Towards the End of the Morning

by Michael Frayn

  He started to laugh, shaking the bed.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jannie, half asleep.

  ‘You as a schoolgirl.’

  ‘Oh.’

  And then he had come on the scene to corrupt it, knocking on her door (J. D. Atterbury, it said on the card) in Newnham on those gusty spring afternoons. Jan, I just happened to be passing by, so I thought I’d look in. But don’t you find Sir Gawain’s predicament intensely moving, Jannie? Have you thought about what would happen if we ever have a Tory government again, Jan? Doesn’t the name Bunk Johnson mean anything to you, Jannie?

  John Dyson and Jan Atterbury – the names went together, as everyone in their circle quickly came to see. John Dyson and Jan Atterbury – John and Jan. The names went together like Huntley and Palmer, or Fortnum and Mason. It was difficult for everyone, in the summer term of their second year, to get used to saying Jan Atterbury and Lionel Marcus. It was like finding Fortnum and Mason had become Fortnum and Freebody. Nevertheless, people managed it, in time. Even Dyson grew accustomed to it. Lionel and Jan, or rather Jan and Lionel, since easy-going, amiable Lionel was always a pace behind . . . They haunted his last year, like the prospect of getting a third, and his failure to shine as a speaker in the Union.

  Dyson thought he had been awake, until he turned over, when he realized he had been asleep. And then the arrangement of names had been Belinda Charles, Jan Atterbury, and Margaret LeRoy, next to the bellpush of a flat in West Kensington. And then, after a long time in which many things happened, some unhappy, some too embarrassing to recall, some meaningless, the names John and Jan Dyson had emerged. There was surely a chasm between Janice Atterbury and Jan Dyson. Those strong hands . . . those serious and sometimes sad brown eyes . . . Whereas he himself, he felt, had scarcely changed since the age of seventeen or eighteen . . .

  His mind cruised slowly down into sleep, like a bubble drifting across the surface of an eye. A remote metallic clattering half-penetrated his consciousness, disguising itself in a suite of dreams. It was the noise of the Long Life beer cans being thrown back into the Dysons’ garden.

  Three

  Dyson’s awfully bad day was followed immediately by an awfully good one.

  For a start, a producer in one of the commercial television companies rang him quite early on in the morning and asked him to appear in a programme. Dyson could scarcely contain himself. He walked up and down the office frowning furiously with pleasure.

  ‘This is exactly what I’ve always wanted, Bob!’ he said. ‘Do you realize that? This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for!’

  ‘I know,’ said Bob. ‘Congratulations, John.’

  ‘Of course, it probably won’t lead to anything. One obviously mustn’t set too much store by it. I shall probably make a terrible cock of it.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t, John.’

  ‘I have a lot of experience in radio, of course. That must count for something. I have been consciously preparing myself for an opportunity like this, Bob. I haven’t been waiting idly.’

  He gazed out of the window, his hands behind his back, clapping the palms together.

  ‘What sort of programme is it?’ asked Bob. ‘Something about Indonesia?’

  ‘Indonesia?’

  ‘Isn’t that your great speciality?’

  ‘Well, I know something about Indonesia. I know something about a lot of things. I’m a journalist, Bob.’

  He sat down at his desk, very pleased with his calling, then almost immediately jumped up and began to walk about the room again.

  ‘It’s a discussion programme about race,’ he said. ‘Apparently they want someone with actual experience of living in a multiracial community.’

  Bob stared at him.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d lived in a multiracial community, John.’

  ‘Bob, you know we have West Indians living next door to us! We have four West Indian households in the road. You know that, Bob.’

  ‘Oh, I see. How did the television people find out?’

  ‘Well, the programme’s being produced by a man called Jack de Sousa. Our wives were at Newnham together – we had the de Sousas out to tea one Sunday. As a matter of fact they almost decided to buy a house in the road, they liked it so much. Anyway, Jack wants me to take part in a discussion about the problems involved. Apparently the chairman’s going to be Norman Ward Westerman. Have you seen him on television, Bob?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s marvellous, Bob. He’s someone I really do feel the most tremendous respect for.’

  It took some time before Dyson had simmered down enough for Bob to return to his work. He was writing a letter to Tessa.

