One Fat Englishman

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘Isn’t this number 19?’

  ‘No, number 19 is across the street.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Good night.’

  A little later Roger was sitting in a sitting-room full of potted palms and tanks of fish and Father Colgate, wearing a shiny yellow dressing-gown, was saying to him:

  ‘In your present condition, physical, emotional and spiritual, I should not be justified in agreeing to hear your confession, sir. You appear to be actuated by selfish motives, motives in which resentment plays a large part. As I see it, your pride has been hurt and you wish me to restore it. Now this is no part of the function of a—’

  ‘Rubbish, my pride’s in perfectly good order. And as for resentment, any fool could see I’ve got a lot of that and no wonder. Do you understand the system you’re helping to perpetuate, Father? It’s not the unreasonableness of it I’m attacking. Not at the moment, anyway. It’s the barbaric injustice of expecting people who are defenceless against—’

  ‘Now just hold it there – take it easy, my son. What this woman said to you appears to have disturbed you somewhat, and evidently the question of sexual behaviour was raised, but other than that I’m unclear as to what passed between you. Could you fill me in on a little detail, please?’

  ‘Well, she said . . . Never mind what she said. That’s neither here nor there. The point was it set me thinking about what we’re all up against. Now patently we’re up against a very great deal but it doesn’t take much nous to see—’

  ‘Pardon me one moment, sir, but this word . . . nous? I don’t—’

  ‘Oh, do forgive me, I forgot I was in America. What is it, five schools in the whole country still teaching Greek? Nous: intelligence, penetration, reasoning faculty.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  ‘Thank you, I mean to. The . . . Yes. The people I’ve got it in for are you and your lot. Making a good living out of telling the rest of us we put all the bad things there ourselves. Lust. Yes, I distinctly remember women being invented. Same as drink. Father, I am a dipsomaniac. Well, don’t blame me, my son – distillation wasn’t referred to anywhere on those bloody tablets at Mount Sinai. You did that. Father, I am a drug addict. You can’t say I didn’t warn you, my son, I told you not to touch that apple. Father, I suffer from—’

  ‘See here, my son, why don’t you just go home and get some sleep and come back and have a little talk when you’re less confused, huh? Why don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll confuse you, you bead-telling toad. I wouldn’t take your absolution if you begged me. Try absolving yourself from the disgrace of abetting a disgrace. And stop telling me what to do, you silly little man.’

  Roger picked up Father Colgate and walked with him to the most capacious of the fish-tanks and held his face just above the surface, which was shifting minutely with the inflow and outflow system. Fish recognizable as goldfish, others with vertical stripes and moronic startled faces, scurried into the bottom corners. ‘Auctoritate mihi commissa,’ Roger intoned, ‘ego te condemno in nomine Patris,’ – he immersed Colgate’s nose and mouth – ‘et Filii,’ – Colgate went in up to the hairline – ‘et Spiritus Sancti’ – head and neck. Displaced water slopped over the sides. Roger stirred the tank vaguely with Colgate for a moment, then took him away and dropped him on to a sofa. Colgate coughed and gasped. ‘Good night, Father, and thank you. You’ve been a great help. Pray for me.’

  Fourteen

  ‘And by nature she’s such a considerate woman,’ Ernst said. He pressed his lips together and shifted his plaster-covered foot into a new position on the oak-backed sofa. ‘What a confounded nuisance this thing is. Wouldn’t you say, Roger, that she’s a considerate woman?’

  ‘Certainly I would.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s shown herself considerate in all her dealings with you. It does seem out of character, doesn’t it? No note or anything like that. But she didn’t go off on impulse. A great delivery of groceries arrived this afternoon, more than enough to see Arthur and myself through the week-end. And Sue Green dropped by just before you arrived and said she understood Helene was away for a couple of days and could she do anything. So there was premeditation – silly word. I think quite likely I’ll get a letter tomorrow which will explain a good deal, but . . . It’s so unlike her, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Most emphatically I agree.’ Roger tried to put on the expression of a practised and sincere fact-gatherer. ‘Has she ever done this kind of thing before?’

