No Laughing Matter (13 page)

Do the figures add up? You lucky girl. They never have for me. I wanted to talk to you, Podge. I needed to talk to a woman. The twins’ll be more sympathetic than I am. Not about this. The twins are virgins. Virgins are always prudes. They’re bound to be. Especially where other women are concerned. But you won’t be. I don’t know what you mean. Oh, that. Oh! I’m not making any judgments. It’s just what I’ve sensed. Remember I’m a man as well as an artist, and a man who’s lived. I shan’t say forgive me if I’m wrong, for I’m paying you a compliment. Virginity’s a tight, ungenerous state of affairs. Anyway I’m appealing to you for your understanding of another woman. Another woman? Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear about it, Father. I’m the last one to be your confidante. My dear girl, as if I should. No, the woman’s your mother. She’s going to be so
desperately
unhappy in these next weeks and she’ll need another woman’s understanding. We may not have liked him but he meant youth to her. And there won’t be another. I don’t think I want to hear what
you
have to say about the Countess. Now you
are
punishing me, Podge. That and the fact that I can do so little for her. Almost nothing. She needs the illusion of youth and I’m not good at
supplying
illusions. I thought perhaps I could give her the bright lights and the jazz that would help her to forget. The Piccadilly Hotel and blue trout. Did you know that she’s like an excited child when she can
net her own blue trout? I confess I shall get pleasure myself from, seeing that again. It’ll take
£
10, Podge.

‘On their daughter’s entry, the Carmichael parents instinctively doubled the fierceness of their battle. “Oh to be mean about money.” “You leave me no money to be mean about.” Elizabeth just walked on and out through the further door which she closed behind her with her usual distant politeness. For a moment Sophie and James
continued
their exchange, then as Sophie was screaming, “Money for cigars, of course – but you can’t find even ten pounds for your wife,” she caught her husband’s eye. In a moment both were in fits of laughter. They laughed until they were forced to sit on the sofa, holding their sides. “Oh the sidey little prig.” “Putting us in our places,” Sophie answered. They could hardly speak for laughter. Then, “Darling,” Sophie asked, “Howcan the young be so solemn?”’ Through a palimpsest of ink and straying hair Margaret began to see some shape emerge from her ardent, sweating labours of
imagination
. At least between the elder Carmichaels stretched now a line of communication. The first of the more complex strands was woven.

Ten pounds, ten simple pounds, three rubbers at three, a hundred up, partner, on the first rubber, and four hundred on the second, and game and third rubber to us, partner, three hundred up and two fifty for the rubber at five shillings a hundred, that’s (sums are so difficult to the tired head, so hard and refractory like a brick wall to the literary imagination) and an unexpected bonus declared on the Rubber Bearing shares, have to inform you that your quarterly balance stands at three hundred and thirty three pounds fourteen and
sevenpence
, no reason at all why not three quid or even ten quid on, know you aren’t a racing man Matthews, but put your shirt on Meg
Merrilees
, as a humble admirer and imitator of the great laird of
Abbotsford
can hardly refuse a tip, fifty to one, five hundred pounds, here you are, Podge, your bread has come back over the waters quite a
sizeable
loaf and your mother can net blue trout until her arm aches, but everything depends on that first ten pounds, ten little sovereigns, I wish I had ten quid, two hundred quid, two hundred and fifty, in a box, a black box. Getting, getting, we lay waste our powers. The power of the word. A small beginning, that was all he asked – to use his eyes and ears each day on the familiar, to find all heaven in a shell. (Or was it a petal? or again a rainbow? But a rainbow was less easily come by.)

As he passed the dining-room door (if he couldn’t be sure of ten
pounds then at least there would be pheasant) he heard the mewing of the kittens. Helping himself to sherry from the cut-glass decanter on the mahogany sideboard, bending with one moment’s acute giddiness and an aching knee (art is no easy mistress) he examined against the scarlet velvet the exact colours of the small animals, and as usual the artist’s true eye applied to the simple, the ordinary, the wayside pimpernel revealed a miracle: the black on the flanks of the black and white kitten was in truth a rusty red, and there where the fur was thickest on the tail a cockfeather bottle green, but where black patches ran down its small feet they proved the darkest prussian blue. As for the ginger kitten it was to careful scrutiny a blend of apricot, yes and, by Jove, rose pink. With canvas and paints the miracle could at once be recorded, but as it was the details could only be stored away – if he but had a writers’ notebook, the entry would go under K for kitten – to await inclusion in the wider vision. Nevertheless detail was the thing, art was a simplification, a selection and an exactitude. The tortoiseshell kitten mewed loudly. Poor little devils, Billy Pop said aloud. Then straightening up, he felt refreshed. A moment’s compassion is worth volumes of theory to a writer.

