The Naive and Sentimental Lover (12 page)

To Cassidy she sounds as bossy and inexpert and strident and periodic as any other female announcer, but Shamus is entranced.

“She's not your daughter is she?” he asks the driver reverently.

“Not likely. She's fifty in the shade.”

“She's terrific,” says Shamus. “That lady is in the first position. Believe me.”

“She really is,” Cassidy agrees, about to doze off. Helen's head has fallen on to his shoulder and she has threaded her fingers through his hand and he is very pleased to agree to anything when suddenly they hear Shamus talking into the microphone in his Italian voice.

“I want-a you,” he is whispering fervently. “
I love-a you and I want-a you. I-a long for you.
Is she dark?” he asks the driver.

“Darkish.”

“Come to bed with me,” Shamus breathes back at the microphone. “Fuck me.”

“Here, steady,” says the driver. On a tense slope, they all wait for the reply.

“She's calling the police,” says Cassidy.

“She's packing her bags,” says Helen.

“What a woman,” says Shamus.

In a tone of incipient hysteria, the radio speaks. “Peter One . . . Peter One . . . who is that?”

“Not Peter One. Peter One is dead. My name is Dostoevsky,” Shamus insists, dextrously adjusting to the deeper Russian tone. “I have just murdered Peter One without a spark of regret. It was a
crime passionel.
I want you all for myself, I love you. One night with you is worth a lifetime in Siberia.” The radio pops but finds no words. “Listen I am also Nietzsche. I am no man. I am dynamite. Don't you understand”—very thick Russian—“that immoralism is a necessary precondition of new values? Listen, we will found a new class together. We will engender a world of innocent, murderous, beautiful boys! We—”

The driver gently takes the microphone. “It's all right, dear,” he says kindly. “I've got a funny, that's all.”

“Funny?” the radio screams through the interference. “You call that funny? Bloody foreigner murdering my drivers in the middle of—”

The driver switches her off. “She'll murder
me
in the morning,” he says, not much worried.

Shamus has fallen asleep. “Lot of woman there, boy,” he whispers.

“I wish we could play Moth again,” says Cassidy.

“Moth was super,” says Helen, and gives his hand another friendly squeeze.

 

On the last leg home they stopped the Bentley at a phone box and put through a call to Flaherty so that Shamus could again test the sincerity of his conviction. “A man is what he
thinks
he is,” Helen explained, quoting the master. “That's what Shamus means by faith.”

“He's absolutely right,” said Cassidy.

Cassidy booked the call because he had a Post Office credit card and Shamus, amazingly, had the number written neatly in the margin of a cutting from the
Daily Mail.
“It's Beohmin village pub,” he explained. “He's there most evenings.” FLAHERTY FOR GOD the cutting read. They squeezed in all three together and closed the door for comfort. Alas, Flaherty was not available. For five minutes perhaps they listened to the number ringing out. Cassidy was secretly quite glad—after all, it could have been embarrassing—but Shamus was hurt and disappointed, returning to the car ahead of them and climbing into the back without a word. For a long while they drove in silence; while Helen, sitting beside her husband now, consoled him with kisses and small attentions.

“Sodder,” Shamus declared at last, in a cracked voice. “Shouldn't even
need
a fucking telephone.”

“Of course he shouldn't,” Helen agreed tenderly.

“Hey look,” said Shamus, sitting up straight, watching the unnatural moonlight scatter over the hedges. “Kolynos headlights!”

“They're iodine quartz,” said Cassidy. “Halogen. The latest thing.”

“Meeow,” said Shamus and went back to Helen.

 

Back at Haverdown—after a pause for refreshment—they had a horse race. Shamus was Nijinsky, Cassidy was Dobbin. The start was unclear to him, and for once he forgot who won, but he had the clearest recollection of the thunder of their six feet as they galloped down uncarpeted back staircases, and of Shamus doing his butler voice while he charged a locked door.

