Quite a grand luncheon, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, in a deeply depressed voice. ‘Quite a grand luncheon.’
And why, she thought, but did not say, why on earth am I going to it? She searched her mind for a bit because she always really liked knowing what she was going to do instead of doing it first and wondering why she had done it afterwards.
‘I suppose,’ she said, again to herself and not to Maria, who had had to return rather hurriedly to the kitchen, summoned by a smell of overflowing jam which she happened to have on the stove, ‘I wanted to see what it felt like. I’m always being asked to literary lunches or something like that and I never go.’
Mrs Oliver arrived at the last course of the grand luncheon with a sigh of satisfaction as she toyed with the remains of the meringue on her plate. She was particularly fond of meringues and it was a delicious last course in a very delicious luncheon. Nevertheless, when one reached middle age, one had to be careful with meringues. One’s teeth! They looked all right, they had the great advantage that they could not ache, they were white and quite agreeable-looking—just like the real thing. But it was true enough that they were not real teeth. And teeth that were not real teeth—or so Mrs Oliver believed—were not really of high class material. Dogs, she had always understood, had teeth of real ivory, but human beings had teeth merely of bone. Or, she supposed, if they were false teeth, of plastic. Anyway, the point was that you mustn’t get involved in some rather shame-making appearance, which false teeth might lead you into. Lettuce was a difficulty, and salted almonds, and such things as chocolates with hard centres, clinging caramels and the delicious stickiness and adherence of meringues. With a sigh of satisfaction, she dealt with the final mouthful. It had been a good lunch, a very good lunch.
Mrs Oliver was fond of her creature comforts. She had enjoyed the luncheon very much. She had enjoyed the company, too. The luncheon, which had been given to celebrated female writers, had fortunately not been confined to female writers only. There had been other writers, and critics, and those who read books as well as those who wrote them. Mrs Oliver had sat between two very charming members of the male sex. Edwin Aubyn, whose poetry she always enjoyed, an extremely entertaining person who had had various entertaining experiences in his tours abroad, and various literary and personal adventures. Also he was interested in restaurants and food and they had talked very happily about food, and left the subject of literature aside.
Sir Wesley Kent, on her other side, had also been an agreeable luncheon companion. He had said very nice things about her books, and had had the tact to say things that did not make her feel embarrassed, which many people could do almost without trying. He had mentioned one or two reasons why he had liked one or other of her books, and they had been the right reasons, and therefore Mrs Oliver had thought favourably of him for that reason. Praise from men, Mrs Oliver thought to herself, is always acceptable. It was women who gushed. Some of the things that women wrote to her! Really! Not always women, of course. Sometimes emotional young men from very far away countries. Only last week she had received a fan letter beginning ‘Reading your book, I feel what a noble woman you must be.’ After reading The Second Goldfish he had then gone off into an intense kind of literary ecstasy which was, Mrs Oliver felt, completely unfitting. She was not unduly modest. She thought the detective stories she wrote were quite good of their kind. Some were not so good and some were much better than others. But there was no reason, so far as she could see, to make anyone think that she was a noble woman. She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read. Wonderful luck that was, Mrs Oliver thought to herself.
Well, all things considered, she had got through this ordeal very well. She had quite enjoyed herself, talked to some nice people. Now they were moving to where coffee was being handed round and where you could change partners and chat with other people. This was the moment of danger, as Mrs Oliver knew well. This was now where other women would come and attack her. Attack her with fulsome praise, and where she always felt lamentably inefficient at giving the right answers because there weren’t really any right answers that you could give. It went really rather like a travel book for going abroad with the right phrases.
Question: ‘I must tell you how very fond I am of reading your books and how wonderful I think they are.’
Answer from flustered author, ‘Well, that’s very kind. I am so glad.’
‘You must understand that I’ve been waiting to meet you for months. It really is wonderful.’
‘Oh, it’s very nice of you. Very nice indeed.’
It went on very much like that. Neither of you seemed to be able to talk about anything of outside interest. It had to be all about your books, or the other woman’s books if you knew what her books were. You were in the literary web and you weren’t good at this sort of stuff. Some people could do it, but Mrs Oliver was bitterly aware of not having the proper capacity. A foreign friend of hers had once put her, when she was staying at an embassy abroad, through a kind of course.
‘I listen to you,’ Albertina had said in her charming, low, foreign voice, ‘I have listened to what you say to that young man who came from the newspaper to interview you. You have not got—no! you have not got the pride you should have in your work. You should say “Yes, I write well. I write better than anyone else who writes detective stories.”’
‘But I don’t,’ Mrs Oliver had said at that moment. ‘I’m not bad, but—’
‘Ah, do not say “I don’t” like that. You must say you do; even if you do not think you do, you ought to say you do.’
‘I wish, Albertina,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘that you could interview these journalists who come. You would do it so well. Can’t you pretend to be me one day, and I’ll listen behind the door?’
‘Yes, I suppose I could do it. It would be rather fun. But they would know I was not you. They know your face. But you must say “Yes, yes, I know that I am better than anyone else.” You must say that to everybody. They should know it. They should announce it. Oh yes—it is terrible to hear you sitting there and say things as though you apologize for what you are. It must not be like that.’
It had been rather, Mrs Oliver thought, as though she had been a budding actress trying to learn a part, and the director had found her hopelessly bad at taking direction. Well, anyway, there’d be not much difficulty here. There’d be a few waiting females when they all got up from the table. In fact, she could see one or two hovering already. That wouldn’t matter much. She would go and smile and be nice and say ‘So kind of you. I’m so pleased. One is so glad to know people like one’s books.’ All the stale old things. Rather as you put a hand into a box and took out some useful words already strung together like a necklace of beads. And then, before very long now, she could leave.
Her eyes went round the table because she might perhaps see some friends there as well as would-be admirers. Yes, she did see in the distance Maurine Grant, who was great fun. The moment came, the literary women and the attendant cavaliers who had also attended the lunch, rose. They streamed towards chairs, towards coffee tables, towards sofas, and confidential corners. The moment of peril, Mrs Oliver often thought of it to herself, though usually at cocktail and not literary parties because she seldom went to the latter. At any moment the danger might arise, as someone whom you did not remember but who remembered you, or someone whom you definitely did not want to talk to but whom you found you could not avoid. In this case it was the first dilemma that came to her. A large woman. Ample proportions, large white champing teeth. What in French could have been called une femme formidable, but who definitely had not only the French variety of being formidable, but the English one of being supremely bossy. Obviously she either knew Mrs Oliver, or was intent on making her acquaintance
