And so we pushed on to the end of our stay at this very posh hotel overlooking one of the London parks. Howard paid his bill in notes, not by a cheque, and it was horrible to see all that money crackling around, so that you got the impression that everybody would get drunk with money if they didn't watch out. There was Howard dishing out notes in crinkles and crackles to waiters and bootboys and porters and everybody, and he even tried to give a pound note to one of the guests, but this guest, who the man at the desk said was Sir Somebody and very well-known, was very humorous and decent about it, saying we all make mistakes, not like that so-called gentlewoman that Howard had been got into trouble by. And so we went in a taxi to what was called the Air Terminal, all our pigskin luggage round us, and Howard was crackling all over like a bit of roast pork, what with dollar bills and traveller's cheques and so on. Off to America, playing it real cool, man. I wished Mr Slessor could have seen me then, Lady Janet Shirley, off to America. Janet Glass. I had to admit to myself that didn't sound so good.
Chapter 18
It seemed to me more and more funny that the only new and thrilling thing that came out of Howard's getting all this money was Redvers Glass, and he came into my life really because of Howard's giving away money. But, of course, he had to get it before he gave it away. From now on, flying to New York in the middle of the night, I made up my mind to forget him and make up my mind to live with Howard who was, after all, my husband and was doing his utmost and very best to give me the sort of life he thought I wanted. But flying into terrible and bitter cold seemed a queer sort of way of giving me a good time. It was lovely and warm in the plane, of course, and a real new experience for me, flying. It was an American plane, but you could tell that just from the cut of the uniform of the air hostess, very dark and pretty and tall with it, even though she was English and not American. We had American food on the plane, ham sort of cooked in treacle, and ice cream with apple pie, the crust very flaky. And the coffee was very good and I was really enjoying the flight. But then we landed at Idlewild Airport, which was the airport for New York, and it was bitter cold getting off the plane and I felt very homesick. It was a long time waiting for our bags to go through the Customs, and then we went into a very hot bar and had some coffee and then we travelled to New York itself. We both felt very lost, not knowing anybody, and travelling in the bus, looking out of the window, I was a bit surprised to see that New York was not all skyscrapers after all. It was houses, some of them very shabby-looking, and very slummy for a part of the way. I knew that America was a new country, and it seemed queer that they'd got all these slums there already in that short space of time. Then we entered a big tunnel with very dim lights in it and, coming out, we could see the part of New York that has the skyscrapers, Manhattan as it's called. It was a really breathtaking sight, I'll say that for it, with these buildings just towering up into heaven, and even Howard was a bit impressed. His photographic brain knew all about how many storeys there were in these buildings, but he'd never actually seen them before, and there's all the difference in the world between knowing and seeing.
Now we've all seen America on the films and on television, but there's one thing you can't get, and that's the smell. It was a different sort of smell from London. There was a very icy sharp smell in the air and also there was less of a smell of people being dead, somehow. I can't say exactly what I mean, but when you're in any English town you can't help feeling that millions of people are dead and gone there, all through the ages, and their sort of ghosts are floating about and making the place seem a bit depressing and heavy somehow, but here in New York you didn't have that same feeling. Another thing about the difference between films and the real thing is the people themselves. I saw one man on the street clear his throat in a very loud repulsive way, and you don't see that on the films. But the way the people speak is pretty much what you'd expect, though all the people in New York, taxi-drivers and people in shops and so on, are far more familiar than I expected, never saying sir, but always bud and mac and so on. We got into a taxi from the airline place, a taxi with a yellow top, as on the films, and the driver had his name up on a little card. It was Joe Mancowitz, or something like that, and he said, 'Where to?' in a very rough sort of way. So Howard said, 'The Ritz-Astoria-Waldorf,' and Joe Mancowitz said, 'Okay' in a bitter strangled sort of a voice, as if he didn't want to take us there but if he didn't Howard would perhaps torture his wife and send his children's fingers through the post as a warning, sort of. What amazed me about Howard, though it shouldn't have, really, was that he handled this new money, dollars and cents and dimes and nickels, as if he'd been used to it all his life, but I supposed later he must have tried imagining himself paying off New York taxi-drivers a number of times and then let his brain photograph the picture.
