The Naive and Sentimental Lover

  “More,” Shamus exhorted.

  “Antiquity . . . what else do you want me to say?”

  “Then come on with you!”

  A brilliant, infecting smile had replaced the brief cloud of anger. Grabbing the whisky bottle in one hand and the lantern in the other, Shamus beckoned them brightly up the great staircase. Thus for the second time that evening Cassidy found himself conveyed, not altogether against his liking, upon a compulsory journey that seemed to his swimming consciousness to alternate with each new step between past and future, illusion and reality, drunkenness and sobriety.

  “Come, Flaherty!” Shamus cried. “God’s house has many mansions, and me and Helen will show you the whole bloody lot, won’t we, Helen?”

  “Will you follow me?” Helen asked with an air hostess’ charming smile.

  Sir Shamus and Lady Helen de Waldebere. It was symptomatic of Cassidy’s confused state that he never stopped to consider whose heritage was actually for sale. Having cast Shamus as a kind of grounded cavalry officer drinking away the humiliations of a horseless existence, he vested in Helen the fortitude and dignified resignation which properly accompany the evanescence of a Great Line; and never asked himself how it had come about within the probabilities of a conventional union that the two of them had passed their childhood in the same house. Even if he had hit upon the question, Helen’s bearing would only have added to his bewilderment. She was in her element: the young chatelaine had stepped lightly from her portrait and was showing them her domain. Whatever restraint she had felt in the drawing room was swept aside by her transparent devotion to the task. Solemn, wistful, informative by turn, she guided him with loving familiarity through the labyrinth of mouldering corridors. Cassidy kept close behind her, led by the smell of baby soap and the contra-rotations of her firmly rounded hips; Shamus followed at a distance with the bottle and the lantern, moving on the edge of their discourse or calling after them with harsh ironic jokes. “Hey Cassidy get her to tell you about Nanny Higgins having it off with the vicar at the Servants’ Ball.” In the Great Hall he found a pike and fought a shadow duel with his father’s ghost; in the planthouse he insisted on presenting Helen with a flowering cactus, and when she accepted it he kissed her for a long time on the nape of her neck. Helen, in her serenity, took it all in good part.

  “It’s the waiting and the worry,” she explained to Cassidy while Shamus was chanting Gregorian plainsong in the crypt. “It’s so frustrating for him.”

  “Please,” said Cassidy. “I do understand. Really.”

  “Yes, I think you do,” she said casting him a look of gratitude.

  “What will he do now? Get a job?” Cassidy asked, in a tone which recognised that, for such as Shamus, employment was the final degradation.

  “Who would have him?” Helen asked simply.

  She took him everywhere. In hanging dusk with the first stars breaking they patrolled the crumbling battlements and marvelled at the empty moat. By the light of the lantern they stood in awe before worm-eaten four-posters and delved in dust-filled priest holes, they caressed mildewed screens and tapped on panelling honeycombed by beetles. They discussed the problems of heating and Cassidy said small-bore piping would do the least harm. They worked out which rooms could be sealed off with little alteration: how the rewiring could be run behind the skirting boards and how an electrolyte circuit worked perfectly as damp course.

  “It turns the house into a dry battery,” Cassidy explained. “It’s not cheap but then what is these days?”

  “You know an awful lot about it,” said Helen. “Are you an architect by any chance?”

  “I just love old things,” said Cassidy.

  Behind them, hands clasped, Shamus was chanting the Magnificat.

  4

  “You’re a lovely man,” Shamus says quietly, offering him a drink from the bottle. “You’re really a lovely perfect man. Tell us, do you have any theories on the general nature of love?” Tell us, do you have any theories on the general nature of love?”

  The two men are on the Minstrel Gallery. Helen stands below them, gazing through the window, her eyes upon the long view of the chestnut walk.

  “Well I think I understand how you feel about the house. Let’s put it that way, shall we?” Cassidy suggests with a smile.

  “Oh but it’s worse for her, though, far.”

  “Is it?”

  “Us men, you know, we’re survivors. Cope with anything really can’t we? But them, eh, them.”