“'Ere's my lady's bedroom!” He charged it again. “Merry bloody England, let's knock the bugger down!”

“Helen . . .” whispered Cassidy. “He'll smash himself to pieces.”

But the door it was that smashed and suddenly they were flying, crashing into bare mattresses that smelt of lavender and mothballs.

“Shamus, are you all right?” Helen asked.

No answer.

“Shamus is dead,” she declared, not in the least alarmed.

Shamus was underneath them, groaning.

“Sounds like a broken neck,” she said.

“It's a broken heart you fool,” said Shamus. “For when they butcher my masterpiece.”

 

She was already undressing him as Cassidy left the room to make himself a bed on the Chesterfield. For a while he lay awake listening to the bucking of the bed as Helen and Shamus once more consummated their perfect relationship. The next moment Helen was waking him with a gentle shaking of his shoulder and he heard the transistor again playing cremation music from the pocket of her high-necked housecoat.

 

“No,” said Helen quietly, “you can't say goodbye to him because he works in the mornings.”

She had brought a complete breakfast on a mother-of-pearl tray: a boiled egg and toast and coffee, and she carried the lantern because it was still dark. She was very neat and wore no make-up. She might have slept twelve hours and been for a country walk.

“How is he?”

“His neck's stiff,” she said cheerfully. “But he likes a bit of pain.”

“For the writing?” Cassidy said, being of the clan now, and Helen nodded yes.

“Were you warm enough?”

“Fine.”

He sat upright, partially covering his bare paunch with the overcoats across his lap, and Helen sat beside him watching him with motherly indulgence.

“You won't leave him will you Cassidy? It's time he had a friend again.”

“What happened to the others?” Cassidy said, his mouth full of toast, and they both laughed, not looking at his tummy. “But I mean why
me?
I'm mean
I'm
not much good to him.”

“Shamus is
very
religious,” Helen explained after a pause. “He thinks you're redeemable. Are you redeemable, Cassidy?”

“I don't know what he means.” Helen waited, so he went on. “Redeemable from what?”

“What Shamus says is, any fool can
give,
it's what we take from life that matters. That's how we discover our outlines.”

“Oh.”

“That means . . . our identity . . . our passion.”

“And our art,” said Cassidy, remembering.

“He doesn't like people throwing up the struggle whether their name is Flaherty, or Christ, or Cassidy. But you
haven't
thrown up the struggle, have you Cassidy?”

“No. I haven't. I feel sometimes . . . I'm just beginning.”

Very quietly, Helen said, “That's the message
we
got.” She took the tray to the far end of the room, the ship's lantern lighting her face from below.
Caravaggio,
Cassidy thought, remembering Mark's postcard from Rome.

“I told him your remark about money.”

“Oh . . .” said Cassidy, not knowing which remark, but wondering somewhat nervously whether it was to his credit.

“A man is judged by what he looks for, not by what he finds.”

“What did he think of it?”

“He's using it,” she said simply, as if there were no higher accolade. “Do you know Shamus has written his own epitaph?” she continued brightly. “
Shamus who had a lot to take.
I think it's the most super epitaph that's ever been written, don't you?”

“It's wonderful,” Cassidy said. “I entirely agree. It's beautiful.” Adding: “I'd like it for myself too.”

“You see Shamus
loves
people. He really does. He's the difference between paddling and swimming. He's like Gatsby. He believes in the light at the end of the pier.”

“I think that's what I believe in too,” said Cassidy, trying to remember who Gatsby was.

“That's why he loved your remark about money,” Helen explained.

 

She saw him to the car.

“He'll even believe in Flaherty if Flaherty will only give him a chance.”

“I thought he wanted to kill him.”

“Isn't that the same thing?” said Helen, giving him a very deep look.

“I suppose it is,” Cassidy conceded.

“Give my love to London.”

“I will. Helen.”

“Yes?”

“Can I give you some money?”

