The Old Devils

by Kingsley Amis

  There was no breeze, and the air seemed to him to be of exactly the same temperature as that in the kitchen. The moon had come round a corner of. the hill and lit up those parts of the neighbouring ground that were not shadowed by small trees and straggling bushes, more or less everywhere Rhiannon might have been expected to be. He took a few indecisive steps up the garden path between huge clusters of weeds and rank grasses, half-way to a low fence beyond which the slope began to rise too steeply to be taken on without some serious reason. Nothing moved anywhere. He was trudging down the narrow strip at the side of the cottage when a larger wave than usual broke audibly down on the beach, and at the same time he noticed that Charlie's voice could no longer be heard, at least through the wall and then the front door. Alun stepped on to where he could see up and down Brydan's Walk: still nobody. After more hesitation he quietly lifted the latch and went in.

  Victor and Sophie were talking in-low tones, but they broke off now and looked up at him expectantly. Between them Charlie sat sprawled and apparently asleep.

  'Is it all right to come in?' asked Alun.

  Neither spoke in reply, but Victor nodded.

  'He seems quite peaceful now, doesn't he?' Alun went nearer Charlie but still not very near. 'What have you what have you done for him?'

  'Largactil it's called,' said Victor in his clear tones and staring rather at Alun with his clear eyes. 'A powerful tranquillizer. Injected intramuscularly.'

  'Really.'

  'Yes really. Yes, you can learn how in two minutes.

  Charlie and I arranged that I should keep the stuff by me. He was afraid if he had it he'd start trying to inject himself when he was pissed. Very sensible of him.'

  Alun had just enough wit not to ask why Sophie had not been deputed to keep the stuff by her. 'What was the matter with him?'

  'He's not mad, if that's what you were wondering. An attack of depersonalization. Panic brought on by being cut off from the possibility of immediate help and then self-renewing, as it were. Very frightening, I imagine. Well, we haven't got to imagine, have we?'

  'Will he be all right now?'

  At this point Victor suddenly stood up. 'Yes. Thank you. Is there anything else you'd like to know?'

  'I feel responsible.'

  'Yes,' said Victor warmly. 'M'm. You had heard about Charlie's dislike of being alone after dark and so forth.'

  'Are you asking me? Not in detail, no.' Poofter, thought Alun shakily to himself. Ginger-beer. Brown-hatter. 'I mean I hadn't heard in detail.' Taxi-driver.

  'But a bit, from what... ' Victor's jerk of the head did no more than allude to Sophie. Nothing in his glance touched on her connection with Alun.

  Finding himself expected to go on, Alun said, 'Yes, I'd heard enough. Enough to have a good idea I might fuck him up by leaving him to come back here on his own in the dark. I wanted to do that because I was angry with him for saying that something I'd written was no good, just copied from Brydan. Who does he think he is, I thought. I wanted to pay him out for... '

  He stopped because neither of the others gave any sign of paying attention.

  Victor turned his head and said with exaggerated suavity, 'Oh, yes, well, of course, absolutely, I do very much appreciate that. Now I suggest we get things moving.'

  The first thing he or anyone else got moving was Dorothy and Percy, cordially and shortly thanked for their help and sent on their way, an unaccustomed mode of departure for them as some might have thought. Then Victor told Sophie she was to drive the Norris car while he travelled in the back with Charlie - who all this while had sat perfectly quiescent in the armchair - and would later arrange for the collection of his own car. Finally, at the front door, with Rhiannon now present, he said, rather less smoothly than earlier, 'Mr Weaver - we met, if you remember, at the restaurant owned by my brother and myself. I'm afraid I wasn't able to give you a very nice meal on that occasion, and I had been so much hoping to give you a better one. Well, I'm afraid various problems like supply and staff, and as you may have heard our new stove has had teething troubles - all that has rather got in the way. In fact I shouldn't advise you to venture into the place at all until further notice. We just can't offer you what you're used to in London. I'm sure you understand. _Nos da__.'

