New World in the Morning (16 page)

“Hey!” she said, mockingly. “Okay, then. All right.”

“Don't laugh at me. Can't help being happy. Gotta sing, gotta dance!”

“I'm glad. I'm really not laughing
at
you.”

“All this. It's funny to think that one day we're going to die. And no one will remember we were ever here, celebrating the start of a bank holiday, having a good time. And when we're dead Trafalgar Square will still be every bit as busy and people will still be having a good time. It won't make one jot of difference. There was a sad old fellow on the train this afternoon.” I didn't know what had reminded me of him.

“Has anyone ever mentioned you have a mind like a butterfly?”

“Oh, yes, Junie for…Junie for one.”

“And besides. What makes you think everybody's always having a good time? Sentimental old songster! Who's Junie?”

“A girl I used to know at school.”

“Girl
friend
?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I won't be inquisitive. Well, whoever she is, she was spot on. Do you still see her?”

“Sometimes.”

“She still lives in Deal?”

“Yes. Married now. With two kids.”

“I see.” She smiled. “And along with your butterfly mind, did she ever mention a marked strain of melancholy which pervades even your happiness?”

“No. She never did mention that.”

“Because I truly don't think you have to worry too much, not for a day or two, I mean, about your lying there dead while the world goes on without you.”

“But even so. I think everyone should hold it at the back of their minds, that notion of mortality.”

“Not a touch morbid, maybe, such a point of view?”

“I can't think why. All it does is heighten the pleasure of being alive. Makes you more aware, makes you more grateful.”

“Ah, but there you are, you see.
I've
nobody to feel grateful to.”

“That's sad,” I said—and for a moment I honestly meant it.
What!
Was I already so immersed in that role she had assigned me? Surely Ruth Minton didn't appreciate what a find I was, what a shining addition I made to the Dover and District Players. Even without my attending last Monday's meeting, that part of the shallow charmer in
The Deep Blue Sea
should so obviously have been cast in my direction. Perhaps it had been.
In absentia
. I should know next week.

“Nobody, right now, but you,” she added.

The glow which, naturally, I'd already been experiencing now strengthened and spread. “Me? But why should you feel grateful to me?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe for bringing back a few
hey
!'s into my stale and staid existence; together with the prospect of some rather awful songs—”

“Madam, they are
not
awful songs! Beware! If you spurn the song you spurn the singer. ‘If I were a carpenter and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway, would you have my baby…?”

“No, not awful, then. Let's merely say—a mite dated?”

“But things which are good don't date, they reflect their time. Besides, it only shows that my tastes are wide-ranging; I like modern songs as well. ‘You feel that you're on trial—and so you're in denial—you want to cry and run a mile—but still you lie and still you smile—and smile and smile and smile…' QED. Ancient
and
modern.”

She laughed. “Not altogether unsuitable, I suppose, for the proprietor of a junk—. For the proprietor of
Treasure Island
.”

“Oh dear. Isn't that where we came in?”

“Yes. Why do some people never learn? But anyway…you know how I feel about junk shops. And their proprietors.”

At any rate I knew how she could give me pleasure. Cause me literally to expand with the pleasure that she gave.

We were now driving up Tottenham Court Road. Hundreds of people were milling on either pavement and I could practically have sworn most of them seemed to be having a good time. But it was wrong to suggest I wasn't a realist. I knew only too well there were bound to be those who were in some way similar to Mavis's poor mum—not to mention all the dispossessed; the junkies and the alcoholics; the mentally unstable. If I were indeed a royal swell, or a swell royal, the first thing I'd do would be to eradicate homelessness. I'd at least make certain of that.

And while my thoughts were heading off in this direction, Moira was wrong about something else. I wasn't worried about the world going on without me; simply couldn't quite believe it, that was all.

