B-Berry and I Look Back Read online

  “Well, get hold of them and pull.”

  “You can’t be rough with them,” said Berry: “they’re a very delicate job. A chaplet of pearls, they are. Two chaplets. Jewellers’ work.”

  “Stronger than you think,” said I. “Go on. Put it across them.”

  Berry bent to the bed and covered his face with the towel.

  After some frightful contortions, he laid the towel carefully down and looked about him.

  “Mell, matph map,” he mouthed. “Mope a man ptmep mem mack.”

  3

  I suppose it was very foolish, but all of us, Berry included, believed he was out of the wood.

  It was nearly a month later, when April was ushering May, that, while we were having dinner, Berry clapped a hand to his mouth.

  “What ever’s the matter?” said Daphne.

  Berry regarded his wife.

  “D’you really want to know?”

  “Oh, dear. P’raps we’d better not,” she said.

  “After all, why shouldn’t you thuffer? There you are. I’m lithping now.”

  “But you never did that before.”

  “I know. It’s delayed action. And there’s a dirty one. I’ve just paid Rodrigues’ account.”

  “I know what it is,” said Jonah. “Your gums have shrunk.”

  Berry regarded him defiantly.

  “What d’you mean – thrunk…srunk…SHRUNK? There you are. Perfect enunciation all my life. Clear as a blasted bell. And now I’m starting to lithp.”

  He covered his eyes.

  “But what happened, darling?” said Jill.

  “I was engaged in math – mastication – a very healthy pursuit. And the lower rank – the stalls – rose up, possibly out of zeal. Let us say they pursued their prey. But that’s very dithcontherting.”

  “I expect it’s the spinach,” purred Daphne. “I mean, that is rather clinging.”

  “That’s right,” said Jonah. “The suction of the spinach was stronger than the suction of your teeth. When the gums have finished shrinking, you’ll have to have a new set.”

  “And till then?” screamed Berry.

  Jonah glanced at the ceiling, before proceeding with his meal…

  Rodrigues, when appealed to, explained that that was sometimes the way. He would make a new set with pleasure, but not for three months.

  On receiving the unpalatable news, Berry looked dazedly round.

  “Three months?” he cried. “D’you mean to tell me I’ve got to have thethe – these interlopers frolicking about my mouth for the next three monthth?”

  Worse was to come.

  Before the week was out, if Berry bit anything hard, beneath the pressure his teeth began to tilt.

  When this had happened twice during luncheon, Berry laid down his napkin, rose to his feet, bowed to Daphne in silence and left the room.

  We followed him, naturally.

  “Darling, I’m terribly sorry: but it can’t be as bad as that.”

  As he lighted a cigarette –

  “It’s quite all right,” said Berry. “You go and finish your repast. I’m going to fast for a bit. You know, like Mothadecq. Probably do me good. If I get too weak, I can be artificially fed.”

  “But, Berry darling,” cried Jill, “if you don’t eat you’ll get ill.”

  “My sweet,” said Berry, “at present I can still drink and smoke. At times I can speak with coherence. For the present, those mercies must suffice. The consumption of food, once an agreeable pastime, has become a hideouth penance, to which I am no longer prepared to submit. My mouth becomes the scene of a painful and vulgar brawl, which my tongue is unable or reluctant to control. I’m inclined to think it’s reluctance. Its attitude is that of a servant who, having spent many years with the nobility, finds himself compelled to take service with nouveaux riches. His insolent contempt for their gaucheries has to be experienced to be believed. All that is going on in my mouth at every meal. In these circumstances, can anyone be surprised that I am, tho to thpeak, off my feed?”

  Protracted consultations with Bridget produced a special diet – for Berry alone. Nourishing, no doubt, the dishes were distinguished by a dreadful similarity – so far as appearance went.

  When we were served with roast duck, Berry was offered a casserole, containing a generous portion of beige-coloured slush.

  Berry regarded it with starting eyes. Then he looked round.