  'It's the worst thing I've ever done,' said Alun a minute later. 'No need to tell me it doesn't make any difference but I'd like you to believe I realize it.'

  'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Rhiannon. 'Do you mind sleeping in the spare room now it's free? That bed in the front's rather narrow and I want to get a good night's rest.'

  After another minute he walked over to the table where his typewriter and papers still were, idiotically trying to do so in no particular way at all, took _Coming Home__ out of its envelope and held it up to be tom in half, thumbs tip to tip, elbows lifted. Then he thought it could look good to make a present of a couple of pages of it to the next little non-paying bastard to write in for a contribution to a student magazine or an item to be auctioned for charity or something - anyway, you never knew. Having spared his own work he could see no overriding case for going ahead with his next project, the destruction of the Dai/Brydan photograph, which after all would not have been the original. Nor did he as intended finally push his copy of the Complete Poems in among the books on the shelves where he would never have to see it again. He would quite likely need it for reference the very next time he wrote a piece or prepared a talk or whatever you bloody well like that involved the master. He could always stop doing that, of course. But of course he never could.

  Eight - Charlie

  'It boils down to this as far as I'm concerned,' said Garth. 'Pink gin. Thank you, Arnold: - Oh yes: is a man for Wales or is he not? Simple as that.'

  'With all respect, Garth, I'm afraid it isn't as simple as that,' said Malcolm. 'A man can be for Wales in such a way as subtly to denigrate the country, and that's what I'm sorry to say and rather surprised to have to say I thought Alun was doing. He - '

  'Excuse me interrupting,' said a thickset man with a heavy moustache and the Turkish or even Assyrian facial appearance to be seen in some Welshmen, in fact a quantity surveyor from Newcastle Emlyn and old Arnold Spurling's guest. 'Didn't you use to be the English teacher at St Elizabeth Grammar? Years ago?'

  'No,' said Malcolm rather curtly, as if he had been taken for a schoolmaster once too often. 'Not at any time.'

  'Sorry if I've made a mistake,' said the guest, not sounding or looking at all satisfied that he had.

  Malcolm went on with a touch of gameness, 'To write a newspaper article about the Eisteddfod in a humorous and entertaining style is one thing. To portray those taking part as figures of fun is quite another. In my submission.'

  'I accept that,' said Garth. 'Certainly.'

  'When did this... article appear?' inquired the guest.

  'A couple of weeks back, possibly more. It was one of a - '

  'But, I mean surely the Eisteddfod is an occasion for old friends to meet and exchange news and gossip.' The guest's lustrous dark eyes moved round the circle, canvassing support for this obvious view of the matter. 'I haven't been to one now'" I don't know how long, but I used to attend quite regular, and in those days I was _constantly__ running into people I hadn't seen at least since the previous year. _All the time__. Or were you thinking of the International Eisteddfod?'

  '_No__,' said Malcolm more curtly. At the same time he seemed bewildered.

  'Tony Bainbridge,' said the guest straight away and shoved out his hand as he sat. 'I don't think you caught the name before.'

  Malcolm gave his· own name without impetuosity, especially at the second time of asking.

  'Ah,' said Tony Bainbridge, narrowing his eyes now. 'M'm.'

  He stopped short of actually arresting Malcolm, which Charlie, on the other side of Garth, had been half preparing for. One of Malcolm's troubles, and many others' too, was that he expected not only to follow conversations himself but that those around him should do the
same, without any allowance for their being bored, mad, deaf, thick, or drunk without having been seen by him personally to set about becoming so. There he was now, as Charlie watched, looking furtively at Tony Bainbridge's glass, considering, looking at his own, wondering. And this after sixty-odd years in Wales, or just on the planet.

  Before the silence had stretched too far Arnold Spurting reappeared with six drinks on a tray. The sixth went to Peter, who had said nothing since arriving, though he had snorted a couple of times when the Eisteddfod came into the conversation. The Bible had not been open all that long but, with the low cloud and heavy rain outside, the twilight seemed to be closing in already. Never mind that by the calendar it was still summer, the local weather had always had its own ideas on that.

