Crazy Pavements

by Beverley Nichols

  And thirdly, Mrs. Gossett was a snob. It was hardly possible that she could be anything else. When one spends one’s entire life poring over photographs of peeresses, writing genteel captions beneath the stolid faces of the British aristocracy, weaving romance into their lives, flattering them, fawning upon them, giving them honour where precious little honour was due – how could one avoid being tainted with this most comical complaint? She was a snob, and she admitted it, if not to others, at least to herself.

  In Brian, therefore, she saw a splendid stepping-stone to higher things. And when she obtained, by certain ingenious manipulations known only to herself, two invitations to a very exalted dance at the house of a certain ‘exclusive’ duchess, she was determined that Brian should be her partner.

  ‘I suppose I must go,’ she said to him, with assumed diffidence one afternoon. ‘It’s a bore, but one has to do these things, hasn’t one?’

  Brian agreed that one had to do them.

  Then, quickly, with amazing ingenuity, she cornered him. How, to this day, he could not tell you. But there was no escape. He had to take her to the dance. And since the anticipation of it weighed heavily upon him, and would make depressing reading, we may pass quickly to a certain second-rate ‘smart’ restaurant, where the two may be observed dining before the enter­tainment, he in his new dress-suit, she in a confection of salmon-pink, trimmed with lace arranged in an archaic design, her head crowned with a coiffure that nobody could overlook.

  ‘Will you have a cocktail?’

  Mrs. Gossett bit her lip, paused, and glanced at the tablecloth. Then, with a sudden, girlish twist of the shoulders . . . ‘You won’t think me dreadful?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’d adore one. Don’t let’s bother about anything to-night.’ Her eyes rolled round rapidly in two complete circles, and at the same time she began to drum on the table with her long thin fingers, while a tremulous hum escaped from her lips, which bore a faint resemblance to ‘Annie Laurie.’

  Brian called the waiter. ‘What sort would you like?’ he said.

  ‘Something beautifully strong.’ The beginning of a giggle was heard in Mrs. Gossett’s throat, and then, realizing the presence of the waiter, she again became the duchess. ‘I weally don’t know.’ She glanced dis­dainfully over her shoulder at a bank clerk who was swallowing a steak with more appetite than grace. The sight of this person caused her to add in a frosty voice: ‘Stwange people one sees everywhere, nowadays, doesn’t one?’ At which she negligently drew her rabbit-skin cloak over her left shoulder.

  Brian felt that any very powerful stimulant would, in the circumstances, be more than Mrs. Gossett could stand, and so he ordered two dry Martinis.

  ‘How divine,’ said Mrs. Gossett. She suddenly melted, and observed the existence of the waiter. ‘And mine with a cherry, please.’

  ‘Certainly, madame.’

  ‘I think the chewy’s the nicest part,’ she confided to Brian, when the cocktails were brought. ‘Is that naughty of me?’ Her head was much on one side when she asked this question.

  ‘I think it’s very like a woman,’ replied Brian, to order.

  Mrs. Gossett’s eyes narrowed to two slits, and she held her head very high. A faint smile which she con­ceived to be cynical played about her thin lips.

  ‘What do you know about women?’ she said. And, overcome with the daring of her question, she lowered her eyes and began to drink her soup very quickly, crumbling a roll at the same time with such excessive delicacy that most of it fell on to the floor.

  While Brian was thinking of an answer, he could not help observing that Mrs. Gossett was making a great display of her fingers. At one moment she would place an elbow on the table, and spread out her fingers fan-wise under her chin, at another she would pat her hair with many spiral gestures. He suddenly realized the cause of these manœuvres.

  Mrs. Gossett had been manicured! And manicured with a vengeance. Her hands were covered with liquid powder, which ceased, somewhat irregularly, in the neighbourhood of her finger-nails. The latter were fiercely pointed, in the shape of talons, and were coloured a deep sparkling ruby red, which gave the impression that Mrs. Gossett had been careless with the red-ink pot.

