No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  ‘But I do feel responsible …’

  ‘What I think Rupert means is that he feels a natural responsibility towards the play and that he may have let his personal feelings … But I’m sure you haven’t, darling. All prejudice apart, Alma just isn’t made for a Tchekov servant. It isn’t in her. But, of course, whatever Willie may say, every actor should feel responsible for what happens to the play he’s in.’

  Willie said: ‘Dangerous egalitarian rubbish, Debbie dear.’

  ‘And,’ said Aunt Annabel to them all, ‘when you’ve given such a lot of fun and beauty as you obviously have to everyone.’

  ‘I know she’s a silly old cow. And you’re right, she’s played in rubbish for years because the audience flatters her. And she’s lazy. But what she can do! I know. I worked with her all those years. And she wanted so much to do this.’

  ‘My dear,’ Willie said, ‘For Heaven’s sake! That’s life. It’s bloody for some people all the time. For poor old Alma it’s only getting bloody now. But that’s it. That’s what it’s all about. And thank God for it. Without light and shade we shouldn’t have any art.’

  Rupert put his handsome head on one side. He smiled a kind of all-purpose smile that included everybody equally benignly. He made a mellow humming sound. Then, as suddenly, he drew himself up, drank off a glass of champagne, kicked a log in the fire.

  ‘No. That’s not good enough. That’s the sort of stuff my father used to give us. I feel bad towards Alma. That’s the point. Nothing to do with loyalty to the play. However much the play might have suffered from her. She started me off. It’s true she was silly and a bitch at times, and when I met Debbie in the Acland play she was like all hell let loose. But she taught me a great deal and we had a lot of fun together. And she’s a very good actress. I ought to feel guilty and I do.’

  The party feeling was destroyed by his outburst. It drifted on for a while in desultory conversation, and then the Packers left. Soon after, Willie, looking at his watch, said:

  ‘Din-din, all. I’m famished.’

  As they, too, were leaving, the dark young undergraduate in spectacles came up to Rupert. When he spoke he had a very bad stammer.

  ‘I just wanted to say,’ he pronounced with great difficulty, ‘that you were marvellous. You’ve taken in all these people and the critics. You’ve made them think that that filthy parasite Andrey, that fat white slug, is pathetic and loveable. Which is just what he obviously made his sisters believe. And the wonderful oily slyness and cunning with which you do it …’

  Emotion and his stammer made further words impossible.

  When they had gone Rupert stood brooding over the fire. Then he said quite sharply to Aunt Annabel:

  ‘I haven’t really begun to stoop, you know, but when one acts a part with any degree of intensity a lot of the characteristics follow you around. Certainly for the length of the run.’

  *

  Before dinner at the Trocadero, of course, they were to have their usual tête-à-tête drink at the Monico, the scene of some of their clandestine meetings in the old days before Doris – so much more of an invalid now it seemed – had accepted the situation. They knew all the barmen there and had long agreed that it was the most friendly place to wait for each other in. Gladys had in fact to wait half an hour this evening; well, not just this evening, if you love someone very much it insults them not to admit their minor faults and Alfred lived on the end of a telephone nowadays. Indeed, when he did arrive, the soigné effect of his Anthony Eden double breasted charcoal pinstripe suit, poor old boy, was a little spoiled by his breathlessness.

  ‘Sorry, girlie,’ he said, ‘What are you having?’

  But she had it there before her – a Gin and It. He ordered a double dry Martini from Victor, and then excused himself to her.

  ‘I must put a call through to Bratsby,’ he said, ‘Old Evans has agreed to sell, but only after delivering us a lecture on changing conditions in the City. As he was probably the original negotiator for Dizzie in buying the Suez Canal it took rather a long time. That’s why I’m late. Bastard, aren’t I? But I’ve got some good news when I come back.’

  ‘It’d better be short news, Alfred,’ she called after him as he made for the telephone, ‘We’re due at the Troc in ten minutes.’

  ‘He’s a shocker for time, isn’t he?’ Victor said, ‘You didn’t train him properly, Madam.’

  ‘You can’t curb the faults of great men.’

  They both laughed. When Alfred came back, she told him: ‘Victor’s noticed the shocking way you keep me waiting. I’ve excused you on the ground that you’re a Napoleon of finance.’