But wrong or not she was wonderful. And how could I even say wrong, when these were probably not views she would have stood by under oath? How could I even say wrong when she had provided a racing-green Morgan, a golden, auburn-haired presence and a setting for my own enhanced vitality, which I secretly knew was attracting a good deal of attention? I was well aware I had never welcomed red lights with such a winning air of ruefulness and acceptance. I felt like a film star: a self-effacing, stunningly approachable film star.

“
The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
,” I said—to me this wasn't a non sequitur. “I'm sure they filmed it in the forties. Naturally, my own will be a very
long
and happy life but at present, I suppose, they'd still refer to it as being short. It started around noon last Saturday. I'm barely a week old. But I think that tomorrow, at twelve, champagne corks should pop, Big Ben strike, cannon go off in Green Park. Something small to notify the masses. To commemorate our meeting; record my radiant—my radical—renaissance.”

“I feel that you expect too much,” she warned. “
I'd
be thrilled if just Big Ben remembered.”

I affected a sneer. (Hoped my loving public didn't misinterpret.)

“Like hearing your name on the radio, you mean?”

“Yes. Exactly. Ariadne Scrumpenhouser.”

Had we not been stationary at that moment, I might well have swerved or stalled, if nothing yet more shameful. Pandora and Ariadne within the same half-hour! The very same half-hour!

Could
it be coincidence? Something so incredible? There were even those who claimed there wasn't any such thing as coincidence. I couldn't think how they managed it but I had certainly heard they tried.

Yet I decided not to comment for the time being. I didn't want to risk its extraordinariness, risk making it sound nearly commonplace. It was good enough for
The X Files
but even David Duchovny (to whom recently I'd warmed) would simply have to show a little patience.

I observed instead, hearing my own words as if from a distance, “Yes, you're right. Of course you are. A tribute from Big Ben would make a fine endorsement. It would also sound impressive in my diary, might be as much worth recording as… well, as driving an open-topped Morgan with a princess by my side. I shall now entitle this journal
The Long and Happy Life of Samson Groves
. Hemingway will eat his heart out. Or turn in his grave. Whichever comes to him the more naturally. Any views on such a subject, Miss Scrumpenhouser…?”

“The lights have turned to green and we're being hooted at. If you're not very careful, Mr Groves, they'll have changed again and you will
not
be popular.” Her hand was on my arm and perhaps already she had given me a nudge.

But I was still taken up with the results of my amazement.

“Or,” I continued humbly, “would you do me the honour—the very great honour—of allowing me to call you Ariadne?”

16

Her apartment was splendid…what else would you expect? Yet I could see why at times she'd want to get away from it. I was sure there were advantages to having the upper storey but it was the lower floor which—although in all likelihood equally cramped—had the use of a garden; or, rather, of a strip of concreted back yard, for the house was a mid-terraced one. However, I suppressed comparisons with our own former rectory in Deal and admired it, Moira's flat, with all the sincerity which I could muster.

“If you're not already at the top of your profession you damned well ought to be.”

“Roughly halfway up, I'd say, but getting there.” She looked about her. “It's deceptive, isn't it? From the outside you'd never believe there could be all this room.”

“No. No, you wouldn't.” My sincerity took a nose dive.

She laughed. “You don't agree, though, do you?”

I faltered. “Am I that hopeless a liar?”

“But thank you for trying. And I can see your point. You in your ten-gallon hat! In Kent you've evidently more space to swing that lasso.”

“Yes. Don't fence me in. Et cetera. You know, sometimes I feel I wouldn't have minded being a cowboy. To sit tall in the saddle and gallop off into the sunset. The stranger who passes through and leaves things far better than he found them.”

“What an incurable romantic!”

“Yup, ma'am. Sure is a lonely trail.”

Though
realistically
, I thought, it was possibly a fairly crowded trail: the Shane character irresistibly drawn to pastures new but always hoping he'd be lovingly remembered as someone who had made a difference. The wayfarer. The good Samaritan. Almost the Christ figure. The fellow who had left his mark.

