The Biographer’s Moustache

by Kingsley Amis

  Perhaps Alec had somehow caught the drift of this, because he looked over and said in a remarkably normal tone, ‘Lovely sandwiches, darling. Thank you very much.’

  ‘Glad you enjoyed them, darling. Would you like some more tea?’

  ‘When you’re a moment, darling,’ said Alec, and picked up his newspaper. His wife presumably had a moment just then, because she went over immediately and recharged his mug.

  ‘There’s only the one question I’m going to ask him at that point,’ she explained to Gordon, ‘so he knows what to say. It would have been just the same if you hadn’t been here. But I expect you see that.’

  ‘Yes, I think I do.’

  ‘We know a very nice fellow, from Yorkshire I think it is, who comes in every morning to see to him. He’s awfully strong, which is a big help because Alec’s not a light weight. That’s usually all that’s necessary, but then of course you never know. You just have to have lots of hot water and so on and lots of spare doodahs, if you see what I mean, but I don’t suppose for a minute you want me to tell you all this, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, I want to hear.’

  ‘Bless you, and have you got a shorter name I can call you by? Well, Gordon, I think that’s about as much as I need actually tell you, though I expect you’ll have guessed quite a lot. Now tell me, how’s Jimmie? Is he all right, is he well?’

  ‘I saw him this morning and he was fine, as regards health that is.’

  ‘That’s all I want to know. No it’s not, it’s just all I feel I can ask you about him for the moment. I’m still very fond of Jimmie, you know, after all these years and everything that happened. He’s the sort of man one stays fond of. I sometimes wish I could see him again, but then he’s obviously changed a great deal since the time when I knew him. I saw a photograph of him at some dinner a little while ago and I should hardly have recognized him, but I’d still like to see him.’

  ‘How many years is it since …’

  ‘Since I knew him. Oh, a great many. During the war and just afterwards, long before you were born or thought of, Gordon. Long before I met the captain, even.’

  ‘What did he do, that’s Jimmie, what did he do in the war?’

  ‘I think I’d sooner leave it till another time to tell you anything more about him. I shouldn’t feel quite comfortable, going on discussing him in front of this one. Yes, I know he’s stone deaf, but I still shouldn’t feel comfortable. It’s silly of me, of course, but I always remember a story we were told at school about a lady with a blind husband and she misbehaved with a servant chap in front of the blind man and the gods gave him back his sight then and there and it was absolutely terrible for the three people. I know it’s just a story and probably only an allegory and it’s hopeless of me, but, well …’

  ‘I understand, but when would be a good time to have a chat?’

  ‘Any evening after seven-thirty. I’ve put him to bed by then and I’m here, in this room, by myself. Could you possibly ring me on the day you’re coming? Don’t go just yet, Gordon, there’s a dear. Stay and tell me about your whatever it is you’re writing.’

  Gordon did as requested. One point of minor interest emerged when he happened to ask Madge Walker again how she had come to hear of his Jimmie project.

  ‘A neighbour told me, she’s called Margaret Bardwell, not that that’ll mean anything to you I expect. She told me she saw something in one of the papers about somebody called something Scott-Thompson writing something about JRP Fane, and she knows I used to –’

  ‘No no, don’t go on. I just didn’t know that little bit of news was out yet.’

  ‘Gordon dear, what do they call it when somebody lets the papers into a secret or one of them?’

  ‘You mean somebody leaked it?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if it was Jimmie who leaked this himself. It would be just his style.’

  14

  When Gordon left the Walkers’ flat not long afterwards he was in thoughtful mood. Part of the thoughtfulness centred on the question of where he had recently come across something similar to Madge Walker’s scruples about discussing Jimmie in her husband’s admittedly unknowing presence. He was no more than half way to his bus-stop when the question was answered from inside his head: the similarity lay in Joanna’s scruples about, well, letting him get on top of her in the house she shared with her husband. A large part of his thoughtfulness disappeared with that recognition, leaving only the mild problem whether women were sometimes visited by a desire to spread things over, to defer action, to keep matters in suspense as long as possible with the object of attracting attention to themselves. Not for the first time ever, Gordon felt for a moment he was on the threshold of an important discovery about women, before it slipped away from him and left him in his everyday condition of puzzlement and unsatisfied curiosity.

