The Complete Stories (7 page)

  "So that's her name," said Sylvia.

  "If you only knew how funny that was," said Simon, scribbling his initials on the bill and leaving the table while Sylvia was still groping with gloves and bag.

  As things turned out, however, he became Miss Grits's lover before the week was out. The idea was hers. She suggested it to him one evening at his flat as they corrected the typescript of the final version of their first treatment.

  "No, really," Simon said aghast. "No, really. It would be quite impossible. I'm sorry, but ..."

  "Why? Don't you like women?"

  "Yes, but ..."

  "Oh, come along," Miss Grits said briskly. "We don't get much time for amusement ..." And later, as she packed their manuscripts into her attaché case she said, "We must do it again if we have time. Besides I find it's so much easier to work with a man if you're having an affaire with him."

  III

  For three weeks Simon and Miss Grits (he always thought of her by this name in spite of all subsequent intimacies) worked together in complete harmony. His life was re-directed and transfigured. No longer did he lie in bed, glumly preparing himself for the coming day; no longer did he say every morning ‘I must get down to the country and finish that book' and every evening find himself slinking back to the same urban flat; no longer did he sit over supper tables with Sylvia, idly bickering; no more listless explanations over the telephone. Instead he pursued a routine of incalculable variety, summoned by telephone at all hours to conferences which rarely assembled; sometimes to Hampstead, sometimes to the studios, once to Brighton. He spent long periods of work pacing up and down his sitting room, with Miss Grits pacing backwards and forwards along the other wall and Miss Dawkins obediently perched between them, as the two dictated, corrected and redrafted their scenario. There were meals at improbable times and vivid, unsentimental passages of love with Miss Grits. He ate irregular and improbable meals, bowling through the suburbs in Sir James's car, pacing the carpet dictating to Miss Dawkins, perched in deserted lots upon scenery which seemed made to survive the collapse of civilization. He lapsed, like Miss Grits, into brief spells of death-like unconsciousness, often awakening, startled, to find that a street or desert or factory had come into being about him while he slept.

  The film meanwhile grew rapidly, daily putting out new shoots and changing under their eyes in a hundred unexpected ways. Each conference produced some radical change in the story. Miss Grits in her precise, unvariable voice would read out the fruits of their work. Sir James would sit with his head in his hand, rocking slightly from side to side and giving vent to occasional low moans and whimpers; round him sat the experts—production, direction, casting, continuity, cutting and costing managers, bright eyes, eager to attract the great man's attention with some apt intrusion.

  "Well," Sir James would say, "I think we can O.K. that. Any suggestions, gentlemen?"

  There would be a pause, until one by one the experts began to deliver their contributions ... "I've been thinking, sir, that it won't do to have the scene laid in Denmark. The public won't stand for travel stuff. How about setting it in Scotland—then we could have some kilts and clan gathering scenes?"

  "Yes, that's a very sensible suggestion. Make a note of that, Lent ..."

  "I was thinking we'd better drop this character of the Queen. She'd much better be dead before the action starts. She hangs up the action. The public won't stand for him abusing his mother."

  "Yes, make a note of that, Lent."

  "How would it be, sir, to make the ghost the Queen instead of the King ..."

  "Yes, make a note of that, Lent ..."

  "Don't you think, sir, it would be better if Ophelia were Horatio's sister. More poignant, if you see what I mean."

  "Yes, make a note of that ..."

  "I think we are losing sight of the essence of the story in the last sequence. After all, it is first and foremost a Ghost Story, isn't it? ..."

  And so from simple beginnings the story spread majestically. It was in the second week that Sir James, after, it must be admitted, considerable debate, adopted the idea of incorporating with it the story of Macbeth. Simon was opposed to the proposition at first, but the appeal of the three witches proved too strong. The title was then changed to The White Lady of Dunsinane, and he and Miss Grits settled down to a prodigious week's work in rewriting their entire scenarios.

