“Perhaps you should sit down and write one of them for me?” I said politely.
“Heaven forbid, you must be sick of being told that there’s a book in every one of us, so I hasten to assure you that there isn’t one in me.”
I laughed, as I found it refreshing not to be informed by a new acquaintance that his memoirs, if only he could find the time to write them, would overnight be one of the world’s best sellers.
“Perhaps there’s a story in you, but you’re just not aware of it,” I suggested.
“If that’s the case, I’m afraid it’s passed me by.”
Mr. Shrimpton reemerged from behind the row of little tin cubicles and handed me back my towel. He was now fully dressed and stood, I would have guessed, a shade under six feet. He wore a Wall Street banker’s pinstripe suit and, although he was nearly bald, he had a remarkable physique for a man who must have been well into his sixties. Only his thick white mustache gave away his true age, and would have been more in keeping with a retired English colonel than a New York banker.
“Are you going to be in New York long?” he inquired, as he took a small leather case from his inside pocket and removed a pair of half-moon glasses and placed them on the end of his nose.
“Just for the week.”
“I don’t suppose you’re free for lunch tomorrow, by any chance?” he inquired, peering over the top of his glasses.
“Yes, I am. I certainly can’t face another meal with that agent.”
“Good, good, then why don’t you join me and I can follow the continuing drama of capturing the elusive American author?”
“And perhaps I’ll discover there is a story in you after all.”
“Not a hope,” he said, “you would be backing a loser if you depend on that,” and once again he offered his hand. “One o’clock, members’ dining room suit you?”
“One o’clock, members’ dining room,” I repeated.
As he left the locker room I walked over to the mirror and. straightened my tie. I was dining that night with Eric McKenzie, a publishing friend, who had originally proposed me for membership of the club. To be accurate, Eric McKenzie was a friend of my father rather than myself. They had met just before the war while on vacation in Portugal and when I was elected to the club, soon after my father’s retirement, Eric took it upon himself to have dinner with me whenever I was in New York. One’s parents’ generation never see one as anything but a child who will always be in need of constant care and attention. As he was a contemporary of my father, Eric must have been nearly seventy and, although hard of hearing and slightly bent, he was always amusing and good company, even if he did continually ask me if I was aware that his grandfather was Scottish.
As I strapped on my watch, I checked that he was due to arrive in a few minutes. I put on my jacket and strolled out into the hall to find that he was already there, waiting for me. Eric was killing time by reading the out-of-date club notices. Americans, I have observed, can always be relied upon to arrive early or late; never on time. I stood staring at the stooping man, whose hair but for a few strands had now turned silver. His three-piece suit had a button missing on the jacket, which reminded me that his wife had died last year. After another thrust-out hand and exchange of welcomes, we took the elevator to the second floor and walked to the dining room.
The members’ dining room at the Metropolitan differs little from any other men’s club. It has a fair sprinkling of old leather chairs, old carpets, old portraits, and old members. A waiter guided us to a corner table that overlooked Central Park. We ordered, and then settled back to discuss all the subjects I found I usually cover with an acquaintance I only have the chance to catch up with a couple of times a year—our families, children; mutual friends, work; baseball and cricket. By the time we had reached cricket we had also reached coffee, so we strolled down to the far end of the room and made ourselves comfortable in two well-worn leather chairs. When the coffee arrived I ordered two brandies and watched Eric unwrap a large Cuban cigar. Although they displayed a West Indian band on the outside, I knew they were Cuban because I had picked them up for him from a tobacconist in St. James’s, Piccadilly, which specializes in changing the labels for its American customers. I have often thought that they must be the only shop in the world that changes labels with the sole purpose of making a superior product appear inferior. I am certain my wine merchant does it the other way round.
While Eric was attempting to light the cigar, my eyes wandered to a board on the wall. To be more accurate, it was a highly polished wooden plaque with oblique golden lettering painted on it, honoring those men who over the years had won the club’s backgammon championship. I glanced idly down the list, not expecting to see anybody with whom I would be familiar, when I was brought up by the name of Edward Shrimpton. Once in the late thirties he had been the runner-up.
“That’s interesting,” I said.
“What is?” asked Eric, now wreathed in enough smoke to have puffed himself out of Grand Central Station.
“Edward Shrimpton was runner-up in the club’s backgammon championship in the late thirties. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”
“I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“I didn’t until this afternoon,” I said, and then explained how we had met.
Eric laughed and turned to stare up at the board. Then he added, rather mysteriously: “That’s a night I’m never likely to forget.”
“Why?” I asked.
Eric hesitated, and looked uncertain of himself before continuing: “Too much water has passed under the bridge for anyone to care now.” He paused again, as a hot piece of ash fell to the floor and added to the burn marks that made their own private pattern in the carpet. “Just before the war Edward Shrimpton was among the best half dozen backgammon players in the world. In fact, it must have been around that time he won the unofficial world championship in Monte Carlo.”
“And he couldn’t win the club championship?”
“‘Couldn’t’ would be the wrong word, dear boy. ‘Didn’t’ might be more accurate.” Eric lapsed into another preoccupied silence.