There was one chap, Markie, who couldn’t write at all. I’d told them to put their names, numbers, and platoons on the top right hand corner of the test paper. His was a total blank. Of course the Colonel fumed and created hell. The chap had been sent back for special instruction. Probably the company commander had got the bumph just as they were going up the line and so he recommended the first name he could. And the chap didn’t say anything, he wasn’t going to refuse a Blighty leave, why should he? But the Colonel felt he’d been made a fool of. We want officer material here, Matthews, and they send us cannon fodder. So the chap was packed off back to France. With luck he’d have missed a spell of front line duty. Something he said stuck with me though. He was talking to a group of other duds before they entrained. They were standing there in the great court of Trinity with the sun shining on the russet brick and grey stone, and the fountain sparkling, and some spring flowers or other in the beds. I shouldn’t think most of them knew where they were or noticed, for that matter. Just another kip and a place to booze in. Across the yard came two or three dons in their gowns and mortarboards. And this chap said in his country accent – Somerset or Devon, I should think – Look at they rooks. Then he pointed to that figure over the great
doorway – Henry the Eighth or whatever it is. Oh, no use putting up scarecrows. Rooks don’t scare easy if they’ve found a tidy field of barley or oats. And I don’t reckon there’s a better field of oats than this in all the bloomin ‘land. It was the relating of one experience to the other that struck me as much as the fresh country language. The Colonel couldn’t have done it to save his thick red neck. But the man couldn’t write his name so he was cannon fodder. I knew then what I wanted to do when the great day came. Don’t think I’m sentimental. They must all be given a trial, but of course many will never profit from it. The half literates are usually no good. There was one chap in that very intake. He could write his name all right but after that he’d written a lot of nonsense – fittoon, footoon, fotoon, fatoon and God knows what. Trying to write platoon I suppose. I should have thought that was original enough, Marcus said. But Quentin, having made his testimony, had returned to workers’ representation in socialized industry. Marcus painted fittoon and fottoon in green and then interwove them with fattoon and futtoon in purple, then with black India ink he wrote beneath these strange words, ‘on foot’, ‘on fat foot’, ‘on hot fat foot’, ‘on hot fat foot in India’. But at last he wrote again fottoon, foottoon, fittoon, fattoon and he liked them better, with their suggestion of baboons and spittoons and feet and fits that needed no overt expression. Looking at his brother so solemnly intent on crocodile slime, he felt quite sure that of the few who would ever see what was new, he himself would be one. He laughed with sheer pleasure at this certainty.

Gladys laughed as Billy Pop folded the two five pound notes and placed them in his waistcoat pocket. He hummed a few bars of
Chu
Chin
Chow.
He smiled a warm, humorous smile at her before he left her room. And people say that Micawber’s an impossible character. They haven’t met me, you know. I always believe that something will turn up. And it usually does! When his observation drew no laugh from her, he looked to see if at least it had angered her, but she was
staring
at the wall, smiling and apparently entirely forgetful of his presence. He hummed more jauntily and went away. For a moment his parting steps brought her back from Alfred’s kisses, from the tip of his tongue tickling an entrance between her lips, but only for a moment.

