Dee looked out of the window. “Yes.”
“Party?”
Dee shook her head. “No, nothing special. Just went out for a meal.”
Caroline thought that rather unlike Dee, who was perpetually moneyless. “Special occasion? By yourself?”
“Yes,” said Dee. “Just me. Private treat.”
Chapter 24: Berthea Reflects on Oedipus
Berthea Snark, psychotherapist and mother of Oedipus Snark MP, had settled herself into her seat on the train, and was now waiting patiently it to pull out of Paddington station. It was a Saturday morning, and the station was halfway between the busyness of a weekday – when driven hordes of commuters poured into London from Oxfordshire and beyond – and the relative somnolence of a Sunday. On Saturday morning there were people travelling to see friends for the weekend, grown-up children returning to parents in the country for much-missed home cooking and laundry services, and tourists in search of an England that had once existed but now survived only in the imagination – an England of quiet villages and cricket greens and tiny, silent pubs.
Berthea Snark was on the train because she was going to visit her brother, Terence Moongrove, in his poorly maintained Queen Anne house on the edge of Cheltenham. She made this trip four or five times a year, and although her main motive for these journeys was concern for Terence, for whom she felt a considerable degree of responsibility, she also went because she enjoyed getting out of London. Her visits were usually for four or five days – quite long enough to feel the benefit of being in the country but not long enough to make her forget that she lived in London.
Sometimes, of course, they were longer; recently she had spent several weeks looking after Terence following his near-death experience. This had happened when Terence, a mechanical innocent of the first water, had attempted to recharge the battery of his Morris Traveller by connecting it directly to the mains. Not only had Terence stopped breathing for a few moments after this incident, but the battery, and the Morris itself, had stopped functioning altogether. This had resulted in Terence acquiring a second-hand Porsche from Monty, the son of his neighbour, Alfie Bismarck. Berthea had her misgivings about the acquisition of the Porsche, as she had about everything that Terence did. Her brother had always been a dreamer, and a lesser sister would have lost patience well before this, perhaps, with a brother who went on about sacred dance and the writings of the Bulgarian mystic, Peter Deunov. But Berthea was a tolerant sister – up to a point – and, of course, a psychotherapist, and she understood that no amount of persuasion on her part would ever detract Terence from his mystical preoccupations and his alternative lifestyle. All that she could do, really, was to protect him from the more obvious dangers inherent in such an approach to life. And always, in the background, she could hope that one day he might meet somebody who would take him off her hands. Not that this was at all likely, given Terence’s unprepossessing appearance – which included a propensity to cardigans and yellow slippers – and, more importantly, his utter inability to understand the way in which women – or indeed anybody else – thought.
But as she settled herself into her first-class seat – a luxury justified, she felt, by the ability it gave her to work during the journey – Berthea was thinking not so much of her brother Terence but of her son, Oedipus Snark, a well-known Liberal Democrat MP and boulevardier¬, as one newspaper had sarcastically described him. Berthea cut out all newspaper references to Oedipus, including this one, which appeared in a particularly waspish diary column. She did this not as most fond mothers did, pasting the cuttings into bulging scrapbooks; she preserved these items as material for her project and, possibly, as evidence.
Berthea’s project was the writing of an unauthorised biography of her son. This was admittedly an unusual activity for a mother, but, as the commissioning publisher had acknowledged, a mother was surely better placed than most to write a warts-and-all biography of a son.
“Not that many do,” mused the publisher. “Loyalty, I suppose …”
If Berthea felt reproached by this mention of loyalty, she had not shown it. She felt no compunction in writing her son’s biography because, after a great deal of soul-searching, she had decided that he simply had to be stopped. Now, normally one would not have to say of a Liberal Democrat MP that he or she had to be stopped. It was simply unnecessary, as few Liberal Democratic MPs, alas, needed to be stopped. This was not their fault – such MPs were usually principled, hard-working and effective; the problem was that the party to which they belonged – admirable though it might be – regrettably seemed unlikely to be in a position to form a government. So the stopping of a Lib Dem MP seemed to be uncalled for, whereas the MPs of other parties could be really dangerous in that they could well find themselves with hands on the levers of power. Some of them – the most egregiously selfish or unscrupulous – had to be stopped for the public good, lest they find themselves in power.
Oedipus Snark, his mother believed, was only in the Liberal Democratic Party because the other two main parties had rejected him. Not many people knew this, of course, but she, being his mother, had seen the correspondence he had carelessly left lying about in the days when he still occupied a room in her mews house behind Corduroy Mansions. There were letters from party secretaries, politely phrased but clear in their message that he was not what they were looking for as prospective candidates. The Liberal Democratic Party, however, in its profound decency, had allowed him through and then, as a result of the vagaries of the selection process, he had found himself selected as a candidate for a London constituency. And that could have been as far as he got, had it not been for the fact that both the main party candidates for that particular constituency had simultaneously been involved in serious scandals. They went down, and Oedipus Snark, then only thirty-one and one of the youngest parliamentary candidates, went up.