  Charlie had not found much to say for himself either.

  Today was only the second time he had left home unaccompanied since returning from Birdanhur a fortnight previously. For over half of that period, home had meant the Glendower, a sofa-bed in the flat there and the close proximity of Victor. What had happened on the evening in question was far from clear and without any detail in Charlie's memory, but he was quite decided that Sophie had not been there when he needed her. He also remembered, however, having taken a bad gamble on his own account, having thought he could manage without her, and he bore her no resentment. Nevertheless, rebuilding his confidence in her would take time. He wondered now and then how much time.

  'I heard,' said Garth, lowering his voice but not quite talking behind his hand - 'I heard you'd had a little spot of trouble down at Birdanhur.'

  'Just a bit of a dizzy spell. Nothing to worry about, Dewi said.' Dewi had said several times over that Charlie's case was not uncommon and that actually he had nothing to be afraid of after all. 'Got to take things easy for a bit.' This was to explain his restricted movements.

  'Has he given you anything for it?'

  What you would have to have the matter with you before Dewi would consider it necessary to give you something for it was a good question; not he but an unnamed friend of Victor's had been the true supplier, once upon a time, of the Largactil and syringe. It was a far cry from the days of Griff, who was said to have had half the infant population of Lower Glamorgan groggy with opium as a matter of course in furtherance of soothing their chests in a hard winter. But then Griff had belonged to the vanished breed who saw it as part of their job to make their patients feel better.

  Garth interrupted this rather Peter-like train of thought by asking, 'Had he anything to suggest about your weight problem?'

  'Dewi, you mean? No, not a word. I was reading a - '

  'Still, I imagine you'll be making arrangements off your own bat, as it were.'

  'What?'

  'Thing like that, dizzy spell or whatever you call it, that's a warning. Nature's warning. Reminding you you won't be able to go on in your old ways for ever. Did you know that being just _half a stone__ over weight measurably reduces your life-expectancy? Seven pounds. Seven pounds avoir- dupois. My metabolism my good luck... your metabolism... your bad luck poor Roger Andrews... fat... sugar... salt... '

  Others had been known to find Garth's homilies bothersome, even offensive; never Charlie. Just a part, an insignificant part of the great fabric. Life was first boredom, then more boredom, as long as it was going your way, at least. Charlie made these and other representations to himself while Garth quacked indefatigably on. In a comfortable half-listening state he let the whisky do its work on him and ran over in his mind the bomb-proof security of his next few hours: more drinks here; safe conduct to the Glendower in the charge of Peter, who knew the story; Victor eventually driving him home; Victor assuring him that Sophie would not leave him alone in the house. At the moment Peter too seemed content to let matters proceed while they showed no clear signs of worsening. Beyond Garth, who had now veered into autobiography, the other three pursued some Welsh topic.

  So it trickled along until Alun arrived. He too had somehow failed to come up to scratch that evening in Birdarthur as Charlie recalled, or more as Victor had once or twice implied to him - well no one with a titter of wit had ever relied on him for more than the way to the Gents.

  Having passed over the stranger, Alun's glance returned and stayed. Charlie saw with placid horror that Tony Bainbridge was smiling with his lips pushed up so that his moustache was squashed between them and his nose. His eyes were half closed again too.

  'Hallo, Alun,» he said with awful quiet confidence, chin raised.

  After a count of three Alun went into an equally awful but very watchable sequence of slow-motion Grand Guignol, from incredulity that came to border on naked fear through dawning recognition to joyful God-praising acceptance with double handshake. 'Who the fuck are you?' he asked at this stage, but it was clear to all present that he quite likely did remember and given a moment might even have come up with the name. 'What is it, thirty years?'

  'Oh, not that. Fifteen more like.'

