Towards the End of the Morning

by Michael Frayn

  ‘I don’t feel a restaurant would be right, somehow,’ he said. ‘It would be a little too voulu. Do you see what I mean? One’s guest would know one was going out of one’s way to entertain him, as if one wanted something out of him. Whereas at one’s club one could sit in an armchair reading the paper while one was waiting for him to arrive. One could walk into the dining-room with him in a rather mundane sort of way, as if one did it every day. It would be more like asking him to drop in at one’s home.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him to drop in at your home, then, John?’

  Dyson sighed.

  ‘Well, you know, Bob. These days, when one doesn’t have servants, with one’s kids around, and broken toys, and this and that . . . Incidentally, I nearly forgot – Jannie told me to bring you home for supper tonight. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, very nice. Thanks, John.’

  Dyson looked back towards the window.

  ‘Or perhaps the Oxford and Cambridge would be the right one,’ he said. ‘It is rather a nice place, you know.’

  He drifted across to the window, clapping his hands together behind his back, and stood gazing down at the people crossing Hand and Ball Court. From time to time he yawned absent-mindedly.

  ‘Do you think one should get one’s suits made for one?’ he said eventually. ‘Perhaps one should take a little more trouble about these things if one’s in the public eye.’

  But Bob was absorbed in what he was writing. Dyson yawned again, became conscious of it, and tried to beat it out with his hand.

  ‘God, I was going to have a blitz on “Thoughts” this afternoon, too,’ he said. ‘Somebody wouldn’t like to give me a hand, would they? How are you placed, Bob?’

  ‘Bit tied up just at the moment, John,’ said Bob remotely, not looking up from his typewriter.

  Dyson yawned again, uncontrollably.

  ‘God oh God,’ he said. ‘I must knock off this beer at lunchtime. It’s really wrecking me.’

  ‘And when,’ wrote Bob to Tessa, ‘Dyson and his comrades sat down to carouse, the good ale wet their wits and loosened their larynxes, and they talked merrily and disputed learnedly far into the afternoon. What are you drinking, old alebladder? – No, it’s my round, old weepbooze – By St Septimus, I’m in the chair! – My shout, by St Cynthia! – No, no, by St Yoland, I insist! – Well, a half, then, by St Uchtred. – By St Eusebius, have a pint! – Just a half, by St Sholtol! – By St Tib, I’ve come out without my money! – By St Almeric, that’s three pints, two Guinnesses, one tomato juice, and five ham sandwiches! – No, by St Trixy, it’s four ham sandwiches, three sausage rolls, four draught Guinnesses, and a bitter lemon! – And a packet of crisps, by St Ruby! – And two packets of crisps, by St Bogislaw! – That was half-a-crown I gave you, by St Lorinda! – By St Cecil it was a florin! – By St Hilarion, I wish I were lunching at the Oxford and Cambridge!’

  Four

  Jannie instinctively hid her cigarette behind her back when the kitchen door opened. John hated to see her smoking while she cooked. But it was not John – it was Bob. She brought the cigarette out again.

  ‘Jannie,’ said Bob, ‘is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Not really, Bob. You can stay and talk to me if you like, though.’

  Bob drew one of the rush-bottomed chairs out from the great dining-table in the middle of the kitchen and sprawled in it. The room was full of the fat, brown smell of gigot aux haricots. It was a dish which Jannie often cooked for Bob. He was a glutton, and the rich heaviness which the golden-crusted beans absorbed from the exhalations of the mutton touched some deep chord in him. John hated the dish.

  ‘Can’t peel the potatoes or anything?’ Bob asked.

  ‘No. What’s John up to?’

  ‘He’s reading the paper. Very good about him getting on the television. Are you pleased?’

  Jannie leaned against the edge of the dresser, smoking and looking down at Bob. She bit her lower lip anxiously.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He’s as pleased as Punch about it. He’s been bouncing about the office all day like a rubber ball.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s going to make a terrible fool of himself, do you, Bob?’

  ‘He’ll be all right, Jannie.’

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of sitting here watching him. I don’t know how I shall manage to look at the screen.’

