5 page)

In the negotiations which followed with a well-known transatlantic entrepreneur, Dangerfield found himself being offered more than he expected for the things he least wished to part with, notably the family portraits and a collection of snuff-boxes which his father had spent nearly fifty years assembling. The things he would gladly have got rid of, such as his grandfather’s collection of china and some regency silver that had been in the bank since it had been given to him as a wedding-present by one of his numerous aunts, were praised by the dealer as remarkable of their kind, but he added that at current market prices Dangerfield would be best advised to hang on to them. So, with considerable reluctance, he sold the snuff-boxes, and when they didn’t yield enough for his purpose, he yielded and allowed the
family portraits to go. He then shut up his house and went to live in London, saying that if a man couldn’t dine with his ancestors around him he had better dine at his club, which he did for the rest of his life. His daughters all married
suitably
, and his sons respectably, but when he died, in 1907, it seemed as if the family portraits would never be returned.

By a series of accidents, his third son eventually inherited, the first never having married, the second having been killed in the First World War. This third son, Edward, married a nice girl of good family and lived at Dangerfield House. He had started life under good auspices, with the Prince of Wales as a proxy godfather, and everything he did seemed to go right. He was a cautious man, and invested his money soundly, the more soundly because he knew what he was doing, having entered a merchant bank as a young man of twenty-one, straight down from Cambridge. Keeping most of his money in solid securities, he played the market with the rest, and during the course of the twenties managed to make several hundred thousand pounds, about which he told no one. His caution stood him in good stead when the crash came, for he had become uneasy at the giddiness of the market and sold all his speculations exactly three months before the disaster struck. When he died it was discovered, to everyone’s surprise, that he was not merely a rich man, but a very rich man indeed.

His heir, also called Edward, was too busy being a cavalry officer during the Second World War to realize quite how rich he had become. His father had shown a most unusual restraint about having children, and Edward had only one brother and a sister. The brother was killed during the Normandy landings, and the sister married a promising young solicitor. Thirty-three when the war ended, Edward had inherited his father’s business acumen and chose as his wife a girl who had only slightly less money than he. Danger field House was repaired (it had been nearly demolished by
prisoners of war) and repainted. The Cotswold Hunt
received
a large subscription so that Edward’s children might hunt during the holidays. He himself continued to work in the same firm as his father, and to adopt identical financial policies. A good deal of his capital was invested in the West Indies, where it doubled itself satisfactorily in a very short time.

It occurred to him one day, as he was sitting in his study and gazing at the picture which hung above his chimney, an early Munnings that displeased him, that it would be
extremely
pleasant, and probably not impossible, to try and recover the family portraits. It would certainly cost a good deal, but he could well afford it, and it would be satisfying to restore what his grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ reckless breeding had compelled them to part with. Apart from anything else, it would be a tribute to his, and his father’s, virtues of thrift and restraint. He set about trying to find what had happened to them.

The collection had been bought
en
bloc
by a Cincinnati
businessman
, who had given some of the portraits to that city’s art gallery, from which they could not now be recovered. But his family had been less fortunate than the Dangerfields in 1929, and indeed the son and heir had shot himself, some said only just in time, since a Grand Jury was anxious to question him about certain share issues. In the sale which followed this calamity, the remaining pictures had been widely dispersed. Some were known to have gone to museums, some to dealers. The business of tracing them presented all sorts of problems. Not being willing to do it himself, Edward Dangerfield was looking for someone to do it for him. But he distrusted dealers, having examined with care the
transactions
by which the pictures had originally been sold, and there seemed no way of convincing him that there were some trustworthy experts. From time to time he was introduced to young men trying to make names for themselves in the art world, but he declared stubbornly that he wasn’t allowing
any damned pansy to get his hands on his ancestors, and anyway none of them looked as though he could be trusted.

(“Quite right,” said Harold, who had met and disliked many such potential gallery-owners.

“Not at all,” said Dennis. “Some of them are not only honest, but nice, too. They’re only doing the same sort of thing as I do—it’s a different field, that’s all.”

Harold refrained from comment.)

There was one picture in particular that Dangerfield was anxious to recover. It was a miniature by Nicholas Hilliard of a young man with auburn hair. His father had often told him that he looked exactly like it, which was enough to make it desirable in itself. What made it even more desirable was the legend attached to it. Edward Dangerfield was a great supporter of the monarchy, and could be moved almost to tears by the royal Christmas speech: the missing miniature had a royal connection, and with Elizabeth the First at that. The auburn-haired young Dangerfield was said to have been one of her more ardent and assiduous courtiers. He had
presented
the miniature of himself to the old Queen only a few months before he was executed for an alleged part in the revolt of the Earl of Essex. The Queen had sent the portrait to his widow.