The Ritz-Astoria-Waldorf, if I've got all those the right way round, which I may not have, was bigger than the hotel we'd stayed at in London, a real skyscraper. The people at the desk were very brisk and quick, and they didn't say bud and mac but sir. It was just like home to see how many foreigners there were on the hotel staff, all speaking bad foreign English, and the man I took to be the hotel restaurant's head waiter came through to get change or something from the cashier, and he was obviously an Italian because I heard him say something like porco or sporco and look very angry about something or somebody. We were taken up in a lift and another man was being taken up too, and he took his hat off because a lady was there, that being me. And here was another thing the films didn't show you, that people in the U.S.A. could have pimples and blackheads just like people in England, for this man who took his hat off had some really nasty pimples on his neck. The boy taking us up in the lift took us so high I thought we'd never stop, it was a real journey. But we landed up right high in the clouds, and our suite, which was a bit like the one in London, overlooked the whole of Manhattan, and it really was breathtaking. Manhattan's an island, really, and it can't move outwards, so to speak, so it's got to move up instead. There were all these very tall buildings, you'd wonder how ever they could stay up, and in the distance you could see the Statue of Liberty holding up her torch and with spikes all round her head, because it's a woman. But the boy who brought us up said we ought really to go to Radio City to the observation roof of the R.C.A., sixty-five storeys up, and that was really something. Howard gave him a dollar, and there we were, alone again, in this fabulous suite of rooms. There was a refrigerator and also a TV set, and this I switched on. Although it was still morning there was a programme blasting away, and there were advertisements, so it felt like home, just a bit, reminding me of the ITV. Then it struck me that all this that was surrounding us was The New World, and that was what England was trying to be like, and for some reason or other I felt very sad and started to cry a bit. 'Never mind, honey,' said Howard just like an American, and he put his arms around me. 'I know you feel lonely and homesick, but there are the two of us, after all, and that's all that matters, isn't it?' When he put his arms round me like that and kissed my ear, I felt something I'd never thought I'd be able to feel, not with Howard, and that was sort of stifled, sort of suffocated. So I said:
'I'm all right, really.' And then, 'Phew, isn't it hot?' It was hot, too, and you couldn't open the windows. And that day I caught a cold, moving from heat into cold and back again, and that didn't seem to me to be healthy.
But New York was quite interesting, and we saw all the things we'd already seen on the films, like Broadway and Harlem and Madison Square, also Fifth Avenue. The difference between the films and the real thing was, as I said, mainly that the real thing had its own smell and that the real thing was more genuine, with people spitting and swearing and having pimples and boils, though not more than the people of England. We also ate quite well, though I was sick again, but being sick seemed to help to cure my bit of a cold. Here you were served with far bigger portions of steak and salad and ice cream than in England, but you weren't expected to eat everything up, everybody left things on their
plates, so I suppose that all went to the dogs. When I saw JUMBO STEAKS written up outside a cafe I asked Howard if they were elephant steaks, and a man passing heard that and roared with laughter. That was about the only time anybody said anything to us, if you can call a man laughing at me saying something to us.
On the fourth day I said to Howard, 'We ought to send post-cards to people at home, oughtn't we?' So we bought some in the hotel, and scribbled the usual thing to Mum and Pop and Myrtle and Michael and to Howard's auntie. And then I thought of Red having made himself at home in our house in Bradcaster, and wondered if I ought to write to him. But I thought, 'Better not,' in case Howard suspected anything. Instead I wrote to the girls at the Hastings Road Supermarket, sending each one separately a post-card, even those I didn't like much. After all, I had all the money and all the time in the world.
