The Biographer’s Moustache. Kingsley Amis
for a moment, but then a distinctive high voice could be heard from the street.
‘Ah, there you are, my dear fellow, I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t here to greet you, I just popped out for some cat-food.’
‘Never mind, Jimmie,’ said Gordon, ‘I’ve been well looked after.’
‘Periwinkle’s been taking care of you, has she? I’m afraid I’m absolutely hopeless at organizing things, especially people. Let’s be off, shall we? I suppose I must have asked them along to give a … That’s Oliver, my son-in-law, back there. I think you could hail this chap. Fancy painting a taxi yellow.’
When they had driven off, Gordon asked, ‘She’s your daughter, is she, Periwinkle?’ He wanted to have it authoritatively confirmed that this was indeed a girl’s name.
‘Not a very friendly creature, I’m afraid, little Periwinkle.’
‘She wasn’t exactly welcoming me in just now. She seemed to think I was a tout or a hawker or something.’
‘She must have got you mixed up with a sort of cadger kind of fellow from Bulgaria did he say, who’s been hanging round the place for a day or two. She must have mistaken you for him.’
‘How extraordinary.’
‘Yes, different kettle of fish altogether. Horrible-looking broken-down sort of chap. It may seem an odd description of such a person, but what I believe is known nowadays as dead common.’
‘Really,’ said Gordon, remembering to make three syllables of it. He glanced surreptitiously down at his clothes.
‘He did have a moustache rather like yours.’
‘Perhaps that was what confused Periwinkle.’
‘Of course, she’s the child of my second marriage. She’s a funny girl. I don’t think she’s ever kissed me of her own accord. The truth is she’s a howling snob. I can’t think where she gets that from, it must be from her mother. Between ourselves I’ve never greatly cared for young Oliver, what’s he called, Turnbull I fancy. He’s what they call upwardly mobile, or at any rate desirous of being so. He’s also something in the City. Remind me. Just remind me where you’re taking me if you would.’
‘I thought –’
‘And whatever you do don’t please say it’s a little place you happen to know.’
Since that was more or less exactly what he had been going to say, Gordon’s reply was slow in coming. He was thrown off too by trying to remember where he had not long ago heard that very expression, and further still by wondering whether it was the form of words or the likely reality or both that was being interdicted. But in fact it was not at all long before he was saying gamely, ‘Well, it is a rather small place and in the nature of things I do happen to know about it.’
‘Yes yes, no doubt no doubt. What’s it called again?’
‘Cakebread’s.’
‘Really,’ said Jimmie, far outdoing in all respects Gordon’s pronunciation of the word. ‘He’s not an American, I hope, the valuable Cakebread?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Nevertheless I prophesy that his establishment will be full of citizens of that great republic. Hiram and Mamie are just mad about little places they happen to know, yes sir.’
Jimmie’s second sentence here was delivered in what was presumably intended as an American accent, though one that failed to recall any actually used within the nine million square kilometres of the Union. Gordon was at a loss for an answer, so he just smiled nervously.
‘I’m sorry, dear boy, of course I adore Americans and feel at home with everything about them except the way they speak. I can never make out what their rules are for choosing between pronouncing every single syllable, as in tempo-rarily, and swallowing as much of a word as possible, as when Polonius tells Laertes, neither a bore nor a lender be.’
This time Gordon laughed nervously.
‘You remember that Shakespeare wrote borrower, a word no American can pronounce. And all those glottal stops they put at the beginnings of words, as in Deutschland über alles. They’re deeply German, you know, German to their fingernails. That awful Hunnish greeting that uses the bare name, so it’s Tom, Dick, Harry, no hallo Tom, good morning Dick, give my love to your mother, Harry. German through and through. I wonder they don’t all click their heels and wear monocles. Well, thank you for putting up with that harangue, dear boy. Of course, one wouldn’t dream of letting a word of it reach an American ear, they’re so desperately sensitive and nervous of being made fun of, haven’t you found that?’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t noticed.’
‘That’s what they’re like, I do assure you. Now. Where is Citizen Cakebread’s eatery located?’ This last brought a brief and perfunctory return to the Jimmie accent. ‘Hopefully.’
‘A few doors off Edgware Road.’
‘So we’re nearly there.’
If Gordon had set out to tell the whole truth from the start he would have had to add something about not having visited the little place himself for some time, but he decided to keep this fact up his sleeve. In what he intermittently saw as the battle of the lunch, or his attempt to protect what he could of his disposable capital against luxurious Jimmie’s ravages, the defence had made an encouraging start in the circumstances. Gordon’s mind went back to Monday’s telephone conversation. His ring had been answered by a voice he recognized with some relief as Joanna’s.
‘May I speak to Mr Fane, Jimmie Fane?’
‘Oh, isn’t that, isn’t that Gordon? Are you calling him about that lunch you were going to give him? Right, I’ll get him.’
Pause. ‘Hallo, dear boy. Yes, of course I remember. I’m afraid I haven’t really thought where. Oh, would you hold on just a minute?’ Burble burble burble, soon translated without difficulty. ‘Hallo? Er, it’s kind of you to leave the choice of venue up to me, my dear fellow, but I rather think it’s only fair that you should decide that question from your obviously more immediate knowledge than my, er …’
So, unexpectedly, it was not to be the Tripoli or Woolton’s but the joint Gordon had on the spur of the moment recalled from a couple of lunches with Louise’s predecessor. He was not a habitual luncher-out and Cakebread’s, he thought, had been cheap and cheerful and not too bad. Thereafter his sense of adventure had taken over.
The taxi stopped outside somewhere that did not, at first glance, look much like the Cakebread’s of Gordon’s memory, though the name was to be seen in fluorescent tubing. Jimmie sprang athletically out on to the pavement and peered in through the glass door. In an abstracted state Gordon paid the cab-fare and joined him, or more truly followed him into the restaurant. For restaurant it was or had now become, neither cheap-looking nor particularly cheerful. Waiters in little striped waistcoats and bow ties darted to and fro where overalled girls had once moved more slowly, and the menu no longer appeared on a smudgy blackboard but between fat leather covers on every table. The noise was immense. Jimmie put on a good king-in-exile show, holding his distinguished white head high above the rabble, apologizing with gestures for accidental buffets inflicted on him by others. He and Gordon were shown to a table by a side wall and brought drinks.
‘The industrious Mr Cakebread would appear to be prospering.’
‘There have been considerable changes since I was last here,’ Gordon shouted back. He felt he must immediately correct any mistaken impression that this was the kind of level on which he customarily refreshed himself in public.
‘I shouldn’t care to become an habitué here perhaps but it suits my mood at the moment.’
Gordon tried to look receptive.
‘Last night I did something I hadn’t done for what seems