The collected stories (79 page)

'You must give me visa for New York City.'

'I'm not in the consular section.'

'You know the poet Bellamy. Famous American poet. He will vouch for me. He will sponsor me.'

'Bellamy's in the hospital,' I said. 'Anyway, you've already been turned down for a visa.'

'For what reason I want to know!'

'We're not obliged to give you a reason.'

He sat down beside me again - his shouting had tired him. He was a bit hoarse. He said, 'You can help me. They will believe you. Bellamy says you are the only honest man in the Embassy -that's why I phoned you up. You have a reputation for being a fair man. That's why Helena is so attracted to you. She can't help it - she admires your honesty.'

I said, 'Do you know the word "bullshit"?'

'You are trying to insult me,' he said.

'You're wasting your time. If you had told me a half an hour ago that you wanted a visa I could have saved you a lot of trouble. It's impossible.'

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (II): THE LONDON EMBASSY

He said, 'It is not I who am insulted - it is my wife. You simply toss her away like a worthless thing.'

'Be careful,' I said.

His face darkened. 'Then you will be sorry.'

'Don't threaten me,' I said. I was smiling.

He said, 'You think you can mock me!'

'No, I was just thinking that you offered me lunch. All this might have been taking place in a restaurant. I would have had indigestion! Excuse me,' I said, and stood up. 'I have to go back to my office.'

'I have pictures of you with my wife!' he said. He shook the camera at me. 'I will send them to the newspaper. Hah!'

'It will be very embarrassing for you,' I said. 'In this country, pimping is a criminal offense. I would imagine that if the authorities heard that you'd been pimping for your wife, they'd ship you both back to the Soviet Union.'

'That is a disgraceful lie,' he said. 'And you have no proof.'

'I've been recording our conversation,' I said.

He laughed. 'No, you haven't. When Leni kissed you she examined your clothes for a recorder. She found no wires, or she would have told me!'

I moved to the end of the bench and dipped my hand into the litter bin. I retrieved the soiled lunch bag I had thrown in, and took a small tape recorder out of it. It was still whirring softly. I stopped it, rewound it, then pressed the Play button.

'. . . ship you both back . . .'

'You are disgusting,' Kirilov said.

I said, 'Get a job.'

I knew then that this honorary Siberian would spend the rest of his life as a refugee - unemployed, uttering threats, and pitying himself. He had actually believed that I would help him - perhaps sleep with his wife, or be tempted to collaborate with him in his flight to America. How old-fashioned the Soviets were in their quaint belief in blackmail! But Kirilov believed in nothing, really, which is why he was so ignorant. A more passionate man, a believer, would have been far more resourceful, like the other honorary Siberians who had already become American writers.

Gone West

They appeared to be husband and wife - man standing, woman seated: the classic married pose of Authority flanked by Loyalty -but when I got closer I saw they were both men. It was just after eight in the morning, a smudgy winter dawn in London, on the Embassy stairs. The doors would not be open to the public for another hour. I mounted the stairs but couldn't get to the door without asking the man who was standing to move aside. He made a respectful noise, then spoke.

'We're going to America!'

Americans call it the States.

I said, 'You'll need visas.'

'That's why we're here,' the seated one said.

'You should be at the other door - the Consulate, visa section. It's right around the corner, on Upper Grosvenor Street.'

The news that they were waiting at the wrong door didn't upset them. They laughed, as the English often do in such situations. They said, 'Silly old us!' and 'What a wheeze!'

It seemed to be a national characteristic. The English had been getting bad news for so long, they had learned to cope. They disliked complainers, even when the complaint was justified, and regarded such people as spineless. Most of the English seemed rather proud of their capacity for suffering. It made them the world's best airline passengers, but had given them one of the world's worst airlines. Surely this 'mustn't grumble' attitude accounted for a great deal of Britain's decline? But of course it made the place nice and quiet. Our vices are so often our virtues as well.

'You must be cold,' I said.

'Absolutely freezing.' This was said, with one eyebrow raised, in the most matter-of-fact tone.

'Never mind. We'll soon be in California.'

'Fat lot of good that's doing me now,' the matter-of-fact one said.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

'Oh, we're going to have a little moan, are we?'

'Listen to him - after his blameless weekend!'

