The Dwarfs (3 page)

- Very likely? You couldn’t find two men in a million with a hand like that. It sticks out a mile. You’re a homicidal maniac. Without a shadow of a doubt. We can lay our last bets.

Len was on nightshift. He left them to catch his bus. Pete and Mark began to walk towards Bethnal Green.

- Do you know what he’s up to? Pete said.

- No. What?

- He’s started to read the New Testament.

- And the very best of luck.

- I came across that Bible I gave you the other day.

- Where?

- On your bookshelf.

- Oh yes.

- Have you ever read it?

- Well, to tell you the truth, Pete, I haven’t quite got round to it yet.

- You’ve had it about five years. What do I keep you for?

- No, I need a holiday first, before I can have a go at it.

- It’s about time you branched out, Pete said. Do yourself a favour.

- You can never tell.

They turned the corner by the Electricity Company.

- What do you know about love? Pete said.

- Love?

- Yes, you must know something about it.

- What makes you say that?

A sudden shower drove them into the doorway of a bookshop. They watched the rain bounce on the steps of the police station. A policeman came out of the station and looked across the road.

- Well, Mark said, this is the best secondhand bookshop in the East of London, Clive.

- I must say it looks impressive.

- Isn’t that the
Yellow Book
, just behind the black book?

- It’s something to do with artichokes, Pete said, bending.

The policeman walked across the road towards them.

- Ethiopian architecture I think it was.

- What was?

- That book I nearly bought.

- Oh that one. I thought it was
Logic and Colic
by Blitz.

- Oh no, Mark said, you’re thinking of Dust by Crutz.

- Am I?

The policeman walked past the doorway.

- Good health.

- Let’s go the other way, Mark said.

- Anyway, Pete said, as they stepped into the street, it sticks out a mile you’re the right bloke to ask about love.

- Does it? Why?

- The point is this, Pete said. I’ve got a few ideas for some
love stories for women’s magazines.

- What?

- Yes. But I start out with a working deficiency, because I know next to nothing; about the subject. But I was thinking, if you could give me; a few hot tips, it shouldn’t take me long to get the whole business taped.

- You’re pulling my whatsit.

- Cross my heart, I’m not. I’m dead serious. It’ll do me good to try my hand at the game. Why not? Well, come on. What’s it all about?

- Do me a favour.

- What’s the matter? You’ve been up to your knees in this lovelark for years.

- That’s right, Mark said. It makes the world go round.

- How does a bloke in love feel? What are his feelings?

- Look, why don’t you find out for yourself?

- How do I go about it?

They walked under the railway bridge.

- All right, Mark said!. You’ve brought it up. What’s the position between you. and Virginia?

- We’ve got a lot in common.

- But you wouldn’t say you loved her?

- That question might even be relevant, Pete said. But I can’t answer it.

- Does the blood flow?

- What do you mean?

- Does it flow?

- The blood? Well, I’ll tell you. We don’t go in for it much these days.

- You don’t?

Crowds were leaving the Hackney Empire. They crossed the road.

- No. The way I look at it is this. It was an unknown factor I had to solve and I solved it - years ago - and it’s not much use to me now.

- It’s not, eh?

- No.

- Well, Mark said, I think you could do yourself a bit of good to give it another run.

- No. I don’t think that’s the answer to anything.

Crossing by the trafficlights and moving towards Cambridge Heath they smelt soap, crisp and insistent in the street.

- Where is it? Mark sniffed. Where’s the factory? Where is it?

- Somewhere over there, Pete pointed.

They looked across the street and, under the sootwalls of an arch, saw the chimneys, wasteland and dark warehouses.

- Of course, it may not exist at all. May be God letting out the bath.

- It exists all right, Pete said. Day and night they let out that stink. Straight into my bedroom window. Just the job. Grin and bear it.

- Very congenial.

At Cambridge Heath station they went into a café and sat down with two teas.

- You know what? Pete said. I had one of my old boat dreams last night.

- Did you?

