An Artist and a Magician

by Hugh Fleetwood

  The last decision that he made as he stood there on his terrace, shining more brightly than the January sun itself, was that he would, in an hour or two, call both Betty and Bernard, and invite them to dinner tomorrow night. And over dinner he would talk to them, tell them everything; and make them both admit that the stories they had told him were nothing but inventions. Oh, it would be grand, he thought, and he should have done it years ago; done it when Pam and Jim were still alive. He should have invited the whole of his inner court, all together, and then—in the nicest possible way of course—presented them with the evidence of their own folly; of the childishness and uselessness of their bickering. He wondered what stories Pam would have told of the others; and Jim … Perhaps they would never have become real friends—there would have been too much for them to forgive in themselves to make that possible—but they could, at least, have been civil to each other thereafter. And they could, at least, have stopped tormenting themselves.

  How he wished he had done it years ago, he told himself as he turned, at last, and went back inside. That he hadn’t, he knew, had been entirely due to his own selfish motives and pride. But if it was too late to make amends to Pam and Jim—to Betty and Bernard he could, and would; and do it—in case he had, by some misfortune, any further reason to regret his not having done it—without delay.

  He would do it, he thought, as if their lives depended on it….

  NINE

  Those decisions taken, he spent the whole of that day in a state of euphoria that bordered on self-righteousness. He grinned for no apparent reason, he tapped his foot in tune with a song that came drifting up to him from someone else’s radio, he typed away at furious speed and translated forty pages of some really—by the time he had finished with it—enchanting comedy, and he spent what seemed like hours talking to the cat.

  ‘My beautiful old Philip,’ he told the sleek and shining animal, ‘we have been very wicked recently. We’ve been frivolous and stupid. We mistook the coincidences and turns of fate for the powers of magic and art.’

  For what else had first those blows in August, and then Pam and Jim’s deaths right after they had refused him money, been, if not coincidences? And not even particularly surprising coincidences. The blows had all had different causes, if the same effect, and anyway had all fallen from that vacuum at the centre of the year, holiday time, when people were not themselves; and the deaths of his two friends had probably been, either directly or indirectly, a result of some major psychic disturbance of which a refusal to lend him money had been but a small and comprehensible symptom. Pam had been made weak and careless by her impossible fantasy of leaving Rome; and Jim, upset by his relationship with the dreadful Chuck, and hating himself for being involved in such a shabby and squalid situation, had gone out with the intention—if only subconscious intention—of finding someone who would put an end to that squalor for ever.

  And what else had all that followed been but the natural pattern that must have sprung from such tragic events?

  ‘We’ve been mad and venal,’ he told Philip. ‘Carrying on with this wretched pretence just because we were frightened of having a few thousand dollars a year less. You’ll just have to eat less fillet steak, my beauty, and I shall have to cut down on the scotch.

  ‘Oh Philip,’ he said, ‘there’s going to be order in this house at last.

  ‘Oh Philip,’ he said, ‘we’re going to have peace.’

  Peace, and truth, and happiness….

  He even felt happy when he phoned Betty and Bernard, asking them to dinner the following night, and he didn’t so much as grimace when Betty, after he had told her that Bernard would be there, gasped with an audible shudder and said, her voice soft with the anticipation of forbidden pleasures, ‘Oh Wilbur’; and didn’t so much as flinch when Bernard cried, ‘you’re going to do it, you marvellous old motherfucker! Tell me what dish you’re going to slip the strychnine in, so I can watch her death-throes.’

  In fact, the only thing in the whole day that didn’t go exactly as planned was the session he had set aside for work on his novel. Because for some reason his head was so full of spring—of buds, and wheeling birds, warm skies and plump white clouds—that he couldn’t concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing; and as, after half an hour and only two sentences, this block threatened to introduce just the smallest flat note into the triumphant new symphony of his life, he quit trying. But it would only be for that day, he told himself; and he certainly wasn’t about to let this change of plans get him down.

