B-Berry and I Look Back (2 page)

A fortnight later Jonah’s Rolls stole up to the foot of the steps.

Carson alighted and opened the near-side door. And Berry got out.

“Thank you, Carson,” he said. “Do they look all right?”

“They look a treat, sir,” said Carson.

“Good,” said Berry – and turned to us on the steps.

At the foot, he paused: then he uncovered and gave us a film-star smile.

“Marvellous,” said Daphne.

And so they were.

“Are they comfortable?” said I.

“I keep on forgetting,” said Berry, “I’ve got them in.”

“Isn’t that fun?” said Jill.

“Try and yawn,” said Jonah.

The suggestion was enough.

My brother-in-law yawned. But his teeth never moved.

“That’s a great triumph,” said I.

Berry mounted the steps and embraced his wife.

“How does it feel to be kissed by a man with false fangs?”

“Very nice,” said Daphne. “Do it again. And now come in and sit down. Tea’s just about due.”

“I see,” said Berry, thoughtfully. “Tea. Yes. I could do with a cuppa.”

“Bridget,” said Jill, “has made a ‘washerwoman’s cake’.”

“Oh, dear,” said Berry. “I know. I’ll have it upstairs.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Daphne. “They’ll never move.”

“I’m sure they won’t. They might belong to my jaws. But I don’t want to defile them – they look so nice and clean.”

“They’ll recover,” said Jonah. “A little paraffin in the water, and no one will know they’ve been used. Carson’ll do them for you: he’s got to wash the Rolls.”

As soon as he could speak–

“No,” said Berry. “Supposing they dented the bucket… You blasphemous dog,” he added, “wait till you see the gew-gaws. Their proper place is in the
Rue de la Paix
. And there’s Bridget. Bridget, come and look at my teeth.”

The housekeeper complied.

Then she turned to Daphne.

“Aren’t they lovely, madam? And they make you look younger, sir. No one would take you for more than fifty now.”

“Bridget’s quite right,” said Jill.

“Poor Faust,” said Berry. “If only he’d known Rodrigues…”

Tea was proceeding quietly, when Berry let out a yell and clapped a hand to his mouth.

“My God,” said Daphne, “don’t say—”

“They’re getting jealous,” howled Berry. “They’ve bitten my tongue.”

Before this contretemps, I confess that we all broke down.

“My darling,” wailed Daphne, “it’s only because you’ve been without them so long.”

“Venomous swine,” raved Berry. “That’s what they are. Turning on the old hands like that. Have to have a false tongue presently.”

To do the occasion honour, we drank champagne that night. Perhaps because of this, dinner went with a bang.

We retired just before midnight.

At a quarter past twelve my sister came to our room.

“Oh, Boy, it’s dreadful,” she whispered. “He can’t get them out.”

Scantily clothed, Jill and I repaired to the neighbouring chamber. Jonah saw us, as he came to the head of the stairs.

Kneeling beside his bed, leaning over a face-towel, Berry was manhandling his jaws.

“But why the posture?” said Jonah.

“In case I drop them,” snarled Berry. “Then they’ll fall on the bed and come to no harm.”

“I should leave them,” said I. “Swill out your mouth like hell, and leave them alone. I mean it’s all to the good.”

“Nonsense,” said Berry. “Nonsense. Their bed of antiseptic is waiting. Besides, they haven’t been out yet. Or am I thinking of dogs?”

Her face pressed into my shoulder, Jill fought not to laugh.

“I’ll get a torch,” said Jonah. “I expect there’s a spring you press.”

“What d’you mean – a torch?” said Berry.

“Well, I don’t want to fumble,” said Jonah.

Berry looked round.

“He doesn’t want to fumble,” he said brokenly. He laughed a hideous laugh. “I don’t think he’d fumble long.”

“Darling,” said Daphne, “for God’s sake leave them in. And ring up Rodrigues tomorrow and he’ll tell you what to do.”

“But my mouth must be cleansed,” cried Berry. “Think of all the mess I’ve eaten tonight. And cheese straws and all.”

Jonah laid a hand on his shoulder.

“If I wash my hands in Dettol, will you let me get them out?”

“Not on your life,” said Berry. “You’ll break the blasted things.”

“Well, get hold of them and pull.”

