New World in the Morning (20 page)

“She did! She did! Well, she certainly did mine.”

“And the name…?”

I had intended this to hit its mark; and hit its mark it clearly did.

“You do not mean,” she gasped, “of the royal house of Scrumpenhouser!”

“The very same. Is there any other?”

“It's odd I should have known my own name.”

“Yes, odd you should have realized I've been waiting for you all my life. For
you
and the excitement and the spur to good. Odd you should have known that one day you would lead me from the maze.”

I put my hand on her thigh and pressed.

“That you would lead me to the light.”

20

After we'd made fairly rapid love and then showered, we put on our regalia. Moira wore something silky, lavender and long; with a sash in deep lilac. I whistled at her. “Cor!”

“Like it?”

“Now I can honestly understand why this morning you had to get up two hours earlier than me.” My hands were on her shoulders. “I want you to know, kid, I think you made good use of all that time.”

“Thank you,” she said. “But if only I'd realized what a picture
you
were going to make I think I would have taken longer.”

“Course you would have! Why do you feel the need to say it?”

We were in the kitchen.

“Now stop being such an ass. Sit down, do something useful. Like open the wine, maybe—then light the candles?”

I obeyed her to the letter.

“This is only going to be a snack,” she pointed out. “We'll be having our main meal after the show. On me,” she added; “and no arguments—you understand? I want this to be my evening.”

I decided we should have to see about that.

We ate some of Junie's soup and some of Junie's meat pie and some of Junie's fruit cake. Apart from the half-bottle of Bordeaux and the strong black coffee from Colombia, our light repast had a very homely feel to it; and I was hungrier than I'd realized, having had nothing since breakfast, save a cup of tea and a fruit scone. Now I ate a second piece of the cake—this time, though, scarcely more than a slither, and an exceedingly crumbly one at that. But as I picked the Smarties off the top—I particularly liked the coffee and the orange ones—it suddenly struck me that this was as close as I would ever get to stealing the food out of the mouths of children. At least, I hoped it was. (Whether there were three children or only one…? Irrelevantly, I wondered why I'd felt obliged to supply an exact figure; was it simply a case of my never liking to do
anything
by halves?)

That second thin slice of disintegrating cake could almost have given me indigestion.

Which would have been a rich and appropriate revenge. Like Junie I never suffered from indigestion. (Except following those rare bouts of compulsive eating. But if Junie was changing, was there some fear I might be changing too? We had always been extraordinarily sympathetic.)

Moira and I left the flat later than we had meant to: it was after half-past- six. Moira had wanted to be at the theatre some fifteen minutes early, because she said she always liked to watch the audience arrive; but I myself considered privately that it might do the audience more good to watch us arrive. The latest weather forecast had again been more or less all right—well, over the short term, anyway: mainly mild and dry in the south-east—and personally it didn't worry me too much if there
were
going to be dramatic changes from around midnight; this evening was to be the high point.

“Not,” I'd said to Moira, “that I can understand you having so much trust in all those dinky little weather men. You're a very gullible young woman.”

“They don't usually let me down.”

“How could they—in that dress? I mean…
you
in that dress.”

“Thank you, darling. On the other hand I wish occasionally they would. I'd been thinking we might drive out into the country tomorrow—have lunch at an olde worlde pub I know, where there are tables on a lawn sloping down to the river.”

“Sounds idyllic. But never mind: if we can't do that I'll take you for a ride elsewhere. To Banbury Cross and Tilbury Docks and all points west.”

“East.”

“Who's the pilot? Possibly I'll fly you to the Never-Never- Land, as well, where there are mermaids and fairies and lagoons—and Red Indians and pirates”—my voice had grown slowly more menacing—“and a crocodile with a great sense of timing patiently awaiting his chance…
to gobble you all up!
”

I pounced; and she shivered, theatrically. “Isn't that the place where all the Lost Boys go?” she inquired, innocently.

“Yes,” I answered; matching innocence with innocence. “There was Nibs and Tootles. And there was Slightly. And…ah, yes, that's right…there was one called Curly, too.” I nodded, reminiscently.

She looked at me in deep suspicion.

“Is it at all possible that you could be having me on?”

“Now what purpose can you ever believe there'd be in that? Begorra.”

The uncertainty turned swiftly to respect. “But how on earth do you remember such very way-out things?”

“It's the downside, I suppose, of being so intellectual. Are you impressed? And I promise you it's not for nothing I have often been referred to as Old Memorybags!”

She shook her head in envious admiration.

“But anyhow,” she advised, “enough of all this nonsense. I don't know why I'm laughing: I'm beginning to have some very serious doubts regarding what makes Sammy run!” She kissed my cheek. “Give me two minutes in the bathroom, then finally we're off.”

I myself was fully ready—Moira had retied my tie before she'd sat down. “I'll wait by the car,” I said.

Once outside, I glanced at my watch. It gave both time and date. Twenty-three minutes to seven on Saturday the third of May. It felt like a caption to write beneath a photograph.

And at twenty-three minutes to seven on Saturday the third of May there was an elderly woman standing at her front gate on the opposite side of the road talking to an elderly man on the pavement. There were two little Minnie Mouses walking gingerly towards me in white ankle socks and high-heeled shoes. There was a young man sitting on his parked motorbike while his girlfriend hurried down her path to join him. It was nice to know I would be noticed—yes, and for the first time ever in my dinner jacket in the street! An occasion. I sauntered unselfconsciously around the car, dealing casually with this and that: a scarcely visible smear on the bonnet, another on the windscreen. I propped myself against the nearside bodywork—ankles crossed—and studied my fingernails. I began to whistle. The hit tune from tonight's show.

