The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [625]
‘Oh, that’s all very well,’ blustered Nigel. ‘Anyone can quote isolated facts, but that just distorts the overall picture.’ And Nigel flushed, nettled by Matthew’s tone and conscious that he had not emerged from this arguement as well as he had hoped, particularly with the beautiful Joan Blackett sitting in silent judgement at his elbow. What a smasher she was! Nigel particularly liked the way the light fell on her curly hair, making it glow like … like …
‘Matthew doesn’t know anything, Nigel, about what things are really like here,’ said Joan suddenly and in such a bitter tone that even Nigel peered at her in surprise, delighted, however, that she should take his side.
Walter had been listening attentively to the exchange between the two young men at the end of the table. As he listened his face had darkened and the bristles on his spine had risen, causing his Lancashire cotton shirt and even the jacket of his linen suit to puff up into a hump. Distracted though she was by her imminent departure, Mrs Blackett had noticed the warning signs and held her breath, afraid lest her husband explode at any moment. But just as it had seemed that an explosion of rage was inevitable, Walter’s thoughts had abruptly been diverted into a more soothing channel by his daughter’s defence of Nigel. And so promising was this new channel that within a few moments those horrid bristles had subsided and were nestling peacefully once more flat against Walter’s coarse pink skin. Walter had begun to have ideas about young Nigel Langfield.
Walter had known Nigel since childhood; according to the general proposition that Langfields only became odious and unsuitable on reaching puberty, he had often been permitted to come as a child to play with Monty just as now Melanie came to play with Kate. And naturally, even after Nigel had made the change from acceptable tadpole to unacceptable frog, Walter had continued to see him here or there for they belonged, of course, to the same clubs and it was inevitable that the young man should crop up in Walter’s field of vision over the years carrying now a tennis racket, now a briefcase, Singapore being a very small world, after all. Nevertheless it was only now that the bombed-out Langfields had assembled under his roof that Walter was at last really able to form an opinion about the young man: on the whole he had been agreeably surprised. Nigel had the right ideas. He was not, like Monty, a wash-out. On the contrary, from what he had overheard passing between Nigel and his father the young man was already active in the affairs of Langfield and Bowser. Walter, preoccupied though he was this evening with other matters, had not failed to notice that every now and again Nigel’s eyes would surreptitiously come to rest on Joan and contemplate her avidly. A young man’s normal stirrings of lust, perhaps? No, Walter did not think so. He believed that there might be more to it than that. For Nigel was making every effort to be agreeable to Joan and once or twice, for no apparent reason, a deep blush had stained the young man’s cheeks, which were, incidentally, still pleasantly freckled like those of a child.
Yes, Walter was still faced with the problem of finding a husband for Joan. How times had changed that he should now be giving serious consideration to an offspring of the Langfields! But a businessman must adapt his views to meet changing times; otherwise he will be left high and dry. Walter had not forgotten (how often had he not repeated it to little Monty when the lad was still in the nursery) the fate of the rice-millers in London who had gone to their doom because they had been unable to foresee the effects that the opening of the Suez Canal would have on their trade. A man must move with the times. If a union of the Blacketts and the