The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  He seemed surprised. ‘You would?’

  ‘Tell me about The Other Judas,’ she asked.

  ‘Well…’ the man looked at her again with a puzzled interest, almost like the dawning of perception.

  ‘It started life as a charity, a family trust actually, but it became more commercially involved: finance, property, building, banking, funds – though there is still a charitable arm. It is run, of course, from the US of A. California, actually.’

  The American on the plane. Marie felt she was on to something here. She was curious to know more.

  ‘What was the original charity?’ she asked. ‘The family trust, you said?’

  Henshaw frowned. All this was slightly outside his area, which was real estate. ‘It was a foreign name…’ he started to say. ‘Wait a minute … You say your name is Marie?’

  But Merriman, who watched the conversation at table like a Wimbledon umpire, now stepped in. ‘Say, Dicky, property building, banking, trust funds – that sounds dangerously like shop. You know the rules. No shop talk at table or you have to drink a sconce.’

  Merriman had discovered the possibilities of ‘sconcing’ from a Professor of Theology at Trinity, Oxford, where the sconces were quart-sized silver bowls or chalices, which sat on each long table. If anyone at dinner in Hall spoke of sex, religion or politics, or the portraits on the wall, the sconce could be called for and filled with beer. The unfortunate defaulter then had to drink the contents in a couple of minutes. It all appealed to Merriman’s well-developed sense of the potentials of humiliation.

  Dicky, for all his suntan, paled. Sconcing was not to be taken lightly, scrubbed you out for much of the evening if not all of it, and there was something about this girl that he wanted to explore – well, two things actually.

  ‘The girl asked me, Sam. You can’t call that a sconceable offence.’

  ‘You were talking shop, Dicky. Don’t try and wriggle out of it. Or do you want her to be sconced too?’

  The idea seemed to appeal to some of the diners. They wanted to see a Merrymaid paralytic with drink – and it wouldn’t be the first time. But others demurred.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ cried Tysoe, who did not wish the Summoner’s Room to be a lonely place that night.

  ‘And mine.’

  ‘And mine.’

  Marie felt quite the mediaeval lady as knights sprang to her support while Madeleine looked daggers at her.

  Merriman now called the table to order. ‘I propose a sconce for Dicky Henshaw. Does anyone want to second that?’

  There was a pause while the men considered their positions. At length, the Professor from Reading raised a hand. He reckoned he was in academe not finance, and Henshaw couldn’t touch him.

  ‘Professor,’ called Merriman, ‘you out for blood too? You wanna second me?’

  ‘I reckon so, pardner,’ said the Professor, in an ugly imitation of a Western, which offended Merriman though he hardly showed it.

  ‘Fill the sconce,’ commanded Merriman, and the butler stepped forward with two pints of foaming ale (it was always at the ready) which he tipped into the chalice.

  Henshaw shot a look of venom at the Professor – bang went Reading’s funding for King Henry’s Chair of Mediaeval History – grasped the silver sconce and managed to down its contents in the desiderated time, before sitting down unsteadily and remaining rather quiet for a while. Marie was relieved. It had seemed to her that Henshaw had been on the verge of putting two and two together. She had learned enough about The Other Judas for the moment. At any rate, that was one awkward invitation for the night that she would not have to find an excuse for. The game show host, Tysoe, however, was still looking at her hungrily. In the quiz game Who’s the Chump? they apparently never took no for an answer. He had turned away momentarily to talk to Margot who was sitting on his other side, and who was in turn next to the Professor.

  Merriman leaned over while Tysoe was otherwise engaged.

  ‘How’s it going, Marie?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘I’m very pleased with you, Marie. You can come to my room later. That’s the Host’s Room. Like he ran the show. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Sure.’ She could sense Madeleine gazing at them anxiously.

  ‘I’ve not read the Chaucer piece,’ he continued, ‘but I understand it’s spoken of well. You didn’t tell me you were into culture. I like that. I really do. I’m going to make you our education person. First thing you do, make me a reading list for my bedside table. Can’t promise I’ll read it but it’ll sure look good.’

  After the salmon came the duckling a l’orange. A pale garnet coloured Clos de Vougeot was dispensed into the second of the Waterfords, and conversation became more and more animated. Trisha from Chelmsford was now rather drunk. The edge of her left nipple had started to peep out of her costume, scuttling in again like a rabbit every time she put her fork down.

  Marie thought, if I wasn’t so depressed, I’d be depressed. This thing is going to go on for hours. I don’t like any of them. The conversation’s ridiculous. The only good thing about it is the food and that’s no good because I can’t enjoy it. I can’t enjoy anything. If I’d been brought up a protestant, I’d kill myself – tonight – in the Pardoner’s, the Summoner’s, the Nun’s Priest’s, the Reeve’s, the Knight’s, the Squire’s, the Manciple’s or even the Host’s Room. But I can’t. I don’t believe in God any more, but I just can’t kill myself.

  The duckling gave way to cheese. Cheese was succeeded by summer pudding and clotted cream. An exquisite Château d’Yquem was served, transmuting the chaste crystal to tones of Silurian resin.