  Bob picked up one of the knives laid out for dinner and scored along the grain of the table with it.

  ‘How are the boys, Jannie?’ he asked.

  The worried look on Jannie’s face softened. She began to laugh.

  ‘Poor old Bob!’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Bob, ‘I’m very fond of them.’

  Jannie smiled at him, wondering if he could even remember how old they were. When he came at weekends he played with them vigorously, until they screamed and wept with over-excitement. He was very good with them, as the phrase went. But Jannie was used to friends, particularly childless ones, who were good with the children to the point of dedication, and who a month later called Gawain Damian and Damian Adrian, or who sent the six-year-old Gawain a pull-along elephant for his birthday, and gave Damian a velvet party frock, in the belief that he was called Deborah, and was a girl.

  ‘They’re fine,’ she said. ‘How’s Mrs Mounce?’

  ‘Well,’ said Bob, ‘things aren’t too good at the moment. She cooked me dinner last night. Just marched in and set to work. There was nothing I could do about it.’

  ‘I think you ought to watch out for that woman, Bob.’

  ‘I know. I know. But what can I do?’

  ‘She’ll land you in trouble.’

  ‘You really think she’s after me, Jannie?’

  ‘What do you think, Bob?’

  Bob sat back in his chair, playing with the pepper-mill, grinding a little pile of pepper into his left palm. He was like an old cushion in the chair, thought Jannie, a plump, shabby, comfortable old cushion. With his fisherman-knit Marks and Sparks sweaters, and his broad suède shoes, and his mild, sleepy eyes, he fitted into the background of 43 Spadina Road so well that you hardly noticed him.

  ‘She bit me last night,’ he said, dragging up his trouser-leg and showing her the line of tiny red marks. Jannie stared at them, trying to imagine the scene – Bob, retreating backwards round the room, and Mrs Mounce, on all fours, snarling and barking, snapping at his trousers.

  ‘How on earth did it happen, Bob?’

  Bob shrugged.

  ‘She just suddenly bit me,’ he said.

  ‘But what led up to it? Something must have led up to it.’

  Bob sighed.

  ‘She said, “I won’t bite you.” Then I suppose she changed her mind.’

  ‘Honestly, you are a bit wet sometimes, Bob.’

  It occurred to her that she hadn’t made the salad. She began to wash the lettuce, while Bob made the dressing, hunting luxuriously through her spice cupboard for the oil and vinegar.

  ‘How’s Tessa?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine. Do you think a little cinnamon would help?’

  ‘No. Does she know about all this business?’

  ‘All what business?’

  ‘Mrs Mounce.’

  ‘No, no. How about tarragon?’

  Bob was always evasive about Tessa, which made Jannie suspect that he might be serious about her. It also made her want to find out more about the girl, and gave her a terrible desire to tease Bob about her.

  ‘When she comes to London,’ said Jannie, ‘she can always have the spare room here, you know.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Jannie.’

  But of course, thought Jannie, feeling foolish, Tessa would stay with Bob. Now Bob would think she disapproved.

  ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘only if she wants to.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Bob. He sounded embarrassed.

  ‘I mean . . . Oh, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, Jannie. I’l
l put some sugar in the dressing, shall I?’

  ‘I mean, there’s a bed here if ever she wants it.’

  ‘Sugar, Jannie?’

  He was holding the sugar jar up questioningly. She gazed at it for some moments in silence, thinking about a flat in Manchester where she and John had spent a ghastly week one winter before they were married. It had belonged to a man called Flowers, and they had gone to Manchester just because he had offered them the flat. It had been bitterly cold. They had stayed in bed most of the time. In the afternoons they had walked around the cold, grimy streets. She had a picture of sooty red brick, quiet, empty streets with grey winter haze at the end of them, little corner shops with paper decorations left over from Christmas, gritty smoke blowing down from the chimneys. It had been just after Christmas; she had worn a new pair of fur mittens her sister had given her. She could remember standing by the window of the flat and crying, but not why she was crying, or indeed much else. Except that the mattress had smelt musty, and that as they lay in bed through those long cold mornings they could just see the spire of the Congregational church through the window.

  ‘Half a teaspoonful, Bob,’ she said.

