Free Symposium by Muriel Spark

Total recall.’
    ‘Do you
know,’ mused Hurley, ‘those champagne growers, the Ferrandi family, one of the
cousins was killed by his wife with a blow on the head from a bottle of his own
brand of champagne. The French make their bottles very heavy.
    Especially
champagne.
    ‘Helen
Suzy and Brian have accepted,’ said Chris. ‘I wonder how long that marriage
will last?’
     
     
    Luke, that Sunday
afternoon, came round to see Chris about his employment as an extra at the forthcoming
dinner party. To her surprise he brought her a flower, one single very
long-stalked, very large-faced yellow dahlia.
    ‘How
nice of you, Luke,’ she said, ‘how really very delightful.’ She was
interviewing him in a comfortable sitting-room which was really a pantry
attached to the kitchen. ‘I believe you’re an arts graduate?’ she said.
    ‘No,
history, ma’am. I’m doing a post-graduate course at London University.’
    ‘I do
so admire you Americans the way you don’t scorn manual work while you study.’
    ‘I’ve
always found my own education, ma’am. I work to eke out my grants. It’s often a
pleasure. And I believe I may benefit in the long run from the experiences I
gain in so many different families, different homes.
    ‘We
have a reference for you from Ernst Untzinger, a friend of Mr Reed’s. It will
be really good of you to come and help us out. I understand you’re the perfect
waiter, that’ll be something to boast about when you get the Chair of History
at an important university. Ernst refers to you as “Luke” by the way. How shall
we call you?’
    ‘Just
Luke,’ said Luke.
    Chris
was enchanted with his smile, his dark good looks, his easy manners. She
thought, ‘I’d far sooner have him as a guest at my table than hire him to wait
on us.’
    He told
her, as is often the way with the young, with their wide indiscriminate
perspectives, how he aimed to go to China, when things had settled down, to South
America, to North Africa, to Russia, maybe to study or to teach. Turkey, the
Middle East. Not one after the other but all ‘next summer’.
    In came
the chef from Mauritius, small, slim, Corby who was and looked about thirty,
putting on his chef’s cap and then tying his apron strings. When all these
things were done he shook hands with Luke.
    ‘Charterhouse
is out at the moment. But he knows you’re coming to help us serve.’
    ‘That’s
right,’ said Luke.
    ‘I
believe you know the Suzys,’ said Corby with a slight accent of grandeur. ‘Lord
and Lady Suzy?’
    ‘Only
by hearsay,’ said Luke.
    ‘I’ll
leave you to talk,’ said Chris. ‘See you Thursday, 18th October.’
    ‘What
will you have?’ said Corby. ‘A beer? Cup of coffee?’
    ‘Nothing,
thanks. Charterhouse is the butler?’
    ‘Well,
yes, butler. You know a butler isn’t really a butler unless he has a household
of servants beneath him and a housekeeper to work with. It’s like a general
without an army. Here we don’t even have a platoon. But Charterhouse has a
butler’s training. I was trained in Berne and Lyons.’
    ‘I’d
like to meet Charterhouse,’ said Luke. ‘Before the party.’
    ‘Oh,
just for a serving job it isn’t necessary. I’ll show you the dining-room.
You’ve heard of the Suzys? They’ll be here at the dinner.’
    ‘You
must get to know some interesting people,’ said Luke. And he said, ‘I’ve got to
go now. Maybe I’ll look in some time tomorrow, next day, and see Charterhouse.
When’s the best time?’
    ‘Five
o’clock,’ said Corby. ‘Five o’clock is always the best time for everybody and
everything. You can’t spend the best part of three years in Lyons without
knowing it.’
    ‘Ah,’
said Luke. ‘I’ll remember that. I believe the Untzingers are coming to the
dinner, do you know them at all?’
    ‘By
name,’ said Corby. ‘By name. Charterhouse would know them by sight. Another
name that’s on the list of guests is Damien. Multi-millionaires. Either husband
and wife or