Fowlers End (14 page)

“Simple common or garden ideas?” I suggested.

“Do you read much?” she asked abruptly.

“A little. Why?”

“Because one of these days I am going to write a novel,” she said, with an aggressive hitch of the chin. “What about?” I asked.

She bared her small white teeth now and talked through them, while her eyes flashed. “I want to write about Life: Life in the raw, Life as it is lived in the depths, the uttermost depths! Do you hear?”

“And the heights?”

“Those too. I know all about those. But the depths, yes, the depths!” She hurled her cigarette end into the fireplace and took out another. When I rose to offer her a light, she waved me back with an imperious gesture and said, “Sit down. I suppose you understand that to me you are nothing but raw material?”

“I thought you came to the rescue out of sheer kindness of heart,” I said.

“Oh, no,” said June Whistler in a matter-of-fact way, “I’m not kindhearted at all, really. I used to be awfully softhearted, but I’m not any longer. The creative artist must be hard,
hard!
No mercy, no pity. Cold, impersonal, clear-minded. Like a surgeon. Like a zoologist. Like a vivisector with a knife. Understand?” She smiled kindly, and encouragingly.

The chops were settling now—I must have had the digestion of a crocodile in those days—and I found it hard to keep my eyes open. It was very pleasant to lounge there and listen to her talk. The fact that I had heard it all before in the Soho Cafes made the atmosphere so much the more homely. I hated to think that in a little while good manners
would compel me to take my leave and go out again into the inhospitable streets.

“I want to help you, Laverock,” she said. “Will you let me help you? Please? Will you teach me things? I want to know
your
world. Will you let me help you?”

“You have helped me enough already, Miss Whistler,” I said drowsily, “and I am very grateful to you.”

Her mood had changed now. She was pleading like an anxious child. “You don’t have to be grateful. I didn’t do anything. But if you are grateful, if you want to be grateful, you can show your gratitude by letting me help you. Now won’t you, please?”

I said, “Well, if you have any hot water, I’d be very grateful if you would let me have a good wash—”

She was out of her chair and into the bathroom in half a second. I heard the splash of water and the thunderous hollow bang of a gas heater, and then she was back, saying, “Yes, of course, a good hot bath. Are you verminous?’

“No.”

“I have some verbena bath salts. Wou
ld you like that?”

“No, thank you. A bath is more than I’d bargained for. I’m ashamed to give you so much trouble.”

Instinct warned me that I was letting myself in for something here; but the lure of that hot bath was too strong for me. I rose abruptly, intending to say, “Thanks again, and good evening,” but found myself walking straight into the bathroom. I climbed into the tub, scraped myself from head to foot and lay back to soak.

From the living room came a familiar brushing-and-clanging noise. I had heard it many times before in my mother’s house.

The bohemian June Whistler was busy with dustpan and hand broom, sweeping up the ashes.

Then I fell asleep until the water grew cold.

June Whistler was sitting on a little sofa in a vampirish attitude. I noticed that she had changed her simple dress and put on a most peculiar garment of bright brocade. It had an immensely high Borgia collar and was cut very low and square at the neck. The skirt was long at the back and short in front, and the sleeves, which were wide, stopped at her elbows. She was also wearing high-heeled slippers and a collar of pearls as big as marbles, with earrings to match.

“And where do you think you are going?” she asked languidly, after I had thanked her for the bath.

The question took all the refreshment out of me and left me tired again, because I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was going. I could only say, “I really must, I’m afraid.”

She waved imperiously. “You will drink a glass of wine with me. It is in the kitchen. Bring it!”

And there, indeed, was a bottle of three-shilling port. She must have run to the grocer’s and bought it while I was in the bath. In the accents of Du Barry, she said, “There is a corkscrew in the tin opener. In the drawer, next to the tea strainer. Fetch it.”

I obeyed.

“Set out glasses. There are two behind the teapot. Fill them.... Now, my friend, let us drink....”

