Bachelors Anonymous (15 page)

‘Pickering,’
he said, ‘I believe you’ve got something. She couldn’t get at me in hospital.’

‘Only
on visiting days.’

‘Between
stated hours.’

‘With
nurses coming in and out all the time.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Watch
out for the grapes, of course.’

‘I
don’t get you.’

‘She
will bring you grapes. You don’t want them to lead to anything.’

‘I’ll
tell the doctor my doctor has forbidden them.’

‘Because
you’re subject to appendicitis.’

‘Exactly.
Pickering, you’re a marvel.’

‘Awfully
nice of you to say so.’

‘And do
you know what I’m going to do?’

‘Keep
off the grapes.’

‘That
of course, but in addition I’m going to make a picture of that play of yours.
That’s what I’m going to do. Presence of mind like yours deserves a rich
reward.’

Chapter Eleven

In accents as broken as
those of Mr Llewellyn—on these emotional occasions it is rarely that an accent
escapes unbroken—Joe expressed his gratitude and gratification, and Mr
Llewellyn repeated the statement he had made at their first meeting, that
Cousin
Angela,
while he did not expect it to be great or even colossal, would make
a good picture. It would, he pointed out, not be handicapped, as the play had
been, by having Vera Dalrymple in it. Miss Dalrymple, he said, had dropped
several hints that she was open to consider a Hollywood contract, but, he
added, any time he let loose that sinister menace in the neighbourhood of
Beverly Hills you could write him down as one who needed to have his head
examined.

‘And
now to pack,’ he said.

‘Pack?’
said Joe.

‘A few
necessaries-toothbrush, razor, shaving cream, pyjamas and a couple of Agatha
Christies. I’m off to hospital.’

‘But
you can’t just walk into a hospital. You have to be sent there by a doctor.’

‘Where
did you hear that?’

‘Everybody
knows it.’

‘I
didn’t,’ said Mr Llewellyn discontentedly. ‘Do you mean I won’t be able to get
in till tomorrow? Then I’ll have to go to a hotel for the night. I’m not going
to stay here wondering when Vera Dalrymple will ring that front-door bell. I
wouldn’t sleep a wink.’

‘She
said she wasn’t coming till the day after tomorrow.’

‘Just
her subtle cunning. Lulling me into a false security.’

It was
with mixed feelings that Joe escorted his benefactor to the door. At one moment
the realisation that the waving of Mr Llewellyn’s magic wand was about to place
him in the sound financial position of which he had so often dreamed elated
him; at the next he was cast into the depths by the thought that, however much
money he made from the motion picture sale of
Cousin Angela,
the odds on
his being able to share it with the girl he loved could scarcely be quoted at
better than a hundred to eight. Indeed, taking into consideration her policy of
refusing to speak to him, a shrewd turf accountant would probably make them
even longer.

Sally’s
behaviour bewildered him. He could understand his non-appearance at the dinner
table causing a certain annoyance, but the fact of her not giving him a chance
to explain was beyond his comprehension. It piqued him, too, that such a
splendid explanation should be going to waste. If there is one excuse for
failing to keep a tryst that is beyond the reach of criticism, it is surely
sudden illness.

That
sudden illness perplexed Joe. His health had always been perfect, never more so
than when Mr Trout was handing him the beaker. The reflection that in next to
no time he would be seated opposite Sally in Barribault’s grill room, with the
lights down low and the fiddler of whom Mr Llewellyn disapproved so much
straining at the leash and all ready to give of his best, had sent a shiver
down his spine and filled him with what the French in their peculiar way call
bien
être.
An unfortunate moment to be struck by lightning, as he apparently had
been.

It was
very quiet in the flat, and it was not long before the silence began to prey on
Joe’s nerves. A man whose spirits are as low as his yearns for companionship.
A dog, even a dog like Mrs Bingham’s Percy, might have helped, but 8 Enniston
Gardens contained no dog. In a sudden flash of inspiration Joe thought of Jerry
Nichols.

It was
in not too sanguine a frame of mind that he went to the telephone and dialled
his number. If Jerry had a defect, it was that his attitude towards the other
sex was frivolous. He was not one of the Joe Pickerings, whose hearts when once
bestowed are given for ever. He was one of those volatile young men who take on
a wide field in the way of female society, and was apt to count that day lost
when he did not entertain what he described as a popsy at the evening meal. The
cocktail hour being now imminent, it was more than probable that his time would
be spoken for.

And so
it proved. In answer to Joe’s invitation he was compelled to proclaim himself
unavailable.

‘Sorry,
Joe. I’ve got a date.’

‘Can’t
you put her off?’

‘It
isn’t a her, it’s Father. He likes me to hob-nob with him once in a while, and
tonight happens to be the while it’s a once in.’

‘Oh,
hell.’

‘Why
the dismay? Surely you can do without me for one night. Clench the teeth. It
only needs willpower.’

‘I want
your advice about something.’

‘Oh,
that’s different. I’m always eager to give advice. I’ll tell you what I’ll do.
Father always goes to sleep after feeding owing to plentiful doses of old port
and he dines on the stroke of dusk. I’ll steal away and come and see you.’

Joe
returned to his solitary brooding. He was soon obsessed with the idea that only
through Jerry could his problem be solved. After all, he felt, a man so given
to mingling with popsies must often have come up against a problem similar to
his and would have been taught by experience how to handle it. By the time Mr
Trout arrived Joe’s mental attitude towards Jerry had become that of a disciple
towards a sage or seer.

