4
NOTHING FLUSHED DOUG OUT OF HIS ROOM LIKE A quarrel; he even tried to provoke them, for the truth was he had a gripe. Nearly all of Doug’s fabulously rich classmates at Beatrice Webb House came from broken homes, which gave him reason to envy them. Take Neil Ferguson, for instance. He had been a nervy kid, a bed-wetter, until his parents were divorced two years ago, remarried almost immediately, and began to compete for Neil’s affections. So that now, come the Easter hols, Neil could create traumas in two households while he vacillated between Bermuda with his mother and stepfather or Paris with his father and stepmother.
Doug was being misled, Mortimer knew, he was clearly better off in a happy – well, reasonably happy – home, but all the same Doug and two or three other Beatrice Webb boys felt deprived because they only had two parents each.
Damn that school, Mortimer thought.
No sooner had Mortimer driven Doug to school and turned into Regent’s Park than he developed a puncture and had to change the tire himself. In the rain.
At Lloyd’s bank, on Oxford Street, a day begun badly took an anguishing turn. Ahead of Mortimer in the queue there was an attractive, elegantly dressed girl. Colored. Now, Mortimer was certainly not prejudiced, but even so he had to admit that the first thing he noticed about the attractive, elegantly dressed girl was that she was colored. When Mortimer had first entered the bank, there she was standing in the queue with nobody behind her. There were shorter queues leading to other tellers, there was even one teller with nobody to serve, but Mortimer, remembering Sharpsville, remembering Selma, Alabama, immediately fell in behind the attractive colored girl.
Well, she certainly was a jumpy one, obviously unsettled by his waiting behind her, possibly because there were now two other tellers with nobody to serve or maybe because he had edged too close behind her. Not that he could retreat a step now – that would be insulting. Finally the girl endorsed all her checks, eight of them, each made out for twenty-five pounds, handed them over (somewhat nervously, it seemed to Mortimer) and turned to go, which was when it happened. The attractive, elegantly dressed colored girl dropped one of her white gloves, and for an instant the two of them were suspended in time, like the frozen frame in a movie. Mortimer’s first instinct was to retrieve her glove, but he checked it. She was, after all, colored, and he did not want her to think him condescending on the one hand, or sexually presumptuous on the other. And then her smile, a mere trace of a smile, was ambiguous. Was she waiting for him to retrieve the glove or was she amused by his dilemma? His ofay dilemma. Or perhaps she wasn’t a militant and she thought it prejudiced of Mortimer not to retrieve the glove as he would have done instantly had she been white. Yes, he thought, that’s it, but by this time she had scooped up the glove herself, cursing him in parting. “Mother-fucker,” the elegantly dressed colored girl said; Mortimer was prepared to swear she called him mother-fucker.
But I’m not prejudiced, he thought, outraged. Scrutinizing his own attitudes as honestly as possible, Mortimer felt (Joyce be damned) that he could objectively say of himself, coming out of Lloyd’s bank on Oxford Street on a windy morning in October 1965, that, considering his small-town Ontario origins, his middle-class background, he was refreshingly free of prejudice. Even Ziggy Spicehandler would have to agree. Ziggy, he thought, how I miss him.
Joyce phoned him at the office. Before she could get a word out, he said, “If you ask me, almost all of Doug’s problems can be traced to that bloody school.”
“Would you rather that he was educated as you were?”
Mortimer had been to Upper Canada College. “I don’t see why not.”
“Full of repressions and establishment lies.”
Establishment. Camp. WASP. She had all the bloody modish words.
“Well, I –”
“We’ll discuss it later. Just please please don’t be late for the rehearsal.”
Mortimer had only been invited to the rehearsal for the Christmas play because he was in publishing and Dr. Booker, the founder, wanted Oriole to do a book about Beatrice Webb House. Drama was taught at the school by a Miss Lilian Tanner, who had formerly been with Joan Littlewood’s bouncy group. A tall, willowy young lady, Miss Tanner wore her long black hair loose, a CND button riding her scrappy bosom. She assured Mortimer he was a most welcome visitor to her modest little workshop. Mortimer curled into a seat in the rear of the auditorium, trying to appear as unobtrusive as possible. He was only half attentive to begin with, reconciled to an afternoon of tedium larded with cuteness.
“We have a visitor this afternoon, class,” Miss Tanner began sweetly. “Mr. Mortimer Griffin of Oriole Press.”
Curly-haired heads, gorgeous pigtailed heads, whipped around, everybody giggly.
“Now all together, class …”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Griffin.”
Mortimer waved, unaccountably elated.
“Settle down now,” Miss Tanner demanded, rapping her ruler against the desk. “Settle down, I said.”
The class came to order.
“Now, this play that we are going to perform for the Christmas concert was written by … class?”
“A marquis!”
“Bang on!” Miss Tanner smiled, flushed with old-fashioned pride in her charges, and then she pointed her ruler at a rosy-cheeked boy. “What’s a marquis, Tony?”
