Seagulls in My Soup (14 page)

Enjoyment: “It takes a good, clean mind to know how to enjoy the bright and worthwhile things in life?”

Happiness: “It has been said, my dear Cecilia, that the moment when one realizes true happiness is when one distinguishes the idea of felicity from that of wealth. But I think that can hardly be true—consider Prince Elmyr, for example?”

Heroism (this after Sissie had spent a good ten minutes telling Willie how
awf'ly,
terrific'ly
brave
I was): “Well, of course, Cecilia, the only thing that gives bravery and heroism—I mean the physical sorts—any kind of meaning, is
death.
”

This cheered me up no end, as you may imagine.

But even the best of days draw to their ends, and by three in the afternoon Willie and Sissie, both rather exhausted and a lot quieter now, returned onboard. I started my mortal enemy, the banging Iscariot below; it clattered away at my first hate-filled, sweaty exertion, and
Cresswell
, like a scorned woman, her hull tense and furious, slunk back to the old hulk's berth. As she slid in gently alongside the ancient
Rosalinda,
the hoary schooner seemed to tremble. The slight bump we gave her made the broken wires hanging from her rotting gaff jiggle and dance, as if the old girl was pleased that her little friend had returned to keep her company once more during the long nights of wistfulness over glorious days never to return.

Except for Willie's voice, though,
Cresswell
was silent, with her sails lashed and all her loose gear stowed by Sissie. Willie, now with his sports outfit re-donned, stuck out a fluttering flounder at me. “Thanks for a wonderful outing, old chap?”

“Pleasure. Sorry about the wind.”

“Oh, think nothing of it. Can't expect everything, can we, and your company's been marvelous?”

“Thanks, Willie.” I turned to check the mooring lines.

“
Deah,
dahling Willie,” Sissie murmured behind me. It was like a litany in church, with Sissie intoning the replies.

“Yes, I say, do come along with Sissie and me for dinner tonight. Perhaps we can have a drink or two afterward?”

“Glad to.” (Never turn down comestibles or booze.)

So went the only time I ever sailed with a clergyman.

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,

We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,

And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.

God help us! For we knew the worst too young!

Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,

Our pride is to know no spur of pride,

And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us

And we die, and none can tell them where we died.

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,

Baa! Baa! Baa!

We're little black sheep who've gone astray,

Baa-aa-aa!

Gentlemen rankers out on a spree,

Damned from here to Eternity,

God ha' mercy on such as we,

Baa! Yah! Bah!

“Gentlemen Rankers” (last verse)

—Rudyard Kipling.

The Whiffenpoofs of Yale University changed the words to this poem and put them to music.

By six o'clock in the evening Sissie was again bright and effulgent in her rose-bedecked white frock and wide-brimmed hat. I had changed into my corduroys and a clean tee-shirt—the only one onboard, as it happened. It was dusk, and time for mutual admiration.

“Deah, dahling Tristan,
mai,
how perfectly,
eb
solutely adorable you look!” Sissie gushed at me, fishing for praise herself.

“And you look like a . . . a
coronation!
” said I. That got Sissie so flustered that she could just about stop her handbag from sliding over the side into the mucky old-wreck berth as she heaved
Cresswell
's stern line. In some miraculous way she had done one of those things that women do with their hair, so that instead of looking like the frayed ends of a live 10,000-volt electric cable it shone aureate, a golden glow around her blue eyes, like sunset in a rose bower. Her new high-heeled white shoes made me again wonder at what marvelous solutions of engineering stresses are to be observed in women's feet. As Sissie grabbed onto the mizzen topping lift and tensed to jump to the jetty, I had a vision of the Eiffel Tower balanced upside down on its television mast. I swiftly concluded that there must be some sort of levitation involved; surely those slender, delicate heels could never, on their own, support a whole 170-pound English games-mistress? This was obviously the question that the small, dark fishermen were asking themselves as they crowded to the door of the bodega opposite the old-hulks' berth, and jammed themselves, stretching, straining, and craning in wide-eyed Latin wonder, to watch as this vision of blue-eyed pulchritude flashed by them, chatting away to me, like a full-rigged sailing ship sending semaphore signals by the dozen, and smelling of something that brought to mind the offshore breeze from Antibes.

Willie was waiting for us, his face a beaming, rutilant red, in the Hotel Montesol foyer. “Cecilia, my dear?!” His roar made the counter staff—a man of about ninety and a boy of about thirteen—jump almost to the ceiling. It was as if General Franco himself had just marched into the hotel. They sprang as much to attention as they could; then, recovering their wits, pressed just about every bell within reach, so that in seconds we were surrounded by a hovering flock of penguin-suited waiters, all staring at Sissie in her finery.

The bishop had undergone yet another transformation. Now he was resplendent in a white confection, worn over a light blue shirt and round collar.

“
Deah,
dahling Willie! How
terribly
naice to
see
you again!”