“You can’t be rough with them,” said Berry: “they’re a very delicate job. A chaplet of pearls, they are. Two chaplets. Jewellers’ work.”

“Stronger than you think,” said I. “Go on. Put it across them.”

Berry bent to the bed and covered his face with the towel.

After some frightful contortions, he laid the towel carefully down and looked about him.

“Mell, matph map,” he mouthed. “Mope a man ptmep mem mack.”

I suppose it was very foolish, but all of us, Berry included, believed he was out of the wood.

It was nearly a month later, when April was ushering May, that, while we were having dinner, Berry clapped a hand to his mouth.

“What ever’s the matter?” said Daphne.

Berry regarded his wife.

“D’you really want to know?”

“Oh, dear. P’raps we’d better not,” she said.

“After all, why shouldn’t you thuffer? There you are. I’m lithping now.”

“But you never did that before.”

“I know. It’s delayed action. And there’s a dirty one. I’ve just paid Rodrigues’ account.”

“I know what it is,” said Jonah. “Your gums have shrunk.”

Berry regarded him defiantly.

“What d’you mean – thrunk…srunk…SHRUNK? There you are. Perfect enunciation all my life. Clear as a blasted bell. And now I’m starting to lithp.”

He covered his eyes.

“But what happened, darling?” said Jill.

“I was engaged in math – mastication – a very healthy pursuit. And the lower rank – the stalls – rose up, possibly out of zeal. Let us say they pursued their prey. But that’s very dithcontherting.”

“I expect it’s the spinach,” purred Daphne. “I mean, that is rather clinging.”

“That’s right,” said Jonah. “The suction of the spinach was stronger than the suction of your teeth. When the gums have finished shrinking, you’ll have to have a new set.”

“And till then?” screamed Berry.

Jonah glanced at the ceiling, before proceeding with his meal…

Rodrigues, when appealed to, explained that that was sometimes the way. He would make a new set with pleasure, but not for three months.

On receiving the unpalatable news, Berry looked dazedly round.

“Three months?” he cried. “D’you mean to tell me I’ve got to have thethe – these interlopers frolicking about my mouth for the next three monthth?”

Worse was to come.

Before the week was out, if Berry bit anything hard, beneath the pressure his teeth began to tilt.

When this had happened twice during luncheon, Berry laid down his napkin, rose to his feet, bowed to Daphne in silence and left the room.

We followed him, naturally.

“Darling, I’m terribly sorry: but it can’t be as bad as that.”

As he lighted a cigarette –

“It’s quite all right,” said Berry. “You go and finish your repast. I’m going to fast for a bit. You know, like Mothadecq. Probably do me good. If I get too weak, I can be artificially fed.”

“But, Berry darling,” cried Jill, “if you don’t eat you’ll get ill.”

“My sweet,” said Berry, “at present I can still drink and smoke. At times I can speak with coherence. For the present, those mercies must suffice. The consumption of food, once an agreeable pastime, has become a hideouth penance, to which I am no longer prepared to submit. My mouth becomes the scene of a painful and vulgar brawl, which my tongue is unable or reluctant to control. I’m inclined to think it’s reluctance. Its attitude is that of a servant who, having spent many years with the nobility, finds himself compelled to take service with
nouveaux riches
. His insolent contempt for their
gaucheries
has to be experienced to be believed. All that is going on in my mouth at every meal. In these circumstances, can anyone be surprised that I am, tho to thpeak, off my feed?”

Protracted consultations with Bridget produced a special diet – for Berry alone. Nourishing, no doubt, the dishes were distinguished by a dreadful similarity – so far as appearance went.

When we were served with roast duck, Berry was offered a casserole, containing a generous portion of beige-coloured slush.

Berry regarded it with starting eyes. Then he looked round.

“I thought you said the dog was well,” he said.

This was too much.

“You filthy brute,” shrieked Daphne. “Just because you can’t eat—”

“My mistake,” said Berry, helping himself. “But I’ve never eaten swamp before. I didn’t recognize it at first. Am I to have a milk-pudding afterwards? Just as
la bonne bouche
?”

We began to count the days…

On the whole, he was very long-suffering. To celebrate Jill’s birthday, he insisted on our visiting Lisbon and consuming at his expense as excellent a dinner as any connoisseur could devise. On mulligatawny soup, scrambled eggs and ice-pudding, he was the life of the party from first to last.

