Kingsley Amis - Difficulties With Girls

KINGSLEY AMIS

DIFFICULTIES WITH GIRLS

ToJessica

One

Right, on your way,brother. Out. Im not having you in my house. Go on, hop it.

Whatfor? What do you mean? I havent done anything.

Idont know what youve done, darling, and cross my heart I dont want to know.And dont let me guess. Go on. Theres nothing says I got to have one of you inhere, okay? Not yet there isnt. Any moment now but not yet. So out.

Thelast half of this was said to a retreating back. The landlord of the PrincessBeatrice, London SE1, turned to Patrick Standish and went on in a tone not muchfriendlier than before,

Itsgetting to be a full-time job, you know, keeping them out of here. They thinkthey can go anywhere they like these days, as if they were entitled to underthe law. No good will come. I suppose we ought to think ourselves lucky hedidnt go for his lipstick.

Patrick,standing up at the bar with his midday White Shield, thought among other thingsthat the young man had shown a lot of restraint whatever he was. He didntlook all that peculiar to me. These days everybody has their hair in a bloody

Thelandlord, who had pushed up his mouth, closed his eyes and started shaking hishead at Patricks first words, let him go no further. Its not the look, myfriend. Its the whole je ne sais quoi. You develop a feel for it this side ofthe counter in sheer self-preservation. No, its not the look. He paused andmoved his eyes sideways. Of course, I dont know, perhaps you, er..

At thisinteresting juncture he moved away to serve a little old woman hung withcrocheted shawls and long ropes of jewellery. Patrick had begun to take to himfor his air of total contempt for the world, not only as it was and wasbecoming but as it had no doubt always been. Ignoring fashion, he had a totallynaked skull, its presumably natural baldness filled out by close shaving roundthe edges. It was rather small in proportion to his broad shoulders and massivearms. Extravagant blue tattoos with some minor touches of pink adorned thelower parts of those arms, made visible by rolled-up sleeves. Over his verywhite shirt he wore a waistcoat-shaped woollen garment of a tan-and-yellowpattern too awful for the thing not to have been specially knitted by somebody closeto him, assuming there to be any such person. He had been heard to answer tothe name of Cyril.

Patrickconsidered he had done well to find the Princess Beatrice so soon afterarriving in the district, or rather to have had it there to find: not too large,not too crowded even at night, not noisy but not quiet, bar-billiard table. Theprovision for darts, cribbage and shove-hapenny he saw as a token of virtue inthe abstract rather than as for his actual use. His eye was caught now by thehalf-dozen little rectangles of engraved glass attached to the woodwork abovethe counter.

Snobscreens, Cyril seemed to say to him.

What?

Indays gone by, if you didnt fancy being observed in your carousals by the toutle monde, you just swivelled the he turned the pane nearest Patrickoutwards on its pivot and lo and behold you were shielded from their vulgargaze. Like the partitions there. These were of some sort of oak, head-high,dividing the drinking-space into three. Lot of tommy-rot really.

Oh, Idont know.

No,you dont, because you havent got to keep it all clean, have you? Ourbeer-pipes here, when I took over in 60 I had to shut for three days to washthe goo out. Youd think the brewers could spare a copper to shake the placeup.

Patrickhad soon lost interest in this. His glance shifted to the large glass casemounted high on the wall at his side and displaying assorted but uniformlyhorrible-looking corks and bottle-stoppers fancifully worked. Isnt thatasking for trouble a bit? Im sure this is a very nice neighbourhood but itsnot exactly Berkeley Square. The sort of chap who enjoys a Oh, you meansomebody driven to express a well-developed sense of fun. Believe me Id likenothing better. Cyril suddenly reached below the counter and laid on it asubstantial iron tool that tapered to a point at one end. What you see beforeyou is a marlinspike, which is cest--dire an implement useful for separatingstrands of rope and also for cooling the ardour of those who get carried awayby high spirits. Yeah. He looked affectionately at the spike for a momentbefore replacing it. Well, Id better be

He hadstarted to move when he turned his gaze over Patricks shoulder towards thedoor. Whaw! he growled, not very quietly. God bless your dear oldrosy-cheeked mother, sweetheart. Fooh! I could

Beforeyou go any further, said Patrick, thats my wife thats just come in.

Cyrildid a grin that showed no amusement. Yourwife? he asked,putting equal stress on both words.

Thisbrought Patrick definite annoyance. He knew he was quite personable enough andimpressive enough and vigorous-and-all-that enough to be married to someone wholooked like Jenny, not out of conceit or wishful thinking but as a simplededuction from years of carefully noted experience. And not that much older andhardly going bald at all and anyway only at the temples. And he considered heneeded no reminding how lucky he was to have her even so.

Jennycame up and she and Patrick kissed as they always did on meeting. For thislunch today she wore her best suit of cream linen and a navy blouse with therow of cream-coloured pretend-bone beads. She was twenty-eight that year and asslim as ever, with very dark colouring that she was sure had a bearing on theway strangers quite often told her they thought she was French, or sometimesItalian or Spanish, but usually French if it was anything. Patrick himself hadmade that mistake when he first saw her, or had given that impression.

Evidentlythe man behind the bar had done the same. At any rate he leaned over it andsaid, Comment allez-vous, mademoiselle oops, excusez-moi, madame. He saidit without trying to sound French at all, but his manner was genial in theextreme and a bit polite-lecherous too.

Imvery well, thank you very much, said Jenny, staring back at him andintensifying her regional accent.

Turningsideways behind his bar to give himself more room, the man swept off animaginary hat and made her a great bow.

Andwhat is madames pleasure? He had rather heavy eyelids and he lowered them ina way that harped on the lecherous end of polite-lecherous.

Idlike a small medium sherry, please. This time the important thing was to getit said clearly and quickly. To Jenny the pub was still mens territory, and toshilly-shally over choosing what drink to have in one would have been inconsiderateas well as awkward.

The mandid a speedier bow and went off.

Hecant be like that all the time, said Jenny.

Hes acockney, you see, said Patrick. Or would claim to be if challenged. He thinksthat sort of things expected of him. He also thinks hes being funny. I meanamusing. At least I hope to God thats what he thinks hes being.

Probablythe nudge-nudge stuff is him being amusing too. Or he thinks its expected ofhim.

Yeah.No, of course not. I mean only partly. Anyway, you know where you are with abastard like that.

Oh,good. A very funny chap came to the door just as I was leaving.

Funnierthan this chap?

No,this was a very funny chap. You know, peculiar. Not a nasty piece ofwork but peculiar.

Patricksignalled to Cyril for another White Shield. Peculiar, he said, rememberinghis own use of the word a couple of minutes before. What, you mean one ofthem?

What?Oh, you mean a I honestly dont know, I didnt think of it then. He couldhave been, I imagine. He certainly had a very peculiar manner.

Whatdid he want?

Well,that was just it, he didnt seem at all clear what he wanted. He said hed liketo ask me a few things if I didnt mind, he was polite enough, because hesjust moving into the end flat, the one at the far end. So I asked him in, andthen he couldnt seem to think of anything he wanted to know, and he seemed