And I
was
noticed; no doubt about that. And when Moira came swishing out of the house and I was standing there suavely holding the car door, I was still noticed; but now we both were, which made it even better. My consort had arrived. The old people opposite and the two small girls were giving us frank stares. The motorbike pair proved a little more cagey. I felt it wasn't too soon for the jungle drums to start beating out their message to alert the neighbourhood. Net curtains should be twitching; flatmates shrilly summoned to the window. By now the fashion photographers could well be on their way.

Yet, even if they weren't, they'd easily be able to catch up. We blazed a golden trail; made a royal progress. Pedestrians weren't actually lining the route but I saw many who literally came to a standstill to gaze after us. I saw the occupants of other cars, too, eyeing us with reverence. And at one set of traffic lights—again we seemed to catch so many that had just gone red—I'd swear that half the passengers on a double-decker must have rushed across to
our
side to obtain a better view.

Quite predictably, on reaching the West End, we had to proceed still more slowly and I began to be afraid we might miss the overture or even the rising of the curtain and need to find our seats in darkness. But our luck persisted, especially with regard to our parking (God, were we lucky, a turning just off Oxford Circus!), and by using the subway under Regent Street and cutting a dash into Argyll Street—apologetic, laughing, hand-in-hand—we made it to the theatre with almost as much as five minutes to spare. Perfect timing! Maybe the last lap of the journey had even added an extra lustre: the gaiety which sparkles in relief. And as we moved across the thick pile of the foyer, amid other late arrivals, then on into the auditorium, I knew that I walked with a back even straighter than usual and with a smile which in an understated way was encompassing the world. Yesterday, we had said we'd deck ourselves out
resplendently
. Today, we weren't the only ones in evening dress (this, after all, was just the third night of the run) but I saw no other couple that came close—not even within spitting distance. No potential claim-jumpers.

And then the show began. That, too, was magical. Of course. We were all in the right mood: a company of strangers forever to be linked by the forging of an evening's memory—a shipload of voyagers soon to disperse to different corners of the globe but with whom we'd merged in an unrepeatable experience. (Essentially unrepeatable. Like when I'd recently heard on the radio an audience clapping sixty years ago during a concert at Carnegie Hall: I'd been as respectful of the onceness of that applause as I was of the onceness of both Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa who'd occasioned it—two giants who had never performed together at any other time.) And how amused we all were at the absurdity of the protagonists not realizing when they were well off; at their selfish fears of growing old and missing out; at their readiness to chase rainbows and fall cataclysmically in love…their strivings so pathetic, our laughter so superior and benign. Added to which, the songs were jaunty and many of the lyrics gave you something to think about: i.e. live for the moment since you don't know what's to come. Likewise, be true to yourself, “and it must follow, as the night the day…” Not that this bit was actually written for our present entertainment, any more than was something else, “there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow”, or a further something else—though from the Bible this time, not the Bard. That was the passage in St Matthew recently learned by my son, and tested by my son's father, because Miss Martin had invented an exercise on namesakes. “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father… Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Now
that
would have made a wonderfully memorable lyric. Plenty of bounce! Plenty of pazazz! I couldn't understand its omission. Because if you're going to choose a title like
Half a Farthing, Sam Sparrow?
aren't you practically obligated to acknowledge your sources?

However—allowing for that one small if stupidly niggling reservation, which wasn't a huge price to pay for such a satirical, fast-paced piece of fun—the show provided an excellent evening in the theatre.

As well as the makings of an excellent evening out of it! Moira and I left the car where it was and almost floated down Regent Street, as if contained in our own iridescent little bubble—the same means of transport Glinda always seemed to rely on. The Munchkins invariably went, “Ahh…,” when they saw her coming in to land.

“Where shall I get it to dissolve?” I asked. “And please note I say ‘dissolve'. Not ‘burst'.”

“Tonight I feel there's nothing that could make our bubble burst.”

“No,” I said, “nothing. Moira…?”

“You can dissolve it at the Ritz,” she said.

“The Ritz!”

“We're having dinner at the Ritz.”

“My God,” I remarked. (A little premature, perhaps, to inquire about my Man-of-the-Year Award?) “How much higher can we go?”

“That's something we'll just have to find out, isn't it?”

“‘Up up and away in my beautiful balloon…'”

She said: “Wouldn't it be wonderful to go around the world in a balloon?”

I promised myself that this summer I would surprise her with a flight in a balloon. Maybe not transworld, or even transatlantic, but at least trans-Thames. That was something Junie would never have wanted:
any
kind of a balloon trip. But Matt would. Matt would! And was there any reason why he and Moira shouldn't—well, in some way—soon meet up and get to be real friends… and then…?

“We could drift across oceans and meadows,” she added, “and over mountain peaks and cities…”

“Do you know something? You're getting to sound a lot like me.”

“My goodness, even while I was saying it, I had that thought as well! I really did. Because, in fact, going around the
world
in a balloon would be horrendous. Going around London in a balloon could be brilliant.”

“I think I must have influenced you.”

“I think you must have.”

“Benevolent?”

“Oh undoubtedly! And, Sammy, we'd have little refreshments as we flew. Sip champagne and nibble biscuits with Stilton or—better still—with caviar.”

“I've never eaten caviar.”

That night we ate caviar.

We drank champagne, as well.

We lived like kings and queens, or lords and ladies. Like swashbuckling adventurers. I was Errol Flynn playing Robin Hood…in line for execution but still as irrepressible as ever. I wasn't sure how, or why, such a transition should have taken place: from royalty to rascal: but I suppose I must have felt there was room within me to express varying personalities—like a sailor with a wife in every port and a different face to present to each of them. That's why I knew I had it in me to become an actor. I looked about that splendid dining room for any celebrated actors and, if I'd seen one, should very likely have gone across to ask for guidance—heaven helps those who help themselves! The theatre was where I belonged. Rather than the shop, the office, or even university.