by John Bowen
There had to be somebody who would get Edward Laverick his lunch on a weekday. He always said he didn’t need lunch, but Daphne and Rosemary would take it in turns to come home at lunch-time, and cook something light. One couldn’t expect an old man to get through from breakfast to supper without even a snack. Yesterday it had been Daphne. Rosemary would have opened up at once about the company’s letter, and about the play. Daphne had waited for her father to speak of it, and he had not done so.
He had not spoken of it, but he had thought of it. All day, alone in the house, shopping, dozing in an armchair, going for his little walk to the park with the dog, he had kept it close, and thought about it. The Forgotten Men. That had been fifty-seven years ago. He had been young then, hopeful and hard-working; he had gone diligently to evening classes, eaten ideas and information, glowed to the encouragement Mr. Lambert had given him. Now he was old, fragile, polite, and not wanting to be a nuisance or a burden to anybody. You look back down the length of fifty-seven years, and you don’t really remember. Oh, he could remember events, and some names. If he concentrated his mind, he could reconstruct faces and the interior of a house and perhaps part of a street. But all that was dead. They were dead faces, dead places; nothing lived. The feeling of being alive that carried you on from day to day, happening to happening, gushing out each morning after sleep and carrying you along in it, all that was dried up, and at seventy-eight you knew only your own slow current. You walked from the bright country, deeper and deeper into the darkening wood, and though you dropped crumbs behind you, the birds came and ate the crumbs, and you could never go back. All changed, changed utterly.
How had they found out about The Forgotten Men, when he himself had forgotten it? What did they want with it? They could not really intend to act it on the television. He wished he had a set, so that he could see how they went on there, those people on the television. Gerald had suggested that the people would want to buy his play. He did not know how much was paid for plays.
Nor, it seemed at supper that night, did Gerald know. Some plays were longer than others, and it depended, Gerald thought, on who you were; it stood to reason that they would have to pay more for Terence Rattigan or someone like that, and nothing at all for Shakespeare. “But I should think Grandy would get two or three hundred,” Gerald said.
“Pounds?”
“Or guineas.”
Rosemary said, “We could get a television for sixty.”
“We could get a stereo.”
“It’s time Grandy had a new overcoat. And you need a new coat, Mummy.”
“You can get a second-hand car for not much more than a hundred, because there isn’t any purchase tax. And a Vespa’s only eighty.”
“We could get new curtains for the lounge. And a carpet.”
“There’s plenty of life in the carpet,” Daphne said.
“It is a bit dinge, Mummy. I mean, we do need new things.”
Edward Laverick, sitting there in silence, sipping his tea, dabbing his sausages with mustard, had thought, Yes, take it. Take it all. Let me give you a carpet, a television set, new curtains and a car. He had no use for money, except to spend it in giving. But … two or three hundred was at once so much and so little. It would soon be eaten up at the rate the twins were going. He thought resentfully that the twins seemed to have forgotten that the money would be his not theirs. They seemed to think that they would have the spending of it, that they would have the pleasure of giving as well as the pleasure of getting, that they would give to each other and to their mother and a new overcoat for him. Unworthy resentment! He would put mustard on it, and eat it, and wash it down with tea. Yet, if he were to be given money by this television company, how pleasant it would be just to have it for a while, before it was all spent. Now, before it ever came to him, before it had been offered, the children had already spent it in imagination. He did want to give it away; of course he did; it was his only reason for wanting money at all. But he had seen clearly at supper yesterday, as the children made their plans, that, once the money was spent, he would have none again, and all would go on as usual.
Now here was Aubrey come, as Edward Laverick supposed, to offer him this money, and had not even said how much it was to be. Edward Laverick did not know that Aubrey had no authority to offer money. That side of affairs was controlled by the company’s Contract Department, with whom Norah Palmer was the link; it was the Contract Department who beat down a writer’s agents or the writer himself, reserving subsidiary rights, attempting to avoid royalty payments, and it was Norah Palmer who told the bargainers of the Contract Department how badly she might want a particular writer or a particular play, by which information their bargaining was conditioned. Aubrey had been instructed only to make sure that this was indeed the Edward Laverick of The Forgotten Men, and to get a copy of the play from him.
