Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman (13 page)

Piddle Hall

Dear Mr and Mrs Rosenblum,

My wife and I are hosting a little gathering for drinks on Friday. We would be delighted if you and Mrs Rosenblum could join us. We look forward to welcoming you to our delightful piece of country. Be so kind as to come at seven.

Regards,

Sir William Waegbert

Jack’s hand shook with excitement. This was a letter from a real English knight, not a mere gentleman but an actual member of the aristocracy. He marvelled over the invitation; did it mean that he was finally about to be accepted as an Englishman? He wished again that Elizabeth was here – then he could have shown her the card and she would realise he was a proper gentleman. Still trembling, he read and reread the invitation, admiring Sir William Waegbert’s close hand and genteel loops. He must strive to make his own handwriting more gentlemanlike. Clearly, his was far too easy to read – one must work to decipher the words of a real gentleman like Sir William Waegbert. Jack tried the name aloud, ‘Sir William Waegbert.’ It sounded most auspicious. Much smarter than ‘Arnold Smythe’, and a fragment of Jack’s jealousy of that man broke off and vanished.

There was one slight difficulty with the otherwise delightful invitation – Sadie was also invited. While Jack knew that it was usual to include a man’s wife, Sadie was not like most wives. He hoped that she would behave – he could not bear for her to make a scene – and wished for the thousandth time that she would rinse her hair blue, paint her nails and be like other women. Jack realised it would take all of his persuasive powers to get Sadie to agree to accompany him; the party was on Friday night and she never went out on
Shabbas
. She would not even pick flowers, for the law states that nothing shall be broken into two halves on the Sabbath. Jack ventured into her territory to plead his case and found her kneeling amongst the flowerbeds cutting the dead heads off cala lilies. Without a word, he squatted down beside her and handed her the invitation. Putting down her shears, she read it in silence and passed it back to him, leaving a bright yellow smear of pollen across the pristine surface. He winced but uttered no reproach. ‘Well, will you come?’

‘It is on
Shabbas
,’ she said by way of answer.

‘Ah, well, no, not quite.’ He had been thinking about this on his way into the garden. ‘It states an arrival time of seven o’clock and dusk is not until eight thirty. And, therefore,’ he gave a little cough, ‘by my calculations
Shabbas
will not be in until nine thirty.’ He actually had no idea when dusk was, but he spoke with such assurance that Sadie did not question him. She picked up her scissors and continued to snip away at the flowers, placing the fallen heads into a bucket. She moved a stone and instantly the soil was teeming with ants. Jack shuddered, repulsed by the wriggling black bodies and tiny pinkish eggs.

Seeing his revulsion, she gave a snort, ‘Everything is home for something.’

‘Please,’ said Jack, ‘please.’

Sadie did not seem to hear him. She gave a little chuckle of glee and pointed to a small blue bloom, ‘A cornflower.’

There was the sound of knocking on wood, like a tiny, powerful fist against a massive door. Above them a brilliant woodpecker, white and red, hammered with his beak against the bark of a tree. Sadie listened acutely to the sound, alert with interest.

‘I like his outfit,’ said Jack, pointing to the bird’s brilliant plumage. ‘He’s a dapper little fellow. And an excellent percussionist. I’m sure with the right contacts, he could perform at the Wigmore Hall.’

Sadie’s face brightened until she was almost smiling. She rocked back onto her heels and glanced up at her husband.

‘Very well, I’ll come,’ she said and carried on snipping.

Jack waited for Friday like a small child for sweets to come off ration. When it finally arrived, he dressed himself meticulously in his Henry Poole suit and carefully selected a lilac silk tie. He combed his few strands of hair and shaved with a new blade. He even speculated whether he ought to grow a moustache for the occasion, but, on balance, did not feel confident enough with regard to the etiquette on facial hair. There were bound to be nuances of meaning in the angle or the shape of the curl and then there was the troubling question of whether or not to wax. It was safer to shave. He would study the gentleman of the aristocracy
and then perhaps reconsider.

Sadie was waiting for him by the car. He was relieved to see that she was very respectably dressed in a pale olive frock – the colour matching the soft green of her eyes – with a white cardigan and matching shoes. She clutched a bouquet of garden flowers. ‘We mustn’t go empty handed. We’re not
schnorrers
.’

Jack smiled, pleased by her good thinking. This was their very first evening out since their arrival in the countryside. He had been far too busy with his golf course to drive out with his wife and she was indifferent to excursions, preferring to stay quietly in her garden watching the birds. The evening was warm and Jack had peeled the top off the car. He gripped the steering wheel tightly to hide the slight trembling of his hands. If only he had finished
Jude
then he would have something suitable to talk about. Privately, he was already certain that he preferred Byron to Hardy, mainly because he was shorter in height as well as length, and Jack always felt a firm sense of solidarity with other small men.

