While England Sleeps Read Free Page B

moment if perhaps that was Rupert’s problem, if like so many Englishmen he had simply got soggy in the head. I wished I could concoct an excuse to get out of the house that evening; unfortunately none came to mind. As Rupert’s guest, I appeared to be his slave.
    The phone rang. To my amazement, it was for me.
    “Brian, it’s Rose Dent. Nigel’s mother. I hope you don’t mind me ringing you here; your sister gave me the number. I’ve called to tell you Nigel’s in London.”
    I was shocked. Nigel hadn’t given me any indication he intended to visit London.
    “How long is he going to be here?” I asked hopefully.
    “Oh, but that’s just it. He’s leaving tomorrow. He’s been here a fortnight already.”
    “A fortnight?”
    “Very busy, I’m afraid. But he did wish to see you. Tell me, could you pop round for tea today—say, around four? But I must warn you that Nigel has a cold and might not be in the best of spirits.”
    I said of course I would come. She rang off, and I sat down to ponder why on earth Nigel might have come to London for a fortnight and not called me. This wasn’t like him.
    Nigel and I had been inseparable since public school, where I fagged for him—shined his shoes, made his bed, and so forth. You could say our relationship hadn’t progressed much since then. Even now the bark of his disapproval reduced me to a quaking first former, desperate to please this older, bigger, deep-voiced master, and in the end always flubbing the simplest task. I “followed” him to Cambridge, then to Stuttgart, where he went to study piano with the renowned Clara Lemper, and from where he wrote the first of his “Letters from Abroad”—essays on musical and political themes that would later make him more famous even than his recordings of Ravel and Liszt. In Stuttgart we practically lived together, and, though I now had a deeper voice than his, I continued to shine his shoes and make his bed. I was, as far as I knew, his closest ally: we shared early drafts, confidences, even lovers. Oh, certainly, our friendship had a fractious edge. He tormented me regularly, the way an older brother will torment a younger. Still, I loved him and had no doubt that he loved me. For him to have spent two weeks in London without ringing me—well, something would have had to be gravely wrong.
    I passed the afternoon in a state of restless anxiety, then at three headed off to the Dents’ house in St. John’s Wood. The rain was pissing down and I had left my umbrella on the underground and so asked Rupert if I might borrow one. Drearily he rummaged in a cupboard before locating the necessary implement.
    The tube ride to St. John’s Wood took almost forty minutes, presumably because of the weather. Happily the rain had cleared up by the time I got there. I walked through a puddled and intermittently sunny atmosphere to the Dent house. I was sent up to his room—Mrs. Dent’s room, rather, claimed by Nigel for the duration of his stay. There he was, in bed, very red in the nose, surrounded by papers and books. The place reeked of cigarettes. On the floor were stacked stained teacups, which Mrs. Dent hastily gathered.
    “Hello, Brian. How nice to see you,” said Mrs. Dent.
    “I haven’t shit for three days,” Nigel announced. “Just wanted you to know.”
    Mrs. Dent left hurriedly.
    It was obvious that he was indeed not in the best of spirits—in fact he was in a bloody beastly frame of mind, cruel and teasing, as if testing how much I would take from him before I lashed back. Still, I was determined not to give in.
    “So what’s brought you to London, Nigel?” I asked, trying to sound as if I really didn’t care.
    “Negotiating a contract with Heinemann. They want to collect my ‘Letters from Abroad.’ I’m not sure, though. Heinemann is not exactly avant-garde .”
    Pride and envy coursed through my blood in equal measure at this information. Also bewilderment; the Nigel I knew, upon receiving such