Crazy Pavements

by Beverley Nichols

  Had he been able to assimilate all these injunctions his mind would have been in a state of hopeless con­fusion. However, he was saved from that by the sound of steps on the stairs outside. He had just time to tiptoe out of the room, close the door, and sit down on the sofa when Maurice entered, dressed in a very tight sailor suit and carrying a bucket and spade in his hand.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to be late. I had to wake up all the children I know to borrow these. Shall we go on?’

  And so quickly did he whirl Brian out of the room that we shall have no time to investigate the meaning of these strange wall-messages – not, at least, till nearer the end of this book.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The party was at its height, and as a typical social phenomenon of the post-war period it is worthy of study.

  The large studio was packed with men and women of all shapes and ages, dressed as children. Through the smoke-laden atmosphere one could distinguish the forms of immense women wearing ‘crawlers,’ old men with paddling-drawers and shrimping nets, sophisti­cated, pale-faced girls in pinafores, an occasional young man in long clothes. For the rest, there were quantities of sailor suits, flimsy white skirts and jerseys.

  This amazing crowd fox-trotted and fox-trotted round the room to the sound of a negro jazz band, members of which were uniformly garbed in shorts, blue shirts and white straw hats. Everybody in the room was acting up to his or her part (Tanagra, moving hither and thither like an anxious spectre, was seeing to that), so that the general effect was of a children’s party conceived by Aubrey Beardsley, executed by Benda, and held in one of the more obscure cafés of the Rue de Lappe. If you know the Rue de Lappe, you have nothing to learn. If you do not, you would be wiser to avoid it.

  One heard, for instance, this sort of thing.

  1st woman (aged 53). ‘How old is ’oo?’

  2nd woman (aged 48). ‘I’m seben.’

  Tired young man. ‘I’m eight.’

  At this point, a grey-haired, cat-like man advances and says, ‘I’m nine.’ And they all scream, and gulp more champagne, are dug in the back by hot elbows, and dance away together through the swaying crowd.

  Or this would happen.

  1st woman (aged, perhaps, 61). ‘My daddy’s very rich.’

  2nd woman (a slim slip of 20). ‘My daddy’s richer.’

  Old man. ‘But my daddy’s dead. He! he! Ho! ho!’

  And again they scream, and light cigarettes with fingers itching with impatience, inhaling the welcome smoke as though it were a draught of fresh air to those who are suffocating – as indeed it was, to them.

  Now, too, the band has become infected with the universal ‘infantility’ – if there is such a word. Black, vibrant voices cut through the din. The song is a jazz rendering of Little Jack Horner. Fighting against the saxophone and the drum one hears:

  ‘Little Jack Hor-Hor-Horner

  Sat in a cor-cor-corner

  Eating plum pudding and pi-eeee.

  He put in his th-th-thumb

  And pulled out a pl-pl-plum

  Saying, oh what a good boy am I-ee.’

  From the general to the particular. Brian was sitting in a corner with Julia. Champagne had driven away his self-consciousness. He really did feel like a child, and with his flushed face and his tousled hair he looked only like an overgrown boy. He said to her:

  ‘Would you like to be a baby with me?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Would you play with me then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you play postman’s knock?’

  ‘What game is that?’

  ‘Shall I show you?’ (Incredible daring!)

  ‘Ssh. Not here!’ Her hand fluttered to her mouth. A pretty gesture, even if it was second-hand. To him it was like the memory of a white flower glimpsed in the age of innocence.

  ‘We’d build a house in a wood,’ he said.

  ‘What sort of house?’

  ‘A lovely house; with a green door that you had to bend your head to get through, and peaches growing out of season round the windows.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And,’ he went on eagerly, ‘an enormous ditch to keep out the bears.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Not the Teddy bears too?’

  ‘No; they’d have a smaller bridge which they could walk across.’

  ‘But supposing the other bears used it too?’

  ‘They wouldn’t. I’d put up a notice saying that it was only for the Teddies.’

  ‘But supposing they couldn’t read?’

  ‘All bears can read. And even if they couldn’t, they’d pretend to. So it comes to the same thing.’

