‘I –’
‘Because I know of very few minor disappointments as keen as that of expecting an oyster to fill the mouth in that agreeable way and then finding it just too small to do so, and this not once but a dozen times over. So to be on the safe side I think, yes, I think I’ll order eighteen and then if the worst comes to the worst quantity will have to do duty for quality. Yes, I think that’s the best solution in the circumstances.’
Holding his voice steady with an effort, Gordon said, ‘I’m sure if we asked them nicely they’d fetch a couple of specimens to the table so that you could –’
‘No no, dear boy, too much of a fuss and bother and certain to cause incalculable delay. Talking of which, they don’t seem to be positively falling over themselves with anxiety to take our order, do they? Oh well, it gives us time to catch up with our reading.’
With that, Jimmie brought up an eyeglass on a fine silvery chain through which he proceeded to study the menu. Or to pretend to, to look effective while apparently so doing. Did it just happen that what he fancied turned out to be the most expensive dish to be had? Or had he quite consciously set out to sting his host as painfully as practicable? Or was his motive somewhere in the capacious territory between the two? In search of an answer, Gordon observed Jimmie’s full-collared silk shirt and boldly clashing tie, side-parted silvery hair worn long for a man of his age, green-bordered handkerchief ‘carelessly’ pushed into jacket-sleeve, antique cuff-links. He would have observed the cut of the seasoned-looking dark suit if he had ever learnt to tell one sort of cut from another. Then Jimmie glanced up from the menu and round the room with an expression of tolerant superiority on his face that seemed to go with details of clothing and stuff. Old Jimmie Fane saw himself as an artist of a far-off time when artists were special people and looked special and of course ate lots of oysters. Any moment now he would be calling for a bottle of the Widow.
There were perhaps elements of the ridiculous in this picture, but Gordon felt no disposition to laugh, not even internally. He felt less like it than ever when a waistcoated waiter arrived and after appreciatively taking an order for eighteen natives asked what was to follow and got an inquiry from Jimmie about the available sizes of lobster. Gordon stopped listening for a while and did his best to put aside his copy of the menu. He swallowed the last of his gin and Campari – why had he ordered that? – and saw that after paying this bill he must simply go home and take to his bed and stay there until the end of the following week, when his monthly bit of salary would reach his bank. He would use the period of bodily inactivity to square his accounts with God and such matters.
Quite calm now, Gordon watched while Jimmie nodded approvingly at a bottle of no doubt expensive wine brought for his inspection, chewed an intervening mouthful of crust of bread, coughed thoroughly, drank fizzy mineral water, gulped a large mouthful of the wine poured out for him to try, followed it with more mineral water and after a short interval in which he sat stock-still, made a loudish noise that sounded like a kind of indrawn belch, but proved to be the first of a tremendously long and sort of well-entrenched series of hiccups. At first he stared at Gordon and held up his hand as if calling for a silence he failed to produce. Soon the waiter returned with a glass of still water and Jimmie sipped at it fast, slowly, from the right side of the glass, from the wrong side of the glass, to wash down any crumbs or other extraneous matter that might have been lingering in his throat, vaguely. Nothing happened, or rather he continued to emit belching sounds a dozen times a minute. Possibly these had acquired a new sonority, because now a partial silence did descend, though not on Jimmie. With the glass of water put aside, he pulled out a handkerchief, not the one tucked into his cuff, and stuffed it over his mouth, a manoeuvre that muffled his noises but failed to make them anywhere near inaudible.
Two managers, or perhaps one manager and one deputy manager, appeared and bent over Jimmie, partly screening him from view. Gordon found he was quite looking forward to the spectacle of the venerable artist swallowing his eighteen natives one by one between hiccups, but as yet no food, nothing further, had reached their table. Then Jimmie moved his face into sight. It had gone rather pale.
Take me home,’ he said tremulously, and clapped his handkerchief back just in time.
There will be no charge for anything,’ both managers said.
Gordon did not try to persuade Jimmie to stay. Watched by several of those near by they reached the street door and hurried through it to a corner past which taxis could be expected to cruise.
‘Sorry I’ve made you miss your lunch,’ Jimmie managed to say.
‘That’s all right, Jimmie. As a rule I just have a sandwich.’
After a minute or two watching for taxis Gordon felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Jimmie smiling at him in an almost spiritual way.
‘There should be one along any minute.’
Jimmie was shaking his fine head. He looked now as if he was listening to heavenly music. He said nothing for the moment.
‘My God,’ said Gordon.
Now Jimmie nodded. ‘They’ve gone. I’ve had these fits of the hiccups before and sometimes they just go away after a few minutes and don’t come back. I wish I knew what I do to make them stop. Stopping trying to make them stop is what does it, perhaps. Let’s get a move on – my appetite’s come back with a rush. Ah, I think we’re going to be all right. Yes, that’s our chap, isn’t it? Waiter!’
‘Oysters and lobsters and some crêpes suzettes that were really quite well done. I’m afraid I rather over-indulged myself there. I seemed quite unable to stop eating them. Little Mr Thompson couldn’t keep up with me. Well really, he didn’t try, he said he’d had enough to eat.’
‘Was it very expensive?’ Joanna put a large dark Belgian-made chocolate into her mouth.
‘What? I didn’t do any sums and wasn’t shown the bill. Perhaps it did cost a little by Mr T’s standards. I must say, darling, it was really quite funny.’ Jimmie produced a brief cracked laugh, an old man’s laugh. ‘He was consternated when he saw the place was slightly more what he no doubt calls up-market than he’d remembered. I only had to mention oysters to fill him with horror. He put on a great show of being frightfully concerned when I was having my hiccups but he couldn’t hide his glee at the thought of not having to pay. And then when I recovered … well …’
‘What did he have to eat himself?’
‘I didn’t notice much, I blush to admit. Some kind of soup, I fancy, and cheese or something. Why? I mean, should I have …’
‘It sounds as if you chose the priciest dishes on the menu.’
‘Not as such, they were what I fancied eating. Are you saying I should have lunched off a sardine and half a tomato out of consideration for Mr Thompson’s pocket?’
‘No, but you needn’t have caned him as ruthlessly as you did. No doubt you managed to force down a bottle of wine or so?’
‘Yes we did, but before you ask on behalf of your Uncle Arthur from Penge it was