  What he did instead was go, for the first time in years, for an aimless, gentle walk through the Sunday city (and so upset and confused had he been of late, and so euphoric today, that he had completely lost track of time, and hadn’t realized that today was a Sunday, in spite of the fact that neither Lillian nor Aida had come); an aimless gentle walk under a sky that almost exactly matched the spring he felt within. For though it was only January, and though this morning, early, had been so cold, now, as he wandered through Piazza Navona looking at laughing children holding brightly-coloured balloons, and wandered along the side of the full, rich, flowering Tiber, it seemed like April out, so warm and kind was the air, so full of smells of roasted coffee and baking bread every angle of the streets. And how pleasant people looked, how splendid were the palaces, how grand and glorious the churches. Oh how happy, how happy, how happy he was!

  He even said ‘buongiorno’ to four total strangers—a business man type, an old woman, and two gaily-coloured students—and they all smiled and said ‘buongiorno’ back to him.

  That evening, as a start to his new regime of austerity, and though he had only eaten an apple and a sandwich at lunch—eaten as he had sat attempting to work at his novel—he had a quiet and frugal dinner by himself, with only one whisky before, two glasses of wine with his food, and one tiny glass of liqueur afterwards.

  It was one of the most satisfying meals he could remember….

  *

  Next morning, however, in spite of his having once again slept well, not everything went so smoothly.

  For a start, the weather was grey and bitter, with a dampness in the air that penetrated every ill-fitting window and door, and which even the quite efficient central heating seemed incapable of combating.

  Then Lillian, when he told her to phone and invite just three people for dinner on Wednesday, and five on Saturday, remembered that while he had been away in Porto Ercole at least six old friends of his from the States, and two more from Paris, had called and said they were in town for a week and were longing to see him.

  So he was obliged to invite two of his American friends for dinner on Thursday, the other four for lunch on Friday, and the two French friends for dinner on Friday….

  And then again, when he asked Aida, who was a Junoesque girl from the country with two children and no apparent husband, if from now on she could come just three days a week instead of every day, she said it was impossible; she preferred, or rather she had to have, a full time job; and if not with him, then….

  But in spite of the weather, and in spite of these setbacks to his schemes for economy, Wilbur refused to become depressed. Yesterday had been exceptional, he told himself, and it was foolish to think that every day would be so very pleasant and rose-coloured. And of course one couldn’t just scale down drastically like that, especially if it involved hurting someone as nice as Aida, or being rude to old friends. He would have instead to fade things out, little by little, making a snip here, a snip there, until—maybe only after a month—the garment of his reduced life was the right shape and size.

  He didn’t even get depressed when, once again, he found it impossible to work on his novel. It wasn’t so much today that he couldn’t concentrate, he excused himself with, but more that he honestly didn’t have time. Because what with talking to Lillian, and discussing with her various ways of saving the odd lira here and there, and having a tearful and upsetting half-hour with Aida—which involved not only assu
ring her repeatedly that of course she could continue to come to him, and of course he was delighted with her work, and that not only he, but Philip too, adored her, but also insisting on her lying down for a while to get over her shock, and giving her a brandy, and generally looking after her—it was past eleven before he could sit down at his typewriter and start to work on his translations; and as it was the translations that paid the bills, and as, from now on, the bills had to be paid somehow, and without relying on anyone else….

  He translated continuously till two-thirty, as yesterday only having an apple and a sandwich for lunch; and though he did go so far as to clear his table and set out his manuscript, as he looked at the page he was working on he realized that he was too tired to write well. So he put it aside, and went, instead, to have a sleep.

  And he had to sleep, he thought, if he was going to be on top form tonight. And he had to be on top form tonight….