  ‘Napoleon! Didn’t he march on his stomach? I don’t fancy that. By the way, your tip for the 3.30 was lousy, Victor.’

  ‘But he gave me Baccarat Boy last week at Kempton. And it romped home. I never thanked you, Victor.’

  ‘Baccarat Boy?’ Alfred laughed. ‘It was red hot all over the City. You want to freshen up your tips, Victor.’

  He dismissed Victor and the conversation with his laugh. ‘Bratsby’s tickled pink. So he ought to be. He’d be negotiating with Evans until Doomsday if we’d waited on his methods. Now look, kiddie …’

  ‘Now look you, Alfred, as the Welsh Druid said to the king, you must not call me kiddie. Girlie I can just about carry off. After all Bessie Bunter was a girl. But I’m five foot nine, ten stone and I shan’t see thirty-six again. If you associate me with scooter and hopscotch I can’t promise to make the right impression on your important customers. You should have found some little girlish piece all giggles and chiffon.’

  ‘You giggle until the fat shakes, you know you do.’

  And because it was true and he’d never before admitted to noticing it, she began to giggle just that much. Which set him off. To put an end to this unsuitable public sight, he kissed her.

  ‘Thank God this joint’s going bust. It means their electricity bill’s been cut. Oodles of privacy.’

  And was it really, she asked, and of course as always he knew everything, what the debt was and who the creditors.

  ‘Oh dear! Our little place!’

  But he wouldn’t allow nostalgia.

  ‘If things go on as they are, I’ll buy it for your birthday present next time it comes on the market. Anyway what do you mean, chiffon? What’s that round your neck?’

  ‘It’s not chiffon, darling. It’s a real lace jabot. Much more suitable for my mature years.’ Gladys was pleased, but impatient. ‘I know I look terrible in these halo hats with my big face,’ she said. ‘Anyway, darling, what about your surprise?’

  ‘Ah, I’m coming to that. But just you look this evening at Frau Garmisch. I only met her once at Frankfurt when I went to little Willy Garmisch’s house. They’ve got a beautiful place, everything that money could buy – but she looked like a missionary on a Sunday outing. And Sylvia Heathway will probably be got up like a tart. No, you’re the goods so far as I’m concerned, as old Arthur Roberts used to say. Long before your time. And now that your face is suitably suffused with blushes we must beat it, or we’ll be late.’

  But Gladys insisted on getting out her compact. ‘Good Lord! You’ve made my nose blush. Who is Sylvia Heathway?’

  ‘You remember I told you about little Tubby Heathway who cut his throat. Well, she’s his widow. I want you to be very nice to her, girlie. She’s a lady and all that, but she’s rather let things slide, I think, since the shock. I got her along for this Dane, Andersen. He’s potty on antiques and she used to collect old furniture apparently before Tubby crashed. Good God!’ he said, ‘Huns and Danes! What an evening! Just to carry you through it, what would you say if I told you my surprise was to set you up in business on your own again?’

  She stood in the entrance to the Monico, breathless with excitement, until Alfred had to take her arm to make way for some new customers.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ she said as they moved off.

  ‘Not when I was the bastard who borrowed your bu
siness off your back?

  ‘I’ve told you so many times, Alfred, it was you who gave it to me in the first place. So naturally I was glad to help you.’

  ‘Out of my own stupid mess.’

  ‘No, darling, it was that awful Depression. Thousands were in your position.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake, now I’m in a different position … not that I can always lay my hand on ready money, but that’s big business everywhere. What I can do and I’m going to do is to put you in business on your own again. If only not to have you hanging round my neck in your old age.’

  He squeezed her arm to emphasize that he was joking. There he stood at the kerb of Piccadilly Circus, a handsome, portly, well-to-do man in danger of being knocked off the pavement by the crowds.

  ‘You’ve got to accept,’ he said, ‘Or I’ll stand here until you do.’ He had raised his voice.

  ‘Oh, don’t make a show of yourself, Alfred. A couple of clowns we must look! All right. And thank you, darling, more than I can say.’

