The Naive and Sentimental Lover

  “Afraid not,” Cassidy replied obligingly, preferring the spirit of the truth to the truth itself. “They put their best chaps on to it. Total failure.”

  “Then how did you take it?”

  “Me?”

  “The sudden wealth, the fame, the recognition of your talents . . . didn’t you go a little bit mad, Cassidy?”

  Cassidy had met with this question often, and answered it, in his day, in many different ways, according to his mood and the requirements of the audience. Sometimes, principally within the hearing of his wife, he insisted that he was inviolate, that a natural sense of Values was too strong an answer to mere materialistic temptation, that the act of making money had shown him also its futility, he was impervious. At other times, to close male acquaintances, or strangers in railway compartments, he confessed to a deep and tragic change, a frightening loss of appetite for life.

  “There’s no fun any more,” he would say. “Having money takes all the joy out of achievement.”

  While occasionally, in moments of great apprehension, he flatly disowned his money altogether. The British tax system was confiscatory; no honest man could keep more than a fraction of what he earned, whoever did so was on the fiddle, more should be done to control them. But in Helen’s mouth the question was new, and fundamental to their relationship. Therefore, having rapidly considered many alternatives, he shrugged lightly and said, in a moment of the nicest inspiration, “A man is judged by what he looks for, Helen. Not by what he finds.”

  “Christ,” said Helen softly.

  For a long while she gazed at him with an expression of the greatest intensity. Cassidy, indeed, had difficulty in meeting it; he found his eyes drifting, or closing with the smoke of her cigarette. Until, taking a draft of whisky, she broke the spell.

  “Anyway,” she said, indicating an obstruction to some unspoken proposition. “How did your wife take it?”

  This question also he had faced on more than one occasion. Where does she shop now? Did you buy her a fur coat? Once again he found the greatest difficulty in replying. Get rid of her, was his first thought. I am divorced; I am a widower. My wife died a lingering and tragic death; she recently eloped with a great pianist. The reappearance of Shamus mercifully absolved him.

  It was some time now since Shamus had paid them much attention. Already at dinner his first effusive interest in Cassidy had given way to a more general interest in his fellow man, and Helen had explained that, since he went out very little as a rule when he was working, he had to cram a lot of experience into a very short period of time.

  “It’s being an artist,” she said as they went indoors. “He has to live terrifically intensively otherwise he just stands still.”

  “Which is hopeless,” Cassidy agreed.

  Whatever else Shamus might have been doing he was not standing still. He had a girl with him and his arm was round her waist, her upper waist as it were, his hand was cupped comfortably over her left breast and he was not at all steady on his feet.

  “Hey Cassidy,” he said. “Look what I got for you.”

  Alas, the offer is no sooner made than it is withdrawn. Two men appear from somewhere and quietly detach the nice girl from his grasp, someone in authority suggests they take a spot of fresh air, and suddenly they are playing games on a grass traffic circle, leapfrogging over posts under the gaze of a startled young policeman.

  “Anyway,” said Helen, as they made their way towards the next pub, “she was miles too young for Cassidy.”

  “Yes,” said Cassidy loyally, not wishing to wound anyone with his private appetites, “she was.”

  Sequence, in Cassidy’s recollection, had by now become blurred. It remained blurred for the rest of the evening. The journey to Bristol, for instance, left no clear imprint on his memory. He assumed they had a free lift—a lorry driver named Aston played a misty part, and Cassidy’s suit next morning smelt strongly of diesel oil. They went there, he remembered clearly, because Shamus needed water, and he had heard from reliable sources that Bristol was a port.

  “He can’t survive without it,” Helen explained.

  “It’s the sound,” said Cassidy. “The lapping sound.”

  “And the permanence,” Helen reminded him. “Think of undulating waves, going on for ever.”

  Shamus insulted Aston and called him a sodder, probably because Aston was a Methodist, and disapproving of drink. Whatever the reason, the ride ended in dissent, and Cassidy distanced himself from it. The beer hall on the other hand made a vivid impression. He perfectly remembered every white contour of the barmaid’s décolleté—she wore a Bavarian costume which lifted the milky balls almost to her throat—and he remembered the accordion player’s astonishment when Shamus, to the great pleasure of the crowd, sang all the verses of the Horst Wessel lied in a slow, romantic lilt.