  ‘My darling Tessa,’ he wrote, then remembered that very soon he was going to break the affair off. He tore the paper out of the typewriter and took a fresh sheet. ‘Tessa darling,’ he began, then remembered her letter, felt ashamed of himself, and took another sheet. ‘My darling Tessa,’ he began. He gazed out of the window for some minutes, wondering what on earth to say. Then he typed: ‘How the Giant Dyson subdued the Tyrant Cox,’ and underlined it.

  ‘Now when Dyson returned from his labours in the City,’ he wrote, ‘where his education and literary accomplishments had been the wonder of the citizens, and his conversational stamina had severely taxed the strength of even his most loyal friends, he discovered that the seigneur of the estate adjoining his, the cruel and tyrannous Cox, had been laying waste the district, and terrorizing the inhabitants, with a fearful bombardment of old beer cans. Stopping only to refresh himself with a hurried snack, consisting of 47 packets of Smith’s potato crisps, 3,287 stuffed cocktail olives, and four or five cartloads of broken cake and biscuits left over from the children’s tea, Dyson hastened forth and challenged Cox.

  ‘ “Ha, Cox!” he cried in a terrible voice. “Come forth, Cox, or by St Eulalie I’ll slap a writ on you! Where are you, you mother-fixated turdsmith, before I knock your grimy spectacles off and stuff an injunction down your shirt-front! Come out, you paraphrenic pissmain, you subanthropoid snotspray, or by St Archibald I’ll tread on your heels and lay an information with the Sanitary Inspector about the state of your drains!”

  ‘But the tyrant Cox, not recognizing the force of these arguments, remained where he was. Whereupon Dyson put his nose down Cox’s chimney and sneezed with such panache and violence that the tyrant was blown out of the larder window, and fell to earth in Trinity Road, Balham. Dyson at once rushed after him, pelting him with the old beer cans and whatever else came to hand, which included: Tetley’s tea-bags, ex-US Air Force sparking plugs, overdue library books, rubber reducing garments, and genuine reproductions of Old Masters. Without pause for breath Dyson chased him throughout the length and breadth of the land; videlicet, through Clapham North, Clapham South, and Clapham Common, Mitcham Lane, Mitcham Village, and Mitcham Junction, Collier’s Wood, St Helier, Thornton Heath, and Norbury, paying no attention whatsoever to traffic lights or Belisha Beacons, and frequently going the wrong way up one-way streets . . .’

  But by this time another nice thing had happened to Dyson.

  ‘This is an awfully good day for me,’ he said, putting the phone down and rubbing his hands together. ‘You’ll never guess who that was on the phone.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Sir William Paice!’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know, the unit trust man. You must have heard of him, Bob! He’s a very well-known amateur ornithologist. You remember, he married old Glenormond’s daughter.’

  ‘Someone I know?’

  ‘Oh, Bob! Lord Glenormond, the shipping man. Oh God, Bob, don’t you take any interest at all in the upper classes?’

  ‘Well, you know . . .’ said Bob, finding a soothing bag of peppermints in his pocket, and slipping one discreetly into his mouth.

  ‘But Bob, they’re fascinating! I should have thought a writer like yourself would have found them absolutely absorbing.’

  Bob rattled the peppermint against
his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘I mean,’ said Dyson, ‘not for any snobbish reasons. But just as a sociological study I find them absolutely fascinating. Anyway, I’ve persuaded Sir William Paice to write us some “Country Day by Day”. Rather a coup, I think.’

  Bob returned to his letter.

  ‘Now when they reached Sydenham,’ he wrote, ‘Cox snapped off the spire of St Wendy and All Angels, and turned, and fetched Dyson a terrific blow on the funny bone . . .’

  ‘Sir William’s initials are W.G.R.P.,’ said Dyson thoughtfully, brooding over the Who’s Who he kept on his desk. ‘How do you think he’d like to be credited on the column, Bob? Just plain W.G.R.P.? Or Sir W.G.R.P.?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Bob. But Dyson wasn’t listening, in any case.

  ‘Oh God!’ he cried, jumping up excitedly, and beginning to stride up and down the office all over again. ‘This is such a good day for me!’