  But she did try to say it as they were held up on the narrow island in Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘Oh! Alfred, to be mistress of my own business again. Of course, they’ve been very good and left me a free hand but … I shall start a Black List of bad employers. Some of these women treat their people abominably. Times are changing. You know what, Alfred, I’m going to get rid of this idea of “ladies”. That was all right, in the ‘twenties when I started. Not that most of our type of employers don’t want ladies now, but they want the sort of ladies who’ve forgotten what the word means. And a night telephone service! Oh, there are so many things that I’ve been longing to do. I shall take Kempie and Miss Sutton with me. That’s not just sentimental …’

  ‘Christ,’ Alfred said, looking at his watch, ‘We’re going to be late and old Willy’s always punctual. You know what Germans are. That’s what makes them such first rate business people.’

  But luckily the traffic came to a full stop and they squeezed through between two taxis. In the swing doors of the Trocadero Gladys really thought she was going to be sick, she felt so excited and happy.

  During the hors d’oeuvres and poultry Alfred was summoned three times to the telephone on business. But to Gladys’s amusement he refused a fourth call when they’d reached the sweet. She could almost see his mouth watering as his guests helped themselves to the ice pudding.

  The great omelette surprise‚ its meringue fortifications surmounted by a vast bird’s nest of spun sugar, had already been opened and had revealed, apparently to the genuine surprise of Frau Garmisch, if the widening of her empty blue eyes in their empty expanse of natural, untouched girlish skin was any measure of sincerity, an inner treasure of combined vanilla, chocolate and raspberry ice cream. That inner treasure had been despoiled and almost consumed before the band changed from a blaring medley to a softly played ‘Love Parade’ that introduced Maurice, the waltzing maître d’hotel in his imitation of Maurice Chevalier. ‘Eyes of Delphine, Charm of Josephine, the cuteness of Pauline, that’s in you displayed,’ he sang.

  ‘He’s genuine French, you know,’ Alfred explained to them.

  ‘Oh, yes, he makes that quite clear,’ said Mr Andersen.

  Gladys, who found Maurice a great bore, smiled at the neatly dressed, bow-tied Dane, though she thought it a pity that he had learned his English from a Welshman.

  ‘Unfortunately what’s always clear to me,’ she said, ‘is that he’s the head waiter.’

  Mr Andersen laughed delightedly, but Alfred remonstrated.

  ‘I know it’s only a stunt, Gladys, but he hits Chevalier off beautifully. And those tunes are a delight anyhow.’

  ‘I’m enjoying myself, Alfred. We all are. Alfred has a feeling that any criticism means that the evening’s flopped. I never feel that.’

  Gladys had addressed the Dane, but Frau Garmisch, coming up from her ice cream for a moment, said:

  ‘I suppose that Mr Pritchard feels that little of good comes from constant criticism. We learned that so much in Germany in the years after the war.’

  Gladys said: ‘Did you really?’

  And Alfred said, ‘I bet.’

  But neither comment seemed helpful. Bright, bald-headed little Willy Garmisch obviously saw the need to lift them out of the silence that his wife’s remark had produced.

  ‘No, surely the French are the perfect cabaret entertainers,’ he said. ‘We have good artists and so have you. Do you know our Comedy Harmonists? But the French have the perfect art of amusing at the end of a day’s work. From Offenbach to Mistinguett, let’s give them credit for it, they are great entertainers.’

  ‘The French have a fine culture,’ Mr Andersen said.

  ‘Governments that change every week? Barricades in the street?’ Frau Garmisch asked.

  ‘Oh, I do so agree. I simply can’t take Paris any more,’ Mrs Heathway said, stubbing out a third cigarette end amid the melted ruins of her ice pudding.

  She’s in too much of a state to notice what’s said, Gladys thought. Then she thought affectionately of Alfred’s simple view of women. Sylvia Heathway used a lot of make-up so she looked like a tart; she put on that make-up carelessly so she had begun to let things slide. She felt warmly, too, towards the woman herself, not only because she had called forth Alfred’s simplicity. But Frau Garmisch, who had looked away from so much make-up until now, gave Mrs Heathway a special nod of encouragement.

  ‘I was thinking of literature and art,’ Mr Andersen said.

  ‘The literature and art of a great nation in decline,’ said Willy. ‘That’s rather sad I think. When the birth rate goes persistently down Nature is surely making her comment.’

