was Tuesday morning. Sid came into the kitchen for his breakfast. He looked at the electric clock on the wall—nine-fifteen. Carrie, his wife, had already taken their daughter, Elspeth, to school and was now back in her kitchen making her baggy-eyed, unshaven husband his breakfast. Sid sat down with the ease of a still-tired man in that part of the kitchen that was known as the breakfast area. He picked up half a dozen lumps of sugar, picked out two special ones, put the others down and, like a Mississippi gambler, threw the two lumps of sugar towards the packet of Shredded Wheat. As they hit the box and stopped rolling he shouted in a loud voice: ‘Craps!’
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Carrie adroitly avoiding hot bacon fat and, at the same time, breaking two eggs to fry. In competition with the bacon and eggs was a male radio DJ of the older school, who was allowing an actor to tell all of this particular DJ’s audience how good the play he was appearing in was, and how good all the other actors and actresses in it were, and that the producer, although still quite young (a breathless twenty-two) was nevertheless, ‘my dear’, only quite brilliant, and the director, ‘my lambs’, a genius, and younger than Noel was. The music? Well—all of the best the West End has heard since Cole and, of course, Ivor. The show, ‘my loves’, was the best thing to hit town in Zeons and why people weren’t coming to see it in droves baffled him.
The older-type DJ was doing all his ‘of courses’ and ‘good Lords’ in all the right places, finishing up with, ‘Well, I just find that too hard to believe, Randy.’
‘Don’t we all, darling,’ purred the actor.
‘But after what you’ve just told me, I shall go and see Cosmo, The Faceless Goon myself.’
‘Moon,’ whispered Randy.
‘Moon,’ shouted the older-type DJ, who then announced the wrong theatre followed by the wrong performance time.
Sid thought, Older-type DJ, in this last ten years you have become an institution, and now that’s where you belong.
Carrie thought, Randy. I wonder if that’s short for Randal? She said, ‘How many eggs?’
‘One,’ said Sid.
‘One?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I’ve done you two.’
‘So I’ll have two.’
‘You’ve no need to have two, if you don’t want to have two. You can have one if you only want one.’
‘I’ll have two.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Look, if I only have one, what will happen to the other one?’
‘I’ll have it.’
‘Do you want it?’
‘Well, I’m not bothered, but I’ll have it if you don’t want it.’
‘Give them both to me before I go off the idea of either bacon or eggs. Have you grilled any tomatoes?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. That means to say that if you had and I didn’t want them, you won’t have to have them now.’
‘Are you ready for them?’
‘Yes, if they’re ready for me and incidentally …’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want the tomatoes.’
Carrie gave him his bacon and eggs. ‘What time did you come in last night?’ she asked.
‘About three. If you’re going to do any tomatoes, I’ll have them.’
‘I didn’t hear you. I didn’t hear the car.’
‘I turned the engine off before coming down the drive. These eggs are great. I’ll take bets they were brown eggs.’
‘One of each.’
‘Oh, I would say the one on the left was the brown one.’
‘I didn’t feel you get in the bed.’
‘You should have done. I made love to you twice.’
‘I don’t think that’s at all funny. You’re getting crude in your old age. Pass me the plate when you’ve finished.’
‘It was like a joke,’ he said, passing the now-empty plate.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please, but without tomatoes.’
‘You probably see all the tomatoes you want at the club,’ Carrie said, putting the plates in the sink. ‘Do you mind instant coffee this morning as I’m in a bit of a hurry?’
‘Instant coffee’s fine,’ Sid said, undoing his dressing-gown cord. ‘But what’s that about the tomatoes at the club business?’
‘Do you want cold milk or half and half?’
‘I’m easy.’
‘We’ll have the cold milk, then.’ Carrie got the cups ready and started to pour the coffees. ‘Three o’clock’s late. You’re usually home by two.’
‘Lard asked me back to his room for a drink after he’d finished.’
‘Who?’
‘Lard. Lard Jackson. He’s the star this week.’
‘That black man, who was on Nationwide the other night?’
‘Most likely.’ Sid picked up his two special sugars and dropped them into his coffee. ‘He’s a nice fella.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s got a number in the Top Ten. He finished his act with it.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Let me do it to you again, baby.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘It’s a song.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘No, it is.’
‘Is he married?’
‘I don’t know. I never asked him. How can I say, “Hello, Mr Jackson, are you married? I’m asking for my wife”?’
‘Is his first name really Lard?’
‘As far as I know—yes.’
‘How does anybody call themself Lard?’
‘Well, he says, “What’s cooking?” a lot.’ Sid looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup. After fifteen years of marriage he knew when she was on edge. She wasn’t happy about him coming home late.
‘I suppose his dressing-room was full of women.’
‘Packed,’ Sid smiled to himself. ‘We counted them. Seven black and seven white. All the black women were dressed in white and all the white women were dressed in black, otherwise we couldn’t have told them apart.’
‘Very funny.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Do you want another cup?’
‘Nope.’
‘Elspeth saw something this morning,’ said Carrie.
‘Pardon.’
‘Elspeth. She saw something.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
‘What do you mean—good?’
‘Well, I’m glad for her sake.’ Sid was at a loss.