The Old Man and Me (2 page)

Oh damn. Something would have to be done. He was my one hope. I’d have to offer to buy him a drink.

I had stepped forward when an unexpectedly hard bump jolted my arm and flung both my drink and my handbag to the ground. Stooping down to retrieve them I came face to face with a short red-faced man.

“I say, I’m sorry.” His smile quickly slipped into a quaver. He handed me back my bag and glass, now of course empty, and then he said, “Thank you!” in that baffling way the English have upon completing an act of politeness you would logically be expected to thank them for, like giving up their seat on a bus or helping you on with your coat.

“You’re welcome,” I replied anyway.

It had a startling effect on him.

“You’re welcome? Yurr wa-alcome?” He caricatured an American drawl. “A Yank, eh?”

“Why yes. How did you know?”

“
You’re welcome.
We simply don’t say it over here.”

“What do you say?”

“We doan say nothin’. We jes’ skip it.” And holding his pint aloft, his elbow pointing straight out, he took a large swig of his beer.

I now realized what had caused the handbag-and-glass incident for this elbow-in-the-air style of drinking immediately sloshed the drink in his neighbour’s hand.

I decided to go to work on him. I needed all the help I
could get.

“That’s fascinating about ‘you’re welcome.’ How clever of you to have spotted it. You must be a writer.”

“Well, yes. Or perhaps no. I’m a journalist. I work for the
Piccadilly
. Very posh picture rag.”

“Oh, yes. I read it all the time.” I did. I read all the magazines and papers I could get, vainly hoping to come across some mention of C. D. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Hal Smithers. Smitty,” he added as if hating it.

“As a matter of fact I remember an article you wrote. It was very interesting. I liked it very much.”

He shrugged it off. “Nothing to it. Get an angle. All you need’s a gimmick. Or a gismo as they say Stateside, heh, heh. Now what about you? What’s a lovely girl like you doing here? Bumming around. I believe that’s the elegant American expression?”

I was taking against Smitty fast. But then I realized from his defensive manner that he probably expected to be disliked and I really disliked him too much to do what he expected. So I persevered.

“Not at all. I’m looking for a job. In fact,” I said, thinking to win him over, “I need one.”

“A-
ha
. The Career Girl. The typical hard-boiled I-know-where-I’m-going American career girl.”

“No,” I corrected him soberly. “A working girl.”

I felt his antagonism drop, and with it—and this really confused me—his interest. Even in the dark cool atmosphere I could feel him cooling off.

“I’ll...um...get you that drink I spilled,” he said backing away. “What was it, beer?”

So there was no pleasing him. So the hell with it. “Scotch and soda,” I replied calmly and he slunk off to get it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that a girl was watching me. She smiled as he left.

“Tried to make an impression but I’m not doing too well, am I?” I said to her.

“Heavens, do you really want to?” She was an attractive-looking girl with a warm smile. And then the vagrant shaft of sunlight settled on her head and transformed her into a real beauty; a
dappled girl with dappled eyes, all flecks and freckles and soft brown hair shining silver in the sun. And best of all she looked so clean and starched and freshly laundered against the grime. It was such a friendly face, holding out such hope. My angel of the sun-shaft. And oh, I thought, you are in time to save my life.

“I mean do you really want to impress Smitty?” she was asking incredulously. “Why?”

“Well, for one thing, so he’ll pay for my drinks.”

“Then you’re going about it in the wrong way.”

“Because I said I wanted a job?”

“Wronger. You said you needed one.”

“Well I thought he’d prefer me poor to rich. You know, we rich Americans and all that.”

“Oh no. You’ve got it all wrong. The main point about this lot is that they’re probably the snobbiest in the world. The shabbier the snobbier. Or so my dear husband keeps assuring me. So if you want to get anywhere with them you’d better stop being poor.”

“So what’ll I be?”

She thought for a moment. “An heiress,” she said. “It’s all right, you know. They’ll believe anything.”

