Umbrella (36 page)

Chu Chin Chow
. There is indeed a spiffing feed: bottles of ale and ginger beer, pots of meat paste, four large cottage loaves and a tin basin full of éclairs. We scrounged ’em from a baker’s in Sidcup, the boy explains, juggling himself between his crutch and a laughable pipe
he should ’ave a rattle
. . .
Chappie said we were robbing him out of house and home, but when I marched the whole squad on to the premises, well, he could hardly refuse us – sacrifice an’ all that argy-bargy . . . He falls silent as the singing lulls to an end, its short-lived harmony supplanted by the ceaseless monotony of the anti-aircraft batteries at Eltham Palace. In here Audrey sees there is colour: the blacked-out windows have been dressed with red, white and blue bunting, as have a framed photograph of Queen Alexandra and a framed text of the Lord’s Prayer. There are poesies of summer wildflowers tied with ribbon to the chair backs – it’s
as gay as all get out
, apart from
the vellum faces of the poor cows
, and the broken and bandaged bodies of the British bulldogs – whose hair shocks from tightly wound crêpe, their faces are masked by it, their arms are slung in it, and, as Audrey travels from wound to wound, the Tommies commence their own miserable rondeau: We’re ’ere because we’re ’ere because we’re ’ere! to the accompaniment of Jews’ harps, mouth organs improvised from combs and tissue paper, and the grim drubbing of an upright long past tunefulness: Rainin’, rainin’, rainin’, always bloomin’ well rainin’, Rainin’ all the mornin’, Rainin’ all the night . . . is seamlessly joined, then smoothly gives ground to: Where are our uniforms? Far, far a-waay, When will our rifles come, p’raps, p’raps one da-aay –. Why, asks Gertie the corker, do they still sing these songs? They’re home now . . . A chubby-faced sergeant hangs on her words but cannot answer – has he not noticed the orange tint to her exuberant locks, or wondered why she wears white cotton gloves to nosh on an éclair? He sweats copiously, labouring over his next breath, H’herrr, h’herrr, spittle greenish and blood-flecked gathering at the corners of his mouth. B’herrr, he manages, b’herrr – then fights his way through the tangles of tobacco smoke to the door and is gone, heaving, into the night air. Audrey ignores Gertie’s question – because surely it’s obvious: they sing the songs of over there, because from now on and forever they will remain
over there – this is no quick turn, the chairman will never hammer them off. There’s no escaping it – lying in flooded shell hole or bloodied dugout, the sleepers can never awake! Every faltering trump must surely be their last – yet still another h’herrr comes, there’s no gassing – they’re all gas cases
. . .
The Welsbach mantle in its wire globe flares brighter than the sun, Missus Varley, her face caricatured by Bass –
Insist on Seeing the Label!
– stares through the cracked pane of forced gaiety at Audrey, who sinks down on to a providential chair and discovers herself eye-level with the groin of the boy-amputee. He – or a draper’s assistant – has pinned the trouser leg up under the skirts of his tunic so that it appears that half his leg remains, but now, from the way the cloth lies flat, Audrey can tell it’s all gone. Behind the complexities of his button fly she knows of this: the aimless target of traumatised flesh and sawn bone, his poor little
ding-dong a’donging
down there in the dark,
boneless, never able to support him
. . .
She leans forward, hugging her nausea to her breast, seeing amputees hung about with false legs: the pleats of an irrational dress that hides where they are divided. Her breath catches, then curdles in her throat – the hands that Gracie stilled go to work again, finding a plastic wheel and
twisting
this, seeking out a moulded handle and
yanking
that. The tabletop tips water into a lap that’s ceased to exist — for she’s lying flat on her back with the young officer saying, Are you all right, Miss Death? She thinks: How does he know my name? She thinks: there was smoke from his pipe and the fags of the others, smoke
caught and combed in and over and pulled through
, and now there filters through the disinfection of the ward this litany: Guards, No. 6, No. 10, Peter Stuyvesant, Kensitas, Senior . . . Senior . . . and again: Guards, No. 6, No. 10, Peter Stuyvesant, Kensitas, Senior . . . Senior . . . Busner is strongly inclined to supply the Service, what harm can there be in it? It’s so very sad to hear this plaint of longing from the next bed, as he bends to the handle and cranks this one upright. Since he’s resumed smoking Busner sees smoke
everywhere
– although the patients are forbidden to in the dormitories, he sees it here as well, bluey-grey and strained by the white bars of the bedsteads, curling up brownish to
satirise
the fire-resistant ceiling tiles – above this hypocritical ceiling
what?
