Highland Fling (3 page)

‘How like Walter,’ said Sally laughing. ‘Poor angel, he’s quite incapable of working in London, too. He gave up his last job after exactly three days.’

‘Shut up, darling. You know quite well who it was that begged and implored me to leave, now don’t you? Sally’s father,’ explained Walter, ‘got me a job in a bank. I can’t tell you what I suffered for three whole days. It was like a PG Wodehouse novel, only not funny at all, or perhaps I’ve no sense of humour. To begin with, I had to get up at eight every morning. One had much better be dead, you know. Then, my dear, the expense! I
can’t tell you what it cost me in taxis alone, not to mention the suit I had to buy – a most lugubrious black affair. There was no time to get back here for luncheon, and I couldn’t go all day without seeing Sally, so we went to a restaurant which was recommended to us called “Simkins,” too putting off. Sally was given some perfectly raw meat with blood instead of gravy, and naturally she nearly fainted, and she had to have brandy before I could get her out of the place. By then we were so upset that we felt we must go to the Ritz in order to be soothed, which meant more taxis. In the end we reckoned that those three days had cost me every penny of thirty pounds, so I gave it up. I can’t afford that sort of thing, you know.’

‘Poor father,’ said Sally, ‘he’s very much worried about Walter. He has a sort of notion in his head that every man ought to have some regular work to do, preferably soldiering. He doesn’t seem to understand about cultivating leisure at all, and he regards writing poetry as a most doubtful, if not immoral occupation.

‘And he isn’t as bad as your uncle Craigdalloch, who actually said in my hearing of some young man, “Ah, yes, he failed for the Army, and was chucked out of the City, so they sent him to the Slade.” Just think how pleased Tonks must have been to have him!’

Walter then asked Albert how long he intended to stay.

‘Can you keep me till the end of next week?’

‘My dear, don’t be so childish. Now that we have at last persuaded you to come, you must stay quite a month if you won’t be bored. I know London in August is very unfashionable, but it would cheer us up a lot to have you, and besides, think what a boon you would be to the gossip writers!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Sally, ‘poor old Peter seems to be at the end of his tether already. His page the last few days has been full of nothing but scraps of general knowledge which one assimilates quite unconsciously. I call it cheating.… I mean, when I want
to read about wild ducks sitting on their eggs at the edge of a railway line I can buy a book of natural history; but I do like gossip to
be
gossip, don’t you? This paragraph about the ducks was headed, “Observed by Jasper Spengal”. Well, I was quite excited; you know what a talent Jasper has for observing things he’s not meant to, and then it was only the beastly old duck after all. Well, I
mean
.… If he’s come down to that sort of thing already, it will be the habits of earthworms by August, I should think.’

‘So you want me to stay and have my habits noted instead?’ Albert felt all his resolution slipping away. After all, it was nice to see his old friends again. It occurred to him now that he had been very lonely in Paris.

‘But you’ll be leaving London yourselves?’

‘Not until the end of August, anyhow, then we may go to the Lido for a little.’

Walter looked rather defiantly, like a naughty child, at Sally as he said this, and she pretended not to hear. She knew quite well, and had said so already more than once, that, terribly in debt as they were, this idea of going to the Lido was quite out of the question. Sally spent much of her life trying to put a brake on Walter’s wild extravagances and they had more than once been on the verge of a quarrel over the Lido question.

The Monteaths led a precarious existence. They had married in the face of much opposition from both their families, especially Sally’s, who looked upon Walter as a rather disreputable, if attractive, person and an undesirable son-in-law. However, as soon as they realized that Sally was quite determined to marry him whatever happened, they had softened to the extent of settling five hundred pounds a year on her. More they could not afford. Walter had about the same, which had been left him some years previously by an uncle; they struggled along as best they could on a joint income of one thousand a year. This they supplemented from time to time by
writing articles for the weekly papers and by the very occasional sale of one of Walter’s rather less obscure poems.

