May We Borrow Your Husband & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life

  He was so small he could stand nearly upright under the rack. When he sat down he fastened the seat-belt over the two bags before he fastened his own. The woman watched him with suspicion. ‘I’ve never seen anyone do that before,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t want it shaken about,’ he said. ‘There are storms over London.’

  ‘You haven’t got an animal in there, have you?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘It’s cruel to carry an animal shut up like that,’ she said, as though she disbelieved him.

  As the Trident began its run he laid his hand on the bag as if he were reassuring something within. The woman watched the bag narrowly. If she saw the least movement of life she had made up her mind to call the stewardess. Even if it were only a tortoise. . . . A tortoise needed air, of so she supposed, in spite of hibernation. When they were safely airborne he relaxed and began to read a Nice-Matin – he spent a good deal of time on each story as though his French were not very good. The woman struggled angrily to get her big cavernous bag from under the seat-belt. She muttered ‘Ridiculous’ twice for his benefit. Then she made up, put on thick horn-rimmed glasses and began to re-read a letter which began ‘My darling Tiny’ and ended ‘Your own cuddly Bertha’. After a while she grew tired of the weight on her knees and dropped it on to the BOAC over-night bag.

  The little man leapt in distress. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘please.’ He lifted her bag and pushed it quite rudely into a corner of the seat. ‘I don’t want it squashed,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of respect.’

  ‘What have you got in your precious bag?’ she asked him angrily.

  ‘A dead baby,’ he said. ‘I thought I had told you.’

  ‘On the left of the aircraft,’ the pilot announced through the loud-speaker, you will see Montélimar. We shall be passing Paris in –’

  ‘You are not serious,’ she said.

  ‘It’s just one of those things,’ he replied in a tone that carried conviction.

  ‘But you can’t take dead babies – like that – in a bag – in the economy class.’

  ‘In the case of a baby it is so much cheaper than freight. Only a week old. It weighs so little.’

  ‘But it should be in a coffin, not an over-night bag.’

  ‘My wife didn’t trust a foreign coffin. She said the materials they use are not durable. She’s rather a conventional woman.’

  ‘Then it’s your baby?’ Under the circumstances she seemed almost prepared to sympathize.

  ‘My wife’s baby,’ he corrected her.

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  He said sadly, ‘There could well be a difference,’ and turned the page of Nice-Matin.

  ‘Are you suggesting . . .?’ But he was deep in a column dealing with a Lions Club meeting in Antibes and the rather revolutionary suggestion made there by a member from Grasse. She read over again her letter from ‘cuddly Bertha’, but it failed to hold her attention. She kept on stealing a glance at the over-night bag.

  ‘You don’t anticipate trouble with the customs?’ she asked him after a while.

  ‘Of course I shall have to declare it,’ he said. ‘It was acquired abroad.’

  When they landed, exactly on time, he said to her with old-fashioned politeness, ‘I have enjoyed our flight.’ She looked for him with a certain morbid curiosity in the customs – Channel 10 – but then she saw him in Channel 12, for passengers carrying hand-baggage only. He was speaking, earnestly, to the officer who was poised, chalk in hand, over the over-night bag. Then she lost sight of him as her own inspector insisted on examining the contents of her cavernous bag, which yielded up a number of undeclared presents for Bertha.

  Henry Cooper was the first out of the arrivals door and he took a hired car. The charge for taxis rose every year when he went abroad and it was his one extravagance not to wait for the airport-bus. The sky was overcast and the temperature only a little above freezing, but the driver was in a mood of euphoria. He had a dashing comradely air – he told Henry Cooper that he had won fifty pounds on the pools. The heater was on full blast, and Henry Cooper opened the window, but an icy current of air from Scandinavia flowed round his shoulders. He closed the window again and said, ‘Would you mind turning off the heater?’ It was as hot in the car as in a New York hotel during a blizzard.

  ‘It’s cold outside,’ the driver said.

  ‘You see,’ Henry Cooper said, ‘I have a dead baby in my bag.’

