I took a gulp of his tea.
‘You should put a little rum in this,’ I advised.
‘Well, I haven’t got any rum, have I?’
‘Do you mean you have forgotten how to pick the lock of the drinks cupboard?’
He maintained an injured silence. I went to fetch the rum, while he made some more Sergeant-Major’s.
When we were firmly seated astride the tea and certain Welsh Rabbits which Jock had conjured up to help it down, I waxed informative, a vice of mine which I can by no means cure.
‘Jock,’ I said, ‘did you know that for fifteen centuries people believed that the toad had a precious jewel inside its skull?’
‘Reelly?’ he said. ‘What give them that idea, then?’
‘Pliny or Aristotle or one of those chaps who wrote it in a book.’ Jock munched and golluped awhile.
‘Well, didn’t nobody think to chop one open and take a look?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Fucking ignorant, all them wops, aren’t they,’ he said, obscurely. I couldn’t find it in my heart to contradict him.
‘He went on about hares, too,’ Jock went on. ‘Seems there aren’t supposed to be any hares on the Island but a few years back there was a right big bugger seen and the farmers reckoned it sucked all the milk out of them funny little cows they have here. So they laid up for it and shot it and better-shot it but it wasn’t no use, so one of them put a silver button in his gun and shot it in the bum and the hare goes off limping and the next day this creepy old tart who lives nearby has a bandage on her leg.’
‘That is probably one of the oldest stories in the world,’ I told him, for indeed it is.
I was too tired to take a shower that night: all I wanted was to go to boo-boo’s. I brushed my teeth, of course. As I did so I realized why the nice chap at the Pistol and Rifle Club had been so keen on introducing me to the chap who would cast bullets in anything.
Silver was what he had had in mind.
6
I said ‘she must be swift and white,
And subtly warm, and half perverse,
And sweet, like sharp soft fruit to bite,
And like a snake’s love lithe and fierce.’
Men have guessed worse.
Felise
We had another conference the next morning. Sonia, it seemed, was bearing up and getting about a little, but Violet’s case was worse: she had quite stopped speaking and, although she followed you with her eyes, she moved no other part of herself. Sam had got one spoonful of Brand’s celebrated Calves’ Foot Jelly into her; the second time she had bitten the spoon. After that she wouldn’t open her mouth at all. The doctor had mumbled about some sort of psychotic withdrawal which he himself clearly wasn’t on very good terms with, and had given her another generous needleful of sedative.
‘He didn’t quite say “go on taking the tablets”,’ said Sam, ‘but you could see the words on the tip of his tongue. If she hasn’t snapped out of it tomorrow I’m getting a second opinion.’
We all nodded and made kindly murmuring sounds, except George who said ‘bloody swine’ several times.
Sam asked me if I could recommend a good pistol and how should he go about getting one. I told him, and advised a good vintage piece which would be an investment. He didn’t seem too interested in that aspect, he wanted something which could be depended upon to punch large and painful holes into rapists.
‘Calm yourself,’ I urged. ‘The best and most modern pistol won’t make even a tiny hole in anyone at whom it is not accurately pointed. Most pistols are only for frightening people and making loud noises. The thing is to have it handy. Chaps like you and me only need a pistol perhaps once in our lives’ – I wasn’t being quite truthful there – ‘but then we want it in a great hurry indeed. Take my advice and buy a capable, vintage one which you can make a profit on when all this has died down. There is, for instance, a very splendid old Mauser 7.65 mm not five miles away, which can be bought for £150; it’s the sort with a wooden scabbard which clips onto the pistol-butt to form a stock and transforms it into a small carbine. It is a most reliable pistol and if you can point it straight it will knock an ox over at half a mile. It is also rather a beautiful object in an ugly sort of way.’ He grumbled a bit but took my advice and the Mauserchap’s telephone number.
‘Yes, yes,’ said George, ‘that’s all very well about the small-arms issue but this is supposed to be an O-Group and we should be doing an Appreciation of the Situation.’