  Old Eddy Moulton gazed thoughtfully at the piece he was copying out, roused by the sudden shriek of Dyson’s chair being pushed back. He had been dreaming about someone he had not thought of for years and years – a character called Stanley Furle, who had fallen downstairs at the Press Club one night and blacked his eye on the silver knob of his cane!

  ‘He was tight at the time, of course,’ said old Eddy to Bob, shaking his head and smiling. ‘He was as tight as a tick, poor fellow.’

  Bob’s own phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’ said Bob.

  ‘This crap’s from you, is it?’ said a cross voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. This load of crap’s your idea of a joke, I take it?’

  ‘Is that Reg Mounce?’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap.’

  ‘Reg, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Bob, don’t give me that crap.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Reg.’

  Mounce hesitated.

  ‘It was you who sent me this crap, wasn’t it, Bob?’

  ‘What crap, Reg?’

  ‘You know what crap, Bob.’

  ‘Reg, I honestly don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.’

  ‘You know all right.’

  ‘No.’

  Mounce hesitated again. Bob could hear him sucking in air through his teeth.

  ‘Well, some bastard sent it,’ he said.

  ‘Not me, Reg.’

  ‘Well, it was some bastard.’

  ‘Yes, but not me, Reg.’

  ‘The bastard.’

  Bob waited.

  ‘If I catch the bastard . . .’ said Mounce.

  There was another pause.

  ‘The bastard,’ said Mounce finally.

  He rang off.

  ‘What the devil was all that?’ asked Dyson, as Bob slowly put his receiver back.

  ‘Search me.’

  Dyson’s phone rang.

  ‘Hello, Dyson . . .’

  Dyson frowned as he listened to the voice at the other end, and raised his eyebrows at Bob.

  ‘What crap?’ he said. ‘Look, is that you, Reg . . . ? Well, what crap, Reg . . . ? Yes, but what crap? . . . ? Look, for God’s sake, Reg, what crap . . . ? Well, Reg, how do I know whether I sent you the crap if I don’t know what crap it was . . . ? Yes, but what did the bastard do . . . ? Yes, yes – but what crap was it that the bastard sent you . . . ?’

  Dyson put the phone back.

  ‘Well?’ said Bob.

  ‘Search me,’ said Dyson.

  Dyson’s awfully good day got better and better. Just before lunch one of de Sousa’s assistants at the television company rang to say that Lord Boddy had agreed to take part in the programme.

  ‘Who’s Lord Boddy, John?’ asked Bob, when Dyson reported this to him, walking up and down the office once again.

  ‘Oh God, Bob, you’re impossible! You must know who Lord Boddy is!’

  ‘I’m sorry, John.’

  ‘Eddy, Bob doesn’t know who Lord Boddy is! Are you awake, Eddy? Eddy? Anyway, Bob, Lord Boddy’s an extremely well-known man. He’s the second baron, isn’t he? Wasn’t his father given the title by Ramsay MacDonald for something to do with the League of Nations?’

  ‘I don’t know, John.’

  ‘I think he was. Anyway, the present Lord Boddy is tremendously interested in things like the colour problem – he sits on committees and Royal Commissions, and so on. Apparently there’s also going to be a Mrs Somebody-or-other who’s a social worker. And someone coloured, of course.’

  ‘Anyway, congratulations, John.’

  Dyson picked up the Who’s Who and studied it in silence for some moments.

  ‘His father was Edward Boddy, before he got the title,’ he announced. ‘The present Lord Boddy’s Christian names are Frank Walter. Married, with two sons. Publications: The Case for Disarmament (1939); Let Victory Be Ours (1942); The Russians – Our Comrades! (1945); World Communism: A Study in Tyranny (1949); et cetera, et cetera . . . Race: The Challenge Within (1963) . . . oh, and (edited) The Man in the Tweed Plus-Fours (The Diaries and Letters of the First Lord Boddy).’

  ‘I see,’ said Bob. ‘Why don’t we go out and have some lunch before the phone rings again?’

  ‘All right, Bob. Listen – this is interesting. His clubs are the National Liberal and the RAC.’

  ‘What’s interesting about that, John?’

  Dyson snapped Who’s Who shut and tossed it down on his desk.

  ‘You’re a shit, Bob,’ he said, grinning. ‘Eddy, we’ll be in the Gates.’

