The Dwarfs (2 page)

Two

- Did you sleep?

- I slept all day, Mark said.

- Come in.

Len closed the door. They walked down the stairs into the kitchen.

- What do you think of my kitchen? Has it changed?

Mark took a comb from his pocket and combed his hair.

- It remains a kitchen of the highest possible class, he said.

- Look here, Mark, Len said, I’m glad you had a good sleep. Listen. What do you think of this book? I want you to have a sniff at it. You’ve never seen anything like it. I can guarantee that.

Mark put his comb in his pocket and looked at the title.

-
Reimman’s Theory of Integrals
. What are you trying to do, lead me into temptation?

- Why don’t you read it? Len said. It’s right up your street.

- Next Tuesday a fortnight, Mark said, you can start me on a course.

- You’re missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

- Mathematics, chess and ballet dancing. You’ve got to start at the age of twelve, eleven.

- You don’t know what you’re talking about.

- Even before.

- Listen, Len said. All last night I was working at mechanics and determinants. There’s nothing like a bit of calculus to cheer you up. Can’t you see? It’s dead. It can’t eat you. The mind jumps over the gate and walks in air.

- No?

- I’m telling you, I tell you. It’s the only time I feel that I’m anything like an each way bet.

- What’s this? Mark said, lifting a piece of paper from between the pages.

- What is it?

- It’s one of your poems.

Len snatched it, read it quickly and crumpled it into his pocket.

- What’s the matter? said Mark. Let me have a look at it.

- It’s gibberish, Len said. There’s no point. It’s leprous.

He took it out of his pocket and stuffed it into the bin under the sink.

- It’s out of the question.

- I believe you.

Len frowned, rasped, and did up his shirtsleeves.

- What about Pete? Mark said. Has he been writing anything lately?

- I don’t know. How would I know? It’s not my business. But he’s got other kettles on the boil. That I do know.

- Has he?

- Yes.

- I wonder that they are.

- You’re entitled to wonder.

Mark smiled, and looked about him at the bare kitchen. The ceiling was low. The dresser, chairs and table were plain, of a light coloured wood. By the wall, the boiler bulged. It was a square room. A small window looked out on to the yard.

- The rooms, he said, we live in.

- Don’t tell me, don’t mention it, said Len.

His wrists jerked, gesturing. He shook his head and clicked his teeth.

- The rooms we live in open and shut.

From under the table he grated a chair, began to sit, shoved the chair back and moved to rap the wall.

- They change shape at their own will, he said. I would have no quarrel, I wouldn’t grumble, you see, if these rooms would remain the same, would keep to some consistency. But they don’t. And I can’t see the boundaries, the limits,
which I’ve been led to believe are natural. That’s the trouble. I’m all for the natural behaviour of rooms, doors, staircases, the lot. But I can’t rely on them. When, for example, I look through a train window, at night, and see the yellow lights, very clearly, I see what they are, and I see that they’re still. But they’re only still because I’m moving. I know that they do move along with me, and when we go round a bend, they bump off. But I know that they are still, just the same. They are, after all, stuck on poles which are rooted in the earth. So they must be relatively still, in their own right, in so far as the earth itself is still, which of course it isn’t, but that’s another matter. The point is, in a nutshell, that I can only appreciate such facts when I’m moving. When I’m still, nothing around me follows a natural course of conduct. I’m not saying I’m any criterion myself. I wouldn’t say that. After all, when I’m on that train I’m not really moving at all. That’s obvious. I’m in the corner seat. I’m still. I am, perhaps, being moved, but I do not move. Neither do the yellow lights. The train moves, granted, but what’s a train got to do with it?

- Quite, said Mark.

- So where are you? I’m quite prepared to admit that this isn’t an open and shut case. But offhand I can’t’ think of any case that’s open and shut. Quite frankly, I can’t even think of a case. There isn’t, let’s face it, a shred of evidence. It wouldn’t stand a chance in court. The judge would have a fit and I’d lose my licence.

- No question.

- It’s no joke.

- Hardly.

- Does the jury move?

- Eh?

- No. On the bench they’re still. And I’m still in the dock. No change. When I move though, in this case, so do they. I go down the hutch and they call a cab.