“No. Shamus said you'd ask. Thanks all the same.” She kissed him, not a goodbye kiss but a kiss of gratitude, swift and accurate on the blank of the cheek. “He says you're to read Dostoevsky. Not the works, just the life.”

“I will. I'll start tonight.” He added, “I don't read much, but when I do I really like to take my time.”

“He'll be up in a week or two. As soon as he's finished the book, he'll come up and see all the managers and agents and people. He likes to be alone for that.” She laughed resignedly. “He calls it charging his batteries.”

“The ghouls,” said Cassidy.

“The ghouls,” said Helen.

The early sun sprang suddenly through the monkey puzzle trees, raising the brickwork of the mansion to a warm, flesh pink.

“Tell him to ring me at the firm,” said Cassidy. “We're in the book. Any time, I'll always take the call.”

“Don't worry, he will.” She hesitated. “By the by, you remember last night you offered Shamus a Swiss house to work in?”

“Oh the chalet. Yes. Yes, of course. Tense slope. Ha.”

“He says he might take you up on that.”

“Goodness,” said Cassidy gratefully, “that would be wonderful.”

“He can't promise.”

“No, of course.”

A moment's silent plea: “Cassidy.”

“Yes?”

“You won't rat, will you?”

“Of course not.”

She kissed him again without fuss, on the mouth this time, the way sisters kiss brothers when they're no longer worried about incest.

So Cassidy left Haverdown with the taste of her toothpaste on his lips and the smell of her simple talc in his nostrils.

That was his first thought and it sustained him all the way to Bath. I have visited Bohemia and got away unscathed. It was many years since he had met an artist. At Oxford in his time there had been an old house near the river that was reputed to contain a number of them and sometimes, passing on his way to the Scala Cinema, he had seen their clothes hanging from the iron balcony, or a great quantity of empty bottles sprawling out of their dustbins. On Sundays, he had heard, they congregated in the George Bar, their men in earrings and their womenfolk smoking cigars, and he imagined them saying amazing things to one another about their private parts. At public school there had been a painting master known as Whitewash, a soft man in later middle age who had worn butterfly collars and made the boys sit for each other in gym shorts, and one Wednesday Cassidy had been to tea with him alone but he had hardly spoken a word, just smiled sadly and watched him eat hot muffins. Apart from these sparse experiences, his knowledge of the breed was negligible, though he had long counted himself an honorary member.

Stopping in Bath he went to his hotel to collect his luggage and pay the bill, and found himself glancing in furtive excitement at the daylight shining on the scenes of their revel. Rotten little town, he told himself. Prole-ridden Vatican. And vowed never to return.

He had signed in as Viscount Cassidy of Mull.

“Enjoy your stay my lord?” the cashier enquired with a little more intimacy than Cassidy considered needful.

“Very much indeed, thank you,” he said and gave two pounds to the porter.

The process of ratting therefore, which Helen had so accurately anticipated, did not begin until round about Devizes. For the first hour of the drive, before his hangover had entered the retributive phase, Cassidy remained confused but still elated by his encounter with Helen and Shamus. He had little idea of what he felt; his mood seemed to change with the landscape. On the highroad to Frome where blue plains reached to either side of him, a child-like innocence gilded all he saw. His whole future was one long adventure with his new friends: together they would bestride the world, sail distant seas, mount the sky on wings of laughter. In Devizes where the rain began and a dull sickness overtook his gastric system, he remained moderately enchanted, but the sight of the morning shoppers and mothers with prams gave him food for thought. By the time he reached Reading his head was aching terribly and he had convinced himself that Helen and Shamus were either a dream or a pair of fakes posing as celebrities.

“After all,” he argued, “if they're who they say they are, why should they be interested in me?”

And later: “I am one of a row. People like me have no part in the life of an artist.”

Reconstructing Helen's
tour d'horizon
of Shamus' argument on the relationship between the artist and the bourgeois, he found it frail, confused, and poorly reasoned.