An Artist and a Magician

by Hugh Fleetwood

  ‘Where are you going my dear?’

  ‘Just to turn the hose on,’ Pam hooted. ‘With the gardener away, if I don’t give them a bit of water they’ll die before the weekend’s over, my poor little flowers.’

  ‘Shall I help you?’

  ‘No, thank you. That’s quite all right. I can manage I hope. Just as long as I don’t bend over too far. And the tap’s almost within my reach.’

  Oh go on, bend over too far, Wilbur whispered silently to himself as he watched the old lady with a smile. Bend over and fall down on your back like a tortoise, with all your little legs waving in the air. Then I’ll get up and wish you good afternoon and leave you here, and with everyone away and no one to hear you shouting, they won’t find you till Tuesday. By which time you’ll be good and dead. Go on, he shouted silently as Pam reached down slowly for the tap. Go on—another inch or two, and over you go. Go on! You could even, the silent voice, addressing Wilbur as if he were someone else altogether now, said, get up and give her the gentlest push. It wouldn’t take much. Just a tap on the back, the tiniest bit. of pressure—and she’s away. Why don’t you do it? She deserves it. And God, she’d have time to contemplate her errors. A whole weekend of lying on her back and staring up at the sky and surveying her emptiness and wickedness…. Why don’t you do it Wilbur? the voice almost shrieked at him. Now. While you have your chance. Now. Now!

  ‘Brava!’ Wilbur cried, and ‘There we do it!’ the old lady said, as water began to gush from the end of the hose, and she started to straighten up.

  ‘You see, I’m not quite for the scrap-heap yet.’

  She sounded triumphant, and her face was flushed with effort and pride.

  ‘Oh Pamela,’ Wilbur said—and lay back in his chair, feeling worn out. For a second, he realized, he had been carried away. He really had wished death on the old woman. Of course, he told himself, he couldn’t really have gone away and left her if she had fallen over, let alone actually pushed her. But still—even to wish death seriously on someone was dreadful, whatever they were or whatever they did. Because to wish for death was to deny life, and—

  He felt a wave of depression sweeping over him, and stood up.

  ‘I must go now I’m afraid my dear. We’ll be in touch very soon about—business. All right? Just as soon as the banks are open again next week.’

  ‘Oh there’s no hurry,’ Pam purred. ‘Next week. The week after. I thought just as long as I can get everything arranged by the middle of September, I shall leave on the first of October. Do you think that sounds like a good idea?’

  ‘That sounds like a splendid idea. Shall I take the tea things in?’

  ‘Oh would you be so kind Wilbur. Thank you so much.’

  Wilbur was so kind; only now the animal life of the kitchen which had seemed so Pam-like, so eccentric, so almost charming before, struck him as being just squalid, and wretched—and made him feel even more depressed. What was he going to do, he thought, as he watched the first ants rushing forward to check what had been left for them on the tray. What could he do?

  ‘Wilbur?’

  Pam’s voice quavered in from the garden, and he went to the kitchen door and looked out. She was sitting down again in her chair, wiping the sides of her mouth.

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  ‘No. It’s so rarely I can enjoy real peace out here. And since I will be going away so soon I do want to take every opportunity—’

  Wilbur walked out of the house and went over to her.

  ‘You’ll be all right out here?’

  ‘Oh Wilbur, I come out here every day of my life.’

  ‘All right then my dear. Look after yourself, thank you for tea, and we’ll be in touch as soon as the weekend’s over.’

  ‘Yes. And thank you so much for being so encouraging, Wilbur. You don’t know how much I needed it.’

  ‘We all need encouragement,’ Wilbur said as he bent over and kissed her forehead. He hoped he said it without any conscious irony or self-pity. Especially since, just at the moment, he wasn’t feeling in the least bit ironical, or self-pitying. Only very, very depressed….

