Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  Here was a girl in trouble and no mistake. She had played a corpse in Circus of Horrors, explained News Sheet No. 3, hurled herself to destruction over a cliff in Interpol, and been shot dead in Danger Man. Now beautiful twenty-two-year-old Yvonne Romaine is acting in The Curse of the Werewolf, and she really seems to have reached the end of the line. She plays the part of a deaf-mute girl who dies in childbirth after being delivered of a werewolf cub. ‘I confess,’ she lisps fetchingly, ‘I froze like an ice-cube when I started reading the script.’

  I have nothing but sympathy – unlike her so-called friends. This stony hearted bunch, according to News Sheet No. 3, find Miss Romaine’s tendency to freeze like an ice-cube ‘strange’, pointing out with what passes for logic in their part of the world that she is half Maltese and combines the earthy beauty of Magnano with the smouldering fire of Loren. Goodness me, I’ve known earthy, smouldering folk, pure-blooded Maltese on both sides of the family, who fainted dead away at the mere sight of a werewolf.

  ‘No,’ she says in answer to the question hovering on the lips of a thousand journalists, ‘I cannot really explain my fear of the macabre. I am not naturally nervous. I am not afraid of heights, high speeds, or stunting in airplanes. I’m not morally uncourageous.’ Except to add that she is married to a man who ‘feeds comedy lines and gags to distinguished funsters’, that seems more or less to complete the case history of Miss Yvonne Romaine.

  Aunty Frayn replies:

  Dear Yvonne,

  Troubles never come singly, do they, my dear? But I’m sure the dark days will not last for ever, and that your moral courage and your fearless readiness for stunting in airplanes will win through to a brighter dawn ahead.

  I know how difficult it is, believe me, when one feels one is more corpse than cutie. But it’s no good fretting, my dear. Some of us are born to be cuties, and some to be corpses. No man whose love is worth anything at all will turn away from you simply because you are a corpse. And you can improve your appearance tremendously, you know, by the use of a good embalming fluid.

  As for your other trouble, I am putting you in touch with a society which exists to help girls in just your position. It seems a pity you are dying in childbirth, though, for you will not have the opportunity to live down your moment of weakness in the years of selfless work for others which I usually recommend. A werewolf cub can be great fun, you know, and I am sending you under separate cover a book entitled The Complete Practical Werewolf Breeder. Perhaps after you are gone your husband will rally round. Try to persuade him to cease feeding gags to distinguished funsters and start feeding the werewolf instead.

  (1960)

  H.I.5

  In the peeling, anonymous lobby Costello showed, his pass to the security man, He took a lift to the fourth floor, showed his pass again, and went straight to Control’s office, the advance copy of the List still in his hand.

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re here,’ said Control’s pretty secretary, giving him a specially sympathetic smile. No doubt everyone would give him a specially sympathetic smile today. One of his best men was blown; already it was vaguely known in the office that be had put up some sort of black. He kept his face wooden.

  ‘Would you go in?’ said the pretty secretary, smiling again.

  It was hot inside Control’s office. Probably the window latch was broken, like everything else in the room. Control sat visibly sweating in his tweed suit, mortifying his flesh by removing neither jacket nor waistcoat. A cup of ancient-office tea stood on his copy of the Birthday Honours List. It had left several wet rings on the Companions of Honour, Costello noticed.

  ‘I’m sorry about Spode,’ said Control, nodding at the List.

  ‘Yes,’ said Costello flatly.

  ‘Doing a drunk driving on you like that, after you’d cleared him to KCMG level. We only just got him. out in time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Three others in the last couple of years, weren’t there, who went down one way or another? One for embezzling, one co-respondent, and one who defected to the Russians?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It doesn’t look too good, you know. The Committee don’t like it.’

  ‘Naturally not.’

  ‘I only mention it. No use crying over spilt milk, of course. We’ve got to get down to the next batch for the New Year list. I’m putting you down to do a chap called Sneame – G. B. J. Sneame. He’s been Head Gardener at the British Hospital in Zurich for 37 years. Roughboys, the Director, nominated him.’