  She must have observed his scrutiny, for while the soup was being removed, she leant forward and said:

  ‘Do you believe in palmistry? Do you? I do.’

  She leant back again, both her hands stretched before her on the tablecloth, like blood-stained symbols. Brian made a movement as though to examine one of them.

  Mrs. Gossett snatched her hands in mock terror from the table, and held them behind her back. ‘I won’t let you see,’ she said. ‘I won’t.’ She looked at him with a gay challenge. As, however, the challenge did not seem to be very provoking, she timidly relented. ‘Well – p’r’aps . . .’ The hands were once more pro­duced, with many quivering little withdrawals, and were lain out for his inspection.

  Brian studied a little hopelessly the moist palms before him. ‘But really,’ he said, ‘I don’t know any­thing at all about it.’

  The head was again put on one side and a great deal of white of eye appeared. ‘You’re teasing.’

  ‘Honestly I’m not.’

  ‘Of course you are. I can see it in your eyes.’ Mrs. Gossett suddenly bit her lip violently. ‘I haven’t said anything dweadful, have I?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Oh, I have. I know I have.’

  ‘Really you haven’t.’

  ‘I never know when I say things. It’s too embawassing. But then – we said we wouldn’t mind to-night, didn’t we?’ With a daring gesture she tossed back her head. A loose lock of mouse-coloured hair fell gently over her left ear.

  Her palms were still outstretched.

  ‘Don’t you think we’d better finish the sole?’ said Brian.

  Mrs. Gossett shook her head.

  He began to feel exasperated.

  ‘But I tell you I don’t understand these things.’

  Again she narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re cheating your­self, you know,’ she remarked, with great solemnity. ‘I know.’ She continued to stare at him. Then the eyes again rolled and her mouth broadened into a timid smile. ‘Still – we’ll talk about that some other time, shall we?’

  And she began to ‘pick’ at her sole. Mrs. Gossett seemed to consider it indelicate to eat any dish in its entirety. She would take her ‘portion’ of whatever it might consist, and slide it from side to side of her plate, playing with it as a cat plays with a mouse, occasionally dabbing it with a fork, and still more occasionally trans­ferring a small piece of it to her mouth, where it was chewed absent-mindedly, with prim lips, until it appar­ently melted away. The same procedure was adopted in respect of the bread. The cherry-tipped fingers would delve into the centre of the crisp roll, extract a portion of white bread, and knead it into a rather dis­gusting pulp on the tablecloth. Then a minute portion of crust would be taken between scarlet thumb and scarlet forefinger, and placed, with a certain rumina­tion, between her irregular teeth.

  ‘You’ve eaten nothing,’ said Brian, towards the end of the meal.

  ‘I’ve adored it.’

  ‘It’s not a bad place, is it?’

  ‘Heavenly. So much nicer than the Savoy or the Berkeley or the –’ her memory failing her for a moment, ‘or any of those old places.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’

  ‘One gets so bored with them, doesn’t one?’ She was once more the duchess, in spite of a suspicious flush on her cheek-bones which owed more to Beaune than to nature.

  ‘Dreadfully bored.’

  ‘The same old people. The same old ways. Whereas this . . .’

  She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, wiping as she did so the remainder of the bread on to the floor. The gesture included the bank clerk, whose steak was now thoroughly absorbed, the guzzling provincials, the tired waiters and the dreary aspidistras.

  Mrs. Gossett now began to fumbl
e under the table. Brian watched her with considerable curiosity. After a moment she produced a large crocodile bag, which she laid on the table. She gave the impression of a female professor about to demonstrate a problem in physics. The analogy might indeed stand, for she was about to make up.

  She made up with carefully calculated devilment. A lip-stick as large as a small carrot was firstly applied with grim precision to her mouth. A large puff, similar to a housemaid’s mop, was then flicked round her nose, where it left patches like snow on a somewhat trampled Eden. A brand-new pot of rouge was finally produced, and dabbed in all the wrong places.