  ‘How deep would the ditch be?’

  ‘Oh, awfully deep.’

  ‘As deep as this room?’

  ‘Deeper.’

  ‘As deep as the Grand Cañon?’

  ‘Well’ – he paused gravely. . . . ‘Perhaps it wouldn’t be quite as deep as that. We don’t want to be vulgar, you see.’

  ‘No. I see. Would it keep out the alligators?’

  ‘Yes. And the boa constrictors too.’

  A childish frown obscured her forehead. ‘Which sort of boa constrictors?’

  ‘The ones with the big blue tails.’

  ‘Ooh! Could you keep them out?’

  ‘I would. For you.’

  They laughed happily. The dance went on, and now the melody was muted – an innocuous tune that moved one’s feet in the manner of a nurse playing with a baby’s toes.

  ‘And I’d build you a boat,’ he whispered.

  ‘What sort of boat?’

  ‘A big boat with a jade-green sail. And we’d sail away on the lake.’

  She gripped his arm more tightly. ‘Where should we sail to?’

  ‘To an island with a yellow beach, and sands made of powdered diamonds. And we should find pearls in blue pools.’

  ‘Big pearls?’

  ‘Big and little. And medium too.’

  ‘How big would the medium ones be?’

  He took her little finger and kissed the tip of it. ‘As big as that.’

  ‘Would you give me the pearls?’

  ‘Yes. All of them. I’d string them round your neck. And then I’d sit you down and look at you. I’d look at you all the morning, and all the afternoon, and all the evening, and all the night. By twilight and by sunlight and by moonlight. Sometimes your pearls would look white, and sometimes they would be red with the sun’s blood, and sometimes green, because there would be a mist over the moon.’

  ‘Why would there be a mist over the moon?’

  He whispered very softly, ‘So that I could kiss you without the boa constrictors seeing.’

  ‘They’d be asleep.’

  ‘No. They only sleep on Tuesdays.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Everybody knows that!’

  ‘But suppose the alligators saw?’

  ‘They never look at things like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re alligators, all cold and gooy. Alli­gators never kiss each other.’

  ‘Don’t they?’

  ‘No. They try sometimes, but their leather faces rub together, and that sets their teeth on edge.’

  ‘Darling! Thank God you’re not an alligator.’

  He pressed her hand so tightly that she bit her lip. ‘Don’t drive me mad,’ he said.

  The music stopped abruptly, with that queer, strangled cough that is so characteristic both of modern tunes and of modern life. Julia was claimed by some­body else. She whispered to him that she would be dancing with him again in a few minutes. Reluctantly he let her go, and stood in his corner, watching.

  And then, as he was standing there, he saw a woman looking at him so intently that, had he not drunk more than enough champagne, he would have felt strangely embarrassed. Even as it was, he shivered slightly, as though a cold draught had blown across the room. He had a sudden and disquieting sense of something beau­tiful
ending and something ugly beginning. A foolish sense, he told himself, for the picture he saw was merely grotesque. The woman was standing on the other side of the room, dressed in a short frock of broad blue check, with ribbons in her hair. The face seemed vaguely familiar – and as he turned away to avoid her gaze, he tried to remember who she was. The difficulty was solved for him by Lord William, who suddenly appeared by his side, with the cryptic remark:

  ‘Never sell your virtue for a cigarette case.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. She’s still looking at you.’

  ‘What – the blue thing with a head like an Easter egg?’

  ‘Yes. Anne Hardcastle.’

  ‘Lord! So that’s Lady Hardcastle!’

  He looked at her again. A feeling of foolish shyness came over him. To the initiated all nymphomaniacs are a little alarming. And Lady Hardcastle, by reputation, by theory and by practice, was a perfect type of nym­phomaniac. Even the seven surgeons who, at various times, had sliced the wrinkles from her face, tightening her cheeks and carving her neck until she gave the appearance of an animated intaglio, had been unable to take away the hunting look which she perpetually wore. Brian returned her stare openly. And, to his horror, she came over, greeted Lord William, and said, ‘I want to play with this little boy.’

