My Uncle Oswald Part 21

"'Mr. Einstein,' I said, 'relax.'

"You were dealing with the greatest intellect in the world," I said. "The man has supernatural powers of reasoning. Try to understand what he says about relativity and you'll see what I mean."

"We'd be finished if someone twigged what we were doing."

"No one will," I said. "There's only one Einstein."

Our second important donor in Berlin was Mr. Thomas Mann. Yasmin reported that he was pleasant but uninspiring.

"Like his books," I said.

"Then why did you choose him?"

"He's done some fine work. I think his name is going to live."

My travelling liquid nitrogen suitcase was now crammed full of straws. I had Clemenceau, Foch, Ravel, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Freud, Einstein, and Mann. So once again we rushed back to Cambridge with our precious cargo.

A. R. Woresley was ecstatic. He knew d.a.m.n well we were onto something big now. All three of us were ecstatic, but I was in no mood to waste time yet with celebrations. "While we're here," I said, "we'll polish off some of the English lads. We'll start tomorrow."

Joseph Conrad was possibly the most important of these, so we took him first. Capel House, Orlestone, Kent was his address and we drove down there in mid-November. To be precise, it was November 16th, 1919. I have already said that I am not keen to give a detailed description of too many of our visits for fear of becoming repet.i.tious. I will not break this rule again unless something juicy or amusing comes along. Our visit to Mr. Conrad was neither juicy nor amusing. It was routine, although Yasmin did comment afterwards that he was one of the nicest men she had met so far.

From Kent we drove to Crowborough in Suss.e.x where we n.o.bbled Mr. H. G. Wells. "Not a bad sort of egg," Yasmin said when she came out. "Rather portly and pontificating, but quite pleasant. It's an odd thing about great writers," she added. "They look so ordinary. There's nothing about them that gives you the slightest clue to their greatness, as there is with painters. A great painter somehow looks like a great painter. But the great writer usually looks like the wages clerk in a cheese factory."

From Crowborough we drove on to Rottingdean, also in Suss.e.x, to call on Mr. Rudyard Kipling. "Bristly little b.u.g.g.e.r," was Yasmin's only comment on that one. Fifty straws from Kipling.

We were very much in the rhythm now, and the next day in the same county of Suss.e.x we picked off Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as easily as picking a cherry. Yasmin simply rang the doorbell and told the maid who answered it that she was from his publishers and had important papers to deliver to him. She was at once shown into his study.

"What did you think of Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" I asked her.

"Nothing special," she said. "Just another writer with a thin pencil."

"Wait," I said. "The next on the list is also a writer, but I doubt you'll find this one boring."

"Who is he?"

"Mr. Bernard Shaw."

We had to drive through London to get to Ayot St. Lawrence in Hertfords.h.i.+re where Shaw lived, and on the way I told Yasmin something about this smug literary clown. "First of all," I said, "he's a rabid vegetarian. He eats only raw vegetables and fruit and cereal. So I doubt he'll accept the chocolate."

"What do we do, give it to him in a carrot?"

"What about a radish?" I suggested.

"Will he eat it?"

"Probably not," I said. "So it had better be a grape. We'll get a good bunch of grapes in London and doctor one of them with the powder."

"That'Il work," Yasmin said.

"It's got to work," I said. "This lad won't do it without the Beetle."

"What's wrong with him?"

"n.o.body quite knows."

"Doesn't he practice the n.o.ble art?"

"No," I said. "He's not interested in s.e.x. He appears to be a sort of capon."

"Oh h.e.l.l."

"He's a lanky, garrulous old capon with an overwhelming conceit."

"Are you suggesting his machinery is out of order?" Yasmin asked.

"I'm not sure. He's sixty-three. He married at forty-two, a marriage of companions.h.i.+p and convenience. No s.e.x."

"How do you know that?"

"I don't. But that's the general opinion. He himself has stated that 'I had no adventures of a s.e.xual kind until I was twenty-nine.'"