'You said you were impervious to cold.'

'On your bike! I never said impervious - don't know what the flipping word means!'

This was all spoken with sharpness and speed, and the effect was comic - friendly, too - even in the misty brown dawn of a January morning. From that moment I began to wonder what would happen to them in California.

The dark-haired one, who was standing, faced the fairer one, who was still seated, and said, 'Lambie here got me up at the crack of dawn. Said we had to hurry - frightened me with stories about long queues and red tape. So off we go to stand at the wrong door! Feel me cheeks. They're solid ice! I haven't even had me tea!'

'Forgot our thermal underwear, didn't we, chicken?'

'I'm wearing me serviceable string vest.'

I said, 'How about a coffee inside?'

This made them go very silent. They seemed a bit suspicious. But I had noticed that a kindness to an English person often arouses unease or suspicion. It is a very nervous nation. In a wary voice, the dark-haired one said, 'Do you think it'd be all right?'

'What about security? Laser beams and that,' the other said. 'You must get ever so many bomb scares.'

I said, 'You don't look very dangerous to me.'

'Him - he's the dangerous one,' the dark-haired man said. 'Oh, he's a hard lad!'

They followed me in - our security man squinting at them and giving their colorful shoulder bags a close inspection for weapons - and I heard one of them say, 'Laser beams, you daft prat!'

The coffee urn was outside Al Sanger's office. This morning there was a plate of Danish pastries next to the urn. Sanger often bought them at a place off Curzon Street - deliberately there so that he could say, 'I just picked up some tarts in Shepherd Market. Want one?'

I poured three cups of coffee and urged them to take some pastry.

'Don't mind if I do!'

'I won't say no!'

'Our first American breakfast.'

So they had overcome their suspicion. I said, 'It's part of our job to encourage tourism/

GONE WEST

'It's lovely and warm in here.'

Think I'll put me feet up!'

Their names, they said, were Cary and Lamb. Cary had the dark hair and broad shoulders, and he had a tiny Irish chin and a high sweet voice. Lamb at first glance was a young man with reddish hair, but looking closer I saw he was quite old - over sixty - with rather nasty blue eyes and his hair harshly colored and coarse-textured and spread across his crown to cover his baldness. He wore an earring, and Cary had a heavy chain around his neck.

Lamb said, 'You actually work here, do you?'

"Course he works here, you pillock!'

I said, 'But I can't give you much help with your visas.'

'We won't have any trouble,' Cary said. 'We've never been Communists or prostitutes, and we haven't been in the nick. That's the kind of thing they want to know, don't they? We've been good lads, haven't we, Lambie?'

'Apart from your occasional lapses of taste,' Lamb said.

'Listen to the incurable cottager!' Cary shrieked. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket. But his trousers were so tight the cigarettes were squashed and unsmokable. He said, 'There's another packet of fags gone west.'

'About time you gave up smoking. It'll stunt your growth.'

'Aren't you happy with me growth, Lambie?'

They both laughed at this. I couldn't see the joke, but the sight of them laughing so easily amused me.

'What are you planning to do in the States?'

'We're going to California,' Lamb said.

'I mean, after you get there.'

'We don't have any plans for after that. We're going to California a special way - an ingenious way. It's Cary's big plan, see. He does have the occasional brilliant scheme.'

'I'd like to hear it,' I said.

Cary had thrown his squashed cigarettes into the waste-basket. Now he was bent over the basket and reaching in, trying to retrieve them.

'Look at him,' Lamb said. 'Fossicking in the waste-bin!'

'I see one,' Cary said.

'He sees one,' Lamb said, rolling his eyes. 'Picking up fag ends - can't take him anywhere.'

It was a double-act. They were spirited and mocking, and they

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

kept it up until my secretary arrived. They found her presence intimidating, and they asked whether they should go. I said they shouldn't hurry away, and I kicked the door shut.

Lamb heard her tuning the radio for the news. There was a moment of music.

'Music,' he said. 'Oh, be still my dancing feet!'

'Give over,' Cary said.

'Tell him your brilliant scheme.'

'Yes, mum,' Cary said, and grinned and gave himself dimples as he looked at me. 'We're secondhand furniture dealers, the kind of rubbish that innocent people call antiques. We find the stuff all over the place. You've seen the signs. "House Clearances Our Specialty."'

