An Artist and a Magician

by Hugh Fleetwood

  Oh why was he such a silly old fool, he asked himself. Oh why was he? And what had he got himself into….

  SIX

  He wasn’t really sure if his friends’ attitude towards him did change over the next three months; but he couldn’t help but be aware that his own attitude to them did. Not only to them, but in small, insidious ways, to the whole of his life.

  Because while, after those first meetings with Betty, Jim and Bernard, no mention was ever made of Pam, and of what he had supposedly done to her—apart from the tiniest, most veiled allusions when he was alone with one or other of them—he found that he could no longer totally relax in their company; no longer be his own, magic self. And sometimes, when he sat with them and started to tell his stories, build his marvellous gothic castles in the air that were—or had been—so real that one could stretch out one’s fingers and touch the stones, could walk down cold flagged corridors, could stand on the parapet and catch sight of the most breathtaking views, or open great heavy doors and suddenly find oneself in the most splendid, painted ballroom, blazing with candles and alive with characters in masks, he became terribly aware that now not only had he failed to conjure up even the flimsiest wall, but was doing nothing but repeat tales he’d already told—and repeat them, inexcusably, without the slightest variation. He started to feel like an old actor telling of former triumphs; whose mind and imagination, however, had become too weak even to get the dates and details right, let alone convincing; so that what had once caused laughs and ohs and ahs, now just caused embarrassed glances, and shifting on seats, and hands being mutely examined.

  What was worse, if this was so on those occasions when one of the Three was present—and one of them generally was; he felt obliged to invite each of them to lunch and dinner at least twice a week now, whereas before it had sometimes been only once every three weeks—he found it even more so when none of them were. Which was appalling. To have new faces, old friends, sitting irritated and uncomfortable round his table, clearly thinking, ‘who is this sad old man I’ve heard so much about, who everyone claims is so brilliant but is just rather tiresome’, or ‘oh dear, poor Wilbur is getting tired, and a little sad; next year when we come to Italy maybe, for the first time in decades, we’ll give Rome a miss’, was humiliating and depressing. Also, he told himself, as flat disastrous dinner party succeeded flat disastrous dinner party, there was absolutely no reason why—at least with everyone else—he should be like this. All right, with Betty and Jim and Bernard there was, however ridiculous it might be, some sort of explanation. But with the others, there was none. And yet it happened; happened in spite of all his efforts, and in spite of the fact that he had never lavished so much time and money on his entertaining. But even his cooking was dull and uninspired now, and he seemed suddenly to have acquired the knack of buying wines that were too acid, or too sweet, or just didn’t go with the meals….

  It happened so often in fact that by the end of November he was starting to entertain less; telling Lillian to say, when people called, that he was out of town, or wasn’t well; or even, simply, that he was sorry….

  He should go away, he told himself, as he had planned to do. But just because his magic had deserted him so thoroughly, he didn’t have the energy to decide where to go, or to buy tickets, or to make arrangements; and besides, he kept on thinking that there was no point in going away while he was depressed, and that maybe tomorrow’s dinner party would be better, would signal a return to his old form, and then he could go. But tomorrow was always worse than today; until he got to the stage where it was the day after tomorrow he put his faith in; and then three days from now….

  Yet of course there was a reason why everything had become so grim, and why he was so unlike himself in everyone’s company, and not only that of the Three. And though he pretended not to be aware of it, he was finally forced to be. Forced to admit that he was being choked by that lump of unease that had taken root in him that day when he had seen Jim on his return to Rome. An unease that never left him now, day or night, and took the form of an image of Pam lying helpless on her back in the gravel, writing his name with a stick. And while it was entirely his fault that it was growing in him, this lump, and while all he had to do to eradicate it was tell the truth—he still couldn’t do it. Not even at the risk of losing all his friends, and of having the entire, elaborate construction of his social life crumble down around him.

