Then Mevrouw Bonsma, bless her chapped heels, announced that she had invited Merle and Benny to join us for afternoon tea.
More people! I was mortified. But as it happened, the newcomer — because there was only one — was just what was needed to restore our equilibrium.
*
Benny turned out to be a Pekingese, a canine knick-knack, disproportionately fierce. Benito, I called her afterwards: Il Puce, The Fleabag. In those days, animals were not allowed into the Europa, and so she spent her first visit to the Café tethered to a downpipe next to the door, nipping at the heels of patrons as they came and went. She had a go at my turn-ups, but I made her see sense with the business end of a brogue. They say that people grow to resemble their pets, or choose pets that resemble them. Merle was small, full of bounce, with round wet eyes and limp grey hair in a bob. She was already settled at our table, in the company of Spilkin and Mevrouw Bonsma, thankfully not in my chair. I hardly had time to sit before she declared, matter-of-factly, ‘You must be A. Tearle.’
‘I am the Tearle,’ I replied, ‘the definite article.’
‘I’ve seen your letters to the editor. Suzanna shows them to me.’
‘Good.’ How about that.
‘I liked that one about the rubbish bins, very acute. How did it go again?’ She tucked one flap of her hair behind her ear, as if to hear me better.
‘You mean the one about the lack of?’ I paused for effect, and then recited from memory: ‘One appreciates that the removal of the rubbish bins from our streets is part of a strategy to thwart the murderous ambitions of terrorists. But with littering now reaching unprecedented heights, one cannot but fear that the litter problem itself has become a time bomb waiting to explode.’
‘That was well put.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve heard all about your System of Records too, from Suzanna, who professes not to understand what you’re up to. Sounds fascinating.’
‘Thank you.’ This enthusiasm was quite disarming.
‘Have you got them in your bag?’
‘A good sample.’
‘So, what does it stand for — the A?’ With a sharp forefinger, she traced the letter in the monogram embossed on my leather briefcase, and then tucked back another flap of hair to expose a second delicate and expectant ear.
‘Aubrey.’ Sotto voce, but Spilkin’s theatrical eyebrows twitched. ‘However, we don’t hold with first names. You can call me Tearle.’
‘Poppycock.’ From the Dutch pappekak. The sort of mush that would agglomerate in Mevrouw Bonsma’s dental sluices. ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort. I am not a public schoolboy. It’s pernicious, this bandying about of surnames. Even the press has fallen into the habit. Thatcher said this and Reagan did that. As if people are no longer entitled to the common courtesies. As long as I have a say in the matter, I shall be Mrs Graaff to the world at large and Merle to my friends.’
As it happened, I agreed with her on the neglect of honorifics in the public sphere. But with Spilkin and Tearle it was quite another matter. Before I could begin to explain, she rattled on. ‘Pleased to meet you, Aubrey.’ She gave my hand a hard squeeze. A metacarpal twinged. ‘As for you, Myron, Suzanna’s told me all about you too.’
Oh my! He didn’t look one bit like a Myron.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Mevrouw Bonsma, ‘I’d prefer to be called Mevrouw Bonsma.’ And simpered hugely, showing a smear of lipstick on a crooked tooth, like blood drawn from her own lip. There was certainly some Dutch influence in her dentition.
Merle observed her down a turned-up nose. It would be hard and dry, that nose, pressing into one’s cheek. ‘My dear, I couldn’t. You’ve been Suzanna for far too long. It’s … set.’
Eveready was hovering. She ordered hot chocolate, although she’d been invited for tea. Then she swept her eyes over the room. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding out.’
Really. I wouldn’t put it that way.
‘What’s this?’ She fluttered a hand at the mural and looked at me.
‘It’s nowhere in particular. Or rather anywhere in general. It’s a composite.’ Not Erewhon, but Erewhyna. Alibia. Did the name come to me on the spur of the moment?
‘Looks French. I would say Nice. Met a Dr Plesance there once, on the promenade. A chessplayer, rheumatic, but very good-natured and fun to be with. Back in a tick. Just want to speak to that woman about Benny.’
‘I regret to inform you that her dear little dog,’ said Mevrouw Bonsma, ‘is unable to join us.’
‘Right of admission reserved,’ said Spilkin. ‘No quadrupeds allowed.’
Merle made for the counter, and soon Mrs Mavrokordatos was frothing a porringer with warm milk from the espresso machine. A momentary lapse of taste on her part, harbinger of a general collapse still shrouded in the mists of the future. ‘If she must cater for our four-legged friends,’ I said, ‘let them have separate crockery.’
‘I knew you’d get along famously,’ said Mevrouw Bonsma. ‘She’s good with words, like the two of you. She was a schoolteacher in her younger days, before her marriage. And at various other times, a librarian in the Reference Library and an office manager. She knows the Dewey Decimal System backwards.’
There is dew on the terraced lawns of the Hotel Grande, where Merle goes walking before dinner. It is the dew that makes her kick off her shoes and it is her bare feet and the wet hem of her gown that make her the talk of Alibia. When she catches a chill, Dr Plesance has remedies, all of which he has tried out on himself while performing voluntary service during various epidemics. So the ambulance returns empty to the hospital on the hill and Merle is carried on a chaise into the doctor’s parlour.
Merle came back. ‘That woman has the most extraordinary name.’
‘Mavrokordatos,’ said Spilkin.
‘Large-hearted,’ I said. ‘From the Greek makros, long, large, and the Latin cordis, heart.’
She appraised me with a quirk of a smile around her mouth.
‘Only joking,’ I added, just to be on the safe side.
Then she opened a handbag as large and black as a doctor’s, fished out a tube of artificial sweeteners and spilled half a dozen into her mug. She put on a pair of spectacles and blinked experimentally at the room. They were cat’s-eye frames, with diamanté glittering in their canthi, and they made her look astonished. Astonishing? Both. From the depths of the bag, she produced a big flat box.
‘Anyone for Trivial Pursuit?’
*
Merle came again the next day. This time the black bag offered up, along with half a packet of ginger snaps, to which Mrs Mavrokordatos turned a blind eye, the Better Baby Book of Names for Boys. The bag was an armamentarium. In the right hands, the terms it contained, considered as tools for categorizing and classifying, might get the better of any disorder.
‘Let’s see, Aubrey … Aubrey … here we are. From the German Alberich, ruler of elves. You must be the elf then? Only joking, Myron. Famous Aubreys: John Aubrey, author of Brief Lives. Just the one, I’m afraid, it’s not very common. And even that’s a stretch, being a surname.’
I knew the meaning of my own name perfectly well, but there was no stopping her once she got going.
‘And Myron. Greek: muron. Sweet oil, perfume, hence “something delightful” — that’s in quotes. Famous Myrons — this is more like it — Myron, Greek sculptor, known for his Discobolus. Myron Cohen, Jewish-American humorist, known for his You Don’t Have to be Jewish. Of course not. And Myron the Myrmidon, cartoon character, known for his battles in intergalactic space. In order of merit, descending.’