Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim

While he dressed, he thought how nice it was to have nothing he must do. There were compensations for ceasing to be a lecturer, especially that of ceasing to lecture. He put on an old polo sweater to signify his severance of connexions with the academic world. The trousers he wore were the ones he'd torn on the seat of Welch's car; they'd been expertly repaired by Miss Cutler. By the phone he found a pencilled slip in her girlish hand. Though she'd again found the name beyond her, she'd got the number, which, he saw with some surprise, referred to a small village some miles away, in the opposite direction to the Welches'. He didn't know he knew anyone there. A woman's voice answered his call.

'Hallo,' he said, thinking he could write a thesis on the use of the phone in non-business life.

The woman's voice announced her number.

'Have you got a man there?' he asked, feeling a little baffled.

'A man? Who's that speaking?' The tone was hostile.

'My name's Dixon.'

'Oh yes, Mr Dixon, of course. One moment, please.'

There was a brief pause, then a man's voice, the mouth too dose to the microphone, said: 'Hallo. That you, Dixon?'

'Yes, speaking. Who's that?'

'Gore-Urquhart here. Got the sack, have you?'

'What?'

'I said, got the sack?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Then I won't have to break a confidence by telling you so. Well, what are your plans, Dixon?'

'I was thinking of going in for schoolteaching.'

'Are you right set on it?'

'No, not really.'

'Good. I've got a job for you. Five hundred a year. You'll have to start at once, on Monday. It'll mean living in London. You accept?'

Dixon found he could not only breathe, but talk. 'What job is it?'

'Sort of private secretarial work. Not much correspondence, though; a young woman does most of that. It'll be mainly meeting people or telling people I can't meet them. We'll go into the details on Monday morning. Ten o'clock at my house in London. Take down the address.' He gave it, then asked: 'Are you all right, now?'

'Yes, I'm fine, thanks. I went to bed as soon as I…'

'No, I wasn't inquiring after your health, man. Have you got all the details? You'll be there on Monday?'

'Yes, of course, and thank you very much, Mr…'

'Right, then, I'll see you…'

'Just a minute, Mr Gore-Urquhart. Shall I be working with Bertrand Welch?'

'Whatever gave you that idea?'

'Nothing; I just gathered he was after a job with you.'

'That's the job you've got. I knew young Welch was no good as soon as I set eyes on him. Like his pictures. It's a great pity he's managed to get my niece tied up with him, a great pity. No use saying anything to her, though. Obstinate as a mule. Worse than her mother. However. I think you'll do the job all right, Dixon. It's not that you've got the qualifications, for this or any other work, but there are plenty who have. You haven't got the disqualifications, though, and that's much rarer. Any more questions?'

'No, that's all, thank you, I…'

'Ten o'clock Monday.' He rang off.

Dixon rose slowly from the bamboo table. What noise could he make to express his frenzy of hilarious awe? He drew in his breath for a growl of happiness, but was recalled to everyday affairs by a single hasty chime from the legged clock on the mantelpiece. It was twelve-thirty, the time he was supposed to be meeting Catchpole to discuss Margaret. Should he go? Living in London would make the Margaret problem less important - or rather less immediate. His curiosity triumphed.

Leaving the house, he dwelt with exaltation on Gore-Urquhart's summary of the merit of Bertrand's pictures. He knew he couldn't have been wrong about that. Then his walk lost its spring as he realized that Bertrand, jobless and talentless as he was, still had Christine.

CATCHPOLE, already there when Dixon arrived, turned out to be a tall, thin young man in his early twenties who looked like an intellectual trying to pass himself off as a bank-clerk. He got Dixon a drink, apologized to him for taking up his time, and, after a few more preliminaries, said: 'I think the best thing I can do is give you the true facts of this business. Do you agree with that?'

'Yes, all right, but what guarantee have I got that they are the true facts?'

'None, of course. Except that if you know Margaret you can't fail to recognize their plausibility. And before I start, by the way, would you mind enlarging a little on what you said over the phone about her present state of health?'

Dixon did this, managing to hint as he talked at how matters stood between himself and Margaret. Catchpole listened in silence with his eyes on the table, frowning slightly and playing with a couple of dead matches. His hair was long and untidy. At the end he said: 'Thanks very much. That clears things up quite a bit. I'll give you my side of the story now. Firstly, contrary to what Margaret seems to have told you, she and I were never lovers in either the emotional or what I might call the technical sense. That's news to you, I take it?'

'Yes,' Dixon said. He felt curiously frightened, as if Catch-pole were trying to pick a quarrel with him.

'I thought it might be. Well, having met her at a political function, I found myself, without quite knowing how, going about with her, taking her to the theatre and to concerts, and all that kind of thing. Quite soon I realized that she was one of these people - they're usually women - who feed on emotional tension. We began to have rows about nothing, and I mean that quite literally. I was much too wary, of course, to start any kind of sexual relationship with her, but she soon started behaving as if I had. I was perpetually being accused of hurting her, ignoring her, trying to humiliate her in front of other women, and all that kind of thing. Have you had any experiences of that sort with her?'