  He slept till five-thirty, and woke both thankful that he had slept, and in the very best of spirits. No, today hadn’t been exactly as he had planned it, but this evening, he was both determined and sure, would be. There were going to be no hitches there. Everything was going to be perfect; and as he took a quick bath before going into the kitchen to start preparing the dinner, he started smiling as he imagined Betty and Bernard’s faces as he sat between them and, instead of playing his usual part, quite seriously told them that for years they had been behaving like idiots, and never so much as in the last few months, but that now was the time to let bygones be bygones, and to start behaving like adults instead. We are all survivors, he would tell them, and it’s time we recognized all that we have in common, rather than dwell on what divided us. Oh, he smiled at his plump pink reflection in the mirror, at his round almost cherubic face, he would, for the first time ever, play the part of a wise old man; a father. Of course he would try not to be too pompous, and too sickeningly moral, and of course he would try to say his piece with plenty of jokes and laughs, and without being overly prim; but say it, in one way or another, he would. Even if he did have to be sickening. But there were times when one just had to take a stand; and this was one of them.

  ‘They’ll never believe I had it in me,’ he told Philip.

  He would never have believed it himself.

  Betty was the first to arrive, at precisely eight-thirty. And if Wilbur had done a lot today, from the look of it Betty had done even more—though all to herself. She was, as he told her when she swept with the shyest of smiles through the door, dazzling. Her head was wrapped in a black silk scarf, which plunged all the way down her back to the floor, and was dotted with tiny glittering stones that could have been beads but, knowing Betty, were jewels. Her lifted face was as smooth and rapt as the marble Saint Theresa’s. Her dress, too, was black, though unembellished except for a diamond and black-pearl clasp. And over her slim white shoulders was slung a black sable cloak that swept in the dust at her feet.

  She was already, magnificently, in mourning….

  ‘Come in, my dear,’ Wilbur, who was dressed as usual in baggy pants, unironed shirt, and an insufficiently darned yellow sweater, said to her after he had finished complimenting her. ‘Come in and have a drink.’

  ‘Oh Wilbur dear,’ Betty gasped with a giggle, ‘I feel as nervous as I was when I went to my debutante ball.’

  ‘You’re quite crazy you know, going out like that. Someone might have bopped you on the head just for an inch of your scarf.’

  ‘I know. But I couldn’t resist dressing up tonight.’

  ‘Well I’m afraid we’re having a very simple meal, my dear. It’s austerity time in George Hall.’

  ‘Nothing you ever do is simple, my love. And tonight of all nights won’t be, even if we only eat bread and cheese.’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ Wilbur smiled. ‘Corn bread and black-eyed peas for us sophisticated folk, and some little crab dish for our Northern friend.’

  ‘Oh dear Wilbur,’ Betty breathed.

  *

  Ten minutes later—ten minutes during which Wilbur and Betty spoke of the weather, a new book that neither had read, and a new film that neither had seen but were both going to just as soon as they possibly could—Bernard arrived. And if Betty had dressed up for the occasion, Bernard had dressed down, clearly thinking that the expected outcome of the evening called for celebration, and not mourning. He wore a Hawaiïan shirt, a vivid check jacket, grubby beige trousers that were too short and showed acid green socks, and a pair of broken down leather bedroom slippers. He carried a greasy looking overcoat in one hand, and a bottle of champagne in the other.

  ‘Am I the last to arrive?’ he shouted as he came in, his voice both squeakier and more gruff than Wilbur had ever heard it. ‘Betty, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here, Bernard,’ the magnolia scented tones floated from the living room.

  ‘Here,’ Bernard said, handing Wilbur the champagne. ‘That’s for later.’

  And then, throwing his coat on a table by the door, and followed closely by Wilbur, he strode into the living room and stopped in front of the seated Betty, both of whose hands were raised and ready to be kissed.

  ‘What do you want me to do, bite them or shake them?’ Bernard cackled, as he himself sat down without doing either. ‘Nice to see you Betty. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m very well Bernard,’ Betty smiled graciously, as she lowered her hands. ‘You, I see, haven’t changed.’

  ‘Now children, behave yourselves,’ Wilbur said. ‘And Bernard, if you like to fix yourself a drink, I shall go into the kitchen and get us something to nibble on.’

