The Sun Chemist (17 page)

‘Carry on about carotene,’ Caroline said.

She was sitting in the caftan. She’d taken a couple of
Alka-Seltzers
but still looked slightly stunned.

‘Are you taking all this in?’ I said.

‘Everything is going in. There is nothing I’m not
experiencing
this morning.’

‘Because I couldn’t bear to tell it again.’

‘Well, all this energy is going round on a – or, rather, in a – cycle, and if you know how to you can plug in on it with sweet potatoes.’

‘Among other things,’ I said.

‘Quite. But what is so sweet about this potato is it grows in useless sorts of places, particularly where millions of poor people are starving away. All you have to have is this bug that eats it, because nobody else will, and it turns it into petrol.’

‘Ketones.’

‘Exactly. And they’ve cleverly found all this, except it also makes a lot of rubbish that’s hard to get rid of, including – something I’m not clear on – carotene, which at one and the same time is useless but also terribly useful in solving everybody’s problems.’

‘Well. Very good,’ I said; which it surprisingly was. She was clumsy this morning, and banging herself, but seemed in good order aloft. ‘I don’t understand the carotene, either, but few people do, if any. The theory seems to be that it’s not so much the carotene as the
presence
of the carotene.’ This seemed mad even as I said it. ‘Anyway, for what it’s worth, find a suitable catalyst – Do you know about catalysts?’

‘They change things.’

‘Exactly. Find one of those and it changes this stuff –
transforms
it, you see; converts it; sort of triggers it, like – well, I don’t know.’

‘An atom bomb.’

‘Yes. You’re bright this morning.’

‘Well, I know about those. I’ve got one of those.’ She was holding her head. ‘They do trigger away.’

‘So that where you get the carotene with methyl – or is it ethyl? – this whole transformation scene takes place. All the stuff that you don’t want turns into the stuff that you do want.’

‘The Pickles Effect.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s it, is it? Or is there more?’

‘That’s it. Doesn’t it seem strange enough?’ She considered a moment. ‘It will do. It will seem strang
er
, that is. Everything seems strange now. You do. Your face is quite abnormal. Your teeth flash when you trigger away, did you
realize
?’

‘No.’ I looked at her. The face that had seemed so
unmemorable
was really quite memorable; slightly lopsided and pale like a slice of moon, and of lunar humor; eyes a bit flat and dead at the moment, but evidently in good working order.

‘Oh, God. Are you going to say something pissy about my face?’

‘A bit hung over. Nothing terrible.’

‘Some leftover of Dracula’s.’

‘Well, I wasn’t really …’ The chubbier and altogether merrier face of Sheik Yamani caught my eye, in the newspaper on which the percolator was resting. Seraphic as ever, he was somewhere else, still hilariously regretting. A wave of something suddenly hit me. The incredible series of events that had brought this son of the sands, like an imp from a bottle, from desert wastes to the ingenious cities of the West was surely more and not less fantastic than anything in Chaimchik’s memo.

Yet the intuitive man had foreseen it, had clearly vizualized the situation at a time when, as Meyer said, ‘their asses were hanging out.’ He had worked out the alternative, scientifically, logically, and left time to work its madness for the necessary emergency.

I had the strangest feeling that I was reading the thing in a
history of the period: ‘The grave economic crises of the seventies, and the reliance of the industrialized nations on a stable source of …’

I shook my head sharply.

‘Oh, don’t do that,’ Caroline said.

Her flat eyes were still gazing at me, narrowed with pain.

‘It can all happen, Caroline!’

‘Any bloody thing can happen. But just don’t do that again. You didn’t bring an orange, did you?’

‘I did, actually. Well, mandarins.’ Connie had plucked them, leaves attached, while I bade Marta farewell not many hours ago. They were still buried in my bag.

‘Oh, well, my God, mandarins! How I need a mandarin!’

I got her one, and she sniffed the leaves, and popped the peel, and crooned over it, holding it in both hands, like a holy chalice.

*

I saw Kammermann at four, a tiny corpse-like figure of over ninety. It scarcely seemed worth shunting him to Switzerland. Still, he’d always hung on, had Kammermann, a close and cautious man, which had been his value to Chaimchik as a confidant. He’d hung on to his upper story, too, rather remarkably, and remembered quite a lot. But the only real interest in him was his papers.

