Some Trick: Thirteen Stories

Improvisation Is the Heart of Music

‘The rest was pure Arabian Nights. Gazelle-eyed maidens with perfumed robes brought inlaid boxes of Turkish delight and roast hummingbirds and sugared grapes and honeyed wine — ghastly stuff — and tiny cups of sludgy coffee. Silks kissed the earth. Our host raised his hands and clapped — once — twice — three times, and on the third the strains of a harp wafted in from the wings.

‘“But my dear chaps! You’re not eating!” he cried. “Try the hummingbirds, I assure you they are excellent. Or a morsel of lamb? And you must, you positively must sample the mare’s milk cheese, it is a speciality of my people, a great delicacy. Fatima! See that the gentlemen have some cheese!”

‘He went on in this way for some time, and after I suppose half an hour or so said — “But come! I shall order them to prepare us a hookah, and my companions shall entertain you. Which did you favour among those who served you?”

‘Now I was prepared to see what the hookah was like, and even — dare I confess it? — be entertained by one of the companions, at least up to a point. But Angus is a true Scot, his Presbyterian blood curdled at the sound of this.

‘“Of course I’ll not touch his filthy hookah,” he whispered to me in tones just loud enough not to be tactful.

‘Our host went on with the utmost urbanity, as though nothing had been said, urging us to express a preference for one of the girls. Angus preserved the silence of outraged virtue. I murmured something noncommittal, all extremely attractive, impossible to choose one above the rest. This, it turned out, was a bad move.

‘“My dear fellow —” he cut me short “— I understand perfectly — to tell the truth I’m not, myself, entirely in the mood — as your friend’s tastes, it seems, are not in that direction (he smiled rather maliciously at poor Angus, who went bright red as only a rufus can) — you shall have them all!” A barrage of claps, and a bevy (it really is the only word for it, echt B movie stuff) of beautiful girls surrounded me, urging me to recline on a sort of divan strewn with silk rugs and shawls dripping with fringe.

‘Mahmet excused himself with a profound bow, leaving me, I took it, to disport myself with the company provided. If this was his object the ruse failed dismally, since he neglected to take Angus with him. Angus continued to sit bolt upright on his cushion, pulled out his pocket copy of Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class in a battered old blue and white Pelican edition, and buried himself in its pages, the picture of dour intellectual respectability. It effectively cast a damper on the debaucheries in which I was supposed to be rejoicing at the other end of the tent. After a little laboured banter with the beauties I sent them off, pulled out my Edmund Crispin, and started reading — it was the final humiliation to have nothing better to show than a humble green and white Penguin.

‘We turned in soon after. We never saw our host again: in the morning the Nubian appeared with a message on a tray. I took it, and he disappeared without a word. It was from Mahmet:

Edward paused dramatically before the name; after pronouncing it he fell silent, ending the story with a resounding close. He leant back into the corner of the sofa with a little expectant smile. The silence stretched out, a little awkwardly. As always with Edward’s stories, a round of applause seemed the most fitting response, but this is seldom used other than ironically in private conversation. Maria had not yet worked out an acceptable substitute, though she had had plenty of opportunity to practice: Edward was a gifted raconteur. Edward and Maria were engaged, but without the ease this implies — Maria still found herself struggling to keep up with a companion of such wonderfully polished conversational skills. What was the appropriate response to narrative tours de force? Should one praise the performance? Aim for intelligent comment? Laugh? Counter with a story of one’s own? That reminds me of the time I — but Maria’s life offered little in the way of anecdotal material, none of Edward’s stories had any connection with the sort of thing that happened to her.

‘What a story!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve always wanted to hear a genuine traveller’s tale: you don’t happen to have a bit of Roc’s egg lying about, I suppose?’

‘Nary a one — I did think the least our host could do was leave us each a ruby the size of an orange, but Sindbad seems to be a bit of a Thatcherite these days.’

Maria laughed heartily.

