Free Stanley and the Women by Kingsley Amis Page B

with that about all women being mad.
Does he believe it himself, would you say?’
    ‘Oh, I
see. Christ, after all those wives he can’t help but, poor old bugger. Only in
a manner of speaking, you understand, in the sense you and I believe it — no,
sorry, of course you don’t think they’re all mad, do you? Just most of
them.’
    Cliff
laid great stress on it being me who made the exceptions, as an indicator or a
reminder that he made none, especially not his own present wife, one of the few
women I had met who could give Nowell a hard game. I remembered an evening not
long after we first started to get chummy, which had not been all that long
before Nowell had sheered off. Last thing that night, while she and I were
getting ready for bed, she had launched into a long monologue which I had
thought at first was an amazingly, almost frighteningly clear-headed analysis
of her own character and conduct, put in the third person so as to be extra
clinical and objective, and it had taken a sudden reference to Cliff being
spineless to reveal to me that she had been on about Sandra Wainwright all the
time. There was very little from my first marriage that had stayed so clear in
my mind as those few minutes.
    Cliff
had gone quiet, probably thinking about Sandra. I said, ‘Yes, I didn’t actually
imagine it was Dr Nash’s professional opinion that all females over the age of
eighteen were suffering from recognized mental disorders. But then it’s not
only an expression, not just a manner of speaking. There’s more to it
than simply them being a pest. A lot of them. That’s what I was trying to say
just now. The ones like that have got a distorted picture of reality. Not as
distorted as thinking they’re Napoleon, but distorted. More distorted than a
bloke who thinks the earth is flat, because you can have a decent discussion of
football with him. Their thing covers everything.’
    ‘What?
That’s right. Absolutely.’ He looked at his watch, finished his drink and stood
up, so perhaps he had not been thinking about Sandra after all. ‘You’ll be okay
now,’ he said. ‘He’ll take a bit of time yet. When he’s through he’ll tell you
the score so far.’
    ‘What
about his lunch?’
    ‘He’ll
tell you that too. Don’t worry yourself on that account. Fellows like that don’t
wait to be asked anything.’
    ‘Does
he drink?’
    ‘No.
You know, wine. He won’t mind you having a couple, but he might mind you falling
down in front of him. Use your judgement.’
    Cliff
added that he felt sure things would turn out all right and that I was to ring
him later, I thanked him and he left. I would have kept him if I had had an
excuse. Today I might have welcomed even Mrs Shillibeer’s company, but she said
her husband made her stay with him all the time at weekends.
    There
was some of her not-bad soup on the stove, enough for two at a pinch, and in
the larder a board of cold meats, a jar of gherkins and some prepared celery and
spring onions, and normally just my fancy — not today. I imagined I had
anything up to an hour to get through before the next stage was reached. The
only thing I could think of to use up some of the time was making myself
another gin and tonic, and that used up less than a minute. On a normal
Saturday at past twelve-thirty I’d have been somewhere else, at the golf club,
at the squash club, at friends’, always with people. So how was unaccompanied
Duke to fill in? Read? Read what?
    Suddenly
Mandy came into my head, Mandy’s flat with perhaps a Swede in it, perhaps still
in it but perhaps by now Mandy as well or instead. The next part was slower.
Susan had mentioned the surname. Blackburn. Here was a chance of establishing
that there was nothing gruesome or otherwise interesting in Steve’s recent
past, and I suppose I also had some dim idea of getting a spot of help, though
I could hardly have started to think what sort.
    Finding
the house phone-book certainly used up some time. When it