Gently Continental
Page 6
GENTLY
(Shrugs.)
Well. But remember what happened to him.
FRIEDA
Am I likely to forget it?
GENTLY
His secret was dangerous, may be still.
FRIEDA
Oh, you just make my head swim!
Gently looks at her, she at him. Her grey eyes front his warily. Her lank hair clings to her shiny forehead. Her pallid mouth is set straight. Nothing further, Miss Breske, he says, nothing further. Now. She says nothing, rises heavily. She walks with the long stride of a man.
CHAPTER SIX
SHELTON, SQUEEZED INTO the glass-panelled office, flanked by Sergeant Walters and Sally Dicks, the latter a straight-mouthed, straight-haired female who, nevertheless, has some adequate measurements: Shelton has released his seventh victim, a building contractor from Ashton-under-Lyne: and he frowns, and thinks, and watches Sally as Sally skims through her shorthand notes. Shelton’s thoughts are some part with the contractor, some part with Gently, some part with Sally. The contractor, because he was uncivil: Gently, because he has overwhelmed Shelton. As for Sally, the heat in the office had caused her to take off her tunic, and so to expose, with greater definition, the generous lines of her bosom. Shelton evaluates these automatically while more consciously perusing his first and second subjects. He is also aware of the contradiction between Sally’s bosom and Sally’s face. Sally is grim to her neck. Sally is about to bite someone. Her retroussé nose is needle-sharp, she has haughty eyes and a fresh complexion. Properly, the rest of her should be niggardly, stringy, two boards clapped together: her face says so, is full of injury, has been struck, and would strike. Yet the rest of her is voluptuous, even muffled in a uniform. How did nature make the slip? Sally’s bosom aggrieves Shelton. He snaps: You’ve got that down – looking for a moment as grim as she. Sally scribbles something, nods. Sally has only one expression. Then she sits straight, picks up a razor-blade, begins trimming a pencil, looking not at Shelton or Walters: in disdain of all the world. Perhaps she’s queer, Shelton thinks, but takes no comfort in the thought. Meanwhile, he’s let that Hutchins cheek him, which the Chief Superintendent would hardly have done . . .
Precisely then he sees the Chief Superintendent passing by in the hall. He dispatches Walters. Gently hears him, turns aside to Shelton’s Aquarium. You have something? Not very much, sir (asked after like that, it seems less than nothing!) – but the last fellow, his name is Hutchins, had a conversation with the deceased. Did he, Gently says, that’s progress. What did he talk to him about? About America, sir, about New York, about the real-estate racket. Hmn, Gently says, that’s interesting. Yes, sir. Hutchins had been to New York. He’s a building contractor in the Midlands, he had something in common with Clooney. Do you have a transcript? Gently says. I can read it back, sir, says Sally Dicks. Gently takes Sally in with a glance. Sally turns back two pages, face redder than usual. She reads, with breaks: I met him in the bar . . . Tuesday night in the bar. He was alone. I’m fresh back from the States, I asked him what part of the States he came from . . . Then, I don’t know, he was in real estate, we got talking about that. They run a price-fixing racket out there, the deceased knew the ins and outs of it . . . names? He mentioned one I knew, a firm called American Homes, Inc. . . . I don’t know, I forget the connection . . . No, he didn’t say he worked for it . . . Well, yes, for my money, and don’t forget I’ve just been over there . . . He had an accent, I don’t know what, but they’re all foreigners in New York . . . look, I said I don’t know. Just an accent, right? Eyetie, Jerry, Swede, Pole, take your pick. He wasn’t Irish . . . Yes, how many more times? He was a yank . . . he knew New York . . . knew my hotel there was fresh-built . . . the streets, places . . . he couldn’t kid me. Then he shut up and cleared off . . . why? Well, he just did. I didn’t talk to him again . . . no, I tell you, he seemed to avoid me. Sally Dicks stops reading. Hmn, Gently says, yes, very interesting. It proves a point, sir, Shelton says, now we know we’re dealing with an American. An American with an accent, Gently says. Well, Hutchins is right about that, sir, Shelton says, they’re all sorts of nationalities in New York. You only have to look at some of their names. Gently shrugs, says, Well, carry on, see if you can get any more impressions. Then he turns his broad back and walks out of the Aquarium. Was it, after all, something that Shelton had dug out of Hutchins? Now Shelton isn’t certain. He can’t interpret that last shrug. He finds himself staring at Sally Dick’s bosom without any emotion, for or against it.
