Fowlers End (16 page)

I lit it, anyway; it tasted of acetone. As if some alarm clock had gone off in her head, Miss Noel started to play a military march with tremendous force, just as the first customers of the day began to creep in.

“Look at ‘em, just look at ‘em,” said Copper Baldwin. “You or me or anybody, you ‘ear a nice quick march and you fall into step. You can’t ‘elp it, can you? But these poor sods—well,
look
at ‘em!... This is what we pay taxes for. This is what they call the proletariat. You know, there are
three
classes in society: one that produces but does not accumulate; one that accumulates but does not produce; and the majority, which is good for nothing. Vermin, in other words. Mussolini is right—give the bastards a shirt to wear that won’t show the dirt, and a marching song, and they’re appy. And
the Russians are right, too—a bit more forced labor is what the workers need, the despicable buggers; pick-and-shovel drill till they drop in their tracks, the mummified corpse of Lenin to cross ‘emselves in front of, ‘Kiss my arse, comrade,’for a chunk o’black bread, and for relaxation some film o’ some skivvy with piggy eyes set a foot apart and long gums and short teeth, grinning from ear to bloody ear, driving a tractor. For a bit o’ spice, let ‘er be seven months gone and carrying it ‘igh. Art? Cover ‘er fat face with sweat, and stand ‘er against the ‘anging branch of a tree loaded with apples
ripe to be plucked and covered with raindrops.

“They’d go for it ‘ere, too, the contemptible sods, given a bloody good ‘iding and a starvation diet. Which they’ll get, which they’ll get! The working classes are a lot o’ filthy parasites. Look at ‘em, Gawd strike me lucky, look at ‘em come! Look at old Lazarus-Raised-from-the-Dead spending ‘is old-age-pension money—my ‘ard-earned
taxes—to see Greta Garbo in
Wild Orchids.
Are you aware that beer would be a penny a pint, cigarettes twenty for twopence, and bread and meat
pi
times the logarithms of Sweet Fanny Adams—if it wasn’t for the likes of this?”

Then he stepped aside and stopped a little woman who was carrying in her arms a thirteen-year-old boy wrapped in a shawl, and said, “Now then, Missis—you put ‘im down, will you? Gawd suffering blimey, Mr. Laverock! Keep your eye on this one. What they won’t do for a free ticket! Parasites, malingerers, skivers, scroungers. Down with the bloody working classes!” he shouted. “Down with the King, down with the Queen, up the Bolsheviks, labor camps and castor oil for ever! If it comes to breeding, oh, Jesus, give me fruit flies every time!... Come on, you stinkpots, it’s your money we want,
it’s your money we want!”

A rebellious old man, hobbling in a network of gray veins that stood out like vines on a sapped jungle tree, growled, “And it’s my money you’ll get, you cheeky little bugger!”

Copper Baldwin yelled at him: “That’s about enough of that! I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Laverock’s got his eye on
you,
and if you’re not bloody careful ‘e’ll bar you. And you can go to Ullage for your Greta Garbo. Now then.”

“I never said nothing,” the old man said.

“Well, don’t say it again. What, I wish I ‘ad you in Russia. Euthanasia you’d get, not Greta Garbo. Where’s your bloody economic value, you and your Greta Garbo? Answer me that! Believe me, you wouldn’t last five minutes with me in Italy, you bleeding ulcer on the body politic. Greta Garbo, I ask you!”

The old man shook with impotent rage, and it seemed that his veins swelled, but he said nothing. He wanted to see Greta Garbo in
Wild Orchids.

“‘Ow old are you?” asked Copper Baldwin.

Itching to get into the cinema, the old man said, “Seventy-two.”

Copper Baldwin said, “By rights, your expectation of life is fifty-two years, you layabout. In the Ideal State, gorblimey, I’d ave ‘ad you in a lethal chamber twenty years ago. No shame, no social sense. Look at yourself. Three square meals a day for seventy-two years, and what ‘as the state got to show for you? Greta Garbo in
Wild Orchids.
Oh, you bloody vampire, you!” Then he whispered to me, “Give ‘im a complimentary ticket.”