The
advent of Mr Trout came on him as a surprise. He had not been warned that he
would be calling, and he was not at all sure that he was glad to see him. He
would have welcomed him with more pleasure if there had been in his demeanour a
decent melancholy, for in his current mood the last thing he wanted to see
about him was smiling faces, and a single glance told him that here was
somebody who was sitting on a pink cloud with a rainbow round his shoulder. Mr
Trout had not yet burst into song with a hey-nonny-nonny and a hot-cha-cha, but
when you said that you had said everything.

‘Oh,
hullo,’ he mumbled.

‘Good
evening, good evening, good evening,’ said Mr Trout. He might have been one of
a comedy duo billed as The Sunshine Boys, good dressers on and off. ‘How lovely
the world looks in the gloaming. London becomes a veritable fairyland. One is
reminded of the words of the poet, which I have forgotten at the moment, but
they are very beautiful. Is Llewellyn in?’

‘No, he
went out.’

‘All
for the best. I’m glad. Because I want to talk to you privately, Pickering. In
the cab this afternoon I let fall some observations on the subject of love and
marriage which I now regret.’

‘Oh,
did you?’

‘I did,
though apparently you were not listening. I expressed myself very strongly as
disapproving of them. My views have since become radically altered. I am now
wholeheartedly in their favour. It is love that makes the world go round, I am
now convinced. I remember a song, popular many years ago, entitled “Love me and
the world is mine”. That’s the spirit, Pickering, that’s the spirit. An
admirable sentiment.’

Joe was
looking at him with a wild surmise. Had his diction not been so clear and his
lower limbs so firm, he would, like Mr Llewellyn, have entertained doubts of his
sobriety. As it was, he merely gaped, hoping that footnotes would be supplied
later.

‘Well,
that’s fine,’ he said.

‘“Fine”
is the word, Pickering.’

‘But
you were saying that you had something private to talk to me about.’

‘And I
have, I have indeed. But in order to make my story intelligible to you I shall
have to give an account of my life up to this afternoon. A brief account,’ he
added, seeing Joe wince. ‘Just an outline.’

‘Omitting
childhood, boyhood and college days?’

‘Precisely.
The periods you mention are not of the essence. We move directly to my mature
manhood.’

‘That’s
good.’

‘When I
became a member of Bachelors Anonymous.

‘Alcoholics
Anonymous?.’

‘Bachelors
Anonymous. A little group of men whose aim in life
it is to avoid getting married. We strain every nerve to preserve our celibacy,
and if we hear of a fellow-member weakening, we plead with him to be strong. We
even have a song which we sing on these occasions. “Of all the ills with which
we’re cursed the married state is far the worst”, it begins. I could sing it to
you, if you wish.’

‘Some
other time, do you think?’

‘Any
time that suits you. It’s a catchy little thing.’

‘I’ll
bet.’

‘Lyric
by Johnny Runcible, music by G. J. Flannery.’

Joe
stirred uneasily. Mr Trout had not given any formal promise not to sing, and
there was no knowing when he might not do it. He shrank from having to listen
on an empty stomach. To divert his companion’s attention and prevent this
becoming a musical evening he put a question.

‘Has
all this anything to do with me? It’s all absorbingly interesting, but where do
I come in?’

‘I am
about to tell you. But first I must reveal that I am no longer a member of
Bachelors Anonymous. I cabled my resignation on my way here. I am afraid the
boys will be terribly upset, but I had no option. As I told you, my views have
undergone a radical change. It happened down at Valley Fields this afternoon.
It was there that love found me, Pickering. I met a woman who taught me the
meaning of passion.

Joe’s
bewilderment increased. He could think of but one female resident of Valley
Fields.

‘Not
the woman with the X-ray eyes who talked about fleshly lusts and told me the
Kingdom of Heaven was at hand?’

‘I was
too far off to hear what she told you, and in addition the cabman was telling
me how wet weather always brings on his lumbago. But no, she was not the one.
The divine creature to whom I allude is a Mrs Amelia Bingham who lives next
door.’

Joe
pursed his lips. He was shocked.

‘Mrs?
Trout,’ he said severely, ‘are you breaking up a home?’

‘No,
no, no, no, no.’

‘Are
you a modern Casanova?’

‘Certainly
not. Mrs Bingham is a widow. Her late husband fell overboard on a day excursion
to Boulogne.’

There
was a momentary silence while their thoughts dwelled on Mr Bingham, deceased.

‘She
bakes the most wonderful scones,’ said Mr Trout.

‘Oh?’
said Joe.

‘And
her strawberry jam has to be tasted to be believed.’

‘Oh?’

‘You
will notice that I have a bandage on my hand. Her dog bit me and she bound me
up.’

‘Oh?’

‘With
extraordinary skill. She is a hospital nurse.’

Joe
rose once more to a point of order.

‘All
this may be so, but I don’t see where I get into the act.’

‘I beg
your pardon?’

‘What
has all this got to do with me?’

‘I am
coming to that. I have merely been laying the foundation for my apology. What
we call in the Law connecting up. If I had never met Mrs Bingham and ceased to
be a member of Bachelors Anonymous, I should not have felt compelled to
apologise to you.’

‘What’s
all this about apologising? Apologising for what?’

‘For
putting that Mickey Finn in your highball yesterday.’

In one
of her early novels Rosie M. Banks has a passage in which she described the
reactions of Claude Delamere, the hero, on becoming aware that the girl to whom
he was betrothed had not, as he had supposed, been deceiving him. (It was her
brother from Australia he had seen her kissing.) He felt, she says, as if a
blinding light had flashed upon him. It was much the same with Joe Pickering as
he heard these words. But whereas Claude had been filled with a joy that threatened
to unman him, he was as sore as a sunburned neck and as mad as a hornet. So
intense was his righteous wrath that he could not speak, merely standing there
making a noise like the death rattle of an expiring soda syphon, and Mr Trout
proceeded.