  IV

  The end came as suddenly as everything else in this remarkable episode. The third conference was being held at an hotel in the New Forest where Sir James happened to be staying; the experts had assembled by train, car and motor-bicycle at a moment's notice and were tired and unresponsive. Miss Grits read the latest scenario; it took some time, for it had now reached the stage when it could be taken as "white script" ready for shooting. Sir James sat sunk in reflection longer than usual. When he raised his head, it was to utter the single word:

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No, it won't do. We must scrap the whole thing. We've got much too far from the original story. I can't think why you need introduce Julius Caesar and King Arthur at all."

  "But, sir, they were your own suggestions at the last conference."

  "Were they? Well, I can't help it. I must have been tired and not paying full attention ... Besides, I don't like the dialogue. It misses all the poetry of the original. What the public wants is Shakespeare, the whole of Shakespeare and nothing but Shakespeare. Now this scenario you've written is all very well in its way—but it's not Shakespeare. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll use the play exactly as he wrote it and record from that. Make a note of it, Miss Grits."

  "Then you'll hardly require my services any more?" said Simon.

  "No, I don't think I shall. Still, nice of you to have come."

  Next morning Simon woke bright and cheerful as usual and was about to leap from his bed when he suddenly remembered the events of last night. There was nothing for him to do. An empty day lay before him. No Miss Grits, no Miss Dawkins, no scampering off to conferences or dictating of dialogue. He rang up Miss Grits and asked her to lunch with him.

  "No, quite impossible, I'm afraid. I have to do the continuity for a scenario of St. John's Gospel before the end of the week. Pretty tough job. We're setting it in Algeria so as to get the atmosphere. Off to Hollywood next month. Don't suppose I shall see you again. Good-bye."

  Simon lay in bed with all his energy slowly slipping away. Nothing to do. Well, he supposed, now was the time to go away to the country and get on with his novel. Or should he go abroad? Some quiet café-restaurant in the sun where he could work out those intractable last chapters. That was what he would do ... sometime ... the end of the week perhaps.

  Meanwhile he leaned over on his elbow, lifted the telephone and, asking for Sylvia's number, prepared himself for twenty-five minutes' acrimonious reconciliation.

  INCIDENT IN AZANIA

  I

  The union club at Matodi was in marked contrast to the hillside, bungalow dwellings of the majority of its members. It stood in the centre of the town, on the waterfront; a seventeenth-century Arab mansion built of massive whitewashed walls round a small court; latticed windows overhung the street from which, in former times, the womenfolk of a great merchant had watched the passing traffic; a heavy door, studded with brass bosses gave entrance to the dark shade of the court, where a little fountain sprayed from the roots of an enormous mango; and an open staircase of inlaid cedar-wood led to the cool interior.

  An Arab porter, clothed in a white gown scoured and starched like a Bishop's surplice, crimson sash and tarboosh, sat drowsily at the gate. He rose in reverence as Mr. Reppington, the magistrate, and Mr. Bretherton, the sanitary-inspector, proceeded splendidly to the bar.

  In token of the cordiality of the Condominium, French officials were honorary members of the Club, and a photograph of a former French President ("We can't keep changing it," said Major Lepperidge, "every time the frogs care to have a shim-ozzle") hung in the smoking room opposite the portrait of the Prince of Wales; except on Gala nights, however, they rarely availed themselves of their privilege. The single French journal to which the Club subscribed was La Vie Parisienne, which, on this particular evening, was in the hands of a small man of plebeian appearance, sitting alone in a basket chair.

  Reppington and Bretherton nodded their way forward. "Evening, Granger." "Evening, Barker." "Evening, Jagger," and then in an audible undertone Bretherton inquired, "Who's the chap in the corner with La Vie?"

  "Name of Brooks. Petrol or something."

  "Ah."

  "Pink gin?"

  "Ah."

  "What sort of day?"

  "Bad show, rather. Trouble about draining the cricket field. No subsoil."

  "Ah. Bad show."

  The Goan barman put their drinks before them. Bretherton signed the chit.

  "Well, cheerio."

  "Cheerio."

  Mr. Brooks remained riveted upon La Vie Parisienne.

  Presently Major Lepperidge came in, and the atmosphere stiffened a little. (He was O.C. of the native levy, seconded from India.)

  "Evening, Major," from civilians. "Good evening, sir," from the military.