  ‘Dead baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah well,’ the driver said, ‘he won’t feel the heat, will he? It’s a he?’

  ‘Yes. A he. I’m anxious he shouldn’t – deteriorate.’

  ‘They keep a long time,’ the driver said. ‘You’d be surprised. Longer than old people. What did you have for lunch?’

  Henry Cooper was a little surprised. He had to cast his mind back. He said, ‘Carré d’agneau à la provençale.’

  ‘Curry?’

  ‘No, not curry, lamb chops with garlic and herbs. And then an apple-tart.’

  ‘And you drank something I wouldn’t be surprised?’

  ‘A half bottle of rosé. And a brandy.’

  ‘There you are, you see.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘With all that inside you, you wouldn’t keep so well.’

  Gillette Razors were half hidden in icy mist. The driver had forgotten or had refused to turn down the heat, but he remained silent for quite a while, perhaps brooding on the subject of life and death.

  ‘How did the little perisher die?’ he asked at last.

  ‘They die so easily,’ Henry Cooper answered.

  ‘Many a true word’s spoken in jest,’ the driver said, a little absent-mindedly because he had swerved to avoid a car which braked too suddenly, and Henry Cooper instinctively put his hand on the over-night bag to steady it.

  ‘Sorry,’ the driver said. ‘Not my fault. Amateur drivers! Anyway, you don’t need to worry – they can’t bruise after death, or can they? I read something about it once in The Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, but I don’t remember now exactly what. That’s always the trouble about reading.’

  ‘I’d be much happier,’ Henry Cooper said, ‘if you would turn off the heat.’

  ‘There’s no point in your catching a chill, is there? Or me either. It won’t help him where he’s gone – if anywhere at all. The next thing you know you’ll be in the same position yourself. Not in an over-night bag, of course. That goes without saying.’

  The Knightsbridge tunnel as usual was closed because of flooding. They turned north through the park. The trees dripped on empty benches. The pigeons blew out their grey feathers the colour of soiled city snow.

  ‘Is he yours?’ the driver asked. ‘If you don’t mind my inquiring.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Henry Cooper added briskly and brightly, ‘My wife’s, as it happens.’

  ‘It’s never the same if it’s not your own,’ the driver said thoughtfully. ‘I had a nephew who died. He had a split palate – that wasn’t the reason, of course, but it made it easier to bear for the parents. Are you going to an undertaker’s now?’

  ‘I thought I would take it home for the night and see about the arrangements tomorrow.’

  ‘A little perisher like that would fit easily into the frig. No bigger than a chicken. As a precaution only.’

  They entered the large whitewashed Bayswater square. The houses resembled the above-ground tombs you find in continental cemeteries, except that, unlike the tombs, they were divided into flatlets and there were rows and rows of bell-pushes to wake the inmates. The driver watched Henry Cooper get out with the over-night bag at a portico entitled Stare House. ‘Bloody orful aircraft company,’ he said mechanically when he saw the letters BOAC – without ill-will, it was only a Pavlov response.

  Henry Cooper went up to the top floor and let himself in. His mother was already in the hall to greet him. ‘I saw your car draw up, dear.’ He put the over-night bag on a chair s
o as to embrace her better.

  ‘You’ve come quickly. You got my telegram at Nice?’

  ‘Yes, Mother. With only an over-night bag I walked straight through the customs.’

  ‘So clever of you to travel light.’

  ‘It’s the drip-dry shirt that does it,’ Henry Cooper said. He followed his mother into their sitting-room. He noticed she had changed the position of his favourite picture – a reproduction from Life magazine of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. ‘Just so that I don’t see it from my chair, dear,’ his mother explained, interpreting his glance. His slippers were laid out by his armchair and he sat down with an air of satisfaction at being home again.

  ‘And now, dear,’ his mother said, ‘tell me how it was. Tell me everything. Did you make some new friends?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mother, wherever I went I made friends.’ Winter had fallen early on the House of Stare. The over-night bag disappeared in the darkness of the hall like a blue fish into blue water.

  ‘And adventures? What adventures?’

