The Girl in a Swing Read online

Scandinavian Society - there is, or was, a society for everything

  at Oxford, including apiary and medieval mysticism and

  bought a grammar and some Parlophone records. It

  was not a very shrewd choice for the expenditure of extra

  mental energy, for Danish is the difficult language of a tiny

  European minority and has little literature of international

  importance: anyway the Danes all speak English. I never

  30

  really thought out my reasons, but what I think now is that

  Kirsten's misfortune had affected me more deeply than I

  knew, and this was a kind of obscure tribute to her. Under

  pressure of Schools I dropped Danish half-way through my

  second year; but I was to return to it later, and that to some

  purpose.

  I was happy at Oxford, of course - almost everyone is.

  Like others, I made friends, met interesting people and did

  a good many things besides work. At first I continued fencing,

  but soon gave that up. It proved, of course, a great deal

  more competitive and demanding than at Bradfield, and having

  realized that without a lot oT application I had no

  chance of a half-blue, I decided that there were better things

  to do with my time.

  Swimming, however, was another matter. There was no

  need to join the swimming club or be drawn into any cutthroat

  atmosphere. At Bradfield the fifty-yard expanse of

  the open-air bath on a summer morning had been good. The

  rivers of Oxford - watery, conducive lanes running between

  willows, buttercups and meadow-sweet - were better still,

  and offered a variety of delightful choices. All one needed was

  a friend with a towel and one's clothes in a punt (or sometimes

  a rowing-boat). I swam from the Victoria Arms to the

  Parks; from the Rollers to Magdalen Bridge; from Folly

  Bridge to Iffley Lock; from the Trout the length of Port

  Meadow. I even toyed with the idea of swimming down the

  culverted Trill Mill stream, underground from Paradise Square

  to Christ Church gardens, but concluded that it would be too

  dark and claustrophobic. It always seemed to me strange

  that I seldom came upon anyone else engaged in such a

  pleasant sport. Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. (No

  doubt the multi were all slogging competitively up and

  down the chlorinated Cowley baths.)

  Towards the end of my second year I began at last to

  think seriously about what I was going to do when I went

  down. The hard fact was that I would have to set about earning

  my own living as soon as possible. Although my father

  (now in his fifties and somewhat indifferent health) was not

  badly off, and the china business in Newbury was as sound as

  31

  his good sense and hard work had made it, nevertheless, like

  virtually everyone else of the middle classes, he had found

  the years since the war increasingly difficult. Though he

  never referred to it, I knew that almost all his capital had

  gone into educating my sister Florence and myself. Flick, as

  we called her at home, had done an honest Beta double plus

  job both at Malvern and Durham, taken a very decent Second

  in History and was now teaching at a school near Bristol.

  Strictly speaking she was off my father's hands, but I knew

  that he was augmenting her salary with a small personal

  allowance; nor did I grudge it, for Flick and I were very fond

  of each other (as far as I can see, people don't always feel

  warm affection for their brothers and sisters) and I both admired

  and felt proud of her. She had turned out a pretty girl,

  out-going and warm, and far better at getting on with people,

  young or old, than I should ever be. On coming down she

  had unhesitatingly gone straight into the hurly-burly, and I

  had never heard her mention the possibility of doing anything

  else. What with her example and the financial situation,

  there could not really be any question of my 'looking round

  for a year or two'.

  Contrary to what many people vaguely suppose, fluency

  in modern languages is not good for much commercial exploitation.

  Valuable as an adjunct, it is not a great deal of

  use in itself. Neither the Foreign Office nor the Civil Service

  attracted me, and teaching certainly did not. The last thing I

  felt I had any bent for was putting myself - or anything else

  - across to groups of youngsters. In this situation, as the

  wind of the impending adult world of getting and spending

  began to blow more bleakly about my ears, I began, as have

  many others similarly placed, to perceive in a new light the

  merits of a modest, sheltered valley which I had hitherto disregarded,

  but now saw as having a good deal to recommend

  it. There was an established, respectable family business.

