The Great and the Good Read online

  Apart from his duties in Washington, DC, Allan Porter chaired the foundation that granted three-year scholarships to foreign students. To his considerable surprise, although other European nations had submitted large numbers of candidates, France had put forward only one: Arthur Morgan. This single candidature had appeared suspect, coming as it did from a country whose parliament contained so many Communists. Was Arthur Morgan some sort of propagandist, perhaps one of those spies the KGB ran under the guise of an intellectual rebelling against the injustices that were everywhere in the capitalist world? The inquiry carried out by their Paris embassy had reassured him.

  ‘I can even tell you your mother’s maiden name, the date of her marriage, the day your father was killed in action in Germany, your grades in your baccalauréat, your 800-metre time, the eye colour of the girl you went out with during your first year of law and the name of the man she married, to your considerable relief, the agency that employed you for two summers in a row, taking American tourists on guided tours around Paris and to Versailles. We appreciate such qualities, my dear Arthur. The world lacks men who are capable of lending a hand, when the day comes, to save a civilisation that’s sinking into horror and lies.’

  Arthur, who was instinctively wary, said guardedly, ‘Oh, I’m not at all a leader of men.’

  Mrs Porter interrupted them, tapping her crystal glass with her knife.

  ‘Mr Morgan, on your left you have a small plate on which your bread should be placed, bread which you have left on the tablecloth, disregarding all hygiene.’

  ‘There are many things you’ll have to teach me, Mrs Porter,’ Arthur said mirthlessly. ‘I’m relying on you. Bread on the tablecloth is an old French tradition which I realise must be left behind at the border, but I do have two excuses, one being that it’s French bread, and the other that we’re in the middle of the ocean, where borders are notoriously difficult to define.’

  ‘What did she say?’ Porter asked.

  His wife leant over and shouted in his ear, ‘The young man put his bread on the tablecloth.’

  ‘What the hell does that matter?’ Porter shouted back just as loudly, twisting his head left and right to make sure the neighbouring tables had heard, and were more amused than appalled.

  Disconcerted, Minerva hung her head, her facial muscles tensing and relaxing several times, as if slowly swallowing her husband’s rudeness and steeling herself for a deadly last word to end their disagreement.

  Porter, with an impassivity that was not entirely feigned, put his hand on Arthur’s forearm.

  ‘Do you know why the best Bordeaux are drunk on board Her Majesty’s ships?’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘After two or three years of crossing the Atlantic, gently cradled in their racks, they have acquired, without losing their youth, a sort of suppleness and grace to which no wine aged in a cellar can ever aspire.’

  Three tables away, Augusta’s laughter was making heads turn. Arthur could see the back of her head, and Elizabeth and Getulio in profile. Opposite her was a young man with black curly hair that tumbled in waves over his left ear and eyes of a magnificent blue. The discreet cross pinned to the lapel of his black jacket identified him as one of the young priests who had embarked at Cork and vanished into the liner’s second-class quarters. Arthur decided that Elizabeth would have no difficulty in seducing him, if she decided to put her bet to the test. Augusta too was in her element, dressed to kill: her piled-up hair, held in place by a comb, uncovered a disarmingly slender neck that was emphasised by the movement of her hand to adjust the comb each time she laughed. The priest looked unsettled by the conversation of his three lunch companions, who were very likely his age but had a profoundly different way of looking at the world. To conquer his timidity, and the embarrassment that swept over him at each outburst of giggling from Elizabeth and Augusta, he drank too quickly from the glass that Getulio kept continuously filled and, with his face blazing, laughed automatically at jokes he could only have half understood.

  ‘Your two girlfriends are entirely charming,’ Porter said.

  ‘“Girlfriend” is slightly premature, as I’ve only known them since we left Cherbourg.’

  ‘It won’t be long before you get to know them better. If you intend to win the heart of one of them, I advise you to provoke a quarrel between them. They’re partners, and if you don’t divide them you’ll be caught between the frying pan and the fire, and find yourself cooked like that fellow, who looks as if he’s about to explode any minute.’

  ‘That’s one of the Irish priests who came on board at Cork.’

  ‘In which case his goose is certainly cooked. When they drop him, he won’t bounce back.’

  Minerva Porter was pretending not to be interested in her husband’s conversation but was listening with half an ear, looking for an opening that would let her go for his throat.

  ‘A priest, that pretty boy with the curls? I hardly think so. Where’s his white collar? It’s what I’ve been saying for years: the real fifth column isn’t the Communists, it’s the papists. If we don’t look out, America will be Catholic within a generation: we’ll have ourselves a Catholic president, a Catholic administration and Catholic representatives. I know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Minerva’s always been very pessimistic,’ Porter said. ‘She’s a Seventh Day Adventist. You get my drift.’

  Arthur did not get his drift. All he got was that Mrs Porter was an appalling bigot and that he had been right to loathe her at first sight.

  ‘You’ll see. In a few short years, if we don’t make sure we defend ourselves, the Pope’s secret legions will have us under their thumb.’

