The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

Author:Muriel Spark [Spark, Muriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-10-13T17:37:18+00:00

Dougal sat in Miss Frierne’s panelled hall on Saturday morning and telephoned to the Flaxman number on the little slip of paper which Merle Coverdale had handed to him the previous day.

‘Miss Cheeseman, please,’ said Dougal.

‘She isn’t in,’ said the voice from across the water. ‘Who shall I say it was?’

‘Mr Dougal-Douglas,’ Dougal said, ‘spelt with a hyphen. Tell Miss Cheeseman I’ll be at home all morning.’

He next rang Jinny.

‘Hallo, are you better?’ he said.

‘I’ve got soup on the stove. I’ll ring you back.’

Miss Frierne was ironing in the kitchen. She said to Dougal, ‘Humphrey is going to see to the roof this afternoon. It’s creaking. It isn’t a loose slate, it must be one of the beams loose in his cupboard.’

‘Funny thing,’ Dougal said, ‘it only creaks at night. It goes Creak-oop !‘ The dishes rattled in their rack as he leapt.

‘It’s the cold makes it creak, I daresay,’ she said. The telephone rang. Dougal rushed out to the hall. It was not Jinny, however.

‘Doug dear,’ said Miss Maria Cheeseman from across the river.

‘Oh, it’s you, Cheese.’

‘We really must get down to things,’ Miss Cheeseman said. ‘All this about my childhood in Peckham, it’s all wrong, it was Streatham.’

‘There’s the law of libel to be considered,’ Dougal said. ‘A lot of your early associates in Streatham are still alive. If you want to write the true story of your life you can’t place it in Streatham.’

‘But Doug dear,’ she said, ‘that bit where you make me say I played with Harold Lloyd and Ford Sterling at the Golden Domes in Camberwell, it isn’t true, dear. I was in a show with Fatty Arbuckle but it was South Shields.’

‘I thought it was a work of art you wanted to write,’ Dougal said, ‘now was that not so? If you only want to write a straight autobiography you should have got a straight ghost. I’m crooked.’

‘Well, Doug dear, I don’t think this story about me and the Gordon Highlander is quite nice, do you? I mean to say, it isn’t true. Of course it’s funny about the kilt, but it’s a little embarrassing —‘

‘Well, write your own autobiography,’ Dougal said.

‘Oh, Doug dear, do come over to tea.’

‘No, you’ve hurt my feelings.’

‘Doug dear, I’m thrilled with my book. I’m sure it’s going to be marvellous. I can’t say I’m quite happy about all of chapter three but—’

‘What’s wrong with chapter three?’

‘Well, it’s only that last bit you wrote, it isn’t me.’

‘I’ll see you at four o’clock,’ he said, ‘but understand, Cheese, I don’t like crossing the water when I’m in the middle of a work of art. I’m giving all my time to it.’

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