Moggerhanger

  “Thank you, my lord.” She hadn’t believed any of my twaddle, though things were going too well for me to care.

  “I hope the meal will be worthy of you,” I said, feeling daft for having babbled such stuff. “I don’t believe you mentioned your name at tea.”

  “It’s like being on the Orient Express, not exchanging names, though if you must know, since you’re inviting me to dinner, my name is Sophie.”

  “We’ll have something to drink. Any objection to champagne?”

  She laughed, as we were shown to the table. “Try me.”

  The waiter was friendly after I placed my order. “Fact is,” I told her, “I’ve had almost no sleep for three nights, which is why I was a little late just now. I had so many affairs to put in order to do with my estate it’s a wonder I got away at all.”

  She flamed a cigarette from a small gold lighter, and spread her napkin as if to catch the ash. “I can always ask direct questions on a train, can’t I?”

  “Oh, right,” I laughed, “and get lies for answers.”

  She leaned forward for almost a whisper. “As long as the lies are interesting.”

  Here was a woman I could deal with. “Ask all you like.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Was. I’m free and detached now, the only state to be in, whether or not it’s painful, as it sometimes is. The ideal is to be yourself, and that’s impossible from the moment you’re married. Only on your own can your experiences have full meaning. I recommend it to all my friends, so lose a few who could never have been my friends.”

  If she was wanting to know from some purpose or other, which was it? “You must have loved your wife,” she said. “You married her, after all.”

  “Granted.” I fished up more of Blaskin’s droolings. “But we never live for life with those we fall in love with. When you’re in love everything relates to the beloved, and that’s where boredom kicks in. She’s in front of your eyes all the time.”

  A slight tremble of her shapely lips was not unnoticed: “How did we get into this?”

  “Your question started it. I knew a man who lightheartedly asked his wife whether or not she had ever been unfaithful. He was convinced she’d been as loyal as a turnip all their married life, till she answered, feeling it was beneath her dignity to tell a lie, that as a matter of fact she was having an affair at the moment. He was so stunned he poleaxed her. Killed her. He’s still in jail.”

  The other diners turned at her laughter. “No?”

  “It’s as true as I sit here,” I said. “It was in all the newspapers as well.”

  She looked serious, which I didn’t care for, though she smiled when the champagne came. “I knew a man and wife,” I went on, “who got divorced after forty years together. A few months later they died of cancer—both of them. Everybody’s different. Some can take it, some can’t. Love’s often too much for the heart to bear, but when love isn’t there the heart’s arteries get clogged up, or it starts free-wheeling, which can lead to disaster.”

  Make me stop, I told myself. What am I running on like this for? But I saw she liked it. “It’s a mistake to live with those you love, because those you live with soon stop loving.” Trying to detach her from her husband, we clicked glasses. “On the other hand there’s no more disturbing sensation than feeling you’re in love, and having no one around to love, a state I’ve been in this last day or two.”

  No laughter now, she forked into the first course, three little tents of something or other in the middle of our plates. “I think you might be a dangerous man to know,” she said.

  I was making progress. “I think things out. Why be alive and not do that?”

  “I seem to have lived all my life sleepwalking.”

  “Most people do. It’s easier, so who can blame them. I’m sometimes filled with envy at their deadness.”

  She was no fool: “You talk as if you’ve been married twenty times.”

  “Only twice.”

  “You certainly wouldn’t envy me.”

  I refilled her glass almost to fizzling over. “‘Beaded bubbles winking at the brim.’ Keats, if I’m not mistaken.” I blessed Frances, who occasionally read aloud for our entertainment.

  “I went to a good school as well,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t I envy you?” I asked. If I couldn’t get to know all about her it wouldn’t be the fault of the champagne, a good half already gone.

  “I’m not sure I can explain.” Her touch of despair was promising. “On the face of it I’ve had all I wanted out of life, but it’s never seemed good enough. In a year or two I’ll be forty.”

  “A perfect age, though you don’t look a day over twenty-five. I hope you don’t think I’m boasting when I say my judgement is good on that sort of thing.”

  “Well, I must tell you I don’t feel twenty-five. I’m not sure I’ll ever know what life is all about, what’s more.”

  “Who does? Or can?” I said, in too deep to get out. “The best way is to live and not care what it’s all about, then one day, bingo, it all becomes clear. That’s what I’m banking on. And if it never does, at least you’ve had a worry-free time. Cheers!”

  Her features lit up, then went down to about forty watts. “Things haven’t been good on the home front lately. Yesterday I told my husband I was leaving him, though I suppose I’ll stay in Italy till I’ve cooled off, before going back. It won’t be the first time.”

  She pushed most of the fish course aside, and swigged the last of the champagne, her throat moving prettily. I ordered a bottle of red, hoping to get more than a look in at the drink. “There was hardly a moment when I didn’t want to get out of my marriage,” she said. “The other week I looked into the mirror and thought: ‘There but for the death of me go I,’ so I got into the car and lit off. Nobody wants to be a prisoner for life.”

  “When you hold someone captive you become a captive yourself.” The hooter sounded, as if the train wanted to remind us of where we were. “Ask any prison warder about that.”

