Muriel Spark - Memento Mori

by MURIEL SPARK
available from New Directions:

T HE A BBESS OF C REWE

A LL THE P OEMS OF M URIEL S PARK

A LL THE S TORIES OF M URIEL S PARK

T HE B ACHELORS

T HE B ALLAD OF P ECKHAM R YE

T HE C OMFORTERS

T HE D RIVERS S EAT

A F AR C RY F ROM K ENSINGTON

T HE G HOST S TORIES

T HE G IRLS OF S LENDER M EANS

L OITERING WITH I NTENT

M EMENTO M ORI

O PEN TO THE P UBLIC

T HE P UBLIC I MAGE

R OBINSON

S YMPOSIUM

A NEW DIRECTIONS CLASSIC

Copyright 1959 by Muriel Spark

All right reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

First published as a New Directions Classic in 2000
Published by arrangement with Dame Muriel Spark, and her agent Georges Borchardt, Inc., New York.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Spark, Muriel.

Memento Mori / Muriel Spark.

p. cm.(New Directions classics)

ISBN: 978-0-8112-1438-4

1. AgedEnglandLondonFiction. 2. AgedPsychologyFiction. 3. Practical jokesFiction. 4. London (England)Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

PR6037.P29 M4 2000
823.914dc21

99-058767

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

Dame Lettie Colston refilled her fountain pen and continued her letter:

One of these days I hope you will write as brilliantly on a happier theme. In these days of cold war I do feel we should soar above the murk & smog & get into the clear crystal.

The telephone rang. She lifted the receiver. As she had feared the man spoke before she could say a word. When he had spoken the familiar sentence she said, Who is that speaking, who is it?

But the voice, as on eight previous occasions, had rung off.

Dame Lettie telephoned to the Assistant Inspector as she had been requested to do. It has occurred again, she said.

I see. Did you notice the time?

It was only a moment ago.

The same thing?

Yes, she said, the same. Surely you have some means of tracing

Yes, Dame Lettie, we will get him, of course.

A few moments later Dame Lettie telephoned to her brother Godfrey.

Godfrey, it has happened again.

Ill come and fetch you, Lettie, he said. You must spend the night with us.

Nonsense. There is no danger. It is merely a disturbance.

What did he say?

The same thing. And quite matter-of-fact, not really threatening. Of course the mans mad. I dont know what the police are thinking of, they must be sleeping. Its been going on for six weeks now.

Just those words?

Just the same words Remember you must die nothing more.

He must be a maniac, said Godfrey.

Godfreys wife, Charmian, sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical order which Godfrey had told her was better than no order at all, since she now had grasp of neither logic nor chronology. Charmian was eighty-five. The other day a journalist from a weekly paper had been to see her. Godfrey had subsequently read aloud to her the young mans article:

By the fire sat a frail old lady, a lady who once set the whole of the literary world (if not the Thames) on fire. Despite her age, this legendary figure is still abundantly alive.

Charmian felt herself dropping off, and so she said to the maid, who was arranging the magazines on the long oak table by the window, Taylor, I am dropping off to sleep for five minutes. Telephone to St. Marks and say I am coming.

Just at that moment Godfrey entered the room holding his hat and wearing his outdoor coat. Whats that you say? he said.

Oh, Godfrey, you made me start.

Taylor he repeated, St. MarksDont you realise there is no maid in this room, and furthermore, you are not in Venice.

Come and get warm by the fire, she said, and take your coat off for she thought he had just come in from the street.

I am about to go out , he said. I am going to fetch Lettie who is to stop with us to-night. She has been troubled by another of those anonymous calls.

That was a pleasant young man who called the other day, said Charmian.

Which young man?

From the paper. The one who wrote

That was five years and two months ago, said Godfrey.

Why cant one be kind to her? he asked himself as he drove to Letties house in Hampstead. Why cant one be more gentle? He himself was eighty-seven, and in charge of all his faculties. Whenever he considered his own behaviour he thought of himself not as I but as one.

One has ones difficulties with Charmian, he told himself.

Nonsense, said Lettie. I have no enemies.

Think , said Godfrey. Think hard.

The red lights, said Lettie. And dont talk to me as if I were Charmian.

Lettie, if you please, I do not need to be told how to drive. I observed the lights. He had braked hard, and Dame Lettie was jerked forward.

She gave a meaningful sigh which, when the green lights came on, made him drive all the faster.

You know, Godfrey, she said, you are wonderful for your age.

So everyone says. His driving pace became moderate; her sigh of relief was inaudible, her patting herself on the back invisible.

In your position, he said, you must have enemies.

Nonsense.

I say yes . He accelerated.

Well, perhaps youre right. He slowed down again, but Dame Lettie thought, I wish I hadnt come.

They were at Knightsbridge. It was only a matter of keeping him happy till they reached Kensington Church Street and turned into Vicarage Gardens where Godfrey and Charmian lived.

I have written to Eric, she said, about his book. Of course, he has something of his mothers former brilliance, but it did seem to me that the subject-matter lacked the joy and hope which was the mark of a good novel in those days.

I couldnt read the book, said Godfrey. I simply could not go on with it. A motor salesman in Leeds and his wife spending a night in a hotel with that communist librarianWhere does it all lead you?

Eric was his son. Eric was fifty-six and had recently published his second novel.

Hell never do as well as Charmian did, Godfrey said. Try as he may.

Well, I cant quite agree with that, said Lettie, seeing that they had now pulled up in front of the house. Eric has a hard streak of realism which Charmian never

Godfrey had got out and slammed the door. Dame Lettie sighed and followed him into the house, wishing she hadnt come.

Did you have a nice evening at the pictures, Taylor? said Charmian.

I am not Taylor, said Dame Lettie, and in any case, you always called Taylor Jean during her last twenty or so years in your service.

Mrs. Anthony, their daily housekeeper, brought in the milky coffee and placed it on the breakfast table.

Did you have a nice evening at the pictures, Taylor? Charmian asked her.