He went to see Rodrigues the following day.

A fortnight later, he saw Rodrigues again.

On his return to the quinta, he displayed a basket of fruit.

“I couldn’t resist it,” he explained. “You know that elegant shop in the Rua —. They do display their wares in a most attractive way.”

“It’s simply lovely,” said Daphne. “How very sweet of you, darling. Mafalda, ask Bridget to come.”

The bright-eyed maid went flying.

When the housekeeper appeared –

“Look at that, Bridget,” said Daphne.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely, madam. So perfectly arranged. I can make a fruit-salad for the Major.”

“Shame,” said Berry. “Such magnificent specimens must be done the honour of being eaten raw.”

“Oh, you must have some of it, sir.”

“I think you’re right,” said Berry.

With that, he picked up an apple and bit a piece out.

We stared upon him open-mouthed.

When he had bitten it up–

“As good as they look,” he said. “Have we got any almond-rock?”

Once more himself, Berry revived a subject which he had allowed to lie dormant for nearly six months.

After dinner one August evening, he approached it boldly enough.

“No one, I think, will deny that my memoir was well received.”

All four of us looked at him.

Then –

“What memoir?” said his wife.

Berry frowned.

“
As Berry and I Were Saying
,” he said.

In his practice of the art of provocation, my brother-in-law could give a communist points.

Whilst Jonah and I were laughing, Daphne and Jill denounced him with a fury which knew no law.

Finally –

“It’s simply monstrous,” said Daphne. “It was a most generous title. All you did was to shove in some stuff about brandy which nobody read.”

“And trustees,” cried Jill. “Silly rubbish that lawyers are paid to do.”

Berry looked uneasily round.

“The Sapphira Sisters calling. You really must be careful. How should we frame the announcement in
The Times
? ‘Suddenly, as the result of subjecting the godly to an obscene libel…’ I mean, it would look so unusual.”

Before Daphne could get her breath –

“All this,” I said, “is a screen of highly offensive smoke. By the time we emerge, the demand which he means to make will seem, by comparison, so modest that you will support him against me, when I refuse to play.”

“What’s his demand?” said Daphne.

“That a second memoir,” said Berry, “should be begun at once.”

There was a pregnant silence.

Then –

“It – it would be nice,” said Jill.

“There you are,” said I.

“Of course we must do it,” said Berry. “Hardly had the book gone to press, when all manner of gems I’d forgotten came flooding into my mind.”

“Matter of adjustment,” said Jonah. “The ball-cock wouldn’t close.”

With an indignant stare –

“I cannot felicitate you,” said Berry, “upon your choice of metaphor.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not altogether your fault. If I had a mind like a greasetrap, who knows what indiscretions I might not commit.”

Another of the arts which Berry has mastered is that of confusing his foes. He will offer them so many openings that they do not know which to take. Into one short sentence he will compress more inaccuracy, insult, self-praise and
suggestio falsi
than I would have believed possible.

Availing myself of his tactics –

“I don’t suppose,” I said, “that a memoir has ever appeared to which the author would not have added, had it not been too late. I, too, have remembered things which might very well have gone in. But, for one very simple reason, a second memoir, or sequel, will never appear. The reason is this. If you added our afterthoughts together, they’d run to some fifty pages, if as much. Well, you can’t bind up fifty pages and offer them to the public for twelve and six.”

There was another silence.

Then –

“How many pages,” said Daphne, “was
As Berry and I Were Saying
?”

“Two hundred and eighty-three.”

Even Berry was silenced by this disparity.

I continued to improve the occasion.

“If you want another reason, I’m busy. I’ve yet to finish the book I’m writing now.”

“I should let that go,” said Berry. “If it’s no better than
Ne’er Do Well
…”

When Daphne and Jill had finished–

“As a matter of fact,” said Jonah, “
Ne’er Do Well
was uncommonly good. Compared with most of Boy’s stuff, it was not sensational. But it was a most accurate picture of Scotland Yard at work.”

“I fear it was dull,” I said.

“I didn’t find it so.”

“You’re very good.”

“The book took charge?”

