Mortimer Penelope - The Pumpkin Eater

“No, not a bit.” I put my hand over the mouthpiece and said, “She wants to know if it’ll be dressy .” He said, on the fringe of a yawn, “Give her my love.”

“Jake sends you his love.”

“Oh. Thank you. We look forward to meeting you, awfully.”

“Yes,” I said. “It does seem silly we’ve never met.”

I went over to Jake and kissed him. He still seemed a little stunned. “There you are. You can do the rest.”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me round to face him. “Have you been having an affair with that doctor or something?”

“How did you guess?”

“Something’s happened. You look about eighteen. You look cunning.”

“It’s the pills,” I said. “He gave me pills. They’re very rejuvenating.”

“What are you hiding? There’s something. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve got some plan, I can tell that. Haven’t you got some plan?”

“Of course not.” But as I said it I knew. I might have a plan. How stupid of me not to think of it before. Hated doctor, darling Jake — naturally I have a plan.

“Professional men,” Bob Conway said, “are all alike — doctors, lawyers, parsons, bloody parasites the lot of them. I call myself a tradesman because that’s the only thing I’ve any respect for — a man’s trade. Take these head-shrinkers now, you can’t call that decent work, man’s work, no, not in my honest opinion. In my honest opinion the whole bunch of them are a lot of frauds. About the only thing these leeches can cure is a case of clap. How about measles, how about mumps — our kid had mumps while Beth was away, so I know , I can tell you. How about the common cold, how about a cure for that?”

He was about fifty, squat, fat, with a throttling bow tie and small, twinkling eyes. His eyes twinkled as though hung in his head to frighten the birds away. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who. I moved round him a little and caught sight of Dinah pinned into a corner by John Hurst. She signalled “Help!” over his shoulder and turned it neatly into a radiant smile.

“Excuse me …” I said, “but I must…”

“We all know what we want,” Bob Conway said, “and what the hell’s the good of wondering why we want it? Well, I know what I want, and the more of it the better!” He nudged me with his empty glass.

“Jake …” By stepping back and plunging my arm between two unknown and startled guests, I managed to catch him. “Mr. Conway needs a drink. Can you …?”

I edged over to Dinah. Hurst was clutching the high bookshelf with both hands and had her penned between them. I ducked under one of his arms and rose up next to Dinah. He was incapable, it seemed, of moving and for a few moments, until he fell on me, Dinah and I jostled each other like people in a small lift.

“Darling Mrs. Jake!” he said. “Darling! What about this steaming girl of yours? Isn’t she a beauty? Isn’t she marvellous?” At this he fell, enveloping me. Dinah blushed and giggled. “I’ve been telling her she should go on the movies. No, honestly. She’d make a fortune. Darling Mrs. Jake, where’s that old fox of yours been hiding you, you should have been there !”

“I wish I — ”

“We could have had a marvellous time! You simply abandoned us to that ghastly Dante, you know that.”

“Well,” I said, flicking an eyelid at Dinah, “there was Beth.”

He lowered his voice to a roar. “Tiny bit boring, between you and me. Strict secrets, of course. English Rose stuff. Deathville, as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, she’s got the most ghastly breath, haven’t you noticed?”

“I haven’t… been very close.”

“Well, believe me she has. Darling! My angel!” He had been clasped from the rear by a thin, faceless girl wearing black leather. She towed him away. Dinah said, “Gosh, thanks. I thought I was done for.”

“I rather like him.”

“Well, he’s certainly marvellous for his age. I say, Dad’s very with it tonight, isn’t he? I didn’t know Beth Conway had red hair, I thought it was sort of blonde. She’s jolly pretty, I must say, what an awful thing to say about her breath.”

“Do you want to meet someone? There’s a cameraman called Ned.”

“I met him, he’s queer as a coot. I think I’ll go to bed if you don’t mind. Dad won’t notice, will he?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Will you look and see if they’re all all right?”

“Okay. Goodnight, then.”

The curious exhilaration of the day was going; I could feel it leaving me empty, lonely, uncertain again. I wanted to touch Jake, to be quiet. Everyone in the room was frolicking in love, splashing each other with love, falling about in it, drinking it, pretending to drown in love. Jake and a tall, spectacled American were wreathed together like schoolgirls. Beth Conway was being hugged by Hurst, in spite of her breath. The cameraman was curled up on the continuity girl’s lap, nuzzling into her mohair breast. I drank a glassful of champagne that someone had left on the bookcase. It was immediately filled again by Conway who said, “I’m hanging on to this bottle, it’s the easiest way.”

“Oh,” I said. “Good.” Jake was mobile at parties, relentlessly leaving people in the middle of a sentence, always planning his next move. I seemed to go from trap to trap. I finished the champagne, hoping it would quell a rising despair.

“Somebody told me that gorgeous little blonde is one of your daughters,” Bob Conway said. “You haven’t sent her to bed, have you?”

“She’s … she’s gone to bed, yes.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen. Well… nearly seventeen.”

“I suppose everyone tells you you look like sisters?”

“Yes,” I said. “Nearly everyone.”

“But she’s not the oldest, is she?”

“No, she’s not the oldest.”

“How old is the youngest, then?”

“Three.” I made a tremendous effort, wrenching my eyes round to look at him. “How old is yours?”

“Oh, she’s two and a half. Prettiest little thing you’ve ever seen, just like her Mum. We miss Beth, I can tell you, when she has to go away like this.”

“I’m sure you do. I… miss Jake, too.”

“Well, it gives us the chance for a little ring-a-ding-ding — eh? Next time they go off, I’ll give you a tootle. You might like to see round the works.”

I stared at him, unbelieving. “What works?”

“I run up Hi-Fi, you know, tape recorders, sound equipment, special stuff. It might interest an intelligent woman like yourself.”

I felt myself swaying slightly, unable to balance on my heels.

“I’m not at all intelligent,” I said. “Not at all.”

“Don’t give me that. I know an intelligent woman when I see one.”

“I learnt two things at school,” I said. “Just two. Shall I tell you what they were?”

“Now don’t shock me.”

“Si-Sing,” I began carefully, “Si-sing est un bon Chinois, ronde comme une pomme et jaune comme un … motte du beurre.”

“That’s French.”

“Right. And the other thing, a corm is the swollen underground stem of an erect shoot. That’s all I learned.”

“Well, you seem to have made pretty good use of that last piece of knowledge, ha, ha. Very good use indeed. You must tell Beth that, she’s got the smuttiest mind of any girl I know, that’s why I married her.” He shook with grim laughter and clutched my arm. I stepped back so wildly that I knocked against a picture on the wall; a screw ripped out and the picture fell to the ground like someone dying. Bob Conway propped it against the wall, consoling it.

“I’ve been meaning to take that picture down for years,” I said. “For nine years. Isn’t that extraordinary? You know, you remind me of someone, and I can’t think who it is. I just can’t think. Perhaps Jake would know. Let’s go and ask him.”