The Collected Stories

by William Trevor

  Wilkinski sat down. He ran the tip of his tongue over his rather thick lips. They had shared an office since 1960, yet he had never known a thing about this man. Clearly Mulvihill had bought ‘Virgins’ Delight’ and ‘Bedtime with Bunny’ to see how it was done, and then he had begun to make blue films himself. Being in terror of losing his job, he had every day passed humbly through the huge reception area of Ygnis and Ygnis, its walls enriched by pictures of shoes and seed-packets and ironworks, and biscuits and whisky bottles. Humbly he had walked the corridors that rattled with the busyness of typewriters and voices in trivial conversation; humbly he had done his duty by the words and images that were daily created. Wilkinski recalled his saying that he’d always wanted to be a photographer: had he decided in the end to attempt to escape from his treadmill by becoming a pornographer instead? It was a sad thing to have happened to a man. It was an ugly thing as well.

  Still, Wilkinski had a job to do and he knew that in the carton destined for Purley he must not include such items as ‘Let’s Go, Lover’ and ‘Confessions of a Housewife’ because of the embarrassment they would cause. His first thought was that he should simply throw the pornographic films away, but even though he had emigrated from Hungary in 1955 Wilkinski was still aware that he had to be careful in a foreign country. Assiduously he avoided all trouble and was notably polite in tube trains and on the street: it seemed a doubtful procedure, to destroy the possessions of a dead man.

  ‘Films?’ Ox-Banham said on the telephone. ‘You mean they’re dirty?’

  ‘Some you might call domestic. Others I think they could offend a lady.’

  ‘I’ll come and have a look.’

  ‘Some are of a dog.’

  Later that day Ox-Banham arrived in Wilkihski’s small office and took charge of the films, including the ones of the dog. He locked them away in his own office, for he was personally not in the least interested in pornography and certainly not curious to investigate this private world of a label-designer who had remotely been in his charge. He didn’t destroy the films because you never could tell: an occasion might quite easily arise when some client or would-be client would reveal, even without meaning to, an interest in such material. Topless waitresses, gambling clubs, or just getting drunk: where his clients were concerned, Ox-Banham was endlessly solicitous, a guide and a listener. It was unbecoming that Mulvihill should have titillated himself in this way, he reflected as he stood that evening in the Trumpet Major, getting more than a little drunk himself. Nasty he must have been, in spite of his pipe and his Harris tweed jackets.

  In time the carton containing Mulvihill’s effects was delivered to Purley. Miss Mulvihill returned from the mini-market one evening to find it on the doorstep. In the hall, where she opened it, she discovered that her brother’s keys had been returned to her, Sellotaped on to one of the carton’s flaps; only the key of the filing-cabinet had been removed, but Miss Mulvihill didn’t even notice that. She looked through the white cards on which her brother had mounted the items he had designed at Ygnis and Ygnis; she wondered what to do with his old pipes. In the end she put everything back into the carton and hauled it into the cubbyhole beneath the stairs. Pasco bustled about at her feet, delighted to be able to make a foray into a cupboard that was normally kept locked.

  An hour or so later, scrambling an egg for herself in the kitchen, Miss Mulvihill reflected that this was truly the end of her brother. The carton in the cubbyhole reminded her of the coffin that had slid away towards the fawn-coloured curtains in the chapel of the crematorium. She’d been through her brother’s clothes, setting most of them aside for Help the Aged. She’d told the man next door that he could have the contents of the workshed in the garden, asking him to leave her only a screwdriver and a hammer and a pair of pliers.

  She had always been fond of her brother; being the older one, she had looked after him as a child, taking him by the hand when they crossed a street together, answering his questions. Their mother had died when he was eight, and when their father died thirty years later it had seemed natural that they should continue to live together in the house in Purley. ‘Let’s have a dog,’ her brother had said one Saturday morning nine years ago, and soon after that Pasco had entered their lives. The only animal the house had known before was Miss Muffin, their father’s cat, but they’d agreed immediately about Pasco. Never once in their lives had they quarrelled, her brother being too nervous and she too even-tempered. Neither had ever wished to marry.

  She’d put a rose in, she thought as she ate her scrambled egg, the way you could in the grounds of the crematorium, a living thing to remember him by.