Smitty came back and handed me my drink. “Cheers,” he said and took a handsome swig of his own, automatically turning around to see what damage his elbow had caused. “I say, Dody, sorry. Didn’t see you standing there.” Then he introduced me to the girl I’d been talking with.

“This is Dody Schooner,” he said. I registered the Schooner immediately and wondered if she was anything to do with the angry Schooner of last night.

“And by the way, what’s your name?” he asked me.

“Honey Flood,” I heard myself saying out of the blue. And the lying had started.

“What brings you out so early?” Smitty asked Dody. “You and Scotty don’t generally turn up till much later on at night.”

Dody leaned against the wall elaborately languid. “Me? I haven’t any better place to go. Not for the moment. Have you? Do let me know if you find one.” Quite suddenly her face had become strained and there were tears in her eyes.

“So he wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to India!” It burst out of me before I could stop myself.

She looked at me. “That’s very interesting,” she said quietly. “And what did you say your name was again?”

“Honey Flood. But look, I only met your husband for a second for the very first time last night. Only he mentioned something about going to India and he was awfully drunk at the time and I didn’t believe it. I thought he was just talking.”

“He was just talking all right but he’s gone to India too all right. That’s why I’m here. To annoy him. He hates Soho so
much he hates it more than anything in the world except me of course. And the electric fire in our bedroom. And the tea break at Shepperton Studios. And...oh I forget...the list is so endless.” Her voice was skidding out of control in the most alarming manner. “The Soho game is up, you see, that’s what he keeps saying. And then there’s this girl of course, this Indian girl. I really would give a lot to annoy him. Excuse me.” The tears were unstoppable. “Don’t go away, please, I’ll be back,” she called over her shoulder as Smitty and I watched her work her way to the john.

“Well,” he said lamely after a while. “Hope you find yourself a job.”

I came in with a rush. I looked him straight in the eye and gave him my pitch. “I must stop lying,” I said. “My doctor says it’s bad for me. I’m not really looking for a job. The truth is I’m in England because I’m recovering from a nervous breakdown. They thought I’d have a better chance starting fresh over here. Away from the pressures. I’m being psychoanalysed as a matter of fact. It’s not
not
having enough money that’s the trouble. I’ve got to face that. It’s, oh dear. It’s having too much. It can be just as upsetting.”

“Yeah.” He nodded wisely. “Just a crazy mixed-up kid, eh?” he added in what—had my tale been true—would certainly have been the bad-taste phrase of the century, “I say, this is fascinating. Where are you staying in London?”

I gave him the name of my hotel, saw by his reaction that it was by no means an O.K. one and added with agility, “It’s part of my cure. From having too much money. I’m to try to live like an ordinary person, for a time.”

As Dody predicted he swallowed it whole. “Drink up,” he said. “I’ll buy us another round.”

“Oh please let me.”

“Don’t be silly.” He was firm.

“Okie dokes.”

“
Okie dokes
.” He shook his head. “Wunnerful. You crazy cats.”

While he was gone Dody returned looking all pretty again. “Don’t pay any attention to me today,” she said. “I’ve gone a little mad. I’m over the worst of it, I think.”

“It worked,” I crowed. “It worked. I am an heiress and he’s fallen for it and I can’t thank you enough.”

“What are you up to? I’m so intrigued.” Her eyes were glowing. Aha, I thought, here is a moon-girl—I knew the type well from school—a moon-girl travels around in orbit reflecting her particular sun of the moment. And in her eye a silvery tear, a pale moonstone dissolved down her cheek. But she was smiling with interest.

“It’s too long a story to go into now,” I told her, “but if I haven’t met a certain Englishman soon
my
Soho game will be all over too.”

“Oh—can I help?” That said something about her character too. Something useful to me. The sisterhood of women. For there had been that moment’s suspicion over me and her husband but it had passed. And she trusted me.

Smitty was coming over to us. And so—wonder of all—was Bollie, the Prime Object. “Why didn’t you come for your sitting yesterday, Dody?” he complained. “I waited hours. I wouldn’t have got out of bed at all if I’d known you weren’t. As it turned out it was a great mistake. Nearly broke my neck over the milk bottles in the passageway.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dody. “I wanted to telephone you but Alex said he didn’t think you had one.”