Edward and Maria had a big wedding. Maria had a very pretty dress (lace over satin); she decided to have a long veil. The men wore morning suits. She had a little going-away suit in nubbly pink silk, with binding, just the least bit Chanel, and a little hat. How can you have that kind of wedding and not be just the tiniest bit camp? Edward and Maria got in the limo amid showers of rice and confetti. Edward laughed, and kissed her. ‘You look lovely, my dear.’

They were taking a real old-fashioned honeymoon! They would go to Paris by boat-train, spend a week there, then go south to the Riviera. They would spend two weeks on a cruise ship, stopping first at various Italian ports, then at the Greek islands. They sat side by side in their compartment, holding hands — it was not something they had done often.

‘Y’know, I hope I have better luck this time than the last time I went sailing,’ said Edward.

‘Why is that?’ asked Maria.

‘The last time I went sailing I got shipwrecked! Have I ever told you the story? It was when Angus McBride and I went island hopping after Finals. Altogether a fantastic tale! We’d booked onto something that sounded perfectly respectable — the Hellenic Swan or some such thing — but turned out to be a great tub of a Victorian yacht that had been restored and put to work for the tourist trade. Amazing boat! Someone had clearly done it up to the nines about eighty years ago. Plush upholstery — swags of gold rope — thick Turkey carpets — vast numbers of cut-glass chandeliers — and a lot of brass and mahogany woodwork. It was all rather the worse for wear by the time it crossed our path, and its owners hadn’t had much luck in luring tourists aboard — the only other passenger was a mysterious Turk! Well, we’d only just started to make his acquaintance by the tarnished grandeur of the bar, when we ran into a bit of rough weather in the Adriatic, and the bloody boat started to go down!

‘Mahmet got us rather briskly into one of the lifeboats and winched us down. Then Angus and I started rowing like blazes! We saw the crew pulling off in another boat. We’d got perhaps a couple of hundred yards away when we saw the ship go under. I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen such a terrifying sight. One moment rather a lot of the bow and a fair bit of cabin roof were still above water; then an enormous swell rose above it, and the whole shebang was sucked under in a couple of seconds. A few flecks of foam and a stray life preserver were left floating on the surface where, just a few minutes earlier, there’d been a twelve-ton yacht.

‘We were at sea in the lifeboat until noon the next day. Angus and I had already started wondering whether it might be prudent to ration supplies, but Mahmet was superbly unconcerned. In the event we could have gorged on the water biscuits and tinned luncheon meats in the hold: we were picked up by a magnificent yacht which turned out to belong to Mahmet. He’d been on his way south to meet it at Genoa, but its captain had had the sense to head north when he heard of the disaster which had befallen the Swan. We were shown to a cabin, where we slept heavily all the afternoon — we hadn’t got much sleep the night before. When we woke we found we were at anchor off an unidentifiable bit of coast. A gigantic Nubian told us we were to join Mahmet on shore for dinner, and saw us into a small motorboat. We were taken ashore, and escorted into a vast tent which had been set up on the sand.

‘The rest was pure Arabian Nights. Gazelle-eyed maidens with perfumed robes brought Turkish delight in inlaid boxes and roast hummingbirds and sugared grapes and honeyed wine — ghastly stuff — and tiny cups of sludgy coffee. Silks kissed the earth. Our host raised his hands and clapped — once — twice — three times, and on the third the strains of a harp wafted in from the wings.’

Edward raised his hands and clapped; paused; clapped; paused; clapped again, and then caressed, gracefully, the air with his right hand in a wavy glide suggestive of the delicate notes of the harp.

‘“But my dear chaps! You’re not eating!” he cried. “Try the hummingbirds, I assure you they are excellent. Or a morsel of lamb? And you must, you positively must sample the mare’s milk cheese, it is a speciality of my people, a great delicacy. Fatima! See that the gentlemen have some cheese!”’

