And a lot more such bilge. But she loved it — or so she led me to believe by the serious cut of her lips and her stare at the little black tape recorder. Straight into the horse’s mouth, they put it on the overseas programme as well. I invited her to lunch at my club and, two nights later, put on my topee and set out for dinner at her house on Grapevine Terrace in Richmond. The dugout canoe nearly sank crossing the Thames, so I was a bit late. I didn’t even want to make love when I got there, but I did, as always, because I knew of no other way of getting to know women. But after making love I was never any nearer to knowing them than I had been before, except in a few cases where the uninhibited response of the woman not too long afterwards was one of absolute rancour. Then the relationship had the virtue of becoming lively. Margery Doldrum had made the first move, something which always disconcerts me, though it rarely happens. I had long made it a rule that if a woman makes the first move I don’t follow up, because it means she has problems. But experience has shown that all women have problems, and so have all men, so the rule (as with every rule) seemed rather unnecessary and when Margery made the first move I was not slow in making the second.
From the bar stool in The Black Crikey she pinpointed me with that basilisk eye now so full of healthy hatred. ‘Why are you looking at me so hatefully, Gilbert?’ she asked with a smile. ‘Are you going to drop us a few pearls of wisdom from your tired old snakepit?’
‘I’m not playing that game tonight.’
Wayland Smith wore a beard, that National Service uniform of those in early middle age who had just missed the real thing — unless they were young and had a Jesus complex and wanted to be crucified by the Third World, which couldn’t afford to do it anyway because wood was too expensive. They would just tie him on an anthill for reminding them of their poverty. If you liked Wayland you could say there was a benign twinkle in his blue eyes. If you didn’t you could say he had a malevolent glitter. I was inclined to leave him alone, but since I was in the same pub I was obliged to buy him a drink. ‘You have one too, my love,’ I said to Margery.
‘I’ll have a double brandy. Wayland’s driving.’
He put his pudgy hand on her thin thigh and opted for a pint of best bitter. Ugh!
If this is living, I thought, I would rather write. ‘Have you concocted any good documentaries lately?’
His smile showed a tooth missing, presumably from when he’d asked one question too many. ‘I’m doing something on the vulnerability of the British coastline, and I don’t mean geological erosion.’
I downed my double whisky-and-dash. ‘You mean drugs and gold, and illegal immigrants? I was talking to a waiter about that the other day. Or was it the man from the gas board who came to fix my boiler? My latest novel is about smuggling. I’m on the third draft, so maybe it’ll be out before your documentary. And if your documentary’s out first it’ll help to sell my book. In any case,’ I went on, ‘how can an island like ours exist without smuggling? The English are a nation of sailors, as well as traders, and that’s an unbeatable combination for making money. What luck that the radar coverage around our coast isn’t as perfect as it’s cracked up to be. Boats come in and out all the time, not to mention light aircraft flying under the radar screen and landing on one of those disused airfields in East Anglia. They don’t even need to land. They just lob out a parachute with an attached radio bleeper when they see the beam of car headlights, then fly away back to Belgium. So if you want to interview me for your programme I’ll tell you all I know — providing you buy me a drink. It’s your round.’
I don’t know why he didn’t like me. Margery didn’t know whether she liked me or not, which was much to her credit. I didn’t know whether I liked myself or not, which was slightly less credit to me. When in the presence of some people destruction is the only form of creation. He swallowed another pint. ‘I know something you don’t know. There’s someone at the middle of the smuggling ring who’s in the House of …’
Margery stopped him. Maybe she was working on the documentary too. House of Lords, my arse. I tried to persuade everybody I met who was in press, radio or television that they should become a novelist. I told them how easy it was to write a novel, though not too easy, and then I flattered them by saying that they had talent, that they were wasting their time in press, radio or television. Many agreed with me, though none gave up their lucrative jobs to test out the truth of my idiotic assertion. I always hoped that one would, but the odds were so great against their having a go that perhaps I was not being malicious after all. I thought that if I tried to persuade Margery to do it, in front of Wayland Smith, who I patently wouldn’t try to persuade, I may at least sow discord between them. I lifted my glass. ‘You’re far too talented to be working for the BBC.’
Wayland jutted his chin.
‘No, Margery. I’ve heard her commentaries, and seen them printed in the Listener.’
She blushed under her Damart vest. ‘I just knocked them off.’
‘They read as if they’ve been very well polished. That piece about the old lady who was evicted during slum clearance in Richmond was damned good. I’m sure you could write a fine novel.’
‘Stop it, Gilbert.’
‘Or you could write your memoirs. Why don’t you?’ Wayland turned to studying the beer pumps. ‘That kind of reportage would be just right for you. Your memoirs would be fascinating, the way you’d write them. You’d be certain to get them published by The Harridan Press, or Crone Books. They publish anything these days, as long as it’s written by a woman. Surely you can drum up something about a poor little Richmond girl from Eel Pie Island who inherits a fortune and gives nine-sixteenths of it to the Third World? I’m sure you could. In fact the Harridan Press is doing so well that the last time I saw my publisher he said, “Blaskin, old chap, you’ll have to write your stuff under a woman’s name. You do quite well, but you’d do far better, and so would I. We’ll publish any drivel as long as you find a woman’s name.”’
I always spoiled it by going too far, but at least Margery was amused, and gave a wonderful and uninhibited laugh that you couldn’t imagine her having when you looked at her face in repose. ‘You’re such a male chauvinist pig I almost think I love you, Gilbert. It’s terrible, I know. Yet I don’t think you really hate women. You’re far too amusing for that.’
The only answer was silence, so I ordered more drinks and Wayland came out of his trance with a scowl. Everyone has to live, and he had a car and a cottage to keep up, and a flat in West Kensington to pay for. I understood that perfectly, but what I disliked was that he confused earning a living with doing a public service, which would have been unforgivable if it hadn’t been so amusing. ‘He’s calling at my place to pick up some papers,’ Margery said. ‘Why don’t you come as well, Gilbert, and have something to eat?’
I was feeling guilty, and a tiny bit disgusted with myself, so thought it a fit mood to go back and do some writing with a high moral tone. ‘I’ll eat at home — if I can find anything. My charlady’s got half a dozen tapeworms, because no sooner do I fill the flat with food than she eats it all up. My whisky’s been going, as well.’
Margery dropped me there on her way to Richmond. On unlocking my door, it seemed I’d made a mistake. Absent-minded, but by no means drunk, I’d gone to the wrong flat. There was the sound of music, for one thing, and my place was supposed to be empty. I could tell ‘The Nutcracker Suite’ anywhere, though I hadn’t played it for twenty years. When I looked into the living room I saw this chap sitting at a low table with a feast spread before him of the sort I hadn’t partaken of for a month. His jacket was on a chair, and he sat with shirt open and sleeves rolled up, a man with a brazen look and a thin face, hard grey eyes and short hair. Dismal sat nearby, and it was obvious that they were as thick as thieves. The man smiled at me, then threw the dog a goodly chunk of Hungarian sausage, followed by a piece of rye bread which he had shorn off with a carving knife.