Moggerhanger

Chapter Seven

Jock the mechanic waved me out of the gate, a thumbs up with envy at my departure for what to him looked like a long holiday. I hoped it would be that way as well, because my only responsibility on the road would be to keep myself alive and the car unbumped, cautions built into me from birth.

With the inertial compass approximately set, I was off. May blossom was early, floated along the street and came to rest in drifts along the gutters, some settling on the windscreen like snowflakes. Threading onto the Uxbridge Road at seven on a Sunday morning I was in tune and twist to the way I felt, hardly any traffic to hinder me, so that twenty minutes later I stopped on Horseferry Road to buy the papers.

Throwing them onto the spare seat, I was off towards Lambeth Bridge, down to the Elephant, along the Old Kent Road, through New Cross, over Blackheath and, a few minutes later, shooting up Shooters Hill.

In a drifting calm, on auto pilot, I ate up the tasty miles as if with mustard on, not even a tune to whistle, the radio unswitched and, without rain, no wipers wiping. A couple of thousand miles into unknown territory, and my only duty was to care for Moggerhanger’s Rolls with my life because, as he had said the evening before, every scratch will cost a finger — yours. Though his threats were real enough — if he could catch me out — they were also as much to keep me in a state of high tension as to frighten me, assuming that a mind fine-tuned to a sense of danger was more able to carry out his mission without mishap. He needn’t have bothered. Nobody knew better than me how many mishaps could occur over a long distance, either going or coming, and that it was a matter of luck whether anything did or not.

Optimism drove me, the weather so good I didn’t even notice it, and I was soon on the outskirts of the town. Perhaps from overconfidence I couldn’t find a way into the harbour, my adrenaline not yet being at full spate. Maybe it was due to faulty signposting, or the fact that my intuition was warning me not to leave England on such a stunt but, no victim of superstition, all I had to do was another circuit around the one-way system to find my way in.

Trawling by the customs, a six-foot-eight pit prop with clipboard prominent came out of his command post and waved me to a stop. “Good morning, sir. Going for a spot of motoring to the mainland, are you?”

He wasn’t flagging anybody else, and I craved a woodsman’s axe to chop him down to size. “Only to Greece. I’ll be back in a fortnight.”

There was nothing on board for him to quibble at, as far as I knew, though I waited for him to give the tyres a kick with his winklepickers. He glanced at the back seats. In spite of Moggerhanger’s insistence that I confine myself to barracks for a couple of days before leaving I had gone out to buy things for my comfort, and for any emergencies on the journey: a bivouac tent, sleeping bag and groundsheet, a water container, mug, gas stove, tea coffee and biscuits, tins of sardines, and various tools. I went home while Frances was at the surgery and packed a suitcase of clothes. Everything was stowed in the boot, and the swivel-eyed get could turn it over and over for all I cared, because what was there to smuggle off this island that anybody in the rest of the world could possibly want? “Lord Moggerhanger thinks I deserve a bit of a holiday,” I told him.

“I see. And you’ll be coming back this way?”

“I might.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, if you do. Lanthorn’s the name.” He waved me on. “That’ll be all, for the moment.”

Son of the man who put me in jail, he might now be hoping to do the same. Or possibly not, because if he was in Moggerhanger’s pocket, and it couldn’t only be my imagination that he was, he would let me through no matter what I had on board, if he needed a bit of extra pocket money to spend with little boys and girls in the brothels of Bangkok. The uncertainty as to whether he would nab me when I got back was enough to keep the tenterhooks hooking more than Moggerhanger’s threat to cut a finger off should I damage his car, and for a moment or two I wondered whether I’d done right taking the job on. I could have been safer mangling wurzels in the fields around Upper Mayhem but, be that as it may, such thoughts left me no sooner had they floated in.

I joined the queue on the large open quayside, and half an hour later trundled into the hold. A couple of matelots swung ropes over the car and tied up the wheels. The weather might have been good from London, but the sea was rough outside, they said. “And we don’t want your nice Rolls Royce falling against that tractor and getting a lot of nasty bumps and scratches, do we — mate?”

