The Biographer’s Moustache
Gordon Scott-Thompson, a struggling hack, gets commissioned to write the biography of veteran novelist, Jimmie Fane. It is a task which proves to be fraught with extraordinary and unforeseen difficulties.Fane, an unashamed snob, has many pet hates, including younger men with moustaches and trendy pronuncation. Scott-Thompson, however, is extrememly attached to his own moustache and not so particular about his use of language. It doesn’t help matters that Fane’s wife Joanna isn’t yet sure what she feels about coustaches, but has decided views on younger men.
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From the reviews of The Biographer’s Moustache:
‘A mischievous piece of work.’
JAMES WALTON, Daily Telegraph
‘Amis’s characters emerge with a truthful clarity. He knows how to tell a story, and The Biographer’s Moustache is as well-structured as a dance.’
KATHY O’SHAUGHNESSY, Literary Review
‘The Biographer’s Moustache has some splendid and wholly characteristic scenes and observations.’
ALLAN MASSIE, The Scotsman
To Catharine and Tim Jaques
Contents
‘Darling, who else is coming to luncheon?’ asked Jimmie Fane. He spoke in a voice that had hardly altered since he was a young man half a century before, his full head of silvery-grey hair was carefully arranged and he sat up very straight in his brocaded chair.
‘Sorry, darling, coming to what?’ said Joanna, his wife, though she had heard.
Jimmie’s already high voice rose a little higher. ‘Darling, to luncheon. Surely the usual term for the usual meal taken in this country in the middle of the day.’
Joanna said in a slightly patient tone, ‘Darling, luncheon doesn’t mean the same as lunch any more, just food and people and wine and things, it means a great formal do like a City dinner with a toastmaster and speeches, you know, a, in fact a luncheon.’
‘Oh dear, I wasn’t thinking of anything remotely like that. I do hope you haven’t arranged anything frightfully stuffy like that. You know I hate things like that.’
‘Yes, I do, and I promise not to arrange anything frightfully stuffy ever if you’ll help by calling things by their right names.’
‘Right names? I will, I do. Like lunch in what one does and luncheon is what one does it at or with, or …’
‘Was. Was what one did and what one used to –’
‘Oh, was, was, was, I can’t be expected to heed let alone follow these ephemeral fads of speech.’
Joanna Fane, now a thinnish woman in her early fifties who still showed considerable remains of earlier beauty, had once been famous for her clear blue-eyed gaze. Although no less clear than formerly, that gaze at the moment had begun to show some irritation. ‘I thought you were a great one for words changing their meanings,’ she said. ‘Surely this is –’
‘Darling, could I ask you politely not to lecture me about words? I think I may claim to know a little more about them than you.’
‘Darling, I am married to you already and have been for years and years.’
‘Well?’
‘So there’s no need for you to go on trying to impress me with your genius or anything else.’
For a moment Jimmie sat on without any movement, as if turned to stone. Then he shook slightly with laughter. ‘Darling, my advice to you is to reconcile yourself to having married a very impressive man whose impressiveness has not been diminished by the passage of time, in fact if anything enhanced. I just am impressive, I have no need to try. But you still haven’t answered the question I asked you just now, which was and is, who else is coming to … wait for it … luncheon,’ he concluded, facetiously mouthing the word.
‘I truly think I mentioned everyone,’ she said without change of expression. ‘As I said, it’s only a small party.’
‘You mentioned somebody I fancied I’d never heard of, some Scotch name would it have been?’
‘Not Scott-Thompson?’
‘Was it? Who is that, anyway?’
‘I’m sure I said. Gordon Scott-Thompson is a literary journalist, freelance I think. He writes mostly for the Sunday –’
‘Oh, a literary journalist. Should one have heard of him? I’m so terribly cut off these days.’
‘I really don’t know. Quite well thought of, I gather. He was at a party a couple of weeks ago. He said he’d got a proposition he wanted to put to you so I said he’d better come to lunch. He must be about forty-one or -two. Not bad looking if it weren’t for his moustache.’
‘Have you told me all this before?’
Joanna hesitated. ‘No,’ she said.
‘What’s this proposition of his, do you know?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me, at least he didn’t tell me.’
‘He’s not queer, I hope, the enterprising Mr Thompson? Just clearing the ground.’
‘No. At least I shouldn’t think so.’
‘So many of them seem to be these days, especially the ones with moustaches. There must be some reason for it, I suppose. These days all that side of life is quite beyond me. These days I’m told the creatures have the impertinence to call themselves gay, thereby rendering unusable, thereby destroying a fine old English word with its roots deep in the language. You must have heard as much.’
‘Yes, I had noticed. I don’t think this chap’s one of them, he had a rather pretty girl with him, Louise something, a few years younger. He asked if he could bring her along and I said he could.’
‘Really.’ What his wife had just revealed apparently alleviated any gloom that Jimmie had fallen into over the perhaps unrelated matters of Gordon Scott-Thompson and homosexuality. ‘Good. What a good idea.’