  Once, while he talked, his mother got up and tiptoed to draw the curtains and to turn on a reading-lamp, and once, she gave a little gasp of horror. ‘A little toe? In the marmalade?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘It wasn’t English marmalade?’

  ‘No, Mother, foreign.’

  ‘I could have understood a finger – an accident slicing the orange – but a toe!’

  ‘As I understood it,’ Henry Cooper said, ‘in those parts they use a kind of guillotine worked by the bare foot of a peasant.’

  ‘You complained, of course?’

  ‘Not in words, but I put the toe very conspicuously at the edge of the plate.’

  After one more story it was time for his mother to go and put the shepherd’s pie into the oven and Henry Cooper went into the hall to fetch the over-night bag. ‘Time to unpack,’ he thought. He had a tidy mind.

  MORTMAIN

  * * *

  HOW wonderfully secure and peaceful a genuine marriage seemed to Carter, when he attained it at the age of forty-two. He even enjoyed every moment of the church service, except when he saw Josephine wiping away a tear as he conducted Julia down the aisle. It was typical of this new frank relationship that Josephine was there at all. He had no secrets from Julia; they had often talked together of his ten tormented years with Josephine, of her extravagant jealousy, of her well-timed hysterics. ‘It was her insecurity,’ Julia argued with understanding, and she was quite convinced that in a little while it would be possible to form a friendship with Josephine.

  ‘I doubt it, darling.’

  ‘Why? I can’t help being fond of anyone who loved you.’

  ‘It was a rather cruel love.’

  ‘Perhaps at the end when she knew she was losing you, but, darling, there were happy years.’

  ‘Yes.’ But he wanted to forget that he had ever loved anyone before Julia.

  Her generosity sometimes staggered him. On the seventh day of their honeymoon, when they were drinking retsina in a little restaurant on the beach by Sunium, he accidentally took a letter from Josephine out of his pocket. It had arrived the day before and he had concealed it, for fear of hurting Julia. It was typical of Josephine that she could not leave him alone for the brief period of the honeymoon. Even her handwriting was now abhorrent to him – very neat, very small, in black ink the colour of her hair. Julia was platinum-fair. How had he ever thought that black hair was beautiful? Or been impatient to read letters in black ink?

  ‘What’s the letter, darling? I didn’t know there had been a post.’

  ‘It’s from Josephine. It came yesterday.’

  ‘But you haven’t even opened it!’ she exclaimed without a word of reproach.

  ‘I don’t want to think about her,’

  ‘But, darling, she may be ill.’

  ‘Not she.’

  ‘Or in distress.’

  ‘She earns more with her fashion-designs than I do with my stories.’

  ‘Darling, let’s be kind. We can afford to be. We are so happy.’

  So he opened the letter. It was affectionate and uncomplaining and he read it with distaste.

  Dear Philip, I didn’t want to be a death’s head at the reception, so I had no chance to say goodbye and wish you both the greatest possible happiness. I thought Julia looked terribly beautiful and so very, very young. You must look after her carefully. I know how well you can do that, Philip dear. When I saw her, I couldn’t help wondering why you took such a long time to make up your mind to leave me. Silly Philip. It’s much less painful to act quickly.

  I don’t suppose you are interested to hear about my activities now, but just in case you are worrying a little about me – you know what an old worrier you are – I want you to know that I’m working very hard at a whole series for – guess, the French Vogue. They are paying me a fortune in francs, and I simply have no time for unhappy thoughts. I’ve been back once – I hope you don’t mind – to our apartment (slip of the tongue) because I’d lost a key sketch. I found it at the back of our communal drawer – the ideas-bank, do you remember? I thought I’d taken all my stuff away, but there it was between the leaves of the story you started that heavenly summer, and never finished, at Napoule. Now I’m rambling on when all I really wanted to say was: Be happy both of you. Love, Josephine.

  Carter handed the letter to Julia and said, ‘It could have been worse.’

