The Night of Wenceslas Read Free Page A

Maura had never met my mother, she seemed equally credulous about Bela, and infinitely more annoying. She, moreover, knew the true state of my affairs, and regarded my reluctance to solicit his help as the sheerest idiocy. In self-defence I had had to turn Uncle Bela into a joke – the ship that was going to come in, the treble chance that was going to turn up one day. I had built him up into such an unlikely shadow that, maddeningly, I was beginning to share their superstitious belief in him.
    The cigarette burned down and I stubbed it out and reluctantly left the divan and went downstairs to the phone. Maura answered instantly.
    ‘It’s Nicolas,’ I said.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Well, what?’ I said irritated.
    She made a little kiss down the phone and said, ‘What happened this afternoon? Did you see him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You left early. I wondered if you’d had a row.’
    ‘No row.’ Mrs Nolan came out of her lair behind me, and I thought I might as well put across the same news item to both parties, so I said quickly, ‘Look, Maura, I’ve had to pay a bill on the car and I haven’t a sausage left this week. I can’t afford to buy a bottle for tonight.’
    ‘Oh, Nicolas. You can bring a bottle of beer. They brought one to my party –’
    ‘I can’t even afford a bottle of beer,’ I said loudly. ‘I’m flat broke. I’ll have to do without lunches for a couple of days. I’d better not come tonight.’
    Maura seemed to latch on that this was intended for another, for she said without concern, ‘Do you want me to leave five bob at the off-licence?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘All right. I’ll see you there. What did he say?’
    ‘All right, then. Goodbye.’ I hung up quickly. You had to be quick.
    Mrs Nolan was standing behind me, listening.
    ‘I wonder that young lady wants to go out with you the way you treat her so sharply on the phone,’ she said.
    I smiled at her wanly. ‘I’m worried about money, Mrs Nolan.’
    ‘No rent for me this week, I suppose,’ she said with her own curious tone of winsome aggressiveness.
    I said stoutly, ‘You know I wouldn’t dream of letting you down with the rent, Mrs Nolan. I’ll just have to borrow it elsewhere.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t mind you, ducky,’ she said. ‘It’s the others. Don’t you mention it or they’ll all be going off to buy cars.’ She gave my arm a little push to show she meant no harm. ‘And you go off to that party tonight or someone else’ll be after your young lady, and then we shall be sad. I’ve got a bottle of port you can take.’
    I followed her into the kitchen and accepted the bottle of British port she handed me from the fridge. She always kept one in this curious place.
    ‘Don’t you run off now,’ she said. ‘Dinner’s in ten minutes. A nice bit of fish for Friday, same as your mother’d give you.’
    She said this every Friday. I had never understood what she meant by it.
3
    I walked to the party to save petrol, still wondering what to tell Maura. I was twenty-four and she twenty-one; we had no claim on each other but increasingly in recent weeks the feeling had grown that if only I exerted myself with the Little Swine, or with Bela, or with the economic world at large – in a word began to make something of myself – we could have some claim on each other.
    This had induced a feeling of profound inadequacy. To make up for it I pressed home my somewhat decorous and well-signalledadvances with great desperation. I seemed to be making some progress here.
    I heard the gramophone thumping out and turned in at the gate. The, chap who was giving the party opened the door to me and cried, ‘It’s Nicky. Come in, you terror of the City.’ Nobody else called me Nicky, and I disliked it and him. His name was Val and he worked in a film publicity business and lived with an ageing model girl called Audrey. It always embarrassed me to be with them.
    ‘What’s this?’ he said, breaking into laughter as he examined the bottle I had