Around the World With Auntie Mame

by Dennis, Patrick

  I was about to answer when I saw my dream girl, Rosemary. She had been brought up on deck just as she was, a sorry sight. Not having been out of her cabin for more than a week, she blinked blindly into the sun, the limpid blue eyes veined with red, puffy, and swollen. Her unkempt hair, now decidedly dark at the roots, flew in every direction. She wore a sluttish, molting dressing gown that had once been white marabou, and filthy mules, one feathery pompom of which had long been lost. Alf was right; she may have been under thirty, but she certainly looked better than forty. At any rate, she was no eighteen. I felt my heartstrings give one last tug and then I looked away.

  Then an American light cruiser, the U.S.S. Hoboken came splashing into sight and, with it, another boarding party.

  “More cups, Ito,” Auntie Mame called as the U.S. Navy hit the deck, “and you might just crack out some of our liquor. I know that, through some tiresome regulation, our valiant seafaring men never get a drop to drink when they’re off shore. Now do slip out of your shoes, gentlemen, while I do all the introductions.”

  Half an hour later Auntie Mame managed to take the American lieutenant commander into the lounge and explain our plight—or some plight—because after a lot of waving of flags and blinking of signal lights and bawling back and forth through megaphones, yet another boat was rowed over to the rusty starboard side of the Lesbos. It was for Auntie Mame’s luggage.

  After slipping into a smart traveling suit, Auntie Mame was perfectly able to supervise the loading herself. “Careful, boys,” she said to two strapping sailors. “Those alligator bags go into my stateroom. None of the rest of the things will be wanted on the voyage unless you give a costume ball or something the last night out.”

  “But, Mrs. Burnside,” the lieutenant commander said, “we’re on maneuvers.”

  “Then you can just maneuver a party. I can’t tell you how bored I’ve been on this tatty little scow. Besides, I have gallons of refreshments in the trunk marked ‘Fragile.’ My, but aren’t you American boys strong! Good-by, captain,” she said. “I shall expect a refund for the unused portions of our tickets. Come, Patrick! Ito! Next stop San Francisco!”

  JUST WHAT AUNTIE MAME TOLD THE AMERICAN naval officer I will never know, and she herself has always been maddeningly vague about it. The official report in the log read: “Evacuated three American nationals from imminent danger in connection with provocative incident in the Sino-Japanese War. A gunrunning vessel . . .” Well, it doesn’t get any more informative from there. Whatever became of Rosemary, Alf, or the jolly crew of the Lesbos I neither know nor care.

  WE WERE SEATED IN THE LAUNCH ON OUR WAY TO the U.S.S. Hoboken with Auntie Mame regaling the young officers with her plans for a party. “La, will I ever forget those jolly hops at Annapolis when I was a girl. And now it’ll be my turn to repay the Navy for all it’s done for me!”

  “Auntie Mame,” I said softly, “there’s something I’ve got to confess. It’s about Rosemary and me.”

  “No, my little love, not a word. I may have raised you to be a devil with the ladies, but I also raised you to be a gentleman. No kiss and tell, Patrick, if you please.”

  Auntie Mame and Home-coming

  “AND THEN?” PEGEEN SAID.

  “Well, and then I got home and went to college and met you and lived happily ever after.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all. Why?” I said, avoiding her direct gaze.

  “Well, it seems to me that for a man who earns his livelihood by writing scintillating advertising copy for products that no one would buy otherwise, you can make a voyage around the world sound less eventful than a trip on the commuters’ local.”

  “But that’s what I’ve been telling you all along, Pegeen. There’s nothing to worry about. Auntie Mame may have been a whole lot of hot-cha back in the twenties, but you must remember that time isn’t standing still with any of us. I don’t know exactly how old Auntie Mame is by now . . .”

  “She’s still claiming thirty-nine.”

  “Well, it’s more like sixty. She’s a sweet, white-haired little old lady. Even now she’s probably sitting up in some hotel suite with a jug of Ovaltine and the patience pack, after having heard Michael’s prayers and tucked him into . . .”

  Our doorbell interrupted me with the first bar of the “Doxology”—an annoying feature of all the houses in Verdant Greens.

  “My God, who can that be?” I said.

  “If it’s Mrs. Merkin from the Current Events Club, tell her . . .”

  The “Doxology” peeled out again.

  “You don’t suppose it could be Christmas carolers,” Pegeen asked, peering out through the blinds.