There was nothing better they would like to see, as they swayed away laughing, hating anybody who drove a Rolls, especially the chauffeur, who might feel a notch above himself at the wheel.

Every school from southeast England was on a day’s outing to France, and because there were no seats, and hardly anywhere to move, I pushed around the Duty Free to buy two bottles of whisky, a hundred cigars, and some cartons of cigarettes. On the top deck for a bit of air, a few kids who had shoplifted in the Duty Free already were heaving their guts out over the side, empty beer cans and fag packets rolling around the scuppers, though they weren’t too sloshed not to know which way the wind was blowing.

From steerage to first class, the stink of frying chips and screeching television was everywhere, till I found a calm spot outside the radio officer’s cabin, to eat Mrs Blemish’s sandwiches and drink her coffee.

In better weather on the mainland I waited an hour before driving onto the railway flatcar, then made a way to my seat in the carriage. In the dining car for tea and cakes, a soignée woman across the aisle flipped through a glossy magazine, every turned page showing gorgeous half-naked dollies in bras and knickers, though what she saw in their vacuous faces I couldn’t imagine, unless she admired the underwear, or the women themselves, which thought set me aflame for getting to know her.

In ancient times she would have been one of those nubile women put into King Solomon’s bed, to kickstart him with an ejaculation and stop him dying. The scene set me examining her own figure, though I tried not to stare. When I was compelled to, for half a second, I knew I had seen her before, standing before me in the queue at the Albemarle Street post office about a week ago.

Now I had a closer look, at her pale face, and black well lacquered hair. She wore a white blouse with a scrap of lace at the collar, and the finest grey cashmere sweater. Seeing rings on both hands I glanced to see if she had bells on her toes, but shapely legs went into the finest Italian leather shoes, a neat complement to her handbag.

Having turned the pages from front to back she went through the magazine the other way. Maybe it was a catalogue. What she was looking for was hard to say, and if nothing in particular she must have been bored out of her otherwise interesting mind.

The train was cutting through France like a bandsaw, to make up for lost time, and it was somewhere east of Paris by the time I had finished my tea. She put the magazine down, took one up called Playwoman, though didn’t open it, and gazed out of the window. Then she picked up the first magazine as if still not having found what she wanted, which action scuffed a spoon onto the floor. Unlike when she had dropped the tissue at the post office, I had it on the saucer before she could look at me over the paper. Gratified by her smile of thanks, I decided that talk costs nothing, and often brought its just reward: “Are you going much beyond Milan?”

She put the magazine down, a good sign. “To Ancona, or nearby. In the hills.”

“Family?”

“My husband and I have a house there.”

I told her where I was going, on the principle that the more fantastical my story the more reward I might get, if it was believed. It was risky, but I was used to that. When I put out my hand we were parted by a waiter barging by. “I’m Lord Dropshort, of Cannister House, Berks.” I didn’t use any other name in case there was a real lord of that ilk who, on reading this, might sue me.

“Were you the man in that marvellous Rolls Royce I saw coming up the ramp?”

“It’s a bore, having to drive the blasted thing.” I put on as much hee-haw as could be mustered. “My chauffeur was taken short with appendicitis yesterday, and let me down. But I’m getting the hang of it little by little.”

Whether she believed me or not I couldn’t say, but she seemed interested. “In fact,” I said, “I’m getting quite to like driving, which I suppose is how ordinary people feel when at the wheel of their own cars. Are you motoring?”

She laughed. “Yes, but nothing so grand. A Rover, though I expect it’ll get me there some time tomorrow. It’s all motorway, except the last bit. Looks like we’d better go. The waiters are getting edgy.”

We stood, her face a little above my chest. “Look here, since we’re travelling without our opposite numbers, if you’ll forgive the expression — even I’m constrained to look at television now and again — would you do me a kindness and be my guest at dinner in this swaying plankwagon? Better than eating alone, don’t you think?” I sensed her hesitation, but could have been wrong. “Unless you’re too stolidly married to those magazines,” I brayed.