“Ooooooh!” Bollie let out a scream like a siren. “Of
course
Alex wouldn’t give you my telephone number. He’s madly jealous that’s why. The other day when C. D. McKee—my dear—C. D.—Hello my dear. How are you feeling this afternoon?”

Quite suddenly he had spoken to me. At last.

“I’m fine,” I replied and I slithered up beside him. “Look you’re a painter so maybe you can help me,” I began, wasting no time, “I want to buy some paintings while I’m over here. Preferably new artists—unknowns. You know how prices skyrocket once an artist’s reputation is made in New York. What are the good galleries? I don’t know where to start.” There, that ought to strike the right tone: rich and gullible.

“You’ve come to the right person. I’ll begin by steering you away from the bogus ones. Freddie Baron’s for instance. Don’t even stop to fix your hair in his window. He really is the most awful fraud and a crook to boot. Specialises in studies of children sucking their toes. That sort of thing.”

“My round next I suppose,” sighed Bollie straightening up to face it. “Has anyone got a fag? Gold Flake—Smithers, dear chap, how very rough and ready.”

I caught Dody’s eye. It was apparent that there was no love lost between these two old friends. Yet neither was going to leave. And all because of lil ole me.

“Now you won’t, promise me you won’t
dream
of doing the galleries by yourself,” Bollie was imploring me. “They’ll only cheat you. You must let me take you round myself. They all
know
me, you see. They wouldn’t dare pull a fast one with me around.”

“Oh would you? Oh gosh, I’d appreciate it,” I gushed.

“She is pretty, isn’t she,” he said of me, cocking his head to one side. “She looks so like Rosemary Smite-Oakes it’s uncanny. Of course now Rosie’s become Lady—”

“To the duchess!” shouted Smitty suddenly raising his tankard, his elbow perkier and more dangerous than ever.

“Which duchess?” Bollie looked at him with suspicion.

“
Any
duchess,” replied Smitty, smiling maliciously.

“Oh. I thought you meant Lucinda. She was around with John Huston not long ago. He was off to dine at Wheeler’s. He was telling us...”

“Hey, what about eating?” I said. I was starving.

“This place’s got a restaurant upstairs. Good cheap food,” said Smitty. “What’s wrong with it?” he wanted to know as Bollie began his eye-rolling again.

“Nothing if you’ve got a nasty cold.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I give up,” said Smitty in exasperation. “I couldn’t care less where or what we eat. I’ve got to get back to the office to correct my proofs in a couple of hours anyway. What about you, Dody? Any place you fancy around here?”

“I’m awful at choosing. My mind goes blank. Let Honey decide. After all, she’s the guest.”

I turned to Bollie. He was my man. It was from his lips I had first heard the fatal name of McKee. “Where would
you
like to go? Where would we be most likely to see interesting people?” I asked him. “I’m still a tourist.”

“There’s only one place
everyone
goes,” said our social arbiter decisively. “The Truite Bleue. Unfortunately I’m a bit low on funds this evening.”

“Then upstairs it is,” cut in Smitty.

“No, no,” I broke in risking all. “Please. And it’s on me. I’m one of those rich Americans, you know. I can afford it.”

From my very first glimpse of the battered neon trout sign that hung outside the entrance with its fish-eye winking and sputtering and every now and then slowly dying away, the Truite Bleue impressed me with its air of frank senility. Passing through the shabby entrance hall and coming upon a cubicle in which a few coat-hooks and hat-shelves had been improvised I started to hand my coat over to an old trout-shaped waiter who had been standing there staring into space but at that precise moment another more attractive action presented itself to him and he teetered off out of my reach to grope among the hats for his glass of beer. My coat, suspended in midair, fell to the ground; it was nonetheless three full sips later before he bothered to pick it up. You had to admire that kind of professional slackness.

