The Life Situation

by Rosemary Friedman

  He arrived at the library at a quarter to three and stood in the vestibule in the way, of the people of every age and colour coming and going with books and looked vaguely about him wondering how he would identify Kate Smith (Miss). His mouth was decidedly dry.

  “Mr John?”

  “Yes.”

  “I recognize you from the photo on your book jackets.”

  The photo had been taken some fifteen years ago. It cheered him up. She was small and kind-looking.

  “We’re so pleased you could come. Everybody’s looking forward to it immensely. We don’t get a very large audience, thirty-five to forty usually, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in enthusiasm. Shall I lead the way?”

  He followed her. In a smallish room his audience, mainly elderly some in wheelchairs waited expectantly. Some of them had books in string bags on their laps or on the floor by their chairs. There were one or two petalled summer hats. They might have been any normal gathering. He didn’t know what it was he had been expecting; legs in splints, bandaged heads, stupid really. He took his place behind the table at the far end of the room. There was a chair, on which he sat, and the usual glass of water. Kate Smith, who had been following him, stood by his side. It was exactly three o’clock.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” she said not changing the inflecton of her voice “we are extremely lucky…”

  “Can’t hear!”

  She looked at the elderly lady with a hand cupped to her ear.

  “You really should be at the front Miss Osborne…” She left the table and with the help of a young girl who had been standing at the back she moved an unoccupied armchair to the front row. Together they raised Miss Osborne from her seat and helped her swivel along on her two sticks to the new place. With expertise they took an arm each and lowered her into the chair. “Tell him to speak up,” Miss Osborne said. “I’ve read all his books.”

  Oscar smiled at her. Next to her he noticed a middle-aged woman with close-cropped hair in a print summmer dress. He thought she was nodding off to sleep then realized, as she turned as best she could to Miss Osborne, that she was unable to raise her head from its horizontal position. How frightful to spend one’s life staring at the floor.

  “Should have sat in the front in the first place,” she said to Miss Osborne. “You know you can never hear!”

  “Sorry about that,” Kate Smith said, quite unruffled. “Can everybody hear now? Quite comfortable? Well then. As I was saying we are extremely lucky in having here with us this afternoon the famous author Oscar John who has given up his most valuable time to tell us a little about his work. I must tell Mr John that everyone here is a keen reader and most probably have read all your very popular books. I know I speak for everyone when I say what a very great honour it is for us all to welcome such a famous person as yourself to our small gathering. Our members may not be very large, I’m sure you appreciate the transport problems involved in getting everyone here, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in interest and enthusiasm. I won’t keep you from Mr John any longer but I’m sure that he would be interested to know that some of you try your hand at writing yourselves and are therefore especially keen to hear from our celebrity. If everyone’s quite settled now I should like to introduce Mr Oscar John.”

  Those who were able, clapped, some of them, he noticed, with only one hand, on their laps or the side of the chair.

  He stood up. Kate Smith had produced such an easy atmosphere of informality that he felt rather absurd with his thirty pages of typescript. Trying to make his voice as chatty as possible to make up for the fact that he was reading his notes he said how happy he was to be there this afternoon in a building filled with books, talking about books, to an audience who was interested in books. That was the little run-in he had added to his statutory talk especially for the occasion. He always did that so every audience would imagine he had written the address especially for them. Having got that off his chest he launched into the main body of the talk. He told them about authors and their lives (usually not one bit as interesting as one imagined), about the actual mechanics of writing, about where he got his ideas. He answered the unspoken questions ‘did he put real people into his books’ and ‘which author or authors had influenced him most.’

  He told them a little about publishing; that authors, apart from five free copies, had to buy their own books like anyone else; that his life was not a gay round of literary parties. He told them that it was hard work, a job like any other and the rewards not as great as many people imagined. He spoke of the writer’s awareness that he was not doing anything that was worthwhile but that if he was able to assuage his conscience he could accept the fact that he was, after all, perhaps the only ‘free’ man. His own sins and follies, life’s hardships and disappointments, unhappiness, illness, grief, humiliation, everything could be transformed into material and by writing about it could be overcome. To the writer, everything was grist to the mill, from the glimpse of a face in the street, to a war, from the scent of a rose to the death of an acquaintance. Nothing happened that at some time could not be transformed into a scene or a chapter. To the true writer life could be neither shocking nor boring.

  He told them a little about his own books and how the Death series had come to be written. When he had finished he invited questions which he assured them would be answered to the best of his ability.

  He sat down to a positive thunderclap of applause.

  “Fascinating!” a voice from the back said. “Makes you want to hear more.”

  Kate Smith stood up. “Please don’t be shy about questions. Miss Ampleforth, you have literary connections, I’m sure there must be something you would like to ask Mr John.”

  His admiration for Kate Smith grew. Without the slightest hint of do-goodism or bossiness she looked after her little flock and drew them out to reach their full potential.