The waiter pushed us aside again. “I say!” I cried after him, but he ignored me. “Damned impertinence. The lower orders don’t know their place anymore.”

But I thanked the waiter, because she was close enough to kiss. “That would be lovely,” she said, her hand warm and pliant.

“Settled. Think I’ll get some shut-eye.” I walked off before she moved, as befitted my status, pleased at my success, till I remembered she hadn’t told me her name.

Whatever the shaking and noise, I can sleep anywhere, and went off into the never-never land of seeing her white face close enough for me to move in, but her lips faded before mine could touch them. I woke with a hard thing pushing at my trousers, only diminished on swilling myself at the cold tap of my Wagon-Lit compartment, which dear Alice Whipplegate had booked by phone on the assumption that any courier of Moggerhanger’s deserved to travel in style. I put on a clean shirt and different tie, sprayed the deodorant, and went to meet my dinner guest along the corridor. Carriages in a siding across on the upline were, I heard someone say, filled with Spaniards going to look for work in Belgium.
She had changed into a white leathery looking dress. “I say, what a splendid outfit!”

“Thank you, my lord.” She hadn’t believed any of my twaddle, though things were going too well for me to care.

“I hope the meal will be worthy of you,” I said, feeling daft for having babbled such stuff. “I don’t believe you mentioned your name at tea.”

“It’s like being on the Orient Express, not exchanging names, though if you must know, since you’re inviting me to dinner, my name is Sophie.”

“We’ll have something to drink. Any objection to champagne?”

She laughed, as we were shown to the table. “Try me.”

The waiter was friendly after I placed my order. “Fact is,” I told her, “I’ve had almost no sleep for three nights, which is why I was a little late just now. I had so many affairs to put in order to do with my estate it’s a wonder I got away at all.”

She flamed a cigarette from a small gold lighter, and spread her napkin as if to catch the ash. “I can always ask direct questions on a train, can’t I?”

“Oh, right,” I laughed, “and get lies for answers.”

She leaned forward for almost a whisper. “As long as the lies are interesting.”

Here was a woman I could deal with. “Ask all you like.”

“Are you married?”

“Was. I’m free and detached now, the only state to be in, whether or not it’s painful, as it sometimes is. The ideal is to be yourself, and that’s impossible from the moment you’re married. Only on your own can your experiences have full meaning. I recommend it to all my friends, so lose a few who could never have been my friends.”

If she was wanting to know from some purpose or other, which was it? “You must have loved your wife,” she said. “You married her, after all.”

“Granted.” I fished up more of Blaskin’s droolings. “But we never live for life with those we fall in love with. When you’re in love everything relates to the beloved, and that’s where boredom kicks in. She’s in front of your eyes all the time.”

A slight tremble of her shapely lips was not unnoticed: “How did we get into this?”

“Your question started it. I knew a man who lightheartedly asked his wife whether or not she had ever been unfaithful. He was convinced she’d been as loyal as a turnip all their married life, till she answered, feeling it was beneath her dignity to tell a lie, that as a matter of fact she was having an affair at the moment. He was so stunned he poleaxed her. Killed her. He’s still in jail.”

The other diners turned at her laughter. “No?”

“It’s as true as I sit here,” I said. “It was in all the newspapers as well.”

She looked serious, which I didn’t care for, though she smiled when the champagne came. “I knew a man and wife,” I went on, “who got divorced after forty years together. A few months later they died of cancer — both of them. Everybody’s different. Some can take it, some can’t. Love’s often too much for the heart to bear, but when love isn’t there the heart’s arteries get clogged up, or it starts free-wheeling, which can lead to disaster.”

Make me stop, I told myself. What am I running on like this for? But I saw she liked it. “It’s a mistake to live with those you love, because those you live with soon stop loving.” Trying to detach her from her husband, we clicked glasses. “On the other hand there’s no more disturbing sensation than feeling you’re in love, and having no one around to love, a state I’ve been in this last day or two.”

