Going Away and Other Stories Page 3

  It turned out in the end that it was no fault of mine. There was a large piece of wood jammed down one of the two downpipes from the roof, causing the rainwater to back up and enter the air conditioning system. Until now there had not been any heavy rains since the building had been finished. The building contractor was very cagey about it but I gathered he had some idea of who might have maliciously dropped the wood into the downpipe. My anxiety had made me forget all about Rose’s birthday tea. By the time I remembered and looked at my watch it was four-thirty and of course I was thirty miles away. I should have telephoned but I did not think I could properly explain what had happened and why I had been so anxious by talking to Jean on the phone while she was in the middle of a children’s party.

  By the time I had driven home I felt relieved but exhausted. The remains of the birthday tea were on the red checked tablecloth in the kitchen with a note propped up against a nearly empty bottle of orange squash.

  ‘You will no doubt not be interested to know that Rose had a very nice birthday tea, following which I have taken her with me to live abroad. Do not bother to try and find out where we are as we do not wish to see you.’

  I took one last look at the grave and the five already wilting daisies then sadly I made my way back to the car. My knuckles were still bleeding and I wrapped my handkerchief around them. I thought I had been at Rose’s grave for a long time but the lady was still on her knees arranging the flowers on the grave in the old part of the cemetery as I passed her.

  When I sat down in the car I felt all I wanted to do was to go back to the hotel in Châlons and see Mimi. What exactly I wanted from her I was not sure. I just had a great desire to see her again.

  In due course I sat in the salon fortifying myself with a large whisky before dinner, peering through the archway into the dining room to see if Mimi was there.

  ‘Very nice to see you again, sir,’ said the head waiter. ‘We have some very good oysters tonight.’

  ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I said. ‘Six please. And then the veal dish I had last night. It was very good. By the way is Mimi on duty tonight?’

  ‘Mimi, sir?’

  ‘Yes, your waitress.’

  ‘No sir, she was called Mathilde. She has left.’

  ‘Left! But where has she gone to?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, sir. Yesterday was her last day.’ The fellow was so smooth he could have been a waiter in a London club.

  I felt very disconsolate. When I started to eat the oysters, surely, I thought, you should only eat oysters when there’s an ‘r’ in the month and this is May! But probably the French don’t care about things like that; after all they eat thrush paté!

  I was very sick in the night. I blamed the oysters but it wasn’t really them, I know. I was sick at heart.

  Swan Song

  Sitting on the train to Eastbourne, looking at the seemingly interminable and unintelligible graffiti on the buildings beside the line, he wondered if it had really been a good idea, booking himself into this hotel for Christmas. He’d had an impulse, thinking he didn’t want to be alone over the holiday, as both his neighbours were going to be away. He and Ethel had spent two summer holidays at the hotel and then one Christmas, five years ago, just before she became ill. A quiet, old-fashioned sort of place.

  ‘Well, you’ve left it a bit late, sir, but you’re in luck!’ the receptionist had said when he telephoned. ‘We’ve just had a cancellation. Nice single room, small, but overlooking the sea.’

  So he took it. ‘Arrive Christmas Eve, leave the day after Boxing Day.’ He’d been sent a ‘Programme of Events’. ‘We hope,’ it said, ‘that gentlemen will wear their dinner jackets in the evening.’

  He’d looked his out, finding it at the back of the wardrobe, and tried it on. He hadn’t worn it for five years, since that last Christmas at the hotel. It was so old that it looked a trifle green in places and the jacket was a bit loose. He’d lost weight while looking after Ethel. But it would have to do.

  Little seemed to have changed in Eastbourne as he took the taxi from the station – and the hotel was certainly just the same: even the same hall porter, and the open fire burning in the hall, although it was scarcely necessary as it was so mild.

  ‘Of course I remember you, sir!’ the porter said. ‘On your own now, are you? I’m sorry!’

  The bedroom was very small but quite comfortable, and it had a wonderful view out to sea and over to Beachy Head. He unpacked slowly and put his alarm clock on the bedside table next to the folding photograph frame. One half had a picture of Ethel taken many years ago when she was principal boy in Cinderella at the Palladium and the other half showed her some years later in a studio pose with her fine features three-quarters on to the camera, smiling.