Berthea Snark might have left it at that, but there was still a danger that Oedipus might find himself near power, this by his own admission. “Mother,” he had said, “I know you think that I won’t get anywhere politically, but may I let you into a little secret? They want me to cross the floor, to join up with them. And you know what mother? I’m going to do it when the time is ripe, and in return … Guess what? A cabinet post! Not a junior minister – a real, six-cylinder, eighty-four-horsepower ministerial post! What do you think of that, mother?”
Berthea said nothing. But what she thought was this: But what if people knew about you? What then? And then, as a delicious – but guilty – afterthought, she muttered to herself, Creep!
Chapter 25: Cars and Auras
When Berthea’s train drew into Cheltenham station, Terence Moongrove was waiting to meet her. He had arrived at the station half an hour earlier, allowing, as usual, a generous amount of time to park the car. This had taken him less time than anticipated, however, because he found the Porsche much more manoeuvrable than the Morris Traveller. It was not just the steering that seemed different; it was the response of other drivers, who generally seemed to get out of the way when they saw Terence in the high-powered German sports car.
“It’s a very funny thing, Mr Marchbanks,” he said to his long-suffering garagiste. “When I drive this new car you got me, I find I get looks from other drivers. Admiring looks, I think. Do you think that Monty Bismarck got the same thing when he drove this car?”
Mr Marchbanks raised an eyebrow. “Looks? Well, I don’t know – you’d have to ask Monty about that, I suspect. But I do know that some people judge others by their cars.”
Terence found this very strange. “What a peculiar thing to do,” he said. “What really counts is the spirit, Mr Marchbanks. Or a person’s aura. That’s the really important thing to look out for.” He paused, weighing up an idea that had come to him. “Do you think that cars have auras, Mr Marchbanks?”
Mr Marchbanks was used to strange questions from Terence Moongrove. He sighed. “Could be. Mind you, I’m not sure what an aura is. Cars certainly have emissions
. Is an aura anything to do with that?”
Terence thought for a moment. “The concepts are not altogether unrelated. An aura is a sort of emission – an emission of light. And I suppose that inanimate objects can have waves associated with them. Water has a memory, after all.”
Mr Marchbanks stared at Terence. “Water has a memory, you say?”
Terence was now on firm ground; he knew about these things. “Yes, it does! Jolly surprising, but it does. They’ve done amazing experiments, Mr Marchbanks. There’s a professor called Beneviste. He’s the one who discovered that water could remember things that happened to it – stuff you put into it. It remembers it all and reacts to the same stuff when it next has it put into it. Amazing.”
Mr Marchbanks moved the top set of his false teeth out over his lower lip; it was a little mannerism of his that manifested itself when he was puzzled. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
“Indeed you will be,” Terence went on. “Of course there are bags of people – bags of them – who were ready to throw cold water on this idea …”
“Cold water,” said Mr Marchbanks. He wondered whether the water would remember being thrown.
“Yes. People with closed minds – people who aren’t prepared to accept any new ideas that don’t match their view of how things are. There are plenty of people like that, Mr Marchbanks.”
The mechanic looked thoughtful. “So are you suggesting that cars have memories?”
“They might have,” said Terence. “I wouldn’t state it as a fact – not categorically. But think of it – if inanimate objects can absorb vibrations, waves, energy, call it what you will, then it explains a lot, doesn’t it? Hauntings, for instance. Energy is absorbed by stones and then released. It explains why places have an atmosphere.”
Mr Marchbank looked interested. “Yes, places do have an atmosphere, don’t they? My mother-in-law’s house, for instance. I’ve always said that there’s something rum about that place. My wife doesn’t agree, but I always pick up a very negative feeling when I go there.”
Terence nodded encouragingly. “There you are, you see. Something negative has gone into the bricks and mortar. You’re just picking it up, Mr Marchbanks.”
“But I’m not sure about cars. Houses are one thing, but cars …”
Terence made a gesture of acceptance. “I didn’t say that cars necessarily have that ability, but they could do. My Porsche, for instance. I must admit I get a sort of … vibration when I drive it. I feel somehow … a bit … well, a bit younger.” He blushed. “A bit amorous even! Not that I would say that to anybody else, of course, but you’re a mechanic …”
Mr Marchbanks was wide-eyed. “Amorous, Mr Moongrove? Well, bless me! They say that these cars do help a bit in that department.”
“I always control myself,” said Terence quickly. “I’m sure that the Highway Code has something to say about amorousness and cars.” He paused, composing himself after the admission. “But I do find that people look at me with what I’m tempted to describe as respect. Very strange.”
