The Stranger's Child

  Next Nick Powell, who had been at Oxford with Peter, described the journey to Turkey they had made together one summer – reading from a text, though with a more hesitant and personal effect than Dupont had managed while improvising; he didn’t say exactly that he’d had an affair with Peter, but the likelihood seemed to fill the vague well-intentioned space between his spoken memories and the listeners’ imagining of them. And then again, at first as if cloaked by emotion, the voice grew dry and withdrawn, and the long rising whine of a motorcycle speeding the length of Pall Mall lent a sudden sad sense of the world outside. There was the chink of workmen’s hammers, a faint squeal of brakes. A more sympathetic woman rose in her seat to point out the problem with the mike. And again came the voice from the back, ‘Can’t hear!’ as if the speaker’s failure to get through to him confirmed the very low opinion of him that he already held.

  The feebleness of the mike now became a trying and subtly undermining part of the programme itself. Everyone’s patience was stretched by it, the sound-boy, with his inane air of knowing less about sound than anyone present, kept getting up and tightening the wing-nut that held the mike in place, while irritation with him grew, and advice was called out. In some barely conscious way it made the audience fed up with the readers and speakers too. Eventually the mike was detached from the stand, and they had to hold it, like a singer or comedian, which led to further problems with ringing feedback or again the slow fade as they lowered it unawares away from their faces. It was difficult to manage, and Sarah Barfoot’s hand shook visibly as she held it.

  As the others spoke, Rob noted down a few things – that Peter had learned to play the tuba ‘to an almost bearable standard’, that he had built a temple in his parents’ garden, but abandoned it halfway through, and called it a sham ruin. This was said to be typical of him. ‘Peter was an ideal media don,’ said someone from the BBC, ‘without actually being a don – or indeed having much technical grasp of the media. The producers he worked with were crucial to the success of the series.’ At least three people said he’d been ‘a great communicator’, a phrase which in Rob’s experience usually meant someone was an egomaniacal bore. Though he hadn’t known Peter at all well, Rob was struck by the odd tone of several remarks, the not quite suppressed implication that though Peter was ‘marvellous’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘howlingly funny’, and everyone who knew him adored him, he was really no more than a dabbler, prevented by the very haste and fervour of his enthusiasms from looking at anything in proper scholarly detail. Of course it was a ‘celebration’, so a veil was drawn over these shortcomings, but not so completely that one didn’t catch a glimpse of the hand drawing it, the prim display of tact. Then they played ninety seconds of Peter himself on Private Passions, talking about Liszt, and his voice, with its rich boozy throb and its restless dry wit, seemed to possess the room and put them all, half-forgivingly, in their place, as if he were alive and watching them from the walls of books, as well as being irrecoverably far away. There was even laughter along the rows, grateful and attentive to the shock of his presence, though Peter was hardly being funny. Rob had never heard the piece before – ‘Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este’, played at almost painful volume, so that it was hard to judge what Peter had said about it as a ‘vision of death’: that Liszt had rejected the title ‘Elegy’ as too ‘tender and consoling’, and had called it a ‘Threnody’ instead, which he said was a song of mourning for life itself. Rob wrote the two words, with their distinct etymological claims, on the back of his card. Glancing along the front row, he saw Paul Bryant, who was up next, and evidently unsure how long the Liszt was going on, discreetly applying a ChapStick, then sitting forward and staring at the floor with a tight but forbearing smile. Then he was up at the lectern, and seized the mike with the look of someone who’d long wanted to have such a thing in his hand.

  Rob glanced at Jennifer, her eyes narrowed, revolving her pencil abstractedly between her fingers. Bryant was a good subject, short but ponderous, with a long decisive nose in a flushed, rather sensitive face, frizzly grey hair trained carefully from side to side across his pale crown. He stood just beside the lectern, stroking down his tie with his free hand. He said that, as a literary biographer, he’d been asked to talk about Peter’s literary interests, which of course was absurd in a mere seven minutes: Peter deserved a literary biography of his own, and maybe he would write it – anyone with stories to tell should see him afterwards, in strictest confidence, of course. This got a surprisingly warm laugh, though Rob was unsure, after what Jennifer had said, whether he was sending himself up as a teller of other people’s secrets.

