New World in the Morning (15 page)

“Staying positive in times of trouble.”

Now, though, in spite of all our laughter, Moira expressed a hope that, over the weekend, the level of our repartee might rise a little. I told her it appeared to have no option.

“I'm still not altogether sure I can believe you've baked a cake for us.”

“No?”

“No. So, now. In all truthfulness. We're making a fresh start,” she cautioned. “Right?”

“Right.”

“Is this a cake?”

“Yes.”

“In all truthfulness, mind. You're not allowed to cheat.”

“As though I would!”

“All right. Is it a cake, then, which you've made yourself?”

“Do you mean—for myself?”

“No, I do not mean that. Stop being so devious. I mean is it a cake which you yourself have made?”

“Oh. I see. Still in all truthfulness?”

She nodded. Intractable. Unrelenting.

“Then in that case,” I said, “I can't honestly claim that it is.”

“Ah! At last. Now maybe we're getting to the nub of it.” She fitted her finger through the loop and I thought of the little Dutch boy trying manfully to stem the flood. “In other words you're telling me you've bought it.”

“Really? I wasn't aware of that. I'm sorry. I didn't set out with the intention to deceive.”

“In a moment I am going to scream!” she said.

Instead, she simply smiled—quite broadly—and in the process looked enchanting.

“All I'm asking…please Sammy, dear Sammy, kind Sammy…”

“Ah, I understand. What makes Sammy run?”

“No. I swear it. Nothing half so complex or so tangled. Purely—
who was it who baked the cake you say that I am holding
?”

It was a fair question and it needed to be answered. But ‘in all truthfulness' would have to come later. And come it would—unquestionably. During the week I'd given a lot of thought to this. Whatever else I might be I wasn't a simpleton. For the next seventy-two hours or so, while we really got to know one another, I could carry on with the game: the fun and the frivolity. Or, rather, those were the accoutrements, the colouring on the box, the eye-catching picture on the lid; the game itself was deadly serious. But until the final part of the weekend or, anyway, what I considered the best moment for the raising of it…until then the lid must stay firmly in position. Only the cellophane could be removed.

“My grandmother.”

We continued to form a totally unheeding island, around which swirled the inconvenienced sea of tourists and commuters.

“Well, that's incredible,” said Moira. “What a fantastic person she must be.”

“Like grandmother, like grandson,” I admitted.

“Hmm. At least I'm willing to believe her influence could only have been beneficial.”

“And after all. Who was the one who had to carry it? Spirit it over mountaintop and lug it down through vale and valley?”

“Through vale
and
valley? My, how you make light of it! But was it her idea or was it yours?”

“I cannot tell a lie. I can't, I can't! It was hers. To her alone belongs the credit.”

She leant forward again, reached up and treated me to yet another kiss. Unfortunately I was still carrying the holdall and the two bags, so I couldn't put my arms about her. “What was that for?”

“For being a good boy—finally—and telling me the truth.”

“Oh gosh—oh gee—oh golly, Miss. I'm going to tell a lot more truth from now on.”

“Then I'm very pleased with you, Sammy.”

“So can I have another of those nice things to show me that you are?” I heard myself saying to my son: “
May
?”

She did as I asked. This time I dropped the baggage and held her very close.

After some fifteen or twenty seconds she pulled away. “I can see,” she said, “that in future I shall need to be a lot more firm. There are those who would even describe
that
little manoeuvre as being chockfull of guile.”

I looked chastened.

“So pick up your things, please. Then follow behind and do your utmost to behave.”

“I can't.”

She must have realized I was now in earnest.

“Why? What's wrong?”

“I'm afraid you may have to wait a moment.”

Suddenly she understood my predicament and started to laugh. More practically she bent down and herself handed me the three items. But she didn't comment on the situation. Plainly felt it would be better-bred to run with something safer.

“I simply can't wait,” she said, “to open up this tempting box!” One expression of amusement immediately gave place to another. “Oh, good heavens. Just listen to me! I sound like Pandora.”