Gently continues through the hall and across the drive and across the lawn. Trudi and Stephen Halliday are sprawled on deck-chairs, laughing, languid, moist with sweat. They sit in the shade of a gnarled oak tree, an oak tree stunted by the east wind, a witch tree, with its seaward boughs each one turned back to point landward, full of bunchy, broomy twigs and little freak pink leaves: beneath it they sit, or droop, in the deck-chairs, rackets thrown down on the short, parched turf. Trudi wears a broad blue ribbon to secure her silver-blonde hair. She has the oval family face, but it is fined and free from heaviness. It has width across the cheek-bones, a delicacy in the nostrils, a decisive line in the jaw, a lighter rounding of the chin. Also the eyes, still showing kin, have had the grey distilled out of them, are a distinct, grave blue, frank eyes, ready to smile. Trudi, surely, has inherited her portion of the Viennese fiddler’s charm. The lumpish Tichtel genes have been held at bay here. Her body, too, though strong, like Frieda’s, has a grace and lightness not like Frieda’s, is long-limbed, poised, flexible, handsome in whole and in part, showing well now, thrown down carelessly, beside the doctor’s nephew’s sturdier form. By any standard, Trudi is beautiful. She has beauty that needs no bush. It needs no painting, no dressing, no calculated concealment. Let her only lie sprawled and sweating, a panting tomboy, and she is beautiful. She is beautiful, as it were, even beyond sex, to a degree (seen in actresses), suggesting sterility: as though reaching a line drawn by nature, beyond which development may not go. Frieda may have children, Trudi has her beauty. It is a means which has suffered perfection and so passed into an end. The lust which drab Frieda can stir may not readily imagine possessing her sister.
They stop laughing as Gently approaches, but don’t bother to stop sprawling. Shelton, in similar circumstances, might have felt an intruder; Gently seems not to notice. He smiles, pulls up a chair, glances at the guests lounging within earshot. The guests feel an impulse to move away, and unobtrusively implement it. Miss Trudi Breske, Gently says. Trudi says coolly, Yes. Congratulations on your game, Gently says, this business hasn’t put you off your stroke. Trudi quietly re-spaces her legs but doesn’t feel obliged to make a comment. Why on earth should it put her off her stroke, Stephen Halliday says, Trudi is fab, nothing puts her off. Gently shrugs, says nothing. She’s a right to play if she wants to, Stephen Halliday says. She needs something to take her mind off things, that’s what I’d have thought. And why not tennis? Gently nods. Yes, why not? Especially with such gifts for concentration. But that’s why she’s so good, Stephen Halliday says, because she can empty her mind when she plays. Yes, Gently says, I was watching, I noticed. Well then, Stephen Halliday says, what’s so unusual about that? Trudi is frowning, not smiling. Her frown is beautiful too. It scarcely marks her smooth forehead or produces a sensible tilt of her brows: merely grows, like grass growing, or a haze passing over the sun. I’m sorry, she says, if I enjoyed my tennis. But Mr Clooney was really nothing to us.
GENTLY
He lived seven weeks under the same roof.
TRUDI
Oh, I know, I’m sorry for him. I wouldn’t want anybody to, well, die like that. But he was just a guest, you know, a complete stranger to everyone. I can’t really feel about him as I would if I’d known him well.
GENTLY
He didn’t play tennis.
TRUDI
Good Lord no, nothing like that. But that’s not all. I mean, a lot of people don’t play tennis. He was just, well, he did
n’t try. He didn’t offer to make friends. If you said something to him it stopped there, he wasn’t interested in you.
GENTLY
Not in you?
TRUDI
Oh well! There are things that men always say.
