Free A Choice of Enemies by Mordecai Richler Page A

confident before him. Ernst took the newspaper clipping out of his pocket again. As a special service to tourists this summer, the clipping said, the British and French governments have agreed to allow all-day trippers to travel between Newhaven and Dieppe without passports. But if I’m going to London, he thought, I’ll need more money.
XI
    A week later, in London, Sally went to visit the Lawsons.
    “Look who’s here,” Charlie said, “the teach. Isn’t that wonderful, darling?”
    Joey was typing a script for Charlie at Norman’s desk. Perhaps it was the horn-rimmed glasses, maybe it was just an off day, but she seemed depressed. Charlie, though, was in excellent spirits. Wearing a patched cardigan, corduroys, and slippers, he was perched high on a ladder, running gaily coloured streamers from wall to wall.
    “Welcome to the Young Pioneers, Kensington Division,” he said. “Mandrake Lawson’s show begins at four.”
    Charlie was giving a party for the
émigré
children. An amateur magician, he was going to perform for them as well. Sally discovered that Joey was worried because Charlie’s deal to do a picture for Winkleman had hit a snag. They were broke, she gathered, and not very popular. But Charlie was sure that the deal would work out. Sally let an hour go by before she asked about Norman. Norman had been away for two weeks and she had yet to hear from him.
    “We haven’t heard a word either,” Charlie said.
    Joey told her about Nicky’s death.
    “Hold on a sec,” Charlie said, “I’ll go and see if there’s any mail.”
    As soon as Charlie had gone Joey shed her glasses and turned solemnly to Sally. “Are you very fond of Norman?” she asked.
    “Why?”
    “I’m not trying to snoop,” Joey said, “believe me, but for your own good you may as well know right now that Norman is very erratic. He’s also selfish, thoughtless, and irresponsible.”
    “I don’t see that this has anything to do with me,” Sally said coldly.
    “Maybe not,” Joey said. “But you’re young and impressionable. I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you to build up things in your mind when –”
    “I’m fond of Norman,” Sally said, rising, “but no more.”
    Charlie returned, breathless. “No mail.” He turned to Sally. “Aren’t you staying for the party?”
    “I really must go.”
    After Sally had gone Charlie noticed that Joey was in tears.
    “What happened?”
    “I’m not staying for your party either,” Joey said, getting up. “How can you do this to me?”
    “Do what,” Charlie asked. “Beat you?”
    “A children’s party,” she said. “Haven’t you any feeling?”
XII
    The first weeks of summer in London were the loneliest Sally had ever experienced. Every day she raced eagerly forth to adventure: none came.
    Bob Landis took her out twice. She was flattered, and she certainly would have gone to bed with him that night after the theatre if, no sooner than he had succeeded in removing her blouse, he hadn’t said, “You know that I’ve got a wife, baby, and that this is just for kicks,” which had given her the giggles.
    At night Sally often cried herself to sleep. She visited the British Museum, she went to the theatre, she stood on Westminster Bridge and she swept through gallery after gallery until her feet ached. The West End, except for the grand swing of Regent Street, was another disappointment. This seemed to be little more than a second-rate, inchoate Broadway. America’s hit tune of last year triumphant again in the record shops of Charing Cross Road. Broadway’s hit musical of 1948 a hit again at the Hippodrome. Johnny Ray at the Palladium; Billy Graham at Harringay. At night the parade of depraved itchy faces, men in black rubber trenchcoats and whores past the indecent age, was the most appalling she had ever seen.
    So Sally, ordinarily the most inadequate of correspondents, wrote her father every night. She missed her family, her friends, her own