The last time I had heard that name I myself had been the one to use it—to Matt, whilst attempting to list the great modern love stories—and that had been a mere couple of hours before encountering Moira on the beach. Could one honestly ascribe such things only to coincidence?

But if not, what?—and all I said was: “Then it's lucky, isn't it, that I have so much faith in you? You're the one who
gives
life, not destroys it.”

She nodded and looked pleased. “Well, at any rate I'll try to leave you with a scraping of hope,” she promised.

With which gracious assurance we started at last—but rather slowly—towards the main exit.

15

Her car was parked in a side street close to the Army & Navy. Someone had left a Morgan nearby and I exclaimed excitedly. (Ella would have called this a further symptom of arrested development.) “Oh, may we just have a quick look?”

“Why not?”

“You know,” I said, “when I was a young man—that is, an even younger man—the thing I wanted more than absolutely anything was a two-seater identical to this. I used to dream about owning one. Sometimes, I mean, really dream.”

“But you still can't have wanted it enough.”

I shook my head. “Believe me, it wasn't that. I may have been a dreamer but I had my practical side as well. And a Morgan simply wouldn't have been the right size for a fam—.” I stopped short; saw her look at me; felt I was about to blush. “For a family outing, each weekend, with my grandparents.”

I couldn't remember now what I had told her about my grandfather—who had died when I was three—or, indeed, if I had told her anything about him. Neither could she, apparently. She looked back at the car.

“You really are the sweetest person.”

I honestly didn't wish to hoodwink her; to win her liking under false pretences.

“If I may let you into a little secret,” I said, modestly, “I was only wishing to impress you! I have this awful compulsion to present myself in the best possible light.”

“No. You were all confused. I could see it slipped out unawares. You even went a little red.” She paused, then indicated the Morgan. “Well, have you now feasted your eyes sufficiently?”

“Fraid not. I could never feast my eyes sufficiently. But life is hard. Force me, please, to tear myself away.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don't you just take this and then get in?” She was holding out a key ring.

It had never occurred to me to ask what kind of car she had. Apart from Morgans themselves and certain other snappy sports models—and old crocks too, of course—I wasn't much interested in things like that. Nor was Matt.

She said: “Validation of proverb? Everything comes to him who waits. Synchronicity.”

“This car is
yours
?”

She nodded. “Though for the moment why not say it's yours?”

To facilitate my inspection I'd deposited my luggage by a railing. Now I actually picked her up and did a pirouette upon the pavement. It reminded me of last Sunday morning:
Hey, why so physical?…He's acting pretty weird today.
I saw her face above me, laughingly responsive, with her red hair swinging and her slim arms wrapped about my shoulders; and she felt weightless—or extremely light. It must have been a full half-minute before, reluctantly, I set her down.

“Gracious!” she said.

“Your own fault, you shouldn't give me these surprises. You see, it was either that or flinging my ten-gallon hat in the air and swinging my lasso and firing my repeater. Yee-hee-ee-e-e! May I actually drive it?”

She now handed me the key ring. “It's quite a miracle you didn't lose it! What if it had flown from my fingers and gone skimming through a grating: your dream of a lifetime?”

“I should've sat down and cried.”

“Then it's a good job I was holding on.”

“My saviour. Will you marry me?”

It was a joke, of course, and she was joking too when she replied, but it gave me an instant of faint queasiness amidst my giddy exultation.

“No. Don't think so. I'd rather go on liking you.”

“Oh, very well. The right decision! Lets me off the hook.”

Three minutes later I had stowed the luggage—though with some difficulty, there being so little room—and handed her into the passenger seat. I settled myself at the steering wheel but felt in no hurry to start up. I ran my hands over the instrument panel. “If my friends could see me now…!”

“Sammy, get serious. Are they
ever
looking at any of the right moments? Say yes and you're deluding yourself.”

