I Don't Want to Know Anyone Too Well, and Other Stories

by Norman Levine

  A tall, angular woman with dark hair and glasses came in. The woman was about the same age as Coral, perhaps a year or two older. “What’s the problem?” she said.

  “We have to get out of the place we’re living in . . . in Sussex . . . and I wonder if you can help us find somewhere in London?”

  “You have no alternative accommodation?”

  “No.”

  “Have you funds?”

  “No. We haven’t.”

  “Does your husband live with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t help you. We can only help if your husband leaves you.”

  Coral came out with the children and walked along Kensington High Street. Everyone, it seemed, would help her if he left her, or if she left him. Otherwise, what was the future? Moving from one rented place to another, from country village to country village or, with luck, to a provincial town. And she hated living in other people’s houses.

  She caught a bus to Trafalgar Square and walked among the pigeons. The children clung to her. Then along the Mall. She bought some choc ices and they had a little picnic of choc ices on a bench in St. James’s Park. She wondered where Gordon was, who he was seeing, what he was doing. He always came back with money and food from these trips to London. But she suspected that he never told her the whole truth as to how he got it.

  She was walking through the park—the baby in the pushchair, Kate holding her hand—when a truck, with a camera on the roof, stopped. A man and woman were inside. The man said, “Do you mind being in a film? Just like you are . . . with your children. Can you do that again? Thank you. Thank you very much.” A few minutes later, further into the park, she sat on the grass, underneath a beech, by the water. The sun was out. Kate was feeding the ducks, the baby was on the grass watching. She suddenly felt extraordinarily happy. She hoped the truck would come back and take a picture of them now.

  VI

  Well-dressed men in their middle to late thirties were standing under the hanging flags or by the windows looking out to Trafalgar Square. They greeted one another enthusiastically. They came up to Gordon Rideau.

  “Hi, Gordy, old man.”

  “Where have you been hiding?”

  “Hello Gordon,” Charlie Bishop said, and shook hands. “Nice of you to come. It has been a long time.”

  “Ten years.”

  “You don’t look any different, Gordon.”

  Mike Gagnon, an energetic head of a publishing firm who was tipped while an undergraduate to be the next prime minister, came up. “Let us in on the secret Gordy. How do you keep so slim? You wearing a corset?” Mike’s fine features were slowly being undermined by fat. “I go to the Y three times a week but I’ve still got this rubber ring.” And he playfully slapped his middle.

  Charlie Bishop hit his glass with a spoon and called, Quiet. Quiet. A short stocky man with glasses, almost bald, but hardly a line in his face. He was a director in the London branch of his grandfather’s tar company.

  “As you know,” he said confidently, “this is something of an occasion. Our tenth anniversary. And while the main one is being celebrated in Montreal, it is fitting that we in London should get together and remember when we all were . . .”

  “Single,” someone shouted.

  “And broke,” another replied.

  He waited. “The bond we established at McGill was something special. It’s a different kind of loyalty to anything else. It’s different from the wife or the kids. And I know that every time we come and get together like this that bond is strengthened.”

  “Hear, hear,” came from several tables.

  “This year I have a surprise. And by now you all must know who the surprise is. He’s sitting here beside me . . . Somebody has pointed out that our year was a vintage year. And it’s true. We’ve got more people in the Canadian edition of Time than any year since. But the only literary man we produced was Gordy. He has lived in England, in the country, since he left us. And he is difficult to get hold of. But when I heard he would be in London today I didn’t have to do much persuading to get him to come to this reunion. Fellow classmates, I’m very proud to give you Gordon Rideau.”

  There was generous applause. Gordon got up.

  “I first would like to say how pleased I am to be back with you.”

  “Hey, where did you pick up that Limey accent?” Jack Troy called out. Charlie Bishop detected something else in Gordon’s voice and wondered why he was so nervous.

  “Although this is the first reunion that I have attended, I’ve often thought of my college days,” he said hesitantly. “I really had a good time. And I was just old enough to know it . . . I think what made us different from the other years was because we were all returning veterans. And it was difficult to pretend we were college kids straight from high school . . .”

  He’s not a good speaker, thought Charlie Bishop. His voice is too monotonous. But he seems to have the right idea. It looks like a short speech.

  “. . . and that nice secure feeling of walking under the avenue of black trees in winter, or in the fall sitting on the grass under the willow . . .”

  Hugh Finlay seemed, at that moment, to be sitting on the grass under the willow tree watching the grey squirrels, the fallen leaves on the lawns, and waiting for a two o’clock lecture.

  “One is always disappointed by change,” Gordon said coming to the end. “And these reunions remain a tribute. To one’s youth. To gaiety. To optimism. When things seemed continually fresh. And life was a pleasure. And it was all so very easy.”

  He sat down quickly to loud applause. Charlie Bishop leaned over and shook Gordon’s hand. So did Mike Gagnon from the other side.

  Then Charlie Bishop got up, thanked Gordon for his speech. “Before we leave the formal side,” Charlie said, “I’d like us all to stand and remember those classmates who are not here with us.”

