Centrepiece

Poor Grenadine

Colin Welch

The respectability of Mr and Mrs Ernest Britt is imposing but fragile. Their desirable Elizabethan-style residence is, so to speak, of glass, built on sand. Sometimes cupboard doors rattle and carpets heave and writhe as whatever has been locked up in or swept under them reveals itself still awkwardly alive.

The fact is that Mr Britt was in his youth a bit of a lad. He travelled widely, the earth his oyster and limit. He was extremely pro- miscuous and philoprogenitive, a sort of imperial Abraham, engendering offspring of all colours, love-children or rather by- blows on whom the sun never set. Some are now as respectable and prosperous as the Britts. Despite her origins in crime, massacre, even genocide, daughter Matilda down under does not hesitate to reprove and censure others for crimes to which she was herself no stranger. Yet also appear, at the increasingly macabre and spectral an- nual family reunions, less edifying persons, as if from Dr Moreau's island, whose blood-stained knuckles near brush the ground. With all these embarrassments Mrs Britt puts up patiently, for the sake of com- fort. She 'does the right thing.'

Of late the Britts have been slightly troubled by the misfortune of his daughter Grenadine, generated during the course of a protracted, agreeable and once lucrative swan of his round the Caribbean. There came a time when this dusky beauty, now of age and more burdensome than pro- fitable, had to be set up in some parody of independent life. So, with a modest dowry, she was married off to a suitor, seemingly as much madman as scoundrel, subsequent- ly honoured with a knighthood, called Gairy. This worthy, as Max Hastings re- counted in last week's Speclalor, did not even wait till her father had given her away and swiftly departed, with a sigh of relief, before committing cruel and unnatural outrages on her person.

The Britts, safe and snug back in their suburban Dunromin, averted their eyes from her sufferings. They had done their duty by the poor girl. They later heard, with more composure than was seemly, that the husband they had imposed on her had been forcibly replaced by a maddish Marxist, who looks in retrospect relatively mild and was perhaps more congenial to her. But he also filled her household with villainous Cubans, whose ferocious manners, bristling weapons and clear aggressive intent ter- rified Grenadine and her neighbours, in- cluding that nice Mis' Charles.

'This is all rather disturbing, my dear,' said Mr Britt from behind the Times. 'But what can we do?'

'Nothing at all, Ernest,' said Mrs Britt crisply. 'Grenadine is grown up now. She must make her own life. She is nothing more to do with us.'

And so the happy couple relapsed into their normal tea-cake torpor. Their repose was not long undisturbed. More vexatious tidings were on the way. Grenadine's misfortunes multiplied, her future grew darker still. A bunch of raving thugs burst in on her, more Marxist seemingly than her 'husband', whom they brutally shot. Her they raped gagged, bound locked in the cellar, guarded there by menacing Cubans, who appeared now more even than the thugs to be in full control. Would this tiresome business never lie down or go away? 'What now?' the Britts asked themselves. 'What is to be done?'

Wise and cautious, Mr Britt said, 'We must try to do everything by persuasion, by persuading the villains to repent and the Cubans to go home.'

A shade more fiery, Mrs Britt preferred some sort of 'sanctions'. Mr Britt demur- red: cutting off all supplies might hurt Grenadine as much as her captors, victim as much as torturers.

'Nonsense, Ernest. Surely experience has taught you that sanctions are an ideal weapon, causing almost no inconvenience to anybody, whether to those who impose them or to those on whom they are imposed or to anyone else, They certainly worked admirably when Cecilia was so wilful and headstrong in Africa, refusing to marry either that dear roly-poly Mr Nkomo or dear Robert.'

`To be sure, my dear, they did absolutely no harm to anyone, and yet they made us very popular at the Bar of World Opinion. Mrs Gandhi even bought me a drink non-alcoholic, of course.'

'Yes, Ernest, something of the sort is the very least, as also the very most, that can be expected of us now. You must hasten to make all the necessary arrangements. You could ring up that nice sailor, who was so helpful in Beira, for a start, and tell him to stand by for fresh deeds of derring-do.' But Mr Britt yawned, and nothing was done.

Meanwhile poor Grenadine in anguish wondered how on earth she was to escape. No use ringing Paw, even if she could get to the telephone. He was too far away, had never taken much interest; and all she got on the line was crackling and roaring.

Somehow, by means incredible and still unclear, she managed to get an urgent SOS out to nice Mis' Charles and other well- disposed neighbours, and to a kindly American actor called Reagan, rich and retired, who happened to be cruising with a formidably effective crew near by. An at- tack was launched with great dash and dispatch, though not, alas, without cost; the Cubans were sent packing; and Grenadine, overjoyed and grateful, was restored to a long-lost liberty.

The doughty Mr Reagan might perhaps have expected from the Britts, if not heart- felt thanks, then at least somnolent assent. After all the Britts had, with his approval and active support, recently and un- characteristically bestirred themselves to rescue Ernest's son Falkland from a fate rather like Grenadine's and by rather like means. If he had rich expectations, he must have been astonished by what followed.

Fully awake at last, the Britts were furious. They were deeply hurt, distressed, 'humiliated'. Nobody had even consulted them (apparently in fact somebody had, but the message had, perhaps through their own negligence, gone to the wrong address from which they didn't at once bother to collect it).

Mr Reagan had coarsely, oafishly and gratuitously blundered into the affairs of a great old family, closely knit by ties far too subtle, complex and impalpable to be understood by any Hollywood hick. He had shown himself rash, ignorant, ham-fisted, immature, if not paronic then 'neurotic'. He had annoyed and frightened everybody, friends and — far worse! — foes alike. He had unlawfully broken into the Britts' pro- perty (which he might have been forgiven for thinking they had abandoned for ever). He should be prosecuted at once for wrongful entry; graver charges would surely follow.

His rude incursion was not only wicked but foolish. Either there were hoarder of Cubans there, in which case he'd be in for another Vietnam; or there were only a few Cubans, in which case his outrage had been unnecessary. Both possibilities added petrol to the Britts' confused wrath. A bemused Reagan politely asked the Britts for help and co-operation.

'Of course, Ernest, we'll have to see. But really, after all that's happened, what a nerve! We must not "bail him out".'

'Indeed, my dear, but we must not forget even now that we have in the past relied on him for our own protection. We cannot af- ford to be too discourteous or unhelpful.'

'Rely on him? How could anyone rely on anyone so impetuous and ungovernable, so deaf to the advice of the experienced? I really think, Ernest, we ought to think seriously of putting double locks on our own doors. Otherwise he might go beserk here too.'

I fervently hope that this little parable is totally without foundation or, if in any part true, then justified by mysterious but im- portant considerations quite hidden from me. I would truly hate to think that the Britts were motivated by any sort of pique or ruffled false pride or, far worse, by any envious thought that others had successful- ly brought off what they considered themselves alone fitted to accomplish, or that others might receive applause and thanks properly reserved to themselves,