The verges had been mown and the evening was heavy with the smell of freshly cut grass; dotted amongst the dark green of the hedgerows were speckles of scarlet wild strawberries and the whitish flowers of the brambles. The edges of the road teemed with bounding rabbits and every now and again they passed one stretched out on the tarmac, its fur bloodied. Jack stared straight ahead and suppressed a shudder.

He had memorised the map and was confident of the route but, in case of misadventure, he had allowed an extra half hour for the fifteen-minute journey. They arrived in fourteen minutes, shortly before half past six. The invitation strictly stated seven o’clock, so he pulled the car to the side of the road and they waited. He had the card with him; it was soiled now but he kept it anyway, safely tucked in his jacket pocket, half expecting to be questioned and turned away by the staff unless he could produce it. In front of them were the gates to the house. They were elaborate wrought iron and supported by two towering gateposts made of blond sandstone, each one topped with a screeching, weather-beaten eagle. A wall, seven feet high, ran from the gates all around the estate, so they could not see what lay beyond. A narrow driveway led away and immediately wound tightly to the right, heightening Jack’s sense of expectation. They sat in silence until six fifty-five staring at the austere eagles, which gazed back at them, beaks tilted imperiously.

At six fifty-five Jack started the engine and they drove slowly along the gravel drive. It was lined on both sides with towering bushes of rhododendron and ancient magnolia trees. The land sloped down to a lake where a small flock of sheep grazed on the banks in the company of a brilliant white horse. On either side of the lake parkland was dotted with spreading oaks and Jack noticed a herd of deer grazing in the distance. In a minute they reached the house, a handsome stone manor, the front façade covered with ivy and tumbling wisteria, the evening sun glinting off the windows. They drew up to the main steps, whereupon an elderly man in a grey suit slowly descended. Jack leant out of the car, trying to shake his hand, ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, Sir William Waegbert.’

The man gave an almost imperceptible bow, ‘Thank you for the compliment, Mr Rosenblum, but I am not the illustrious Sir William. My name is Symonds. The butler.’

Jack flushed with embarrassment – his first blunder and he’d not even parked the car.

‘Would you be good enough to leave the automobile by the stables, sir?’ said Symonds, pointing to a low building around the corner.

Jack steered the Jaguar to the smart stables at the back of the house. They had recently been reroofed with black slate tiles and the wooden walls were newly painted duck-egg blue. Two horses wearing nosebags gazed nonchalantly at the newcomers. A groom polished riding tack to a gleam, while a nut-brown mare fidgeted and tried to back into a wall as a girl in breeches attempted to pick muck from her hooves with a blunt knife. Jack parked alongside a line of other vehicles in the far corner of the yard. The automobiles were in stark contrast to the shining, well-cared for horses. There was an Austin, its bodywork battered by what appeared to be hoof-prints, the wheel arches eaten away by rust. Next to it was a Rolls-Royce, but it was a model dating to before the Great War – its exhaust was missing and there were holes in the leather upholstery where tufts of horsehair stuffing poked through.

They walked back through the yard, Sadie stumbling on the cobbles in her heels. Having taken to walking barefoot over the grass, it felt strange to her to be wearing shoes at all. Symonds was waiting for them at the front of the house. He must have been in his seventies but Jack noticed with admiration his excellent upright bearing.

‘May I show you into the rose garden? Sir William and Lady Waegbert will join you shortly, Mr Rosenblum, Mrs Rosenblum.’

They followed the servant into the formal garden at the front of the manor. Jack still found the English manner of speaking most peculiar. They so rarely made absolute statements or asked you to do something but instead continually spoke in rhetorical questions – ‘would you?’ ‘may I?’ – when what they truly meant was park here, wait there. They liked to give you the illusion of choice, when really there was none.

‘Will you be quite comfortable here, sir? And may I bring you a drink, sir?’

‘Yes. Thank you. A whisky.’

‘With soda or ice?’

Jack paused, wondering which was the correct answer. Which would give him away as a phoney and a foreigner? ‘A dash of soda, please,’ he said, trying to sound casual.

Symonds gave a tiny bow and Jack relaxed – he had chosen wisely. He must remember that. No more neat whisky: whisky and soda.

‘And for the lady?’

Now it was Sadie’s turn to look stricken, she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, heels sinking awkwardly into the grass. Nice, middle-class Jewish ladies didn’t drink. Occasionally she might have a glass of champagne if they went to the opera but only in the Stalls bar, never from the Crush bar. She had once tried a sip of gin and tonic and had rather liked it but Mrs Ezekiel had seen her, and she had told everyone at
schul
on Saturday that Mrs Sadie Rosenblum liked a gin. Gin, Sadie decided, was a danger to one’s reputation. Jack, however, knew better; only yesterday on the wireless Mr Betjeman had described how gin and tonic with a slice of lemon was one of the great joys of an English summer’s evening. Betjeman explained that it evoked the old days of Empire and the nostalgic pleasures of a misremembered past, and noted wryly that even English ladies enjoyed a little ‘G and T’ amongst friends.