  ‘But would she like me to read it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s meant for both of us.’ Again he thought how wonderful it was to have no secrets. There had been so many secrets during the last ten years, even innocent secrets, for fear of misunderstanding, of Josephine’s rage or silence. Now he had no fear of anything at all: he could have trusted even a guilty secret to Julia’s sympathy and comprehension. He said, ‘I was a fool not to show you the letter yesterday. I’ll never do anything like that again.’ He tried to recall Spenser’s line – ‘. . . port after stormie seas’.

  When Julia had finished reading the letter she said, ‘I think she’s a wonderful woman. How very, very sweet of her to write like that. You know I was – only now and then of course – just a little bit worried about her. After all I wouldn’t like to lose you after ten years.’

  When they were in the taxi going back to Athens she said, ‘Were you very happy at Napoule?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. I don’t remember, it wasn’t like this.’

  With the antennae of a lover he could feel her moving away from him, though their shoulders still touched. The sun was bright on the road from Sunium, the warm sleepy loving siesta lay ahead, and yet . . . ‘Is anything the matter, darling?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. . . . It’s only . . . do you think one day you’ll say the same about Athens as about Napoule? “I don’t remember, it wasn’t like this”.’

  ‘What a dear fool you are,’ he said and kissed her. After that they played a little in the taxi going back to Athens, and when the streets began to unroll she sat up and combed her hair. ‘You aren’t really a cold man, are you?’ she asked, and he knew that all was right again. It was Josephine’s fault that – momentarily – there had been a small division.

  When they got out of bed to have dinner, she said, ‘We must write to Josephine.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Darling, I know how you feel, but really it was a wonderful letter.’

  ‘A picture-postcard then.’

  So they agreed on that.

  Suddenly it was autumn when they arrived back in London – if not winter already, for there was ice in the rain falling on the tarmac, and they had quite forgotten how early the lights came on at home – passing Gillette and Lucozade and Smith’s Crisps, and no view of the Parthenon anywhere. The BOAC posters seemed more than usually sad – ‘BOAC takes you there and brings you back.’

  ‘We’ll put on all the electric fires as soon as we get in,’ Carter said, ‘and it will be warm in no time at all.’ But when they opened the do
or of the apartment they found the fires were already alight. Little glows greeted them in the twilight from the depths of the living-room and the bedroom.

  ‘Some fairy has done this,’ Julia said.

  ‘Not a fairy of any kind,’ Carter said. He had already seen the envelope on the mantelpiece addressed in black ink to ‘Mrs Carter’.

  Dear Julia, you won’t mind my calling you Julia, will you? I feel we have so much in common, having loved the same man. Today was so icy-cold that I could not help thinking of how you two were returning from the sun and the warmth to a cold flat. (I know how cold the flat can be. I used to catch a chill every year when we came back from the south of France.) So I’ve done a very presumptuous thing. I’ve slipped in and put on the fires, but to show you that I’ll never do such a thing again, I’ve hidden my key under the mat outside the front door. That’s just in case your plane is held up in Rome or somewhere. I’ll telephone the airport and if by some unlikely chance you haven’t arrived, I’ll come back and turn out the fires for safety (and economy! the rates are awful). Wishing you a very warm evening in your new home, love from Josephine.

  P.S. I did notice that the coffee jar was empty, so I’ve left a packet of Blue Mountain in the kitchen. It’s the only coffee Philip really cares for.

  ‘Well,’ Julia said laughing, ‘she does think of everything.’

  ‘I wish she’d just leave us alone,’ Carter said.

  ‘We wouldn’t be warm like this, and we wouldn’t have any coffee for breakfast.’

  ‘I feel that she’s lurking about the place and she’ll walk in at any moment. Just when I’m kissing you.’ He kissed Julia with one careful eye on the door.

  ‘You are a bit unfair, darling. After all, she’s left her key under the mat.’

  ‘She might have had a duplicate made.’

  She closed his mouth with another kiss.

  ‘Have you noticed how erotic an aeroplane makes you after a few hours?’ Carter asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose it’s the vibration.’

  ‘Let’s do something about it, darling.’