  She has her back to them still: the last light from the window shines through the thin housecoat and shows the outline of her nakedness.

  “A woman needs a home,” Shamus pronounces philosophically. “Cars, bank accounts. Kids. It’s a crime to deprive them of it, that’s my view. I mean how else are they fulfilled? That’s what I say.”

  One black eyebrow has risen slightly and it occurs to Cassidy, but not with particular force, that Shamus is in some way mocking him, though how is not yet clear.

  “I’m sure it’ll work out,” says Cassidy blandly.

  “Tell me, have you ever had two at once?”

  “Two what?”

  “Women.”

  “I’m afraid not,” says Cassidy very shocked; not by the notion, which he has quite often entertained, but by the context in which it is expressed. Could any man blessed with Helen think so base?

  “Or three?”

  “Not three either.”

  “Do you play golf at all?”

  “Now and then.”

  “How about squash? Would squash be a game you play?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I like you to keep fit that’s all.”

  “Shouldn’t we go down? I think she’s waiting.”

  “Oh, lover,” says Shamus softly as he takes another pull from the bottle. “A girl like that’ll wait all night for the likes of you and me.”

  “Couldn’t you give it to the National Trust?” Cassidy asked loudly in his boardroom voice as they descended the rickety staircase. “I thought there was some arrangement whereby they maintain the house and let you live in it on condition that you open it to the public so many days a year.”

  “Ah, the buggers would stink the place out,” Shamus retorted. “We tried it once. The kids peed on the Aubusson and the parents had it off in the orangerie.”

  “You have to pay something for upkeep as well,” Helen explained with another of those appealing glances at her husband that were so sadly eloquent of her distress.

  Pee-break, Shamus called it. They had left Helen in the drawing room staunching the smoking fire and now they stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the moat, listening to their own water trickling over the dry stones. The night was of an alpine majesty. With shaggy splendour the black house rose in countless peaks against the pale sky, where powdery swarms of stars followed the moonlit ridges of the clouds like fireflies frozen into the eternal ice. At their feet a white dew glistened on the uncut grass.

  “The heaventree of stars,” said Shamus. “Hung with humid nightree fruit.”

  “That’s beautiful,” said Cassidy reverently.

  “Joyce. Old girl friend. Can’t get her out of my hair. Hey, lover. Watch out for frostbite for God’s sake. Nip it off in a jiffy, I warn you.”

  “Thanks,” said Cassidy with a laugh. “I will.”

  Shamus sidled closer. “Er . . . tell us,” he enquired confidingly. “Er do you think it’ll do you? The house I mean . . . will it suit you at all?”

  “I don’t know. I hope it will, I’ll have to have a survey of course. Get a quantity surveyor in too, probably. It’ll cost a bomb to put straight.”

  “Hey lover, listen.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Long pause.

  “What do you want it for?”

  “I’m looking for a bit of tradition, I suppose. My father was a self-made man.”

  “Oh my God,” Shamus drawled and, as if to show that the revelation had quite pu
t him off, stepped quickly out of reach. “Big place all the same isn’t it, for a weekend hideaway? Twenty bedrooms or more . . .”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “Not probing you know. Do what you like with it as far as we’re concerned, provided you pay the price. Still you can always let a few floors I dare say.”

  “If I had to, yes.”

  “Rent out the land too, eh? Local farmer’d take it off your hands no doubt.”

  “Yes I suppose he would.”

  “I’ve always thought it’d make a good school actually.”

  “Yes, or a school.”

  “Or a hotel for that matter.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Hey, what about a casino? Now there’s a thought. Some of those wicked London hostesses, eh? Get a few of the holy fathers in for a flutter.”

  “I wouldn’t want that,” said Cassidy shortly. He was perfectly sober but the whisky appeared to be affecting his movements.

  “Jesus why ever not?”

  “I just wouldn’t want it, that’s all.”

  “Oh now for the love of God,” Shamus declared in a tone of exasperation. “Don’t go telling us you’re a bloody Puritan. I mean listen, we’re not giving Haverdown to the Ironsides, lover, not even if we’re crying out for a crust of bread.”

