Muriel Spark - The Ballad of Peckham Rye

‘One thing about you I’ll admit,’ she said, ‘you’re different. If I didn’t know you were Scotch I’d swear you were Irish. My mother’s Irish.’

She said they could not take a taxi up to her door because her mother didn’t like her coming home with men in taxis. They dropped off at the Canal Head at Brixton.

‘I’m leaving Meadows Meade,’ Elaine said, ‘Saturday week. Starting on the Monday at Drover Willis’s. It’s advancement.’

‘I saw they were advertising,’ Dougal said, ‘for staff at Drover Willis’s.’

They walked along by the canal a little way, watching the quiet water.

MR DRUCE said with embarrassment, ‘I feel I should just mention the fact that absenteeism has increased in the six weeks you’ve been with us. Eight per cent to be precise. Not that I’m complaining. I’m not complaining. Rome can’t be built in a day. I’m just mentioning a factor that Personnel keep stressing. Weedin’s a funny sort of fellow. How do you find Weedin?’

‘Totally,’ Dougal said, ‘lacking in vision. It is his fatal flaw. Otherwise quite sane.’ He bore on his uneven shoulders all the learning and experience of the world as he said it. Mr Druce looked away, looked again at Dougal, and looked away.

‘Vision,’ said Mr Druce.

‘Vision,’ Dougal said, and he was a confessor in his box, leaning forward with his insidious advice through the grille, ‘is the first requisite of sanity.’

‘Sanity,’ Mr Druce said.

Dougal closed his eyes and slowly smiled with his wide mouth. Dougal nodded his head twice and slowly, as one who understands all. Mr Druce was moved to confess, ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m sane myself, what with one thing and another.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘Fancy the Managing Director of Meadows, Meade & Grindley saying things like this.’

Dougal opened his eyes. ‘Mr Druce, you are not as happy as you might be.’

‘No,’ Mr Druce said, ‘I am not. Mrs Druce, if I may speak in confidence…’

‘Certainly,’ Dougal said.

‘Mrs Druce is not a wife in any real sense of the word.’

Dougal nodded.

‘Mrs Druce and I have nothing in common. When we were first married thirty-two years ago I was a travelling salesman in rayon. Times were hard, then. But I got on. ‘Mr Druce looked pleadingly at Dougal. ‘I was a success. I got on.’

Dougal tightened his lips prudishly, and nodded, and he was a divorce judge suspending judgement till the whole story was heard out.

‘You can’t get on in business,’ Mr Druce pleaded, ‘unless you’ve got the fibre for it.

‘You can’t get on,’ Mr Druce said, ‘unless you’ve got the moral fibre. And you don’t have to be narrow-minded. That’s one thing you don’t have to be.’

Dougal waited.

‘You have to be broad-minded,’ Mr Druce protested. ‘In this life.’ He laid his elbow on the desk and, for a moment, his forehead on his hand. Then he shifted his chin to his hand and continued, ‘Mrs Druce is not broad-minded. Mrs Druce is narrow-minded.’

Dougal had an elbow on each arm-rest of his chair, and his hands were joined under his chin. ‘There is some question of incompatibility, I should say,’ Dougal said. ‘I should say,’ he said, ‘you have a nature at once deep and sensitive, Mr Druce.’

‘Would you really?’ Druce inquired of the analyst.

‘And a sensitive nature,’ Dougal said, ‘requires psychological understanding.’

‘My wife,’ Druce said, ‘… it’s like living a lie. We don’t even speak to each other. Haven’t spoken for nearly five years. One day, it was a Sunday, we were having lunch. I was talking away quite normally; you know, just talking away, And suddenly she said, “Quack, quack.” She said, “Quack, quack.” She said, “Quack, quack,” and her hand was opening and shutting like this -‘ Mr Druce opened and shut his hand like a duck’s bill. Dougal likewise raised his hand and made it open and shut. “Quack, quack,’ Dougal said. ‘Like that?’

Mr Druce dropped his arm. ‘Yes, and she said, “That’s how you go on – quack, quack.”’

‘Quack,’ Dougal said, still moving his hand, ‘quack.’

‘She said to me, my wife,’ said Mr Druce, ‘she said, “That’s how you go quacking on.” Well, from that day to this I’ve never opened my mouth to her. I can’t, Dougal, it’s psychological, I just can’t – you don’t mind me calling you Dougal?’

‘Not at all, Vincent,’ Dougal said. ‘I feel I understand you. How do you communicate with Mrs Druce?’

‘Write notes,’ said Mr Druce. ‘Do you call that a marriage?’ Mr Druce bent to open a lower drawer of his desk and brought out a book with a bright yellow wrapper. Its title was Marital Relational Psychology. Druce flicked over the pages, then set the book aside. ‘It’s no use to me, he said. ‘Interesting case histories but it doesn’t cover my case. I’ve thought of seeing a psychiatrist, and then I think, why should I? Let her see a psychiatrist.’

‘Take her a bunch of flowers,’ Dougal said, looking down at the back of his hand, the little finger of which was curling daintily. ‘Put your arms around her,’ he said, becoming a lady-columnist, ‘and start afresh. It frequently needs but one little gesture from one partner -‘

‘Dougal, I can’t. I don’t know why it is, but I can’t.’ Mr Druce placed a hand just above his stomach. ‘Something stops me.’

‘You two must separate,’ Dougal said, ‘if only for a while.’

Mr Druce’s hand abruptly removed from his stomach. ‘No,’ he said, ‘oh, no, I can’t leave her.’ He shifted in his chair into his businesslike pose. ‘No, I can’t do that. I’ve got to stay with her for old times’ sake.’

The telephone rang. ‘I’m engaged,’ he said sharply into it. He jerked down the receiver and looked up to find Dougal’s forefinger pointing into his face. Dougal looked grave, lean, and inquisitorial. ‘Mrs Druce,’ Dougal said, ‘has got money.’

‘There are interests in vital concerns which we both share,’ Mr Druce said with his gaze on Dougal’s finger, ‘Mrs Druce and I.’

Dougal shook his outstretched finger a little. ‘She won’t let you leave her,’ he said, ‘because of the money.’

Mr Druce looked frightened.

‘And there is also the information which she holds,’ Dougal said, ‘against you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m fey. I’ve got Highland blood.’ Dougal dropped his hand. ‘You have my every sympathy, Vincent,’ he said.

Mr Druce laid his head on his desk and wept.

Dougal sat back and lit a cigarette out of Mr Druce’s box. He heaved his high shoulder in a sigh. He sat back like an exhausted medium of the spiritualist persuasion. ‘Does you good,’ Dougal said, ‘a wee greet. A hundred years ago all chaps used to cry regardless.’

Merle Coverdale came in with the letters to be signed. She clicked her heels together as she stopped at the sight.

‘Thank you, Miss Coverdale,’ Dougal said, putting out a hand for the letters.

Meanwhile Mr Druce sat up and blew his nose.

‘Got a comb on you?’ Dougal said, squeezing Merle’s hand under the letters.

She said, ‘This place is becoming chaos.’

‘What was that, Miss Coverdale?’ Mr Druce said with as little moisture as possible.

‘Mr Druce has a bad head,’ Dougal said as he left the room with her.

‘Come and tell me what happened,’ said Merle.

Dougal looked at his watch. ‘Sorry, can’t stop. I’ve got an urgent appointment in connexion with my human research.’

Dougal sat in the cheerful waiting-room looking at the tulips in their earthy bowls.