And now that respect had meant that a car that had been thinking of claiming his parking spot near the station yielded when the driver saw him coming. Terence slipped into the parking place and, with time on his hands, walked into the station to buy a newspaper before Berthea arrived. So spent, the time passed quickly and there she was, his sister, carrying her weekend bag and waving to him from the end of the platform. Dear Berthy, he thought. So many things change in the world, but she always looks the same: same funny old jumper and odd-looking skirt; same old weekend bag, a holdall that she had had for ages and ages and which Uncle Edgar bought to take to Madeira.
And Berthea, for her part, looking down the platform, saw her brother walking towards her and thought: Dear Terence! What a disaster area he is! That defeated old cardigan and those shoes with the Velcro fastenings. And his ghastly glasses. Oh dear! He must be the only Porsche driver in the world – in the whole world – who wears shoes with Velcro fastenings. What a distinction to have in this life.
“Berthy!” exclaimed Terence, looking at his watch. “Your train’s arrived on the dot – on the absolute dot. Just as Mussolini promised it would. Only he wasn’t talking about England, was he? And he made such a beastly mess of Italy, didn’t he?”
Berthea leaned forward and kissed him lightly on his left cheek. “I have stopped noticing when trains arrive or do not arrive,” she said. “My life is quite full enough without that to exercise me.”
“Time is relative,” said Terence, reaching to take her holdall from her. “It’s a tyranny we invent for ourselves.”
“Mmm,” said Berthea.
“And anyway,” said Terence, “Like you, I find myself far too busy to think about time.”
Berthea threw him a sideways glance. Her brother, as far as she knew, had absolutely nothing to do – apart from his ridiculous sacred dancing and the occasional meetings of the various lunatic societies to which he belonged. How could he possibly be busy?
They made their way to the car. “I’ve got a nice surprise for you,” said Terence as he opened the passenger door for her.
“I’ve already seen this car,” said Berthea. “And I must say …”
He cut her short. “No, not the car. It’s nothing to do with the car. It’s a surprise for you at the house.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. I’ve got some people staying there. Roger and Claire. They’re terribly nice people. You’ll like them, I know it. They’re writing a book together, and they’re staying with me while they do it.” He laughed modestly. “I suppose that makes me a sort of patron of literature. Like those people who had salons. Madame de Staël, and people like that.”
Berthea said nothing. She was not going to like Roger and Claire – she knew it.
“Their book is very important,” said Terence. “It’s going to change the way we think about so much.”
Berthea looked out of the window. “How long is it going to take for them to write this magnum opus?” she asked.
“Four years,” said Terence. Then he added. “That’s for volume one, of course.” He paused. “And, listen, Berthy, it’s very unkind of you to call it a magnum opus in that sarcastic tone. Naughty, naughty! I’ve read about salons, you know, and there was a very strict etiquette, which included not saying anything nasty about the books of those present. Which in this case means Rog and Claire.”
Berthea sighed. Madame de Staël. Rog and Claire. Five minutes in my brother’s company and I’m already wading in a morass of intellectual treacle.
Chapter 26: Pantoufles
But the conversation soon moved on, as it always did with Terence. Flight of ideas, thought Berthea – but not quite. It was true that Terence could talk at great length – and frequently did – but there was usually a reasonable connection between the topics he rambled on about. A true example of flight of ideas would go from this to that at the bat of an eyelid, and that would, of course, be indicative of bipolar disorder or attention deficit disorder, or even schizophrenia. No, Terence was afflicted with none of those things – Berthea’s trained eye could spot that well enough. His problem, she thought, was more one of magical thinking. He had spoken to her – as well as to Mr Marchbanks – about the memory of water, and that was a good example of the problem. He wanted the world to be otherwise than it really was; he wanted to see causality and connection where none really existed. He wanted to believe that pure thought could change the world.
She paused. Who doesn’t? she asked herself. As children we try to create the world along the lines we want it to be. We wish an imagined world into existence through play – castles and kingdoms, fairies and elves, imaginary friends – but at some point we have to let go of it. Santa Claus dies; for all of us a personally felt demise that brings down one of the great pillars of that self-created world. From then on, although reality asserts itself for most of us, for some the memory of that power to create, the memory of that universe o
f the imagining, persists. It is this that tempts us still to believe that the world actually functions in ways other than those that we understand through our senses. How sad, she thought, and she was reminded of those patients of hers who were stuck in some earlier stage of their development, for example the city trader who sat in her consulting room once a month and repetitively recited, in loving, nostalgic detail, the events of his eighth year, when the world was innocent and fresh and he was happy. And then wept – not every session, but often enough – for everything that he had lost. Slowly she was leading him to an understanding of why he mourned, laying bare his unhappiness.
Or how about the woman who would talk only of her mother, and of what mother had thought about things. Everything triggered a maternal memory; Berthea had given her a cup of tea, and she had launched into a long description of the china her mother had once possessed but which had been broken by the removal men. Removal men, Berthea had written in her notes, and underlined the words. Removal men were such a powerful metaphor for brutal change, for dispossession, for the shattering of the security of the domestic universe. They came and put our life into boxes and took it away. Boxes, wrote Berthea, and underlined that too.