No Laughing Matter (56 page)

‘I’ll tell you what I think of you,’ Marcus said, for he knew the answer to this one, ‘you’re so steeped in the cosy warm fug you’ve made here you can’t tell the smell of tea from pee.’

Madge trembled, the tea pot lid rattled. ‘You leave Dad out of this. Shame! Just because e can’t hold is water.’ She went to the old man crouched over the cooking stove, and patted his arm. ‘That’s all right, Dad, that’s all right.’

That she’d taken directly his unconscious slight gave Marcus the giggles. Ted was on his feet at once, but Marcus was nimble enough to receive only a glancing blow from Ted’s fist. It was as much his fear of Ted’s rage as his fury with them that drove Marcus from the room and clattering down the cold stone stairs into the fresh, cold air of Tooley Street. When he put up his hand to pat his hair into place he realized that his ear was bleeding.

But it was only a few days before the questions caught up with him again. ‘Mr Crupper on the telephone, Sir’, and ‘Mr Crupper rang. He will ring again at six’ on the bedside pad. And ‘Mrs Crupper rang, Sir. She seemed a little worried.’ And hardly legible notes, ‘I’m sorry, Markie, and I can’t say more. You don’t know how much your friendship …’ and again, ‘If I’d been like some of them but all I want is to see you. I went to the flat and saw no one had been and the man at your end says not at home.’ And Madge wrote, ‘Let bygones be byegones. Ted doesn’t seem the same. Little Stanley sends this picture of Uncle Markie.’ And he did – yellow and red chalk scrawls on a torn piece of lined paper. And once Jack, raising his eyebrows: ‘Do you
have
to keep your young man on the end of the line? It makes me feel a little like the suburban father with the latch key daughter, I think that’s what they’re called. I know what’ll happen, it always does with suburban fathers, it will end up by my having to be “awfully good pals” with him. And I don’t at all want that. Also it is a nuisance for the servants. Also you’re getting a little old, my dear, to be a latch key or any other sort of daughter. Also it’s not very kind to the young man.’ But Marcus told him to go to hell. And not at home, I am not at home. And indeed he hardly ever was. For the exhibition had to be arranged.

And then the Cloughs and Andrew Crosby-Grieves and the Dickerbys had not been the only voices. Of all unexpected people, two days after his appearance in court, Jane Farquhar telephoned – she and her husband Bobby kept Farquhar’s Gallery in Bruton Street and although they didn’t often have anything worth buying it was there that, passing one windy, wet day three Easters ago, he’d walked in and found the greeny blue Gris still life. So that when she said,
we just wanted to say how much we admired you, it was you, wasn’t it in Bermondsey, he’d been rather pleased to say, yes. And this exchange had led to dinner at the Farquhars’ little Eighteen-fortyish house off Gloucester Road, which provided surprisingly pleasant décor and food, since it turned out that they were much to the Left and rather political. When they heard how he came to be at
Bermondsey
Jane said, oh, of course, I should have guessed. But his heart’s in the right place, Bobby observed. Oh, so is Samuel Hoare’s no doubt. Or Ernie Bevin’s. No, said her husband, not Ernie Bevin’s. Shall we take on his education, Bobby? she asked. Is he educable? Bobby countered. It was, perhaps, because their little teasing act annoyed him that he determined to take up their challenge. We don’t really like you very much, Jane said, but your money would be immensely useful. And then you’re not stupid. As the internal contradictions of capitalism become more evident, many of the more intelligent, the less indoctrinated bourgeois recognize the inevitable outcome of the negation, she remarked. Everything she said sounded not so much angry as coldly hostile.

After his warm bath of tea and pee Marcus found such coldness cleansing. And then again to have one’s emotional, impulsive actions of one afternoon placed in the perspective of world politics was flattering to the ego. He told them of this reaction as a joke against himself, as maliciously as he could manage, but Jane made no
comment
and Bobby commented, as often, with a loud braying laugh. So he handed himself over to their expert cleansing – expert after all, for Jane, it seemed, was a member of the Communist Party and Bobby was only not so for some tactical political reason difficult to comprehend. The cleansing certainly was cold – hard on the bottom in draughty halls, cruel to the feet in wet outdoor meetings, daunting to the attention with long speeches in fusty, hot rooms, yet
wonderfully
inspiriting. For the first time in his life people had taken him as an object, coldly, dispassionately but with evident seriousness, and had related him and his actions to a system that comprehended the whole world, all the past and all the future. He was part now of an historic process. He was asked simply to accept the very harsh
unpalatable
things that historical inevitability had in store for him, his class, his money, and his interests. Everything, indeed, that Jane said to him was harsh. No one had spoken to him so since the Countess in the nursery; and when Marcus pointed this out to Jane, she merely
tossed Freud (one of his few acquired non-aesthetic pieces of culture) into the dustbin with other contemptible idealist ideologies of a capitalist world in decline.

