‘But you mean he’s renounced that too.’
‘Just let himself lapse.’
Also at Cambridge JRPF had become known as a poet. In those still early days he had contributed to some of those journals and anthologies that were hostile or indifferent to the quasi-Marxist stance of contemporary poets in Oxford and elsewhere. His first volume had been published in 1939.
‘What did he do in the war?’ asked Gordon, ‘I can’t make out. His Who’s Who entry just says he was in government service.’
‘That’s as much as he’ll say when you ask him, all he’s ever said to me anyway, he worked for the government. If it were somebody else that might mean he was to do with something hush-hush, so hush bloody hush in fact that he can’t tell you about it fifty years after the event, and I did meet a queerish buffoon not so long ago who owned up to having helped to snatch a Nazi general in Crete but wouldn’t say which one. But anyway I’d give a small sum to know what the old man’s work for the government amounted to.’
Just before or just after saying that, Joanna had changed position in her chair in a way that brought to notice her legs, which were enclosed in a pair of dark-blue stockings or tights that went well with her royal-blue skirt. Although not himself a great leg man, as indicated earlier, Gordon could see perfectly well that they were very good, shapely legs. It crossed his mind straight away that this fact was ultimately connected with Jimmie’s preferences and their likely root in the period of his puberty. Other considerations could be deferred for later thinking over.
‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ Gordon assured Joanna.
As his first wife JRPF had married the daughter of a newspaper owner in 1945. That wife had run away with an amateur jockey early in 1950. Later that same year he had pot married a second time, to a less pretty girl who was also not all that well off but was a viscount’s daughter. The 1960s had seen a third marriage, this time to the undoubtedly handsome daughter of a very rich commoner, and in 1975, at the age of fifty-seven, JRPF had married the then thirty-three-year-old Joanna, daughter of a very rich nobleman.
‘If anybody wanted to be nasty about him,’ said Joanna, who had supplied some of the details, ‘they could say he hit the jackpot on his fourth try – money and pedigree, but that wouldn’t be quite fair. All his wives, including me, have been the sort of people he mixed with socially, especially number three and me and I’m pretty sure he was pally with number two’s brother at Cambridge. Perhaps he oughtn’t to have gone around with nobs so much, but I can’t see him downing his pint in the public bar because it’s more real there or something. He knows I think he’s a bit of a joke with his nobbery, but I got my nobbery as a sort of christening present, if you see what I mean.’
‘M’m. Who’s Who mentions one s. one d. by, er, number one and one d. by number two.’
‘Number one took her descendants off and they haven’t been seen for donkey’s years. Number two’s d. turns up occasionally, I’m sorry to say. Another thing I can’t see him as is a proud father, caring father, anything father.’
Gordon waited a moment and said, ‘Had you been married before?’
‘Only once. He drank himself to death, but I may say he was already doing that when I came into his life. I didn’t start him but I didn’t stop him either, as you see. Talking of which, I don’t think we’d be breaking any law of God or man if we had a drink after all that work.’
‘I’d like to finish this lot first if you don’t mind.’
‘My, what a little stickler you are.’
‘Just as well, perhaps.’
‘Oh well, point taken.’
JRPF had been employed in the books department of the Daily Post from 1945, its literary editor 1949–63, James Cadwallader Evans Award 1961, Hon. DCL, Hove University 1978, FRSB 1980, Chairman, Carver Prize Committee 1981. Principal publns: three books of verse, Collected Poems 1970, six novels, last in 1965, two vols, on wine, etc., one vol. coll. journalism, etc.
‘There’s not much either of us could add to that,’ said Joanna.
‘Certainly nothing I can.’
‘It’s quite a complete list except for committees he’s been on which he doesn’t think are worth mentioning.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I was his secretary at one time.’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh, I forget. Just the last Who’s Who thing to do.’
Recreations: visiting churches in Tuscany and Umbria, good food, conversation.
‘Anything to add to that?’ asked Gordon.
‘I’ll say. And to subtract too. I’ll tell you in a minute. Can we have that drink now?’
‘I suppose so. I mean thank you, I’d love one.’
‘What would you like? I have vodka, and tonic, and vodka and tonic.’
‘I’d like vodka and tonic with not much vodka, if I may.’
‘I don’t see why you may not,’ said Joanna, giggling a little with what sounded genuine amusement. She had got up and gone over to a costly-looking marble-topped chiffonier on which bottles and glasses stood.
‘What’s the joke?’ Gordon had no desire to be told, but it was easy to see he was meant to ask something like that.
‘Well, the way it was absolutely certain you’d ask for a small one if you got half a chance. Then …’ Instead of continuing she came back and handed him his drink.
‘Cheers. What was that last bit again?’
‘Oh right. Italian churches, good food and conversation, wasn’t it? I’ve never known him go near a church anywhere, though he might literally venture near an Italian one if it was next door to a kosher palazzo that had a proper duchessa in it he could chat up. His Italian’s quite fluent, actually, and of course bits of Italy like Tuscany sound right, or did when he said that about himself. Yes – good food; he likes expensive food, as you well know, but that’s about as far as it goes. I don’t think he’s much of a taste-buds man, do you? As for conversation, well yes, again on the understanding that the chaps he’s conversing with are either rich or well-born, preferably both but if it has to be one or the other then give him rich every time. I suppose it sounds pretty awful of me to be saying some of that, and I suppose it is in a way, and I do think that side of him’s a bit of a joke, but I don’t … I don’t feel superior to him or resent the way he goes on. I realize I might one day but as yet I don’t. Now we’ll just drink these up and give ourselves another small one and then we’ll totter down and have something to eat. Mainly a chicken salad, which I’m afraid won’t be very warming, but there’s a pea soup to begin and I know you like soup.’
That evening Gordon noticed that Joanna’s ultimately lenient attitude to Jimmie was not shared by Louise, or at least was not shared by her that evening. Earlier, starting about three-thirty when he got home, he had heroically beaten off drink-induced lassitude and written up his notes for that day. These had contained not only biographical details and dates but less starkly factual information, given over lunch, about Jimmie’s dealings with such persons as priests and peers. Much of the latter material had not shown him in a particularly favourable light but the facts had gone into the notes anyway, regardless of whether Jimmie might sooner or later veto their publication. When Gordon had satisfactorily finished the job, he had brewed himself a very strong pot of tea and made the first of several unavailing attempts to telephone Louise, finally getting hold of her at seven-twenty or so.