  ‘A head gardener? You mean for an MBE?’

  ‘Now, I don’t want you to think of this as a demotion, Costello.’

  ‘But I’ve been doing Mike and Georges for 10 years now.’

  ‘The Committee feels you’d benefit from vetting a few MBE nominations again. You know, Costello, in Honours Intelligence we don’t think any less of a man because he’s only been nominated for the MBE. After all, he’s a human being just like you and me. I believe we should remember that an MBE a GCMG – even a KG – are all equal in the sight of God.’

  ‘Yes. You want me to find out if this man’s any good at gardening?’

  ‘Oh, he’s good all right. We know that much. You’ll find it all on the file. But is he damned good? That’s what we want to know. Is he MBE good?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I want you to go out there as a representative of a firm selling specialised pesticides. I take it you can handle a spraygun if the need arises?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take a look at his roses, Costello. That’s the kind of thing the Committee wants to know about. Is he growing first-class English roses out there, with good size, colour, and scent? Is he free of aphids? Has he kept his nose clean on slugs? That’s the kind of stuff I can make out a case with. Roughboys says he’s strong on miniature cactus. The Committee doesn’t want to know about his miniature cactus, Costello, or his pondweed or his herb-garden. You can’t give a man the MBE for growing pots of miniature cactus. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I’ve done MBEs before, Control.’

  ‘You’ve been off them for years. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I shan’t forget it.’

  ‘Roses, Costello. It’s absolutely vital that we should know the truth about Sneame’s roses.’

  Control took a reflective sip of cold tea.

  ‘We’d need photographs, Costello – blueprints – actual measurements. Look, what we want to know is the strategic effect of these roses. Is this man filling the whole of Zurich with the unmistakable perfume of an English rose-garden all summer? Is he making Englishmen in Zurich step a little more proudly? Is he making hard-headed Swiss buyers dream of business trips to Britain? We could pay for information like that, Costello?’

  ‘Just leave it to me.’

  Control gazed at the tea-stained Honours List for some minutes, playing with a broken stapling machine.

  ‘Then again,’ he said, ‘we’d need to know what sort of man he is. A loyal worker. But how loyal? Has he ever asked for a rise?’

  ‘Look, I did 20 gardeners for MBEs in my first year down from Oxford.’

  ‘Roughboys says he’s unfailingly cheerful. How cheerful is that, Costello? Does he have a smile for everyone? Including the Swiss? Or does he just grin sycophantically at Roughboys and the senior surgeons? Exactly how many times a day does he smile? How many times does he laugh? Does he whistle a merry tune as he dungs those roses, Costello? Or does he just produce a tuneless noise that gets on everybody’s nerves?’

  ‘I’ll measure the exact pitch, Control.’

  ‘And another thing. Find out how many arms and legs he’s got. Even if the roses all had green-fly and he only forced a grin on pay-day we could probably swing it if he was a leg or two short.

  ‘I’ll count up, Control. You know I always do.’

  ‘All right, then. But, Costello, take care on this one, will you? Just remember I’m nominated for the KCB myself in this next lot.’

  (19
64)

  Housebiz

  I wonder if a little more interest in politics might be aroused if politicians cast modesty aside and displayed that total self-absorption which film stars always seem, to be able to put over so effectively in interviews. Well, here’s a trial run I did with. Mr Nigel Sharpe-Groomsman MP, star of Parliament and Tory Party Conference.

  Good morning, Mr Sharpe-Groomsman.

  Call me Nigel, Mike.

  Nigel, you’re appearing at the moment in the Infectious Aliens (Exclusion) Bill, aren’t you?

  That’s right, Mike, It’s a fearless, controversial bill, of course, but it’s immensely human and worthwhile. My role is to stand up and speak out in favour of the brotherhood of man. Of course everyone thinks I’m letting the side down, but in the end I turn out to be loyal after all when I produce horrifying figures of Danes and Dutchmen arriving with influenza, and I vote with the Government.

  It sounds a great debate, Nigel.

