The Naive and Sentimental Lover (42 page)

“Shouldn't I dance with Sal?” he asked.

“She's Hall's,” said Helen, not looking at him; and Cassidy with a small shiver remembered the American bosun.

“Shamus seems much chirpier anyway,” he said, but for once Helen did not respond to his optimistic tone.

Dancing with Shamus' wife, he danced much better than he had danced with Shamus in Paris, and suffered less criticism. He had held her like this at Haverdown when she had run to him in the woodsmoke; held him without music; and he remembered how her breasts had nestled on his shirt front, and how he had felt the nakedness of her through her housecoat.

“You never
really
told me about Paris, did you?” Helen said. “Why not?”

“I thought I'd leave that to Shamus.”

Helen smiled a little sadly. “I knew you'd say that,” she said. “You've
really
learnt the rules, haven't you Cassidy?”

She drew him closer in a mature, sisterly embrace.

“
Lover,
” she said. “That's what he calls you. Let's ring lover. You're so reliable. Such a rock.”

Cautiously he made a turn. Cassidy had never danced so well. He knew himself to be a bad dancer; it had not required the admonitions of the angels of Kensal Rise to tell him so; he knew he was tone-deaf and he knew he was heavy on his feet; secretly he also believed that he suffered from a rare pelvic deformation which rendered even the most elementary steps virtually impossible; yet Helen, to his astonishment, gave him the assurance of an expert. He backed, he advanced, he turned, and she neither winced nor cried out, but followed him with a skilled obedience which left him astonished by his own dexterity.

“How can we ever thank you?” she wondered. “
Dear
Cassidy.”

“You're the loveliest person in the room,” said Cassidy, having made cursory comparisons.

“You know what I wish?” said Helen. “Guess.”

Cassidy tried, but failed.

“That we could make you
really
happy. You're so lonely. We look at you sometimes and . . . we know there are things we can never reach. It's just muscle,” she said, touching his cheek. “That's all there is that's holding up this smile.... Cassidy?”

“Yes.”

“How is it with the bosscow?”

“Grey,” Cassidy conceded, in a tone which held back more than he was willing to own to.

“That's the worst,” said Helen. “Greyness. That's what Shamus has been fighting all his life.”

“You too,” Cassidy reminded her.

“Have I?” She smiled as if her own condition were more of a memory than a present fact. “Shamus says you're frightened of her.”

“Balls,” said Cassidy sharply.

“That's what I told him. Cassidy, did Shamus . . .” They made another turn, this time under Helen's guidance, but she guided so gently so unobtrusively, so unlike Sandra, that Cassidy did not mind a bit. “Did Shamus,” she began again, “have a
lot
of girls in Paris?”

“God,
Helen
. . .”

Again she smiled, pleased no doubt to encounter the firm borders of the two men's friendship. “Dear Cassidy,” she repeated, holding him far away but keeping her gloved hands on the thickest part of his arms. “You needn't answer. I just hope they made him happy, that's all.” She returned to him, laying her cheek against his shirt front. “Isn't Hall super?” she asked, dreamily, and looked past him towards the table.

“Super,” Cassidy agreed.

But Hall was nowhere to be seen. Shamus was sitting alone among the bottles. He was leaning right back in Cassidy's chair, smoking a cigar, and the black beret was pulled down over his eyes, embracing his ears and nose, so that he must have been in total darkness. His feet were on the table and the cigar smoke poured out of him as if he were on fire.

“I think we'd better go back,” said Cassidy.

 

“Hi,” said Cassidy.

“Who is it?” said Shamus.

“It's your lover,” said Helen, coaxingly.

“Come in,” said Shamus, lifting the beret. “Nice dance?”

“Great. Where have they gone?”

“Pee-break,” said Shamus vaguely.

“
You
dance with her,” said Cassidy.

“Thanks,” said Shamus. “Thanks very much.” And lowered the beret again.

They waited for some time to see whether he would come out, but he didn't, so they danced again just to be convivial.

“It's a very long pee,” said Cassidy doubtfully, wondering whether he ought to go and look for them. “You don't think they've . . .”

“They've what?”

“Well it is a
bit
of a strain for them. . . .”

“Nonsense,” said Helen, “they're adoring every moment,” and squeezed his hand. “And even if they aren't . . .”

Something quite hard had entered her face. In Sandra it would have been anger, but Helen was above anger. In Sandra it would have been determination, a sudden wish to assert herself against an oppressive, though apathetic, world; but Helen, he knew, was at peace with the world.

He was about to investigate this unexpected change of mood—an outburst, almost, in relation to the bright contentment which had preceded it—when the music stopped in the middle of the tune and they heard Shamus screaming.

Looking round for him, Cassidy found himself standing beside the Niesthals. The old lady was hung in black, a mantilla perhaps. She held her husband's arm and they both craned their heads to see where the noise came from; and they wore, both of them, the sad, expert expression of people who had heard a lot of screaming in their time.

“Look,” said Mrs. Niesthal, noticing Cassidy. “It is Aldo who has the musical wife.”