  'Oh. Tell me, where are you ~ now?'

  Tony Bainbridge told him that and more besides, receiving information in return. The others sat in silence, cautiously shifting position in their chairs as if a sound-recording was in progress.

  'Now you had, what, two girls you had, wasn't it?'

  'Spot on.' Alun gave a respectful nod. 'One married, one at Oxford.'

  'Oxford. There. Well, that's what time does, no question. It goes by.'

  'I'm afraid I can't - '

  'So you've got a girl at Oxford. I haven't. I haven't got anybody. What are you drinking, Alun?'

  'No, my shout.'

  At this point the door opened and Tare Jones advanced into the saloon lounge. He wore the heavy cardigan that, for all anyone knew, he never took off, and carried an unfolded sheet of paper printed in green, evidently an official form of some sort. This he planked down on the table some of them were sitting round, in front of Peter as it happened. There was silence while he stared accusingly from face to face.

  'So this - this is the kind of slough into which our democracy has declined,' he said with much bitterness and gigantic quotation-marks where needed. 'Have any of you any idea of what has just reached me through Her Majesty's mails?'

  Evidently none of them had. Garth did a slow wink at Tony Bainbridge to let him know that he was not really expected to be able to throw any light on the question.

  'The Lower Glamorgan Water Authority,' went on Tarc without mending his pace at all, 'desires to be informed within twenty-eight days, date as postmark, how many rooms in this establishment possess water facilities, of what nature these are in each case and their main uses and the approximate volume in gallons per day of water so utilized. For external appliances see back. Approximate. There I detect and welcome a ray of sanity and a spark of common human consideration. They might well have required measurement to three places of decimals. No. No. They drew back from that. Approximately is good enough. To the nearest gill is deemed to suffice.'

  His listeners, even Alun, seemed completely demoralized by this show. Nothing was attempted or said while Tarc glanced this way and that and crouched forward over the table.

  'Power,' he said in a whisper that was like a puma snarling. 'That's what it's all about. Some little jack-in-office is having the time of his life, drawing up forms and chucking them round the parish and generally trying to put the fear of God into the rest of us. How am I to deal with it, I ask you? What am I to do?'

  Now Alun twisted round in his seat to look at him. 'What are you to do? If you really don't know what to do then God help you. But I'll tell you what you don't do, so at least you'll know that much for next time, all right? You don't go on as if they've told you they're coming round to take you to a gas-chamber and you don't hold the floor for half an hour with a bloody music-hall monologue when you could just be boring us stiff about the price of booze like anybody else. That's what you don't do, see.'

  As well as visibly infuriating Tarc this caught him off balance. With a jerky mo
vement he snatched up his paper from the table and started asking Alun how he dared, what he meant by it, who he thought he was talking to and similar questions. He, Tarc, sounded uninterested in the answers and also, compared with previous form, altogether under-directed. But he came back strongly towards the end. While he spoke and during what followed he doggedly, almost obsessively scooped away with a middle finger at the resistant deposit in the corner of one eye.

  'I don't' have to take that shit from anyone/ he said with returning assurance. 'Least of all from a second-rate bloody ersatz Brydan.'

  Afterwards Charlie always wondered in what measure Tarc understood and intended this remark. The grin of anticipation with which Alun heard him out remained in place.

  'Just to take you up on who I think I'm talking to. Not just a miserable idiot but the kind of idiot who's ruining Wales.' Charlie had heard Alun pronounce two or three different kinds of men to be that kind of idiot. 'Turning it into a charade, an act, a place full of leeks and laver-bread and chapels and wonderful old characters who speak their own highly idiosyncratic and often curiously erudite kind of language. Tourists sometimes-'

  'He's having you on, Tarc,' said Garth. 'Pay no attention.

  Fellow's idea of a joke. '

  Tarc ignored him. 'Out,' he said, extending arm and forefinger horizontally to demonstrate his meaning. 'Out, the bloody lot of you. Off you go now. Go on. Now.'