Stiff Upper Lip (7 page)

8

The Swami's Secret

I told you (said Antrobus) about the Naval Attaché and his definite leanings towards the occult? I thought I had. I don't think, however, that I ever told you about the business of the Swami. Well, the whole of my first winter old Butch Benbow, as he was laughingly called, was working away like hell on reincarnation. Breathing exercises in this office, squinting at the tip of his tongue for hours at a time until his P.A. nearly went out of her mind. He even took to holding his breath during the duller staff conferences and letting it out with a swish. This wasn't reassuring. His valet said that during the lunch interval he often sat cross-legged on the lawn with a begonia on his navel, frankly and openly meditating—but this may have been an exaggeration. Anyway, he had it bad, and he was nothing if not dogged. Indeed doggedness was clearly marked in his horoscope, he said. There was no mention of drunkenness or indecent exposure. Just the doggedness. Mind you, I myself doubted the wisdom of all this spiritual strain upon a nature which, I thought, was of a more spirituous cast, but … I held my peace. Even when he sprained a rib I said nothing.

Then one morning he came into my office and I was staggered by the change in his appearance. He walked like an aged and broken man. He was ashen pale. At first I put this down to the fact that we had all dined at the Burmese Legation the night before where they had served venison so rare as almost to lift one off the ground. But I was wrong. “Antrobus,” he said, “I'm ruined, old man. Dished. My blasted swami is coming out by air.”

“Your swami?” I echoed. He nodded and gulped.

“I've been taking reincarnation lessons by post from an Indian swami. Up to now he's simply been a Box Number in the Edgware Road, old man. Name of Anaconda Veranda. And jolly fruitful it's been up to now. But I wasn't prepared for a telegram saying that he was coming out to visit me and study my spiritual progress at first hand. He is arriving this afternoon.”

“Well what's wrong with that?” I said, looking for the Silver Lining. “I bet you are the first dip. to have a private swami. Everyone will be mad with envy in the Corps.” He groaned and moved from side to side, as if he were representing Colic in a charade. He said:

“My dear chap, surely you know that all swamis are little naked men in spectacles walking around with a goat on a string? What could I do with him here? I couldn't take him to cocktails with the French. I should become the laughing-stock of the whole Corps if I were seen bowling about attached to a man in a loin-cloth. The press would certainly get hold of it. What would the Admiralty say if they saw a picture of me in the Navy Weekly? You know how materialistic they are. It would mean the China Station again, and my liver wouldn't stand it.”

I took a deep breath. I began to see his point. A loincloth is a tricky thing in diplomacy; in the hands of the Ill-Disposed it could become a Secret Weapon. I pondered.

“Well,” I said at last, “you will have to try and Carry It Off somehow. Pretend he's a cousin of somebody important like Noel Coward or Bruce Lockhart. It's the only chance.” But he was sunk in gloom and hardly heeded me. “And then there's another thing,” he said gloomily. “I'm supposed to be living on goat's milk—not unsweetened condensed touched up with Gordon's Dry. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to keep a goat in the house. They smell so. I expect he'll give me a dressing down on spiritual grounds when he finds out. And honestly, Antrobus, I don't see myself passing him off as a relation, do you?” To be honest I didn't really; but what was to be done? The plane had already left London with Butch's little spiritual adviser aboard. We would have to face up to reality. I confess my heart ached for old Butch.

But if he was pale now, my colleague, he was a great deal paler that afternoon as he got into the official car and set off for the airport to meet his swami. I didn't blame him. The dew of death had settled on his somewhat receding brow. The poor chap could see himself socially dished as well spiritually pooped.

