Loser Takes All

  ‘I was wondering, dear lady,’ (the extraordinary phrase slipped out again) ‘if you would do me the honour of dining. I have no one with whom to celebrate my luck.’

  ‘But, of course, colonel, it would be a great pleasure.’ At that I really put my hand up to my mouth to see if the moustache were there. We both seemed to have learnt parts in a play – I began to fear what the third act might hold. I noticed she was edging towards the restaurant of the Salle Privée, but all my snobbery revolted at dining there with so notorious a figure of fun. I said, ‘I thought perhaps – if we could take a little air – it’s such a beautiful evening, the heat of these rooms, some small exclusive place . . .’ I would have suggested a private room if I had not feared that my intentions might have been misunderstood and welcomed.

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, colonel.’

  We swept out (there was no other word for it) and I prayed that Cary and her young man were safely at dinner in their cheap café; it would have been intolerable if she had seen me at that moment. The woman imposed unreality. I was persuaded that to the white moustache had now been added a collapsible opera hat and a scarlet lined cloak.

  I said, ‘A horse-cab, don’t you think, on a night so balmy . . .’

  ‘Barmy, colonel?’

  ‘Spelt with an L,’ I explained, but I don’t think she understood.

  When we were seated in the cab I appealed for her help. ‘I am really quite a stranger here. I have dined out so seldom. Where can we go that is quiet . . . and exclusive?’ I was determined that the place should be exclusive: if it excluded all the world but the two of us, I would be the less embarrassed.

  ‘There is a small new restaurant – a club really, very comme il faut. It is called Orphée. Rather expensive, I fear, colonel.’

  ‘Expense is no object.’ I gave the name to the driver and leant back. As she was sitting bolt upright I was able to shelter behind her bulk. I said, ‘When were you last in Cheltenham . . . ?’

  The devil was about us that night. Whatever I said had been written into my part. She replied promptly, ‘Dear Cheltenham . . . how did you discover . . . ?’

  ‘Well, you know, a handsome woman catches one’s eye.’

  ‘You live there too?’

  ‘One of those little houses off Queen’s Parade.’

  ‘We must be near neighbours,’ and to emphasize our nearness I could feel her massive mauve flank move ever so slightly against me. I was glad that the cab drew up: we hadn’t gone more than two hundred yards from the Casino.

  ‘A bit highbrow, what?’ I said, glaring up as I felt a colonel should do at the lit mask above the door made out of an enormous hollowed potato. We had to brush our way through shreds of cotton which were meant, I suppose, to represent cobwebs. The little room inside was hung with photographs of authors, actors and film stars, and we had to sign our name in a book, thus apparently becoming life members of the club. I wrote Robert Devereux. I could feel her leaning against my shoulder, squinnying at the signature.

  The restaurant was crowded and rather garishly lit by bare globes. There were a lot of mirrors that must have been bought at the sale of some old restaurant, for they advertised ancient specialities like ‘Mutton Chopps’.

  She said. ‘Cocteau was at the opening.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Oh, colonel,’ she said, ‘you are laughing at me.’

  I said, ‘Oh well, you know, in my kind of life one hasn’t much time for books,’ and suddenly, just under the word Chopps, I saw Cary gazing back at me.

  ‘How I envy a life of action,’ my companion said, and laid down her bag – chinkingly – on the table. The whole bird’s nest shook and the amber ear-rings swung as she turned to me and said confidingly, ‘Tell me, colonel. I love – passionately – to hear men talk of their lives.’ (Cary’s eyes in the mirror became enormous: her mouth was a little open as though she had been caught in mid-sentence.)

  I said, ‘Oh well, there’s not much to tell.’

  ‘Men are so much more modest than women. If I had deeds of derring-do to my credit I would never tire of telling them. Cheltenham must seem very quiet to you.’ I heard a spoon drop at a neighbouring table. I said weakly, ‘Oh well, I don’t mind quiet. What will you eat?’

  ‘I have such a teeny-weeny appetite, colonel. A langouste thermidor . . .’