  They got up, some bowed their heads slightly. Charlie waited then nodded to Jack Troy. And Jack began to sing. Holding hands the rest joined in. There were tears in Hugh Finlay’s eyes as, with the others, he sang.

  For auld lang syne, my dear.

  For auld lang syne.

  We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet

  For the days of auld lang syne.

  They broke up into small groups around separate tables. And as the afternoon went on, the food, the drink, being guest of honour did something to Gordon Rideau. He went around gaily from one group to another. And he found himself boasting about things that hadn’t happened.

  “The Russians have brought out my last two novels,” he said, cutting into one group’s conversation. “But I can’t spend those roubles unless I go there.”

  To another. “They’re making a film in Ireland. It’s called The Millionaire. I did the script. It’s an original.”

  A few moments later he tried again. “I won some prize in Australia. But I don’t believe it. How can you believe a telegram that’s signed Johnny Soprano?”

  But after a while of this he felt their lack of interest. And that he was being left out of their conversation. The others were talking away and they wouldn’t let him come in. He had the feeling that he was no longer wanted . . .

  If anyone was watching this convivial gathering he would have seen, through the smoke of cigarettes and cigars, Mike Gagnon get up from the table shortly after five and make his way across the room to the toilet. Gordon Rideau got up and followed him. They were in there for a few minutes. Then they came out together, not talking. Some ten minutes later, Charlie Bishop made his way to the toilet. And Gordon left his chair soon after Charlie disappeared. They came out together, Charlie somewhat red in the face.

  In the next half-hour Gordon followed three more into the toilet, and reappeared with each one.

  The talk around the table where Gordon Rideau sat was n
oticeably subdued. A short while later he got up and said he had to go. “It’s a great reunion,” he said to Charlie Bishop. He wanted to shake Charlie’s hand, but Charlie withdrew his. “See you . . .”

  After he had gone, Charlie Bishop, Mike Gagnon, Jack Troy, and Hugh Finlay sat around without saying anything. They looked tired.

  “Our great author,” Mike Gagnon said finally.

  “Maybe he’s had a run of hard luck,” Jack Troy said.

  “How much did he hit you?”

  “Three pounds.”

  “He got that from me.”

  “That four-flusher—” Hugh said, his voice shaking.

  “You guys got off easy,” Charlie Bishop said. “He hit me for five.”

  “That little four-flusher.” Suddenly Hugh lashed out at a glass on the table. Then he saw it was on the floor in pieces.

  “Don’t take it so hard,” Charlie Bishop said. “There’s another one next year. I won’t make the same mistake.”

  “But why . . . ?” Hugh said. “Why did he spoil everything?”

  WE ALL BEGIN IN

  A LITTLE MAGAZINE

  We live in a small coastal town and in the summer, when the place is looking its best, it becomes overcrowded with people who have come away from the cities for their annual holiday by the sea. It is then that we leave and go up to London for our holiday.

  My wife usually finds a house by looking through the Times. In this way we had the house of a man who built hotels in the poor parts of Africa so that wealthy American Negroes could go back to see where their grandparents came from. Another summer it was an architect’s house where just about everything was done by push-button control. A third time, it was in a house whose owner was in the middle of getting a divorce—for non-consummation—and wanted to be out of the country.

  This June she saw an ad saying: DOCTOR’S HOUSE AVAILABLE IN LONDON FOR THREE WEEKS. REASONABLE RENT. She phoned the number. And we agreed to take it.

  The advertised house was central, near South Kensington tube station, not far from the Gardens. The taxi took us from Paddington—how pale people looked in London on a hot summer’s day—and brought us to a wide street, stopping in front of a detached all-white house with acacia trees in the front garden. A bottle of warm milk was on the doorstep. I opened the door with the key and brought our cases inside.

  The phone was ringing.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Is this ABC?” a youthful voice asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You have the wrong number.”

  “What is your number?”

  “Knightsbridge 4231 ,” I said.

  “That is the number,” the voice said.

  “There must be some mistake,” I said. “This is a doctor’s house.”

  “Is the doctor there?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s on holiday.”

  “Can I leave a message for him?”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No,” he said. “Tell him that David White rang. David White of Somerset. He has had my manuscript for over six months now. He said he would let me know over a month ago. I have written him four times.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I said.

  “If he needs more time,” the young man said hesitantly, “I don’t mind—”

  “OK,” I said and hung up.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” I said to my wife.

  But she and the children were busy exploring the rest of the house.

  It was a large house and it looked as if it had been lived in. The front room was a children’s room with all sorts of games and blackboards and toys and children’s books and posters on the walls. There was the sitting room, the bottom half of the walls were filled with books in shelves. There were more books in the hallway, on the sides of the stairs, and in shelves on every landing. There were three separate baths. A breakfast room where a friendly black cat slept most of the time on top of the oil-fired furnace. And a back garden with a lawn, flowerbeds on the sides, a pond with goldfish, water lilies, and a copper beech tree at the end.

  The phone rang and a shaky voice said, “May I speak to Doctor Jones?”