No laughter now, she forked into the first course, three little tents of something or other in the middle of our plates. “I think you might be a dangerous man to know,” she said.

I was making progress. “I think things out. Why be alive and not do that?”

“I seem to have lived all my life sleepwalking.”

“Most people do. It’s easier, so who can blame them. I’m sometimes filled with envy at their deadness.”

She was no fool: “You talk as if you’ve been married twenty times.”

“Only twice.”

“You certainly wouldn’t envy me.”

I refilled her glass almost to fizzling over. “‘Beaded bubbles winking at the brim.’ Keats, if I’m not mistaken.” I blessed Frances, who occasionally read aloud for our entertainment.

“I went to a good school as well,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t I envy you?” I asked. If I couldn’t get to know all about her it wouldn’t be the fault of the champagne, a good half already gone.

“I’m not sure I can explain.” Her touch of despair was promising. “On the face of it I’ve had all I wanted out of life, but it’s never seemed good enough. In a year or two I’ll be forty.”

“A perfect age, though you don’t look a day over twenty-five. I hope you don’t think I’m boasting when I say my judgement is good on that sort of thing.”

“Well, I must tell you I don’t feel twenty-five. I’m not sure I’ll ever know what life is all about, what’s more.”

“Who does? Or can?” I said, in too deep to get out. “The best way is to live and not care what it’s all about, then one day, bingo, it all becomes clear. That’s what I’m banking on. And if it never does, at least you’ve had a worry-free time. Cheers!”

Her features lit up, then went down to about forty watts. “Things haven’t been good on the home front lately. Yesterday I told my husband I was leaving him, though I suppose I’ll stay in Italy till I’ve cooled off, before going back. It won’t be the first time.”

She pushed most of the fish course aside, and swigged the last of the champagne, her throat moving prettily. I ordered a bottle of red, hoping to get more than a look in at the drink. “There was hardly a moment when I didn’t want to get out of my marriage,” she said. “The other week I looked into the mirror and thought: ‘There but for the death of me go I,’ so I got into the car and lit off. Nobody wants to be a prisoner for life.”

“When you hold someone captive you become a captive yourself.” The hooter sounded, as if the train wanted to remind us of where we were. “Ask any prison warder about that.”

She sighed. “It’s easier for a man to get out of a marriage. I suppose a woman who falls in love with a man deserves all that happens to her.”

“Not necessarily.” I had nothing to quip back with, as the red came and the main course was put down. “Drink up. We’re all pals at the palindrome.”

“You’re a tonic,” she said. “I haven’t been so taken out of myself in months.” We ate in silence, till she asked: “Tell me another story.”

After a good swallow of wine I cobbled one together. “I knew a man — married — who had a girlfriend called Paula. He dialled her one day from a call box, and in his hurry tapped his home number by mistake, the worst kind of Freudian slip. He didn’t realise. Or his mind played him a vicious trick. His girlfriend Paula wasn’t in, which didn’t surprise him, knowing she listened to the messages on getting home in the evening. While what he thought was his girlfriend’s ansaphone was saying its piece he held the phone to his thigh to light a cigarette, and only heard the bleep telling him to go ahead after his wife’s ansaphone voice was finished. Then he spoke into what he thought was Paula’s receiving box. Still with me?”

“I certainly am. Can’t wait. I see what’s coming though.”

“Oh no you don’t. ‘Hello, Paula, darling, this is Denis,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget our lunch date on Friday. I’m calling to say I couldn’t get a table at the Trout, but they fixed us up at the Rainbow. So be there at one o’clock. Love you to bits. Can’t wait till we’re in bed again.’ Of course, his wife heard all this.”

She was laughing, a very attractive liveliness on her features. “Went and caught them, did she? Shot them dead, set the place on fire, then did a runner to Timbuctou!”

