The Hippopotamus Read online

  “Shut up, Corporal,” we snapped in chorus, “and watch the road.”

  The CO had woken up and puked fiercely all over Mi­chael’s mess-jacket.

  What happened to that driver I have no idea. For all I know he did become leader of the Labour Party. I never took much of an interest in these things. It is a certain truth that they didn’t make me Poet Laureate and that they wouldn’t if I were the only British poet left alive, which, as a matter of fact, I hap­pen to believe I am. Michael left the army, with me, the mo­ment our two years were up. Ten years later he had married Lady Anne and within another two the noble father-in-law’s embolism burst and Michael bought Swafford off Alec, the new Lord Bressingham, a sneaky young tyke who looked a cross be­tween Bryan Forbes and Laurence Harvey and was only too pleased to fold the cash in his lizard-skin wallet and skip to a flat in Berkeley Square. It was a kinky little caprice of fate, all of a piece with Logan’s guiding star, that Alec Bressingham then spent the next five years giving that money right back in the form of gambling chips at the string of casinos that Michael then ran in Mayfair. Alec even contrived to shoot himself in a Logan-owned hotel. Anne hadn’t worried too much, the lad was only the remotest kind of cousin and she had always sus­pected him of anti-Semitism, a taint she could smell anywhere, like so many who marry into the tribe. She acquitted me of the vice, however, probably because I was so brazen in hailing Mi­chael as “you old Jew.” She is usually pleased to see me, so long as I behave myself.

  I finished my inspection of her.

  “And it’s just as tremendous to see you, Annie,” I replied. “You’re looking younger. Lost some of that fat.”

  “Michael’s in town. Hopes to make it down for next week. Sends you a punch in the belly.”

  I noticed she had half an eye still on the window. I followed the direction of her gaze. The South Lawn, as I assume you know, slopes down to a lake, in front of which, on rising ground, stands a miniature version of the Villa Rotunda, built as a kind of summerhouse. Anne saw me watching her, shrugged and smiled.

  “David’s in there,” she said. “Ted, I think it’s simply the best thing that you’ve come.”

  “Ah,” I said, non-committally.

  “I’m so worried about him. I ought to tell you . . . it’s a little strange . . .”

  She broke off. Simon was standing in the doorway.

  “Mother, I’m going off to Wymondham to see Robbie. That okay?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “I might stay the night.”

  “Fine, fine. Make sure you tell Podmore you won’t be in to dinner . . .”

  He nodded and left. Anne sat down.

  “Army, I understand?” I said, joining her on the sofa.

  She seemed confused. “Army? What army?”

  I pointed to the door. “Simon.”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

  “Seems mad,” I said, waffling on to give her a chance to un­burden herself of whatever it was she wished to unburden her­self. “I only went in because they would have hurled me in the slammer if I’d refused. The idea of someone actually wanting to sign up when it isn’t compulsory . . . done his Wosbie, has he?”

  “No . . . it’s not Wosbie any more. It’s the . . . the RCB, or some such.”

  “Yes,” I growled affably, quite content to play the part of the trumpeting old war-horse. “Quite. ‘The Professionals,’ they call themselves these days. An ability to keep the port decanter from touching the table as it goes around is not enough. You have to be able to speak Cantonese, strip a tank-engine, lead a discussion group on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and know your men’s Christian names.”

  “Ted,” she said at last, a pleading note in her voice, “you’re a poet. An artist. I know you like to . . . to make fun of yourself, but that’s what you are.”

  “That’s what I am.”

  “I’ve never understood much of your work, but then of course one isn’t supposed to, is one?”

  “Well . . .”

  “But I do know that you must think a great deal about . . . about, oh I don’t know . . . ideas.”

  “A young poet once said to Mallarmé, ‘I had the most mar­vellous idea for a poem this afternoon.’ ‘Oh dear,’ said Mal­larmé, ‘what a pity.’ ‘What do you mean?’ said the young poet, stung. ‘Well,’ said Mallarmé, ‘poems aren’t made of ideas, are they? They’re made of words.’”

  “Oh, do be serious, Ted, just for once. Please.”

  I had thought I was being serious, but I duly switched on a pensive expression and leaned forward.