“You mean, you haven’t read it?”
“No, we haven’t actually read it. What we’ve been doing is looking for it, really. Of course we want to read it. Very much.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
“No, really, I’ve just had coffee actually. I had it before I came.” But perhaps the old man always drank coffee at ten-thirty in the morning? “Don’t let me stop you from having some though,” Aubrey said. “You go right ahead.” Edward Laverick went into the kitchen, and put the biscuits back into the tin.
Aubrey said, “I expect you’re wondering how we tracked you down.” No reply. Perhaps he should say “sir” to a man of this age; it was polite, he supposed, and there was nothing to be lost by politeness. “We had quite a time looking. I expect you remember some people called Abbot-Hanstead?” No reply. “They ran the Independent Theatre. Funny old couple, but quite sweet really.” Having made the decision, Aubrey discovered that he wasn’t saying anything into which the word “sir” could easily fit. “They told us you’d been in the Civil Service, so we just routed through the Ministries until we found yours. The Min. of Ag., it was actually.” Though Edward Laverick must know this. “They gave us an address in Chesterfield, and after that it was easy. So you see, sir—” triumphantly—“we’ve had quite a paper-chase.”
“You’ve not read the play?”
“Not actually read it, No. We were hoping you could let us have a copy.”
They had not read his play. They could not have seen it, not fifty-seven years ago, when there hadn’t even been the wireless, let alone the television.
“I know what you’re thinking, sir,” Aubrey said, getting into the habit of it. “I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how we found out about it.”
Found out? As if it were some nasty secret! But Daphne thought he had been keeping it secret, and had been hurt that he should have kept it secret from her. Did people not understand that one forgot things?
“Well, as a matter of fact, sir, the way we got on to it was rather interesting. We found a review of it.”
“In the newspaper?”
“Well, no. It was in a sort of weekly magazine. I expect you remember The Saturday Review. Sort of New Statesman kind of thing, only not so wrought-up all the time. Bernard Shaw wrote for it. He went along to see your play for them. Maybe you noticed him in the audience, sir. He’d have a red beard, I expect.” Incomprehension. “Well, I brought a copy of Shaw’s review along with me, in case you’d missed it, actually.” Producing it from his despatch case. “Carry on. I expect you’d like to read it. Don’t mind me.”
Edward Laverick’s reading-glasses were on the mantel. He had never seen a photostat before, and wondered how he could have forgotten that the pages of newspapers in those days were quite so thick. He did not understand all of what Shaw was saying. “What’s this Ibsen?” he said. “He’s got that wrong. It was Mr. Lambert at the Polytechnic got me to write it. I don’t know anybody called Ibsen. I don’t see the television. My grand-daughter goes out to watch it sometimes when there’s a good programme.”
“He was a Norwegian dr
amatist. He’s rather well-thought-of nowadays, as a matter of fact.”
“I never knew any Norwegians. That’s a mistake, that is. We didn’t have any Norwegians at the Literature classes.” He considered, throwing back the long line of memory to catch whatever information might help the young man. “There were classes for foreigners, I think,” he said. “To learn the language. He might have gone to those.”
“Shaw does seem to have thought highly of your play, though, doesn’t he? That’s what started us looking for it.”
Was there to be no money? The young man did not speak of money. They had been to a lot of trouble, they said, searching for him (though Herne Hill was not so far away from the West End of London), yet they had neither seen nor read his play. Edward Laverick would not be the first to speak of money.
“We thought the Independent Theatre people might have a copy, but theirs had been….” It would not be tactful or even very credible to say, “eaten by mice”. “Theirs had been mislaid,” Aubrey said.
“Yes? You’ve not read it, then?”
Old people, Aubrey supposed, could not entertain more than one idea at a time. He said, as simply as he could without being offensive, “We do want to read your play, sir. That’s why I’m here, as a matter of fact. We thought you’d probably have a copy, you see.” And finally, to make all clear, “If you’ll lend us your copy, we’ll read it.”
