The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [146]
Prosper decided he would also take his son, as he hoped he might follow him into his profession. He told Julian to bring a friend, and Julian said he should like to take Tom, if Tom would come, which he imagined he would not. Charles Wellwood, it turned out, was intending to go. Julian asked Charles if he would ask Tom.
Charles walked over to Todefright to ask Tom in person. The Todefright Wellwoods were sitting in the garden, taking tea in the midsummer sun. Charles said Prosper Cain was getting up a party to go to the Great Exhibition, and Julian would like Tom to come. Tom opened his mouth to say without thinking that he’d rather not.
Phyllis said “He won’t come. He never goes anywhere anymore.”
Hedda said “Tom’s a recluse. Tom is growing odd, you know, Charles. I wish you’d asked me.”
Tom closed his mouth, and his eyes. Then he opened them again, and said he would be delighted to go.
He was becoming odd. He did not want to be odd. He wanted to be invisible.
Charles said that Prosper Cain had persuaded Benedict Fludd to come with them. Tom said he supposed Philip Warren would be coming too—Philip needed to see all the new art.
It turned out that nobody had thought of taking Philip. When they considered the idea, they saw it was good. Philip was exactly the person who would be inspired by the new world of arts, crafts, and social hope embodied in the Exhibition. So Fludd told Philip he was going to Paris, and Cain bought him a new suit to go in.
On the deck of the packet-boat, midway across the Channel, Philip realised, with sudden shock, that he had no idea what France, or Paris, or Europe was. He had seen the French shoreline, on clear days, white cliffs with a difference, or vague solids melting into mist, which fascinated him. He was always fascinated by transparent films and substances that half concealed, and half revealed, other, different objects. He saw the French coastline as an analogy of glazes. He had been out on the Channel waters, fishing for mackerel—mackerel skin, like mackerel skies, was another endlessly fascinating structure. He tried to calm himself, when he realised he needed calming, by looking at the transient, repeated blades and arrows in the water ploughed back by the prow. Bottle-greens, greens chock-full of silver air, what cream and white, what a darkness under. Fludd was standing next to him, his arms on the rail, staring equally intently into the water. Philip knew they were seeing the same thing. Behind them, the three young men chatted and laughed. Julian was telling a story which entailed mimicry of a Frenchman. Charles was laughing. Prosper Cain was reading what appeared to be a catalogue. Philip realised he was both excited and afraid. Another country, other people, other habits, strange food. He was the only member of the party who had never travelled.
Julian had been to Paris several times before. He knew the museums and galleries: he had been in cafés, and ridden in a rowboat on the Seine. Charles had stayed in the best hotels, and ridden in the Bois de Boulogne. Tom had been on a family holiday, some time ago with Violet in charge, and had a vague recollection of Notre-Dame and aching feet. Fludd had spent time in attic lodgings in his misspent youth, drinking, smoking and exploring women.
Only Prosper Cain was at all prepared for the effect of the Grande Exposition Universelle.
The Exhibition could be seen as a series of paradoxes. It was gigantic and exorbitant, covering 1,500 acres and costing 120 million francs. It attracted 48 million paying visitors, took over four years to build, and included the elegant new Alexander III Bridge, arching over the Seine,