“I couldn’t do that.”
“Would you like me to send for the boy who was dropped to fifth last Friday?”
“No.”
“He’s hooked.”
“Poor, deprived kid.”
“I could get matron to help out with him, but that good lady has enough to do.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Well, then, will you speak to Miss Ryerson and tell her quite clearly what the options are?”
“If you insist, but I imagine she will have to be replaced.”
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Griffin. And good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Booker.”
Miss Ryerson made tea for them in her bed-sitter.
“Sugar?”
“Two, please. Miss Ryerson, would you mind terribly if I smoked?”
“Must you?”
He nodded. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I blame myself. I never should have allowed you to set foot in that iniquitous school.”
“A teacher’s duty is clear. She goes where she’s needed most.”
“There’s nothing for it. You’ll just have to resign now.”
“Quit? Run away from a fight with the devil? Would that be … Christian?”
“God damn it, Miss Ryerson, you can’t go around blowing school kids. It isn’t done.”
“Don’t you dare,” Miss Ryerson said evenly, “take the Lord’s name in vain in my presence.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you dead set against blowing, Mortimer?”
“I wouldn’t know how to answer that, Miss Ryerson. We’ve never discussed, well, sex –”
“Put out that cigarette immediately.”
“Yes.”
“You ask me if you may smoke, I courteously acquiesce. Then you take the Lord’s name in vain. And now you wish to discuss sex with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now, you were saying?”
“Well, let me put it this way. I appreciate all that you must have been through at Beatrice Webb, but –”
“I tried everything. I emptied my whole bag of tricks. But I couldn’t get them to keep quiet, let alone teach them. And then one day –” She broke off, her smile immensely self-satisfied, dreamy. “Well, you know.”
“Blowing?”
“Yes. That did it. The old pooper has nothing to complain about. On the contrary. He should be pleased. It’s like night and day, Mortimer. Won’t you have a bickie?”
“No, thanks.”
“A jam roll, then?”
“All right.”
“Do you know what? I don’t think he objects to what I’m doing for one little minute. It’s their saying grace in the dining hall. Did you notice his smug atheist face, Mortimer? Fit to burst, it was.”
“Yes, but all the same, Miss Ryerson –”
“Oh, I know it’s unconventional. But it’s such a small thing to do for the boys and they enjoy it so.”
“It’s dangerous, Miss Ryerson. I –”
“Now lookee here, son, I never swallow the stuff.”
Mortimer coughed up his jam roll.
“In any event, I’m too old to have babies, aren’t I?”
“Miss Ryerson, I never should have allowed –”
“You have nothing to reproach yourself for. Absolutely nothing. And, incidentally, Doug should make you proud.”
“Well, thank you. He is learning more now and his manners have changed for the better, but, on the other hand –”
“You don’t understand. What I mean to say is, well, he’s quite the firmest lad in his form.”
“Oh, my God. Jesus Christ!”
“Mortimer!”
“Miss Ryerson, let me put this to you. It’s preposterous, I know, but Dr. Booker has asked me to tell you that if you’re going to continue blowing, it has to be the whole form or nothing.”
“He said that!”
“I told him you wished to resign.”
“How dare you speak for me?”
“But, Miss Ryerson –”
“That’s his proposition, is it?”
Mortimer nodded.
“Well then, you tell the old pooper, yes, I’ll do it his way, but on one condition only. He lets me have the fifth form. The fourteen-year-olds. Another cup of tea, Mortimer?”
28
F
ORTIFIED WITH BRANDY, MORTIMER HOPPED A BUS
, alighting at the Albany.
“Well,” Lord Woodcock said, “so you’ve come to see me at last.”
Mortimer nodded feebly.
“Please sit down. I can see, well, that you have been ill.”
Can you, Mortimer thought, startled.
“It’s good to see you. Very good to see you.”
As a matter of fact, Lord Woodcock was appalled. Mortimer was clean-shaven, but the nicks on his cheeks betrayed a shaky hand. Purple welts swelled under his bloodshot eyes. His shirt collar curled at the ends. His suit was unpressed.
“What is it you wished to speak to me about?”
