by John Winton
‘Well, I take it you’re in the Navy too, eh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For heaven’s sake don’t call me “sir”! Cedric is my name. If you ever want to lose money on the Stock Exchange, come and see me. I can do it better than most’
‘My name is Michael.’
‘Happy to meet you, Michael. I believe I remember seeing you on the platform at Paddington Station, don’t I? You didn’t look very happy then, and you don’t look very happy now, old boy. Let me introduce you to some people . . .’
‘Oh that’s all right, Cedric. I’ve met all the people I want to meet already.’
‘Then why don’t you go and ask her to dance?’
Mary was sitting alone, watching the dancing.
‘I will’ Michael said. ‘Excuse me, please.’
‘Certainly, old boy,’ said Cedric.
Michael crossed the floor purposefully, conscious that Stephen was watching him.
‘May I have this dance, please?’
Mary looked up.
‘I’d love to,’ she said.
They took the floor. Mrs Vincent whirled past with Stephen. Raymond Ball was dancing cheek to cheek with the blonde in the red dress who was already wearing a blissful, anticipatory expression.
‘Why do all naval officers dance so well?’ Mary said.
‘What a nice thing to say!’
‘But they do.’
‘Not all of them. Some of them are shocking dancers. They think it beneath them.’
‘Do you think it beneath you?’
‘Not at all. I’m not terribly keen on it but I think it’s one of the things one ought to be able to do. They had lessons at Dartmouth.’
‘When were you at Dartmouth?’
‘Last summer.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Well, I did and I didn’t. Everything was very strange and new and quite exciting but I never really caught on to what it was all about. I still haven’t but I expect I will eventually. I was jolly zealous though. I dashed about from place to place with the best of them.’
‘What sort of dashing about?’
‘Oh, up at zero crack zero zero in the morning, scrub decks...’
‘Do you still do that?’
‘They do in the Training Cruiser. I don’t know about the rest of the Navy. I expect they do there too. What was good enough for Nelson’s good enough for us. For instance--oh drat, they’ve finished.’
‘They’re starting again.’
‘Do you want to go on?’
‘I’d love to. If you want to.’
‘Of course I want to. Let’s not talk about the Navy. Tell me what you do, between drinks of course.’
‘Don’t take any notice of Stephen. He’s pulling your leg.’
‘I know. You said you were a secretary. What sort of secretary?’
‘Just a secretary. I take shorthand and make the coffee in the morning and buy the Christmas cards and flowers for the managing directors’ wives and keep out undesirable callers and that sort of thing.’
‘How interesting. How do you know which is an undesirable caller?’
‘They tell me. Either by their tone of voice, or what they’ve come about, or just the way they look at you.’
‘What does your boss do?’
‘I’ve got two. They’re partners. Theatrical agents.’
‘How interesting. And you stand at the door and prevent disappointed actors from getting at your bosses?’
‘I don’t actually stand at the door. It’s quite a rich firm. They can afford a chair for me.’
‘Oh.’
‘There are four rooms, not counting the stairs.’
‘Where do the stairs figure?’
‘If nobody knows you and the waiting room is full you have to wait on the stairs. The first room is where we put all the unknowns and the debt-collectors and the people who serve writs and people like that. It’s only a small room and there are only two chairs in it. That’s why they have to wait on the stairs. The next room is my room where people wait who are quite well known or people the partners want to see. Then there’s the inner office where Sam, the booking agent, sits. He does most of the work and all the very well-known stars sit in Sam’s office. The very innermost office is the partners’ office. Only the wives go in there.’
‘The holy of holies?’
“That’s right.’
‘Would I be considered an undesirable caller, do you think?’
‘Michael, that wasn’t very subtle, was it?’
That, Michael thought, just about summed it up. He was not very subtle. He was trying harder to impress Mary than he had tried to impress anyone before but never had he achieved so little. He was easy and comfortable in her company. She accepted every conversational cue he offered and she answered every question he put to her but he knew that she would have done no less for anyone who danced with her. When he tried to make their conversation less general and more personal, she slid adroitly away. He was not subtle enough.
‘What a charming person Mrs Vincent is,’ said Stephen as Mary and Michael came off the floor. ‘I sometimes think that women are not really entertaining until they’re at least forty. I find debs crashingly boring but some of the mothers ... they’re more like it! Did you enjoy your horn-pipe, my dear?’
‘Excuse me,’ Michael muttered.
George Dewberry and Paul were sitting by themselves at a table. They had a bottle of whisky in front of them.
‘Wotcher, Mike,’ said Paul. ‘Have some whisky.’
‘I think that’s just what I need,’ Michael said.
‘I hope Raymond’s not thinking of going to bed with that woman here. The maître d’hôtel a friend of ours.’ ‘Good luck to him.’
‘You don’t seem to be doing so badly yourself, Mike,’ said George Dewberry.
‘Do you think so? I don’t. She seems to treat all naval officers, particularly me, as a huge joke.’
‘It’s fashionable’ said Paul. ‘Always has been, since Nelson died. You should hear Cedric. He’s always harping on the fact that our pay comes out of his income tax. He seems to think he owns a whole ship by now with all the income tax he’s paid. He reckons we never do any work worth speaking of but just travel round the world at his expense having cocktail parties and going to bed with all the women. He feels particularly bitter about it because he was in the R.N.V.R. during the war. . . .’
