Eating People is Wrong (26 page)

‘You mustn’t be maudlin,’ said Jenkins, reasonably (considering his own condition).

‘I suffer from this shameful and useless boredom, this complete exhaustion of personality. How can I explain it to you? I do bad things. I lack the energy to carry through any process I
conceive. And when I look at all the people in the modern world, and at the way things are moving . . . then I trust nothing. I simply have no trust or repose anywhere. All is change for the
worse.’

‘Well, that’s the lot of people like us. We abstract ourselves from the sphere of national effectiveness. We’re too busy taking notes to do anything. It’s a national as
well as a personal trait now. And the fault lies precisely in the things we value most. You aren’t likely to become a Catholic or a communist, and nor am I . . .’

‘God, no,’ said Treece.

‘Quite,’ said Jenkins. ‘God, no; and Lenin, no. You prefer a good honest Western
doubt
– with all the personal ineffectiveness and depression that that entails.
You presumably think that your position is actually superior . . .’

‘I think it’s terribly terribly superior,’ said Treece. ‘I can see the attractions of either of those disciplines; they’re very obvious. But I think anguished and
independent and critical doubt is really more fruitful for the soul.’

‘Then you must expect to be depressed,’ said Jenkins.

‘I know,’ said Treece, ‘but I’ve always hoped not to be.’

‘I’m sorry if I appeared rude,’ said Jenkins.

‘Not at all,’ said Treece.

‘Let’s go to the Mandolin,’ said Jenkins.

‘I thought everything was closed.’

‘This isn’t a pub: it’s an espresso bar. It catches all the trade after the pubs close. Once this city used to close down after ten-thirty. Now the espresso bars have added
another dimension to provincial time.’

They passed down a side street, and then a side street off a side street, until they were in the factory quarter. Huge buildings stood up silently on either side. ‘What are these
places?’ asked Treece.

‘Warehouses,’ said Jenkins.

Treece thought he said whorehouses, and looked at them with interest. They didn’t look like his idea of a cathouse at all. However, it was probably different once you got inside. Suddenly
they pulled up short and mounted a dingy wooden stairway, which gave access to a room that appeared to be in complete darkness. ‘Are you sure it’s a brothel?’ asked Treece.
‘It’s an espresso bar,’ said Jenkins. Treece’s eyes, now growing used to the semi-darkness, began to register the scene, and he observed that, sitting at low, oddly shaped
– one might say accidentally shaped – tables, were people. They seemed to be an indiscriminate collection. There were people from the University, in great knitted red sweaters. There
were also a number of what Jenkins called ‘teds’. All were young. There were girls in duffel coats with black eyelids, protesting, just for the evening. There were exhausted-looking
youths in reefer jackets, carrying double basses, with their hair planed down to a thin, grass-like covering on top. They were all sipping frothy coffee in glass cups no bigger than eye-baths. The
waitresses were slinky and delectable. Outside, in a little courtyard on the roof, in the rain, a small group of musicians were playing on homemade guitars. Jenkins explained that if Treece was
interested in the breakdown of class boundaries the guitarist in the group was actually the Earl of . . . (he named a prominent scion of the English nobility) and the group was called the
Honi
Soit Qui Mal y Pense
Skiffle Group. ‘It would be,’ said Treece.

A pervasive atmosphere of
chic
filled the place. Exotic greenery slouched about the walls, decked with a casual guitar, as if Segovia had only just that moment left; the furniture was
ever so very contemporary, for people with no leg below the knee-joint and a short sharp spike for a bottom. The décor mingled styles indiscriminately, and Treece felt in a cultural fog.
There was a Spanish mural, an Indian statue, Caribbean vegetation, an Italian coffee machine, American music. A notice on the wall said: ‘Calling all toreadors.’ There was a sort of
overall grotto effect; Jenkins claimed that when it opened the proprietor, a Pole named Stanislaus, had, in an excess of enthusiasm, planned to have it flooded to a depth of one foot, and issue
people with waders, but had reluctantly abandoned the idea when he realized that you couldn’t do that on the second floor. But if the décor and comparative licence carried one into
another world (if only, Treece thought, there had been windows, so that one could make sure the real world was still there) the clientele was very English. ‘It’s like being on the
Continong, except you can get a decent cup of tea,’ said Jenkins. ‘The English heaven.’ Within the room, amours and intellectual discussion equally ran their fervent courses. In
the corners couples embraced and fondled, stopping just short of actual fulfilment; at a centre table someone was declaring, ‘Well, you can’t make value-judgements about
value-judgements, can you?’