  It was 3.45 and nearly teatime, but he didn’t feel he could face tea in the lounge as he remembered it. There would be strange smiling faces and he wouldn’t know what to say without Ethel. She’d always been so good at that sort of thing. So he put on his hat and coat again and went for a walk along the seafront. It was a good day for the time of year but getting dark, of course, and there was a stiff breeze off the sea as he walked slowly towards Beachy Head. He’d always thought it was a strange way of committing suicide, jumping off Beachy Head. If you wanted to do it, why not some pills? But mustn’t think about that sort of thing. He’d resolved to keep his pecker up after Ethel passed on.

  He and Ethel had had a wonderful life together. They’d met in the theatre at Newcastle-on-Tyne. They were both very young. Ethel was a dancer and singer and he was trying to be a comedian. But he’d never managed to be a very good one. So difficult to make people laugh. And after a time he’d taken to being a manager and agent. Ethel had been really good. She had that special something. That was what he’d always looked for when he auditioned anyone, that ‘special something’. You couldn’t define it. It often didn’t matter that the girl didn’t have a very good voice – if she had that special something she’d be all right. It was like making people laugh. All those great stand-up comics like Frankie Howerd, Max Miller, Tommy Cooper – well, he had a few props – if you read their material it wasn’t that funny. It was the way they put it across. How did they do it? He’d often thought about it, but it was a mystery. You couldn’t teach it to anyone. It was either there or it wasn’t.

  But now it had started to rain. He’d have to turn back. He’d been dreading the evening, having to be cheerful among a crowd of people he didn’t know. He’d hardly gone out during the five years Ethel had been ill. He’d even sold the car eventually and for the past two years he’d had the groceries delivered.

  A waitress held a tray of glasses of sparkling wine for everyone as they came downstairs. He took one, then a loud, rather posh voice said, ‘Aha, I remember you! You were here about five or six Christmases ago, weren’t you? On your own now I suppose, like me? My husband passed away last February, quite suddenly. We’d been coming here for Christmas for fifteen years, so I thought, why not carry on? Jim would have wanted me to, I’m sure!’

  Ah yes, he remembered her now. A very bossy lady with a large bust and an extravagant hairdo; hen-pecked-looking husband. He and Ethel had tried to keep away from her. He smiled at her weakly. He could hardly turn his back!

  ‘Look, all us singles are on the same table together. I’ll show you. I can’t remember your name, by the way. Mine’s Mildred. Milly if you like. I prefer Mildred.’

  ‘Maurice,’ he said. But she didn’t seem to be listening as she grabbed his hand and led him through a crowd of people into the dining room.

  He didn’t really enjoy the dinner although there was nothing wrong with the food. Roast pheasant was the main course. Mildred, who sat herself beside him, complained in a loud voice that it hadn’t been hung long enough.

  ‘My Jim used to shoot. “Let them hang for a week,” he always said. Now this tastes as if it’s been hung for only two or three days at the most.’

  It tasted fine to h
im.

  ‘Many people don’t like it too high and gamey, you know,’ he ventured.

  ‘Well, they should! That’s the whole point of having game.’

  Oh dear, was she going to be argumentative? He looked sideways at her as she was addressing someone else across the table. She seemed to know everyone. She didn’t seem to have altered at all, nor did she seem very upset by her husband’s death. The other people round the table were all what is politely called of ‘the third age’ and he was probably the oldest. In fact, all the people in the hotel seemed middle-aged or elderly, apart from a small party of six people in their twenties or thirties. Why on earth had they come to a place like this? he wondered.

  And after dinner, the dancing. Mildred was immediately swept off by a military-looking gentleman and Maurice breathed a sigh of relief. He excused himself to the other seven people at the table and made for the conservatory and smoked a quiet cigarette. Some people were going to church at midnight but he didn’t think he’d go. He’d only been once since Ethel’s funeral. He wasn’t religious, but the hymns made him feel sad and he could feel the tears trickling down his cheeks. It was too embarrassing! No, he’d go upstairs to bed quite soon, but first watch the dancing for a little. He’d always loved to watch people dance.

