Childish Things

by Robin Jenkins

  I couldn’t resist a little irony. ‘Don’t animals do it in silence and with grace? Even elephants.’

  Linda laughed, quite heartily. ‘I’ve never seen elephants do it but you could be right. I wondered where you got your own method. Now I know. But Josh lives the truth in his life. It gets him into trouble. He was once jailed for giving a black eye to one of the bitches he married. She was spending all his money and was cheating on him behind his back, so wasn’t it a truthful act on Josh’s part to give her a black eye? It didn’t hold him back that the other guy was a heavyweight boxer. Josh had a go at him too and ended up in hospital, with a broken nose and two black eyes. Now a gentleman like you, Professor, would be courteous to a woman cheating on you but you would have hated her guts. When Josh got out of jail, he threw a party for her and invited the boxer. It led to another punch-up but that wasn’t Josh’s fault. People just happen to behave naturally when he’s around. I think that helps to make him a good writer. If you’re wondering if I ever went to bed with him, the answer’s no. It nearly happened once, but his socks were smelly. I bet you change your socks every day, Professor.’

  ‘Every second day, Linda. We Scots are economical as well as prudish.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you and Josh together.’

  ‘What age is he?’

  ‘About sixty-five, I would say.’

  ‘How many times has he been married?’

  ‘One less than me. Four times. The difference was I got alimony, he had to pay it. That’s why I’m rich and he’s poor.’

  ‘Have you met his present wife?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I’ve heard her father was a Governor somewhere. I’ve also heard she’s as ugly as sin. Josh has always had a weakness for upper-class dames. I expect because, like me, he’s so low-class himself. You and Annabel should get on well, Professor.’

  ‘Has she money of her own?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Do you think she’d have married Josh if she’d had money? She’s helped him to spend all his. He’s grudged her nothing. Is that love, Professor?’

  ‘A kind of love anyway.’

  She smiled. ‘How many kinds are there?’

  ‘Dozens.’

  ‘They’re coming here to borrow money,’ she said. ‘No. Borrowing means having the intent of paying back. Neither of them has that intention. It’s a Christmas gift they’re looking for. The same goes for my other guests. They’re all in deep trouble financially and they want me to buy them out of it.’

  ‘May I ask how much Mr Bolton is hoping to borrow?’

  ‘One hundred grand was the sum he mentioned, but he’d take more.’

  ‘Good God! May I also ask if you intend to give it to him?’

  ‘That’s my business.’ Then she gave me a funny look. ‘But it could be your business too.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘These other guests, Linda. Why are you letting Senator Hazelwood come? Isn’t he notorious for his reactionary views? He would abolish welfare and food stamps if he could.’

  ‘I know Leonard personally. My fourth husband was a politician. He was a reactionary too.’

  ‘Yet you married him?’

  ‘He was rich, very rich.’

  ‘You disappoint me, Linda.’

  ‘You disappoint me, Professor. I knew what I was doing. What I got out of him I gave to the poor; at least half a million.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You can’t. We’re talking about millions of dollars. It’s a different ball game.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that. But why Senator Hazelwood? Many people think he’s a crook.’

  ‘I think he’s a crook.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him that he wouldn’t be welcome?’

  ‘But, Professor, he’s a friend of the President. He’s a Senator, with a lot of influence. Also, there’s his wife Solace.’

  ‘Solace?’

  ‘That’s her name. A Southern lady. Her great-grandfather was a Confederate general. Her family home had eight columns at the front door. In the past they owned dozens of slaves. She drinks like a fish. Her father blew his brains out. You’ll enjoy meeting her, Professor. She calls black people niggers, to their faces.’

  ‘Why do you think I’ll enjoy meeting a woman who’s a racist and a drunkard?’

  ‘She says what she thinks. Isn’t that admirable?’

  ‘It isn’t, if what she says is obnoxious.’

  ‘I don’t know about obnoxious, but it’s never dull when Solace is around. She insults everybody. She once insulted the President. She’ll insult you, Professor.’