"A bit r.e.t.a.r.ded."

"I doubt he's had any at all," I said. "Many famous women have pursued him without success. Mrs. Pat Campbell, gorgeous actress, said, 'He's all hen and no c.o.c.k.'"

"I like that."

"His diet," I said, "is deliberately aimed at mental efficiency. 'I flatly declare,' he once wrote, 'that a man fed on whiskey and dead bodies cannot possibly do good work.'"

"As opposed to whiskey and live bodies, I suppose."

Pretty quick our Yasmin was. "He's a Marxist Socialist," I added. "He thinks the State should run everything."

"Then he's an even bigger a.s.s than I thought," Yasmin said. "I can't wait to see his face when the old Beetle strikes."

On the way through London, we bought a bunch of superb hothouse muscatel grapes from Jackson's in Piccadilly. They were very costly, very pale yellowish-green, and very large. North of London, we stopped on the side of the road and got out the tin of Blister Beetle powder.

"Shall we give him a double shot?" I asked.

"Triple," Yasmin said.

"D'you think that's safe?"

"If what you say about him is true, he's going to need half the tin."

"Very well, then," I said. "Triple it is."

We chose the grape that was hanging at the lowest point of the bunch and carefully made a nick in its skin with a knife. I scooped out a little of the inside and then inserted a triple dose of powder, pus.h.i.+ng the stuff well into the grape with a pin. Then we continued on to Ayot St. Lawrence.

"You do realize," I said, "that this will be the first time anyone's had a triple dose?"

"I'm not worried," Yasmin said. "The man's obviously wildly unders.e.xed. I wonder if he's a eunuch. Does he have a high voice?"

"I don't know."

"b.l.o.o.d.y writers," Yasmin said. She settled herself deeper into the seat and kept a grumpy silence for the rest of the trip.

The house, known as Shaw's Corner, was a large, unremarkable brick pile with a good garden. The time, as I pulled up outside, was four twenty in the afternoon.

"What do I do?" Yasmin asked.

"You walk round to the back of the house and all the way down to the bottom of the garden," I said. "There, you will find a small wooden shed with a sloping roof. That's where he works. He's certain to be in it now. Just barge in and give him the usual patter."

"What if the wife sees me?"

"That's a chance you'll have to take," I said. "You'll probably make it. And tell him that you're a vegetarian. He'll like that."

"What are the names of his plays?"

"_Man and Superman_," I said. "_The Doctor's Dilemma_, _Major Barbara_, _Caesar and Cleopatra_, _Androcles and the Lion_, _Pygmalion_."

"He'll ask me which I like best."

"Say _Pygmalion_."

"All right, I'll say _Pygmalion_."

"Flatter him. Tell him he is not only the greatest playwright but also the greatest music critic that ever lived. You don't have to worry. He'll do the talking."

Yasmin stepped out of the car and walked with a firm step through the gate into Shaw's garden. I watched her until she had disappeared around the back of the house, then I drove up the road and booked a room in a pub called The Waggon and Horses. Up in the room, I laid out my equipment and got everything ready for the rapid conversion of Shaw's s.e.m.e.n into frozen straws. An hour later, I returned to Shaw's Corner to wait for Yasmin. I didn't wait long, but I am not going to tell you what happened next until you have heard what happened first. Such things are better in their right order.

"I walked down the garden," Yasmin told me afterwards in the pub over an excellent steak and kidney pudding and a bottle of reasonable Beaune. "I walked down the garden and I saw the hut. I walked quickly towards it. I was expecting any moment to hear Mrs. Shaw's voice behind me shouting 'Halt!' But no one saw me. I opened the door of the hut and looked in. It was empty. There was a cane armchair, a plain table covered with sheets of paper, and a Spartan atmosphere. But no Shaw. Well, that's it, I thought. Better get out. Back to Oswald. Total failure. I banged the door shut.