  Why on earth not go into it?

  One August evening after dinner, when my parents, Flick

  and I were drinking coffee on the verandah and looking out

  towards the dry, high-summer downs, I told them that this

  was what I now had in mind. No one had anything to say

  32

  against it. My father's questions were directed simply to

  making sure of my motives: he wanted to be satisfied that

  this was what I really wished to do; that there was nothing

  else I was sacrificing for his sake and that the idea hadn't

  stemmed merely from a sense of duty or filial obligation. As

  we talked, I realized that in fact there was a good deal more

  in my mind than the attraction of a safe billet. To begin

  with, it wasn't all that safe, and I knew it. The trade would

  have to be learned, and not very long after I had grasped it

  - certainly within the next ten years - I was going to find

  myself, as Jerome K. Jerome or someone puts it, 'in sole

  command of H.M.S. Horrible'. All business is competitive

  and, as in a game of backgammon, uncertainty is something

  that the most adroit have to learn to live with. To say the

  least, I had not so far shown myself much of a lad for the

  rough-and-tumble. Would the business be safe in my hands?

  If not, my parents and I would be the first to know it, and

  the next would be various people who had known my father

  and mother for years and me all my life.

  On the other hand, if I could make a fist of it, how much

  there was in favour not only of being one's own master, but

  also of remaining in Newbury and living in the beautiful

  house and garden where I had been born! If timidity and

  reluctance to go out into the great world formed part of the

  appeal here, then I was inclined to think it a fault on the

  right side. Steadily, during the past hundred years, large

  towns have become nastier places to work in, to live in or

  to travel to daily, and the phrase 'stuck away in the country'

  has become less and less apt as railways, motor-cars, wireless,

  television, refrigerators, modern medicine and the rest

  have come marching in; until, in fact, everyone who can

  flies to the country, helps to defend his rural patch against

  all co
mers and thanks his lucky stars if he has the good fortune

  to be able to make his living there. 1 was enlarging on

  all this, and no doubt over-compensating like mad for the

  timidity/great world factor, when my father cut in.

  'It's probably a silly question, Alan, but I suppose you're

  quite sure that later on you won't unearth any buried feelings

  against being in trade - non-U, or whatever it's called

  33

  nowadays? You don't think the Oxford graduate might regret

  it later?'

  'Good Lord, no, Daddy! Frankly, I'm a bit surprised you

  ask.'

  'Silly of me, no doubt, but I just wondered. I didn't know

  whether you might ever have entertained ideas of recovering

  the former family status, or anything like that. If you

  have, you can certainly dismiss them, because the plain

  truth, as far as I know, is that there never was any family

  status.'

  'I thought you once told me we were landed gentry somewhere

  in Guyenne in the eighteenth century?'

  'Yes, I remember you using the term "landed gentry" a year

  or two back. You certainly didn't get it from me: I didn't

  think it was worth correcting, though.'

  'But the ancestor you told me about - Armand Deslandes

  - he came to England because of the French Revolution,

  didn't he? Doesn't that suggest that he must have been

  some sort of gentleman?'

  'Did I tell you it did?'

  'I thought you did. I suppose I must have been about

  twelve at the time, though quite honestly I've never given

  it much of a thought since then.'

  'Well, I remember that conversation, my boy: but I left

  out a certain amount. After all, you were only twelve. Still,

  I don't think I ever said "landed gentry".'

  'Well, I could have tacked on the landed gentry, Daddy,

  I dare say. When you're that age, two and two often make

  five, don't they? But what was it you left out? Was there

  some scandal? Surely if our ancestor came here during the

  early seventeen-nineties, it can only have been on account

  of the Revolution?'

  'Well, yes and no, really, according to your great-grandfather.