  But it was from Bath, not Bristol, that Cassidy, after a last examination of his costly gold watch, finally made that brief sojourn into a world which, in all other respects, he had for several hours rigorously banished from his thoughts.

  7

  A new pub, not on a slope but part of a Vatican outbuilding; the public bar because the saloon was filled with Gerrard’s Crossers.

  Helen and Shamus were playing darts, Smoothies versus Bumpkins, Bumpkins were all right because they were still one with nature. Shamus had drawn a pig on one side of the blackboard and a bowler on the other.

  “Lovers, I am not asking you to vote,” he assured them. “I am teaching you to read.”

  Helen’s turn. She missed the board and nailed the poor box to the panelling. A peal of laughter shook the bar.

  “Excuse me,” Cassidy said confidentially to the landlord. “Have you a telephone I could use?”

  “These your friends, are they?”

  “Well, in a way you know.”

  “I don’t want trouble. I like fun but I don’t want trouble.”

  “That’s all right,” said Cassidy. “I’ll pay for breakages.”

  “Mind you, I’ll say this. He’s a lovely boy. They don’t come like him often do they? And she’s a lovely girl. I haven’t seen a pair like that for quite a while.”

  “He’s a very famous television writer,” Cassidy explained, intuitively adjusting Shamus’ talent to the mass audience. “He’s got three serials running at the moment. He’s worth an absolute bomb.”

  “Is he though?”

  “You ought to see his Bentley. It’s a two-plus-two, dove grey with electric windows.”

  “Well I’m blessed,” the landlord said. “There’s not many of them about is there?”

  “It’s unique. Here, care for one yourself? Anything you like. How about a gold watch?” he suggested, mixing with the men.

  “A what?”

  “A Scotch,” said Cassidy in a lower tone.

  “That’s all right son, I’ll just take a shilling’s worth off you, thanks. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” said Cassidy. “Through here is it?”

  From Bath he can dial direct.

  “Hi,” he says. “How was the clinic?”

  Sandra wife to Aldo (of Cassidy’s General Fastenings) is not a quick girl. Sound takes longer to reach her, particularly on the telephone.

  “All right. Where are you?”

  “Just in the pub. Heather bearing up?”

  It may, of course, be the other way round: that her voice takes longer to carry the distance. That she has already answered me, but the words are clogging the line. Ay’m sorry, sah, there is a traffic jam on the M4 telephone route. Will you tray later? That there are too many husbands apologising to too many wives on cheap rates shortly before closing time. Or that an atomic bomb has fallen, never impossible: hurry back and shoot the children. Alternatively that the Russians have—

  “Who with?” the earpiece demands suddenly.

  She has her father’s military instinct for monosyllables. Montgomery’s five basic questions, who, why, when, where, how? And my God the chaps respecte
d him.

  “The Corporation,” says Cassidy. The Corporation is with me, in full-bottomed wigs, and furs and chains, we have just given a fiveyear contract to the Pied Piper. “The Corporation, the people who run the city. Great chaps, you’d love them. We only finished an hour ago.”

  Winged words, flying but not settling. He musters still greater enthusiasm.

  “Listen it’s all falling into place. The land is absolutely central, it needs very little levelling, and the boys in the Corporation assure me that the moment we raise the first twenty thousand they’ll come through with the footbridge. Free. They really believe in it, I’m astonished.”

  Silence. Does she believe in it? For Christ’s sake, Sandra, this is our meeting point. What does it matter whether it’s true or not? Say yes, admire the achievement. What the hell?

  “There’s one fellow here’s a contractor, in heavy machinery, all that sort of stuff. He’ll level the place free and give us a cost quotation on labour for building the changing rooms.”

  Silence.

  “They really have risen to it in a big way.” But Sandra has not. Sandra has been cut off. Sandra has gone deaf; her mother has switched me through to an extension.

