The Naive and Sentimental Lover (33 page)

“Shamus I want to go.”

“Should have thought of that before, shouldn't you? I'm not a guest in your life, you know. I'm here to stay. I warned you, lover, don't say I didn't.”

“For God's sake, Shamus, they'll murder us.”

“No Chinese blood. A pure Caucasian lady. Okay I'll take your word for it. Now, will you stop that jiggering please and pay attention. Maybe you'd better have a drink?” he suggested, forcing Cassidy's hand against the wrist as he backed him into the bar.

Two tall and rather handsome elderly ladies offered refreshment to the afflicted. Cassidy wondered whether they were sisters.

“I don't want a drink.”

“Er, two homosexual whiskies please miss, one with milk and sugar.”

There were seats empty but Shamus preferred to stand.

“Tell us,” Shamus continued still addressing the sisters, “has a wee grey-headed body come in at all, about five foot two and sixty-five years of age, somewhat fragile of build, Aryan, wears pink shirts, answers to the name of Ella?”

The sisters, shoulder to shoulder, were smiling broadly at them both. They collected miniatures, Cassidy noticed; there were several hundred on the mirrored shelves behind them; Old Hugo, himself an aficionado, would be enchanted.

“
Tu es hollandais?
” one asked of Cassidy.

“
Anglais,
” said Cassidy.

“
Ella!
” Shamus called, cupping his hand like a lost mariner.
“Ella!”

“
Y'a pas d'Ella,
” a sister assured him.

 

With his free hand Cassidy paid for the drinks. They were ten francs each, he gave an extra ten, and when he had done so Shamus drew him close again, up and under.

“Don't you believe 'em,” Shamus advised him in an undertone. “They've got her hidden upstairs.” He drank. “
Mon ami s'appelle Rex,
” he announced proudly.

“
Il est
très
beau, Rex,
” the sisters assured him.

“
Ah, bon,
” the sisters cried in pleasure.
“Elle est ici sa mère?”
And looked round the room for a likely candidate.

“She never ran a pub, did she, lover?” Shamus asked, close to his ear. “You know those two dykes remind me very much—”

“Shut up,” said Cassidy. “Just shut up and get me out.”

The double curtains which gave on to the street parted. Three men, as dark as Shamus but smaller, entered and sat down at a table. The girls round the bar did not move. The sisters were smiling more broadly than ever.

“You're a
lovely
pair,” Shamus assured them, and having carefully finished his whisky, threw his glass on to the floor.

“Now I'll tell you what we'll do,” Shamus murmured, drawing him yet further inward until their faces were actually touching. “We'll take it
very
easy indeed, all right? No rushing, no jumping, no dramatics.”

“Couldn't we just pay them?” Cassidy whispered. “Honestly I don't mind. I'm sure they'd take cash instead.”

“You see, I know damn well what they're up to. Those two dykes there: look at their faces. Know what they are?
Kidnappers.
What they have done is
transform
—by means of
plastic surgery
you understand—they have with diabolical cunning
transformed
our Ella into a person of totally different appearance.”

“Shamus,” Cassidy said, using the name as a prayer.

“It's all right don't worry, we'll outwit them. I made a terrible mistake when I came in here,
declaring our interest,
that's all. Now don't say a word, keep moving.”

Bending Cassidy's wrist still further forward, using both hands to increase the pressure, he began walking the line of girls, brushing the bare backs of them one by one as he studied their white faces in the mirror.

“Drugged,” Shamus explained, in the same conspiratorial murmur. “Look at that, drugged to the gills, every one.”

He pulled back a head so that Cassidy could see her better: a German girl perhaps, strong teeth and blue eyes. Her lips parted in pain as Shamus held her hair.

“See?” he said, as if her silence only proved his point. “Listless. Stuffed, good as.”

He released the head. It bent forward again, into the mirror.

“What we have therefore is a
sleeping beauty
problem.”

A glass of something white, a cocktail probably, perhaps an advocaat, also a drink much favoured by Old Hugo at a certain period of his development, stood before her on the bar. Shamus drank it.

