Stanley and the Women

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘Actually it wasn’t —’

  ‘Anybody who wasn’t upset, even a bit frightened, in those circumstances would have to be rather stupid. Fair enough. But darling, you mustn’t mind me saying this but it’s really not very sensible to go on being frightened because of it.’

  ‘I’m not —’

  ‘Because a lot of young boys go in for that sort of thing, you know, having a knife and so on, it makes them feel big. They’ve no intention in the world of using it. And as for Steve, I’m quite staggered you think he might take a cut at you, or Susan. I mean surely.’

  ‘I don’t —’

  ‘He’s such a gentle creature, always has been. I don’t believe he’d be actually violent to anybody, however frantic or worked up he got. It’s just not in him.’

  That was more or less how I felt myself, but hearing her say it almost made me want to change round. ‘M’m,’ I said.

  ‘But I want you to be quite certain of one thing, Stanley,’ she said, and her voice started to tremble slightly with thick-and-thinness, so that I could visualize every last millimetre of her expression. ‘If ever you need me, if there should ever be anything I can do, you only have to say the word and I’ll be there, depend on it.’

  ‘It’s good to know that.’

  Speaking at three times the speed and steady as a rock, she said, ‘You must understand quite plainly that he’s not coming here, Stanley. I won’t have it, I’ve got to think of Joanne,’ their daughter, presumably. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on her. Surely you can see that. I’m sorry but I really have no alternative. Goodbye.’

  I got it almost straight away. Although I was pretty convinced that my last remark had sounded quite all right, devoid of any hint of malice or sarcasm, I could always have got it wrong, and in any case from Nowell’s point of view I might easily have been having malicious or sarcastic thoughts, and I might even have been getting ready to be foul to her about not going near her son while he was having a not very good time. Well, this was the sort of thing that helped me to go on not making any mistakes about my first wife, like spending a few seconds every couple of months wishing she had not run off with Bert.

  The next morning I told Collings about the potentium stuff and she told me it was normal. That evening Steve started whispering to himself as he sat watching television, or rather with the set turned on. From the way he kept pausing and looking attentive I reckoned he was having a conversation with a voice inside his head. While a journalist on the screen talked about and tried to illustrate the decline of bits of Liverpool Steve listened to this other voice, disagreed with what it said, disagreed quite strongly but consented to listen further, made a couple of reluctant admissions and finally caved in. For five minutes nothing more happened, but then he started disagreeing again and I went upstairs for a stiff Scotch.

  The morning after that I drove him over to St Kevin’s as usual. At first he kept quiet, also as usual, but about half-way there he said or muttered, ‘Leave me alone,’ not for my benefit. For the rest of the journey he said the same thing or variants of it every couple of minutes, plus excuses like there was nothing he could do about it. If he had been on the end of a phone trying to get rid of a bore he would have sounded completely normal. At last we arrived.

  ‘See you tonight, son,’ I said when he was getting out. Twice before when I said it or something similar he had given me a terrific bawling-out for treating him like a child and so on, but I found it was impossible to let him just go off in silence.

  Today was different. He bent down to get a proper look at me and said, ‘Goodbye, dad,’ shut the door and moved off.

  I watched him cross the car park, head slightly forward as always, and pass out of sight. Should I have gone with him to the ward and to hell with his objections? Should I now find Collings or that Gandhi bloke and tell them about the whispering? Well, presumably they knew already or soon would, unless he put it on specially for me, which I doubted. And it was probably normal anyway.

  The thought of him saying goodbye like that came back to me several times in the next few hours, especially when I got back to the office after a rather long lunch break and Morgan Wyndham handed me a slip of paper and told me to ring that number urgently — the St Kevin’s number with Collings’s extension. He then took himself off as though the thing was his own idea, one which another time would have earned him a lot of marks.

  I got Collings in ten seconds flat. ‘Hallo, Stanley,’ she said like a real old pal. ‘What have you done with that boy of yours?’