Chapter 19
I've said that I caught a bit of a cold and that it seemed to get better, but then the next thing that was wrong with me was my stomach, awful griping pains, and these didn't come on when I'd just eaten something but when we were at a cinema on 52nd Street or some such number, I can't be quite sure with so many numbers to remember, not like our dear old bishops and historical battles in Bradcaster. The film was about some great German scientist who blew everybody up during the war and said Heil Hitler and so on, but when the war was over he said he wasn't a Nazi after all and had really only been pretending for the sake of his wife and children and had not really wanted to blow the not-Nazis up but had been made to. And then he said he would teach the Americans how to blow the Russians up and the Americans said O.K. and gave him a medal. I had to leave, though, before the end because of these awful griping pains. Howard called a cab and the driver did us the favour of taking us back to the hotel though he was pretty sour about it. In the hotel I was really bad, writhing in agony, and Howard had a bit of difficulty getting hold of a doctor. When the doctor came he said it was colic and I must have been eating unripe fruit or something, which I couldn't really remember having done. He gave Howard a prescription and then Howard had to pay him in dollars, not like the National Health back home. Still, he was a nice doctor, very bald and shiny, and he spoke in a soft voice, saying, 'Surely, surely,' all the time. Howard went to a drug-store and brought back some sort of gritty white stuff which I had to drink and that seemed to bring the wind up and I felt better but not well enough to get up. Howard sat on my bed and said, in his new American way, 'Honey, honey, you must get well. There's a lot to do and not all that much time.' I said:
'Why do you keep going on about not being much time? We've got all the time in the world, haven't we? Besides, I don't see that about a lot to do. We've done nothing since we got the money, have we? Nothing at all.' Howard said:
'We've got to have everything that money can buy, that's what we've got to do. It's a sort of duty. We've got to prove that we've done everything we can do with money.' And he went on about this, getting excited, but I didn't see his point. I did see that we were booked on a plane to get us back to England just before my birthday, but as far as I was concerned I would have been quite pleased to go back tomorrow. But I saw again that it wouldn't really be going back, not to our old life anyway, not with Redvers Glass there in our living-room. So I said, 'Anything you say, dear. I'm entirely in your hands.' Howard smiled and said:
'That's my girl.'
I got better and found out that, while I was in bed ill, Howard had worked out some sort of plan for our seeing a bit more of America before Christmas, the idea being to be back in New York for Christmas Day, but before that to see what it was like in some other parts of this very big country. So I let myself be led by Howard, as always, and before I knew where I was I was on a plane flying straight into the sunset and then we were in Cleveland, then Detroit, then Chicago, this last place being well-known to me because of a song about it. All these places were near big lakes, and there I was again getting hot and cold by turns. The next thing was we were flying to Salt Lake City, also on a lake which gives it its name, and after that we flew to Los Angeles in California. It was a lot warmer there and it didn't feel a bit like December. Of course, we had to see Hollywood, but it was just ordinary people like you and me, not film stars at all, and the food upset me. What I remember about Los Angeles is the tomatoes there, the biggest I've ever seen, and the tomato slices you got with a salad were like wheels, they were so big. We also flew to San Francisco, where they have the Golden Gate and the beatniks, real ones, and I quite liked it there. You could get Chinese food, just like in England, and there were actually people there in the hotel who'd never been to New York, and they were Americans!
Well, Christmas was coming now, and the idea was that we get back to New York for that. While we were travelling in the plane I closed my eyes and tried to make up my mind about America and I found I couldn't do it. All you remember about any place is the small things, which means a young lad selling newspapers, picking his nose, and a girl crossing a street in Detroit, I think it was, and her stiletto heel coming off and she had to sort of hop across to the other side. Then in a drive-in eating-place in Hollywood (Howard having hired a car for our use while we were there) a man spilt coffee all down his tie and said, 'For Christ's sake.' Then a man who sold me a packet of sanitary towels in a drug-store had very bad teeth, which you wouldn't see on the films. Some of the buildings were very high and very new, but they have those in London now. I got the idea that wherever you went all that would matter would be the people, and they seem to be all pretty much the same. I suppose the only real reason for travelling is to learn that all people are the same. I tell you that now, so you've no need to waste your money on travelling.
