'I assure you, sir, 1957 was an excellent year for champagne. One of the best.' Howard got very red and then said:
'I assure you that you're wrong. 1957 was a rotten year, one of the very worst. There've only been two years to touch it in living memory and those were 1939 and 1951, so take that bottle back and bring me what I asked for and don't be too long about it.'
Well, that certainly put him in his place, fat sneering man as he was, thinking perhaps we weren't good enough to come into his rotten old place. And though Howard said this place was supposed to have the best food in all London, I didn't think much of what I had, which was a piece of duck with orange sauce, the gravy being quite cold and the orange sauce very sour. I didn't think much to it at all, I'd rather have been at home with baked beans on toast in front of the fire with the telly going full blast, but Howard got very fierce and said that I'd got to have the very best and he'd make sure I got the very best even if it killed both of us. He grinned when he said that, so I didn't take him too seriously. After this duck of mine and Howard's what-was-called-tournedos, we had a chocolate mousse which was quite nice, and then Howard called for brandy and the wine-waiter, who must have been smarting a bit after Howard showed him that he knew what was what, said, 'What vintage year, sir?' Then Howard got so red in the face and clenched his teeth so much the wine-waiter decided that he hadn't been so funny after all, for he said, 'Just my little joke, sir,' and darted off to get some brandy. Of course, by this time, having had about half a bottle of champagne to myself, I was all giggly and even feeling a bit loving. But Howard talked quite seriously for a bit while we had our coffee and this brandy about what our plans were going to be. I let my attention wander a bit and looked round the room. There were some very chic women, but chic isn't everything and I didn't think one of them could touch me for Sheer Natural Unspoilt Beauty, as they call it, and I thought Howard was by far the handsomest man in that room. Howard was saying:
'A trip round the world, perhaps, or certainly a month or so in Jamaica or Bermuda or somewhere like that, then back home to Bradcaster for January 21st. That will suit us nicely.'
'That's my birthday,' I said.
'Yes,' Howard said, 'we'll celebrate your birthday at home.'
Then I said, 'A thousand pounds won't take us all that far, really, will it? And then there's the future. We neither of us have a job now. We'll have to start looking for something. It won't seem right, somehow, taking a holiday without having a job. I mean, you're supposed to be taking a holiday from something, aren't you?'
I must have been speaking loud, what with the champagne and the brandy, and, oh I forgot, a couple of gin-and-Italians to start off with, for Howard said, 'Shhhh.' So then I shut up and just giggled. But Howard said:
'This thousand pounds is just a beginning, see. It's something to be used. I'm going to turn it into, say, a hundred thousand, which is ten per cent of a million, and then that should be enough, I'd say.'
'Oh, Howard,' I said sternly, though I was still giggling, 'you're not going to do anything rash, are you? You're not going to gamble the money away, are you?'
'Don't worry,' said Howard, and he took my hand, which he said was a bit cold, into his two very hot hands, which were hot because of the heat in the place and the eating and drinking also. But if his were hot why were mine cold? Women are different from men. I said that aloud, a bit too loud, and giggled. Howard said, 'I'm going to take you back to the hotel now.'
'To bed,' I said, giggling a bit still.
'That's right,' he said, and there was a kind of bright sort of glitter in his eyes, sort of strong and triumphant. 'To bed.' As I've said before, Howard could be very very sweet. So he paid the bill, not tipping the wine-waiter, and we went off to bed.
Chapter 10
We got woken up the next morning by the telephone ringing, and when Howard answered it he found it was somebody from the Daily Window who was downstairs in the entrance hall and would be glad if Howard could spare a few minutes for an interview. I suppose what had happened was that the commissionaire or the girls at the reception desk or somebody had earned an honest bob, which was perhaps what they did regularly, by letting the Daily Window know when there were people of interest or fame or something staying at the hotel. Of course, it would never be the really big people at this hotel, they always staying at places where you pay fifty pounds daily or more for a suite, only the small people, like those who'd won the pools and the telly quizzes and so on. Howard was a bit tired and a bit confused, I suppose, for he said, very meek, 'We'll be right down.' Actually, it was time we got up, for it was after ten, and we'd just slept like logs. It didn't take Howard as long to dress as it did me, so when he was ready he said, 'I'll be downstairs in that big lounge and I'll have coffee waiting for you.' That was sweet of him, always considerate.
My mouth felt awfully sour, and of course I had no toothbrush, but I rubbed some soap round my teeth and was nearly sick, then swilled my mouth round and felt awful. But I was a brave girl and I dressed and made up and combed my hair carefully, put my coat on my arm and got the lift down. I was the only one in the lift going down from our floor, and the liftman was a foreigner and smelt like it, all garlicky, and he kept looking at me with eyes of Great Admiration, he even moaned a bit and went tlick tlick with his tongue just before stopping at a floor lower down and letting a fat rich couple in. I could tell now that I had a bit of a headache.
