Towards the End of the Morning

by Michael Frayn

  ‘I say blah blah blah,’ said Lord Boddy.

  ‘You say blah blah blah. Then we all join in blah blah blah. Then when I get the sign from the studio manager I wind up and say, “Well, then, the conclusions we seem to have reached tonight are blah blah blah.” ’

  ‘All on Autocue,’ said de Sousa.

  ‘All on Autocue. I think that’s all fairly well tied up, isn’t it, Jack?’

  ‘I think so. Is everybody happy?’

  ‘Indeed, indeed, indeed,’ said Dyson. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself so much in my life.’

  They trooped down to the studio for the line-up, taking their glasses of brandy with them. A little of the festive warmth seemed to die out of the air as they took their places around the low coffee table in the corner of the great hangar. Williamson kept clearing his throat. Miss Drax smiled unhappily about her. Even Boddy, who had been telling Westerman as they came down the stairs how he had been at Bad Godesberg in 1938 just two days after Hitler and Chamberlain had left, trailed away into silence. Only Dyson lost none of his elation. When the studio manager asked him to say something to check the microphone levels, he recited the first few lines of ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ with appropriate gestures. It seemed to amuse the studio crew. Really, he thought, this was his evening.

  By the time they had been to make-up, and tramped back up the stairs to have another drink, a definite uneasiness was beginning to settle over the whole company. The men with the Brigade ties and their friends were running out of potential mutual acquaintances to describe. Miss Drax seemed to have caught the frog Williamson had had in his throat. Williamson, coming back from his second trip to the lavatory, passed Boddy on the way out for his third. Westerman, shuffling the cyclostyled papers about in his hands, dropped his glass, and filled his shoes with brandy. Dyson watched them all with amazement. He himself was greatly excited, but not nervous in the least.

  ‘The public just don’t realize,’ said Williamson to him gloomily, ‘the terrific amount of work that goes into making one short half-hour of television.’

  ‘Work?’ said Dyson. ‘It’s pure pleasure. I’ve never enjoyed anything so much in all my life. I’m absolutely bubbling over. I simply can’t wait to get on.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Williamson.

  One of the financial figures, still smiling deferentially, poured them both more brandy.

  ‘I wonder if you could try and keep the bottle away from Lord Boddy,’ he said quietly. ‘I think perhaps he’s had almost enough.’

  How interesting it was, thought Dyson, how extraordinarily intriguing, to find that out of the whole team the only one who was actually turning up trumps was himself.

  ‘I think perhaps we might go down now,’ said de Sousa.

  ‘I shan’t be able to watch,’ said Jannie, as the film sequence in the first half of John’s programme unreeled meaninglessly in front of her. ‘Honestly, Bob, I shan’t be able to watch. I know something awful will happen. Oh, Bob, supposing he’s had too much to drink?’

  ‘He’ll be fine, Jannie,’ said Bob. ‘Stop fussing.’

  Jannie gripped the arms of her chair, trying to stop herself jumping out of it.

  ‘What on earth’s this stuff they’re showing us now?’ she demanded irritably.

  ‘It’s the film they’re going to discuss.’

  ‘Oh God, I know he’s going to make a fool of himself. I know it, I know it, I know it!’

  When the film ended, and the face of the chairman appeared again, she put her hand over her eyes, unable to watch the screen. The chairman was introducing Lord Boddy. She had a vision of John sitting hunched up in his chair, as he did at home sometimes when things were going wrong, all dark and gaunt and unhappy. Oh, poor John! Poor John! But where was he? The chairman had been introducing people for an eternity, and still no sign of him. Perhaps he was ill. She imagined him standing in some white-tiled institutional lavatory, suffering from nervous nausea. Had he taken the bismuth with him? But better for him to be in a lavatory somewhere than for him to be sick on the programme! Of course, they would turn the cameras . . .

  ‘And on her left,’ said the chairman, ‘is Mr John Dyson, a journalist and broadcaster who lives . . .’

  And there he was! Involuntarily she reached out and gripped Bob’s hand. And what in the name of God was John up to? He was smiling and waving!

  ‘What’s he doing?’ she cried, agonized, as the picture cut back to the chairman. ‘It’s not that sort of programme!’

  ‘I don’t know whether you noticed,’ said Bob, ‘but he was smoking.’