STEPHEN
They say them to Trudi, in any case.
TRUDI
One doesn’t pay attention.
GENTLY
But you spoke to him.
TRUDI
I suppose so. I couldn’t very well not, could I? I arrange the entertainments – games, shows, competitions. But nothing of that sort amused him. I soon gave up asking. He was – I don’t know – absorbed in himself, we didn’t mean anything to him.
GENTLY
We?
TRUDI
Well . . . the rest of us. We try to make people feel they belong here. The personal touch, you know? But not him. He didn’t come for that.
GENTLY
No . . . did he?
TRUDI
(Looks at him quickly.)
STEPHEN
I met him too. He wasn’t so bad. I’d say he was a decent sort of a cove. I got on with him all right, what few times I saw him.
GENTLY
I wonder what you talked about. You couldn’t have very much in common.
STEPHEN
Oh, I don’t know, one can always talk. The weather, that sort of jazz.
GENTLY
You’re not in the estate business.
STEPHEN
Me? Never. I’m studying medicine.
GENTLY
You talked to him about that?
STEPHEN
No . . . once. Yes, once.
TRUDI
Stephen talks to everyone about medicine.
GENTLY
It’s an honourable calling.
STEPHEN
I simply mentioned it, that’s all, it just happened to come up. We were talking to him, Trudi and me. There’s nothing special about that, is there?
GENTLY
(Shrugs.)
Trudi and you?
STEPHEN
Yes, for Heaven’s sake, Trudi and me. What are you getting at?
TRUDI
It was really nothing. Stephen was here to play tennis.
STEPHEN
Yes, and that’s how it came up. Trudi invited him to join a foursome. He said he was afraid of pulling a muscle—
TRUDI
Which gave Stephen a perfect opening.
STEPHEN
And I had a boast, that’s about it. I’m an exhibitionist at the bottom of me.
GENTLY
I’d say you were doing yourself an injustice.
STEPHEN
No, not me. I’m an exhibitionist.
Gently surveys the young man mildly. Here again is a family likeness. Stephen has the same good-looking, spare features as his uncle, Doctor John. Much callower, of course, and without the sharp, cynical eyes; and Stephen is burlier, more clumsily made; but the doctor’s stamp is on him. He has ceased to sprawl now, has come up straight in the deckchair. He returns Gently’s gaze forcefully, is trying to stare him down.
GENTLY
What concerns me more specially is what Clooney may have said to you.
STEPHEN
The usual things.
GENTLY
Well, describe them.
STEPHEN
It wasn’t anything that would help you.
TRUDI
About New York. He talked about that. How slow things seemed over here. I think he was homesick in a way, he just couldn’t fit in here.
GENTLY
Why didn’t he go home, then?
TRUDI
How should I know. He didn’t tell us why not. Maybe he had some domestic trouble, you know, alimony payments. But that’s guessing.
GENTLY
He mentioned his wife?
TRUDI
No. I don’t remember that.
STEPHEN
They’re always married, these Americans, have got a wife they’re running away from.
TRUDI
Yes, he said something – what was it? About marriage out there being a bad business.
STEPHEN
You couldn’t win, that’s what he said. The woman had you on the hop. It sounded personal, I thought, as though he’d had some experience.
TRUDI
Yes, bitter.
STEPHEN
Bitter as hell. I wouldn’t mind betting that was his trouble.
GENTLY
Hmn. You seem to have had quite a talk with him, after all.
STEPHEN
Well, I wouldn’t say that. Just one thing leading to another.
GENTLY
And how did it lead to his thoughts on marriage?
STEPHEN
As a matter of fact, because of what I’d been saying. That I was studying for my M.D. He advised me to stay clear of women, not to marry till I was established.
GENTLY
Not much of a compliment to Miss Trudi.
TRUDI
Oh, he was only making fun.
GENTLY
While being bitter?
TRUDI
I – he didn’t mean—
GENTLY
An interesting character, this American of yours.
STEPHEN
(Colouring.)