  "Evening. Evening. Evening. Phew. Just had a very fast set of lawner with young Kentish. Hot service. Gin and lime. By the way, Bretherton, the cricket field is looking pretty seedy."

  "I know. No subsoil."

  "I say, that's a bad show. No subsoil. Well, do what you can, there's a good fellow. It looks terrible. Quite bare and a great lake in the middle."

  The Major took his gin and lime and moved towards a chair; suddenly he saw Mr. Brooks, and his authoritative air softened to unaccustomed amiability. "Why, hallo, Brooks," he said. "How are you? Fine to see you back. Just had the pleasure of seeing your daughter at the tennis club. My missus wondered if you and she would care to come up and dine one evening. How about Thursday? Grand. She'll be delighted. Good-night you fellows. Got to get a shower."

  The occurrence was sensational. Bretherton and Reppington looked at one another in shocked surprise.

  Major Lepperidge, both in rank and personality, was the leading man in Matodi—in the whole of Azania indeed, with the single exception of the Chief Commissioner at Debra Dowa. It was inconceivable that Brooks should dine with Lepperidge. Bretherton himself had only dined there once and he was Government.

  "Hullo, Brooks," said Reppington "Didn't see you there behind your paper. Come and have one."

  "Yes, Brooks," said Bretherton. "Didn't know you were back. Have a jolly leave? See any shows?"

  "It's very kind of you, but I must be going. We arrived on Tuesday in the Ngoma. No, I didn't see any shows. You see, I was down at Bournemouth most of the time."

  "One before you go."

  "No really, thanks, I must get back. My daughter will be waiting. Thanks all the same. See you both later."

  Daughter.....?

  II

  There were eight Englishwomen in Matodi, counting Mrs. Bretherton's two-year-old daughter; nine if you included Mrs. Macdonald (but no one did include Mrs. Macdonald who came from Bombay and betrayed symptoms of Asiatic blood. Besides, no one knew who Mr. Macdonald had been. Mrs. Macdonald kept an ill-frequented pension on the outskirts of the town named "The Bougainvillea"). All who were of marriageable age were married; they led lives under a mutual scrutiny too close and unremitting for romance. There were, however, seven unmarried Englishmen, three in Government service, three in commerce and one unemployed, who had fled to Matodi from his creditors in Kenya. (He sometimes spoke vaguely of "planting" or "prospecting," but in the meantime drew a small remittance each month and hung amiably about the Club and the tennis courts.)

  Most of these bachelors were understood to have some girl at home; they kept photographs in their rooms, wrote long letters regularly, and took their leave with hints that when they returned they might not be alone. But they invariably were. Perhaps in precipitous eagerness for sympathy they painted too dark a picture of Azanian life; perhaps the Tropics made them a little addle-pated.....

  Anyway, the arrival of Prunella Brooks sent a wave of excitement through English society. Normally, as the daughter of Mr. Brooks, oil company agent, her choice would have been properly confined to the three commercial men—Mr. James, of the Eastern Exchange Telegraph Company, and Messrs. Watson and Jagger, of the Bank—but Prunella was a girl of such evident personal superiority, that in her first afternoon at the tennis courts, as has been shown above, she transgressed the shadow line effortlessly and indeed unconsciously, and stepped straight into the inmost sanctuary, the Lepperidge bungalow.

  She was small and unaffected, an iridescent blonde, with a fresh skin, doubly intoxicating in contrast with the tanned and desiccated tropical complexions around her; with rubbery, puppyish limbs and a face which lit up with amusement at the most barren pleasantries; an air of earnest interest in the opinions and experiences of all she met; a natural confidante, with no disposition to make herself the centre of a group, but rather to tackle her friends one by one, in their own time, when they needed her; deferential and charming to the married women; tender, friendly, and mildly flirtatious with the men; keen on games but not so good as to shake masculine superiority; a devoted daughter denying herself any pleasure that might impair the smooth working of Mr. Brooks's home—"No, I must go now. I couldn't let father come home from the Club and not find me there to greet him"—in fact, just such a girl as would be a light and blessing in any outpost of the Empire. It was very few days before all at Matodi were eloquent of their good fortune.