  ‘Smoking?’

  ‘Didn’t you see? He had a cigarette between his fingers.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy, Bob. John hasn’t smoked since he was an under­graduate.’

  ‘Well, he’s smoking now, Jannie.’

  ‘Oh God!’ said Jannie, holding Bob’s hand very tight. ‘I shan’t be able to watch, Bob!’

  ‘You’re all right now, Jan. Lord Boddy’s set for the night.’

  But someone was saying something at the same time as Lord Boddy, making him falter and finally stop in midstride. The cameras hunted round the team, trying to locate the intruder. They were all smoking, observed Jannie, but John, as she saw when the camera finally settled on him, was smoking more than most. He was smoking and talking simultaneously, taking little melodramatic puffs between phrases.

  ‘If I might butt in here,’ he was saying (puff). ‘If I might possibly butt in a moment . . . (puff, puff) I should just like to say that I find what Lord Boddy is saying extraordinarily interesting. Extraordinarily interesting.’

  He took another energetic puff, and blew out a dense cloud of smoke at the camera as Lord Boddy resumed his discourse.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jannie.

  ‘Sh!’ said Bob. Dyson was back in the conversation again.

  ‘That is fascinating,’ he was saying. ‘Most fascinating. I find that absolutely fascinating.’

  Jannie squeezed Bob’s hand so hard that he flinched.

  ‘Poor John!’ she said.

  When Miss Drax’s turn to speak came, Dyson was fascinated by her thesis, too.

  ‘Indeed!’ he kept murmuring. ‘Indeed, indeed!’

  ‘Why is he behaving like this!’ cried Jannie. ‘Why is he smoking, and waving his arms about in that awful way?’

  ‘He waves his arms about at the office sometimes,’ said Bob. ‘I don’t object to that.’

  ‘But why does he keep saying things like “extraordinarily interesting” and “indeed, indeed”? I’ve never heard him say anything like that before.’

  ‘I’ve never heard him say “indeed, indeed”, I must admit.’

  Williamson was talking. Dyson turned out to be extraordinarily interested in his views, as well.

  ‘Indeed,’ he murmured. ‘Indeed . . . indeed . . . Oh God, indeed!’

  Jannie sank down into her chair, trying to work out who would be watching the programme. All John’s family, of course. All her family. Her parents had invited the neighbours in to see it, too. Her friend Belinda Charles – she’d rung up to say she’d seen John’s name in an article about the programme in the paper. Out of nowhere the idea came to her that Lionel Marcus might be watching. Please God, not Lionel Marcus!

  ‘John Dyson,’ the chairman was saying, ‘do you, as a journalist, agree with the suggestion that what we need is for the Press to take a firm moral lead and play down all news to do with race relations?’

  Dyson did not answer at once. He frowned, then leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette thoughtfully in the ashtray.

  ‘He’s got a sense of timing, anyway,’ said Bob.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ said Jannie.

  Dyson sat back and put his fingertips together, as if about to deliver his verdict. But at the last moment he changed his mind, and instead leaned forward again and took another cigarette out of the box on the table.

  ‘Oh God, Bob!’ said Jannie.

 
; Dyson picked up the table-lighter, and with an absolutely steady hand lit the cigarette. Then he snapped the top of the lighter down, drew in a mouthful of smoke, and let it out again slowly and meditatively.

  ‘I think it’s an extraordinarily interesting idea,’ he said.

  Jannie put her spare hand over her eyes as if shielding them from the sun, and closed out the sight of her husband.

  ‘You’re exaggerating, Jannie,’ said Bob.

  Later he said: ‘People who don’t know him wouldn’t get the same impression at all.’

  Later still he said: ‘Honestly, Jannie, nobody watches this sort of programme apart from the relatives of the performers.’

  It seemed to Jannie that the noise of John blowing cigarette smoke out almost drowned the conversation. She kept her hand over her eyes until at last Westerman halted the discussion and summed up. He paused before saying good night, and a voice from off-screen cut in at once.

  ‘That is absolutely fascinating, Norman,’ it said.

  Jannie put her head on Bob’s shoulder and wept.

  Dyson walked up and down the bedroom in his overcoat, making large gestures, and trailing in his wake the cosy smell of digested alcohol. Jannie lay in bed, looking at him over the edge of the covers. It was after midnight.