  Miss Ampleforth of the horizontal head from her front-row seat, told him of her family associations with Galsworthy and that she spent her spare time writing short stories. Did he have any advice about the best place to send them?

  Her body was a wreck but there was nothing wrong with her mind. He told her about the writer’s bible the Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book which would give all the information she required. He could not see her face but her gratitude was in the voice. Kate Smith made a note and said that she would make sure Miss Ampleforth had a copy of the reference book he had suggested.

  An elderly man, limbs in perpetual motion from the tremors of Parkinsonism, said what a thrilling afternoon it had been and when was the next book coming out. He hadn’t missed one yet and reading them quite transported him, taking his mind off everything else.

  A lady with pebble glasses said that unfortunately she could no longer see to read but had he thought of putting his novels into the ‘talking book’ machine? They gave her such great pleasure and there never seemed to be enough that was really interesting.

  The questions followed each other eagerly until it was five to four and Kate Smith said she was sorry to interrupt but she knew they all wanted tea before the drivers arrived with the transport. It only remained for her to thank Mr John once again for sacrificing his afternoon to give them such great pleasure and that she was sure he must see from the number of questions how interested they had all been to meet him and how very, very much they had all enjoyed it.

  More clapping. He felt a heel. Because he so nearly hadn’t come. Because so little effort from him had given so much obvious pleasure. For being sound of both body and of mind.

  As on all these occasions he got the first cup of tea which generally, particularly when it was an audience of ‘hat’ ladies, did wonders for his self esteem. Today he accepted it humbly and with it the fairy cake sprinkled with ‘hundreds and thousands’ and baked with love.

  He felt isolated at the top. Generally his audience swarmed round him at this moment, asking more questions seeking free advice for their daughters who wanted to
go into journalism, confiding to him their own attempts at writing asking him to autograph one of his books ‘for the children,’ never of course for themselves, seeking to sun themselves in the aura of his success. Today his audience was of course static. On an impulse he stood up, put the fairy cake in his saucer and went to meet them.

  He drew up a chair by a little group by the window.

  “We do enjoy Miss Smith’s teas,” a lady with grotesquely gnarled hands said. “And I must say how nice it was to hear you, Mr John.” She indicated the string bag at her feet in which were some dozen books. “I read such a lot you see because I can’t sleep after about four in the morning and time hangs very heavy.”

  “How long will it take you to get through that lot?” Oscar said.

  She looked surprised. “Next week. We come once a week to change our books. That is if we can. My friend, we share a room, was bitterly disappointed. She wanted to come this afternoon but they made her hospital appointment for 2.30 and there’s nothing you can do. Then sometimes the drivers don’t turn up or the weather’s bad, some of us aren’t too good on our feet, and it’s very disappointing indeed but Miss Smith’s very good and she brings the books to us only sometimes we’ve read them, it’s difficult for her, I don’t like these new ones with no plots…”

  “Stream of consciousness,” a brown suited middle-aged man said from his wheelchair.

  “…yes. They just go on and on but nothing ever happens.”

  He could see they had enough of nothing ever happening.

  “What I like,” brown suit said, “is the way you set them all in different places. I’ve travelled a fair bit, army you know, lieutenant-colonel, and it brings it all back. Everything’s changed of course. I particularly like that one set in Bellagio, in that hotel right on the lake and the fellow Conran, or was it Cunningham?”

  “Cunningham.”

  “Rows over to Menaggio in the middle of the night to get a message to Olivetti… Death in Como wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right.” Oscar was amazed. They not only read his books but remembered.

  “Tell us what the next one’s to be,” Miss Ampleforth called.

  He broke his golden rule. “Death on the Riviera.”

  “How exciting. We could do with a bit of sunshine.”

  “I remember Monte Carlo, before the war of course…”

  “We always used to stop at a little place in the Esterels…”

  “I believe they’ve pulled the Negresco down, or was it the Ruhl, my son told me, and built a horrid block of flats. But then they’re doing that everywhere. There was nothing like dining at the Negresco…”

  “Prefer a whelk in the Old Kent Road,” one elderly gentleman said. “Or a jellied eel. Wonder if they still have jellied eels. I remember…”

  The door opened and two men in uniform and peaked caps with rugs over their arms looked round the room.

  “Miss Allen and Colonel Mathews…” one of the men said, making for the wheelchairs.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kate Smith said, “but it is 4.30. The afternoon’s gone so quickly.”

  Those who were able made room for the wheelchairs; others gathered up their books, their crutches and their sticks.

  Oscar stood up and Kate Smith took his cup. “I’d better be going.” He said goodbye to the eager faces around him and grasped as many hands as he was able.

  “Thank you for having me,” he said.

  Kate Smith walked to the top of the library steps with him.

  “I don’t need to tell you what a success it was.”

  He tried to look modest.