  “We’re all rather concerned that David is turning out oddly.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “It’s nothing,” Anne put her hands to her cheeks like a flushed maiden, “it’s nothing you can put your finger on. He’s an absolute dear. Terribly kind, terribly thoughtful. Everyone thinks him perfectly sweet. He’s never in trouble at school. He just doesn’t seem to be quite . . . of this world.”

  “Daydreamer.”

  “Well, that’s not quite it. I think he’s not . . . connected to us. Does that make sense?”

  “It’s an age when privacy counts, you know.”

  “At a dinner party last weekend he said in a very clear voice to the wife of our local MP, ‘Which animal do you think has the longest penis?’ She gave a hysterical laugh and snapped the stem of her wine glass. But he persisted. ‘No, which do you think? Which animal?’ At last, out of desperation, she suggested the blue whale. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The male rabbit-flea. The erect penis of the male rabbit-flea is two-thirds the length of its body. Don’t you think that’s the most marvellous thing?’ Then he saw we were all staring at him and he flushed scarlet and said: ‘You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not very good at conversation.’ I mean, Ted. Wouldn’t you call that extraordinary?”

  “Certainly,” I said. “I mean, poor female rabbit-flea. I trust she has been blessed with accommodation elastic enough for such a frantic attachment. But in truth,” I added hastily, for I saw this was not the answer she required, “David is fifteen. Fif­teen-year-olds are always odd. They like to rattle the cage, to tug on the leash, to find their . . . their space, I believe the ex­pression is.”

  “You’ll know what I mean when you’ve spent any time with him. So distant, so detached. As if he’s a visitor here.”

  “Well, I’m a visitor here,” I said, rising, “and it’s a lovely feeling. But certainly I’ll observe him if that’s what you want. I expect it’ll turn out that he’s in love with the gamekeeper’s daughter or some such.”

  “Hardly. She has a hare-lip.”

  “That needn’t be a bar to love. There was a whore in Rupert Street had a hare-lip. Gave the most delicious . . .”

  I decided to leave the story for another time, bowed a crisp farewell and set my compass for the South Lawn.

  David had emerged from the Villa Rotunda and was now on the lawn in front of it, lying on his stomach and chewing a plantain stalk.

  “Good bath, good nap?” he asked.

  “Didn’t manage the latter,” I said, lowering myself on to the bottom step of the stone stairs that ran up to the summerhouse.

  He looked at me through squinting eyes. “The summer-house suits you,” he said. “Same noble proportions.”

  Cheeky sod.

  “You speak truer than you know,” I replied, looking over my shoulder at the structure behind. “John Betjeman’s nick­name for me was the Villain Rotunda.”

  He smiled dutifully and removed the stalk from his mouth. “Have you been crying?” he asked.

  “Touch of hay-fever. The air is thick with pollen and other unnatural pollutants. My soft-tissues are geared for London, you see, with its wholesome sulphur and nutritious nitrogen.”

  He nodded. “I saw you through the window with Mummy.”

>   “Oh ah.”

  “Were you talking about me?”

  “What on earth makes you think that?”

  “Oh,” he stared down at a money-spider chasing around his finger tips, “she worries about me.”

  “If you were advertising for a mother in the Situations Va­cant column of a newspaper and wanted to frame the job de­scription you couldn’t come up with a phrase better than ‘Must be prepared to worry twenty-four hours a day.’ It’s what moth­ers do, Davey. And if for ten minutes they stop worrying, that worries them, so they redouble their worry.”

  “Well, I know that . . . but she worries more about me than about Simon or the twins. I see it in the way she looks at me.”

  “Yes, but the twins have got a nanny, haven’t they? And Simon, with the best will in the world, Simon is . . .”

  “Simon is what?”

  I hesitated to use the words “ordinary” or “dull” or even “unintelligent” which were probably unfair.

  “Simon is more conventional, isn’t he? You know, head boy, rugger, army, all that. He’s . . . safe.”

  “Meaning I’m unsafe?”

  “I bloody well hope so. I’m not having any godchild of mine going about the place being anything other than wild and dan­gerous.”

  David smiled. “I suppose Mummy told you about the din­ner party the other night?”

  “Something about a rabbit-flea?”

  “Why are people embarrassed about sexual things?”

  “I’m not.”

  “No?”

  “Certainly not,” I said, taking out a cigarette.

