Family and Friends Page 3

  Having disheartened so many women, Frederick can hardly complain if they marry the nearest man to hand, as indeed they tend to do. He views these weddings, which he enjoys, with an indulgent eye, sizing up the bridegroom with a sense of genuine camaraderie. As he dances, in his white tie and tails, only slightly fuller in the face and figure than he was at that earlier wedding in the photograph, he feels renewed affection for the bride. Soon he will take to calling on these married women, with whom he maintains a teasing relationship, and is amazed to find them so tart of tongue. ‘Has marriage made you cynical?’ he murmurs, looking into their eyes with his famous smile. And, ‘I feel I’m really getting to know you for the very first time,’ he says, reluctantly relinquishing a hand. It is his best exit line. Is he aware that he is becoming rather well known for it? He shrugs. What of it? Frederick has always worn his misdemeanours on his sleeve. It has served to make him unassailable. And what is really touching is that so many of these young matrons have learnt to make marzipan cake, creating for Frederick little homes away from home. This suits Frederick, that favourite son, very well indeed. Sometimes he finds himself automatically flirting with his mother. But then he always has.

  Husbands view him with something like condescension. He is the Hausfreund, the wife’s companion, the husband’s ally; he can be trusted. He is now too lazy and too spoilt to do much more than make intimate conversation. Sometimes he feels a twist of boredom, pats down a yawn. But most of all he feels that he has done well, both for himself and for his family. By family he means his mother. He has not abandoned her for another woman. He has maintained the household on its course. The girls will be well provided for, and Alfred, though silent on the matter, has acknowledged that he will enter the factory after the summer holidays. This suits Frederick very well, because business is beginning to bore him too. He leaves so much to Lautner that he rarely needs to be in his office. And Lautner is so serious and so dedicated that he sometimes calls round on a Sunday evening to discuss the coming week’s affairs with Frederick, so as to spare him undue attendance. Sofka is very pleasant to Lautner, whose punctilious good manners she appreciates. He kisses Sofka’s hand, is bidden to sit down, and is given hot coffee and any marzipan cake that happens to be left over. ‘Well, Mr Lautner, I will leave you with my son,’ she murmurs, when he is halfway through his coffee. Lautner remains standing, his little linen napkin in his hand, until Sofka has left the room. Lautner can no longer bear to think of Sunday without his coffee and cake in Sofka’s drawing-room. He would walk there and back if he had to. He is, as Frederick and Sofka both know, devoted to the family. They hope that Alfred will soon shake off that rather surly expression and buckle down to work. Once he is under Lautner’s eye, they all think, he is bound to do well. The girls peer over the stairwell. ‘Good-night, Mr Lautner,’ they call. He looks up, startled and delighted. Betty immediately retreats with a giggle, but Mimi, blushing for her sister, forces herself to remain, and waves a hand in compensation.

  So Frederick hardly bothers to go to the factory, having lost that faculty of instant, whiplash enthusiasm that won the firm so many orders. But this does not matter very much, for they now have everything they want, and the name is established. It is left to the painstaking Lautner to try to charm the buyers, and this he singularly fails to do, but at the same time he is so rigorously honest that they shrug and renew the order anyway, knowing that their money is safe. The only difference is that nobody works quite so hard as they did in the days of Frederick’s brief suzerainty. The old enthusiasm, the old feeling for the place is gone. Lautner mentions this to Frederick who is not altogether displeased to hear it. He looks to Alfred now to compensate for his own vanished charm with a lifetime of unstinting toil.