  ‘Aha! Found you at last. Come on, you must give me a waltz or a quickstep before I go off and be holy in church!’ Mildred of course!

  Oh well! He took the floor.

  ‘Goodness, you dance very well Maurice, almost professional.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘What did you used to do before you retired? You are retired, of course?’

  ‘Yes. First of all I was on the stage and then I was a theatrical manager and agent.’

  ‘Goodness, that explains why you’re such a good dancer.’

  He couldn’t quite follow this but let it pass.

  ‘What did you do on the stage? Acting?’

  ‘No, no. I was a comedian. I told jokes, but I wasn’t very funny.’

  ‘I’m sure you were!’

  As he took his dinner jacket off in the bedroom he noticed it smelled strongly of Mildred’s perfume. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman he supposed, but she was very bossy and did talk such a lot.

  He thought if he got down to breakfast early he wouldn’t have to talk much. Breakfast was a buffet, his programme said, from eight to ten. And sure enough, there was only one other ‘single’ at the table, a morose-looking bachelor chap of about 65 or so who merely looked up from gouging out his grapefruit from its skin to say, ‘Er . . . Happy Christmas!’

  Another walk, longer this time, was indicated before lunch, which was to be a cold affair, with a full Christmas roast turkey dinner in the evening. It was a nice fine morning and he must have walked for almost three hours and then went to his room and managed not to sit next to Mildred at lunch by arriving at the very last moment. But Mildred was in full swing by the time he sat down.

  ‘You won’t believe this everybody, but do you know, the manager has just told me that we’ve been let down by the entertainers this evening. No, this afternoon with the conjurer and the puppets is still on, but the Olde Tyme Variety Show they’d booked for this evening have rung to say they’re not coming.’

  ‘Oh shame – why?’ somebody said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Always the highlight of Christmas here for me, the variety show in the evening!’

  ‘Yes, me too! Do you think we should ask for a refund?’

  ‘Not the hotel’s fault.’

  ‘What shall we all do?’

  ‘Play bridge or watch TV.’

  ‘I do that most nights anyhow. I was looking forward to something different.’

  ‘Look everyone, I have an idea,’ announced Mildred loudly. ‘We’ll get up a show ourselves. I did it once before in the church hall one New Year. It was very good. I expect we’ve got a lot of talent lurking here.’

  ‘You’ll never manage it, Milly.’

  ‘Bet I will. I’ll go and ask the manager if I can try.’

  ‘No!’ said Maurice as Mildred, with clipboard and pencil, bore down on him a little later.

  ‘Now don’t be like that, Maurice. I’ve already got five volunteers and you told me you used to be a comedian.’

  ‘Yes, but a very bad one. Anyhow, it was years and years ago.’

  ‘Well come along, I’m sure everyone will laugh. It will be Christmas evening after all.’

  She put her arm around his shoulders and snuggled her face near his cheek.

  ‘Be a dear. Just for Mildred.’

  Once again that perfume!

  ‘Oh, all right. About three or four jokes if you want. The trouble used to be, you see, that nobody ever laughed much. That’s why I became an agent.’

  Oh God, why had he agreed to do it? He sat in his bedroom dressed again in his dinner suit and looked out at the sea and the stars. It was a lovely clear Christmas night and he wished he was back in his flat in Ealing on his own. It would be even better if Ethel were there! He’d rehearsed a few jokes in his mind. They were awfully old and everyone must have heard them before. And maybe he’d finish with a song. He still had quite a good tenor voice but it would have to be something without any high notes!

  Ethel would have said he was a fool.

  He tried not to drink too much during dinner. But perhaps it would have been better if he had. He was feeling awfully nervous. Mildred had produced a programme which she’d photocopied and doled out to everyone as they seated themselves in the main lounge. The platform, which had been successively used by the dance band, the conjurer and the puppeteers, was now lit by two spotlights.

  ‘Shhh!’ said Mildred in a loud voice and, switching out the main lights in the lounge, she mounted the platform in what was undoubtedly meant to be a skittish manner. She had on a long, bright red evening dress with sequins round the collar and cuffs.

