Antic Hay (34 page)

Lypiatt nodded, without saying anything.

Mr Boldero, meanwhile, was turning his bright, bird-like eyes about the studio. Mrs Viveash's portrait, all but finished now, was clamped to the easel. He approached it, a connoisseur.

‘It reminds me very much,' he said, ‘of Bacosso. Very much indeed, if I may say so. Also a little of . . .' he hesitated, trying to think of the name of that other fellow Gumbril had talked about. But being unable to remember the unimpressive syllables of Derain he played for safety and said – ‘of Orpen.' Mr Boldero looked inquiringly at Lypiatt to see if that was right.

Lypiatt still spoke no word and seemed, indeed, not to have heard what had been said.

Mr Boldero saw that it wasn't much good talking about modern art. This chap, he thought, looked as though something were wrong with him. He hoped he hadn't got influenza. There was a lot of the disease about. ‘This little affair I was speaking of,' he pursued, in another tone, ‘is a little business proposition that Mr Gumbril and I have gone into together. A matter of pneumatic trousers,' he waved his hand airily.

Lypiatt suddenly burst out laughing, an embittered Titan. Where do flies go? Where do souls go? The barrel-organ, and now pneumatic trousers! Then, as suddenly, he was silent again. More literature? Another piece of acting? ‘Go on,' he said, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Not at all, not at all,' said Mr Boldero indulgently. ‘I know the idea does seem a little humorous, if I may say so, at first. But I assure you, there's money in it, Mr Lydgate – Mr Lypiatt. Money!' Mr Boldero paused a moment dramatically. ‘Well,' he went on, ‘our idea was to launch the new product with a good swingeing publicity campaign. Spend a few thousands in the papers and then get it good and strong into the Underground and on the hoardings, along with Owbridge's and John Bull and the Golden Ballot. Now, for that, Mr Lypiatt, we shall need, as you can well imagine, a few good striking pictures. Mr Gumbril mentioned your name and suggested I should come and see you to find out if you would perhaps be agreeable to lending us your talent for this work. And I may add, Mr Lypiatt,' he spoke with real warmth, ‘that having seen this example of your work' – he pointed to the portrait of Mrs Viveash – ‘I feel that you would be eminently capable of . . .'

He did not finish the sentence; for at this moment Lypiatt leapt up from his chair and, making a shrill, inarticulate, animal noise, rushed on the financier, seized him with both hands by the throat, shook him, threw him to the floor, then picked him up again by the coat collar and pushed him towards the door, kicking him as he went. A final kick sent Mr Boldero tobogganing down the steep stairs. Lypiatt ran down after him; but Mr Boldero had picked himself up, had opened the front door, slipped out, slammed it behind him, and was running up the mews before Lypiatt could get to the bottom of the stairs.

Lypiatt opened the door and looked out. Mr Boldero was already far away, almost at the Piranesian arch. He watched him till he was out of sight, then went upstairs again and threw himself face downwards on his bed.

ZOE ENDED THE
discussion by driving half an inch of penknife into Coleman's left arm and running out of the flat, slamming the door behind her. Coleman was used to this sort of thing; this sort of thing, indeed, was what he was there for. Carefully he pulled out the penknife which had remained sticking in his arm. He looked at the blade and was relieved to see that it wasn't so dirty as might have been expected. He found some cotton wool, mopped up the blood as it oozed out, and dabbed the wound with iodine. Then he set himself to bandage it up. But to tie a bandage round one's own left arm is not easy. Coleman found it impossible to keep the lint in place, impossible to get the bandage tight enough. At the end of a quarter of an hour he had only succeeded in smearing himself very copiously with blood, and the wound was still unbound. He gave up the attempt and contented himself with swabbing up the blood as it came out.

‘And forthwith came there out blood and water,' he said aloud, and looked at the red stain on the cotton wool. He repeated the words again and again, and at the fiftieth repetition burst out laughing.

The bell in the kitchen suddenly buzzed. Who could it be? He went to the front door and opened it. On the landing outside stood a tall slender young woman with slanting Chinese eyes and a wide mouth, elegantly dressed in a black frock piped with white. Keeping the cotton wool still pressed to his bleeding arm, Coleman bowed as gracefully as he could.

‘Do come in,' he said. ‘You are just in the nick of time. I am on the point of bleeding to death. And forthwith came there out blood and water. Enter, enter,' he added, seeing the young woman still standing irresolutely on the threshold.