I walked into the lounge and could see Howard arguing away with a young man in a raincoat, and there were two silverish pots on the table, coffee and hot milk, and I was very glad to see that. The two stood up when I came and then sat down again and Howard was going for this young chap hammer and tongs. He seemed a nice young chap with wavy black hair thinning at the temples and sort of haunted eyes. He had an unhealthy look, what I can only call a London look, very pale and wan and as though he lived on sausage rolls from a canteen. I poured out coffee and drank some and felt tons better. Howard was saying:
'Our standards have gone all to hell, and it's newspapers like yours that are responsible. Pandering, that's all it is. Just appealing to the basest elements in all your readers.'
'Including yourself,' said the young man.
'Yes,' said Howard, 'I read it. Have you any objection?'
The young man smiled. You could see that Howard was all confused this morning and was contradicting himself. 'None at all,' said the young man. 'Only too pleased. Has it ever struck you that some people might buy it because they hate it? We don't mind why they buy it. I mean, our job is to sell it.'
'Debasement,' said Howard. 'Of the Queen's English, I mean. Full of "I guess" and "right now" and pandering to teenagers.'
'Teenagers have money,' said the young man. 'We give them what they want.'
'How do they know what they want? How does anybody know?' said Howard. 'If you just appeal to sex and easy sort of music and lyrics that'd make you want to puke and these kids clicking their fingers in a sort of stupid ecstasy, well then - What I mean is that you get so low it stands to reason you'll be appealing to the majority, the majority being stupid for the most part and just like animals.'
'This is a democracy,' said the young man. 'Sort of, that is. People are entitled to have what they want. What would be better, do you think? Us educating them and telling them how to behave and what to think and all that, which is communist or fascist?'
'I should have thought you'd have had a duty,' said Howard, in his very stubborn way.
'We have a duty,' said the young man, 'and that is to give our readers what they want, that is to say what they pay for.'
'It's a lot of rubbish,' said Howard, mumbling. 'I only wish to God I could make myself clear.'
'You've made yourself clear,' said the young man. 'Now, what I really want to know is what you're going to do with the thousand pounds you've won.'
'I'm going to try to turn it into a hundred thousand,' said Howard. 'That's what I'm going to try and do.'
'Stock
Exchange?' said the young man.
'No,' said Howard. 'Horses.' I didn't say anything, nor did the young man. 'It's the November Handicap on Saturday,' said Howard.
'Have you some special system?' asked the young man.
'Well,' said Howard, 'in a way. It's a question of using my photographic memory, if you see what I mean.'
'I don't quite,' said the young man. So Howard explained about his brain being able to take photographs and the young man listened with some interest, I thought. The young man said:
'I see. That explains a lot. I thought you were a student of literature. Somebody who loves books. I see now that you're not. Just a knack, that's all. A sort of trick. A kind of deformity, I suppose you could call it.' It looked as though he was now ready to attack Howard, Howard already having attacked him, or rather his newspaper. I poured out more coffee and then the pots were empty, so I smiled towards a waiter and he came like a shot to get more coffee. The young man was writing in his notebook. Howard said:
'I know, I know, I know,' getting louder each time. 'Don't you think I feel sick of the whole business? I'm just part of the whole rotten stinking nastiness. And last night, when I was answering those questions and getting them all right, I sort of had this feeling of being looked at from the grave. All those men looking at me, sort of sadly, sort of in sadness and pity. With their beards and their old-time costumes.' I nearly dropped my cup when Howard said that, because of course, as I mentioned, that sort of feeling came over me at the same time. That was telly-something (not television) I think you could call it, when two people are very close and can think the same thing at the same time. 'Humiliation,' said Howard. 'Humiliated at school when we had to do them, The Mill on the Floss and A Shorter Boswell and Henry IV Part I were our set books, and we drew dirty drawings all over them. And the teachers were no better than we were. And now humiliated by just being used to win a thousand pounds. And humiliated by you, too.' That didn't seem fair to me, for the young man had said nothing about these writers and poets. I noticed that he had a small blackhead over his lip, and perhaps he had nobody at home to see that he looked respectable before he came out in the morning. So I said:
'Are you married?'
'No, madam,' said the young man. And to Howard he said, 'If that's the way you feel, why don't you give the money away? Why don't you give it to some starving young poet or somebody?'
'I don't know any,' said Howard, a bit grumpy.
'I know several,' said the young man.
'Besides,' said Howard, 'my intention is to give more than money. Much more than money. I'll put things right for everybody. You just wait and see.'
