The Paper Men (21 page)

The time came when I began to consider my dog. It wouldn’t be a good thing to have him down to the house before I’d discovered how he stood with Liz and Emmy. I thought I’d make an appointment with him at the sleazier of my clubs, the Random. I thought I’d talk Rick over with Liz. I envisaged us sitting either side of the kitchen table where we’d had such good times and rows.

That was a strange time in the hotel! There I would be on the balcony, facing the dung-coloured city half as old as time and trying to understand why my dream had been more than a dream and more than being awake. Then I’d consider the book I had to write, picking a story out of a mess. I’d consider its recipient and think how my feet and hands would stop hurting when I finished writing. Then I’d be back in the bath with a bottle on the tray. It may be there’d be a bootmaker sitting on the loo glass in hand and telling me quite fascinating things about his clients and I’d stow the information away in my mental filing system, quite forgetting I had no use for it. Always my mind would come back and dwell in the dream. I began to move about a bit and had the dream explained to me in, let me see, yes, scientific, psychiatric, religious, and
isness
terms (that last from the shirt-maker) all of which are mutually exclusive or so it seemed. Mostly I brooded on the isness. Why this harping on isness? you’ll ask. Are you up the wall? you’ll say. Isn’t quote reality unquote good enough for you? Well the answer lies in the genius of the language. This wasn’t reality which is a philosophical concept but quote isness unquote a word from the seamy side of speech for the involuntary act of awareness. I’ve invented it myself because the dream didn’t happen to a philosopher but to me. Religious, scientific, psychiatric, philosophical, all straight up the spout!

Eh
voilà!
Non,
voici.

At last I was kitted out but still I didn’t climb on a plane. It wasn’t a lack of mobility. I was able to move, though like an old man. I mean really old, not just in the upper end of the sixties. It was fear. I wanted to go quote home unquote—oh how I wanted! But I was afraid of England and the spring. I could imagine myself crying like a girl which would be a bore. It was weakness and I reckoned the best thing would be to get rid of my mail which would take me some days. But when I’d read a letter or two it all seemed too much. So I supervised the destruction of the rest in the hotel incinerator and felt much lighter. Whenever I asked any of the staff if they thought it would be helpful now to lay off the booze altogether they always said yes it would be helpful. I don’t know if they knew what they meant by helpful, just be a good thing I suppose. But then, if put to it, everyone thinks that giving up drinking alcohol would be a good thing except people who can’t give it up and have to make excuses. In my case I can give it up when I like though it tends to come back at irregular intervals, temporary setbacks as it were in the grand plan of giving up for good. It is a good plan and I’ve stuck to it for more than a quarter of a century.

However—
this
time! Yes, I did give up again for good and life became dull. I got sober and happy and being happy proved to be dull after a bit but one mustn’t complain of bread-and-butter, but eat it up, expecting cake later. There was so much
time
! It stretched away towards the night and each day got longer because I would lie awake for hours then wake up early. I didn’t dream.

There’s nothing to say about the trip home. The only thing to record is that when I landed at Heathrow I was afraid to go straight home and decided to inspect my clubs. I walked into the Athenaeum and straight out again. It reminded me of that place in the island somehow, though of course the Athenaeum has plenty of windows. I went straight from there to the Random which was OK more or less. In the way things work out the first person I walked into was Johnny. He was looking very smart and wearing his toupée. He cried out.

“Wilf! There must have been a light in the window!”

“Ha et cetera. Good God, you’ve gone all prosperous!”

“What about you? May I?”

He fingered the lapel of my suit.

“Oh, my dear. It’s enough to make one swoon. How much?”

“I don’t know. Leave off, Johnny. The barmaid’s looking.”

“Yes, I will have a drink, Wilf. Yes, I know the rule book says we mustn’t treat each other. Two camparis, please.”

“Lime and ginger ale, please.”

“Wilf! Are you all right?”

“Just laying off for a bit. Johnny, what’s happened to you? Has that uncle of yours died?”

“Wilf, you’ll never believe. I’m a national figure!”

“Don’t be wet.”

