Aimée walked swiftly down the graveled drive to the mortuary entrance. In the reception room the night staff were drinking coffee. They glanced at her incuriously as she passed silently through them, for urgent work was done at all hours. She took the lift to the top story where everything was silent and empty save for the sheeted dead. She knew what she wanted and where to find them; a wide-mouthed blue bottle and a hypodermic syringe. She indited no letter of farewell or apology. She was far removed from social custom and human obligations. The protagonists, Dennis and Mr. Joyboy, were quite forgotten. The matter was between herself and the deity she served.
It was quite without design that she chose Mr. Joyboy’s workroom for the injection.
Ten
Mr. Schultz had found a young man to take Dennis’s place and Dennis was spending his last week at the Happier Hunting Ground in showing him the ropes. He was an apt young man much interested in the prices of things.
“He hasn’t your personality,” said Mr. Schultz. “He won’t have the same human touch but I figure he’ll earn his keep other ways.”
On the morning of Aimée’s death Dennis set his pupil to work cleaning the generating-plant of the crematorium and was busy with the correspondence-lessons in preaching to which he now subscribed, when the door of the office opened, and he recognized with great surprise his bare acquaintance and rival in love, Mr. Joyboy.
“Mr. Joyboy,” he said. “Not another parrot so soon?”
Mr. Joyboy sat down. He looked ghastly. Finding himself alone he began to blubber. “It’s Aimée,” he said.
Dennis answered with high irony: “You have not come to arrange her funeral?” upon which Mr. Joyboy cried with sudden passion. “You knew it. I believe you killed her. You killed my honey-baby.”
“Joyboy, these are wild words.”
“She’s dead.”
“My fiancée?”
“My fiancée.”
“Joyboy, this is no time to wrangle. What makes you think she is dead? She was perfectly well at supper-time last night.”
“She’s there, in my workshop, under a sheet.”
“That, certainly, is what your newspapers would call ‘factual.’ You’re sure it’s her?”
“Of course I’m sure. She was poisoned.”
“Ah! The nutburger?”
“Cyanide. Self-administered.”
“This needs thinking about, Joyboy.” He paused. “I loved that girl.”
“I loved her.”
“Please.”
“She was my honey-baby.”
“I must beg you not to intrude these private and rather peculiar terms of endearment into what should be a serious discussion. What have you done?”
“I examined her, then I covered her up. We have some deep refrigerators we sometimes use for half-finished work. I put her in there.” He began to weep tempestuously.
“What have you come to me for?”
Mr. Joyboy snorted.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Help,” said Mr. Joyboy. “It’s your fault. You’ve gotta do something.”
“This is no time for recrimination, Joyboy. Let me merely point out that you are the man publicly engaged to her. In the circumstances some emotion is natural—but do not go to extremes. Of course I never thought her wholly sane, did you?”
“She was my—”
“Don’t say it, Joyboy. Don’t say it or I shall turn you out.”
Mr. Joyboy fell to more abandoned weeping. The apprentice opened the door and stood momentarily embarrassed at the spectacle.
“Come in,” said Dennis. “We have here a client who has just lost a little pet. You will have to accustom yourself to exhibitions of distress in your new role. What did you want?”
“Just to say the gas furnace is working fine again.”
“Excellent. Well, now go and clear the collecting van. Joyboy,” he continued when they were again alone, “I beg you to control yourself and tell me plainly what is in your mind. All I can discern at the moment is a kind of family litany of mommas and poppas and babies.”
Mr. Joyboy made other noises.
“That sounded like ‘Dr. Kenworthy.’ Is that what you are trying to say?”
Mr. Joyboy gulped.
“Dr. Kenworthy knows?”
Mr. Joyboy groaned.
“He does not know?”
Mr. Joyboy gulped.
“You want me to break the news to him?”
Groan.
“You want me to help keep him in ignorance?”
Gulp.
“You know, this is just like table-turning.”
“Ruin,” said Mr. Joyboy. “Mom.”
“You think that your career will suffer if Dr. Kenworthy learns you have the poisoned corpse of our fiancée in the ice-box? For your mother’s sake this is to be avoided? You are proposing that I help dispose of the body?”
Gulp, and then a rush of words. “You gotta help me… through you it happened… simple American kid… phony poems… love… Mom… baby… gotta help… gotta… gotta.”
“I don’t like this repetition of ‘gotta,’ Joyboy. Do you know what Queen Elizabeth said to her Archbishop—an essentially non-sectarian character, incidentally? ‘Little man, little man, “must” is not a word to be used to princes.’ Tell me, has anyone besides yourself access to this ice-box?” Groan. “Well, then go away, Joyboy. Go back to your work. I will give the matter my attention. Come and see me again after luncheon.”
Mr. Joyboy went. Dennis heard the car start. Then he went out alone into the pet’s cemetery with his own thoughts which were not a thing to be shared with Mr. Joyboy.
Thus musing he was disturbed by a once familiar visitor.
It was a chilly day and Sir Ambrose Abercrombie wore tweeds, cape and deer-stalker cap, the costume in which he had portrayed many travesties of English rural life. He carried a shepherd’s crook.
“Ah, Barlow,” he said, “still hard at it.”
“One of our easier mornings. I hope it is not a bereavement which brings you here?”
“No, nothing like that. Never kept an animal out here. Miss ’em, I can tell you. Brought up among dogs and horses. Daresay you were too, so you won’t misunderstand me when I say this is no place for them. Wonderful country of course, but no one who really loved a dog would bring it here.” He paused and gazed curiously about him at the modest monuments. “Attractive place you’ve got here. Sorry to see you’re moving.”
“You received one of my cards?”
“Yes, got it here. Thought at first it must be someone playing rather a poor kind of joke. It’s genuine, is it?”
From the depths of his plaid he produced a printed card and handed it to Dennis. It read:
Squadron Leader the Rev. Dennis Barlow
begs to announce that he is shortly starting business at 1154 Arbuckle Avenue, Los Angeles. All non-sectarian services expeditiously conducted at competitive prices. Funerals a speciality. Panegyrics in prose or poetry. Confessions heard in strict confidence
“Yes, quite genuine,” said Dennis.
“Ah. I was afraid it might be.”
Another pause. Dennis said: “The cards were sent out by an agency, you know. I didn’t suppose you would be particularly interested.”
“But I am particularly interested. Is there somewhere we could go and talk?”
Wondering whether Sir Ambrose was to be his first penitent, Dennis led him indoors. The two Englishmen sat down in the office. The apprentice popped his head in, to report well of the collecting van. At length Sir Ambrose said: “It won’t do, Barlow. You must allow me an old man’s privilege of speaking frankly. It won’t do. After all you’re an Englishman. They’re a splendid bunch of fellows out here, but you know how it is. Even among the best you find a few rotters. You know the international situation as well as I do. There are always a few politicians and journalists simply waiting for the chance to take a knock at the Old Country. A thing like this is playing into the
ir hands. I didn’t like it when you started work here. Told you so frankly at the time. But at least this is a more or less private concern. But religion’s quite another matter. I expect you’re thinking of some pleasant country rectory at home. Religion’s not like that here. Take it from me, I know the place.”
“It’s odd you should say that, Sir Ambrose. One of my chief aims was to raise my status.”
“Then chuck it, my dear boy, before it’s too late.” Sir Ambrose spoke at length of the industrial crisis in England, the need for young men and dollars, the uphill work of the film community in keeping the flag flying. “Go home, my dear boy. That is your proper place.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Dennis, “things have rather changed with me since that announcement was written. The Call I heard has grown fainter.”
“Capital,” said Sir Ambrose.
“But there are certain practical difficulties. I have invested all my small savings in my theological studies.”
“I expected something of the kind. That is where the Cricket Club comes in. I hope the time will never come when we are not ready to help a fellow-countryman in difficulties. We had a committee meeting last night and your name was mentioned. There was complete agreement. To put it in a nutshell, my boy, we will send you home.”
“First-class?”
“Tourist. I’m told it’s jolly comfortable. How about it?”
“A drawing-room on the train?”
“No drawing-room.”
“Well,” said Dennis, “I suppose that as a clergyman I should have had to practice certain austerities.”
“Spoken like a man,” said Sir Ambrose. “I have the check with me. We signed it last night.”
*
Some hours later the mortician returned.
“You have regained command of yourself? Sit down and listen attentively. You have two problems, Joyboy, and let me emphasize that they are yours. You are in possession of the corpse of your fiancée and your career is threatened. You have then two problems—to dispose of the body and to explain the disappearance. You have come to me for help and it so happens that in both these things I and only I can help you.
“I have here at my disposal an excellent crematorium. We are happy-go-lucky people at the Happier Hunting Ground. There are no formalities. If I arrive here with a casket and say, ‘Mr. Schultz, I’ve a sheep here to incinerate,’ he says, ‘Go ahead.’ Once you seemed inclined to look down on us for our easy manners. Now perhaps you feel differently. All we have to do is to collect our Loved One, if you will forgive the expression, and bring her here. Tonight after working hours will be the time.
“Secondly, to explain the disappearance. Miss Thanatogenos had few acquaintances and no relations. She disappears on the eve of her wedding. It is known that I once favored her with my attentions. What could be more plausible than that her natural good taste should have triumphed at the last moment and she should have eloped with her earlier lover? All that is necessary is for me to disappear at the same time. No one in Southern California, as you know, ever inquires what goes on beyond the mountains. She and I perhaps may incur momentary condemnation as unethical. You may receive some slightly unwelcome commiseration. There the matter will end.
“For some time I have felt oppressed by the unpoetic air of Los Angeles. I have work to do and this is not the place to do it. It was only our young friend who kept me here—she and penury. And talking of penury, Joyboy, I take it you have substantial savings?”
“I’ve some insurance.”
“What can you borrow on that? Five thousand dollars?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Two?”
“No.”
“How much then?”
“Maybe a thousand.”
“Draw it out, Joyboy. We shall need it all. And cash this check at the same time. Together it will be enough. It may seem to you sentimental, but I wish to leave the United States in the same style as I came. Whispering Glades must not fall below Megalopolitan Studios in hospitality. From your bank go to the travel agency and take me a ticket to England—a drawing-room to New York, Cunarder single stateroom with bath from there on. I shall need plenty of ready cash for incidental expenses. So bring the rest in a lump sum with the tickets. All understood? Very well. I will be at your mortuary with the collecting van soon after dinner.”
Mr. Joyboy was waiting for Dennis at the side entrance of the mortuary. Whispering Glades was ideally equipped for the smooth movement of bodies. On a swift and silent trolley they set Dennis’s largest collecting box, first empty, later full. They drove to the Happier Hunting Ground where things were more makeshift, but between them without great difficulty they man-handled their load to the crematorium, and stowed it in the oven. Dennis turned on the gas and lit it. Flame shot from all sides of the brick-work. He closed the iron door.
“I reckon she’ll take an hour and a half,” he said. “Do you want to stay?”
“I can’t bear to think of her going out like this—she loved to see things done right.”
“I rather thought of conducting a service. My first and last non-sectarian office.”
“I couldn’t bear that,” said Mr. Joyboy.
“Very well. I will recite instead a little poem I have written for the occasion.
“Aimée, thy beauty was to me,
Like those Nicean barks of yore—”
“Hey, you can’t say that. That’s the phony poem.”
“Joyboy, please remember where you are.
“That gently o’er a perfumed sea
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
“It’s really remarkably apposite, is it not?”
But Mr. Joyboy had left the building.
The fire roared in the brick oven. Dennis must wait until all was consumed. He must rake out the glowing ashes, pound up the skull and pelvis perhaps and disperse the fragments. Meanwhile he entered the office and made a note in the book kept there for that purpose.
Tomorrow and on every anniversary as long as the Happier Hunting Ground existed a postcard would go to Mr. Joyboy: Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.
“Like those Nicean barks of yore (he repeated),
That gently o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.”
On this last evening in Los Angeles Dennis knew he was a favorite of Fortune. Others, better men than he, had foundered here and perished. The strand was littered with their bones. He was leaving it not only unravished but enriched. He was adding his bit to the wreckage; something that had long irked him, his young heart, and was carrying back instead the artist’s load, a great, shapeless chunk of experience; bearing it home to his ancient and comfortless shore; to work on it hard and long, for God knew how long. For that moment of vision a lifetime is often too short.
He picked up the novel which Miss Poski had left on his desk and settled down to await his loved one’s final combustion.
Reading Group Guide
The Loved One
An Anglo-American Tragedy
by
EVELYN WAUGH
In 1947, Evelyn Waugh and his wife, Laura, ventured to Los Angeles for three months so that he could consult with MGM after the studio acquired film rights to Brideshead Revisited. Waugh thoroughly disliked his trip to America—and the film project ultimately went nowhere—but he got the inspiration to write The Loved One after touring Forest Lawn Cemetery. Following are a selection of letters that Waugh wrote to his agent, A. D. Peters, and some close friends, taken from the time period surrounding The Loved One’s inception and eventual publication.
To A. D. Peters
3 October [1946]
Dear Pete,
I have no insuperable artistic scruples about their filming any book except Brideshead. I should greatly prefer, however, to be allowed to write all additional dialogue.
/> I should like to take Laura for a jaunt to Hollywood in February. The sort of offer I should find most attractive would be a tax-free trip, lecture-free, with a minimum of work of any kind at the other end. Luxury not lionization is the thing. And all troubles spared me of getting permits & booking cabins etc.
The sum paid beyond that is not of great interest. I should like to have it by installments if it is large. With enough pocket money for us to do some shopping in New York.
Yours,
Evelyn
To A. D. Peters
6 March [1947]
Beverly Hills Hotel & Bungalows
Beverly Hills
California1
Dear Pete,
Thanks to Charles Mendl,2 no thanks to MGM, I have at least got a fairly decent set of rooms.
I have had a telephone call from Knox’s agent & frozen him out.
I am entirely obsessed by Forest Lawn & plan a long short story about it. I go there two or three times a week, am on easy terms with the chief embalmer & next week am to lunch with Dr. Hubert Eaton himself. It is an entirely unique place—the only thing in California that is not a copy of something else. It is wonderful literary raw material. Aldous [Huxley] flirted with it in After Many a Summer3 but only with the superficialities. I am at the heart of it. It will be a very good story.
… MGM bore me when I see them but I don’t see them much.4 They have been a help in getting me introductions to morticians who are the only people worth knowing.
Social life gay and refined. Not as generally defined. Laura returns on Q.E. sailing 22nd. Probably I go with her.