Christmas approached with no news of my aunt, not even by the medium of a Christmas card. A card, of course, arrived from Koffiefontein, a rather unlikely card with an old church seen across an acre of snow, and a comic one from Major Charge which showed goldfish in a bowl being fed by Father Christmas; it was delivered by hand to save the stamp[209]. The local store sent me a tear-off calendar with a different treasure of British art for each month, the colours bright and shiny as though they had been washed in Omo, and on December 23 the postman brought a large envelope which when I opened it at breakfast shed a lot of silvery tinsel into my plate, so that I couldnt finish my marmalade. The tinsel came from an Eiffel Tower which Father Christmas was climbing with his sack over his shoulder. Under the printed Meilleurs Vœux[210] was only one name, written in block capitals: WORDSWORTH. He must have seen my aunt in Paris, for how else could he have obtained my address? At the bank I had always used the official Christmas cards to send to my best clients, with the banks coat of arms stamped on the cover and inside a picture of the main office in Cheapside or a photograph of the board of directors. Now that I had retired there were few people to whom I posted cards: Miss Keene, of course, Major Charge perforce. I sent one also to my doctor, my dentist, to the vicar of St. Johns and my former chief cashier who had become manager of a branch in Nottingham.
A year before my mother had come to me for Christmas dinner, and without the aid of Chicken I had cooked a turkey quite successfully under her directions, then we had sat almost silent, like strangers in a restaurant-car, both of us feeling that we had eaten too much, until she left at ten. Afterwards I had, as was my habit, attended the midnight service with carols at St. Johns. This year, since I had no wish to cook a meal for myself alone, I booked a table for dinner at the Abbey Restaurant off Latimer Road. It proved a mistake. I had not realized they were mounting a special menu with turkey and plum pudding to attract the lonely and the nostalgic from all over Southwood. Before I left home I had rung my aunts number in the vain hope that she might have returned just in time for Christmas, but the bell tolled and tolled in the empty liat, and I could imagine the noise setting all the Venetian glasses atinkle.
The first person I saw when I came into the restaurant, which was a very small one with heavy beams and stained-glass windows and a piece of mistletoe in an undangerous position over the toilet, was the admiral sitting all alone. He had obviously dined early and he wore a scarlet paper crown a torn cracker lay on his plate with the remains of plum pudding. I bowed to him and he said angrily, Who are you? At a table beyond him I could see Major Charge, who was frowning over what looked like a political pamphlet.
I am Pulling, I said.
Pulling?
Late of the bank.[211]
There was an angry flush below the red paper hat, and an empty Chianti bottle stood on the table. I added, Happy Christmas, Admiral.
Good God, man, he said, havent you read the news?
I managed to get by, though the channel between the tables was very narrow, and found to my distress that my table had been reserved next to Major Charges.
Good evening, Major, I said. I began to wonder whether I was the only civilian in the place.
I have a favour to ask of you, Major Charge said.
Of course any help I am afraid I no longer keep up with the stock market
Of course any help I am afraid I no longer keep up with the stock market
Whos talking about the stock market? You dont suppose Id have anything to do with the City? Theyve sold this country down the river.[212] Im talking about my fish.
Miss Truman interrupted us to take my order. Perhaps to encourage her customers, she was wearing a paper cap, vaguely military in shape but yellow in colour. She was a large boisterous woman who liked to be called Peter; the little restaurant had always seemed too small to contain her and her partner as well a woman named Nancy who was timid and retiring and perhaps for that reason showed herself only occasionally framed at the service hatch.
Unable to look elsewhere, I made some complimentary reference to her cap.
Like the old days, she said, looking pleased, and I remembered that she had been an officer in the womens Navy.
How ambiguous my feelings were. I realized in those moments how deep was the disturbance my aunt had caused. This was my familiar world the little local world of ageing people to which Miss Keene longed to return, where one read of danger only in the newspapers and the deepest change to be expected was a change of government and the biggest scandal I could remember one defecting clerk who had lost too much money at the Earls Court greyhound track. It was more my country than England could be, for I had never seen the Satanic mills or visited the northern wastes, and in my way I had been happy here; yet I was looking at Peter (Miss Truman) with an ironic eye, as though I had borrowed my aunts vision and saw with her eyes. Beyond Latimer Road there stretched another world the world of Wordsworth and Curran and Monsieur Dambreuse and Colonel Hakim and the mysterious Mr. Visconti who had dressed up as a monsignor to escape the Allied troops, yes, and of my father too, saying Dolly darling to Miss Paterson with his last breath on the auberge floor and gaining a lifelong devotion by dying in her arms. To whom now could I apply for a visa to that land with my aunt gone?