  “If it is, get out the hose,” I said. “That’s the trouble with this community; community spirit. Who is it?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Pegeen said. “All I can see are two people in the damnedest-looking outfits I’ve ever . . .”

  “Treat or a Trick, maybe?”

  Again the bell chimed “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.”

  “Well, whoever they are,” I said, striding to the door, “they’ll get short shrift from me.” I opened the door and said, “Yes?” There were two people in Eskimo parkas looking exactly like the Cliquot Kids.

  “Patrick, darling,” a silvery voice cried.

  “Daddy!”

  “My God!” I said. Anything else I had planned to say was muffled in wolverine furs. “Pegeen,” I called, “they’re back— Michael and Auntie Mame!”

  “My baby!” Pegeen cried and made a dive at him from the living room. There was a scene of some ardor with a great deal of kissing and embracing and weeping. When things calmed down, Pegeen said, “Aren’t you going to kiss Daddy, Michael?”

  “I’m ten years old now and five feet tall,” Michael said. “Auntie Mame says that men who go around kissing each other . . .”

  “I think you might make an exception in this case, my little love,” Auntie Mame said hastily. “Now I have just time for one drink and then I must be off. My Volvo’s out in front, where I’m sure it shouldn’t be.”

  “Your what?” I said.

  “My Volvo. It’s this divine little Swedish car I picked up. The Rolls is just too big for hacking about. In fact, Ito’s driving it down from Fairbanks, if he isn’t lost. Ah, Patrick darling, a few fingers of Scotch will be just splendid.” She removed her wolverine parka, displaying a figure as slim as always and a head of pewter curls.

  “Well,” I said, still stunned. “The return of Mrs. Burnside! Now that you’re back, of course we’re delighted, but there hasn’t been a peep out of the two of you for four blessed months. Couldn’t you at least have sent a post card?”

  “We wrote lots of them, Daddy,” Michael said, “but nobody in the nudist colony had a stamp.”

  “In the where?” Pegeen said.

  “Now don’t bore your parents with inconsequentials, Michael darling,” Auntie Mame said quickly. “It was just a Swedish health resort—a tiny island in the Baltic Sea. Marvelous for toning up the system.”

  “And I had a terrible sore throat and . . .”

  “Oh, Michael, did you?” Pegeen said. “I’ve been so worried about your health and . . .”

  “It was nothing,” Auntie Mame said airily. “I got permission for him to wear a muffler for a few days and he was just as good as new. You must admit that the child is the picture of health. And—just fancy—he knows seven languages; three fluently.”

  “But four livelong months,” I persisted, “without a word. Pegeen and I have been worried sick. I’ve cabled everyone abroad I know; I’ve had the State Department, a detective agency . . .”

  “Ah, but Patrick darling,” Auntie Mame said, sipping her drink elegantly, “we’ve been to such remote places. I felt that instead of taking this dear child to such commonplace, touristy spots as Tibet and Afghanistan and Ethiopia, we should try something off the beaten track. So, after we polished off the Scandanavian Peninsula, we did Icela
nd, Greenland, and Alaska. Oh, I tell you there’s a great future in the frozen . . .”

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but don’t you hear an odd noise?”

  “Oh, that’s Muscatel, Daddy,” Michael said.

  “It’s what?”

  “Michael’s musk ox. We picked it up at a trading post outside Godthaab when we were in Greenland. This dear old Danish man raises them, and we just couldn’t resist him. Of course, Muscatel was only a baby then. Isn’t full grown even now. But he’s gentle as a lamb and I know that everybody will be wanting one once they see him.”

  “Wh-what do musk oxen eat?” Pegeen said.

  “Shrubs, flowers. Things like that,” Michael said. “Can he stay in my room tonight?”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “You don’t know what kind of disease you might pick up. Besides, I believe they shed.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t pick up any disease from Muscatel, Daddy. In fact, when Auntie Mame and I visited the lepers in . . .”

  “The what?” Pegeen said, stricken.

  “Michael, darling,” Auntie Mame said meaningfully, “your mother and father will think I haven’t taught you any manners at all. You mustn’t monopolize the conversation. Remember, that mature as you may be, you’re still barely ten. He was speaking of some leopards, my dear. Passing through Somaliland we saw lots of them. Didn’t we, Michael? ”

  “Oh, yes, Auntie Mame,” Michael said, not quite at ease. “And then there was that time in the place where the man raised pythons and Auntie Mame let me go right in and . . .”

  “She what?” Pegeen said.

