May We Borrow Your Husband? by Graham Greene Page B

she saw him looming down at her from the other end of the bamboo bar. He wore an ordinary shirt open at the neck and a brown leather belt; his type of shoes in her childhood had been known as corespondent, but one seldom saw them today. She wondered what Charlie would think of her pick-up; unquestionably she had landed him, rather as an angler struggling with a heavy catch finds that he has hooked nothing better than an old boot. She was no angler; she didn’t know whether a boot would put an ordinary hook out of action altogether, but she knew that her hook could be irremediably damaged. No one would approach her if she were in his company. She drained the Martini in one gulp and even attacked the olive so as to have no excuse to linger in the bar.
    â€˜Would you do me the honour,’ Mr Hickslaughter asked, ‘of having a drink with me?’ His manner was completely changed; on dry land he seemed unsure of himself and spoke with an old-fashioned propriety.
    â€˜I’m afraid I’ve only just finished one. I have to be off.’ Inside the gross form she thought she saw a tousled child with disappointed eyes. ‘I’m having lunch early today.’ She got up and added rather stupidly, for the bar was quite empty, ‘You can have my table.’
    â€˜I don’t need a drink that much,’ he said solemnly. ‘I was just after company.’ She knew that he was watching her as she moved to the adjoining coffee tavern, and she thought with guilt, at least I’ve got the old boot off the hook. She refused the shrimp cocktail with tomato ketchup and fell back as was usual with her on a grapefruit, with grilled trout to follow. ‘Please no tomato with the trout,’ she implored, but the black waiter obviously didn’t understand her. While she waited she began with amusement to picture a scene between Charlie and Mr Hickslaughter, who happened for the purpose of her story to be crossing the campus. ‘This is Henry Hickslaughter, Charlie. We used to go bathing together when I was in Jamaica.’ Charlie, who always wore English clothes, was very tall, very thin, very concave. It was a satisfaction to know that he would never lose his figure – his nerves would see to that and his extreme sensibility. He hated anything gross; there was no grossness in The Seasons, not even in the lines on spring.
    She heard slow footsteps coming up behind her and panicked. ‘May I share your table?’ Mr Hickslaughter asked. He had recovered his terrestrial politeness, but only so far as speech was concerned, for he sat firmly down without waiting for her reply. The chair was too small for him; his thighs overlapped like a double mattress on a single bed. He began to study the menu.
    â€˜They copy American food; it’s worse than the reality,’ Mary Watson said.
    â€˜You don’t like American food?’
    â€˜Tomatoes even with the trout!’
    â€˜Tomatoes? Oh, you mean tomatoes,’ he said, correcting her accent. ‘I’m very fond of tomatoes myself.’
    â€˜And fresh pineapple in the salad.’
    â€˜There’s a lot of vitamins in fresh pineapple.’ Almost as if he wished to emphasize their disagreement, he ordered shrimp cocktail, grilled trout and a sweet salad. Of course, when her trout arrived, the tomatoes were there. ‘You can have mine if you want to,’ she said and he accepted with pleasure. ‘You are very kind. You are really very kind.’ He held out his plate like Oliver Twist.
    She began to feel oddly at ease with the old man. She would have been less at ease, she was certain, with a possible adventure: she would have been wondering about her effect on him, while now she could be sure that she gave him pleasure – with the tomatoes. He was perhaps less the old anonymous boot than an old shoe comfortable to wear. And curiously enough, in spite of his first approach and in spite of his correcting her over