“Oh, you know something?” I exclaimed. “We
are
kindred spirits!”

“I think it's possible.”

“Yes! I knew it from the very minute you walked into the shop! Almost the very second!” I paused, savouring my intensity of happiness, holding the steering wheel like an eighteen-year-old who's just obtained his licence and is about to drive his first car out of the showroom: a gift from either the gods or from every kid's vision of the perfect daddy. “Didn't you know it, too?”

“Well, let's simply say, I liked the look of you.”

“Why? Why did you?”

“You looked strong.”

I sat there in a kind of virile silence.

“But at the same time vulnerable.” This was uttered in a tone of near-apology. “An endearingly lost and boyish air. No, not lost, perhaps. Questing. Innocent.”

“Oh, that's all right. I don't object to lost.” Now I did at last turn the key and start carefully to manoeuvre my way out. I had to let up a little on the virility bit. “Perhaps you ought to be doing this? How could I live with myself if I were to scrape or damage something?” But she expressed full confidence and soon I felt as much at home behind this steering wheel as I ever did behind my own. More at home maybe: it was my natural, dreamt-of, place: and presently all my instinctive caution had obediently done a bunk. “Thank God it isn't raining! A Morgan wouldn't be a Morgan without its roof drawn back. Do you think those clouds look threatening?”

“Yes.”

“They wouldn't dare, though, would they?”

“In fact, the forecast didn't sound too bad,” she said.

I glanced back at the sky. “Just listen to her, please!”

Then she did the directing. Her flat was in West Hampstead, in a converted house off Mill Lane, and though she had decided that we ought to go via Camden Town (“Land of the Dusty Old Gentlemen!”) she informed me there were several other ways of getting there.

“Like to Rome?” I asked. “And also heaven?” This struck me as quite apposite.

“Well, I wouldn't say that
all
roads lead to West End Green. I don't know about heaven.”

I braked for a pedestrian-crossing, although no one had as yet reached the kerb.

“That may be one thing we haven't got in common,” she said.

“What?”

“A belief in the hereafter.”

It was plain she'd taken me more seriously than I'd intended. I was about to set her straight when she continued. “That was a further impression I received in the shop: I mean, about your being religious.”

“Why on earth?”

“I'm not sure. Or perhaps it was that evening. Some little thing you must have said…”

“But in fact—”

“And paradoxically that was another part of the attraction you held for me. I envy those who can believe in God: their optimism, their basic serenity. When not crossed with bigotry, of course. Or with hypocrisy.”

We were driving on again but I was hardly aware of it.

“And that's the trouble, isn't it, Sammy? It's so often a case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.'” She paused. “But you appear to be the real thing. I'd say you're one of the best commercials on the market.”

I'd reverted to my virile silence; being at a complete loss about what otherwise to do.

Finally I murmured, “Yet haven't you faced the possibility I could be sailing under false colours?”

Oh but what the heck? Lighten up, Samuel. We were then driving round Trafalgar Square and I gave a familiar wave to Nelson and his lions. “I feel like a king,” I announced. “And I bet everybody's envying me. You—and the car—and the music…” I sang those final words.

“Do you want some music? You could certainly have some.”

“No. I shall continue to supply my own. ‘
If
they made me a king I'd still be a slave to you…'”

“King? Well, I don't know about that. But you're definitely a nutter. Albeit a nutter with a nice voice.”

“Just one thing missing,” I said.

“What?”

“I ought to be wearing my dinner jacket. Hey! Shall I hop out and get changed? Then they
would
call me a swell and no mistake.”

“
And
an exhibitionist, no doubt, if you did it on the pavement. But would a swell outweigh a king?”

“A royal swell. A swell royal. Whichever way you look at it…not to be sniffed at…and putting one in a position to do real good and make a difference to the world. And for what more could any man ask?” An idea occurred to me. “Hey! Let's not wait until tomorrow! Let's deck ourselves out—resplendently—tonight.”