James Grant

M. Yassukovich Stanislas

Description

This story of James Grant, his family and the class they belong to is not of our time. That class still exists and its prosperity is unabated. But its position in the American national psyche is greatly diminished, its glitter dulled by the passage of time - and a change in the mores of society as a whole. But I have written it because I believe the foibles of the human heart and its redeeming strengths possess a universality which overcomes the angst of changing times. I have set the stage in an unfamiliar time to mine. Whether my characters that stride upon that cluttered stage would remain credible in a stark, modern setting, I cannot judge. I had no one in particular in mind in devising them. They are as the ghosts that populate our dreams - a compendium of hints and reflections of those who have crossed our consciousness in the ill-remembered past.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528979917
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

James Grant
Stanislas M. Yassukovich
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-07-31
James Grant About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgments Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Epilogue
About the Author
The author is a retired investment banker who was born in France of a White Russian émigré father and a French mother. He grew up and was educated in the United States – at Deerfield Academy and Harvard College. He pursued a distinguished career in the City of London, and then lived in France for many years. He now lives in South Africa. He has published two books:  Two Lives, a Social & Financial Memoir  in 2017, and  Lives of the Luberon  in 2019. He is married and has three children.
Dedication
To my children: Tatyana, Michael and Nicholas.
Copyright Information ©
Stanislas M. Yassukovich (2020)
Front cover watercolour image by Kate Yates
The right of Stanislas M. Yassukovich to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528979870 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528979887 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528979917 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to those who have read my previous work and encouraged me to continue writing.
I also wish to thank Kate Yates, née Babcock, a friend of my youth and ever since, for permission to use her watercolour image on the cover.

"When I was young, all lives but mine
Were windows in a house of stone
From which interior light did shine
On me, outside, alone."
Charles Morgan
Part I
The first friend we make on the first day at primary school provokes more lasting memories than later friends. We make that friend quickly – nervous of the new crowd and to limit the strangeness of this first social experience. There is no reason why a certain one becomes a ‘best friend’, rather than another. No similarity of looks, stature or taste will explain it. Eventually, the smallest might befriend the biggest for protection as playground games become rough, and the most gifted child has been known to help the scholastic laggard. But those are friendships developed, once distinct personalities have emerged. The truly first friendship is unqualified and accidental. And, as later life produces a fork, with two friends going entirely separate ways, neither may recall why they became fast friends in first school days .
I certainly don’t remember why I picked out James Grant on my first day at grade school. The other children were all chattering amicably in the entrance hall. Many seemed to know each other already. I felt I had to approach someone. I am sure he didn’t speak to me first. Perhaps we were dressed alike. We had no school uniform, but grey flannel shorts with knee stockings and a plain polo shirt under a sleeveless jumper were standard wear. My jumper was clearly home knit, by the nanny we had left behind in England. We were a co-educational school, and the girls provided rather more sartorial variety. In the initial melee of children being dropped, self-segregation by gender had taken place immediately. James and I stood silently together, after a brief exchange of greetings. When we went into the classroom, we were to be seated randomly, and by mutual decision my new friend and I took seats in the same row, but on either side of the central aisle dividing the classroom. However, my worst moment came as soon as we were settled as we were asked to rise in turn and state our name. My mother had warned me about this and had told me to be unafraid and speak up strongly. But my heart sank to my shoes. Now I watched each classmate stand up, from right to left, row by row and my distress intensified. From the high-pitched voices, some mumbling – and asked to repeat by the teacher – others, particularly the girls, more confidently, there poured forth a catalogue of English names. Some were vaguely familiar to me as friends of my parents, but all were as thoroughly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant as could be imagined. Sitting there, my heart pounding, I saw, in the corner of my eye, my new friend stand and say, rather languidly: ‘James Grant’. As he sat down, I could feel him turn to look at me, for I was next. I was not sure my legs would allow me to rise. Teacher was looking straight at me. I glanced across the aisle at James Grant and he gave an almost imperceptible nod. I got up and spoke my name as firmly as I could. There was an immediate, class wide titter and some outright laughter. I sat down and looked at James again. He was not even smiling. That unspoken expression of support, of refusal to share in general hilarity, of defiance in the face of potential mockery, left an impression that is with me to this day.
From the earliest conscious age, I had been made aware that we were different – a family displaced by war and revolution, those usually linked geopolitical disasters. In our case, it was the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution that had exiled my father, and the outbreak of the Second, which had brought us as a family to the United States. My mother was French and we spoke it at home, but a year in England with an English nanny had given me fluency in that language, and my accent was very similar to that prevalent amongst the American ‘old money’ class on the north shore of Long Island. But it did not take me long to realise that our eastern European name was different from those of the society in which we found ourselves, although similar names existed amongst the immigrants my father would describe as ‘modest people’. On that first day at school, after my turn at the rollcall, teacher was quick to rebuke the whole class, pointing out that their names would seem just as funny to people in Russia. Now I wonder whether a group of seven-year-olds had the slightest idea where Russia was. But children being naturally generous, until that virtue is deformed by the bitterness of life experience, I became an object of curiosity rather than scorn. I quickly found that my new friend, James Grant, reacted differently, treating my strange name not as a subject of curiosity, but rather of no consequence, and our friendship was to evolve as if my name had been Smith or Jones. My first impression of James’s nature, which only now, with my adult vocabulary, I can describe as ‘languid’, was reinforced as I knew him better. He was a very good-looking boy, with even features, blue eyes and a shock of sand-coloured hair, which prior to arrival at school had clearly been flattened with a wet hairbrush but became unruly as the day wore on. Taller than most, with an erect carriage, he had a poise of his own, and a seemingly bemused contempt for the more natural behaviour of his peers. His manner contained a subtle air of superiority, but it was paternal rather than arrogant. I was not conscious that he engendered any sort of resentment from classmates by his somewhat off hand pose, and, although I think his friendship with me was noticed, it didn’t hinder his ability to mix with the others – nor did they think curious that he should befriend the odd boy out. Certainly, my way to acceptance was eased by his quietly protective attitude towards me. At games, James displayed an athleticism that was enough to underscore his popularity, but not so excessive as to produce envy. I was in no position to judge his scholastic merit – mine soon proved to be rather unsatisfactory. As the school reports made clear, I had great difficulty concentrating. A cause was my inclination to observe my classmates, at the expense of attention to schoolwork. I felt like an explorer in a distant land noting the habits of the indigenous population. If, gradually, I seemed less different to my schoolmates, they still seemed very different to me. James, from his desk across the aisle, would catch me staring and tap his pencil on the desk to warn me teacher was also observing my lack of attention. In the playground, groups would form, the more important including James. He would make no conscious effort to draw me in, but as I approached, my confidence growing, James would make room for me in a casual and innocuous way. But still I remained anxious to break down any barriers my odd name might create and so became rather loud and boisterous in class, in fact, a bit of a ‘show off’. James would greet my antics with a wry smile and look about, as if to say ‘my friend’s a bit of a clown’. But he never collaborated in any way in what were seen by Teacher as unwelcome class disturbances. Whereas my behaviour alienated some and received applause from others, James stayed neutral; and seemed to regard it as an understandable consequence of my social handicap.
I soon had occasions to observe my new friend outside the confines of schoolroom and playground. By second grade we were able to take the school bus, several of which plied the roads from which the drives of the great estates emanated, and it was deemed we could walk unattended the short distances to gather at the pick-up points. I cross