Edward Dangerfield’s father (and Dennis Moreland) doubted the story, Mr Dangerfield on historical grounds, Dennis out of cynicism. The Queen, said Dangerfield’s father, was a vain old harridan who would have been insulted by a picture of a young man: what she really wanted was a picture of herself painted to make her look younger than she really was. Anyone fool enough to draw attention to her age and his youth got what he deserved, and what was a married man doing sending his picture to an old woman anyway? In any case, the young man had gone too far in some way or another, and the Queen was notorious for not liking young men who went too far.

Dangerfield himself believed the legend passionately, and whatever the truth of it, there was no doubt that there had been a young auburn-haired Dangerfield at the time, that Hilliard had painted the miniature, and that shortly
afterwards
the subject had been decapitated. To bring the
miniature
back into the family, his remote descendant was
prepared
to pay a quite unreasonable amount of money. Dennis, as a well-informed nephew-about-town, had been asked to try and find someone altogether reliable, heterosexual and honest to go to America and find the miniature and such other of the family portraits as might still be in private collections.

“You’d better advertise in
The
Times
,”
said Harold finish ing his drink. “You know the sort of thing—‘W
ANTED:
Young man prepared to go anywhere, do anything, apply Box 999.’”

“No,” said Dennis, shaking his head irritably. “They don’t go like that, anyway. They go: ‘Public schoolboy, 24, fed up with Welfare State, too poor to throw it all up, will go anywhere, do anything, for
MONEY
.’ But that’s not the sort of person my uncle wants. He wants someone who’s happy in his present job. And, more important, a
sound
man, who knows how to haggle and things. You know how much pictures cost these days. And the family portraits are bound to be owned by successful tycoons. Uncle Edward thinks only someone with tycoon characteristics will be able to persuade them to sell. He’s prepared to pay a great deal, but not
without
trying every sentimental trick in the book first—the sanctity of the family, tradition, all those awful things.”

“But won’t the person have to know about pictures, too?”

“Heavens, no. All he has to do is recognize them when he sees them. And that will be easy enough. They were all photographed before they were sold. My uncle isn’t interested in their aesthetic worth, you see, Harold. It’s strictly a matter of sentiment and money.”

“It sounds a ridiculously simple way of having a good time in America for a few months.”

“Well, you can go, if you want to. You have a solid
business
background. You’re not very knowledgeable about art. The only count against you is that awful girl, whatever she’s called. Helen.”

“I must go,” said Harold, getting up. “I promised I wouldn’t be late. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Oh, God,” said Dennis. “Sit down a moment, please, Harold. You will seriously damage my self-esteem if you make me feel you’d rather be with her than me. And anyway, I’m offering you a job.”

“I don’t want it,” said Harold. “Besides, I’m neither reliable nor honest.”

“Oh, I expect you are,” said Dennis. “Most Englishmen like you are reliable when it’s someone else’s money they’re handling. There’s some book about how all the English are anally directed, which means they care madly about their own money, but wouldn’t touch anyone else’s.”

“I suppose bank robbers aren’t English.”

“Very often not, I dare say. Communists, most of them. What is robbery but the forcible sharing out of private property?”

“I’d rather like to rob a bank,” said Harold. “It would be rather interesting, wouldn’t it? I mean, as a challenge to one’s intellect.”

“Working for my uncle would be like robbing a bank. He’s offering unlimited travelling expenses and masses of pocket-money. He probably owns a state or two in America. He owns lots of islands you’ve never heard of in the West Indies.”

“It would be nice to go to America,” said Harold dreamily. “I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

“Are you serious?” said Dennis. “I mean, Uncle Edward would probably like you.”

“No, no,” said Harold, alarmed. “Look, I really must go. Helen will be furious if I’m late again. And you’re beginning to wear thin as an excuse.”

“I hope she hates me,” said Dennis. “If there were more to her, I might manage to hate her back.”

“Good-bye. See you soon.”

“Oh, go away,” said Dennis. He got up and went to the bar.

Outside it was rather bright, the sun quite hot between some ugly clouds, like squeezes of purple toothpaste. Harold hoped strongly that the weather wasn’t going to break. He was supposed to start his holidays at the end of next week. It would be typical of it to turn nasty now.

