‘You are son of
Ex Afrika
,’ he countered, with, for Eumor, a rather subtle twist of phrase. ‘Don’t turn your back on your father.’
I had to laugh, since I did not wish to get angry, nor sad either. I wanted to enjoy my friend’s company, and the grisly side of the grey world was going to wait till I had done so. I poured out some more champagne, and tried to convey my own mood of relaxation.
‘Come on, Eumor,’ I told him. ‘We’re not going to solve any of these problems tonight. I’m sorry if Kate’s getting really involved, and we’ll talk some more about that, but not just now. Hell, I haven’t seen you for six years! Tell me what’s been happening in the old home town. How’s Skip Shannon? How’s Fraternelli?’
We gossiped and drank for about an hour, touching nothing that hurt, enjoying a re-hash of South African wild life such as the tourists did not see. Eumor, who had been thoughtful, almost brooding, now seemed ready to join in this nonsense. Presently I looked at my watch, and at the two empty bottles, and said: ‘I’m meeting a girl for dinner, Eumor. Let’s pick her up, and then eat somewhere. She’s got to go to the theatre about nine, so we can come back to all this later.’
His corrugated olive face assumed a well-remembered air of appetite.
‘What girl is this?’
‘She’s beautiful, Eumor. You’ll love her.’
‘Tall?’
‘Huge.’
‘All right. She do for me. What about you?’
‘I like food. I’ll just watch.’
‘You
voyeur
now?’
‘Me
voyeur
. You Tarzan.’
As a compliment to the visiting potentate, we dined at a Greek restaurant, where Eumor, taking over completely – and who had a better right? – used the Grecian inside track to command one of the strangest meals I had ever eaten, seeming to consist of large, unrelated portions of things from different ends of the normal menu.
Among other items, we had stuffed vine leaves, and a
moussaka
of aubergines, and skewered lamb, and most of a sturgeon, and piles of those elegant long fritters, perfumed with rose-water, called
Scaltsounia
, and honey-cake, and a jar – an actual
amphora
with the classic tapered base – of white Retsina wine which tasted, most agreeably, of pine-tree gum.
In sum, it was a prodigious meal, and it made my friend Eumor very popular with Susan.
This seemed to be mutual. Eumor always behaved, towards any woman who was not seriously disfigured, with such alarming gallantry that it was difficult to gauge his private scale; but there could be no doubt that this time he thought he had moved into Elysian fields of beauty.
There was no doubt either, judging from his increasingly complicated jokes, that he was taking my relationship with Susan for granted; and indeed, since at one point she absent-mindedly said something about the laundry having ruined one of my shirts, not too much guesswork was needed.
We were a cheerful party, and when, at nine o’clock, Susan had to leave us, to make her triumphant second-act appearance as the Spirit of Paris, she was given a flourishing send-off, and Eumor kissed her hand so often and so hungrily that other diners cheered. But I did not make a date for her to meet us later. Eumor and I had left some important things unsaid, and I was now in the right mood of well-fed benevolence not to wish to shirk them.
Eumor came back from the door, whither his farewell enthusiasm had swept him, and sat down with gleaming eyes.
‘More wine!’ he said, and snapped his fingers, alerting the whole world of waiters. ‘What a girl! I meet her when I come back, yes?’
‘I’ll warn her about that,’ I assured him, and hoped it did not sound too ambiguous. ‘You really liked her, Eumor?’
Having nothing else to kiss, Eumor kissed the back of his own hand, in private homage. ‘I
love
her already!’ he exclaimed, and snatched his freshly-poured glass of Retsina, and gulped it as no doubt it was meant to be gulped. ‘How long has she been your friend?’
‘About seven months.’
‘Oh …’ He raised his eyebrows very high indeed. ‘I did not realise. That’s not good, Jonathan. That is too long a situation.’
I drank also. ‘Why too long? She’s a beautiful girl, and I’m very fond of her.’
‘But seven months,’ he said, and I felt he was ready to be serious again, and that we were moving to that part of the field from which I had coaxed him earlier. This time, it did not seem to matter. ‘It’s too long,’ he said again. ‘Too permanent. After all, she is only–’
‘Only what?’
‘
Poule de luxe
.’
I wasn’t going to lose my head over a point of protocol. ‘She’s more than that.’