(Those of you who haven’t had the luck to serve in the Army should be told that an O-Group is a conference called by an infantry leader below field rank who is finally facing the fact that he is lost and wants his junior officers and senior NCOs to admit that they, too, are lost. An O-Group is always held out of ear-shot of the men, naturally, although the men have known that their officers were lost hours before the O-Group is summoned; their idea of a good officer is simply one who calls an O-Group at a time when they want tea. Soldiers, up to and, sometimes, including the rank of major, are capital chaps: join now – you’re too late to have a crack at the Japs but the Irish are good for years yet.)
‘I have here,’ said George in an efficient sort of voice, ‘a list of all nubile women within a mile’s radius of this house. I propose we lie out at night, turn and turn about, watching their houses and ready to blow the arse off the filthy hog when he next tries to, er, strike.’
‘George,’ I said gently. ‘George? Who furnished you with this list?’
‘The Centenier – he spent hours with his Vingteniers drawing it up.’ I let one of those long silences develop, so that all of us could see the daftness of that. Then I said:
‘Good. Yes. But we are only three, you know, and have premises and wives of our own to guard – and we don’t really know the terrain awfully intimately. More to the point, if you kill a chap even in your own house nowadays, with one of his fists in your safe and the other in your wife, you’re facing a murder charge and the court will be told by hired psychiatrists that the offender is a poor, disturbed lad who has been upset by a nasty film he saw at the Odeon last week but he’s a lovely son to his old mother. Old mothers are marvellous in the witness box, born actors every one, they can even make policemen weep, I’ve seen it, it’s as good as the television. They would give you a very bad time.’
George snarled and gargled a while; he wasn’t very cogent but we got the impression that, if he were let loose for a few hours with a Vickers Medium Machine-Gun, the world would be a better place and all potential rapists would be queuing up in Cathedral Closes, applying for jobs as counter-tenors.
Sam and I watched him curiously: I think we both felt that this was not the quiet, capable George we both knew and, in some sort, respected – the George whose most interesting feature was his dullness. We put it down, I suppose, to his recent ordeal and Sam doubtless, although he was showing a surprisingly better front to the world, had a fellow-feeling for him. (I myself gave up having fellow-feelings in my last term at school because I was working hard for University entrance; I like to think that I am a prude at heart.)
‘I think,’ I said, when the noise had died down, ‘that I’d better go to Oxford.’
Sam mustered a flash of his old spirit.
‘Is this really the best time to consider completing your education, Charlie? Is the call of the cloisters suddenly so strong? What will you read – Divinity?’
‘Tush,’ I replied. ‘I shall go and see my old tutor, who knows more about witchcraft, demonology and kindred nonsense than any man living. It is perfectly clear that we have a disgusting situation here where some vile sub-human is committing outrages for ancient and nasty reasons which we do not comprehend. We cannot stamp him out until we know what he thinks he is doing, and why. I shall go to ask my old tutor. Has anyone any better suggestions?’
No one had any better suggestions.
‘My own wife,’ I went on, ‘has not yet, to my best knowledge, been
ravished, so you will see that my mission is pretty disinterested. In the circumstances, and since giving hospitality to dons in Oxford comes wickedly dear, I fancy you may care to split my expenses with me.’
They made fumbling gestures in the direction of their chequebook pockets but I waved them away.
‘Payment by results,’ I said. ‘If we get any good of my trip I shall submit an expense-sheet.’
‘But what about Johanna?’ came a tragic voice from half-way up the stairs. It was Sonia: pallid, voluminously wrappered, with just a tactful hint of make-up here and there which most chaps – nice chaps – would not have noticed. We all leaped to our feet and surged about getting her chairs, cushions, foot-stools and assorted restoratives. (I made a slight restorative for myself while I was about it, for George did not seem to be on form as a host that night.)
‘What about Johanna?’ she asked again, ‘hadn’t she better stay here while you’re away so that I can protect her?’
I looked at her kindly.