  ‘Nibble,’ Bernard snorted.

  ‘Just while we have our drinks. The serious eating comes later.’

  ‘Well thank Christ for that.’ Once again Bernard snorted. ‘What have you made us? Funeral baked meats?’

  ‘Oh Bernard,’ Wilbur said as he left the room, and his fat old friend cackled into his beard.

  *

  Normally, Wilbur never served anything with drinks before dinner—unless he didn’t have enough food, and was trying to take away everyone’s appetite—but tonight he had lavished almost more care on his snacks than on the dinner itself. There was duck pâté and pheasant pâté and a bit of pâté de foie gras. There were celery sticks and nuts, and crackers in the shape of flowers. There were various types of cheese, and canapés of one sort or another. There was even some caviar, that he had found in a jar at the back of a cupboard, and had spread on dry toast. All set in a heavy dish, in the middle of which there was a monkey, playing a mandolin.

  He had done all this because it was before dinner, he had decided, that he was going to make his speech; force the signing of the truce. The dinner, afterwards, would be more in the nature of a peace offering.

  And five minutes later, make his speech he did. He settled Philip on his lap, by way of moral support, raised his hand, and, having indicated the dish he had prepared, which hadn’t been touched so far, so unwilling were both Betty and Bernard to take their whole-hearted attention from each other, said: ‘Now listen children, I have to speak to you. And both of you will please listen to your uncle Wilbur in silence, without any comment whatsoever. Because for once in my life I intend to be serious, and I can tell you it isn’t easy for me. So—’

  How transfigured Betty’s face was, as she gently moistened her lips with her tongue; and how hard it was for Bernard to suppress some laugh, or comment, or obscenity….

  ‘Over the last six months, I have lost, in more or less tragic circumstances, two of my oldest friends, both of whom both of you—with my active and I must say reprehensible connivance—believe were, let’s say, done to death by me. Well, my first point is that of course this pretence, at least on my part, was nothing more than a joke in very poor taste. And I think—and hope—that for both of you it was nothing more than a joke, either. I sincerely hope in fact that neither of you believe I could ever do such a thing—I mean—oh, it’s all too absurd, and I’m blu
shing as I say this.’

  He was, too.

  ‘I mean—well, one just doesn’t kill people, does one? However, for one reason or another I can’t help feeling that this so-called joke has gotten out of control, and over the last few days both of you have told me elaborate stories about each other, neither of which, I’m afraid—or rather glad—to say, I believe a word of.’

  He paused for a moment, to give time for that to sink in. But he didn’t dare look at either Betty or Bernard, and only heard that, to cover their evident embarrassment, both of them had attacked the food he had prepared for them. Then he went on.

  ‘You also both, still by way of a joke I’m sure, more or less suggested that I should—’ he paused again. He couldn’t say ‘kill’. ‘That I should work my magic, let’s say, on the other, to avenge the supposed wrongs of the past that both of you consider the other responsible for. Well, all I have to say is this: that I simply—as I said—don’t believe in these wrongs, and think that this joke has gone far enough, and that both of you—all of us, because I’m just as much to blame—have been behaving in a childish and most unamusing way. And the reason I asked you both here tonight was to say that it’s time these illusionary hatchets were buried. Those that divided you from Jim and Pam it is, unfortunately, too late to bury. But for us—oh my dears, let’s stop this nonsense. We’re all quite old, and there is quite enough division in the world without us adding our portion to it. So now, well of course I don’t expect brotherly love to descend like golden rain, but do let’s all just be a bit more—a bit more—’

  But he had finished. And like a gas balloon that has suddenly been punctured, he fell with a flop to the earth.

  And then there was silence. A silence that went on and on. A silence of such extreme, such acute embarrassment that he thought, for a moment, that none of them would ever be able to break it, and they would sit like that round the small table until the moth got them, and they dissolved, very slowly, into dust.