We walked through one room of the restaurant and into another, which though of identical size and squalor Bollie insisted on remaining in. We were shown to a table and sat down. The dilapidation surrounding us was extraordinary. The walls were a rich Rembrandt brown-soup colour, the ceiling a yellow scrubbed-in-mud tin composition imprinted with a delicate tracery of
a fleur-de-lys pattern just discernible through the dirt. As with most rooms without windows and a kitchen nearby, the atmosphere was hot and stuffy. In a corner a clumsy old-fashioned iron fan had been thoughtfully turned on but, as it was tipped inches too high to be of any functional value, the only thing it cooled was an overhanging light fixture on the ceiling dressed up in red tassels which swung crazily about under its full blast. As a matter of fact all the lighting fixtures in the room were of a fascinating eccentricity of period and style. The wall brackets above us, broken and askew, appeared to have been shot off in some Wild West saloon brawl.

The waiters looked as if they’d staggered out of an old dark hole. They creaked and wobbled and limped and trembled under their loads, their turkey-gobbler necks rising pink from their stiff wing collars. They rattled and shuffled to and fro groaning, “
Y’en a plus!
” in hoarse strangled Cockney-French to customers’ requests, laughing toothlessly at the very idea of their clients’ presumption. And yet, looking around, I saw that the restaurant was crowded with contented-looking people. In spite of everything they were eating with gusto. No doubt about it, the place had atmosphere. The genuinely old-fashioned bad service that was being meted out impartially was instantly recognizable as the real thing: a subtle sophisticated Old World incompetence we Americans can never hope to emulate, the best our rustic efforts can produce being a superficial smart-alec surliness not to be spoken of in the same breath as this lofty disdain which was both thoughtful and thorough and would not disintegrate suddenly under a pleading word, a plaintive gesture, or a large tip. These waiters were hand-picked for pleurisy, deafness, and a variety of speech defects. They were flushed of skin, gnarled of hand. The dishes that jumped on to the floor from their palsied hands were never referred to again, as it were, but just lay there for the rest of the evening to be ground under foot by passers-by.

I studied the menu. It was full of things that made my antiseptic American palate squeam. Tête de veau?...Boudin?...(“What’s
that
?” I asked. “Blood sausage,” said Bollie. “Oh.”) Tripe à la mode de Caen?...(“Never mind how it’s made, no thank you anyway.”) Fried sweetbreads?...Fried brains?...Sautéed kidneys?...Stuffed heart?...(“
Y’en a plus!
”)...Well, what about a rabbit stew? Yuk! What about the trout? I’d just seen it plopped into a plate at a neighbouring table with its head on. Even besides the head and fish-eye there seemed far too much detail to it. It looked far too realistic.

“Hurry up, loove, haven’t got all day,” teased Smitty. “We should have stayed at the Crypt.”

“You all order first, please,” I said. “I’m deciding.”

I searched around the restaurant to see what other people were eating that didn’t look so very much like itself.

And so at last it came about that there, directly opposite me against the Rembrandt-coloured wall, my gaze landed upon a Rembrandt-looking man smiling lovingly at me with a pair of merry blue eyes. The moment, so initially intense, continued to intensify itself until it seemed frozen in space, apart from all the other moments that went before it, prickling my spine, reaching up into my mind and splitting it asunder, causing it to skid about arguing with itself. “
It isn’t; it can’t be
—” was my first thought. “
But you knew it; you predicted it
,” was the answer. “
That’s why you must be wrong
.” And back over it again. For the man I was looking at wasn’t the terrible-tempered ogre I’d expected from the photographs and descriptions: was it merely my own fearful imagination that had misled me to the false image of precise attire and a sneer instead of the reality of a crumpled collar and a delightful leer?

The man looking at me was in his late fifties. Stout and rumpled. Comfortably cushioned. Grey-haired, with a lock that fell across his forehead. A fleshy sensual mouth and a podgy mobile nose. A good coarse face full of robust health and a lustiness one could tell at a glance owed nothing to outdoor life. And those blue eyes—but they were exactly the colour of mine! Not taking his love-glance off me he began talking to his companion. I saw his plump well-padded paws, the fingers lying quietly together like mittens, move forward and sort of hug himself while he sat there still smiling at me as if I were the best thing he’d ever seen in his life. He looked so—what was it that gave him his irresistible charm? He looked so
accessible
. That was it. A great simple truth struck me with surprise: charm is availability. How had I ever thought otherwise?