‘Cedric was?’
‘Yes, he was. He’s got the D.S.C., though you’d never guess it. He says they were the best days of his life and it was a black day when they chucked him out to do some work.’
‘To get back to Mary, do you happen to have her telephone number?’
‘I don’t, but Mother will have it written down in her little black book. She’s got all the young females written down in her little black book. My mother’s a born match-maker. She says that after a girl’s finished her first season she gets too few chances to meet a possible husband and it’s up to those who’ve succeeded and hooked their men to help those who are still trying. Mother says that’s half the trouble with the world today. Too many lonely people about the place. You’ve only got to look at the roaring trade marriage bureaux do these days.’
‘Do they do a roaring trade?’
‘I should say so. My mother’s got shares in one and Cedric regularly tells her she could have a holiday in the south of France on the money she’s making from lonely spinsters. There’s something callous about Cedric.’
‘Is he married?’ asked George Dewberry.
‘No fear. He’d rather jump over a cliff. He carries on a mild flirtation with my mother. He’s been doing it for about twenty years. He maintains that he’s got an attractive intelligent woman to take about and he doesn’t have to see her in the early morning before she’s got her war paint and feathers on. Trust Cedric to arrive at a solution like that’
‘To get back to Mary ...’
‘Of course. She’s
changed a lot since I saw her last. Is that her dancing cheek to cheek with the smooth player in the cummerbund? I even forget his name now.’
‘Stephen.’
‘That’s him. We used to call him Snakehips at school.’
‘I should watch him, if I were you’ said George Dewberry sagely.
‘Watch him! I’d like to punch him on the nose. He’s been doing nothing but make cracks about the Navy all night. He’s going the right way to get thumped.’
‘There speaks my little caveman’ said Paul. ‘Ah good, here’s The Bodger.’
The first person The Bodger saw was Cedric.
‘Cedric, you old swindler!’ he roared. ‘Good to see you, boy!’
Cedric blushed. ‘Good to see you, Bodger’ he said. Cedric, too, was one of The Bodger’s old friends and drinking partners.
‘It was inevitable, I suppose’ said Paul.
The Bodger was introduced to Mrs Vincent and progressed round the room shaking hands with the cadets he had known in Barsetshire. His progress was marked by shouts and loud laughter. The party had taken on a Rabelaisian humour from the moment of The Bodger’s entrance.
‘My God, The Bodger’s in cracking form’ said George Dewberry.
When The Bodger reached Stephen, he stopped.
‘Don’t I know your face?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes I do. You were doing your National Service when I was Jimmy of Voluminous. Ropehead.’
‘Well, the name’s right anyway.’
‘Ordinary Seaman Ropehead.’
Mary suppressed a giggle. The Bodger looked at her.
‘You must have the next dance with me, my dear’ he said. His bloodshot eye regarded the empty floor.
‘Cedric, what was that dance we did on our last run in La Linea when we paid off Tadpole?’
‘LaRaspa?’
The Bodger went up and spoke to the band-leader. The bandleader was handsomely paid to pander to the whims of the customers (had he not played the Hokey-Cokey three times the previous night for a Cabinet Minister?). He nodded and turned to the band. The Bodger stepped onto the floor.
‘LaRaspa!’
Everybody danced La Raspa.
‘Change partners!’ thundered The Bodger.
They changed partners and danced La Raspa again.
‘Change partners! Faster!’
George Dewberry, who was the only person not dancing, raised his whisky glass and said ‘Ole!’
‘Faster, faster!’
‘Ole torero!’ shouted George Dewberry.
The last change brought Michael to Mary. After the dance they sat down together. The Bodger sat down next to them with Mrs Vincent.
‘Well, young Hobbes,’ said The Bodger, ‘glad you’ve left Barsetshire?’
‘Very glad indeed, sir.’
‘You wait. You’re going out into the jungle now. We’ve told you one thing, now the people in charge of you will tell you others. Half the officers you’ll meet won’t agree with training at all, and the other half will think that Dartmouth are doing it all wrong. I sometimes think that half the Navy spends its time training and the other half spends its time criticising training. Still, we do our best. Think of me next term struggling with a new lot, won’t you Hobbes?’
‘I will, sir.’
The Bodger led Mrs Vincent off to dance, saying, ‘Now let me tell you something about Cedric’s past, Louise.’
‘What a nice man,’ said Mary.
‘One of the best,’ Michael said. ‘I was going to ask you, can I take you home tonight?’
‘Michael, I’m terribly sorry, but Stephen’s taking me home.’
Stephen joined them, as though he had sensed that his position was being, if not menaced, at least approached.
‘What a sight it was to see the Navy letting its hair down for once!’
As Michael was leaving, Paul said: ‘You might see old George home.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, I spend most of my time in the Navy putting bloody George Dewberry to bed! Where does he live?’
‘He’s staying at an hotel tonight. He’s got the address on a label in his coat pocket.’
‘O.K., I’ll do my best for him. Well, thanks for a wonderful party, Paul.’
‘Glad you enjoyed it. D’you know what your appointment is yet?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘I expect we’ll all meet up again some time.’
‘In about fifty years’ time.’
