The Old Devils

by Kingsley Amis

  'Oh, and there's another way you don't qualify, Muriel,' said Sophie with a bright smile. 'Only Welsh people can join. Born Welsh. Peter must have told you, surely. I remember him going into it one time after Christmas dinner at Dorothy's. Very particular he was on the point. Two non-Welsh grandparents was too many, he said.'

  After the sound of her name had triggered her dinosaurian reflexes, Dorothy lifted her head for the second time in ten minutes. The talk between Sophie and Muriel, animated to begin with, had lost its impetus and that too might have percolated through her nervous system. Behind the black-framed lenses her eyes steadied and focused. With majestic deliberation she drew in her breath. The other two struggled wildly to think of something to get in ahead with, but it was like trying to start a motor-bike in the path of a charging elephant.

  'Of course you know in New Zealand they celebrate Christmas just the same as here,' she said, showing a notable sense of continuity. 'Roast turkey and plum pudding and mince pies in the middle of the antipodean winter.' She pronounced the penultimate word correctly and clearly, as she did every other, as she invariably did while she could speak at all. 'I mean summer. Imagine roast turkey and stuffing and hot mince pies in July.

  Howard and Angela have got some friends in Wanangui, that's in what they call North Island... '

  'I think I'll try Percy again,' said Sophie.

  3

  'I'd just like an explanation,' said Malcolm. 'Just the merest hint of an explanation. That's all.'

  'You're the feeblest creature God ever put breath into,' said Aloo. 'Why any woman should have spent thirty-three minutes married to you, let alone thirty-three years, defies comprehension. You've no idea in the world of what pleases a woman: in other words' - he seemed to be choosing these with care - 'you're not only hopeless as an organizer of life in general, you're a crashingly boring companion into the bargain and needless to say, er, perennially deficient in the bedroom. Correct?'

  'That about sums me up. Oh, I'm also cut off.'

  'Cut off?'

  'Cut off from real people in my own little "pathetic fantasy world of dilettante Welshness, medievalism and poetry.' Malcolm drained his glass.

  '_Poetry__? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big hulking fellow like you. What are your other shortcomings?'

  'That's all I can remember for the moment. And as I say I'd love to know the explanation. There'd been no row before, no upset, nothing. It's most odd. Anachronistic in fact. She hasn't spoken to me in that strain for God knows how long.'

  'M'm.' Alun pursed his lips and blinked at the wall, as if reflecting upon one or two mere theoretical conceivabilities, preparing to eliminate them for form's sake. He said, 'She didn't happen to, er, mention anybody else, I suppose, _refer__ to anybody who in any way might have...?'

  'Not a soul. I'd have remembered if she had.'

  'Yes.' Now an expression of considerable relief appeared for an instant on Alun's face before he added quickly, 'That's a, that must be a considerable relief to you. Well, quite a relief.'

  Malcolm nodded and sighed. His neck was aching and he wriggled his shoulders around to ease it. 'But of course what's bothering me, what I'm trying to work out is the connection between this and the way she flew off the handle at you. Which I may say I'm very sorry ever happened.'

  'The...?'

  'Last night in the Golf Club,' said Malcolm, himself starting to blink slightly.

  'Oh. Oh yes. Yes. Yes, I wondered when we'd get round to that. Yes, quite a little hatful of words, wasn't it? What did she say to you about it?'

  'Well, I had to drag it out of her. But I wasn't going to let it pass.'

  'Quite right, it doesn't do. Never. Anyway...'

  'Well, she was tired, she'd had a few, she was a bit under the weather, and the rest of it was, quite frankly, Alun, I mean I'm being quite frank now, she was furious with you, no not furious, annoyed. Irritated. Some linguistic point which I must confess I didn't really - '

  'Oh, I know. She grew up in Capel Mererid speaking Welsh and I didn't. I know. To be frank with you in return, Malcolm _bach__, she thinks I'm a fraud, and worse than being a fraud I peddle Wales to the Saxons, so of course I irritate her. No no, don't... We won't argue about it, it's not the topic under discussion. Talking of which... ' Alun leant forward and said emphatically, but in a lowered voice, 'Don't take what she said at its face value, not any of it. There's something more basic at work there, and yes, you're right, it's connected with what she said to you this evening. Now, the whisky's in the front room.' He spoke to the purpose, in that he and Malcolm had retired to the kitchen for this part of their talk. 'Can I freshen that? Come on, it'll do you good.'

