Harry, Wendy's husband, is a bastard. But he nurses his own little tragedy. In the fifties.
Wendy raised her bowed head. Harry appeared composed, philosophical. "It's an old story; repeats itself in every manufacturer. You start out an engineer - making things - it's fun. But you need selling experience to get ahead. Selling is fun to begin with, and you get paid more. Then one day it isn't fun. You recall those early days in Development, remembering your first circuit mod - or maybe the first one that did the business. You wonder why you aren't working with your hands. You play around with words like ‘sense of accomplishment‘. Trouble is your whole nostalgia stinks. If you were still in the lab you'd be a failure - a tinkerer, a repairman, envying fat cat salesmen and their expenses."
"So circuit mods are the Rosebud in your psyche?" Madge suggested.
"I should never have brought it up," said Harry without rancour. "Cognac everyone?"
With the cognac came the check, a calculated rudeness that was part of the restaurant's policy of creating Parisian ambience.
"My God," said Theo craning over, "a hundred and twelve dollars! Harry, I must insist -"
"Surely even publishers get to spend two bits on a hot dog and turn in the check."
Theo jerked back. "It's just that Wendy gave us to understand… “
"- it was my treat? Salesman's way of talking." Harry took out an Amex card. "With my magic wand I can make all this go away. You were three Hewlett-Packard buyers if anyone wants to know."
I’m confused by the last bit. Wendy the wife has led the others to believe it’s Harry’s treat … ok …but what is the “salesman” lingo referred to, exactly? Wendy’s inference? Harry’s crack about publisher’s expense accounts? I like the rest of it, particularly the rudeness as Parisienne ambience. I was left working too hard at the end, but I suppose if more text had followed I’d not have lingered on that small puzzle.
ReplyDeleteMikeM: I wanted to keep the background explanations to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteHarry has previously had to defend himself for an unexplained late return home (see previous extract with Wendy waiting in the Garden City car park) and Wendy - wearied of asking him to explain himself and simultaneously terrified about what may be revealed - has let him off lightly. Guiltily relieved he has suggested they invite their friends, Theo and Madge, out for dinner which he, Harry, will pay for. "My treat" he says. Which, by this time in the marriage, Wendy knows, will mean the use of Harry's company credit card.
In extending the invitation Wendy uses a variant of the same phrase - "Harry's treat" - since she would hardly feel the need to say whose credit card will be used. When Theo is horrified by how much has been spent Harry is in effect saying his employer will pay and not him. That "my treat" is salesman's (mendacious) shorthand for disguising the ultimate payer. Harry not caring what Theo thinks of this practice.
The problem arises out of a need to write fictional dialogue which is much terser than real-life dialogue. In writing, the author has much more time to shape and trim what is said than someone who is actually speaking; the latter's speech will be full of "er" and "um", inexact phrases which are subsequently corrected, and better ways of expressing things. The author can also depend, to some extent, on what is in the reader's short term memory about previous events, thus avoiding unnecessary repetition.
Now here's a controversial point. I have noticed that pruning text down in this way is less acceptable in the USA than in the UK. That well known "intellectual" US authors as a well as hack merchants do find it necesaary - or are instructed to do so by their publishers' editors - to add in repetitive material which would be thought unnecessarily cumbersome in the UK. Go figure.
We certainly get a sense of who Harry is.
ReplyDeleteColette: It's important you dislike him even though he is - to tell the truth - only being Harry.
ReplyDelete