Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  Indeed their chief concern has been to keep the two different kinds of socks apart. Those ordained by God to wear thick socks under their frocks, they have felt, should not experiment with silk stockings and high heels. Those born to silk stockings and high heels should not start throwing their frocks off, and going round wearing pinstripe suits and Brigade ties. Trousers, possibly – though preferably short enough to be entirely concealed beneath their frocks. The exact form of these concealed trousers has never been of direct concern to the church, but normal good sense suggests that they should be made not of thick materials like tweed or corduroy, but of silk or cotton, trimmed perhaps with a little lace … However, this is straying from the central theological issue.

  Which is at all costs to stop the weaker socks wearing the same kind of frocks as the male socks!

  This is of vital importance, because otherwise the two different sorts of frocks might get mixed up in church, and it has always been an essential belief that the frocks with the rough woollen socks under them should be kept up one end of the building, and the frocks with the long translucent silk socks under them should be down the other end, with some kind of fence or rail separating them.

  This is so that the thick socks can be clearly seen and heard while they explain that anyone having problems about frocks and socks can take heart, because things will be much easier to understand when they are dead. In the next world everyone will be wearing long white frocks and no socks at all, so there will be a very relaxed atmosphere, and a very jolly time will be had by all.

  Apart, that is, from those people who have got confused about questions of frocks and socks in this life. If they have, then they won’t have white frocks when they’re dead – they won’t have frocks at all – they’ll just get flogged and tortured in the nude.

  Though if that’s what they like, if they’ve been taking, their frocks off and getting themselves flogged and tortured in the nude in this life, then very probably they won’t get flogged and tortured in the nude when they’re dead after all. They’ll find themselves forced to wear frocks as a punishment, for all eternity.

  And horrible tickly socks, with huge holes in them.

  (1994)

  Fun with numbers

  I’m on my way to the cash-dispenser, and I’m feeling rather pleased with myself, because for once I’ve remembered to do it before I go into a shop or get into a taxi and find I’ve no money to pay with.

  What I’m also doing as I walk along the street is rehearsing my personal number inside my head, to make sure I can still remember it. 4273 … 4273 … Yes, OK, got it. I’m being a little over-anxious, perhaps, but I don’t want any embarrassments of the sort I’ve had in the past, when I’ve put the card in the machine in front of a long queue of people, and got ‘Incorrect personal number entered’, and had to take it out again smartly before I also got ‘Your card has been retained’, then walk round the block for ten minutes while I calmed down and sorted out the digits in my mind. Not to mention the time when I put in the right number but the wrong card …

  I won’t think about that just now; though. I’ll simply concentrate on the number. 4237 … 4237 … Right. Firmly in place. Everything’s going to be all right.

  It’s just that it sounds a bit funny, somehow. 4327 … These machines are so pedantic – you not only have to have the right four digits, which you’d think would be enough to win you something reasonably substantial in the lottery, let alone get a few miserable pounds out of your own account, but you have to have them in the right order. Four digits in the right order! That must be worth at least ten thousand pounds of someone else’s money!

  But it’s all right, because I have a mnemonic. One of my daughters, who is a little shaky on numbers, taught me this trick. At one stage in her career she had to remember a four-digit number to get past security into her job every morning. She explained to me that, since literature was more her kind of thing than mathematics, she had turned the number into a story, about a young woman of 27 who was having an affair with a man of 54. I said I couldn’t see how she remembered that it wasn’t a woman of 24 having an affair with a man of 57, or for that matter a man of 31 and a woman of 62, and she said, no, nor could she, now I mentioned it. And a terrible uncertainty came into her voice.

  My daughter is now self-employed. In any case I was never very convinced by this love affair. I find it difficult to remember my own age, let alone the ages of fictitious characters, because ages keep changing. My mnemonic is purely mathematical – a much more solid basis. Three of the digits in my number; as you can see, are an anagram of three naturally sequential digits, and the fourth digit is the sum of the last two digits in the sequence.