  I knew him quite well, you know. He lived to be

  eighty-five. Armand Deslandes himself died in - er - let me

  see, 1841, I think, when he was eighty-two, and your greatgrandfather,

  who was his great-grandson, was born in 1845

  and lived until 1930. I used to go and read him the newspaper

  and talk to him about the shop and the business and

  34

  so on. It only goes to show what a short time two hundred

  years really is, doesn't it? He didn't start the china business,

  of course. It was my father who did that, in 1907. But old

  Grandpa had money in it and took a lot of interest.'

  'Anyhow, what about Armand Deslandes?'

  'Well, two things, really. A, he wasn't landed gentry and

  B, it wasn't really on account of the Revolution that he left

  France - or not directly, anyway. What I was told by Grandpa

  was that Armand was a kind of peasant-farmer, somewhere

  not far from a place called Marmande: and the thing

  about him was that he was widely believed to have some sort

  of gift of second sight or divination, which he used to exploit

  to make a bit on the side - love-affairs, foretelling the

  weather for harvest and so on. I dare say thereVe always

  been people who've gone in for that kind of thing. Well,

  Grandpa said that once Armand used his powers to tell the

  French police, or whatever they were in those days, where to

  look for a dead baby that some local beauty, a girl by the

  name of Jeannette Leclerc, had done away with. And that

  didn't do him any good, because in court Jeannette came up

  with some sort of "Tu quoque" defence. She didn't say

  Armand was the father, but she said he'd become her lover

  since the baby was born, and then they'd fallen out and now

  he just wanted to get her into trouble.'

  'And was it true?' asked Flick.

  My father shrugged.

  'No telling, is there? Naturally Armand said not, but anyway,

  the point is that by some means or other - perhaps her

  looks - a wealthy protector - who's to say? - the girl got off

  and then, I suppose because she'd lost her respectability and

  all hope of a good marriage in the neighbourhood, went off

  to Bordeaux, where she became quite sought-after and prosperous

  as a thingummybob. Evidently she had aptitude in

  that direction. She appears to have been very attractive.'

  'So then?'

  'Well, then, as Grandpa told the story, Jeannette remained

  determined to do Armand down one way or another, although

  it was a little while before she could pack enough

  punch. But by about 1792 she'd got herself to Paris, still in the

  35

  same line of business, and there she acquired some influential

  lover in the Revolutionary government or whatever it was

  called. You'd know more about that than I would.'

  'The Girondins. I see. Local boys made good. One of them

  may even have brought her up to Paris with him, I suppose.'

  'Possibly. Anyway, the long and short of it seems to have

  been that in the meantime Armand Deslandes had become

  more and more of a suspect personality in the district - sort

  of a dupe of his own magic pretensions - claiming to see

  funny things, hear voices and so on - rather like a poor

  man's Joan of Arc, it sounds. So when an instruction came

  down from Paris to investigate him for charlatanry and

  witchcraft, he found he hadn't a friend in the world, except

  his young wife. She was just a peasant girl, and they'd only

  been married a month or two, but she stuck by him all right.'

  'Good for her!" said Flick. 'So he got out. How?'

  'I don't know. Grandpa was always very vague about that.

  But get out he did, through Bordeaux, and only just in time

  as far as coming to England was concerned, because a month

  or two later they executed the king and the war started between

  England and France. Armand worked on the land for

  the rest of his life - somewhere in Sussex, I believe - but his

  son, who was born in England, did a bit better for himself.

  'Changed his name to Desland, joined the Navy as a bluejacket

  and finished up First Lieutenant. Anyway, my boy,

  that's your landed gentry for you.'

  'Interesting. I might even look in at Marmande one day

  and try to find out a bit more. But as far as soiling my hands

  with trade's concerned, I couldn't care less. In fact, Daddy,

  if you like, I'll take my coat off and get down into the glass

  passage this vac. That is, as often as working for Schools

  will let me.'

  A year later, in possession of a Second presumed to be no

  less 'decent' than Flick's, I had returned from a post-Schools

  holiday in Italy and officially become a partner in the business

  in Northbrook Street.

