Portugal and After

FIFTEEN

As it happened, the fateful invitation to Portugal came right out of the blue. One day the telephone rang in my parents’ flat – where I was, on the principle of Hobson’s choice, still living – and when I picked it up a familiar voice asked for me by name. ‘Speaking,’ I said.

‘That was easy. I thought I was going to have to track you down through ten addresses. It’s Candida. Candida Finch.’

‘Hello.’ I could not keep the surprise out of my voice entirely, since we had never been all that friendly.

‘I know. Why am I ringing? Well, it’s an invitation, really. Is there any chance I could tempt you to join a gang of us in Estoril for a couple of weeks at the end of July? An old friend of mine has got a job in Lisbon, in some bank or other, and they’ve given him this huge villa and no one to put in it. He says if we can all just get ourselves out there, we can stay as long as we like for nothing. So I thought it might be fun to mount a sort of reunion of the Class of Sixty-eight, before we’ve all forgotten what we look like. What do you say?’ My surprise was not lessened by any of this, as I wasn’t aware that I’d ever been a favourite of hers while the Season was going on, let alone why I should be chosen for a special reunion.

I had not seen Candida Finch much after the whole thing came to an end and by the time of the call almost two years had passed since the events I have been revisiting. It was in the early summer of 1970, when my days as a dancing partner were long behind me. I had left Cambridge that June, with a perfectly respectable if not overwhelming degree, and the perilous career of a writer beckoned. Or at least it did not beckon, because I soon realised that I was trying to push through a solid, brick wall. My father was not hostile to my plan, once he had got over his disappointment that I wasn’t going to do anything sensible, but he declined to support me economically. ‘If it isn’t going to work, old boy,’ he said genially, ‘we’d better find out sooner rather than later,’ which was, of course, in its way, a direct challenge. Eventually I got a job as a kind of super office boy in a publishing group for children’s magazines, which would begin in the following September and for which I would be paid a handsome stipend that would have comfortably maintained a Yorkshire terrier. I did go on to do the job, for three years in fact, finally clambering up to some sort of junior editing post, and somehow I managed to make ends meet. My mother used to cheat, as mothers will; she would slip me notes and pay for clothes and pick up my bills for petrol and car repairs, but even she would not actually give me a regular allowance, as she would have felt disloyal to my father. Let us say that during this period of my time on earth I lived, I survived, but it was essentially a life without frills or extras. All of which harsh reality I knew would be my fate at the end of that summer and it made Candida’s suggestion seem rather inviting.

‘That’s incredibly kind of you. Who else is coming?’ Of course, I knew as I said this that I had to accept, because you can’t ask who is coming to some event and then refuse. Inevitably it sounds as if you might have accepted if the guest list had been of a higher standard.

Candida knew this. ‘I think we’ll have fun. We’ve got Dagmar and Lucy and the Tremayne brothers.’ I wasn’t mad about the Tremaynes, but I didn’t actually hate them, and I was actively fond of the other two, so the idea was growing on me. I knew there wasn’t the smallest chance I would otherwise have a proper holiday that year before I started what I liked to call my ‘career.’ ‘I’ve found a charter airline where they almost pay you, so the tickets will cost about sixpence. Can I definitely include you in?’

I am ashamed to say this settled it. I was confident I could get my dear mama to sub a cheap ticket, so all I would need was pocket money and a couple of clean shirts, and I would have ten days of luxury in the sun. I was pleased by the idea of seeing Lucy and Dagmar, and even Candida too, for that matter, all of whom I had not caught up with for a long while. ‘Yes. I’m in,’ I said.

‘Good. I’ll make the reservations and send you the bumph. There is one thing…’ She tailed off for a brief pause, as if choosing her words, and then continued, ‘We’re a bit short of men. The trouble is so many of them have already started working and it’s hard for them to get away at short notice. I have been slightly scraping the barrel.’

‘As witness the inclusion of the Tremaynes.’

‘Don’t be unkind. George is all right.’ This made me wonder briefly if Lord George was planning to take advantage of Candida in some way, but I couldn’t think how.

‘But if I come, won’t we be three of each?’

Obviously, she hadn’t done her maths and this momentarily threw her. ‘Yes. I suppose we will…’ She hesitated. I could almost hear her sucking her teeth.

I decided to help. ‘But you’d rather have extra in case someone drops out.’

‘That’s it. I hate it when the men are outnumbered.’

‘What about Sam Hoare?’

‘Working.’

‘Philip Rawnsley-Price?’

‘Ugh.’ She laughed and began again. ‘The fact is I was wondering if you might ask, you know, what’s his name, Damian Baxter. Your pal from Cambridge who used to come to all the dances.’ The studied casualness of this request told me it had been a long-term part of the scheme. I didn’t answer at once and she came in again. ‘Of course, if it’s a nuisance-’

‘No, no.’ I had, after all, nothing specific against Damian then. He had been more successful than I with Serena and I resented it. But that was all I knew at the time. The worst I could have accused him of was enjoying a flirtation with her. More to the point, neither of us had got her in the end. To our, I assume, joint horror she had married Andrew Summersby in April of the previous year and in the following March, three months before this conversation, she had given birth to a daughter. In other words she had moved far, far away from us by now. ‘All right, I’ll try,’ I said.

‘You don’t think he’ll want to.’

‘I don’t know. He dropped out of the Season so completely that there might be a principle involved.’

‘You haven’t discussed it?’

‘We haven’t discussed anything. I hardly saw him after your dance.’

‘But you didn’t quarrel?’

‘Oh, no. We just didn’t see each other.’

‘Well, you haven’t seen me either and we haven’t quarrelled.’

I didn’t know why I was putting up such resistance. ‘All right. You’re on. I’ll give it a go. I’m not sure if the numbers I’ve got still work for him but I’ll do my best.’

‘Excellent. Thanks.’ She seemed a little brighter. ‘OK. Let me know what he says and we will take steps accordingly.’

Things were more complicated in the years before mobiles. Whenever anyone moved you’d lost them, although one hoped only temporarily. Nor did we have answering machines, so if people were out they were out. Then again, we managed. However, when I looked in my old address book I found I still had Damian’s parents’ number and they were quite happy to provide me with the new number for his flat in London, which he’d apparently just moved into. ‘I’m very impressed,’ I said. And I was, actually.

‘So are we,’ I could hear that his mother was smiling as she spoke. ‘He’s on his way, is our Damian.’

I repeated this to Damian when I dialled the number and he picked up. ‘I’m sharing a rented flat at the wrong end of Vauxhall, even supposing there’s a right end. I am still some way from Businessman of the Year.’

‘It all sounds quite advanced to me. Have you found a job already?’

‘I fixed it before I left Cambridge.’ He mentioned some dizzying, American bank. ‘They were recruiting and… they recruited me.’ I was suitably awestruck. One thing I have learned in life: Those who get to the top tend to start at the top. ‘I begin at the end of August,’ he said.