  “I’m sorry, he’s on holiday.”

  “When will he come back?”

  “In three weeks,” I said.

  “I can’t wait that long,” the voice said. “I’m going to New York tomorrow.”

  “Would you,” I said, “like to leave a message?”

  “I can’t hear what you’re saying,” the voice said. “Can you speak up? I’m a bit deaf and have to wear a hearing aid. The doctors have a cure for this now. If I’d been born two years later I would have been all right.”

  “I said, would you like to leave the doctor a message?”

  “I don’t think that will do any good,” he said. “Could you look in his office and see if he has a poem of mine? It’s called “Goodbye.” If it is in proof, don’t bother. I’ll wait. But just find out. I am going over to teach creative writing in night school so I can make some money to come back here. The poem will probably be on the floor.”

  “Hold on,” I said.

  I went into the office at the top of the house. The floor was cluttered with papers and magazines and manuscripts with letters and envelopes attached. On a wooden table, a large snap file had correspondence. A box had cheques for small amounts. There were also several pound notes, loose change, a sheet of stamps, and two packages of cigarettes. (How trusting, I thought. The doctor doesn’t know us—supposing we were crooks?) There was typing paper, large envelopes, a typewriter, a phone, telephone directories, and some galleys hanging on a nail on a wall. A smaller table had an in-and-out tray to do with his medical work, more letters, and copies of the Lancet. The neatest part of the room was the area where stacks of unsold copies of ABC were on the floor against the far wall.

  “I’m sorry,” I said on the phone. “I can’t see it.”

  “Oh,” he said. He sounded disappointed.

  “Well, tell him that Arnold Mest called. M-E-S-T.”

  “I’ve got that,” I said.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  “You won’t guess,” I told my wife. “The doctor edits a little magazine.”

  “We can’t get away from it,” she said.

  Early next morning the doorbell woke us. It was the postman. He gave me several bundles. There were letters from different parts of England and Europe, and air mail ones from Canada, the States, Australia, and South America. There were two review copies of books from publishers. There were other little magazines, and what looked like medical journals, and a few bills.

  As I put the envelopes and parcels on the chair in the office and saw the copies of Horizon and New Writing, the runs of Encounter, London Magazine, and a fine collection of contemporary books on the shelves right around the room, it brought back a time twenty years ago when I first came over.

  There was still the bomb-damage to be seen, the queues, the ration books, the cigarettes under the counter. And a general seediness in people’s clothes. Yet I remember it as one of my happiest times. Perhaps because we were young and full of hope and because we were so innocent of what writing involved. A lot of boys and girls had come to London from different parts. And we would meet in certain pubs, in certain restaurants—Joe Lyons, the French pub, Caves de France, the Mandrake—then go on somewhere else. I remember going over to see another Canadian, from Montreal, who was writing a novel. He had a studio, by the Chelsea football grounds (we could always tell when a goal was scored). I remember best the cold damp winter days with the fog thick—you could just see the traffic lights—and then going inside and having some hot wine by the open fire and talking about writing, what we were writing, and where we had things out. We used to send our stories, optimistically, to the name magazines. But that was like tak
ing a ticket in a lottery. It was the little magazines who published us, who gave encouragement and kept us going.

  I remember Miss Waters. She was in her late forties, a pale woman with thinning blond hair and a docile tabby cat. She edited a little magazine founded by her great-grandfather. She had photographs of Tennyson on the wall, of Yeats and Dylan Thomas. And wooden pigeon-holes, like the sorting room at the post office, with some of the recent back issues. She didn’t know when I was coming. But she always greeted me with: “How nice to see you. Do come in.”

  She walked ahead, into the dark living room. Suggested that I take my winter coat off. Then she would bring out a decanter of sherry and fill a glass, then take out a package of Passing Clouds, offer me a cigarette.

  I was treated as a writer by this woman when I had very little published. And that did more than anything to keep up morale. And after another sherry, another Passing Cloud, and she had asked me what I was working on and seemed very interested in what I said, she told me that her great-grandfather paid Tennyson a thousand pounds for one of his short poems, and two thousand pounds to George Eliot for a short story. (Was she trying to tell me that there was money to be made out of writing?) Then she stood up, and we went into the other room. It was very neat and tidy. Magazines on a table laid out as at a news agent’s, books as in a library.

  “Is there anything you would like to review?” she asked.

  I would pick a novel or two, or a book of short stories.

  Then she would say, “And help yourself to four books from that pile.”

  That pile consisted of books that she didn’t want reviewed. She had told me, the first time, to take these books to a bookseller in the Strand who would give me half price for them, and later sell them to the public libraries. But before I could get the money from him I had to sign my name in what looked like a visiting book. And I saw there, above me, the signatures of the leading Sunday and weekly reviewers—they were also selling their review copies for half price.

  And I remember how I would come to her place—with the brown envelopes lying behind the door—broke and depressed. And when I left her, I left feeling buoyed up, cheerful. There would be the few pounds from the review copies. Money enough for a hamburger and a coffee and a small cigar. And there was something to do—the books to review. She always paid in advance.