A Quiver Full of Arrows (10 page)

“Neither was paid particularly well, if I

remember correctly,” offered Edward Shrimpton
as he energetically rubbed the towel up and down his back.

“A fact I pointed out to the agent at the time
who only countered by reminding me that it was my House who had published
Dickens originally.”

“I suggest,” said Edward Shrimpton, “that
you remind him that the end result turned out to be successful for all
concerned.”

“I did, but I fear this agent is more
interested in ‘up front’ than posterity.”

“As a banker that’s a sentiment of which I
could hardly disprove as :he one thing we have in common with publishers is
that our clients are always trying to tell us a good tale.”

“Perhaps you should sit down and write one
of them for me?” I said politely.

“Heaven forbid, you must be sick of being
told that there’s a book in every one of us so I hasten to assure you that
there isn’t one in me.”

I laughed, as I found it refreshing not to
be informed by a new acquaintance that his memoirs, if only he could find the
time to write them, would overnight, be one of the world’s best sellers.

“Perhaps there’s a story in you, but you’re
just not aware of it.” I suggested.

“If that’s the case, I’m afraid it’s passed
me by.”

Mr. Shrimpton re-emerged from behind the row
of little tin cubicles and handed me back my towel. He was now fully dressed
and stood, I would have guessed, a shade under six feet. He wore a Wall Street
banker’s pinstripe suit and, although he was nearly bald, he had a remarkable
physique for a man who must have been well into his sixties. Only his thick
white moustache gave away his true age, and would have been more in keeping
with a retired English colonel than a New York banker.

“Are you going to be in New York long?” he
inquired, as he took a small leather case from his inside pocket and removed a
pair of half-moon spectacles and placed them on the end of his nose.

“Just for the week.”

“I don’t suppose you’re free for lunch
tomorrow, by any chance?” he inquired, peering over the top of his glasses.

“Yes, I am. I certainly can’t face another
meal with that agent.”

“Good, good, then why don’t you join me and
I can follow the continuing drama of capturing the elusive American Author?”

“And perhaps I’ll discover there is a story
in you after all.”

“Not a hope,” he said, “you would be backing
a loser if you depend on that,” and once again he offered his hand.

“One o’clock, members’ dining room suit
you?”

“One o’clock, members’ dining room.” I repeated.

As he left the locker room I walked over to
the mirror and straightened my tie. I was dining that night with Eric McKenzie,
a publishing friend, who had originally proposed me for membership of the club.
To be accurate, Eric McKenzie was a friend of my father rather than myself.
They had met just before the war while on holiday in Portugal and when I was
elected to the club, soon after my father’s retirement, Eric took it upon
himself to have dinner with me whenever I was in New York. One’s parents’
generation never see one as anything but a child who will always be in need of
constant care and attention. As he was a contemporary of my father, Eric must
have been nearly seventy and, although hard of hearing and slightly bent, he
was always amusing and good company, even if he did continually ask me if I was
aware that his grandfather was Scottish.

As I strapped on my watch, I checked that he
was due to arrive in a few minutes. I put on my jacket and strolled out into
the hall to find that he was already there, waiting for me.

Eric was killing time by reading the
out-of-date club notices. Americans, I have observed, can always be relied upon
to arrive early or late; never on time. I stood staring at the stooping man,
whose hair but far a few strands had now turned silver. His three-piece suit
had a button missing on the jacket which reminded me that his wife had died
last year. After another thrust-out hand and exchange of wel-comes, we took the
lift to the second floor and walked to the dining room.

The members’ dining room at the Metropolitan
differs little from any other men’s club. It has a fair sprinkling of old
leather chairs, old carpets, old portraits and old members. A waiter guided us
to a corner table which overlooked Central Park. We ordered, and then settled
back to discuss all the subjects I found I usually cover with an acquaintance I
only have the chance to catch up with a couple of times a yearour families,
children, mutual friends, work; baseball and cricket.

By the time we had reached cricket we had
also reached coffee, so we strolled down to the far end of the room and made
ourselves comfortable in two well-worn leather chairs. When the coffee arrived
I ordered two brandies and watched Eric unwrap a large Cuban cigar. Although
they displayed a West Indian band on the outside, I knew they were Cuban
because I had picked them up for him from a tobacconist in St. James’s,
Piccadilly, which specialises in changing the labels for its American
customers. I have often thought that they must be the only shop in the world
that changes labels with the sole purpose of making a superior product appear
inferior. I am certain my wine merchant does it the other way round.

While Eric was attempting to light the
cigar, my eyes wandered to a board on the wall. To be more accurate it was a
highly polished wooden plaque with oblique golden lettering painted on it,
honouring those men who over the years had won the club’s Backgammon
Championship. I glanced idly down the list, not expecting to see anybody with
whom I would be familiar, when I was brought up by the name of Edward
Shrimpton. Once in the late thirties he had been the runner-up.

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“What is?” asked Eric, now wreathed in
enough smoke to have puffed himself out of Grand Central Station.

“Edward Shrimpton was runner-up in the
club’s Backgammon Championship in the late thirties. I’m having lunch with him
tomorrow.”

“I didn’t realise you knew him.”

 
“I
didn’t until this afternoon,” I said, and then explained how we had met.

Eric laughed and turned to stare up at the
board. Then he added, rather mysteriously: “That’s a night I’m never likely to
forget.”

“Why?” I asked.

Eric hesitated, and looked uncertain of
himself before continuing: “Too much water has passed under the bridge for
anyone to care now.” He paused again, as a hot piece of ash fell to the floor
and added to the burn marks that made their own private pattern in the carpet.
“Just before the war Edward Shrimpton was among the best half dozen backgammon
players in the world. In fact, it must have been around that time he won the
unofficial world championship in Monte Carlo.”

