“Would you mind if I had a Scotch instead?”
“Of course not.”
They were interrupted by Lady Olivia. Considerably younger than Sir Hyman, blonde, with a daunting jaw, she held up a map of their dining-room table on a clipboard, flags protruding from each setting. “Henry’s secretary just phoned to say he’s iffy for tonight. The House will be sitting late.”
“Then we’ll simply have to do without him.”
“But don’t you see? That means I’d have to sit Rab next to Simon.”
Sir Hyman glanced at the flags. “What if you moved Rab over here?”
“I’ve seated Lucy there. She’ll love it. After all, it’s a coronet she’s shopping for over here, isn’t it?”
“Lucy Duncan?”
“The little Canadian girl.”
“Oh, Gursky. Couldn’t we discuss this later?” Sir Hyman asked, indicating Moses. “I shan’t be very long.”
Moses was reading a book that lay open on a pedestal. The Diaries of Angus McGibbon, Hudson’s Bay Company Chief Factor, Prince of Wales’s Fort:
A young white man who is unknown to the Compy. or opposition is living with a wandering band of Esquimaux in Pelly Bay and appears to be worshipped by them as a manner of Faith-healer or shaman. He goes by the name of Ephrim Gor-ski, but possibly because of his dark complexion and piercing eyes the Esquimaux call him Tulugaq, which means raven in their lingo.
A half hour later an irritated Lady Olivia was back, clipboard in hand.
“Our problem is solved, daring,” Sir Hyman said. “Mr. Berger will be joining us for dinner. He’s also a Canadian. He met Lucy when he was a child.”
That was hardly sufficient for Lady Olivia.
“He’s at Balliol. A Rhodes scholar. His father is a poet.”
“Oh, how sweet,” Lady Olivia said. “I didn’t know they had any.”
Three
Lucy.
Their first morning together Moses came to shortly before noon, trying to sort out whose silken sheets he was lying on, when he isolated the sound that must have wakened him. It was the sound of retching and flushing. Surfacing, but still far from shore, he pried open his eyes and followed the sound through an open door to where a nude Lucy reclined on her knees before the toilet bowl. She struggled to her feet, wobbly, touchingly thin. “What would you like Edna to bring you for breakfast?”
“Black coffee. Oh, and a vodka with orange juice would be nice.”
Still nude, Lucy pressed a button embedded in the wall and then stood on her scale. A fat, surly black lady drifted into the room without knocking. Lucy didn’t bother to turn around. “Bring us a huge pot of black coffee, a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice and two yogurts. Oh, and Edna, this is Mr. Berger. He’s moving in with us.”
Moses waited until Edna left before he said, “Am I?”
“Well, if you don’t remember you can bloody well leave right after breakfast.”
“No, I want to stay.” And have Aunt Jemima bring me the newspapers and a yummy yogurt in bed every morning.
“I’ve gained three-quarters of a pound.”
He could, if he chose, count her washboard ribs. “I figure you weigh no more than a hundred.” Maybe one ten, he thought, if she was wearing her jewellery.
“You don’t understand. They need you to be thin. Or don’t you remember anything about last night?”
“I most certainly do.”
“Then who am I testing for this afternoon?”
“Manchester United.”
“Ho ho ho.”
“Remind me, then.”
“Sir Carol Reed.”
“It was on the tip of my tongue.”
“So was I for a good part of last night.”
Moses blushed.
“You’ll find I can be rather coarse, but I come by it honestly. A satyr’s daughter, they say. Do you own a dinner jacket?”
“Of sorts,” he said, figuring he could borrow money from Sam to rent one.
“Good. You’ll need it tonight.” They were, she explained, going to the opening of a new play at the Royal Court and then on to a blacktie party at Sir Hyman Kaplansky’s place. “Can you stay sober until I get back?”
He promised.
“Ken Tynan will be there and Oscar Lowenstein and Joan Littlewood and Peter Hall and God knows who else. Hymie invited them all for my sake.”
Once she was gone, Moses immediately poured himself a straight vodka and then wandered about her bijou flat. Her bookshelves were crammed with play texts, actors’ memoirs, studies of Hollywood greats and near-greats. A wicker basket overflowed with old copies of Stage, Variety, Plays and Players, Films and Filming. Moses decided that just one more little vodka, say three fingers, wouldn’t do any harm, and then he collapsed into a velvet-covered wingback chair. Something bit into the small of his back. He pulled out a pearl necklace, long enough for a fishing leader, which he reckoned must be worth thousands of pounds. Suddenly aware that he was being closely watched from a kitchen porthole, he sent it clattering into the nearest ashtray.
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Berger?”
“No, thank you.”
Lucy returned in a foul mood. “If it ever comes down to a choice between me and some tart in a bed-sitter, she gets the part. I’m being punished for being rich.”
The play, a kitchen-sinker, proved interminable. Charged with significance. If, for instance, somebody turned on the radio it was never to catch the Test Match results or a weather report. It was unfailingly Chamberlain announcing peace in our time or somebody snitching that they had just dropped it on Hiroshima. Outside, her driver waited in the Bentley. Harold drove them to Sir Hyman’s flat, which was awash with important producers and directors, all of whom Lucy pursued relentlessly. Moses, who didn’t know anybody there, retreated to the library and pulled out a familiar title, the book which convinced him that Ephrim (Gor-ski, or Tulugaq, had been fruitful during his sojourn in the Arctic. It was a first edition of Life with the Esquimaux, A Narrative of an Arctic Quest in Search of Survivors of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition, by Capt. Waldo Logan. Logan, a native of Boston, had set sail for the Arctic on the whaling barque Determination on May 27, 1868. A month later, entering Hudson Strait, he wrote: “The next day, June 29th, we once more stood in toward the land, but it still continued foggy, and we were unable to get near until about 4 P.M. having just before again sighted the Marianne. At the time two Esquimaux boys were seen coming at full speed toward us. In a few moments more they were alongside, and hoisted—kyacks and all—into the ship. Their names were ‘Koodlik’ and ‘Ephraim,’ each 5 foot 6 inches in height, with small hands, small feet, and pleasing features except that both had some of their front teeth gone. These boys had brought an abundance of salmon, caplins, sea-birds, &c. and eagerly began to trade with us. Speedily we were on the most friendly terms, and merry-making was the order of the day. On entering the cabin to supper their conduct was most orderly. But Ephraim, the younger one, would not eat before salting his bread and mumbling a blessing over it. I couldn’t catch most of it, but I did learn that the Esquimaux word for bread is lechem.”
Drink betrayed Moses yet again, the print doubling on him. He replaced the book on the shelves and went to a mullioned window, worked it open, and sucked in the night air. Then, feeling marginally better, he wandered over to examine the picture that now hung over the fireplace, displacing the deceitful raven.