“What hangs outside the Royal Court Theatre.”
“No, no, darling.”
There were titters all around. Mortimer laughed himself, covering his mouth with his hand.
“That’s a marquee. This is a marquis. A –”
A little girl bobbed up, waving her arms. Golden head, red ribbons. “A French nobleman!”
“Righty-ho! And what do we know about him … class?”
A boy began to jump up and down. Miss Tanner pointed her ruler at him.
“They put him in prison.”
“Yes. Anybody know why?”
Everybody began to call out at once.
“Order! Order!” Miss Tanner demanded. “What ever will Mr. Griffin think of us?”
Giggles again.
“You have a go, Harriet. Why was the marquis put in prison?”
“Because he was absolutely super.”
“Mmnn …”
“And such a truth-teller.”
“Yes. Any other reasons … Gerald?”
“Because the Puritans were scared of him.”
“Correct. And what else do we know about the marquis?”
“Me, me!”
“No, me, miss. Please!”
“Eeny-meeny-miny-mo,” Miss Tanner said, waving her ruler. “Catch a bigot by the toe … Frances!”
“That he was the freest spirit what ever lived.”
“Who ever lived. Who, dear. And who said that?”
“Apollinaire.”
“Jolly good. Anything else … Doug?”
“Um, he cut through the banality of everyday life.”
“Indeed he did. And who said that?”
“Jean Genet.”
“No.”
“Hugh Hefner,” another voice cried.
“Dear me, that’s not even warm.”
“Simone de Beauvoir.”
“Right. And who is she?”
“A writer.”
“Good. Very good. Anybody know anything else about the marquis?”
“He was in the Bastille and then in another place called Charenton.”
“Yes. All together, class … Charenton.”
“Charenton.”
“Anything else?”
Frances jumped up a again. “I know. Please, Miss Tanner. Please, me.”
“Go ahead, darling.”
“He had a very, very, very big member.”
“Yes indeed. And –”
But now Frances’s elder brother, Jimmy, leaped to his feet, interrupting. “Like Mummy’s new friend,” he said.
Shrieks. Laughter. Miss Tanner’s face reddened. For the first time she stamped her foot. “Now I don’t like that, Jimmy. I don’t like that one bit.”
“Sorry, Miss Tanner.”
“That’s tittle-tattle, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Miss Tanner.”
“We mustn’t tittle-tattle on one another here.”
“Sorry …”
“And now,” Miss Tanner said, stepping up to the blackboard, “can anyone give me another word for member?”
“Cock,” came a little girl’s shout; and Miss Tanner wrote it down.
“Beezer.”
“Pwick.”
“Male organ.”
“Penis.”
“Hard-on.”
Miss Tanner looked dubious. She frowned. “Not always,” she said, and she didn’t write it down.
“Fucking-machine.”
“Putz.”
“You’re being sectarian again, Monty,” Miss Tanner said, somewhat irritated. “Joy stick.” A pause.
“Anybody else?” Miss Tanner asked.
“Hot rod.”
“Mmn. Dodgy,” Miss Tanner said, but she wrote it down on the blackboard, adding a question mark. “Anybody else?”
“Yes,” a squeaky voice cried, now that her back was turned. “Tea-kettle.”
Miss Tanner whirled around, outraged. “Who said that?” she demanded.
“Well, I never. I want to know who said that. Immediately.”
No answer.
“Very well, then. No rehearsal,” she said, sitting down and tapping her foot. “We are simply going to sit here and sit here and sit here until who ever said that owns up.”
Nothing.
“I’m sorry about this fuck-up, Mr. Griffin. It’s most embarrassing.”
Mortimer shrugged.
“I’m waiting, class.”
Finally a fat squinting boy came tearfully to his feet. “It was me, Miss Tanner,” he said in a small voice. “I said tea-kettle.”
“Would you be good enough to tell us why, Reggie?”
“When my nanny … I mean my little brother’s nanny, um, takes us, ah, out …”
“Speak up, please.”
“When my nanny takes me, um, us … to Fortnum’s for tea, well, before I sit down she always asks us do we, do” – Reggie’s head hung low; he paused, swallowing his tears – “do I have to water my tea-kettle.”
“Well. Well, well. I see,” Miss Tanner said severely. “Class, can anyone tell me what Reggie’s nanny is?”
“A prude!”
“Repressed!”
“Victorian!”
“All together now.”
“Reggie’s nanny is a dry cunt!”
“She is against … class?”
“Life force.”
“And?”
“Pleasure!”
“Right. And truth-sayers. Remember that. Because it’s sexually repressed bitches like Reggie’s nanny who put truth-sayers like the marquis in prison.”
The class was enormously impressed.
“May I sit down now?” Reggie asked.
“Sit down, what?”
“Sit down, please, Miss Tanner?”
“Yes, Reggie. You may sit down.”
At which point Mortimer slipped out of the rear exit of the auditorium, without waiting to see a run-through of the play. Without even finding out what play they were doing.