I managed to win cautious assent to Rehovot having them ‘in due time.’ But he wouldn’t actually sign anything to say so. Still, as a parting look confirmed, the time couldn’t be long delayed, so I left Brown’s not dissatisfied. The papers were from the early thirties, and therefore my papers; not a wasted journey, like his.  Except could his journey be said to be wasted if on the way he’d met me? There was a random quality to life that it was tempting to see as its chief quality, unless one bumped into men like Chaimchik. Would a speeded-up version of his life not show the random events forming a pattern, if one were in a
pattern-making
mood?

‘How long has Antonia got your flat?’

‘Till Monday.’ It was now Friday night, and we were having a meal out. ‘Why?’

‘Because my father’s is only round the corner. Nobody in it.’

‘I’d bloody freeze there, wouldn’t I?’

‘I was thinking I could do it.’

‘Ah, my leprosy. I see.’

‘I was thinking of old Ettie.’

‘Well, bugger old Ettie. Oh.
Compromising
me, you mean!’

‘Well –’

‘Why is it, I wonder, that I am surrounded by such gallant chaps? I scarcely slept with Willie, you know.’

‘No good?’

‘Well. He had trauma on the few occasions. I wonder what it is about me?’ she said curiously.

‘Perhaps he thought you were too nice.’

‘Too nice for what? And what can you mean about Ettie? She won’t turn up till Monday. What is it about everything? I never seem to find out. There’s Antonia having a wild time with practically – Well, I wouldn’t like that. But I’m normal. Aren’t I?’

‘Your chaps seem bent on marriage.’

‘Well, that’s true. But why should it put people off having a try? I mean, they have. I’m not vestal. Wrong ones, though, in general – either terrible drips or gallants.’

‘Perhaps your definitions are too strict. All gallants, all drips? Nothing in between?’

‘You mean my beady and selective eye puts them off?’

I groaned inwardly. ‘Oh, look, Caroline –’

‘Yes, I know, all right. It’s a bloody bore, isn’t it? Well, if you want to go to your father’s, you can.’

‘Not if you’d feel insulted. But it’s odd sleeping with a girl without having relations. And our relations are terribly good already,’ I added quickly,’ and individual and rare, and it would
be a crime to spoil all that for something not so individual or rare, which it would – however madly desirable the notion certainly is, ‘I said, to keep her end up.’ And you know I’m a bit of a trifler in that direction – you’ve pointed it out.’

‘Hmm. Well. I do see that,’ she said reflectively, and had a sip of wine. ‘It isn’t that you’ve got another occupant lined up for trifling with, is it, in one or other of these beds?’

‘I’ve told you not.’

‘That’s all right, then. I only want to lie out in one. On the other hand, I’m not going to chase you out of yours. I could go to a hotel, I suppose, if it came to the point.’

This seemed a reasonable point to get to, but I said, ‘Don’t be silly, Caroline.’

‘All right. Well, subdue the beast and keep us rare and
individual
. I’ll have to do something about Willie, damn it. That wasn’t good. He’ll be ringing up Antonia – perhaps my parents. I’d better phone him, and also get off a fast letter.’

‘Do you want to do all that now?’

‘No. What I wouldn’t mind doing now is watching a picture. I feel like slouching somewhere and not thinking too hard.’

We went and slouched at the pictures and returned to Russell Square and I pensively opened the door.

‘It’s a bit late for ringing people up, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘It is a bit.’

‘Oh, well. Beddy-byes. Are you coming?’

‘Shortly.’

‘Oh, look, you’ll make me feel most hideously self-conscious. Don’t skulk about somewhere while I’m getting undressed. You’ve seen as much of my physique as is possible without instruments. If we’re going to keep it free and easy …’

‘All right.’

We went into the bedroom and undressed.

‘No books here,’ she said chattily. ‘Don’t you read in bed?’

‘Not much. Ettie removes them.’

‘Strange. I keep piles … Do you have a bath at night?’ she asked from the bathroom.

‘No. Do I seem to need one?’

‘Simple interest.’

We smoked a cigarette, sitting up in bed, and she gnawed a nail and worried about Willie. ‘It is bloody awful, isn’t it? I feel terrible.’

‘Well, it’s done now.’

