long in the past, made more vivid by posthumous
ironies she could not quite grasp.
She said to
him patiently, “The big room past the nursery.”
“Auntie
Venus’s room,”
Leon
said.
Auntie Venus
had been for almost half a century a vital nursing presence across a swath of
the
Northern
Territories
in
Canada
. She was no
one’s aunt particularly, or rather, she was Mr. Tallis’s dead
second cousin’s aunt, but no one questioned her right, after her
retirement, to the room on the second floor where, for most of their
childhoods, she had been a sweet-natured, bedridden invalid who withered away
to an uncomplaining death when Cecilia was ten. A week later Briony was born.
Cecilia led
the visitors into the drawing room, through the French windows, past the roses
toward the swimming pool, which was behind the stable block and was surrounded
on four sides by a high thicket of bamboo, with a tunnel-like gap for an
entrance. They walked through, bending their heads under low canes, and emerged
onto a terrace of dazzling white stone from which the heat rose in a blast. In
deep shadow, set well back from the water’s edge, was a white-painted tin
table with a pitcher of iced punch under a square of cheesecloth.
Leon
unfolded the canvas
chairs and they sat with their glasses in a shallow circle facing the pool.
From his position between Leon and Cecilia,
Marshall
took control of the
conversation with a ten-minute monologue. He told them how wonderful it was, to
be away from town, in tranquillity, in the country air; for nine months, for
every waking minute of every day, enslaved to a vision, he had shuttled between
headquarters, his boardroom and the factory floor. He had bought a large house
on Clapham Common and hardly had time to visit it. The launch of Rainbow Amo had
been a triumph, but only after various distribution catastrophes which had now
been set right; the advertising campaign had offended some elderly bishops so
another was devised; then came the problems of success itself, unbelievable
sales, new production quotas, and disputes about overtime rates, and the search
for a site for a second factory about which the four unions involved had been
generally sullen and had needed to be charmed and coaxed like children; and
now, when all had been brought to fruition, there loomed the greater challenge
yet of Army Amo, the khaki bar with the Pass the Amo! slogan; the concept
rested on an assumption that spending on the Armed Forces must go on increasing
if Mr. Hitler did not pipe down; there was even a chance that the bar could
become part of the standard-issue ration pack; in that case, if there were to
be a general conscription, a further five factories would be needed; there were
some on the board who were convinced there should and would be an accommodation
with Germany and that Army Amo was a dead duck; one member was even accusing
Marshall of being a warmonger; but, exhausted as he was, and maligned, he would
not be turned away from his purpose, his vision. He ended by repeating that it
was wonderful to find oneself “way out here” where one could, as it
were, catch one’s breath.
Watching him
during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant
sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously
self-destructive it would be, almost erotic, to be married to a man so nearly
handsome, so hugely rich, so unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his
big-faced children, all of them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns
and football and aeroplanes. She watched him in profile as he turned his head
toward
Leon
. A long muscle
twitched above the line of his jaw as he spoke. A few thick black hairs curled
free of his eyebrow, and from his earholes there sprouted the same black
growth, comically kinked like pubic hair. He should instruct his barber.
The smallest
shift in her gaze brought her
Leon
’s face, but he
was staring politely at his friend and seemed
ironies she could not quite grasp.
She said to
him patiently, “The big room past the nursery.”
“Auntie
Venus’s room,”
Leon
said.
Auntie Venus
had been for almost half a century a vital nursing presence across a swath of
the
Northern
Territories
in
Canada
. She was no
one’s aunt particularly, or rather, she was Mr. Tallis’s dead
second cousin’s aunt, but no one questioned her right, after her
retirement, to the room on the second floor where, for most of their
childhoods, she had been a sweet-natured, bedridden invalid who withered away
to an uncomplaining death when Cecilia was ten. A week later Briony was born.
Cecilia led
the visitors into the drawing room, through the French windows, past the roses
toward the swimming pool, which was behind the stable block and was surrounded
on four sides by a high thicket of bamboo, with a tunnel-like gap for an
entrance. They walked through, bending their heads under low canes, and emerged
onto a terrace of dazzling white stone from which the heat rose in a blast. In
deep shadow, set well back from the water’s edge, was a white-painted tin
table with a pitcher of iced punch under a square of cheesecloth.
Leon
unfolded the canvas
chairs and they sat with their glasses in a shallow circle facing the pool.
From his position between Leon and Cecilia,
Marshall
took control of the
conversation with a ten-minute monologue. He told them how wonderful it was, to
be away from town, in tranquillity, in the country air; for nine months, for
every waking minute of every day, enslaved to a vision, he had shuttled between
headquarters, his boardroom and the factory floor. He had bought a large house
on Clapham Common and hardly had time to visit it. The launch of Rainbow Amo had
been a triumph, but only after various distribution catastrophes which had now
been set right; the advertising campaign had offended some elderly bishops so
another was devised; then came the problems of success itself, unbelievable
sales, new production quotas, and disputes about overtime rates, and the search
for a site for a second factory about which the four unions involved had been
generally sullen and had needed to be charmed and coaxed like children; and
now, when all had been brought to fruition, there loomed the greater challenge
yet of Army Amo, the khaki bar with the Pass the Amo! slogan; the concept
rested on an assumption that spending on the Armed Forces must go on increasing
if Mr. Hitler did not pipe down; there was even a chance that the bar could
become part of the standard-issue ration pack; in that case, if there were to
be a general conscription, a further five factories would be needed; there were
some on the board who were convinced there should and would be an accommodation
with Germany and that Army Amo was a dead duck; one member was even accusing
Marshall of being a warmonger; but, exhausted as he was, and maligned, he would
not be turned away from his purpose, his vision. He ended by repeating that it
was wonderful to find oneself “way out here” where one could, as it
were, catch one’s breath.
Watching him
during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant
sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously
self-destructive it would be, almost erotic, to be married to a man so nearly
handsome, so hugely rich, so unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his
big-faced children, all of them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns
and football and aeroplanes. She watched him in profile as he turned his head
toward
Leon
. A long muscle
twitched above the line of his jaw as he spoke. A few thick black hairs curled
free of his eyebrow, and from his earholes there sprouted the same black
growth, comically kinked like pubic hair. He should instruct his barber.
The smallest
shift in her gaze brought her
Leon
’s face, but he
was staring politely at his friend and seemed
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