‘Not for you, my friend.’
‘Why not for me?’
‘Because you have Kate.’
This was something else I was ready to talk about. ‘That’s been a long situation too, Eumor. Six years. Remember that joke you used to tell? About putting pennies in a bottle, and taking them out again?’
‘It was a joke.’
‘Jokes can be true.’
‘And now you are putting pennies into this bottle,’ he said, with sudden energy. ‘What does that prove? Even I could put pennies into that one. At my age! But it is not marriage. Not marriage like you have.’
‘Like I had,’ I corrected him. ‘It isn’t the same now. Why should it be? These things always fade out, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Or to expect it. I honestly believe there’s a natural term for every marriage – five years, ten years, whatever it is – and after that it’s over, except as a matter of habit, of social convenience, to keep the kids in the station-wagon and the neighbours in the rumpus room.’ I could see from his face that he was not agreeing, but I pressed on with an argument which, at that moment, across that dinner-table, armed by that particular glass of wine, seemed crystal clear, and utterly logical. ‘It’s true, Eumor! Never shake thy gory locks at me! Marriage
can
be like that, a sort of hen-coop of togetherness. But because it comes to an end, that doesn’t mean it’s been a failure. It may have been wonderful, for its correct length of time, and then it finishes, at exactly the right moment.’
‘My poor Jonathan,’ he said, and there was real compassion in his voice. ‘Is this what you have been thinking, in your little tower of success? You cannot have changed so much! What you say is nonsense, and you know it. With Kate you have a wonderful marriage. With this girl–’ he jerked his head towards the street door, ‘–you have just a–’ he used a word, presumably Greek, which I did not understand, and which I took to be biological. ‘You cannot throw away someone like Kate, just because you do not wish to make love with her every day.’
‘Twice every day.’
He was not to be turned from his argument; flippancy would not stem this flood. ‘And now you have this girl twice every day, and you think it–’ he waved his hand irritably, searching for the word he wanted, ‘–you think it
cancels
Kate? You are mad! Have the girl all you want, until you are tired and don’t want her any more. Have her until you break the bed, or break something else! But do not leave Kate alone. Do not leave yourself alone. You and Kate need each other, and you have proved it.’
‘How, proved it?’
‘By being married six years, and missing her when she is gone.’
‘I never said anything about missing her.’
‘You do not have to. This girl is part of missing her.’
‘Oh, rubbish!’ I was sure this was not true. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Eumor. Susan isn’t a substitute for Kate. She’s her successor.’ I did not quite like this idea, and I corrected it. ‘I mean, she’s a complete change, the very opposite of Kate, and just what I need. She doesn’t give a damn what I–’ This was getting too complicated, and confused, and I broke it off. ‘Anyway, Kate’s OK,’ I said, after a moment. ‘Apparently she wants to stay and look after Maraisgezicht. And she’s got all this money. She can be perfectly happy by herself.’
‘She does not want to be by herself. That I can assure you.’
It suddenly struck me that this was really why Eumor was in New York; he had come here on purpose to say these last two sentences of his; he was carrying out an appointed mission, using the weapons of wine, and friendship, and the dedicated look which belonged to the honest go-between. Though he was not the sort of man I could ever be angry with, I was irritated nonetheless.
‘Perhaps I want to be by myself,’ I said, shortly.
‘You cannot afford to be, Jonathan.’ He really was very involved in this, very earnest, very intense. I could concede that it was good to have such friends, and that at any other time, in any other area, it would have been wonderful to have this paragon of a doctor on hand, ready with the splints and the acute diagnosis and the brisk tonic which would set a man on his feet again, in no time at all. But just at the moment, I wanted to stay in bed, sick as a dog, and loving it. ‘I tell you,’ Eumor the paragon continued, ‘you need her. And she still thinks it is a good marriage, in spite of everything.’
‘In spite of what, exactly? The girl?’
‘She does not know about the girl. And she will not hear her from me.’ He put his hand on my arm. ‘Anyway, the girl is not important, unless you choose to make her so. Don’t forget that. Girls in bed are cheap. In the end they are just like money, to be enjoyed, to be spent, to be forgotten. That is why they
cost
money … But they should not cost anything else.’
‘What did you mean, then, that Kate thinks our marriage is OK, in spite of everything?’
