An Artist and a Magician Read online

  ‘And come to think of it,’ Jim continued, ‘there are several people I’d much prefer you to turn into toads before Chuck. Or for you—oh ha ha ha—to go to tea with.’

  ‘That’s quite enough of that James,’ Wilbur said, almost pushing Jim out the door now.

  ‘Betty for instance,’ Jim chuckled, as he started walking backwards towards the elevator. ‘Or Bernard. I can just imagine—’

  ‘James!’ Wilbur said.

  It was only much later that night, as he lay in bed going nervously over the events of the day, and trying, unsuccessfully, to get rid of the strange little lump of unease that he felt growing within him—a little lump that was liable to swell into something monstrous, he felt, if he couldn’t get rid of it—that Wilbur realized he had forgotten to ask Jim a question he had meant to ask him. Which was why he had sent that cheque….

  However, if he didn’t ask Jim, he did ask Betty, who, three days later, was the next of the three remaining pillars of his establishment to come to see him—and hear the details of Pam’s death. Not that he received a satisfactory reply from her.

  ‘It was very sweet of you my dear,’ he said, as they sat together on his terrace, ‘but really, you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Oh Wilbur,’ Betty purred graciously, if a little uncomfortably. ‘I was so worried that you might not be all right, and I thought after I phoned to tell you about all that mess the lawyers made that it was awfully silly of me, because you would never have said if you needed anything. And I just couldn’t bear the idea that you were in Rome by yourself and might be—in difficulties.’

  ‘Well anyway, thank you,’ Wilbur said, feeling uncomfortable himself now, and regretting that he had ever mentioned the matter. What did he expect Betty to say? That she had given him that money because she had guessed that Pam had pressed for the payment of her debts—and didn’t want him to interpret her temporary freezing of funds as a prelude to a like action on her part? In case she, too, met with an unfortunate accident….

  ‘But I must say my dear,’ he went on, clearing his throat and looking up brightly, ‘you’re looking wonderful.’

  ‘Yes, I think they’ve done quite a good job this time,’ Betty laughed, touching her tight, taut skin with her hand, and then adjusting the white silk scarf that covered her piled up, youthfully golden hair. ‘Though I do regret not having my teeth done while I was about it.’

  Betty’s teeth, which were very slightly irregular, had been a constant source of regret to her for as long as she had known Wilbur, and presumably longer; and every time she went to have alterations made to her person she swore that this time she was going to have her mouth really fixed. But every time she returned from Switzerland or Paris or wherever, nothing was changed; and Wilbur guessed that now—for Betty, though not quite in Pam’s class, was no young girl herself—it never would be.

  ‘Oh, you can’t change them,’ Wilbur, who was as perfectly trained in certain responses as a very devout nun, cried. ‘My God, it’s wonderful having a whole set of one’s own teeth,’ at your age was tacitly understood, though not said, ‘and the second you start letting them mess about in your mouth, that’s the end. Within a year they might all be perfect. But they’d all be false, too.’

  ‘Oh you’re so right, Wilbur,’ Betty sighed. ‘Give me the genuine any time. But come along now, don’t let’s talk about me. I want to know exactly what you did to that awful old Pam.’

  ‘My dear, I didn’t do a thing.’

  ‘Oh come now. Look me in the eye Wilbur George, and tell me the truth. You can’t fool your old Betty you know.’

  ‘My dear, I swear,’ Wilbur started, trying to beat down the temptation not to disillusion Betty, ‘that I only—’ he paused, and hesitated. ‘Put a curse on her,’ he ended quickly, feeling ashamed of himself for his weakness.

  ‘What sort of curse? Just the tiniest nudge as you were saying goodbye to her?’

  ‘Oh Betty—’

  ‘Oh Wilbur, you know you can tell me. And I don’t know what she did to you, and I’m not about to ask, but she was such an evil old creature, in spite of her lavender water and her being the Honourable Pam, that I’m sure it was something beastly. So you were absolutely right to do whatever you did. I would have done it myself if I’d ever seen her.’

  Say ‘I did nothing, absolutely nothing,’ Wilbur shouted at himself. But to Betty, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he simply said, ‘Oh my dear.’