  ‘Never – that’s what admittedly alarms me rather. Never spent more than a couple of hours out of my company that weren’t accounted for. And now it’s . . . getting on for twelve. A significant difference. She probably left soon after I did this morning. It was Mary Selby’s turn to fetch the kids from school and she gave Arthur tea. I don’t know whether that was prearranged. I haven’t liked to ask.’

  ‘Has she gone to her parents, do you suppose?’

  ‘No, I talked to her mother on the telephone last night. Had the devil of a job convincing the old girl that there was nothing up. No, it’s fairly obvious what’s happened to her. She’s with a man.’

  ‘Oh, do you really think so?’ Whether or not Ernst really thought so, Roger did. He had thought so fairly continuously from the moment, three hours ago, when Ernst had rung him up in New York and told him of Helene’s disappearance. And thinking so had been disagreeable to Roger. Although he had felt far from good that morning when Helene’s letter had reached him, saying that Ernst had evidently broken a small bone in falling and found it painful to move and so she had to be with him and so the week-end trip was off, Roger had not really been surprised. It just showed up an inherent snag about all dealings with women: that they involved women. Ernst’s revelation that his foot was only a selective curb on Helene’s activities was far harder to assimilate. So was the observed fact that the foot made its owner’s movements laborious rather than painful. And so was the thought of who Helene had gone off with.

  Ernst brought this last point up now by saying: ‘Who do you think Helene has gone off with?’

  ‘You mean you know? I shouldn’t have thought—’

  ‘I’m asking your opinion. It’s a rather expert opinion in this case. You know, Roger, I’m really quite surprised this hasn’t come up before. I married a very attractive woman. I don’t have to tell you that for a good deal of the time there’s been some male or other hanging about. I don’t resent that and it’s never been a difficulty between us. And if she chooses to spend the afternoon in bed with an occasional one of these males then I regard this as her affair.’

  ‘Oh, but surely, I’d have thought she was completely—’

  ‘Roger, please.’ Ernst smiled in a way that made Roger’s own smile of cordial disbelief turn stiff on his face. ‘I know what Helene does without her having to tell me. It’s a part of being married, you know – well of course you do know (please forgive me) as a married man yourself. Now I must admit that I don’t altogether understand exactly why she does this with the males. Agreed, she’s a very passionate girl. And we all have our natural curiosity, especially in sexual matters. And then again Helene’s also a very sympathetic girl. It’s a funny thing, but the males she chooses are always . . . Well, let’s just say that none of them has ever represented the slightest threat to the long-term stability of our married life. Until now. This is a different behaviour-pattern altogether. Now I do feel threatened, I must confess. Otherwise I wouldn’t have dreamt of bothering you with my troubles in this way. It was very good of you to drop everything and come down here so promptly. But now you’re here I must ask your opinion. Who in your view is the likeliest candidate? Surely you must have an idea.’

  ‘Irving Macher,’ Roger said.

  ‘Exactly what I said myself. He’s been round here a couple of evenings this week. I didn’t discourage him because he’s an intelligent and amusing young fellow and I didn’t think he was Helene’s type at all. I still don’t, in a way. It’s curious . . . You kn
ow, Roger, when I first realized she’d gone I thought for the moment that you might be the culprit. But then I decided you couldn’t be. Well, we’ll just have to be patient, I suppose. I’ve got a feeling we’ll probably hear some news in the morning. Excuse me just a minute. I’ll make sure Arthur doesn’t want something.’ He pushed himself to his feet and limped slowly out of the room.

  Roger sat and tried to think. He found it difficult. He was still emotionally fatigued by having had to suppress his violent curiosity – Ernst had given no details whatever over the telephone – for over an hour after arriving. As might easily have been predicted, Arthur had still been conspicuously up and incessantly about, asking questions about Mommy’s aunt in Cincinnati, whether Mommy had gone there in a jet plane, and very much more. It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.