  Was he going mad? he asked himself. Possibly. How else could one explain such folly? How else but on the theory of madness—or on the even more unsettling theory that he was afraid that if he did tell Betty, Jim and Bernard the truth, they would once again, just as they had in August, desert him? More than once this second idea—this shameful, pitiful idea—came to him, before, having rejected it and rejected it, he finally took it in and held it up for inspection. And when he did he was horrified by himself. My God, was he really continuing this game just because he was frightened of losing his financial support? Sure, most people had to debase themselves to earn money—but in such a way? Oh, it was dreadful. And yet, having once taken the idea in, he couldn’t get rid of it, however dreadful it might be—and was finally forced to confess to himself that this indeed was the truth. He couldn’t tell his three friends that he hadn’t killed Pam—and was suffering these feelings of guilt and unease as a result—just because he was scared that if he did they would no longer, when the money they had lent him and the money Bobbie had given him were gone, give him any more. That was all there was to it.

  He tried to be cynical, to laugh at himself. He tried to tell himself he was a wicked old man, but that nevertheless he was on to a good thing, and if all it involved was admitting to something he hadn’t done—well, that wasn’t a very stiff price to pay. He might have had to work in an office, or in a factory, or down a mine. But he couldn’t manage it—mainly because this fear of losing his backing was so irrational itself. Why on earth should his three rich friends desert him if they learned he hadn’t killed Pam? There was absolutely no reason for them to at all. God knows they had been doing it long enough, without his having to kill anyone for them. And yet—and yet—they had sent him those cheques when Pam had died, as if to assure him that their temporary absence from Rome was only temporary; assure him that they had no intention of behaving like Pam. In fact Bernard had said as much. So—

  The other reason why he couldn’t really laugh at his baseness was the one that had been with him from the beginning, and that was that he honestly didn’t find murder funny, and he had the feeling that all this pretence, that had begun so lightly, couldn’t but end in some bad, not to say terrible way.

  However, in spite of his unease, and in spite of the flatness of his dinner parties, these weeks before Christmas did have their compensations. For he found that, whether because his magic powers sought another outlet now that that of his dinner parties was closed, or whether because, with Bobbie’s money, he was, for the first time, ahead of the game as it were, and therefore wasn’t obliged to do so much in the way of translating, more and more, when he went into his study and sat down at his work table, instead of concentrating on those translations he did have to do, he was doing some work of his own. It had started with the poems; it progressed with some short stories; and got to the stage that, one day around the beginning of December, without any conscious effort on his part, he found himself starting a novel that he’d been meaning to write for years. And strangely, the worse his dinners went, the better he wrote; to the extent that he even began to wonder whether his sudden inability to entertain his friends didn’t at all depend on any feelings he had about Pam’s death, but simply on the fact that his energy was being absorbed in another, more private way.

  Not that he was entirely happy, if happy at all, about this change of direction in his life. Because it was all very well conjuring up castles on a blank page, hoping to cast his spell eventually on some unknown reader, but he missed not being able to do it in his daily life. He would have
liked, of course, to have been able to do both, but as it apparently wasn’t possible, he wasn’t at all sure that the one made up for the other. Did his sudden ability to write again really make the unease he felt worthwhile? He doubted it….

  He was so very doubtful indeed, had such very mixed feelings, that a week before Christmas, as he sat writing in his study listening to the shouts and noise of a communist demonstration going past in the street under his house—and wondering if there were any significance in this, too; as if his own particular crisis were being echoed on a larger scale by these chanting workers and students—he decided, rather than risk a fiasco on Christmas Day—and his Christmas dinners were famous, were the very highlight of his whole social year—he would go away; go away to some quiet and grand hotel, and there, in peace and solitude, make up his mind about just what he was going to do with his life.

