Collected Columns

by Michael Frayn

  John: An Odeon? In Old Hangmore?

  Ralph: – and I thought, that’s strange, there’s no Odeon in Old Hangmore. Do you know where I was? In New Hangmore!

  Howard: Getting lost in New Hangmore’s nothing. I got lost last week in Upsome!

  John: I went off somewhere into the blue only yesterday not a hundred yards from Sunnydeep Lane!

  Mother: I remember I once got lost in the most curious circumstances in Singapore …

  Ralph: Anybody could get lost in Singapore, Mother.

  John: To become personal for a moment, Howard, how’s your car?

  Howard: Not so bad, thanks, not so bad. And yours?

  John: Not so bad, you know. How’s yours, Ralph?

  Ralph: Oh, not so bad, not so bad at all.

  Mother: I had another of my turns last week.

  Howard: We’re talking about cars, Mother, CARS.

  Mother: Oh, I’m sorry.

  John: To change the subject a bit – you know where Linden Green Lane comes out, just by Upsome Quadrant?

  Howard: Where Tunstall Road joins the Crescent there?

  Ralph: Just by the Nervous Diseases Hospital?

  John: That’s right. Where the new roundabout’s being built.

  Howard: Almost opposite a truss shop with a giant model of a rupture belt outside?

  Ralph: Just before you get to the bus station?

  Howard: By the zebra crossing there?

  John: That’s right. Well, I had a puncture there on Friday.

  Ralph: Well, then, I suppose we ought to think about getting back.

  Howard: I thought I might turn off by the paint factory on the by-pass this time and give the Apex roundabout a miss.

  John: Have either of you tried taking that side road at Tillotsons’ Corner?

  Ralph: There’s a lot to be said for both ways. A lot to be said.

  Mother: I’ll go and make the tea while you discuss it, then. I know you’ve got more important things to do than sit here listening to an old woman like me chattering away all afternoon.

  (1962)

  Total scholarship

  I was delighted to hear

  I was depressed to see

  I was interested to learn that the complete works of the late Charlie Parker, the great master of modern jazz, are being brought out in a variorum edition, including all the false starts and alternative readings.

  It surprises me

  It does not surprise me

  It surprises me that no one has yet suggested publishing a variorum edition of any journalist’s works. I should think they must get round to it finally.

  As a matter of fact, I have given the matter a certain amount / a great deal of thought, and I am rather inclined / absolutely resolved to make a start in that direction myself. For the benefit of posterity I am going to begin writing my own footnotes.1 I’m going to stop / cease / desist from crossing out the speeling2 mistakes, and thoughtlessly chucking / casually flinging / irresponsibly precipitating the material I don’t use into the waste-paper basket.3 In a word, I’m going to compile my own voriarum4 viarorum5 variorum edition. It’ll save somebody6 a lot of work, anyway.

  James Thurber7 once remarked that if you saw his first drafts you’d think the cleaning woman8 had written them. If his first drafts really could have provoked scholars to suppose anything so stimulating to literary research, they were source-material which it was wanton vandalism of Thurber to throw away.9 DON’T FORGET RING CRUMBLE ABOUT DINNER THURS!!!!10

  This new approach represents a serious criticism of our recieved (check spelling)11 idea of the function of art. From a superficial point of view, it has always seemed that the whole point of books, articles, poems, and so forth was their form and subject.12 It has been left to modern scholarship to show that their real significance lies in the light which they cast upon their authors.

  In other words

  To put it slightly differently

  Otherwise speaking (Is this English?)13 a creative undertaking is nothing less than the autobiography of the undertaker.

  That is to say, art is interesting because it tells us about the artists14 – who are of course interesting because they produce art.

  In other words, the whole of art is nothing less than a running gossip column on the art world,15

  (1964)

  Twelfth Night; or, What Will You Have?

  The other day my wife bought a jar of what were described on the label as ‘Old English Cocktail Olives.’ Ah, evocative words! They bring vividly to mind that golden age when England was still covered with primeval olive groves and when the rip-roaring Old English Cocktail Party was in full flower. Like most Old English things, it was at its best in Elizabethan times – to judge, at any rate, from the following fragment, entitled Ye Cocktayle Partye, and attributed to Will Shakespeare (by Mike Frayn, at any rate).

