Laughing Gas Page 3

  'Eggy!' I cried.

  He had just emptied his glass as I spoke, which was fortunate, for at the sound of my view-halloo he leaped about six inches in the air. Returning to earth, he leaned towards the chap behind the bar, his bosom heaving a bit.

  'I say,' he asked in a low, trembling tone, 'you didn't hear a voice then, by any chance, did you?'

  The chap said that he thought he had heard someone say something about eggs.

  'Oh, you did hear it?'

  'Eggy, you old ass,' I said.

  This time he turned, and stood staring at me. His face was drawn and anxious.

  'Reggie?' he said, in a doubting sort of way.

  He blinked a couple of times, then put a hand out and prodded my chest cautiously. As his finger touched solid shirt-front, a look of relief spread over his features.

  'Phew!' he said.

  He asked the chap behind the bar for another Scotch, and it was not until he had received and taken a liberal swig of this that he spoke again. When he did, his voice was grave and reproachful.

  'If you know me a million years, Reggie, old man,' he said, wiping a bead of persp. from his brow, 'never do a thing like that again. I thought you were thousands of miles away, and when I heard your voice, all ghastly and hollow ... calling my name ... like a ruddy banshee ... It's the one thing I'm scared of, hearing voices,' he said. 'I'm told that till you do that you're all right, but once the voices start coming it's the beginning of the end.'

  He shuddered and finished the rest of his drink at a gulp. This appeared to complete the cure, for he became easier in his manner.

  'Well, well, well,' he said, 'so you're here, are you, Reggie? Ages since I saw you last. Six months come Sheffield Wednesday, or thereabouts. What on earth are you doing in Hollywood?'

  'I came to see you.'

  ‘You did?'

  'Yes.'

  'Pretty cousinly. Have a spot. I can recommend the Scotch. Bar-bloke, would you be so good as to mix a Scotch and soda for my relative here and the same for me.'

  I attempted to dissuade.

  'I wouldn't have any more.'

  'You haven't had any yet.'

  'If I were you, I mean. You're sozzled already.'

  'Half sozzled,' he corrected, for he is rather exact in these matters.

  'Well, half sozzled, then. And it's only ten o'clock.'

  'If a man isn't half sozzled by ten o'clock, he isn't trying. Don't you worry about me, Reggie, old man. You don't understand the wonders of the Californian climate yet. So superbly bracing is it that day by day in every way you can put away all you want to, and not a squawk from « the old liver. That's what they mean when they speak of California as an earthly Paradise, and that's why train-loads of people are pouring in all the time from the Middle West with their tongues hanging out. I expect that's why you came here, isn't it?'

  'I came to see you.'

  'Oh, yes. You told me that, didn't you?' 'Yes.'

  'And did I say it was cousinly?' 'Yes.'

  'And so it is. Most cousinly. Where are you staying?'

  'I've got a bungalow at a place called the Garden of the Hesperides.'

  'I know it well. Have you a cellar?'

  'I've got a bottle of whisky, if that's what you mean.'

  'It's precisely what I mean. I shall make a point of looking you up. A fellow can't have too many oases. Meanwhile, drink hearty and have another.'

  Something about all this had been puzzling me, and now I discovered what it was. On the train, I remembered, I had spoken of Eggy to April, and she had specifically stated that she didn't know him. Yet here he was, at her house, throwing his weight about like a reveller in a comic opera.

  'What are you doing here?' I asked, resolved on probing this mystery.

  'Having a dashed good time,' he responded heartily, 'and all the better for the sight of your honest face. Delightful, seeing you again, Reggie. Later on, you must tell me what brought you to California.'

  'You don't know April June?'

  'April who?'

  'June.'

  'What about her?' 'I was saying, you don't know her.' 'No, but I'd love to. Any friend of yours. If she is a friend of yours.' 'This is her party.' 'It does her credit.' 'You weren't invited.' His face cleared.

  'Now I understand. Now I see what you're driving at. Good heavens, laddie, you don't have to be invited to go to people's parties in Hollywood. You just saunter along till you see coloured lanterns, and walk in. Many of my happiest evenings have been spent as the guest of people who didn't know me from Adam and hadn't a notion I was there. But, by an odd chance, I'm not gate-crashing to-night. I was brought here. What did you say that name was? April —?' ‘June.'