*

Middleman, home for half-term, asked: ‘Has violence ever settled anything? What sort of people do we make ourselves if we answer force with force?’

Hugh said, ‘That’s all very well. But there comes a point, always has done throughout the history of civilization …’

But civilization seemed especially to annoy Middleman, so that, wriggling on the sofa, he upset a box of chocolates on to the floor, yet he went on talking as he gathered them up.

‘Civilization! That seems to me pretty complacent, Dad. Isn’t what’s happening in Germany our fault as well, isn’t the whole of what you call civilization smeared by it? And won’t it be, so long as men can’t find a non-violent technique?’

‘They that perish by the sword, eh?’ Hugh asked – he was puzzled, for Middleman had shown no other symptom of the usual religious phase – ‘Of course, I’ve every respect for Dick Sheppard and these chaps. Though there are other interpretations of those sayings of our Lord, you know, old man.’

‘I’m not a Christian!’ Middleman was really irritable now.

Sukey, looking up from the writing desk where she was doing the overseas Christmas cards, said reprovingly: ‘Now, darling …’

‘It’s a question of how we’re to evolve.’

‘As to that,’ Senior said grandly (he’d matured so much since he’d been articled) ‘I suppose you mean the survival of the fittest …’

‘Oh, not Darwinian stuff! There’s a deeper psychological level at which humanity has evolved. It’s a question of techniques of
supra-consciousness
.’

‘My sainted aunt!’ cried Hugh.

Senior smiled across at his Father in compassionate humour over the polysyllables. Coming to the old boy’s assistance, he said:

‘Oh, Nietzsche and the superman!’

Middleman groaned, ‘Supra not super! Oh, Lord, trying to explain in this household!’

‘I’m sorry we’re not highbrow enough for Your Professorship,’ Hugh was the schoolboy.

Hearing the tone, Sukey looked around to catch P. S.’s eye. They
always shared amusement when the three big boys or men (for it was the same thing really) got on to these discussions. But this time the small boy didn’t return her glance.

‘Middleman’s got it all out of someone called Gerald Heard,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen him reading it.’

‘Well, Gerald Heard, whoever he may be, won’t stop England acting when she knows it’s necessary’ – Senior since he was articled, was no longer a conventional schoolboy, more a man of the world – ‘We’ve never hurried, you know, but then …’

‘That’s all very well,’ P. S.’s breaking voice in his excitement shot up to a high falsetto.

Sukey was distracted from her Christmas cards. It was not like P. S. to get involved in such arguments.

‘Shall I send any special message to the MacVities?’ she asked. The boys went on talking, so she repeated the question, ‘Any message for the MacVities?’

Hugh, catching the urgency of her voice, came to. ‘Christmas cards already, darling?’

‘Well my dear, I’m not sending air mail to all these abroads. I
have
to start early.’

But their sons were now in full swing. Trying another tack, Sukey called to the Frau, though, looking at her huddled in a fur coat on an early and warm November night almost made her too annoyed to speak – if she thought they had money to throw away on fires for show!

‘Have you any friends in Australia or New Zealand, Frau
Liebermann
?’

But the woman only looked up from the Sunday paper and smiled in a vague, irritating way. Thank the Lord this temporary matron business was nearly over. Early in the New Year she was to go to a Quaker guest house as manageress. Reminding herself of how
competent
the tiresome woman was said to be in the school she said, giving due, ‘Think of all the Quakers who are going to be more
comfortable
next year just because of Frau Liebermann’s ministrations.’

Only Hugh was left to comment.

‘Yes, indeed.’

For the boys were only plunged in further debate and Frau
Liebermann
did not look up again from the
Sunday
Times.