  “I thought you said the dog was well,” he said.

  This was too much.

  “You filthy brute,” shrieked Daphne. “Just because you can’t eat—”

  “My mistake,” said Berry, helping himself. “But I’ve never eaten swamp before. I didn’t recognize it at first. Am I to have a milk-pudding afterwards? Just as la bonne bouche?”

  We began to count the days…

  On the whole, he was very long-suffering. To celebrate Jill’s birthday, he insisted on our visiting Lisbon and consuming at his expense as excellent a dinner as any connoisseur could devise. On mulligatawny soup, scrambled eggs and ice-pudding, he was the life of the party from first to last.

  He went to see Rodrigues the following day.

  A fortnight later, he saw Rodrigues again.

  On his return to the quinta, he displayed a basket of fruit.

  “I couldn’t resist it,” he explained. “You know that elegant shop in the Rua —. They do display their wares in a most attractive way.”

  “It’s simply lovely,” said Daphne. “How very sweet of you, darling. Mafalda, ask Bridget to come.”

  The bright-eyed maid went flying.

  When the housekeeper appeared –

  “Look at that, Bridget,” said Daphne.

  “Oh, isn’t it lovely, madam. So perfectly arranged. I can make a fruit-salad for the Major.”

  “Shame,” said Berry. “Such magnificent specimens must be done the honour of being eaten raw.”

  “Oh, you must have some of it, sir.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Berry.

  With that, he picked up an apple and bit a piece out.

  We stared upon him open-mouthed.

  When he had bitten it up–

  “As good as they look,” he said. “Have we got any almond-rock?”

  4

  Once more himself, Berry revived a subject which he had allowed to lie dormant for nearly six months.

  After dinner one August evening, he approached it boldly enough.

  “No one, I think, will deny that my memoir was well received.”

  All four of us looked at him.

  Then –

  “What memoir?” said his wife.

  Berry frowned.

  “As Berry and I Were Saying,” he said.

  In his practice of the art of provocation, my brother-in-law could give a communist points.

  Whilst Jonah and I were laughing, Daphne and Jill denounced him with a fury which knew no law.

  Finally –

  “It’s simply monstrous,” said Daphne. “It was a most generous title. All you did was to shove in some stuff about brandy which nobody read.”

  “And trustees,” cried Jill. “Silly rubbish that lawyers are paid to do.”

  Berry looked uneasily round.

  “The Sapphira Sisters calling. You really must be careful. How should we frame the announcement in The Times? ‘Suddenly, as the result of subjecting the godly to an obscene libel…’ I mean, it would look so unusual.”

  Before Daphne could get her breath –

  “All this,” I said, “is a screen of highly offensive smoke. By the time we emerge, the demand which he means to make will seem, by comparison, so modest that you will support him against me, when I refuse to play.”

  “What’s his demand?” said Daphne.

  “That a second memoir,” said Berry, “should be begun at once.”

  There was a pregnant silence.

  Then –

  “It – it would be nice,” said Jill.

 
; “There you are,” said I.

  “Of course we must do it,” said Berry. “Hardly had the book gone to press, when all manner of gems I’d forgotten came flooding into my mind.”

  “Matter of adjustment,” said Jonah. “The ball-cock wouldn’t close.”

  With an indignant stare –

  “I cannot felicitate you,” said Berry, “upon your choice of metaphor.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not altogether your fault. If I had a mind like a greasetrap, who knows what indiscretions I might not commit.”

  Another of the arts which Berry has mastered is that of confusing his foes. He will offer them so many openings that they do not know which to take. Into one short sentence he will compress more inaccuracy, insult, self-praise and suggestio falsi than I would have believed possible.

  Availing myself of his tactics –

  “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that a memoir has ever appeared to which the author would not have added, had it not been too late. I, too, have remembered things which might very well have gone in. But, for one very simple reason, a second memoir, or sequel, will never appear. The reason is this. If you added our afterthoughts together, they’d run to some fifty pages, if as much. Well, you can’t bind up fifty pages and offer them to the public for twelve and six.”

