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said.
    Constance sent word for the keeper to bring a few
branches to the house along with a few brace of pheasants. Constance went down
with her unripe banana body and there was a huge black and scarlet bunch of
holly and long brown-gold lines of pheasants’ tails. It gave her a sense of
ripeness and wildness, the latter having been specially killed for Christmas,
and full of lead shot which would poison the guests.
    ‘Splendid,’ said Constance.
‘Splendid. That is beautiful.’
    She bent to stroke his dog; it bit
her. He gave a quick salute and seemed to melt from the kitchen.
    There were only five guests: her
husband’s aunt, Lady Eva, Olive Strangeways and her husband Jack, Tommy Dukes
and Harry Winterslow. Olive and Jack had come for Clifford’s sake. Olive had
always had a tendre for Clifford and dozens of other men. Lady Eva
belonged to one of the very titled families, but was slightly in disrepute because
of her gambling and her brandy. Tommy Dukes, the Brigadier General, who ordered
a three-mile retreat when in fact the troops were advancing. He was fond of
Clifford, and he was very good company. Witty, amusing, dry, original, he spoke
fluent Arabic. It was a complete waste of time because no one else did.
Everyone else spoke a second language of German, a third language of Czech and
a fourth language of Swahili. Nobody understood each other for the whole
evening.
    Harry Winterslow was the General’s friend.
He used to help him get his cat out of the tree. It was very simple — he shot
it. He wrote poetry that Constance could not understand.
     
    High cobalt sky
    The rooks caw
    Oh how the night throbs
    I must feed the wolves.
     
    In fact, nobody understood it.
    This left Jack Strangeways more or
less alone. They did this by locking him in his room. So Jack made up to Connie
through the keyhole. He was like many young people after the war. He was a
neo-conservative and a neo-aristocrat and skint.
    Suddenly Clifford said, ‘My God, if
ever we get a revolution in England, how I should love to charge the rabble
with machine-guns, shouting “Long live the King”.’
    Constance felt like kicking him so she kicked him. ‘What
rabble?’ she said.
    ‘Those damned bolshevist-socialist lot,’
he said. ‘Look at Russia.’ So they all looked at Russia.
    Then they looked at Lady Eva, her
nose reddened with brandy into a storm of veins. She was a pathetic instance of
not being able to love anything. She couldn’t do it any more. She had done it
until she was sixty then it had healed up.
    Lady Eva said, ‘If civilization needs
no love, we might easily become a bee-hive community.’
    ‘Even that requires a queen bee,’
said Dukes quietly.
    ‘And what woman could lay 3,000
eggs?’ said Jack.
    ‘If I know anything about human
nature, we will become an ant-heap and soon a big ant-eater will come along and
lick it up with a curly tongue,’ said Tommy Dukes softly.
    ‘How nice,’ said Olive. ‘And what
then?’
    ‘Ask the ant-eater,’ said Jack.
    Olive caught the next train to London, took a taxi to Whipsnade Zoo, found the ant-eater’s cage and asked him, ‘If we all
turn into ants would you come along and lick us up?’
    It didn’t answer so she caught the
train back to Wragby Village and said to Jack, ‘What a bloody fool you were to
ask me to ask the ant-eater. I asked him four times and he didn’t answer. You
are a bloody fool.’
    ‘People say all women are
materialists,’ he said sarcastically.
    ‘You’re wrong,’ said Lady Eva. ‘I
know women who are anything but materialists. Mrs Aida Gooks.’
    ‘Who’s she?’
    ‘She’s a woman who is anything but
materialistic.’ Lady Eva and her nose took a sip of brandy. ‘Mrs Eileen Veg.’
    ‘Who’s she?’ said Dukes.
    ‘She’s another woman who is anything
but materialistic.’
    ‘Would you dance with me?’ said Lady
Eva. ‘I love to Foxtrot.’
    ‘I should like it more than I can
say,’ he replied. So he didn’t say