  “Michael, my little love,” Auntie Mame said getting to her feet, “there are some things out in the car—just a few remembrances for your mother and father—which you can help me bring in. Besides, there’s something I forgot to tell you.”

  “I’ll get them,” I said.

  “Oh, no, Patrick. I want one last word or so with Michael anyhow. Come, pet. Then Auntie Mame must fly. I’m to lecture at the Explorers’ Club tonight. And I’ve promised Cris Alexander to sit for my portrait. Just little me and tons and tons of heavenly furs.” With that they were gone.

  “WELL, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” PEGEEN SAID. “SHE’S brought back our child—and certainly in better condition than he was in when she spirited him away. But what do you suppose he meant about a leper colony and that . . .”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said hastily. “You know the vivid imaginations all children have.”

  “No. But I do know that we have to get ready for a good old-fashioned Christmas at jet speed. I mean here’s our chance to have a tree again, to give Michael the electric train, the bicycle, the chemistry set, the microscope—all the things he wasn’t here to get for the past two Christmases.”

  “We might also think about giving him some dinner and getting his room ready for him and Muscatel.”

  “Oh, look at that filthy thing!” Pegeen said, staring out of the open door. “He’s eaten all the rhododendron! Shooo! Scat! And here they come, empty-handed back from the car. I don’t see any sign of those ‘little remembrances.’ ”

  Going to the door, I said, “She probably left them somewhere. She’s inclined to be . . .”

  But I stopped short as I heard Auntie Mame saying, “Remember, my little love, there are some things that parents simply don’t have to know about. It’ll be our secret.” Then she saw us and cried loudly, “La! How absent-minded I’m becoming! All of the presents are stacked up in the lobby at the St. Regis, along with my totem poles. Where I’m going to put those totem poles I can’t imagine.”

  “I have a suggestion,” I said, knowing from experience just what my son had been through with his great aunt.

  “Alas, darling, I can’t stop to hear it now. I shall be late for my lecture as it is.” She kissed Pegeen and me briskly. “I’m sorry it’s been so short a visit, but everyone wants to hear about every minute of our trip.”

  “No one more than I,” I said.

  “Good-by, Michael, my little love,” Auntie Mame said, gathering him into her arms. “I don’t know when I’ve had a more delightful traveling companion. Not since your father. Maybe next summer we can do it all over again.”

  “All two-and-a-half years of it?” Pegeen said.

  “Oh no. Just a short trip—up or down the Amazon; possibly both. Well, à bientôt, darlings. And have a merry Christmas. I’m off to the Indies! And remember, Michael, what Auntie Mame just told you.”

  “You mean about not saying anything to . . .” Michael began.

  “Good-by, darlings! Good-by, good-by, good-by!” Auntie Mame said loudly. She almost ran down the walk.

  “Michael,” Pegeen said, watching Auntie Mame get into her little Swedish car, “just where did you go?”

  “Around the world, Mother.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good-by, my little love,” Auntie Mame called over the roar of her motor. “It’s been a lovely trip.”

  Edward Everett Tanner III (1921–1976), a.k.a. PATRICK DENNIS, was one of the most widely read authors of the 1950s and 1960s. The majority of his sixteen novels, including Auntie Mame, Around the World with Auntie Mame, and Little Me, were national bestsellers. A celebrity in bohemian New York culture, he led a double life as a bisexual man and a conventional husband and father of two children. Faced with financial ruin in the 1970s, he spent the last chapter of his life as a butler.

  ALSO BY PATRICK DENNIS

  Auntie Mame

  Little Me

  AROUND THE WORLD WITH AUNTIE MAME was originally published by

  Harcourt Brace and Company in 1958.

  AROUND THE WORLD WITH AUNTIE MAME. Copyright © 1958 by Patrick Dennis, renewed in 1983 by the Tanner family. “Auntie Mame and Mother Russia” copyright © 1990 by the Tanner Family. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

  organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the

  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

  persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are

  trademarks of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

  Visit our Web site at www.broadwaybooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dennis, Patrick, 1921–1976.

  Around the world with Auntie Mame / by Patrick Dennis.—1st

  Broadway Books trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Travelers—Fiction. 2. Aunts—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3554.E537A76 2003

  813’.54—dc21 2003041793

  First Broadway Books trade paperback edition published 2003

  Illustration on title page copyright © 2003 by Edwin Fotheringham

  www.randomhouse.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-41881-4

  v3.0