Cocksure (6 page)

8

T
HE NEXT MORNING, SATURDAY, MORTIMER RECEIVED
a copy of a magazine called
Jewish Thought
in the mail. Attached was a printed note,
WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE EDITOR
, and underneath, penned with a lavish hand,
“Respectfully
,
J. Shalinsky.”
J. Shalinsky? J. Shalinsky’s editorial dealt searchingly with the dilemma of the Jewish artist in a philistine society. The lead article by I. M. Sinclair, M.A. (Leeds), was titled “The Anti-Semite as an Intellectual: A Study of the Novels of Graham Greene.” Another article by Lionel Gold, M.D., was titled “Diaspora IX – On Being a Reform Jew in Hampstead Garden Suburb.” There were numerous book reviews, two sentimental poems translated from the Yiddish, and a maudlin Israeli short story.

“What are you laughing at?” Joyce called out from the kitchen.

Mortimer showed her the magazine. “Don’t you find it ludicrous?”

“No.”

There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” Mortimer said.

It was the lachrymose little man, the puny round-shouldered man with horn-rimmed spectacles, who was attending Mortimer’s lectures. “You got the magazine?” he asked.

“My wife. Um, Mr.…”

“Shalinsky, Jacob Shalinsky.”

“Good morning,” Joyce said. “Coffee?”

“If it’s no trouble I’d prefer a cuppa. So,” Shalinsky asked, turning to Mortimer, “what do you think?”

“I think it’s bloody presumptuous of you to show up here unannounced at this hour and –”

“No, no, no. About the magazine.”

“But it just came. I haven’t had time to look at it yet.”

“If you don’t like it all you have to do is tell me why. No evasions, please. Don’t beat around the bush.”

“Tea will be ready in a minute,” Joyce said.

“Ta.” Shalinsky set his homburg down on a chair.

“If there’s anything else she can get you,” Mortimer said, “just ask and –”

“Eggs would be nice. Sunny side up.”

“Look here, Shalinsky. This is not a restaurant. You can’t –”

“Mortimer,” Joyce said.

“It’s not like I came empty-handed,” Shalinsky said quickly. “I have something for you.”

Mortimer watched while Shalinsky unwrapped his parcel thinking, you can keep your Goddamn chopped liver, thank you, and I don’t want this apartment stinking of shmaltz herring. Shalinsky rolled the string into a ball and dropped it into his pocket. The brown wrapping paper, already worn and wrinkled, he folded into eight and put into another pocket. Revealed was no herring but a de luxe edition of color plates by Marc Chagall.

“It occurred to me,” he said, “that a bloke so interested in Kafka might also find beauty in the art of Marc Chagall.”

“What a lovely book, Mortimer!”

“You keep out of this.”

“Would you be willing,” Shalinsky asked, “to write a review … a little appreciation … of this book for the next issue of
Jewish Thought?”

Mortimer hesitated.

“We pay our contributors, of course. Not much, but –”

“That’s not the point.”

But with a shrewd eye on Joyce, he continued, “And this smashing – and need I say,
very
expensive – book would be yours. That goes without saying.”

“Yes, but –”

“Of course Mortimer will do it. Why, he’s honored.”

9

M
ORTIMER HAD JUST SETTLED IN BEHIND HIS DESK ON
Monday morning, and turned to his correspondence, when Daphne Humber-Guest showed up unannounced and troubled to chat about her novel-in-progress.

Daphne was twenty-five. Big and bulging, toothy, with a formidable jaw and a long tangle of greasy brown hair tumbling to her sloped shoulders. Everything about her was askew. Even her juglike breasts, looking outwards, seemed to droop in different directions. Ill-advisedly she wore a tight sweater and a miniskirt. As she heaved her enormous bottom into a chair, taking a breath before she crossed her legs, Daphne’s knees loomed up at Mortimer like apple pies.

Among the literary lionesses who were making London a Saigon of the Sex War, Daphne’s name was writ large. She had first made her mark by keeping and then publishing a decidedly unprudish journal of the breakup of her marriage, which very quickly hit the best-seller lists. Queried by reporters about an especially outrageous passage in the journal, she said, “I cannot invent. I must know everything I write about firsthand.”

Fame did not agree with Daphne, it made her melancholy, she said, and for months on end she was photographed by all the glossy magazines looking lonely even at the most crowded parties. Then Ziggy Spicehandler, giving London another whirl at the time, burst
into her life, and the newspapers began to run photographs of the young couple, obviously entranced with each other, as seen here, there, and everywhere. They were, they said, not going to marry, but instead would live together, which didn’t seem to especially interest anybody until, at a hastily called press conference, Ziggy revealed that they would be living together
openly
.

“Even so,” a gossip columnist said, “there isn’t much of a story in it.”

Two other columnists stood up and reached for their coats.

“Fuck. Shit. Piss. Cock,” Ziggy shouted. “Let’s see you print that, you emasculated bastards.”

Another reporter headed for the door. Which was when Daphne, clutching Ziggy to her, said, “In spite of all I feel for him, I still practice self-abuse.”

“Me too,” Ziggy hollered.

Now representatives from the pop newspapers began to drift out. But reporters from the quality newspapers perked up, sensing something that went beyond gossip. An issue.

“I excite myself,” Daphne said, “with photographs of naked men.”

“I use photos of naked chicks,” Ziggy said, “but it doesn’t work for me … 
unless they’re black.”

The man from the
Guardian
instantly took out his notebook.

“But even D. H. Lawrence,” another reporter said, “was against masturbation.”

“D. H. Lawrence,” Daphne said, “never gave a thought to others. I’m sure I don’t need to masturbate. I’ve got lovers to spare.”

“Me too,” Ziggy said.

“But what about the ugly people of this world?” Daphne asked. “The herd? The people who can’t get a table at Alvaro’s?”

“The girls who can’t afford Vidal Sassoon?”

“What about the cripples?”

“The albinos, what about them, man?”

“Would you deny those who can’t readily find sexual partners what might be their only sexual outlet?”

Before anyone could answer, Daphne added, tears welling in her eyes, “Think of the men locked up in prison.”

“And women.”

“And what about the hospitals?”

“And old people’s homes?”

“Lepers.”

“Basket cases.”

This brought an alert reporter to his feet. “Basket cases,” he said.

“Oh, all right then,” Daphne said. “Be niggly.”

“You cats haven’t got any poetry in you at all. You’re fact-bound.”

Mortimer, among others, was pleased for Daphne; Ziggy would be good for her, he thought, an education, but just a week later came the bitter split. It seems Daphne was well into her first draft of
The Totally Honest Affair
before she discovered that Ziggy had already sold the film rights, based on a synopsis. Outsiders, pinched, unperceptive bystanders, were critical of Ziggy’s behavior; so in fact was Mortimer. Then Ziggy took Mortimer aside to explain the convoluted but true meaning of what he had done. His purpose, he said, had been twofold. By pulling the rug out, so to speak, from under Daphne’s journal-in-progress, he was saving her from repeating herself artistically. By selling the synopsis for a large fee, but never turning in a screenplay, he demonstrated to commercial film makers that he could not be bought.

Daphne, unfortunately, did not see it that way. Swearing never to trust a man again, she tore up her manuscript. She began work on an unsentimental novel about the rise of a lovely working-class Yorkshire model girl, badly used, sexually used, by scheming sophisticated London editors, painters, writers, actors and other depraved types. In the end the gorgeous girl marries an aging duke, she acquires wealth and a title, but inside,
Where She Lives
, she is empty.

“You have no idea,” she said to Mortimer, “the trouble I’m having, how work on this novel is exhausting me.” She went on to explain how her mother, the most narrow-minded of County conservatives, had come to London unannounced, found her in bed with two Negroes, and instantly jumped to conclusions. “One way or another,” Daphne said, “this bloody novel is taking all my time.”

No sooner did Mortimer get rid of Daphne than he ran into Hy in the hall.

“Oh, Hy, you and Diana are coming with us to
Different
tomorrow night, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be embarrassed? Being seen with a Jew?”

“Look, Hy, it’s going to be
the
event of the festival. People are falling over themselves trying to get tickets. You know that.”

“Get stuffed.” Then, as an afterthought, Hy added with implied menace, “Major,” before he turned and ambled off, arms hanging loose, fingers flexing, as if the hall were a ring and he were retiring to his own corner after a grueling but stirring round. His round.

