22. At Dr Feelgood’s II

It was generally agreed that Mr Mouzookseem’s behaviour at the reopening of Dr Feelgood’s did him the greatest credit. To the crowd of villagers, half drawn out of curiosity, half lured by the free liquor, he was politely condescending. He shook hands; he asked the odd, perfunctory question, nodded when some compliment was paid, but it was clear that he was not prepared to enter into any deeper conversation. With persons of note, however, with the dirzi and the veterinary surgeon, his manner became positively deferential. This attitude was widely approved as being illustrative of a proper sense of priority. As the dirzi remarked: ‘He not standing on ceremony, but he do know who is who.’ Had Mr Mouzookseem treated village notables with hauteur or met baser elements with bonhomie he would have forfeited a large part of his respect.

The arrangements for the reopening proceeded from a conviction that Dr Feelgood’s, like Todgers, could do it when it tried. A red carpet had been produced from somewhere and spread out inside the door. Brightly coloured Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling so that the main room was bathed in queer, tinted light. Neither of these ornaments produced the effect that Mr Mouzookseem had intended. The red carpet in particular was regarded with suspicion. Being prudent and superstitious men the guests declined to step on it and at any time during the evening you might have seen a villager hopping over the scarlet square when he imagined that nobody was looking.

If Mr Mouzookseem was annoyed by this abuse of his hospitality he did not say so. He moved silently and without ostentation through the crowd of people, stopping occasionally to refill his glass or to exchange a word with one of his subordinates. ‘I is thinking you ought to make a speech, perhaps,’ the dirzi suggested at one point early on in the proceedings, but Mr Mouzookseem shook his head. ‘What do I want to make a speech for? These people have come here to enjoy themselves. They do not want to go hearing speeches.’ ‘Is only a suggestion,’ said the dirzi humbly. Privately he did not particularly care whether Mr Mouzookseem made a speech or not.

Yet though Mr Mouzookseem thought it unnecessary to make a speech and protested that his guests had come merely to enjoy themselves, it was clear that for him at any rate the evening had a symbolic value. From time to time he would retire to an armchair that had been placed at the end of the room, a little apart from the row of tables and sofas, and sit contemplating the spectacle, his chin resting abstractedly on his hand. There was something about his attitude that discouraged the villagers from approaching him. A number, thinking to prosecute business interests, had brought gifts and documents proving their entitlement to various trading privileges but Mr Mouzookseem waved them away. ‘Plenty of time,’ he said, ‘for that another day.’

Discomfited, the villagers retired, though a number of them left their gifts, mostly baskets of fruit, at his feet – a stratagem that was ostentatiously ignored. Public opinion tended to vindicate this approach. The dirzi sniffed contemptuously as he surveyed the piles of oranges and bananas. ‘We all do know what that means,’ he remarked. ‘Some people has no respect.’ In the end one of the Asian sluts removed the baskets to another room. The bazaar traders, conscious that they had been guilty of some social indiscretion, began rather shamefacedly to apologize.

Though the rebuke was felt to be appropriate, seeming even to augur well for the commercial prosperity of the village (no one liked the bazaar traders who were inclined to be autocratic and raise prices) its effect was to dampen spirits. As the editor of the Sentinel remarked to the dirzi: ‘I not like it at all. All very well telling us to enjoy ourselves, but he sit there looking as if we doing something wrong.’ ‘He a little nervous,’ said the dirzi who was conscious of a similar feeling of unease, ‘that all. It mean a lot to him you know, opening up this place again.’

Something of this feeling communicated itself to Mr Mouzookseem. After several conversations with the handful of Asian sluts a battered gramophone was brought out and plugged into a socket in the wall. ‘This liven things up, you see,’ remarked the dirzi. I not know about that,’ said the editor of the Sentinel. However, he consented to beat his foot upon the floor in time to the music.

Unfortunately the record player had much the same effect on the villagers as the square of red carpet. Several of them stuck their fingers in their ears and could only with difficulty be persuaded to remove them. Nevertheless, there was a general easing of tension. A few people began to dance, quietly and with deliberation, in the centre of the room. As I watched, Caro emerged through the door, leading Miss Cluff by the hand. Miss Cluff, dressed in a magenta frock, smiles sardonically as she catches my eye. Caro, plainly, is embarrassed.

‘I did not expect to see you here,’ he says, looking out of the corner of his eye at Miss Cluff. ‘Nor I, you, Caro mio.’ ‘I do not want to upset you,’ says Caro. ‘I do not want for all the world to upset you, but Julie does not wish to speak to you.’ ‘I am not upset, Caro mio.’ ‘That is good then,’ says Caro.

By means of some electric gadgetry the Chinese lanterns had been induced periodically to change colour. Caro and Miss Cluff danced beneath them, their arms clasped tightly about each other.

The bringing out of the gramophone had clearly appeased Mr Mouzookseem’s sense of obligation to his guests. Seated in his chair, hands resting on his lap, he appeared to take no further interest in the proceedings. Nobody, least of all the dirzi, was deceived by this. ‘You wait,’ he advised, fancying he knew human nature, ‘never mind that he not want to make speeches. Something going to happen, you see.’

The dirzi was not the only guest to congratulate himself on his prescience. A rumour circulated to the effect that Mr Mouzookseem was planning some extravagant finale to the evening, that a conjuror was being brought in from east of the river who would produce coloured handkerchieves from empty boxes; that a troupe of dancing girls was shortly arriving to complement the activities of the Asian sluts. ‘He up to something,’ predicted the dirzi, who was rather depressed that he had not been taken into Mr Mouzookseem’s confidence. But although Mr Mouzookseem had numerous conversations with the Asian sluts and on one occasion disappeared from the room for several minutes, there was no sign either of the conjuror or of the dancing girls: it was decided that these were a deliberate concoction on the part of the dirzi.

Moving to the far end of the room, away from the lanterns and the small group of lumbering dancers, it seemed possible to gain a further insight into Mr Mouzookseem’s mind – an insight that proceeded from décor. Though the reopening of Dr Feelgood’s was intended to instil a sense of continuity, to reassure the villagers that former modes of existence could be restored without hurt or inconvenience, it was clear that there had been substantial changes. The walls of Dr Feelgood’s had been repainted, not, as was customary, in feeble emulsions, but in strong vivid colours. The faded linoleum, which had been a fixture for as long as one could remember, had been replaced by shiny matting; rickety tables gave way to more solid contrivances with plastic tops. It was hard not to believe that these alterations, though they might have satisfied an urge that was simply decorative, did not also reflect the change in Mr Mouzookseem’s status, that the plastic chairs and the expensive paint had a deeper and symbolic significance.