  ‘And a bottle of the Widow?’ I could have bitten my tongue – the hideous words were out before I could stop them. I wanted to turn to Cary and say, ‘This isn’t me. I didn’t write this. It’s my part. Blame the author.’

  A voice I didn’t know said, ‘But I adore you. I adore everything you do, the way you talk, the way you are silent. I wish I could speak English much much better so that I could tell you . . .’ I turned slowly sideways and looked at Cary. I had never, since I kissed her first, seen so complete a blush. Bird’s Nest said, ‘So young and so romantic, aren’t they? I always think the English are too reticent. That’s what makes our encounter so strange. Half an hour ago we didn’t even know each other, and now here we are with – what did you call it? – a bottle of the Widow. How I love these masculine phrases. Are you married, colonel?’

  ‘Well, in a way . . .’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘We’re sort of separated.’

  ‘How sad. I’m separated too – by death. Perhaps that’s less sad.’

  A voice I had begun to detest said, ‘Your husband does not deserve you to be faithful. To leave you all night while he gambles . . .’

  ‘He’s not gambling tonight,’ Cary said. She added in a strangled voice, ‘He’s in Cannes having dinner with a young, beautiful, intelligent widow.’

  ‘Don’t cry, chérie.’

  ‘I’m not crying, Philippe. I’m, I’m, I’m laughing. If he could see me now . . .’

  ‘He would be wild with jealousy, I hope. Are you jealous?’

  ‘So touching,’ Bird’s Nest said. ‘One can’t help listening. One seems to glimpse an entire life . . .’

  The whole affair seemed to me abominably one-sided. ‘Women are so gullible,’ I said, raising my voice a little. ‘My wife started going around with a young man because he looked hungry. Perhaps he was hungry. He would take her to expensive restaurants like this and make her pay. Do you know what they charge for a langouste thermidor here? It’s so expensive, they don’t even put the price on the bill. A simple inexpensive café for students.’

  ‘I don’t understand, colonel. Has something upset you?’

  ‘And the wine. Don’t you think I had to draw the line at his drinking wine at my expense?’

  ‘You must have been treated shamefully.’

  Somebody put down a glass so hard that it broke. The detestable voice said, ‘Chérie, that is good fortune for us. Look – I put some wine behind your ears, on the top of your head . . . Do you think your husband will sleep with the beautiful lady in Cannes?’

  ‘Sleep is about all he’s capable of doing.’

  I got to my feet and shouted at her – I could stand no more. ‘How dare you say such things?’

  ‘Philippe,’ Cary said, ‘let’s go.’ She put some notes on the table and led him out. He was too surprised to object.

  Bird’s Nest said, ‘They were really going too far, weren’t they? Talking like that in public. I love your old-fashioned chivalry, colonel. The young must learn.’

  She took nearly an hour before she got through her langouste thermidor and her strawberry ice. She began to tell me the whole story of her life, beginning over the langouste with a childhood in an old rectory in Kent and ending over the ice-cream with her small widow’s portion at Cheltenham. She was staying in a little pension in Monte Carlo because it was ‘select’, and I suppose her methods at the Casino very nearly paid for her keep.

  I got rid of her at last and went home. I was afraid that Cary wouldn’t be there, but she was sitting up in bed reading one of those smart phrase books that are got up like a novel and ar
e terribly bright and gay. When I opened the door she looked up over the book and said, ‘Entrez, mon colonel.’

  ‘What are you reading that for?’ I said.

  ‘J’essaye de faire mon français un peu meilleur.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I might live in France one day.’

  ‘Oh? Who with? The hungry student?’

  ‘Philippe has asked me to marry him.’

  ‘After what his dinner must have cost you tonight, I suppose he had to take an honourable line.’

  ‘I told him there was a temporary impediment.’

  ‘You mean your bad French?’

  ‘I meant you, of course.’

  Suddenly she began to cry, burying her head under the phrase book so that I shouldn’t see. I sat down on the bed and put my hand on her side: I felt tired: I felt we were very far from the public house at the corner: I felt we had been married a long time and it hadn’t worked. I had no idea how to pick up the pieces – I have never been good with my hands.