  On the whole, life is very pleasant, very comfortable. In her drawing-room, lightly touching the roses brought in that morning by the gardener, Sofka smiles, listens, sits contented. Being a lady, she does very little, but her house is well run, as it should be, her monogrammed linen immaculate, and the soft sweet food that she prefers always lavish. Above her head the girls, Mimi and Betty, practise their scales. Betty has developed a very good singing voice, and sometimes Mimi accompanies her in a performance of Massenet’s ‘Elégie’ (‘O doux printemps d’autrefois …’) which is too old for her. All the songs that Betty favours are too old for her, just as her clothes are too young; there is something about Betty that is impatient to discard the clothes and investigate the songs. It is Mimi, the serious one, who conscientiously rips through the accompaniment of ‘Les Filles de Cadiz’, which her sister sings with many a haughty glance and a smouldering expression, both directed at the walls of the old nursery. Sofka, who does not see the glances, because she is not looking for them, hears only the refracted melody, and, in her drawing-room, gently beats time with her hand. When she next has a tea-party for Carrie and Steffie and Letty, and when their husbands, Max, Sam, Dizzy (Desmond), come to collect them and sit down briefly to enjoy a glass of schnapps, Sofka will ask the girls to perform one of their duets on the drawing-room piano. ‘Les Filles de Cadiz’ comes to be their party piece, although Betty’s performance leaves one of the visitors with a tiny doubt in his mind. Carrie, too, that redoubtable matron, looks thoughtful, but being of the same immaculate presentation as Sofka herself, preserves a gracious expression.

  All this time Alfred is in his room, using his remaining hours of leisure to cram in as many books as possible. He dreams of a vast library, kept under lock and key, for his own private use. So anxious is he that this domain must be safely guarded that he sometimes denies that he has been reading at all, when his mother lays a hand to his hot brow. ‘I was thinking about next year at the factory,’ Alfred tells her, and this is not altogether a lie, since the factory is what he most dreads and fears. He does not know that when he starts at the factory he will inherit power, and that means power to buy books. It seems to him, or would do, if anybody ever bothered to explain it to him, such a complicated and uninteresting manipulation of access to the printed word. Reading, to Alfred, means his cool back bedroom at home, with a curtain blowing in front of the open window, and a white counterpane on his soft bed and his dead father’s desk in the corner, waiting to be made his own. Reading, for Alfred, means a dream of home that he is condemned to lose, to forfeit, in some unsought trial of manhood. Reading means his sister’s voice drifting up the stairs and the polite clapping of the visitors and the faint chink of coffee-cups. Reading means Mimi knocking at his door and handing in a glistening slice of cherry tart. Only Mimi bothers to knock. For this, Alfred loves her best. His mother must never know this.

  And Frederick, as time passes? Frederick has discussed so many women with his mother that he has betrayed them all. Frederick sits where Sofka has always wanted him to sit, opposite her, in the chair her husband once and briefly occupied. Frederick has filled out considerably: he is now violin shaped, and his beautiful face has the ruined charm of a professional voluptuary. This adds to his attraction in the eyes of some, but not of all. He is beginning imperceptibly to resemble those cheerful husbands (Max, Sam, Dizzy), those stalwarts of ‘our crowd’, those fundamentally decent men who never pass judgment. Why should they? They know, these men, that they are aliens, whatever airs their wives give themselves. They retain, from some anterior life, caution, prudence, an awareness of possible danger. And besides, they never thought that Frederick had any harm in him. They never thought that he went too far, or indeed went far enough. Without his reputation, Frederick is indeed an amiable, some might say a harmless, figure. And he is such a good son, such a joy to his mother. And he has done so well for them all. This early effort of Frederick’s will be resurrected from time to time when circumstances change. ‘He has done so well for us all,’ smiles Sofka, resting a loving hand on her son’s arm. ‘And he did so well for them all,’ the men will ruefully remark, shaking their heads, in later years, when Frederick, absent, sits in the bar of an hotel on the Riviera, and, once more, lays him
self out to please.

  3

  IF ANYONE HAD ever bothered to tell her, Betty would know that she bears a marked resemblance to Colette, that redoubtable French writer of whom Betty has never heard. She has the same mat of red hair, uncut, closely waved, altogether excessive in its length and thickness; the same cat’s eyes, long and narrow; the same sharp puckered mouth. Her appearance, which has acquired an edge entirely missing from her sister’s more tranquil, more unfocused beauty, could have been memorable were it not for a spark of calculation in the eyes and a tendency for the mouth to remain in a studied moue while the glance ranges thoughtfully above. Her beauty, therefore, approximates more to prettiness than it would otherwise have done had it been warmed into reflection, or coloured by memory. Betty is good-natured rather than kind. At fifteen she is already the accomplished flirt that her mother has always thought she wanted her to be. Plump and petite like Sofka, with the same small hands and feet, Betty has a guttersnipe charm. ‘Elle a du chien,’ murmured the women admiringly among themselves when Betty, as a child, swept into an elaborate curtsy, with an adorable lift and fall of the shoulders. The women are more innocent than Betty, who has already outgrown her tender dreams of married bliss, and has decided to run away from home and become a dancer at the Folies-Bergères.