  ‘And yet they’re coming to borrow money? I’d have thought they would have been humble.’

  Linda laughed. ‘Humble? Solace humble? Never in a million years. Leonard’s not going to borrow money. He wants me to invest in some deal that, he says, will double my money in a couple of years.’

  ‘Is it legal, this deal?’

  ‘Knowing Leonard, I don’t suppose it is, not altogether. Do you think I should give him the money? Two million dollars was the sum he mentioned.’

  ‘As you said, Linda, this is a different ball game, one I’m not eligible to play. I don’t even know the rules. But surely you have financial advisers?’

  ‘Dozens. Including your son-in-law, who works in the bank.’

  Was this my chance to speak up for Frank?

  ‘I think Frank’s advice would be sound, Linda.’

  ‘I guess it would. We’ll talk about it later. I want you to tell me what you think about my book. Is it any good?’

  ‘I haven’t finished it yet, Linda. Your handwriting isn’t easy to read. But I’m finding it interesting, honest, and serious.’

  ‘As serious as Middlemarch?’

  ‘Yours is a very different kind of book, Linda.’

  ‘I’ll say!’

  ‘I’ve marked some passages I’d like to discuss with you.’

  ‘You think I should leave them out?’

  ‘Or tone them down. They could be regarded as libellous.’

  ‘But they’re all true.’

  ‘You don’t have to reveal things just because they’re true. You’re entitled to keep them to yourself.’

  ‘That’s where you and I disagree, Professor. What do they say in court? The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘But you’re not on trial, Linda.’

  ‘All the time I was writing it, I felt I was on trial. So I had to tell the truth. You know, Professor, all my life I’ve been looking for someone to tell me the truth.’

  There it was again, that absurd, aggressive obsession with the truth.

  ‘The truth about what?’ I asked.

  ‘About everything.’

  ‘That’s a very tall order, Linda.’

  ‘Do you see yourself in the part, Professor?’

  It was my turn to laugh. I didn’t do it very convincingly.

  ‘Do you see me in the party?’ I asked

  ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t made up my mind yet. Have you told me the truth about yourself?’

  ‘Linda, the hardest thing in the world is to tell the truth about oneself. No one’s brave enough or rash enough. Not even you, my dear. Evasions, distortions, omissions, embellishments are inevitable. We’re human beings, not gods. There are so many things we don’t know, even about ourselves.’

  She was amused. ‘I like that “embellishments”. But, Professor, it all sounds like excuses.’

  She stood up. ‘Time for bed. Thanks for the conversation, Professor. I like talking to you.’

  ‘Why not call me Gregor?’

  It would represent a step forward in intimacy and trust. She was not prepared to take it.

  ‘Good night, Professor,’ she said, and walked away.

  When she was gone, I poured myself more brandy. Was she on to me? Should I hurry after her, remembering to knock this time, and confess?

&nbs
p; No. She had just been guessing. No one could have told her, for no one knew, not even Madge. My lies were buried too deep. If I kept my nerve and went on practising Ulyssean guile, I could bring it off.

  When I went to my own room, a bit unsteady on my feet, I took out of the drawer the small satin-lined box in which I kept my Military Medal. I pinned it to the lapel of my jacket. Looking at myself in the mirror, I reflected that wooing my hostess needed more nerve than sitting in a tent, tapping out signals with dead men lying at my feet.

  2

  Unlike most international airports, San Diego’s is in the heart of the city. Planes skim downtown buildings as they come in to land. Passengers therefore look more relieved than usual at having landed safely. It was not, however, relief that I saw on Josh Bolton’s battered face but adoration, as he kept looking up, for she was taller, at his wife. She was haughty, which I had expected, but also spectacularly ugly, which I had not, in spite of what Linda had said about her. I had attributed that to spiteful exaggeration. Her nose was so big and her chin so long as to be almost deformities. Yet she was dressed to attract attention, in a long loose white dress, big white hat, and white gloves up to her elbows. Bystanders gazed with wonder and derision at Bolton, not because they recognised him as the famous author who had taken part in so many literary and marital squabbles, but because of his rashness and fortitude in having taken as his wife or lover a dame so unlovely and yet so imperious, for whose sake too he had dressed ridiculously in a white suit, white hat, white shoes, and pink tie. It did not go well with his broken nose and cauliflower ears.