‘He’ll feel such an idiot. And he’s a nice bloke. He really is. I got the whole boiling at once, Christmas and everything. Just wasn’t for me. Gosh, it’s ghastly, isn’t it? I wasn’t there four days. I hadn’t even arrived, last week at this time. What were you doing last week, this time?’

What had I been doing, last week at this time? Friday night. I had commenced my long Sabbath. I’d patrolled the haunted House with Old Taylor. About now, I’d been sitting by the kerosene stove in Chaimchik’s room, feeling the indentations in the notebooks and poring over little Miss Margalit’s transcript …
CROMER-LE-POYTH, LE-ROY-PARMA, COONE FIRTH
. Only a week ago?

She quietly listened as I told her.

‘Can’t you wangle me a trip next time.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘All right. I’m going down now. Good night.’

‘Good night.’ I put the light off.

‘You can fling in a quick cuddle.’

I flung one in.

‘Also one of your lighter kisses, accompanied by a “Good night, Caroline, darling.”’

‘Not too drunk to remember?’

‘Oh, no. I threw you a light one, too, I recall. Lips smacked air.’ She smacked them again. ‘You can have them now,’ she said, and placed them on my cheek. She placed them quite lightly, but she left them there, and presently made small
movements
with them.

‘It’s the small of my back that neels rubbing,’ she said
drowsily
.

I rubbed it, for some time.

‘Why have you stopped?’

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘Not yet. Beautifully soothing. Carry on till the first snore.’

I carried on.

‘Nightie not in your way, is it?’ she said.

There was no answer to this, so I silently raised it, and
continued
rubbing – evidently too beautifully.

‘Yes, well,’ she said, rather more alertly, ‘this thing will very likely strangle me in the night. Hang on.’ She wriggled away, and came back, without it.

Oh, well.

‘You’re not roasting in that great uniform?’ she said.

‘They’re normal pajamas.’

‘My goodness, you’re buttoned up to the chin. Almost to the ears. You’re like a Red Guard,’ she said. ‘You’ll incinerate. Very unhealthy.’ She undid a button, and then another, and slipped her hand in.

‘That’s much better, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course it is.’ She snuggled herself back in place. ‘Well, it’s more or less totally delicious,’ she said. ‘Carry on, then.’

The first snore seemed evidently now well at bay. After a while she said in my ear, ‘Beast subdued?’

‘Trying.’

‘Beasts have to be subdued.’

‘I know.’

‘Nature ordains.’

‘Quite.’

‘Wisely providing the means.’

Well, people couldn’t be expected to keep their word about bed, and as Chaimchik had said, contests against determined forces had a predetermined end. But I was struck by her
single-minded
cunning, and she mistook the pause for dim-wittedness.

‘What I was thinking was that if that were a rightful object of the evening, the means of subjugation are close at hand, if you had another hand, and where the hell is it?’

I produced the other hand.

‘Exactly. You gormless, half-witted, imbecilic – oh, God,
darling
.’

The normal developments ensued, not too expertly at first but improving in the course of the evening’s objects, and satisfyingly
enough, but I thought sadly I’d probably lost free and hoydenish Caroline, innocent swearing companion, and only gained a lover.

Saturday rolled on (in much the same rolling way as last
Saturday
, it occurred to me during the course of it) and so did
Sunday
. Monday brought Ettie and Hopcroft, the latter bushy and sparkling as ever. ‘Welcome homeland all well round at the old brain box, then?’ he said.

‘Fine. You look restored to manly vigor, Hopcroft.’

‘Oh, sure. Glad to get the papers and so on and so forth, were they?’

‘Very. It was nice of Olga to send them.’

‘I knew she would. She’s a good old horse. I rang her up over Christmas, incidentally. She’s still a bit cut up. Continuing
ructions
on the marital front. That old man of hers – mad as a hatter.’

‘What’s up with him?’

‘Bonkers. He rang her up Christmas Eve, raving that she’d wrecked the joint, out of spite. You know – Merry Christmas, you fiend.’

‘Wrecked the joint?’

‘Wimbledon. He’d had a break-in, apparently, and jumped to the conclusion she was behind it.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘When was this?’

‘He wasn’t sure. He’d been away and popped back for
something
and found the place in this state of chaos, drawers out, papers everywhere. He rang her up, frothing.’