  ‘What were you thinking about?’

  ‘Oh, things. It’s funny how . . .’

  She put the lettuce in a bowl and dried her hands, staring unseeingly at the loose tile above the sink. The grittiness of the coal smoke coming down on those gaunt January afternoons was still in her nostrils. She could hear the rising engine-note of the Corporation buses as they pulled away from the stop at the corner, coming from nowhere either of them had ever heard of, going on through the gathering winter dusk to destinations equally obscure.

  ‘How what, Jannie?’ asked Bob, taking a teaspoonful of sugar from the jar and slowly licking it up. Jannie pulled another of the chairs out from the table and sat down.

  ‘How you suddenly remember something very vividly,’ she said, ‘and you think for a moment you’ve really got hold of it. But then . . .’

  She hesitated again, dismayed by the difficulty of delineating such feelings, unshaped feelings in words.

  ‘But then,’ she said, ‘when you try to think what it is you’ve got hold of, it’s not very easy to say.’

  Bob took another teaspoonful of sugar.

  ‘What was it that you were remembering, Jannie?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, a bleak time. A lot of things you remember like that are moments of desolation. Sometimes I wonder if one really knew they were so desolate at the time.’

  She watched Bob as he took another spoonful of sugar. He followed her gaze, saw what he was doing, and quickly pushed the sugar jar away.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize I was doing it.’

  ‘You’ll get fat, Bob.’

  ‘I’ve got fat.’

  She rested her chin in her cupped hand.

  ‘Do you get on with women better than men, Bob?’ she asked.

  ‘I get on fairly well with everyone, to tell you the truth.’

  She examined him curiously. He was definitely plump. When he turned his head to look at her the flesh folded underneath the jawbone into the beginnings of a double chin. He was so different from John in every way that it was amazing to think the human race could contain them both. She thought of her husband shaving in the morning, in trousers and vest. Dark, gaunt – almost emaciated – leaning forwards anxiously towards the mirror as if afraid his reflection might suddenly vanish altogether.

  ‘What’s Tessa like?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, you know . . .’ said Bob, a little uneasily.

  ‘Dark or fair?’

  ‘Dark.’

  ‘What colour eyes?’

  Bob frowned.

  ‘I think they’re brown,’ he said, playing with the pepper-mill again.

  ‘And she’s attractive?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Oh, about twenty.’

  Jannie felt she wanted to laugh.

  ‘Why haven’t we seen her here?’ she asked.

  ‘She hasn’t been up to London yet. She’s at a kind of college of citizenship in Bath.’

  ‘You go down there?’

  ‘Well, they’re a bit tough about letting them out. It’s a sort of finishing school, really.’

  She couldn’t prevent herself from bursting out laughing.

  ‘Bob, Bob, Bob!’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You. Carrying on with someone at a finishing school.’

  ‘I know.’

  John came into the kitchen, holding three half-full sherry glasses.

  ‘I found a drop in a bottle at the back of the knitting cupboard,’ he said. ‘What are you two up to out here?’

  ‘Oh, flirting,’ said Bob, with a sigh.

  ‘Charming,’ said John.

  ‘Got to earn my supper,’ said Bob.

  Bob and Jannie teased Dyson all the way through dinner, and he became more and more irritated.

  ‘It’s not just the money,’ he said, stabbing at his beans and sending a scattering of them across the table. ‘Though I may say that I shall be getting twenty-five guineas next Thursday for doing nothing but sit around in a television studio for half an hour, instead of beating my brains out all weekend to write a script for the BBC Overseas Service and getting ten guineas for it. That’s of some passing interest to me, I must admit, even if it isn’t to Jannie – though I dare say she’ll help me spend the money.’

  ‘I’ll help you spend the money,’ said Jannie, ‘and you can use your free weekend to fix the leak in the wall.’

  ‘I thought you told me you’d be getting a hundred guineas a time if you were a television personality, John?’ said Bob.

  ‘So I shall, Bob,’ said Dyson irritably, ‘if I make a success of this and begin to make a name for myself. And that’s the real point. It’s not just the money . . .’