  Betty has long since given up the languorous and mutual ritual of hair brushing, that innocent activity in which the girls dream of their tender future; her thoughts are now sharper and are couched in the first person singular. Privately she turns her attention to the décor of her mother’s house which she finds stuffy and lacking in style. Those brown velvet sofas, those portières, always absorbing sunlight and smelling of pepper, those mahogany wardrobes, those high beds with their carved headboards and their feather eiderdowns, those sideboards, that long ancestral dining table – all this she would sweep away. She would replace them with something lighter and more modern, in tones of green and orange, with plenty of glass and white paint. The only thing she would retain from Sofka’s life is that little cabinet filled with fans. And those dreadful silk foulard dresses that Sofka wears, her white silk blouses and collars with the little bar brooch at the neck, these would have to go too. Betty sees her mother, or, if her mother will not consent, herself (and this is even less likely) in patterned georgette cut on the bias and a georgette handkerchief slipped through an ivory bracelet worn high on the left forearm. Until she can put these revolutionary plans into operation she involves Mimi in the serious business of trying on their clothes; she has arranged to exchange her pinks and blues with Mimi’s navy and grey, for Mimi is older and is therefore allowed these grown-up colours. On Betty they look arresting and mildly inappropriate; her word for them is chic, although she frowns at the high necklines and is already busy on the collars. Fortunately she is good with her needle and therefore always looks better than Mimi who is not. Mimi remains dreamy and mild, is content with her long hair, and practises the piano far more than she need.

  It is in fact Mimi’s piano that allows Betty access to that outside world for which she is so ardently prepared. Once a week she accompanies Mimi to her lesson with Mr Cariani in Marylebone Lane. Mr Cariani is an entirely correct and middle-aged man of vaguely Sardinian parentage whose small and select academy houses two music rooms and a studio for Greek dance which is thought to be of benefit to girls suffering from round shoulders. These girls, a disconsolate group, assemble once a week and go through their movements to the resounding rhythms and uplifting exhortations of Miss Mudie, who plays the piano. The thumping and somehow defeated noises made by these girls drift through the ceiling to the music room above, where Mr Cariani attempts to guide Mimi through a Chopin prelude. As the sweet painful harmonies take shape under Mimi’s fingers, Betty, seeing her sister’s attention relaxing into absorption and Mr Cariani smiling as he leans over Mimi’s shoulder, lifts her pointed chin questioningly, lets her eyes rove round the room, and fixes her gaze on the door through which, sooner or later, Mr Cariani’s son Frank (Franco) will appear.

  Mimi, in her innocence, is merely aware of her sister’s impatience on these occasions and has no difficulty in ascribing it to her own concentration on her music to the detriment of all other talents to amuse. Mimi always has a vague sense of guilt when she is not entertaining people, for Sofka has told her that she should be known for her high spirits if she wants to be popular. Mimi feels doubly guilty when her sister manifests annoyance for she knows that Betty possesses those ideal and unattainable high spirits which her mother has enjoined upon her. Betty has already been agitating on her seat in the bus, anxious to catch a glimpse of her profile reflected in the glass of the window, and on arrival at Mr Cariani’s has twitched up her skirt to smooth her stockings, running her hand voluptuously along the inside of her calf and above the knee to her thigh. ‘Betty!’ says Mimi, shocked. ‘Behave yourself. What if Mr Cariani’s son were to see you?’ But Betty takes her time. It is after all for the benefit of Mr Cariani’s son that the performance with the stockings is being enacted.