  Nevertheless, and strangely, as he went round the side of the house, and turned to give Pam a final wave, a twinge of pity did come to him. Not for himself, however, but for Pam. Because she—who didn’t see him wave—was sitting in her chair, staring out into her garden. And whether because she was thinking about leaving it, or whether because she was comparing its suburban disordered bohemia to the huge landscaped parks of her youth, and was wondering if this was all her dream and rebellion amounted to, she looked so forlorn and lonely and old that it was impossible not to feel a touch of sorrow.

  It was only a touch though, and by the time Wilbur was in the road, walking towards the nearest taxi-rank—which wasn’t at all near—he had forgotten all about Pam, and any regrets she might have. Because really, he told himself, his problems were both more pressing and of a more practical nature. What was he, what was he, what was he going to do? And, he wondered, on the assumption that there was never a second without a third—what final blow was fate going to deal him before the day was out?

  THREE

  If, by eight that evening, as he was setting the dinner table, he was no nearer an answer to the first of these two questions than he had been earlier, he did get an answer to the second. Though for a while it seemed more like a stroke of fortune than a blow of fate.

  It took the form, this stroke/blow, of a phone call from Jim.

  ‘James, where are you?’ Wilbur drawled as he heard his friend’s nervous, apologetic ‘Hello?’

  ‘In Rome.’

  ‘Oh James, you’re supposed to be in Tunisia till the thirtieth.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Ha-ha.’ This sounded like a laugh, but wasn’t. It was just a sort of nervous stutter that Jim often gave whenever he was feeling excited, nervous, or guilty—which was most of the time.

  ‘Well what are you doing this evening?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you want to come to dinner? I’m just setting the table.’

  ‘I’m not alone, ha-ha.’

  ‘Well it’s not a street-urchin or a monster, is it?’

  ‘It’s not a street-urchin, no. But it might be a monster.’

  ‘Where’s it from?’

  ‘America. New York City.’

  ‘Oh it’s sure to be a monster then. But bring it anyway. I’ve only got Louis coming tonight, and Penny Farthing.’

  ‘Oh ha-ha-ha.’ This was, presumably, meant to be a laugh. ‘Penny Farthing. I do think that’s funny.’

  Jim had always found the name funny, and had always said so, ever since he had first heard it, years ago. ‘Is she still as dreadful?’

  ‘Now, James.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to write a letter to the papers saying that Rachel Sanders is Penny Farthing.’

  ‘Rachel Sanders’ was one of the foremost scholars of Etruscan art and civilization. Her real name was Penny Farthing.

  ‘Now stop it James. It’s much better to have someone enthusiastic like Penny, even if she does go on a bit, than some of the dreary young things you meet nowadays, who are always so surly, and never like anything, and can’t even produce a simple declarative sentence.’

  ‘I don’t know what the monster from New York City will make of her.’

  ‘Penny could hold her own against the combined forces of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, and Queens.’

  ‘Oh ha-ha-ha. Oh ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.’

  ‘Now James.’ Then, changing key: ‘Can you be over around quarter to nine? Or is that too early?’

  ‘No, that’s fine.’

  ‘See you in a little while then.’

  ‘Yes. Bye.’

  As Wilbur put the phone down, the cat, plump white and red, rubbed himself against his leg; and Wilbur leaned over and picked him up.

  ‘Philip,’ he said, kissing him, ‘Uncle James is coming to dinner. And if we’re very good and c
an get him properly drunk, we might even be able to ask him to lend us—’ he divided six into three now—‘two million. And then when Aunt Betty and Uncle Bernard come back—’ He didn’t finish his sentence. All the same, Philip seemed to understand, and purred appreciatively at this evidence of human ingenuity.

  And surely Jim would lend him two million, Wilbur thought. Under the circumstances. And Betty and Bernard. Even if they loaned him nothing for the next two years. But at least that would take care of the tax department. Because, he decided, he wanted to get that debt out of the way first. Then he could concentrate on the more insurmountable problem of Pam; gather all his strength for what, he was sure, would turn out to be a far bloodier battle than any little skirmish with the State could ever be. Oh why hadn’t she—and once again, he had a vision of Pam lying tortoise-like in her garden, while he stood laughingly over her, jeering, leaving her to—he checked himself, and quickly, putting Philip back on the floor, went to rearrange the table.

