The Biographer’s Moustache

by Kingsley Amis

  Fairly soon after Joanna arrived, Gordon assaulted her as apologetically as he could. It occurred to him meanwhile that he could have done this before, not after, a meal taken together, but that was only in theory. The pre-lunch option had a savour of possible bad form about it. The thought soon passed from his mind. Afterwards he waited as long as he could, or felt he could, before saying,

  ‘You told me yesterday you’d explain when you saw me.’

  ‘I’m sure I did, darling. Explain what exactly?’

  ‘Well, sort of, here we are, going to bed together and all that, and yet we’re not, well …’

  ‘Living together, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me turn round so I can see you. Now. I spent all day yesterday at the St James’s Library.’

  ‘Quite the little bookworm.’

  ‘Oh do shut up darling or I’ll never get to the point. They found a tiny room for me with no one in it and no telephone and I just sat there and thought. Chiefly about just that. In the end I had the answer but I don’t know what took me so long because when it came it was perfectly straightforward. You see, there are only three places where we could live together: one, here, this place, two, there, my place, and three, somewhere else. Okay? There’s no room for me here with even a fraction of my stuff. My place has got Jimmie in it at the moment and then there’s only somewhere else, which would get us into all the papers. No darling, you just go on keeping quiet, you’ll get your chance when I finish. Now there’s one objection that applies to all three. Which is in each case that I commit myself, I say to everybody, look, I’ve got this chap – you know what I mean. Putting Jimmie in the clear, you see.’

  She paused for long enough for him to get as far as, ‘I’m not sure I do quite,’ before she broke in again.

  ‘There’s one thing I may have got a bit wrong. I’m as sure as I ever was that he intends to be off with Lady Rowena but, do you remember when I talked to you on Sunday after he and I had had our walk, do you remember I said what Jimmie decided would happen was what was going to happen?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Anyway I might not have been quite right about that. Darling, what I mean is he’s all for going but I sort of left out of account the, well, the possibility that she might not want him to come on the whole. In other words she’s not as keen as he is. Perhaps.’

  ‘Does that mean you –’

  ‘Darling I do think you might make a bit more of an effort to follow what I’m telling you. If I move in with you before he moves in with her it puts him in the right and you must see I can’t have that.’

  ‘In whose opinion? Puts him in the right according to who?’

  ‘One way of putting it would be the chaps at Gray’s.’

  ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous, Joanna.’

  ‘Of course I don’t just mean it literally, you owl, but I bloody well mean it literally too. It’s Jimmie’s whole life, that place, or at least he wishes it were.’

  ‘But you don’t see it like that, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Darling, listen. I didn’t make the rules and I don’t say I like them, but they are the rules, and one of them says a woman who leaves her husband to go off with another man is let’s call it seriously at fault.’

  ‘What about a bloke, what about somebody like Jimmie who leaves his wife to go off with another female, where does that leave him?’

  ‘The actual leaving is entirely his affair. It’s a man’s world, you see. Naturally if he’s improving his financial and-or social standing by going off like that then there may be talk of bad form, but half the chaps have married money themselves, so any muttering noises soon die down.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Gordon. ‘Where does that leave the deserted wife, morally I mean? Is she free now to do as she likes?’

  ‘You’re learning, but if she goes off with another man too soon afterwards, that puts the chaps firmly on the errant husband’s side for smartly leaving a woman who’s now come out in her true colours.’

  ‘I get it. Just confirm, would you, that we’re talking about the 1990s.’

  ‘The 1890s were probably a bit more liberal, a bit more free and easy. The rest of the world was more settled then.’

  ‘M’m.’

  ‘Let’s get up, I’m hungry. I didn’t really get any lunch.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s not a hell of a lot here.’

  ‘I noticed an Indian restaurant in the next block. I could just about manage a tandoori chicken.’

  ‘In that case we needn’t hurry.’

  There was of course nobody else eating in the very clean eatery where they went and where a strange jangling noise, not unrelated to music, was to be heard. As always at such times, Gordon wondered how the business survived and then, having no solution to advance, let his attention lapse. He ordered a whisky and soda for himself and a glass of the house white wine for Joanna. The waiter, who was wearing a very clean white shirt, asked him if he wanted ice and he declined.

  Joanna watched this. ‘Why don’t you want ice in your whisky? I thought you preferred it with.’

  ‘If I did, I still wouldn’t ask for it here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t know what sort of water it’s been made from.’

  ‘What do you mean, what sort of water? Water’s just water, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very likely. I just wouldn’t fancy it, not here. I don’t mean anything more than that.’

  ‘Whatever you mean exactly, it appals me that somebody of your age and education should be so …’

  ‘Common?’

  ‘No such luck darling. So boringly middle-class.’

  ‘Boring or not,’ said Gordon emphatically, ‘I’m saved from wondering about what the chaps at Gray’s are going to think.’

  ‘Darling, please don’t let’s quarrel. You may have something on the last point, though I still think you’re ridiculously suburban about the ice.’

  They clasped hands across the very clean white tablecloth but unclasped them again when the drinks arrived. In Gordon’s whisky a large piece of ice was after all floating, but before he could do anything or even betray any emotion Joanna had fished it out with her fingers and dumped it in the water-jug the waiter had brought.