Imagine his relief, however, when out of the aircraft stepped—not a naked Dravidian leading a quarantined goat—but the most poised and charming of Indian princelings, clad in beautifully cut clothes and wearing a turban with an emerald the size of a goitre in it. Anaconda Veranda was perfectly delightful, a Man Of The World, a Gentleman. Butch nearly fainted with relief as he listened to his perfect English, his exquisite English—rather better than Butch's own brand of the stuff. Could this be the swami he so much dreaded? Butch swooned back in his car muttering prayers of thanksgiving. By the time he reached the Embassy with his swami he was a changed man. He was swollen with pride, gloating almost.

I must say I found Veranda—everyone found him—perfectly delightful. It seems that he had been at Oxford with all of us—though strangely enough nobody remembered him. But he was as unbashfully Balliol as it is possible to be. And far from receiving the acid drop Butch found himself the most sought-after man in the Corps. All because of his swami. Veranda danced beautifully, was modest, wise, witty and gentle; he also played the flute to distraction which endeared him frightfully to Polk-Mowbray. He was even spiritually accommodating and let Butch know that in certain stages of spiritual development the odd touch of gin in unsweetened condensed is just the job and has the unofficial approval of the Dalai Lama. Butch was in ecstasies. So were we all.

Veranda did quite a bit of drawing-room occultism, turning tables and telling fortunes until the Ladies of the Corps were almost mad with flattery and apprehension. He hypnotized Drage and took an endless succession of hard-boiled eggs out of his nose. He predicted Collin's appointment to China. He told Dovebasket the size of his overdraft to two places of decimals. My dear chap, he was a Man of Parts. In next to no time he had most of the Ambassadresses pleading openly for spiritual instruction while the Heads Of Mission, mad with envy, were cabling their head office for swamis to be sent out on approval by air freight. Polk-Mowbray even conceived the idea of creating a special post of Senior Spiritual Adviser to the Embassy and appointing Veranda to it. Just to keep him with us. But I think the Chaplain intervened and quashed the idea. Polk-Mowbray sulked a good deal after this.

Well, for a whole season Veranda occupied the social spotlight, to our intense pride. He dined here, he dined there. He was put up for the O.B.E. and the Croix De Guerre—and quite a lot of other decorations. As a social draw he was unequalled, a human magnet. And of course Butch went up to the top of the class. He had to engage a private secretary to keep his now bulging Engagements Book and head off mere climbers with the Retort Civil (but Cutting). He was a happy man.

But now comes the
dénouement
—which poor Polk-Mowbray probably refers to as “the pay-off” nowadays. It happened quite suddenly and gracefully. I must say that Veranda must have made a close social study of the Corps and its movements. He chose one of those ghastly holidays—was it Labour Day?—when he could be sure that the whole Corps was sitting on a dais in the main square of the town, perspiring freely and watching the infantry defile—if that is the word. Yes, it was beautifully conceived, perfectly timed. He started by borrowing the official car and a dozen of De Mandeville's pigskin suitcases. In leisurely fashion, and with that irresistibly endearing smile which had won so many friends and influenced so many people—he made a tour of the Embassies cleaning them out with judgement and discretion. Such selectivity, old man. Only the best seemed to be good enough, just the top jewellery like Polk-Mowbray's dress studs, Angela's tiara … the top treasures like the original Leonardo drawings in the Argentine Legation, the two Tiepolos
chez
the Italians, the first edition of Hamlet in Spalding's library, the two Mycenaean brooches of the Greek Ambassadress. He even took Nelson's Dress Sword which was Butch's only real treasure and on which he always made toast in the winter. And with all this stuff safely stowed in his saddle-bags the fellow evaporated, snuffed himself out, dematerialized.… Well, old boy, you can imagine the rumpus. What an eruption! At first one hardly believed it. Surprised! You could have sluiced us down with frangipani. Many was the hanging head, many the pallid glance. Poor Butch found himself at the bottom of the form again—so did we all. For this terrible house-guest had become firmly identified with our Mission. I don't know how we lived through the next few months. Butch's swami was never traced, nor was any single item from all this cultural boodle. Somewhere among the bazaars of India these treasures must be on sale. One blenches to think of it.

