‘How French you are, Charles-Edouard,’ said Grace, laughing.
‘Hot news!’ This was Northey, coming in with my breakfast. ‘The Bomb from Brum has buggered!’
‘Already? And the boys never came to say good-bye?’
‘The point is, he has left them behind. There was the most terrific bust-up yesterday at Le Pop Club and he has gone.’
‘Can it be true? What has happened?’
‘It was all about the publicity. You see when Yank saw those kids in Main Street – biggest outdoor reception even he has dreamed of – he thought he’d never had it so good. He expected to hit the headlines on the front pages. Grandfather in the taxi, he thought, gave that little extra something that journalists love, then the crowds, the police, Alfred going to the Quai (I must say it wrung my withers not telling the dear little soul about it).’
‘If you had, Northey –’
‘Yes, well, I didn’t, did I? So Yank thought the boys were geniuses and honestly, Fanny, in a way they were. You’ve got to hand it to Sigi – he mobilized that enormous crowd – then the Vel d’Hiv was a whizz, every teenager in Paris must have been there and the receipts broke all records. At the Club they were congratulating Yank on his wonderful agents and he was so pleased he kept signing travellers’ cheques, giving them to the boys. Of course he could hardly wait to see the papers. Came the Dawn – quelle horrible surprise! As you know, sweet Amy and the rest of them barked up the wrong tree – Yank might have stayed in London for all they knew and the bitter thing was his wonderful riot was put down to those silly old islands. His name wasn’t mentioned in the news at all – no photographs of him with the screaming kids – taxi gimmick thrown away. A few paragraphs in the entertainment pages saying that he had arrived in Paris and sang from a balcony in the Avenue Gabriel. There’ll be a story in the jazz papers of course, but he always has them on his side and this time he’d counted on the dailies. In short, Sigi did marvels, but he only warned the jazz journalists and he got all of them in the garden. He never thought of telling the others – he had no idea, of course, that there would be such a mob of kids in Main Street. So the whole thing has fallen as flat as a pancake. Yank says that’s what comes of dealing with bloody amateurs; he telephoned to London for his old agent he’s always had and as soon as he arrived they drifted off –’
‘Northey! It’s too interesting and unexpected! So how are the boys taking it?’
‘If you ask me, they are relieved. They had begun to see that Yanky is a most unpleasant person. And Fanny, it’s my opinion they’ve had about enough of earning their own livings. They admit now that the shavers were a tremendous bore – it seems you are shut up in a horrible sort of place which brings on headaches. Driftin’ would have been rather fun, but not with Yank. He has put them right off the Showbiz – and they didn’t much care for the people at the Club (except for the Duke, who is heaven). They were all on Yanky’s side and made the boys feel inferior. Then one of their friends at Eton has asked them to a boys’ shoot in Jan which they long to accept. Apparently it’s a spiffing house to stay in, where the oldies know their place. They’d like to become ordinary again, you know – they’d really give anything to go back to Eton.’
‘Well, that’s out of the question – silly little fools. We shall have to see what can be done with them – Condorcet probably, before they cram for Oxford. Meanwhile it’s almost the Christmas holidays and they can go to their old shoot. Oh, darling, you don’t know what a weight off my mind this is!’
At dinner that evening the boys were studiously normal. They wore dinner jackets, their hair, which had been standing on end, was now watered and brushed in the usual way; they were clean. They gave us looks which I well remembered from their early nursery days and which I could remember bestowing, myself, on the grown-ups; looks which said if all can be forgotten and forgiven we will be good again. They called Alfred Father, and asked him to explain about the C.E.D. They asked me what books I had been reading – I quite expected them to say ‘Have you been abroad lately?’ a favourite gambit with people they hardly knew. They were sweet and attentive to Uncle Matthew and told him about the shoot they were going to. His old face lit up because it had once belonged to a relation of his and he had shot there many a time in the past.
‘Who has got it now?’
‘The father of our friend Beagle. He has made nine (you know, the big ones, millions, I mean), since the war.’
‘Like blissful Jacques Oudineau,’ said Northey, half to herself.
‘Has he indeed? You want to look out, in the Sally Beds, not to shoot up the hill. Feller peppered me there once good and proper. Where’s young Fonzy this evening?’
Sheepish looks. ‘Gone to Moscow,’ said Northey.
‘What’s he want to do that for? Payne and I had our luncheon at a place where the cabmen eat. They haven’t got proper shelters; this is a restaurant. Dangerous good snack. We got talking with a Russian there who seemed heartily dissatisfied with his government – you’d hardly believe the things he told us. Now young Fonzy is a very civil chap. He gave me a lot of his records, signed. Of course the signature doesn’t make the smallest difference – I mean you can’t hear it – but he meant it kindly no doubt.’
‘What have you been doing all day, Uncle Matthew?’
‘After luncheon