  ‘No jokes if you don’t mind. What’s up?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I was wondering. Where is he?’

  ‘You mean he didn’t — I brought him in as usual.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t seen him here. Any idea where he might have gone?’

  I tried to think. ‘His mother’s. He went there before once. I told you.’

  ‘No reply. Or from your home number. Of course he might be there all the same and not answering. Anywhere else? … Right, I’ll let you know if anything turns up.’

  ‘Hey, hold it, hang on a minute.’

  ‘Yes?’

  I had been desperate to prevent her ringing off, but now I could find very little to say. ‘Er … he will turn up all right, will he? How long?’

  ‘If he’s still loose tonight we’ll set things moving in the morning. Don’t worry, Stanley, they very seldom come to much harm.’

  ‘He’s been talking to himself.’

  ‘Yes, he has aural hallucinations. Very common with disorders of this kind. Usual, in fact.’

  At least she had not said normal. ‘He wasn’t doing it or having them before yesterday as far as I know. I thought he was supposed to be getting better.’

  ‘He is. You should have seen him on his first couple of days here.’ This would have been a good moment for one of her horse-laughs, but it failed to show. ‘Anyway, I warned you not to expect his progress to be smooth.’

  ‘You said he might have a relapse. Is that what this is?’

  ‘I simply can’t say at this stage, Stanley, I’m afraid. It depends what he’s doing. If he’s just sitting in a park somewhere, which he probably is, then there’s not much to worry about.’

  Except for him being rather wet and cold in the kind of drizzle I could see through my window. After Collings I rang home. Still no reply, which meant nothing. Before I did anything else I had to see a punter about a quarter-page. I saw him, though without result, and got home just on 5.30. When I let myself in the phone was ringing. I took it in the kitchen.

  ‘Mr Stanley Duke?’ a man’s voice asked pleasantly.

  ‘That’s me.

  ‘Oh, it’s the Metropolitan Police here, sir, Superintendent Fairchild speaking. I’ve got a young fellow with me who says he’s your son. Name of Stephen. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. Is he in trouble?’

  ‘Well, I’m very much afraid he is, sir, yes. He’s in our custody at the moment at the Jabali Embassy, where I’m speaking from now. I have to ask you to come down for a short interview.’

  ‘Jabali? That’s Arabs, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He gave me an address near Regent’s Park. ‘Just down the road from you, really. You’ll be making your own way, will you, sir?’

  ‘Yes — can you give me some idea of what’s happened?’

  There was a short silence. When the Superintendent spoke again it was in a slightly different voice, one that made him sound bored stiff with what he was saying. ‘I have to tell you there are diplomatic aspects to the matter which preclude it being discussed over the telephone.’

  ‘Oh. Is my son all right?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Superintendent Fairchild quickly and unreassuringly.

  I had a quick drink. Of course I did. Not being a blithering idiot I never even considered taking the Apfelsine and phoned for a minicab, a quicker bet than a black cab hereabouts and in the rain. But I was idiot enough not to remember the flick-knife t
ill the driver had rung the doorbell. No knife, at least nowhere I looked in my top-speed search. All the way down the hill I told myself that Fairchild would have taken a different tone over a stabbing, and got nowhere.

  The embassy turned out to be one of a row of between-wars houses of upper-bank-manager status, rather small for St Kevin’s but in a similar style. In a back corner of the hall a uniformed constable was standing outside a closed door. He let me into a sort of waiting room newly decorated and furnished in an extremely down-market Western way. There was Steve, presumably Fairchild, also in uniform, and an Arab in a three-hundred-quid suit.

  Steve’s appearance was a shock, but at the same time a relief after what I had been imagining. He had the makings of a black eye, a bashed nose and a cut lip and had probably been crying, perhaps still was in a small way. ‘Hallo, dad,’ he said, not at all cheerfully.

  The Superintendent seemed about my age, tall when he stood up, with red-grey hair and a clean-shaven gloomy face, rather a good-looking chap.

  After introducing himself he nodded at the Arab and said, ‘This is Mr Fuad.’