  But the effects of Arthur’s ambience – his usual conversational shout was even now audible off stage at short intervals – were less distracting than thoughts of Helene. Every consideration demanded that it should be Macher who got thought about, plotted against, circumvented, punished. Yet each time Roger started from this point he ended up with some memory of Helene. No doubt it would be better when he was clear of the house.

  Ernst came back, his plaster cast clopping irregularly on the tiled floor. ‘Let’s have another drink, Roger. I feel like it this evening. Let’s get high together, shall we?’

  ‘I’d like to, but unfortunately I only have time for one. I must be getting back to New York soon. There’s a train—’

  ‘Oh, but why must you go? I’d hoped you’d do the family-friend act and stay and hold my hand. I’d hoped you might stay the night.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question. As it is I shan’t be indoors until well after eleven and I’m off to New Haven first thing in the morning. It’s a pity, it would have been nice.’

  ‘Oh well, help yourself to one for the road, then. And you might top me up while you’re about it.’

  Roger did this and stood gazing into his drink. He said thoughtfully: ‘I wonder where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Somewhere in New York, undoubtedly. They’d get right out of this area and Helene loves New York. She’s always on to me to take her there so that she can hear some authentic jazz. She says that jazz in Scandinavia is quite interesting as far as it goes but it isn’t authentic. I don’t understand these matters myself, I must confess.’

  ‘Neither do I, I’m happy to say. Does she know New York well?’

  ‘She’s never lived there.’

  ‘Got any friends in the place?’

  ‘None that I know of. Oh, they’ll have slipped into some hotel somewhere.’

  ‘Then you’ve really no idea where they’d be?’

  ‘No, I don’t, and even if I . . .’ Ernst broke off, smiling and frowning. ‘Infectious, isn’t it, don’t you find?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Do and don’t for British have and haven’t. It’s as if Americans regarded having as an activity whereas Englishmen regard it as a state, a condition. I connect this with the frequent American preference for this where British usage would favour that – who is this? on the telephone, for instance, as opposed to who is that? Thus where an American typically says I do this, showing concern with an activity related to an object that is immediately present, an Englishman typically says I have that, showing concern with a condition that need be none of his making and is related to an object that may be at a distance and in the past. Americans pursue the dollar; the British had an empire. Fascinating to see the underlying assumptions and goals of a culture laid bare in its idiom. Fascinating, but not surprising. Language is before anything else the great social instrument.’

  ‘Yes,’ Roger said. ‘I’d better get hold of a taxi or I shall miss my train.’

  He took the taxi not to the station but to the main entrance of Budweiser College. In parody of an Oxford porter’s lodge there lounged a man dressed as a policeman. ‘Pilsener 33,’ he said in answer to Roger’s question. ‘Block at the end of the first square.’

  The first square was ivy-covered Gothic. ad MCMX XIX, a plaque on a heavily buttressed and sporadically gargoyled chapel proclaimed. Before he found the right staircase Roger glanced through an arch got up like one of the gates at Caius, Cambridge and caught sight of a great glass-and-concrete box that might have been lifted straight out of the business quarter of Manhattan. Oh, they made strides here.

  There was nobody on the far side of the door marked I. A. MACHER. After some effort of memory Roger tried P. M. CASTLEMAINE, T. SHUMWAY JR and P. C. HUBLER, but with no better result. Or very little better. Two adjacent walls of the last room were largely covered with rectangles of black cardboard. On one of these were half a dozen photographs of men of at least two races blowing into what Roger assumed were saxophones of various sorts; on the other were perhaps five hundred photographs of girls. Roger looked at them uneasily. He was for this and against it. What right had P. C. Hubler to interest himself in this field? Young men these days seemed to think it was all right for them to start on girls whenever they felt like it, as if they were just like anybody else.

  As Roger was about to leave another policeman passed the entrance and saw him. ‘Hey, what you nosing around in there for,’ the man said, coming up and carefully looking Roger over from head to toe, ‘sir?’

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Castlemaine or—’

  ‘Well, you want to try his room.’

  ‘I’ve tried his room. He isn’t there.’