the original Victorian plasterwork, egg-and-dart, scrolls and scallops . . .
petrified smoke
. Her paper-thin eyelids crinkle – but don’t retract. Marcus has been enthroned on an easy chair dragged in from the day-room, and Busner bows to him, saying, She’s extremely elderly now, as you can see. Marcus holds a mug – Tottenham Hotspur’s cockerel prances around it.
He
deigns
, Yes, well . . . obviously. I mean, she was well advanced in middle age before the war. Well preserved, though, had a head still – full head . . . of striking red hair. She’ll need some consoling for its loss. Busner is grateful the older man is talking to him at all,
I need consoling for my loss.
Biddable patients are rewarded by the nurses with cigarettes – latterly they’ve had to reward him as well. Dazedly, Busner examines her: blood pressure, pulse, instead of an intrusive thermometer a damp hand against her dry forehead. Eyes shut, Audrey listens to his huffing – smells it
smoky
and
sour
. She has no patience for his air of perpetual bumptiousness – already she understands that he expects a lot of her, and if she struggles to make sense of this strange new world it is only in order to deny him . . .
everything
. I do believe she’s awake, Busner, says the other one . . .
Marcus?
Another Jew-boy
, but she remembers him as
upright, handsome, correct . . . dapper
, moreover,
always willing to speak to me as if I were a
sensible person
, notwithstanding that
I couldn’t reply
. Until now. Marcus puts the cockerel down on the adjustable table that Busner has levelled and leans forward. It is not, Busner thinks, a face I’d like to be confronted with immediately upon waking from a half-century’s nap – that duckbill and those gaping nostrils would hardly console me for the loss of my hair, my life, the world-that-was and
everything . . . east of Aden
. Still, Marcus can at least perform this senior service: to act as a time chamber within which Audrey can rest a while as she’s decompressed by his chat –
all that heavy Victoriana, the lead-glass domes sealing off stuffed and supercilious dodos that must stand about on the dusty tallboys and dirtied doilies of her mind
. Marcus can sort out all this bric-a-brac and in its place
tell her about . . . about . . . polystyrene – yes, that. And PVC too. He can introduce her to the ringing emptiness of inflatable plastic chairs and Habitat lampshades – and to nets clinking with glass floats strung along the walls of trendy bistros. He can bring her up to speed on the flatulence induced by home-brewed –.
Oh, good heavens! Audrey cries, eyes wide open, Who on earth is this old man! Busner, worried that he’s about to get the giggles, abandons himself to his craving: I think I’ll leave the two of you alone for a while so that you can get . . . reacquainted. He strolls away down the dormitory, looking in on the right
at a Rodin draped in sheets and left in storage:
Missus Gross. In sympathy with his overworked staff, Busner’s disappointed to note that her
niblet of a husband
isn’t about this afternoon — since awakening, Gross’s voracity has become still more excessive: she bullies the nurses, compelling them to bring her whatever they can scrounge, and, terrified that
she might . . . perhaps, roll over and crush them
, they do:
worker termites in the service of a tyrannical queen
. Outsized plates of chips from the staff canteen, steel basins jumbled with stale éclairs and the big mixing bowls shivering with the jelly she particularly favours – jelly she incorporates into her own wobbly Tupperware with loud slurps and percussive lip-smacks. As a practitioner Busner is disappointed
the proper Charlie isn’t about to fetch and carry and cadge
, thus taking the pressure of her monstrousness off his staff, – but as a civilised man he is glad: no one person should have to deal with
this.