  She sighed. “It’s easier for a man to get out of a marriage. I suppose a woman who falls in love with a man deserves all that happens to her.”

  “Not necessarily.” I had nothing to quip back with, as the red came and the main course was put down. “Drink up. We’re all pals at the palindrome.”

  “You’re a tonic,” she said. “I haven’t been so taken out of myself in months.” We ate in silence, till she asked: “Tell me another story.”

  After a good swallow of wine I cobbled one together. “I knew a man—married—who had a girlfriend called Paula. He dialled her one day from a call box, and in his hurry tapped his home number by mistake, the worst kind of Freudian slip. He didn’t realise. Or his mind played him a vicious trick. His girlfriend Paula wasn’t in, which didn’t surprise him, knowing she listened to the messages on getting home in the evening. While what he thought was his girlfriend’s ansaphone was saying its piece he held the phone to his thigh to light a cigarette, and only heard the bleep telling him to go ahead after his wife’s ansaphone voice was finished. Then he spoke into what he thought was Paula’s receiving box. Still with me?”

  “I certainly am. Can’t wait. I see what’s coming though.”

  “Oh no you don’t. ‘Hello, Paula, darling, this is Denis,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget our lunch date on Friday. I’m calling to say I couldn’t get a table at the Trout, but they fixed us up at the Rainbow. So be there at one o’clock. Love you to bits. Can’t wait till we’re in bed again.’ Of course, his wife heard all this.”

  She was laughing, a very attractive liveliness on her features. “Went and caught them, did she? Shot them dead, set the place on fire, then did a runner to Timbuctou!”

  “Top marks for ingenuity, but after getting over the shock and humiliation she became slightly more devious, not to say vengefu
l. What she did, she phoned up an old flame called Donald, who’d been wanting to get back with her for years, and invited him to lunch at the Rainbow on the same day and at the same time as her husband and Paula. Luckily there was a table for them. She and her old boyfriend were seated by the time her husband Denis arrived with Paula. Denis was stunned to see his wife at the next table, but there was nothing he could do except sit down with Paula, as if his wife Shelagh wasn’t there with Donald who, by the way, was someone he’d always suspected of being his wife’s lover.

  “Shelagh was smooching all over Donald, laughing and talking so loudly that Denis who, like most men with a mistress, was very possessive of his wife, was going all shades of red white and blue. He was so enraged and tight lipped he could hardly say a word to Paula, though she soon cottoned on as to what was riling him. Denis got more and more angry at Shelagh’s shameless remarks, the worst of which was that he was no good in bed, till he could hold himself back no longer. He went to their table, picked up Shelagh’s glass of cold white wine—she and Donald had ordered fish, turbot I think—and threw it in her face. At which her old boyfriend, a tall well-built man who worked at the Foreign Office, and had a sense of humour but lost it now, stood up and punched Denis all the way to the door and out onto the pavement.

  “The place was in uproar, and the police were called. The two women—Paula and Shelagh—ran out of the place at the same moment, and went squabbling along Oxford Street together. They eventually calmed down and began to laugh about it all, and went into Selfridge’s to order glasses of lemon tea and salt beef sandwiches. They decided that nearly all men were absolute scum and not worth knowing. Shelagh was tall and fair, while Paula was dark and slender, and they became very attracted to one another the more they talked, even telling their life stories, and admitting they had never much liked men anyway.

  “The end of the story was that Shelagh and Denis split up, and tore each other so much to pieces over the divorce settlement that not even Solomon could have sorted things out.”

  By the time we were on our crème caramel Sophie seemed much changed, flushed and looking younger even than twenty-five. “Then what happened?”

  “You’ve had volume one, what more do you want?”

  “My husband never tells such stories.”

  “Don’t mention him anymore.”

  She didn’t, which was all I wanted. Over coffee she wrote the address of her Italian house, and I told her it was too far out of my way to call, but when a Cointreau came for her and a brandy for me she said: “You’re going to Athens, right?”

  “Through Jugoslavia. Everything’s arranged. I have to collect something in Belgrade.”

  “Come back over the Adriatic.” She took a map from her handbag. “Drive up the coast of Italy. You can stop off, where I’ve marked the spot.”

  I was free to return any way I liked, so said I’d see her in about a week. By which time I’ll have volume two sorted out.

  “Are you going to tell me that Shelagh and Paula have a lesbian affair?”

  “Naughty,” I said. “I’ve never had one. Have you?”

  “A long time ago, with an old school friend. It was very nice.”

  I didn’t want to hear about it. “Do you know,” I said, “I’ve seen you before our meeting today.”

  She laughed. “Not another story?”

  “A week ago you were in a queue at the post office on Albemarle Street, so close I could have touched you.”

  She thought back. “It’s true. How amazing. I was there. Why didn’t you touch me?”

  “I thought I’d wait to do it here.”

  “And you did. Wait I mean.”

  “You dropped a kleenex, and some chap picked it up. Then you went out together.”

  “Such evidence. I can’t believe it.”

  “True stories are just as good as what’s made up, even better sometimes.”