  There was another silence.

  Then –

  “How many pages,” said Daphne, “was As Berry and I Were Saying?”

  “Two hundred and eighty-three.”

  Even Berry was silenced by this disparity.

  I continued to improve the occasion.

  “If you want another reason, I’m busy. I’ve yet to finish the book I’m writing now.”

  “I should let that go,” said Berry. “If it’s no better than Ne’er Do Well…”

  When Daphne and Jill had finished–

  “As a matter of fact,” said Jonah, “Ne’er Do Well was uncommonly good. Compared with most of Boy’s stuff, it was not sensational. But it was a most accurate picture of Scotland Yard at work.”

  “I fear it was dull,” I said.

  “I didn’t find it so.”

  “You’re very good.”

  “The book took charge?”

  “I’ll say it did. I’ve never been driven so hard. After Falcon’s appearance, it ran right away.”

  “Night after night,” said Jill, “he was working till half past one.”

  “What does that mean?” said Daphne. “‘The book takes charge.’”

  “It’s terribly hard to explain. Something takes charge and tells me what to write. I can only suppose it’s a sort of sub-conscious brain. And the conscious brain, which I’m using to talk to you now, accepts what it says and frames the sentences.”

  “And you don’t know what’s coming?”

  “Never. In Ne’er Do Well, for instance, I’d not the faintest idea who’d committed the crime.” Jill picked up the novel and put it into my hand. “That is revealed to the reader on page – wait a minute – on page one hundred and fifty-six. I think I realized who’d done it when I was writing page one hundred and fifty-one. It may have been later than that, but it certainly wasn’t before.”

  “And one reviewer,” said Jill, “said it was obvious from the first.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “His sight was keener than mine.”

  “Which is absurd,” said Jonah. “I tried hard enough, but I hadn’t the faintest idea.”

  “You say,” said Berry, “you say it’s the sub-conscious brain.”

  “In desperation,” I said. “I’m quite prepared for a doctor to say that’s rubbish. But I can’t explain it in any other way.”

  “You must be mental,” said Berry. “I’ve always thought there was something. When I tell you to rise above pain, you never do. You don’t seem to get it, somehow.”

  There was an electric silence.

  Then–

  “I seem to remember,” said Daphne, “that some ten days ago you didn’t ‘seem to get it’, when I made a similar request. I never was so ashamed in all my life.”

  (When Berry is attacked by lumbago, nobody within earshot is unaware of the fact. On the last, unforgettable occasion, his roars and yells were actually reported to the police – who presently arrived in a car, in the belief that violence was being done.)

  “That,” said Berry, “was my sub-conscious brain. I never had the faintest idea that I was about to exclaim. When I heard my exclamations, the conscious brain was inexpressibly shocked.” Before we could dispute this reading, he had thrown us another fly. “When will you finish the classic upon which you are now engaged?”

  “Not for some time,” I said.

  “Is it any good?”

  “I don’t know. When it’s done I shall make up my mind whether or no I should like to see it in print.”

  “Give it to me,” said Berry. “I’ll tell you in half an hour. And then, if I say it’s tripe, you needn’t go on.”

  “I’m much obliged; but I’d rather judge it myself.”

  “What about this?” said Jonah. “When you feel inclined, in the evenings, let’s have the memoir piecemeal. Memory breeds, you know: and while you’re relating one, another reminiscence will, as like as not, come to mind. By the time you’ve both done, you may have enough for a book. And then, perhaps, when it’s finished, you’ll read us your tale.”

  “Lovely,” said Daphne.

  Jill said nothing, but looked at me and smiled.

  “I’m on,” said Berry.

  The others regarded me.

  “On one condition,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “That no one shall interrupt me, whilst I am reading the tale. When I come to the end of a chapter, then you shall say what you please.”

  “Understood,” said everyone but Berry.

