of both the farmers concerned. The older
of the two performed as if I had turned up to buy his daughters instead of his
lettuces and tomatoes; the younger, whose top incisor teeth lay horizontally on
his lower lip and who smelt a lot, treated me like a Tsarist tax official.
Throughout, my sexual elation kept being overlaid by unsought memories of what
had happened in the wood and by notions that in thinking about my father as
little as possible all day I had behaved badly to him. The pain in my back did
what it could on this side of the scales by coming up with some unusually firm
and authoritative twinges.
By the
time I had driven the truck into the yard at the Green Man and sent for Ramón
to come and unload it, it was twenty past six and my thoughts had homed in on
drink. I had a large one—one only in the sense that I did not allow my glass to
become empty before topping it up to an even higher level than before—while I
showered and put on my evening rig-out. Then I looked in on Amy, who was
watching a TV inquiry into householders’ insurance and who was, if anything,
rather less polysyllabic than usual. My father’s absence made this entire
section of the daily routine seem unduly contracted. I had a word with David
Palmer and joined Nick, Lucy and Joyce in the bar just after seven, not at all
looking forward to a couple of hours of work. We had a drink (I switched to
sherry, my standard public potation at this hour), and very soon the first
diners had reached the menu-conning stage.
There
were no difficulties, none at least that stuck in my mind. By the time I got to
the third, or possibly the fourth, party, however, I found I was beginning to
encounter the problem I had failed to solve on my return from Baldock earlier
that day: continuing to talk constructively without being able to remember,
even in outline, what had been said just before. My order-pad was a help here,
but not when it was a matter of deciding what to write down on it. The bar
became almost empty. Those in search of an earlyish meal had either moved into
the dining-room or fled out of the front door at the sight of me. A little
later again, I suggested to David that now would be a good time to have a look
at the kitchen. I understood him to say that this was of course an excellent
idea, but that it might make just as much sense to defer it to a later stage,
rather than carry it out so comparatively soon after a previous visit. I
wondered just how soon afterwards it was, and whether, while having my look at
the kitchen, I had said anything noteworthy, either for its wit or for its
insight into the human condition. David’s expression gave no help here. Using
his special reliable voice, he said,
‘Mr
Allington, why don’t you let me take over now for what’s left of the evening? There’s
only a few late bookings tonight, and you must have had a tiring day, and
you’ll be handing over to me anyway at ten o’clock. And you agreed with me the
other day that I ought to have more solo time.’
‘Thank
you, David, but I think I’ll carry on for a bit. Remember we’ve got Professor
Burgess booked for nine thirty, and I want to see to him personally, after that
soufflé disaster when he was here before.’
As
regards coherence, this was probably no great advance on what I had been saying
for the last twenty or forty minutes; the point was that I knew what I had
said, and even what David had said just earlier. I was back in control, or
nearly so, without having done anything to earn it in the way of sleep or
abstention, a familiar enough experience. Equally familiar would be the
experience of sliding out of control again without having done a great deal to
earn that, so I made a brief but violent attack on the cheese, biscuits and
stuffed olives Fred had put out on the counter, and resolved to drink no more
until I was up in the apartment. David got most of this, and shortly withdrew.
Burgess,
a caricature of a savant, arrived soon afterwards
of the two performed as if I had turned up to buy his daughters instead of his
lettuces and tomatoes; the younger, whose top incisor teeth lay horizontally on
his lower lip and who smelt a lot, treated me like a Tsarist tax official.
Throughout, my sexual elation kept being overlaid by unsought memories of what
had happened in the wood and by notions that in thinking about my father as
little as possible all day I had behaved badly to him. The pain in my back did
what it could on this side of the scales by coming up with some unusually firm
and authoritative twinges.
By the
time I had driven the truck into the yard at the Green Man and sent for Ramón
to come and unload it, it was twenty past six and my thoughts had homed in on
drink. I had a large one—one only in the sense that I did not allow my glass to
become empty before topping it up to an even higher level than before—while I
showered and put on my evening rig-out. Then I looked in on Amy, who was
watching a TV inquiry into householders’ insurance and who was, if anything,
rather less polysyllabic than usual. My father’s absence made this entire
section of the daily routine seem unduly contracted. I had a word with David
Palmer and joined Nick, Lucy and Joyce in the bar just after seven, not at all
looking forward to a couple of hours of work. We had a drink (I switched to
sherry, my standard public potation at this hour), and very soon the first
diners had reached the menu-conning stage.
There
were no difficulties, none at least that stuck in my mind. By the time I got to
the third, or possibly the fourth, party, however, I found I was beginning to
encounter the problem I had failed to solve on my return from Baldock earlier
that day: continuing to talk constructively without being able to remember,
even in outline, what had been said just before. My order-pad was a help here,
but not when it was a matter of deciding what to write down on it. The bar
became almost empty. Those in search of an earlyish meal had either moved into
the dining-room or fled out of the front door at the sight of me. A little
later again, I suggested to David that now would be a good time to have a look
at the kitchen. I understood him to say that this was of course an excellent
idea, but that it might make just as much sense to defer it to a later stage,
rather than carry it out so comparatively soon after a previous visit. I
wondered just how soon afterwards it was, and whether, while having my look at
the kitchen, I had said anything noteworthy, either for its wit or for its
insight into the human condition. David’s expression gave no help here. Using
his special reliable voice, he said,
‘Mr
Allington, why don’t you let me take over now for what’s left of the evening? There’s
only a few late bookings tonight, and you must have had a tiring day, and
you’ll be handing over to me anyway at ten o’clock. And you agreed with me the
other day that I ought to have more solo time.’
‘Thank
you, David, but I think I’ll carry on for a bit. Remember we’ve got Professor
Burgess booked for nine thirty, and I want to see to him personally, after that
soufflé disaster when he was here before.’
As
regards coherence, this was probably no great advance on what I had been saying
for the last twenty or forty minutes; the point was that I knew what I had
said, and even what David had said just earlier. I was back in control, or
nearly so, without having done anything to earn it in the way of sleep or
abstention, a familiar enough experience. Equally familiar would be the
experience of sliding out of control again without having done a great deal to
earn that, so I made a brief but violent attack on the cheese, biscuits and
stuffed olives Fred had put out on the counter, and resolved to drink no more
until I was up in the apartment. David got most of this, and shortly withdrew.
Burgess,
a caricature of a savant, arrived soon afterwards
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