“I won’t mince words. I’ve always wanted you to be Oriole’s next editor-in-chief. It was my wish that once Dino Tomasso had gone, you would take over. The Star Maker, I’m happy to say, more than concurs. It only remains for you to apologize to, um” – Lord Woodcock consulted a paper on his desk – “Mr. Jacob Shalinsky for the vile things you said to him and resume your classes in ‘Reading for Pleasure.’ ”
Mortimer made no reply.
“Is it true that you said to Mr. Shalinsky that there are other problems besides the Jewish problem?”
“It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Is it also true that you said to him, Damn your perverse Jewish soul?”
Mortimer lit one cigarette off another. “Jacob Shalinsky is an obnoxious little man. His friends make me sick.”
“I appreciate your feelings –”
“Well, then?”
“But to an outsider this whole affair could only reek of racial prejudice.”
“If anyone is suffering from prejudice it’s me. There is such a thing, you know, as the tyranny of the minority.”
“There have been letters of complaint. And a petition from your lecture class. The Star Maker is dead-set against bad publicity.”
Mortimer sucked in a deep breath. “The Star Maker is a murderer, Lord Woodcock. He and Tomasso.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
Mortimer told him about the Our Living History series. About Herr Dr. Manheim and the Frankfurt efficiency team.
“How can you be anti-Semitic, on one hand, and prejudiced against Germans, on the other? I’m trying to understand you, but –”
“You are not taking me seriously.”
“Are you a misanthrope, then?”
“They’re murderers. Don’t you understand?”
“The Our Living History is quite the most successful line we’ve had in years. Nobody has reproached you for not thinking of it first. It is most unbecoming, then, for you –”
“You think this is all sour grapes on my part.”
“The competitive spirit, perhaps.”
Mortimer repeated his story once more. He told Lord Woodcock what he had read in the file.
“How very interesting,” Lord Woodcock said, surreptitiously removing the letter opener from his desk.
“You don’t believe me, you old fool.”
“Now, now, we mustn’t excite ourselves, must we?”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“Nobody is crazy
. I’m not a boor, you know. Some people are better-adjusted than others, that’s all. Possibly, you’ve been drinking too much.”
“Yes,” Mortimer said, realizing there was no point, “that’s the truth.”
“Personal troubles?”
“A few.”
“Pity.”
Unaccountably, Mortimer began to laugh.
“Perhaps,” Lord Woodcock said, “you should rest a little longer. Stay away from Oriole for a few more days. No need to rush things.”
“Thank you.”
“The Star Maker, you know, thinks the world of you –”
“I’ve got a marvy lymph system. And Polly Morgan is the same blood type.”
“If you say so, I’m sure it’s true. He thinks the world of you, Mortimer, and I’d hate to disabuse him.”
“Good.”
“Now about your lectures. Your Mr. Shalinsky was here to see me only yesterday –”
“After an ad for
Jewish Thought?”
“Among other things. A most dedicated and erudite little man, I thought.”
“He’s a snake.”
“Now, now. I thought it, um, interesting that he firmly believes that you are yourself, ah, of Hebraic origin.”
“I’m a Presbyterian, Lord Woodcock. Like my father.”
“I’m utterly opposed to prejudice. We must love one another or die has always been my credo, but if there is one thing I abominate, Mortimer,” he said, rising, “it is a Jewish anti-Semite.”
Mortimer, to his amazement, gave Lord Woodcock a shove.
“Anger,” Lord Woodcock said, his breath coming short, “sometimes betrays our deepest –”
Mortimer kicked the gold-tipped cane out from under him.
“You’re sick –”
Which provoked a punch to Lord Woodcock’s spilling belly.
“– mentally …”
Lord Woodcock gasped, sinking to the floor.
Next Mortimer took a taxi directly to The Eight Bells, where he consumed one brandy after another. Suddenly Polly Morgan stood before him. “Having a rough time?” she asked.
“Somewhat.”
“If ever you want me,” she said with a smile, “just whistle.”
29
I
MMEDIATELY MORTIMER ENTERED POLLY MORGAN’S
flat on Beaufort Street, already well fortified with Scotch, he was confronted by an outsize poster of Humphrey Bogart. “Play It Again, Sam.” The dimly lit entry hall was lined with bookshelves, bookshelves sagging with volumes on the cinema, but when Polly took Mortimer’s coat, disappearing briefly, and he stooped to pull out one of the books, he scraped his fingers. They were not books at all, but photographs of books pasted to the wall.
