A Dog's Life by Paul Bailey Read Free Book Online

of your books,’ Lisa remarked. ‘I can’t understand why so many people write to you or why you have to reply to them.’
    Sarton, enraged, banged both fists on the table.
    ‘If you’d bothered to read the other forty, you would understand,’ she bellowed.
    ‘Could we keep the decibels down a little?’ David asked, while Sarton snorted.
    ‘Shut up,’ she shouted, glowering at Lisa. ‘I’m talking. You’re only the cook.’
    The moment I had dreaded had come. But David surprised me. He took off his apron and placed it carefully on the back of a chair. He walked over to the dining table and looked straight at Sarton, who was still fuming. He spoke quietly but firmly.
    ‘You are without doubt the rudest, the most egotistical, monstrous human being I have ever met.’
    ‘He doesn’t like me,’ Sarton wailed, her gravelly voice sounding almost girlish.
    David went downstairs and phoned a close friend, whom he regaled with a detailed report on the behaviour of our guest of honour.
    I served the dessert. ‘It’s delicious,’ said the ever-placatory Edythe.
    Sarton pushed the plate away from her. She was in need of the last word, and here it came, deafeningly. ‘I get the impression that no one in this house likes writers.’
    It was impossible for David not to hear this. ‘Too fucking right,’ he called up the stairwell.
    It was time for Sarton and Edythe to go, even though the proud author of forty books was spoiling for a real fight. My friend rang for a taxi, which came in ten minutes, to the relief of everybody but the disgruntled writer. Lisa and I said goodbye to Edythe, and tried to say goodbye to May Sarton, but she was muttering to herself and swaying from the drink she had knocked back with such determination.
    ‘I feared something like this would happen,’ Edythe confided in my old friend as they descended the stairs to the street.
    We had a post-mortem. Had David met Sarton five years earlier, he would have frogmarched her out of the house. He could laugh now, which he did as the four of us repeated the various slights and insults Sarton had bestowed on the company for nearly three hours.
    Sarton sent me a Christmas card, with one of her execrable poems on the back. She thanked a fellow writer for a memorable meal. The cook had been ignored once again. That she hadn’t registered, in her self-absorption, what the kindly Edythe had clearly seen – that the man who cooked the dinner was terminally ill – is a horrible fact which continues to shock me. She hadn’t noticed his gaunt eyes and sunken cheeks. Her mind was on those letters that had to be answered
personally
.
    David’s oldest and staunchest friend, Bill Pashley, told me recently of their first meeting in the late 1950s. David was working as a barman in a gay club called The Calabash, which was situated – until it was raided by the police and closed – in a back street in South Kensington. Bill was sitting in the club one evening chatting to an acquaintance when he saw that the voluble young man behind the bar was making everybody laugh.
    ‘Who’s he?’ Bill asked.
    ‘I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, if I were you. He’s
dangerous
.’
    It was that single word – ‘dangerous’ – that drew Bill to David. He went across to the bar and introduced himself. Bill’s self-deprecating humour and gift for recognizing and then mocking pomposity and pretentiousness greatly appealed to David, whose own talent for trenchant piss-taking was similar to his.
    Bill, who now makes wedding dresses for the daughters of the titled and wealthy, only once shared a workroom with David. That once was more than enough. David created an atmosphere about him that was electric, nothing less, and Bill’s placid temperament couldn’t cope with it. Others could, and for them it was a source of inspiration, a challenge to give of their best.
    ‘Are you always so charming, or is today a special occasion?’ This was his standby question,