  (Scene: The Earl of Essex’s At Home).

  ESSEX: Ah, good Northumberland! Thou com’st betimes!

  What drink’st? Martini? Champagne cup? Or hock?

  Or that wan distillate whose fiery soul

  Is tamed by th’ hailstones hurl’d from jealous heaven,

  The draught a breed of men yet unengender’d

  Calls Scotch on th’ rocks?

  NORTHUMBERLAND: Ay, Scotch, but stint the rocks.

  ESSEX: Ah, Gloucester! And your fairest Duchess, too!

  Sweet Leicester! Ah, my Lady Leicester, homage!

  And Worcester, and the Chesters, radiant pair!

  And Ursula, the sister of Lord Bicester!

  Northumberland, methinks thou know’st not Gloucester,

  Nor Gloucester Worcester, nor the Leicesters Chesters.

  Lord Worcester, may I introduce Lord Leicester?

  My noblest Gloucester, meet your brother Chester.

  My Lady Chester and my Lady Leicester,

  Meet Ursula, the sister of Lord Bicester.

  ALL: Hail!

  GLOUCESTER: Well, now, hath Phoebus quit these climes for ever?

  WORCESTER: Ay are we now delivered quite to gales, And spouting hurricanoes’ plashy spite?

  CHESTER: Sure, ’tis foul weather.

  LEICESTER: Why, so ’tis.

  NORTHUMBERLAND: ’Tis so.

  (Another part of the battlefield).

  ESSEX: What ho, champagne! Crisps, ho! Pass round the peanuts!

  WORCESTER: A peanut, madam? Pardon me, I pray,

  But when we met, the white-hot dazzlement

  Your beauty rains about like thunderbolts

  Quite seared my eyes; I did not catch your name.

  LADY URSULA: Why, Ursula, and sister to Lord Bicester.

  WORCESTER: Not Harry Bicester? Known to th’ admiring world

  As Eggy? Wears a red moustache?

  URSULA: The same.

  WORCESTER: O, Eggy Bicester! and thou, thou art his sister?

  Then long-lost cousins must we surely be!

  ESSEX: Forgive me, Ursula, if I intrude,

  But, Worcester, meet our brother Chester here.

  He has the royal birthmark on his arm,

  Would know if you had, too.

  WORCESTER: Why, so I have.

  CHESTER: Why, marry then, you are my brother, stol’n At birth by she-bears.

  WORCESTER: Why then, that I am!

  LADY LEICESTER: The truth of th’ ancient legend now is clear:

  ‘When Worcester linkt to Chester prove to be,

  Then Gloucester in Northumberland we’ll see.’

  Northumberland is Gloucester, chang’d at birth,

  And Gloucester Worcester, while the aged Earl

  Of Leicester plainly must be Lady Chester,

  All chang’d, and double-chang’d, and chang’d again,

  The Chesters Leicesters and the Leicesters Chesters,

  Lord Chester, thus, the proof runs clear, is me,

  And Ursula, Lord Bicester, his own sister.

  NORTHUMBERLAND: Before the discourse turns again to weig
h

  Apollo’s absence and the pluvious times,

  We should acquaint our new selves with each other.

  My Lady Chester, once the Earl of Leicester,

  Meet Lady Leicester, now the Earl of Chester …

  ESSEX: Old friends ’neath curious titles oft are found Come, pass th’ Old English Cocktail Olives round …

  (1961)

  1 This is a good example of the genre.

  2 Mis-spelling for spieling – ‘persuasive talking.’

  3 Reichart remarks that ‘basket’ was a common euphemism in the Royal Navy c.1930 for ‘bastard,’ and suggests that by analogy with debased Anglo-Indian usages such as ‘janker-wallah’ the phrase ‘wastepaper basket’ may perhaps be understood as ‘salvage collector.’ But more probably in this context, ‘a receptacle for waste-paper.’