I took a tentative sip. My father, who might have been something of a
bon vivant
if his conscience had let him, had taught me a little about wines and their characters. As I swallowed the stuff there came into my mind, clear as a photograph, a projection of the old man’s face. I could see it twitch and grow rigid; and I could see him trying to disguise the disgusted pulsation of his poor harassed nostrils as he twirled the glass in his long nervous fingers, what time his worried eyes looked left and right for a surreptitious flowerpot. But June Whistler emptied her glass in two gulps
and said, with a peculiar cachinnation that began as a gasp and ended as a giggle, “It’s a very special wine. It comes all the way from Portugal.” Then, humor and candor getting the better of her, she made an amendment: “It says Oporto on the label, but it can’t be any good really, I suppose. Would you like to kiss me?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “Naturally. Who wouldn’t?” I was unaccountably confused and embarrassed. “If I had met you at a party, say, or in any other circumstances, why, you’d have to keep me away with your fingernails. But as it is, I don’t know why, I’m what they call inhibited. I don’t suppose I make myself clear, but it’s like a shady sort of way of paying for a meal, and a bath, and a good turn.”

She was silent, then, for about half a minute, when she lifted a shoulder in a practiced shrug, doggedly lit (all on one side) another cigarette, and said, in a strange and lonely little voice, “Drink, and pour more wine.” And her eyes, filling with tears, became larger and took on a vague, wavering underwater look.

So I drank my wine, replenished the glasses, and drank again. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, overtaken by remorse. “... I’d better not drink any more of this excellent old wine or I’ll fall asleep.”

She said, “Yes, of course. You must have some sleep. Go to bed at once!”

All the reasoning part of my mind, now, was packed away in wool. I said, “Oh, all right,” and went obediently and dispassionately into the bathroom, closed the door to undress, because I have a delicacy about such things, and then went to bed.

June came in and asked, “Are you quite all right?”

“Quite, thanks. Would you mind telling me something? Where did you get that gown?”

“I made it myself out of a pair of old French curtains. I didn’t use a pattern either. I make all my own
clothes, except shoes and stockings, and I never use patterns. I despise patterns, don’t you?”

“Oh, very much.... But where are you
going to sleep?”

You have seen the sickly smile on the face of the fool who, on a double-dare, breaks the ice on the lake to take a plunge on Christmas Day? Such was June Whistler’s expression as, unhooking her brocades, she said, “I’m going to sleep with you.” Then the light was out, and she was climbing into bed with me.

“Have you enough room?” I asked.

In a loud, clear, but tremulous voice, she replied, “Oh, yes, thank you. Have you?” Then, talking tensely through her teeth again. “The depths! I want to explore the depths! ... Why don’t you say something?”

“Well, what, for example?” I asked stupidly.

This floored her. In that tone of ill-concealed anxiety in which a frugal housewife asks you if you are quite certain that you wouldn’t like another helping of pie, when she knows there is no more in the kitchen, June Whistler said, “Would you like to crush me in your arms and bite me?”

“Good Lord, no!” I said.

“Quite sure?”

I said, “Madam, you are good enough to eat, but you look so much better in one piece.”

“You’re perfectly welcome, you know,” she said.

“I’d rather not bite anybody just now, if you don’t mind,” said I.

Then she began to talk, but I was too tired to hear more than a snatch or two of what she said: ”.... of people have asked me to marry them, but...” and: ”... have experienced in order to live a full life ...”

The last thing I remember, that night, is the normal, earnest voice of June Whistler saying, “You may not believe
me, Laverock, but I have never done anything like this before in all my life!”

I awoke late next morning and reached for my clothes. They were not there. Only my hat and cane lay on the chest of drawers. Overcome with a nameless panic, I draped myself in a sheet and went into the living room. There was no trace of dust or ashes. The place had been swept. I opened the bathroom door. The tub had been scrubbed, and a fresh towel hung on the rail. To this towel was attached, with a hairpin, a message scrawled in eyebrow pencil on a piece of toilet paper: don’t go away!

RETURNING SOON! JUNE WHISTLER.

Go away in a sheet, with a hat and a silver-headed malacca? I took the liberty of opening the bedroom cupboard. There I saw something like an amateur theatrical costumer’s collection of eccentric garments, but no clothes of mine. I waited. One o’clock was striking from St. Mark’s when June Whistler came in, brisk and businesslike, carrying two large paper parcels. “My clothes!” I cried. “For God’s sake, my clothes. My shoes, at least.”

Now she was airy and nonchalant. She said, “Well, really, you know, the condition of your suit was deplorable. So I emptied the pockets and took it to be cleaned. I hope you don’t mind. I really am determined to help you, Laverock.”

“But what if I do mind?” I asked helplessly.