“Who is that—just across from us?” My voice sounded funny, as if I hadn’t used it for a long time.

“Well I’ll be damned,” said one of them. “There’s C. D. McKee.”

I felt myself calm, almost passive now that it had happened, watching objectively the others shifting around into position to get a good look. C. D. and the man he was with looked back. And then everyone fell to recognizing everyone else. Especially McKee. First, very pointedly, he took his eyes away from mine and bestowed upon each of us a special attention that registered like a rating: a kindly, tolerant, somewhat reminiscent smile for Bollie; a softer, more courtly one for Dody; and then—something I’d never seen before—his face unchanging, still wearing the same expression, the leftover one from Dody—he let his eyes flicker past Smitty so that, while the impression remained friendly, the impact was that of a direct cut. Finally, as if to underline it all, he came back to me again, allowing his face to break into a series of dazzling and worshipful glances. The whole performance was masterly. I smiled back my applause. Well done. Got it. Every nuance.

We resumed our foursome. The meal got ordered. God knows what I ate or what it tasted like. Bollie and Smitty picked up the conversation with redoubled energy, McKee’s presence in the room stimulating them to even dizzier heights of anecdote. Dody renewed her attack on her husband. The man with C. D. was someone Scotty had forbidden her to like because he was a snob and a member of White’s or something, but as a matter of fact why shouldn’t she and she was deciding right now to like him anyway. He was giving a party next week and they’d been invited and Scotty had said he wouldn’t be seen dead at it. So she was going. Then, with Bollie’s Stately Homes still tumbling down around us, Smitty turned quite serious and professional and
confided to me that he’d been trying to approach C. D. for the past year to interview him for a series of articles for his magazine.

“Oh and I want to meet him,” I declared passionately, “I simply must!”

“Whatever for?” Dody looked at me in amazement. “I mean apart from the thrill of pure terror that runs through me at the sight of him I don’t get his point. I mean he doesn’t do anything, does he? What did he do anyway? I always forget.”

“He’s had many lives,” said Bollie. “He’s what’s known as a Significant Figure. He was a poet once, did you know? Several distinguished vols of verse long ago. Then there was the madly revered Oxford-don-of-staggering-intellect period. Philosophy I think. Of course. He was the School of Philosophy. Fellow of Christ Church and all that. And following upon its heels a Brigadier General if you please during the last war. A disastrous scuffle with big business. A rich wife. A widower. Patron of the Arts. Very generous. He doesn’t have to do anything, silly child, he simply is.”

“It’s the Brigadier General part that interests me,” said Smitty. “It’s for a series of profiles, Famous Faces that Saved England. From what, ha, ha. Dear old-fashioned World War II is all the rage now. Nostalgia. What really happened at Invergordon when the Fleet mutinied. The Fleet if you please. And foot soldiers and all that lark. Anyway rumour runs that the old boy across from us single-handed broke the Jap naval code so all the Allies knew what our little yellow brothers were up to way before they did. He was a bright bloke, McKee, I’ll give you that. I think it’s a shame he’s gone to seed playing at idle rich.”

“Well I don’t care. I think he’s a horror,” insisted Dody.

“How long since you last saw him?” asked Bollie. “I assure you he’s altered so in the past year you’d scarcely recognize him. Positively mellow, my dear. Not a trace of the old irascibility. Sad in a way.”

“Not for the rest of the world,” said Dody. “Every time I’ve run across him at a party he’s been in the middle of some awful remark. I once overheard—well, overheard is hardly the word his voice carries so—I once heard him advising someone to get rid of his wife if he wanted to be taken up by the right people. He wasn’t joking. Can you imagine? The spite and malice. I think he’s a dangerous nut. Like my husband,” she added bitterly.

