I went away to telephone Lucy.
‘Lucy?’
A man’s voice answered. I said: ‘May I speak to Lucy? Is that the right number?’
The man didn’t reply and in a moment Lucy came on. ‘Is that Mike again?’
‘Hullo, Lucy. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, Mike.’
‘Good.’
‘Mike, you telephoned me at four fifteen. Do you know what time it is now?’
‘What time is it now?’
‘Four thirty-five.’
‘Am I being a nuisance, is that it?’
‘No, no. Just, is there anything I can do for you? I mean, do you want something and feel unable to express yourself?’
‘I’m bored. I’m with these people. Lucy.’
‘Yes?’
‘Who’s that in your flat?’
‘A friend called Frank. You don’t know him.’
‘What’s he doing there?’
‘What d’you mean, what’s he doing?’
‘Well –’
‘Look, I’ll ask him. Frank, what are you doing?’
‘What’s he say?’
‘He says he’s making a cup of tea.’
‘I’m having tea too. In Floris. I wish you were here.’
‘Goodbye, Mike.’
‘Don’t go, Lucy.’
‘Goodbye, Mike.’
‘Goodbye, Lucy.’
When I got back to the others I found them laughing in an uproarious manner. Swann said the cake they were eating was making them drunk. ‘Smell it,’ he said. It smelt of rum. I tasted some: it tasted of rum too. We all ate a lot of the cake, laughing at the thought of getting drunk on cake. We ordered some more, and told the waitress it was delicious. When the enthusiasm had melted a bit Swann said:
‘Mike, we want your advice about Margo’s husband.’
‘I’ve told Margo –’
‘No, Mike – seriously now. You know about these things.’
‘Why do you think I know about these things? I do not know about these things.’
‘All right, Mike, I’ll tell you. Margo’s husband Nigel keeps turning up with groups of old females. Margo’s worried in case the thing develops a bit – you know, tramps, grocers, one-legged soldiers. What d’you think she should do?’
‘I don’t know what Margo should do. Margo, I don’t know what you should do. Except perhaps ask Nigel what he’s up to. In the meantime, have some more cake.’
‘Now there’s an idea,’ Swann shouted excitedly. ‘Margo love, why don’t you ask old Nigel what he’s up to?’
Jo hacked affectionately at my face with her great spiked fingers. I guessed it was an expression of admiration rather than attack because she smiled as she did so.
‘But all Nigel says,’ Margo said, ‘is that they haven’t finished their meeting.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Swann, ‘but you don’t press him. You don’t say: “What meeting?” You don’t indicate that you are in the dark as to the nub of their business. Nigel may well imagine that you accept the whole state of affairs without question and expect little else of married life. When you were at the Gents,’ Swann said to me, ‘Margo confessed she was worried.’
‘She had previously confessed as much to me. I wasn’t at the Gents. I was making a telephone call.’
‘Shall I do that?’ Margo said. ‘Shall I ring up Nigel and ask him to explain everything?’
We all nodded. Margo rose, hesitated, and sat down again. She said she couldn’t. She explained she was too shy to telephone her husband in this way. She turned to me.
‘Mike, would you do it?’
‘Me?’
‘Mike, would you telephone?’
‘Are you asking me to telephone your husband and inquire about his relationship with some elderly women who are entirely unknown to me?’
‘Mike, for my sake.’
‘Think of the explanations it would involve me in. Think of the confusion. Nigel imagining I was the husband of one of these women. Nigel imagining I was the police. Nigel asking me question after question. For goodness’ sake, how do you think I would get some kind of answer out of him?’
Swann said: ‘All you have to do is to say: “Is that Nigel? Now look here, Nigel, what’s all this I hear about these women who come to your house at all hours of the day and night?” Say you represent the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘I can’t address the man as Nigel and then say I’m from the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘Mike, Margo’s husband’s name is Nigel. He’ll be expecting you to address him as Nigel. If you don’t address him as Nigel, he’ll simply tell you to go to hell. He’ll say you’ve got a wrong number.’
‘So I say: “Hullo, Nigel, this is the Ministry of Pensions.” The man’ll think I’m crazy.’
Margo said: ‘Mike, you just do it your own way. Take no notice of Swann. Swann’s been eating too much cake. Come on, you know where the telephone is.’ She gave me a piece of paper with a number on it.
‘Oh God,’ I said; and unable to bear it any longer I borrowed fourpence and marched off to the telephone.
‘Hullo?’ said the voice at the other end.
‘Hullo. Can I speak to Lucy? Please.’
‘Hullo,’ Lucy said.
‘Hullo, Lucy.’
‘Well?’ said Lucy.
‘It’s Mike.’
‘I know it’s Mike.’
‘They wanted me to telephone this man I was telling you about, but I can’t go telephoning people in this way –’
‘Why don’t you go home to bed?’
‘Because I wouldn’t sleep. Remember the man with the elderly women? Well, they wanted me to telephone him and ask him what he’s up to. Lucy, I can’t do that, can I?’
‘No, quite honestly I don’t believe you can.’
They told me to pose as the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘Goodbye, Mike.’
‘Just a – Lucy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Isn’t that man still there?’
‘Which man is this?’
‘The man in your flat.’
‘Frank. He’s still here.’
‘Who is he, Lucy?’
‘He’s called Frank.’
‘Yes, but what does he do?’
‘I don’t know what he does. Frank, what do you do? For a living? He says he’s a – what, Frank? A freight agent, Mike.’
‘A freight agent.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Lucy.’
When I arrived back at the tea-table everyone was very gay. Nobody asked me what Nigel had said. Swann paid the bill and said he was anxious to show us a display of Eastern horrors somewhere in Euston and would afterwards take us to a party. In the taxi Margo said:
‘What did Nigel say?’
‘He was out.’
‘Was there no reply?’
‘A woman answered. She said I was interrupting the meeting. I said “What meeting?” but she wanted to know who I was before she would answer that. I said I was the Ministry of Pensions and she said “Oh my God”, and rang off.’
We were hours early for the party, but nobody seemed to mind. I helped a woman in slacks to pour bottles of wine into a crock. Swann, Margo and Jo played with a tape-recorder, and after a time the woman’s husband arrived and we all went out to eat.
About eight, people began to arrive. The place filled with tobacco smoke, music and fumes; and the party began to swing along at a merry enough pace. A girl in ringlets talked to me earnestly about love. I think she must have been feeling much the same as I was, but I didn’t fancy her as a soul-mate, not even a temporary one. She said: ‘It seems to me that everyone has a quality that can get the better of love. Is stronger, you see. Like pride. Or honesty. Or moral – even intellectual, even emotional – integrity. Take two people in love. The only thing that can really upset things is this personal quality in one of them. Other people don’t come into it at all. Except in a roundabout way – as instruments of jealousy, for instance. Don’t you agree?’
I wasn’t sure about anything, but I said yes.
‘Another thing about love,’ the girl with the ringlets said, ‘is its extraordinary infection. Has it ever occurred to you that when you’re in love with someone you’re really wanting to be loved yourself? Because that, of course, is the natural law. I mean, it would be odd if every time one person loved another person the first person wasn’t loved in return. There’s only a very tiny percentage of that kind of thing.’