“Hullo,” said Cassidy.

“My God that poor fellow,” said the old man, meaning Shamus.

He was standing on a table at the far end of the room, not their own table but someone else's; his jacket was flung aside. He was wearing a piece of red cloth over his short-sleeved tennis shirt, a cummerbund slung shoulder to waist like a military bandolier, and he was doing a sword dance among the knives and forks, not missing them.

“Oh Jesus,” said Helen, frightened.

 

The tablecloth was screwed round one foot and he looked as though he would fall any minute. His face was scarlet and he was clapping his hands over his head. By the time Cassidy reached him, several waiters were converging and neither Hall nor Sal had reappeared.

“Shamus!” Cassidy called, upwards from the table's edge. “Hey, lover!”

Shamus stopped dancing. His eyes had that hopeless wildness that Cassidy remembered from Lipp's.

“Let
me
have a go,” Cassidy said.

“What's that?” said Shamus.

Now everyone was watching Cassidy, and somehow they knew that Cassidy held the key. Even the waiters were looking at him with respect.

“I want to do a sword dance,” Cassidy said.

“You can't do a fucking sword dance,” Shamus replied, shaking his head. “You'll fall off the fucking table.”

“I want to try.”

With a sudden lovely smile, Shamus leaned forward and flung his arms round Cassidy's neck.

“Then try. Oh Jesus, try. Beg you, lover, beg you.”

“You don't have to beg,” said Cassidy, heaving him gently off the table. Someone came forward, old Niesthal, familiar with catastrophe; someone else was passing the deathcoat to Helen.

“Get your things together,” Cassidy whispered to Helen. “We'll meet you at the door.”

Once again, he was aware of Shamus' great physical strength. Half carrying him, half embracing, he led him to the lobby.

“I want a whore,” said Shamus.

“Good idea,” said Cassidy. And to Helen, “Take his head.”

The pale assistant manager helped them to the lift. The fourteenth floor, he said; a chance vacancy. Cassidy knew him well and had once offered him the chalet. He was a tender, patient man who had learnt that certain of the rich are very humble in their needs.

“Would you like a doctor?” he asked, unlocking a door.

“He doesn't believe in them,” Helen whispered, reminding him.

“No thank you,” Cassidy replied. “I don't either,” he added, thinking of John Elderman and not knowing why.

“You lying bugger,” Shamus whispered. “You never will do that dance.”

 

The suite was on the river side; the bowl of fruit included peaches and black grapes, but there was no card for
Monsieur et Madame;
there were telephones in the bathroom. He would not be put to bed so they laid him on the sofa, undressing him together, Shamus their common child. In the bedroom, Cassidy found an eiderdown and put it over the shaking body. Emptying out the fruit, he set the bowl on the floor in case Shamus wanted to be sick. Helen crouched in a chair watching him.

“I'm cold,” she said.

So he found a blanket for her as well and put it over her shoulders. She had hunched herself together as if she had a stomach pain. From the bathroom he fetched a damp towel and wiped down Shamus' face, then held his hand.

“Where's Helen?”

“Here.”

“Christ,” he whispered. “Oh Christ.”

The telephone rang; it was Niesthal. He had found a doctor, a damn good friend, an old fellow no longer in practice, completely discreet, look here, should they come up?

“It's very kind,” said Cassidy. “But he's all right now.”
I'm in Bristol,
he thought of saying, but he hadn't the nerve. Ring him in the morning, give him lunch perhaps.

“Can you get me a drink?” said Helen, still not moving.

Cassidy ordered two Scotches, yes, large ones thank you. For some reason he thought it prudent to include Shamus and rang back. Make it three.

“Have you got five shillings?” he asked Helen.

“No.”

He gave the waiter a pound and saw him out.

 

“Water?”

“No.”

“Ice?”

“No.”

They sipped the whisky watching Shamus. He lay just as they had put him, one bare arm across the saffron coverlet, head turned out to them, eyes closed.

“He's asleep,” said Cassidy.

Helen said nothing, just drank her whisky in small sips, nodding into the glass like a bird. She was very groomed still; more ready to go out, one would have thought, than to come home.

Cassidy switched off the overhead light. With the darkness came silence. Shamus lay so still, so young to die; only his chest moved, keeping pace with his short, fast breathing.

“He was like this in Paris, wasn't he?” said Helen.

“Sometimes.”

“No wonder he loves you,” she observed dully. “It used to be fun. Making hell, he called it. Not raising it,
making
it. You
make
heaven. You make hell. Make them in the same place sometimes. At the same time. As long as you make
something.
Just for a moment I wished he'd not make anything for a while. I must be getting middle-aged.”

“If he didn't make hell he wouldn't make books,” said Cassidy loyally.

“Other people manage,” said Helen.

“Yes but look at what they write.”

“You don't
know
what they write, Cassidy. You don't read, nor do I. For all you and I know there are
hundreds
of writers all with wives and two veg, churning out super books on lemon juice. For all
we
know.”

“Come on,” said Cassidy gently. “You don't think that really.”