The Song of the Flea (25 page)

“Well,” said Katusha, “I should think you could do better if you tried.”

“Well, hell, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? Between
ourselves
, Kat, I’ve come over here to put British sound cartoons on the map. Hell, you know as well as I do that an animator—I mean a real animator—is like finding a pearl in a oyster. You know what? All the same, you get sort of homesick—and shall I tell you something? Walking past that place I sort of couldn’t resist the kind of urge to go in and look at some of my old stuff. Jesus, you don’t know what a relief it is to me to talk to an
intelligent girl like you. Tell me all about yourself, Kat. From now on I’m going to call you Kat.”

In the taxi she said: “My father was a beast and a bully. My poor mother died when I was a little baby. I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I went out to service. Well, then I met a
gentleman
. He was the lady of the house’s nephew. He was in the Army. I can’t tell you their name: he’s a titled man. He was engaged to a titled lady. I was only a servant girl and he was the son of an Earl. I knew it couldn’t come to anything, but I couldn’t help falling in love with him, could I?”

“You couldn’t. No more than I could help falling in love with you,” said Harry Fabian.

“Don’t be silly, you won’t fall in love with me.”

“Don’t be too sure about that.”

“Well, as it happens, he fell in love with me—see? And I gave myself to him. Well, he was called back to his regiment, and … well … there I was. You don’t know what it feels like, when you feel the baby under your heart, and look up and pray to the Virgin, and you know all the time nothing’s going to happen. I felt the baby under my heart. So this officer’s aunt, she gave me some money and she told me to go away. So I went away, but I wouldn’t take the money.”

“That’s right,” said Fabian.

“Well, you see, the baby was born dead, because of what I’d been through. D’you know what? I ran after the train for miles and miles, and it was snowing—would you believe it? He was in a first-class carriage with two other officers and three women, and they were drinking champagne. He never saw me.”

“Who did you go to, to get rid of the kid?” asked Fabian.

“It was born dead. It was
his
son. He went abroad with his regiment. After that I didn’t care what happened to me. I didn’t care about anything. Do you know what I did?”

“No, what did you do?” asked Fabian, deeply moved.

“I became a prostitute. And if you want to know, that’s what I am now—a common prostitute.”

“No, is that so?” said Fabian.

“What else was I to do?” she said, clasping her hands, and looking upward.

“You poor kid. You know what? I’m funny that way. I can’t bear to see a fellow creature suffering. If anybody does me a bad turn, or tries to push me around, that’s different—I’d knock his god-damn block off if it was the last thing I ever did, if he was Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney rolled into one. If he tried to do me dirt, or if he didn’t show me the proper respect I’m accustomed to, I’d smack that guy right in the kisser wherever he was—even if I was in Buckingham Palace at the time. I used to be fly-weight champion of Carolina when I was a kid; but it’s a mug’s game: the managers grab the big end, and what have you got? I don’t take the sucker’s end of any racket. But as I was saying, I can’t bear to see women and children suffering. Did you say you were all alone in London? No father? No mother?”

“My mother died of a broken ’eart,” said Katusha. “She was a lady. She was the iggilitimate daughter of an earl, but she fell in love with my father although ’e was only a poor Army officer in the cavalry and eloped with ’im because ’e fascinated ’er, but ’e was a bully and a beast, and ’e took to drink, and lost all the regiment’s money playing cards, and killed ’imself—’e shot ’imself through the ’ead with a pistol; and so I went to work in a factory, but the son of the feller what owned the factory fell in love with me and wanted to possess me, but I wouldn’t let ’im, and so I went into service and got seduced. I’m just an outcast, reely.”

“How long have you been on the game? Where d’you lumber?”

“Lumber?”

“Lumber. Where d’you take your clients?”

“I ’aven’t got a room of my own yet.”

“Oh, you haven’t, haven’t you? And how old did you say you were?”

“Twenty-one.”

Oh
boy,
oh
boy,
oh
boy,
oh
boy,
oh
boy!
sang the rejoicing heart of Harry Fabian. “What d’you charge?”

“You want someone to look after you,” said Fabian.

“I’m all alone in the world.”