  ‘I wondered whether you might like it neat for a change,’ she said.

  Gordon sipped appreciatively. ‘How long shall we give Jimmie?’

  ‘What about till the end of the month. If he hasn’t gone by then or firmly named a day, we have a chat about what we do next. As soon as he does go I go off with you.’

  ‘Straight away? Won’t that be a bit soon? Show you in your true colours?’

  ‘I’m not a member of Gray’s myself and to do him justice Jimmie’d be quite pleased for me.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, if you were right it would put the chaps more on his side.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Come on now, Joanna. Now, you’re not a member of the club both literally and not literally. All that stuff about the rules and being seriously at fault was just a cut-glass way of saying you don’t fancy leaving Jimmie when he still hasn’t actually, correct? I don’t mind, in fact I rather approve if anything, and I still agree to your time-table. But I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Suppose so. Sorry darling.’

  ‘You’re forgiven. In token of which I intend to take some of your money off you.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two thousand two hundred pounds. It’s for Madge Walker, or rather for her house-bound and incontinent husband, to see to him being taken care of. I remember you think she exaggerates but the figure I quoted isn’t her estimate and is solid, I guarantee. It’s a lot of money for you to give somebody you’ve never met and I know you’re not all that well off.’

  ‘Let’s just say that plus or minus two-two-double-o isn’t going to make an appreciable difference to me at the moment.’

  ‘Good. Thank you. Of course the money should come from Jimmi
e by rights, because he’s the one that owes it if anybody does and is also the only person Madge would willingly accept it from, that’s if she’ll accept it from anybody, which is a sizeable if. But I haven’t been able to think of any way of getting a sum of money like that to Madge via Jimmie, with say Jimmie’s signature on a cheque. I can’t, love, but perhaps you can.’

  ‘And you also can’t think of anyone but me who’s got their hands on that kind of money and who you feel you can ask.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Joanna seemed to consider for a little while, but Gordon could never determine whether she was really thinking about real possible ways and means and such or whether she was just good-naturedly putting in some time seeming to be. Finally she said, ‘Why should I take your word for it that this is on the level?’

  ‘No good reason, except why should I go through all this rigmarole? No that won’t stand up either, so no good reason at all. But my father said once he’d rather be cheated than not trust somebody he thought he could trust.’

  Joanna opened her bag and took out her cheque-book and a pen just as the waiter arrived with his order-pad.

  26

  It was a couple of mornings later. Gordon got up early and crouched over his typewriter as if it bestowed a magic protection upon one like him, confronting in the next hours three trials of ascending severity. He also used the instrument for typing and got off a few lines of guff about the limits that should or could be set on the legitimacy of interest in the personal lives of creative artists.

  When the time came, or when he could put it off no longer, he went out into a bright but mild morning and embarked on a bus journey that brought him to Pearson Gardens. A few strides would take him the rest of the way but his watch told him it was not yet five minutes to ten o’clock, so he waited on the corner until just before the hour, when a youngish man with a dark beard and heavy glasses came into view. He looked so unlike Norman Cooper’s voice that Gordon nearly let him go unaccosted, realizing that was silly when it was almost too late.

  ‘I can only stay a moment,’ said bearded Cooper after identities had been established and mild astonishment and pleasure expressed.

  ‘I’ve brought the money you told me Madge Walker needed.’

  ‘Oh bloody marvellous. But this isn’t your cheque, is it?’

  ‘No, Jimmie Fane’s wife’s. His present wife’s.’

  ‘I can’t see Madge caring much for that one.’

  ‘Tell her it’s not for her, it’s for him, Alec’

  ‘No, you tell her. Come up there with me now and tell her.’

  ‘You don’t need me along.’

  ‘Indeed I do, lad. Now we’ve got to go straight away or I’ll be late.’

  When Madge let them into the flat there was no sign of Alec. Gordon mentioned this after a pair of warm embraces and the expression of further mild astonishment and pleasure. It seemed that, as usual at this juncture, Alec was in the bathroom. When Cooper had gone off in that direction, Gordon handed Madge the cheque and started to explain. Before he had finished she tried to get him to take it back, a threat he countered at first by backing away, but rather than have her chase him round the room soon stood his ground and allowed her to stuff the offensive slip of paper into his top jacket pocket.

  ‘And don’t you let me hear from you any reasonable nonsense about its being for the captain and not for me because that’s not the point.’

  ‘No, the point is that it’s charity, isn’t it, you silly old woman?’

  ‘Don’t you dare call me a silly old woman.’

  ‘Why not, you are one if you think you’re so grand you’re above charity, private charity that is, state charity’s all right, eh? And take note of this. Who’s the one person you might have accepted charity from, who you consider rather owes it to you?’

  ‘I suppose you want me to say Jimmie.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be fair? But, leaving out the fact that his money is her money anyway, he’s so mean and dishonest that there’s no possibility let alone a fighting chance of him sending you a cheque for that amount or any other amount, that’s what we decided, we being Mrs F and me, and we were right, weren’t we?’

