Kingsley Amis - The Biographer’s Moustache

‘So this is the great man’s biographer, Tommie,’ said Bobbie, and Tommie nodded and smiled. Both of them continued to look Gordon over in a considering and also greedy fashion, as if they had half a mind to eat him later. ‘You mustn’t mind us,’ Bobbie went on, ‘but you are called Gordon, aren’t you, I mean that is right, I hope?’

‘Gordon Scott-Thompson.’

‘How do you do. I mean it is marvellous that you’re here, isn’t it, Tommie?’

‘You’re very young, aren’t you, to be taking on a demanding job like writing Jimmie’s life?’

They were so friendly, or at least were smiling at him and at each other so much, that Gordon found it hard not to go along with them. Jimmie gave no lead, showed no more sign of being disconcerted than of being gratified at their presence. For the moment Gordon could see no alternative to reciting dull facts about himself, dull to him at least, though Bobbie and Tommie listened in seeming fascination. This phase lasted until a man too active-looking and speedy in his movements not to be a club servant appeared and gave out menus, a service unremarked by any of the three club members present. His own menu, Gordon saw, had no prices on it, no doubt to remind him that he could choose whatever he fancied – fancy that! And fancy another thing, already becoming clear, that Jimmie was going to have to pick up the bill for all four lunches, including the wine, which Bobbie and Tommie were now engaged in vociferously choosing from the list. Gordon told himself that what prevented him from ordering oysters followed by lobster, and so tit-for-tatting Jimmie, was not any form of compunction but simple dislike of those dishes. But when his preludial slice of melon arrived in front of him and he started on it under Bobbie’s observant eye, he had to admit internally that the real deterrent had been the prospect of that eye turned on his unpractised attempts to deal with oysters and such.

The meal progressed without resort to violence. The conversation between Jimmie, Bobbie and Tommie was mostly about the doings or condition of men referred to only by names similarly terminated. So Gordon had to say little and had little to say. He had meant to take the opportunity of seeing how far Jimmie had meant what he said about answering questions, but that now seemed to be ruled out. Tommie and Bobbie were chattering away with Jimmie nineteen to the dozen, as if they had lost interest in the fourth member of the party, but something in their occasional glances or his imagination suggested that they would come back to him when they felt like it. Both were drinking what he would have thought of as a fair amount of wine.

His moment came. The three others shared a sort of end-of-chapter laugh and collectively turned towards Gordon, who started to concentrate on sitting still in his chair. Both Bobbie and Tommie showed a friendly curiosity, though it struck him as a little excessive too. Jimmie was more non-committal, as if he was being told by Lord Bagshot about a delightful little place for lunch in the hills above Rome, now unfortunately closed down. At last Tommie said,

‘Well, Gordon – it is Gordon, isn’t it? – you haven’t had much to say for yourself for the last half-hour or so, have you?’

Gordon made gestures indicating that that was indeed the case.

‘I don’t suppose you know very many of the people we were talking about just now. Not very polite of us, I’m afraid. Perhaps never even heard of most of ‘em, eh?’

‘I have heard of the Prince of Wales.’ Gordon tried to push all expression out of his voice. ‘Not many others, it’s true to say.’

A single yelp or bark of laughter broke from Bobbie, who had just refilled his own glass and Tommie’s, vigorously waving away with his free hand the proffered attention of a servant. Jimmie raised his eyebrows in a further demonstration of impartiality. Tommie pressed on.

‘Yes, it was rather naughty of us to go on chinwagging about our cronies in that fashion, but Jimmie here is always bursting to hear the latest gossip, and we don’t seem to see him as often as all that.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Gordon.

For a moment Tommie looked at him in a new way, one accompanied by a small frown of puzzlement. ‘Didn’t we meet at Henley a year or two ago? Or was it, er, you know, Cowes?’

‘I’ve never been to either place.’

‘M’m. I must be mistaken. You may remember my saying when we met just now, Gordon, how young you seemed, I meant young to have taken on the job of writing up the life and works of an old josser like Jimmie here – I should add hastily that I’m a good year older than him. Anyway, I know I said something of the sort.’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘Well, it strikes me now, how shall I put it …’ Tommie spoke with a short silence between each phrase and the next and Gordon fancied that Bobbie started listening with heightened intensity, ‘I don’t know whether … of course I should have explained that I only heard about this … this project of yours a short while ago, just before you …’

‘I merely happened to mention it in passing,’ said Jimmie, as one who exculpates himself.

‘I haven’t had time to … think very deeply about what’s involved, or …’

‘Get along with you,’ said Bobbie, with some roughness in his tone as well as his words. ‘What did you say to me as soon as Jimmie had told us a little about our young friend here?’

‘I don’t think we need actually …’

‘What did you actually say? Come on, Tommie old bean.’

‘All right, I said something to the effect that his earlier life, his background, Gordon’s background probably hadn’t often brought him into contact with the kind of people Jimmie had been, well, brought into contact with.’

Tommie made to face Gordon again, but Bobbie broke in. ‘All right, as you say. All right. If you feel you somehow ought to water it down, all right.’

‘I was simply –’

‘All right, all right.’

Now Tommie did say something to Gordon, it’s quite straightforward. Obviously you and Jimmie have had different sorts of upbringing and, and life. Nothing mysterious about it.’

‘No,’ said Gordon. ‘Nothing mysterious at all.’

Aware that Bobbie looked like breaking in again, Tommie hurried on. ‘What I’m getting at, what we’re getting at is just that you can’t, you wouldn’t want to write any sort of book on Jimmie without, er, seeing him in the company of the people and the kind of society he grew up in and has, well, been in ever since, and it’s not the same as the kind you grew up in, am I right?’

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