  Actually this is a fictitious version of my mnemonic, because, needless to say, we’re talking about a fictitious version of my personal number. If I published the real one, not only might you be tempted to hack into my account, but, much worse, the bank would insist on changing the number, as they did once before, when the cards and the numbers got themselves crossed, and then I should have to start remembering a new mnemonic.

  Which would be a pity, because the real mnemonic I’ve got is so elegant. Let me just say, without giving too much away, that the first digit is two larger than the third, so I just remember one, two, three. Yes? Then the fourth digit is the sum of the third and the second – easy, because four is one more than three, and then we’re simply going back down the scale again: four; three, two … Hold on … What’s the second digit? Yes, right, sorry – I’m getting confused – the second digit is two more than the first … Or twice as much as the first. … Or rather …

  Anyway, I don’t need to remember the mnemonic – I can always work out the mnemonic from the number. Except that while I was trying to remember the mnemonic the number’s gone out of my head.

  You’ll notice how calm I’m keeping about this. No blind panic, as you might have expected, even though I’ve already walked past the machine while all this has been going on, and I’m going to have to go on and walk all the way round the block again while I get it sorted out. In fact it doesn’t actually matter at all that I can’t remember the number – just so long as I remember I can’t remember it – because I’ve got it written down in this little electronic organiser thing I keep in my pocket here for exactly this kind of eventuality.

  I’m not giving any secrets away here. The number isn’t written in some place where you could find it even if you came round and stole my little organiser thing – or worse, my God, if someone checking up from the bank stole it! – but in a special bit you can’t get into without entering a secret number. And yes, don’t worry; I can remember this number; because with simple cunning it’s my bank machine number written backwards …

  Which of course in this particular case presents a problem. Or would present a problem, if I hadn’t taken the precaution of writing down the secret number in the non-secret part of the organiser. And that’s perfectly secure, because it’s disguised as a telephone number. You don’t know which of the thousand telephone numbers in the list it is, but I know it’s the one that belongs to a fictitious character …

  Well, the name will come back to me in a minute … And if it doesn’t, never mind, bit of a nuisance, but I’ve got this thing covered every way – I took the name out of a book lying on the third shelf up from the bottom in my office. I’ll just have to go back to my office first. And don’t think I’m not going to be able to get into my office – that in my rising panic I have forgotten the code to punch into the keypad on the door; because the code is very simply the date of one of the major battles in European history, with two of the digits transposed, and I may be able to forget a mnemonic, but I’m not likely to forget the name of a battle …

  Except that I have.

  No! This is not possible! This is pure self-sabotage! I’m talking myself into this!

  Calm down. Think … Right, here’s what I do. I jump into a cab and I go to a reference library and I look th
rough some standard work on European history from, say, 1300 to 1900. Won’t take all that long if I can just find a … and yes, there is one, my luck’s changed! …! Taxi…! Take me to the local library, will you …?

  No, sorry, hold on. Of course – I’ve no money on me. Take me to a cash machine … Oh, we’re next to it… Wait – I’ll be two minutes … As long as I can remember my number …

  Ah. Yes. Right. Problem. And now there’s a pound on the taxi meter. This is going to be embarrassing.

  No, it’s not. Let’s go right back to the beginning. Back to the moment when I was walking towards the cash-dispenser; and I was remembering my personal number. Because I can remember remembering it. So it must be in my head somewhere.

  Right, then, clear everything else out. Never mind remembering – concentrate on forgetting. Forget the taxi standing there. Forget the meter ticking away Forget the traffic, forget the world. Forget the little organiser thing, forget the mnemonics. Just go down through the veils of consciousness into the deep, dark caverns of memory … down to the lost golden hoard of codes and numbers …

  And I’ve got there!

  Battle of Lepanto, 1571!