  *

  He had asked Jim and whoever it was he had with him to come at quarter to nine—a quarter of an hour earlier than the others—so that, assuming they were punctual, he would have a chance to sow the seeds that, either later that evening or tomorrow, would produce the hoped for crop. And punctual they were. But already, by ten to nine, he was regretting this move—and beginning to realize that far from there being any chance of harvest here, all he was likely to achieve was a blight and a freezing frost.

  Because the person Jim had brought with him was indeed a monster; a tall, hairy, sullen young man with bad teeth and worse breath, who not only appeared to be impervious to the particular brand of originality of Wilbur George, but actually bored and irritated by it. He scowled, he shooed the cat away and said that the only use he had for cats was swinging them by their tails and smashing their heads against a stone, he looked at the picture-covered walls and said Wilbur must have some special affinity with and attraction to the third not to say fourth and fifth rate, and he looked at the beaded and winged clocks, the wild Rococo pelmets of the curtains that Wilbur had made with such effort from scraps of felt and velvet, and the sequined and gilded cabinets full of knick-knacks, monkeys, brown dolls and butterflies—and said Jesus, if there was a thing he couldn’t bear, it was tack.

  And all that Jim did—little jovial Jim, who was always becoming infatuated with young men of this sort; portly jolly Jim, who looked like a cross between Mr Pickwick and everyone’s favourite uncle (though it wouldn’t have been safe to leave one’s nephews with him)—was, infuriatingly, giggle. Giggle, and gasp, and say ‘Oh Chuck. Oh ha-ha-ha. Oh dear. You’re going to hurt Wilbur’s feelings.’

  Indeed he was, and indeed he did; and by ten past nine, when Penny Farthing and Louis arrived to compound his misery, Wilbur was in despair. For not only had the third blow he had been expecting and fearing fallen—in the form of an announcement from Jim that he and the monster had come to Rome for one night only, and were off tomorrow on a trip round the world; which precluded any possibility of loans for months maybe—but also it became clear that the combination of the rude and shocking young thug—who for all his loathsomeness was no fool—and the lady Etruscanologist—who for all her seriousness was—was going to produce his second disastrous dinner party in two days.

  It did.

  Next day Wilbur stayed in bed. He cancelled his lunch and dinner parties, and didn’t try to conjure the morning into life. He didn’t want to. He preferred it dead. He lay in bed staring up at the wire and cardboard fishes that hung on threads from the ceiling, and refused even to think about the work he should have been doing. How could anyone behave in that way, he asked himself. How could anyone treat him like that? Of course the young man had probably had a deprived childhood and was very sensitive and only said nine tenths of what he did say in order to shock and try to prick the balloon of a world he himself aspired to but feared he would never attain, but—even so. To menace the cat, to break off a rose—no, it was unpardonable. Perhaps he should have ordered him out of the house. But apart from the fact that, having been told of the trip round the world, he had felt so numbed he wouldn’t have had the strength to order a fly out of the house, he had been afraid that if he had done so, Jim—whose allegiance always lay with his temporary lovers, and never with his friends—would have left with him. Which while it might just have amused the little red man immensely, and prompted a telephone call this morning, before he set off, to apologize and to ask, by way of making amends, if Wilbur was ‘you know, all right for cash’, might also, for one could never really tell with Jim, have sent him off into a spin that would have kept him going round the world for years. As it was, with any luck the trip would end in disaster in some expensive hotel in Bangkok or Paraguay after a month or so, if not earlier. And while this might be too late to solve the problem of the tax-department—well, one did have to plan for the future, even at times like this, when the present was so black it seemed there might not be a future.

