Arthur & George

daughter. She believed in his writing down to the last adjective, and supported all his ventures. He fancied Norway; they went to Norway. He fancied dinner parties; she organized them to his taste. He had married her for better for worse, for richer for poorer. So far there had been no worse, and no poorer.
    And yet. It was different now, if he was honest with himself. When they had met, he had been young, awkward and unknown; she had loved him, and never complained. Now he was still young, but successful and famous; he could keep a table of Savile Club wits interested by the hour. He had found his feet, and – partly thanks to marriage – his brain. His success was the deserved result of hard work, but those themselves unfamiliar with success imagined it the end of the story. Arthur was not yet ready for the end of his own story. If life was a chivalric quest, then he had rescued the fair Touie, he had conquered the city, and been rewarded with gold. But there were years to go before he was prepared to accept a role as wise elder to the tribe. What did a knight errant do when he came home to a wife and two children in South Norwood?
    Well, perhaps it was not such a difficult question. He protected them, behaved honourably, and taught his children the proper code of living. He might depart on further quests, though obviously not quests which involved the saving of other maidens. There would be plenty of challenges in his writing, in society, travel, politics. Who knew in what direction his sudden energies would take him? He would always give Touie whatever attention and comfort she could need; he would never cause her a moment’s unhappiness.
    And yet.

George
    Greenway and Stentson tend to hang about together, but this does not bother George. At lunchtime he has no desire for the tavern, preferring to sit under a tree in St Philip’s Place and eat the sandwiches his mother has prepared. He likes it when they ask him to explain some aspect of conveyancing, but is often puzzled by the way they go off into secretive spurts about horses and betting offices, girls and dance-halls. They are also currently obsessed with Bechuana Land, whose chiefs are on an official visit to Birmingham.
    Besides, when he does hang about with them, they like to question a fellow and tease him.
    ‘George, where do you come from?’
    ‘Great Wyrley.’
    ‘No, where do you
really
come from?’
    George ponders this. ‘The Vicarage,’ he replies, and the dogs laugh.
    ‘Have you got a girl, George?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Some legal definition you don’t understand in the question?’
    ‘Well, I just think a chap should mind his own business.’
    ‘Hoity-toity, George.’
    It is a subject to which Greenway and Stentson are tenaciously and hilariously attached.
    ‘Is she a stunner, George?’
    ‘Does she look like Marie Lloyd?’
    When George does not reply, they put their heads together, tip their hats at an angle, and serenade him. ‘The-boy-I-love-sits-up-in-the-ga-ll-ery.’
    ‘Go on, George, tell us her name.’
    ‘Go on, George, tell us her name.’
    After a few weeks of this, George can take no more. If that’s what they want, that’s what they can have. ‘Her name’s Dora Charlesworth,’ he says suddenly.
    ‘Dora Charlesworth,’ they repeat. ‘Dora Charlesworth. Dora Charlesworth?’ They make it sound increasingly improbable.
    ‘She’s Harry Charlesworth’s sister. He’s my friend.’
    He thinks this will shut them up, but it only seems to encourage them.
    ‘What’s the colour of her hair?’
    ‘Have you kissed her, George?’
    ‘Where does she come from?’
    ‘No, where does she really come from?’
    ‘Are you making her a Valentine?’
    They never seem to tire of the subject.
    ‘I say, George, there’s one question we have to ask you about Dora. Is she a darkie?’
    ‘She’s English, just like me.’
    ‘Just like you, George?
Just
like you?’
    ‘When can we meet her?’
    ‘I bet she’s a Bechuana girl.’
    ‘Shall we send a private detective to investigate? What about that fellow some of the divorce firms use? Goes into hotel rooms and catches the husband with the maid? Wouldn’t want to get caught like that, George, would you?’
    George decides that what he has done, or has allowed to happen, isn’t really lying; it is just letting them believe what they want to believe, which is different. Happily, they live on the other side of Birmingham, so each time George’s train pulls