- Yes, Pete said. I was on this boat with Virginia, see? A motorboat. Going down a river. We turned a bend, and there, in front of us, about a hundred yards downstream, was the calmest patch of water you’ve ever seen. So I said to Ginny, we’ll be all right when we get in there. I pressed the lever and we chugged on. Then all of a sudden the engine conked out. We’d run out of oil. I turned round, it was a bright day, and there was a police station standing on the bank. So I said, we’ll get some in there. We managed to drift in, into a little nook. Then I turned to Virginia, and I said, wait a minute, before we go, we’d better have a look at your corpses. We went up to a little ledge, and lying there were two steel midgets, about a foot long, wrapped up in the firm’s notepaper. Dead. We had a quick look at them and put them back. Then I went to get the oilcans, see? I
went down the steps; and opened the door of the hatch. In the corner, lying against some sacking, were two Negro midgets, same size, made of steel, looking at me, staring, alive. I stared them out for a couple of minutes, then I said, don’t think you’re giving me a surprise. I knew you were there. I’ve had you taped from the kickoff.

- Christ, Mark said.

Pete grinned and picked his teeth with a matchstick.

Three

I should like to dance tonight. It is quite natural.

Virginia lay crouched on the sofa. The room was still. A shaft of sunlight fell across the carpet. There was no sound.

She stood up. The posture of the room changed. The sunlight jolted. The room settled. The sunlight re-formed. But, she thought, I stand upright and the balance is disturbed. I have thrown a spanner in the works. I have done violence to normally imperturbable forces. I have inflicted a reverse.

She smiled. It was a conceit, certainly, at which Pete would smile, and upon which he would certainly expand. What would he say? How would he begin? The room and the sunlight, he would say, were what they were, simply, and nothing more. There were many rooms and only one sun. A room might be faulty in idea and construction, and could be criticized from that point of view. A leak in the roof was a fault. An adequate room was proof of nothing but a builder’s competence. It remained static until the house was pulled down; then, and then only, did it go through a process of drastic change; it did, in effect, cease to be a room. Change within a room while it stood was only to be located in the walls, the floor or the ceiling. Damp, warp, dryrot. Furniture, decoration, utilities, were merely incidental and, in some cases, nothing but impositions upon the room. To attribute bias or active desire to a room was merely the projection of a sick or deluded mind or the symptom of an emotional binge. To criticize the sun was absurd. The sun shone and the earth went round it. It was as impervious to criticism or to open revolt as it was to worship. It had no inclinations either way. Nor was it in any way productive to consider the sun as an opponent or ally, or relevant to your own actions as an interested force. It was not an interested force. It was the grossest intellectual falsehood to
attribute to or impose upon the sun or a room any other concept or character. You could enjoy the sun or shut yourself from it. You could like a room or dislike it. You’d better watch your step, Virginia.

She laughed aloud. You’d better watch your step, Virginia. She looked across at the streetcorner, at which Pete would turn. But had she been fair? Had her essay at his manner of delivery, his way of stating a case, been accurate?

It was difficult to say. She had known him for two years, but was still unable to recollect his manner of speaking, from one day to another, without some measure of disbelief. Was it true that he spoke in that way? She could not but conclude that it was. Then, abruptly, it occurred to her that perhaps her disbelief was not disbelief at all, but simply a cloak for her apprehension.

If that was so, of what was she afraid? It had been that very power and conviction in his words which had first drawn her to him. They had met a week earlier in the library, and had spent two evenings together, walking. That day he had spoken to her on the telephone for the first time. My father is dead. Meet me for a cup of tea. They had met in a café in Hackney Road. The afternoon was close and pressing. As they sat down, Pete began to speak. She watched him, and listened. The police thought, he said, that his father had committed suicide. He himself did not think so. It was more likely he had been drunk and left the gas on. He had been mending the kitchen sink, there was something wrong with the pipe, when he heard his mother calling. She was in their room, standing over the body. His father was flat out on the carpet and the room full of gas. His mother had gone for the police. He had stayed there, with him. Had she ever been with a dead man? He was as dead as a bedpost and what was more, was nothing, absolutely nothing. He had felt as empty as an old sack. All this emotion business, what was it? A lot of bubbles blown down the coalhole. He was dry as an old faggot. The spanner was still in his hand. He could have easily gone back and finished mending the sink. Add two and two
together and what did you have? Nothing. Before the police came he had stood for twenty minutes over the body. His father was as dead as a crusty old ant and, as for him, he couldn’t give two pins to the dressmaker for the whole business.

Pete came in with a brown paper parcel under his arm and placed it on the table. He flapped the parcel open and took out a white summer dress, which he handed to her. She took off her sweater and skirt and changed into it.

- Stay still.

She stood, turning.

- Go to the window.