  ‘Though you don’t despise the money,’ said Jannie.

  ‘Though I don’t despise the money, certainly . . .’

  ‘Because at your age you have to work all the hours God made, morning, noon, and night, seven days a week,’ said Bob.

  ‘Because indeed I have to work like a dog, and I’m mortgaged up to the hilt, and I live without any form of luxury whatsoever except an occasional bottle of beer, and I sometimes shake with worry just to think about it all. Nevertheless, it’s not just the money.’

  He stopped suddenly and took another mouthful of lamb.

  ‘What is it, then?’ said Jannie.

  ‘Well,’ said Dyson, chewing hard, ‘I must admit that I should like to make a name for myself, just for its own sake.’

  ‘Oh, John!’ said Jannie, laughing. Bob grinned silently.

  ‘All right,’ said Dyson. ‘You may laugh if you like. But I’m thinking purely of the practical advantages.’

  Bob and Jannie laughed again.

  ‘Look, Jannie,’ said Dyson seriously. ‘Do you remember when we wanted to get Gawain into Almeira Road school, and we couldn’t, because all the middle-class parents in S.W.23 were trying to get their kids into Almeira Road, and we lived just over the zoning boundary? Well, do you honestly think the answer would have been the same if I’d been Norman Ward Westerman or Lord Boddy?’

  ‘You mean you’d have been able to pull strings?’ said Bob.

  ‘I shouldn’t have pulled strings – other people would have pulled them for me! “If we had Lord Boddy in the Parent-Teacher Association,” they’d think, “we might have a little influence at County Hall.” Or they’d realize that it might be rather agreeable to say to visiting parents, “That’s Noel Westerman – you know, Norman Ward Westerman’s son. He’s a scamp – aren’t you, Noel?” Pat-pat on Noel’s well-connected head.’

  Bob and Jannie gazed at him.

  ‘Listen, if I wasn’t just John Dyson, but The John Dyson, people wouldn’t even waste their time asking me to do ten-guinea talks for the Overseas Service – they’d know I’
d be fully occupied doing pieces for Playboy and Esquire at a thousand dollars a time, and going on television at a hundred guineas an appearance. It’s a matter of purely practical economics.’

  ‘You sound very impassioned, John,’ said Bob.

  ‘Well, I am, Bob. I am very impassioned. Look, I don’t want to be so famous that I have to write autographs all over the place, and can’t travel by bus in case I’m mobbed. Moderation in all things. But if I was The John Dyson, do you think crowded restaurants wouldn’t be able to find a table for me? If I was The John Dyson, don’t you think I’d have a better chance of getting theatre seats?’

  ‘If a theatre’s full, it’s full,’ said Jannie, ‘even if John Dyson comes along.’

  ‘But, Jannie, don’t you understand, theatres keep back one or two seats each night in case someone like me comes along!’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Jannie, ‘we never go to the theatre.’

  ‘Well, perhaps we should go to the theatre if we were richer. I know you two think I’m a tit, going on like this. But I have a serious point here.’

  ‘Eat up your meat, John,’ said Jannie. ‘You haven’t put a mouthful in for the last ten minutes.’

  ‘I have a serious point,’ said Dyson, ‘and that is that nowadays it’s not excellence which leads to celebrity, but celebrity which leads to excellence. One makes one’s reputation, and one’s reputation enables one to achieve the conditions in which one can do good work.’

  ‘You do talk a lot of shit sometimes, John,’ said Bob mildly.

  ‘It’s not shit, Bob! Look, take me. Let’s be honest with ourselves; I’m a small but vital link in the business of producing one of the most important daily newspapers in the world. But shouldn’t I do better work if I weren’t driven from pillar to post to supplement my salary? Well, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You’d bring the crossword stock up to strength?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘You’d find more financiers to write “The Country Day by Day”?’

  ‘Well, why not? Are you beginning to see what I mean, Bob? I mean, if I were The John Dyson, the paper itself would pay me a bigger salary just for a start.’

  ‘John, love,’ said Jannie, ‘do eat up. The rest of us have finished.’

  ‘Or take you, Bob,’ said Dyson. ‘You’re a writer.’