Maria crossed her legs, shifted on her seat, held her elbows. She had been, from time to time, slightly put out by Edward’s habit of modulating out of dialogue into anecdote, but she had supposed it to be, at least, a matter of spontaneous impulse. This mechanical repetition was something quite other and alarming.

‘We turned in soon after. We never saw our host again: in the morning the Nubian appeared with a message on a tray. I took it, and he disappeared without a word. It was from Mahmet:

Edward paused dramatically before the name, and after pronouncing it fell silent, ending the story with a resounding close. He leant back into the corner of the compartment with a little expectant smile. Maria smiled back nervously. So well-rehearsed a performance seemed to call more than ever for applause. What conversational alternatives were there? Would it be acceptable to repeat her comments of last time? Would Edward recognise them, and realise that he had told her the story before? Maria felt that this would be hideously embarrassing. She must come up with something new. At the same time it seemed unfair: she must improvise because he had rehearsed.

Perhaps it was a matter of rehearsing conversations until one got them right. Perhaps she had not responded well enough last time, so that Edward had had a niggling sense that a proper performance of story and reception had not taken place; perhaps this was her chance to improve. This was an alarming thought: if she did not rise to the occasion, the story might be brought out again and again until she perfected her reply.

‘What a marvellous story!’ she exclaimed hastily. ‘I’ve always adored The Count of Monte Cristo — there’s a wonderful Dumasian quality about this, isn’t there, the European swept suddenly from the midst of the working day technological world into the fantastic improbabilities of the Orient!’

‘Yes,’ said Edward, smiling agreeably, ‘one did rather feel that one had been catapulted into a big baggy monster of romantic French historicism. Thoroughly enjoyable for someone with low tastes like me, but a terrible trial for poor Angus, who felt he’d done nothing to deserve it. He stalked off the yacht at the earliest possible opportunity, injured innocence writ large on his brow.’

The Rapide hurtled through France. It was night; the windows of the compartment showed Edward and Maria only themselves surrounded by the paraphernalia of travel: the Spectator, some paperback mysteries, one of the Lucia books (Maria was not yet enough at ease to buy herself Vogue); a partially eaten Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bar, a packet of Jaffa cakes, a couple of oranges; a thermos flask of tea. The hours of travel had been punctuated by the recounting of anecdotes, many of them familiar to Maria. After each story Maria would pick up a theme for comment in the counterpoint which must follow; Edward would develop it briefly, then silence would fall. Sometimes Maria would bring out a new subject, which would be canvassed for a few moments before it reminded Edward of another story. Sometimes they turned to each other and smiled, and kissed, abandoning the struggle to converse.

The morning brought other pleasures. They sat in the dining car, looking at each other brightly across a table with a cloth. A waiter brought croissants and a pot of very strong coffee. They reached eagerly for croissants, for jam, drank coffee, set their cups down with a little sigh.

‘Why is it, do you suppose,’ said Edward, ‘that the Continental breakfast has only to cross the Channel to be so damp and depressing. It seems simple enough — why does it travel so badly? In England one wonders whether it is really meant to be eaten. Here it is invariably ambrosial.’

‘It is the tyranny of the toast rack,’ said Maria. ‘No self-respecting bed and breakfast can be without them; and once you’ve invested in the technology you’re committed to sliced white. But if you offer croissants and pastries of course no one will touch the white toast, so no one ever does offer anything else. They feel they must get a return on their investment.’

‘There is something in what you say,’ said Edward. ‘But that doesn’t account for everything. Why are croissants in England so awful? You never mind not having them because they taste like limp cardboard anyway.’

The subject of food is like Chopsticks: almost anyone can improvise on it. Two people who devise variations on something simple and silly end of course by collapsing into laughter: Edward and Maria smiled at each other in relief.

The yacht was comfortable, nothing remarkable. The islands, of course, were enchanting. They’d go for walks in the morning, not too early, taking a picnic lunch; stop at the beach, spread towels, eat brown olives and feta and yellow tomatoes and funny bread, drink retsina or local plonk; spend the afternoons swimming in the limpid water.