Soon the young man left, saying he'd got to go to London Airport to meet somebody or other just arriving there, and then Howard said to me, 'We'd better get back to Bradcaster. It's the November Handicap tomorrow, and there's a lot to do.' I didn't say anything about that, Howard would always go his own way, but I did say I was hungry. So Howard rang up the station and found there was a train at 1.5, and then we went off to have a kind of mixed grill, which would do for both breakfast and lunch. I ate very heartily but Howard didn't eat much. He was deep in thought, poor Howard, so I left him to it. But I got through my own, which was a bit of steak and two sausages, a fried egg and tomatoes and fried potatoes, and I had a sausage of his, too. Then we went by tube to the station, the hotel bill of course having been paid, Howard looking a bit scruffy, not having shaved, and his collar showing the London dirt (London is really a filthy city, far worse than Bradcaster). At the station Howard bought magazines for me - Womanly, Female and Mother and Child, though why he bought the last one I don't know. For himself he bought the Winning Post, the Racing Times and a little book called Cope's Racegoer's Encyclopaedia. We got into a second-class compartment this time, like fools, for Howard had booked two first-class returns, not singles. It was force of habit, and Howard's photographic brain seemed to be very busy. We only woke up to our stupidity when the man came round, just before Crewe, to look at our tickets, and of course we had to move to a first-class carriage, though we were quite comfortable where we were. I don't mean we had to really, but it would have been a complete waste of money otherwise. And all the time, in second and first, Howard was going through his book and his papers, closing his eyes now and then, his lips moving away as if he was praying, but it was only the names of horses, as far as I could tell, anyway.
Chapter 11
When we got back home I got us something to eat and Howard made a fire, for it was perishing. And when we'd had our baked beans on toast and a pot of tea, then Howard said, 'I'm going to get down to it. It may fail, of course, but also it may succeed. If it doesn't succeed, what will you say?'
'I won't say anything,' I said. 'I leave it to you.' He kissed me for that. Then he closed his eyes as though he was in pain and began to recite names of horses. '1936, Newtown Ford. 1937, Solitaire. 1938, Pappageno. 1939, Tutor--' Those were all the winners of the Manchester Handicap. '1954, Abandoned. 1955, Tearaway. 1956, Trentham Boy. 1957, Chief Barker.' And I was checking these names with the book, and of course he was perfectly right. What I had to keep reminding myself was that this wasn't clever, it was just something that Howard had been born with. The young man from the Daily Window had called it a deformity, and that's really what it was. Howard said, 'Now I'll have a go at tomorrow's runners.' Then he went through the list in the paper and then he just knew them, just like that, for he was able to recite them straight off. Then he said, 'This is the hard part. What I have to imagine now is this Cope's Racegoer's Encyclopaedia for next year. What I have to close my eyes and see now is this page with all the winners for all the different years and this year's winner at the end of the list.'
'Oh, that's crazy,' I said. 'That's just absolutely mad.'
'It's all mad,' said Howard. 'All crazy and mad and all nasty. But it won't be for much longer.' Then he shut his eyes tight and sort of made a stab at it. 'No good,' he said. 'I just can't see anything.' And he tried all evening and he couldn't see anything. All he could see was last year's winner at the bottom of the page, and he kept swearing, poor pet, because they wouldn't let him see this year's winner.
'Give it up for the time being,' I said. 'Give it a rest. Don't try forcing it. A man forced his pig and it died.'
'Forced it to do what?'
'I don't know. That's what they used to say. Come and have a look at the telly.' So I switched the TV on and we sat there watching, Howard very gloomy. There was an old film on that night, a very bad film about war in the desert, with men whistling Lili Marlene and tanks and anti-tank guns and Rommel, very dull and old-fashioned. I mean, we've got our own troubles without being reminded of all the troubles other people had in the past. 'El Alamein,' said Howard, loud, all of a sudden. 'That's it. That gives me the clue.' Then he switched the TV off, then stumbled to the switch of the light, and he said, 'Now I'm going to have a look,' so he shut his eyes so he could look all the better, then he said, 'It's all right. It's the winner.'
'Which one?' I asked.
'Dalnamein,' shouted Howard. 'I can see it here, clear as anything, all in plain black and white, at the bottom of the page. Dalnamein, it says. Ridden by J. Greenaway. Trained by--'
'Never mind about all that,' I said. 'How much are you going to put on?'
He opened his eyes and looked at me as if I was barmy. 'The lot,' he said. 'The whole thousand.'
'Will your bookie take that amount?'
'He'll take it,' said Howard. 'He'll only be too glad to. He'll spread it out, see, in case he loses. Which he will, of course. But he doesn't know it.' Then he started rustling newspapers all over the place, looking for the odds and what-not. 'An outsider,' said Howard. 'That's what it is.'
'Oh, do be careful,' I said. I sort of pleaded. This was all too mad for words, this was. 'Don't put all that lot on. Put on half. Let's keep five hundred. It's a terrible risk.'
'Terrible risk nothing,' said Howard, loftily sort of. 'It's not our money, re
ally. What I mean is, I don't really deserve it. It's just this brain of mine. Now, if it had been some poor old professor all dressed in rags, a man who'd read all those books and knew all about it - But it was just my brain, not any trouble I'd taken really. If we lose, we lose. We won't have lost anything really.' There was no doing anything with poor Howard, he had to have his own way. He loved me dearly, as he showed and proved time and again, but he would have his own way about what he said he knew about, so I left it at that. After all, I could go back to the Supermarket tomorrow with no trouble at all, and Howard could get a job all right, especially now with him being well-known. He could even go on the stage as what they called a Memory Man. There was nothing to worry about really, but I couldn't help thinking what a waste it would be, all that money down the drain.