  ‘No. Don’t try and get out of it,’ Betty insisted with a knowing smile and a bejewelled and admonishing finger waved in the face. ‘No “oh Betty’s”. Just the plain truth, you wicked thing.’

  He made one last try. He told himself that he was mad, that this wasn’t in the least bit funny, and not even to one’s closest friends did one admit to murder; especially to murders one hadn’t committed. He told himself to stand up and walk away, leaving Betty alone on the terrace with her slightly irregular teeth and youthfully golden hair. He told himself to be rude. To be witty. To tell Betty a joke. Even to tell Betty the truth.

  But he couldn’t. He was helpless. And as if his mouth had a life of its own, he felt it opening—and heard words coming out of it.

  ‘Well, my dear, I mean even though I was fond of her in a way, Pam really could be very poisonous. And that afternoon she said something that was—well, just terribly hurtful. And I don’t know what happened to me, but something just suddenly snapped, and I thought here we are sitting in this lovely garden, in this beautiful August afternoon, and even if the whole world couldn’t be like this, it could certainly be much more like it—if it wasn’t for the evilness of people like Pam. And really we don’t live long enough, and have to accept quite enough compromises as it is, without putting up with petty, withering meanness. And I was looking at the birds and thought I quite genuinely would put a far greater value on the life on one of those sparrows than I would on the life of this old woman here. And when people are mean and sour, it isn’t just themselves they’re hurting. They’re damaging the whole world, making it even more difficult to live in than it already is. They’re defacing an already extremely badly damaged painting, devaluing an already nearly worthless coinage. And it’s so easy just to stand aside and let it happen, and then shrug one’s shoulders and say, well I couldn’t have done anything anyway. One can do something, always, and one has a positive duty to stand up for life and everything that’s on the side of life. Otherwise the dust and the greyness will creep up and overcome one, and then it’s simply not worth bothering. And so, as I say, there I was in this deserted garden with this wretched old creature who was practically draping cobwebs over the flowers as I listened to her, and I thought I will not stand for this another second. I will not put up with it. Otherwise I’m putting up with disease and suffering and cruelty and hatred. And so—and so Pam had already told me what would happen to her if she fell over. And there was no one about. And so—and so—’ Wilbur repeated, and suddenly stopped, overcome by his speech; which had moved him and come out quite as genuinely as if it had been true.

  And Betty, too, was moved. She was breathless with emotion, her white scarf fluttering softly in the autumn wind, her hands folded demurely in her lap. And after Wilbur had finished she allowed almost two minutes to pass before she spoke; before she almost gasped, her voice overhung with Spanish moss and awe, ‘Oh, you’re absolutely right my dear. You’re so right. My God. My God!’

  He wasn’t right at all, Wilbur thought miserably; if only because it was a weird sort of logic that argued that one could claim respect for life while taking it.

  But Betty was either not too keen on logic, or wasn’t, when she wanted something to be true, remotely interested in it; and simply continued to sit in her chair—rocking slowly back and forth now—and whisper to the gold October afternoon and Philip-the-Cat, who was gazing at her, beady eyed, ‘Oh, you’re so, so right Wilbur. You are. He is right, isn’t he Philip? He really is.’

  And then, with a suddenne
ss that shocked Wilbur—and Philip—she stretched over, grabbed the cat, held him to her bosom, and fairly shouted, ‘My God, Wilbur, look. This cat’s beautiful. And he wouldn’t be beautiful if there were any meanness and littleness in him. And heaven knows he’s old enough. No. It’s only we humans who wither and become haggard—because we accept meanness, give in to it. We make ourselves ugly, and we make the world in our image. If we left it to the cats and the birds and the flowers, my God it would be better. It would be beautiful! It would be. Isn’t that so, Philip,’ she sobbed, ‘isn’t that so, Wilbur?’

  Wilbur, who was alarmed by this unexpected evidence of lunacy in Betty, wanted to tell her to put Philip down, in case she hurt him. But he was feeling too worn out even for that—and all he could do was murmur, like an echo of the woman herself, ‘Yes, my dear. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. You’re so, so right.’