  ‘Darling, we’re all wondering why you haven’t done already. It was so obviously indicated.’

  She pushed him aside. ‘Don’t want ’oo,’ she said.

  Looking faintly sick at this perpetual baby-talk, Lord William briefly introduced the two and took his depar­ture.

  ‘Good evening. How is ’oo?’

  Brian started. Then he remembered the game. ‘I’ve got a pain,’ he said gravely.

  ‘Where is ’oo’s pain?’

  ‘Tummy.’

  ‘’Oo’s been eating cocktails. Naughty.’ And she dabbed him with one of her tiny talons.

  Brian wanted to giggle. The woman before him looked so very queer. Her face, as we have already learnt, had the uncanny smoothness of all women who have had their features ‘lifted.’ But she had purposely puckered it to give the effect of a perverse child. As a result, the wrinkles were in all the wrong places. The skin about her eyes was quite smooth, but a curious network of lines had appeared round her pouting lips. Her chin was as clear cut as if it had been carved (which, indeed, was literally the case), but the base of the neck seemed to have ‘come unstuck.’

  ‘Does ’oo think I’m pwetty?’

  ‘I think ’oo’s beautiful.’

  ‘As pwetty as any other little gel in the woom?’

  This was too much. Brian said, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t keep it up.’

  She allowed her face to relax, and smiled. She again looked young and pretty.

  ‘Shall we dance, little boy? The great thing about life is never to stop still for more than a minute at a time.’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  Marvellous record for Anne! She had talked to him for two whole minutes before enunciating one of her ‘greatest things about life.’ Later on, as Life itself was to bring them closer together, he would have more than his fill of those definitions. They were her philosophical stock-in-trade, the ribbons with which she bedecked her emptiest thoughts.

  However, Brian did not know that. And so he merely said, yes, he would like to dance.

  They danced. And somehow the news that they were dancing together seemed to spread round the room before they had been together for more than a minute. Everybody knew Anne and her amours. In fact, one could play quite a good parlour game on wet days in writing down on a sheet of notepaper as many of her lovers as could be remembered in a quarter of an hour. It used up a lot of notepaper, but it seldom failed to amuse.

  And now Brian was the latest recruit of all. ‘I do think it’s a shame,’ said Mrs. Grindhaven, who was dancing round Lord William rather than with him. ‘That nice boy. Why did you let her speak to him?’

  ‘I cannot interrupt the forces of nature,’ he said, his eyes almost closed and his shoulders aching from her swinging motion.

  ‘There’s nothing natural about that connection?’

  He opened his eyes wide. ‘Connection? Tell me more.’

  In another part of the room Lady Jane was booming about it to Tanagra. ‘She ought to have been a man,’ she said.

  ‘But that wouldn’t have been quite nice, would it?’ replied Tanagra, smiling at six new arrivals, yet giving all her attention to Jane.

  ‘It would have saved a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Yes. But I’m terribly glad she chose my party to meet him. Anne’s enthusiasm is so infectious. They’ll all be following her example soon.’

  And certainly, whether ‘they’ were following Anne’s example or not, they showed themselves hectically amused by her and her new companion. There was, indeed, a pathetic cause for amusement. Brian had ob­viously drank too much; he was miserable at being away from Julia, but he saw no escape. Julia had disappeared and Anne refused to let him go. She held on to his arm like a leech, gazing into his eyes, prattling ridiculous baby nonsense. He felt acutely self-conscious. What did the woman want? And if she did want it, what would she do when she found she wouldn’t get it?

  Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he saw Julia standing by his side. She had taken in the whole situation, and she was looking at Anne with a smile of contemptuous amusement. Brian sighed with relief and withdrew his arm from Anne’s.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Lady Hardcastle, but I’m engaged for this one.’

  She still held on to his hand. ‘Oo’s not going away? I want to play with ’oo. ’Oo’s my new toy.’

  Brian looked at Julia hopelessly. She stepped for­ward, ignoring her.

  ‘But I want to play with him,’ cried Anne plaintively. Her resemblance to a spoilt child was unmistakable now.