“Oh no you’re not. Don’t you believe that for one minute.
I’m your pal, see? I’ll look after you. See? I’m like that: I don’t mind spending fifty-sixty pounds in an evening on champagne and orchids, when I relax; but Jesus, I hate inefficiency! That’s the god-damn trouble with the god-damn world to-day—inefficiency. Now what you want is some snappy clothes and some high-class hairdressing, and a fur coat. How would ya like that?” One glance at her face told Fabian how she would like that. He went on: “Yes, god-damn it, a fur coat, that’s what you need. Tell me, kid, what kind of fur d’you like best?”

“Ermine.”

“Okay, ermine it is. What colour?”

“Snowy ermine.”

“Oke!” said Fabian, in a brisk, business-like voice. “White ermine. Okey-the-doke. Full length? Three-quarter? Or one of those wraps? Say the word.”

“I dunno,” she said. She did not want to say too much in case she spoiled the dream and awoke in the stuffy darkness of the sixpenny news cinema.

“I should say three-quarter length,” said Fabian. “I know a bit about furs. Remind me to tell you, one of these days, about the time me and a man called Wolfe Larsen went seal hunting way up in … whatsaname. I owned a schooner then: Jesus, those were the days, when I was a kid of your age. Adventure! Excitement! Christ, the fights we used to have! I can tell you, kid, I never regretted being the flyweight champ of … of Carolina. Dokey-da-hoke: three-quarter length ermine. I’ll make a note of it. Any jewellery you want you’d better pick out for yourself. Because what I say is this: one person’s taste isn’t another person’s taste. But for colouring I’d say star sapphires. Diamonds are always okay, of course, but Jesus—every rich bitch in town wears diamonds, and to tell you the truth, honey, I kind of get fed up with diamonds. They’re sort of common. Star sapphires. What say?”

“Yes, star sapphires.”

“Oke. Sapphires … star. Don’t worry, I got it all fixed in my mind. Don’t you worry, kid. I’ll take care of you. Jesus, it makes my blood boil—a well-bred, ladylike kid like
you lousing about with all them sixpence-and-find-your-
own-railings
mob of layabouts in Tottenham Court Road, when it sticks out like a punch in the mouth that you were born and bred for better things. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Stick by me and I’ll put a gold spoon right in your kisser. Ah! Here we are!”

Fabian felt like Saul, who lost a donkey and found a kingdom, or Gow, who dug for water and found a gold mine. While he was opening the street door he said: “I live pretty quiet here. I don’t entertain much these days. I got a hell of a lot to think about. I like to be quiet. To hell with the Savoy—I don’t give a twopenny god-damn for all that whirl of gaiety. You sort of get sick of it, kid—you’ll see. Stick around with me. Well, here we are.” He opened the door of Number 802 Wardour Street. “Besides,” he said, “it’s convenient here for business. No luxury—just clean and simple. Good enough for me. Come on in.”

Harry Fabian’s room was on the ground floor. Poking absent-minded fingers into holes in the pockets of cast-off years, most men find cracked and greasy pictures of such rooms; and then they remember certain sordid afternoons and sticky twilights when, having done up the last button and cast the last worried glance at the clock, they hurried away to Leicester Square Station, hoping that their necks were not marked with lipstick. They remember how the woman was lying, puffing cigarette-smoke toward the ceiling, with thirty pocket-warmed shillings cooling under her pillow, while soapy water rocked itself to sleep in the bucket under the sink behind the screen. They will not forget the stained pink cushions on the
shot-rayon
divan; the wide-eyed, loose-legged doll perched up on the topmost cushion; the blunt oblong cake of olive-green soap by the tap that was marked
Hot
but ran cold; the terrified scouring, frantic lying, and furtively-pinching self-examination. Whenever they smell rotten flowers, musty bedding, neglected laundry-baskets, hot feet, stale breath, sixpenny face-powder, gin and lysol, they remember the fading light behind the
vieux-rose
curtains and the bilious bulb under the fly-blown pleated
lampshade; and they fold their Sunday newspapers a little tighter and cry:
“No,
this
is
a
bit
too
thick!”

Fabian said: “Take off some of them heavy outdoor
garments
,” and pulled down one of her stockings.

She had never met such a fascinating man. A little later she said: “No, but
ooky-da-wook!
” and giggled.

“You see?” said Fabian, severely; “now this is just the wrong sort of time to get on the god-damn giggle with a dumb-cluck crack like that. Now listen….”

Presently she said: “Tell me—do you love me?”

“Now there you are again,” said Fabian. “Whaddaya want a guy to say? You don’t ask such questions, dope! You say:
‘Oh,
darling,
darling,
I
do
love
you,
darling!
Darling,
why
are
you
so
wonderful?
How
did
you
learn
to
be
such
a
sweet
lover?’
—Jesus, you’ve got a lot to learn!”

He spoke like a schoolteacher, but felt like the man of whom it had been said:
If
he
fell
into
the
River
Thames
he’d
come
up
in
a
dry
suit
of
clothes,
with
a
pocketful
of
fishes.

“Do just what I tell you,” he said, “and you’ll get that ermine coat. See? Do just like I tell you, get it?”

“Whatever you say.”

S
TILL
thinking about the hole in his sock Pym went back to the office. The Features Editor was in an abominable temper. “Well, what is it?” he said.

“I rewrote that story along the lines you suggested,” said Pym. “I didn’t use two syllables where one would do, and there isn’t a semi-colon in the whole thing. Short, sharp, staccato—a sting in every sentence—just like a boxer with a punch-ball …
rat-at-at,
rat-at-at.
Pithy. Factual. Gutty. Human.” Pym spoke with irony. “Brusque, snappy, quick and bright as an electric spark. Okay?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That story.”

“Look here,” said Steeple, “are you under the impression that you’re the only man trying to write for this paper? Have you somehow got the idea that they employ me to be your guide philosopher and friend? Has it ever occurred to you that once in a while I might have something better to do than improve my mind with your Tone Poems? Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that I’ve got to look at stuff from everybody in the world? But that’s how these people are,” he said, in a bitter apostrophe, looking at the palm of his right hand, “give ’em an inch—just give ’em an inch, and they take a mile. Why can’t you wait a couple of days, the same as everyone else does? Why should you get preferential treatment—you with your Resonant Prose?”

“I followed your advice,” said Pym, with an injured air, “and I was anxious to know how it had turned out. That’s all. If I’m bothering you I’ll go away. If you said that I was to come upstairs just so as to let off steam on me, I’m not having any of it. Give me back the story and go to hell. It would have been more gracious to send it down with a boy. I’d rather have a formal rejection slip—I’ve had plenty of those anyway.”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” said Steeple, rubbing a corrugated forehead with a nervous hand, “but you don’t know what I have to put up with. Story, story, story … You mean that market story. Well, I read it.”

“You read it, and you found that somewhere I used a word of two syllables. You haven’t time to give me a little talk on construction, and syntax, and all that sort of thing, so give me the bloody thing back and have done with it.”

“No, as a matter of fact, this one’s all right. I can use this one.”

“I’ve got dozens more in mind.”

“Good, good. Smack ’em in. But simplify, simplify. Make ’em more human. You understand?
Human.
More incident, more
story.
More
immediate
value. For instance: you talk about vegetables—cabbages, savoys, lettuces, rabbit food in general. Why don’t you tie that kind of thing up with
something
? For instance: there’s some talk of an infectious disease in clover. You know, clover—it puts back nitrogen into the
the soil. A thing like that could be dramatic. You say, for instance, just say that there was a real epidemic of that sort of thing. All the clover dies. All the grass dies. There’s nothing for the animals to eat. No roots to hold the soil. Top soil turns to dust, and dust storms destroy the world. It’s not a bad idea, when you come to think of it,” said Steeple, brightening, and making a note on a scribbling pad. “If you have the right approach, you know, you can see the end of the world in a cabbage. You put forward the theory, and it makes, as a matter of fact, a bloody fine story.”

“There’s another man,” said Pym, still angrily, “who has been looking into the Mosaic Disease of the tobacco leaf. As I see it, the Mosaic Disease is caused by crystals—but these crystals are not like any other crystals—they can reproduce. They can give birth. Take that to its logical conclusion and there you are: the world invaded by crystals. A great ball of washing-soda rolling in space.”

“That’s right. You’ve got the idea. Find out more about it.”

“And my story?”

“I can use that one. I’ll pay you ten.”

“Look, would you mind if I drew the money now?”

“All right, I’ll give you a note to the cashier. But I wish you wouldn’t. They don’t like it.”

“How about having lunch with me to-morrow?”

“Can’t manage it. Lunching with General Baker—tank expert.”

“The day after?”

“Out of the question: I’ve got to eat with Professor
Sack-man
who knows all about molybdenum. Stuff they call ‘
Molly-be-damned
’—they put it in steel—civilisation would crash without it. Modern warfare would become impossible.”

“When, then?”

“… After that I’ve got this geezer who calls herself Madame Sparrow, the rejuvenation woman: old charlatan, if you ask me, or more likely a plain crank. Some time next week perhaps. There’s your note. Good-bye. And remember—keep it crisp—actual, factual, snappy, human. So long.”

Pym left the cashier’s office with a hop, a skip and a jump, and went to a hosier’s shop in Fleet Street where he bought a pair of beautiful woollen socks, a noble tie, and a pair of bright blue artificial silk underpants. Then he went to the public baths in Endell Street and bathed luxuriously in very hot water.

After this he felt capable of anything except work; so he telephoned Rockwell Gagan and said: “Hullo, Rocky. What news?”

“Johnny, old boy old boy old boy, the best news you ever had in all your life. Can you come right up?”

“I daresay I could manage it.”

“You’ve got the address—Brow House, South Street, Park Lane,
Park
Lane—
got
it?”

“I’ll come along.”

*

Rocky was wearing a satin smoking jacket with a long
gold-tasselled
sash. There was pink sticking-plaster on his forehead and a broken vase in the fireplace. Sissy, wrapped in an
iridescent
green dressing-gown embroidered with golden beetles, was reclining on a
chaise
longue,
sipping a golden drink.

“About that play of yours,” said Rocky.

“I told you before, it isn’t a play of mine.”

“All right, Pym old son old son old son, Mary Greensleeve’s play then, you old fox!”

Sissy said: “You know, darling, I’m quite sure you were making up all that about her being an old woman, and dead, and all that.”

“You wrote it yourself, you old fox!” roared Rocky. “You old genius, you old genius, you old genius! … He had me in mind, darling, and he wrote it himself. Didn’t you, you old liar? Admit it, old son old son old son!”

“I’ve told you already I didn’t, and there’s an end of the matter.”

Sissy Voltaire said: “Well, whoever wrote it, dear, it’s your property, isn’t it?”

“It was given to me, yes, Miss Voltaire; so I suppose it’s my
property. I thought you were only joking,” said Pym, “when you said you were interested in it the other day. Do you still seriously mean to tell me——”

“—We’re crazy about it,” said Rocky, “we’re raving mad about it, aren’t we, darling?”

“Frantic! I cried all night,” said Sissy. “It’s … it’s so perfect. It makes one believe in, in reincarnation. That woman might have been me! And the vicar! I can hardly believe he isn’t drawn from my husband. And that cheap comedian, that great big idiot whom she takes out of the gutter (kiss me, darling)! It couldn’t be better. The great, big, tall, dark, handsome, virile, dirty parasite … (kiss me, Rocky) … the third-rate cross-talk idiot who shows her the meaning … (kiss me again as if you really mean it, dear love; oh, I do love you, I do I do I do!) … and whom she picks up out of the gutter, and makes a man of! And
you’ll
desert
me
too, won’t you, Rocky, you rotten parasite—won’t you, darling? You will, you
will!
I know it. No, but to talk business, Mr. Pym. (Tickle me here, just under this ear.) To talk business,” said Sissy Voltaire, with a sigh, “I want an option on this play of your girl friend’s.”

“What do you mean by an option?” asked Pym. Rocky said: “We pay you such-and-such a sum of money to reserve the right to buy the play in such-and-such a time.”

“What do you mean by
we?”
said Sissy Voltaire.

“Oh, all right.
Miss
Voltaire
pays you a certain sum for the right to consider the play with a view to putting it on within such-and-such a time.”

“Oh, really? How much?” asked Pym.

Sissy Voltaire cut short an amorous nuzzling of Rocky’s cheek and said: “I’ll give you fifty pounds for a
three-months
’ option.” Then she refreshed herself with a bit of his thumb.

“I take it this option means that for three months you have first refusal of the play. Is that it?”

“You’ve got it old boy old boy old boy,” said Rocky.
“—Hi!
That hurt, darling!”

“Hurt? You cheap bastard, I’d like to cut you into little
bits and give you to the cat, I love you so much,” said Sissy Voltaire.

Pym said: “When you say fifty pounds, I suppose you mean fifty pounds in cash, on the nail?”

He supposed nothing of the sort, in point of fact, and was half-stunned with amazement when Sissy Voltaire said: “But, of course.”

“That’s only option money, old son old son old son,” said Rocky. “All being well, when we—when Sissy—takes up that option, then you get another sum of money in advance, and you get a contract—five per cent of the takings. Shall I tell you something? It’s the easiest way in the world to make a fortune. Look at Bernard Shaw. Look at Somerset Maugham. Look at … look at any of them. Well? How about it?”

“Well, I accept, of course.”

“Well, what are you looking so sick about?”

“He wants a drink. Stop strutting up and down and showing off, and give him a drink, you idiot,” said Sissy.

“I didn’t know I was looking sick,” said Pym. “It came as a bit of a surprise to me, that’s all.”

“Here, old son old son old son, catch hold of this and let’s drink to it!”

They drank solemnly to the success of
That
We
May
Not
Weep,
and then Sissy Voltaire went to a little papier maché and mother-of-pearl desk and returned with ten five-pound notes and a piece of paper, which Pym signed. Now he had nearly sixty pounds. This was a vast and important sum of money. He had always told himself that if only he could lay his hands on fifty or sixty pounds everything would become simple: he could take a cleaner, quieter room, sit down uninterrupted, and in six weeks hammer out a masterpiece. Yet, as he put the money in his pocket, a strange, oppressive unhappiness took possession of him. He said: “Oh dear, poor little Mrs. Greensleeve! To think that she hawked this piece of tripe up and down the town all those years, and then——”

“—What do you mean, tripe? It’s a masterpiece, you fool!” said Sissy Voltaire.

“Did I say tripe? I’m sorry, I meant masterpiece,” said Pym.
“Well, that’s that. Thanks very much. When shall I get in touch with you?”

“How do we get in touch with you?” asked Rocky. “He’s a man of mystery. Johnny’s got some woman tucked away somewhere. He won’t let anybody see her, Sissy darling—Johnny’s insanely jealous, that’s the trouble with Johnny.”

“Jealousy is a sign of true love,” said Sissy. “I admire him for it. This big lout isn’t jealous, Johnny. If he came in and found me in bed with you he’d just sit down and read a magazine.”

“Now, darling.”

Pym said: “I’m moving to a quieter place, you see. I’ll let you know my address in the next two or three days. Well, I’d better be going now. Thanks again, and I’ll see you soon.”

As he closed the door, Sissy said to Rocky: “Come here!” And Rocky said: “Yes, darling.”

Pym reached the street in a state of profound melancholy. The first considerable sum of money that had come his way had been earned by Mary Greensleeve, and his masterpiece remained unwritten.

He crossed the road and went into the park, inhaling the autumnal odours, and thumbing the bank notes in his trousers’ pocket; sat on a twopenny chair, and looked at the cloudy golden sunset. In this sunset he felt that he was caught and fixed for ever like a fly in amber. His gold became red, the red grew grey like cold iron. Night was coming down, shutting out the sunset, like a furnace door. To-night there would be no moon: everything would be black, with a threat of approaching winter. Yet the glow of the day stayed with Pym for a little while, in spite of his melancholy. He felt—God knows why—that he had caught a glimpse of something immeasurably vast, unfathomably deep, and grand beyond human understanding. He said to himself:
“If
the
night
seems
to
be
dark,
it
will
be
because
the
beauty
of
it
has
blinded
me.
”
He knew then that the world of men is made up of particles, like the grains of a dust storm or the drops of a deluge, too small to count or separate,
too fast to identify, but joined in a unity too great to
comprehend
.

A wind began to blow and Pym got up and walked to the road. The glow was dead. Pym was confused and sad. Life bewildered him. He remembered that even in the tiniest thing there is more than the sum of its known parts; that you may count the tears and never know the grief; mark every leaf yet never know the tree; record the throbs, and still be a stranger to the heart. Yes, the glory eludes us and the dream evades us: it is here and yet it is not here, like a half-forgotten song. He said to himself:
“We
also
are
like
scattered
seeds
trodden
into
the
dirt
and
waiting,
cold
and
blind.
What
can
a
seed
know
of
the
thing
to
come?
If
an
acorn
could
think,
it
would
be
tormented
by
a
dream
of
blue
sky
and
green
leaves,
and
wonder
why
it
was
trodden
down,
humble
in
the
dust
and
alone
in
the
world.”