- That’s it.

- Change but no change. But where does all this solve my problem? Can you tell me that? No, of course you can’t. It is so, that’s all. And it will be so. Perhaps we are not guilty. Are we? Pete would say we are guilty. You would say we are not. Are we?

- No, Mark said. We’re not.

Len laughed. He opened the basement door and breathed in. It was raining.

- Well, Mark said, there’s only one thing I’ve got to say.

- What’s that?

- When you’re in you’re in.

- What? Len said. What did you say? When you’re in you’re in?

- Sure.

- You’re right. I can’t deny it. You’ve never said a truer word. When you’re in, he repeated, walking round the table, you’re in. That’s it. You can knock me down with a feather. I must remember that. What made you say a thing like that?

- It just struck me. When you’re in you’re in.

- Well, said Len, I’ll have to grant you that. You can’t get away from it. It stands to reason. And when you’re not in you’re out. Or, more accurately, when you’re out you’re not in.

- Yes, that’s more like it.

- When you’re in, Len muttered, you’re in, eh? Well, I’ll have to store that one up for a hard winter.

Upstairs, in the living room, Mark leaned back in the frayed leather armchair, regarding the circle of light on the ceiling, while Len, carefully lifting his violin from its case and adjusting the bow, concentrated on a passage of Bach, scowling and snapping at the false notes.

- I can’t do it, he declared.

There was a thump at the backdoor. He twisted the doorknob. The cat screwed through and scrabbled under the table.

- It’s ridiculous. I must practise. My fingers are as sensitive as an ironmangle. I’d do better cleaning windows.

- Sounded all right to me, Mark said.

- No, no. It’s an insult to Bach. It’s an impertinence. The trouble is, he murmured, packing the violin, that when I find some direction for my energies I can’t sustain it. I should. I should do nothing but practise my music. Come to a working arrangement and stick to it. But look at it. I’ve been a farmhand, a builder’s mate, a packer, a stagehand, a shipping clerk, I’ve dug turf, I’ve been a hop picker, a salesman, a postman, I’m a railway porter, a mathematician, a fiddle-player, I scribble and I play a fair game of cricket. I haven’t touched pearldiving and I’ve never been a male nurse. What sort of set-up’s that? It’s ludicrous. I’ve never been able to look into the mirror and say, this is me. What’s that cat up to?

The cat was jolting in spasms against the door.

- What’s the matter? Len said. All right. Go out. I can quite understand it.

- I’m not sure, Mark said, watching the tail flick into the night, that there’s not more to that cat than meets the eye.

Len closed the door.

- Let’s go downstairs, he said quietly.

- We’ve just come up.

- I know. Let’s go down.

- Down we go, Mark said.

They walked down the wooden steps into the basement. Len switched on the kitchen light. Mark sat down, yawned and lit a cigarette.

- Ah well.

- Do you know, Len said, I’m never quite sure that you understand one word I’m talking about.

- What?

- You may understand, of course, or it may be that when you open your mouth you take a shot in the dark which might or might not be relevant. If that’s it, you’re a pretty fair shot, I’ll give you that. But I sometimes get the impression that you do nothing but study form. Pete, for instance, will
always let me know when he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, in one way or another. He feels it’s a moral duty. You very rarely do that. What does that mean? Does it mean that you never want to commit yourself? Or does it mean that you’ve got nothing to commit?

Mark flicked his ash on to the stone floor. It fell without breaking shape. With the point of his shoe he dispersed it gently, grinding it by the tableleg. He looked up at Len.

- Were you saying something?

- Where were you acting? Huddersfield?

- That’s right.

- Did they like you in Huddersfield?

- They loved me.

- What’s it like when you act? Does it please you? Does it please anyone else?

- What’s wrong with acting?

- It’s a time-honoured profession. It’s time-honoured. It goes without saying. But what does it do? Does it please you when you walk on to a stage and everybody looks up and watches you? Maybe they don’t want to watch you at all. Maybe they’d prefer to watch someone else. Have you ever asked them?

Mark laughed and lit a cigarette. Len sat at the table, gritting his teeth, and banged his forehead.