  36

  BEFORE I had been six weeks in the family business I knew

  that as far as I was concerned, ceramics containe
d all that

  was necessary to salvation. To begin with - and this, I have

  often thought, is the first touchstone of any true vocation I

  did not particularly care whether I made money or not. The

  world, I now realized, existed in order that clay could be

  dug out of it and fired in kilns. It necessarily included trees,

  flowers, animals and birds, for otherwise we would lack

  these admirable models of plasticity. How excellent was

  Providence in conferring upon us the necessity to eat and

  drink, or else we would have no need for plates, pots,

  saucers, cups and cans. Glazes and enamelling showed forth

  our superiority to the beasts more validly than music, for

  many creatures seem sensitive to the pleasure of vocal sound,

  and to find in it joy and satisfaction beyond the mere need to

  communicate or to assert themselves; whereas we alone

  decorate.

  It was necessary for my father to point out, more than

  once, that admirable as might be a mentality above base

  profit, Josiah Wedgwood and Miles Mason had not been in

  the game from purely aesthetic motives, that we needed to

  study and observe what we could sell and also to stock it;

  and that one of the great charms of ceramics, pre-eminently

  among the arts, was that often a perfectly ordinary and not

  particularly valuable piece, such as a Worcester fire-proof

  dish or a brown glazed teapot, could give much pleasure to a

  discriminating and experienced person, whether dealer or

  connoisseur, who had got beyond the stage of prizing what

  was rare or expensive on that account alone.

  Certainly the beginnings of my own personal collection

  did not comprise much of value, for I had very little money.

  Not only were Chien Lung dishes out of my star (though I

  knew a man out Wallingford way who possessed one; broad,

  shallow-rimmed and blazing, its decoration cool and raised

  under the finger-tips, glowing from its ebony stand like a

  37

  Chinese pheasant on a nobleman's lawn); so also were Meissen,

  Chelsea and Bow. As with stars, indeed, it scarcely mattered

  exactly how many light-years each might be distant.

  For me, space travel was bunk, and in the humble sphere

  where I moved I still had much to learn. Once I burnt my

  fingers over a pair of supposedly Plymouth dishes decorated

  with dishevelled birds. I ended up more dishevelled than

  they, for they were not Plymouth at all. But I kept and still

  have - for I loved her in spite of all - the lady copied from

  Watteau's 'L'embarcation pour 1'Ile de Cythere' who, notwithstanding

  the mark on her base, turned out to be not

  Derby but Samson. (I knew too little as yet of hard and soft

  pastes.) No, English pottery was the thing, as I discovered.

  And what could happen, in the fullness of time, to the value

  of a modest collection, I learned not long after my apprenticeship

  began, when my father and I attended, at Sotheby's,

  the sale of the Rev. C. J. Sharpe's collection of teapots. Not

  that financial speculation mattered a damn to me, then or

  now. What I was taking in, as a plant through its roots to

  transpire through the leaves, was simply what Plato had

  presciently set down for my edification more than two thousand

  years before: 'The excellence, beauty or Tightness of

  any implement or creature has reference to the use for which

  it is made.' Nor are such uses merely functional. One of my

  happiest enthusiasms was for Staffordshire figures of Nelson.

  I collected nine before changing to Garibaldi, but somehow

  he never did the same for me. I have often thought of those

  under-glaze, blue-coated Nelsons preaching - as silently and

  eloquently as Keats's Grecian urn - from Victorian cottage

  shelves, to a world innocent of Ypres or Jutland, a universallyaccepted

  ideal of courageous aggression, to which all should

  aspire and the admirability of which none could wish to

  question. As the great collector, Henry Willett, said, 'Much

  history of this country may be traced in its homely pottery.

  On the mantelpieces of many cottage homes are to be found

  revered representations, which form a kind of unconscious

  survival of the Lares et Penates of the Ancients.'

  In this art, as in Bach, lay something more valid than

  mere emotion - or so I felt. Bach, as God's amanuensis, corn38

  posed the music of the spheres, mathematically appointed

  and ordered as tides or the return of Halley's comet. If