  Dusk had descended early, giving the air a watery look and feel and a deep yellow quality to the lights of shops and vehicles. Ordinary passers-by seemed charged with portentousness. It was one of those times when a sudden transference to some completely different order of existence became easy to imagine as possible or even imminent. Gordon’s bus came and he boarded it. From his seat by a window he could see along the pavement and take in the way lights of all sorts were reflected in the fallen rain, but he could not recapture how he had felt a moment before, when he had been out there himself.

  What he could do and needed to do was more thinking about Joanna and, as it now struck him, her rather curious behaviour in leaving it to him to arrange their next and presumably decisive meeting. When he left her after the rissole lunch she had talked without pause till they were on the doorstep, then said something hurried and unemphatic that he remembered or had interpreted as a directive to get in touch or keep in touch with her, then retreated. Looking out of the bus window, he suddenly asked himself whether the whole thing might not have been part of a cunning scheme of Joanna’s to detach him from her or allow him to detach himself as painlessly as possible. That could still not be ruled out, but between then and now Jimmie’s statement on snobbery had intervened and he, Gordon, had inserted on the tape his historic declaration of intent with regard to the wife of the stuck-up old fart. That intent he would pursue as far as he could. The next moment it occurred to him that if he stayed in his present bus instead of changing, he could get off it not far from the Fane residence. Suppose there was nobody in. He would think about that when and if.

  Somebody was in: Jimmie, screwing up his eyes, staring in puzzlement for a short space before breaking into carefree laughter. He was wearing a dark suit and collar and tie, but then he always was, presumably never sure when some ducal or baronial summons to luncheon would suddenly take him haring off to Gray’s club. ‘Ah, it’s the young man with no moustache,’ he said, and waved to Gordon to come in, still laughing.

  ‘I was just passing. I’m afraid I can only stay a minute.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it, because I have to go out shortly myself, and I presume it is me you’ve come to see.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘A most unpleasant evening, isn’t it? We have time for one drink at any rate, so your brief visit won’t be entirely wasted.’

  A culinary noise came from the kitchen as they filed past it to the stairs. On the floor above there was no sight or sound of anyone but themselves. Jimmie drove him into the green chair in a room he was coming to recognize as familiar and asked him what he would like to drink. Gordon asked for Scotch, not out of any real preference except for the exclusion of Albanian absinthe, Venezuelan vermouth or kindred liquors that might have been lined up for unexpected or even expected guests.

  ‘Ice?’

  ‘Yes please. And a splash of soda if you have it,’ said Gordon with an unappreciated boldness, as one would normally have settled for no addition.

  ‘So what have you been up to since we parted?’ asked Jimmie quite soon.

  ‘Nothing much. I’ve been to
see an old friend of yours called Madge Walker.’

  Instead of the display of, say, friendly interest or even blankness that might have been expected, Jimmie raised his hand in a self-defensive gesture and a look of genuine horror passed across his face. He said with some apparent difficulty, ‘Oh that, that old … bag.’

  ‘She seemed quite old, certainly. She told me she’d known you in your younger days.’

  ‘I suppose that is literally true.’

  ‘During the war and just after it, she said.’

  ‘Have you come here simply to tell me that, dear boy?’

  ‘Well …’ It was the sort of question Gordon had hoped not to be asked. To say yes to it, though truthful, would have raised difficulties, but then devising an alternative was not straightforward either. Luckily there was something else that Jimmie wanted to know, perhaps more urgently.

  ‘How did you find out about her? Who told you?’

  ‘She found out about me. Apparently –’

  ‘She would. She always had ways of finding things out. A marvellous nose for information. How did she say she heard, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘She said a neighbour saw it in the paper, probably some diary.’

