Josep Pla - Life Embitters

I must confess that really depressed me. I’d thought for a moment that I’d found an interesting character for the novel I’ve got in mind and it turns out that Mr Tom is a nobody and riffraff to boot. But there you go, a few weeks after all that we bumped into each other by chance in Meanwood’s bookshop. The second he saw me, he waved his arm in the same way a goose stretches its neck, while bowing formally — his head was bare as it was on the first day we met. The bookseller did all she could to stifle her chuckles. When he’d finished bowing, he asked for permission to introduce himself in a fluty voice that made my flesh creep. I was horrified by the man’s bizarre appearance, I took two steps backward but was too late to make my escape: he’d grabbed my hand and started to speak so obsequiously that I began to wonder if he wasn’t some sinister confidence trickster. I could feel the icy touch of his hands. I thought the best thing was to leave and that’s what we finally did.

“I hear you’re from a country that’s been Catholic for thousands of years, is that right?” he asked affectedly as I shut the bookshop door.

“That’s absolutely right. Do you find that of interest?”

“Very much so …” he replied, as his little finger imitated the goose’s neck movement that he could do with his arm and rolled his eyes. “There aren’t many of us who think like that in Meanwood!”

“Indeed, we are an insignificant minority …”

“Meanwood is such a vulgar little town! There’s no social life of any description. Ireland is very different …”

“Do you find social life to be of interest?”

“It’s what most interests me. I come from a good family and was well brought up. Then things went sour on me, to be sure. In Liverpool I was always invited to the best households who shared our beliefs. I know a hundred games and society habits that are highly entertaining. Come to our house one day and I think you’ll like them. But don’t imagine they’re anything out of the ordinary. You will know others … What do you do on a Saturday afternoon?”

“I go to watch a game of rugby. I really enjoy the sport …”

That fellow’s voice, gestures, and strange foibles that had been fawning and smarmy until I made this confession now became incredibly grotesque when accompanied by the expression of terror on his face when he heard that I liked rugby. He took three steps backwards, blanched, and gabbled as his eyes bulged out of their sockets: he was totally at cross purposes. Now he touched the wings of his collar or his bowtie with his fingertips, now he straightened his glasses or scratched his ear, bit his nails or drew strange s’s in the air. His simpering, half-closed mouth was as exaggerated as a cartoon witch’s.

“You like rugby?” he said blankly, as if he’d just landed from another planet.

“You know I like rugby so much that I was intending this very minute to go and see a game. I love rugby’s brutishness.”

He probably thought I was a lost cause, and his only response was to emit a little nasal chuckle and gently and warily clutch my arm. For my part I decided to do my utmost to avoid any repetition of the spectacle I’d just witnessed. I spoke of more low-key matters.

But he didn’t subside. After we’d spoken at length, I must have shown my impatience. That fellow was getting on my nerves. I had to send him packing for good. But he was of the opinion that we should meet further.

“Which mass do you go to on Sundays?” he asked flaunting his Adam’s apple three times.

“Which suits you best?”

“Leeds has only two churches of ours: the cathedral and St. Patrick’s. I go to St. Patrick’s. In fact this Sunday there’s a sermon at ten o’clock mass on the Catholic missions to China. If you like, we could go to ten o’clock mass. We can meet outside the church on the corner of New York Road at a quarter to.”

“Is that OK?”

“That’s fine,” I replied shaking his hand and mentally pitying the poor Chinese.

He rebuffed my hand with the sweetest of smiles and I still had to listen to him for what was a long time. However, when we reached the rugby field, he looked appalled and we said goodbye till the following morning.

It was a splendid game played by young miners, and almost every player had to request a third set of replacement shorts. Then I ran home intending to write to Mr Tom. I asked him to be so good as not to wait for me in the morning using the excuse that I had some unexpected work to attend to. At the same time I pledged never to meet up with him again. His looks and conversation made me want to laugh and cry.

The next day, around mid-morning, a child knocked at the door carrying a parcel. It turned out that the parcel was for me. In side were two artificial flowers and a visiting card that said: Thomas O’Grady, for his unforgettable friend . When I saw that, if I didn’t burst into loud laughter, it was because I was literally shell-shocked. It wasn’t surprising, I think. The flowers were made of cloth, but it was obvious they’d just been bought. However much the poor Irishman might thirst after some social life, it was a grotesque present. And, if he’d sent me the flowers because I belonged to the same confession as he did, then things took on such a ridiculous air I could hardly find the words to describe them. Nonetheless, don’t imagine that it didn’t cross my mind that Tom might just be a wonderful prankster. The excessively obsequious attitude he’d adopted from the first made me wary. Perhaps his nasal tones, his gestures, and his liking for social life hid the sardonic ways of an extraordinary man. The circumstances of his present life, companion to a dance teacher’s insatiable eighty-year-old widow, earning a pittance, and singing Italian arias while he cooked and cleaned, were perhaps but the adventures sought out by a paradoxical temperament. If he’d sent me two flowers because I’d broken a rendezvous we’d agreed, what would he have said if I’d actually gone? I spent two hours ruminating about that strange fellow and in the end didn’t know what to decide: whether to think Tom was simply a grotesque clown or an angelical play-actor. The upshot was that I decided even more categorically not to have any more to do with Mr Tom O’Grady.

For starters I decided to not to respond to his present. The following day there was a chance occurrence that I felt was providential. A letter arrived from a friend with the news that he was coming to London and was inviting me to dine that same evening at Scott’s Restaurant. Here’s a good excuse — I thought — to ditch an unpleasant relationship. The fact is, however, I received a letter from Tom O’Grady three days later in London. No doubt about it, my landlady had given him my address. The letter was surprisingly affable, but I thought I discerned such a degree of ambiguity I almost felt sick. Ever since you departed , went the letter, I can only think of you and I thank God for giving me the opportunity to meet and speak with you. You can imagine how delightful it is to find a kindred spirit in a foreign land. Meanwood is a wilderness and all that is keeping me here is my charitable feeling for old Mrs Hudson, who has reached such an enviable old age. Time here drags intolerably. I envy you being in London and I am with you, in spirit. If you go to Westminster Cathedral don’t forget to pray a Salve in my regard and if you buy a magazine, don’t throw it way, because I so like to keep up with the latest fashions. I will be immeasurably pleased to receive your news. Sincerely, Tom O’Grady .

I read the letter three times. “If Tom is a hapless soul,” I told myself, “this letter is a model of haplessness. If, on the other hand, Tom is a practical joker, the letter is a perfect piece of practical joking and subterfuge. I remember how long I laughed with my friend trying to work out what precisely was driving that eccentric Irishman. We turned the matter over and over, and then all of a sudden my friend smiled maliciously and said: “Your Mr Tom must be a repressed …”