  *

  A few minutes later when Betty, still gliding on winds of high emotion—she said she just had to go home, and think—left, she kissed Wilbur gravely on both cheeks; and added a postscript to the overcharged and exalted talk on the terrace. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘and we’re not talking in abstract terms either, are we? Because the world really would be a pleasanter place if just one or two other people we know were to follow Pam. All the terrible, triste people we know. Blown away like dust. Whoooof! Oh heavens, how beautiful it would be. How very, very beautiful….’

  That the one or two other people Betty would have blown away were Jim and Bernard, Wilbur had no doubt at all.

  FIVE

  It stood to reason that, since Jim wanted Wilbur to remove Betty and Bernard from the face of the earth, and Betty, Bernard and Jim, Bernard would want him to dispose of Betty and Jim. And so, when he returned, on the fourteenth of October, to Italy, grumbling and grousing about California, his family, his health, modern youth, and the advent of world communism, he did. Only he, unlike the other two, didn’t wait to suggest it as a parting shot when Wilbur went to see him. In fact, it was his opening shot.

  ‘Well, you old shit,’ he cried in his strange voice, that was both squeaky and gruff at the same time, as he slapped Wilbur on the shoulder, ‘I was hoping by the time I got back you’d have killed that old queer Simpson and that Southern whatever the opposite is of belle Betty. But there’s time, and you certainly fixed Miss lavender scented Pam. Good for you. I never thought you had it in you, you Tennessee turd. What are you drinking?’

  ‘Scotch and water, you old fool, and I’m not from Tennessee.’

  ‘Well, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, wherever the hell it is.’

  ‘Carolina.’

  ‘Carolina my ass. Anyway, it’s good to see you again, and how are you doing apart from your killing?’

  It always took Bernard, who was very fat, had shoulder length white hair and a little wispy beard, who had once, somehow, been an officer in the Indian army and never quite gotten over it, and who barked and swore and played the part of a grouchy old misery in order, he claimed, to frighten the young, a little time to remember, when they met, that Wilbur himself was not part of that particular age group.

  ‘I’m doing all right,’ Wilbur said non-committally, tempted to tell Bernard at least about the irony of fate, and Bobbie’s gift to him. He knew he would have appreciated it. But after a second’s reflection, he decided against. It was better to keep certain things secret….

  ‘You got my cheque?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘I thought I’d better send you something as soon as I heard what you’d done to Pam. ’Cos I presume you killed the old bitch because she wouldn’t give you anything. Or did she ask for her money back?’

  ‘Oh Bernard,’ Wilbur murmured.

  ‘Don’t be coy with me you sonofabitch. I’ve known what you’ve been doing for years. And good for you, too. But I thought just in case you understood my letter as meaning that you couldn’t soak me for any more, I better get some cash in the mail right away. Otherwise you’d have gone to work with your lizards’ legs and your adders’ tongues and your little wax effigies, and I’d have had a heart attack right there in California, with all. my milk-fed offspring spewing over me. Jesus!’

  ‘I thought you loved it out there, and were happy to see them.’

  ‘Summer madness,’ Bernard growled. ‘Summer madness. But I don’t know what the hell we’re doing standing in the hallway here. Come into the living room and tell me all the gory details.’

  *

  And since it was useless to pretend with Bernard, or be coy, or try any more to make contact with the truth, Wilbur, sitting in his friend’s dark, old-fashioned living room, with its leather furniture and black beams, its books and rugs and gloomy seventeenth-century paintings, did just that. He told Bernard exactly how he had killed Pam, down to the smallest detail. He told of the surprised little cry she made as he pushed her. He imitated her long, hooted, ‘Oh Wilbur, now don’t panic. Just give me your hands and pull me up very slowly.’ He described her fluttering, surprised more than frightened expression as she realized he had no intention of giving her his hands; and had indeed pushed her on purpose. She had been more like a butterfly, he said, as she lay there, than a tortoise; a butterfly with wounded, useless wings. And finally, with downcast eyes, he told of the noise he had heard as he had left that hot, overgrown garden. The noise of old fingers, scrabbling desperately in the gravel….

  ‘You might at least have turned the hose off,’ Bernard cackled, his little eyes glistening behind his spectacles, and his tiny very white hands tugging at his wispy beard. ‘Jesus, it must have been uncomfortable.’

