Mr Urbane-Urban looked up from his desk and blinked.
‘It’s you, by jove,’ he said.
It was me all right. He had told me before I started working for his mother: ‘You may find the going a bit tough. She is not an easy person to get on with, bless her. But if you have any difficulties you won’t hesitate to contact me, will you?’ And I promised him that I wouldn’t.
‘Have you been having trouble?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve been fired.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and twirled round in his chair to look through the window. ‘Oh,’ he said again. He turned round to face me. ‘We are in a pickle, what? Do you mind if I ask you what’s happened?’
‘The cat’s had kittens.’
‘Hecuba? Kittens?’
‘Six of them.’
‘She’s such a hard-faced brute that I thought she’d be more likely to have paving-stones. Six of them you said?’
‘Two black, two white and two black and white.’
‘I suppose it was that infernal bull-cat.’
‘He had something to do with it, but that Hecuba of your mother’s isn’t as prim a puss as you think. If the bull-cat hadn’t been wanted he wouldn’t have been there.’
‘You mean she encouraged him?’
‘Let us say she didn’t discourage him.’
‘Well, the damage appears to have been done who’s ever fault it was. What do we do now?’
‘That’s what I came to ask.’
He put his hands over his eyes and thought for a while. Then he said:
‘You are, if you don’t mind my saying so, a bit of a square peg, Brisker.’
‘But your mother’s establishment, if you don’t mind my saying so, wasn’t much of a round hole,’ I retorted.
‘Come now, Brisker, this is hardly the place for recriminations. That won’t help to solve our problem. What do we do with you now?’
‘I could go and jump in the river.’
‘That’s no solution at all. We must be more practical than that.’ He twirled round to face the window, twirled back with a bright idea on his face, thought better of it, and twirled round again.
‘I’m good with children,’ I said.
‘I haven’t got any. No, I’m forgetting, I have. But she’s at boarding-school, and even if she wasn’t, I can’t think what you could do with her. Pretty child she is, but damned useless, as children nowadays tend to be.’ Then an idea struck him. ‘But tell me, are you good with animals?’
I looked at him sideways.
‘Not cats,’ I said.
‘No, not cats.’
‘Nor parrots.’
‘No, not parrots either. I mean cows and things like that—farm animals.’
‘With farm animals I’m marvellous,’ I said, which wasn’t quite true, for I had never been on a farm, but as I was pretty certain that it wouldn’t be my duty to keep the cows away from the bulls, I was confident I could manage it.
‘That’s splendid, absolutely splendid,’ he said. ‘Now you wait outside and you’ll come home with me when I’m finished.’
It was about four in the afternoon. The corridor was warm and I was tired, and I soon fell asleep. When I awoke it was pitch-black and the building was deserted. As I was still tired, I stretched myself out on the bench and fell asleep once more. Mr U-U found me there the next morning. He was full of apologies.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘nobody’s memory is perfect. I keep forgetting things right and left. Only, in case you should forget tonight, do you think I could have a couple of blankets?’
He didn’t give me blankets and he didn’t forget. That same afternoon he put me on a train for Bletchley.
I was met at the station by his farm-manager, Mr George Bogle, a stout, red-faced man, with a fat nose almost like a snout and a green hat, and blue, watery eyes.
I had come with my stuffed owl under my arm, and I could see at once that he didn’t like the look of either of us—especially the owl.
‘Are you sure you want that with you?’ he asked as he helped me into his Land-Rover.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s supposed to bring luck.’
‘Luck?’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s supposed to bring luck,’ I repeated.
‘You’ll need it, mate,’ he said, half to me, half to himself; and we drove off.
He came to call for me the next morning at six and I was ready and waiting dressed, as I usually am, in my black serge suit and black homburg.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he asked. ‘A bloody funeral? Are these the only clothes you have?’
‘Well there’s my striped trousers,’ I said, ‘but they’re for special days.’
‘Haven’t you any old clothes?’
‘I have.’
‘Where are they?’
He tried hard to control himself and in the effort his eyes almost met.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘go as you bloody-well are. But can I ask you one favour? Will you take your hat off?’
So I took my hat off and followed him round the farm while he showed me all the small jobs I would have to do, but when I started, and put my hat on my head so I could have both my hands free, he gave a wild shriek, tore my hat from my head, threw it to the ground, jumped on it with both feet several times, ground it in with his heel, spat on it, peed into it, kicked it and then went on his way raging at the heavens with both his fists. He and I aren’t going to get on, I thought to myself.
It was a small farm, some sixty acres, with about a dozen cows, a few hundred hens and a few ducks. Bogle and his wife lived in a small cottage by the main road, and I lived in the farmhouse, a few hundred yards away.
‘He built it as a week-end home for himself and his wife,’ said Mrs Bogle, ‘but he hasn’t used it since his wife left him. He was far too good for her.’