“Are you going to explain?” I asked, hoping he would continue, “or am I to be left like a child who wants to know who killed Cock Robin?”
“All in good time, but first allow me to get this damn cigar started.”
I remained silent, and four matches later, he said, “Before I begin, take a look at the man sitting over there in the corner with the young blond.”
I turned and glanced back toward the dining room area, and saw a man attacking a porterhouse steak. He looked about the same age as Eric and wore a smart new suit that was unable to disguise that he had a weight problem: only his tailor could have smiled at him with any pleasure. He was seated opposite a slight, not unattractive strawberry blond half his age who could have trodden on a beetle and failed to crush it.
“What an unlikely pair. Who are they?”
“Harry Newman and his fourth wife. They’re always the same. The wives I mean—blond hair, blue eyes,. ninety pounds, and dumb. I can never understand why any man gets divorced only to marry a carbon copy of the original”
“Where does Edward Shrimpton fit into the jigsaw?” I asked, trying to guide Eric back on to the subject.
“Patience, patience,” said my host, as he relit his cigar for the second time. “At your age you’ve far more time to waste than I have”
I laughed and picked up the cognac nearest to me and swirled the brandy around in my cupped hands.
“Harry Newman,” continued Eric, now almost hidden in smoke, “was the fellow who beat Edward Shrimpton in the final of the club championship that year, although in truth he was never in the same class as Edward.”
“Do explain,” I said, as I looked up at the board to check that it was Newman’s name that preceded Edward Shrimpton’s.
“Well,” said Eric, “after the semifinal, which Edward had won with consummate ease, we all assumed the final
would only be a formality. Harry had always been a good player, but as I had been the one to lose to him in the semifinals, I knew he couldn’t hope to survive a contest with Edward Shrimpton. The club final is won by the first man to reach twenty-one points, and if I had been asked for an opinion at the time, I would have reckoned the result would end up around twenty-one to five in Edward’s favor. Damn cigar,” he said, and lit it for a fourth time. Once again I waited impatiently.
“The final is always held on a Saturday night, and poor Harry over there,” said Eric, pointing his cigar toward the far corner of the room while depositing some more ash on the floor, “who all of us thought was doing rather well in the insurance business, had a bankruptcy notice served on him the Monday morning before the final—I might add through no fault of his own. His partner had cashed in his stock without Harry’s knowledge, disappeared, and left him with all the bills to pick up. Everyone in the club was sympathetic.
“On Thursday the press got hold of the story, and for good measure they added that Harry’s wife had run off with the partner. Harry didn’t show his head in the club all week, and some of us wondered if he would scratch from the final and let Edward win by default as the result was such a foregone conclusion anyway. But the Games Committee received no communication from Harry to suggest the contest was off, so they proceeded as though nothing had happened. On the night of the final, I dined with Edward Shrimpton here in the club. He was in fine form. He ate very little and drank nothing but a glass of water. If you had asked me then I wouldn’t have put a penny on Harry Newman even if the odds had been ten to one.
“We all dined upstairs on the third floor, as the committee had cleared this room so that they could seat sixty in a square around the board. The final was due to start at nine o’clock. By twenty to nine there wasn’t a seat left in the place, and members were already standing two deep behind the square: it wasn’t every day we had the chance to see a world champion in action. By five to nine, Harry still hadn’t turned up and some of the members were beginning to get a little restless. As nine o’clock chimed, the referee went over to Edward and had a word with him. I saw Edward shake his head in disagreement and walk away. Just at the point when I thought the referee would have to be firm and award the match to Edward, Harry strolled in looking very dapper, adorned in a dinner jacket several sizes smaller than the suit he is wearing tonight. Edward went straight up to him, shook him warmly by the hand, and together they walked into the center of the room. Even with the throw of the first dice, there was a tension about that match. Members were waiting to see how Harry would fare in the opening game.”
The intermittent cigar went out again. I leaned over and struck a match for him.
“Thank you, dear boy. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the first game. Well, Edward only just won the first game and I wondered if he wasn’t concentrating or if perhaps he had become a little too relaxed while waiting for his opponent. In the second game the dice ran well for Harry, and he won fairly easily. From that moment on it became a finely fought battle, and by the time the score had reached eleven to nine in Edward’s favor the tension in the room was quite electric. By the ninth game I began watching more carefully and noticed that Edward allowed himself to be drawn into a back game, a small error in judgment that only a seasoned player would have spotted. I wondered how many more subtle errors had already passed that I hadn’t observed. Harry went on to win the ninth, making the score eighteen to seven in his favor. I watched even more diligently as Edward did just enough to win the tenth game and, with a rash double, just enough to lose the eleventh, bring the score to twenty even, so that everything would depend on the final game. I swear that nobody had left the room that evening, and not one back remained against a chair; some members were even hanging on to the window ledges. The room was now full of drink and thick with cigar smoke, and yet when Harry picked up the dice cup for the last game you could hear the little squares of ivory rattle before they hit the board. The dice ran well for Harry in that final game and Edward only made one small error early on that I was able to pick up; but it was enough to give Harry game, match and championship. After the last throw of the dice everyone in that room, including Edward, gave the new champion a standing ovation.”