  Bryant made it clear, in the way Nick Powell had sweetly avoided, that Peter had been his lover – Rob glanced at Desmond, who remained impassive; the thirty-year difference in their ages certainly said something about Peter’s tenacity and appeal. He said he hadn’t had the advantage of a university education, ‘but in many ways Peter Rowe was my education. Peter was that magic person we all meet, if we’re lucky, who shows us how to live our lives, and be ourselves.’ This stirred vague wonderings about the completely unknown subject of Bryant’s private life. ‘Like . . . Professor Dupont, I too was brought closer to Cecil Valance by Peter. I well remember him showing me the poet’s tomb at Corley on our very first date – an unusual sort of first date, but that was Peter for you! He even talked at that time of writing something about Valance, but I think we’re all agreed that he would never have had the patience, or the stamina, to write a proper biography – as soon as I started on my own life of Valance he sent me a letter, that was very typical of him, saying that he knew I was the right man for the job.’ Rob was looking at Jennifer’s card as she swiftly and elegantly wrote ‘NOT!’ on it. ‘When I’d made my way somewhat in the literary world, it was a pleasure to be able to recommend Peter as a reviewer, and he did some marvellous pieces in the TLS and elsewhere – though deadlines, I believe, remained a bit of an “issue” for him . . .’

  It was true of course that the lyric of grief was often attended, or followed soon after, by a more prosaic little compulsion, the unseemly grasp of the chance to tell the truth – and since the person involved could no longer mind . . . There was a special tone of indulgent candour, amusing putting-straight of the record, that wandered all too easily and invisibly into settling of scores and something a bit shy of objective fact. ‘He once more or less admitted to me,’ Bryant said with a rueful laugh, ‘that he could hardly play the piano at all, but in front of an audience of prep-school boys he could generally get away with it.’ (Here Jennifer shook her head and sighed, as if disappointed but unsurprised.) By the time he sat down again, he had said almost nothing about Peter Rowe’s life in books, beyond his failure to produce anything but ‘TV spin-offs’. Was it envy? It was fairly clear that they hadn’t seen much of each other for the past forty years, so the talk was a wasted opportunity – Rob thought of what he could have said himself about Peter’s book collection.

  The final speaker was Desmond, who gripped the mike in both hands with a much less humorous look. There were perhaps a dozen people of colour in the room, but Desmond was the only black speaker, and Rob felt the small complex adjustment of sympathy and self-consciousness that passed through the audience; and then an unexpected squeeze of emotion of his own, at the thought of Desmond ten years ago. He was heavier and squarer-faced now, the lovely boyish thing in him was lost, except in his tremor of determination. Rob frowned gently as he remembered the scar on Desmond’s back, his almost hairless body and knobbly navel; but he saw that the magic of sexual feeling for him lingered only as a kind of loyal and sentimental sadness. He knew that in the six years he’d been with Peter, Desmond had divided opinion, especially among Peter’s old friends: was he a godsend or a frightful bore? Now he had the awkward dignity of the less amusing survivor from a couple, testing the loyalty of those very friends. Perhaps grief itself had subtly unsexed him, just at the moment he would have, in one way or another, to start a
gain.

  He spoke clearly, and rather stiffly, with a hint of reproof in his face for all the trivialities that had gone before. The nice square Nigerian diction, with its softened consonants and strong hard vowels, had been slowly effaced by London in the years since Rob had met him at a party and taken him home shivering in a taxi. He said how being Peter’s friend had been the greatest privilege of his life, and that being married to him for two years had been not only wonderfully happy but a celebration of everything Peter had believed in and worked for. He had always said how important the changes in the law in 1967 had been to him and to so many others like him, when he was a young man teaching at Corley Court, but that it was very imperfect, only a beginning, there were many more battles to be won, and the coming of civil partnerships for same-sex couples was a great development not just for them but for civil life in general. This was met by a few seconds of firm applause, and flustered but generally supportive looks among those who didn’t clap. Rob clapped, and Jennifer, surprised but willing, a moment later clapped too. It was good to see the gay subject, which after all had bubbled through Peter’s life more keenly and challengingly than it did in his own, brought home here under the gilded Corinthian capitals of a famous London club. There was a sort of yearning in some of the older faces not to be startled by it. Then Desmond said he was going to read a poem, and drew out a folded sheet of paper from the breast pocket of his pin-stripe suit. ‘Oh, do not smile on me if at the last / Your lips must yield their beauty to another . . .’ Rob didn’t think he knew it, and felt the awkwardness of poetry in the mouths of people untrained to read it; then abruptly felt the reverse, the stiff poignancy of words which an actor would have made into a dubious show of technique. ‘Let yours be the blue eye, the laughing lips / That at the last and always smile on me.’ Rob gave Jennifer a quizzical glance, she leant towards him and whispered behind her hand, ‘Uncle Cecil.’

