World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399)

by Mason, Richard

  He held out his hand to me with a charming, frank, boyish smile. “Glad to meet you, Bob. They do call you Bob, I suppose?”

  The hand was soft and manicured, with a gold signet ring. His voice had a mild American twang. But I think that without either the accent or the crew cut I would have guessed his nationality. It was in the readiness of the handshake, the blandness of the smile, that seemed jointly to declare, “I’m an American, and proud of it, and when you shake hands with me you are not just shaking hands with an individual, but with America itself—with the Empire State, and nation-wide television, and General Motors, and the American democratic constitution.”

  I found such openness disarming, and felt an instant liking for him. I wondered why Suzie had been so disparaging.

  “I’m not usually called Bob,” I smiled. “But I don’t mind a bit.”

  “Well, I hope you won’t mind if I call you Red by mistake.”

  “Red?”

  “You see, Bob, I used to have a classmate who was a namesake of yours—Red Lomax. And ever since I heard your name was Lomax, I’ve been thinking of you as Red. But I don’t think you’d mind my mixing you up if you’d known him, because he was a very fine person—a very, very fine person—and so far as that goes, I think that you two have got a good deal in common.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Well, you should have heard the build-up that Suzie gave you. I wondered if you employed her as publicity agent, but now I’ve met you I can see it was all true. And I really mean that, Red.” He realized the stupid mistake. He flicked his fingers in exasperation, then grinned and said, “Now, you keep out of this, Red, d’you hear? We all know you’re a great guy, but just now Bob and I are busy talking—and as a matter of fact we’re getting on very well, and I’ve got a feeling that Bob and I are going to be very, very good friends.”

  I was a little puzzled by this pantomime, for I was almost sure that he had called me Red on purpose. However, I soon forgot about it as he began to admire my room, and the panoramic view from the balcony, with that genuine warmth of appreciation that makes Americans the most delightful guests in the world. I thought him charming. I gathered that he himself was staying at the Gloucester, the most expensive hotel in Hong Kong; and he was very fed up because he had found it so booked up on his arrival a few days ago that he had been obliged to take a suite. It was not the expense that bothered him, but the size. He felt lonely and quite lost in it. And while all that period furniture and ormolu would have been fine in the Ritz, Paris, they were the last thing you wanted here. No, in Hong Kong you wanted atmosphere—like this place. He was crazy about this room of mine.

  Then he said, “Look, Bob, may I use your bathroom? It’s all this Chinese tea you drink with meals here. It runs straight through you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve no private bathroom,” I apologized.

  “You expect too much, Bob! I’d swap my private bathroom at the Gloucester for this view any time you like—with an ormolu clock thrown in.”

  I took him outside and directed him down the corridor, explaining that he could take his choice between Chinese-style and Western-style. I recommended the Chinese-style as more hygienic. Then I closed the door and turned back to Suzie. I said, “But he’s very nice, Suzie. Why don’t you like him?”

  “He got angry because I wouldn’t go to bed. He said horrible things.”

  “That chap? I’m astonished.”

  “He gets horrible when he is angry. I was scared.”

  “Well, you skip off. I’ll deal with him.”

  Suzie suggested that to avoid offending him I should explain that she had just gone round to see her baby, and would be coming back. Then she would ring up to say she could not come back after all because the baby was sick. I thought this unnecessarily complicated, but there was no time to argue so I agreed and dispatched her. A minute later Rodney returned. He said, “Hullo, where’s our friend?”

  I explained, saying she would be back in half an hour, and meanwhile he must make himself at home. He smiled gratefully, and with such friendly warmth that I felt quite ashamed to be deceiving him.

  “That’s very nice of you, Bob. I can see you’ve got a real gift for hospitality and friendship—and nowadays that’s something one certainly does appreciate.”

  “Why the ‘nowadays’?” I said.

  “Well, don’t let’s kid ourselves, the American stock’s pretty low at present. Particularly out here, with our China policy, and Chiang Kai-shek sinking British ships, and all the usual American hysteria about the commies. But you’ve got to remember, Bob, we’re still a young country. We’ve still a lot to learn. And so far as diplomacy is concerned, we’re just a lot of bunglers compared with you British.”

  “We’ve done our fair share of bungling,” I said, though I was liking him better every minute.

  “That’s just your British modesty. Now, Bob, what about these pictures? Because I’ve been very, very much looking forward to seeing what you’ve been doing.”

  He explained that he was not a painter himself, but had always been interested in painting above all else. The interest ran in the family, for his mother had one of the finest art collections in New York: and as a matter of fact he was going to pick up one or two little pieces for her in Italy, when he finally reached there on his round-the-world trip. “You see, my mother was a Mitford, and it was her father who started Mitford’s in New York. But he died a couple of years back, and my uncle’s running the show now.” He saw that I looked blank and smiled. “You don’t know Mitford’s? Well, I guess that means you’ve never been to New York, because it’s practically an institution there. In fact there’s a joke about it, that no American artist goes past it without lifting his hat—because it’s put so many of them on their feet.”