  There was the usual crowd in the Gates of Jerusalem – Bill Waddy, Mike Sparrow, Ralph Absalom, Andy Royle, Ted Hurwitz, Gareth Holmroyd, Lucy from the Library, Pat Selig – but today they had crystallized around Mounce. Mounce kept shifting about from foot to foot, restless with irritation.

  ‘Well, some bastard sent it,’ he kept saying.

  People were passing round from hand to hand a grubby sheet of quarto copy paper with something typed on it.

  ‘Seen this?’ said Bill Waddy, handing it to Dyson and Bob as they joined the circle. ‘Some joker sent it to Reg. He found it on his desk when he arrived this morning.’

  It was a letter in the form of an office memorandum.

  Editor to R. Mounce, it said, PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.

  After giving the matter considerable thought, and taking advice, I have come to the conclusion that you would be wise to begin looking round with a view to making other arrangements. I do not feel that this office can give sufficient scope to your talents. Three months’ notice is customary with us, as you know, but if you were particularly anxious to leave sooner I believe you would find us reasonably accommodating.

  You have, I understand, a week’s holiday entitlement outstanding. This would of course be paid in full. Or, if you preferred, you could take it as a holiday, and leave a week sooner than otherwise arranged.

  ‘It was in a little brown envelope addressed “R. Mounce Esqre” just the way the Editor does it,’ said Ted Hurwitz.

  ‘I’d like to get my hands on the bastard,’ said Mounce.

  ‘One of your photographers, perhaps?’ suggested Dyson.

  ‘We thought of that, of course,’ said Bill Waddy. ‘But none of them can even spell, can they, Reg?’

  ‘The bastards,’ said Mounce.

  ‘He’s got the Editor’s style exactly,’ said Gareth Holmroyd.

  ‘That’s why we think it must be someone who does get communications from Room G,’ said Bill Waddy.

  ‘The bastard,’ said Mounce.

  ‘It could have been quite serious,’ said Andy Royle, ‘if this had been an office like the Daily Express, where people actually are sacked.’

  They all sipped their beer thoughtfully.

  ‘Hey, listen,’ said Dyson, seizing the opportunity.

  ‘Same again for everyone?’ said Ralph Absalom, seizing it too.

  ‘I’m going to be on television,’ said Dyson.

  ‘I
think it’s my round,’ said Mike Sparrow.

  ‘Tchah, tchah, tchah! Same again for you, Lucy? Pat?’

  ‘I’m going to be on the box.’

  ‘Have a pint this time, John.’

  ‘With Norman Ward – No, just a half, please, Ralph – with Norman Ward Westerman – That’s my glass by your elbow – and Lord Boddy.’

  ‘Old Frank Boddy,’ said Gareth Holmroyd. ‘No, I won’t, thank you, Ralph.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘It’s a sort of discussion programme.’

  ‘Change your mind. Be a devil.’

  ‘I said it’s a sort of discussion programme, Gareth.’

  ‘No, I really won’t, thanks, Ralph. What was that about a discussion programme, John?’

  ‘It’s about the colour problem, with Lord Boddy.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t see it.’

  ‘The bastards,’ said Mounce, looking into his beer and swaying slightly.

  ‘Do you think one ought to join a club, Bob?’ asked Dyson, leaning back in his chair and yawning. Things were very quiet in the office.

  ‘What sort of club?’ said Bob. ‘You mean a night club?’

  ‘Bob, you’re a treasure.’ Dyson yawned and laughed at the same time, then became thoughtful again. ‘The point is, I could very easily get myself put up for the Garrick. Or the Savage. Or the Travellers’, even. What do you think, Bob? One does need somewhere one can go. Somewhere one can take people. I mean, if one does a certain amount of work in television, as one is likely to do if one is in our position . . . Well, supposing I wanted to have a quiet talk with a producer, say, to outline an idea I had for a programme. Or supposing, just for the sake of example, Lord Boddy and I happened to get on rather well next Friday, and I wanted to invite him to have lunch with me somewhere. Where could one go?’

  ‘Why not the Gates?’

  ‘Oh, Bob, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with a restaurant?’

  Dyson gazed at the window, wrinkling up his nose judiciously, and pursing his lips.