  “I don’t think you quite understand me,” said Cassidy, hearing himself at a distance.

  Safely buttoned, he was gazing back at the great house and the one pink window shivering with firelight. While he watched, he saw Helen’s perfect outline slip silently across it as she gravely went about her domestic duties.

  “We seem to feel rather differently about these things. I’d like to put the place on its feet, certainly. I’d also like to keep it as it was.”

  Once more he felt Shamus’ eyes watching him intently in the darkness, and he pitched his tone high to avoid the encroaching sentiment.

  “I mean by that, I’d like to do some of the things that you might have done if . . . well if you’d had the chance. I expect that sounds rather silly to you, but I’m afraid that’s the way I feel.”

  “Listen,” said Shamus suddenly. “Ssh.”

  They stood very still while Cassidy strained his ears for an unusual rustic sound—the boom of a bittern perhaps, or the snarl of a natural predator—but all he could hear was the creaking of the house and the drowsy rustle of the treetops.

  “I thought I heard someone singing,” said Shamus, softly. “Doesn’t matter really, does it. Maybe it was just mermaids.” He was standing perfectly still, and the aggression had gone out of his voice. “Where were you?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, go on. I love it!”

  “I was only trying to tell you,” said Cassidy, “that I believe in continuity. In preserving the quality of life. Which I suppose in your book makes me rather a fool, does it?”

  “You lovely gorgeous lover,” Shamus whispered at last, still staring into the night.

  “I don’t follow you,” said Cassidy.

  “Ah, fuck it. Helen! Hey, Helen!”

  Seizing the lower folds of his black jacket he darted bat-like in wide zigzags over the lawn until they reached the portico.

  “Helen!” he shouted as he burst into the drawing room. “Get this! A most fantastic incredible epoch-making thing has happened! We are redeemed. Butch Cassidy has fallen in love with us. We’re his first married couple!”

  Helen was kneeling at the fireside, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight, and she had the air of someone who had taken a decision in their absence.

  “He didn’t get frostbite either,” Shamus added, as if that were the other part of his good news. “I looked.”

  “Shamus,” Helen said, into the fire. “I think Mr. Cassidy should go now.”

  “Balls. Cassidy’s far too pissed to drive a Bentley. Think of the publicity.”

  “Let him go, Shamus,” Helen said.

  “Tell her,” he said to Cassidy, still breathing heavily from his run. “Tell her what you told me. Out there, when we were having a pee. Helen, he doesn’t want to go, do you, lover? You want to stay and play, I know you do! And he is Flaherty. I know he is, I love him, Helen, honest!”

  “I don’t want to hear,” said Helen.

  “Tell her! It’s nothing filthy, honest to God, Helen. It’s Cassidy’s Good Housekeeping testimonial. You tell her, go on!”

  Sweat had formed on his brow and his face was red from the exertion of the run.

  “Nothing more nor less than a papal blessing,” he insisted, still breathing heavily. “Cassidy admires us. Cassidy is deeply moved. You and me are the backbone of his Empire. The flowers of bloody England. Virginal roses. Beaux sabreurs. Buchanbabies. He’s Flaherty, Helen, and he’s come to buy Paradise. It’s true! Tell her, for Christ’s sake Cassidy, get your cock out of your mouth and tell her!”

  Seizing Cassidy by the shoulder he forced him roughly to the centre of the room. “Tell her what you’ll do with the house when you’ve bought it!”

  “Goodbye Cassidy,” Helen said quickly. “Drive carefully.”

  “Tell her!” Shamus insisted through harsh breaths. “Tell her what you’ll do with the house! Damn it man, you came to buy it didn’t you?”

  Acutely embarrassed—not to say menaced—by the vehemence of Shamus’ demand, Cassidy endeavoured to recall the main lines of his thesis.

  “All right,” he began. “If I buy the house I promise to, well, try and keep it in your style. Fit for a great English family with a past.... To honour it. I’d try to do with it whatever you would have done if you’d had the money. . . .”