“Top marks for ingenuity, but after getting over the shock and humiliation she became slightly more devious, not to say vengeful. What she did, she phoned up an old flame called Donald, who’d been wanting to get back with her for years, and invited him to lunch at the Rainbow on the same day and at the same time as her husband and Paula. Luckily there was a table for them. She and her old boyfriend were seated by the time her husband Denis arrived with Paula. Denis was stunned to see his wife at the next table, but there was nothing he could do except sit down with Paula, as if his wife Shelagh wasn’t there with Donald who, by the way, was someone he’d always suspected of being his wife’s lover.

“Shelagh was smooching all over Donald, laughing and talking so loudly that Denis who, like most men with a mistress, was very possessive of his wife, was going all shades of red white and blue. He was so enraged and tight lipped he could hardly say a word to Paula, though she soon cottoned on as to what was riling him. Denis got more and more angry at Shelagh’s shameless remarks, the worst of which was that he was no good in bed, till he could hold himself back no longer. He went to their table, picked up Shelagh’s glass of cold white wine — she and Donald had ordered fish, turbot I think — and threw it in her face. At which her old boyfriend, a tall well-built man who worked at the Foreign Office, and had a sense of humour but lost it now, stood up and punched Denis all the way to the door and out onto the pavement.

“The place was in uproar, and the police were called. The two women — Paula and Shelagh — ran out of the place at the same moment, and went squabbling along Oxford Street together. They eventually calmed down and began to laugh about it all, and went into Selfridge’s to order glasses of lemon tea and salt beef sandwiches. They decided that nearly all men were absolute scum and not worth knowing. Shelagh was tall and fair, while Paula was dark and slender, and they became very attracted to one another the more they talked, even telling their life stories, and admitting they had never much liked men anyway.

“The end of the story was that Shelagh and Denis split up, and tore each other so much to pieces over the divorce settlement that not even Solomon could have sorted things out.”

By the time we were on our crème caramel Sophie seemed much changed, flushed and looking younger even than twenty-five. “Then what happened?”

“You’ve had volume one, what more do you want?”

“My husband never tells such stories.”

“Don’t mention him anymore.”

She didn’t, which was all I wanted. Over coffee she wrote the address of her Italian house, and I told her it was too far out of my way to call, but when a Cointreau came for her and a brandy for me she said: “You’re going to Athens, right?”

“Through Jugoslavia. Everything’s arranged. I have to collect something in Belgrade.”

“Come back over the Adriatic.” She took a map from her handbag. “Drive up the coast of Italy. You can stop off, where I’ve marked the spot.”

I was free to return any way I liked, so said I’d see her in about a week. By which time I’ll have volume two sorted out.

“Are you going to tell me that Shelagh and Paula have a lesbian affair?”

“Naughty,” I said. “I’ve never had one. Have you?”

“A long time ago, with an old school friend. It was very nice.”

I didn’t want to hear about it. “Do you know,” I said, “I’ve seen you before our meeting today.”

She laughed. “Not another story?”

“A week ago you were in a queue at the post office on Albemarle Street, so close I could have touched you.”

She thought back. “It’s true. How amazing. I was there. Why didn’t you touch me?”

“I thought I’d wait to do it here.”

“And you did. Wait I mean.”

“You dropped a kleenex, and some chap picked it up. Then you went out together.”

“Such evidence. I can’t believe it.”

“True stories are just as good as what’s made up, even better sometimes.”

“When we got outside I thanked him, then he walked away. How strange though that we see each other again.”

“So now I want to know what compartment you’re in.”

She answered readily. “A couple along from yours.”

“Perhaps we’ll have an extra dessert before we get to Milan, certainly sweeter than the one we’ve just had.” I reached a hand on finishing the brandy, then paid a bill so big I’d have to live on bread and water for the rest of my trip, though the extravagance looked likely to be worth it as she kissed me in the corridor and led me along.

She soon lay half undressed under me, no room to be side by side. “I’ve always wanted to do it in one of these.”

“This is your first time?”

“I’ve never had the chance, though I’ve had fantasies about it — with someone like you. Oh yes, that’s nice. Up a little. Just there. Oh, please go on.”