  Brian stared with something akin to horror at the metamorphosis which was taking place before him. Mrs. Gossett at the end of this proceeding was looking positively clownish. Had she been about to appear in a circus as a comic turn she could not have prepared her­self with greater effect. Something had to be done. And so he leant forward and said, with as much affec­tion as he could put into his voice:

  ‘I like you better as you were before.’

  Mrs. Gossett lowered her eyes.

  ‘You see,’ he added, ‘you don’t need all that.’

  She put her head on one side.

  ‘I suppose,’ he concluded desperately, ‘it’s because I’m old-fashioned.’

  Her eyes fluttered up again. A smile which she imagined to be radiant spread over the large and glis­tening lips. She suddenly rose to her feet, swept her cloak round her, and disappeared.

  In a minute she had returned again and Brian sighed with relief to observe that her face had returned to the normal. ‘How wonderful of you,’ he said. ‘Shall we go on?’

  They were whirled in through the great doors, she one way, he another. He received a ticket in exchange for his hat, and stood waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase.

  And as soon as she appeared, his heart sank. She was all wrong. In the midst of these exquisite, glitter­ing creatures, she stood out as a conspicuous frump. Among the crowd of sleek, shingled heads, her tousled mop appeared barbaric. Against the simple delicious confections around her, the pink, bunchy dress had all the disadvantages of extreme rusticity, without any rustic charm. By the side of the pale, ivory complex­ions of her companions her skin had an appearance of health for which the word ‘rude’ was an inadequate description.

  He forced a smile, and gave her his arm. For the moment she was being the ‘Duchess,’ which was at least something to be thankful for, since it would tend to moderate her behaviour. She waved her bedraggled fan at a mass of superb orchids which were heaped in white and purple profusion near the top of the stairs.

  ‘Quite pwetty, aren’t they?’ she observed casually, as though she had just caught sight of a few geraniums.

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Brian.

  ‘Oh,’ he said to himself, ‘I want orchids. I want orchids. I don’t want this thing on my arm. I want Julia – Julia – Julia – Julia. . . .’

  An awful thought seized him. Supposing Julia were here to-night? What on earth would she say about Mrs. Gossett? The idea made him sweat with sudden fear. Fool that he was! Why had he not thought of it before? They might all be here. Julia and Lord William and Maurice, and Tanagra and Lady Thane. They might see him dancing with this . . . with this!

  Pale, and almost tearful, he glanced again at Mrs. Gossett. In the light of this fresh alarm she seemed positively obscene. He knew he ought not to feel that way about her. He knew that he was being snobbish, and contemptible. But he couldn’t help it.

  He saw, or thought he saw, mocking eyes directed at him and his companion. He heard, or thought he heard, whispered comments upon the pink dress and the tattered fan. He knew, or thought he knew, that they were both creating a sensation, the unenviable sensation that always comes to those who are out of the picture. He would have liked to sink through the floor. He would have liked to carry Mrs. Gossett up to the roof, and keep her there in the darkness, under the stars, until all the rest had gone away.

  But no such plan of campaign was possible. For they were already in the entrance to the ballroom, and Mrs. Gossett heard the band as a war-horse hears the trumpet. She forgot her ‘Duchess’ manners. She became instantly a shy young debutante. She let her fan dangle ponderously from her wrist. Then she placed a napthaleened glove on Brian’s shoulder, and looked up in his eyes.

  Suppressing a groan, he began to dance.

  ‘Isn’t this heavenly?’

  ‘Superb.’

  It was worse than he thought. For she danced with an allure that could only be matched by those ladies who, in the side-shows of the Folies Bergères, nightly exhibit to American business men the remarkable elasticity of the female abdomen. She curved here, and willowed there. She bent, and swayed and sidled, until it was with the greatest difficulty that Brian could steer her at all. And from time to time she would throw back her head, very suddenly, and give him a ‘look,’ lower­ing her eyes immediately afterwards in much con­fusion.

  When the first dance was over, Brian began to make for the door.

  ‘But, oh – we can’t miss one!’