‘She was good to look at,’ put in her husband.
‘Yes, but that was the trouble. “A pretty face don’t go with grace”, they say, don’t they?’
‘I’ve never heard of that before,’ I confessed.
‘Well it’s true, you think back on every pretty woman you’ve known and you’ll see it’s true. It was true of her anyway. It broke my heart the way she deceived him. He’s never been the same since, has he?’
‘I never knew him before his wife left him,’ I said.
‘Oh, he was different. He was gay. The house was gay. The whole farm was gay. The animals was gay. They was, the chickens, the ducks, the hens, all gay. Dad says the cows won’t come on heat since she left, and as for his house, well you must have seen for yourself, it’s like a week-end home for ghosts.’
The house was not haunted, though if it was, the ghosts and I did not coincide, and in any case I was too tired at night and went to bed too early to be bothered by them, but even at dawn there was an air of dusk about it. It was a white building, with timbered gables and timbered lintels, and looked as if it had been torn away from a suburban garden and plonked on a hillock in the middle of a field. Apart from my room, I was permitted the use of the kitchen and living-room. I would cook for myself and Mrs B would come in for a few hours in the morning and clean up.
On my first Sunday she invited me to lunch. I came in my striped trousers, but bare-headed, for although I had cleaned and straightened my hat a bit, I was afraid that the sight of it might throw her husband into another fit.
I eat kosher, but in order to save Mrs Bogle a whole lesson on Jewish dietary laws, I told her that I was a strict vegetarian. Her eyes grew large with concern, as if I had told her that I had small-pox.
‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘You’re even worse than Mr Urbane-Urban. He eats kosher, but at least he can have fish, and sometimes brings his own kosher meat down from London, but I don’t know how people can live on vegetables without becoming vegetables themselves.’
‘People eat pork without turning into pigs,’ I pointed out.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to stop Dad eating pork, though he loves it. Pork chops, pork sausages, pork this, pork that, ham, bacon, he used to go through a pig a day. Mr Urbane-Urban doesn’t touch it, he’s Jewish, you know.’
‘I know. I’m Jewish myself.’
‘You know, I somehow thought you were—not because of your face, but because of your striped trousers. You’re the second Jew I’ve met. I’d never met any Jews outside of the Bible before meeting Mr Urbane-Urban. Once when I was very ill I thought I saw Jesus in a vision, but that doesn’t count. He was wearing striped trousers.’
‘Who, Jesus?’
‘No, Mr Urbane-Urban. That was the first time I saw him, striped trousers and a black coat. He looks a real gentleman, doesn’t he? And of course he is. He comes from a very old Jewish family—traces his ancestors right back to Adam. Mind you he’s a little mad. Are all Jews a little mad?’
‘I think they’ve’ had to be,’ I said, ‘otherwise they’d have gone out of their minds.’
All this dialogue was taking place with Mrs Bogle in the kitchen, me by the table in the living-room and Mr Bogle on the sofa, behind a paper.
When Mrs Bogle brought in the soup he put down his paper, rubbed his face with both hands and looked at me as if he had noticed me for the first time.
‘Is he staying to eat?’ he said, pointing to me with his thumb.
‘You know he is,’ she said. ‘I told you he was.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, rising, ‘a friend is expecting me to lunch and I said——’
‘Well, he’s got no right to expect you,’ said Mrs B sternly, ‘because I asked you first. Now start your soup before it gets cold.’
The soup was delicious, though the sound of Bogle sipping was like the sound of canvas being torn. Apart from that there was silence. Then Mrs Bogle said:
‘Did you go to the doctor, Dad?’
‘I told you yesterday I did.’
‘But you didn’t say what he said.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘What did he say?’
‘Who?’
‘The doctor.’
‘He said I should stop it.’
That seemed to satisfy her, and we continued to eat in silence. When Mrs Bogle gathered up the soup plates I volunteered to help her, but she made me go back to my seat, and Bogle and I remained together alone. There was a picture on the wall opposite me and I fixed my gaze firmly on that. It was a gentleman with a pointed beard in army uniform.
‘A relation of yours?’ I said, and felt stupid for I realized as soon as I said that it was George V. Bogle didn’t reply for he was busy playing with the zip of his fly.
‘Give me buttons any day,’ he said.
Mrs Bogle seemed to take an awful long time with the next course, and I went into the kitchen again, offering a hand, and again she drove me back to my chair.
‘Have you a zip on your fly?’ said Bogle.
‘No,’ I said. ‘When I got these trousers zips weren’t invented.’
‘They’re bloody dangerous. I know a bloke nearly circumcised himself. He was caught in the act see, and he pulled up his zip so fast, nearly took off his war-head.’
‘But buttons you keep losing,’ I said.
‘That’s what you’ve a wife for. Zips is for bachelors.’ And that closed the subject.