  'That's right. It all comes back to me. My fiancee is April June's press agent, and she brought me here.'

  I felt that this was a good opportunity of tackling this fiancee business. I had been wondering how to bring it up.

  'I wanted to talk to you about that.'

  'About what?'

  'About this engagement of yours.'

  I spoke pretty crisply, with a goodish amount of head-of-the-family-ness, for the old conscience was prodding me a bit. I felt I had been letting Horace Plimsoll and my Aunt Clara down rather badly. I mean to say, they had sent me out here to find this bird and reason with him, and I had been out here a week without giving him a single thought. Since I had got off the train at Los Angeles he had absolutely passed from my mind. It just shows what love can do to you.

  He weighed the remark carefully.

  'Engagement?'

  'Yes.'

  *My engagement?' 'Yes.'

  'What about it?'

  'Well, what about it?'

  'Happiest man in the world.'

  'Aunt Clara isn't.'

  'This Aunt Clara being who?'

  'Your mother.'

  'Oh, the mater? Yes, I know her. Should we drink to the mater?' 'No.’

  'Just as you say. Though it seems a bit uncivil. Well, what's wrong with the mater? Why isn't she the happiest man in the world?'

  'Because she's worrying herself pallid about you.' 'Good Lord, why? I'm all right.'

  'What the devil do you mean, you're all right? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You go sneaking off to Hollywood, and I find you here, mopping up the stuff like a vacuum cleaner ...'

  'Aren't you being a bit pompous, old man?'

  The point was well taken. I was, of course. But it seemed to me that pomposity was of the essence. I mean to say, you can't tick a bloke off properly unless you come over a bit mid-Victorian.

  'I don't care if I am. You make me sick.'

  A look of pain came into his face.

  'Is this Reginald Havershot speaking?' he said reproachfully. 'My cousin Reginald, who on New Year's Eve two years ago, in the company of myself and old Stinker Pomeroy, broke twenty-three glasses at the Cafe del'Europe and was thrown out kicking and screaming—'

  I checked him with a cold gesture. My great love had purified me so intensely that it was loathsome to me to listen to these reminiscences of what had happened to my baser self two years ago.

  'Never mind that,' I said. 'I want to know about this business of yours. How long have you been engaged?'

  'Oh, a certain time.'

  'And are you going to get married?'

  'My dear chap, that's the whole idea.'

  It was a little difficult to know what to say. Old Plimsoll had told me to exercise my authority, but I didn't see how it was to be done. Eggy had plenty of money of his own. If I had threatened to cut him off without a shilling, he would simply have asked to be shown the shilling, pocketed it, thanked me, and carried on according to plan.

  'Well, if you're going to get married,' I said, 'you'd better stop drinking.' He shook his head.

  'You don't understand, old man. I can't stop drinking.

  I have a shrewd idea that this girl got engaged to me in order to reform me, and pretty silly she would feel if I went and reformed on
my own. You can see how it would discourage her. Probably she would lose interest and chuck me. You've got to think of these things, you know. The way I look at it, the safe, sane, and sound policy is to keep reasonably pie-eyed till after the ceremony and then sober up by degrees during the honeymoon.'

  It was a theory, of course, but I hadn't time to go into it then.

  'Who is this girl you're engaged to?'

  'Her name is ...' He paused, and his brow wrinkled. 'Her name ... Now, if you had asked me that an hour ago - nay, even half an hour ago ... Ah!' he said, perking up. 'Here she comes in person. She'll be able to tell us.'

  He waved cordially at someone behind me. I turned. A slimmish sort of girl was coming towards us across the lawn. I couldn't see if she was pretty or not, because her face was in the shadow. She waved back at him.

  'Hello, Eggy. There you are. I thought you would be.'

  Something in her voice caused me to start and gaze narrowly at her as she came into the light. And at the same moment something in the cut of my jib caused her to start and gaze narrowly at me. And in half a tick we were gazing narrowly at each other—she at me, I at her. And in half a tick after that our last doubts were dispelled.