“Had many other members worked out what had really happened that night?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Eric. “And certainly Harry Newman hadn’t. The talk afterwards was that Harry had never played a better game in his life, and what a worthy champion he was, all the more for the difficulties he laboured under.”
“Did Edward have anything to say?”
“Toughest match he’d been in since Monte Carlo, and only hoped he would be given the chance to avenge the defeat next year.”
“But he wasn’t,” I said, looking up again at the board. “He never won the club championship.”
“That’s right. After Roosevelt had insisted we help you guys out in England, the club didn’t hold the competition again until 1946, and by then Edward had been to war and had lost all interest in the game.”
“And Harry?”
“Oh, Harry. Harry never looked back after that; must have made a dozen deals in the club that night. Within a year he was on top again, even found himself another cute little blond.”
“What does Edward say about the result now, thirty years later?”
“Do you know, that remains a mystery to this day. I have never heard him mention the game once in all that time.”
Eric’s cigar had come to the end of its working life and he stubbed the remains out in an ashless ashtray. It obviously acted as a signal to remind him that it was time to go home. He rose a little unsteadily, and I walked down with him to the front door.
“Good-bye, my boy,” he said. “Do give Edward my best wishes when you have lunch with him tomorrow. And remember not to play him at backgammon. He’d still kill you.”
The next day I arrived in the front hall a few minutes before our appointed time, not sure if Edward Shrimpton would fall into the category of early or late Americans. As the clock struck one, he walked through the door: There has to be an exception to every rule. We agreed to go straight up to lunch since he had to be back in Wall Street for a two-thirty appointment. We stepped into the packed lift, and I pressed the No. 3 button. The doors closed like a tired concertina and the slowest lift in America made its way toward the second floor.
As we entered the dining room, I was amused to see Harry Newman was already there, attacking another steak, while the little blond lady was nibbling a salad. He waved expansively at Edward Shrimpton, who returned the gesture with a friendly nod. We sat down at a table in the center of the room and studied the menu. Steak-and-kidney pie was the dish of the day, which was probably the case in half the men’s clubs in the world. Edward wrote down our orders in a neat and legible hand on the little white slip provided by the waiter.
Edward asked me about the author I was chasing and made some penetrating comments about her earlier work, to which I responded as best I could while trying to think of a plot to make him discuss the pre-war backgammon championship, which I considered would make a far better story than anything she had ever written. But he never talked about himself once during the meal, so I despaired. Finally, staring up at the plaque on the wall, I said clumsily:
“I see you were runner-up in the club backgammon championship just before the war. You must have been a fine player.”
“No, not really,” he replied. “Not many people bothered about the game in those days. There is a different attitude today with all the youngsters taking it so seriously.”
“What about the champion?” I said, pushing my luck.
“Harry Newman? He was an outstanding player, and particularly good under pressure. He’s the gentleman who greeted us when we came in. That’s him sitting over there in the corner with his wife.”
I looked obediently toward Mr. Newman’s table but my host added nothing more so I gave up. We ordered cof
fee, and that would have been the end of Edward’s story if Harry Newman and his wife had not headed straight for us after they had finished their lunch. Edward was on his feet long before I was, despite my twenty-year advantage. Harry Newman looked even bigger standing up, and his little blond wife looked more like the dessert than his spouse.
“Ed,” he boomed, “how are you?”
“I’m well, thank you, Harry,” Edward replied. “May I introduce my guest?”
“Nice to know you,” he said. “Rusty, I’ve always wanted you to meet Ed Shrimpton, because I’ve talked to you about him so often in the past.”
“Have you, Harry?” she squeaked.
“Of course. You remember, honey. Ed is up there on the backgammon honors board,” he said, pointing a stubby finger toward the plaque. “With only one name in front of him, and that’s mine. And Ed was the world champion at the time. Isn’t that right, Ed?”
“That’s right, Harry.”
“So I suppose I really should have been the world champion that year, wouldn’t you say?”
“I couldn’t quarrel with that conclusion,” replied Edward.
“On the big day, Rusty, when it really mattered, and the pressure was on, I beat him fair and square.”
I stood in silent disbelief as Edward Shrimpton still volunteered no disagreement.
“We must play again for old times’ sake, Ed,” the fat man continued. “It would be fun to see if you could beat me now. Mind you, I’m a bit rusty nowadays, Rusty.” He laughed loudly at his own joke, but his spouse’s face remained blank. I wondered how long it would be before there was a fifth Mrs. Newman.
“It’s been great to see you again, Ed. Take care of yourself.”
“Thank you, Harry,” said Edward.
We both sat down again as Newman and his wife left the dining room. Our coffee was now cold so we ordered a fresh pot. The room was almost empty and when I had poured two cups for us Edward leaned over to me conspiratorially and whispered: “Now there’s a hell of a story for a publisher like you,” he said. “I mean the real truth about Harry Newman.”
Collected Short Stories Page 52