  ‘Major Fuad.’ The man spoke in a stroppy way. Arab or no Arab, seen close to he looked incredibly Jewish to me, but who was I to judge?

  ‘All right — Major Fuad. Er, Major Fuad would like to advise you of certain circumstances relating to the present matter, Mr Duke.’ Without actually waving his arms about, the Superintendent signalled to me that this was something that would have to be gone along with.

  ‘I see,’ I said, and sat down on the indicated hard chair and waited respectfully.

  In quite good English, but speaking at a pitch of disrespect no Englishman would have dared to use in front of another, even to a foreigner, Major Fuad said, ‘You must realize that under international law this embassy is deemed to be part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Jabal and that intrusions upon it will be treated in the same spirit as intrusions upon the republic itself,’ and more in the same strain. He had a small moustache which made me wonder about my own. He also reminded me of somebody, but not because of the moustache. Superintendent Fairchild watched him with an expression on the far side of contempt or distaste, more like continuous quiet amazement. I kept nodding my head at what Fuad was telling me, or rather while he told me. Finally he said, ‘I call upon you to see to it that your son understands these considerations in future, because it seems that those of us here have been unable to do so. Will you undertake to carry that into effect?’

  ‘Yes, Major Fuad, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘You would be well advised to. Tell your son he may not get off so lightly a second time.’

  ‘I will. Now may I ask what’s happened?’

  ‘Superintendent?’ Fuad handed the ball over but went on to listen closely to the next part.

  ‘Well, sir, it seems in brief that this young man called here earlier this afternoon and asked to speak to someone in Intelligence. He was taken in to see, er, Major Fuad’s assistant and told him he had information about the activities of Israeli secret agents in this country, in London. When questioned about the source of his information he began to talk wildly, became violent and had to be restrained by the official and one of the guards here. At this point the duty PC was called in and he fetched me along.’ Fairchild’s manner sharpened. ‘That’s not quite all, I’m afraid, Mr Duke. Your son had this in his possession.’

  The flick-knife right enough. I looked at it and kept my mouth shut.

  ‘Did you know your son was in the habit of taking this kind of weapon round with him?’

  ‘No,’ I said, thanking God for the form of the question.

  ‘I see, sir. Now you do know, it might be sensible to discourage him from carrying one in future. For one thing, as you’re no doubt aware, such weapons are illegal. They may not be offered for sale, bought, possessed, borne on the person, anything. You and he have Major Fuad to thank for asking us to overlook the offence. Perhaps you’d like to dispose of this.’ He handed the thing to me and stood up. ‘I have some further questions which I’ll put to you in another place. Thank you, Major Fuad. We’re all grateful to you for your restraint in not taking the matter further. And now we won’t keep you.’

  I did my best, not a very good best, to imitate a man being grateful, got in return a glare of hostility with nothing imitation about it, and left the room with the others.

  Outside in the hall, the Superintendent said to Steve, ‘Are you all right, sonny? Do you want a doctor?’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’

  ‘You sure, now? You didn’t get any nasty kicks? What do you say, Mr Duke? Do you think your son should see a doctor?’

  ‘I reckon we can leave it for the moment.’

  ‘Okay, fine. There aren’t any further questions actually, sir, but there is a little more to be said, later, when we’ve run you home. I’ll just have a word with the PC a minute.’

  I squeezed Steve’s arm and muttered that he had had a rough time and he nodded and looked at the floor with his mouth open. It occurred to me to wonder what he had told those Arabs. About Joshua and the rest of them milling around Hampstead? No wonder they had asked him to name his informants. What was he thinking now? About which embassy to try next, possibly, or something as far out as the rim of the galaxy, where Jews in phylacteries and Star of David tee-shirts sat in intersystem ships tuning their hyperspatial receptors to his brain currents. The cleverest thing I could think of to say to him was not to worry and we would look after him.