It took Butch years to live down his swami. But the worst of it all was that he never finished his reincarnation course; somehow he hadn't the heart to go on. Nor has he ever had the heart or the social courage to try another swami. And as he hasn't mastered the drill he lives—so I understand from common friends—in perpetual terror of being reincarnated as a soldier.

9

A Smircher Smirched

It was at the corner of one of those little streets just off Piccadilly that we crashed into each other by the purest accident and flew apart. “Antrobus!” I exclaimed in surprise, and indeed with considerable concern. “Antrobus
—you running?
I would never have believed it.” Yet he had been running quite hard with his hat held on by hand, his coat-tails flying. I wondered what they would say to this up at the Office. “Quick,” he panted. “No time to explain. Follow me,” and took off once more like a peppered hare. I caught him at the next corner where he had the grace to wait and we started walking very fast indeed. He kept glancing over his shoulder nervously. “I have just committed a Felony,” he said at last. “A real one.” When he made sure that we were not being pursued he drew breath and settled into his normal ambling stride, though he was still somewhat winded. “It came over me in a flash, old man. I felt the sky darken round me when I saw him. I was powerless to control my lower impulses. Just the sight of that blasted Toby Imhof, just the sight of him … and I sloughed the upbringing of a lifetime. But I was right. You will agree, I am sure.”

“Imhof,” I cried. “Not my favourite Press Officer?”

Antrobus snarled and beat the air. Between clenched teeth he said: “The very same. Tobias Imhof Esquire, late of H.M. Foreign Service, now Supreme Director of Inspirational Advertising. If you had seen him as I did, stepping out of his mother-of-pearl inlaid Rolls Royce with red satin upholstery.… Dressed, old man, in a Magdalen blazer
and
a straw boater with the Roedean colours
and
a Rifle Brigade scarf.… By heavens, you would have done as I did. The car had fake Imhof arms on it, too, with a sort of device: a loofah with ringworm gules with reversed nylons. I shook with rage as I saw him lounge into the Ritz and remembered all that I had suffered from him.”

“You are rather hard on Toby,” I said. “After all, he lent some colour to the service if nothing else. Maybe he wasn't
quite
suited for the higher diplomacy.…”

“Nothing became him like his leaving of it,” said Antrobus tartly. “But that is not the point. The savage blow I struck this afternoon had nothing to do with that. I did it on behalf of decent folk everywhere. Toby with his infernal advertising has been within an ace of smirching
The Times
these last months.
The Times,
old cat's paw,
The Times!
I tell you that top people everywhere have been teetering, practically titubating. You yourself have doubtless been among them, a silent witness, wondering whether a switch to the
Telegraph
wasn't all that was left.”

“I've been abroad.”

“Ah! That is why. Then I owe you some explanation of my conduct. It had nothing to do with the fake arms either: a lot of people grew fake armorial bearings in Vulgaria I remember. The De Mandeville escutcheon, if I am not mistaken, bore a couple of plants reclining gules on a sable background with the legend
Experimentia Docet.
His chauffeur who was private school maintained that this meant ‘Asparagus Conquers All'. But no. The case of Toby was darker. He had become a National Danger. Listen, I don't have to tell you what
The Times
means to us all, and most particularly to us poor chaps up in the Office, grinding along day by day, Broken on the Wheel? Of course I don't. When you get off the bus on a winter morning feeling the nip in the air and hurry towards the office you know it will be there, waiting for you. You get your keys. You ascend. There it lies, neatly folded on your desk. You settle yourself, having taken off your goloshes, and unfold it, warming your toes the while at the gas-fire. At once you feel the ordered familiarity of things seeping into you. That vital quarter of an hour before you address your papers is worth a rest cure in itself, just you and
The Times,
alone there. Softly tiptoeing through the Personals as you tone up the cortex: reassuring yourself that the solar system is still right side up, so to speak! I trust I don't exaggerate.”