‘But I wanted to see Mr Coleman,' she said, stammering a little and showing her embarrassment by blushing.

‘I am Mr Coleman.' He took the cotton wool for a moment from his arm and looked with the air of a connoisseur at the blood on it. ‘But I shall very soon cease to be that individual unless you come and tie up my wounds.'

‘But you're not the Mr Coleman I thought you were,' said the young lady, still more embarrassed. ‘You have a beard, it is true; but . . .'

‘Then I must resign myself to quit this life, must I?' He made a gesture of despair, throwing out both hands. ‘Out, out, brief Coleman. Out, damned spot,' and he made as though to close the door.

The young lady checked him. ‘If you really need tying up,' she said, ‘I'll do it, of course. I passed my First-Aid Exam in the war.'

Coleman reopened the door. ‘Saved!' he said. ‘Come in.'

It had been Rosie's original intention yesterday to go straight on from Mr Mercaptan's to Toto's. She would see him at once, she would ask him what he meant by playing that stupid trick on her. She would give him a good talking to. She would even tell him that she would never see him again. But, of course, if he showed himself sufficiently contrite and reasonably explanatory, she would consent – oh, very reluctantly – to take him back into favour. In the free, unprejudiced circles in which she now moved, this sort of joke, she imagined, was a mere trifle. It would be absurd to quarrel seriously about it. But still, she was determined to give Toto a lesson.

When, however, she did finally leave Mr Mercaptan's delicious boudoir, it was too late to think of going all the way to Pimlico, to the address which Mr Mercaptan had given her. She decided to put it off till the next day.

And so the next day, duly, she had set out for Pimlico – to Pimlico, and to see a man called Coleman! It seemed rather dull and second-rate after Sloane Street and Mr Mercaptan. Poor Toto! – the sparkle of Mr Mercaptan had made him look rather tarnished. That essay on the ‘Jus Primae Noctis' – ah! Walking through the unsavoury mazes of Pimlico, she thought of it, and, thinking of it, smiled. Poor Toto! And also, she mustn't forget, stupid, malicious, idiotic Toto! She had made up her mind exactly what she should say to him; she had even made up her mind what Toto would say to her. And when the scene was over they would go and dine at the Café Royal – upstairs, where she had never been. And she would make him rather jealous by telling him how much she had liked Mr Mercaptan; but not too jealous. Silence is golden, as her father used to say when she used to fly into tempers and wanted to say nasty things to everybody within range. Silence, about some things, is certainly golden.

In the rather gloomy little turning off Lupus Street to which she had been directed, Rosie found the number, found, in the row of bells and cards, the name. Quickly and decidedly she mounted the stairs.

‘Well,' she was going to say as soon as she saw him, ‘I thought you were a civilized being.' Mr Mercaptan had dropped a hint that Coleman wasn't really civilized; a hint was enough for Rosie. ‘But I see,' she would go on, ‘that I was mistaken. I don't like to associate with boors.' The fastidious lady had selected him as a young poet, not as a ploughboy.

Well rehearsed, Rosie rang the bell. And then the door opened on this huge bearded Cossack of a man, who smiled, who looked at her with bright, dangerous eyes, who quoted the Bible and who was bleeding like a pig. There was blood on his shirt, blood on his trousers, blood on his hands, bloody fingermarks on his face; even the blond fringe of his beard, she noticed, was dabbled here and there with blood. It was too much, at first, even for her aristocratic equanimity.

In the end, however, she followed him across a little vestibule into a bright, whitewashed room empty of all furniture but a table, a few chairs and a large box-spring and mattress, which stood like an island in the middle of the floor and served as bed or sofa as occasion required. Over the mantelpiece was pinned a large photographic reproduction of Leonardo's study of the anatomy of love. There were no other pictures on the walls.

‘All the apparatus is here,' said Coleman, and he pointed to the table. ‘Lint, bandages, cotton wool, iodine, gauze, oiled silk. I have them all ready in preparation for these little accidents.'

‘But do you often manage to cut yourself in the arm?' asked Rosie. She took off her gloves and began to undo a fresh packet of lint.

‘One gets cut,' Coleman explained. ‘Little differences of opinion, you know. If your eye offend you, pluck it out; love your neighbour as yourself. Argal: if his eye offend you – you see? We live on Christian principles here.'