  *

  And so he went—though not to any unexplored land, as he had dreamed of doing. He went, instead, to Paris. He took a suite at the Ritz, and went out every day to the very best restaurants in town. He bought himself, for the first time in years, some clothes and shoes; and he bought, in little shops in funny parts of town, knick-knacks that he thought would look well in his apartment. (Though, also for the first time in years, he found, as he did so, that he wasn’t altogether sure of his taste; and was afraid that what looked so very much like his sort of thing in Paris would turn out to be, when he took it home, simply ugly, vulgar—in Chuck’s words—tack.) He went to Fauchon’s and bought the most exotic foodstuffs; he went, every evening, to the ballet or opera, sitting in the very best seats. He stayed for two weeks, and spent a fortune; and realized, by the time he left, that he had come not only to enjoy himself—which he tried to convince himself he did, but didn’t; his unease wouldn’t leave him even here—and to make a decision as to what to do about the farcical but unpleasant situation he was in—and he did come to some sort of decision—but also, and above all, just to spend a fortune. To get through as much of his money as possible, in the shortest time possible; so that he would be obliged to test his theory about what Betty etc. would do if he did tell them the truth.

  The decision he came to was this; that since he couldn’t go on in this way, even though it did seem to inspire him to write, he would, as soon as he got back, confess that he had lied to just one of the Three—Jim, probably, since he had lied less to him than to the others, and therefore his reaction wouldn’t be too humiliating—and then, immediately, ask for a loan. And if—as of course he would (he would, wouldn’t he?)—Jim came through with the goods—well, he would know that he really had been mad to think as he had, and would immediately go to Betty and Bernard and confess to them too. If Jim, on the other hand, refused the loan—but no. He couldn’t. It was impossible. It didn’t bear thinking about. He couldn’t….

  *

  Yet he did.

  He sat pink and sulky in the library of the small settecento palazzo where he lived, glancing every now and then towards a door behind which the dreadful Chuck—who was still very much around—presumably lurked, and puffed indignantly.

  ‘Oh good heavens Wilbur, you can’t need any more at the moment.’

  ‘James dear, you know the cost of living is going up every day,’ Wilbur said, trying to keep the misery and the now atrocious unease he felt—an unease as painful as a toothache—out of his voice.

  ‘Well you should cut down on your expenses. You can’t entertain as you do every day.’

  ‘I have cut right down. I didn’t have a single person for lunch or dinner for four days before I left.’

  ‘Well I didn’t notice. And anyway, you seem to have had a jolly good holiday in Paris.’

  ‘James, I have to get away occasionally. And I spent almost nothing there. I stayed in the most modest little hotel in the Boulevard Raspail, I only ate in little local bistros, and I didn’t buy myself anything.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard,’ Jim muttered petulantly.

  ‘Well I don’t know who’s been telling tales, but you shouldn’t believe them.’

  ‘I can’t believe anything any more. First you make up some ridiculous story about killing Pam, then you tell me it’s not true, and now you tell me my cousin Susan and her husband didn’t see you on three separate occasions in Paris in places that were anything but local bistros.’

  And he thought he had avoided them so cleverly after he had caught sight of them in Le Grand Vefour. God, Wilbur asked himself bitterly, why must the rich have spies and cousins everywhere, checking up and reporting on any intruders in their gilded world….

  ‘I did not tell you I killed Pam, James. I’ve never heard such nonsense. You know perfectly well I am not in the habit of murdering people. I thought you were joking when you talked about it. I mean—you were joking. It was all a silly story.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ Jim pouted wretchedly, nodding in the direction of the door. ‘I’m sure he’s killed lots of people in his life. Maniac that he is.’

  ‘But I happen not to be Chuck, James.’

  ‘Well you’re almost as expensive. And I really can’t let you have anything at the moment. The stock market’s awfully low, and what with one thing and another’—once again, a vague nod towards the door—‘just for the present things are very tight. Besides, he’d kill me if he found out.’

  ‘I do think you should be a little more careful in your choice of young men, James,’ Wilbur said, unable to keep a note of real savagery out of his voice now. ‘And I really don’t think it is any of Chuck’s business what you do with your money, and you certainly shouldn’t make your friends suffer because you happen to have some delinquent in tow.’

  It was, of course, quite the wrong thing to say, and only increased Jim’s sulkiness.