  'Do you really think it will? All right, just a small one.

  Thank you.'

  After getting up, Alun laid his hand gently on Malcolm's arm. 'It's all right, boy. I'll explain it to you now. It's not easy but it's all right.'

  Malcolm sat on alone. He realized he must be drunk even if only slightly, a state unfamiliar to him for over thirty years, in fact about as long as he had been married to Gwen, until Alun had come back into his life. He felt confused but not dejectedly so, half reassured about Gwen, keeping Rhiannon at the back of his mind for later, not making any connections between the one woman and the other or what each might signify for him. Decent of Alun to come along and listen and, the chances seemed good, sort out what there was to be sorted out. And yet somewhere he felt an apprehension that faded away whenever he started trying to account for it and came creeping back again as soon as he stopped.

  Since moving out to the kitchen he had intermittently heard a mumble of voices from the sitting-room, the music first faint then inaudible, once or twice Garth's laughter. Now Alun's voice was raised in some flight or other and more genera1laughter followed. No, he was not cracking a joke at his, Malcolm's expense - nonsense, paranoid even to think of it. And here he came straight away, not lingering, bustling responsibly back with the two drinks. All his movements were as lively as they had ever been.

  Stem-faced, intent on seeing the thing through, he pulled his chair up to the table, which incidentally Malcolm had cleared earlier of most of the odds and ends of supper and earlier meals and nibbles Gwen had left there. He sat up specially straight in his own chair.

  'Right,' said Alun in a military bark. 'Right. I'd give it to you in one word. Jealousy. Plain old-fashioned jealousy. Also envy, which isn't by any means the same thing, but no better. I was reading where someone made that point recently - envy's worse for a marriage than jealousy. Welsh writer too. Can't think who for now. Anyway. Something nice, something a little bit romantic has come your way, to wit, Rhiannon. Nothing like that has come her way, poor old Gwen's,' he said, staring quite hard at Malcolm. 'You have a nostalgic day out, you come back in triumph, she punishes you. Simple as that. Don't think hardly of her. Happens all the time wherever there are women. Like a reflex.'

  'But I wasn't in triumph, I thought of that, I'm not a complete fool, I guarded against that. I said it was quite fun, food nothing much, bit chilly and so on and so on.'

  Foreseeably, Alun had started shaking his bead before the 'last was half over. 'Listen, you come back after that son of jaunt anything short of minus your head and you come back in triumph, got it? That's how they all... oh Christ.'

  'But you're saying she was just trying to hurt me.'

  'Check.'

  'But I wasn't trying to hurt her.'

  A fervent groan suggested the hopelessness of any kind of answer to that one. 'But she... '

  'She'd have forgotten she said it by tomorrow morning.'

  'But I won't.'

  'Yes you will, not by the morning but eventually, and the sooner the better. Repeat after me - no, you needn't literally but pay attention. She didn't mean what she said. She used words instead of howling and screaming. She was upset - rightly or wrongly doesn't matter. And you swallow it. That's an order.'

  'Well, you'd know, I suppose.' Malcolm si
ghed again. 'All right, I'll do my best. Anyway, how's it meant to fit in with what she said to you?'

  'M'm... ' Alun had whisky in his mouth, in front of his teeth actually, and he held up a finger while he put it out of the way. 'More of the same, only pointing in the other direction. I mean seeing Rhiannon, probably seeing her talking to you, that did it. Gwen wanted to bash her but she couldn't bash her direct because they're old buddies and all that, so she got at her via me, not that she didn't get at me _con__ bloody _amore__, what? No problem. Jealousy... and envy. More sort of direct envy in this case because it was one female's of another of roughly the same age and circumstances. Plain as the nose on your pikestaff. Happens every day.'

  Garth's laughter was heard again faintly, or fairly faintly.

  Malcolm said, 'It sounds pretty devious to me.'