‘But who are “we”?' asked Rosie, giving the cut a last dressing of iodine and laying a big square of lint over it.

‘Merely myself and – how shall I put it? – my helpmate,' Coleman answered. ‘Ah! you're wonderfully skilful at this business,' he went on. ‘You're the real hospital-nurse type; all maternal instincts. When pain and anguish wring the brow, an interesting mangle thou, as we used to say in the good old days when the pun and the Spoonerismus were in fashion.'

Rosie laughed. ‘Oh, I don't spend all my time tying up wounds,' she said, and turned her eyes for an instant from the bandage. After the first surprise she was feeling her cool self again.

‘Brava!' cried Coleman. ‘You make them too, do you? Make them first and cure them afterwards in the grand old homoeopathic way. Delightful! You see what Leonardo has to say about it.' With his free hand he pointed to the photograph over the mantelpiece.

Rosie, who had noticed the picture when she came into the room, preferred not to look at it too closely a second time. ‘I think it's rather revolting,' she said, and was very busy with the bandage.

‘Ah! but that's the point, that's the whole point,' said Coleman, and his clear blue eyes were alive with dancing lights. ‘That's the beauty of the grand passion. It
is
revolting. You read what the Fathers of the Church have to say about love. They're the men. It was Odo of Cluny, wasn't it, who called a woman a
saccus stercoris,
a bag of muck.
Si quis enim considerat quae intra nares et quae intra fauces et quae intra ventrem lateant, sordes ubique reperiet.'
The Latin rumbled like eloquent thunder in Coleman's mouth.
‘Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus.'
He smacked his lips. ‘Magnificent!' he said.

‘I don't understand Latin,' said Rosie, ‘and I'm glad of it. And your bandage is finished. Look.'

‘Interesting mangle!' Coleman smiled his thanks. ‘But Bishop Odo, I fear, wouldn't even have spared you; not even for your good works. Still less for your good looks, which would only have provoked him to dwell with the more insistency on the visceral secrets which they conceal.'

‘Really,' Rosie protested. She would have liked to get up and go away, but the Cossack's blue eyes glittered at her with such a strange expression and he smiled so enigmatically, that she found herself still sitting where she was, listening with a disgusted pleasure to his quick talk, his screams of deliberate and appalling laughter.

‘Ah!' he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, ‘what sensualists these old fellows were! What a real voluptuous feeling they had for dirt and gloom and sordidness and boredom, and all the horrors of vice. They pretended they were trying to dissuade people from vice by enumerating its horrors. But they were really only making it more spicy by telling the truth about it.
O esca vermium, O massa pulveris!
What nauseating embracements! To conjugate the copulative verb, boringly, with a sack of tripes – what could be more exquisitely and piercingly and deliriously vile?' And he threw back his head and laughed; the blood-dabbled tips of his blond beard shook. Rosie looked at them, fascinated with disgust.

‘There's blood on your beard,' she felt compelled to say.

‘What of it? Why shouldn't there be?' Coleman asked.

Confused, Rosie felt herself blushing. ‘Only because it's rather unpl-leasant. I don't know why. But it is.'

‘What a reason for immediately falling into my arms!' said Coleman. ‘To be kissed by a beard is bad enough at any time. But by a bloody beard – imagine!'

Rosie shuddered.

‘After all,' he said, ‘what interest or amusement is there in doing the ordinary things in the obvious way? Life
au naturel
.' He shook his head. ‘You must have garlic and saffron. Do you believe in God?'

‘Not m-much,' said Rosie, smiling.

‘I pity you. You must find existence dreadfully dull. As soon as you do, everything becomes a thousand times life-size. Phallic symbols five hundred feet high,' he lifted his hand. ‘A row of grinning teeth you could run the hundred yards on.' He grinned at her through his beard. ‘Wounds big enough to let a coach-and-six drive into their purulent recesses. Every slightest act eternally significant. It's only when you believe in God, and especially in hell, that you can really begin enjoying life. For instance, when in a few moments you surrender yourself to the importunities of my bloody beard, how prodigiously much more you'd enjoy it if you could believe you were committing the sin against the Holy Ghost – if you kept thinking calmly and dispassionately all the time the affair was going on: All this is not only a horrible sin, it is also ugly, grotesque, a mere defecation, a –'