  4 Voriarum: corruption of vomitorium.

  5 Viarorum: i.e., via Rorum. Rorum is a non-existent place, therefore, ‘by way of nowhere,’ i.e., ‘not by any means’ (humorous usage).

  6 Exactly whom is a matter of speculation. Reichart suggests that he himself is intended here, but Skimming disputes this.

  7 James Grover Thurber (1894–1961).

  8 The so-called ‘Dark Lady of the Broom Cupboard.’ Identified by Skimming as Della (cf. Thurber: ‘My World and Welcome To It’). Pilsudsky’s theory that it was the Earl of Arran is not generally accepted.

  9 Probably intended jocularly, but the simple truth nonetheless.

  10 Meaning obscure. For an interesting explanation in Jungian terms, see Rosie (Journ. of Amer. Soc. of Ephem. Lit., vol XXIII).

  11 It is typical of the author’s ‘feel’ for language that he sensed this word was mis-spelt.

  12 This observation has been confirmed by many other authorities, e.g. Westland, Boosey, Sidgwick, Fanfani and da Costa.

  13 No.

  14 Very true.

  15 This pungent and devastating conclusion is of the greatest interest because of the light it sheds on the author’s ability to reach, in this case, a pungent and devastating conclusion.

  A very quiet car

  Plain ordinary cowardice. That, for what it’s worth, is my uninformed personal diagnosis of what’s wrong with my car. Cowards, said Caesar, die many times before their death, and my Audi has died seven times in the three years I’ve had it.

  Seven times I’ve gone to start it, and found it with life entirely extinct. Seven times it has been taken in, by Audi’s excellent recovery service, to the excellent local Audi agent, and resuscitated. They have given it two new batteries, and changed a certain control unit, I think, three times. They have kept it under observation for periods of up to a fortnight. They have done everything that motor engineers can do, and done it with genuine concern, intelligence, and determination. The bills have all been met by Audi, even after the guarantee expired, under the heading of ‘goodwill’. Audi’s goodwill seems to be unbounded. It’s mine that’s becoming just a shade strained.

  I bought it because it seemed a quiet, safe, secure, reliable, dark blue kind of car. And so indeed it has turned out. When it’s in its inactive mode it’s very quiet indeed. The diagnosticians at the garage sometimes ask if it clicks when you turn the ignition key. The answer is no, it doesn’t even click. A click would sound like a gun going off in the profundity of its silence. Safe? Yes – the chances of its being involved in an accident in this mode are as close to negligible as car-designers are ever likely to achieve. Secure? Unstealable, I think, without a tow-truck or a team of horses. Reliable? So far, at returning sooner or later to its peak performance in terms of quietness, safety, etc. And dark blue? Still dark blue.

  It’s been back in intensive care this past week, having its entire electrical system stripped out. Manuel, the recovery driver, is always remarkably good-humoured about being called out. He reminded me, laughingly, that the time before last I had for some reason become a little agitated, and had added considerably to the entertainment value of the occasion by locking the key inside the car. This time I remained very good-humoured myself. I’ve got used to the routine. I’m becoming institutionalised.

  Also, to be fair, the car often goes. In fact it goes more often than not. But sometimes I can’t help feeling that it would be nice to have a car that went a little more often still. That utter silence when you turn the key, the sudden realisation that total safety and security have descended once again, is always unnerving, even now I’ve achieved such serenity myself.

  I worry, too, about the car’s state of mind. I diagnose cowardice, as I said, a reluctance to go out and face the traffic. But seven total breakdowns in three years suggests some quite profound spiritual malaise. We can’t just go on tinkering with the physical symptoms. We’ve got to get to the psychological root of the problem. One certain cure would be to drive the thing over Beachy Head. But then of course it might well not be in active mode at the crucial moment. I think the sensible alternative is to get it qualified psychiatric help.

  I know exactly what’s going to happen, of course. After half-an-hour on the couch in Dr Einspritz’s consulting-room this silent, safe, secure, reliable, dark blue car is suddenly going to burst out in hysterical accusations. Against me, of course – who else? It’s going to start sobbing that I never showed it enough affection when it was new. I never washed it by hand, never shared quality time with it. Was always impatient for it to get on in life and go somewhere. The owners of all the other cars it knew bought them toys to dangle from the mirror. I never bought it so much as a yellow duster. Etcetera, etcetera.