Edward had been there before and had lots of stories: about German tourists solemnly pacing through an olive grove at Mystras, heads popping up and down as they consulted an archaeological guide, sneering at the merely Byzantine and poking about for a few dusty stones of Sparta; of Americans looking haplessly round the local taverna, speaking wistfully of McDonald’s; of the plausible scoundrel who’d wanted only to open a high-class tourist shop in Rhodes, to sell genuine local handicrafts made in Taiwan.

Maria smiled and laughed. Everything was new to her.

‘Oh look!’ she cried; it was a fat old woman in black with a mule and a CD Walkman; it was a gnarled old man in Nikes with a sheep round his neck; it was a couple of very beautiful young men in very tight Calvin Klein jeans, ‘and they say there’s no such thing as Platonic love! Alive and well and on the strut in the agora, wouldn’t you say?’

But it was hard to be perfectly at ease.

Novelty disturbed Edward; he made an awkward remark or two about the old woman, was only happy when he had been reminded of one he saw years ago and could supply a polished little story for the occasion. Repetition disturbed Maria; it was like trying to play jazz with someone who has the sheet music for ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ and works it in whenever he can.

They met a couple of college pals of Edward’s in Lesbos, and took them back to the yacht for dinner.

‘Not very grand, but perfectly seaworthy,’ Edward said agreeably, leaping to the deck from the pier. ‘One learns to appreciate these things. Did I ever tell you of the time I was shipwrecked?’

If he had no one would admit to it.

‘Oh, it was yonks ago, when Angus McBride and I went island hopping after Finals,’ said Edward, leading the way to the bar. ‘(What can I get you? I think we’ve got all the usual.) Altogether a fantastic tale! We’d booked onto something that sounded perfectly respectable — the Hellenic Swan or some such thing — but turned out to be a great tub of a Victorian yacht which had been restored and put to work for the tourist trade…’

Edward and Maria return to the little house they have bought in Leckford Road, Maria trailing the past behind her. Every conversation she has had, every story she has heard, is on record in her phonographic memory, and on record also are the responses made by all the people she has ever known, and the records of her friendships are the most complete. Perhaps friendships are a matter of similar collections: you have the original, the friend has a backup. Her conversations with Edward are all on record, but hers is the only copy.

Edward bounds gaily into the house, the happy wanderer with his little light backpack of essentials, and she follows him slowly, carrying the luggage.

‘Shall we have some people to dinner for a housewarming?’ she asks, and sees her words thin into the air like vapour off early morning water.

‘Oh, yes, we must,’ says Edward, and they do.

Edward and Maria sit at opposite ends of the dining room table, and between them are six or seven friends. They fill glasses, urge seconds, swap honeymoon anecdotes — the friends are married, they have their share.

‘A yacht,’ says Sarah. ‘Crumbs. George and I went Eurorail! You must have felt frightfully grand.’

Edward opens his mouth.

‘Oh,’ says Maria, ‘Edward was sickeningly blasé. One really felt it was an awful come-down for him. Have you ever told them about the splendour amidst which you were shipwrecked, darling?’

Everyone has gone, and Edward and Maria repair to the kitchen to tackle the washing up. Edward scrapes and stacks; Maria fills the basin with Fairy Liquid and steaming water. As she lets the first stack of dishes sink beneath the suds she begins to sing softly.

‘o when the saints, o when the saints, o when the saints come marching in’

‘how i long to be in that number,’ sings Edward, ‘when the saints come marching in.’

‘O WHEN THE SAINTS. O WHEN THE SAINTS. O WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN! HOW I LONG — TO — BE — INTHATNUMBER, O WHEN THE SAINTS COME MARCHING IN.’

o when the saints (o when the saints) come marching in (come marching in) o when the saints come marching (marching in), how I long to be in that nu-u-mber. When the saints come marching in.