The Lemon Table (13 page)

This generally produced a positive response, even if one tinged with suspicion. Might I have a hidden clipboard and questionnaire? So I would quickly follow up my initial question. “And what would you say is your favourite painting? One of them, anyway?”

People like being asked this, and I might be rewarded with
The Hay Wain
or
The Rokeby Venus
or Monet’s
Water Lilies
or whatever.

“Well, imagine this,” I’d say, all polite and cheerful. “You’re standing in front of
The Rokeby Venus
, and I’m standing next to you, and while you’re looking at it, at this incredibly famous picture which you love more than anything else in the world, I start gobbing on it, so that bits of the canvas are all covered in spit. I don’t just do it once, but several times. What would you think about that?” I am maintaining my reasonable-man-not-quite-with-clipboard tone.

The answers vary between proposed action and reflection, between “I’d call the guards” and “I’d think you were a nutter.”

“Exactly,” I reply, moving a little closer. “So
don’t
”—and here I sometimes give them a poke in the shoulder or on the chest, a poke which is a little harder than they expect—“
don’t
cough in the middle of Mozart. It’s like gobbing on
The Rokeby Venus
.”

Most look sheepish at this point, and a few have the decency to react as if they’ve been caught shoplifting. One or two say, “Who do you think you are?” To which I reply, “Just someone who’s paid for his seat like you.” Note that I never claim to be an official. Then I add: “And I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Some of them lie. “It’s hay fever,” they say, and I answer, “Bring the hay in with you, did you?” One studenty type was apologetic about his timing: “I thought I knew the piece. I thought there was a sudden crescendo, not a diminuendo.” I gave him the full glare, as you might imagine.

But I can’t pretend everyone is either accommodating, or crestfallen. Pin-striped geezers, bolshie buggers, macho types with tittling women in tow: they can get tricky. I might run through one of my routines and they’d say, “Who precisely do you think you are?” or, “Oh, just bugger off, will you?”—things like that, not really addressing the issue, and some will give me a look as if
I’m
the weirdo and turn their backs. I don’t like that sort of behaviour, I think it’s discourteous, so I might give the arm that’s holding the drink a little nudge, which helps turn them round towards me, and if they’re by themselves I’ll go up close and say, “Know what, you’re a
fucking cunt
, and I’ll be keeping my eye on you.” They don’t generally like being spoken to in this way. Of course, if there’s a woman present I moderate my language. “What’s it like,” I ask, then pause as if seeking the exact description, “being an
utterly selfish berk
?”

One of them summoned a Festival Hall usher. I could see his plan, so I went and sat down with a modest glass of water, slipped off my heraldic badge and became horribly reasonable. “So glad he’s brought you over. I was looking for someone to ask. What exactly is the Hall’s policy on persistent and unmuffled coughers? Presumably at some point you take steps to exclude them. If you could explain the complaints procedure, I’m sure many people in the audience tonight would happily support my proposal that you refuse all future bookings to this, er, gentleman.”

Andrew keeps on thinking up practical solutions. He says I should go to the Wigmore Hall instead. He says I should stay at home and listen to my records. He says I spend so much time being a vigilante that I can’t possibly be concentrating on the music. I tell him I don’t want to go to the Wigmore Hall: I’m saving chamber music for later. I want to go to the Festival Hall, the Albert Hall and the Barbican, and no one’s going to stop me. Andrew says I should sit in the cheap seats, in the choir or among the Prommers. He says people who sit in expensive seats are like people—indeed, probably are the same people—who drive BMWs, Range Rovers and big Volvos, just fucking cunts, what do I expect?

I tell him I have two proposals to improve behaviour. The first would be the installation of overhead spotlights, and if someone made a noise above a certain level—one stated in the programme, but also printed on the ticket so that non-programme-buyers would also be alerted to the punishment—then the light over their seat would come on and the person would have to sit there, as if in the stocks, for the rest of the concert. My second suggestion would be more discreet. Every seat in the hall would be wired, and a small electric shock administered, whose strength would vary according to the volume of the occupant’s cough, sniffle or sneeze. This would—as laboratory experiments on different species have shown—tend to discourage the offender from offending again.

