by Paul Merton
F.P.S.
DEAR F:
Look, we know for a fact she’s a cornball. No one who asks what she should do with a ten-foot length of hose could possibly have a sense of humor. As for the rest, well, I stayed up half the night trying to imagine another psychological context for her question (which, I must object, is hardly “a little evidence”), so that if I have failed it isn’t for lack of trying.
Oh, all right, I admit it. I did see her as a type. But it becomes so difficult to believe that Petunia, or any of them, has any kind of independent existence. Remember, these folks are just words on a page; of course they’re full-fleshed and complex, but I have to take this on faith. Most of them probably think they’re revealing their true selves, whereas really they tell me almost nothing, and with every letter I’m supposed to make up a whole person, out of scraps.
I don’t like to complain, but this doesn’t get any easier with practice, and I’m tiring now, and losing my nerve. I can live with not being nice—nobody nice would do what I do—but what if I’m not any good?
READERS:
Do you think that failure of the imagination can have moral significance? I mean, is it a character flaw or just an insufficiency of skill? Is triteness a sin? Or what?
DEAR BETTY:
Last night my husband woke me up at 2:00 A.M. with a strange request. Then after awhile this old song started going through my head that I hadn’t thought about for thirty years. I must have gone through the darn thing ten thousand times. It got so I was following the words with a bouncing ball, so that even when I blocked out the sound that old ball was still bobbing away in my head and I never did get to sleep until sunrise. The question is, does anybody out there know the missing words?
Herman the German and Frenchie the Swede
Set out for the Alkali Flats—Oh!
Herman did follow and Frenchie did lead
And they carried something in, or on, their hats—Oh!
Now Herman said, “Frenchie, let’s rest for a while,
“My pony has something the matter with it—Oh!”
Now Frenchie said, “Herman, we’ll rest in a mile,
“On the banks of the River Something—Oh!”*
(*If I could get the name of the
river I’d be all set here)
Now Hattie McGurk was a sorrowful gal,
Something something something.
She had a dirt camp in the high chaparral
And a something as wide as Nebraska.
There’s more, but I never did know the other verses, so they don’t matter so much.
Betty, we sure do love you out here in Elko.
Sleepytime Sal
DEAR BETTY:
One time I was at this Tupperware party at my girlfriend’s. Actually, it was just like a Tupperware party, only it was marital underwear, but it was run the same way. Anyway, everybody was drinking beer and passing around the items, and cutting up, you know, laughing about the candy pants and whatnot, and having a real good time. Only all of a sudden this feeling came over me. I started feeling real sorry for everybody, even though they were screaming and acting silly I thought about how much work it was to have fun, and how brave we all were for going to the trouble, since the easiest thing would be to just moan and cry and bite the walls, because we’re all going to die anyway, sooner or later. Isn’t that sad? I saw how every human life is a story, and the story always ends badly. It came to me that there wasn’t any God at all and that we’ve always known this, but most of us are too polite and kind to talk about it. Finally I got so blue that I had to go into the bathroom and bawl. Then I was all right.
Partly Sunny
DEAR BETTY:
When I was first married you ran a recipe in your column called “How to Preserve Your Mate.” It had all kinds of stuff in it like “fold in a generous dollop of forgiveness” and “add plenty of spice.” I thought it was so cute that I copied it out on a sampler. Time went by, and I got a divorce, and finished high school, and then I got a university scholarship, and eventually a masters degree in business administration. Now I’m married again, to a corporate tax lawyer, and we live in a charming old pre-Revolutionary farmhouse, and all our pillows are made of goose down, and our potholders and coffee mugs and the bedspreads and curtains in the children’s rooms all have Marimekko prints, and every item of clothing I own is made of natural fiber. But I never threw that old sampler away, and every now and then, when I’m all alone, I take it out and look at it and laugh my head off about what an incredible middle-class jerk I used to be.
Save the Whales
DEAR BETTY:
This is the end of the line for you and the rest of your ilk. We shall no longer seek the counsel of false matriarchs, keepers of the Old Order, quislings whose sole power derives from the continuing bondage of their sisters. Like the dinosaurs, your bodies will fuel the new society, where each woman shall be sovereign, and acknowledge her rage, and validate her neighbor’s rage, and rejoice in everybody’s rage, and caper and dance widdershins beneath the gibbous moon.
Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre
DEAR BETTY:
I did what you said and sat real quiet and let myself go. Then you know what happened? I got real nutty and started wondering if I was just an idea in the mind of God. Is this an original thought? ’Cause if it is, you can keep it.
Hey, are you all right?
Petunia
DEAR PETUNIA:
No, since you ask. My mother is dying. My husband’s mistress has myesthenia gravis. My younger daughter just gave all of her trust money to the Church of the Famous Maker. And I, like Niobe, am not aging well. My ulcer is bleeding, I can’t sleep, and I’m not so much depressed as humiliated, both by slapstick catastrophe and by the minute tragedy of my wasted talents. To tell you the truth, I feel like hell.