  And then again, Wilbur asked himself: why had Penny been so particularly, so thunderously boring last night, droning on and on about her childhood, repeating herself, contradicting herself, and going out of her way to antagonize the unspeakable Chuck? Why had she insisted, when the young man told her he didn’t do anything, on asking him what he did. It was obvious he was going to say ‘push drugs, blackmail old men, rob old women and fuck anything that moves.’ And why, when it was obvious, from what Jim had breathlessly and gigglingly interjected, that he and the monster had met recently in some unsavoury place in North Africa, had Penny so absurdly boomed ‘Have you two been friends for a long time?’ Of course the hairy young man had said ‘No, just for two weeks. We met in a bar in Marrakech.’

  And why why oh why, Wilbur asked himself, as he closed his eyes, unable even to bear the sight of his fish, had Ivy-League Louis, who was from New England and prided himself on being able to ‘pull the team together’, tried so pompously to pour oil on the troubled water by saying in his bossiest voice, ‘Hey, come on you two. Let’s not have any of this. This is a party.’ Of course Jim had exploded with giggles, shaking and quivering over his cheese, and of course Penny had ignored him and said ‘I remember the most friiiightful party that Daddy gave one Christmas when he was in the High Commission in Hong Kong,’—and of course Chuck had interrupted Penny and stared at Louis and said, ‘This is a party? Well Jesus, thanks for telling me. I’d never have known, and Jim, what the hell are you laughing at?’

  Oh God, how he hated them all. Trampling through the magic and mysterious garden of his life, not once stooping to look at the flowers he had tended with such care, to wonder at the shrubs they had certainly never seen before. How could they? Just tramp tramp tramp, their eyes fixed on each other in hatred, and not a thought for the damage they were doing, for all the chances they were throwing away to learn something new, to feel something new, to explore the hitherto unexplored areas of their own souls. Oh, how he hated them….

  And why, he ended this litany of despair, had Jim met that person and decided to go off round the world with him right now? Right now, when he was needed? Or the least he might have done, even though he hadn’t been ordered out of the house, was call up this morning before he left, and say—

  But they had left at seven o’clock on a flight for Athens….

  However, the adage of there never being a second without a third having been seemingly confirmed, although Wilbur did spend the whole of that Saturday in bed, only getting up to feed Philip and water the flowers, by the afternoon a part of him was thinking, and finding relief in the fact, that at least the worst had happened—and no more blows could be expected. The situation was dreadful; but from now on upwards and onwards really was the order of the day, and not just a piece of empty rhetoric. He had had the operation, he told himself, and it still hurt like hell; but nevertheless, now he was convalescing.

  This image of an operation and convalescence stayed with him all that night; and by Sunday mor
ning had so given him strength that he was not only able, without the slightest effort, to bring the hot, quiet, bell-ringing day to life, but was even able to start making a first tentative assault on the mountains of translations that he had to scale. Of course he didn’t allow himself to do too much, unless he suddenly found himself plunging back into despair, and of course he didn’t allow himself to think of the tax-department’s rapaciousness, Pam’s betrayal, and Jim’s desertion, but at least it was a start; and by that evening, aided by a particularly pleasant if small dinner party, he was feeling almost glad that these obstacles had been placed in his path; it would be a proof of his power, of his vitality, of his magic, when he over-came them. And overcome them he would, he vowed. Not only overcome them, but actually emerge more powerful, more vital, more magnificent from the struggle. Yes, he whispered to Philip as he kissed him goodnight—he almost was glad that he was being so tried. After all, what were three blows on such a towering tree of life? Mere taps on the trunk….

  *

  But after major operations complications sometimes set in; and so, sometimes, are adages and proverbs proved wrong. Because on Monday morning, still two further blows fell; and these, Wilbur realized, as he cancelled his social engagements for the whole week, and retired once again to bed—taking several bottles of whisky with him for company—were liable to floor him for good. Furthermore, they were blows of such a nature that he couldn’t possibly believe that, if not the gods, at least the four members of his inner court weren’t, for all that they hated each other, working in concert to destroy him. And he wasn’t generally given to paranoia. But it was impossible for it all to be mere chance. There had to be some plan, some comparing of notes, some agreement that now, this weekend in August, was the time to strike. There also had to be, he decided, some liaison with the tax-department, some link there. Because that too wasn’t possible.