  “Sandra?”

  In the bar, the jukebox is playing a low tune. In the earpiece, a well-bred dog is barking. Sandra has several dogs, all are large and classically entitled. Encouraged by this sign of life, Cassidy himself rallies.

  “They actually showed me a drawing, heart . . . well one like, you know. Off the peg, of course, but well great, really. Just right for kids. A fun bridge.”

  “Shut up Mummy,” says Sandra. “Sorry it was Mummy, fussing about the dogs.”

  “Sandra, aren’t you pleased?”

  “What about?”

  “The bridge. The playing field. For God’s sake . . . Hullo??”

  “Don’t shout.”

  “Are you still speaking?” the operator enquires.

  “Did Hugo see the specialist?” Cassidy demands suddenly, selecting in his anger a contentious point.

  A rustle in the earpiece. Her impatience sigh, unlike her sigh of frustration, is not so sharp. The impatience sigh begins with a liquid click in the roof of the mouth and is followed by a decision not to breathe, like a hunger strike, in fact, but done on air, not food.

  “Just because a man can afford rooms in Harley Street,” she begins, speaking off-key but with large emphasis for the sake of the untutored, “just because there are people around prepared to pay twenty guineas in order not to stand in a queue, it does not mean that a specialist is any better than a perfectly ordinary decent doctor who doesn’t care about money.”

  “So you haven’t taken him?” Cassidy says. The witness has condemned herself out of her own mouth.

  “Pieces of eight,” says Shamus.

  He was standing in the doorway wearing a brown peaked cap and carrying a mynah bird on one finger. He had tucked one leg under his black coat and was pretending to be Long John Silver while he supported himself against the lintel.

  “Pieces of eight, pieces of eight,” he said, talking to the bird.

  “Time,” the landlord shouted from the bar, and rang a ship’s bell, dong, dong.

  “Goodnight,” said Cassidy, into the telephone.

  “Is that all you’re going to say?” Sandra demanded. “I’d have thought it was hardly worth ringing up.”

  “Goodnight and thank you,” said Shamus, taking the receiver from him and speaking in his Italian accent. “’Ullo, ’ullo, ’ullo?”

  Cassidy recovered the receiver but the line was dead. He put it back on its cradle.

  “Hullo, Shamus,” he said at last, smiling. “Have a pint.”

  They were still in the back room. The sounds of revelry came from all sides, but the back room was quiet all the same; an adding machine and several wholesale boxes of sweets lay on the baize-covered table.

  “Was that the bosscow?” Shamus asked.

  “The what?”

  “Your wife. Bosscow. Queen of the herd.”

  “Oh I see. Well, just checking up,” said Cassidy. “Can’t have her going out with the lodger, eh?”

  The noise in the bar became suddenly deafening, but neither raised his voice.

  “What’s the trouble?”

  The mynah was also watching Cassidy. Its feathers were almost lost against the black of Shamus’ jacket, but its eyes were jet bright.

  “It’s my little boy,” said Cassidy. “Hugo. He broke his leg in a skiing accident. The bone won’t seem to mend.”

  “Poor little bugger,” said Shamus not moving.

  “Anyway, the specialists are looking after him.”

  “Sure it’s not your leg?” Shamus asked.

  In the saloon, someone was playing the piano, a whole tune straight the way through.

  “I don’t quite understand.”

  “Work on it, lover, you will.”

  “I meant to tell you actually,” Cassidy said carelessly, with an attempt at movement. “I’ve got a house in Switzerland, a chalet. Quite modest but surprisingly comfortable for two. Place called Sainte-Angèle. It’s empty most of the year. If you like tense slopes you might try that one some time.”

  No laughter.

  “I just mean, if you ever want a place to work, to get away from it all, I’d be delighted to lend it to you for nothing. Take Helen.”

  “Or a substitute,” Shamus suggested. “Lover.”

  “Yes?”

  “You should have been angry with me. For barging in on that call and fucking it up. That was very rude.”

  “Should I?”