  'Devious my eye. When you've - '

  'Sorry, I think that should be tortuous.'

  'All right, tortuous my eye then. Once you've - Christ - relinquished the perverse, pig-headed expectation that women should mean what they say and say what they mean except when they're actually lying, this sort of thing gets to be all in the day's work. Tortuous, or devious, _my__... _eye__. Couldn't be more obvious and straightforward.' Alun's voice softened. 'I know Gwen's different in all sorts of ways, but she's the same in some other ways and this is one of those. Agreed?'

  'Yes,' said Malcolm after almost no hesitation. 'Of course you're right. It'll just take a bit of getting used to. Well. Thanks, Alun.'

  'All part of the service, boy. Now don't mention it to her again, right? Go on as if it had never happened. And be nice to her - but your own experience and common sense'll guide you there. And hey,' he went on as they rose from the table, 'what did you get up to with Rhiannon on Courcey, you old monster? The bloody girl was treading on air when she got back.'

  'Oh no,' said Malcolm, turning his face away.

  '_Yes__, honest. Looked about twenty years younger. Now just you watch it, Jack, okay? Sardis and Bethesda have their eye on you, see. Christ,' said Alun with regard to the time. 'Just before I go, it's marvellous to hear some of that old stuff again. Let's have an evening of it on our own without all these philistines and Ornette Coleman fans like Peter. But I was going to say, there was one of that lot used to appeal to me particularly, a trumpeter with a French name, would it be Matt, Nat... '

  'Natty Dominique, a great man.. Yes, I've got quite a few tracks with him on. Fancy you remembering him.'

  'Perhaps we could hear just a couple before I take off.

  Didn't he do a lot with George Lewis?'

  'I think Dodds more.'

  These last exchanges took place as the two were filing from kitchen to sitting-room, so naturally enough Malcolm missed Alun's transitory but enormous looks of release from tension, thanksgiving to tutelary powers, lubricious glee, etc. They found the Playbox inactive, though its ruby on-light still glowed, and Garth telling the others what he had done or seen on some occasion in the past. From the way he shut up at the sight of them it could be deduced that he had not only been talking for the sake of talking but for once knew it too. Peter sat with pursed-up non-specific displeasure. Charlie faced the blank screen of the television set, if not hoping it might spontaneously jump into life any second then merely happening to have his head pointed in that direction. Percy, half settled on the table where the gramophone was, half propped against it, indicated without word or movement that he was not with the others, in no way ill disposed, just belonging to a different party close by, though about ready for his flight to be called. Nobody seemed to be drinking. After bringing them this far, vitality had given out.

  'I thought we might have a last record,' said Alun. 'And perhaps a small one for the road.'

  'You have one,' said Percy. 'Of either or both. Thank you for your hospitality, Malcolm. Now I think some of us could afford to be on our way, don't you? Peter, you've got transport... '

  Garth drew himself up with a fierce exhalation of breath. 'I'm going to walk,' he said. 'Get some fresh air into my lungs.'

  'Yes, well there's only Charlie to worry about and I'll take him home. I've got to go there anyway to pick up Dot.'

  'You mean from our place?' asked Charlie, twisting round energetically in his seat. 'How do you know she's there?'

  'Dorothy went to Sophie this morning for coffee and drink's.

  'I mean how do you know she's still there? Have you rung Sophie?'

  'She went to Sophie for coffee and drinks,' said Percy, speaking slightly louder but without in any way changing his placid, matter-of-fact tone.

  'But you haven't rung Sophie.' It seemed that Charlie wanted this or something similar put into the file.

  'Shut up, Charlie,' said Alun.

  'Look now, the sooner we're away,' explained Percy, 'the sooner we can get our heads down.'

  They were away very soon after that, all of them, including Alun, who might perhaps have been expected to seize on this capital chance of hearing his couple of tracks undisturbed, but he went off with the others muttering something about having to make an early start in the morning. So, nearly but not quite sure that Alun had come up with the right answer to the Gwen problem, and with his head swimming just slightly, Malcolm poured himself a glass of almost colourless whisky and water and played himself a last record, not all agog and on his feet now but sunk in his uncomfortable little chair.