I examined the pepper-pot, the salt-cellar, the mustard pot, my knife, my fork, conscious all the time that Bogle was watching me with growing hostility.
‘What the hell are you looking for?’ he growled. ‘Do you think they’ve been stolen.’
‘I was thinking their shape was rather quaint.’
‘They’re in a bloody sight better shape than you are.’
‘All I meant was that I liked their design.’
‘You just keep your bloody paws off them, that’s all.’
We were silent for a long time after that, while I kept wondering whether Mrs Bogle had dropped dead into her stew bowl. Then I said:
‘Have you been ill?’
‘Are you speaking to me?’ he said.
‘I heard that you had to go to the doctor.’
‘You can mind your own bloody business. And I’ll tell you something else. When I’ll be dead a week I’ll be twice as healthy as you are now.’
‘It’s his blood pressing,’ said Mrs Bogle, who now came in with the main dish. ‘Almost everything he likes is bad for him, by rights he shouldn’t be eating anything at all.’
‘I’d rather live till fifty with what’s bad for me, than till a hundred with what’s good for me,’ he growled, and began to tackle his boiled beef.
Towards the end of the meal, I was eating stewed pears and custard and Mr Bogle was picking his teeth, when he said to his wife:
‘Has he told you about his hat?’ The thought of it brought first a smirk to his face, then a smile, then a hollow cackle, like eggs being beaten, then his whole body began to heave, finally he threw back his head and exploded in guffaws.
‘I don’t like it when he does that,’ said Mrs Bogle, ‘not with his blood pressing.’
But he was now helpless. His face had turned scarlet and the one tooth in his head, about the size and shape of a bean, began to wiggle.
‘I’d better call the doctor,’ she said, but even while she was still waiting for the operator he slipped out of his chair and collapsed in a heap under the table.
While she remained on the phone I tried to take him over my shoulder, but collapsed under him. She managed to disentangle us and I then took him under the arms and dragged him, with his feet clattering on every step, up the stairs and into his bedroom.
As I was bending down to undress him, I noticed a small picture on the window-sill which nearly made me drop on top of him.
Mrs Bogle came up.
‘Is he all right?’ she said. ‘Is he breathing?’
‘Just about.’
‘I don’t like his colour. I wish the doctor would hurry up. Last time I phoned him it took him two days to call.’
‘They all do that,’ I said, ‘to let time do half their work for them.’
‘Oo, I don’t like his colour at all. Looks like cheese, doesn’t he?’
‘But he smells like himself, he’ll be all right.’
‘You don’t think I should have him blest or something. I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe in prayers. Shall we pray?’
‘I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm.’
‘You say a Jewish prayer and I’ll say a Christian one.’
I murmured a few Hebrew phrases which came most readily to mind and it occurred to me later that they were a prayer for the dead.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘he looks better already, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he’s almost his old self.’
And she relaxed sufficiently to sit down on the bed.
‘That picture on the window-sill,’ I said. ‘Who is it?’
‘That in the uniform?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s our Ed. Oh, he’s changed a lot since that was taken. He was only a boy then, well, only eighteen. Dad wanted him to work on the farm, but they didn’t get on. Nobody gets on with Dad except me, and I don’t get on with him either—at least not always. Ed and him would have stand-up arguments, almost fighting, well not fighting, but shouting as if they might fight. I told him often enough, “Ed, arguing with your father isn’t Christian.” We were at our wits’ end what to do with him when he came out of the army, then Mr Urbane-Urban came to the rescue. He made him gardener at one of his charity places.’
‘At the Eastleigh Old Age Home.’
‘That’s right. Have I told you?’
‘No, but I think we’ve met.’
‘Have you?’
‘I think we have.’
‘He’s a lovely boy, isn’t he—at least he was. I’m ashamed to tell you what happened. Besides, I can’t really believe it has happened. Our Ed do a thing like that?’
‘A thing like what?’
‘I don’t suppose it was his fault really. He got mixed up with some horrible old woman, twice his age, and married too. Would you believe it? Here, look at Dad. He’s turning green.’
‘It’s the pale sunlight,’ I said, but the sight of him was making me apprehensive.
‘Oh, I do wish the doctor would hurry up. I’d better phone again.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll get out my bike and go down to the village to fetch him. Phoning’s a waste of time.’
I rushed out of the cottage and ran over to the tractor shed where I kept my bike.
It was a day in February with the skies a bluish grey, and the meadows, newly emerged from the snow, full of small puddles. There were little bits of snow on the hedges by the main road. It was a cold day and at every breath I could feel the air tingling in my nostrils. It seemed wrong to die on a day like this.
I had just reached the main road when a station-wagon came wheeling round the bend amid a splash of water and chickens, and the doctor stepped out.
‘Where is the body?’ he said.