‘What mystifies me,’ said Jenkins in a whisper, ‘is where they dug all these people up from. They weren’t about before this place started; and you never see them in the
streets. They must come in through the drains.’

‘They’re very new to me,’ said Treece, a naïve Dante being shown through Hell by this strangest of Vergils. ‘Is it always like this?’ The skiffle group were
now at work on a number, pertinently called, ‘I was a Big Man Yesterday, but Oh You Ought to See Me Now’.

‘Listen, they’re playing our tune,’ said Jenkins. He went on in an excited sociologist’s whisper, ‘A year ago, two years ago, this seemed like just an ordinary,
dull provincial city, with housewives shopping at Dolcis and having coffee in the Kardomah, and going home to their suburb to count the change. You know. But now . . . now it seems
full
of
all sorts of bohemians, political insurgents, masochists, lesbians, men who think they’re Jesus Christ, men who sleep on the radiators in the Public Library. And do you know what’s done
it? Italian coffee.’

Behind them the coffee machine kept giving out large, sighing hisses, like a railway engine discharging. It was a plaintive sound. ‘It works without steam,’ said Jenkins. ‘Oh,
if only I did.’

‘Why is this special?’ demanded Treece. ‘Why is it necessary to correct the universal misconception that it works with steam?’

‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ said Jenkins.

The espresso machine, all gilt and fancy lights, with a huge gold eagle on the top, was about the size and shape of a coffin; it was being operated – one might even say played – by a
Sikh dressed in his native garb. ‘
Cappuccino?
’ asked a husky, alluring female voice, high above them. Treece looked up and perceived a very tall and extremely handsome girl,
wearing a low-cut sweater and a tiny little apron like a fig-leaf, giving them a well-dentifriced smile. ‘
Cappuccino?
’ she asked again. Treece felt highly flattered that this
should have happened to him. He didn’t intend to let the language barrier be an obstacle to
this
. ‘
Non capisco
,’ he said (he’d handled this sort of problem
before) ‘
Lo scrivere.
’ ‘She wants to know if you want black or white coffee,’ said Jenkins. ‘Tell her white,’ said Treece, beaming and nodding at the
girl. ‘Two whites,’ said Jenkins. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the girl. ‘She spoke English all the time,’ said Treece indignantly. She arrived back a moment later,
bearing the coffee in tiny perspex cups. ‘Two shillings, please,’ she said. ‘It’s terribly expensive, isn’t it?’ Treece said when she had gone. ‘Do they
sprinkle gold dust on it?’ ‘You aren’t paying for the coffee,’ said Jenkins. ‘You’re paying for the atmosphere, the sniff you got at her Chanel Number Five. You
pay to look down the fronts of their dresses. They always have such nice waitresses.’

‘But can people really afford a shilling for a cup of coffee?’ asked Treece.

‘Well, look,’ said Jenkins, and gestured around. It was true that the place was so packed that, had the people been animals, it would have been banned by the RSPCA. ‘It’s
the new idle rich, you see, the young.’

‘I see,’ said Treece. ‘Are you supposed to lift the cup from down there with your feet?’

‘The waitresses are
aristos
. They only go out with top people, the mews cottage boys. You have to own a horse to get off with them. It’s a special kind of girl, you see. They
bat their long, silky legs at you, but if their sex dropped off and you handed it back to them they wouldn’t know what it was. You get my point. They’ve never really looked down in all
their lives; they know someone’s going to open all the doors, move all the stones out of their path, get the car waiting. This too makes the angry young men even angrier. They hate to see the
sort of rats that get girls like this. They want them themselves. But if they get saddled with one, all hell breaks loose.’ Jenkins thought all this very funny and laughed loudly. He sang:
‘So I took her into bed and I covered up her head, just to shield her from the doggy, doggy few.’

It was a long time since Treece had been so conscious of the English class system. He had supposed it had been quite subverted by the new post-war system of rewards; but it certainly
didn’t confuse Jenkins. ‘Don’t you ever feel doubtful of your categories?’ he asked Jenkins suspiciously.

‘Well, I’m speaking
ex cathedra
, of course,’ said Jenkins, wiping milky froth from his lips, ‘and I wouldn’t want you to quote me, but it does bear some
relation to reality, don’t you think?’