  Rob escorted Jennifer through the clearing and stacking of the chairs towards the crowd around the buffet table, Jennifer making confidential but fairly loud remarks about some of the speakers, while Rob discreetly switched on his phone. ‘A shame about the sound,’ she said. ‘That young man was absolutely hopeless!’

  ‘I know . . .’

  ‘You’d have thought they’d have something as basic as that sorted out.’ Rob saw he had a text from Gareth. ‘I thought that Scotsman was awfully boring, didn’t you?’

  see u 7 @ Style bar – cant wait! XxG

  ‘He was rather. . .’ said Rob – distracted for a moment in the mental blush of disorientation, then pocketing his phone and glancing round. The blond man had attached himself to the group of leather queens. But the idea of picking him up, so simply initiated by a sly shared smile, didn’t wholly dissolve under the reminder of his imminent date with someone else.

  There were rows and rows of white cups and saucers, for tea and coffee, but Jennifer said, ‘I’m having a drink,’ and Rob, who never drank during the day, said, ‘I’m going to join you.’ She picked up a glass of red with a quick shiver – and then seeing platters of sandwiches already reduced to cress-strewn doilies she pushed in between two other people waiting and built herself a little plateful of sausage rolls and chocolate fingers. She had the look of someone making the most of a day out – Rob thought the arrangements at St Hilda’s College might be fairly spartan; and then a visit to London . . . She held her plate and glass expertly in one hand, and ate swiftly, almost greedily. He wondered what her emotional history had been – not women, he felt. She had a quiver of sexual energy about her, unexpectantly tucked under her crushed velvet hat. They moved away together, each looking round as if prepared to free the other. He felt she liked him, without being interested in him – it was a consciously temporary thing, and none the less happy for that. He said, ‘Well, you were saying. . . !’ and she said, ‘What? – oh, well, yes . . . so, Paul Bryant started out, before he became a great literary figure, as a humble bank clerk Rob glanced round – ‘Oh, actually,’ he said, and touched her arm. The readers and speakers of course were moving among the crowd, with uncertain status, as mourners and performers. Now Bryant was just beside them, making for the buffet, talking to a large woman and a handsome young Chinese man with glasses and a tie-clip. ‘Oh, I know!’ Bryant was saying, ‘it’s an absolute outrage – the whole thing!’ There was something camp and declamatory about him – Rob saw he was still riding the wave of his performance, to himself he was still the focus of attention. ‘I need a drink!’ he said, sounding just like Peter, cutting in behind Jennifer, with a busy but gracious nod, an unguarded blank glance at her, two heavy seconds of possible recognition, a breathless turn, surely, and denial – ‘Andrea, what are you having?’ But Jennifer, curious and fearless, touched his shoulder: ‘Paul?’ she said, and as he twitched and turned, her face was a wonderful hesitant mask of mockery, greeting and reproach. Rob thought she must be the most terrifying teacher.

  Bryant stepped back, gripped her forearm, stared as if he were being tricked, while some rushed but extremely complex calculation unfurled behind his eyes. Then, ‘Jenny, my dear, I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  ‘Oh, Peter would have been thrilled,’ shaking his head in wonderment. Was it a fight or a reunion? He craned forward – ‘I can’t believe it!’ again; and kissed her.

  She laughed, ‘Oh!’, coloured slightly and went on at once, ‘Well, Peter meant a lot to me, long ago.’