  ‘Oh, he isn’t? Well, he’ll probably be over at the pep rally right now. That’s where a lot of them went. Still be going on, I guess. That’s where he most likely is. Unless of course he’s a grind. Is he a grind?’

  ‘Look . . . In the first place what is this pep rally?’

  ‘For the big game tomorrow. The Rheingold game, you know? Over at Dunkles Arch. You know, it’s kind of like a demonstration. Listen, you can hear them now.’ A hundred yards away there was cheering and shouts and an explosion. ‘That’s them. That’s them firing the cannon.’

  ‘Thank you, I think I can find them.’

  ‘Wait a minute, you sure Castlemaine isn’t a grind? Because if he’s a grind he won’t be there, he’ll be—’

  ‘What is a grind?’

  ‘A grind,’ the other said very slowly, ‘is a young man who is very interested in reading his books. He is so interested in reading his books that he spends a great amount of time in the library. He does not go to pep rallies or other things like this because he is too interested in—’

  ‘Thank you, thank you. Tell me, why are there all these policemen about the college? Are people expecting some sort of trouble?’

  ‘No more than usual. And I’m not a policeman, not a regular policeman. I just dress like one. I’m a proctor.’

  ‘A proctor?’ Roger thought of the fine-featured, ascetic dons (dismissible in most other contexts as pompous boobies) who in gown and bands upheld the dignity of this ancient office (antique tomfoolery) in the streets of his mother university.

  ‘Yeah, and don’t upset yourself, mister, I didn’t invent the name, it’s just what the fellows who pay me call me. You like me to get it changed?’

  Dunkles Arch and its environs were lit by chains of electric bulbs hung from windows and, now and then, by magnesium flares. It was enough to enable Roger to pick out any of Macher’s followers who might be among the several hundred people present. Roger moved from group to group, trying to shut his ears to the tumult. An incomprehensible chant was in progress to start with, conducted by a number of persons with megaphones in their hands who capered rhythmically about on the steps below the arch. Among them was somebody entirely encased in the skin of a bear. The cannon went off. A song was sung to the accompaniment of a brass band. Over a public-address system a man called Coach Oxenreider was introduced and said what he thought support meant. Roger failed to understand his drift. Somebody else was intr
oduced and introduced somebody else. The first one said: ‘. . . star right guard . . . not very bright but sure can play football . . . fine game against Schlitz and the Press thought so too . . . came all the way from Portland, Maine, to play football for Budweiser . . . on the bench most of last fall and already . . .’ The second one said: ‘. . . soon as I saw a leg I broke it.’

  A spirit of definite objection had been gathering in Roger. Now, as the hollow voices went on and the immense shadows on the surrounding walls shifted violently with small resettings of the spotlights, he felt a faint stirring of bewilderment. At almost the same time he caught sight of Castlemaine standing with another young man and two girls and went over to him. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

  ‘Why, it’s Mr Micheldene. Good evening, sir, and what brings you –?’

  ‘This is private.’ Roger moved a couple of yards off and Castlemaine, with a wondering air, followed. ‘Now. Where’s Irving Macher?’

  ‘I can’t answer that with any certainty, not having seen him all day, but no doubt he’s somewhere around the—’

  ‘That will do. Where is he?’

  ‘Mr Micheldene, I do believe you’re agitated. I thought the British were never agitated.’

  ‘That will do, Castlemaine. I may say that if I fail to obtain any satisfaction from you I shall go straight to Professor Parrish and tell him I have reason to believe that Macher is not in college. Perhaps Parrish is the wrong man to go to and I know nothing of the rules of this bizarre establishment, but I imagine I could make an adequate amount of—’ Roger winced as the cannon fired again. ‘. . . of trouble for Macher if I act as I have described. Right. Where is he?’

  Castlemaine peered at Roger. ‘That’s a most impressive demonstration of sportsmanship and fair play, so much so that I’ll gladly tell you all I know. Irving is in New York City, I don’t know where, but it’s some place belonging to a friend of his whose name I don’t know. That should narrow it down for you, Mr Micheldene.’

  Roger peered at Castlemaine. ‘Is that all he told you?’