  I looked at him.

  “But—”

  “Nothing doing,” I said.

  “May I put up a hand?” he said. “That will mean that I have a question to ask – not that I’m seeking your permission to repair to—”

  Submerged by a surge of protest from my sister and wife, the rest of the sentence was lost.

  “You are disgusting,” said Jill. “Just because—”

  “As you were,” said Berry, “as you were. The subconscious brain again. You know, I was quite surprised when I heard what I said.”

  “You wicked liar,” said Daphne.

  “Well, let’s try again,” said Berry. “Should I make an arresting gesture, that will mean that I have a question to ask or a precious statement to make.”

  “That’s all right,” I said, “provided you make no sound.”

  “I see,” said Berry. “I see. Supposing you, er, don’t see the gesture?”

  “That will be just too bad.”

  “There you are,” howled Berry. “He’s going to ignore my gestures – cheerfully keep me waiting for hours on end.”

  At last, under duress, he gave his word.

  In fact, this was just what I wanted – to ‘try my tale on the dog’. I was not so sure of my judgment, as I had been in the past. I had hesitated a lot, before I let Ne’er Do Well go. I knew the new tale was ‘all right’: but I wanted to be sure that it was up to my standard, such as that is. If it was, the book would be published: if it wasn’t, it would stay in my safe.

  5

  Berry was regarding the ceiling.

  “If I remember,” he said, “I allowed you to introduce into my memoir certain sordid recollections of the criminal courts. It was very weak of me.”

  “They sold the book,” said Daphne.

  “My love,” said Berry, “how often have I told you that to be offensive, it is unnecessary to be mendacious? Never mind. I, too, have memories of the law: but, with one exception, I should not presume to recite them, arresting as they are. The exception concerns a matter of law in France. It was not a criminal case. We all know the singular rapidity and brilliance with which the French execute and
administer the criminal law. The triple murder of the Drummonds leaps to the mind.”

  “Oh, don’t,” said Daphne.

  “And then, if I remember, there was an English schoolmistress who was – unfortunate… But, as I have said, this was not a criminal case.

  “We were in France for the winter, and, it being the fashion just then, we engaged a cook. If I remember, she knew her mystery. In other words, the meals which she presented were very good. Unhappily, her self-control left much to be desired. Indeed, so vile was her temper that, before she had been with us a month, she had to be dismissed. So Daphne fired her and asked me to pay her off. I paid her one month’s wages and another month’s wages in lieu of notice. That, of course, I need not have done: but we didn’t want any trouble, and so I did.

  “When I laid the money down –

  “‘What’s this?’ said the lady.

  “‘Two months’ wages,’ I said. ‘Much more than you deserve.’

  “‘I demand a year’s wages,’ she said. ‘I was engaged by the year.’

  “‘Rubbish,’ I said. ‘Take up your money and go.’

  “After a painful scene, she took the money and went: but not before she had warned me.

  “‘Monsieur will hear from my lawyer,’ was what she said.

  “We gave the matter no thought, for threats, however idle, are easy to make. But her threat was not idle at all, for a day or two later a notaire’s letter arrived. This declared – with many expressions of devotion – that, unless I paid the lady twelve months’ wages, I should receive a writ.

  “Well, I went to see Laborde, who had seen to our lease and one or two things like that.

  “‘Have you ever heard,’ I said, ‘of any domestic servant’s being engaged by the year?’

  “‘Never, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘Neither has anyone else. The woman must be deranged.’

  “‘She didn’t give me that impression,’ I said. ‘Never mind. Please accept service and keep me informed.’

  “‘Monsieur will have to go to Court.’

  “‘That’s all right by me,’ I said. ‘I never submit to blackmail.’

  “Well, the proceedings took shape. He engaged a nice young counsel – he said it was better so. And the case was presently ‘fixed’ for an April afternoon. It was to be heard in a little village court-room some five miles off; and when the day arrived, I called for my young counsel and took him with me in the car.