‘Because of how you have changed. You used to be serious. You used to care about such things as Africa, and write about them also. Now you do not.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘It is tragedy,’ said Eumor, and looked as if he meant it.
I decided that I did not want another mourner at the bedside of significant literature, and I did not want any more of this, either. Once again, I could not quarrel with Eumor, and particularly, not where Kate was concerned; he had been at our side on the first day we met, and on the night we fell in love, he was our godfather, our presiding angel; such men, such friends, were not expendable in any circumstances. But if this privileged, interior pressure went on any longer, the mould of concord was liable to break, and that would be the end of a lot of things I valued.
I said: ‘OK, Eumor. You’ve said your piece, and I’ve listened to it. Now let’s press the button on this.’ I looked up, at the clock on the wall behind his head. ‘We have exactly one hour before we have to drive out to the airport. What would you like to do?’
He opened his mouth to say something, and then, like the rare man he was, changed his mind, and with it his whole expression. He tossed off the last of his wine, and smiled wickedly, and said: ‘Strip-tease! What else?’
Afterwards I drove him out to Kennedy Airport, and saw him off on his plane to Caracas, which was the first leg of his journey, and went slowly back into town, meandering along the Grand Central Parkway and over the Triborough Bridge. The lights of the East River seemed to unravel as I moved smoothly south again, like an endless skein of yellow-white wool falling gently apart as a dark hand divided it, and I found myself wishing that a lot of other things would unravel half as easily.
I was ready to acknowledge that Eumor had done his best. As an emissary from Kate, bringing a salutary shock from the world outside my bed, he had made his mark and sounded his warning. The message was simple: when Kate returned,
if
Kate returned, I would have to straighten up and fly right, because she would be leaving something she wanted for something she could not be sure of.
She would be doing a basic favour for me, and I would be in honour bound to match it.
Eumor had given me a lot to think about. The fact that I did not want to think about it could not be held against the man, nor the message, nor anyone but myself.
Eumor’s visit had been like a stone briefly troubling the pool; I felt that if I waited long enough, the ripples would go away. But this was a Chamber of Commerce forecast, tailored strictly for the vacation trade. I was first made aware that the boat itself was beginning to rock, by an entirely new greeting from Joe the doorman.
I had been on television the previous night, as a guest detective trying to unmask such diverse toilers as the girl who crocheted ball-pockets for billiard tables, and the man who ironed the newspapers at London’s most august club, restricted to the octogenarian nobility. (I had guessed him wrong; I thought he was a pants-presser with a funny accent.) But Joe the doorman did not pass judgement on my performance; this time he broke precedent. He said: ‘Hallo there, Mr Steele! I was reading about you last night.’
‘Reading?’ I said, surprised. ‘What have I been doing this time?’
‘Oh, I didn’t believe any of it,’ he assured me, with a cheerful grin. ‘It was just an item … But I saved it for you to see.’ He fished inside his coat pocket, and came out with a crumpled evening paper, a paper, which, to put it mildly, I did not normally read. ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I’ve been all the way through it.’
I thanked him, and put the paper in my own pocket, and went on up to the apartment, where I planned to spend a quiet day. I forgot it for about an hour, while I was going through the mail, and listening with half an enchanted ear to David Oistrakh, well-known communist infiltrator, playing his insidious violin. Then something made me remember the conversation downstairs, and I took the paper over to my desk, and looked for the ‘item’ which had caught Joe’s eye.
It was not too difficult to find; he had folded the paper at the appropriate page. It was halfway down a gossip column headed ‘Show Biz Confidential’.
Jonathan Steele (I read) now toiling on the final version of Erwin Orwin’s
Pink Safari
musical, based on Johnny’s own blockbuster,
Ex Afrika
, still manages to make the scene in his spare time … He’s all over town these days and nights with stunning Susan Crompton, who you can catch (if you’re quick enough) as the low-cut ‘Spirit of Paris’ in Erwin’s other opus, that ever-lovely, ever-running darling,
Josephine …
Nice casting, Johnny … Meanwhile, back at the ostrich farm, current mate Kate Steele sits it out in wildest Johannesburg, her home town, counting the loot from a recent inheritance … Better get your head out of the sand, Kate, or you’ll wind up as the ex in Africa.