‘You’re very kind,’ I said, ‘but Jock, too, is no slouch in the art of defence. They call it Martial Arts nowadays but when Jock was at Borstal it was known, quite simply, as a “flying drop-kick at the wedding-tackle”. I’d back Jock against the finest Kung-fu artist ever groomed by Mr Metro-Goldwyn. He has a gift for it, you see.’
She nodded wisely. She knows she’s not clever but she thinks I am, poor deluded bitch.
‘Yes, but d’you trust the chap?’ asked George.
This annoyed me but I decided I should give a civil answer.
‘Jock is true as steel,’ I said carefully. ‘He has been in love with Shirley Temple since he was fourteen and will not lightly change. He is no butterfly. Second, he owes me a favour or perhaps two and crooks like Jock hold that sort of thing much more sacred than honest men do. Third – and I know this sounds absurd – I am the only man that Jock is afraid of.’
Sam and George shifted uneasily in their seats, they didn’t know how to cope with rubbish like that. Sonia said:
‘Oh, I think that’s absolutely beautiful. I mean, to have a relationship like that, I mean, based on wonderful mutual um …’
I looked at her kindly again. Perhaps a little kindlier than last time. You see, we anti-feminists don’t dislike women in the least; we prize, cherish, and pity them. We are compassionate. Goodness, to think of the poor wretches having to waddle through life with all those absurd fatty appendages sticking out of them; to have all the useful part of their lives made miserable by the triple plague of constipation, menstruation and parturition; worst of all, to have to cope with these handicaps with only a kind of fuzzy half-brain – a pretty head randomly filled, like a tiddly-winks cup, with brightly-coloured scraps of rubbish – why, it wrings the very heart with pity. You know how your dog sometimes gazes anguishedly at you, its almost human eyes yearning to understand, longing to communicate? You remember how often you have felt that it was on the very brink of breaking through the barrier and joining you? I think that’s why you and I are so kind to women, bless ’em. (Moreover, you scarcely ever see them chasing cats or fouling the footpaths.)
‘Yes,’ I answered her.
Just as we were leaving, Sonia rushed out to the door, still playing the mobled queen.
‘Charlie,’ she cried, ‘will someone look after your dear little canary while you’re away?’
‘Probably,’ I said, vaguely.
‘What my old nanny used to say,’ grumbled George, ‘was that people shouldn’t have pets if they weren’t prepared to look after them properly.’
‘Just what I always say about wives,’ I answered brightly. Well, perhaps it wasn’t in the best of taste. I never signed any promises about good taste, I’d as soon join the Temperance League.
Johanna went to bed without saying good night. Jock was out, probably hitting people, he never tires of it. I didn’t worry about that, he’s careful now: people he quarrels with usually walk away – carrying their teeth in their hat. I made some telephone calls to travel-agents and old Oxford tutors then went sulkily to bed, taking with me a volume of Beatrix Potter to comfort my sad heart; it was The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle, it never fails to please.
7
God is buried and dead to us,
Even the spirit of earth,
Freedom; so have they said to us,
Some with mocking and mirth,
Some with heartbreak and tears;
And a God without eyes, without ears,
Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?
To Walt Whitman in America
I took the noon flight for Heathrow the next day. I’m not one of the jet-set, more of the biplane set, Johanna says, but I don’t at all mind flying except in those terrifying little planes where you sit in the open behind the driver and have to rap on his helmet if you want to tell him to slow down a bit. This was a large, experienced-looking craft and it said on the side that its engines came from the Rolls-Royce stable, most reassuring. Two Jersey worthies whom I know slightly took the seats beside me and, when we were air-borne, I ordered three large gins-and-tonic with my customary munificence. The hostess asked me if I wanted them all in one glass; I believe she was being pert.
You don’t have to go right into London nowadays if you’re headed West: an airlines bus takes you from Heathrow to Reading quite painlessly and trains thence to Oxford, where Dryden, my old tutor, hoves, are plentiful.
Goodness, have you seen Oxford Station since they did it up? It’s quite amazingly smart and modern and not much more than twice as inconvenient as it was before.