  “What is it—a gallery?”

  “It started as a gallery. But now it publishes art books as well, and runs an agency side, like an agency for writers or actors. You should get them to handle your work over there, Bob.”

  “Wait till you see it.”

  “Well, if that pastel study against the wardrobe is anything to go by, I’m going to like it a lot.”

  And as I began to place my pictures one after another on the easel for his inspection, feeling that I was baring my soul to him, he was indeed warmly appreciative. He obviously knew a great deal about painting. He used words I did not understand and compared me with artists of whom I had never heard. But his comments showed a real percipience that gave weight to his praise and made me purr with delight.

  “Of course, I’m bound to admit, Bob,” he said, “that so far as modern painting’s concerned I’m biased in favor of the abstract. In fact I’ve often thought that representational art was dead as the dodo. But there’s certainly nothing dead about your work. It’s intensively alive. Look at that one, for instance—those girls and that sailor. They’re so alive that I can hear them thinking. And what’s more important, I can hear you thinking, too!” And he pressed me to send a selection to Mitford’s, offering to write to his uncle and tell him about me.

  “Mind you, I’m not promising anything, Bob. You must remember that their attitude is basically commercial—what can they make out of you? But my guess is that this stuff will knock them sideways. And I’ll be very surprised if they don’t—” He broke off. The telephone had begun to ring. He stiffened a little as he watched me pick it up.

  “Hullo, this is Suzie!” the instrument vibrated in my ear; for Suzie always shouted on the telephone, as if she had little faith in it. “That man still there?”

  I had to keep the instrument pressed hard against my ear to muffle the words from Rodney. Her voice pierced my eardrum, and the pain was so acute that I feared lifelong injury. I muttered hurried regrets, as though at the news of her baby, and rang off.

  Rodney said at once, “That was
Suzie, wasn’t it?”

  I turned back to him, and for a moment was aghast at the change that had come over him. He was standing quite rigid, with every muscle in his body tensed like a dog watching a rabbit hole. The blood had drained from his face, and he no longer looked young but middle-aged. There were little angry glinting lights in his eyes.

  “Yes, that’s right, she rang up to say—” I began, but he interrupted.

  “All right, I can guess.” He spoke with a kind of deadly patience and control. “I can guess, Bob. She’s not coming back, is she?”

  “No, she’s awfully sorry, but her baby’s ill.”

  He said carefully, “Balls.”

  “I know it’s had a cough. She’s been very worried for a long time.”

  “I said balls, Bob.”

  We stared at each other. The little pink angry fires in his eyes gave him such a dangerous mad-dog look that I now understood why Suzie had said she was scared. He went on, with that same painstaking control, “Now, that was a very nasty trick she played on me, Bob. A very, very nasty trick. And I am not going to let her get away with it, so I would be very much obliged, Bob, if you would tell me where she lives.”

  “Rodney, you really can’t—”

  “I asked you a question, Bob. Perhaps you didn’t hear, so I shall repeat it. Would you kindly tell me where she lives?”

  “I’ve no idea,” I lied.

  “Now, I thought you were my friend, Bob. I thought that this evening I had made a real friend, and I was doing my best to reciprocate. But evidently I was mistaken. Evidently you are not my friend, and have got something against me, or you would answer my question.”

  “I’ve nothing against you.”

  “Then please don’t lie to me, Bob. Where does she live?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”

  And when I continued to refuse he relaxed the control on himself and gave way to violent rage. His face became flushed and distorted with spite and he submitted me to a stream of abuse, accusing me of taking a dislike to him the moment he entered the room, and of only being nice to him because of what I could get out of him. It was no use trying to protest; I could not get a word in edgeways. I stood helplessly, until after five minutes or so the storm began to pass. A few minutes later he dropped into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and began to sob with self-pity.

  “I’m sorry, Bob,” he cried. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I wanted so much to be friends with you. And now I’ve messed it up. I’ve ruined it. Now you just despise me.”

  I assured him to the contrary. Very soon he had begun to cheer up, and five minutes later he was quite himself again, grinning at me with that boyish charm as if the scene had never taken place. He said, “You know, you’re great, Bob. I like you very, very much. And now I’m going to ask you a very personal question. What was your first impression of me? Now, think carefully. What was your very first impression when I came through that door?”

  I said, “Well, I guessed that you were American from your crew cut—and I thought how quietly dressed you were for an American. I mean, you weren’t wearing a picture tie, or anything like that.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I thought how charming and friendly you were, and how self-assured—”

  “Sorry to interrupt, Bob. You did say self-assured?”

  “Yes, extremely—the way you asked me if you could call me Bob, and told me about the chap who was my namesake, and so on.”

  He looked gratified, as if this was exactly what he had wanted me to say. “Now, it’s very, very interesting that you should say that, Bob. Because two years ago, if I’d had to walk into a room like that and meet a stranger, I’d have been too scared to open my mouth, and—well, the state of my pants would have been nobody’s business. In fact I’d have sooner faced a firing squad than come in here like that. So now you know what it means to me when you tell me that you thought I was self-assured. Because I think you mean it. I think it was your honest impression. And now I’m going to let you into a secret. All the way over in the taxi I’d been in a real stew about whether to call you Mr. Lomax, or Robert, or plunge right in with Bob—and preparing that little story about your namesake.”