- Do you know what I am? I’m an agent for a foreign power.

The doorbell rang.

Through the coalhole grating, Pete glimpsed a stab of light into the cellar from the inner basement. He leaned at the door’s side. A light wind scuttled in the low hedge. The moon blinked between turning clouds. A black cat, wiry, leapt up the steps, trod over his boot and sat close-eyed at the door. Its tail flicked his ankle. He looked down at the hunched shape. The cat pressed its nose to the crack. They waited in silence.

Len opened the door. The cat ducked between his legs into the hall.

- What’s that?

- A cat.

- Your cat?

- My cat? said Pete. What are you talking about? I haven’t got a cat.

- Haven’t you?

- Well, come on, let me in.

- I suppose it must be my cat, Len muttered, closing the door behind them.

- It could only be your cat.

- Why? What makes you say that?

- We had a little chat, Pete said, on your doorstep.

- What about?

- The theory of numbers.

- What did he have to say?

- Don’t wear me out, Pete said. I’m not up to it. Why don’t you switch on a few lights? This place is like the black hole of Calcutta.

Mark was sitting with his feet up on the table.

- What ho, Pete said.

- Greetings.

- I don’t trust that cat, Len said. I let him out the back door and he comes in the front.

- What about a shake in the air? There’s a good delousing wind out. Open to all comers. You both look as if you could do with it.

Mark swung his legs to the floor.

- You’re right. Let’s get out.

- Perhaps you’d like to hear a little serenade before you go, said Len. It’s by Spack and Rutz and played by Yetta Clatta. It’s church music.

- Another time, Weinblatt, Pete said.

They left the house and walked to the duckpond. On a bench by the wooden bridge they spread a newspaper and sat down. Wind tipped the hanging rain from the leaves.

- Listen here, Pete, Len said. Why do you always call me Weinblatt? My name’s Weinstein. Always has been.

- It won’t stick.

Mark began to cough, his cough growing to a rolling grate. Swearing between gasps, he staggered to the pond’s edge and spat copiously. Clearing his throat, he spat again, into the dark water.

- Mark, Pete said, you’re out on your own as a gobber.

- Thanks, Mark said, spitting into a bush.

He sat down and wiped his mouth.

- But what I want to know is, Pete said, when are you going to give up rattling and put on a cowl?

- Me? What do you mean? I am a priest. Nowhere am I so religious as in bed. I put them all in touch with the universe.

- What you mean is you lead them all up the garden.

- Exactly.

Len had risen, and was standing by the pond, his hands in his pockets.

- I’ve signed my name to something, he said.

- Joined the army? Mark asked.

- No, Len said, sitting down. I’ve applied for a job in an insurance office.

- Don’t say that.

- What do you mean? Pete said. See if he can stick it.

- I know what’ll happen, Len said. They’ll have me doing mortality tables all day. I’ll sit and calculate the next best mortality rate. A bloke like you, Mark, only gets the next best, not the best.

- What about a bloke like me? said Pete.

- Why should you get the best? I don’t know anyone who gets the best.

- What about your cat? asked Mark.

- You could stick it, Pete said, with a bit of go and guts.

Pete and Mark lit cigarettes. Len watched their heads bend to the match.

- It’s no joke, this job business, Mark said, smoke slipping from his nose.

- Well, Len said, it all depends on which way you look at it. For instance, I know a geezer who’s always touching wood. So you know what he did? He took a job in a library. Look at all the chances there are for touching wood in a library. The place is full of wood. He has the time of his life.

Len stood up.

- Look here, Pete, he said. Let’s have a look at your hand.

- My hand?

- Yes.

He lifted Pete’s left hand to his chin, lowered his glasses and peered at the palm. Breathing through his teeth, he bent closer. With a start he let the hand drop.

- You’re a homicidal maniac! he exclaimed. I thought as much.

- What! said Mark.

- Give me that hand, Len demanded. Look, I ask you, at that hand. Look. A straight line right across the middle. Right across the middle. Horizontal. See? That’s all he’s got. What else has he got? I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re a nut!

- It’s very likely, Pete said.