All might have been well except for his incurable extravagance. In many ways they were extremely economical. Unlike the type of young married couple who think it essential to have a house in the vicinity of Belgrave Square and a footman, they preferred to live in a tiny flat with no servants except an old woman and a boy, both of whom came in daily. Sally did most of the cooking and all the marketing herself and rather enjoyed it.

On the other hand, Walter seemed to have a talent for making money disappear. Whenever he was on the point of committing an extravagance of any kind he would excuse himself by explaining: ‘Well, you see, darling, it’s so much cheaper in the end.’ It was his slogan. Sally soon learnt, to her surprise and dismay, that ‘it’s cheaper in the end’ to go to the most expensive tailor, travel first class, stay at the best hotels, and to take taxis everywhere. When asked why it was cheaper, Walter would say airily: ‘Oh, good for our credit, you know!’ or ‘So much better for one’s clothes,’ or, sulkily: ‘Well, it is, that’s all, everybody knows it is.’

He also insisted that Sally should be perfectly turned out, and would never hear of her economizing on her dresses. The result was that during one year of married life they had spent exactly double their income, and Sally had been obliged to sell nearly all her jewellery in order to pay even a few of the bills that were pouring in, so that the idea of going to the Lido, or indeed of doing anything but stay quietly in London was, as she pointed out, quite ridiculous.

Walter, incapable always of seeing that lack of money would be a sufficient reason for giving up something that might amuse him, was inclined to be sulky about this; but Sally was not particularly worried. She generally had her own way in the end.

After dinner that evening, Walter said that Albert’s first night in England must be celebrated otherwise than by going tamely to bed. Albert, remembering with an inward groan that Walter had always possessed an absolutely incurable taste for sitting up until daylight, submitted, tired though he was, with a good grace; and at half-past eleven they left the house in a taxi. Sally was looking particularly exquisite in a dress which quite obviously came from Patou.

Walter, explaining that it was too early as yet to go to a nightclub, directed the taxicab to the Savoy, where they spent a fairly cheerful hour trying to make themselves heard through a din of jazz, and taking it in turns to dance with Sally.

After this, they went to a night-club called ‘The Witch,’ Walter explaining on the way that it had become more amusing since Captain Bruiser had taken it over.

‘All the nightclubs now,’ he told Albert, ‘are run by ex-officers; in fact it is rather noticeable that the lower the nightclub the higher is the field rank, as a rule, of its proprietor.’

Presently they arrived in a dark and smelly mews. Skirting two overflowing dustbins they opened a sort of stable-door, went down a good many stairs in pitch darkness and finally found themselves in a place exactly like a station waiting-room. Bare tables, each with its bouquet of dying flowers held together by wire, were ranged round the walls, the room was quite empty except for a young man playing tunes out of Cochran’s revue on an upright piano. Albert was horrified to see that Walter paid three pounds for the privilege
of merely passing through the door into this exhilarating spot.

A weary waiter asked what they would order. A little fruit drink? Apparently no wine of any sort could be forthcoming, not even disguised in a ginger-beer bottle. They asked for some coffee but when it came it was too nasty to drink. This cost another pound. Depression began to settle upon the party, but they sat there for some time valiantly pretending to enjoy themselves.

‘Let’s go on soon,’ said Walter, at the end of an hour, during which no other human being had entered the station waiting-room. They groped their way up the stairs and bumped into a body coming down, which proved to be that of Captain Bruiser. He asked them, in a cheerful, military voice, if they had had a good time. They replied that they had had of all times the best, and thanked him profusely for their delightful evening. He said he was sorry it had been so empty, and told them the names of all the celebrities who were there the night before.

After this, they sat for some while in a taxi, trying to decide where they should go next. The taximan was most helpful, vetoed ‘The Electric Torch’ on account of having as he said, ‘taken some very ordinary gentlemen there earlier in the evening,’ and finally suggested ‘The Hay Wain’. ‘Major Spratt is running it now, and I hear it is very much improved.’

To ‘The Hay Wain’ they went. Albert felt battered with fatigue and longed for his bed. This time they approached their destination by means of a fire-escape, and when they had successfully negotiated its filthy rungs, they found themselves in a long, low, rather beautiful attic. There were rushes on the floor, pewter and wild flowers (which being dead, slightly resembled bunches of hay) on the tables, and the seats were old-fashioned oak pews, narrow, upright, and desperately uncomfortable.