  A Merrymaid called Martha was doing something unseen to the Sheikh which was causing him the utmost entertainment. Trisha’s tit was scampering all over the place as she showed Josh how to work an imaginary pair of castanets. Margot was telling Tysoe a succession of dirty stories much to the distress of Professor Presscott who was being ignored, and Madeleine was telling Mr Merriman how great and good he was – a subject of which he only intermittently seemed to tire.

  Finally, coffee was announced, and they all trooped back to the drawing room. A very old Denis-Mounié Cognac was distributed to some. Others opted for the 1938 Warre port.

  Margot went to the piano and played some Cole Porter songs, singing in a small, high voice. Trisha succeeded her on the Steinway and played chopsticks hideously.

  ‘Come on,’ said a voice in Marie’s ear. ‘You can do better than that, surely?’

  It was Dicky Henshaw again, raised somewhat from the dead. There was something knowing about the man, almost as though he were reading her thoughts. She got up. Madeleine was leading Trisha away, urging moderation.

  ‘But I want to play,’ Trisha was saying. ‘Let me play. I want to play.’

  ‘Mr Merriman says…’

  ‘I don’t care what Mr Merriman says.’

  ‘You’ll be playing another tune tomorrow.’

  Marie sat down at the piano. There was something very soothing about the piano and the touch of its cool white keys. She hadn’t played for years but she remembered a tune that Miss McKenzie, who had taught her up to Grade 5, used to make her play because of the B flat key. She tried a few chords and then started to sing:

  ‘A North country maid

  Up to London and strayed,

  Although with her nature it did not agree.

  And she wept and she cried and bitterly she sighed.

  And she wished once again in the North she could be.

  O the oak and the ash and bonny ivy tree,

  They flourish at home in the North Country.’

  There was a moment’s silence when she stopped, and then they started to clap.

  ‘Bravo,’ shouted Dicky Henshaw.

  ‘I like it, I like it,’ bellowed Mr Merriman.

  ‘Can I play now? Why can’t I play now?’ shrieked Trisha.

  Mari
e thought of something else: a song from The Yeoman of the Guard that Nanny used to like. And what was the song called? She knew it was appropriate in some way. She could sing it now. Was it ‘Strange Adventure’? That was another song, though appropriate in its way. It was called … yes … ‘A Merryman and his Maid’. What could be better? It was a duet – Nanny used to sing it with her – but she’d have to do the best she could.

  ‘A Merryman and his Maid,’ she announced.

  Everybody fell about.

  ‘A cabaret,’ they cried. ‘I like it.’

  Mr Merriman was convulsed, almost speechless, with surprise and pleasure.

  ‘I have a song to sing-o,’ she started.

  ‘Sing me your song-o,’ another voiced chimed in. She recognised its owner as Bruce Kahn, the stock exchange guru she had seen at the end of the table. It was nightmarish to sing these nursery songs in this awful place.

  ‘It’s the song of a Merrymaid nobly born

  Who held up her noble nose in scorn,

  At the song of a Merryman moping mum

  Whose heart was full and whose mouth was dumb,

  Who sipped no sup and who craved no crumb

  And who sighed for the love of a lady.’

  ‘Hey-dee, lady…’ Kahn joined in where Nanny used to,

  ‘Misery me, lack-a-day-dee,

  He sipped no sup and craved no crumb

  But who sighed for the love of a lady.’

  Mr Merriman sat gasping like a stranded haddock before he could find his voice. ‘Why did nobody sing me that before? You guys should’ve told me,’ he turned on Madeleine.

  ‘We didn’t know it, Mr Merriman,’ she confessed.

  ‘It’s Gilbert & Sullivan,’ said Marie. ‘We used to sing it at school.’

  ‘We didn’t know it,’ repeated Madeleine, almost in tears at her dereliction.

  ‘Not know it. Not know what’s going to be our Merrymaid anthem. Why, goddammit, that’s just terrific. Get the agency to rewrite that moping mum bit – I never hired a moping mum in my life – but the rest will do just fine. Who is this Gilbert Sullivan jerk?’

  ‘I’ll get it sent up from Town tomorrow, Mr Merriman.’

  ‘You do that.’ He turned to Marie. ‘Hey, kid, that was great. You write that down for me sometime, huh?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Hear that? Oh, right. Hear that, Lord Ettenwater? English style.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Lord Ettenwater, an ageing sex-obsessive of impeccable lineage. On the pretext of congratulating her on her style, he happened to mention that he was sleeping in the Nun’s Room.

  Later, they all had to play sardines. Marie got into a broom cupboard she could have sworn was empty, only to find it full of Bruce Kahn.

  ‘Well, well, well. Two songbirds in the nest,’ he said, catching at her bosoms as though they were a bull market, and knocking the points he had scored with ‘The Yeoman of the Guard’ right off his rights issue.

  She managed to put a hoover between herself and the financial guru, and started fending him off with a dustpan. It was sheer instinct. She didn’t really care whether she fended him off or they fucked against a squeezed-mop, two brooms and some floor-polisher. It was all one to her.

  ‘Ow. Silly little bitch,’ he said. ‘Come here. I can make you rich.’