  ‘Yes, again that’s the kind of thing she would say. Well, it might even be true as far as it goes. Tell me now if you will, what sort of style was she living in? You say you went to see her.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gordon found it quite easy to answer this question, putting in a couple of surmises of his own to eke out his report.

  Jimmie had been nodding his head thoughtfully. ‘Did she try to get money off you?’ he asked, ‘I say, I’m terribly sorry about all these questions. It’s just …’ He mimed helplessness.

  ‘That’s all right, Jimmie. No, she didn’t try to get money off me.’

  ‘No, of course, that’ll come next time, that’s if you go back there. She’s not poor, you know, she’s, she’s just close-fisted.’

  ‘What she and Alec had didn’t strike me as close-fisted, more just the result of being hard up. Though it’s true she mentioned some Yorkshireman who comes in every day to look after him.’

  ‘There you are, costs the earth, that kind of thing, as you must have noticed yourself. No, she’s not poor. Anyway, dear Gordon, I strongly advise you against having anything more to do with this exceedingly dubious creature. Obviously I can’t stop you, I do realize that, but in both our interests I do, I do want to make it difficult, as difficult as I can. I warn you most seriously and in the most educated way that to get to know her any better would be to involve yourself in a highly dangerous and disagreeable web of intrigue and lies and deception and, what can I say, something I escaped from by the skin of my teeth. She’ll hit your pocket too if she can. Now I think it only fair to warn you that I won’t be able to give my sanction to any account of my life and doings that contains material supplied by Mrs, what is it, Mrs Madge Walker. I’m sorry to be so uncompromising but I do feel rather strongly on the matter and I am so convinced I should put you on your guard. Well.’

  After a short pause, during which he folded his hands and stared down at the rug, Jimmie went on in a quieter, less impetuous tone than just before, Ì really beg your pardon for that … exhibition. That’s not quite the word, I’m afraid, with its implications of display and insincerity, but, well, I mean I hope you’ll give me credit for sincerity, I’m just sorry I let myself be carried away.’

  ‘That’s all right, Jimmie.’

  ‘Now put my mind at rest if you will, dear boy, and tell me you’ll have nothing more to do with that dreadful woman, that’s if you’ve come to a decision yet.’

  ‘I certainly have no intention of seeing her again.’

  ‘It would be an insult to ask you to promise that, so I won’t.’

  ‘All right, I’ll just swear that nothing she could say or do would induce me to go near her.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know what a relief it is to me to hear you say that. Oh dear, I regret to say I must be off,’ said Jimmie, giving himself a real treat with his pronunciation of the last word, ‘I’m late already. Are you coming?’

  Both men were on their feet when the door opened and Joanna appeared in the room. She was dressed for the evening but not, or not yet, for the outdoors. She and Gordon greeted each other cheerfully enough.

  ‘Gordon and I are just on our way, darling,’ said Jimmie.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew the Parkinsons,’ Joanna said to Gordon in some surprise.

  ‘Whether he does or not I assumed, er, Gordon was homeward bound.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Oh but you can’t go now when I’ve barely set eyes on you.’

  ‘I think I’d better be off if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Stay and have a quick drink with me before you go.’

  Gordon looked at his watch without seeing what time it was. Ten minutes, then,’ he said with a sort of smile.

  ‘I’m afraid I must say good-bye and leave,’ said Jimmie, and did as he said.

  As soon as he was out of the sitting-room, Joanna set about preparing drinks for Gordon and herself. She had just finished doing so when they heard the sounds of Jimmie’s departure from the house. She waited a little longer, then came over and put her arms round Gordon and kissed him heartily on the mouth. As well as liking this in and for itself, Gordon was pleased to be assured that nothing important had changed, that he and she were indeed going to get up to some of what she had recently called hanky-panky some time in the near future, though probably not on these present premises. But at the moment he found it hard to think about the future, or to want to.

