Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim

The whole thing sounded rather childish, but better that than peevish. All the same, what messes these women got themselves into over nothing. Men got themselves into messes too, and ones that weren't so easily got out of, but their messes arose from attempts to satisfy real and simple needs. He was saved from having to reply by the intervention of an enormous, half-incoherent voice, like that of an ogre at the onset of aphasia, which now began to sing through loudspeakers with an intonation rather resembling Cecil Goldsmith's:

In trying to pull Christine out of the path of a short red-faced man dancing with a tall pale-faced woman, Dixon got badly out of time.' Start again,' he mumbled, but they seemed unable to move together as before.

'Here, you'll never do any good while you stand right over there,' Christine said. 'I'm not close enough to you to feel what you're doing. Get hold of me properly.'

Gingerly, Dixon moved forward until they were standing up against each other. He again took her warm right hand, and steered her off. This time things were much better, though Dixon was a little shorter of breath than he thought he should be. Her body felt rounded, and rather bulky, against his. They moved down the floor away from the band, through the sound of which Dixon faintly caught a baying laugh. Bertrand, his big head flung back, was just disappearing into a gap some yards away. Though Dixon couldn't see Carol's face, this seemed to indicate that she'd been at least partly mollified. What the hell was Bertrand up to? This was a problem deserving as urgent attention as the problem of why he wore a beard. Was he trying to have two mistresses at once, or was he trying to discard one in favour of the other? If the latter, which one was he trying to acquire and which one was he trying to reconcile to being discarded? Would he bother, though, about reconciling people to what he wanted to do with them? Probably not, in which case it was presumably Carol who was in the ascendant, because that was the only way of explaining her presence here tonight. Christine must be functioning merely as Gore-Urquhart's niece, but would have to be somehow retained on Bertrand's establishment until the Gore-Urquhart deal was safely concluded. Dixon found his head beginning to sing slightly as he realized that the third round in his campaign against Bertrand was about to begin, though he didn't yet see how battle was going to be joined.

'How are you getting on with Professor Welch these days?' Christine asked suddenly.

Dixon stiffened. 'Oh, not too badly,' he said mechanically.

'He hasn't been on to you about that phone call?'

He couldn't stifle a howl, but hoped the music would drown it. 'You mean Bertrand did find out it was me after all?'

'Find out it was you? How do you mean?'

'That I was pretending to be the reporter that time.'

'No, I wasn't talking about that business. I meant the phone call from that man in your digs, that Sunday.'

As the body of a decapitated hen is said to go running about the farmyard, Dixon's legs continued to perform the requisite dance-steps. 'He knows that I arranged for Atkinson to tell me my parents had come down?'

'Oh, is that who Atkinson is? He seems to have done a lot of phoning since we met. Yes, Mr Welch knows you asked him to ring you up about your parents.'

'Who told him? Who told him?'

'Please don't dig your nails into my back… It was that little man who played the oboe - you did tell me his name…'

'Yes. I did. Johns is his name. Johns.'

'That's right. It was the only thing I remember him saying the whole time I was there. Except for when he said you must have gone to the pub the previous evening, that is. He seems to have got it in for you rather.'

'Yes, he does, doesn't he? Tell me: was Mrs Welch there when he blew the gaff about the phone call?'

'No, I'm sure she wasn't. Just the three of us were chatting together after lunch.'

'That's good.' There was a fair chance that Welch hadn't noticed what Johns had told him, since he'd presumably only told him once; Mrs Welch, on the other hand, would have been likely to go on telling Welch until he did notice. But perhaps Johns had told her separately, out of Christine's hearing. Then a fresh aspect of the situation struck him: 'How did Johns say he got to know about this? I didn't tell him, as you can imagine.'

'He said he was there when you were arranging it.'

'That's pretty rich, isn't it?' he said, scowling. 'As if I'd have said a word in front of that little ponce… Sorry. No, he was listening outside the door. Must have been. I remember thinking I heard something.'

'What a filthy trick,' she said with unexpected venom.' What had you done to him?'

'Only mucked about with a photograph of a chap on the front of a paper of his with a pencil.'

This utterance, enigmatic enough in itself, was half blotted out by the disturbance which now arose to mark the end of the set. After Dixon had explained, Christine, who was just starting to move off at his side, turned and looked at him, laughing with her mouth closed. When he smiled sourly, she began laughing with her tongue between those slightly irregular teeth. Dixon felt desire abruptly flooding his entire frame with an immense fatigue, as if he'd been struck by a bullet in some vital spot. All his facial muscles relaxed involuntarily. She caught his eye and stopped laughing.

'Thank you for the dance,' he said in a normal tone.

'I enjoyed it very much,' she replied, compressing her lips after she spoke.

Dixon realized with wonderment that he didn't really care about Johns's latest piece of gaff-blowing, for the moment anyway. It must be because he was having such a good time at the dance.