  “You have sex a great deal, don’t you? So everyone says.”

  “A great deal? Depends what you mean. I take it when I can get it, that’s for sure.”

  “Simon says he saw you with Mrs. Brooke-Cameron once.”

  “Did he? Did he indeed? I trust we put on an entertaining show.”

  He stood up and brushed the grass from him. “Shall we go for a walk?”

  “Why not? You can cut me a stout ash-plant and tell me the names of the wild flowers.”

  We headed towards the lake and copses beyond.

  “In my opinion,” he said, “people are more embarrassed about love than about sex.”

  “Ah. What makes you think that?”

  “Well, nobody talks about it, do they?”

  “I thought they talked about little else. Every film, every pop song, every television programme. Love, love, love. Make love, not tea. All you need is love. Love is a many-splendoured thing. Love makes the world go to pieces.”

  “Well, that’s like saying they talk about religion because they say ‘Christ!’ and ‘Oh my God’ a lot. They mention love, but they don’t actually talk about it.”

  “And I wonder,” I said, “if you have ever been in love?”

  “Oh yes,” said David. “Since I can remember.”

  “Mm.”

  We walked on in silence for a while, skirting the lake. The skin of the water was twitching with waterboatmen, dragonflies and a tangle of skating insects I could not identify. A heavy, meaty smell of water, mud and rot rose from the margins. David was looking all around as he walked, eyes darting in every direction. It wasn’t quite as if he was looking for any­thing, I thought. I was reminded instead of a game called Hec­tor’s Room I’d played up in Scotland once at the Crawfords’ place. You ever played it? You are shown a room for a minute and then you bugger off while everyone else goes in and makes one small adjustment each, they move a lamp, take away a wastepaper-bin, swap a couple of pictures around, introduce a new object, that order of thing. Then you have to go back in and identify as many of the alterations as you can. The Crawfords had first played it in their son Hector’s room, hence the name, and the real design, I have always thought, was to show the men and women exactly where each other’s bedrooms lay, to facilitate late-night handkerchief-pandkerchief. That’s cer­tainly the only benefit I ever got out of it. Anyway, there’s a very particular expression on the face of a player when he re­turns to an altered room, a slow smile, and a sweeping, darting gaze, with sudden suspicious but amused whippings-around of the head, as if the furniture and fitments might still be caught in the act of moving. David’s manner reminded me quite pre­cisely of that moment in the game.

  “I suppose what I meant,” I said, “was more ‘Have you ever been in love?’ foul phrase though it may be.”

  David had stopped and was scrutinizing fungus at the base of an alder.

  “Of course,” he said. “Ever since I can remember.”

  “Hum. Let me be coarser still, Davey. Have you ever been in lust?”

  He looked up at me and said slowly, “Ever since I can re­member.”

  “Is that right? And have you ever done anything about it?”

  He coloured a little, but said fiercely, “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Is there a particular favoured one?”

  “Do you remember,” he said, “that Boxing Day Shoot four years ago, when those cartridges were tampered with and all that confetti flew out?”

  “Vividly.”

  “Everyone thought it must have been the New Age types that lived in the East Lodge. The ones that made lutes and kept a goat.”

  “It was mentioned, I remember.”

  “Anyway, it wasn’t them.”

  “No?”

  As we wound our way back to the house he told me what he had done. He hasn’t sworn me to silence or any such nonsense, but never having been wildly entertained by the pompous rit­ual of shooting, I have absolutely no intention of telling anyone else anyway. Besides yourself of course. I will, over the week­end, work it up into an amusing anecdote for you and send it separately.

  It was only later that evening, while I was changing for din­ner, that it occurred to me that he had never answered my last question to him.

  III

  20th July 1992

  too damned early

  It’s Monday now, getting on for seven in the morning and I’ve spent a great deal of the night writing this letter.

  I was in a foul mood after dinner. Nobody stayed up to drink with me and nobody wanted to play cards or do anything fun. I went upstairs and moped in my room.

  It’s hard to explain such a fit of the sullens. You can try and rationalise it. It may be that I am blue-devilled because I feel guilty about abusing the Logans’ hospitality: I am, let us be frank, acting as your paid spy. This seems an unlikely explana­tion for my current state of mind, which I think owes more to Anno Domini.