  ‘Good,’ she said, having perhaps just been over some of the same ground as he had. ‘But I’m afraid that’ll have to be all for the moment.’

  ‘Where are the Parkinsons?’

  ‘Five doors down. Even so it’s a rotten night. Some prince of the blood must be slated to appear there.’

  ‘He won’t be back then, will he? I’m merely accumulating information about him.’

  ‘I can promise you it wouldn’t be in the least uncharacteristic of him to find he’d come out without a handkerchief and make a quick return foray for one. So in the general interest you’d better put that drink down in something like six minutes from now and then smartly bugger off.’

  ‘Do you think you could bear to come to my flat? It’s not very nice really, but it’s all right, and at least nobody ever comes there.’

  ‘Darling, I don’t think you have any idea of how much nicer you look with that moustache out of the way. Completely different. Well no, not completely obviously, just very. Remarkably.’

  ‘Let me give you the address.’

  ‘You look younger and sort of half a size larger, though I can’t think how that’s come about.’

  ‘You’d better write it down.’

  ‘No I hadn’t, darling, I’ll lose the bit of paper and you never know where it might turn up. You’ll have to say it to me.’

  ‘You’ll forget it.’

  ‘No I won’t. Say it to me twice over slowly and I’ll remember it, I promise.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, doing his best to sound cheerful and confident, and recited as asked.

  ‘There,’ she said after repeating it, and went on, ‘Drink your drink. It’s thanks to me you’ve got it.’

  This too he did, or started to. ‘But it’s thanks to him I got the first one. He came straight out and asked me what I’d have. Surely that’s unusual.’

  ‘Not as unusual as you might think. He reckoned you wouldn’t be staying, and he goes in for being lavish in short controlled bursts. Or he may simply have forgotten to screw you. He’s mean all right, but that’s all a matter of policy. By instinct he’s quite a generous old bastard. I’d better not go any further along that track or you’ll start wondering whether I’m going to remember that address. Which by the way I have every confidence in my ability to do. No darling, not now.

  �
��Knock the rest of that back and get out of here unless you want to find James Reginald Pruett Fane tapping you on the shoulder, so to speak.’

  For the third time in a row Gordon did as he was told and nothing more of significance, except perhaps to inform Joanna that he would telephone her at a suitably early hour the next morning. On his way home by bus he tried to describe to himself how he felt at the prospect of starting an affair, which it now looked as if he was really going to do, with Joanna and an older woman and a married woman and Jimmie’s wife and the Hon. Joanna Fane and the female who was married to the author of The Escaped Prisoner and no doubt other aspects. Some of the ones listed must have prevented him at the time from seeing what he now saw clearly, that he had taken a fancy to her the moment he set eyes on her for the first time. He knew further that he must have the equivalent of a serious talk with himself about what he was getting into, no question about it, and yet he could by no means imagine what such a talk-equivalent would be like. The rain ran down the outsides of the bus windows and here he was feeling like a man who had written a masterpiece and just remembered he had fatally mugged somebody in Basingstoke.

  As soon as he had reached his flat, before even taking off his raincoat, he went to the telephone and arranged with Madge Walker to come to Pearson Gardens the following evening. He was buggered, he thought, if he was going to be told what to do and what not to do by any stuck-up old fart.

  15

  For Gordon, there were two things about the next morning that differentiated it from others, one thing that happened and one that failed to happen. The one that happened was the arrival by post of a xeroxed press-cutting accompanied by a printed slip that brought him the compliments of Brian Harris. The cutting was from the diary of an up-market daily newspaper and stated clearly enough that Gordon, with his name only slightly misspelt, was at work on an authorized critical biography of JRP Fane. The diarist added that the choice of biographer had raised some snooty eyebrows in certain circles not a hundred miles from Gray’s club, without particularizing further. Irony of uncertain direction lurked here and there in the paragraph, but that was standard. Anyway, Madge Walker had not needed any special nose for information or web of intrigue to find out about Gordon and what he was up to.