“Women,” he declared in the tone of a Dublin academic, “women whose natural loves have been extinguished by strong potions. Never mind, we shall conquer yet. What mother on earth would fail to recognise the kiss of her own beloved son? Would not open her eyes and cry—” For his female impersonation he required a lot of volume:

Taking the girl's hand, he offered it to Cassidy and the girl came with it, trying to relieve the pressure.

“Here, take it,” he invited. “Would not with her g-narl-ed fingers forage in the copious petticoats for a wee fondle of the familiar organ, eh Cassidy?”

Still holding her hand, he savagely swung her round on her stool. Two dull eyes, black-lidded, peered at them expressionlessly, first at Cassidy for help, then at Shamus for information.

“
Tu veux?
” she enquired.

“Now,” Shamus urged. “Kiss her! Kiss her, call her mother!
Ella,
Aldo is
here!
Rex has come home to
Mrs. Oedipus.
”

Abruptly stooping, Shamus buried his head in her bare shoulder, black on white like an advertisement.

 

For a moment it seemed as if the girl would accept him. Forced forward, one hand lifted to touch him, she watched him curiously as he pastured on her flesh. Suddenly her body stiffened. Fighting loose from him she let out a sharp cry of pain, seized his hair, and with her other hand—the fingernails, Cassidy noticed, were chewed quite low—hit him, splitting his lip.

“It's worked!” Shamus cried. “We have
impact,
Cassidy! We have reaction!” Standing back, one finger to his bleeding lip, he proudly surveyed his assailant. “It's her! It's Ella! She wants
you
not me. Her Aldo! Go on, lover. Just a little peck, that's all.”

The lights went out, three torches shone at them, and a man was talking politely in French.

“They want us to follow the torches,” Cassidy explained.

 

The taxi was waiting at the curb. They helped Shamus in first and Cassidy followed. He gave them a hundred francs.

“For God's sake!” Shamus shouted. “Why didn't they hit us?”

That's a very nice place, thought Cassidy, that's the nicest place I've ever been to, and if I can remember how to find it I shall go back and apologise and offer those sisters the chalet.

“The
girl
hit you,” he said, consolingly.

“Jesus, who cares about a woman?”

 

“Shamus, for pity's sake tell me what's the matter with you?”

“There's a place called Lipp's,” said Shamus. “They'll hit me there all right, it's a writer's haven. Lipp's,” he told the driver, his eye already on the radio.

“Shamus,
please.
”

“Shut up.”

“It's to do with Dale. You rang him for hours, I saw the messages and everything.”

“If I wanted,” Shamus promised him in his most detached voice, holding Cassidy's handkerchief to his mouth, “I would kill you. You know that don't you, lover?”

“Lipp,” Cassidy repeated to the driver hopelessly.
“Brasserie Lipp.”

“I keep you alive for one reason only: because you are a reader. You realise that, I trust. Being a prole, you are the commercial hinterland of my genius. Know what Luther said?”

“What did Luther say?” Cassidy asked wearily.

“He said, if I were Christ, and the world had done to me what it has done to Him, I'd kick the beastly thing to pieces!”

“But Shamus,” Cassidy asked, gently, when Shamus had more or less settled again, “what
has
the world done to you?”

Shamus seemed about to say something serious. He stared at Cassidy, at the blood on the handkerchief, at the passing lights, opened his split mouth as if to speak, closed it again, and sighed. “Holy God,” he said at last, “it's filled itself with halfbreeds like you.”

They had eaten once already that evening, a fact which Shamus had apparently forgotten. Cassidy was in no mood to remind him. The son of an hotelier and innumerable mothers had learnt long ago that there was no better sedative than good plain food, served hot.

 

Dining at the Brasserie Lipp, Shamus was quiet and conciliatory.

He stroked Cassidy's arm, vouchsafed him small, erratic smiles, gave the waiter ten francs from Cassidy's wallet, and generally by word and deed showed signs of regaining his lighter, affectionate mood. Observing this, Cassidy deemed it wise to take command of the conversation until the good Burgundy and the soothing, old-world atmosphere of the restaurant had completed the process of recovery.