  ‘Honestly, Jannie,’ said Dyson excitedly, ‘I astonished myself! I simply didn’t know I had it in me! How did it look?’

  ‘Very good, John.’

  ‘Really? You’re not just saying that?’

  ‘No, John.’

  ‘I actually enjoyed it, Jannie, that was the thing. I was amazed! The others were all shaking with nerves! Even hardened television performers like Norman and Frank. But honestly, I could have gone on all night. I didn’t use my notes at all.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t touch them – didn’t even think about them. I was absolutely in my element! How did I come over, Jannie?’

  ‘I told you – very well.’

  ‘I didn’t cut in and argue too much?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I thought perhaps I was overdoing the controversy a bit?’

  ‘No, no.’

  Dyson stopped and gazed at Jannie seriously.

  ‘I feel I’ve at last found what I really want to do in life, Jannie,’ he said. ‘It’s so much more alive and vital than journalism. Honestly, Jannie, I’m so exhilarated . . . !’

  He began to stride up and down the room again, smiling at himself. He glanced in the mirror as he passed it and straightened his glasses.

  ‘What did Bob think?’ he asked. ‘Did he think I was all right?’

  ‘He thought you were fine.’

  Dyson stopped again, smiling reflectively.

  ‘Frank Boddy is an absolute poppet,’ he said warmly. ‘He really is. Oh, Jannie, I adore television! I can’t tell you . . . ! You really think I looked all right?’

  Later, as he was crawling about the floor in his underclothes, looking under the bed for his slippers, Jannie asked:

  ‘Why were you smoking, John?’

  He straightened up and gazed anxiously over the end of the bed at her.

  ‘You thought it looked odd?’ he said.

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You don’t think it seemed rather mannered?’

  ‘Of course not, John. I just wondered how you came to think of it.’

  Dyson smiled with pleasure as he remembered.

  ‘It was sheer inspiration on the spur of the moment,’ he said. ‘I just saw the box of cigarettes lying there on the table, and every­body else smoking, and I just knew inside me with absolute certainty that I should smoke, too. I think it absolutely made my performance.’

  He fell asleep almost as soon as the light was out, and woke up again about an hour later, his mouth parching, his whole being troubled with a great sense of unease. What was occupying his mind, as vividly as if it was even now taking place, was the moment when he had said, ‘That is absolutely fascinating, Norman,’ and then realized it was supposed to be the end of the programme. Had he really done that? How terrible. How absolutely terrible.

  He sat up and drank some water. Still, one little slip in an otherwise faultless performance . . . Then with great clarity and anguish he remembered the moment when Westerman had put his question about a moral lead from the Press, and instead of answering at once the idea had come to him of leaning forward and judiciously stubbing out his cigarette. It had been scarcely a quarter smoked! He lay down in bed again slowly and unhappily.

  All the same, when he had finished stubbing the cigarette out he had given a very shrewd and pertinent answer . . . No, he hadn’t! He’d taken another cigarette! In absolute silence, in full view of the whole population of Britain, he had stubbed out a quarter-smoked cigarette and lit a fresh one!

  He turned on to his right side, then he turned on to his left, wracked with the shamefulness of the memory. It was strange; everything he had done on the programme had seemed at the time to be imbued with an exact sense of logic and purposiveness, but now that he looked back on it, all the logical connections had disappeared, like secret writing when the special lamp is taken away.

  And what about the time he had interrupted Lord Boddy, and then realized that all he had wanted to say was that it was interesting? Extraordinarily interesting . . . Had he really said that? He himself? The occupant of the tense body now lying obscurely and privately in the dark bedroom of a crumbling Victorian house in Spadina Road, S.W.23? Was that slightly pooped gentleman with the waving arms who had (oh God!) told Lord Boddy that his views were absolutely fascinating, and (oh God oh God!) lit another of the television company’s cigarettes with their silver butane table-lighter every time he had seen the red light come up on the camera pointing at him – was that exuberantly shameful figure really identical with the anguished mortal man who now lay here stretched as taut as a piano-string in the dark?

  ‘Jannie,’ he groaned. ‘Are you awake, Jannie?’