Not a word about money. Edward Laverick said, “Well, I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”
“You wouldn’t have lost it?” He couldn’t have lost it. Not after Aubrey had taken months of trouble to find him. People who wrote plays were a silly and a neurotic lot on the whole—the ones without talent being more silly and more neurotic than the ones with, as Aubrey knew very well. But what they didn’t do was lose their plays. Nor were they cagey when you asked to read their plays. Usually it was all you could do to stop them reading the plays themselves, aloud, or at least standing over you, savouring the dialogue over your shoulder.
“I’d have to take a look about. I wasn’t living here, you know, not when I wrote that play. I lived with my parents in those days. We were very poor in those days. You wouldn’t remember how it was for people like us in those days.” (Well, you’re not exactly rolling in it now, Aubrey thought, having taken in the biscuit-coloured wallpaper with a freize of fruit, the carpet not even wall-to-wall, and the utility sofa dating from 1948).” A young man in my station of life had to educate himself in those days. He didn’t get the education young people have now. I went to evening classes three nights a week.”
“I did go to your home in Bethnal Green actually, when I was looking for you. It’s been bombed, I’m afraid.”
“Yes…. Well, I left there. I left all that behind me. I moved away after I was married.” They had been to so much trouble to look for him, yet they would not talk of money.
Aubrey said, “But you took your papers and things with you, I expect?”
“Papers?”
“The manuscript of the play.”
“I’d have to look.”
Why couldn’t the old man go and look, then? Aubrey would quite happily wait where he was. It wouldn’t take all morning to find the play. There was a scratching at the kitchen door, and Edward Laverick began to hoist himself out of the sub-G-plan armchair. “I’ll go,” Aubrey said, and opened the door. An old black-and-white spaniel entered the room, growled at Aubrey in passing, and put its head on Edward Laverick’s lap. Edward Laverick said, “He wants his walk, I expect. He’s used to his walk at this time.”
A silence. Edward Laverick said, “It was that play you wanted, then? Just the play?” He had been hiding one fear from Daphne and the twins. There were programmes on the wireless (and so presumably on the television) in which old people were brought on to a stage to be mocked. They were paid for it, to be sure, but very little. Five pounds or so—“Give him the money!” after what must be an eternity of embarrassment. Well, it would be an embarrassment to him, to Edward Laverick, even though the old people themselves often seemed to be enjoying it. Was that the young man’s intention?—to get him up on a stage, and make fun of him for five pounds? Was that why he had not spoken of money, had not even, Edward Laverick had noticed, said that his company wished to perform the play on the television, but only that they wished to read it? Would they make fun of his play, and pay him five pounds? Edward Laverick said, “It was just the play you wanted?”
“To read.”
“If it was…. I wouldn’t have to? …”
“To perform in it?” The presumption! There wasn’t a man, woman or child, not even a pet dog or a budgie that didn’t want to appear on the telly nowadays. And writers were worst of all, because they wouldn’t trust the actors, but wanted to play every part themselves. “I didn’t realize there was a part for an old man, sir. But Equity rules are very strict, I’m afraid. We have to use professional actors. Naturally, we do like our authors to come to rehearsals.”
“Yes….” It had been a foolish fear, and born of self-importance; he saw that. He would humiliate himself by asking the question he had been avoiding. “How much …” but perhaps it was like Mr. Lambert’s people after all, and simply to be performed was payment. “If you do pay anything,” he said.
“I’m afraid I never discuss money, sir. That’s not my department. All we really want to do at the moment is to read the play.”
