The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [93]
“You are English?”
“Yes,” I replied, turning in the direction from which the question had been put.
An elderly gentleman looked up at me. He wore a three-piece suit that must have been out of date when his father owned it, and even lacked the possible virtue that someday the style might come back into fashion. The leather patches on the elbows left me in no doubt that my questioner was a bachelor, for they could only have been sewn on by a man—either that or one had to conclude he had elbows in odd places. The length of his trousers revealed that his father had been two inches taller than he. As for the man himself, he had a few strands of white hair, a walrus mustache, and ruddy cheeks. His tired blue eyes were perpetually half closed like the shutter of a camera that has just been released. His forehead was so lined that he might have been any age between fifty and seventy. The overall impression was of a cross between a streetcar inspector and an out-of-work violinist.
I sat down for a second time.
“I hope you didn’t mind my asking?” he added.
“Of course not,” I said.
“It’s just that I have so little opportunity to converse with an Englishman. So when I spot one I always grasp the nettle. Is that the right colloquial expression?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to think how many Hungarian words I knew. “Yes,” “no,” “good morning,” “good-bye,” “I am lost,” “help.”
“You are in the student games?”
“Were, not are,” I said. “I departed somewhat rapidly on Monday.”
“Because you were not rapid enough, perhaps?”
I laughed, again admiring his command of my first language.
“Why is your English so excellent?” I inquired.
“I’m afraid it’s a little neglected,” the old man replied. “But they still allow me to teach the subject at the university. I must confess to you that I have absolutely no interest in sports, but these occasions always afford me the opportunity to capture someone like yourself and oil the rusty machine, even if only for a few minutes.” He gave me a tired smile, but his eyes were now alight.
“What part of England do you hail from?” For the first time his pronunciation faltered, as “hail” came out as “heel.”
“Somerset,” I told him.
“Ah!” he said. “Perhaps the most beautiful county in England.” I smiled, as most foreigners never seem to travel much beyond Stratford-upon-Avon or Oxford. “To drive across the Mendips,” he continued, “through perpetually green hilly countryside and to stop at Cheddar to see Gough’s caves, at Wells to be amused by the black swans ringing the bell on the cathedral wall, or at Bath to admire the lifestyle of classical Rome, and then perhaps to go over the county border and on to Devon … Is Devon even more beautiful than Somerset, in your opinion?”
“Never,” said I.
“Perhaps you are a little prejudiced.” He laughed. “Now let me see if I can recall: ‘Of the western counties there are seven. But the most glorious is surely that of Devon.’ Perhaps Hardy, like you, was prejudiced and could think only of his beloved Exmoor, the village of Tiverton, and Drake’s Plymouth.”
“Which is your favorite county?” I asked.
“The North Riding of Yorkshire has always been underrated, in my opinion,” replied the old man. “When people talk of Yorkshire, I suspect Leeds, Sheffield, and Barnsley spring to mind. Coal mining and heavy industry. Visitors should travel and see the dales there; they will find them as different as chalk from cheese. Lincolnshire is too flat, and so much of the Midlands must now be spoiled by urban sprawl. The Birminghams of this world hold no appeal for me. But in the end I come down in favor of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, quaint old English villages nestling in the Cotswolds, and crowned by Stratford-upon-Avon. How I wish I could have been in England in 1959, while my countrymen were recovering from the scars of revolution: Olivier performing Coriolanus, another man who did not want to show his scars.”
“I saw the performance,” I said. “I went with a school group.”
“Lucky boy. I translated the play into Hungarian at the age of nineteen. Reading over my work again