*

Matthias Birnbaum’s thin lips set in an even more severe expression than
usual when I asked him this question. ‘
The
Goat
Girl
or the
Seesaw
Boy
on the London Stage?’ No, I don’t think that. To begin with I don’t feel that English children perhaps have the same power of fancy that our children do in Germany. Then your English theatre does not, I think, have the techniques required to present works that are not conventional. Also, to speak frankly I have no very high opinion of the English
translators
!’ I began to feel that not much was right with this poor benighted island of ours. ‘But if,’ I suggested, ‘the proceeds were to go to the funds for refugees from your country.’ ‘Ah, that is a different matter. At the moment all artists must accept some sacrifices of their art so that Art may not disappear forever from the earth. Especially,’ and here a small twinkle came into the large, dark eyes, the gaunt features relaxed for a second into a smile, though even so rather a wintry gleam, ‘
especially
if the funds were to go to the aid of the many little children.’ It was clear that if anything touches this famous children’s writer in his exile from his native land it is the vast audience of German children who have worshipped for so long
The
Goat
Girl
and the
Seesaw
Boy.
Yet to an English eye, Herr Birnbaum is hardly the jovial Santa Claus type. But now it was time for me to go and so he made clear. I was not to escape without one more well aimed thrust at our way of living. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘Miss Lander, why does the famous English civilization not extend to double windows in wintertime?’ and he shivered, although outside on Hampstead Heath the November sun shone with an almost
spring-like
gentleness.’

*

Frau Liebermann felt herself grow warmer as she read. Dear, good, Matthias Birnbaum on whose books they had all grown up, who had left the Homeland simply in protest – for Hitler in his cunning had ignored that this great, loved man was half-Jewish – who
therefore
could speak some home truths to their well meaning but
arrogant
, insular hosts. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of him here in England. Perhaps he would help her to get Herbert and Sigmund away. Perhaps he would shame all these people into action. She started to read the article again. ‘With his piercing dark eyes, his great height, his commanding forehead and his mane of white hair, Matthias Birnbaum is all that we English….’ But ‘we English’ made reading impossible – these stupid Pascoe boys were shouting at one another now.

‘You can’t be such an ass as to think that anybody wants war, can you?’ Senior demanded. ‘We shall do everything we can to avoid it, but if we do have to fight …’

‘Oh, by jingo!’ Middleman said, ‘I know. Well this time ships won’t be very important and let’s hope we haven’t got the money. We
could
be the first civilized country in the world to contribute
nonviolence
…’

‘To contribute to the end of civilization I should have thought.’

She had to avoid the small spoilt boy’s eye that wished to include her in their nonsense – as a rule at least this youngest one, though Mummy’s darling, was quieter than the others. But now!

‘Why! if Hitler isn’t stopped, it could mean a century of darkness for the world.’

‘Oh yes …’ Middleman’s voice particularly annoyed her –
blah-blah
-blah it went, the
clever
Pascoe son! ‘Very likely a millennium of barbarism. I quite admit it. But mankind would have begun for the first time a new technique of living.’

The eldest ugly one’s braying laugh ran through her head.

‘It would be the millennium if you got Englishmen to accept that nonsense, wouldn’t it, Dad?’

But before that poor, feeble Mr Pascoe could answer, the little boy had turned directly to her.

‘All the decent people in Germany look to England to do the right thing, don’t they, Frau Liebermann?’

His silly, well meaning, overloved little face seemed to swell red before her until she knew that if this Pascoe balloon were not pricked the whole world would go down in a carnival of vanity and silliness. Holding her cigarette before her she leaned forward as though to burn the excited boy. She said very deliberately and slowly:

‘Perhaps you should know, my little boy, that nobody expects anything any more of England. Of course we have known always that the English talk so great about helping the weak ones and do nothing. After all, you are Great Britain. You must have something great, so let it be words. Oh! But this we are used to – the English hypocrisy. Oh, that we don’t mind – all their, what do you call it? Sunday manners!’

‘No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that.’ Sukey’s tone was flat and conversational but it still didn’t stay the throaty flood.

‘But we always think – Now she is only talking, but wait until she is in danger herself, then we shall see the famous lion claws.’ Frau Liebermann shouted so loudly that P. S. giggled. ‘Oh, yes, all this is so funny because, of course, now there are no claws, Only naughty
little boys who say we must spare a little thinking for those poor damned Jews in Germany. Very naughty boys who talk about war which upsets Mrs Pascoe. Why, think of it, if we fight Hitler Mr Pascoe may have to move his school to somewhere that the nasty German bombs do not come to. And Mrs Pascoe does not at all want to move. So please, Adolf Hitler, don’t make your speeches and shouting, you are upsetting all the English mothers and their children. But I think you do not have to worry. Your newspapers have the picture of the Führer with the little daughters of Herr Goebbels, oh so sweet girls with blonde hair. Oh, no, we are not to worry. Der Führer liebt die Kinder, nicht wahr? Only I think the Pascoe boys are rather big children, so maybe he will send them to the mines or labour camps or maybe he will shoot them. Oh, I know Mr Pascoe you are right to shout at me, these things are not to say, they will worry Mrs Pascoe and she has her Christmas cards to send to Australia.’

