‘I think they’ve got a better chance than my poor grandchildren because at least they have some furniture in their heads already.’
‘If you ask me they’ll all come out of these silly phases. They are nothing new – my cousins and I were quite idiotic when we were young. The only difference is that in those days the grown-ups paid no attention, while we concentrate (too much probably) on these children and their misdoings. How old are yours, by the way?’
‘They must be quite seven, eight and nine by now.’
He was very much surprised when I laughed.
‘At their age,’ he said, ‘I was reading the great classics in my spare time.’
‘We all think that about ourselves, but it isn’t always quite true!’
As soon as we left the dining-room, David took his wife away. He explained that they had an important rendezvous at the Alma. ‘We are several days late – we must go at once.’
‘But you’ll come back for the night?’
‘Possibly, or we may sleep there.’
‘Where?’
‘Under the bridge, where we are meeting our friend.’
‘Oh, don’t do that. You must be tired.’
‘The great Zen Master, Po Chang, said when you are tired, sleep. We can sleep anywhere.’
‘And the baby?’
‘He’ll come too. He sleeps all the time. Good night, Ma.’
‘Shall we see you tomorrow?’
‘Possibly. Good night.’
Philip and Northey reappeared. Valhubert sprang from his chair beside Madame Hué and in a rapid and skilful manoeuvre he whisked Northey to an unoccupied sofa. They sat there for the rest of the evening, laughing very much. Grace, half-listening to Philip who had made a bee-line for her, looked at them imperturbably, quizzically, even, I thought. At the usual time and in the correct precedence, the guests came and thanked us for a delightful evening and went their way. I have seldom felt so exhausted.
12
I sat on my bed, looking at Alfred.
‘Do we laugh or cry?’ he said. ‘Did you see the baby?’
‘Not really. It seemed to be asleep. I saw the cradle all right.’
‘Whose do you think it is?’
‘Oh, surely theirs?’
‘It’s yellow.’
‘Babies often are.’
‘No, darling. I mean it’s an Asiatic baby.’
‘Heavens! Are you quite sure? I thought it was our grandchild.’
‘It may be. A throw-back. Had you a Chinese ancestor of any sort, Fanny?’
‘Certainly not. Perhaps you had?’
‘I doubt it. The Winchams, as you know, were yeomen in Herefordshire, in the same village since the Middle Ages. If one of our ancestors had gone to the East and brought back an exotic wife it would have become a thrilling legend of the family – don’t you think? The little young lady didn’t look Mongolian, did she?’
‘Not a bit. How very mysterious. Well, if they’re taking it to China that will be coals to Newcastle, won’t it?’
For two days we saw nothing of David, Dawn or the cradle; on the third day they turned up again. Alfred and I were having our tea in the Salon Vert. ‘It looks as if they’ve gone for good,’ I was saying. ‘Weren’t we nice enough to them?’
‘I don’t see what more we could have done.’
‘I suppose not. I have this guilty feeling about David, as I’ve often told you, because of loving him less than the others.’
‘One must see things realistically, my darling. You love him less because he is less lovable – it’s as easy as that.’
‘But may it not be because I loved him less from the beginning – I lie awake, trying to remember –’
‘He has always been exactly the same,’ said Alfred, ‘he was born so –’
Then they sidled, crabwise, cradle between them, through the door.
‘Oh good, oh good,’ I said, ‘there you are. We were beginning to be afraid you had gone East.’
David pressed his beard into my face and said, ‘On the contrary we went back a little – West – to Issy-les-Moulineaux. But now we are really on the road. We’ve just called in to say good-bye.’
I rang for more tea cups and said to Dawn, hoping to bring her into the conversation, ‘Issy-les-Moulineaux is such a pretty name. What’s it like when you get there?’
She turned her headlamps on to me, dumb, while David scowled. He despised small talk and civilized manners.
‘It’s just a working-class suburb,’ he said. ‘Nothing to interest anybody like you. We went to see a practising Zen Buddhist who’s got a room there.’
‘And where did you stay?’
‘In his room.’
‘For three whole days?’
‘Was it three days? How do I know? It might have been three hours or three weeks. Dawn and I don’t use watches and calendars since we have no [voice of withering scorn] “social engagements”!’
‘I thought you said he lived under a bridge.’
‘He used to, but they have turned the embankment into a road. Imagine motor cars speeding through your bedroom all night. He says the French are becoming simply impossible –’
The baby now began to scream. ‘I expect he wants changing,’ said David.
Dawn got up and bent over the cradle as if to do so there and then. ‘Come upstairs,’ I said. We each took a handle and went to the lift. ‘I got this room ready for you hoping you would stay for a night or two. It’s called the Violet Room. Mrs Hammersley and Mr Somerset Maugham were born here, imagine –’
She smiled. She was a duck, I thought – I did so wish she could speak. When she picked up the baby I saw that Alfred was quite right, it was as yellow as a buttercup, with black hair and slit black eyes, certainly not European: a darling little papoose of a baby.
‘The pet!’ I said. ‘What’s its name?’
At last the pretty mouth opened. ‘’Chang.’
I saw that a canvas bag with a broken zip fastener had been deposited on