In the bar again, they found Gore-Urquhart in his former seat, already being talked to by Bertrand, as if their conversation had never been interrupted. Margaret was in even closer attendance, if possible; she broke off from laughing at a retort of Gore-Urquhart's to look up casually at Dixon with an air that suggested she was wondering idly who he might happen to be. More drinks arrived, proving inexplicably to be double gins. They were brought, of course, by Maconochie, one of whose jobs at these functions was to prevent the importation of spirits. Dixon, who was beginning to do what he'd have described as 'feeling his age', sat down in a chair and began drinking his drink and smoking a cigarette. How hot it was; and how his legs ached; and how much longer was all this going to go on? After a moment he roused himself to talk to Christine, but she was sitting next to Bertrand and, though unheeded, evidently listening to what he was saying to her uncle, who was keeping his eyes on the floor in the way that Dixon had noticed earlier. Margaret was laughing again, swaying towards Gore-Urquhart so that their shoulders kept touching. Oh well, Dixon thought, each must enjoy himself as and when he can. But where was Carol?

Just then she reappeared, walking up to them with a kind of deliberate carelessness that made Dixon suspect her of having a bottle of something, now no doubt much depleted, hidden in the ladies' cloakroom. The expression on her face boded ill for somebody, or perhaps everybody. When she reached the group, Dixon saw Gore-Urquhart look up at her and try to flash some facial signal; 'You see how I'm placed' was possibly its nearest equivalent. Then, alone among the men present, he stood up.

Carol turned to Dixon. 'Come on, Jim,' she said rather loudly, 'I want you to dance with me. I take it that nobody here will object.'

'WHAT'S going on, Carol?'

'That's what I'd like to know.'

'How do you mean?'

'You know how I mean, Jim, unless you go about with your eyes shut. And you don't do that, do you? No, I'm sick and tired of being pushed around. I don't mind telling you this, because I know you. I do know you, don't I? In fact, I've got to tell someone, so I pick you. You don't mind?'

It was having to dance again, and so soon, that Dixon minded, not hearing what Carol wanted to say, which promised to be at least interesting. 'You go ahead,' he said encouragingly, looking round to see who was dancing near them. The floor seemed fuller than ever of jigging, lurching couples, who every few seconds lurched all one way together, bearing one another along like a crowd that knows a baton-charge is imminent. The noise was enormous; every time it rose to a maximum Dixon felt sweat start out on his chest as if it were being physically squeezed out of him. Above eye-level, the painted Pharaohs and Caesars seemed themselves to be twisting and toppling.

'He thinks he's only got to crook his bloody finger and I'll come running,' Carol announced in a shout. 'Well, he's mistaken.'

It was on the tip of Dixon's tongue to tell Carol not to think she was fooling anyone by talking and behaving so much more drunkenly than she was in fact feeling, but he didn't, guessing that she needed some sort of mask and knowing by experience that this was a much more efficient one than drunkenness itself. He only said: 'Bertrand?'

'That's the fellow; the painter, you know. The great painter. Of course, he knows he isn't great really, and that's what makes him behave like this. Great artists always have a lot of women, so if he can have a lot of women that makes him a great artist, never mind what his pictures are like. You're familiar with the argument. And with the fallacy too, no doubt. Undistributed how-d'you-call. Well, you can guess who the women are in this case. Me and the girl you've got your eye on.'

Dixon started insincerely; the charge was quite unfounded, but at the same time it managed in some unscrupulous way to be well-founded too.' What the hell are you talking about?'

'Don't waste time like this, Jim. What are you going to do about it, anyway?'

'About what?'

She dug her nails into the back of his hand. 'Stop doing that. What are you doing about Christine Callaghan?'

'Nothing, of course. What can I do?'

'If you don't know what to do I can't show you, as the actress said to the bishop. Worried about what dear Margaret would do?'

'Look, do cut it out, Carol. You're supposed to be telling me something, not cross-questioning me.'

'I thought so. And don't worry; it's all connected, all connected. No, you let dear Margaret stew in her own juice. I've met people like that before, old boy, and believe me, it's the only way, only thing to do. Throw her a lifebelt and she'll pull you under. Take it from me.' She nodded, her eyes half-dosed.

'What do you want to tell me, Carol? if anything.'

'Oh, I've got plenty to tell, plenty. You knew he was bringing me to this hop originally?'

'Yes, I had gathered that.'

'Dear Margaret again, no doubt. Well, then he ditches me so that he can bring his new piece and her uncle, and pairs me off with the uncle. Not that I minded that after a bit, because I think old Julius and I have got a lot in common. We started to, anyway, until dear Margaret decided she could make sweeter music with old Julius than I could. I'm using her vocabulary, you understand; not mine.'

'Yes, I understand very well, thanks.'

At this point they both heeled over sharply in the crowd, but he heard her say: 'None of your Galsworthy dialogue here, please, Jim. Can't we go and sit down for a bit? This is a bit too much like a C. and A. sale for me.'

'All right.'

They made their way effortfully towards the Carthaginians, under whom they found two vacant chairs against the wall. As soon as they were seated, Carol leaned vivaciously over to Dixon, so that their knees were touching. Her face was in shadow, and seen so it had a romantic bloom. 'I suppose you've guessed I've been sleeping with our friend the painter, haven't you?'