  Absolute nonsense, of course. All right, I never washed it by hand – I was a busy man – I had its insurance premiums to earn, just for a start. But I used to take it to the carwash from time to time. Buy it hot wax and wheel scrub. Not full valeting and engine clean, I accept that. I didn’t think it was the sort of car that wanted to spend all day in a steam bath. I thought it was a dark blue sort of car, interested in serious personal transportation.

  Well (it’s going to sob), that just shows how little I ever understood it. Didn’t I realise it wanted to go out and see a bit of life? To get stuck in traffic-jams occasionally with other cars, engines all going vroom-vroom together, the air thick with exhaust fumes? It was dark blue on the outside, certainly – but couldn’t I see that in its heart it was fire red? I never wanted to do much but go slowly along half-empty streets, and park at parking-meters. And all the time it was longing to drive dangerously! Burn up the motorway a little! Be left at rakish angles on double yellow lines! Get towed, for heaven’s sake!

  Then it’s going to start telling Dr Einspritz I always preferred my other machines. My word-processor, my pocket organiser. But it’s not true. In my own undemonstrative way I loved that car. It’s going to turn out to be jealous of the waste-disposer next! Well, at least the waste-disposer didn’t sink into depressive silence. It got blocked, yes – everything gets blocked – but at least it went on struggling to cope, it went on making a kind of strangled noise.

  Oh (the car’s going to scream), what kind of love was this, that was withdrawn at the first hint of trouble? Dr Einspritz has explained that my failure as an owner has given it low self-esteem. It sees itself as a burden on the road-system, a drain on natural resources, and a threat to the environment. So every now and then it gorges on its own electricity to compensate and renders itself entirely incapable.

  Dr Einspritz (it’s going to go boring on) has been making a study of my articles, and has discovered that at least half of them seem to be complaints about various bits of machinery. Dr Einspritz believes that the root of the trouble is that I fear and hate machines in general.

  What? – I’m going to scream. I love machines! I understand them! My relationship with machines has always been exceptionally close!

  But what do the machines themselves say? With one accord, (says Dr Einspritz) they switch off at the sight of me, they jam, they falter, they wipe my words and instructions out of their memories. In all
their various languages they conspire to accuse me.

  And of course I end up on a couch myself, being treated by one of Dr Einspritz’s colleagues for abusive relationships with domestic machinery. Meanwhile Dr Einspritz contemplates my Audi, as it lies back on his couch, with considerable professional satisfaction, Its great outburst is over, its conflicts are resolved, it is at peace with itself at last.

  Very still and quiet it lies. In fact entirely silent and motionless. Its battery’s flat again.

  (1995)

  A very special collection

  I had a letter the other day from the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University, kindly inviting me to send them my manuscripts and correspondence files so that they could be ‘curated under optimum archival conditions in a special Michael Frayn Collection.’

  I declined this unexpected honour, for reasons which seemed cogent enough at the time. Now, in silent reproach, the library has sent me a lavishly illustrated brochure about their Special Collections – their ‘jewelled showcase,’ as they call them – and I realise what a fool I was.

  Just to think – by now the precious papers could be inside an acid-free envelope in a humidity-controlled vault, on the sixth floor of a building to which ‘Modern Baroque architecture has given special opulence,’ instead of on the floor at home being drawn on by the children. They could be taking their turn for revolving display in the exhibition hall, which is framed, as the brochure explains, by a picture window ‘draped grey in translucent yarn to give a sense rather than sight of the trolley-infested street outside,’ and whose rooms are divided by glass walls ‘allowing floor surfaces to flow into each, conspiring for spatial, illusion and playing with the magic of light.’

  The library houses what the brochure claims to be probably the largest collection of its sort in America, with contributors ranging alphabetically from Eric Ambler, ‘through torch singer Libby Holman,’ to Alec Waugh. Leslie Chatteris is in. So is Ngaio Marsh, and the manuscript of ‘Born Free.’