  Porter settled for a heavy sigh: he had heard his wife’s speech a hundred times before and no longer even bothered to contradict it. Observing an ironic gleam in Arthur’s eyes, he lowered his voice.

  ‘Don’t take offence. Minerva’s a nut. The ability to let storms blow over is a great sign of wisdom in life. We’ll meet at Beresford, where I come from time to time to give a lecture on what’s happening in the world of diplomacy. I’d be happy to talk to you again. Young Europeans of your age need to understand the United States’ policies.’

  ‘And the United States needs to understand European policies.’

  ‘That’s more difficult when one’s in a superior position. But let’s not forget we’re all Europeans somewhere along the line.’

  ‘Not all of us.’

  ‘Yet another problem! We’ll talk about it, but not in front of Mrs Porter, whose mind is rather too closed on that particular subject. I hope you like desserts. That’s my innocent side coming out. There has to be one; I can’t just be the guy they say does all the President’s dirty work. Waiter! The dessert trolley, please.’

  *

  Arthur was never to forget Porter’s lustful indulgence when he had a plate overflowing with profiteroles put in front of him. Minerva’s derisive comments about her husband’s disregard of his diet were lost in the general clamour.

  That afternoon, when lunch with Porter was over, Arthur glimpsed Getulio in the smoking room with some bridge players, then discovered in his cabin that he could telephone Augusta, who, if she was there, would be alone.

  ‘Oh! It’s you!’ she said, feigning surprise.

  ‘Who else would it be?’

  ‘You have the same voice as Father Griffith.’

  ‘Aren’t you and Elizabeth ashamed of corrupting a man of God who has never come across the Devil’s children before?’

  ‘But that’s exactly the point! He has to be initiated before he sets foot on American soil, where his virtue will face the gravest tests.’

  What an actress she was! Yet, faced with an audience of more than three people, she closed up like a sensitive plant and her usually so expressive face, always on the verge of laughter or tears, lost its animation to the point where those who didn’t know her felt sorry for Getulio having a sister infinitely less brilliant than he was. By contrast,
at the other end of a telephone, staring into someone’s eyes across a table, accompanying Arthur on the promenade deck (leaning so heavily on his arm that she almost let herself be carried) she deployed with rare vivacity such an arsenal of seductive wiles that even a man of considerable experience, or one who was merely blasé, rapidly found himself unable to resist her. Arthur did not yet know – and would only understand much later – that the attraction exerted by Augusta was the attraction of danger, a sensation that even a woman as attractive and intelligent as Elizabeth could never offer.

  ‘Arturo, are you there? Who are you dreaming about?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘In broad daylight! Wait … I need to pull the curtains.’

  ‘There aren’t any curtains.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I have the same cabin as you do. We live in a submarine.’

  She let out a long sigh, followed by a silence.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re serious. What were you doing up on deck with Elizabeth at midnight? Her cap blew off and you didn’t even offer to dive in and get it for her.’

  ‘I hesitated for a couple of seconds, then it was too late.’

  ‘I have to go. Getulio’s coming back and he’ll be furious that I’m talking to you while he’s not here.’

  ‘Getulio’s playing bridge with three Americans in the smoking room.’

  ‘Not again! Oh my God, he’s going to ruin us!’

  Was she in the dark, or his accomplice? Uncertainty hovered over the relations between brother and sister (without the least ambiguity being imaginable), yet if, when no external force threatened them, their attitude to each other slid towards indifference, as soon as any sort of peril materialised they displayed the most brazen solidarity.

  ‘The worst thing is, he won’t be able to afford a rose for you to wear at dinner every night.’

  ‘I thought of that. Before we left I paid for five roses in advance. And I did the right thing. Do you know, last night I put my rose in water in my toothglass, and first thing this morning it had disappeared. Isn’t that extraordinary?’

  Her allusion to her rose revived Arthur’s confused memory of the previous night and the image returned of the flower pinned to Augusta’s blouse that had floated across the darkness of his cabin in a halo and vanished through the partition. Arthur had never believed in dreams and even less in apparitions, yet now these two stories, of the cap and the rose, had opened a void in front of him. Instinct urged him to step back, not to try to understand, to erase everything and put Augusta’s visions down to coincidence. Or to fear her the way he had learnt to fear, during the war, a friend of his mother’s called Émilie whose visits always preceded the news of someone else dying.

  ‘Arturo, you’re not listening to me!’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Something’s changed in your voice.’

  ‘My throat’s hurting.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘I’ve made an important resolution.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Not over the phone, there might be spies listening in to us. Meet me in the salon. In any case, I hate using the phone. It gives me a sore throat.’

  Augusta laughed quietly.

  ‘You don’t often say funny things like that. You’d be much better if you were less serious. Arturo-my-love, we can’t see each other now. I always sleep for two hours in the afternoon. I’m in bed. In my nightgown.’

  ‘I’m on my way!’

  ‘Getulio will kill you if he finds you. No. Wait for tonight. I’ll be at the bar with Elizabeth at six o’clock. Then we’ll have dinner. Now hang up and don’t call again. I need to sleep.’

