Swann said: ‘All you have to do is to say: “Is that Nigel? Now look here, Nigel, what’s all this I hear about these women who come to your house at all hours of the day and night?” Say you represent the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘I can’t address the man as Nigel and then say I’m from the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘Mike, Margo’s husband’s name
‘So I say: “Hullo, Nigel, this is the Ministry of Pensions.” The man’ll think I’m crazy.’
Margo said: ‘Mike, you just do it your own way. Take no notice of Swann. Swann’s been eating too much cake. Come on, you know where the telephone is.’ She gave me a piece of paper with a number on it.
‘Oh God,’ I said; and unable to bear it any longer I borrowed fourpence and marched off to the telephone.
‘Hullo?’ said the voice at the other end.
‘Hullo. Can I speak to Lucy? Please.’
‘Hullo,’ Lucy said.
‘Hullo, Lucy.’
‘Well?’ said Lucy.
‘It’s Mike.’
‘I know it’s Mike.’
‘They wanted me to telephone this man I was telling you about, but I can’t go telephoning people in this way –’
‘Why don’t you go home to bed?’
‘Because I wouldn’t sleep. Remember the man with the elderly women? Well, they wanted me to telephone him and ask him what he’s up to. Lucy, I can’t do that, can I?’
‘No, quite honestly I don’t believe you can.’
They told me to pose as the Ministry of Pensions.’
‘Goodbye, Mike.’
‘Just a – Lucy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Isn’t that man still there?’
‘Which man is this?’
‘The man in your flat.’
‘Frank. He’s still here.’
‘Who is he, Lucy?’
‘He’s called Frank.’
‘Yes, but what does he do?’
‘I don’t know what he does. Frank, what do you do? For a living? He says he’s a – what, Frank? A freight agent, Mike.’
‘A freight agent.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Lucy.’
When I arrived back at the tea-table everyone was very gay. Nobody asked me what Nigel had said. Swann paid the bill and said he was anxious to show us a display of Eastern horrors somewhere in Euston and would afterwards take us to a party. In the taxi Margo said:
‘What did Nigel say?’
‘He was out.’
‘Was there no reply?’
‘A woman answered. She said I was interrupting the meeting. I said “What meeting?” but she wanted to know who I was before she would answer that. I said I was the Ministry of Pensions and she said “Oh my God”, and rang off.’
We were hours early for the party, but nobody seemed to mind. I helped a woman in slacks to pour bottles of wine into a crock. Swann, Margo and Jo played with a tape-recorder, and after a time the woman’s husband arrived and we all went out to eat.
About eight, people began to arrive. The place filled with tobacco smoke, music and fumes; and the party began to swing along at a merry enough pace. A girl in ringlets talked to me earnestly about love. I think she must have been feeling much the same as I was, but I didn’t fancy her as a soul-mate, not even a temporary one. She said: ‘It seems to me that everyone has a quality that can get the better of love. Is stronger, you see. Like pride. Or honesty. Or moral – even intellectual, even emotional – integrity. Take two people in love. The only thing that can really upset things is this personal quality in one of them. Other people don’t come into it at all. Except in a roundabout way – as instruments of jealousy, for instance. Don’t you agree?’
I wasn’t sure about anything, but I said yes.