“And he couldn’t win the club championship?”

“Couldn’t would be the wrong word, dear boy.
‘Didn’t’ might be more accurate.” Eric lapsed into another preoccupied silence.

“Are you going to explain?” I asked, hoping
he would continue, “or am I to be left like a child who wants to know who
killed Cock Robin?”

“All in good time, but first allow me to get
this damn cigar started.”

I remained silent and four matches later, he
said “Before I begin, take a look at the man sitting over there in the corner
with the young blonde.”

I turned and glanced back towards the dining
room area, and saw a man attacking a porterhouse steak. He looked about the
same age as Eric and wore a smart new suit that was unable to disguise that he
had a weight problem: only his tailor could have smiled at him with any
pleasure. He was seated opposite a slight, not unattractive strawberry blonde
of half his age who could have trodden on a beetle and failed to crush it.

“What an unlikely pair. Who are they?”

“Harry Newman and his fourth wife.

They’re always the same. The wives I mean –
blonde hair, blue eyes, ninety pounds, and dumb. I can never understand why any
man gets divorced only to marry a carbon copy of the original.”

“Where does Edward Shrimpton fit into the
jigsaw?” I asked, trymg to guide Eric back on to the subject.

“Patience, patience,” said my host,
asherelit hiscigarfor the second time.

“At your age you’ve far more time to waste
than I have.”

I laughed and picked up the cognac nearest
to me and swirled the brandy around in my cupped hands.

“Harry Newman,” continued Eric, now almost
hidden in smoke, “was the fellow who beat Edward Shrimpton in the final of the
club championship that year, although in truth he was never in the same class
as Edward.”

“Doexplain,” I said, as I looked upat the
board tocheck that it was Newman’s name that preceded Edward Shrimpton’s.

“Well,” said Eric, “after the semi-final,
which Edward had won with consummate ease, we all assumed the final would only
bea formality. Harry had always been agood player, hulas I had been the one to
lose to him in the semi-finals, I knew he couldn’t hope to survive a contest
with Edward Shrimpton. Theclub final is won by the first man to twenty-one
points, and if I had been asked for an opinion at the time I would have
reckoned the result would end up around 21-5 in Edward’s favour. Damn cigar,”
he said, and lit it for a fourth time. Once again I waited impatiently.

“The final is always held on a Saturday
night, and poor Harry over there,” said Eric, pointing his cigar towards the
far cornerofthe room while depositingsome more ash on thefloor, “who all of us
thought was doing rather well in the insurance business, had a bankruptcy
notice served on him the Monday morning before the final -

I might add through no fault of his own. His
partner had cashed in his stock without Harry’s knowledge, disappeared, and
left him with all the bills to pick up. Everyone in the club was sympathetic.

“On the Thursday the press got hold of the
story, and for no good measure they added that Harry’s wife had run off with the
partner. Harry didn’t show his head in the club all week, and some of us
wondered if he would scratch from the final and let Edward win by default as
the result was such a foregone conclusion anyway. But the Games Committee
received no communication from Harry to suggest the contest was off so they
proceeded as though nothing had happened. On the night of the final, I dined
with Edward Shrimpton herein the club. He was in fine form. He ate very little
and drank nothing but a glass of water. If you had asked me then I wouldn’t
have put a penny on Harry Newman even if the odds had been ten to one.

“We all dined upstairs on the third Door, as
the Committee had cleared this room so that they could seat sixty in a square
around the board. The final was due to start at nine o’clock. By twenty to nine
there wasn’t a seat left in the place, and members were already standing two
deep behind the square: it wasn’t every day we had the chance to see a world
champion in action. By five to nine, Harry still hadn’t turned up and some of
the members were beginning to get a little restless. As nine o’clock chimed,
the referee went over to Edward and had a word with him. I saw Edward shake his
head in disagreement and walk away. Just at the point, when I thought the
referee would have to be firm and award the match to Edward, Harry strolled in
looking very dapper adorned in a dinner jacket several sizes smaller than the
suit he is wearing tonight. Edward went straight up to him, shook him warmly by
the hand and together they walked into the centre of the room. Even with the throw
of the first dice there was a tension about that match. Members were waiting to
see how Harry would fare in the opening game.”

The intermittent cigar went out again.

I leaned over and struck a match for him.

“Thank you, dear boy. Now, where was 1? Oh,
yes, the first game. Well, Edward only just won the first game and I wondered
if he wasn’t concentrating or if perhaps he had become a little too relaxed
while waiting for his opponent. In the second game the dice ran well for Harry
and he won fairly easily. From that moment on it became a finely fought battle,
and by the time the score had reached I 1-9 in Edward’s favour the tension in
the room was quite electric. By the ninth game I began watching more carefully
and noticed that Edward allowed himselftobe drawn into a back game, a small
error in judgment that only a seasoned player would have spotted. I wondered
how many more subtle errors had already passed that I hadn’t observed. Harry went
on to win the ninth making the score 1~17 in his favour. I watched even more
diligently as Edward did just enough to win the tenth game and, with a rash
double, just enough to lose the eleventh, bring the score to 20 all, so that
everything would depend on the final game. I swear that nobody had left the
room that evening, and not one back remained against a chair; some members were
even hanging on to the window ledges. The room was now full of drink and thick
with cigar smoke, and yet when Harry picked up the dice cup for the last game
you could hear the little squares of ivory rattle before they hit the board.
The dice ran well for Harry in that final game and Edward only made one small
error early on that I was able to pick up; but it was enough to give Harry
game, match and championship. After the last throw of the dice everyone in that
room, including Edward, gave the new champion a standing ovation.”