“I’ll say it did. I’ve never been driven so hard. After Falcon’s appearance, it ran right away.”

“Night after night,” said Jill, “he was working till half past one.”

“What
does
that mean?” said Daphne. “‘The book takes charge.’”

“It’s terribly hard to explain. Something takes charge and tells me what to write. I can only suppose it’s a sort of sub-conscious brain. And the conscious brain, which I’m using to talk to you now, accepts what it says and frames the sentences.”

“And you don’t know what’s coming?”

“Never. In
Ne’er Do Well
, for instance, I’d not the faintest idea who’d committed the crime.” Jill picked up the novel and put it into my hand. “That is revealed to the reader on page – wait a minute – on page one hundred and fifty-six. I think I realized who’d done it when I was writing page one hundred and fifty-one. It may have been later than that, but it certainly wasn’t before.”

“And one reviewer,” said Jill, “said it was obvious from the first.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“His sight was keener than mine.”

“Which is absurd,” said Jonah. “I tried hard enough, but I hadn’t the faintest idea.”

“You say,” said Berry, “you say it’s the sub-conscious brain.”

“In desperation,” I said. “I’m quite prepared for a doctor to say that’s rubbish. But I can’t explain it in any other way.”

“You must be mental,” said Berry. “I’ve always thought there was something. When I tell you to rise above pain, you never do. You don’t seem to get it, somehow.”

There was an electric silence.

Then–

“I seem to remember,” said Daphne, “that some ten days ago you didn’t ‘seem to get it’, when I made a similar request. I never was so ashamed in all my life.”

(When Berry is attacked by lumbago, nobody within earshot is unaware of the fact. On the last, unforgettable occasion, his roars and yells were actually reported to the police – who presently arrived in a car, in the belief that violence was being done.)

“That,” said Berry, “was my sub-conscious brain. I never had the faintest idea that I was about to exclaim. When I heard my exclamations, the conscious brain was inexpressibly shocked.” Before we could dispute this reading, he had thrown us another fly. “When will you finish the classic upon which you are now engaged?”

“Not for some time,” I said.

“Is it any good?”

“I don’t know. When it’s done I shall make up my mind whether or no I should like to see it in print.”

“Give it to me,” said Berry. “I’ll tell you in half an hour. And then, if I say it’s tripe, you needn’t go on.”

“I’m much obliged; but I’d rather judge it myself.”

“What about this?” said Jonah. “When you feel inclined, in the evenings, let’s have the memoir piecemeal. Memory breeds, you know: and while you’re relating one, another reminiscence will, as like as not, come to mind. By the time you’ve both done, you may have enough for a book. And then, perhaps, when it’s finished, you’ll read us your tale.”

“Lovely,” said Daphne.

Jill said nothing, but looked at me and smiled.

“I’m on,” said Berry.

The others regarded me.

“On one condition,” I said.

“Yes?”

“That no one shall interrupt me, whilst I am reading the tale. When I come to the end of a chapter, then you shall say what you please.”

“Understood,” said everyone but Berry.

I looked at him.

“But—”

“Nothing doing,” I said.

“May I put up a hand?” he said. “That will mean that I have a question to ask – not that I’m seeking your permission to repair to—”

Submerged by a surge of protest from my sister and wife, the rest of the sentence was lost.

“You are disgusting,” said Jill. “Just because—”

“As you were,” said Berry, “as you were. The subconscious brain again. You know, I was quite surprised when I heard what I said.”

“You wicked liar,” said Daphne.

“Well, let’s try again,” said Berry. “Should I make an arresting gesture, that will mean that I have a question to ask or a precious statement to make.”

“That’s all right,” I said, “provided you make no sound.”

“I see,” said Berry. “I see. Supposing you, er, don’t see the gesture?”

“That will be just too bad.”

“There you are,” howled Berry. “He’s going to ignore my gestures – cheerfully keep me waiting for hours on end.”

At last, under duress, he gave his word.

In fact, this was just what I wanted – to ‘try my tale on the dog’. I was not so sure of my judgment, as I had been in the past. I had hesitated a lot, before I let
Ne’er Do Well
go. I knew the new tale was ‘all right’: but I wanted to be sure that it was up to my standard, such as that is. If it was, the book would be published: if it wasn’t, it would stay in my safe.