A waiter, dressed in a smock which only made him look more
like a waiter than ever, handed them a menu written out in Gothic lettering. Ten or twelve other people were scattered about the room, none of them were in evening dress. They all looked dirty and bored.

‘Is Rory Jones singing tonight?’ asked Sally.

‘Yes, madam; Mr Jones will be here in a few moments.’

An hour and a half later Rory Jones did appear, but he had just come from a private party, was tired, and not a little tipsy. After singing his best known and least amusing songs for a few minutes, he staggered away, to the unrestrained fury of Major Spratt, who could be heard expressing himself outside the door in terms of military abuse.

‘Let’s go on, soon.’

‘On,’ thought Albert wearily, ‘never bed?’

The next place they visited, run by a certain Colonel Bumper, was called ‘The Tally-Ho’ and was an enormous basement room quite full of people, noise and tobacco smoke. It appeared that champagne was obtainable here, owing to the fact that the club had been raided by the police the week before and was shortly closing down for good.

Albert thought of Paris nightclubs with some regret. He felt that ‘The Hay Wain’ and ‘The Witch’ might be sufficiently depressing, but that ‘The Tally-Ho’ induced a positively suicidal mood – it had just that atmosphere of surface hilarity which is calculated to destroy pleasure.

‘Let’s go on soon,’ said Walter, when they had drunk some very nasty champagne. Despite the cabman’s warning, they now went to ‘The Electric Torch’ but found on arrival that the ‘very ordinary people’ had gone. Moreover the band had gone, the waiters had gone. Alone, amid piled up chairs and tables placed upside down on each other, stood the proprietor, Captain Dumps. He was crying quite quietly into a large pocket handkerchief, and never saw them come or heard them creep silently away.

After this, to Albert’s ill-concealed relief, they went home. It was half-past five and broad daylight poured in at his bedroom window. He calculated with his last waking thoughts that this ecstatic evening must have cost Walter, who had insisted on paying for everything, at least twenty pounds, and he felt vaguely sorry for Sally.

The following afternoon at about half-past three Sally and Walter got out of bed and roamed, rather miserably, in their pyjamas.

The daily woman had come and gone, and Albert’s room proved, on inspection, to be empty. After a lengthy discussion as to whether they could bring themselves to eat anything and if so, what, they made two large cups of strong black coffee, which they drank standing and in silence. Sally then announced that she felt as if she were just recovering from a long and serious illness and began to open her morning letters. ‘Bills, bills, and bills! Darling, why did we hire that Daimler to go down to Oxford? There must have been trains, if you come to think of it.’

‘Yes, but – don’t you remember? – we hadn’t an ABC. We couldn’t look them up. Give the bill to me.’ He took it from her and began to burn holes in it with his cigarette, but Sally, engrossed in a letter, did not notice.

‘Who’s that from?’

‘Aunt Madge. Listen to it:

‘Of course I haven’t! Does she imagine I have nothing better to do than read the papers?’

‘Go on,’ said Walter.

‘Where am I? Oh, yes!

‘ “…This was all very sudden and unexpected and has caused us inconvenience in a thousand ways, but the most unfortunate part of it is that we had arranged, as usual, several large shooting parties at Dalloch Castle. I wrote and asked your father and mother if they would go up there and act as host and hostess, but Sylvia tells me that they have to pay their annual visit to Baden just then. It occurred to me that perhaps you and Walter are doing nothing during August and September, in which case, it would be a real kindness to us if you would stay at Dalloch and look after our guests. I know that this is a big thing to ask you to do and, of course, you must say no if you feel it would be too much for you. If you decide to go we will send you up in the car and you must invite some of your own friends. Dalloch will hold any amount of people.

Yrs. affecly.,

M
ADGE
C
RAIGDALLOCH
.

PS. – General Murgatroyd, a great friend of your Uncle Craig’s, will be there to look after the keepers, etc.” ’