Lamb said, '"Top Prices Paid for Your Unwanted Furniture."

Cary frowned. He said, ' "That Old Chest in Your Attic Could Be Worth a Fortune.'"

'Cary specializes in old chests. You have to watch him.'

'You flaming wally!' Cary said, and turning back to me, he said, 'It's absolute balls about the top prices, but we buy what we can afford, mainly tables, benches, mirrors, picture frames, and that. Windsor chairs. Welsh dressers if we're lucky.'

'There's an awful lot of lifting,' Lamb said. 'I've done me back I don't know how many times.'

'He's the original Welsh dresser, is Lambie,' Cary said. 'Aren't you, sunshine?'

'You're just saying that because you like me drawers.'

'That's what we should have called the shop, you know - "Chests and Drawers."'

'Do me a favor!' Lamb said in an actressy voice.

But I noticed that everything they said, no matter how mocking, was tinged with what sounded like real affection.

I said, 'What is your shop called?'

'"Pining for You" - isn't it horrid? We hate it,' Lamb said. 'We used to do stripping in our tank, to order. Anything you wanted stripped - within limits - we'd chuck in."

Cary said, 'There's a boom in stripped pine in London at the moment. You get knackered, scrubbing the paint off, but you can sell anything if it's stripped. We got top whack for a coffin once. Can you imagine someone buying an old coffin? I suppose some clapped-out Dracula-'

GONE WEST

'We've got a lot of American customers. They adore our refectory tables,' Lamb said. 'Or any sort of shelving. They're mad on shelving over there.'

' "Mad on shelving" - you make them sound a pack of flaming morons, Lambie.'

'Well, they are,' Lamb said, timing his pause after that word, 'mad on shelving.'

'Americans buy quality,' Cary said.

'Crawler!' Lamb said. 'You're shameless!'

Cary said, 'And that's what gave me the idea of the lorry. Did you know you can ship a lorry across the Atlantic and it costs the same whether it's full or empty?'

'That's Cary's brilliant scheme. We're going to take a lorry-load of country pine furniture to California.'

'And flog it,' Cary said. 'To pay our way.'

'We reckon on making a tidy fortune on it.'

'Don't tell me too much,' I said. 'If you do, I'll have to advise you about the regulations governing the import of dutiable goods.'

'Muggins put his foot in it,' Lamb said.

'Oh, belt up,' Cary said. But he was laughing.

'I won't report you,' I said. 'But you'd better go get your visas. The Consulate opens pretty soon.'

'Crikey, I feel better. I needed that coffee. You're awfully kind,' Cary said.

'You're welcome,' I said.

'That's nice, isn't it? "You're welcome." English people never say that.' He looked at Lamb and said, 'You're welcome, sunshine.'

'Send me a postcard,' I said.

'We'll do better than that,' Lamb said. 'We'll report back.'

'When English people go to California,' I said, 'they either come back the next day or stay there for the rest of their lives.'

Lamb said, 'I wonder what we'll do.'

'You could do both,' I said. 'After all, there are two of you. Each one could-'

'There's only one,' Cary said. 'I mean to say, we're sticking together.'

Lamb gave Cary an affectionate push, and Cary lowered his eyes. I noticed again the great difference between their ages. Lamb's neck was loose and the roots of his hair were gray and his hands

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

were mottled with liver spots. But his voice and his gestures, the

promptness of his wit, made him seem youthful. That's the idea,' I said. 'Stick together.' 'He's my wife,' Lamb said. 'Aren't you, petal?'

I never thought I would see them again. I imagined them crossing the United States in an old English truck loaded with pine furniture - Cary at the wheel, Lamb riding shotgun, going west.

Of all the get-rich-quick schemes I had ever heard - and I had heard many - this was the best. It was a truckload of furniture, but they paid only for the truck. This would transport them to California, and the sale of the furniture paid for the trip. It had everything - sunshine, freedom, a good product, a free ride, and a guaranteed profit. It had taken a little capital, but even more enterprise; and it gave me hope. Whenever London went dead on me, whenever I thought of ditching my job and clearing out, I thought of Cary and Lamb in their truck, with their pine furniture, bumping down the highway underneath a big blue sky. It made me want to get married and go.