He sighed as he got on the Lambretta. He really ought to try and make up his mind to be nicer to and about Helen or to give her up altogether. For a moment he thought of the vague open spaces which talk of America had brought to mind. But all that was romanticism. Real life was English girls, and their notion of fair-play in the sex-war: all men should start with their right hands tied behind their backs with unbreakable throngs of gentlemanliness and decency. He could fail to turn up for the date, of course. But that wouldn’t help, she would simply come round to see where he’d got to, pretending she thought he must be ill. (At times it was definitely useful to be without a telephone. But then without a telephone one couldn’t even dial 999, and to fail to dial 999 when given the opportunity is to say No to the question of Life and something for which one can never forgive oneself.)

Fretting in the jammed streets of every Friday evening, he threaded his way towards Helen and a free dinner, with some unambitious and already, in the imagination, tedious
copulation
to follow. He pretended he was a cowboy and his Lambretta a horse, but the illusion only made traffic-lights more irritating.

H
ELEN GALLAGHER
was a short girl and her shortness was emphasized by curly brown hair that looked, Harold
sometimes
thought, like a mop with a permanent wave. Her eyes were brown, too, and rather weak, but she refused to wear glasses. From time to time she made efforts to adapt herself to contact lenses but never for long enough, so that every few months she would be weepy with eye-strain for a week or two. Apart from this, she was quite pretty in rather a bossy way, her hands always busily smoothing her skirt, and her back continually straightening itself when she sat in a chair. Her legs were slim and elegant, and she wore only the sheerest of nylons, though her taste in shoes was always more sensible than smart. In summer she wore attractive sleeveless dresses that showed off firm shoulders and well-shaped arms, and which nipped in at the waist to suggest a maximum of twenty inches. She worked as a secretary in the Home Office, and was full of pieces of interesting information about crime waves, and the amount of recidivism among burglars.

Her flat was in a dingy row of houses behind the Army and Navy Stores, but inside it was cheerful and clean, with a Matisse poster and a Ben Nicholson lithograph that Harold had given her. She shared a kitchen with another girl, called Brenda Symington, who also worked at the Home Office, and their joint dinner-parties could be delicious, since they took a good deal of trouble over their cooking, Elizabeth David and Mrs Beeton between them covering a lot of gourmet territory. The only trouble with these dinner-parties, Harold thought gloomily as he rang the bell, was that Brenda’s steady was an extremely boring young accountant
who was likely to spend the whole time discussing stock
movements
in the mistaken belief that Harold cared about them. It was always either stock movements or sport. David
Plummer
spent his summers supporting Surrey and his winters Tottenham Hotspurs, and to Harold’s intense irritation these two teams seemed almost permanently successful.

Brenda answered the door, and said, “Hallo, Harold, late again.” Then she shouted up the stairs to Helen, “Yoohoo, Helen, loverboy’s here!”

Harold followed her up the stairs, wishing Helen’s bottom moved as dramatically from side to side. There was
something
about Helen’s bottom that made even the thought seem in distinctly bad taste. It was a good sensible bottom, with no nonsense about it. That was the trouble, really, with Helen.

“Hallo, darling,” he said, trying to sound convincing.

“Hallo, sweet,” she said.

They went into her bed-sitting-room and kissed. Her hair smelled rather nice, Harold noticed.

“Hmm. What have you done to make yourself smell so good?”

“Washed my hair,” she said. She fluffed at it, but it looked exactly the same, closely curled along her skull.

“Nice,” said Harold.

“Thank you,” said Helen. She disengaged herself from him and said, “Why are you late?”

“The traffic’s simply terrible. Friday night, you know.”

“I’d say you’d stopped for a drink at the Macaroon.”

“Well, I did, actually. Dennis was there.”

“And you
knew
we were having an early dinner, so as to be in time for the film.”

“I forgot.”

“Well, it was very selfish of you to forget. Now we’ll have to gobble our way through it.”

“Couldn’t we go to the late show?”

“No. You know perfectly well that David has to catch the ten o’clock.”

David had parents near Brighton, who went to bed at midnight and locked all the doors, no matter who was
expected
. They had six children, and had obviously simply got bored with waiting up for them. But David was loyal and dutiful, and when he went to see them always caught the ten o’clock, thus just getting home before curfew, and at the same time not having to talk to them for more than a few minutes before they went to bed.

“Darling,” said Harold, “wouldn’t it be nice not to go to the cinema, but just to stay here and make love?”

