‘I have the pride of my position, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘and you can’t complain about that.’
‘Of course not,’ said Colin. ‘But I wish you weren’t always so aloof.’
‘I have a sincere affection for Mr Colin underneath, sir,’ said Nicholas.
‘And I’m proud of it – and happy too, Nicholas – and I feel just the same about you. Therefore … what are you going to make tonight?’
‘Once again I shall remain within the ffroyddian tradition by making musk-antler bangers with port and mash.’
‘And how are you going to do that?’ said Colin.
‘This is the recipe. Take a bunch of musk-antler bangers and skin them, taking no heed whatsoever of their screams. Carefully preserve the skins. Alternate rounds of the musk-antler bangers with sliced lobster claws that have been previously tossed in hot butter. Place them on ice in a pan. Heighten the flame and, in the space thereby gained, tastefully arrange little rings of coddled rice. When the bangers emit a continuous low note, take them swiftly from the flame and cover with rare old tawny port. Stir in with a platinum spatula. Grease a tin to prevent it rusting and then line it with the bangers. Just before serving, make a thick sauce of periwinkles, parsley and a pint of pure cream. Sprinkle with valerian drops, garnish with the rice rings, serve … and disappear.’
‘I’m starving,’ said Colin. ‘I can’t wait. Your ffroyde is a genius. But tell me, Nicholas, do you think it will make me get a pimple on my nose tomorrow?’
Nicholas gave great consideration to the condition of Colin’s conk and concluded that it would not.
‘Oh, and while I’m on the subject, do you know how to do the Squint?’
‘My technical development hasn’t advanced much beyond the Disraeli Dislocation and the Aurora Borealis which were still the rage last week in Swingingsville,’ said Nicholas, ‘so I haven’t perfected all the refinements of the Squint. But I certainly know the rudiments of the dance.’
‘Do you think,’ asked Colin, ‘that its technique could be mastered in one evening?’
‘I should think so,’ said Nicholas. ‘The basic movements aren’t very complicated. All one has to do is avoid vulgar faux-pas and errors of taste, such as trying to dance the Squint to a boogie-woogie.’
‘That would be wrong? …’
‘It would be a serious crime against good taste!’
Nicholas put the grapefruit that he had been peeling during this interview on to the table and his hands under the tap.
‘Are you very busy?’ asked Colin.
‘Good Lord, no, sir,’ said Nicholas. ‘Everything in the kitchen is going along nicely.’
‘Then perhaps you would be so kind as to instruct me in the rudiments of the Squint,’ said Colin. ‘Come into the other room and I’ll put on a record.’
‘I would like to advise Mr Colin, sir, to choose something with feeling – something like “Chloe” in an arrangement by Duke Ellington, or the “Concerto for Johnny Hodges” …’ said Nicholas. ‘Something that they might call sultry or moody on the other side of the Atlantic.’
7
‘The principle of the Squint,’ said Nicholas, ‘as Mr Colin no doubt knows, sir, relies on the simultaneous setting-up of interferences obtained via the rigorously synchronized oscillatory movements of two loosely connected centres of animation.’
‘I didn’t realize,’ said Colin, ‘that it was concerned with such advanced developments in physics.’
‘In this case,’ said Nicholas, ‘the dancer and his partner should attempt to maintain the minimum perceptible distance between themselves. Then their entire bodies begin to vibrate following the rhythm of the music.’
‘You don’t say,’ said Colin, looking slightly worried.
‘A series of static undulations is then set up,’ said Nicholas, ‘presenting, as in the laws of acoustics, various diaphragmatic vibrations and frictions which make a large contribution to the creation of the right atmosphere on a dance-floor.’
‘Naturally …’ murmured Colin.
‘Experts in the Squint,’ pursued Nicholas, ‘sometimes succeed in producing subsidiary layers of subordinate waves by setting certain selected limbs and members of their anatomies into separately synchronized vibration. But we needn’t go into that now … I’ll simply try to show Mr Colin how they do it.’
