I Like It Here

a bit pissed now as a matter of fact. Watch out I’m not still here when she sails. Everything gone off all right?”
“Yes, thanks to you, boy.”
“Ah___” He glanced over at Barbara, who was opening some telegrams, and continued: “Nonsense, chumbo. A pleasure. I can tell you’re wondering why I’m really here. Well, I’m really here for the same reason I seem to be here … Christ.” He pressed the bell again. “Yes, I’m just seeing you off. I know you think I’m a pretty devious sort of character. You’re wrong for once, though. Brought you one or two things which I’ll give you while I can still remember. Letter of introduction to old Buckmaster—that’s what we call the old man of mystery in the office, tired of going on about the chap who says he’s Strether all the time, too much of a rigmarole.”
“Why Buckmaster?”
“That was me, actually. Just a name I happened to spot once on one of those corset and jock-strap shops, you know the kind of thing. I thought it was bloody funny. Ah, here we are. Things always turn up in the end if you wait long enough. Now what are we all going to have? Barbara?”
While drinks were ordered Bowen read the telegrams.
There was a Greetings one and an ordinary one. The ordinary one said: HAVEG OOD TRIP DEADLINE WAUGH PIECE NINTH AT LATEST SEND AIRMAIL REGARDS + HEWSON. The Greetings one said: ALL MY LOVE GOE SWITH YOU MY FARLINGS SEND ALL NEWS AND KEEP PHOTOGRAPHAL BUM TO SHOW ON RETURN BON VOYAGE + MOTHER. There is a God, Bowen thought. He broke into violent coughing while Barbara watched him suspiciously. “Mother” was of course her mother. She was called Mrs. Knowles.
Hyman said: “And here’s a proof of One Turd More. If you let it out of your possession I’ll swing on your … I’ll be very cross with you. Oh yes: I’ve brought you a copy of This Rough Magic as well, in case you feel like a spot of analysis and comparison.”
Bowen made faces to try and shut Hyman up. Barbara knew about Strether now, but only as a writer they might visit. Just then she went round the corner of the cabin into the long corridor-like bit that ended at the washbasin and porthole. She carried a wet nappy.
Hyman was going on: “They should leak it to the papers, just say a new Strether’s on the way. It’d flush the real bloke if he’s still alive. But Weinstein won’t play. Gone into a sort of nervous decline. Can’t blame him. It’s his can if we publish a smelly one.”
Barbara reappeared. Bowen hoped he was in the clear. Just then an over-amplified voice bawled an instruction about passports. This was followed, with slightly brutal relish he thought, by some business about os senhores e as senharas os passageiros. Already, Bowen said to himself. A few minutes later Hyman asked to go up on deck, where he said there might be some more air. There proved to be a great deal more, all of it moving fast and very cold. Barbara had stayed in the cabin to see to the children, each of whom Hyman presented with some money. He had hung about for a moment as if assessing whether or not to kiss Barbara, but had just said goodbye after all.
“Sod this,” he said, shivering. “Hope it’ll be warmer where you’re going. But of course it will. Practically tropical. You’ll come back with a rich tan and the air of one whom life’s colourful pageant has not passed by.”
It was Bowen’s concern to come back with a whole rather than a brown skin, and life’s colourful pageant would best oblige him by continuing to pass him by. “You bet,” he said.
“Look, Garnet, what I did want to say to you— don’t worry too much about this Buckmaster business. You’re going on holiday, after all. I don’t want you to feel you’ve got to give us an answer or anything like that. Can’t expect you to. So just enjoy yourself. And, God, I nearly forgot: if you want a life-line, go and call on our agent in Lisbon. I’ve written him a letter and there’s a copy in with the Buckmaster one. Well, fellow, this looks like it. Have a good time. Keep in touch. Don’t take any wooden pesetas or whatever the bloody things are, and watch it with the local talent. So long, Taff.”
“Cheers, you old shyster. And thanks for everything.” Hyman reappeared for an instant on the dock, made signs of farewell and then ran out of sight again at a great rate. Bowen thought enviously of the other’s leisurely drive back to beautiful London.
Five dark persons, who he noted with idle surprise were all the same height, stood nearby talking simultaneously in a foreign tongue. A loudspeaker added to the din in the same or a related tongue. The increasing Latinity of his surroundings made Bowen feel fretful. Why was abroad occupied exclusively by the Romance-speaking family of nations, with a few Greeks and southern Slays thrown in? Why was it that Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia and the non-southerly
Slav areas didn’t really count as abroad? Why was it only Frenchmen and Spaniards who got written up as knowing better than the British did “how to live” ?— it was sometimes said of the Dutch too, but that only meant they knew how to look after themselves when it came to eating, drinking and smoking. Why was it that when a chap announced a year’s business posting to Rome or Athens, say, people told him how lucky he was, but if he was off to Oslo, Rotterdam or Bremen, people only told the poor sod that it should be “very interesting”, i.e. mind-erodingly boring? Perhaps it was all to do with architecture. Oh, how he loathed architecture. He would have liked to see it all done away with.
These and kindred enigmas occupied him until it was time for