Good afternoon, Leticia, he says, attempting a breezy neutrality. She looks up from the mirror of a powder compact with which she’s been examining her face in many tiny eyefuls. I’m delighted, he continues,
Angel Delighted
to see you take an interest in your appearance – it’s been a long time since you’ve cared . . . The indefinite nature of this long time is deliberate on Busner’s part, although of all the post-encephalitics Leticia Gross is the least affected by her time-travel – from hot jazz to teeny bop she hasn’t missed a beat, and the velocity of her internal metronome is immediately evident: she drops the compact into the mess of screwed-up sweet wrappers and gnawed lolly sticks that Busner now notices is shoved between the sheet and her slab thigh. As two flies wobble aloft, she puts her disconcerting sky-blue eyes on him and, splitting her baby pout, buzzes a speech, Idon’tknowabouthatDoctorBusner IonlyknowwhatIdoesrightnowwhenwe’retalkingtogetherwhenI’mthinkingaboutthewaryou’venonotiontherewasnothingtoeatatallnonothingtheydidn’tgiveussomuchastherationwhichwewererightfullyentitledtoshockingehifCharliehadn’t’vecomeupmostdaysIshould’vestarvedhegavemebreadofftherationthat’swhatitwashetellsmenow’courseIdidn’tknowatthetimehalfgoneIwasothersin’eretheygavesomemuckto’emandtheygotawfulsicktheirhairfelloutandeverythingb’lievemeonthisoneit’strueIswear . . . that he is able to understand – with difficulty – only because he’s taken the time to sit with her, concentrate and measure the prodigious speed and accuracy of her diction with stopwatch and tape recorder, so discovering that she can reach five hundred words per minute without missing so much as a single syllable. From deep in the core of Leticia Gross – I’dliketoknow exactlywhatitwastheywerefeedingthosepoorsoulssomesortagruelremindedmeofburgoonotthatIhadsuchbutmyfatherservedintheGreat Warandhesaidtheygave’emasortaporridgeofcrackedwheatbutthiswasn’twheatCharliesaysitwascorntheygotfromtheYanks – these waves of healthfulness vigorously radiate, penetrating all the fatty lagging, and in the ten days since the L-DOPA has winched this colossus up Busner has spent as many hours alone with her, entranced by the exactitude of her recollection,
If only Marcus could be bothered to pay attention to this
:
HewentdowntoCarswellStreetwherethey’dopened uparecruitin’officebuttheysent’imback’omesayin’therewasnocalljustthenformarriedmenbesides’isjobwhichwasasafiremanatthattimeonasmallPortAutoritylighterwaswhatd’yousayessentialthat’sithewaswellpaidmindweallus’adshoesan’nicethings,
perhaps he would
change his tune – after all, could the organic damage really be that extensive if it left this much intact?
Moreover, the forced quality of her reminiscence was a phenomenon Leticia Gross was perfectly well aware of: thereIgoagainDocrabbitin’on, so that to follow the insightful thread paid out by this ever-wakeful Penelope was to enter the labyrinthine night-without-end before L-DOPA, so as to experience alongside her its narcolepsies, sleep paralyses and daymares of premature burial. Leticia revealed to him the lowering underworld of the post-encephalitic, wherein the myriad tics, jerks and spasms acted to bore the tunnels and hollow out the burrows required by a multitude of subpersonalities – selflets, which were at once regressively primitive and highly organised. The revolting urges of the aggressive woman-mountain – her hoarding of crumpled rubbish, crusts of bread, her own faeces! were in his eyes only the behavioural counterbalance to her astonishingly lucid overview – it was Leticia who told Busner how she had to match everything, whether in the phenomenal world – one teaspoon aligned with a second, two hairclips with two more – or that of ideas, for, she said, she could not think of anything without picturing it mirrored, yoghurt pot-with-yoghurt pot, pain-with-pain. Alerted to it, Busner then found evidence of this tendency to symmetrise in all the others – although Leticia’s own coinage for it, arithomania, seemed more apt, conjuring up as it did the past she had been torn out of, its newsreels of single figures surging together in