  ‘As you all know,’ she announced, ‘we have been let down by our Olde Tyme Music Hall artists, so we must entertain ourselves. We have ten sporting volunteers, as on your programmes, so please give them a big round of applause in advance . . . And you never know, we may discover a star in the making . . . So here goes with act number one, Geoffrey “The Pelvis” Elvis.’

  Geoffrey was a middle-aged man. He carried a cassette recorder which he placed with exaggerated care on the platform. He then pressed a button and quickly removed his spectacles and slicked his hair across his forehead as the sounds of ‘The King’ burst forth from the cassette at full volume. He proceeded to mime to ‘Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear’ followed by ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.

  Maurice thought, Well, he isn’t very, very bad, just, well, quite bad. He wondered why on earth Geoffrey had brought the cassette player and the Elvis tape with him for his Christmas holiday. Perhaps he always did his Elvis imitation for his wife on Boxing Night in the privacy of their bedroom?

  Maurice noted that he himself was number nine on the programme, before the final number, which was ‘Mildred will play a few old loved favourites at the piano and we hope you will join in!’

  Turns two to eight varied from the embarrassing to the pathetic. A lady sang – very badly – two numbers from Gilbert and Sullivan, but Mildred’s accompaniment at the piano was really quite good, thought Maurice. A younger man tried to do some imitations of various TV and political personalities and finished with what was supposed to be the Prime Minister. Not very convincing.

  Maurice’s heart gradually sank lower and lower. For some reason he had never felt so nervous in his life. But why? Everyone clapped at the end of each act, even when it was really dreadful. It was Christmas night after all – the season of goodwill. His mind must have wandered because he suddenly realised that Mildred was standing on the platform and saying, ‘Come along Maurice. Where are you? Don’t be shy. Do I have to come and drag you up here? Ha, ha, ha!’ She thereupon did a dramatic leap from the platform and shimmied her way towards Maurice, who
was sitting at the rear of room, and grabbed him by his hand. There was a great deal of tittering and applause as she and Maurice mounted the platform.

  ‘Now go on, tell us some jokes, Maurice, as you said you would. And I hope they’re not too rude!’

  He realised now what it must have felt like for those young people he had so often auditioned. Moist under the armpits, dry in the mouth and throat, and the heart pounding. He should have been much nicer to them. He saw himself standing there in the spotlights, a thin man nearing eighty in an old baggy dinner suit with an old-fashioned straight-back haircut, his hair nearly white, spectacles and a toothbrush moustache. And he knew that his voice would have that odd Cockney twang in it when he started speaking, as it always did when he was nervous.

  ‘Well,’ he began, ‘this one is about the vicar’s parrot. No, sorry, that’s wrong. The vicar didn’t have a parrot, the lady he was coming to visit had just been given a parrot. No, sorry, two parrots. Both the same.’

  A large lady in the front row started laughing very loudly. It was more like a cackle. ‘Yes, she’d just been given two, a male and a female, same breed and she didn’t know which was which you see. So she asked her neighbour, Mrs Smith, how to find out.’ Pause . . . some tittering. ‘Well, the neighbour said, lowering her voice, “It’s simple. You wait for the one to get on the top of the other and then you’ll know he’s the male.” So she waited and of course it happened just as she saw the vicar coming up the front garden path to visit her. Well she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want the vicar to see the parrots . . . well, like that . . . so she quickly opened the cage, knocked the male off the top of the female and tied her white lace handkerchief round his neck to identify him. She then shut the cage and opened the front door and in walked the vicar in his dog collar. At which the male parrot uttered his first words, “Hello, so you’ve been caught at it too, have you?”’

  Oh dear! There was a silence . . . nobody had understood. It was too crude. And then slowly the lady in the front row burst forth with the most raucous laugh. She put her head back and hooted. And slowly everyone else started laughing. He remembered, ‘Give them 30 seconds . . . no, a little longer’ . . . then, ‘That reminds me, talking of clerical things, a man decided to become a monk, a Trappist. They’re only allowed to speak once a year. Well, the first year came round and the Abbot asked the monk to speak. “I’m thirsty,” said the monk. The next year came round and the Abbot asked him to speak again. “I’m hungry,” said the monk. The third year came round, “I’m leaving,” said the monk. “Thank goodness for that,” said the Abbot, “you’ve done nothing but complain ever since you’ve been here.”’