A woman always appreciates being warmed up with a little hors d’oeuvres, so I played her till she came, hoping an attendant wouldn’t knock on the door offering Horlicks or a nightcap as part of the late night service, though probably the alcoholic reek of our breath and the stench of fuckery would put him off.

“I suppose such hanky-panky on this stretch of the line isn’t unfamiliar,” I said afterwards.

She took my cigarette, and I lit another. “I thought it was argy-bargy.”

“There’s a difference,” I said, “between hanky-panky and argy-bargy.” Her breasts were warm and close. “In my experience hanky-panky is less devastating than argy-bargy, such as what happens when a personable woman drops her handkerchief and the man she fancies bends to pick it up, touching her so lightly on the ankle as he does that she can’t say whether it’s intentional or by accident, though someone looking on may see it as a clear case of hanky-panky, whether anything comes of it or not.”

“And argy-bargy?”

Hot fag ash fell on my wrist, but I didn’t twitch, or brush it off. “Argy-bargy is a more serious matter, the sort of situation hard to get out of. It could land you in serious trouble, often without you realising. Sometimes it starts as a shoving and pushing match in a pub, and if it goes on it can turn into a real glass-and-bottle set-to, blood all over the place. Argy-bargy sometimes starts from a bit of hanky-panky and can have long term consequences, such as between a woman and her fancyman, leading to a fracas that can become explosive and turn into the feud of a lifetime — especially in a situation where the woman’s husband shows his face.”

She put a hand between my legs. “So we should steer clear of argy-bargy?”

“We’re too sophisticated to be bothered by it, or even dabble in hanky-panky, though some people live all their lives going from one to another because it’s the only excitement they can get. They thrive on it, especially if they know how to take care of themselves.” I released my aching arm from her albeit delicious weight. “So now you know the difference between hanky-panky and argy-bargy.”

“I don’t know whether it’s what you’re saying, or your voice, but you certainly don’t sound much like Lord What’s-His-Name anymore.”

“Dropshort? My grandfather married an Edwardian actress who was a famous mimic, a grande comedienne no less, and her talent carried over onto me.”

“I don’t care who you are,” she murmured, “but do it again.”

Her hand had sufficient effect for me to say I would, and it surprised me that I could, dead tired after so much booze, but I did, and it was gone two o’clock before I went like a cloth-footed shadow to my cabin, disturbed for what remained of the night by the train stopping and starting, when it wasn’t bundling along at a hundred miles an hour and rattling my bones.

The attendant said he would wake me at six but I was up for a shave at half past five. A knife of daylight lay along the bottom of the window. I knew better than to wake Sophie for a good morning kiss, so flicked up the blind on the clear blue sky and rich vegetation on the slopes of Lombardy, hearing the sound of birds when the train halted at an outlying station. An elegant old man on the platform, wearing a grey suit, a panama hat, and carrying a briefcase, was about to cross the rails and try getting on our train, when a railway official got up like a field-marshal in Ruritania warned him not to. I wondered what business the dapper man had to do in Milan so early.

The train went through suburbs and into the station at half past six. I took up Sophie’s case in the corridor before the conductor could get his hands on it. “Meeting you has been very special,” I said. “But how are you feeling?”

“Sore, thanks to you. Otherwise fine. What about you?”

“Wonderful. Slept like a log.”

“You’ll see me again?”

She looked as perfect as if after a month at a health farm. “I certainly shall.”

I walked in front with her case to the station entrance. Tickets had been given out on the train for a free breakfast at the buffet, but the waiters were on strike and it was closed, a line of pickets across the front. My nose led us to a kiosk outside where delicious brioche and coffee was on sale. I was never up to much in the morning, and we ate in silence, till I said: “All that Lord Dropshort stuff is nonsense. It was only to amuse you.”

She took my hand. “I knew it was, and I love you all the more for it.” She put my card into her bag. “Drive safely on the road, won’t you?”

“I shall. And you do, as well,” I said, a last kiss before walking to the railway yard and up the ramp, to get into our cars. We waved in passing, and I turned off into a different break of the traffic.