The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(165)

He started to steal away.

‘Oh, and Jock,’ I added, ‘when you bring the tea-tray I implore you not to let the spoon or other cutlery rattle against the revolver.’

‘Yes, Mr Charlie.’ Was there a tinge of contempt in his voice?

I lay there listening to the surly, ragged beating of my heart, the tidal noises my liver was emitting and the figured-bass in the back of my skull. A silvery laugh floated up to me from the kitchen: how could Johanna be laughing at a time like this – she should have been on her knees beside my bed, promising to hold my memory sacred forever.

A few feet from where I lay there was a window: a small, diligent spider was spinning a web in one of its corners. He was spinning it inside the double-glazing, I have never seen anything more piteous in my life, it made me think of me. I dare say I shed a tear or two. Had a capable Jesuit entered at that moment he could have bagged my soul without firing a shot.

What in fact entered was my tea, borne by Jock with a minimum of clamour. I had some difficulty getting into a position where I could sip it; my bottom kept on sliding down the silk sheets. (How I have longed to have been born of common stock so that I could sleep on kindly Irish linen, but, alas, rank has its obligations as well as its privileges.)

I shall not say that the first sips revived me, for I have ever loved the truth, but it is a fact that they allowed me to contemplate the bare possibility of continuing awhile in this vale of tears.

‘Jock,’ I said sternly, ‘I can distinctly hear Mrs Mortdecai laughing. Explain this as best you can.’

‘Couldn’t say, Mr Charlie. She’s having breakfast with Farver Tichborne and they seem to be relishing it no end.’

‘Breakfast!’ I squeaked. ‘Breakfast? Tichborne is eating breakfast?’

‘Too right he is. He’s had a plate of porridge with cream and sugar, then another plate Scotch-style with salt and dripping and pepper, then two eggs boiled very soft and runny, with richly-buttered toast, and now they’re starting on a pound of devilled kidneys with smoked salty bacon. I better run down and see if they’d fancy a bloater or two, I got some lovely ripe ones in the market yesterday.’

‘Get out,’ I said.

‘You fancy anythink?’ he asked.

‘Out!’ I cried.

‘You ought to try and get something down you, Mr Charlie, you look a bit rotten. Eyes like piss-holes in snow, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

I turned my face to the wall, feeling like a collection of passages deleted from the Book of Job.

Even the Job’s comforters were not wanting, for, half an hour later, some traitor downstairs allowed my kindly extrovert landlord to invade my death-chamber.

‘Hullo hullo hullo!’ he boomed. ‘What, still slugging abed? You’re missing the best part of the day!’

‘I’m poorly,’ I muttered.

‘Rubbish!’ he bellowed. ‘Nothing a breath of fresh air wouldn’t drive away in a trice. It’s a splendid morning!’

Now, the first thing to remember about landlords is that you cannot tell them to f*ck off.

‘It’s raining,’ I said sullenly.

‘Certainly not. Not a bit. A fine, brisk morning; clear and cold. Not a spot of rain.’

‘It is raining in my heart,’ I said coldly. ‘Il pleut dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville.’

‘Ah, well, yes, I daresay, but mark my words …’

‘When you go down,’ I said, ‘would you be kind enough to ask someone to bring me up a basin to be sick in?’

‘Right, well, that’s me, I’m off; lots to do. Look after yourself, won’t you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

There was nothing for it but to get up, so up was what I got. My symptoms started to sagashuate again but Jock blocked my every move to slink back into bed and, as a reward for shaving myself, he allowed me one of his Salvation Specials, which have been known to twitch a man back from the very brink of the grave. No Jeevesian Worcester sauce and raw eggs for Jock: his potion is simply a dexedrin dissolved in gin and tonic to which he adds a spoonful of Mr Andrew’s noted Liver Salts, two effervescing Vitamin C tablets and two ditto Alka-Seltzer. I have little time for foreigners but I must say that Drs Alka and Seltzer should have won the Nobel Prize years ago; my only quarrel with their brain-child is its noise.

I was just in time for luncheon, where Eric’s shining morning face was much to the fore and Johanna … well, smiled at me politely. In the ordinary way I can do great damage to a plate of Jersey Pais de Mai, which is a sort of bubble-and-squeak made of potatoes, French beans and onions, fried into a cake and served with little pork sausages, but today the gastric juices simply would not flow and I could only wincingly watch the others eating great store of it while I worked out problems in topology with a hot roll.

Eric took me aside afterwards.

‘If you should be feeling a little effete,’ he said carefully, ‘after our sing-song last night … ?’

‘You have a gift for words, Eric. I have never felt effeter. Say on.’

‘I have heard it said that a little Pastis is sovereign in these cases. Drives away the evil humours.’

My better judgement rebelled but, as ever, my better judgement received what Jock calls a ‘root up the sump’ and soon the Pastis was smoothing out the wrinkles in my spleen in cavalry style. When the door-bell rang, two drinks later, I hardly jumped at all. George and Sam entered, snuffing the air curiously.