“I am, I am! I’ll slap you!”

“What is it this time?”

“
Well.
You remember my friend who works for Auntie?”

“Which one?”

“The one who runs most of it, Rudesby!”

“Ha.”

“
Well.
I thought we’d parted for good but he must have passed the word along—”

“Same school.”

“It may have helped.
As
I was saying, they tried me for this and that, all rather up-market, you know, and then by sheer
luck
they tried me for a panel game! My dear, I’m a rave! The very moment the GBP was feeling mellow about us willowy old things, there I am, ready and willing—I swear my post is bigger than yours and you’d never believe what I’ve been offered for a sherry commercial! But that’s a tricky one.”

“What’s the programme called?”

It was the first time I had ever seen Johnny look bashful. He even blushed a bit; but he held my eye and giggled.

“
I
Spy
.”

I giggled too and for some time we could do nothing else. The barmaid looked at us speculatively as if wondering how dirty the story had been. At last I pushed him away, wiping my eyes.

“No wonder you look like the dog’s dinner. You, Johnny! You used to think saying ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ was the sin against the holy ghost!”

“As Wilfred Barclay used to say, the money’s good, unquote.”

“How was
Burning
Sappho
?”

“A disaster.”

“No!”

Johnny came close.

“You won’t spread this around?”

“Of course not.”

“The bitch was remaindered practically
before
publication. Oh, indecent haste to post with such dexterity—”

“Such bad luck.”

“Talking of dogs—”

“Were we?”

“‘Dog’s dinner!’”

“Ah yes.”

“Did you ever find it?”

“Take me with you, Johnny.”

“Well, now, what were we talking about the last time we met in that positively palaeolithic hotel?”

“You tell me.”

“I said you ought to try liking someone and to start with a dog.”

“Ah.”

“Well—did you actually find one? You see, you’ve altered. I’m curious. Come on, Wilf!”

“Ah.”

“Don’t make mysteries and hide behind your beard!”

“Yap yap.”

“Wilfred Barclay going walkies with a poodle!”

“Yes. I found one.”

Johnny’s face came down towards mine, eager, curious. News, news, news!

“And—?”

“I killed it.”

Johnny took some of his drink and thought about me. He looked out of the window at the little garden which was sunny with daffodils and some blue flower—violets, sweet violets perhaps. He looked back at me solemnly.

“That’s bad. That’s very, very, very bad.”

Somewhere, someone beat a dinner gong.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll go up to my bowl. Yap yap.”

Johnny said nothing.

I went up, making automatically for what used to be considered my seat. It was still empty, the one at the table under Psyche, where I’d sat with my agent at one time, my publisher at another and once with Capstone Bowers. Psyche was still there, natch. She’s our only valuable
objet,
early Victorian white marble on a malachite pillar and really rather good. She ought to be looking down at Cupid, of course, and holding her lamp to see his face but in the circumstances she always seems to me to be peering at the menu or the wine list and trying to make up her mind what will go with which. I thought it would be a good place for my interview with Rick. This time, Psyche seemed to whisper in my ear that a carafe of house claret wouldn’t do me any harm and I had a struggle to resist her. However, virtue triumphed.

It was so natural to hire a car I did it almost without thinking. Then I rang the house and got Emmy who sounded the way she used to when I had forgotten her birthday. No, I couldn’t speak to Liz. Liz was lying down and oughtn’t to be disturbed.

Well, I thought, you don’t wait around for an ex-husband to come home without feeling a bit of strain over it. Look at the way I’ve been shilly-shallying over meeting her again! Be a man, my son!

So down I drove on the new motor road which rendered the landscape or what I could see of it quite unrecognizable. Where I could see beyond the concrete, England seemed to be producing nothing but daffodils, they were everywhere. How happy and apprehensive a dog I was, yap yap, driving through England with my hands touching the wheel as lightly as possible. My feet weren’t hurting any more and I thought, well, that’s reasonable—I’m going home!

Emmy met me at the door. She looked even stumpier and glummer than I remembered. I kissed her on one impassive cheek and saw she’d been crying.