It was as if the pair had just returned from the ends of the earth; she from the back reaches of the Kalahari desert, he from a mission through the Canadian arctic. You would never have dreamed that they had, only three hours before, been swimming out in the bay. I stared in wonder, and with a touch of sadness. Now, in the midst of this Continental display, I knew that the British Empire was finally finished.

Willie turned to me, his pate gleaming under the foyer chandelier. “And Tristan?” He clapped one ecclesiastically benign flounder on my shoulder and, taking Sissie by her chubby elbow, led us gently but surprisingly firmly into the hotel dining room. There, at a snowy white table gleaming with china and silverware, the bishop did us proud. There was no waiting for service with Willie's voice around. He had only to mention the weather and right away three waiters and the wine-server were around us, as if they had been suspended on wires, awaiting the commands of
“su honra, el obispo,”
his honor the bishop.

It was obvious that the dining room staff cared not one whit that Willie was Anglican; he could have been a Catholic, a Methodist, a Seventh Day Adventist, a California prelate of the Mother Church, or even a Buddhist—he wore a round collar, and that was enough. The word had obviously been passed to the kitchen and wine cellar, for the food and drink were superlative and the after-dinner brandy excellent.

When we stepped out into the street our stomachs were replete with good food and wine, and our ears with Willie's maxims: “One forgets how unsophisticated, how . . . indeed, how crude life remains outside the universities? Talk of television shows, cinema shows, the latest gadgets, sport; everyday anecdotes, what occurred at the office that day—that type of thing? No real talk at all? One is amazed that life goes on at all? People not caring much for anything that really matters at all?”

As we wended our way through the narrow streets Willie's voice reverberated from the whitewashed walls of the little shops and made the raffia hats and mats hanging outside shiver and shake. As we passed the Ibizan families out for their evening constitutionals, or to display their offspring (of which there were plenty), the women turned their eyes, wondering, toward Willie, but didn't move their heads under their black shawls. All the men, of course, were too busy gazing at Sissie to be bothered by the booming chant.

Willie was now holding forth on the subject of Children. “To children, childhood holds no particularly striking advantage? Their wants and desires are eternal, and they never seem to yield to the passing of time?”

“We'll go to the George and Dragon,” I murmured to Sissie.

“ . . . A child's life is full of tedious questionings—Where have you been? What makes this work? How is it made? The only answer, of course, is another question—Why do you want to know?” The bishop was in full swing.

Sissie gave me a questioning look.

“The terrible thing about childhood,” the bishop droned, “is that we were taught that we ought to admire people who are good, when all we cared about was whether they were kind?”

“It's an English-style pub,” I hissed at Sissie, “up toward the town quay. It's run by two London blokes—brothers. I was in there the other day. They've got Watney's beer and Bass ales.” So runs an exiled sailor's mind.

“ . . . To talk to a child, to really fascinate him, to hold all his attention, is much more difficult than holding a whole congregation with a sermon, but it's also much more rewarding, I feel?”

“Oh, my
deah
Tristan, how jolly
splendid
of you to think of finding an English place for
deah
Willie and me!” Sissie squeezed my arm like a nutcracker crushing a shell.

“It has been said that to enter heaven one must become as a little child?” Willie chanted.

I decided to converse. “I should think that to enjoy any heaven yet invented it would be best to remain a child.”

But
deah
Willie was not biting. He thundered on. “When a child is good I do not love him because he is good, but because he is a child?”

“Oh, deah,
dahling
Willie.” This, of course, from Sissie.

“But children know when they're being patronized,” I said, as we reached the steps leading down into the George and Dragon. “They know, and they go straight and immediately on the defensive against you, against anyone who treats them as strange beings—against someone who loves them simply because they are children.”

My dander was up now, fortified by the strong odor of Bass ale slops rising up the steps. “It's a sort of insulting discrimination to treat young people as if they were a different sort of animal. Children are people!”

I raised my voice above the wailing of some California song by the Mamas and Papas. It occurred to me in a flash that it was highly appropriate that young adults—practically children—should name their group of childishly whining voices after the soppy pseudonym of parental authority.
“Children are people!”
I repeated loudly just as the music stopped.

For a blessed moment there was a golden silence in the dimly lit, tiny, crowded bar. Then a throaty voice from a dark corner shouted, loudly and drunkenly, “Children should be seen . . . and fuckinwell
exterminated!
”

As the music recommenced I made my way to the bar and peered into the dark corner whence had been hurled the harsh remark. A blond lady who sat at a barstool called over her shoulder in a low, ripe, fruity English voice, “Take no notice, darling—it's only Steel. He doesn't really mean it. He's had one too many, that's all.”

The lady turned her head toward me. She was ancient. I don't mean elderly, I mean
ancient.
From behind, a quick glance at the shapeliness of her back and her hair had given me the impression that she might be thirty or so. When she turned I saw immediately, even in the dim light, that she was at least eighty. I discovered later that she was in fact eighty-nine. Her face was heavily made up, with flat white powder liberally patted over her wrinkles, and gleaming red lipstick. Her eyes, under drooping lids, were dark blue, and looked straight into mine.