  A year went by in Ygnis and Ygnis. The new man who shared Wilkinski’s office was young and given to whistling. On the telephone he addressed his wife as ‘chick’, which began to grate on Wilkinski’s nerves. He possessed a 1951 Fiat, which he talked about; and a caravan, which he talked about also.

  Established now in the copy department, Rowena Smithson was responsible for a slogan which won a prize. She had been put in charge of a frozen foods account and had devised a television campaign which displayed an ordinary family’s preference for a packet of fish to a banquet. In Ygnis and Ygnis it was said more than once that Rowena Smithson was going places. Foolish in her dishevelled middle age, Lilia was said to be slipping.

  During the course of that year Ox-Banham interested himself in one of Ygnis and Ygnis’s three receptionists, a girl who wanted to get into the art department. The Trumpet Major continued to profit from the drinking requirements of Capstick, Lilia, Tip Dainty and R.B. Strathers. Several office parties took place during the year and at the end of it the Ygnis and Ygnis chairman was awarded an OBE.

  ‘Well, I quite appreciate that of course,’ Ox-Banham said on the telephone one morning after that year had passed. He was speaking to Bloody Smithson, who had not ceased to give him a bad time, forgetful of all that had been arranged in the matter of placing his daughter in her chosen career. Rowena was shortly to marry the man she’d begun to go out with, from the market research department. The man was welcome to her as far as Ox-Banham was concerned, but when her father was disagreeable it gave him no satisfaction whatsoever to recall how he’d repeatedly pleasured himself with her on the floor of his office. ‘Let’s iron it out over lunch,’ he urged Bloody Smithson.

  The lunch that look place was a sticky one, bitter with Bloody Smithson’s acrimony. Only when coffee and glasses of Hine arrived on the table did the man from McCulloch Paints desist and Ox-Banham cease inwardly to swear. Then, quite unexpectedly, Bloody Smithson mentioned blue films. His mood was good by now, for he’d enjoyed being a bully for two hours; he described at length some material he’d been shown on a trip to Sweden. ‘Awfully ripe,’ he said, his large blood-red face inches from his companion’s.

  Until that moment Ox-Banham had forgotten about the metal containers he had locked away after Mulvihill’s death. He didn’t mention them, but that evening he read through their neatly labelled titles, and a week later he borrowed a projector. He found what he saw distasteful, as he’d known he would, but was aware that his own opinion didn’t matter in the least. ‘I’ve got hold of a few ripe ones that might interest you,’ he said on the telephone to Bloody Smithson when he next had occasion to speak to him.

  In the comfort of the television theatre they watched ‘Confessions of a Housewife’, ‘Virgins’ Delight’ and ‘Naughty Nell’. Bloody Smithson liked ‘Virgins’ Delight’ best. Ox-Banham explained how the cache had fallen into his hands and how some of the films were apparently the late Mulvihill’s own work. ‘Let’s try this “Day in the Life of a Scotch Terrier”,’ he suggested. ‘Goodness knows what all that’s about.’ But Bloody Smithson said he’d rather have another showing of ‘Virgins’ Delight’.

  Ox-Banham told the story in the Trumpet Major. ‘Not a word to my daughter, mind,’ Bloody Smithson had insisted, chortling in a way that was quite unlike him. The next day all of it went around the Ygnis and Ygni
s building, but it naturally never reached the ears of Rowena because no one liked to tell her that her father had a penchant for obscene films. Mulvihill’s name was used again, his face and clothing recalled, a description supplied to newcomers at Ygnis and Ygnis. Wilkinski heard the story and it hurt him that Mulvihill should be remembered in this way. It was improper, Wilkinski considered, and it made him feel guilty himself: he should have thrown the films away, as his first instinct had been. ‘Mulvihill’s Memorial came to be called, and the employees of Ygnis and Ygnis laughed when they thought of an overweight advertising manager being shown ‘Virgins’ Delight’ in the television theatre. It seemed to Wilkinski that the dead face of Mulvihill was being rubbed in the dirt he had left behind him. It worried Wilkinski, and eventually he plucked up his courage and went to speak to Ox-Banham.

  ‘We shared the office since 1960,’ he said, and Ox-Banham looked at him in astonishment. ‘It isn’t very nice to call it “Mulvihill’s Memorial”.’

  ‘Mulvihill’s dead and gone. What d’you expect us to do with his goodies?’