  ‘I am rich,’ she said, and immediately regretted it.

  He lowered his hands. ‘Well, well, well. I wonder who you are and what you’re doing here. Rich girls don’t come here unless they’re very weird. Like to come and tell me about it. I’m in the Wife of Bath Room. Not the wife of bathroom, you understand. The Wife of Bath Room. Subtle difference. It has a bathroom, of course. The Wife of Bath bathroom.’

  He was clearly rather drunk.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said instinctively, ‘I’m having my period.’

  ‘Oh fuck off,’ said the financial guru.

  It was an accurate forecast as far as he was concerned..

  However, it was not an excuse she could field the next weekend, for it was reported to Mr Merriman and Madeleine kept notes on these things.

  Marie stayed with the Merrymaid Organisation for three more weeks and then decided that was enough.

  ***

  In those days, abortions were still hard to come by unless you had a doctor’s certificate, and Marie didn’t even have a doctor. The day after the party, she had asked Margot what she should do.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Margot. ‘That’s tough. Merriman will have a seizure. He hates girls getting pregnant. It’s bad for his image. Sex is good clean fun. It’s not for procreation.’

  ‘I was pregnant when I joined,’ said Marie.

  ‘That’s against the rules too.’

  ‘I’m not worried about Merriman. I’m leaving anyway.’

  ‘That’ll give him a cardiac. You’re his little star,’ said Margot.

  ‘I don’t want to be anyone’s little star. Not even Merriman’s. I’m not star material.’

  ‘That’s what you think. Still, if you want out, I don’t blame you. He’ll lay into poor old Madeleine for bad recruiting.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marie.

  ‘I’m not. What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll have the abortion and then I’ll think of something.’

  ‘I thought you were a Catholic.’

  ‘I was a Catholic.’

  Margot jotted something down on a scrap of paper and passed it to her. ‘You could try this place. I don’t guarantee anything,’ she went on. ‘The guy I knew might have moved on. He was all right. It could be someone else now.’

  ‘You had an abortion?’ Marie asked.

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Two as a matter of fact.’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘You feel bad afterwards. I did, anyway. Bad in the head, you know, depressed.’

  ‘I know.’

  ***

  Marie simply climbed out of a downstairs window at Pilgrim’s Piece with her suitcase early one morning, walked two miles to the station and caught the early train to London. She bought a newspaper, made a cup of coffee last for two hours in a café and went to the address Margot had given her. It was a grim-looking house in an old terrace near King’s Cross. She knocked at the door and after some time it was opened by an Asian woman in a dirty white apron.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Dr Janes?’

  ‘He not live here now. What you want?’

  ‘I want Dr Janes.’

  ‘He not live here now. What you want?’

  The conversation was becoming circular. Marie tried a new tack. ‘I wanted to see him about a baby.’

  ‘You want baby?’

  Marie got the feeling that, with the instinct of a true trader, the woman would negotiate anything.

  ‘I don’t want a baby.’

  ‘Ah. Then you come to right place. Please to step inside.’

  Marie hesitated but she had screwed up her courage. Catholic or no Catholic, she felt she had to go through with it.

  The hall smelt vaguely of curry and disinfectant.

  ‘Sit in waiting room, please. Doctor will see you soon.’

  She waited half an hour in the dingy partitioning of what had once been a classic rectangular Georgian drawing room. The walls were peeling, the net curtains yellowing and the reading matter two years out of date – sold no doubt as a job lot to Dr Janes. She was just about to get up and walk out when the Asian woman re-entered.

  ‘Doctor will see you now.’

  She was ushered up the stairs to a room where a small Asian man crouched behind a desk. This seemed strange until she realised he was tying his shoelace up. Upon seeing her, he straightened himself and smiled expansively.

  ‘Come in, come in. I am Dr Patel. Push off, you old cow.’ This last was addressed to the woman who seemed to want to linger. She shut the door behind her and Dr Patel pointed to a chair.

  ‘Sit down, please. Now, what can I do for you?’

 
; ‘I’m enquiring about an abortion.’

  ‘Abortion, abortion. Let me see. That will be one hundred pounds. Cash on the button.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Marie.

  ‘I should like to see it, please. In cash. We have some terrible disappointment. Terrible.’

  ‘I will bring it with me,’ said Marie, thinking it might be wise not to lay the money out on the desk just yet.

  ‘As you wish. But no song, no supper. That is house rules.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Now I should like to examine you. Take off your clothes and lie on the couch.’

  Dr Patel did not bother to turn his back while she slipped off her dress, rolled down her tights and took off her bra.

  ‘Yes, yes. Nickies too,’ he flapped at her panties.

  She stood there holding her hands in front of her wondering what on earth she was doing, but Dr Patel had no such doubts.

  ‘Onto the couch, please. Knees up.’

  Marie lay there, exposing her most secret places – those which the cream of international society had so coveted – to this seedy little man who burrowed about like a mongoose. All she saw of him was a greasy scalp revealed by thinning hair.

  Finally, he put some kind of oil on a pair of rubber gloves – she hoped to God they were new; he certainly hadn’t washed his hands – and reached up into her so sharply it made her gasp.