‘A gin and tonic, with a slice of lemon if you’ve got it,’ said Jack firmly.

Sadie opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again meekly, smoothing an imaginary crease in her dress. She was still clutching the flowers.

‘May I take these, madam?’ asked Symonds.

Sadie hesitated. ‘They’re for Lady Waegbert.’

‘The man doesn’t think they’re for him,’ said Jack irritably.

She allowed him to take them from her, watching as he vanished into the house. They were left standing on a lawn, neatly clipped and rolled into smart stripes. Pyramids of Yew were planted in straight lines across the grass and loomed above them. She wondered whether it was usual to be left hanging about in the garden, waiting for one’s host.

In fact it was not. Lady Waegbert liked to greet her guests personally – however unwelcome. She could not see why her husband had invited such ludicrous people to her house – just because people were odd it was no guarantee of their being entertaining. And now, they had arrived so outrageously early that no one was ready to receive them.

‘Surely
everybody
knows that seven o’clock means seven thirty,’ she complained bitterly to her husband.

‘Darling, they are foreign,
Germans.
They are always punctual.’

‘They are not punctual. They are early,’ she said, as if it were one of the worst crimes in society. ‘And to arrive before your hostess has even had time to put on her lipstick.’

The Rosenblums, in the shadow of the Yew Pyramids, were oblivious to their violation of the social niceties. Nor did Jack realise that they had been invited solely for entertainment value. The other ten guests had all been asked to stay for dinner, and Jack was intended to provide the pre-dinner cabaret. Sir William was not a cruel man but he enjoyed the bizarre or ridiculous, and he had heard the strange tales about the Jew of Bulbarrow, who was trying to build a golf course in forty days and forty nights with only a shovel. This was too good an opportunity to forgo, so risking the wrath of his wife he dispatched a rash invitation.

Sir William, growing tired of his lady’s complaints, went out into the garden to meet his guests. He rubbed his hands in delight as he saw them standing together. They were better than he had hoped – she was merely old-fashioned-looking, a plump woman in a faded frock and silly white shoes – but he was very promising. To Sir William’s eye, Jack’s treasured Henry Poole suit was garish and the lilac tie lurid. The fact he wore a suit at all for what was merely drinks was also highly entertaining. A gentleman wears a jacket and tie for drinks and a suit only for dinner. Sir William, however, was the model of perfect breeding and, as he shook their hands with real warmth and profuse apologies at his own lateness, Jack and Sadie suspected nothing.

The remainder of the guests arrived punctually late at seven thirty. They appeared on the lawn with Lady Waegbert just as Jack was attempting to steer the conversation to the first four pages of
Jude the Obscure.
He had also stashed a collection of Hardy’s poems in his breast pocket in case any one was in need of an urgent quotation.

‘
Jude
, eh. No never read it. Tried
Tess
once. Heard she was quite a gal, a real corker,’ confided Sir William with a wink.

Jack made a silent promise to read
Tess
next. The combination of whisky, sunshine and nerves was making him feel a trifle faint. The men drew around Sir William eager to meet the promised Jew, like a crowd gathering for a circus act. He introduced Jack to several smart-looking gentlemen, including Mr Henry Hoare, a man of about sixty in a patched flannel jacket and heavy horn-rimmed spectacles.

‘So, do tell us about this golf course, then. The only reason we’ve come to this ghastly pile at all is to hear about it,’ said Mr Hoare.

Jack looked worried – he recognised this to be an instance of English wit but did not like it and hoped Sir William had not taken offence. The baronet, however, remained unperturbed and smiled encouragingly.

‘Well, the course will be the greatest in the whole South-West. It is the most important labour of my life,’ Jack declared.

He looked at the expectant faces and took another sip of whisky. It was nearly a week since he stopped construction but he found his enthusiasm for the project returning in great waves as the alcohol warmed his throat.

‘I am following the example of Mr Bobby Jones – in my view the greatest player and designer of courses in the whole of golfing history.’

‘Jones is a gentleman, too. A true amateur, none of your
sporting professionals,
’ added a man in a dull green tweed.

Sir William gestured to Symonds, who scuttled over to take a whispered order, reappearing, as if by magic, moments later with another glass of whisky and soda for Jack. As he sipped, Jack felt warm and pleasant, and became expansive. He wanted these men, these leaders of society, to understand, no, to fully appreciate the wonder that was Bobby Jones. He spread his arms like a rabbi deep in explanation of the mysteries of the Torah.