  ‘He’s not a delinquent. In fact, potentially he’s an extremely intelligent person. And he can be immensely charming when he wants to be. And I’m not making you suffer. You just can’t live beyond your means. Why should you? No one else does. Besides—’ and now Jim, either afraid that this discussion was turning into a nasty scrap, and wanting to avoid any further unpleasantness, or because he genuinely found the idea amusing, suddenly gave one of his little chugging laughs—‘even if you don’t think that it’s any of Chuck’s business what I do with my money, he most certainly does.’

  Shake shake shake the little shoulders went….

  ‘Oh James,’ Wilbur cried; and then, made desperate by the implications of this conversation, blurted out ‘well would you lend me some if I told you I really did kill Pam?’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake Wilbur, make up your mind,’ Jim murmured; and then, after a second’s reflection, started to laugh again. ‘But I suppose if I really did think you had, I’d have to, wouldn’t I? Oh ha ha ha,’ he burbled, completely cheered up and his old self again. ‘Oh really Wilbur. But you didn’t, did you, so that’s all there is to it. I couldn’t really believe you had before, but on the other hand, one never does know in life, does one?’

  Then, popping up out of his chair like a little Jack-in-the Box, Jim bustled to the door and opened it, calling ‘Chuck! Chuck! Wilbur didn’t kill Pam. You were right.’

  ‘I told you,’ came the detestable young man’s voice back. ‘That old Southern phony couldn’t kill a fly. He’s just full of shit.’

  ‘Oh ha ha ha,’ Jim went, glancing nervously over his shoulder at Wilbur. ‘Oh Chuck, really, don’t be so rude. Oh dear. Oh I’m sorry Wilbur. Oh good heavens. Oh ha ha ha.’

  But Wilbur was too sunk in misery, too much in the throes of panic to be stung by any insults, or, really, to hear them.

  So it was true. If he did tell the truth, he wouldn’t get any more money. And while he still had a little left, after his extravagance over the last month or so, particularly in Paris, very soon he wouldn’t have. Well, in any case he supposed it didn’t matter, because unless he recovered his powers as an enchanter, he wouldn’t be entertaining much anyway. But on the other hand,
unless this almost irresistible urge to write his own things that had afflicted him lately—and he thought of it now as an affliction—left him, he wouldn’t even be able to do enough translations to pay for the basic necessities of life; Philip’s food, the rent, the electricity and telephone, and Lillian—who was, though she couldn’t type or take shorthand, nor do anything else a secretary is meant to do, a necessity nevertheless; if only for the calming influence she had on him.

  ‘James my dear,’ he said quietly, ‘why have you loaned me money for all these years then, if I should live within my income? I never have, ever, and you’ve never complained about it before. And I was never expected to kill before to earn my keep.’

  ‘Oh don’t be so silly Wilbur,’ Jim snapped, returning once more to petulance. ‘I was only joking about Pam and all that. I mean I never really did think for a moment that—’ a brief pause, for a brief shake of the shoulders ‘—no, that’s not true. I really did think you had. But honestly Wilbur, that’s nothing to do with it.’ He closed the door again suddenly, and now looked quite moral and serious. As moral and serious, Wilbur thought, as only the immoral and frivolous can. ‘No, I mean in spite of Chuck and the various extra expenses of the present, it’s just that—well, things aren’t the same now as they used to be, are they? A few years ago everything seemed so settled and peaceful, and all your entertaining and carrying on was part of that period. It seemed to belong to it. But now—everything’s changing, isn’t it? You see all these demonstrations every day now. And there are strikes the whole time now, and—oh, we’re in difficult times Wilbur, and one has to be careful. Tighten the belt a little bit, you know. Make arrangements. In fact,’ he said, lowering his voice and returning to his chair, ‘I’ve been thinking quite seriously of leaving Rome, leaving Europe, recently. Because it isn’t the same now as it was when we came, is it? When we first came here this was a sort of magic city. As if—oh, I don’t know—as if you’d invented it, Wilbur. But there’s an acrid smell in the air now, and it’s nothing to do with the traffic. There’s an underlying tension, a—I don’t know what.’