  ‘Maybe put them down Mr Betts’ incinerator.’

  Ox-Banham laughed and suggested that Wilkinski was being a bit Hungarian about the matter. The smile that appeared on his face was designed to be reassuring, but Wilkinski found this reference to his origins offensive. It seemed that if Mulvihill’s wretched pornography brought solace to a recalcitrant advertising manager, then Mulvihill had not died in vain. The employees had to be paid, profits had to be made. ‘It isn’t very nice,’ Wilkinski said again, quietly in the middle of one night. No one heard him, for though he addressed his wife she was dreaming at the time of something else.

  Then two things happened at once. Wilkinski had a telephone call from Miss Mulvihill, and Ox-Banham made a mistake.

  ‘It’s just that I was wondering,’ Miss Mulvihill said. ‘I mean, he definitely made these little films and there’s absolutely no trace of them.’

  ‘About a dog maybe?’

  ‘And a little one about the scouts. Then again one concerning Purley.’

  ‘Leave the matter with me, Miss Mulvihill.’

  The telephone call came late in the day, and when Wilkinski tried to see Ox-Banham it was suggested that he should try again in the morning. It pleased him that Miss Mulvihill had phoned, that she had sought to have returned to her what was rightfully hers. He’d considered it high-handed at the time that Ox-Banham hadn’t bothered to divide the films into two groups, as he had done himself. ‘Oh, let’s not bother with all that,’ Ox-Banham had said with a note of impatience in his voice.

  Wilkinski hurried to catch his train on the evening of Miss Mulvihill’s call; Ox-Banham entertained Bloody Smithson in the television theatre. ‘No, no, no,’ Bloody Smithson protested. ‘We’ll stick with our Virgins, Ox.’

  But Ox-Banham was heartily sick of ‘Virgins’ Delight’, which he had seen by now probably sixty times. He thought he’d die if he had to watch, yet again, the three schoolgirls putting down their hockey sticks and beginning to take off their gymslips. ‘I thought we were maybe wearing it out,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d better have a copy made.’

  ‘You mean it’s not here?’

  ‘Back in a week or so, Smithy.’

  They began to go through the others. ‘Let’s try this “Day in the Life of a Scotch Terrier”,’ Ox-Banham suggested, and shortly afterwards a dog appeared on the screen, ambling about a kitchen. Then the dog was put on a lead and taken for a walk around a suburb by a middle-aged woman. Back in the kitchen again, the dog begged with its head on one side and was given a titbit. There was another walk, a bus shelter, the dog smelling at bits of paper on the ground. ‘Well, for God’s sake!’ Bloody Smithson protested when the animal was finally given a meal to eat and put to bed.

  ‘Sorry, Smithy.’

  ‘I thought she and the dog –’

  ‘I know. So did I.’

  ‘Some bloody nut made that one.’

  Ox-Banham then showed ‘Naughty Nell’, followed by ‘Country Fun’, ‘Oh Boy!’ and ‘Girlie’. But Bloody Smithson wasn’t in the least impressed. He didn’t care for ‘Confessions of a Housewife’ any more than he had the first time he’d seen it. He didn’t care for ‘Nothing on Tonight’ and wasn’t much impressed by anything else. Ox-Banham regretted that he’d said ‘Virgins’ Delight’ was being copied. This tedious search for excitement could go on all night, for even though Smithson continued to say that everything was less good than ‘Virgins’ Delight’ Ox-Banham had a feeling that some enjoyment at least was being derived from the continuous picture show.

  ‘You’re sure there isn’t another reel or something to that dog stuff?’ the advertising manager even inquired. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing that dame with her undies off.’ He gave a loud laugh, draining his glass of whisky and poking it out at Ox-Banham for a refill.

  ‘I think that’s the bloke’s sister actually. I don’t think she takes anything off.’ Ox-Banham laughed himself, busy with glasses and ice. ‘Call it a day after this one, shall we?’

  ‘Might as well run through the lot, Ox.’

  They saw ‘Come and Get It’, ‘Girls on the Rampage’, ‘A Scotch Terrier Has His Say’, ‘Street of Desire’, a film of boy scouts camping, scenes on a golf course, ‘Saturday Morning, Purley’ and ‘Flesh for Sale’. It was then, after a few moments of a film without a title, that Ox-Banham realized something was wrong. Unfortunately he realized it too late.