  “You should have hit me, lover. I mean I rely on discipline. I believe in it. That’s what the fucking bourgeoisie is for: to inhibit rude sodders like me.”

  Cassidy laughed awkwardly. “You’re too strong for us,” he said. Feeling in his pocket for small change, he made to open the door.

  “Hey, lover.”

  “Yes?”

  “Ever killed anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Not even physically?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Cassidy.

  “I’ll bet the bosscow does,” said Shamus. “Hey, lover.”

  “Well?” Testily, as becomes a tired man with a crippled son.

  Shamus flung out his arms. “Give us a cuddle, lover. I’m starving.”

  “I’ve got to pay for the call,” said Cassidy.

  Arms still outstretched, Shamus remained in the open doorway staring at Cassidy in astonishment while he completed his transactions at the bar; until, without waiting for the promised embrace, he swung away into the grimy crowd.

  “All right you lousy filthy stinking hayseeds,” he yelled. “Button your smocks, Butch Cassidy’s in town!”

  “Time,” the landlord said quickly. “And I mean it.”

  After the pub, the taxi. From Bath or Bristol? No matter. They had missed the last train so Shamus ordered a radio cab in his Italian accent while they all squashed into the telephone booth. Shamus sat in the front so that he could talk to the driver, who was an old man and rather tickled to be driving drunken gentry. Quite soon the radio caught Shamus’ fancy.

  “Listen to her,” he urges them, turning up the volume.

  They all concentrate.

  “Come in Peter One . . . Control calling . . . Peter Two . . . party of four at the station, no luggage, they’ll sit three up at the back. Party waiting now, Peter Three. Come in Peter One, Control calling . . .”

  To Cassidy she sounds as bossy and inexpert and strident and periodic as any other female announcer, but Shamus is entranced.

  “She’s not your daughter is she?” he asks the driver reverently.

  “Not likely. She’s fifty in the shade.”

  “She’s terrific,” says Shamus. “That lady is in the first position. Believe me.”

  “She really is,” Cassidy agrees, about to doze off. Helen’s head has fallen on to his shoulder and she has threade
d her fingers through his hand and he is very pleased to agree to anything when suddenly they hear Shamus talking into the microphone in his Italian voice.

  “I want-a you,” he is whispering fervently. “I love-a you and I want-a you. I-a long for you. Is she dark?” he asks the driver.

  “Darkish.”

  “Come to bed with me,” Shamus breathes back at the microphone. “Fuck me.”

  “Here, steady,” says the driver. On a tense slope, they all wait for the reply.

  “She’s calling the police,” says Cassidy.

  “She’s packing her bags,” says Helen.

  “What a woman,” says Shamus.

  In a tone of incipient hysteria, the radio speaks. “Peter One . . . Peter One . . . who is that?”

  “Not Peter One. Peter One is dead. My name is Dostoevsky,” Shamus insists, dextrously adjusting to the deeper Russian tone. “I have just murdered Peter One without a spark of regret. It was a crime passionel. I want you all for myself, I love you. One night with you is worth a lifetime in Siberia.” The radio pops but finds no words. “Listen I am also Nietzsche. I am no man. I am dynamite. Don’t you understand”—very thick Russian—“that immoralism is a necessary precondition of new values? Listen, we will found a new class together. We will engender a world of innocent, murderous, beautiful boys! We—”

  The driver gently takes the microphone. “It’s all right, dear,” he says kindly. “I’ve got a funny, that’s all.”

  “Funny?” the radio screams through the interference. “You call that funny? Bloody foreigner murdering my drivers in the middle of—”

  The driver switches her off. “She’ll murder me in the morning,” he says, not much worried.

  Shamus has fallen asleep. “Lot of woman there, boy,” he whispers.

  “I wish we could play Moth again,” says Cassidy.

  “Moth was super,” says Helen, and gives his hand another friendly squeeze.

  On the last leg home they stopped the Bentley at a phone box and put through a call to Flaherty so that Shamus could again test the sincerity of his conviction. “A man is what he thinks he is,” Helen explained, quoting the master. “That’s what Shamus means by faith.”