  ‘It could be other things than nature, old boy,’ Alfred tried teasing, but he shifted uneasily and caught Gladys’ eye.

  ‘Are you going to do any shopping while you are here, Frau Garmisch?’ she asked.

  ‘I shall look for some of your excellent wools and leather goods. Yes.’

  ‘I think for wools you can’t do better than Bradley’s. What do you say, Mrs Heathway?’ She almost perceptibly winked at the woman, for Mr Andersen had grown pink now, in addressing Willy Garmisch.

  ‘Denmark, then, I should tell you is also one of these decadent countries by your ruling.’

  Sylvia Heathway did her best. ‘If I can take you to Bond Street or Regent Street any morning this week …’

  But Frau Garmisch had left the ladies. ‘Oh, but we’re not talking of little countries like Denmark,’ she said, laughing ‘they have to do as they are being told.’ Her laughter seemed to clatter across the intervening tables to the cabaret floor, for the girls dressed as powder-puffs abruptly ended their routine by sticking their fluffy behinds in the air. Alfred, supported stoutly by Gladys and Mrs Heathway, clapped loudly. Their visitors followed suit.

  ‘Now that’s something more like chiffon,’ Gladys said. ‘Alfred was telling me this evening that I should wear chiffon. Can you imagine? The elephant at the circus.’

  ‘If I may compliment you, the cut of your suit has extraordinary elegance …’ Mr Andersen began.

  ‘There you are, Gladys. And I may add that she finds time to run a business as well with extraordinary efficiency.’

  ‘I wonder how long England will be able to afford this luxury of her women doing the men’s work?’ Frau Garmisch pondered. Now that she had finished her ice pudding she seemed ready to renounce any show of sweetness.

  Gladys stifled a furious sense that her whole life was being swept away with the crumbs from the table. ‘Black, please,’ she said, and added brown sugar. ‘Alfred tells me you have an absolutely beautiful home, Frau Garmisch.’

  ‘My husband is happy there. That I have tried to make. And the children too. I don’t know what else a woman should do.’

  She smiled, and, although her face lost none of its frumpiness, it seemed less sour. But Mr Andersen was not softened. He appeared to aim his cigar smoke at her as he exhaled.

  ‘Neverthel
ess for many women the choice of a career is a great social achievement, I suppose.’

  ‘What kind of women are they, wishing for such choices, Mr Andersen? Poor things! One can easily tell that you are a bachelor. You know so very little about us. Would you like your Danish women to have the choice of working on the roads and the railways? That’s the choice the Bolsheviks give their women. The Berliner Tageblatt showed recently some pictures of them. More like animals than women.’

  ‘One cannot believe all that one sees in the newspapers, dear lady, I think.’

  ‘Not in foreign newspapers. We know that.’ Frau Garmisch’s hands were trembling.

  ‘Now, Gretel,’ her husband said, ‘we mustn’t talk politics on this pleasant evening with our good friends. All the same, you know, Alfred, when are you English going to stop some of these absurd stories about us in your newspapers? That’s no way to do business. We’ve had to kick one or two of your newspaper chaps out this year.’

  All Gladys’ anger was released in that moment.

  ‘Look here, Herr Garmisch, I’ve got a bone to pick with you there! You turned my brother out of Germany a couple of months ago. I don’t agree with his politics but he’s the most honest chap living.’

  ‘Are you the sister of Quentin Matthews?’ asked Mr Andersen. ‘Oh, I admire his articles in the News Chronicle immensely. A little extreme, perhaps, but what a brilliant brain!’

  Herr Garmisch countered the Dane’s enthusiasm with a show of contempt.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember the names of all these chaps.’

  Before Frau Garmisch could speak out her fury, Alfred said: ‘You don’t see him often, darling, though, do you? Anyway your parents are enough to have turned any son into a Red.’

  He clearly saw no easy passage between his German and his Danish trades routes. Gladys merely repeated:

  ‘Quentin sometimes loses his head, but he’s as honest as the day.’

  ‘Unfortunately on these big issues today we cannot afford to lose our heads,’ Willy Garmisch allowed himself no more comment.

  At first, Gretel seemed content to dwell with distaste over Alfred’s lapse into ‘darling’ on which she had pounced with a little bitter smile, then she said very slowly and with great fierceness: