Hillier was at once accosted by the forward youth called, he remembered, Alan Walters. He was dressed in a well-cut miniature dinner-jacket and he even had a yellow Banksia in his buttonhole. Hillier hoped, for the lad’s own sake, that his glass of tomato-juice did not contain vodka. Master Walters said: ‘I’ve found out all about you.’
‘Oh, you have, have you?’ said Hillier, with a pang of fear that perhaps the boy really had.
‘That man Wriste told me. For thirty bob. A very mercenary type of man.’ His accent was not right, not rich enough. ‘Your name’s Jagger and you’re connected with typewriters. Tell me all about typewriters.’
‘Oh no,’ said Hillier, ‘this is meant to be a holiday.’
‘It’s all nonsense about people not wanting to talk shop on holiday,’ said Alan. ‘Shop is all most people have to talk about.’
‘How old are you?’
‘That’s an irrelevant question, but I’ll tell you. I’m thirteen.’
‘Oh, God,’ murmured Hillier. The nearest group of drinkers – fat men become, with subtle tailoring, merely plump; silk-swathed desirable women – looked at Hillier with malice and pity. They knew what he was going to suffer; why had he not been here before to suffer equally with them?
‘Right,’ said the boy. ‘Who invented the typewriter?’
‘Oh, it’s so long ago,’ said Hillier. ‘I look to the future.’
‘It was in 1870. There were three men – Scholes, Glidden and Soule. It was in America. They were financed by a man named Densmore.’
‘You’ve just been reading this up,’ said Hillier, uneasy now.
‘Not recently,’ said Alan. ‘It was when I was interested in firearms. Technically, I mean. I’m still interested practically.’ The neighbour drinkers would have liked to ignore Alan, but the boy was, after all, a kind of monster. They listened, drinks poised, mouths open. ‘It was the Remington Company, you see, who first took it up. A typewriter is a kind of gun.’
‘The Chicago typewriter,’ said a voice. ‘It ties up well enough.’ Hillier saw that the Indian girl, Miss Devi, had just joined the nearest group. She was holding a martini. She was very beautiful. She was dressed in a scarlet sari embossed with gold images of prancing, tongued, many-armed gods. A silver trinket embellished her nose. Her hair was traditionally arranged – middle parting, plaits on each side of it. But the remark about the Chicago typewriter had come from the man standing by her. This must be her boss, Mr Theodorescu. He was of a noble fatness; the fat of his face was part of its essential structure, not a mean gross accretion, and the vast shapely nose needed those cheek-pads and firm jowls for a proper balance. The chin was very firm. The eyes were not currants in dough but huge and lustrous lamps whose whites seemed to have been polished. He was totally bald, but the smooth scalp – from which a discreet odour of violets breathed – seemed less an affliction than an achievement, as though hair were a mere callow down to be shed in maturity. He was. Hillier thought, about fifty. His hands were richly ringed, but this did not seem vulgar: they were so big, strong and groomed that the crusting of winking stones was rather like adornment by transitory flowers of acknowledged God-given instruments of skill and power and beauty. His body was so huge that the white dinner-jacket was like a moulded expanse of royal sailcloth. He was drinking what Hillier took to be neat vodka, a whole gill of it. Hillier feared him; he also feared Miss Devi, whom he had seen nearly naked. There had been a man who had inadvertently spied a goddess bathing. Actaeon, was it? Was he the one who had been punished by being turned into a stag and then devoured by fifty dogs? This boy here would know.
This boy said: ‘It was Yost who was the real expert. He was an expert mechanic. But the Yost method of inking soon became obsolete. What,’ he coldly asked Hillier, ‘was the Yost method of inking?’
‘I used to know,’ said Hillier. ‘I’ve been in this game a long time. One forgets. I look to the future.’ He’d said that already.
‘Yost used an inked pad instead of a ribbon,’ said Alan sternly. Others looked sternly at Hillier too. ‘It’s my opinion,’ said Alan, ‘that you know nothing about typewriters. You’re an impostor.’
‘Look here,’ bullied Hillier, ‘I’m not having this, you know.’ The god whom Hillier took to be Mr Theodorescu laughed in a gale that seemed to shake the bar. He said, in a voice like a sixteen-foot organ-stop: ‘Apologise to the gentleman, boy. Because he does not wish to disclose his knowledge to you does not mean that he has no knowledge. Ask him questions of less purely academic interest. About the development of Chinese typewriters, for instance.’
‘Five thousand four hundred ideographic type faces,’ said Hillier with relief. ‘A three-grouped cylinder. Forty-three keys.’
‘I say he knows nothing about typewriters,’ said Alan staunchly. ‘I says he’s an impostor. I shouldn’t be surprised if he was a spy.’
Hillier, like a violinist confidently down-bowing in with the rest of the section, started to laugh. But nobody else laughed. Hillier was playing from the wrong score.
‘Where’s your father?’ cried Mr Theodorescu. ‘If I were your father I would take you over my knee and spank you hard and then make you apologise to this gentleman. Abjectly.’
‘He’s over there,’ said Alan. ‘He wouldn’t do anything.’ At a table just by the Fitzroy Street entrance a dim swollen man was being adjured, by a frizz-haired woman much his junior, to down that and have another.
‘Well, then,’ said Mr Theodorescu, veering round massively as by silent hydraulic machinery, ‘let me apologise on the boy’s behalf.’ He shone his great lamps on Hillier. ‘We know him, you see. You, I think, have just joined us. In a sense, he is all our responsibility. I believe he is sincerely sorry, Mr –’
‘Jagger.’
‘Mr Jagger. Theodorescu myself, though I am not Rumanian. This is Miss Devi, my secretary.’
‘I regret to say,’ said Hillier, ‘that we have already met. It was very unfortunate. I feel like apologising, but it was not really my fault.’ It had not been Actaeon’s fault.
‘I always forget about the locking of bathroom doors,’ said Miss Devi. ‘It comes of having my own private suite on land. But we are surely above these foolish taboos.’
‘I hope so,’ said Hillier.
‘Typewriters, typewriters,’ crooned Theodorescu. ‘I have always felt that our house should have a distinctive typeface, very large, a sort of variant of the old black-letter. Would it be possible to write in Roman and Arabic letters on the one instrument?’ he asked Hillier.
‘The difficulty there would be to arrange things so that one could type from both left to right and right to left. Not insuperable. It would be cheaper to use two typewriters, though.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Theodorescu, searching Hillier’s face, it seemed, with one eye, two eyes not being necessary. Alan Walters was now standing alone at the bar, sulking over a new tomato-juice which Hillier this time hoped contained vodka, a large one.
‘He knows nothing about it,’ he mumbled. It was recognised that he had been a rude boy; the grown-ups had turned their backs on him. ‘Yost and Soule,’ he muttered to his red glass. ‘He knows nothing about them. Silly old Jagger is a Yost Soule, a lost soul, ha ha ha.’ Hillier didn’t like the sound of that. But Theodorescu was large enough to be able to be kind to the lad, saying: ‘We have not yet seen your beautiful sister this evening. Is she still in her cabin?’
‘She’s a Yost Soule, like Jagger here. She reads about sex all the time, but she knows nothing about it. Just like Jagger.’
‘You may have tested Mr Jagger on the history of the typewriter,’ said Theodorescu urbanely, ‘but you have not tested him on sex. Nor,’ he added hurriedly, seeing Alan open his mouth on a deep breath, ‘are you going to.’
‘Jagger is a sexless spy,’ said the boy. Hillier reminded himself that he was not here to be a gentleman, above such matters as impertinent and precocious brats. He went close to the not over-clean left ear o
f Alan and said to it, ‘Look. Any more nonsense from you, you bloody young horror, and I’ll repeatedly jam a very pointed shoe up your arse.’
‘Up my arse, eh?’ said Alan very clearly. There were conventionally shocked looks at Hillier. At that moment a white-coated steward, evidently Goanese, entered with a carillon tuned to a minor arpeggio. He walked through the Soho pub like a visitor from a neighbouring TV stageset, striking briskly the opening right-hand bars of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata.
‘Ah, dinner,’ said Theodorescu with relief. ‘I’m starving.’
‘You had a large tea,’ said Miss Devi.
‘I have a large frame.’
Millier remembered that he had asked for a place at Miss Devi’s table, which also would mean Theodorescu’s. He was not sure now whether it had really been a good idea. Sooner or later Theodorescu’s sheer weight, aided by Master Walters’s shrill attrition from another point, however distant, in the dining-saloon, would bruise and chip the Jagger disguise. Besides, he knew he had made himself uglier than he really was, and he couldn’t help wanting to be handsome for Miss Devi. Foolish taboos, eh? That’s what she’d said.
3
‘You think it good, the cuisine?’ asked Theodorescu. The dining-saloon was very far from being like that fried-egg-on-horsesteak restaurant that, in Hillier’s post-war London days, had stood just across the street from the Fitzroy. Conditioned air purred through the champagne light and, only a little louder, stringed instruments played slow and digestive music from a gallery above the gilded entrance. The musicians all seemed very old, servants of the Line near retirement, but they made a virtue of the slow finger movements that arthritis imposed on them: Richard Rodgers became noble, processional. The appointments of the dining-saloon were superb, the chairs accommodating the biggest bottom in comfort, the linen of the finest Dunfermline damask. Theodorescu’s table was by a soft-lit aquarium; in this, fantastic fish-haired, armoured, haloed, spined, whiptailed – gravely visiting castles, grottos and gazebos, ever and anon delivered wide-mouthed silent reports to the human eaters. There were just Theodorescu, Miss Devi and Hillier at the table. The Walters family, Hillier was mainly glad to see, were seated well beyond a protective barrier of well-fleshed and rather loud-talking tycoons and their ladies. Mainly but not wholly glad: Miss Walters seemed to look very delightful in a shift dress of flame velvet with a long heavy gold medallion necklace. She was reading at table, and that was wrong, but her brother sulked and her father and stepmother ate silently and solidly, Mrs Walters urging further helpings on her dim but gulous husband.
So far Hillier had joined Theodorescu in a dish of lobster medallions in a sauce cardinale. The lobster had, so the chief steward had informed them, been poached in white wine and a court-bouillon made with the shells, then set alight in warm pernod. The saloon was full of silent waiters, many Goanese, some British (one, Wriste’s winger-pal, had come up to whisper ‘Ta for the Guinness’). There was no harassed banging and clattering through the kitchen doors; all was leisurely.
‘I think,’ said Theodorescu, ‘you and I will now have some red mullet and artichoke hearts. The man who was sitting in that place before you was not a good trencherman. I tend to feel embarrassed when my table companions eat very much less than I: I am made to feel greedy.’ Hillier looked at Miss Devi’s deft and busy long red talons. She was eating a large and various curry with many sidedishes; it should, if she ate it all, last her till about midnight. ‘I think we had better stay with this champagne, don’t you?’ said Theodorescu. It was a 1953 Bollinger; they were already near the end of this first bottle. ‘Harmless enough, not in the least spectacular, but I take wine to be a kind of necessary bread, it must not intrude too much into the meal. Wine-worshipping is the most vulgar of idolatries.’
‘You must,’ said Hillier, ‘allow me to have the next bottle on my bill.’
‘Well now,’ said Theodorescu, ‘I will make a bargain with you. Whoever eats the less shall pay for the wine. Are you agreeable?’
‘I don’t think I stand a chance,’ said Hillier.
‘Oh, I think that nauseous boy has impaired your self-confidence. At table I fear the thin man. The fat laugh and seem to cram themselves, but it is all so much wind and show. Are you at all a betting man?’
‘Well –’ In Hillier’s closed tank a sort of fermentation was taking place; a coarse kind of Schaumwein of the spirit made him say: ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Whatever sum you care to name. The Trencherman Stakes.’ Miss Devi tinkled a giggle. ‘Shall we say a thousand pounds?’
Could that, should he lose, be charged to his expenses, wondered Hillier. But, of course, it didn’t apply. A cheque signed by Jagger was only a piece of paper. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘We order the dishes alternately. All plates to be thoroughly cleaned.’
‘Splendid. We start now.’ And they worked away at the red mullet and artichoke hearts. ‘Slowly,’ said Theodorescu. ‘We have all the time in the world. Speaking of champagne, there was some serious talk – in 1918, I think it was, the second centenary of the first use of the name to designate the sparkling wines of Hautvillers – some talk, as I say, of seeking canonisation for Dom Pérignon, champagne’s inventor. Nothing came of it, and yet men have been canonised for less.’
‘Very much less,’ said Hillier. ‘I would sooner seek intercession from Saint Pérignon than from Saint Paul.’
‘You’re a praying man, then? A believer?’
‘Not exactly that. Not any longer.’ Careful, careful. ‘I believe in man’s capacity to choose. I accept free will, the basic Christian tenet.’
‘Excellent. And now, talking of choosing –’ Theodorescu beckoned. The chief steward himself came across, a soft-looking ginger-moustached man. Hillier and Theodorescu ordered ahead alternately. Hillier: fillets of sole Queen Elizabeth, with sauce blonde; Theodorescu: shellfish tart with sauce Newburg; Hillier: soufflé au foie gras and to be generous with the Madeira; Theodorescu: avocado halves with caviar and a cold chiffon sauce. ‘And,’ said Theodorescu, ‘more champagne.’
They ate. Some of the nearer diners, aware of what was going on, relaxed their own eating to watch the contest. Theodorescu praised the red caviar that had been heaped on the avocado, then he said: ‘And where, Mr Jagger, did you receive your Catholic education?’
Hillier needed to concentrate on his food. ‘Oh,’ he said, at random, ‘in France.’ He had given away too much already; he must maintain his disguise. ‘At a little place north of Bordeaux. Cantenac. I doubt if you’d know it.’
‘Cantenac? But who doesn’t know Cantenac, or at any rate the Château Brane-Cantenac?’
‘Of course,’ said Hillier. ‘But I’d understood that you weren’t a wine man. The Baron de Brane who made Mouton-Rothschild great.’
‘A strange place, though, for a young Englishman to be brought up. Your father was concerned with viticulture?’
‘My mother was French,’ lied Hillier.
‘Indeed? What was her maiden name? It’s possible that I know the family.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Hillier. ‘It was a very obscure family.’
‘But I take it that you received your technical education in England?’
‘In Germany.’
‘Where in Germany?’
‘Now,’ said Hillier, ‘I suggest filet mignon à la romana, and a little butterfly pasta and a few zucchini.’
‘Very well.’ The chief steward was busy with his pencil.
‘And after that some toast lamb persillée and onion and gruyère casserole with green beans and celery julienne.’
‘And more champagne?’
‘I think we might change. Something heavier. ’55 was a great year for clarets. A Lafite Rothschild?’
‘I could ask for nothing better.’
‘And for you, my dear?’ Miss Devi had eaten a great deal, though not all, of her curries. She wanted a simple crème brûlée and a glass of madeira to go with it. She had had her fill
of champagne: her eyes were bright, a well-lighted New Delhi, no smouldering jungles. Hillier grew uneasy as, while they awaited their little fillets, Theodorescu bit hungrily at some stick-bread. It might be bluff: watch him. The dining-saloon was emptying at leisure: in the distance a dance-band was tuning up: the aged fiddlers had departed. The diners nearest the contestants were less interested than before: this was pure gorging, their full stomachs told them; the men were, behind blue smokescreens, now satisfying hunger for the finest possible Cuban leaf. The Walters family was still there, the girl reading, the boy inhaling a balloon-glass, the wife smoking, the husband looking not very well.
‘Whereabouts in Germany?’ asked Theodorescu, cutting his fillet. ‘I know Germany. But, of course, I know most countries. My business takes me far and wide.’ I have been warned, thought Hillier. He said: ‘What I meant was that I studied typewriters in Germany. After the war. In Wilhelmshaven.’
‘Of course. A great naval base reduced to a seaside centre of light industries. You will probably be acquainted with Herr Luttwitz of the Olympia Company.’
Hillier took a chance, frowning. ‘I don’t seem to remember a Herr Luttwitz.’
‘Of course, stupid of me. I was thinking of a quite different company altogether.’
‘And what,’ asked Hillier, when the roast lamb came – he could tell it was delicious, but things would soon be ceasing to be delicious – ‘is your particular line of business?’
‘Pure buying and selling,’ shrugged Theodorescu massively. Was it imagination, or was he having difficulty with that forkful of onion and gruyère casserole? ‘I produce nothing. I am a broken reed in the great world – your great world – of creativity.’