Something quite dreadful happened to me as I stood outside the station waiting for Dryden: a leprous creature, clad in filthy tatters, beard matted and barbaric necklaces jingling, shambled up to me, mopping and mowing, his demeanour both piteous and threatening.
‘Be off with you!’ I quavered valiantly, brandishing my umbrella. ‘I shall not submit to your mugging; I happen to be a personal friend of the station-master, aye, and of the Warden of All Souls, too!’
‘Mr Mortdecai?’ he fluted in the purest Wykehamist tones. ‘My name’s Francis, I’m a pupil of Dr Dryden, he’s asked me to pick you up, he can’t come himself, he’s got the squitters. I’ve got the crabs, if you want to know,’ he added gloomily. ‘And a tutorial and two demos tomorrow.’
I fumbled around in my word-bag for a while.
‘How do you do?’ I said at length.
He took charge of my suitcase and led me to about five thousand pounds’ worth of Italian GT motor-car in which we vroomed painlessly towards the dreaming-spires section of the city. I didn’t know quite what to chat about, it’s the generation gap I suppose. He was extraordinarily civil and, on closer inspection, as clean as can be. I think he was just boasting about the crabs.
Scone College, my alma mater, hadn’t changed a bit except that the outside was richly adorned with huge painted words such as ‘PEACE’, ‘SHIT’, ‘TROTSKY LIVES’ and similar sentiments. I thought it something of an improvement, for it took one’s eyes off the architecture. Fred was on duty in the Porter’s Lodge as he had been when I was there last: he remembered me well and said that I owed him half a sovereign in connection with some long-forgotten horse-race. I wasn’t taken in, but I coughed up.
My rooms were ready for me and quite habitable, except that the undergraduate incumbent (this was in the vacation, you see) had pinned up a poster of a little fat black chap called Maharaj ji Guru in such a position that it smirked at the bed. I couldn’t move the chap’s poster, naturally, so I moved the bed. Bathed and changed, I still had half an hour to spend before I could report at the Senior Common Room where Dryden would, if recovered, meet me and take me to dinner at High Table, so I strolled over to the Buttery. On the lawn where, in the brave days, we used to play croquet some forty tatterdemalions were squatting silently – a sorry sight. No doubt they were meditating or protesting; they certainly weren’t having any fun. As I strolled past them in my exceedingly bea
utiful dinner jacket I raised a hand in benediction.
‘Peace!’ I said.
‘Shit!’ said a spokesman.
‘Trotsky lives!’ I answered stoutly. You see, you can communicate with young people if you take the trouble to learn their lingo.
‘Hallo, Mr Mortdecai,’ said Henry, the buttery steward, ‘have you been away?’
‘No, no, no,’ I said, ‘I was here only seven years ago.’
‘So you were, sir. End of a Trinity term it was, I fancy, and you were rude to one of those Hungarian persons that are all over the place now – I can’t ever say their names, they always seem to come out rude-sounding when I try.’
‘I know just what you mean, Henry. And I’m dying of thirst.’
He really did remember me, for he reached down one of the battered pewter quarts from which we giants used to sup our ale in the olden days. I strolled outside with my tankard so that I could pour half its contents surreptitiously onto the lawn, for I am not the man I was.
‘I suppose you find that sort of thing a bit galling, don’t you, Henry?’ I said, waving my hand towards the solemn sit-in on the lawn.
‘Oh, I dunno. I’ve been here all my life, as well you know. They’re not much different from your year, or any year. When I first come here it was top hats and frock-coats on Sunday and parading up and down the Broad Walk; then it was riding-breeches and fox-terriers; then it was Oxford bags and bull-terriers. After the war it was them blue demob suits, then tweed jackets and flannels; then straw bashers and blazers come back in and then it was jeans and bare feet and now it’s beards and beads and probably tomorrow it’ll be top hats again. Only thing I got against this lot is they will eat chocolate-bars with their little gills of beer, and they spend half their money on the french-letter machine in the Junior Common Room. They should be drinking their beer and rowing their boats and learning their books; there’s plenty of time for all that sex when they’ve got their degrees.’
The Mortdecai Trilogy Page 44