"'Who is there?' shouted a voice from behind the hut. It was a male voice, but high-pitched and almost squeaky. Oh, my G.o.d, I thought, the man is a eunuch after all.

"'Is that you, Charlotte?' the squeaky voice demanded. "What effect, I wondered, would the Beetle have upon a one hundred per cent eunuch?

"'Charlotte!' he called. 'What are you doing?'

"Then a tall bony creature with an enormous beard came round the corner of the hut holding a pair of garden clippers in one hand. 'Who, may I enquire, are _you?_' he demanded. 'This is private property.'

"'I'm looking for the public lavatory,' I said.

"'What is your business, young lady?' he demanded, pointing the clippers at me like a pistol. 'You went into my hut. What have you stolen?'

'I haven't stolen a d.a.m.n thing,' I said. 'I came, if you want to know, to bring you a present.'

"'A present, eh?' he said, softening a little.

"I lifted the fine bunch of grapes out of the bag and held it up by the stem.

"'And what have I done to deserve such munificence?' he said.

"'You have given me a terrific amount of pleasure at the theatre,' I said. 'So I thought it would be nice if I gave you something in return. That's all there is to it. I have no other motive. Here, try one.' I picked off the bottom grape and offered it to him. 'They're really awfully good.'

"He stepped forward and took the grape and pushed it through all those whiskers into his mouth.

"'Excellent,' he said, chewing away. 'A muscat.' He glared at me under those beetley brows. 'It is fortunate for you, young lady, that I wasn't working or I'd have kicked you out, grapes or no grapes. As it happens, I was pruning my roses.'

"'I apologize for barging in,' I said. 'Will you forgive me?'

"'I will forgive you when I am convinced that your motives are pure,' he said.

"'As pure as the Virgin Mary,' I said.

"'I doubt it,' he said. 'A woman never pays a visit to a man unless she is seeking some advantage. I have made that point many times in my plays. The female, madam, is a predatory animal. She preys upon men.'

"'What a d.a.m.n stupid thing to say,' I told him. '_Man_ is the hunter.'

"'I have never hunted a woman in my life,' he said. 'Women hunt me. And I flee like a fox with a pack of hounds at his heels. Rapacious creatures,' he added, spitting out a seed from the grape. 'Rapacious, predatory, alldevouring animals.'

"'Oh, come on,' I said. 'Everyone hunts a bit now and again. Women hunt men for marriage and what's wrong with that? But men hunt women because they want to get into bed with them. Where shall I put these grapes?'

"'We'll put them in the hut,' he said, taking them from me. He went into the hut and I followed. I was praying for the nine minutes to pa.s.s quickly. He sat down in his cane armchair and stared at me under great bushy eyebrows. I quickly sat myself on the only other chair in the place.

"'You are a spirited young lady,' he said. 'I admire spirit.'

"'And you talk a lot of bosh about women,' I said. 'I don't believe you know the first thing about them. Have you ever fallen pa.s.sionately in love?'

"'A typical woman's question,' he said. 'For me, there is only one kind of pa.s.sion. Intelligence is pa.s.sion. The activity of the intellect is the keenest pa.s.sion I can experience.'

"'What about physical pa.s.sion?' I asked. 'Isn't that in the running?'

"'No, madam, it is not. Descartes got far more pa.s.sion and pleasure out of life than Casanova.'

"'What about Romeo and Juliet?'

"'Puppy love,' he said. 'Superficial tosh.'

"'Are you saying that your _Caesar and Cleopatra_ is a greater play than _Romeo and Juliet_?'

"'Without a doubt,' he said.

"'Boy, you've got a nerve, Mr. Shaw.'

"'So have you, young lady.' He picked up a sheet of paper from the table. 'Listen to this,' he said and he started to read aloud in that squeaky voice of his, '. . . the body always ends by being a bore. Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because thought is life. . . .'

"'Of course it _ends_ by being a bore,' I said. 'That's a pretty obvious remark. But it isn't a bore at my age. It's a juicy fruit. What's the play?'