  Yes, it is. The bill’s being introduced by my old friend Chris Smoothe. He’s a wonderful, wonderful politician, and it’s been great fun working with him on this. But then the whole team is absolutely wonderful, and I think we’ve produced a wonderful, wonderful bill that everyone’s going to enjoy a lot.

  Is this the first bill you’ve done with Christopher Smoothe?

  No, we were in the Landlords’ Protection Bill together in 1960, with Harry Debenture and Simon Sheermurder, and again this year in the Welfare Services (Curtailment) Bill, which broke all records in gross savings at the Treasury. Landlords’ Protection, of course, was my first starring part.

  You’ve certainly shot to the top, Nigel. Nigel, is it true that you were first discovered modelling for menswear advertisements?

  Yes, I got my first break through the photograph that caused all the scandal – the one of me in underwear and suspenders. A Conservative Party agent saw it and snapped me up at once.

  Tell me, Nigel …

  Call me Nige, Mike.

  Nige, you’ve sometimes been described as the new Harold Macmillan.

  Yes, Mike, I have. But I’ve also been called ‘the new Duncan Sandys,’ ‘the new Ernest Marples,’ and ‘the new Lord Salisbury.’ I don’t like these labels. I should like to be thought of just as myself, Nigel Sharpe-Groomsman. I mean, after all, I’m fundamentally a person in my own right. That’s what I want to get over.

  You don’t think there’s any truth in the labels, then?

  Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s true that I have Duncan’s nose and Ernest’s legs. But people say I smile like Harold Macmillan. I don’t think that’s entirely true. When I smile – so I’m told by many critics and political commentators – my whole face lights up in a very individual way. And I don’t want to get typecast. I don’t always want to be the sort of member who appears to let the side down by talking about the brotherhood of man but who always rallies round and votes for the Government in the end. I mean, I want the public to realise – I want Ministers to realise – that I’m a serious politician. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed doing this wonderful, wonderful Infectious Aliens (Exclusion) Bill with Chris, but one has one’s career to think of.

  One last question, Nige…

  Call me Ni, Mike.

  What sort of bill would you most like to appear in, Ni?

  Well, Mike, I’d like to do a bill which offered a role with a greater chance to express the real me. A war bill, for example, with a debate where I call for courage and sacrifice from the nation in the face of overwhelming odds. I mean, basically I’m the Churchill type. My friends all tell me I’ve got Churchill’s ears.

  Thanks for coming along, Ni. I’m sure we’ll all be watching you tomorrow in the Infectious Aliens (Exclusion) Bill.

  (1961)

  I said, ‘My Name is “Ozzy” Manders, Dean of King’s’

  I must not tell lies.

  I must not tell pointless lies.

  I must not tell pointless lies at parties.

  I must not tell pointless lies at parties when they are plainly going to be found out in the next 10 minutes.

  I must not:

  1: Let it be thought that I have caught the name of anyone I am ever introduced to, because statistics show that I have never caught anyone’s name until I have heard it at least twelve times.

  2: Give it to be understood that I have already heard of the owner of the inaudible name, because tests show that apart from one or two obvious exceptions like William Shakespeare and Sir Harold Sidewinder I haven’t heard of anyone.

  3: Say I have read the man’s books, or admired his architecture, or used his firm’s brake-linings, or seen his agency’s advertisements, or always been interested in his field of research, or know his home town, because I do hereby make a solemn and unconditional declaration, being before witnesses and in sober realisation of my past wrongdoing, that I have done none of these things.

  4: Say that I know any of the people he is sure I must know, or have heard of any of the names he takes to be common knowledge, because I don’t and haven’t, or if I do and have, I’ve got them all hopelessly mixed up, and when he says Appel I’m thinking of Riopelle, and when he says Buffet I’m thinking of Dubuffet, and when he says Palma I’m thinking of Palermo, and when he says syncretism I’m thinking of syndicalism, and when he says a man called ‘Pop’ Tuddenham who hired a barrage balloon and dressed it up to look like an elephant I’m thinking of a man called ‘Tubby’ Poppleton who hired a horse and dressed it up to look like the Senior Tutor.