“Certainly not,” said Helen. She had very firm ideas about love-making, and one of them was that it was indecent to start till it was dark, and then only with the lights out. The latter indignity Harold had overcome occasionally, but the former never.

“I want to
now
,” he said, looking meaningfully at the bed, though he felt absolutely no desire.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because, sweet.”

“Well, can I have a drink?”

“You’ll have to make it a short one, because dinner’s
practically
ready.”

Really, he thought, as he mixed himself a stiff gin and tonic, what can marriage be like, if having a mistress is like this? The same, only with smelly children all over the place, and the discipline even stronger, and the temptation not to come back again even more powerful, probably. No,
certainly
. Why on earth men let themselves get into it was
incomprehensible
. It must be that everyone felt having a family was good, so everyone did it, without anyone really enjoying it, though everyone thought he
must
be enjoying it, since everyone else said it was good.

“Hallo, David,” he said, going into Brenda’s room which was serving as dining-room for the evening, the girls feeling it incorrect to serve the food hot from the pans at the kitchen table.

“Nice to see you, old boy,” said David. He was reading an evening newspaper. “Where did you get that drink?”

“Kitchen.”

“God, Brenda said it was too near dinner-time for me to have a drink.”

“That’s women for you. I expect she’s frightened you’ll do something nasty in the cinema if you have too much to drink.”

“I have every intention of doing something nasty in the cinema, as you put it. It would be an inexcusable waste of opportunity not to do something nasty in the cinema, in fact, drunk or sober. Doing something nasty in the cinema, you might say, was one of my chief pleasures in life.”

“I believe you,” said Harold, wearily. David had a rather academic tendency to shake a subject by its scruff until it was dead.

“Doing something nasty in the cinema is a
way
of
life
.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“I wonder if you do,” said David. “You see, it’s like this. One goes to a cinema to watch obviously nasty, though physically attractive, people do appallingly nasty things, all in glorious colour. Well, to me, this is a challenge. In the same amount of time as the characters in the film have to shoot, maim, betray and kiss each other within the limits set by a censorship board voluntarily set up by the industry itself—by the industry
itself,
mark you—I try and do as much and more in the way of nastiness
not
permitted by that voluntary censorship board.”

“You obviously haven’t seen
Les
Tapettes
de
Trouville
,”
said Harold, who had caught this prize-winning study of
fashionable
degeneracy in France at Easter. It was rumoured that the English censor would require so many and such drastic
cuts that the film’s running time would be reduced by a little over an hour, but that even then there might well be a profitable public outcry. In its original version it had lasted four hours, most of which was spent less between than on top of the sheets.

“No, I haven’t. Is it sexy?”

“Not sexy, really, no. But they do spend a good deal of the time in bed together with nothing on.”

“How can it not be sexy, then?”

“Oh, it’s an art film, you know. They talk a great deal about life and things.”

“Things must include sex.”

“Oh, God, they’re talking about sex,” said Brenda, coming in with the first course. Harold speculated on her sexual activity with David, and decided that it was probably quite vigorous. David was rather stocky, and stocky men were said to be pretty active. Though it was hard to imagine.

“About what?” said Helen.

“Sex,” they all three said together.

“Oh.” She looked crossly at Harold, and said, “I told you to have only a short one, and now you’re not ready. What a waste.”

“It’s not a waste at all,” said Harold, swallowing half a tumbler. He sat down, trying not to let his eyes water.

“What film is it tonight?” asked Helen, starting on the soup as though she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, which she probably hadn’t.

“It’s one of these new English ones,” said David. “The social realist sort. Lots of smoky roof-tops and trains passing and jazz clubs and things.”

“I’ve seen it, then,” said Harold. “You must mean
Look
Back
in
Anger
or
Room
at
the
Top
.”

“No, but the same school. It’s called
Frankenstein
and
the
Class
System
.”
David laughed immoderately at his own joke.

“Actually,” said Brenda, “it’s the new Marlon Brando.”

“Oh, God,” said Harold. “Mumble, mumble, mumble, look at me in my dirty T-shirt. I don’t think I can stand that.”

“He’s marvellous,” said Brenda. “Don’t you like him, really?”

“He’s all right, I suppose. But why do we have to go to the cinema at all? Why can’t we stay here and do the
washing-up
and go to bed early?”

“Good heavens,” said Brenda, “we’ve got to have some fun some time, haven’t we?”

“We could have that by going early to bed. Let’s have an orgy, the four of us. I’ve never had an orgy, have you?”