  *

  An ocean liner is a prison with imperious timetables, many prohibitions, drip-fed pleasures, a fixed population that goes round and round in circles in the cramped exercise yards, monitored by the stewards, and nowhere to be on your own apart from your cell-like cabin, assuming you are lucky enough not to share it with a stranger of either sex whose particular smell you are unlikely to like. News from the outside world – but does that world still exist beyond the horizon’s perfect circle? You very quickly start to doubt it, as soon as you’re out of sight of land and the despairing beams of the last lighthouse – is filtered through the on-board newspaper. The captain and his officers make sure that the four pages with their Queen Mary masthead mention no shipwrecks and restrict themselves to the mundane (‘We have the honour of having on board with us the Count of Thingamajig who is taking up his post at Washington’) and the social, some party or a recital by some diva singing for her supper, or in this case her first-class ticket.

  The captain is the ship’s spiritual leader. At dinner he gathers around him a list of guests who wait to be invited, not as a privilege but as a right, to his table. He is generally of a sportive disposition and over his career as a navigator he has perfected a number of anecdotes to entertain a new audience at each crossing. Unluckily – and fairly frequently – just as the roast is served, a midshipman appears with a whispered message. God’s representative at sea frowns, puts down his napkin, and asks his guests to excuse him: he is needed on the bridge. It’s nothing serious, but he’s not a man to leave important matters to anyone else. He disappears from the dining room, followed by the midshipman, who glances right and left to see if he can spot any good-looking women. The diners left behind experience a mild anxiety. The empty cover is whisked away by the maître d’hôtel himself, who simultaneously asks the guests to move up and fill the gap. No one says the word ‘Titanic’ which is in all their minds. There is always some well-informed idiot ready to tell his fellow diners that after a particularly hot summer the Arctic thaw has produced a steep increase in the number of icebergs in the North Atlantic. The rest of the dining room haven’t noticed the captain’s swift exit and go on talking loudly, suppressing their giggles, calling over each other’s heads, but at the top table an oppressive silence falls. The privileged scramble to finish their roast, to say no to cheese and dessert and the glass of champagne – from the captain’s own reserve – and disperse to their cabins, taking care not to show any hastiness that might provoke a sudden panic in which they would no longer be the first to save themselves. One man stuffs his pockets with jewellery; his wife dithers, unable to decide between her mink, her cashmere sweaters, and a sable-lined raincoat, finally grabs one at random and hurries out behind her husband to the upper deck, where the silent row of lifeboats sits, lashed under tarpaulins. It’s a superb evening. The Queen Mary is a picture as she steams ahead in the moonlight, and one can easily imagine her captain – having perfected his exit for whenever his guests are too dreary for words – relaxing in his cabin with the purser, sipping a brandy and water and smoking a Cuban cigar while he listens to something by Bing Crosby on the gramophone.

  Arthur was discovering that the liner was really a very big toy for grown-ups. He explored its secrets, stumbling across a companionway that took him down to the deck where he should have been, then climbing back up via B deck, where the Irish priests were reading their newspapers and smoking their pipes. This stratified world was a picture of order, health and peace. From his bridge the captain reigned like an unseen god over a happy subject populace whose only complaint was the quality of the coffee, which was truly ghastly. Modern societies would do well to follow its example, but nobody dares say so.

  Walking past the smoking room, Arthur glimpsed Getulio slumped in his chair, his legs extended under the bridge table, alone, the trolley at his side scattered with empty glasses, his face unpleasantly sullen. His fine hands played distractedly with the cards, shuffling, fanning them out, picking them up with the speed of an illusionist, then cutting the deck into two halves that he peeled back and released, pattering together, to shuffle them again. Arthur remembered Getulio’s pretended clumsiness with the three other bridge players the night before. The Brazilian’s dexterity when he thought no one was watchi
ng confirmed Professor Concannon’s warning. He was reeling in the dupes. But who could blame him? He was only cheating those who, seeing his feigned amateurishness, were aiming to cheat him. However skilled he was, the risk was no less great. As with all real players, the cards were his drug, and he needed his fix. Arthur put his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You look more than annoyed.’

  ‘I don’t know anything more tedious than playing with idiots who take you for an idiot.’

  ‘You’ll get your own back before we get to New York.’

  ‘I damn well hope so! I’ve lost more than I’d like. And it’s madness staying shut up all afternoon with those creeps! I loathe these crossings.’

  ‘You’ll get another chance tomorrow.’

  ‘No, really, the whole thing’s just ridiculous.’

  ‘Your luck will change.’

  ‘When it doesn’t change, it’s like a pit in front of you. Don’t mention anything to Augusta.’

  ‘Come and stretch your legs on the promenade deck.’

  Getulio put on the Inverness cape that made him look so elegant and walked with Arthur to the upper deck, which was deserted at the end of the afternoon. They paced up and down for a good fifteen minutes without speaking. Getulio became breathless. A burning red scar yawned at the horizon. Behind the Queen Mary the ocean poured into a chasm of darkness under a long slab of clouds that trapped in their folds the last lingering gleams of daylight.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll see the green ray,’ Getulio said. ‘That would suit me. I’ve got a wish to make.’