A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

—There goes Leo again, Tuke said, drawing the thinnest possible line between good manners and intelligent curiosity.

—Oh, I don't mind, Ross grinned. The answer, Leo my fine fellow, is that I'm not Aircraftsman Ross 352087. The Brough is real, and the 352087 is real, and the uniform is real enough for the RAF. For the rest, I was born an impostor.

—Look straight ahead, and slightly up, Tuke said. I do hope the vicar doesn't turn up. He's well up on things, if you see what I mean.

—I don't, I said without thinking.

Tuke and Ross exchanged smiles.

—He would most probably recognize Private Ross.

—You're playing a teasing game with us, I said. Vicar, of all people! He didn't know Lord Gower when he was here with Frank or that French writer with the square face.

—Ross is different, Tuke said.

—Oh, I'm not afraid of the vicar, Ross said. I've got being an impostor down to an art. I've posed for a painter who didn't recognize me in the street the next day. The trick is to feel that you're nobody, and act accordingly.

—You've got to tell us, Leo said. You've gone too far not to.

—But, said Ross, there's really nothing to tell. I could tell you that my name is Chapman, which happens to be true, and you're none the wiser, are you? Things in this world are like that. A bloke whose name you know as Ross turns out to be named Chapman. It's worth Fanny Fuck All, as we say in barracks. Georgie Fouracre is Georgie Fouracre. You know who you are. You will beget strapping boys like yourself, and sit by your own fireside, you and your good wife.

—Mary Baskins, Leo said, more fool her.

—You lost your hopes with her by belching in church. Sounded like a bullfrog, and Vicar lost his place in Deuteronomy.

—But Vicar would recognize Chapman here, from the papers, from the pictures, from knowing him?

—I've said quite enough, Tuke said. I've got the profile. What about a bathe, what say?

Tuke was out of his clothes in the shake of a lamb's tail. Ross swam well, effortlessly. It was Willy who said later that he did everything with style, as if there was the one right way of doing a thing.

We had no towels, and were sitting and drying in the sun when there were steps down the path, and here was Vicar, shouting jovially, using a wholly unnecessary brolly as a cane, fanning himself with a cream panama.

—Oh! I say.

—You've seen us mother-naked before, Vicar, Leo said, giving Willy's ribs an elbow.

—Oh, I say! Of course, of course. A painter of lads must have lads to paint. If I'm intruding, I shall beat a prudent retreat, what what?

—Not at all, Tuke said. As a matter of fact, I have been making a watercolor study of a visitor, who came on that motorbike, and whom I'd like you to meet.

—I noticed the motorbike, yes. The etiquette of meeting a gentleman in a state of nature is an interesting one which our nannies rather passed over lightly.

Ross rose with an easy dignity and shook Vicar's hand.

—The Reverend Button Milford, Tuke said. Aircraftsman Ross. He has sat for John and is kind enough to like my work.

—Ever so pleased, I'm sure, said Vicar. Don't get dressed on my account. A classical education gives one a taste for the, ah, pastoral, don't you know.

Vicar dithered about, causing Leo to search the horizon for, as may be, a ship. And then asked:

—Were you, Ross, in this late, and one hopes last, terrible war? But of course you weren't: you're too young.

—I was indeed in the war, Ross said. And it is not the last.

Belinda's World Tour

A little girl, hustled into her pram by an officious nurse, discovered halfway home from the park that her doll Belinda had been left behind. The nurse had finished her gossip with the nurse who minced with one hand on her hip, and had had a good look at the grenadiers in creaking boots who strolled in the park to eye and give smiling nods to the nurses. She had posted a letter and sniffed at various people. Lizaveta had tried to talk to a little boy who spoke only a soft gibberish, had kissed and been kissed by a large dog, and had helped another little girl fill her shoes with sand.

And Belinda had been left behind. They went back and looked for her in all the places they had been. The nurse was in a state. Lizaveta howled. Her father and mother were at a loss to comfort her, as this was the first tragedy of her life and she was indulging all its possibilities. Her grief was the more terrible in that they had a guest to tea, Herr Doktor Kafka of the Assicurazioni Generali, Prague office.

—Dear Lizaveta! Herr Kafka said. You are so very unhappy that I am going to tell you something that was going to be a surprise. Belinda did not have time to tell you herself. While you were not looking, she met a little boy her own age, perhaps a doll, perhaps a little boy, I couldn't quite tell, who invited her to go with him around the world. But he was leaving immediately. There was no time to dally. She had to make up her mind then and there. Such things happen. Dolls, you know, are born in department stores, and have a more advanced knowledge than those of us who are brought to houses by storks. We have such a limited knowledge of things. Belinda did, in her haste, ask me to tell you that she would write, daily, and that she would have told you of her sudden plans if she had been able to find you in time.

Lizaveta stared.

But the very next day there was a postcard for her in the mail. She had never had a postcard before. On its picture side was London Bridge, and on the other lots of writing which her mother read to her, and her father, again, when he came home for dinner.

***

Dear Lizaveta: We came to London by balloon. Oh, how exciting it is to float over mountains, rivers, and cities with my friend Rudolf, who had packed