“Trial, maybe, as much as trail,” smiled Moira. “However… Let's have a look at your granny's cake.” She was about to wield her kitchen scissors but I stopped her just in time. It didn't take a moment to unknot the string.

The cake was a beauty. Standing on a silver board and encircled by a wide and frilly band it was decorated with literally scores of Smarties which had bled slightly and looked like the picture on a packet of mixed seeds—except that white icing maybe formed an unexpected base for cottage garden flowers; it produced an impression of snow arriving in the midst of summer.

“I'm going to phone her!” declared Moira.

But luckily I had foreseen that. “She's a little hard of hearing. She'd much prefer a letter.”

“It looks like a picture out of
Good Housekeeping
.”

“And as though it were meant to keep us going for a lifetime!” I realized that my gaze was full of pride; my voice, as well.

There was more. When I'd torn at the carton sides—I'd had to, because the cake board fitted so well it would have been virtually impossible to prise out—we found wedged beneath it a container of (formerly) frozen pea soup, two jars of homemade jam, and a meat pie wrapped in foil; all very neatly and even prettily labelled. Thank God, while Moira was exclaiming over and examining the first of these finds, I spied a dove-grey envelope which I rapidly palmed, crumpled and pushed up my sleeve: the scratchiest handkerchief ever. With this done, I flushed cold at the narrowness of my escape.

But my relief did nothing to neutralize the prickings of guilt which had followed my pride. (And why should it have?) I now had to remind myself, repeatedly, that the Caterham children were
not
motherless, not even temporarily, and were no doubt regularly nourished on home cooking.

It didn't help a lot.

Yet my own conscience, it seemed, wasn't the only one creating trouble.

“All these things,” said Moira, “and I hadn't even planned to be feeding you at home! Apart from breakfast, that is, when I might have stirred myself sufficiently to rustle up some warm croissants and coffee…”

I had to make an effort. I peered into the broken box still lying on the table. “Wot! No cornflakes?”

“You see, I thought it might be more fun to eat out. Though I hope it doesn't need to be said we'd be going Dutch.”

“Fine. Except rid yourself of that second bit.”

“No,” she said. “When times are good I think I probably earn more than you do. Or is that tactless?”

“Yes, it's tactless. You are
invariably
tactless.”

“And times are good.”

“Well, there at least I'm in complete agreement. Times were never better.”

“Then let's have a glass of something.
Times were never better!
We'll drink to that. Before leaving.”

“Where are we off to? Paris?”

“There's a place by the Heath. I've reserved a table. Hoped you wouldn't think that was a liberty.”

“Well, I don't know. It all depends. Shall I be allowed to foot the bill?”

“I really can't see why you should.”

“Because I'd like to, Miss Scrumpenhouser—isn't that good enough? Besides. You're giving me a roof over my head; not to mention the use of a magnificent car…the fulfilment of a dream! And live each day as though your last, I always say. I came prepared to splurge.”

“The roof and the car,” she persisted, “are just thrown in. I used the word ‘liberty'. I also believe in equality and fraternity.”

“I don't.”

She laughed. “You're so bull-headed, aren't you?” (I nodded; Junie often said the same.) “All right, I may give in tonight but only on condition you won't be living tomorrow as though your last. Nor Sunday, come to that. Nor Monday.”

“It's difficult.”

“Why?”

“Live each bank holiday as though your last. That's something else I always say. You can't demolish all my sayings at one go.”

“Good grief,” she exclaimed.

“Meaning?”

“Perhaps only now am I beginning to realize what I've taken on.”

I didn't tell her but I liked the sound of that. I rather cared for the idea of being taken on.

“And by the way,” I suggested, “let's put off the glad rags till tomorrow. You see, I don't like everything to come at once. And anyhow I have a grey suit in my holdall. Such a waste of effort not to wear it!”

“You mean, all that effort of having spirited it over mountaintops, then lugged it down through vale and valley?”