Andrew said that apart from legal considerations, he foresaw two main objections to my plan. The first was that if you gave a human being an electric shock, he or she might very well react by making more noise than he or she had done in the first place, which would be somewhat counterproductive. And secondly, much as he wanted to encourage my scheme, he was minded to conclude that the practical effect of electrocuting concert-goers might well be to make them less willing to book tickets in future. Of course, if the London Philharmonic played to a completely empty hall, then he could see there wouldn’t be any extraneous noises for me to worry about. So yes, that would achieve my aim, although without any bums on seats except my own, the orchestra might require an unrealistically high level of sponsorship.

Andrew can be so provoking, don’t you think? I asked him if he had ever tried listening to the still, sad music of humanity while someone was using a mobile phone.

“I wonder what instrument that would be played on,” he replied. “Perhaps not an instrument at all. What you would do is strap a thousand or so concert-goers into their seats and quietly pass an electric current through them while telling them not to make a noise or they’ll get an even bigger shock. You’d get muted groans and moans and assorted muffled squeaks—and that’s the still, sad music of humanity.”

“You’re such a cynic,” I said. “Actually, that’s not such a bad idea.”

“How old are you?”

“You ought to know. You forgot my last birthday.”

“That only shows how old I am. Go on, say the words.”

“Three years older than you.”

“Ergo?”

“Sixty-two.”

“And, correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t always been like this?”

“No, doctor.”

“When you were a young man, you used to go to concerts and just sit there and listen happily to the music?”

“As far as I can remember, doctor.”

“And is it that others are now behaving worse, or that you are getting more sensitive with age?”

“People
are
behaving worse. That’s what makes me more sensitive.”

“And when did you notice this change in people’s behaviour?”

“When you stopped coming with me.”

“We don’t talk about that.”

“I’m not. You asked the question. That’s when they started behaving worse. When you stopped coming with me.”

Andrew thought about this for a while. “Which proves my point. You only started noticing when you started going alone. So it’s all about you, not them.”

“Then come with me again and it’ll stop.”

“We don’t talk about that.”

“No, we don’t talk about that.”

A couple of days later I tripped up a man on the stairs. He had been especially offensive. Arriving at the last minute with a floozie in a short skirt; leaning back with his legs apart and looking around with needless turnings of the head; chatting and cuddling in the breaks between movements (the Sibelius concerto, of all things); programme-rustling, of course. And then, in the final movement, guess what he did? Leaned across to his companion and did some double-stopping on the inside of her thigh. She pretended to ignore it, then fondly batted at his hand with her programme, at which he sat back with a contented grin on his stupid, smug face.

At the interval I made straight for them. He was, shall we say, unacquiescent. Pushed past me with no more than a “Fuck off, Charlie.” So I followed them, out and then across to those side-stairs at level 2A. He was clearly in a hurry. Probably wanted to hawk and spit and cough and sneeze and smoke and drink and set off his digital watch alarm to remind him to use his mobile phone. So I caught him on the ankle with a kick and he went down half a flight on his face. He was a heavy man, and there seemed to be blood. The woman he was with, who hadn’t been any more civil, and had smirked when he said, “Fuck off, Charlie,” began screaming. Yes, I thought, as I turned away, maybe in future you’ll learn to treat the Sibelius violin concerto with more respect.

It’s all about respect, isn’t it? And if you don’t have it, you have to be taught it. The true test, the only test, is whether we’re becoming more civilized or whether we aren’t. Wouldn’t you agree?

