Forrest Leo - The Gentleman

‘I don’t mean to offend you, Mr Savage, but that’s not the case.’

I am becoming upset. ‘It is!’

‘Please don’t be angry,’ says the Gentleman. ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you.’

‘Then don’t give advice regarding matters of which you are plainly ignorant! I take it you are not married?’

‘I am not, but I—’

‘Of course you’re not, or you wouldn’t be so damned impatient to pass judgment!’ I wonder fleetingly at my choice of words. Can one say ‘damned’ to the Devil? Is it proper?* I do not know. Nor do I know why I am arguing with notions I have myself set forth already. I feel as though I am a sleeve unravelling.

‘I am not married, sir,’ says the Gentleman with more resolve than I had expected of him, ‘but I have some small understanding, I think, of human nature.’

I do not know why I am yelling at the Devil. Perhaps it is a residual effect of my recent self-endangering impulses. ‘I don’t care about human nature!’ I cry, my voice breaking. ‘I am married to a harpy and you tell me it’s my fault I’m losing my mind!’

‘I didn’t say that,’ he says soothingly. ‘I said—’

But the madness is upon me, and I have lost my head. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ I demand.

He looks hurt to be so interrogated. ‘I have told you already. I am here to thank you.’

‘And steal my soul while you’re at it, no doubt,’ I mutter. As the words pass my lips, I think perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. No matter what method of suicide I resolve upon, it will leave something of a mess for those I leave behind me — but if I were to descend bodily to Hell it seems that all complications would be allayed. (Could I go bodily? Or would he rip out my soul and just take that?)

‘What on earth would I want with your soul?’ he asks with genuine surprise.

‘Isn’t that what you do? Collect souls?’

‘I have quite a surfeit of souls, sir,’ he replies. ‘I’d be happy never to see another soul as long as I live.’ So much for that.

‘Indeed?’

‘Assuredly.’

‘I find that fascinating.’

‘You do?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Why?’

‘Well,’ I say, wondering how best to put it. ‘It goes rather against common wisdom, you know.’

‘Does it?’

‘It does.’

The Gentleman looks so downcast that for a moment I fear he will weep. He says with a sigh, ‘There are times when I feel as though humanity misunderstands me.’

‘Sir,’ I tell him wryly, ‘you suffer the plight of a poet.’

‘You’re too kind,’ he says.

‘No, but truly.’

‘Do you know,’ he muses, ‘Alighieri once told me the same thing.’

I must have misheard. It is too extraordinary. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh,’ he says offhandedly, ‘the fellow who takes care of my flowers. Something Alighieri. Don, Donald, something. He once told me I understand poets better than most poets understand themselves.’

‘Dante?’ I say in shock. I was only just thinking of the man. ‘Dante Alighieri?’

‘Yes, that’s it,’ says he.

‘Dante the poet?’

‘Yes. Wonderful with the roses. Less so with the rhododendron.’

I can only repeat the name like an idiot. ‘Dante Alighieri — is your gardener?’

‘I believe I just said that.’

‘Well good Lord.’

‘What?’

‘Well—’ He seems not to understand how extraordinary this is. I search for words. ‘He’s quite famous, you know.’

‘Is he?’ asks the Gentleman, with evident surprise.

‘Indisputably.’

‘Fascinating. Indeed?’ He seems doubtful. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, he does a perfectly adequate job; but I keep him on more because I enjoy talking to him than for his gardening skills — which are, between you and me, spectacularly mediocre.’

I cannot tell whether I should laugh or cry. ‘He isn’t famous for his gardening,’ I manage to say with offended poetic dignity. I do not in fact much care for his work (allegory does not agree with me). But the Commedia is after all something of a standard around which all poets rally — and if I do not care for it, I can at least appreciate it.

‘Well I should think not,’ laughs the Gentleman, relieved. ‘That would have been quite inexplicable. His poetry, then?’

‘Quite.’

‘Fascinating,’ he says again. ‘That drivel about Hell and such?’

‘Yes.’

‘He got it all wrong, you know.’

If I pause to consider that I am discussing the poetic merits of Dante Alighieri with the Devil, I believe I shall lose what is left of my mind — so I simply carry on with the conversation as if it is one I have every evening in my study. ‘Did he?’ I say.

‘Well of course!’ says the Gentleman. He seems eager to talk about it. ‘Don’t think it’s really that awful, do you? Couldn’t live there if it was, could you?’

‘What’s it like, then?’ I ask.

‘Well, first off, I rather prefer to call it Essex Grove.’

‘Call what Essex Grove?’ I ask, just to be certain.

‘Where I’m from.’

‘You mean — Hell?’

The Gentleman shudders and says, ‘Oh, I do hate that word! It sounds so vulgar. And uninviting.’

‘So you call it Essex Grove.’

‘I do.’

‘To make it more inviting.’

‘Indeed.’

He is so blithe about the whole thing that all I can say is, ‘How extraordinary.’

‘Thank you,’ he says.

‘If you’ll pardon my asking, why Essex Grove?’

‘As opposed to…?’

‘I don’t know,’ say I. ‘Milford Haven or Pocklington Place or Pemberley. What I mean to say is, does the name Essex Grove have any especial significance to you?’

‘Oh,’ says the Gentleman, ‘certainly! I like it.’

Which, really, is as good an explanation as I could wish.

I am aware that I am not alone in my curiosity regarding certain matters metaphysical in nature — so for the sake of posterity I ask him, ‘And you live in a palace? A mansion? A Grecian temple?’

‘But you do have a flair for theatrics, don’t you!’ he says with a little laugh. ‘Of course I don’t live in a palace. Just a simple cottage on the edge of the Elysian Fields, a stone’s throw from the River Styx.’

‘And Dante is your gardener,’ I repeat.

‘Yes.’

I have run out of things to say. The enormity of the situation threatens to overwhelm me, and I simply gape at him. He stares back, quiet and awkward. This goes on for several minutes.

At length, desperate to break what has become an uncomfortable silence, I blurt, ‘Look, please forgive me for being blunt, but I have no idea what you’re doing here.’

‘Well I say,’ says the Gentleman, mildly offended. ‘I’ve told you — I wished to thank you.’

‘Which you have done.’

‘Which I have done.’

We stare at one another again. I feel compelled to add, ‘It’s not that I object to your company. But you must admit this is a damned peculiar sort of encounter. If you’ll pardon me.’

‘I suppose it is, yes.’

‘So what is it that you want?’

‘Actually,’ he says, enormously uncomfortable, ‘I was rather wondering—’ He breaks off, and shifts from foot to foot. I try to look encouraging. Finally he takes a breath and says all at once, ‘Could we be friends?’

I stare at him.

‘I’ve always wanted a friend,’ he blunders on. ‘I’ve heard all about them, and I think they sound splendid. But I’ve never had one. And I don’t know how to go about obtaining one. One reads stories and they are made out to be very easy to come by — in fact people seem to take them for granted — but I’ve never had one. And I’d like one. And so at the risk of sounding provincial, I would like to ask you to be my friend.’ He reddens and quickly adds, ‘I mean, if you’d be agreeable to the notion. I don’t mean to impose terms on our relationship. I’m afraid I must seem the soul of tactlessness. I’m sorry.’