  Right, here we go. One … five … seven … one … What’s this? ‘Incorrect personal number entered.’ Of course – I didn’t transpose the digits! Try again. One … seven … five … one … No, no, no! Five … seven … one … one … Seven … one … one … five …

  What? ‘Your card has been retained …’ No! Stop! Come back! I made a mistake – that was the battle – that was the door! Listen – I’ve remembered the fictitious character! He’s 84! He’s having an affair with a woman called Rosemary …!

  (1994)

  Gagg speaks

  ‘How,’ I have sometimes heard people gasp admiringly as they looked at the work of this country’s cartoonists, ‘do these chaps manage to make their stuff so true to life? How do they discover the situations which mirror the human predicament and the world as it is today with such accuracy and originality?’

  I put these razor-sharp questions to one of our leading cartoonists, Gagg, at his semi-detached residence in the cartoonist belt. ‘It’s easy,’ he replied. ‘I simply draw the world around me and life as I see it lived in my own family circle from day to day.’

  Q: Perhaps you would describe a typical day, Mr Gagg.

  A: Certainly. First of all I take a bath, in the middle of which I am always called to the door or the telephone with a towel round my waist. At breakfast, of course, I find myself completely hidden behind the morning paper, a situation which gives my wife (not a comely woman, I am afraid, and a head taller than me) the opportunity for some highly risible remark. Then off to the office. I still sometimes leave without my trousers – very amusing! – though less frequently than in the past. Trousers or no trousers, on the Tube I invariably look over my neighbour’s shoulder at his paper.

  Q: And when you get to the office?

  A: The first task is to indulge in some humorous badinage or repartee with The Boss, as he is called, over my lateness. Then my secretary sits down in my lap and we start the day’s work.

  Q: Why does your secretary sit in your lap?

  A: I t seems to be a tradition of the firm. I believe it dates from the years of austerity, when chairs were difficult to come by, and has been kept on as an uplifting mortification of the flesh for both parties.

  Q: Does she remain there all day?

  A: No. Occasionally I have to go and ask The Boss for a rise. He can never afford to give me one, of course: the line on the sales graph slumps so sharply it has to be continued down the wall, and men with masks and horizontally striped vests keep robbing the safe. The police who chase them, incidentally, are for some reason usually American.

  Q: And when you get home at the end of a hard day?

  A: I find that the Little Woman, as she is called, has crashed the car while trying to get it in the garage. I am further enraged to discover that she has bought a new spring hat. Nor is this all. The supper she has cooked turns out to be burnt to a cinder, and when I make some humorous reproach about it she packs a bag and returns to her mother. I try to console myself with a little Indian snake-charming, but it’s no use. There is nothing for it but to go out to a public-house and drown my sorrows.

  Q: Are you successful?

  A: Entirely. As the evening wears on my collar becomes loosened, my hair gets dishevelled, and my shpeech grows shlurred. On my way home I shtop to shupport a shtreet-lamp under a creshent moon and find that I am wearing a battered top-hat and a somewhat disharrayed evening dresh.

  Q: The scene you have depicted a hundred times.

  A: Yes, indeed. Like the ensuing scene, when I reach home and find that my wife is waiting for me with a rolling-pin. A poignant moment.

  Q: And then to sleep?

  A: Far from it. I lie tossing and turning on my bed of nails for a long time, counting sheep which get up to the most amusing antics inside their balloons. But I have to go down to throw out my daughter’s young man, who has still not left, and who is kneeling in front of her with some ludicrous proposal of marriage. Then I am called away to the local maternity hospital, where my wife is now confined. The nurses hold a highly rib-tickling assortment of monkeys and other animals up to the glass of the waiting-room before my quadruplets arrive.

  Q: Quadruplets, Mr Gagg?

  A: I’m afraid so. A truly phenomenal output of children has to be maintained to be eaten by wild animals at the zoo.

  Q: Do you get any time at all in the comfort of your bed of nails?

