the attraction as far as you’re concerned? Not your cup of tea as a bloke or as a writer, I’d have thought. And he’s what, he’s passé, over and done with, gone for good, thing of the past, beyond revival even by you.’ O’Leary stared over his half-glasses at Gordon, ‘I happen to think you’d do the job about as well as anybody if it could be done, but it can’t, as you’ll see. Not worth the sweat.’
Gordon shrank from saying that O’Leary himself was something of a relic, specifically in the view he took of Fane’s irrevocable departure as a literary figure. What he did say, no less truthfully, was, ‘He may not be my kind of writer and he’s obviously not my kind of man. That’s an important part of what you called his attraction for me as a subject. I want to see how far I can –’
‘Oh God, it’s the challenge, is it, the fascination of what’s difficult and all that. Some old tit, even older and tittier than JRP Fane, anyway you remember he said when you’ve done something you can do, do something you can’t. Wrong again. Do something you can do and then do something else you can do and never mind if it’s the same thing. No virtue in trying what you find uncongenial because you find it uncongenial. You know that very well, or you would if you weren’t still stuck in that bloody Scottish Presbyterianism you flatter yourself you’ve left far behind you. My own upbringing was – but it’s a little early in the day to be bringing up bygones, I suppose. I shouldn’t really have started on any of this. Sorry.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Gordon, though he could see little enough to forgive, O’Leary having mostly stuck to his habitual friendly-jeering manner. Well, perhaps what he had said had fetched up a little nearer the bone than usual, ‘In fact it’s a nice change to be treated as an adult. Anyway, with your permission I mean to have a fair crack at showing how decent writing can overcome almost any prejudice in the reader, if that doesn’t sound too pompous.’
Perhaps it did; whether it did or not, O’Leary seemed to pay it small heed. He said, ‘I just hate to see a reasonably competent and successful journalist like yourself thinking it’s about time he did something less perishable and throwing his talents away on a serious book. I wouldn’t mind so much if you were going for something of your own, even a novel, but a critical biography, your phrase be it noted, of a prehistoric old sod like Fane, oh dear oh dear. Right, I’ve said too much already, not that any of it’ll shake your determination to misuse your abilities. You know, Gordon, in this life it’s important to recognize one’s limitations. Mine extend as far as this desk and no further, not my first choice as you may have heard, which goes to show one can sometimes do with a bit of guidance in setting one’s course. Now I mustn’t be late for the Chairman’s conference. He’s become a degree or two less tolerable since he got that bloody knighthood, unless it’s my imagination. Well, show me a pot of ointment and I’ll show you a fly. Give me a call tea-time about the days of the week you’ll be coming in to the office. Don’t forget to talk to Harry before you go. And first thing in the morning will do for your column but no later.’
It had been arranged that, when the time came, Gordon as host-designate should call to collect guest at the Fane residence and he turned up there punctually, indeed with a couple of minutes to spare. A girl of about thirty answered his ring apparently clad in an excerpt from the Bayeux Tapestry. ‘Yes?’ she said loudly before he could speak. Her manner was unwelcoming.
‘I’ve called to pick up Mr Fane.’
‘What?’
‘I’m taking him out to lunch.’
‘Name?’
‘Yes, meaning yes, I have a name, and if you ask me nicely I might tell you what it is.’ That was something like what Gordon was tempted to say. But all he did say was his name in full.
‘I’m terribly sorry but I’ve never heard of you.’
‘I exist nevertheless,’ Gordon actually did say this time. ‘Will you kindly tell Mr Fane that I’m here as arranged with him on Monday this week?’
‘Mr Fane is not here.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps I could wait for him. May I come in for a minute?’
‘Anything wrong, darling?’ asked a new voice, new in this conversation but in other respects age-old. Gordon had spied its owner, or that person’s head, sticking out of a nearby doorway inside the house a moment before. Now he was to be seen in full, striding up the hallway, a well-set-up man in a dark-grey suit and glasses. As he approached he repeated his question.
‘I don’t really know, darling,’ answered the girl.
‘M’m,’ said the man. He came to a halt in front of Gordon, at whom he still gazed while he said, ‘Could this be the chap, do you think?’
‘Well, he certainly looks and sounds like it.’
‘M’m.’
Now the man took his glasses off his nose and put them folded into the top pocket of his suit, ‘I think it might be better if you left, old man,’ he said. ‘No hard feelings.’
Gordon moved his arms a little way away from his sides and leant slightly forward, and things looked quite interesting for a moment, but then a distinctive high voice could be heard from the street.
‘Ah, there you are, my dear fellow, I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, I just popped out for some cat-food.’
‘Never mind, Jimmie,’ said Gordon, ‘I’ve been well looked after.’
‘Periwinkle’s been taking care of you, has she? I’m afraid I’m absolutely hopeless at organizing things, especially people. Let’s be off, shall we? I suppose I must have asked them along to give a … That’s Oliver, my son-in-law, back there. I think you could hail this chap. Fancy painting a taxi yellow.’
When they had driven off, Gordon asked, ‘She’s your daughter, is she, Periwinkle?’ He wanted to have it authoritatively confirmed that this was indeed a girl’s name.
‘Not a very friendly creature, I’m afraid, little Periwinkle.’
‘She wasn’t exactly welcoming me in just now. She seemed to think I was a tout or a hawker or something.’
‘She must have got you mixed up with a sort of cadger kind of fellow from Bulgaria did he say, who’s been hanging round the place for a day or two. She must have mistaken you for him.’
‘How extraordinary.’
‘Yes, different kettle of fish altogether. Horrible-looking broken-down sort of chap. It may seem an odd description of such a person, but what I believe is known nowadays as dead common.’
‘Really,’ said Gordon, remembering to make three syllables of it. He glanced surreptitiously down at his clothes.
‘He did have a moustache rather like yours.’
‘Perhaps that was what confused Periwinkle.’
‘Of course, she’s the child of my second marriage. She’s a funny girl. I don’t think she’s ever kissed me of her own accord. The truth is she’s a howling snob. I can’t think where she gets that from, it must be from her mother. Between ourselves I’ve never greatly cared for young Oliver, what’s he called, Turnbull I fancy. He’s what they call upwardly mobile, or at any