She walked to the window, held her skirt, turned, gazed at her reflection in the mirror.

- Like it? Stay where you are. The sun’s down your sides and on your neck. You look lovely.

He sat down and lit a cigarette.

- It’s beautiful, she said, sitting on the arm of his chair. Thank you.

- It suits you.

- I’ll reserve it for special occasions.

- No, Pete said. Summer’s the occasion for that dress. I want to see you walk in the air.

- In the sun.

- Yes. It was worth the doing.

- Where have you been?

- I went down to the Embankment. To watch the boats go by. A bit of quiet. It’s like a monkeys’ teaparty in that office.

- The girls?

- Yes.

- What do they do?

- I never look. Probably tickling each other in the vernacular. I keep well out of it.

- Do they let you?

- They don’t come near me. They know I’d cut ‘em into tripes.

- Was it hot today?

- Hot? I was mummified. The sea air did me good. Nice to watch the muck float.

Virginia walked to the mirror and looked at herself. She turned.

- Pete?

- Yes?

- What do you think of
^:
the sun?

- What do I what?

- How do you look upon the sun?

- What do you mean, how do I look upon it?

- No, it doesn’t matter.

- No? What doesn’t?

He strolled to the window.

- It’s going down.

- I’ve been sitting here, she said.

He blew a smokering and watched it float in the air and flop.

- What do I think of the sun, eh? That’s an interesting question.

- Did you enjoy making the dress?

- That dress? Sure.

- It’s perfect.

- Yes. I moved a pawn with every stitch. It came off. She joined him at the window.

- Would you like me to make you a petticoat? he asked.

- Yes, please.

- All right. I’ll do that.

They watched the sun sinking between the chimneys. He leaned her temple to his, his arm about her waist.

- I like you today, he said.

- Because of the dress?

- No.

He turned her to him and kissed her.

- Let’s have some tea.

- Yes.

He watched her move to the cupboard.

- Yes, he said, you look well in that dress.

- It’s a masterpiece, she said.

- But you know what? he said, sitting down, in some ways you’re more of a boy to me than a woman.

- What do you mean?

- No, you’re a woman all right. But I like the way you conserve your mental energy. I can learn a lot from that, myself. But what you are, you’re a good pal to me. You’re a true companion.

- Really?

- Yes. You see, Mark, for instance, could never understand that. A woman is simply one thing to him and no more. A pregnancy of mind exists between us, which is outside his ken. Not all the time, perhaps, but a good deal of it.

She brought the cups to the table and poured milk.

- Mark wants all his women to call him sir and salute him three times a day. And he doesn’t raise his hat for that one either. Another thing that niggles me is I’m sure he rides barebacked most of the time and doesn’t give it a thought.

- Tea up.

They sat at the table and she cut into a loaf.

- You can’t put a woman in a watertight compartment which you only open when the lights go out, Pete said. A woman has potential in other spheres.

- But you like him, don’t you?

- Like him? Of course I like him.

He sliced a tomato and tipped salt on to his plate.

- He’s a listener, Virginia said.

- He’s a diehard. That’s what he is. He was trying to convince me the other day that the answer to my problems was to go to bed with you more often.

- Mark?

- Yes.

- But how does he know? I mean, how does he know anything? About us?

- I don’t know. I probably mentioned it to him.

- You mean you told him we don’t make love very often?

- Yes.

- Oh.

- Why? Do you mind?

- No.

- It’s hardly anything to be ashamed of.

- Yes, but why don’t we write out a joint statement and send it to him?

- There’s no need to do that, Pete said.

He poured the tea.

- To ease his mind.

- I don’t think, Pete said, he’s uncommonly disturbed about our problems.

- He may be, she said. He may be extremely concerned. Of course, I could always send him a poison-pen letter, telling him to mind his own bloody business.

- Hey, Pete said, wait a minute.

- Do we actually need his technical hints?

- Now hold on. First of all, you’re talking about a friend of mine. Secondly, what he said you’ve heard entirely out of context, and thirdly, let’s face it, there may be a grain of truth in it.

- Oh?

- Yes, Pete said, but you have to weigh that grain of truth against the case in hand. And - in a nutshell - I find it unsatisfactory as an overall working idea - in this particular case. Don’t you? After all, a fuck is a fuck but it doesn’t take place in a vacuum. The context is concrete.

- So’s the fuck.

- That’s beside the point, Pete said.