“Where is she?”

“The long room.”

She left me to go in with the air of someone who has no more to do with the affair which she thinks is ill-advised and will not prosper.

The long room is really two rooms knocked into one. Liz was standing at the farther end and in the darkest corner where she must have run when she heard the car. She had her hands up to her face. I moved forward and she spoke sharply.

“No!”

I expostulated.

“I was only going to show you my suit. St John John nearly swooned.”

“You’re just the way you used to be. Indestructible. It isn’t fair.”

“Well, damn it. What did you want back? A basket case?”

“Want back. Well. You’d better look.”

She dropped her hands and moved forward. She had gone. I mean without the voice and the sharpness I wouldn’t have recognized her. There stood before me a skinny old hag. The life had gone out of her famous hair and it hung in nondescript wisps. She had learned to frown so much that even now when she had no need to her forehead was corrugated. Her cheeks were so hollow it looked as if she had brought some of the shadows of the dark corner with her in them. But what was most directly appalling was the orbits of her eyes, dark brown and sunken so that her head was a visible skull with a macabre slash of violent lipstick across it. She lifted a hand again to touch the hollow of her right cheek as if to assure herself of the worst and I saw that even now she painted her nails to match the vivid, scarlet slash.

“For Christ’s sake, Wilf, what did you expect? Mary Lou or something?”

“He’s kept up with you then.”

“I think he’s almost the hardest part of it. Taking you so seriously. I had to laugh.”

“Yes. Yes. I suppose so.”

“Did you know, no, you didn’t, he and Humph, they both had a go at Emmy. Humph because he was, is, Humph, and Rick because of you. Christ, I’d never have believed it, never believed life could be like it. I tried to throw Humph out and he’d go no further than the spare room. Knew he was on to a good thing. The room’s there if you want it.”

“He’s really gone?”

“Scarpered. You’d never believed it.” She gestured to her body, cupping both hands. “He scarpered when this began to gallop. Left everything and ran, even left his Bisley gun and his big game books. When your turn comes, Wilf, don’t ask the doctors to tell you the truth. They do it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You’re not a day older. Boozing, wenching, living it up—”

“Only boozing. And that—”

“Oh shut up. Of course you will again. The thing is, I need someone. That’s the fact of the matter and I won’t penalize Emmy, not any more. You know? Well. You don’t.”

“Not really.”

“Then I had my great idea. I got hold of Thomas and bullied your poste restante out of him. I thought I’ll get Wilf home if it’s humanly possible. He’s no idea of caring for other people but he’s too bloody weak to scarper. It’s blackmail, you see.”

“This is where we left off only backwards. More or less. Worse, perhaps.”

“So it is.”

Then we were silent again so you could hear the birds in the orchard and far off a whinny from the other end of the paddock. Elizabeth spoke in her natural, social voice, absurdly conventional.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“Well. Yes. If I may.”

So there we were, our feet on the warm floor, both seated, one each side of the empty grate.

“I’m sorry, Wilf. I didn’t mean it to be—I don’t know what I meant it to be.”

“When you are better again—”

“As you used to say, ha et cetera. Wilfred Barclay, the great consultant.”

“There must be something—”

“There’s everything you want in the spare room. Use that bathroom. I use the back one, have all my things there. Mrs Wilson’ll cook. Or you can go out. All the pubs do reasonable food these days. I can’t stand cooking.”

“Feed you up.”

“I don’t eat.”

“You should.”

“Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you seen anything?”

“The war—”

“God, the injustice of it! You booze and wench and lie and cheat and exploit and posture like a— I’ve put you to bed, lied for you, covered up for you—and I get cancer just as if I’d boozed away every year of my life!”

There was nothing to say. The shadows of the evening had crept right across the room. Facing me was a blur of brown skull with black eye sockets.

“You always were good at silences, weren’t you, Wilf?”

“It was more a case of you not giving me a chance to speak.”

“That’s a good one! It goes far to restore my belief in your rottenness. Well. Soon you’ll be able to talk with no one to interrupt. Happy?”