  ‘Oh, the dear old tart that he was . . .’ Bryant said, glancing narrowly at Rob, not knowing of course what role he might have played in Peter’s life. ‘No, a great man. Peter Rowe-my-dear you used to call him, do you remember?’ – he was sticking to the fondly proprietary view of the deceased, barbs in an indulgent tone of voice. ‘Andrea, this is Jenny Ralph – or was – I don’t know . . . ?’

  ‘Still is,’ said Jenny firmly.

  ‘A very old friend. Andrea . . . who was Peter’s next-door neighbour, am I right?’

  ‘Rob,’ said Rob, nodding, not giving them much to go on, though Jennifer endorsed him, in a supportive murmur, ‘Yes, Rob . . .’

  ‘Rob . . . hello, and this is – where are you? – come here! – Bobby’ – to the patient Chinese man he’d turned his back on – ‘my partner.’

  Rob shook hands with Bobby, and smiled at him through the knowing shimmer of gay introductions, the surprise and speculation. ‘Civil?’ he said.

  Bryant said, ‘Hmm, well, some of the time,’ and Bobby, with a sweet but tired grin at him, said politely,

  ‘Yes, we’re civil partners.’

  In a minute glasses of wine were raised, Bryant peeping over his a bit cautiously at Jennifer, who said, in her candid way, ‘Well, I read your book.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ he said, with a little shake of the head; then, ‘Which one?’

  ‘You know – Uncle Cecil . . .’

  ‘Oh, England Trembles, yes . . .’

  ‘You caused quite a stir with that one,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Tell me about it!’ said Bryant. ‘Oh, the trouble I had with that book.’ He explained to Andrea, ‘It’s the book I mentioned in my speech just now, if you remember – the life of Cecil Valance. My first book, actually.’ He turned to Jennifer. ‘There were times I felt I’d bitten off more than I could chew.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Didn’t he write “Two Acres”?’ said Andrea. ‘I had to learn that at school.’

  ‘Then you probably still know it,’ Jennifer assured her.

  ‘Something about the something path of love . . .’

  ‘It was written for my grandmother,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Or, as I contend, for your great-uncle!’ said Bryant gamely.

  ‘That’s amazing.’ Andrea looked round. ‘I must introduce you to my husband, he’s really the poetry lover.’

  Bryant chuckled uneasily. ‘It was your dear grandmother who gave me so much trouble.’

  ‘Well, you certainl
y reciprocated,’ said Jennifer, so that Rob thought perhaps it was a fight after all.

  ‘Was I awful? I just couldn’t get anything out of her.’

  ‘That could have been because she wanted to keep it to herself, I suppose.’

  ‘Mm, Jenny, I can tell you disapprove.’

  ‘Who was this?’ said Andrea.

  ‘My grandmother, Daphne Sawle,’ said Jennifer, as if this needed no further explanation.

  ‘I knew she’d never see it, of course, so . . .’

  But Jennifer didn’t give ground on this, and Rob, who imagined they were both wrong in different ways, was not in the mood for a row. He said to Bobby, ‘So did you ever meet Peter?’ and drew him aside as he got a second glass of wine. He glanced round, thinking with a touch of relief of the two hundred other people here he could talk to if he wanted. He saw the blond man look over the shoulder of the man he was joking with and give him a frank saucy look, as though he thought Rob had picked Bobby up. Bobby had a wide smile, short shiny black hair, and a strong uncritical belief in his husband’s work. He dismissed his own work in IT – ‘Too boring!’ He told Rob they lived out in Streatham, and though Paul often worked in the British Library, Bobby rarely came into Town. They had been together for nine years. ‘And you?’ said Bobby. ‘Oh, I’m very much single,’ said Rob, and grinned, and felt Bobby was slightly sorry for him. He looked round and saw that Nigel Dupont was coming through towards the buffet. ‘That woman is being quite aggressive to Paul!’ said Bobby. ‘Yes, I know . . .’ said Rob. In fact Bryant himself had half-turned away from Jennifer.

  ‘About my present project? I can’t tell you,’ he was confessing to a woman in a black suit. ‘Oh, yes, another Life. Still rather hush-hush – I’m sure you’ll understand! – ah, Nigel . . .’ – with a clever little air of deflation.