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Authors: Angus Wilson
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Pforzheim has been so good as to honour us with this remarkable confidence, I think we should repay him by refraining from discussion of it until greater certainty allows him and his distinguished colleagues to make public their more definite conclusions.'
He sat down with the air of having nipped some potentially insidious nonsense in the bud.
Once again there was silence. Rose Lorimer had the air of a martyr vindicated by a sign from Heaven which she did not quite understand; it was Professor Clun who now smiled vaguely as though there were no end to the childish folly of his colleagues. Clarissa alone had failed to realize the importance of Professor Pforzheim's statement. Holding her bag, her gloves, and her small felt cap in one hand, she rose to her feet.
'Mr Chairman,' she said, 'I don't know whether a mere visitor has any right...'
But her question remained unspoken. Sir Edgar had decided that the moment had come to put an end to the proceedings.
'I fear we have no more time for questions, and,' he added with a chuckle, for he had conceived a great dislike for Clarissa, 'little inclination to hear them, with all we have to think about.' He turned to Professor Pforzheim. 'Once again, thank you,' he said, and led the way through the door at the back of the dais to the accompaniment of the Association's applause.
CHAPTER 3
M RS S ALAD came each year to get her present from Gerald before luncheon on Christmas Eve. It was always the same present - a five-pound note and a large pink cyclamen in a gilded basket tied with pink ribbon. This year, Gerald had attempted a variation by presenting her with a scarlet poinsettia, but he knew at once that he was wrong.
'Oh, it's a lovely foreign thing. Bright as blood,' Mrs Salad said in her old, croaking tremolo, and she peered at it through the haze of mascara'd moisture that always clung to her eyelashes and stuck in little beads on her black net eye-veil. 'I dare say it'll draw the flies. But lovely for them that likes bright colours. Just like the stuff the girls put on their finger-nails now. Like a lot of old birds giving the glad in the Circus, or the York Road, Waterloo, more likely. Trollopy lot.'
And Mrs Salad's black-dyed curls and fur toque with eye-veil shook in disgust, though whether against the painted nails of the modern girl or the behaviour of prostitutes was not clear. In either case, it was righteous disgust, for, despite her scabrous imagination, Mrs Salad always boasted that she had kept her body clean 'as Our Lord had given it to her', and for make-up, although her face was liberally covered with rouge and mascara and enamel, she had never used nail-varnish.
'Now the cycerlermums,' she continued, 'is as delicate as my sister-in-law's skin. Her husband wouldn't have her wear a soiled garment not a day longer than was needed. Spurgin's Tabernacle they was,' she added. Many of Mrs Salad's images were drawn from the anatomy of her family. 'Well, there it is,' she said, giving the poinsettia a final survey. 'More of a leaf, really.' For all their cloudiness, Mrs Salad's eyes were very sharp.
It was not an auspicious beginning for the visit, and this year Mrs Salad seemed more frail than ever, her agile mind more random. Her shrunken little body in its black cloth coat with a bunch of artificial Parma violets was bent with arthritis and her match-stick legs trembled on her high-heeled patent-leather boots with grey kid uppers.
'I came from 'Endon by Underground,' she said, 'and a musty, high-smelling lot they are that go by it now. My son-in-law offered to bring me in his car. But Gladys wouldn't have it. Wanted it herself for a bit of la-di-da, I dare say. Lovely chap, he is. Used to be in the Navy. Often I've seen him of a morning when he's taking his tub, stripped to the waist. Better than any boxer. But it's all for Gladys. He's not the one to give it away to any little cheap bit that comes along.'
Gerald, who was well used to Mrs Salad's
He sat down with the air of having nipped some potentially insidious nonsense in the bud.
Once again there was silence. Rose Lorimer had the air of a martyr vindicated by a sign from Heaven which she did not quite understand; it was Professor Clun who now smiled vaguely as though there were no end to the childish folly of his colleagues. Clarissa alone had failed to realize the importance of Professor Pforzheim's statement. Holding her bag, her gloves, and her small felt cap in one hand, she rose to her feet.
'Mr Chairman,' she said, 'I don't know whether a mere visitor has any right...'
But her question remained unspoken. Sir Edgar had decided that the moment had come to put an end to the proceedings.
'I fear we have no more time for questions, and,' he added with a chuckle, for he had conceived a great dislike for Clarissa, 'little inclination to hear them, with all we have to think about.' He turned to Professor Pforzheim. 'Once again, thank you,' he said, and led the way through the door at the back of the dais to the accompaniment of the Association's applause.
CHAPTER 3
M RS S ALAD came each year to get her present from Gerald before luncheon on Christmas Eve. It was always the same present - a five-pound note and a large pink cyclamen in a gilded basket tied with pink ribbon. This year, Gerald had attempted a variation by presenting her with a scarlet poinsettia, but he knew at once that he was wrong.
'Oh, it's a lovely foreign thing. Bright as blood,' Mrs Salad said in her old, croaking tremolo, and she peered at it through the haze of mascara'd moisture that always clung to her eyelashes and stuck in little beads on her black net eye-veil. 'I dare say it'll draw the flies. But lovely for them that likes bright colours. Just like the stuff the girls put on their finger-nails now. Like a lot of old birds giving the glad in the Circus, or the York Road, Waterloo, more likely. Trollopy lot.'
And Mrs Salad's black-dyed curls and fur toque with eye-veil shook in disgust, though whether against the painted nails of the modern girl or the behaviour of prostitutes was not clear. In either case, it was righteous disgust, for, despite her scabrous imagination, Mrs Salad always boasted that she had kept her body clean 'as Our Lord had given it to her', and for make-up, although her face was liberally covered with rouge and mascara and enamel, she had never used nail-varnish.
'Now the cycerlermums,' she continued, 'is as delicate as my sister-in-law's skin. Her husband wouldn't have her wear a soiled garment not a day longer than was needed. Spurgin's Tabernacle they was,' she added. Many of Mrs Salad's images were drawn from the anatomy of her family. 'Well, there it is,' she said, giving the poinsettia a final survey. 'More of a leaf, really.' For all their cloudiness, Mrs Salad's eyes were very sharp.
It was not an auspicious beginning for the visit, and this year Mrs Salad seemed more frail than ever, her agile mind more random. Her shrunken little body in its black cloth coat with a bunch of artificial Parma violets was bent with arthritis and her match-stick legs trembled on her high-heeled patent-leather boots with grey kid uppers.
'I came from 'Endon by Underground,' she said, 'and a musty, high-smelling lot they are that go by it now. My son-in-law offered to bring me in his car. But Gladys wouldn't have it. Wanted it herself for a bit of la-di-da, I dare say. Lovely chap, he is. Used to be in the Navy. Often I've seen him of a morning when he's taking his tub, stripped to the waist. Better than any boxer. But it's all for Gladys. He's not the one to give it away to any little cheap bit that comes along.'
Gerald, who was well used to Mrs Salad's
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