  The silence was absolute save for the long rasps of Shamus’ breathing. Even the water dripping from the ceiling fell soundlessly into its enamel pan. Helen’s eyes were still lowered. Cassidy saw only the golden outline of the firelight on her cheek and the one quick movement of her shoulders as she rose, went swiftly to her husband, and buried her head in his breast.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “That was beautiful, lover,” Shamus assured him with a bright diagonal nod of his head. “Really beautifully put. I’ll tell you another thing. The maharajah is a fan of the great James Joyce. He quoted a whole chunk to me out there, you want to hear him.”

  “That was you,” Cassidy protested. “That wasn’t me, that was you.”

  “And he heard mermaids singing, Helen, and he knows the English poets back to front—”

  “Shamus,” Helen pleaded. “Shamus.”

  “Cassidy, listen. I’ve got a great idea. Spend the weekend with us! Come hunting! We can mount you.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t ride. Otherwise I’d like to.”

  “Never mind! Listen, we love you, we don’t care about things like that, nor does the horse! And besides you’ve a great leg for a boot, lover, hasn’t he, Helen? Truth.”

  “Tell him, Shamus,” Helen said quietly. “Tell him or I will.”

  “And in the evening—” his enthusiasm for his new friend was rising with every image “—come the evening we’ll play mah-jongg, and you shall read poetry to us and tell us all about the Bentley. No need to dress up, black tie will do. And we’ll dance. Nothing grand, just twenty couples or so, the County and a few earls to stiffen them, don’t you know, and when finally the last coach has teetered drunkenly down the drive—”

  “Shamus!”

  The next moment she had crossed the room and was standing before Cassidy, arms down and hair straight like a child sent to say goodnight.

  “And we’ll have the Montmorencys in!” Shamus shouted. “Cassidy would love the Montmorencys! They’ve got two fucking Bentleys!”

  Very softly, her hazel eyes gazing bravely into his, Helen began speaking.

  “Cassidy, there’s something you’ve got to hear. We’re squatters,” she said. “Voluntary squatters. Shamus doesn’t believe in property, he says it’s a refuge from reality, so we go from one empty house to another. He??
?s not even Irish, he just has funny voices and a theory that God is living in County Cork disguised as a forty-three-year-old taxi driver. He’s a writer, a marvellous, wonderful writer. He’s altering the course of world literature and I love him. And as for you,” standing on tiptoe she put her arms round his shoulders and leaned the length of her body against him. “As for Cassidy, he’s the sweetest man alive, whatever he believes in.”

  “What does he do, for Christ’s sake?” Shamus cried. “Ask him where he gets it all from!”

  “I make accessories for prams,” Cassidy replied. “Foot brakes, canopies, and chassis.”

  His mouth had gone quite dry and his stomach was aching. Music, he thought; someone must make music. She’s holding me for dancing and the band won’t play and everyone’s looking at us saying we’re in love.

  “Cassidy’s Universal Fastenings. We’re quoted on the Stock Exchange, fifty-eight and sixpence for a one-pound share.”

  Helen is in his arms and the nestling movement of her breasts has told him she is either laughing or weeping. Shamus is taking the cap off the whisky bottle. All manner of visions are crowding upon Cassidy’s troubled mind. The dance floor has given way. The soft hair of her mound is caressing him through the thin stuff of her housecoat. Swiss waterfalls alternate with tumbling castles and plunging stock prices; two-plus-two Bentleys lie wrecked along the roadside. He is in Carey Street on the steps of the Bankruptcy Court being pelted by infuriated creditors and Helen is telling them to stop. He is standing naked at a cocktail party and the pubic hair has spread over his navel, but Helen is covering him with her ball dress. Through all these intimations of catastrophe and exposure, one instinct signals to him like a beacon: she is warm and vibrant in my arms.

  “I’d like to ask you both to dinner,” Cassidy says. “If you promise to wear real clothes. Or is that against your religion?”

  Suddenly Helen is pulled from his grasp and in her place Cassidy feels the wild heart of Shamus thumping through the black jacket; smells the sweat and woodsmoke and the fumes of whisky buried in the soft cloth; hears the dark voice breathing to him in love.