New York had been got up very nicely for Christmas, with all the shops decorated and Father Christmases outside the shops on the sidewalks, as they're called, ringing their bells. And there was actually some snow, which I don't think I've ever seen before in England for Christmas. On the TV, which we looked at one evening in our suite (Howard had kept this suite on all the time we were away, really a terrible waste) there was a very good production of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, complete with actors speaking in English accents, which they did very well. I began to feel very goosepimply, being away from home for Christmas like this, but Howard and I did our Christmas shopping separately, as we always did in England, Howard having given me a great roll of dollar-bills, and I bought him a wrist-watch, a lot of after-shaving stuff, and a dressing-gown. These were all beautifully wrapped up, in Christmassy paper and string, and I began to feel that we might have a good Christmas after all, though so far from home. In one of the stores, on Fifth Avenue it was, the girl who served me seemed to speak with an English voice, and I found out she'd only been in America just under a year, having married an American who'd walked out on her for another woman, and though she didn't come from Bradcaster she was near enough, all these thousand of miles away, for she came from Birmingham. We had quite a chat until the woman who seemed to be in charge of the department came up and gave her a sort of warning look.
Christmas morning was full of snow and there were bells ringing but we didn't go to church. We couldn't really, as we were both brought up Church of England, and you couldn't expect a Church of England in America, could you? It's different for Catholics, I suppose. We had a lot of fun with our presents. Howard had bought me fabulous jewellery - earrings and necklaces and a string of real pearls. Then, when I'd had some what they call Martinis, nearly all gin, I had a good cry about being away from home, and Howard tried to comfort me. It seemed to me, in a queer sort of way, that we were really punishing ourselves for having so much money, and I told Howard so. He said a very funny thing. He said, 'Life is one big punishment, but, thank God, we don't have to bear more than we want.' In the evening we had our Christmas dinner, just like at home, and there was dancing with a cabaret show, streamers and balloons, and for the first time we really got friendly with people. There was an old couple from Springfield, wherever
that is, who were on a visit to New York, and it was their first visit, just like us, and funnily enough we knew more about New York than they did. When you come to think of it, though, those West Indian negroes who live in London know more about London than any English person who's just lived in Bradcaster all their lives. Just because you're of a particular nationality doesn't mean you know more of your own country than a foreigner does. That's funny, though. Anyway, this old couple, Mr and Mrs Murdoch, he being in what he called real estate, made us feel more at home in America than we'd felt all the time, and we were soon laughing and joking with them. We laughed and joked with some young people too, everybody being a bit tight, and I danced with a fair number of quite good-looking young men. Later in the evening Howard and I did some rock 'n' roll, and this soon became an exhibition, because we used to be really good, as I said, and people got off the floor just to watch us, clapping heartily when we'd finished. It was a really good time.
And so, Christmas not having been anywhere near so lonely or strange as I'd expected, we got ready to leave America and fly to the warmth which Howard said was all waiting for us in the West Indies. These West Indies had always seemed a bit vague to me, and I'd never even been quite sure where they were. But I had a look at a map on the plane travelling south, and I was really astonished to see where they were and how many of them there were. Cuba, for instance. I'd always thought Cuba was in Africa. I know that's terribly ignorant and I ought to feel downright ashamed, but I'd never been taught much geography at school. I'd heard of Castro, who runs Cuba, but I'd always thought he was a white man with a beard who'd taken over running this part of Africa, and that's why there was so much trouble in Africa. I must have got him mixed up with Mr Bobumba, or whatever his name was, who was one minute running this other part of Africa and then the next minute in prison, then out of prison again and back to ruling, and everybody cheering all the time. I was very ignorant, but because I was attractive that had never seemed to matter. I said to Howard on the plane, 'When we get back home I'm going to evening classes.' Howard said, 'Too late, too late,' and I knew he was right. I'd missed my chances of learning, really. But it wasn't my fault, was it?