He was still smiling at me from across his table. I smiled back. I was beginning to feel his danger and excitement. “He is a nut,” I said exultantly, “and I am a nutcracker. I am going to crack him! Well, why not?” I added calming down. “I mean he’s got the reputation for being a lady’s man, hasn’t he?”

“How would you know that?” asked Smitty. “I thought he was strictly an English product. Home-grown. I shouldn’t have thought his special kind of snob-appeal had travelled across the ocean.”

“As a matter of fact I’ve been interested in him ever since I read one of his books of poetry. We do have books in America you know. It was beautiful.”

“Well, you may be right,” said Smitty doubtfully. “I hope you are. Maybe I can sell my series to some Yank paper.”

And then, I suppose, we continued eating. Luckily I was seated next to Smitty. I leaned over to him. “You do want to talk to him about it, don’t you?”

“Rather.”

“I think I can arrange it.”

“I think you can too. He’s really giving you the eye.”

“O.K. Leave it to me. Only watch the progress of our meal so that he doesn’t leave before us.”

“Rightyho. No fear. We’ll skip the coffee if necessary.”

It wasn’t. C. D. had no intention of leaving before us. He lingered and lingered; drinking his brandy and drinking in me.

We finished the meal. We were ready to go. The waiter, being no fool, presented Smitty with the check. I offered to pay it. I caught him hesitating for a minute and then decide against it. Too tricky in front of C. D. So he let me off the hook and we got up to go. Bollie and Dody walked through the restaurant, paused to pay their respects to C. D., and walked on. I pulled Smitty back pretending to have mislaid my purse so that the coast would be clear. I checked my face in my pocket mirror and wet my lips to make them glisten. C. D.’s eyes were on me again, practically rolling me up to his side. I took a deep breath. Give, I told myself, with evvverrrrrything you’ve got. I advanced the necessary steps and parked myself right smack in front of him. He rose. Smitty poked around from behind me and quickly spoke his piece. They’d met several times. Mr. McKee wouldn’t remember. At a Whitechapel Gallery exhibition last. Ah, yes. Well, he Smithers was a journalist on the so on and so forth and doing a series called and so on and so forth and most anxious if McKee could spare the time for a few minutes chat with him—just a half-hour would do—at his home if possible to get the atmosphere, that sort of nonsense, for our readers, you know? C. D. looked down at the table-cloth. It was a tense moment for us all. Then he looked up again and speaking slowly and with an incredibly musical voice he said that it probably could be arranged. Mr.—Smithers was it? was to telephone him in the morning. “And?” he continued, his eyes sliding over to me, his musical voice rising up into an insistent question mark. “And?”

“Oh. Oh, Miss Flood. Allow me to present Miss Flood. Just over from the States.”

“How do you do, my dear?” C. D. asked me, gravely offering his paw.

“Hello,” I answered as gravely, taking it, and we smiled at each other as if sharing some private joke. Abruptly he switched and began quizzing me. Was it my first time in England? Yes. How did I like it? Oh, fine. Hmmm. There was a faint withdrawal, a faint frown. Yes, I had disappointed him, he had expected more. And what did I think of this restaurant? he continued almost sternly: “Like eating in a dining car en route to Lyons, wasn’t it?”

I looked around in panic. The eerie yellow low voltage electricity combined with the long narrow shape of the room and the swaying light fixture with its peculiar handkerchief-covering fluttering in the iron fan’s breeze certainly gave off an atmosphere of old trains at night. But Lyons? Christ, I’d never been out of America. Then a waiter, eight clacking coffee-cups balanced on a tray on one arm, a purple-stained napkin under his other, swerved unexpectedly close to me. I backed away as a flash of one-two-three studs on his shirt front loomed in front of me and then sighed with relief as, with a whirl of his shabby swallow tails, he spun away from me, neatly avoiding disaster by some very fancy manoeuvring of his game leg. It was terrible, all I could think of was that religious movie short I’d seen a couple of days before. “It’s more like Miracle Day at Lourdes,” I heard myself say.