Frau Liebermann was not quite truthful. Hugh’s voice had been raised, but he had not shouted. He never did so. But now, as Sukey had never heard him before, he bawled at Frau Liebermann until the veins stood out under the dark pigment of the flesh of his temples.

‘Stop that. If you don’t feel any gratitude, then at least spare us this exhibition …’

Sukey, surveying them all so grim, hysterical, excited over a
tiresome
woman’s irrelevant words could not help raising her eyebrows, sighing and shaking her head in comic impatience; she hoped the comedy of it would touch P. S. and bring him back to her, to home, to the fact that half term was too precious for all this. But her cooling comedy was cut into by Frau Liebermann who began to cry
hysterically
, tears mascaraedly smearing her rouged cheeks.

‘Oh, we must feel gratitude. We know that. Gratitude when the little Pascoe always sleeps here at his home but Arnold is to sleep at the school even at half term.’

‘Really,’ Hugh said. ‘Now look, Frau Liebermann,’ and taking his tobacco pouch, he began to fill his pipe, speaking slowly and deliberately to such hysterical nonsense, ‘You perfectly well know that you see Arnold every day, and he comes here to Sunday lunch. And then P. S. is a prefect …’

‘A prefect! Yes, and everybody knows he should not be. A favourite.’

‘That’s enough of that …’

But Sukey, looking at the dishevelled red hair, the familiar tiresome face all wet and spoilt, suddenly saw not just a failed talisman, but another woman bullied and wretched. She must keep to her bargain with God. It wouldn’t count if she didn’t live up to it, not just to the letter. God knew when He was deceived.

‘Oh, shut up, Hugh,’ she said, but softly. Then going over to Frau Liebermann she took both her hands and began to chafe them. ‘No, my dear. Of course Arnold can sleep here for tomorrow night, why not?’

But Frau Liebermann seemed too hysterical to be touched by
kindness
. She got up, pushed Sukey aside and, teetering on her high heels, ran from the drawing-room. As she went her squirrel coat brushed a Bohemian porcelain lamb from an occasional table; it fell to the floor and was smashed. Sukey shrugged her shoulders in despair.

‘I’ll go to her,’ she said.

Hugh levelled his pipe stem at her: ‘My dear girl …’

‘No, I must.’

To P. S. his mother looked so brave a figure as, all alone, she set off to comfort her own sex in distress that he got up to follow her.

‘Mummy, Mummy.’

‘No, P. S., old chap. This is where the menfolk of the world are de trop. We can be most useful in picking up the pieces,’ Hugh said. He sent Middleman for a dustpan and brush.

Sukey beat upon the locked door of Frau Liebermann’s room to no avail.

‘You’d better open to me. I shan’t go away until you do.’

Yet it was more than quarter of an hour before Frau Liebermann obeyed. She still had on her fur coat, but she was carrying her suitcase and she had put on that absurd thing like a navy blue man’s homburg hat with a diamanté pheasant pinned in it.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Sukey took the suitcase from her, ‘take off your hat and sit down.’

Frau Liebermann did not take off her hat, but she sank into the small armchair.

Sukey sat on the bed.

‘Now, Frau Liebermann, it’s no good letting yourself get upset. That’s letting that beast win a victory. And it won’t help to get Sigmund here. Or make things easy for poor little Arnold. You
shouldn’t have said that about P. S. But you couldn’t know. He’s not a boarder because he’s very highly strung. Arnold will sleep here ir your room for tomorrow. Just you and him. And we won’t have any more tears or saying cruel things, will we? ‘She paused but Frau Liebermann merely stared at her. Pressed by the silence, Sukey added, ‘You came here on false pretences, you know. I had some mad idea, some secret idea that if we asked you here then I’d have paid my price, that there’d be no war. Oh, of course, I didn’t believe it, but it stopped me worrying … about them, that I shouldn’t lose them.’