  5: Try to sustain the fiction that I have heard anything he has said to me over the noise, because I have not, and because he has heard nothing I have said, either, so that by analogy he knows I am lying just as surely as I know he is lying.

  6: Bend my lips in an attempt to counterfeit a smile unless I am absolutely assured by the raising of a flag with the word JOKE on it that the man has made a joke and not announced that his mother has died.

  7: In short, get involved in any more conversations that go:

  ‘I’ve long been a great admirer of your, er … stuff, Mr … er … er …’

  ‘How kind of you.’

  ‘Oh, all kinds.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid some critics haven’t been at all kind.’

  ‘The tall kind? I see. I see.’

  (A long silence. I think.)

  ‘I particularly liked your last boo … er, pla …, um, one.’

  ‘Last what?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘Um, thing you, well, did.’

  ‘Really? The Press panned it.’

  ‘“The Press Bandit” – of course, it was on the tip of my tongue.’

  ‘Well, the Irish banned it.’

  ‘I mean “The Irish Bandit”, of course. How stupid of me.’

  ‘But everyone else panned it.’

  ‘Oh, Elsie Pandit. You mean Mrs Pandit?’

  ‘Who – your missus panned it?’

  ‘No, India’s Mrs Pandit.’

  ‘They panned it in India, too, did they?’

  ‘Did they? I suppose Mrs Pandit banned it.’

  ‘Ah. You know India, do you?’

  ‘No. You do, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Hm.’

  (I smile a cryptic knowing smile. He smiles a cryptic, knowing smile. We are getting on wonderfully. Just then my wife comes up and wants to be introduced, and I have to ask the man who he is.)

  Why do I do these things? Do I think the man’s going to give me a fiver, or a year’s free supply of his works for having heard of his name? Do I think he’s going to twist my arm and kick me on the kneecap if I don’t like his stuff? He doesn’t expect me to like it. No one likes it except his wife and the editor of Spasm and 780 former pupils of F. R. Leavis. Anyway, I’ve got him mixed up with someone else, and he didn’t do it, and even what he didn’t do isn’t what I think he did. For heaven’s sake, am I going to strike him becaus
e he thinks I’m called Freen, and that I write articles for the Lord’s Day Observance Society?

  I must not waste my valuable talent for deceit on lies which have no conceivable purpose when I could be saving it up for lies which would show a cash return.

  I must instead say ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name.’

  I must say ‘I’m sorry, I still haven’t quite …’

  I must say ‘I’m sorry – did you say “Green” or “Queen”? Ah. Queen who? Come again … Queen Elizabeth? Elizabeth what?’

  I must say ‘I expect I should know, but I’m afraid I don’t – what do you do? I beg your pardon? Rain? You study it, do you – rainfall statistics and so on? No? You rain? You mean you actually rain yourself? I see. I see.’

  I must say ‘No, I don’t see. What do you mean, you rain …?’

  I must …

  I must not, on second thoughts, be pointlessly honest, either.

  (1963)

  I say Toronto, you say Topeka

  Flying, I gather, is not such a high-stress occupation as it used, to be, because the stress is being shifted from, the aircrew on to computers. But it’s increasingly a wrong-stress occupation, as the stress is shifted off the significant word in cabin announcements on to the auxiliary verb.

  It used to be just on American airlines. But now even British cabin staff are telling us that the plane will be landing shortly at London Heathrow. Passengers will be disembarking from the front of the aircraft, they insist. We are requested to make sure we have all our belongings with us.

  I used to think this was because airlines were hiring actors or theatre directors to coach their cabin crew in diction. Actors and directors who perform the classics have to find new ways of stressing the lines, to stop themselves going crazy. Or rather, they have to find new ways, they have to find new ways, new ways of stressing, of stressing the lines. They are acutely aware that this is not the first time in history that someone has gone on to a stage and said, ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I!’ They know that at least twenty-seven other actors are going to be saying it somewhere in the world at that very same moment. Their soul revolts! ‘Oh, what a rogue!’ they find themselves gurgling. And a new reading of the part – the prince as queen – has come into being even before they’re halfway through the line.