Busted major, he could have said.
Had anybody heard?
No. All the same it was the first reference Hy, who knew all about it, had made to the war in years and it was enough to unnerve Mortimer. The bloody war. As things stood, girls such as Polly Morgan and Daphne Humber-Guest were probably convinced that he was a bore, essentially prudish, but there was still, he dared to hope, an underlying respect; i.e., a friend of Ziggy Spicehandler’s couldn’t be all bad, but if …

Polly Morgan! What did he care what she thought? I don’t. Neither am I attracted to her. Why, it doesn’t even bear thinking about, Mortimer decided.

After work Mortimer took a taxi to the Prince Albert Hotel, armed with flowers and chocolates and the newspapers. Miss Ryerson looked small and pale. Not well within herself, as she might say. Mortimer drank coffee with her, he talked to her soothingly, and together they watched television. Paul McCartney joked about his M.B.E. Peter Cook recited a Betjeman-like poem celebrating the
public conveniences of yesteryear. Mortimer hastily switched to the commercial channel, catching a Jesuit who was debating with a psychiatrist whether or not Jesus Christ had had carnal knowledge of Mary and, come to think of it, Martha as well. Switching back to the
BBC
, Mortimer was relieved to find Kenneth Tynan’s face filling the screen. Then, just as Mortimer was explaining to Miss Ryerson that not since
GBS
had served as a critic had London known such a dazzling reviewer, such a master of language, Tynan said it. The word.

“Holy mackerel! Did he just say,” Miss Ryerson asked, “did that fella just say f-dash-dash-k?”

“There’s something wrong with the set,” Mortimer said, diving for the dial.

“Shoot. Mortimer, I want you to check me out of this hotel instantly. This is not what I expected of London.”

Mortimer nodded understandingly, gloomily. “Are you going home, then?”

“My goodness, no. I want you to find me what is called a bed-sitter, I think.”

“What?” Mortimer said, forgetting himself so far as to light a cigarette.

“Mortimer Griffin, I’ve had quite enough for one week without you lighting a cigarette in my room.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to stay right here and teach.”

Before Mortimer could comment, she shot him a defiant look and said, “England needs me.”

England needs me
. Mortimer was reminded of those wartime cartoons that showed a bulldog-like Winston Churchill rolling up his sleeves. “You know,” he said, bursting with affection, “you may have something there.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

Yes, he nodded, and he took Miss Ryerson to Rule’s for dinner. A special treat.

“I don’t believe for one minute,” Miss Ryerson said, “what that big ignorant black man said.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mortimer said, flushing.

“We are most decidedly not done for. My goodness, the last loudmouth to make that mistake was Hitler.”

“Yes, Miss Ryerson.”

The waiter brought them each a plate of smoked trout. Absently, Mortimer picked up his fork.

“Hold your horses,” Miss Ryerson said.

Immediately Mortimer understood. Embarrassed, yet somehow proud, he bowed his head.

“Dear Lord, for what we are about to receive,” Miss Ryerson began, “we now give thanks …”

10

U
NLIKE OTHER FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTATIONS,
DIFFERENT
was being shown almost secretively in a small theater, appropriately underground. The fabled hairdresser was there; so were the anointed model girls and actors, the legendary photographer, and a restaurateur and tailor, both of whom were ex-directory. The Star Maker, recuperating from yet another operation and skin graft, was rumored to be watching in Casablanca, on a closed circuit via Telstar.

This was clearly the “in” set, Mortimer thought, looking around, pointedly unimpressed. London’s celebrated swingers. Ordinarily he and Joyce would never have been included in such a charmed circle, but Ziggy Spicehandler who had directed this, the first Film of Fact, had written to the festival committee from Ibiza, and they had been sent tickets. This was uncharacteristically thoughtful of Ziggy, Mortimer thought, even middle-class, but only fair considering that he had lent him the money to buy his first hand-held camera and had, well, starred in his first film. The usual home-movie stuff. Mortimer mowing the lawn, throwing Doug in the air, clowning at the barbecue, washing the car, clowning with Joyce, etc. etc.

Several years in the making,
Different
was, Mortimer had been led to believe, the most daring new-wave film yet to be made in England, but as a matter of fact it opened conventionally enough.