Frank took it: ‘I’d better give you a receipt so that it’ll come off your tax.’
‘We’ll settle that in the office,’ Teddy said. Big Teddy wasn’t only rolling in it — it was rolling in him. Every time he had an attack of asthma Frank expected great bundles of money to shoot out. He didn’t dislike him, for Teddy was generous, outspoken, intellectual and rich, and who could ask for pleasanter company in which to learn about this sort of world? Albert came back: ‘You haven’t ordered yet? I’m starving.’
‘We waited for you,’ Teddy said.
‘I’ve had no breakfast. I wouldn’t mind if you’d ordered for me.’
Teddy guarded him like a prize dog. ‘How did I know what you’d want, Albert?’
‘If you’d ordered me the same as what you’re having I wouldn’t have gone far wrong.’ Teddy picked up the menu and signalled the waiter, who floated over like a female dancer from Azerbaijan. ‘What would you like, then?’
The menu was so big it seemed like a fireguard in front of Albert’s face. ‘I think I’ll start with a little bit of pâté, go on to a Dover sole, and try a pepper steak. Maybe end up with crêpes Suzette — order it now because it takes them ages. How about you, Frank?’ He slid the menu over. Frank wanted cannelloni and chicken Portuguaise, then cheese. Teddy ordered, and arranged for the wine. When it came he picked off the cork like a true connoisseur, sniffed it judiciously, as if at one time it had been up somebody’s arse. He nodded to the waiter: ‘It’s all right.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I was reading my reviews again today,’ Albert said, ‘and the critics are so patronizing I could slay the bastards.’
‘They were good reviews though,’ Teddy said gently. ‘You’ve sold every picture in the exhibition. They’re clamouring for more.’
‘I know. But if there’s one thing I hate more than a bad review, it’s a good review. As for those who show superlative understanding of my whole artistic project and endeavour, unquote, I hate them most of all, and would stand them up against a wall and shoot them down like dogs if ever I got the chance. They’re my real enemies. They’re all dogs sniffing at the same wall. They turn my guts, I’m not joking. You’d think I’d just come out of the jungle, the way they talk.’
‘They’re only human,’ Teddy said. ‘They’re eating out of your hand at the moment, but don’t think it will stay like that, because it won’t.’
‘Don’t worry, if I keep on getting good reviews I’ll hang myself.’
‘It’s the space that counts,’ Teddy said, breaking his roll and spreading it with butter. ‘As long as you get the space, I’ll be happy.’
‘That’s all that matters. I realize that. I reckon six feet of space would make you even happier.’ The soft lighting of the midday restaurant pitched them into irritating candle-shadow in which nothing could be seen with real clarity. ‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘how you gave me lessons on what to say when I was interviewed? He was dead clever, Frank, was old Teddy-bear. Whatever they asked me, I was never to answer with a direct yes or no. That would be playing into their hands. If they ask if you’ve stopped beating your wife just go into a long spiel on the rights of women, such as I only go for her when she slings a sizzling flat-iron at my mug and scores a bull’s-eye. Teddy gave me two hours of his valuable time on that technique. I took it to heart, and talked so much with never a yes or no that I was bloody-well incoherent and the reporters had to bodge up their articles.’
‘Don’t sulk,’ Teddy said. ‘They’d have bodged them up anyway. You should be happy now.’
‘You should,’ Albert said. ‘You’ve made as much money as I have, just about. Let’s climb out of our trenches and slam each other, you mudstained bugger.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Teddy said. ‘Let’s eat first, at any rate.’ Frank knew that this went on whenever they met, with sometimes such a mask of despair and loathing on Albert’s face that he wondered why he bothered to stay in London. The experience of it was eating into his soul. Yet he wouldn’t hear of leaving until the last day of his exhibition. ‘Why?’ Frank had asked. ‘You must have some good reason.’ ‘I want to keep my eye on Greensleaves.’ ‘Come off it. He’s honest enough.’ ‘All right, I’ll tell you. I want to get myself known to as many people as I can before I go back, because I don’t want to come down again for another two years, not at all if I can help it. I want people to come up and see me in Lincolnshire and buy paintings off me there. The less I sell to Greensleaves the better. I’ve got myself fixed up with an accountant and a lawyer as well — to help me with the tax bullies, and contracts.’
‘I’m fed-up with all this newspaper runaround,’ he said. ‘They even had Frank’s picture on that first-night spree, not to mention that woman he got acquainted with. I expect her husband blacked her eye when he saw it next morning.’
‘The meat’s raw in these cannelloni. I didn’t worry myself,’ Frank said. ‘She’s not the sort to marry a man like that. I hated seeing myself in the papers though.’
Teddy said he didn’t think there was any harm in it. ‘I’ve got some blow-ups back at the office, which I forgot to give you. A souvenir of the big opening.’ He refilled their glasses, topped up his own. ‘I had some good mail this morning, Albert. They want some of your work at the Museum of Graphic Art in New York. Then there were a couple of feelers from Zürich. Of course I’ll put them off: “Mr Handley is far from prolific, but I shall be glad to see your representative when next in London in order to discuss terms should any of Mr Handley’s work become available in the meantime.” Something like that. One must be cool, or they’d never forgive us later. A publisher phoned me as well, wanted to do a book of reproductions. I told him it was too early to think about it yet, and to phone me back in a couple of years. A letter also came for you, Frank.’
He was busy with his food. It surprised him how much people managed to talk during a meal, while his own mouth was too full to say much. A slow rhythm of death-jazz drifted through the restaurant, and Albert, thinking it interfered with his argument, told the waiter to can it. The music flowed away, and off. He took the letter with a plain thanks, puzzled as to whom it could be from. While Teddy and Albert discussed prospects and figures, made plans, he opened the letter and found it was from Myra, simply to say she’d be coming to London a week next Thursday to have a real look at Albert’s work, so maybe he could meet her at Paddington, the seven minutes past ten train, if, that is, he was still in London and hadn’t already taken off for other places, in which case he wouldn’t be reading this letter anyway.
Teddy stopped talking, to point out a couple of famous actors. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Albert said. ‘Lick their boots or fall on my back? I’d rather see them on the stage, for a real thrill, to see if they’re really any good. The thing about famous people is that they just aren’t interesting.’
It was impossible to say why Teddy baulked at certain moments and not at others, but Albert’s outrageous remarks weighed on him when he thought the actors may have heard them too. In the first week or so Teddy would simply blush pyjama-pink and lift up a hand to hide the giggles. But it wasn’t funny any more. It had certainly ceased to be funny. ‘You’ll have to learn to behave yourself.’
Frank looked on, for after so long it bored him. Perhaps that’s what Myra had sensed when she thought he might already have left. Where can you go in this country? Bristol? Dover? Liverpool? Nowhere was where he was, because it was the same place she had left him in.
‘You think I can’t behave myself with the people I find in your sort of world?’ Albert raged. ‘They’re either queers, frauds, playboys, or brainless public school sacks of blood living off newspapers and advertising.’