  There was no reply. He turned on to his right side. He turned back on to his left. He hurled himself on to his face. Still Westerman and Boddy and Williamson and Miss Drax sat around in conversation with him. He went through his whole performance second by second, from the moment Westerman had introduced him and he had waved at the camera, to the moment Westerman had summed up, and he had told him it was absolutely fascinating. He went through it again and again, trying to improve it slightly in his memory, in the face of an increasingly hostile reception from the other four. By the time morning came he was convinced he had been wide awake the whole night, though by that time he had remembered with the utmost clarity that the whole performance had taken place not in a television studio at all, but in an enormous public lavatory, with Sir William and Lady Paice among the large crowd around the coffee table, and that his final humiliation was to discover at the end of the programme that he had been sitting on one of the lavatory seats throughout, with his trousers down around his ankles.

  Six

  Raindrops trembled on the office windows, coalesced, and ran down, leaving paths like silver snail tracks against the lightness of the sky. Dyson watched them absently, grimacing as he bit each of the fingernails of his right hand trim in turn. Bob sat sucking toffees, and watching Dyson from behind his hand. Old Eddy Moulton, who was awake and in an unusually forthcoming mood, looked at Dyson and Bob alternatively as he talked.

  ‘I knew Stanford Roberts,’ he said. ‘But then I knew most of them. Walter Belling, Stanley Furle, Sir Redvers Tilley – you name them, I knew them. Stanley Furle carried a cane with a solid gold knob – never went anywhere without it. The knob unscrewed and the inside of the cane was hollow. Stanley used to keep it filled with Scotch – three solid feet of Johnnie Walker. One night he was at the old Blackfriars Ring. At the end of every round off came the gold knob and up went the stick. He was with a man called Naylor – not Freddie Naylor of the Mail, but Allington Naylor, who worked for A. W. Simpson on the Morning
Post. A. W. Simpson was one of the great ones. So was Allington Naylor. So was Stanford Roberts, for that matter. Real journalists. Real professionals. Stanford could turn you out an impeccable paragraph on any subject you liked to name at the drop of a hat. He’d have done a par about the lead in his pencil if you’d asked him – a stick and a half – a column – whatever you needed; and all of it full of wit and erudition.’

  Dyson went on staring at the raindrops, saying nothing.

  ‘Honestly, John,’ said Bob, ‘you were great. I don’t know what you’re worrying about.’

  Dyson gave no sign that he had heard.

  ‘Anyway,’ said old Eddy Moulton, ‘when Stanley Furle came out of the Ring at the end of the evening, he fell down the stairs and blacked his eye on the knob of his cane! I was in the Kings and Keys the night J. D. Maconochie told Bentham Miller that O. M. Pargetter’s Tibetan Terror story was a hoax. Oswald hadn’t been nearer Tibet than the end of Folkestone pier! I was in the Feathers the night Sandy MacAllister punched Laurence Uden on the nose for saying that Stanford Roberts had been drunk at poor old Sidney Cunningham’s funeral.’

  ‘Come on, John,’ said Bob. ‘Cheer up.’

  ‘In fact,’ said old Eddy Moulton, ‘Stanford was drunk at Sidney Cunningham’s funeral. I met R. D. Case afterwards – he was on the Westminster Gazette at that time – and he told me that Stanford was so drunk that he’d almost fallen into the grave! Apparently he’d just been caught in time by George Watson-Forbes, who later wrote a remarkable series of articles in the Daily News on the Home Rule question.’

  Dyson stirred himself, and sighed.

  ‘Would somebody ring Morley, Bob?’ he said, scarcely opening his mouth to let the words out, ‘and ask him where his copy is? I can’t face talking to him today.’

  ‘Now don’t be silly, John,’ said Bob. ‘Jannie and I both thought you were tremendously good.’

  ‘The last job I went on with Sidney Cunningham,’ said old Eddy Moulton, ‘was an explosion in a gas-main at Newark, which killed thirteen people. I travelled up from King’s Cross with Sidney, Daryl Bligh of the Graphic, K. B. D. Clarke of The Times, “Tibby” Tisdale of the News, Stanford Roberts, of course, and I think we had Norton Malley with us, who would at that time I suppose have been on the Morning Post, though he later went back to the Irish Times. Anyway, the day after we all arrived in Newark, Tibby announced that it was his birthday, and Stanford had the idea of hiring a private dining-room at the Ram . . .’