‘What you get out of it anyway? Kids! When Emmie had her second they had to crush its head with the forceps, it was either her or him and they took away four pints of blood. Old Harry Tate’s
got the proper word for that – very nice I don’t think. Oh, you’d soon be sick of them. Nappies, rubber teats, and up every night like they was with Master Marcus bedwetting and sleepwalking. I don’t think I should, Regan, I’m very used to it. How does Marcus get these huge holes in his football socks? To hear him you’d never think he moved an inch on the field. Ah, you put a good face on it becos you don’t want to see things untidy, but you don’t like it? Like it? Of course I don’t like it, but it’s got to be done. Look at these cuffs of Rupert’s, somebody’s got to turn them. And anyway it wouldn’t be the same. They’d be my own children. And the man I loved would have given them to me. Well, fancy you to talk like that, Miss Sukey. Still waters run deep, eh? But still what’s marriage? I was a MUG. Oh, Regan, how absurd you are, every woman, every natural woman anyway wants a husband and children. Oh I didn’t mean, I didn’t…. You think I’ve never had me chances. Well you’re wrong. There was a Canadian come after me. French he was. Well I’ve always had a taste for a bit of oolala after Monser Jooles. And then me cookin the French way drew him I expect. Anyway he was all right – to look at I mean and he was well supplied where it matters. But … well, she asked me not to, warned me against him. I’d be ungrateful she said, after they’d took me in without a reference. Mrs Marshall wouldn’t give it on account of the drinkin. Where’d I be she said, if it wasn’t for them? So I promised. And now I’m past it. I didn’t like tellin him though. But there you are I expect she was right. There were hundreds let down by them Canadians and Aussies. There was I waitin at the church, waitin at the church.

And when he fancied he was past love, it was then he met his last love, and he loved her better ever than before. I suppose you will one day, dear boy. Will what, Countess? Meet your last love. You can’t just have an old mother, you know, to grace the end of your table when you’re rich and famous. But do choose someone with style, darling. A woman can make or mar her husband’s career. I’ve thought about that. I don’t believe it would do unless she was professional too. Marry a professional! Well you’ve started all right. Bringing that tart what’s her name home here. I could see at once what she was. And if I’d turned my back for a minute you’d have had her up in your bedroom. You’ve begun your filthy tricks early. She’s not to come here again, Rupert, do you understand? She’s not to come here again. I won’t have filthy harlots in the house. I’ve been so
careful to bring up the twins as happy, healthy minded girls. And Marcus is only a boy. She’s not to come here again, do you
understand
? Oh shut up, you silly strumpet! You’ve paraded your cheap adulteries in front of your children until…. If you do that again, I’ll smack your face, Countess, and I can hit harder than you. Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve hit your mother. Yes, and if my father had done it long ago…. Leave me alone, how dare you? You’re hurting my arm, Rupert, you’ve hurt me. Go up to your room. I don’t want ever to speak to you again. I’m not pretending either. You’ve horrified me. Oh, wonderful son to astonish such a mother. For I have astonished you, haven’t I, Mother? I
was
pretending
, you see. Perhaps you’ll believe me now that I can be an actor. I believe that you can be a rough, foul mouthed lout. I’ll tell you this, Rupert, you’ll go on the stage and you’ll fail. You smell of failure like your father, with all your sloppy good looks and your weak mouth and your chocolate box smile. They’ll throw things at you and I hope they throw them hard.

‘Elizabeth rejoined her sister in the sewing room. Jane looked up for a moment from her book. “Were they throwing things, Liz, or was it only nasty words?” “Nasty words. Of course, they stepped them up for my benefit.” “But you didn’t show, darling, I hope?” “Of course not.” From below their mother’s laugh came, a jangling treble scale. “Oh dear, hysteria.” But now there followed their father’s raucous bellow. “They can’t both….” “But what….” “I think,” said Elizabeth, “that perhaps they’re laughing at
me
.” “Oh, Liz! you’ve brought them together. You’re a little healer. A go-between. A peacemaker.” Jane commenced that series of gulping sounds which always evidenced her delight at her own occasional sharpnesses, and soon Elizabeth, in recollection of so many previous occasions of Jane’s self-delight, began to laugh also. Their giggles punctuated the laughter of their parents. A child of ten might have guessed that it was a happy home.’ Margaret wrote the last sentence with care and satisfaction, then she read the whole passage over. It was the final sentence that gave shape, of course; and yet the shape irked her. All the patterns of conflict and cohesion were present in the laughter. The last sentence was the master stroke, was herself scoring. She flushed red at the thought, erased the sentence and sat back. For the first time for months she felt contented.

The front door bell rang. Regan, hearing it, said, ‘About time. We don’t want the ducks dried up.’ ‘Oh dear, Regan,’ Sukey cried, remembering the hour and the importance to it of well fed old girls, ‘You must put them into a cooler oven. We can’t have anything go wrong.’