Colin chose ‘Chloe’, as Nicholas had suggested its suitability, and carefully centred it on the turntable of the record-player. He delicately dropped the point of the needle into the very bottom of the beginning of the first groove and watched Nicholas gradually start to shake.
8
‘Mr Colin will soon get it, sir!’ said Nicholas. ‘Just one more time.’
‘But why,’ asked Colin, covered in perspiration, ‘must it be done to a slow tune? It’s much more difficult that way.’
‘There is a reason,’ said Nicholas. ‘Theoretically the dancer and his partner should keep at the minimum distance from each other. With a slow tune, the undulations can be regulated in such a way that the point of maximum coincidence is situated roughly half-way up each partner, while their extremities are at liberty to improvise separate movements. That is the result that should be aimed at in theory. But unfortunately it has happened that, in practice, unscrupulous couples have tried dancing the Squint the way the coloured kids do it – to a quick tempo.’
‘Which means?’ asked Colin.
‘Which means that with alternating centres of gravity at bottom and top, and another intermediate mobile nodal point regrettably situated in the region of the loins, the fixed points – or pseudo-articulations – become the sternum and the knees.’
Colin blushed.
‘I see,’ he said.
‘When this is done to a boogie rhythm,’ concluded Nicholas, ‘the obscenity of the dance generally dominates the hypnotic qualities of the music.’
Colin was in a trance.
‘Where did you learn the Squint?’ he asked Nicholas.
‘My niece taught me …’ said Nicholas. ‘I worked out the complete theory of the Squint during a series of talks with my brother-in-law. He’s a practising Pythagorean, as Mr Colin is no doubt aware, sir, and did not find it very difficult to follow the method of the system. He even told me that he had calculated its principles nineteen years ago …’
‘… Your niece is eighteen, isn’t she?’ asked Colin.
‘And three months …’ corrected Nicholas. ‘Now if Mr Colin doesn’t need my services any more, sir, I’ll go back to have a look at what’s cooking in the kitchen.’
‘Run along, Nicholas. And thanks,’ said Colin, taking off the record that had just finished playing.
9
‘I think I’ll put on my camel suit and my noon-blue shirt, my tie with the scarlet and Sahara stripes, my punched suede shoes and my nasturtium and dromedary striped socks.
‘But first of all I’ll give myself a wash and a shave and a check-up to make sure that there’s nothing missing.
‘Then I’ll go and say to Nicholas in the kitchen “Nicholas, how would you like to come to a dance with me?”’
‘Good Lord,’ said Nicholas, ‘if Mr Colin insists, then I shall have no alternative but to go. But if he should not insist, sir, then I should be delighted to take the opportunity to put several outstanding matters in order, the urgency of which is becoming imperative.’
‘Would it be indiscreet of me, Nicholas, if I were to ask you what the hell you were talking about?’
‘I am President,’ said Nicholas, ‘of the District Housekeepers Philosophical Society, and consequently am compelled to attend the maximum number of meetings that it holds.’
‘Dare I ask, Nicholas, what the subject of today’s meeting is going to be?’
‘We shall be discussing commitment. One of our members has discovered a connection between the various forms of commitment, beginning with Jean Pulse Heartre’s conception and then going on to the commitment of suicides, commitment to total ab
stinence, commitment to prison, to the flames, to memory, to writing, to a lunatic asylum – or commitment to duty – in particular, by housekeepers.’
‘Chick would be very interested in that!’ said Colin.
‘I’m extremely sorry,’ said Nicholas, ‘but the membership is very limited. We couldn’t possibly let Mr Chick come in. Housekeepers only, I’m afraid, sir.’
‘Nicholas,’ asked Colin, ‘why do you always give them that ambiguous title?’
‘No doubt Mr Colin will have noticed,’ said Nicholas, ‘that whereas it might remain comparatively harmless to refer to a gentleman keeping house as a housemaster, it would be very unseemly to speak similarly of a lady as a mistress. Therefore we choose to have a designation that embraces us all …’
‘You’re quite right, of course, Nicholas. Now, in your opinion, do you think I’m likely to meet my soulmate today? … I’d like to meet one exactly identical to your niece …’
‘Mr Colin is making a grave mistake in thinking so much about my niece, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘since from the accounts of recent events it would appear that Mr Chick has chosen her first.’
‘Oh, but Nicholas,’ said Colin, ‘I do so much want to be in love …’
A puff of steam sprang out of the spout of the kettle and Nicholas went to open the door. The caretaker had brought up two letters.
‘Is there some mail?’ said Colin.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘but they’re both for me. Is Mr Colin expecting a letter?’
‘I wish a pretty girl would write to me,’ said Colin. ‘That’s all I was hoping for.’
‘It’s lunchtime,’ concluded Nicholas. ‘Would Mr Colin like his breakfast now? There’s minced oxtail, a bowl of spiced punch, and anchovy butter on toast.’
‘Nicholas, why won’t Chick bring your niece home here to lunch unless I invite another girl too?’
‘Mr Colin must forgive me, sir,’ said Nicholas, ‘but under the circumstances, I would do exactly the same. Mr Colin is a very good-looking fellow …’
‘Nicholas,’ said Colin, ‘if I’m not in love by this evening – really and truly in love – then I’ll start a collection of the works of the Marchioness Thighbone de Mauvoir … and see if some of my friend Chick’s luck rubs off on me!’
10
‘I wish I were in love,’ said Colin. ‘The butcher-boy wishes he were in love. And the baker-boy wishes exactly ditto (i.e. that he were in love). The candlestick-maker’s-boy and everybody in the street wishes and wishes that I were and they were and you were and we were and that the whole wide world were too. And even those that are left wish that they could fall in love as well …’
He was tying his tie in front of the bathroom mirror. ‘All I have to do now is put on my jacket, my overcoat and my scarf, then my right glove followed by my left glove. But I won’t have to put on my hat because I don’t want to spoil my hair. Hey, what are you doing there?’
He made this last remark to the little grey mouse with the black whiskers who was certainly far from home, nonchalantly leaning on its elbows over the rim of the tooth-glass.
‘Just suppose,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bath (rectangular, and made of yellow vitreous enamel) in order to get closer to the mouse, ‘that I should meet my old friend Whatsisname at the High-Pottinuice’s …!’
The mouse nodded understandingly.
‘And suppose … Well, why not? … that he should have a pretty little cousin … dressed in a white tee-shirt, with a yellow skirt … and that her name was Aly … Baba …’
The mouse uncrossed its paws and looked shocked.
‘It’s not a very pretty name for a girl, I know,’ said Colin. ‘But then you’re a sweet little mouse – and yet you’ve got black whiskers. So …?’
He stood up.
‘It’s three o’clock already! Look, you’re making me late. Chick and … I mean Chick is bound to get there very early.’
He wetted his finger and held it up over his head, then brought it down again very smartly. It was burnt as severely as if he had put it in the fire.
‘There’s love in the air,’ he decided. ‘It’s boiling! I stand up, the butcher-boy stands up, the baker-boy stands up. And with the candlestick-maker’s-boy we all stand up, stand up, stand up. Do you want to be helped out of the glass?’
The mouse proved that it needed help from nobody by scrambling out on its own and nibbling off a lolly-shaped piece of soap for itself.
‘Don’t make a mess over everything with that,’ said Colin. ‘You’re disgustingly greedy.’
He went out of the bathroom and into the bedroom and slipped on his jacket, picked himself up, and put it on.
‘Nicholas must have gone … He must know some crazy girls … They say that all the girls where he comes from go to work as maids of practically all trades for philosophers …’
He closed the bedroom door behind him.
‘There’s a slight tear in the lining of my left sleeve … And there’s no insulating tape left … Too bad, I’ll use a nail.’
The flat door slammed behind him with a noise like a naked hand slapping a bare bottom … He began to tremble …
‘I must think of something else … Suppose I break my neck going down the stairs …’
The staircase carpet – very pale mauve – only showed signs of wear on every third tread because Colin always went down four at a time. He caught his feet in a chromium stairrod and became entangled in the banisters.