  A: A little. I usually spend it dreaming about a holiday I should like to take one day, shipwrecked on a very small desert island with one palm tree. Oh, it’s a full and satisfying life, you know. We don’t aspire to the sort of society where you find ladies labelled ‘Peace,’ or piebald horses inscribed ‘Arab resentment over British Middle East policy.’ But for ordinary folk who like familiar things spiced with a bit of sub-human interest, you can’t beat it.

  (1961)

  Gentle reader

  Chapter One

  The old man’s head tolled helplessly from side to side like a rag-doll’s as Zack heaved him up off the bed. ‘What are you doing?’ cried Precious. ‘He needs some air,’ grunted Zack, as he half-carried, half-dragged the inert fat body across to the open window. He propped it in the window-frame for a moment and looked out. They were ten floors up. It was difficult to estimate how big an area the old man would spread over …

  I know what you’re doing, incidentally. You. Yes, you! I, the author, know what you, the reader, are doing. You think I have the imagination and insight to understand what’s going on inside the dark, twisted souls of Zack and Precious, and I don’t know what some simple citizen like you is up to?

  You’re standing in the bookshop, and you’re flicking through the first page or two of this novel, trying to decide whether to buy it or not. You’re worried that a whole paragraph has gone by already, and so far not a sign of anyone having even the most mundane form of sexual intercourse. Look, be reasonable. One thing at a time. How can they have intercourse when he’s trying to push her old father out of the window?

  If they gave him a really good shove, thought Zack, he might fall slightly wide of the building, and hit one or two of the winos lying stretched out on the pavement …

  Also, you’re trying to remember whether you read anything in the paper about my getting some huge advance. It would help you to believe that this novel was worth £14.99 if you knew that the publishers had laid out a little more than £14.99 on it themselves.

  In fact you’re starting to worry about the whole level of the publishers’ commitment to this enterprise. You’re very suspicious because the book wasn’t in a dump-bin, stacked fifty copies high. There was no showcard in the window. You’re not even sure there’s an author tour, with readings and signings in selected bookshops, and wide media coverage.

  Look, come on. We’re not discussing your li
fe’s savings. We’re talking about an investment of £14.99. Of which I get 10%. That’s what you’ll be paying me. Because let’s get this absolutely straight. We’re going to be examining with ruthless honesty the relationship between Zack and Precious, so let’s start off by getting our relationship clear. It’s written down here in my contract, look, signed and countersigned. ‘A royalty of 10% on the first 2,500 copies.’ That’s the total extent of the emotional demand I am making upon you – a fraction of a penny under £1.50. All right? Just go over to the cash-desk and get your credit card out.

  On the other hand, there was a noticeable cross-wind blowing, which might carry the body a little off course, and deposit it on top of the kids sniffing glue behind the rubbish-bins…

  What, you’re still hesitating? Look, I’d like to give it to you for a pound – I’d like to make you a present of it. No, that’s not true, I wouldn’t. Not because I care about the money, but because I don’t think that would be a true or healthy relationship between us. We’re trying to start a business connection, not a love-affair. The cash-desk. Over there by the door, look.

  Suddenly the old man uttered a terrible groan. ‘He’s still alive,’ said Precious. Zack gave up trying to work out the exact point of impact, and began to ease the body out into space. He didn’t want to rush something like this, but he also didn’t want any further discussion with the old man about a European currency …

  No? You think this is exploitation, £1.50? How far can you go in a cab for £1.50? For £1.50 with me you can go all the way from the dark heart of the urban jungle in Balham to the glittering high life of newly-rich derivatives traders in Barnet. And you don’t end up as a slippery pulp spread across a major traffic intersection in West Norwood, like Zack on page 397, causing a busload of orphans to run into a truck carrying weapons-grade plutonium. You don’t get secretly dumped from a sludge-carrier in the North Sea, entombed in fifteen separate concrete nuclear-waste containers, as part of a global hush-up involving the White House and the Vatican.