'Yes,' Dixon said. 'Go on.'

'I can see that you and I have more in common than we thought at first. However; after a particularly senseless row about some remark I'd made when introducing her to my sister, I decided I didn't want any more of that kind of thing. I told her so. There was the most shattering scene.' Catchpole combed his hair back with his fingers and shifted in his seat. 'I'd got the afternoon off and we were out shopping, I remember, and she started shouting at me in the street. It was really dreadful. I felt I couldn't stand another minute of it, so finally, to keep her quiet, I agreed to go round and see her that evening about ten o'clock. When the time came, I couldn't face going. A couple of days later, when I found out about her… attempted suicide, I realized that that was the very evening I'd been supposed to go and see her. It gave me a bit of a shock when I realized I could have prevented the whole thing if I'd taken the trouble to put in an appearance.'

'Wait a minute,' Dixon said with a dry mouth. 'She asked me to go round that evening as well. She told me afterwards that you'd come and told her…'

Catchpole brushed this aside. 'Are you quite sure? Are you sure it was that evening?'

'Absolutely. I can remember the whole thing quite clearly. As a matter of fact, we'd just been buying the sleeping pills when she asked me to come round, the ones she must have used in the evening. That's how I remember. Why, what's up?'

'She bought some sleeping pills while she was with you?'

'Yes, that's right.'

'When was this?'

'That she bought them? Oh, about midday I suppose. Why?'

Catchpole said slowly: 'But she bought a bottle of pills while she was with me in the afternoon.'

They looked at each other in silence. 'I imagine she forged a prescription,' Dixon said finally.

'We were both supposed to be there, then, and see what we'd driven her to,' Catchpole said bitterly. 'I knew she was neurotic, but not as neurotic as that.'

'It was lucky for her the chap in the room underneath came up to complain about her wireless.'

'She wouldn't have taken a risk like that. No, this pretty well confirms what I've always thought. Margaret had no intention of committing suicide, then or at any other time. She must have taken some of the pills before we were due to arrive - not enough to kill her of course - and waited for us to rush in and wring our hands and see to her and reproach ourselves. I don't think there can be any doubt of that. She was never in any danger of dying at all.'

'But there's no proof of that,' Dixon said. 'You're just assuming that.'

'Don't you think I'm right? Knowing what you must know about her?'

'I don't know what to think, honestly.'

'But can't you see…? Isn't it logical enough for you? It's the only explanation that fits. Look, try to remember; did she say anything about how many pills she took, what the fatal dose was, anything like that?'

'No, I don't think so. I just remember her saying she was holding on to the empty bottle all the time she…'

'The empty bottle. There were two bottles. That's it. I'm satisfied now. I was right.'

'Have another drink,' Dixon said. He felt he must get away from Catchpole for a moment, but while he was standing at the bar he found he couldn't think, all he could do was to try vainly to get his thoughts into order. He hadn't yet recovered from the ordinary basic surprise at finding that a stranger knew very well someone he knew very well; one intimacy, he felt, ought to rule out any others. And as for Catchpole's theory… he couldn't believe it. Could he believe it? It didn't seem the kind of theory to which belief or disbelief could be attached.

As soon as he'd rejoined him with the drinks, Catchpole said: 'You're not still unconvinced, I hope?' He swayed about in his chair with a kind of unstable exultation. 'The empty bottle. But there were two bottles, and she only used one. How do I know? Do you imagine she'd have failed to tell you she'd used two if she had used two? No, she forgot to tell a lie there. She thought it wouldn't matter. She couldn't predict my getting hold of you in this fashion. I can't blame her for that: even the best planner can't think of everything. She'd have checked up, of course, that she'd be in no danger with one bottle. Perhaps two bottles wouldn't have killed her, either, but she wasn't taking any risks.' He picked up his drink and put half of it down. 'Well, I'm extremely grateful to you for doing this for me. I'm completely free of her now. No more worrying about how she is, thank God. That's worth a great deal.' He gazed at Dixon with his hair falling over his brow. 'And you're free of her too, I hope.'

'You didn't ever mention the question of marriage to her, did you?'

'No, I wasn't fool enough for that. She told you I did, I suppose?'

'Yes. And you didn't go off to Wales with a girl around that time either?'

'Unfortunately not. I went to Wales, yes, but that was for my firm. They don't provide their representatives with girls to go away with, more's the pity.' He finished his drink and stood up, his manner quietening. 'I hope I've removed your suspicions of me. I've been very glad to meet you, and I'd like to thank you for what you've done.' He leaned forward over Dixon and lowered his voice further. 'Don't try to help her any more; it's too dangerous for you. I know what I'm talking about. She doesn't need any help either, you know, really. The best of luck to you. Good-bye.'

They shook hands and Catchpole strode out, his tie flapping. Dixon finished his drink and left a couple of minutes later. He strolled back to the digs through the lunch-time crowds. All the facts seemed to fit, but Margaret had fixed herself too firmly in his life and his emotions to be pushed out of them by a mere recital of facts. Failing some other purgative agent than facts, he could foresee himself coming to disbelieve this lot altogether.