  “When we got outside I thanked him, then he walked away. How strange though that we see each other again.”

  “So now I want to know what compartment you’re in.”

  She answered readily. “A couple along from yours.”

  “Perhaps we’ll have an extra dessert before we get to Milan, certainly sweeter than the one we’ve just had.” I reached a hand on finishing the brandy, then paid a bill so big I’d have to live on bread and water for the rest of my trip, though the extravagance looked likely to be worth it as she kissed me in the corridor and led me along.

  She soon lay half undressed under me, no room to be side by side. “I’ve always wanted to do it in one of these.”

  “This is your first time?”

  “I’ve never had the chance, though I’ve had fantasies about it—with someone like you. Oh yes, that’s nice. Up a little. Just there. Oh, please go on.”

  A woman always appreciates being warmed up with a little hors d’oeuvres, so I played her till she came, hoping an attendant wouldn’t knock on the door offering Horlicks or a nightcap as part of the late night service, though probably the alcoholic reek of our breath and the stench of fuckery would put him off.

  “I suppose such hanky-panky on this stretch of the line isn’t unfamiliar,” I said afterwards.

  She took my cigarette, and I lit another. “I thought it was argy-bargy.”

  “There’s a difference,” I said, “between hanky-panky and argy-bargy.” Her breasts were warm and close. “In my experience hanky-panky is less devastating than argy-bargy, such as what happens when a personable woman drops her handkerchief and the man she fancies bends to pick it up, touching her so lightly on the ankle as he does that she can’t say whether it’s intentional or by accident, though someone looking on may see it as a clear case of hanky-panky, whether anything comes of it or not.”

  “And argy-bargy?”

  Hot fag ash fell on my wrist, but I didn’t twitch, or brush it off. “Argy-bargy is a more serious matter, the sort of situation hard to get out of. It could land you in serious trouble, often without you realising. Sometimes it starts as a shoving and pushing match in a pub, and if it goes on it can turn into a real glass-and-bottle set-to, blood all over the place. Argy-bargy sometimes starts from a bit of hanky-panky and can have long term consequences, such as between a woman and her fancyman, leading to a fracas that can become explosive and turn into the feud of a lifetime—especially in a situation where the woman’s husband shows his face.”

  She put a hand between my legs. “So we should steer clear of argy-bargy?”

  “We’re too sophisticated to be bothered by it, or even dabble in hanky-panky, though some people live all their lives going from one to another because it’s the only excitement they can get. They thrive on it, especially if they know how to take care of themselves.” I released my aching arm from her albeit delicious weight. “So now you know the difference between hanky-panky and argy-bargy.”

  “I don’t know whether it’s what you’re saying, or your voice, but you certainly don’t sound much like Lord What’s-His-Name anymore.”

  “Dropshort? My grandfather married an Edwardian actress who was a famous mimic, a grande comedienne no less, and her talent carried over onto me.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” she murmured, “but do it again.”

  Her hand had sufficient effect for me to say I would, and it surprised me that I could, dead tired after so much booze, but I did, and it was gone two o’clock before I went like a cloth-footed shadow to my cabin, disturbed for what remained of the night by the train stopping and starting, when it wasn’t bundling along at a hundred miles an hour and rattling my bones.

  The attendant said he would wake me at six but I was up for a shave at half past five. A knife of daylight lay along the bottom of the window. I knew better than to wake Sophie for a good morning kiss, so flicked up the blind on the clear blue sky and rich vegetation on the slopes of Lom
bardy, hearing the sound of birds when the train halted at an outlying station. An elegant old man on the platform, wearing a grey suit, a panama hat, and carrying a briefcase, was about to cross the rails and try getting on our train, when a railway official got up like a field-marshal in Ruritania warned him not to. I wondered what business the dapper man had to do in Milan so early.

  The train went through suburbs and into the station at half past six. I took up Sophie’s case in the corridor before the conductor could get his hands on it. “Meeting you has been very special,” I said. “But how are you feeling?”

  “Sore, thanks to you. Otherwise fine. What about you?”

  “Wonderful. Slept like a log.”

  “You’ll see me again?”

  She looked as perfect as if after a month at a health farm. “I certainly shall.”

  I walked in front with her case to the station entrance. Tickets had been given out on the train for a free breakfast at the buffet, but the waiters were on strike and it was closed, a line of pickets across the front. My nose led us to a kiosk outside where delicious brioche and coffee was on sale. I was never up to much in the morning, and we ate in silence, till I said: “All that Lord Dropshort stuff is nonsense. It was only to amuse you.”

  She took my hand. “I knew it was, and I love you all the more for it.” She put my card into her bag. “Drive safely on the road, won’t you?”

  “I shall. And you do, as well,” I said, a last kiss before walking to the railway yard and up the ramp, to get into our cars. We waved in passing, and I turned off into a different break of the traffic.

  Chapter Eight.

  The car draped itself around me like a cocoon of velvet; good to be on the road and back in my mobile house. Even though my faculties were sharpened to follow motorway signs I strayed into Monza, but the streets were empty, and wayposting so frequent I was soon out and steering in the right direction.