  I said, ‘Let’s go home.’

  ‘Not wait any more for Mr Dreuther?’

  ‘Why should we? I practically own Mr Dreuther now.’

  I hadn’t meant to tell her, but out it came, all of it. She emerged from under the phrase book and she stopped crying. I told her that when I had extracted the last fun out of being Dreuther’s boss, I would sell my shares at a good profit to Blixon – and that would be the final end of Dreuther. ‘We’ll be comfortably off,’ I said.

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Darling. I’m not hysterical now and I’m not angry. I’m talking really seriously. I didn’t marry a well-off man. I married a man I met in the bar of the Volunteer – someone who liked cold sausages and travelled by bus because taxis were too expensive. He hadn’t had a very good life. He’d married a bitch who ran away from him. I wanted – oh, enormously – to give him fun. Now suddenly I’ve woken up in bed with a man who can buy all the fun he wants and his idea of fun is to ruin an old man who was kind to him. What if Dreuther did forget he’d invited you? He meant it at the time. He looked at you and you seemed tired and he liked you – just like that, for no reason, just as I liked you the first time in the Volunteer. That’s how human beings work. They don’t work on a damned system like your roulette.’

  ‘The system hasn’t done so badly for you.’

  ‘Oh yes, it has. It’s destroyed me. I’ve lived for you and now I’ve lost you.’

  ‘You haven’t. I’m here.’

  ‘When I return home and go into the bar of the Volunteer, you won’t be there. When I’m waiting at the 19 bus stop you won’t be there either. You won’t be anywhere where I can find you. You’ll be driving down to your place in Hampshire like Sir Walter Blixon. Darling, you’ve been very lucky and you’ve won a lot of money, but I don’t like you any more.’

  I sneered back at her, but there wasn’t any heart in my sneer, ‘You only love the poor, I suppose?’

  ‘Isn’t that better than only loving the rich? Darling, I’m going to sleep on the sofa in the sitting-room.’ We had a sitting-room again now, and a dressing-room for me, just as at the beginning. I said, ‘Don’t bother. I’ve got my own bed.’

  I went out on to the balcony. It was like the first night when we had quarrelled, but this time she didn’t come out on to her balcony, and we hadn’t quarrelled. I wanted to knock on her door and say something, but I didn’t know what word to use. All my words seemed to chink like the tokens in Bird’s Nests’ bag.

  4

  I DIDN’T see her for breakfast, nor for lunch. I went into the Casino after lunch and for the first time I didn’t want to win. But the devil was certainly in my system and win I did. I had the money to pay Bowles, I owned the shares, and I wished I had lost my last two hundred francs in the kitchen. After that I walked along the terrace – sometimes one gets ideas walking, but I didn’t. And then looking down into the harbour I saw a white boat which hadn’t been there before. She was flying the British flag and I recognized her from newspaper photographs. She was the Seagull. The Gom had come after all – he wasn’t much more than a week late. I thought, you bastard, if only you’d troubled to keep your promise, I wouldn’t have lost Cary. I wasn’t important enough for you to remember and now I’m too important for her to love. Well, if I’ve lost her, you are going to lose everything too – Blixon will probably buy your boat.

  I walked into the bar and the Gom was there. He had just ordered himself a Pernod and he was talking with easy familiarity to the barman, speaking perfect French. Whatever the man’s language he would have spoken it perfectly – he was of the Pentecostal type. Yet he wasn’t the Dreuther of the eighth floor now – he had put an old yachting cap on the bar, he had several days’ growth of white beard and he wore an old and baggy pair of blue trousers and a sweat shirt. When I came in he didn’t stop talking, but I could see him examining me in the mirror behind the bar. He kept on glancing at me as though I pricked a memory. I realized that he had not only forgotten his invitation, he had even forgotten me.

  ‘Mr Dreuther,’ I said.

  He turned as slowly as he could; he was obviously trying to remember.

  ‘You don’t remember me,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, my dear chap, I remember you perfectly. Let me see, the last time we met . . .’