‘What else have I missed?’ asked Treece belligerently.

‘Middle-class youth reacting against the cultural barrenness of the suburbs. Coming to the town to seek a cultural centre . . .’

Across the room Treece suddenly noticed Walter Oliver, sitting in the midst of a rather strange and tattered group of apparent bohemians. ‘That’s the Gang,’ said Jenkins.
‘All pseudo-writers, pseudo-painters, pseudo-philosophers, who take over all the paraphernalia of bohemianism, but rarely actually
produce
anything. What I admire is their dedication.
They really mean to do something. But those who do always seem to break away.’

Oliver saw him and waved a hand. ‘Got any cigarettes?’ he shouted.

‘Shall we join them?’ said Treece.

‘All right,’ said Jenkins. ‘But do you know what a steamer is?’

‘No,’ said Treece.

‘Well, you’re one,’ said Jenkins. ‘You know how steamers come into port, and are unloaded, and then sail off again. This is one of the ways that these people live. They
unload you and you sail off. Be careful.’

‘Ah, you finally came,’ said Oliver when they had crossed to the other table. ‘Good evening, Herr Jenkins.’ He looked back at Treece and said: ‘If you’ve got
some cigarettes, I’ve got some matches.’ Treece produced a packet of cigarettes and Oliver took it and handed it round the group. ‘That’s what’s known as buying
in,’ said Oliver.

‘How’s your novel?’ asked Treece.

‘I’m stuck,’ said Oliver. ‘I’d just finished the dedication and then I didn’t seem to know what to say next.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Treece.

‘Oh, it’s much better to be writing a novel than to have finished one.’

‘I had hopes of you, Oliver.’

‘Oh no, I’m finished, written out,’ said Oliver urbanely. ‘I’m so finished it just isn’t true. I’m one of the
derrière garde
. It’s a
new twist. Hey, I thought of something interesting the other day. Do you realize that the title
The Holy Bible
is probably out of copyright?’

‘Well?’ said Jenkins.

‘Well, you could probably use it again for something else,’ said Oliver. He belched. Oliver had spitting friends, belching friends, and farting friends; that is, he rated people by
how natural he was prepared to be in their presence. It was very hard to get to be one of Oliver’s farting friends. He didn’t take easily to people. He had no time for people who seemed
to him to be fribbles. He demanded the strictest standards of conduct. He had really warmed to Treece and Jenkins.

‘You should see Louis Bates’s novel,’ said he to Treece.

‘Is it good, then?’

‘It’s . . . well-typed,’ said Oliver. ‘And it’s got
me
in it.’ ‘You recommend it, then?’ asked Treece. ‘It’s one of these
knee-stroking novels,’ said Oliver. ‘What are they?’ asked Treece. ‘Oh you know, all pale young working-class men, reading Shelley to one another and saying, “Art thou
pale for weariness?” and girls who softly stroke their own knees and say, “You know, you’re a very strange person.”’

‘What do you think of Bates?’ asked Treece.

‘I think he’s good,’ said Oliver. ‘Of course, he’s a fool.’

At Treece’s other side sat a man who wore on his upper half only a dirty vest, buttoned up to the neck. He now put on sunglasses. ‘Can’t bear the light,’ he said in
Treece’s ear. ‘Have to stay in all day and sleep. Then they come and fetch me and bring me out at night. Want to buy a cello?’

‘No; I don’t play,’ said Treece.

‘I’d come round and play it for you then,’ said the man. ‘You buy it and I’ll come every night and play it. Where do you live?’

‘I’m not telling you,’ said Treece wisely.

The man reached out and took up a cello case and, opening it, he twanged the instrument. ‘Just listen at that tone,’ he said proudly. ‘Terrible, i’n’ it?’
‘Put it away,’ said another man. ‘Bloody thing, who’d be stupid enough to buy a thing like that?’

‘This fella here,’ said the man with the cello gesturing towards Treece. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘No. I don’t want it,’ said Treece.

‘You lay off him,’ said Oliver roughly. ‘He’s my friend.’ He turned to Treece and said: ‘Don’t you buy anything off them, anything, no matter how good
it looks.’

‘Friend of yours, then?’ said the man with the cello, pointing to Oliver.

‘A student of mine,’ said Treece.

‘Him a student?’ asked the man. ‘I thought he was a racingcar driver.’

‘He may be as well,’ said Treece.

‘You a teacher? What do you teach?’

‘English,’ said Treece.