The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(150)

The old lady continued to stare fixedly at the tasteful sepia view of Tewkesbury Abbey, above my head, perhaps willing it to fall on me. I must say I rather liked the cut of her jib, while her clear distaste for the Mortdecais of this world did her credit. I have often thought of acquiring an old lady to keep as a pet. They’d be of little use for a shooting man, of course – no nose, d’you see, and useless over marshy ground – but for the town-dweller they are incomparable. I cannot understand why people pay fortunes for nasty cats and dogs who leave puddles and puppies and kittens all over the place when, for nothing but the cost of her keep, one can have an old lady, clean as a new pin and warranted past child-bearing. Old ladies can help one, too, in countless little ways such as marking shirts and arranging flowers: tricks which few dogs and no cats can be taught. True, they can be noisy, but I imagine that a few cuts of the whip would break them of this – or I dare say they could be surgically muted for a trifling sum. True, too, they are a wasting asset and, if you had the bad luck to pick a poor doer, she might become bed-ridden and linger on for years; a misery to herself and a burden to others. I suppose the thing to do would be to leave, pointedly, a bottle of brandy and a loaded revolver on her commode, as one used to do with a Guards Officer who’d been caught with his fingers in the tambourine.

People shouldn’t keep people if they’re not prepared to look after them, don’t you agree?

London, of course, was hell: it gets worse every day. I pine for the slow, placid, pastoral way of life they still enjoy in New York. Leaving my bag at the Connaught I pottered about until luncheon, having a chat with a shirt-maker here, a haberdasher there and a boot-maker in t’other place. Then I refreshed myself with oysters at a place whose name I shall not tell you, for I do not wish you to go there: you would not like it and there is barely enough room for me.

When it was time to call on Lord Dunromin I made my way to his club, which is one of those ancient, hateful clubs called Bogg’s or Crutt’s or Frigg’s – you know the sort of thing. This particular sink, known to other clubmen as the ‘Senior Lechers’, is a bad place. Members must be old, contemptuous, well-born but spurned by decent society, and expensively dressed in quiet bad taste.

The club porter flicked an eye over my clothes, glanced at the label inside my hat and admitted that the Earl was in the Smoking Room and might well be expecting me. Did I know where the Smoking Room was? I looked at him stonily – I’ve been squashed by experts. He led me to the Smoking Room.

The Earl didn’t get up. He has been the wickedest man in England for years: he now hopes to be the rudest, too. The All-England selectors have long had their corporate eye on him. He looked at my clothes. The two-second glance contrived to embody genuine embarrassment, suppressed amusement and feigned compassion. It was well done; he was in a different league from the hall-porter. I didn’t wait to be asked, I sat down.

‘How do you do?’ I said.

‘Oink,’ he replied

This brought a waiter. Lord Dunromin loudly ordered ‘a glass of the cheese port’ for me, while pouring himself something from a decanter at his elbow.

He turned to the window to sneer at a passing omnibus. I studied him. His face was a shade or two darker than my port, a shade or two paler than his. Viewed through my glass, his features became quite black, only the eyes gleaming redly.

‘Well,’ he said at last, rounding on me, ‘are you going to interview me or not?’

This threw me somewhat, but it seemed a small thing to do if it would give him pleasure.

‘Of course. Sorry. Now, how long have you considered yourself to be the wickedest man in England?’ I asked.

‘Europe. And I don’t like that word “considered”. And, since I was fifteen. Sacked from all three Public Schools, both Universities, four clubs and the Foreign Office.’

‘My word. And to what do you attribute your success?’

‘Lust. What they call sex nowadays. Workin’ me wicked will on school matrons, housemaids, chaps’ wives, daughters; that sort of thing.’

‘Have you enjoyed it all, and have you given it up now?’

‘Enjoyed, yes, every minute. And given up now, yes again. Too easy, too tiring, interferes with the television. Watching it, I mean, not the reception, har har.’

I gave him a perfunctory smile.

‘Too easy?’ I asked, as rudely as I could.

‘Nowadays, yes, definitely. Look at the way these young fellers with the awful hair get away with it: all pursued by herds of young women, lowing with lust, beggin’ for it. Why, when I was a boy we were proud to get even an ugly bit of crumpet, but look at ’em now – have to fight the gels off. Pretty gels, too, ugly ones seem all to have vanished. It’s like the policemen, I suppose,’ he added cryptically.

‘But since those early days, Lord Dunromin, you’ve never found it difficult, have you?’

‘Certainly not. Certainly not. Just the reverse. Indeed, I’ve never understood why men of our generation’ – I started: surely he didn’t mean to include me? – ‘ever found seducin’ difficult. I mean, we few really competent seducers can never feel vain about our prowess for we know how absurdly, how insultingly simple the whole thing is. I mean, to start with, women are nearly all astonishingly stupid – you must know that – it’s hard to believe, sometimes, that they belong to the same species as you and me. Do you know that nine out of ten of ’em cannot tell margarine from butter? It’s a fact, I promise you, I’ve seen it proved again and again on the television.