  “And particularly chatting to everyone like that. It really made their day; we shall be sending you a small cheque in the post…”

  He wanted to say oh no, but couldn’t find the words and the moment, to his horror, passed. He felt that he should be paying them. He could always give it to some charity.

  “…really do appreciate it.” She was holding out her hand. “I’ll say goodbye and thank you once again. I have to go and get some books for the people who didn’t have time before your talk.”

  He watched her disappear purposefully and wondered where society would be without its Kate Smiths.

  “How did it go?” Karen asked.

  “As always.”

  “I knew it would. You get so worried about these things. You have no faith in yourself. You don’t realize how terribly good you are.”

  “I never fail to be surprised at how interested people are in what I have to say.”

  “They’re fascinated. God if I had your ability to write! I may have a degree in English but I never have been able to write; not with any insight or imagination.”

  “I have insight and imagination?”

  “So much.”

  “What’s the use if one’s a hopeless failure with it.”

  “People would give their eye teeth to be able to write.”

  “I would give my eye teeth to be able to do anything but.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’ve always fancied myself as a business tycoon.”

  “Risky. One minute they’re up, the next bankrupt. Can’t see the point.”

  “You would not need to stand there scraping new potatoes.”

  “I like scraping new potatoes. There is pleasure in it.”

  “You lie in your teeth.”

  “No.”

  “We could have a decent house.”

  “We have a house.”

  “Furnished by Frank Partridge; or Mallets.”

  The scraping stopped. “What do you know of Frank Partridge? Or Mallets?”

  He would have to be careful.

  “This character in Death on the Riviera. He practically lives in Bond Street, when he isn’t in France; research.”

  The books always came in useful.

  “We could stay at the Colombe d’Or. For four weeks not two. Rosy and Daisy would like that.”

  “They’d hate it.”

  “Our own villa then.”

  “Too much trouble. I shall be happy with the Chardon Bleu.”

  He wished he could share her enthusiasm. A friend of hers had recommended the auberge at Ste Maxime. It had a rosette for cooking. Two whole weeks without Marie-Céleste.

  “Sara says it’s out of this world. The food I mean. The patron bursts into tears if you leave anything; takes it as a personal affront.”

  “A yacht.”

  “I get sea-sick in Regent’s Park. When will you get it into your thick head that I’m perfectly happy as we are. Compared with most people I know we have a more than satisfactory life; stimulating, enough money to do all the things we really want to do, nice kids, each other…”

  “A dismal failure!”

  “Is that what they said at the Disabled Club?”

  “They thought I was wonderful. I thought it myself for half an hour or so.”

  “I can never get it through to you, can I?”

  “Don’t know why you bother to try. Dr Adler hasn’t had much success.”

  “What is it you want? You really want?”

  “Do you think I know? You know what it did for me this afternoon?”

  She shook her head.

  “Made me want to finish the book. When you physically see people wanting to read it, waiting to read it, it makes it seem more real. Not just a load of crap you churn out every day for some mixed up reason of your own but to provide a few hours of pleasure for someone. Particularly those people today. Almost all they can do is read. So I suppose I am doing something.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Worthwhile I mean.”

  “If I had one half of your talent…”

  She had always supported him as far as the writing was concerned. Always supported him in everything for that matter. Particularly through the depression. That must have been hard; really hard, day after day with no let up, all that moaning and hopelessness and self-recrimination. Without Kar
en he would never have pulled through. That, or anything. He wanted to tell her about Marie-Céleste. Surely she would understand, support him. The three of them could be in it together, amicably. The temptation was great. He watched her.

  “Marie-Céleste came today,” Karen said, rinsing the potatoes under the mixer tap. “To see Boyd.”

  The old telepathy.

  “The baby’s expected in August…”

  September.

  “Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?”

  “Boy.” It has to be a boy.

  “She asked after you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you were working hard, too hard, on the book. That you needed a holiday. She sent her love.”

  “Anything else?” He waited for another crumb.

  Karen shook her head. “She looked fabulous, of course.”

  He tried to picture the two of them in the vast, impersonal waiting-room of Boyd’s house in Devonshire Place. Karen liked Marie-Céleste. He decided to tell her everything.

  She was taking a brown paper bag from her shopping basket. “I’ll like the summer. It makes life so much easier; you could feed Rosy cherries for ever and ever, I don’t think she’d ever get tired of them.” She tipped them, all shades of red, into a colander. The moment had passed.

  “What’s that about me?” Rosy said, coming in in shorts that were too short “…ooh cherries! Good-oh.”

  “There’ll be none left for dinner!”

  “Mandy Missenden brought a pound to school; from Fortnum’s. They were enormous.”

  “Mandy Missenden is heir to every office block within spitting distance of Fortnum’s.”

  “She’s going to bring me a nectarine tomorrow. I let her copy my tessellations.”

  She had papers in her hand. It wasn’t maths.