  Yes, Wilbur thought. It must have been….

  ‘What would you have done if someone had found her in time? She’d have had the police on you in a second.’

  ‘Oh, of course she wouldn’t. If there was one thing that Pam loved it was a bit of violence. She used to phone me every day to make sure I’d read about all the latest murders.’ Once again he imitated Pam’s voice. ‘“And according to the Herald Tribune, there were bits of brain all over the damask covers.” No, actually I think after the first shock had worn off, she approved thoroughly of what I’d done. It was the biggest kick she’d ever had in her life, being killed.’

  ‘And the last.’

  ‘And even if she had been found and had gone to the police, no one would have believed her. Everyone knew she was a dotty old thing. They’d just have thought that the shock had really turned her brain.’

  ‘Well anyway, I think it was about the smartest thing you ever did in your life,’ Bernard muttered. ‘Though God knows why you didn’t do it years ago. Never could understand what you saw in the old hag. Apart from her money of course.’

  ‘You’re not a lover of human nature in all its diversity as I am. And Pam was an original, for all her faults.’

  ‘Well thank Christ for that. I’d hate to think of any more like her around.’

  ‘Oh Bernard,’ Wilbur said; and tried to think of some more convincing reason to give him why he had liked Pam so much. And he had liked her—just as he liked Jim, who underneath his huffing and puffing and his boring infatuations with unsuitable young men was one of nature’s innocents, and just as he liked Betty, who in spite of her relentless charm and the occasional lapse into lunacy was one of the kindest, most enthusiastic people he had ever known. And if there was a thing he appreciated, it was enthusiasm.

  ‘She loved life,’ he finally came out with. ‘Even if she didn’t really have enough—I don’t know what—courage, maybe, to go all the way. Or maybe she’d been too messed up by her childhood to really be able to escape it. But she tried, and that was what was important.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, you sound like some sloppy columnist,’ Bernard barked. ‘I hope becoming a murderer hasn’t made you sentimental. Everyone’s been messed up by their childhood.’

  ‘Well then, in the last analysis she was on the right side of the angels. Ecco. Does that satisfy you?’
r />   It might not have satisfied Bernard; but it did make him laugh a harsh, caustic little laugh. ‘That’s where we’ll all be if we’re not careful of you,’ he croaked.

  ‘Oh, you old fool,’ Wilbur said.

  *

  If he had liked Pam, and did like Jim and Betty, Wilbur also—immensely—liked Bernard, who, he considered, in spite of his manner and the act he put on, was one of the softest-hearted, most sentimental of beings. In fact, he was probably closer to him than any of his other friends, or to anyone else in the world. The trouble was, he liked him so much, and the couple of hours he spent with him this afternoon passed so easily, amused him so greatly, and so carried him away into his role as a killer of old and helpless ladies, that it wasn’t till he left him, and emerged from that dark and gloomy apartment into the bright early evening of the city, full of cars and people and movement, that he started, once again, to have doubts about this role, and this charade he had set up. And even more serious doubts than any he had had before. Because if, with Jim and Betty, he had simply strung them along as it were, let them believe what they liked about him without actually coming out and saying ‘this is so’, with Bernard, now, he was really into it. It was no longer a matter of lying by default. Now he was really lying. And of course it was only a game, a silly charade. But if he suddenly decided to quit the game, say ‘all right, that’s it, it’s been fun while it lasted but not a word of it is true,’ would anyone believe him? Or was he going to be stuck with his role—and stuck with it not only for the present, when it was or seemed amusing—but in six months time maybe, or a year; when it might neither be nor seem amusing any more. When it might, all at once, become horribly serious. What would happen if he fell out with Betty or Jim or Bernard, he wondered? How would they use their knowledge against him? Or even if he didn’t fall out with them, how would they act towards him? Because though they might not be aware of it, they would be affected by this discovery of a hitherto unrevealed trait in his character. They couldn’t help but be. And that being so—wasn’t there a danger that, instead of being merely the court magician and the fool, he might become a sort of slave? Oh yes, there was, he thought, as he raised his hand for a taxi, and then lowered it again quickly and decided to walk home. There was a very real danger indeed.