  I went forward and introduced myself. ‘How do you do? Gregor McLeod. Here on Mrs Birkenberger’s behalf to welcome you to sunny California.’

  Bolton gave me a hostile glance, which quickly turned into a good-natured grin. He held out a huge hand which had a grip like iron.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Gregor,’ he said.

  ‘Josh!’ cried his lady.

  He cringed. ‘Sorry, Bel. Gregor, meet my wife, Bel.’

  ‘My name, Mr McLeod, is Annabel.’

  Her tone, though harsh, was friendly. After eyeing me up and down, she had decided that I would pass for a gentleman.

  We waited at the entrance for Miguel to bring the car.

  ‘Linda said you were a professor,’ said Bolton. ‘What university?’

  Perhaps I ought to have confessed that it had been Linda who had conferred the professorship on me and not an academic council, but I did not. I decided I could get away with it. The Boltons, come to beg, were in no position to be inquisitive.

  ‘Glasgow,’ I replied. ‘Emeritus, of course. I retired a few years ago.’

  ‘You look distinguished enough to be a Harvard professor,’ said Mrs Bolton. ‘Doesn’t he, Josh?’

  ‘Sure does.’

  ‘Glasgow University is much older than Harvard,’ I said. ‘It was founded in 1451, long before America was discovered.’

  Irony was wasted on her, but not on Bolton.

  ‘What faculty?’ he asked.

  ‘English Literature.’

  ‘I expect you specialised.’

  ‘Scottish medieval poets.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve got me there, Professor.’

  Which was why I had chosen them.

  In the car, Mrs Bolton sat between us. Her haunch pressed into mine. She put her hand on my knee, not on his, to steady herself as we went round corners.

  Bolton did not mind. Nothing she did or said could offend him. He was that much in love.

  ‘How’s Linda?’ he asked.

  Mrs Bolton stiffened at this mention of her hostess. She hated this errand to cadge money from a woman whom she considered her inferior in everything but wealth and beauty.

  ‘In excellent health and spirits,’ I replied.

  ‘She mentioned on the telephone that you were helping her with her memoirs.’

  ‘Writing them for her, she should have said,’ said Mrs Bolton. ‘She’s uneducated and illiterate.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘All I’m doing is correcting the grammar and spelling and offering a suggestion or two. It will be Linda’s book and no one else’s.’

  ‘I hear she’s been offered an advance of half a million,’ said Bolton, enviously.

  ‘Unreadable trash, full of filthy Hollywood gossip,’ said Mrs Bolton. ‘Let’s be honest. She may be our hostess, but she’s vulgar and common. Is that not so, Mr McLeod?’

  I did not answer.

  ‘Considered once to be the most beautiful woman in the world,’ said Bolton.

  I was surprised at his tactlessness. Beauty should have been a subject for him to avoid. His wife at once took revenge.

  ‘May I compliment you, Mr McLeod, on being in such good physical condition. Just look at Josh. That stomach. That red pudgy face. Those bags under his eyes. Too much drinking. Too much smoking, too little exercise. Those books he’s written, with all that sex in them. You’d think he was a great performer himself. The truth is, he’s incapable of making love. As our hostess would say, he just can’t get it up.’

  I expected Bolton with his infamous temper to slap her on the face and retort that, if she wasn’t so fucking ugly, he’d have no trouble getting it up. He would have been justified. Instead, he looked at her with wistful forgiveness.

  Since there was nothing pertinent for anyone to say after that, there was silence till the car arrived at the house.

  Confronted by the evidence of Linda’s great wealth and good taste, Mrs Bolton decided that, as someone come to beg, her best tactic would be friendliness, with a little condescension. Therefore, when Josh kissed their hostess, she followed suit but not so exuberantly, and conveyed that she just couldn’t help being more gracious and ladylike.