  ‘Talking of the amount, you must have got together with Coop behind my back.’

  ‘It was the only place he and I could do it, and you should be grateful to him.’

  Madge blinked a few times, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘How about thank you? To Coop and Mrs F through me? Yes? And think of the fun you’ll have writing to Jimmie and explaining about the money and saying exactly why everybody voted to leave him out of the enterprise completely.’

  ‘He wouldn’t condescend to take notice of anything like that.’

  ‘Oh yes he would. Anything to do with him is of absorbing interest to him. It sounds to me as though you’ve got out of touch over the years.’

  ‘It would be like water off a duck’s back.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. He’ll read and mark and inwardly digest every word of it. You said he didn’t like causing pain, well here you go reminding him that once upon a time he caused somebody some.’

  With an air of preoccupation, Madge took the cheque out of Gordon’s pocket.

  ‘Coop’ll have the captain in the bath soon,’ she said. ‘He usually comes out and has a cup of coffee then. Would you like one?’

  ‘Yes please. I didn’t mean it when I called you a silly old woman.’

  ‘It was very hurtful. I understand your reason for saying it but it was still very hurtful.’

  ‘Sorry, Madge.’

  ‘It’s all right, dear Gordon.’

  When Cooper reappeared it was with the news that the admiral seemed slightly better that morning than the day before and was now safely in his flagship. At the end of ten minutes or so he would get out of the bath, dry and dress himself and be installed on his chair in the sitting-room. Before that stage had been reached Gordon was off.

  Soon he had embarked on another bus journey that took him at an angle to his previous path. This bus was rather full, but he noticed on an inner seat up front the back of a man’s head that, with its abundant snowy locks, reminded him of Jimmie. It would be fun of a kind to quote, in chunk and-or main text, from whatever Madge wrote to him.

  Gordon had not been to his present destination before and got out of his seat too early. As he stood waiting near the door of the vehicle he noticed a vacant outer seat beside him and slipped into it. Not till then was he fully reassured that the man nearby was no more than a reminder of Jimmie Fane, not the man’s self. Only in medieval Galicia, perhaps, or the Seychelles before Christ might it have been possible to handle such a situation, not here and now.

  The house, when Gordon eventually approached it, was not right as any kind of permanent abode. It was large but recent-looking, not actually guilty of coach-lamps or comparable enormities yet with a mean air of success about it, acceptable to the higher orders of society only as rented accommodation. In answer to his ring a manservant let him in and took him into a long but low-ceilinged room in which two people sat, a middle-aged man Gordon had never seen before and the presumably more than middle-aged woman he had run into at Hungerstream, Lady Rowena as they called her.

  ‘How nice of you to come,’ she said warmly. She wore a long white garment with gold trimming and, today at any rate, had a pair of rather mad eyes, but the way she lifted her nose on speaking was still in place. She now brought forward the middle-aged man and introduced him as Derek Hoyt, but Gordon had no time to notice more about him than an expensive American accent and a beard much more thoroughly organized than Norman Cooper’s before she said with some emphasis, ‘Mr Hoyt has come over from Philadelphia specially to counsel me.’

  ‘Has he really? Have you really?’

  ‘You can guess what about,’ said Lady Rowena with further emphasis.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I’m afraid we’re rather in the middle of thing
s, I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And you wanted to discuss …’

  Surely, thought Gordon, she had not forgotten their telephone conversation of almost exactly twenty-four hours ago, when she had seemed to show complete understanding of his purposes and ready acceptance of his proposal of a chat concerning JRP Fane past and present. Trying to speak lightly, Gordon now said, ‘Your second husband in times gone by.’

  ‘Oh, Jimmie,’ she said as if she had not thought of Jimmie for a twelvemonth or more. ‘Why not? But Mr Hoyt and I have our conversation to finish.’

  ‘I can always go away and come back later.’

  Derek Hoyt now spoke for himself. ‘Nothing I may say is confidential in the slightest degree. I’m not ashamed of the work I do and whatever benefit may accrue from it is available to all. Unless this gentleman has some reason of his own for leaving, I am resolute that he be able to be present through the balance of our exchange.’

  ‘Oh, in that case I’m perfectly willing to stay.’

  So it came about that Lady Rowena and Derek Hoyt resumed their former seats and Gordon found one from which he could see both of them without having to move his head. There he waited in a state of some expectation for the balance of their exchange.

  Hoyt opened with the words, ‘We were mentioning five hundred in the first place.’

  ‘As a minimum, not a grand estimate. That would take us nearer eight hundred.’

  ‘If you say so. Then can we fix eight?’

  ‘There’ll be more available by October 5th, say four hundred.’

  ‘Is that stable, Lady Rowena, remember, nothing in writing, as you said.’

  ‘Again it’s a minimum. As such, totally stable.’

  After some more of the same kind of thing, it was borne in upon Gordon that what Derek Hoyt was counselling Lady Rowena about was not her recent bereavement nor her alcoholism nor her terminal cancer, but her money, and not counselling her about it in the sense of helping her to feel better about having it, either. She confirmed this herself when the financial guru had departed, seemingly en route for an aeroplane back to Philadelphia.