I decided it was a good, honest face. I smiled at it. It cracked. The cigarette dangling from her lips lowered its angle and sent smoke up into her eyes, so she shut them momentarily as she continued. “Steel's a writer, and you know how
they
are.” She lowered her head and flicked cigarette ash from the sequined bag lying on her lap.

I grinned again and said, “Yes, of course. Not to worry, love.”

I peered again into the corner. Sitting there was a stocky man with a large, leonine head covered with dark curls, which fell around his ears. His face was heavy and his jowls fell from each side of his nose, which had a rounded Jewish cast. At first, as I stared at him, he was slouched with his chin down into the collar of his Astrakhan overcoat. His eyes were shut. Then one eye opened. It gleamed back at me, a mischievous button. The other eye opened. A generous, sensitive mouth grinned, and the first eye winked at me. I laughed silently and winked back. At least he had shut up the bishop momentarily.

I turned back to the ancient lady, who was squinting at me, studying me. Next to her a young Ibizan, about twenty-two and well-dressed, leaned against the bar. He eyed me with what I took to be hostility. I immediately sensed that he was the ancient lady's escort. I smiled at him and greeted him in Catalan to put him at ease. Right away his anxious tension dissipated, like gas escaping a collapsed balloon.

There were horse-harness brasses all along the low, black beam over the bar; a touch of home, even if they weren't genuine. The bartender was a thin, hurried, anxious-looking young man, with curly black hair and sharp, darting eyes. He dashed around the minute space behind the bar as if concerned that the very last ship was departing the island with all his customers, and he needed to get rid of all his stock before the imminent sailing.

Deah
Willie's sonorous tones almost drowned the Beatles' music now issuing from a large tape-deck on the bar shelf. “A large Scotch and soda. Brandy or Scotch, Cecilia? Tristan?”

“Oh,
deah
Willie, gin, please. Booth's,” simpered Sissie, standing close behind me.

The ancient lady had been glaring at Sissie; then, just as fast as the sun breaking through clouds in the Trades, she smiled. “I hear you're English,” she said throatily. It was a statement to lesser breeds without the Law, and to the world in general. She stuck out one white-gloved hand toward me. “I'm Lulu,” she whispered hoarsely.

I introduced myself and Sissie.

“And this is Eduardo,” said Lulu, nodding backward toward her young companion. “He doesn't speak English, but despite that he's awfully nice—you know, in
their
way.”

As Sissie took Eduardo in with her steely North Sea eyes, he seemed to cringe visibly, yet at the same time put himself on offer to her. He reminded me, at that moment, of a snake farmer I had once seen trying to trap a cobra.

“Awf'ly naice to meet you, old chep!” Sissie screeched at Eduardo.

Behind Sissie,
deah
Willie was bellowing something about the dartboard, which, obviously pristine and never used, was hanging proudly on the back of the bar door. In that bar there wasn't room to swing a cat, much less play a game of darts.

“Put a man in a room where he can play darts or dominoes,” droned Willie, “or read a newspaper in peace, or have a rattling good talk, and one observes that he will not drink as fast or as deep, or as strongly as he otherwise would? I'm very pleased that there are facilities here for other activities beside drinking? There should always be other things to do in these establishments beside drinking? What does a man drink for? To amuse himself? And to forget all his troubles and the woes of the working world?”

“Bullshit,” roared the voice of Steel the Writer, from the dark corner. It had the flat yet tangy New York flavor to it. “Bullshit. For that he goes to a goddamn whorehouse!”

For a moment there was no reaction. Sissie, startled, turned to me, smiled a quick smile, then flung the rest of the smile to Miss Lulu's escort, the smoky-eyed Eduardo. Taking in the bishop, wincing as Willie let loose again, then side-glancing at Lulu and me, Eduardo decided that the whole match was too much for him. He retired from the fray and gloomily studied the whisky for which Miss Lulu had just paid from her sequined bag. The snake farmer, too, I remembered, had mounted his jeep in disgust and taken off in a cloud of dust, back home through the bush.

I looked at Steel the Writer. His big, handsome head was still bent forward, resting on his chest. But his eyes were gleaming, wide open, studying the bishop with, a taunting leer. I grinned at him. He raised his glass, drank it off, and slammed it back down on the tiny table in front of him.

Willie threw the congregation another maxim from the pulpit: “It's the privilege of good-fellowship to talk nonsense, and yet have that nonsense respected?”

“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow,”
recited the drunken-sounding voice from the corner. “The guy's a goddamn plagiarist!”

This time I didn't just smile at Steel the Writer. I attended him. There must have been some respect in my look. He watched me for a full second, and something passed between us. He
knew
that I knew that Willie was paraphrasing one of Charles Lamb's letters to his sister Mary. For a moment I was flabbergasted. I reckoned that it was a chance in a billion that anyone east of New York and south of London would know just how very unoriginal
deah
Willie was, but I saw in a flash that Steel the Writer had reckoned up the situation, too.