“Oh, I couldn’t help noticing one or two pawn tickets: GENT’S SUIT 18/ AND 1 PR. GENT’S SHOES 6/6. You know? So I got them out. I put your shirt in the wash. I bought you a new one, and a pair of socks. It will never do for us to look scruffy, will it?”

“Us? What us?” I asked.

“You said you’d let me help you, you know. Teach me, show me things. You promised.” Her eyes began to fill with tears again.

I cried, “But you
have
helped me, haven’t you?”

She folded her hands, smiled like La Gioconda, and said, “Really, it’s time for a showdown. I’m awfully good at working things out, actually, you know. I have ever so much presence of mind, honestly. And I’m quick to pick things up. Don’t you see, I’ve made my mind up to
help
you? ... Only you must show me the ropes.”

It occurred to me, in a shocking flash of reflection, then, that June Whistler, believing me to be a desperate criminal, had taken it into her head to become my accomplice, coadjutor, or moll. I have never been more shocked in all my life; but it was necessary for me to do some quick thinking, so I said, “No. I am so sorry, Miss Whistler, but I have been thinking it over ever since you tore me out of the clutches of the police. I used to say to myself, ‘Only mugs work.’Now I know different. You don’t know what you did to me. From now on, I want to go straight!”

Then this unpredictable young woman said, “All right, Laverock, let’s go straight. Will you let me help you go straight? ... Really, after all, you know, you can’t get more out of life than you put into it. I’m so glad!”

“Oughtn’t you to be at the office?” I asked.

She said, “Oh, yes. But I rang up and told the office manageress that I couldn’t come because it was my nasty pain time.”

I said, “You know that is not true.”

She sighed, like someone relieved of a great burden, and said, “Laverock, let’s help each other never to lie, but always to go straight, because you cannot take out of life more than you put into it.”

“Meanwhile,” I said, with a sinking of the heart, “I owe you some money.”

Now she was the wanton Serpent of the Nile, chucking pearls into vinegar. “Never mind,” she said loftily.

But I did mind. It is a quirk of my character—so long as I owe any man money, I am that man’s slave. Especially if he happens to be a woman, as Sam Yudenow
would say. (Damn that man! He is pervasive, even in restrospect!) I was oppressed by a terrible weight of obligation.

Since I could not bring myself to become an enemy of society, the least I could do, I felt, was give my benefactress the pleasure of reforming me—
which she proceeded to do with such firm belief in my dark past that I must have been made of stone to disenchant her and such hope for my bright future that I couldn’t help falling in love with her.

But this was none of Copper Baldwin’s business, and so I kept my mouth shut.

6

AS WE WENT INTO the lobby of the Pantheon— that dreary, odorous tepidarium which Sam Yudenow insisted upon as a “vestibule”—Copper Baldwin muttered to me, “Remember. Scowl and growl. As far as possible, keep your trap shut. Look ‘em straight in the eye, the mongrels. Fix ‘em. Anybody asks you a favor, growl and scowl. Give them the big ha-ha and turn away.”

“Aha!” I said. “I begin to see where Sam Yudenow is dangerous. You caught him, Copper! So help me, you caught him and you can’t sweat him out!”

Copper Baldwin said, “Kind of put a sock in it.”

But the beer had gone to my head, and I was full of pleasant desperation. I said, “What
is
Sam Yudenow? Why is Sam
Yudenow? Who
is Sam Yudenow? You
are Sam Yudenow!”
Then I burst out laughing.

But with admirable self-control Copper Baldwin said, “All right, all right, Mr. Laverock. Just remember what I told you. That’s all. I’m telling you for your own good. Stare the sods out of countenance, and don’t give ‘em so much as a smile. I’m warning you.... Now ‘ere’s Mrs. Edwards. I ‘ave only one word to say about ‘er. Beware! A female Judas Iscariot, you mark my words. Take no bloody nonsense from ‘er, therefore. In my opinion she’s in the pay of that bleeder Godbolt. If ‘er bowels gush out one of these days I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. They practically do, every aft
ernoon in the cash box, anyway. I’m warning you, son, this show is as full of narks as a tinker’s bitch is of worms, and every last one of ‘em would half-inch the sugar out of a diabetic’s pee. Mrs. Edwards, ‘ere she comes—a bloody little conniver, a proper old malingerer.... For Christ’s sake, don’t let
‘er
come the old Change of Life with you. She’ll try it every time, she’ll try it every time. She can
throw a hot flush or a cold sweat at the drop of a hat, the cow!