  When we got to the house Superintendent Fairchild sent his driver to the pub and made a phone-call in the kitchen. Susan was terrified at the sight of the police uniform, but I soon calmed her down and told her what had happened. I called the hospital and spoke to Dr Gandhi. Should I bring Steve in for the night? Unnecessary since he appeared calm — but bring him all the way in the morning. Agreed. Steve side-stepped me when I went to comfort him, asked for and was given aspirins and slouched off to his room without another word.

  ‘I owe you an apology for that ragtime carry-on down the road,’ said Fairchild when the three of us settled in the sitting room with our drinks. ‘But there was no help for it. Now I expect you’d like to know what really happened down there, wouldn’t you? Right.’

  He was facing me directly. ‘All okay up till the point where your lad starts giving them funny answers to their questions. So he’s a joker or a nutter or an unbelievably useless would-be infiltrator, but anyway he’s not what he says he is. So they set about working him over out of habit, till one of them remembers they’re not supposed to do that, even if this is the Jabali … Embassy. Then they call in the PC and say it was the boy that went for them in the first place, and there we are. How do I know? There wasn’t a mark on either of the two I saw, Captain Abdullah or whatever he calls himself and some goon. And that knife, it was closed-up in his pocket when the PC searched him. They hadn’t even done that, would you believe it. You’d have thought at least … I don’t know.’ The Superintendent shook his head and sighed in professional vexation. ‘Oh no, I know those fellows of old.

  ‘Because — I’m not an ordinary copper, I belong to a special corps that does all the security on the embassies and what-not. Now, you see, Mr Duke, my standing orders say that whenever possible I must promote cordial relations between their side and our side. Cordial relations. What that means in this instance, there’s that Fuad knowing full well his side have made a bit of rubbish, an error, and the thing these blokes can’t stand is losing face, right? So we all pretend he’s the one with the grievance, and we have you down to be given a going-over on behalf of your son, because he’s too young and helpless to be worth a going-over, you know, to get any real satisfaction out of it. And you heard me being grateful to him, Fuad that is, for not pressing charges when he knew I knew what I knew. So now he’s won that one we’ll have cordial relations for a bit. Meaning instead of him being unbearable on purpose he’ll give us a dose of being unbearable not on purpose
.

  ‘Oh, it’s a funny old job sometimes. You’d hardly credit it — I have to get into this clobber every time I put my nose inside the door, else they go on about not showing proper respect. Nothing wrong with Fuad going round in his fancy suits, of course. It’s all right when they do it, you see.’

  ‘But he can’t think he’s really won,’ I said.

  ‘Not a bit of it, Mr Duke, not a bit of it. As I say, he knows full well. But he seems to have won, everybody goes on as if he has, and that’s all that worries him. These fellows, they’re like,’ he glanced at Susan and away, ‘like children, really, aren’t they? Just big talk,’ he wound up vaguely.

  Susan was sitting with her legs under her on the grey settee. Now she straightened her back and said quite fiercely, ‘I don’t see why that pair of bastards should be allowed to just get clean away with roughing up poor Steve.’

  The Superintendent reacted unfavourably to the swear-word, though I could not have said what he physically did. But he politely turned in his seat towards Susan, giving her his full attention for almost the first time since they had met. ‘Oh, they won’t, Mrs Duke, far from it,’ he said decisively. ‘Our friend Fuad will see to that. I must say I’d quite like to know what he’s got lined up for them, just out of curiosity. No, I understand your concern for your son, but I can —’Stepson.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just assumed. Oh yes, those two’ll be taken care of all right. Thank you, just a drop if I may, I really must be going.’

  Saying something about putting the meat in, Susan took herself off — we were having a couple of neighbours in that evening. Fairchild conscientiously looked round the room, nodding to himself once or twice.

  ‘Are you a writer, Mr Duke?’

  ‘Not really, Superintendent. My wife is. I’m in advertising myself.’

  ‘M’m.’ His face seemed to go slightly gloomier. Then, making it as clear as daylight before he spoke what was coming up, he said, ‘Your boy, I take it he is, er…’