  The choice was what had once been a previously unissued alternate master of 'Goober Dance' (featuring Natty Dominique, comet). He kept the volume good and low for fear of provoking the retaliation, then or another time, of the reggae-loving butcher's assistant who lived on that side. When 'Goober Dance' finished Malcolm thought he might as well hear another couple of tracks, and fell asleep trying to think of Rhiannon but instead wishing Gwen would come home.

  4

  'I asked this friend of Angela's what it was,' said Dorothy, 'and she told me it was a Maori dish - you know, the people who went there in boats first of all. Very civilized people. They have all their own things. For instance... '

  Seated at the far end of Sophie's kitchen-table, her husband looked at his watch. 'Two minutes, darling,' he called.

  'What happens in two minutes?' asked Peter next to him. 'I'm afire with curiosity.' Well, he was quite interested, and to tell the truth he felt awkward sitting there and saying nothing. He had not had to explain that his presence was part of a routine, the rest of which embraced going wherever he had last heard of Muriel in case she needed a lift home or elsewhere, this without prejudice to her right to leave at any time by taxi without informing him. Having to do that, and so perhaps saving him an hour's profitless drive, made her feel tied down. Tonight he was lucky, in the sense that she was still where she had gone earlier that day, though not visibly so at the moment.

  'You'll see, if you're still around then,' said Percy, helpfully answering his question.

  'It's more than likely. Finishing a chat with Gwen might take all night.'

  'What? Oh, is that what Muriel's doing?'

  'Isn't that what you gathered?'

  'I didn't gather anything, Peter, I was busy here, as I still am, but it won't be for much longer. Yes, compared with some I consider myself a pretty lucky fellow, having such an easy-to-cope-with wife.'

  Peter could think of nothing to say to that. He had been running into Percy for years and years without ever having had to notice anything in particular about him, and had left it a couple of seconds too late now to scan his face and posture for intimations of irony. Of course the fellow was a Welshman. While he was still considering the point without urgency the door slowly opened and Charlie came slowly in, staying near the threshold for a nimble exit if required.

  'I think I'm going to bed,' he announced. 'Okay,' said Peter when no one else spoke.

  Sophie, next to Dorothy and now as so often her official auditor, looked round. She said through or over some information about the financing of the New Zealander health service, 'Sian
's in the little room.'

  'What's she doing there?' asked Charlie in the slightly contentious style he had fallen into at Malcolm's. 'Well, sleeping's what she went there for.'

  'Can't she do that at home?'

  'She's got nothing to go home for any more. You know.'

  'As long as nothing needs doing about her.'

  'Just leave her,' said Sophie.

  This exchange had caused Dorothy's discourse to falter severely, but the flow was soon reestablished. With a gallantly assumed smile Sophie turned back to her. Charlie wandered halfway down the room.

  'Alun in cracking form,' he said.

  Percy looked at him brightly and in silence. Peter grunted.

  'Rising to the occasion. Just the _sort__ of thing that brings out the best in him, convincing a chap like old Malcolm that any misgivings he may happen to have about his... personal life are quite without foundation. Tones him up. Mind you, I'd love to know what they actually said to each other, wouldn't you?'

  'I think you're jumping to conclusions,' said Peter, his eyes flickering towards Percy.

  'Maybe. A summons to the telephone followed by what about paying a call on old Malcolm, that notorious nightowl and reveller. M'm. I predict a catastrophe.'

  During these last words of Charlie's, Percy had again looked at his watch and now moved at a moderate pace to a position immediately behind and above his wife. 'They've even kept their own cuisine,' said Dorothy. 'A friend of Angela's cooked a Maori dish for us one evening. It had raw-'

  Still unhurriedly, Percy leaned forward, put his hands under her arms and hauled sharply upwards, using great but seemingly not excessive force. Dorothy shot to her feet as smartly as a nail responding to a claw-hammer.

  'Here we go, darling,' said Percy, pulling and pushing while Sophie at first stood by, then followed their joint progress. After a short interval Peter and Charlie heard him in the hall saying, 'Piece of cake.' Then the front door shut.