  ‘Great God almighty,’ said Bloody Smithson.

  ‘You opened the filing-cabinet, Wilkinski, you took the films out. What did you do next?’ Ox-Banham ground his teeth together, struggling with his impatience.

  ‘I say myself it’s not nice for the sister. The sister phoned up yesterday, I came down to see you –

  ‘You didn’t project any of the films?’

  ‘No, no. I think of Mulvihill lying dead and I think of the sister. What the sister wants is the ones about the dog, and anything else, maybe boy scouts, is there?’

  ‘You are absolutely certain that you did not project any of the films? Not one called “Easy Lady” or another, “Let’s Go, Lover”? Neither of the two untitled ones?’

  ‘No, no. I have no interest in this. I get the box from Mr Betts –’

  ‘Is it possible that someone else might have examined the films? Did you leave the filing-cabinet unlocked, for instance?’

  ‘No, no. I get the box from Mr Betts, maybe ten minutes. The cabinet is closed and locked then. The property of a dead man, I say myself –’

  ‘So no one could possibly have projected one of these films?’

  ‘No, no. The sister rings me yesterday. She is anxious for the dog ones, also boy scouts and others.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Wilkinski!’

  ‘I promise I find –’

  ‘They’ve all been destroyed. Everything’s been destroyed.’

  ‘Destroyed? But I thought –’

  ‘I destroyed them myself last night.’

  Returning to his office, Wilkinski paused for a moment in a corridor, removed his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. People hurried by him with proofs of new advertisements and typewritten pages of copy, but it was easier to think in the corridor than it would be in the office because of the whistling of Mulvihill’s successor. Ox-Banham had looked almost ill, his voice had been shaky. Wilkinski shook his head and slowly padded back to his drawing-board, baffled by the turn of events. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Mulvihill’s sister.

  What happened next was that Bloody Smithson removed the McCulloch Paints account from Ygnis and Ygnis. Then Rowena Smithson walked out. She didn’t hand in her notice, she simply didn’t return after lunch one day. The man in market research to whom she was engaged let it be known that the engagement had been broken off, and made it clear that it was he who had done the breaking. A rumour went round that the big shoe account – a Quaker concern and one of Ygnis and Ygnis’s mainstay
s – was about to go, and a week later it did. Questions were asked by the men of the chocolate account which Ox-Banham had gained a year ago, and by the toiletries people and by the men of Macclesfield Metals. Hasty lunches were arranged, explanations pressed home over afternoon brandy. Ygnis and Ygnis in Trouble a headline in a trade magazine was ready to state, but the headline – and the report that went with it – was abandoned at the eleventh hour because it appeared that and Ygnis had weathered their storm.

  Wilkinski tried to piece things together, and so did the other employees. In the Trumpet Major it was said that for reasons of his own Bloody Smithson had sworn to bring Ygnis and Ygnis to its knees, but neither Wilkinski nor anyone else knew why he had become so enraged. Then, making a rare appearance in the Trumpet Major, the market research man to whom Rowena Smithson had been engaged drank an extra couple of Carlsbergs while waiting for the rain to cease. Idling at the bar, he told Tip Dainty in the strictest confidence of a scene which had taken place at the time of the crisis in the Smithsons’ house in Wimbledon: how he’d been about to leave, having driven Rowena home, when Bloody Smithson had thundered his way into the sitting-room, ‘literally like a bull’. Mrs Smithson had been drinking a cup of Ovaltine at the time, Rowena had not yet taken off her coat. ‘You filthy young prostitute!’ Bloody Smithson had roared at her. ‘You cheap whore!’ It apparently hadn’t concerned him that his daughter’s fiancé was present, he hadn’t even noticed when the cup of Ovaltine fell from his wife’s grasp. He had just stood there shouting, oaths and obscenities bursting out of him, his face the colour of ripe strawberries.

  By half past ten the following morning the story was known to every Ygnis and Ygnis employee: Mulvihill had made a film of Ox-Banham and Rowena Smithson banging away on the floor of Ox-Banham’s office. Mulvihill had apparently hidden himself behind the long blue Dralon curtains, which in the circumstances had naturally been drawn. The lights in the room had been on and neither protagonist in the proceedings had been wearing a stitch.