  ‘My name’s Bertram.’ I could see it didn’t mean a thing to him. He said, ‘Of course. Of course. Been here long?’

  ‘We arrived about nine days ago. We hoped you’d be in time for our wedding.’

  ‘Wedding?’ I could see it all coming back to him and for a moment he was foxed for an explanation.

  ‘My dear chap, I hope everything was all right. We were caught with engine trouble. Out of touch. You know how it can be at sea. Now you are coming on board tonight, I hope. Get your bags packed. I want to sail at midnight. Monte Carlo is too much of a temptation for me. How about you? Been losing money?’ He was sweeping his mistake into limbo on a tide of words.

  ‘No, I’ve gained a little.’

  ‘Hang on to it. It’s the only way.’ He was rapidly paying for his Pernod – he wanted to get away from his mistake as quickly as possible. ‘Follow me down. We’ll eat on board tonight. The three of us. No one else joins the boat until Portofino. Tell them I’ll settle the bill.’

  ‘It’s not necessary. I can manage.’

  ‘I can’t have you out of pocket because I’m late.’ He snatched his yachting cap and was gone. I could almost imagine he had a seaman’s lurch. He had given me no time to develop my hatred or even to tell him that I didn’t know where my wife was. I put the money for Bowles in an envelope and asked the porter to have it waiting for him in the bar of the Casino at nine. Then I went upstairs and began to pack my bags. I had a wild hope that if I could get Cary to sea our whole trouble might be left on shore in the luxury hotel, in the great ornate Salle Privée. I would have liked to stake all our troubles en plein and to lose them. It was only when I had finished my packing and went into her room that I knew I hadn’t a hope. The room was more than empty – it was vacant. It was where somebody had been and wouldn’t be again. The dressing-table was waiting for another user – the only thing left was the conventional letter. Women read so many magazines – they know the formulas for parting. I think they have even learned the words by heart from the glossy pages – they are impersonal. ‘Darling, I’m off. I couldn’t bear to tell you that and what’s the use? We don’t fit any more.’ I thought of nine days ago and how we’d urged the old horse-cab on. Yes, they said at the desk, Madame had checked out an hour ago.

  I told them to keep my bags. Dreuther wouldn’t want me to stay on board after what I was going to tell him.

  5

  DREUTHER had shaved and changed his shirt and was reading a book in his little lounge. He again had the grand air of the eighth floor. The bar stood hospitably open and the flowers looked as though they had been newly arranged. I wasn’t imp
ressed. I knew about his kindness, but kindness at the skin-deep level can ruin people. Kindness has got to care. I carried a knife in my mind and waited to use it.

  ‘But your wife has not come with you?’

  ‘She’ll be following,’ I said.

  ‘And your bags?’

  ‘The bags too. Could I have a drink?’

  I had no compunction in gaining the Dutch courage for assassination at his own expense. I had two whiskies very quickly. He poured them out himself, got the ice, served me like an equal. And he had no idea that in fact I was his superior.

  ‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘The holiday has not done you good.’

  ‘I have worries.’

  ‘Did you remember to bring the Racine?’

  ‘Yes.’ I was momentarily touched that he had remembered that detail.

  ‘Perhaps after dinner you would read a little. I was once fond of him like you. There is so much that I have forgotten. Age is a great period of forgetting.’ I remembered what Cary had said – after all, at his age, hadn’t he a right to forget? But when I thought of Cary I could have cried into my glass.

  ‘We forget a lot of things near at hand, but we remember the past. I am often troubled by the past. Unnecessary misunderstanding. Unnecessary pain.’

  ‘Could I have another whisky?’

  ‘Of course.’ He got up promptly to serve me. Leaning over his little bar, with his wide patriarchal back turned to me, he said, ‘Do not mind talking. We are not on the eighth floor now. Two men on holiday. Friends I hope. Drink. There is no harm, if one is unhappy, in being a little drunk.’

  I was a little drunk – more than a little. I couldn’t keep my voice steady when I said, ‘My wife isn’t coming. She’s left me.’