  Reading from left to right, we were myself and Ann Bannister.

  Chapter 4

  'ANN—!' I cried.

  '— Bannister I' cried Eggy, slapping his forehead. 'I knew it would come back. It was on the tip of my tongue all along. Hullo, Ann. This is my cousin, Reggie.'

  'We have met.'

  'You mean before this moment?'

  'A long time before this moment. We're old friends.'

  'Old friends?'

  'Very old friends.'

  'Then, obviously, a small drink is indicated. Bar-bloke —'

  'No,' said Ann. 'You get right away from that bar.'

  'But aren't we going to celebrate?'

  'No.'

  'Oh?'

  'You go and take a walk round the block, Egremont Mannering, and don't come back till your brain is like a razor.'

  'My brain is like a razor.' 'Two razors, then. Off you go.'

  There had always been something compelling about Ann. I had noticed it myself in the old days. She was one of those small, brisk, energetic girls, abundantly supplied with buck and ginger, who have a way of making the populace step around a bit. Eggy trotted off like a lamb in a his-not-to-reason-why manner, and we were alone together.

  We stood in silence for a moment. I was brooding on the past, and I suppose she was, too.

  Just to keep the record straight, I'd better tell you about this past that we were brooding on. This Ann Bannister, as I said, was a newspaper girl, and I had met her when she was taking a holiday at Cannes. We became chummy. I asked her to marry me. She right-hoed. So far so good.

  And then, quite unexpectedly, the engagement went and busted itself up. One moment, it was buzzing along like a two-year-old, and was all gas and gaiters. The next, it had come a stinker.

  What happened was this. One night, we were sitting side by side on the terrace of the Palm Beach Casino, watching the silver moon flood the rippling Mediterranean, and she squeezed my hand, and I leaned towards her tenderly, and she leaned towards me, waiting for the loving observation which she had every reason to suppose would emerge, and I said:

  ‘Gosh! My feet hurt!'

  Well, they did, I mean to say. Even as I leaned towards her, they had given me a sudden twinge of acute agony. I was trying out a new pair of dress shoes that night, and you know what patent leather can do to the extremities. But, undoubtedly, I should have chosen another moment for introducing the topic. She took it rather hard. She seemed upset. In fact, she turned away, and petulantly, at that. So, thinking to heal the breach, I bent forward to plant a gentle kiss on the back of her neck.

  Well, that was all right, of course - I mean to say, as an idea. The trouble was that I forgot that I had a lighted cigar in my mouth, and when the fact was drawn to my attention, it was too late. Leaping like a scalded kitten, she began calling me a soulless plug-ugly and breaking off the engagement. And next day, when I called at her hotel with flowers to take the matter up again, I found that she had left. Yes, she had gone out of my life.

  And here she was, two years later, back again.

  I'm bound to say I was a bit embarrassed at finding myself vis-a-vis with this chunk of the days that were no more. It's always embarrassing to run unexpectedly into a girl you used to be engaged to. I mean, you don't quite know how to comport yourself. If you look chirpy, that's not much of a compliment to her. Whereas, if you look mouldy, you feel that she's patting herself on the back and saying: 'Aha! I thought losing me would make the poor clam think a bit!' and that offends a fellow's pride. I suppose the wheeze really is to have one of those cold, inscrutable faces you read about in books.

  She, on her side, women having the gift more than men, had already pulled herself together.

  'Well!' she said.

  A pleased smile had come into her face, and she was looking at me as if I had been just some fairly mere acquaintance who meant nothing much in the scheme of things, but whom she was quite glad to see.

  'Well, fancy meeting you here, Reggie!'

  I saw that this was the right attitude. After all, the dead past is the dead past. I mean to say, the heavy stuff was over between us. At the time when she had severed relations, the thing had, of course, stuck the gaff into me to quite a goodish extent. I won't say that I had not been able to sleep or touch food, because I've always slept like a log and taken my three square a day, and not even this tragedy could break the habit of a lifetime, but I certainly had felt a bit caught in the machinery. Sombre, if you know what I mean, and unsettled, and rather inclined to read Portuguese Love Sonnets and smoke too much. But I had got over all that ages ago, and we could now meet on a calm, friendly footing.

