He called for more brandy, as if these recollections threatened to swamp his new-found heart. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘I just felt sorry to see this bloke, and stopped my rotten old car that I was so proud to be in.’
‘You did well though, helping William Hay. That part of me has snuffed it. For ever, I hope.’
‘Here’s to you, then,’ I said, sipping the best brandy.
‘I’ve got a good job now, Michael. Travelling. I’ve become an experienced traveller in the last few months. I’ve been to the Middle East. I’ve been over the North Pole. I’ve been all over Europe. Mind you, I earn every penny of it. I’ll tell you that for a start. Every bloody penny that gets stashed into my bank is earned by the sweat of my brow. That’s why I have to eat two or three big meals a day. I’ve got to stay strong and full of energy for the work I do, otherwise I might break down, and that’d be no good at all, because then I’d lose my job, and worse. It’s not an easy life, even though I do look well and prosperous. In fact, in some ways it’s the hardest bloody job I’ve ever done, but it pays well.’ He cackled: ‘It pays well, I will say that for it.’
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but I was all avidity to find out. The place was emptying, and he suggested that we go for a stroll. He had to walk five miles every day when he wasn’t working, to keep himself trim for when he was. ‘I have to eat a lot and walk a lot,’ he laughed, as we went out through the door, bowed at by the manager after William had insisted on paying my bill.
‘You’re not a bad walker yourself,’ said William, when we had reached the inner circle of Regent’s Park, as if he were putting me through some kind of test. ‘I’ll take it on trust that you’re a good eater.’ I felt we’d come too far already, and didn’t exactly see the point of planing one’s feet off in this way. I wasn’t hungry for praise about my standards of endurance either, so began to think of cutting back to town. ‘What we’ll do,’ he said, ‘is veer towards Baker Street, and go down through Victoria to Battersea, then you can pick up your case before we cross the river.’
‘You do this every day?’ I said. Though he kept up a killing rate he didn’t seem the least bit tired or ruffled, could have looked to any passer-by as if he’d just stepped out of a taxi, and was only walking a few hundred yards before getting where he wanted to be.
‘You have to look like a gentleman,’ he said, ‘yet be very tough in your fibres. That was dinned into me, during training.’
‘What training?’ I asked, a faint regret now at the different standards of our appearance.
‘Training. The first week they thought they’d never get me out of my old life. But after that I caught on so quickly that the man in the iron lung was amazed. I always was a slow starter, but that’s what makes me good in the end. There’s many of those chaps (and women, mind you) who’ve latched on with beautiful speed, but often they’re the first to crack. That’s what the Lung says, and I quite believe him. He’s got many a tale to tell, has that pasty-faced bastard.’
‘It all sounds Swahili to me. Besides, I’m hungry. We must have done four miles already. Let’s go into the next place for something to eat.’
He stopped and bent down, lifting the bottom of his left trouser-leg and unclipping his suspenders so that he could roll his sock. Attached to the inside of his ankle was a multi-coloured watchface, a pedometer, I supposed, after he’d spoken. ‘Three and a quarter,’ he said, doing himself up coolly, and carrying on the walk. ‘I wear this just to see that I don’t cheat myself.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, ‘I’m bloody famished. I could still do with an ox-eye on toast.’
‘Ah!’ he laughed. ‘Your belly’s groaning for grub already. If you aren’t careful we’ll take you on. There’s allus room for a new hand. But I can’t go into this crummy bar. Let’s find a more decent place lower down. That’s part of my job, too. A gentleman can’t be seen in a pig-bin like that.’
‘I’d like to know what you’re up to.’
‘I can’t even light a cigar as I walk along. But it’s all good discipline, and that’s healthy for any man, being made to do something that your system kicks against. You’re able to see a lot in life, and what more can you want than that? You might think I’m talking a bit overmuch, but that’s also part of the training. You have to be able to embark on a sea of diverting and intelligible talk at the drop of a hat, because a man who talks is always less suspicious that one who can only look dumb and stand with his trap shut. You’ve got to say the right thing, and say it with confidence. No stammer or foot-shifting, or they’re on to you right away. Those airport bastards don’t think twice about tipping your pockets up if your left eyelid seems a bit out of place.’
We went into a respectable fodder bar on Wigmore Street, and sat down for a few choice dishes. ‘So you’re a smuggler?’ A plum-coloured flush went down his cheek. ‘You’re worse than the man I took you for.’
‘We never use that word where I come from. I’m a company director, a travelling gentleman involved in the export trade.’
‘Sorry, William.’
‘You’ll have to curb your big mouth, that’s the first thing. Until you do that you’ll get nowhere.’
‘Christ,’ I said, making a cut so that the yellow middle of the egg ran all over my toast, ‘everybody I meet makes it his job to teach me something.’
William forked into his cake. ‘You were born lucky, in that case. Make sure you take ’em up on it. Otherwise you’re throwing your luck away. I’m no fool, Michael, though I have been, so listen to me, and learn all you can from everybody. You didn’t learn much at school, I suppose. That means you were bright. You were too full of understanding to bother with what they had to tell you. But all that’s behind you now. You got through it without too much bother. They didn’t succeed in training you either for a prison or a factory. But now you’ve got to listen to people who try to teach you something, because they aren’t teachers. They do it out of the goodness of their hearts, as one human to another, and they get nothing out of it. That’s like gold, so for God’s sake don’t scoff at it.’
I’d never known him so serious. ‘All right, but I still have to pick and choose about what I want to learn.’
‘Admitted, but only after you’ve taken it in. Come on, eat up. We’ve got our walk to finish. I know you eat fairly quickly, but you’ll have to do better than that. A slow eater is a slow thinker, and slow thinking wouldn’t be much good to me. Above all, you have to look calm and think quick, otherwise your goose is cooked, whether it’s Christmas or not.’
His flat was quiet and out of the way, more in Clapham than Battersea, and I was there a few weeks before being introduced to the man in the iron lung. Out of gratitude and friendship (I didn’t consider I’d earned it, though William, who had an exaggerated conscience in some things, thought that I had) he gave me the run of the place. This meant spending much time on my own, because every few days he went away on a trip.