Just look here! We’re doing our best to answer your questions. It’s not as though we could tell you anything important, all this doesn’t matter a rap. So at least you can stop sneering, pretending we’re telling a pack of lies.
TRUDI
Stephen!
STEPHEN
I don’t care, Trudi. It’s like some sort of Inquisition.
TRUDI
He has to ask about Mr Clooney—
STEPHEN
Yes, but he doesn’t have to be so sarcastic.
TRUDI
(Makes a little gesture.)
STEPHEN
All right, all right. You can put up with it if you like.
GENTLY
I’m quite sincere when I say he’s interesting. His character seems so elusive. For instance, he scarcely spoke to other people, yet he let his hair down with you.
TRUDI
That’s . . . exaggerating, perhaps.
GENTLY
Then this matter of his wife. Some people think he cared nothing about her, others that he cared very much.
STEPHEN
We said he was bitter, not that he cared.
GENTLY
I’ve been told he treated her as a joke. And even his physical appearance is questionable. Was he ugly – or handsome?
TRUDI
Oh – handsome.
GENTLY
(To Stephen.)
You agree?
STEPHEN
Why not? He wasn’t bad-looking.
TRUDI
He was good-looking. (She blushes.) But you – you’ve seen him.
GENTLY
(Shrugs.)
TRUDI
Of course . . . now, I dare say . . .
STEPHEN
He was well set-up, quite distinguished. May have had a heart condition, but nothing exceptional for his age.
GENTLY
A heavy drinker.
TRUDI
Not heavy.
GENTLY
Drank scotch, reeked of whisky.
TRUDI
But that simply isn’t true. Who has been telling you all this?
STEPHEN
He drank a bit, like all yanks, but you never saw him the worse for it. He had a colour, I’ll say that. But he never struck you as a lush.
GENTLY
Not ugly, not a drunkard, not indifferent about his wife, not even notably secretive. Well, it’ll sort itself out, no doubt. Perhaps he didn’t have an accent, either?
TRUDI
He was an American, you could tell that.
GENTLY
A native born and bred American.
TRUDI
I – yes, born and bred.
GENTLY
No overtones – say, Italian?
TRUDI
Good Heavens no! He was not Italian.
GENTLY
What makes you so certain?
TRUDI
He . . . it is just quite impossible.
STEPHEN
You must know that, if you’ve looked at him. Wrong ethnological type.
GENTLY
His name suggests an Irish ancestry. But nobody suspects him of being Irish.
TRUDI
No, not Irish. I’d say . . . I don’t know, one only thought of him as being American. But if there was an accent . . . a slight accent . . .
GENTLY
Yes?
TRUDI
Well . . . I don’t know . . . Scandinavian?
STEPHEN
Of course, yes, that would be it. You’re brilliant, Trudi – that’s his type exactly: a Nordic dolichocephalic.
GENTLY
You are familiar with Scandinavians, Miss Trudi?
TRUDI
I . . . a little . . .
STEPHEN
It doesn’t matter. She’s right, absolutely right. Ethnologically right.
GENTLY
I wonder. As a mere layman I regarded Clooney as brachycephalous.
STEPHEN
(Staring.)
Ah, but his injury, he smashed his skull. That might give a false impression. There was a parietal collapse – Uncle John described it to me.
GENTLY
Oh, his skull was in a mess. But wouldn’t that reduce the brachycephalic character?
STEPHEN
It might, of course – and then it might not. Depending entirely on the collapse.
TRUDI
This is silly, I know . . . but I’m not feeling too well.
STEPHEN
Trudi!
TRUDI
Sorry, Steve. It’s just hearing you talk about . . .
STEPHEN
Oh hell, I should have known better.
TRUDI
I’m sorry. I’m just made that way. Just the idea gives me a turn . . . I’m a terrible coward about these things.
And certainly Trudi has turned pale, and is sitting up, and inclining her head forward. Stephen Halliday catches her hand and begins to chafe it, but she draws it away.
TRUDI
No, I’m all right, really.
STEPHEN
Damn, I’m a bloody idiot.
GENTLY
You musn’t feel too strongly about Clooney, Miss Trudi.