A framed black and white photograph of a Matisse hung over a mock fireplace, wherein plastic logs flickered red and orange, lit by a revolving light inside. Crackle, crackle, went the tape that was turned on automatically with the fire. There were other framed stills of paintings on the wall, all of them in black and white, but there was only one original. A first-edition color poster for
Gone with the Wind
, Gable scooping Vivien Leigh into his arms, Atlanta flaring red behind.
“V. Fleming,” Polly said. “Selznick, M-G-M. 1939. 41,200,000.
Variety’s
all-time grosser until
Sound of Music.”
“What’s that?”
“Sound of Music
. R. Wise. 20th. 1965. 42,500,000. What about a drink?”
“I’d love one.”
“You look sad,” she said, handing him a martini.
“Do I?”
“Don’t tell me.… Way back, a million light years ago maybe, you started out on a big white charger, waving a flag.”
Mortimer watched, agog, as Polly brushed the hint of a tear from her suddenly watery blue eyes.
“Now your arms are tired,” she continued, “the charger is in the glue factory and you’re sitting on a bomb, a ticking bomb …”
Mortimer emptied his glass. “Would it be possible to have another?”
“Let me.”
The candle-lit table was set for two. One red rose stood in a narrow vase and there was a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. Polly put on a record, some Chopin from
A Song to Remember
. She looked fetching, maddeningly desirable, in her white mini-sheath, but Mortimer, even though he fed his imagination on pictures of lechery, felt no upspringing whatsoever. “You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said, tottering toward her.
“Don’t touch me,” she pleaded. “I shan’t be able to think, if you touch me.”
All the same, he kissed her, indelicately driving her body against him, trying to arouse himself.
“Oooo,” she moaned.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Sorry? No, no. I guess I’ve been wanting you to do just that for a long time.”
“Really?” he said, pleased, then, remembering his condition, was alarmed.
“I wish … oh, I wish,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I wish we had met ten years ago.”
A month ago would have done nicely, he thought bitterly.
“No,” she corrected herself. “Ten years ago, well, we were two different people, we wouldn’t have –” She stopped short. “Wrong again. I’d have loved you in any time, any place.”
“Loved
me,” he exclaimed.
All the tenderness went out of Polly’s face. She seemed immensely irritated with herself. “Did I do that badly?” she asked. “Was I standing in the wrong place?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just that this side of my face –
yikes!
My dinner!” she said, possibly to cover her embarrassment.
Mortimer followed her into the tiny planned kitchen. Testing his reactions, he kissed her hopefully on the nape of the neck.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she squealed pleasurably. “You just control yourself until after dinner.”
Until after dinner
.
Taking him by the hand, Polly led him back into the living room, kissed him, and pushed him back on the sofa. “I won’t be long,” she said.
Mortimer’s hands began to tremble.
Until after dinner
. Oh God, he thought, to be offered Polly on a plate and – and – there’s no justice. Mortimer caught a glimpse of her through the kitchen porthole, poring over her
Larousse
, tapping her teeth with her finger. But who would have known, he thought, arguing with himself. After all, everybody’s had a go at her and nobody … I’m reading things into the situation. Why, she’s a virgin. There’s nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing. But, rising to pour himself another martini, he happened to peek into the bedroom and what he saw made his heart leap. On the bedside table there stood a bottle of wine and two glasses. Mortimer sank back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and prayed.
He had, it seemed to him, only rested for a minute, two at the most, when the next thing he knew … they were lying on pillows in
front of the fire, she in his arms, a tray with coffee and brandy on the floor beside them.
“I’m sorry about the sauce,” she said. “It just didn’t work.”
“No, no, it was delicious.”
Craning his neck, Mortimer stared at the table. The candle had burned down to a flickering stump. The bottle of champagne floated overturned in the silver bucket. There was hardly any roast left on the meat board. And yet – and yet – Mortimer could have sworn he hadn’t eaten. Drunkenness made him forgetful, but not
that
forgetful. Besides, he was still hungry. He was bloody famished, in fact.