  I lay in the room, under the great baldachin of a tester, chas­ing the summer-night itches around my body. One little prickle awoke another and another, until I was bucking on my bed like that little girl in the exorcism film. The same thing went on in my mind, mental itches popping like bubbles. Not enough whisky before bed, this was the problem.

  At sixty-six I am entering, I thought, the last phase of my active physical life. My body, on the move, resembles in sight and sound nothing so much as a bin-liner full of yoghurt; my ability to concentrate, the only skill aside from egotism that a poet needs, has faded. Marriages have gone phut and profes­sionally I am regarded as a joke. The Right-Wing Poet they call me. Typical arsing impertinence. Just because I don’t sub­scribe to all the mealy-mouthed orthodoxies of the academic cosa nostra, just because I am a sucker for a title and a well-bred air, just because I know the difference between politics and poetics, just because I have some sense of national belong­ing, just because I think Kipling is a better poet than Pound (a view, incidentally, that even boat-shoe-wearing academics have been coming round to of late), just because, in short, I have my own brain on my own shoulders, they choose to ig­nore and belittle me. Fuck ’em. Fuck ‘em all. No need to: they’re already fucked. But none the less I have this feeling, this feeling I canno
t quite be rid of, a feeling that I have, at this period in my life, been turfed off the newspaper for a good rea­son—no, that’s not it, clearly I have been sacked for a good rea­son—what I mean is that I got myself sacked quite deliberately.

  And the daftness of things—that was keeping me awake too. You must have experienced one of those moments when life seems limitlessly absurd? Especially with your current sen­tence of death hanging over you. I find they come most often with me when I am looking from the window of a moving car or train. You catch sight of something perfectly ordinary, such as it might be bluebells nodding on an embankment, or a family picnicking in a lay-by, and suddenly your mind can no longer support the notion of a whole world full of life and objects and fellow-humans. The very idea of a universe appears monstrous and you become unable to participate. What on earth does that tree think it is up to? Why is that heap of gravel sitting there so patiently? What am I doing, staring out of a window? Why are all these molecules of glass hanging together so as to allow me to look through them? The moment passes, of course, and we return to the proper realm of our dull thoughts and our duller newspapers: in less than a second we are part of the world again, ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of a government minister or lured into caring about some asinine new movement in conceptual art; once again we become a part of the great compost heap. Our absence is so fleeting and our control over it so negligible that an act of will cannot repro­duce the experience.

  Peter Cambric, whom I knew pretty well in the seventies, a bit before your time probably, was harried until his death by the story of a hunt he went on in 1964 in South Africa. He bagged a couple of elephants, alone enough to damn him in today’s eyes, but managed to pick off a couple of bushmen too, which even back then was considered pushing it somewhat. A hundred years ago one would have been able to round off such an anecdote with the words, “The whole thing was hushed up, of course.” In 1964, though, things got out and Peter’s life was made miserable everywhere he went: his name, rather like that of poor Profumo or one of the Watergate band, was for ever linked with this one scandal. The thing of it was that Peter was always a magnificent shot and rumour would have it that he had taken good aim at these natives. This was a little hard to credit, for Cambric came from a progressive family, spoke from his seat in the Lords in the Liberal interest and consistently voted against hanging. The construction put on the affair was that he had mistaken the Kalahari clicking of the bushmen for the call of an ostrich of some sort. This was enough to allow Cambric entrée into the drawing rooms of the mighty but not quite enough to free him of his whiff of impropriety. Any­way—I draw breath—all this has a point, because one Chel­tenham Gold Cup day in the mid-seventies I shared a car back to London with Peter and we sat in the back getting thor­oughly nasty on a clutch of freebie bottles of Hine or Martell or whichever cognac house it was that sponsored the race in those days. Cambric confessed to me that he had taken careful and deliberate aim but that he had an excuse. It seems that one of these strange moments I have described stole over him of a sudden. The whole scene, the veld, the trees, the game, the bearers, the very sky above, all became quite unreal to him. Ex­istence stopped meaning anything. Life itself was no longer of even passing significance; neither his own nor anybody else’s. The moment he had loosed off the second bullet, however, he had come to his senses and dropped the rifle, breathing “Oh my God, oh my God,” as the truth sank in.