“Harold,” said Helen, “would you pass your plate, if you’ve finished? If not, please hurry up, as the pilaff will be getting cold.”

“An orgy sounds rather marvellous,” said Brenda. “Don’t you start with a huge banquet, and go out and tickle your throat and then come back for more?”

The two men looked at each other in mock despair.

“It’s not your throat you tickle,” said Harold.

“Harold, don’t be disgusting,” said Helen.

“I haven’t told you about the fire I had this morning yet, have I?”

Harold told them about the fire, tidying up a few details, and leaving out Mr Douglas altogether.

“That girl putting you through to Ambulance,” said Brenda, “that must have driven you nearly mad.”

“It was pretty irritating, but I kept my head.”

Helen looked at him with wide eyes. “Gosh,” she said.

“It was the wiring, of course. It’s very bad indeed in some of these old houses, you know, an absolute menace.”

“I think it’s rather funny, it being the fridge,” said Brenda.

They had eaten well, and in spite of Harold’s dislike of cheap wine—he much preferred to drink whisky or gin than
South African Burgundy—he was feeling quite flushed after two bottles and his heroism during the fire.

“Oh, leave the washing-up,” said Brenda. “I’ll do that when we get back.”

That was nice of her, Harold thought, making it clear like that that she would do it, leaving Helen and him to their private vices. She wasn’t as good-looking as Helen, but she certainly seemed less old-fashioned. But then she had David, who might be all right between the sheets, but he was really very dreary when fully clothed and in public rooms, as it were.

After the film they said good-bye to David and went back to the flat. Helen insisted on doing the washing-up with Brenda, which annoyed Harold so much that he didn’t even offer to help, but went and read the newspaper David had left behind. When Helen at last stopped fiddling around in the kitchen, and came into Brenda’s room where Harold was sitting, she said, “You might have helped put things away.”

“There’s only room for two in there.”

“You could have offered.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“All right. Good night, Brenda.”

“Good night, you lucky pair. Sleep tight.”

I wish I
was
tight, thought Harold, as they got into bed. But he hadn’t seen Helen for several days, and desire got the better of boredom.

“Good God,” he said afterwards, as they lay in the dark. “You don’t put much into it, do you, Helen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t
like
it, do you?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t enjoy it, then.”

She turned over restlessly and said, “Why don’t you go to sleep, sweet?”

“Because I want to know why you don’t enjoy it. Am I an inadequate lover for you?”

“How would I know?” she said, more tartly than usual. “You’re the only one I’ve ever had.”

“Well. Go on.”

“Go on where?”

“Say it. Say, Thank God.”

“Now listen, Harold,” said Helen, sitting up. “I do everything you ask, and then you nag at me. What more do you want? What’s the matter with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with
me.
It’s you. You don’t enjoy it. I can tell.”

“If you’re not satisfied——” She stopped, then lay down again and said, “Do let’s go to sleep.”

I’m a bastard, thought Harold, nuzzling himself closely against her, a real bastard. The kindest thing would be to end it all. But I can’t. I’m too lazy. Or else I fundamentally enjoy being dissatisfied. God, what a thought.

Next morning he had a bath while Helen and Brenda gossiped in the kitchen over the remains of breakfast. He looked at himself in the mirror with what he liked to think was critical detachment: fair hair, grey eyes, nondescript. But the crinkle at the corner of his eyes was coming on nicely. He practised it for a moment or two, then squeezed a bump of stomach between finger and thumb, rolling it as though it was a piece of curtain material. He was a little plump, perhaps, but the flesh felt springy and knotty and good, with little nubbles of criss-crossing veins just detectable. Too much spring, perhaps, not enough bumps, but basically all right. Not like his father, who had given up altogether and was beginning to wobble as he walked. But there was a danger, a definite danger: corpulence could almost certainly be
inherited
, and Harold had much of his father’s physique. To be five feet eight inches and fat was not merely a misfortune: it was a disgrace. Harold didn’t, though, inherit his father’s
excessively hairy chest. It was really rather disgusting, Mr Barlow’s chest, the thick black mess spreading all over his shoulders and upper arms, like broken and rotting wheat. Once it had seemed rather admirable to be so hirsute, so distinctly masculine. But one day, when Harold was fifteen and passionately in love with a girl called Anne Killian, he had seen Anne turn white as she stood on the diving-board of the Killians’ swimming-pool. Following her gaze he saw she was staring with horror at Mr Barlow in his
bathing-trunks
. The romance had never been quite the same after this shock, and Harold had changed his views about
body-hair
as a result.