  He faltered weakly. ‘No. Of course we can’t.’

  She clapped her hands in loud isolation, then kittenishly put them behind her back, alarmed at the atten­tion she was calling to herself.

  Swaying on one foot, she said, ‘Did’m’s think I was tired?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not?’ he said eagerly.

  She shook her head rapidly from side to side. ‘Not the very least. Not the vewy . . .’

  And then the band began again, and once more they were making the circuit of the room.

  Brian was almost desperate. Something must be done. He felt instinctively that Julia was in the room. She must not on any conceivable account see him with Mrs. Gossett.

  But how could he conceal his identity? Should he pull extraordinary faces, so that nobody could possibly recognize him? Should he try to appear patronizing, as though he were the owner of the house and were doing his duty by dancing with the cook? Should he even try, by a series of apt manœuvres, to trundle Mrs. Gossett round the sides of the room, keeping his face grimly set to the wall, and only turning round very quickly, when necessity demanded?

  All of these manœuvres, in varying degree, he essayed, but he had to give them up as hopeless.

  ‘Too lovely,’ she murmured after each dance, grimly remaining in the centre of the floor.

  That was the most hideous part of the whole busi­ness. Mrs. Gossett was obviously becoming violently infected by the gaiety around her. Her cheeks were flushed, her chatter became high and shrill, and a lock of hair detached itself from the main structure of her coiffure, drifting inconsequently into her eye. She would then remove it with a whimsical gesture, or toss it aside with a girlish, muttered imprecation. Once, she even said ‘damn,’ very softly, and then, overcome by the abandon of her behaviour, hid a scarlet and coquet­tish face in the lapels of Brian’s coat.

  There was only one thing to do in these circum­stances, and that was to hide. After about the third dance, Brian said:

  ‘Suppose we go and have a drink?’

  She turned huge dolls’ eyes upon him.

  ‘Alweady?’

  ‘Oh – I mean any sort of drink.’

  She pursed her lips, and then simpered. What on earth she was supposed to convey by that Brian could not guess. Nor did he care. It was enough that he was in mortal fear of detection. He therefore took her by the arm, and steered her feverishly through the crowd, up the staircase, and into a gallery where, on a long table, a series of typical dishes and drinks were arranged indicating the spirit of charity more than that of taste.

  ‘I always think that sitting out’s the nicest part of a dance,’ he said, as soon as he had securely hidden her behind a bust of Disraeli.

  ‘Well – of course’ – and here her eyelids were work­ing at top speed – ‘that depends, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Depends on what?’ asked Brian.

  �
��Really, Mr. Elme.’ With mock nervousness she toyed with her gloves.

  Brian forced a grin. He had no idea that smiling could be so fatiguing. Smiling at Mrs. Gossett was as arduous as lifting heavy weights. He could feel per­manent creases coming round his eyes and mouth.

  ‘I don’t think it depends on anything,’ he said fatuously.

  For answer she shook her head, and lifted to her lips the glass of lemonade which he had obtained for her.

  There was silence for a moment. Brian surrep­titiously glanced at his watch. It was only just after eleven. He could not possibly suggest leaving before one. Two hours more of this! It was enough to make one weep. If it had been merely a question of looking after Mrs. Gossett, he would not have minded. But this horrible business of hide and seek – this conceal­ment . . . he shuddered.

  ‘Cold?’ a sweet voice crooned.

  He looked at her.

  ‘Yes – rather.’

  ‘I’m deliciously warm,’ she sighed, with head well back.

  She certainly was, thought Brian. She was purple in the face.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Gossett, with the impetuousness not merely of a girl but of a positive babe in arms, leant forward, thrusting a diminutive handkerchief under his nose.

  ‘Smell,’ she said. ‘That would make anybody feel warm.’

  A sickly aroma of stale carnations made itself evident.

  ‘Yes,’ he gulped, ‘it would.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she cried.

  ‘I only agreed with you,’ he said in desperation.

  ‘But I didn’t say anything like that.’

  ‘Like what?’