DEAR BETTY:
I can see you have problems, dear, but whining doesn’t advance the ball. Why not make a list of all your blessings and tape it to your medicine chest? Or send an anonymous houseplant to your oldest enemy? Why not expose yourself to the clergyman of your choice? Or, you could surprise hubby with a yummy devil’s food layer cake, made from scratch in the nude.
Or, if nothing seems to work, you can put your head down and suffer like any other dumb animal. This always does the trick for me.
Ha ha ha. How do you like it, Sister? Ha ha ha ha ha.
Bitterly Laughing in the Heartland
DEAR BETTY:
See? They’re closing in. You had to try it, didn’t you, you got them going, and now all hell’s breaking loose. You took a sweet racket and ruined it, and for what? Honor? Integrity? Aesthetic principle? Well, go ahead and martyr yourself, but leave me out of it.
F.P.S.
READERS.
For what it’s worth,
BETTY REALLY BELIEVES
1. That God is criminally irresponsible.
2. That nobility is possible.
3. That hope is necessary.
4. That courage is commonplace.
5. That sentimentality is wicked.
6. That cynicism is worse.
7. That most people are surprisingly good sports.
8. That some people are irredeemable idiots.
9. That everybody on the Board of Directors of CM, Ford, Chrysler, and U.S. Steel, and every third member of Congress and the Cabinet ought to be taken out, lined up against a wall and shot.
10. That whining, though ugly, sometimes advances the ball.
How about it, Readers? What do you believe?
DEAR BETTY:
Does anybody have the recipe for Kooky Cake?
Kooky in Dubuque
DEAR KOOKY:
Forget the cake. The cake is terrible. What we’re trying for here is a community of souls, a free exchange of original thoughts, an unrehearsed, raucous, a cappella chorus of Middle American women.
A Symphony of Gals!
Kooky, for God’s sake, tell me your fears
, your dreams, your awfullest secrets, and I’ll tell you mine. Tell me, for instance, why you use that degrading nickname. I’m sending you my private phone number. Use it. Call me, Kooky. Call me anytime. Call collect. Call soon.
That goes for everybody else. All my dear readers, the loyal and the hateful, the genuine and the fictional, the rich and the strange. Call me anytime. Or, I’ll send you my home address. Drop in. I’m serious. Let’s talk.
Serious? You’re critical. These people are going to kill you.
These people are my dearest friends. I love them all.
You do not! You don’t even know them!
What’s the question?
But… sentimentality is wicked.
But cynicism is worse.
THE SPOT OF ART
P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) was the author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner. Born in London, he spent two years in banking before becoming a full-time writer, contributing to periodicals including Punch and the Globe. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.
I was lunching at my Aunt Dahlia’s, and despite the fact that Anatole, her outstanding cook, had rather excelled himself in the matter of the bill-of-fare, I’m bound to say the food was more or less turning to ashes in my mouth. You see, I had some bad news to break to her—always a prospect that takes the edge off the appetite. She wouldn’t be pleased, I knew, and when not pleased Aunt Dahlia, having spent most of her youth in the hunting-field, has a crispish way of expressing herself.
However, I supposed I had better have a dash at it and get it over.
‘Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, facing the issue squarely.
‘Hullo?’
‘You know that cruise of yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘That yachting-cruise you are planning?’
‘Yes.’
‘That jolly cruise in your yacht in the Mediterranean to which you so kindly invited me and to which I have been looking forward with such keen anticipation?’
‘Get on, fathead, what about it?’
I swallowed a chunk of côtelette-suprème-avec-choux-fleurs and slipped her the distressing info’.
‘I’m frightfully sorry, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘but I shan’t be able to come.’
As I had foreseen, she goggled.
‘What!’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘You poor, miserable hell-hound, what do you mean, you won’t be able to come?’
‘Well, I won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Matters of the most extreme urgency render my presence in the Metropolis imperative.’
She sniffed.
‘I supposed what you really mean is that you’re hanging round some unfortunate girl again?’
I didn’t like the way she put it, but I admit I was stunned by her penetration, if that’s the word I want. I mean the sort of thing detectives have.
Yes, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘you have guessed my secret. I do indeed love.’
‘Who is she?’
‘A Miss Pendlebury. Christian name, Gwladys. She spells it with a “w”.
‘With a “g”, you mean.’
‘With a “w” and a “g”.’
‘Not Gwladys?’
‘That’s it.’
The relative uttered a yowl.
‘You sit there and tell me you haven’t enough sense to steer clear of a girl who calls herself Gwladys? Listen, Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia earnestly, ‘I’m an older woman than you are—well, you know what I mean—and I can tell you a thing or two. And one of them is that no good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn. But particularly Gwladys. What sort of girl is she?’
‘Slightly divine.’
‘She isn’t that female I saw driving you at sixty miles p.h. in the Park the other day. In a red two-seater?’
‘She did drive me in the Park the other day. I thought it rather a hopeful sign. And her Widgeon Seven is red.’