O
n the feast-day of Jean-Etienne Delacour, the following dishes had been prepared on the instructions of his daughter-in-law, Mme Amélie: bouillon, the beef which had been boiled in it, a grilled hare, a pigeon casserole, vegetables, cheese and fruit jellies. In a spirit of reluctant sociability, Delacour allowed a dish of bouillon to be placed before him; he even, in honour of the day, raised a ceremonial spoonful to his lips and blew graciously, before lowering it again untouched. When the beef was brought in, he nodded at the servant, who laid in front of him, on separate plates, a single pear and a slice of bark cut from a tree some twenty minutes earlier. Delacour’s son Charles, daughter-in-law, grandson, nephew, nephew’s wife, the curé, a neighbouring farmer, and Delacour’s old friend André Lagrange, all made no observation. Delacour for his part civilly kept pace with those around him, eating one quarter of the pear while they consumed their beef, one quarter alongside the hare, and so on. When the cheese was brought in, he took out a pocket-knife and cut the tree bark into slices, then chewed each piece slowly to oblivion. Later, as aids to sleep, he took a cup of milk, some stewed lettuce and a rennet apple. His bedroom was well ventilated and his pillow stuffed with horsehair. He ensured that his chest was not weighed down with blankets, and that his feet would remain warm. As he settled his linen nightcap around his temples, Jean-Etienne reflected contentedly on the folly of those around him.

He was now sixty-one. In his earlier days, he had been both a gambler and a gourmand, a combination that had frequently threatened to inflict penury on his household. Wherever dice were thrown or cards turned, wherever two or more beasts could be induced to race against one another for the gratification of spectators, Delacour was to be found. He had won and lost at faro and hazard, backgammon and dominoes, roulet and rouge et noir. He would play pitch-and-toss with an infant, bet his horse on a cockfight, play two-pack patience with Mme V—, and solitaire when he could find no rival or companion.

It was said that his gourmandism had put an end to his gambling. Certainly, there was not room in such a man for both these passions fully to express themselves. The moment of crisis had occurred when a goose reared to within days of slaughter—a goose he had fed with his own hand, and savoured in advance down to the last giblet—was lost in a trice at a hand of piquet. For a while, he sat between his two temptations like the proverbial ass between two bales of hay; but rather than starve to death like the indecisive beast, he acted as a true gambler, and let a toss of the coin decide the matter.

Thereafter, his stomach and his purse both swelled, while his nerves became calmer. He ate meals fit for a cardinal, as the Italians say. He would discourse on the point of esculence of every foodstuff, from capers to woodcock; he could explain how the shallot had been introduced into France by the returning Crusaders, and the cheese of Parma by Monsieur le Prince de Talleyrand. When a partridge was placed in front of him he would remove the legs, take a bite from each in a considered manner, nod judicially, and announce on which leg the partridge had been accustomed to rest its weight while sleeping. He was also a familiar of the bottle. If grapes were offered as a dessert, he would push them away with the words, “I am not in the habit of taking my wine in the form of pills.”

Delacour’s wife had approved his choice of vice, since gourmandism is more likely to keep a man at home than gambling. The years passed, and her silhouette began to ape that of her husband. They lived plumply and easily until one day, fortifying herself in mid-afternoon while her husband was absent, Mme Delacour choked to death on a chicken bone. Jean-Etienne cursed himself for having left his wife unattended; he cursed his gourmandism, complicity in which had led to her death; and he cursed fate, chance, whatever governs our days, for having lodged the chicken bone at just such a murderous angle in her throat.

When his initial grief began to recede, he accepted lodging with Charles and Mme Amélie. He began a study of the law, and could often be found absorbed in the Nine Codes of the Kingdom. He knew the rural code by heart, and comforted himself with its certainties. He could cite the laws concerned with the swarming of bees and the making of compost; he knew the penalties for ringing church bells during a storm and for selling milk which had come into contact with copper pans; word for word, he recited ordinances governing the behaviour of wet-nurses, the pasturing of goats in forests, and the burial of dead animals found on the public highway.

For a while he continued with his gourmandizing, as if to do otherwise would be faithless to the memory of his wife; but though his stomach was still in it, his heart was not. What led to the abandonment of his former passion was a decision by the municipality in the autumn of 18—that, as a matter of hygiene and general beneficence, a public bathhouse should be built. That a man who had greeted the invention of a new dish as an astronomer would laud the discovery of a new star should be brought to temperance and moderation by a matter of soap and water moved some to mockery and others to moralizing. But Delacour had always given little heed to the opinions of others.