  Although Sofka has paid a formal visit to Mr Cariani before entrusting the girls to his weekly tuition and has found him entirely deferential, satisfactory, and known to other mothers in her circle, she is not aware of the existence of Mr Cariani’s son. This is just as well, for Mr Cariani’s son is perhaps destined to make Sofka withdraw Mimi and Betty from his disturbing presence. Frank Cariani is a throwback to some Sardinian shepherd who may just conceivably have engendered the entire Cariani line. He is dark, lithe, dangerously handsome; he is in addition both sulky and shy. In his white shirt, black trousers and black pumps, he looks like a wild creature whose nakedness is struggling to dominate his unaccustomed trappings. He is in fact quite a good fellow, quite decent, but his father senses in him an animal quality which it pains him to see in the general setting of the music that is practised in his studio. For some months now Frank has been begging his father to allow him to conduct lessons in various character dances when the Greek girls are not mournfully monopolizing the downstairs room. Miss Mudie, unexpectedly, is all for it. She is sick of playing Grieg over and over again. That is how Frank’s classes in the tango, the rumba and the cachucha have brought large numbers of pupils and mild prosperity to Mr Cariani’s establishment. That is how Betty comes to be in Frank Cariani’s arms, bent back as if in a swoon, her thick plait touching the floor, her face rapt and mysterious, before swinging upright and with sharp and angular movements of her head and shoulders retrieving her ascendancy over her handsome partner.

  There is no doubt that they are both extremely gifted. Frank dances quite simply, as if that was what he was born to do, but Betty is altogether more disturbing. Betty compresses her mouth, narrows her eyes, and stamps her feet as if she were in the grip of some erotically-charged bad mood. Whereas Frank moves easily and naturally, Betty seems to obey some inner tangle of tensions and energies. These are apparent in the way she stretches her neck and ripples her shoulders, points and withdraws her foot, snaps her fingers. Gradually Frank accepts that his perfect and unemphatic movements are merely a foil for Betty’s more complex attitudes. Betty is a good dancer but she is a much better actress. She is acting the part of a passionate and scornful woman of Mediterranean habits and lineage, whereas she is in fact the milky-complexioned child of reclusive Europeans. As she strives to adapt her virgin body and her complicated and corrupt temperament to the Latin steps, her face takes on the precise and moody urgency of a Parisian artist’s model.

  There is indeed something Bohemian about Betty although to all intents and purposes she has never been far from her mother’s house. Sofka has noted this quality and has decided that although Betty’s temperament was quite amusing in a little girl, promising those admired high spirits later on in life, it must now be supervised, rigorously controlled, and if necessary corrected. Sofka loves Betty’s fire, admires her looks but feels estranged from that perverse spirit that has always inclined Betty to moods, sulks, and screaming tantrums.
She no longer screams these days, having found more subtle and effective ways of imposing herself. She will seem to withdraw her love, her admiration, her loyalty, and will be seen quite clearly to calculate her own as against her family’s chances of success. Consequently people will make more of an effort to win Betty’s good opinion and consent than if she were polite and well behaved. Sofka is also rather unpleasantly aware of Betty’s altogether unwelcome sexuality. Of all her children Betty appears to be almost viciously in touch with her own lower instincts, and although nothing has prepared her for life in the adult world (Sofka has seen to this) she is clearly ready to test her powers on any man who might come within range. She always flirted as a little girl with those kindly uncles, and now that she is no longer a little girl she does not bother to do so; this apparent withdrawal of favour bewilders the uncles who cry, ‘No kiss for me today?’ in a hurt tone which quite displeases Sofka. And there has been a regrettable incident, the last in a series of several, when Sofka, on entering the girls’ bedroom, has found Betty trying on one of her own nightgowns, a simple voile shift in the colour known as ‘Nuage’, which Sofka had made for a certain holiday she took with her husband in Baden-Baden. Not only has Betty taken it out of Sofka’s chest of drawers; she is peering at the piquant little body which it reveals, well aware that she is more finely made than her mother. Sofka and Betty both see this at the same time. And that nightgown has not been worn since Sofka’s husband, the reprobate, died. The conjunction of all these reflections has given Sofka a sense of grievance which is periodically mobilized into a headache, for nothing on this earth would permit Sofka to brood on certain aspects of her long and respectable widowhood.