Читать книгу Exile - Warwick Deeping - Страница 24

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An Englishwoman from the Hotel Elyseo came into the library and asked for one of Oscar Slade’s books, and Billy had to confess that the library did not possess a copy of that particular book.

“We have ‘A Middle-class Mélange’ and ‘Chinese Crackers.’ ”

The Englishwoman had read them both, and had thought them vastly clever.

“But you ought to have a copy of ‘Balaam’s Ass.’ It is one of the wittiest things of the century. And after all, Oscar Slade is your local celebrity.”

Billy supposed that he was, but then Oscar Slade was not a regular subscriber to Miss Lord’s library.

“What, you haven’t met him?”

“No. I have only been in Tindaro two or three weeks.”

“I believe he is rather hard to meet. Not fond of the travelling English. I’m not surprised.”

Billy raised the question with Miss Lord, who was arranging violets in white marmalade pots, touching the flowers gently and tenderly.

“A woman has been asking for one of Slade’s books. We only have two.”

“Which book was she asking for?”

“ ‘Balaam’s Ass.’ ”

Miss Lord went on with the arranging of her flowers.

“No, that book’s beyond my limit. I can stand a good deal.”

“Dirty?”

“Well, not obviously so. It goes against all my traditions. Clever enough. Besides—the people here don’t want Slade.”

“No. He’s not popular. His books are in most of the time. But he’s supposed to be—very much it.”

“Have you read one, my dear?”

“No.”

“You ought to be able to tell people about books. Still, I won’t thrust you into Slade. I believe he has a biggish following in England, and he sells well in America. The critics love him.”

“High-brow?”

“Psycho-analysis and pulling things to pieces. Just like a mischievous monkey. You might bring me in another basket of flowers. I left it in the loggia.”

Billy felt that she had a duty to perform, and that she ought to be able to advise their subscribers on the wares that were sold, so she took—“A Middle Class Mélange” to bed with her, and was a little perplexed and slightly bored. Strangely enough, the Middle-Class Mélange was an Ealing mixture, and a rather scummy broth at that, but Billy had never dipped a spoon into that sort of suburban stew. She was not guileless and unsophisticated. She knew about most things, but she knew about them like a clean young science student.

Slade made terrible fun of his middle-class family, but he did not know his Ealing as Billy knew it. He saw elevenpence three-farthings posed as the guinea article, and that very nasty person Mr. Smith wearing respectable trousers and uncovering his nakedness behind the scenes. And the young Smiths, horrid young savages who shouted and quarrelled and swanked, and tortured cats, and sneaked away to giggle over dirty stories. A most unpleasant picture and most unpleasantly accurate if you allowed Slade the extremes of suburban behaviour. His description of the Smith family in its car, setting out on Sunday for the Merrow Downs or Friday Street, and accompanied by Reggie Smith and Flossie on motor-bike and pillion, to scatter banana skins and paper and bottles over God’s earth, and to flaunt in the faces of the flowers a succulent vulgarity, was richly vigorous and mordant. But Ealing wasn’t all Smith; a very large portion of it was Brown, and especially Mary Brown, and Slade was not interested in people who were truthful and honest and clean and unselfish. They were so calculable. They changed their linen regularly, and paid their bills. Your high-brow is apt to prefer a dirty shirt, and something venereal and septic.

Billy ended by dropping the book on the floor. She turned out the light, and lay on her back and reflected upon Oscar Slade’s Smithian family, and was quite sure that such people were prevalent and needed suppressing. But there were the Browns to be considered. How was it that no one wrote books about the Browns? Dull people—perhaps—who just did their job, but did not get into print.

And what of Oscar Slade himself? A superior person. But rather provoking. No doubt he had his tongue in his cheek.

“I should like to talk to him about Ealing,” thought Billy, “and about that Smith family. I could tell him a few things. Yes, plenty of things.”

And full of the healthy confidence of her youth she fell asleep.