  So I spoke, as she had done, with an easy cordiality.

  'Me, too,' I said. 'Fancy meeting you here.'

  'How are you?'

  'Oh, I'm fine.'

  'The feet quite all right?'

  'Oh, quite.'

  'Good.'

  'You're looking well.'

  She was, too. Ann is one of those girls who always look as if they had just stepped out of a cold bath after doing their daily dozen.

  'Thanks. Yes, I'm all right. What has brought you to Hollywood, Reggie?' 'Oh, this and that.'

  There was a slightish pause. I felt a bit embarrassed again.

  'So,' I said, 'you're affianced to old Eggy?' 'Yes. I do seem to run in the family, don't I?' 'You do a bit.' 'Do you approve?' I considered this.

  'Well, if you ask me,' I said, 'I think it is a far, far better thing that Eggy is doing than he has ever done. But where do you get off? Doesn't this open up a pretty bleak future for you?'

  'Why? Don't you like Eggy?'

  'I love him like a brother. One of my oldest pals. But I should have thought that for domestic purposes someone who was occasionally sober would have suited you better.'

  'Eggy's all right.'

  'Oh, he's all right. He enjoys it.'

  'There's lots of good stuff in Eggy.'

  'Quite. And more going in every minute.'

  'His trouble is that he has always had too much money and too much spare time. What he needs is a job. I've got him one.'

  'And he's accepted office?'

  'You bet he's accepted office.'

  I was rather overcome.

  'Ann,' I said, 'you're a marvel!'

  'How so, Mister Bones?'

  'Why, making Eggy work. It's never been done before.' 'Well, it's going to be done now. He starts to work tomorrow.'

  'That's splendid. One feels a certain pang of pity for whoever it is he's starting to work for, but that's splendid. The family were worried about him.'

  'I don't wonder. I can't imagine anybody more capable of worrying a family than Eggy. Just suppose if Job had had him as well as boils!'

  The garden was begin
ning to fill up now, and several thirsty souls had come prowling up to the table like lions to the drinking-hole. We moved away.

  'Tell me about yourself, Ann,' I said. 'You're working hard all the time, of course?'

  'Oh, yes. Always on the job - such as it is.'

  'How do you mean, such as it is? Don't you like it?'

  'Not very much.'

  'But I should have thought it would just have suited you, being a press agent.' 'A what?'

  'Eggy told me you were April June's press agent.'

  'He was a little premature. That's what I'm hoping to be, if all goes well, but nothing's settled yet. It all depends on whether something comes off or not.'

  'What's that?'

  'Oh, just an idea I've got. If it works out as I'm hoping she says she will sign on the dotted line. I shan't know for a couple of days. In the meantime, I'm a sort of governess-companion-nursemaid.'

  'A what?'

  'Well, I don't know how else you would describe the job. Have you ever heard of Joey Cooley?'

  'One of these child stars, isn't he? I have an idea April June told me something about him being in her last picture.'

  'That's right. Well, I look after him. Tend him and guard him and all that.'

  'But what about your newspaper work? I thought you worked on newspapers and things.'

  'I did till a short while ago. I was on a Los Angeles paper. But the depression has upset everything. They let me go. I tried other papers. No room. I tried free-lancing, but there's nothing in free-lancing nowadays. So, having to eat, I took what I could. That's how I come to be governess-companion-nursemaid to Joey.'

  I must say I felt a pang. I knew how keen she had been on her work.

  'I say, I'm frightfully sorry.'

  'Thanks, Reggie. You always had a kind heart.'

  'Oh, I don't know.'

  'Yes, you did. Pure gold and in the right place. It was your poor feet that let you down.'

  'Oh, dash it, I wish you wouldn't harp on that.' 'Was I harping?'

  'Certainly you were harping. That's the second time you've dug my feet up. If you knew what gyp those shoes were giving me that night ... I thought they were going to burst every moment like shrapnel. ... However, that is neither here nor there. I'm awfully sorry you're having such a rotten time.'