Aunt Dahlia looked relieved.
‘Oh well, then, she’ll probably break your silly fat neck before she can get you to the altar. That’s some consolation. Where did you meet her?’
‘At a party in Chelsea. She’s an artist.’
‘Ye gods!’
‘And swings a jolly fine brush, let me tell you. She’s painted a portrait of me. Jeeves and I hung it up in the flat this morning. I have an idea Jeeves doesn’t like it.’
‘Well, if it’s anything like you I don’t see why he should. An artist! Calls herself Gwladys! And drives a car in the sort of way Segrave would if he were pressed for time.’ She brooded awhile. ‘Well, it’s all very sad, but I can’t see why you won’t come on the yacht.’
I explained.
‘It would be madness to leave the metrop. at this juncture,’ I said. ‘You know what girls are. They forget the absent face. And I’m not at all easy in my mind about a certain cove of the name of Lucius Pim. Apart from the fact that he’s an artist, too, which forms a bond, his hair waves. One must never discount wavy hair, Aunt Dahlia. Moreover, this bloke is one of those strong, masterful men. He treats Gwladys as if she were less than the dust beneath his taxi wheels. He criticizes her hats and says nasty things about her chiaroscuro. For some reason, I’ve often noticed, this always seems to fascinate girls, and it has sometimes occurred to me that, being myself more the parfait gentle knight, if you know what I mean, I am in grave danger of getting the short end. Taking all these things into consideration, then, I cannot breeze off to the Mediterranean, leaving this Pim a clear field. You must see that?’
Aunt Dahlia laughed. Rather a nasty laugh. Scorn in its timbre, or so it seemed to me.
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ she said. You don’t suppose for a moment that Jeeves will sanction the match?’
I was stung.
‘Do you imply, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said—and I can’t remember if I rapped the table with the handle of my fork or not, but I rather think I did—‘that I allow Jeeves to boss me to the extent of stopping me marrying somebody I want to marry?’
‘Well, he stopped you wearing a moustache, didn’t he? And purple socks. And soft-fronted shirts with dress-clothes.’
‘That is a different matter altogether.’
‘Well, I’m prepared to make a small bet with you, Bertie. Jeeves will stop this match.’
‘What absolute rot!’
‘And if he doesn’t like that portrait, he will get rid of it.’
‘I never heard such dashed nonsense in my life.’
‘And, finally, you wretched, pie-faced wambler, he will present you on board my yacht at the appointed hour. I don’t know how he will do it, but you will be there, all complete with yachting-cap and spare pair of socks.’
‘Let us change the subject, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said coldly.
*
Being a good deal stirred up by the attitude of the flesh-and-blood at the luncheon-table, I had to go for a bit of a walk in the Park after leaving, to soothe the nervous system. By about four-thirty the ganglions had ceased to vibrate, and I returned to the flat. Jeeves was in the sitting-room, looking at the portrait.
I felt a trifle embarrassed in the man’s presence, because just before leaving I had informed him of my intention to scratch the yacht-trip, and he had taken it on the chin a bit. You see, he had been looking forward to it rather. From the moment I had accepted the invitation, there had been a sort of nautical glitter in his eye, and I’m not sure I hadn’t heard him trolling Chanties in the kitchen. I think some ancestor of his must have been one of Nelson’s tars or something, for he has always had the urge of the salt sea in his blood. I have noticed him on liners, when we were going to America, striding
the deck with a sailorly roll and giving the distinct impression of being just about to heave the main-brace or splice the binnacle.
So, though I had explained my reasons, taking the man fully into my confidence and concealing nothing, I knew that he was distinctly peeved; and my first act, on entering, was to do the cheery a bit. I joined him in front of the portrait.
‘Looks good, Jeeves, what?’
Yes, sir.’
‘Nothing like a spot of art for brightening the home.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Seems to lend the room a certain—what shall I say—’
‘Yes, sir.’
The responses were all right, but his manner was far from hearty, and I decided to tackle him squarely. I mean, dash it. I mean, I don’t know if you have ever had your portrait painted, but if you have you will understand my feelings. The spectacle of one’s portrait hanging on the wall creates in one a sort of paternal fondness for the thing: and what you demand from the outside public is approval and enthusiasm—not the curling lip, the twitching nostril, and the kind of supercilious look which you see in the eye of a dead mackerel. Especially is this so when the artist is a girl for whom you have conceived sentiments deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you don’t like this spot of art.’
‘Oh, yes, sir.’
‘No. Subterfuge is useless. I can read you like a book. For some reason this spot of art fails to appeal to you. What do you object to about it?’
‘Is not the colour-scheme a trifle bright, sir?’
‘I had not observed it, Jeeves. Anything else?’
‘Well, in my opinion, sir, Miss Pendlebury has given you a somewhat too hungry expression.’
‘Hungry?’
‘A little like that of a dog regarding a distant bone, sir.’
I checked the fellow.