“A writer's haven eh?” he said. “Well I'm not surprised. It's just the place not to be recognised. Can you point any out?” he asked, with a suitably conspiratorial reverence. “Any in
your
bracket, are there Shamus?”

Shamus looked round. A heavy middle-aged couple, eating slowly and apparently without implements, returned his stare. A pretty girl, out with her boyfriend, blushed, and the boy turned and scowled at Shamus, who put his thumb to his nose.

“My
bracket,
” he repeated. “No I don't think so. There's Sartre over in the corner—” Rising, he bowed gravely to a gnomic, mottled gentleman of about eighty-five. “—but I think we can reasonably say I outgun Jean Paul. Has Monsieur Homer come in yet?” he asked the waiter, with that effortless complicity which Cassidy now took for granted.

“Homer.
Omer.
Old Greek with a long white beard, looks like Father Christmas. Poof.”

“
Non, monsieur,
” the waiter regretted.
“Pas ce soir.”
A ghost of a smile, too fleeting for disrespect, enlivened his elderly features.

“Well, there you are,” Shamus said pleasantly, with a resigned shake of the head. “Quiet night I'm afraid. Boys all at home.”

“Shamus,” said Cassidy, holding with difficulty to his policy of breezy small talk, “about my soul.”

“I thought you'd had it out,” said Shamus.

A burst of laughter issued suddenly from the kitchen.

“No truly. Listen lover. I really do think I'm redeemable, don't you? Now, I mean. Since I met you. I don't think it's a hopeless quest any more, looking for it, do you? I know I'm reluctant. I've got a lot of bad habits but, well you have shown me the way, haven't you?” Receiving no encouragement, he added, “After all, there must be
something
there.”

Shamus was playing with the water jug, dipping his finger and watching the drops fall.

“Well don't you think so? Come on.”

“I am the light,” said Shamus. “I am the light and the way. Follow me and you will end
on your arse,
” and reaching out, turned Cassidy's face upwards and sideways, adjusting it for closer examination.

“Shamus don't . . .” said Cassidy.

“You know what you radiate, don't you? The nasty allure of an undiscovered absolute. Every poor fool who picks you up thinks he's your first friend. What they don't realise is, you were born with your legs crossed. Penetration,” he concluded, carelessly releasing him, “can never take place.”

A merciful waiter brought them food.

“I've never told you,” said Cassidy, helping Shamus to vegetables, filling his glass, and trying now by every means to win him back from his state of hostile melancholy. “I've always been a bit dotty about writers ever since I was at school. I used to write short stories in bed after lights. I even won prizes. Hey what about that?”—with a brave if somewhat synthetic effort at enthusiasm—“Why don't I make a stab at it? Give up the firm, give up Sandra, give up my money, waste away in a garret . . . be like Renoir.”

“It wasn't Renoir. It was Gauguin.”

“Perhaps I'd make it . . . starve the talent out of me . . .”

Shamus had gone back to the water jug, was trailing his finger back and forth over the surface the way they had played with the sticklebacks by the river. A little resentfully, Cassidy said—it was a point he had made to Sandra not long ago—“Well if I
am
so bloody empty, why do you bother with me anyway?”

“Tell me, lover,” Shamus said, very seriously, lifting the jug an inch or two off the table. “Is that smile waterproof?”

Standing up, he began pouring the water slowly over Cassidy's head, starting with a slowish trickle directed at the crown, then gradually increasing the quantity as the mood took him. Cassidy sat very still, thinking clearly about absolutely nothing; for nothing is also a concept, being neither a place nor a person but a blank, a vacuum and a tremendous help in time of trouble. He did however record that the water was running over his neck and down his spine. He did also feel it spreading over his chest, his stomach, and into his groin. His ears were full of water too, but he knew that the conversation in the restaurant had stopped because he could hear Shamus' voice and no one else's and the brogue was very strong.