  “But it was true, wasn’t it? You really did have a classmate called Lomax?”

  “I’ve never met anybody called Lomax in my life before tonight.” He smiled with satisfaction at my astonishment. “It was just a little idea that I picked up from someone back in the States—a very, very successful man, who started off as an ordinary salesman, and who told me that he put down his success to that one little trick for breaking the ice with his customers. If he saw a fellow was going to be sticky, he’d just start talking about this namesake called Red, and then call the fellow Red by mistake—and by then they’d be getting along like old buddies, and he’d make his sale.”

  I said, “Well, I’m damned.”

  “And I suppose that when I asked to use your bathroom, you thought I really wanted to go?”

  “I did rather assume so.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I didn’t want to go at all. I only asked because I used to be scared to tell strangers I wanted to go to the bathroom, and I’d hold on until I was bursting. So now I just like to show myself I can do it. And every time I do something like that I say a little prayer in my heart to Dr. John Howard Salter.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Well, Bob,’ Dr. John Howard Salter is a very, very brilliant man who lives in New York, and whom I wish that some day you could meet, because he is a man for whom I have the very, very greatest respect and admiration.”

  Dr. John Howard Salter was a psychoanalyst, and it appeared that Rodney had spent a daily fifty minutes on Dr. Salter’s couch for five days a week for the last two years. Finally Salter had advised him—or at least, since analysts never took it upon themselves actually to give advice, had enabled Rodney to see for himself—that the treatment could never wholly succeed while he continued to live at home under the disturbing influence of his possessive mother. He had also been enabled to see for himself in the process of analysis that he must cultivate to the maximum the company of the opposite sex, and let no inhibitions deter him from finding normal and regular sexual outlet. He had thus prescribed for himself a world tour, whose therapeutic advantages would include the breaking of the mother-bond, and the provision of sexual stimulation in every possible shade of skin.

  He was now in his second month of travel and at his third port of call. He had previously visited Hawaii and Japan, both of which places had made ample provision not only of stimulation, but also of what Rodney called “outlets.”

  However, it seemed that the mere quantity of his conquests (or purchases, as they were more often) provided no answer to his basic problem of inferiority. He dreamed of women adoring him, yet believed himself unloved, unlovable; and if indeed some girl did actually show signs of liking him, he would conclude that there must be something wrong with her and disqualify her as a true test case. He seemed perversely determined to prove to himself that he was despised. And Suzie’s behavior this evening had been more grist to his mill; he had becen told that dance girls would always go home with you if they liked you, so that her refusal had seemed to him a personal slight. A slight that both hurt and gratified him.

  This unhappy state of mind clearly caused Rodney much distress, yet as I listened to him talking I remained quite unmoved. I felt rather ashamed of myself; for, after all, such mental suffering was as much to be pitied as physical illness. A man could no more help being neurotic than he could help being afflicted by tuberculosis or cancer. I tried hard to feel more sympathy. But it would not come.

  And then I began to understand. The fact was that something did not quite ring true. He described his own mental complexities with a little too much loving analytical care
, a little too much relish; and I realized now that I did not really believe in them. I suspected that they were chiefly a device to make himself more interesting. A device of his self-pity, to attract that very sympathy in which I had found myself deficient—a device to win friends and influence people. I no longer believed that two years ago he had been anything like the frightened little boy he had made out; and I no longer believed in his explanation of the namesake story, or of his visit to the bathroom. I was certain that both these little pantomimes had been performed, not for the reasons given, but for the sole purpose of arousing my interest and sympathy when he told me about them later. I even thought it possible—and the theory gave me a certain malicious amusement—that he had gone to the bathroom for perfectly natural reasons, and had duly relieved himself, and had only afterwards thought of twisting the incident to suit the needs of his self-pity.

  All this, of course, meant that he was still a neurotic—but a neurotic of a different kind. A kind whose chief trouble, I suspected, was too much money and no compulsion to work. And with a pauper’s satisfaction I reflected on the terrible misfortune of wealth.

  I had supposed that my lack of sympathy must inevitably communicate itself to Rodney. However, apparently it did not do so, for when at length he rose to go, he warmly shook my hand, thanked me for my wonderful patience and understanding, and swore that not for years had he made a better friend; and his manner was so sincere that I began to like him again and feel guilty of misjudging him. And it was only at the very last, as we stood in the open door at the point of parting, that he dropped his bombshell.

  “You know, Bob, I think I’ll move out of the Gloucester and join you down here,” he said. “That is, of course, if you’ve no objection.”

  The possibility of him wanting to do this had vaguely occurred to me earlier, but I had neglected to prepare any defenses, and I could only stammer unhappily that of course I had no objection at all. Oh, heavens no, I should be delighted. Except that, well, I was rather the sort of chap who liked to bury himself, and—