  I interpreted Linda’s grim smile as meaning: the big cunt has a face that frightens babies and hasn’t a cent to her name, so why the hell not put up with her, for Josh’s sake?

  At dinner that evening, Linda was wearing a red velvet dress so low at the neck that half her breasts were exposed. It was the one she had worn when acting as Lady Madeleine. Her jewellery was all diamonds. This was to outsparkle Mrs Bolton. Bolton, clownish in a blue tuxedo with glittering lapels, asked, rather shiftily, if she was expecting other guests. She replied, speaking like Lady Madeleine, ‘Yes, Josh, four others. Including my old friend Raimundo Bliss.’

  ‘I thought he was dead,’ said Mrs Bolton.

  ‘He is not in good health, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Is he coming by himself? Doesn’t he always have a young whore with him, pretending to be his granddaughter?’

  ‘Since his health is not good, he has to be accompanied by a nurse.’

  ‘Some nurse!’ Mrs Bolton laughed.

  She kept ignoring her husband’s warning frowns.

  ‘I hear the poor old guy’s dying on his feet,’ said Josh, sympathetically. ‘Aids, I suppose.’

  ‘With syphilis thrown in,’ said Mrs Bolton.

  ‘I think I mentioned he was my friend,’ said Linda, grimly. ‘He’s coming here to borrow money. Like you, Josh.’

  That shut Mrs Bolton up.

  ‘Is the old guy in trouble?’ asked Josh.

  ‘He’s in debt.’

  ‘To loan sharks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he is in trouble.’

  ‘They’ve threatened to make a mess of his face, and he’s very proud of his face. It’s still very handsome.’

  ‘How much is he in for?’

  ‘One hundred thousand dollars.’

  ‘My God, a hundred grand. The old bugger must have made a packet in his day. Where’s it all gone?’

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ cried Mrs Bolton.

  ‘Raimundo was always too generous for his own good,’ said Linda.

  ‘I saw him in a movie once,’ said Mrs Bolton. ‘He had to blow his brains out at the end. He should do it now for real. No one would miss him.’

  ‘I would miss him,’ said L
inda.

  ‘So you’re going to help him out?’ said Josh.

  He couldn’t help saying it glumly. If Linda helped Bliss out, she was less likely to help him.

  ‘That’s my business, Josh,’ she said.

  ‘Sure, of course it is. Who else is coming? Do I know them?’

  ‘Senator Hazelwood and his wife Solace.’

  Josh couldn’t restain himself. ‘That reactionary bastard,’ he cried. ‘That slimy crook.’

  ‘Josh!’ snapped his wife, as if to a dog barking too loudly.

  ‘But, Bel, just the other week he advocated the abolition of food stamps. He said hunger’s the best way to drive a man to look for work.’

  ‘Well, isn’t it?’

  ‘But what if there’s no fucking work to be found? I beg your pardon, ladies.’

  ‘There’s always work to be found. Look at all the Mexicans who cross the border illegally. They find work.’

  ‘Dirty low-paid jobs that no American wants. Frankly, Linda, I’m surprised you invited him.’

  ‘I didn’t. He invited himself. Like you, Josh. It seems he wants me to invest in some company that’s bought land, in Missouri I think, and needs capital to dig out the phosphates or copper or whatever it is. He says if I put in a million, it would be trebled in a couple of years.’

  ‘Sounds like the kind of crooked deal he’d be mixed up in,’ said Josh. ‘You’ve got advisers, Linda. I hope you consult them before you sign anything.’

  ‘The Professor’s my adviser.’

  I laughed. I was sure she was joking. ‘Your literary adviser, perhaps,’ I said. ‘I am not qualified to give financial advice.’

  ‘But I’m asking you to advise me. What should I do about Raimundo? It’s a moral matter too, isn’t it? Should I give him the money to save him from the loan sharks?’