‘That’ll teach me to think nonsense. Serves me right. I am stupid, the butcher-boy is stupid, the …’
There was pain in his back. He understood why when he reached the bottom and threw away the banister that was sticking out from the back of his overcoat collar.
The street door closed behind him with a sound that was like a kiss on an uncovered shoulder.
‘What is there to see in the street?’
First of all there were two road-menders playing cricket. The fattest one’s belly wobbled up and down contrapuntally as its owner jumped down and up. For a ball they had a crucifix painted red with the cross missing.
Colin walked on.
To right and left rose elegant and fantastic mud-huts with large bay windows. A woman was leaning out of one of them. Colin blew her a kiss and she shook on his head the hearthrug of black and silver swansdown that her husband couldn’t stand.
Shops brightened up the stark appearance of the big buildings. A display of supplies for fakirs caught Colin’s attention. He noted that the price of broken glass and long nails had gone up since last week.
He passed a dog and two other people. People were being kept indoors by the cold. Those who managed to tear themselves from its clutches escaped minus most of their clothes and died of pneumonia.
The traffic policeman at the crossroads had hidden his head in his cape. He looked like a big black umbrella. Waiters from the cafés ran round him in circles to keep themselves warm.
A boy and a girl were kissing in a doorway.
‘Don’t let me see them … Don’t … Don’t let me see them … They’re driving me mad.’
Colin crossed over. A boy and a girl were kissing in a doorway.
He closed his eyes and began to run.
He opened them again very quickly because, under his eyelids, he could see thousands and thousands of girls going round – and such a vision would make him lose his way. There was still one right in front of him, walking in the same direction. You could see her pretty legs in little white lamb bootees under her coat of unglazed panda-skin and her matching hat. Red hair under the hat. Her coat flew out from her shoulders and danced all round her as she walked.
‘I must overtake her. I must see her face …’
He got ahead of her and burst into tears. She was at least fifty-nine. He sat on the kerb until the tears stopped flowing. It made him feel a lot better. With a little crackle his tears froze and shattered like glass as they fell on to the hard granite pavement
.
After five minutes or so he realized that he was sitting in front of Isis High-Pottinuice’s house. A pair of girls walked past him and went straight in.
His heart swelled up to ten times its normal size, became completely weightless, lifted him up above the earth, and he went straight in after them.
11
A rumble of sounds from the party being thrown upstairs by Isis’s parents could already be heard from the first floor. The staircase spiralled round three times, thereby trebling any sounds that ventured into it, each stair acting like a tiny fin in the cylindrical sound-box of the vibes. Colin went up, with his head close on the heels of the pair of girls. Pretty reinforced heels of flesh-coloured nylon, high-heeled shoes of fine leather, and slender delicate ankles. Then the seams of the stockings, imperceptibly meandering, like fabulously long slinky caterpillars leading to the articulated concave curves between suspender and knee. Colin stopped to let them get two steps ahead, then he set off again. From his new position he could see the tops of their stockings, the extra thickness there, and the shadowy whiteness of the thighs of the one on the left. The other girl’s skirt, tightly pleated, did not allow him such advantageous views, but under her beaver-lamb coat her hips swivelled with greater symmetry than those of the first girl, making another little rival pleat … Out of decency Colin began to look down at his feet, and watched them as they arrived at the second floor.
He was right behind the pair of girls just as they were being let in.
‘Hallo, Colin!’ said Isis. ‘How are you?’ He drew her towards him and kissed her between her hair and her cheek. Her perfume was tantalizing.
‘But it isn’t my birthday!’ she protested. ‘It’s Wry-Tangle’s! …’
‘Where is Wry-Tangle? I want to congratulate him! …’
‘Isn’t it disgusting,’ said Isis. ‘This morning we took him to the trimmer’s to have his coat clipped and make him handsome. They gave him a bath and the whole treatment … And then at two o’clock three of his friends came round with four bundles of horrible old bones and off he went with them. He’s bound to come back in a terrible state! …’