  Julia whispered to Brian, ‘She’s impossible.’ Then aloud, ‘Brian dear, give this golliwog to the little girl to keep her quiet.’

  Keep her quiet! If only that were possible. For the little scene had drawn an audience. Over his shoulder he could see Maurice and Tanagra, watching with ill-concealed delight.

  With a tremendous effort, he tried to cover it up with one of her favourite, fantastic children’s gestures.

  He held out the golliwog, and in a strained voice he said, ‘This is for ’oo.’ And then he put his arm round Julia’s waist, waiting for a clear space through which to steer her. A shrill cry came to them before they had started: ‘She’s got my toy! She’s got my toy!’

  Brian, suddenly sobered by the queer harshness of her voice, stopped still, the ridiculous golliwog held aloft in his hand. And in that frozen moment the face of Anne Hardcastle and of those around her remained permanently stamped on his memory. They were like an obscene parody of Reynold’s Heavenly Choir. Anne’s features were twisted into a grotesque that was all the more horrible because it still retained, like a coat of surface paint, the assumed vacuity of childhood. Maurice, powdered and pouting, stared with eyes which were wide open with the mimic innocence of youth, yet were tired and darkling with the shadows of an age greater than his own. And Tanagra! She, too, had masked herself in a smile of childhood. Her scarlet lips hung foolishly apart. Monotonously, insanely, she clicked her tongue.

  He realized with a shiver of disgust what was hap­pening. They really were becoming children. The game had turned to reality. A warped, misshapen reality, of course. But the fact was evident that they had forgotten their adult restraint and that old passions were creeping out under a mask of innocence. He shivered, and Julia shivered too. There was a sudden blare of sound from the jazz band, the room started once again to whirling life, and they danced away. They danced slowly, with set faces.

  Nor did they say a word until, on the stairs, they whispered ‘good night.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The dark tale of this night must continue. Looking back on it, long afterwards, it seeme
d to Brian that of all the nights in his life it was the most ominous.

  Shivering with the cold airs of early morning, he let himself into his house in Seymour Street. As he closed the door, he leant his face against the wall, cooling his hot forehead, closing his eyes, aching with fatigue.

  The bleak silence of the little hall contrasted with the clanging uproar of his brain. In his head the party rioted still. The tunes still echoed strident and clear, faces drifted like leaves on a swirling, ceaseless stream, lights shone, blinding and pitiless. If only some one would turn out those lights and give him peace! His fingers clutched tremulously at the wall in search of a switch. They found nothing. He opened his eyes, saw only the darkness, and mocked himself for a crazy fool.

  With an effort he roused himself. He was sober now, and he walked slowly upstairs. On the topmost step he halted. There was a light from under the sitting-room door. Walter must be still up.

  Thank the Lord for that! If ever there was a time when he wanted Walter it was now. Nobody else. No languid lovers, no screaming wits, no twisting panta­loons, nobody but his friend. He wanted to slip his hand through Walter’s arm, and lie back on the shabby sofa and say nothing. And then to sleep.

  But could he do that? He had hardly spoken to Walter for a fortnight, and even then it had ended in some futile arguments. What was wrong with him? Were they never to be as they had been? Couldn’t he make it up now?

  He opened the door. Walter was standing by the fireplace filling his pipe. His back was turned towards Brian.

  ‘Hallo, Walter!’

  ‘Hallo!’

  He did not turn round to greet him. Brian frowned. He slipped off his overcoat, revealing his crumpled cos­tume, and went to the fireplace, warming his bare legs. Silence.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  Walter glanced at his wrist watch. ‘Only about four. Early for you.’ He turned and noticed Brian’s clothes. ‘What the hell . . .’

  ‘I’ve been to a party.’

  ‘Pretty queer party, I should think.’

  ‘Everybody was dressed like this.’

  ‘Must have looked sweet.’

  Brian clenched his fists tightly. Why were they speaking to each other like this, flinging icy sentences from two remote peaks of pride? Why couldn’t they get together? Why couldn’t he say, ‘I know they were a lot of freaks, but it was fun, and anyway, what’s it got to do with you, you old devil?’ But he couldn’t say it. Instead he said: