Such Men Are Dangerous (38 page)

LINDA

Trevor, would you please move those magazines? Also the ashtray.

TREVOR

Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.

LINDA

Have you two been getting to know each other?

TREVOR

Yes, we’ve been…talking of this and that.

LINDA

Me, I hope, principally.

TREVOR

Of course.

LINDA

What else?

TREVOR

Oh, I don’t know. A bit about God. A bit about the Bomb. A bit about Eton.

LINDA

Has Dad been going all pretentious on you? What’s he been saying about Eton? He can be such a snob.

WILLIAM

It may be true I’m a snob but is it
only
snobbery? I used to be so envious of the kind who went to Eton, or Roedean. I always felt their lives must be such wholly charmed affairs, so civilized, smooth-running, so filled with pleasure and content. I still do…emotionally. Emotionally I feel there are millions of people who drift serenely on from one occasion to the next, exquisite in their top hats, always saying the wise and witty thing. No hang-ups, no migraines…no piles.

LINDA

(Pouring coffee) Dad, please don’t feel you have to entertain us.

WILLIAM

(Sings—from
Gypsy
) “Let me entertain you, let me make you smile…” I’m sorry. I was merely making small talk.

LINDA

Then concentrate on drinking this, instead.

WILLIAM

It’s a little sad if you don’t appreciate my conversation. There was another point I was hoping to make, sort of arising out of the last, if I wasn’t boring you too terrifically. I was going to say it’s exactly the same with sex. I always think that sex will be magical for other people—I mean, of course, so long as they’re young, or youngish, and physically attractive. No lack of responsiveness, passion or invention. And no problems whatever about staying the course. Lasting a good fifty minutes.

LINDA

Oh my God! Have you ever heard anything like it?

TREVOR

Well…In places, some of our vicar’s sermons get a trifle spicy.

LINDA

But why does he pick on fifty? I’d have thought sixty would have been a much rounder figure. And forty would have been more biblical. In the Bible they were always doing things for forty days and forty nights.

WILLIAM

They had staying power in those days. Trevor, can you last a good fifty minutes?

LINDA

Dad…

WILLIAM

But at least you can do fifty press-ups. You can do fifty press-ups?

TREVOR

I’ll tell you one thing: I certainly couldn’t do two-hundred-and-fifty.

WILLIAM

You know, Tom didn’t believe that. The young whatsit called me a liar.

LINDA

No, he didn’t.

WILLIAM

As good as.

TREVOR

Well…between father and son…It’s natural he should feel this need to belittle you.

WILLIAM

And vice versa?

TREVOR

Perhaps. But I suppose that depends on the father.

WILLIAM

You’re absolutely right—yes, I’m a rotten father. But why am I drinking this? I want another whisky. Trevor, old fellow, will you join me in another whisky? Keep me company? Please?

TREVOR

All right, I will. Thank you.

WILLIAM

Lindy?

LINDA

A very small one—in my coffee.

TREVOR

By the way, you know, I didn’t say you were a rotten father.

WILLIAM

Shall I tell you something pathetic? Twenty years ago I wanted to be the very best father and the very best husband. Believe it or not, there was even a time when I wanted to be the very best human being. But that came earlier: I must have been somewhere near your own age. I went through a phase when I used to distribute largesse to old people on street benches if they looked as though they needed it: two or three pounds: I must have been insufferable.

TREVOR

Loving.

WILLIAM

Smug. Then something put an end to it. An old man stopped me in Baker Street and started some hard-luck story; he wanted the price of a cup of tea. I was delighted; this was almost what I lived for. I gave him everything I had. It was only about thirty shillings but he thought he’d won the jackpot. He could hardly speak. I remember his eyes, his old rheumy eyes. “God bless you,” he said, “I swear you’ll go to ’eaven.” It was a lovely moment for the pair of us. And then he stepped off the pavement—and was knocked down by a bus.

LINDA

Killed?

WILLIAM

Smashed and squashed and bloody. There was a ten-bob note that looked like crêpe paper at Christmas. I had nightmares about it for weeks. Occasionally still do.

TREVOR

At least he died a happy man. Perhaps there couldn’t have been a better moment for him to go.

WILLIAM

There was a child that I remember screaming. A woman threw up just behind me. I don’t know whether the vomit I found on my trousers was hers or mine. I was responsible for all of that.

LINDA

Nobody could possibly—ever—have said it was your fault.

WILLIAM

I saw it as a message straight from God; a punishment for my complacency. And then I was so disgusted—disgusted that I could seriously view the death of a human being, not to mention what it could have done to everyone who saw it, as just another step in my own education.

LINDA

Daddy, why have you never told us this?

WILLIAM

What does anyone ever tell anyone about the things which have helped shape him?

LINDA

The big things? Normally a lot.

WILLIAM

I suppose I didn’t want to pretend to a goodness I no longer possessed—even if I’d ever got close to it in the first place. And I didn’t want to lay myself open to the kind of sympathetic banalities for which I might have seemed to be asking. In fact, I just can’t think why I’m telling you tonight. Oh, yes, I can. (Holds up his whisky glass) But I don’t mean you to pass it on to your mother—or to Tom—or indeed to anyone.

LINDA

Obviously your…your parents knew?

WILLIAM

My mother had been dead for almost precisely a year. And I hadn’t seen my father for about ten.

TREVOR

Of course! There was that episode in
The Swimmer
, wasn’t there? Where Mark causes the neighbour’s death—Mrs Wolfit’s death—because he doesn’t do anything about the fault in the wiring; he’s dog-tired and intends to take care of it the following day. And then that spoilt and sulky six-year-old sees her mother being electrocuted and runs out of the house gibbering…

WILLIAM

(Almost accusingly) You’re very perceptive, aren’t you?

TREVOR

I loved that book. If I had written it, I think that whatever else I had done or had not done with my life…

WILLIAM

No. That’s the sort of thing I used to think: one book I could feel really proud of…! But of course it never stops there. How could it? You always want more.

TREVOR

Like what?

WILLIAM

Like recognition. Fame. Money. Friendship. The next book to be something more than ‘just a played-out repetition’.

TREVOR

Nonsense. I know that both the others also had very favourable reviews. Mainly.

WILLIAM

Mainly. But it’s always the one cruelly negative review you pay attention to. And—besides. There weren’t any film offers.

TREVOR

(Laughs) Oh, I’m sure those will turn up—in time! But to get back to
The Swimmer
, if I may…although I don’t want to become a bore on the subject…

WILLIAM

Possibly Lindy could find you boring. I assure you I never could.

TREVOR

Well, I so identified with Mark. There was that theme of friendship in the book. I remember the two quotes—both from Byron, weren’t they?—‘Friendship is Love without his wings!’ and that other one—wait a moment, on the surface not at all connected—yes!—‘A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his agony.’ I know that I’m repeating myself but I found it almost unbearably moving. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it too soon after I got here. I wanted the moment to be absolutely right. It was a marvellous piece of writing. Horribly disturbing. The whole book was disturbing…but as for the electrocution of poor Mrs Wolfit…! I didn’t realize, though, that it was quite so central.

WILLIAM

Central? I don’t know that it was. I almost didn’t put it in. But I wasn’t strong enough to leave it out—not when it came to it.

TREVOR

Leave it out? But why should you have wanted to?

WILLIAM

I felt badly about it. I felt shifty.

TREVOR

I don’t understand.

WILLIAM

Because you write about things—transmute them—and almost they become all right, as though they’ve now fulfilled some higher purpose, justified their awfulness, through being developed into ‘art’. No tragedy that can’t be utilized! I can respect a lemming. But no one can respect a leech.

LINDA

Oh! You! You could manage to feel guilty over anything.

TREVOR

Couldn’t you say it was a form of exorcism?

WILLIAM

Is purging yourself more important than profiteering?

TREVOR

You were alive; the old man was dead. He wasn’t going to care. (WILLIAM gives a shrug) Did you yourself ever have ambitions of entering the Olympics as a swimmer?

WILLIAM

You mean, as opposed to the old man?

TREVOR

Stop it! You’re needling me!

WILLIAM

(Laughs) Lindy, I like this golden boy you’ve brought home. I really do like him.

LINDA

Needling? Is there something here I’m missing?

TREVOR

(To WILLIAM)
Did
you have such ambitions?

WILLIAM

Of course. I do a pretty mean dog paddle.

TREVOR

No, be serious.

WILLIAM

Yes, I had ambitions. I used to love swimming. But it was only a dream. In reality, I was far too lazy. All that training…Also, I used to love writing. And for
that
—well, between friends—you never had to leave your armchair.

TREVOR

‘Between friends’. And returning to that theme of friendship, I always hate it, too, that these days one man can’t show any deep affection for another without everybody instantly supposing…Even my mother, who’s normally one of the least cynical of people. I think that was the thing that really drew me to Mark in the first place: his constant hope that somehow, someday, there would materialize from somewhere this fellow who would turn out to be the sort of friend he’d always been longing for; the only proper friend he’d ever need. Somebody with whom he could make natural physical contact which wasn’t all tied up with…oh, I don’t know…

LINDA

All tied up with what?

TREVOR

Does one really have to spell it out?,,, Anyway, enough of being so earnest! Shall I go and fetch my bag out of the car?

WILLIAM

I’ll come with you. Give you a hand.

TREVOR

Thanks. Although it’s not that large a bag.

LINDA

Mum! What’s the matter?

NORAH

Oh, nothing. Nothing, darling. I’m just so very happy. Where is everybody?

LINDA

Getting Trevor’s not-very-large bag out of the car. How’s Tom?

NORAH

A bit better. A good night’s sleep should do the trick.

LINDA

Anyway, at the moment it’s not Tom I’m worried about…Is that really on the level: tears of joy?

NORAH

Yes—of course. What else? Don’t you know I always cry at weddings? And because this will be the biggest wedding of my life I’m getting into practice.

LINDA

The second biggest—one should hope?

NORAH

What? Oh, yes—naturally. But I didn’t cry at my own wedding. In fact, I blush to say it, I got the giggles. We all did. Standing right there at the altar. Daddy—his best man—finally myself. It was dreadful. But then, you see, I had nothing to cry about at my own wedding. I wasn’t losing a beloved daughter.

LINDA

Who was the best man?

NORAH

Oh, heavens, do you know I can’t even remember his name? Isn’t that awful? Some teaching colleague of Daddy’s: a nice enough man; he made me laugh a lot…Brian something or other…Why?

LINDA

Just wondered. Did you laugh a lot afterwards? After the wedding?

NORAH

What do you mean?

LINDA

I don’t know, really. I don’t know what I mean…Well, you weren’t losing a daughter but you were certainly losing other things. Like freedom; like…Mummy, do you ever regret having got married?

NORAH

Oh, darling, what a question!…I know there’ve been times—many, many times—when I’ve said I wanted to run away…and if I’d had anywhere to run to…

LINDA

Well, yes, but there was always Granny’s, wasn’t there?

NORAH

There would have been, obviously, but half the time I didn’t have the train fare. Nor the heart, I suppose, when it really came down to it. For how could I ever honestly have regretted it, you great foolish lump—with you and Tom, and everything like that?

LINDA

What was ‘everything like that’?

NORAH

Why, Dad, of course.

LINDA

At the start were you very much in love with him?

NORAH

At the start? Oh dear. That does sound ominous. But…no; no, I wasn’t. In fact I married on the rebound. It was the same for him. The more
exciting
loves of our lives were both behind us; and for both of us probably, even if those loves had been reciprocated, they would have proved disastrous. Oh, darling, you must have heard me talk about Rory, the James Dean lookalike, with the tight jeans and the motorbike and the disapproving mum; I must have told you how I went bananas over
him
. I don’t suppose we truly had a single thing in common…other than sex…but he was definitely a bit of a dish; especially in those tight jeans.

LINDA

And what about him? Who was his great love?

NORAH

Rory’s?

LINDA

No, not Rory’s. Dad’s.

NORAH

Oh, you remember. She was a woman some ten years older than him; already married, divorced, three young children.
Very
suitable. I imagine he must have fancied the idea of a readymade family. Hermione…But I can tell you all this—it’s nothing that we need to hide—because on the whole it’s been a good marriage. And I’m not sure that the things we had—our mutual respect, enjoying one another’s company, sharing many of the same interests—don’t in the long run make a better foundation for getting married than just being giddily in love. Though I’m not saying that what you and Trevor have…No, I envy you the excitement. It will be something wonderful to look back on; so much more wonderful than…than the rather prosaic beginning your father and I had.