They wrote you letters, they put you in a position in which you asked for money, and then they behaved as it it were you who had pushed yourself forward, as if you had come to them with your play, and offered it. It was not polite to play with people so. “I’d have to look for that play,” Edward Laverick said. “Things … you get a lot of things when you’ve lived as long as I have.” The spaniel hit his tail on the carpet, rubbed his nose in Edward Laverick’s lap, and made gargling noises at the back of his throat. “Yes, he wants his walk all right,” Edward Laverick said. “I’ll have a look around when I get time.” Things? A lot of things? Most of Edward Laverick’s portables could have been packed into two suitcases. New things were not bought in that house until the old were ready to be thrown out, and Daphne was a great tidier, a great thrower-away of the outworn. “Yes, I’ll have a look around upstairs, and tell you.”
Aubrey felt that he had lost control. “You’ll get in touch with us?” he said. “Shall I ring you tomorrow?”
“You can ring if you want to. My daughter’s a teacher. We had the phone put in.”
“What’s the number?”
“It’s in the hall.”
Aubrey noted the number of the telephone in the hall. “Shall I ring tomorrow morning?” he said. “Perhaps, if you find the script today, you’ll send it to us?”
Edward Laverick said, “Yes, you ring up tomorrow, Mr…. er….” Edward Laverick never had telephone calls any more than letters. He would enjoy receiving one. “I’ll have a look around, and talk to you then.”
*
Daphne was finding it difficult to get to sleep, and this was strange, for usually she slept very well. Usually they would have their supper at six o’clock, and afterwards perhaps Gerald and Rosemary would go out about their separate affairs, but Daphne would stay in with father, marking sums or English or preparing the next day’s lessons or filling in the Ministry of Education’s forms if it were term time, mending or ironing or reading some work of non-fiction if the holidays were in progress. Two hours of sleep before midnight, Daphne would tell you, are worth more than four hours after, so, at ten o’clock, they would have a milky drink, and up Daphne and her father would go to bed, leaving the twins to make their own ways to bed in their own time. And by eleven, Daphne would be sound asleep, to wake at six. But not tonight.
She was not usually a worrying woman; it was better to put worrying thoughts right out of one’s head, and make each decision when one came to it, after considering all that was to be said on every side. In any case, there was no decision for her to make. The matte
r concerned her father; if he were to ask for advice or help, she would give it. He had said very little about his interview that day with the young man from the television, and his manner in speaking had been grumpy. As Daphne understood it, they had not actually asked to buy his play, or mentioned any sum of money, but were to come again, or ring him up. Father had said that they hadn’t even read the play, so it was strange that they should persist in it. The twins had tried to question father at supper, but he had put them off, saying that he didn’t properly understand yet what it was all about. The twins had been disappointed, and had irritated him by continuing to put questions he could not or would not answer. Daphne herself had been forced to close the subject, before tempers should be lost.
One had only to keep patience. Everything cleared itself up in time. There was no reason why she should not sleep, yet she did not.
Children were not perfect; you could not expect it; you were a fool if you did. She, of all people, with her experience, had every reason to know that children were not perfect, just as no child was ever entirely bad, whatever they were saying nowadays in the Sunday papers about spotting criminals at the age of six. She had done her best for Gerald and for Rosemary. She had brought them up sensibly. She had not spoiled them; you could not spoil your own children, if you were a teacher, because you had to give too much love and attention to other people’s children to be able to stifle your own with it. They were not brilliant, but they had done well enough in life so far, and would go on doing so. Their manners were good—better than the average these days—and their accents would pass, and they had, as far as she knew, a healthy attitude to—well, morals and that sort of thing. She could not expect them to be perfect. It was quite natural for young people to be excited at the idea of money, and having one’s name in the papers or on the television. It was natural, but it disturbed Daphne. It was as if they had deceived her for so long into thinking that their own home and the things of her providing were good enough for them, only to discard them immediately at the hope of something better. New things were to be planned for, and the money to buy them had to be earned; it had no business to appear suddenly and make everything else seem shabby. It was greed; she disliked greed; she had not expected the twins to be greedy; they ought to have grown out of that; it was a reflection on her. One read of people who had won vast sums with the Football Pools, and they had not been happy. Such people, Daphne had often heard, had been ruined by wealth. Two or three hundred pounds was not the same thing, but the lesson was there.
