Westmorland Alone. Ian Sansom

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St Pancras up ahead and the prospect of another tiresome cross-country jaunt before me I was thinking that this time I might simply trail off into deepest darkest north London, to lick my wounds, clear my head and devise a plan.

      And then I saw Miriam.

      In one of his very strangest books, Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory (1930), part of his ill-fated Early Rising Campaign – hijacked by all sorts of odd bods and unsavoury characters – Morley advises the early riser not only to practise pranic breathing and vigorous exercise, but also to utter ‘an ecumenical greeting to the dawn’, a greeting which, he claimed, was ‘suitable for use by Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Hindoos, and peoples of all religions and none’. Borrowing words and phrases from Shakespeare, Donne, Thomas Nashe, Robert Herrick and doubtless all sorts of other bits and pieces culled from his beloved Quiller-Couch and elsewhere, the greeting begins with a gobbet from William Davenant: ‘Awake! Awake! The morn will never rise / Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.’ I was never a great fan of this ‘ecumenical aubade’ of Morley’s but this morning it seemed to fit the occasion.

      Miriam sat outside St Pancras enthroned in the Lagonda like the sun on the horizon: upright, commanding and incandescent. Her lips were red. She had dyed her hair a silvery gold. She wore a brilliant green dress trimmed with white satin. And she had about her, as usual, that air of making everyone and everything else seem somehow slow and soft and dull, while she alone appeared vivid and magnificent – and hard, and fast, and dangerous. Une maîtresse femme. For those who never met her, it is important to explain. Miriam was not merely glamorous, though she was of course glamorous. Miriam was beyond glamour. Hers was an entirely self-invented, self-made glamour – a self-fulfilling and self-excelling glamour. And on that morning she looked as though she had painted herself into existence, tiny deliberate brushstroke by tiny deliberate brushstroke, a perfectly lacquered Ingres wreathed in glory, the Lagonda wrapped around her like Cleopatra’s barge, or Boadicea’s chariot.

      ‘Good morning, Miriam,’ I said.

      ‘Ah, Sefton.’ She took a long draw on her cigarette in its ivory holder – one of her more tiresome affectations. She brought out the ivory holder, as far as I could tell, only on high days, holy days and for the purposes of posing. She looked at me with her darkened eyes. ‘Early, eh? Up with the lark?’

      ‘Indeed.’

      ‘And the lark certainly seems to have left its mark upon you.’ She indicated with a dismissive nod an unsightly stain on my blue serge suit – damage from my night outside Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court.

      I did my best to rub it away.

      ‘I’m rather reminded of Lytton Strachey’s famous remark on that stain on Vanessa Woolf’s dress—’ (This ‘famous’ remark is not something that one would wish to repeat in polite company: which is doubtless why Miriam enjoyed so often doing so.)

      ‘Yes, Miriam. Anyway?’

      ‘Yes. Well. Father’s away for the papers, Sefton, so really it’s very fortuitous.’

      ‘Is it?’

      ‘Yes. It means that you and I can have a little chat.’ This sounded ominous. ‘Why don’t you climb up here beside me.’ She patted the passenger seat of the Lagonda.

      ‘I’m fine here, thank you,’ I said. It was important to resist Miriam.

      ‘Well, if you insist,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news, Sefton.’

      ‘Oh dear.’

      ‘Yes. I’m afraid this is going to be the last of these little jaunts that I’ll be joining you on.’

      ‘Oh,’ I said, and said no more.

      ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me why?’

      I paused for long enough to exert control. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because,’ she said triumphantly, ‘I, Sefton, am … engaged!’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘I think you’ll find it’s traditional to offer congratulations.’

      ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Who’s the lucky fellow?’

      ‘No one you know!’ She gave a toss of her head and looked away. ‘He gave me this diamond bracelet.’ She waved her elegant wrist at me. ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’

      It was indeed a marvellous diamond bracelet, as marvellous diamond bracelets go. Men had a terrible habit of showering Miriam with marvellous gifts – diamonds, sapphires, furs and pearls, the kind of gifts they wouldn’t dare to give their wives, for fear of raising suspicion.

      ‘Isn’t it more usual to exchange rings?’ I asked.

      ‘Oh, the ring is coming!’ said Miriam.

      When the poor chap had finalised his divorce, I thought, but didn’t dare say.

      The sound of the city was growing all around us: horse and carts, cars, charabancs, paperboys, and above it all, the sound of a woman nearby selling flowers. ‘Fresh flowers! Fresh flowers! Buy my fresh flowers! Flowers for the ladies!’

      Miriam smiled her smile at me and glanced nonchalantly away.

      ‘Anyway, Sefton,’ she continued, ‘this means that I won’t be joining you and Father on any more trips. And so I just wanted some sort of guarantee that you’d be around for as long as this damned project takes. Father has become terribly fond of you, Sefton, as I’m sure you know.’

      There was in fact very little sign of Morley’s having become very fond of me. Morley didn’t really do ‘fond’. I don’t think he’d have known the meaning of ‘fond’, outside a dictionary definition.

      ‘Sefton?’

      I didn’t answer.

      ‘As you know, Father needs a certain amount of … looking after. After Mother died …’

      Mrs Morley had died before I had started work with Morley; he and Miriam rarely spoke of her.

      ‘He needs a certain amount of care and attention. I hope you can—’

      We were disturbed by the sounds of what seemed to be an argument – of an English voice uttering some low, strange, unfamiliar words, the sound of a woman shouting in response, either in distress or delight, of voices calling out, and of general confusion and hubbub.

      ‘Thank you!’ called the voice. ‘Gestena! Danke schön. Grazie. Go raibh maith agat! Xie xie. Muchas gracias!’ It was a Babel of thanks-giving. It could only be one person: Morley.

      He approached us, be-tweeded, bow-tied and brogued as ever, and carrying what appeared to be every single British daily newspaper, and very possibly every European paper as well. He appeared indeed like an emblem or a symbol of himself: Morley was, basically, a machine for turning piles of paper into yet more piles of paper. He was also carrying, rather incongruously, an enormous bunch of gaudy and distinctly unfresh-looking flowers.

      ‘Ah, Sefton!’ he said, thrusting the flowers

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