Complimentary ticket for this gentleman, Mrs. Edwards,” I said. She tore one off a roll and gave it to the old man, who didn’t know what to do with it. There was something like a game of draughts at the box office with his pennies until, at last, he took back his money and shambled into the hall muttering,”... Too old a bird to be caught wiv chaff.... They gives you fourpence, and they takes a shilling.... Jews are the ruination—Jews and the underground railways.”

“Why underground railways?” I
asked, thinking aloud.

Copper Baldwin said, “Why not? You’ve got a lot to learn, son, about the bloody proletariat. Call a meeting, give everybody a cup o’ cocoa and a bun, and say, ‘The trouble with the world today is ‘orses,’ and you’ll get results. Oh, Christ, ‘ow I ‘ate the working classes!”

“And the ruling classes?” I asked.

“That’s what I mean,” said Copper Baldwin, “the iron ‘eel o’ the working classes (so-called) on the neck o’ civilization and individual liberty. Cancer in the family— working classes. Strength goes to support weakness. ‘Ealth kills itself for disease. There’s your benevolent-bloody-state.”

“Copper,” I said, “to which class do you belong?”

He replied, “No class. I wear no man’s collar, son. My mother was a finder o’ the pure. My grandfather—”

Then Mrs. Maybrick, the grisly beldam who was called “Chief Usherette” came to the vestibule very agitated and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but young Dilly is making trouble. Would you kindly reprimand him, or eject him, sir?”

Copper Baldwin said, “You don’t want to be afraid of Dilly. All pastry and coconut. Don’t eject ‘im, son. Chuck ‘im out, in plain English.”

“He got in without a ticket,” said Mrs. Maybrick. “Oh, I knew, I knew, but when I asked him he told me to go and something myself. If you want him out of here, he said, you and who else can something well come and fetch him. He keeps whistling.”

I said, “Actually, shouldn’t there be a doorman for this kind of thing?”

Mockingly, Copper Baldwin said,
“Actually,
yes, but...” Then he went on to explain that Sam Yudenow staffed his cinemas—which were where he found them, in the unlikeliest places—with the leavings, the droppings, of the population. Recently, he told me, Yudenow had haggled with Hacker the Breaker over a set of jazz-patterned glass panels which, if you put a revolving electric light behind them, could turn a flea pit into a super cinema at the snap of a switch. Four pounds the lot. Only Sam Yudenow had managed to get Hacker the Breaker to include, in this deal, a uniform—bankrupt stock from H
igh Life Film Studios out at Acton—which had been designed for the man who played the Duke of Wellington in one of their productions. The producer had taken it into his head that the Iron Duke was six and a half feet tall. Stopping me short when I protested that Wellington was a skinny little fellow, considerably under the average height, Copper Baldwin said, “Yes, I know; he was half-arsed. So was Nelson. But look at Nelson’s Column. What d’you expect? Suckers, suckers
for their own tit. I mean to say, it stands to reason. ‘You must ‘ave faith in your own product,’ they say. But I ask you, son, ‘ow does that work out? Like this: Develop an appetite for your own crap. That’s all. Sell yourself on your own trailers. Believe me, the best producer or exhibitor is the proto-bloody-type of ‘is own best customer. ‘Istory is bunk; the Duke o’ Wellington stood six foot six; and Bob’s your uncle.... But as I was saying, it ain’t worth Yudenow’s while to fit a uniform to a man—it’s cheaper to fit a man to a uniform. The Turners Green ‘Ippodrome, which is a quie
t ‘ouse, ‘as got Napoleon. Procrustean, bloody procrustean!... Meanwhile, chuck that Dilly out.”

So, uncomfortably aware of the beating of my heart, I followed Mrs. Maybrick down the dark aisle. The offensive Dilly had made himself comfortable in the middle part of the hall. Tapping him on the shoulder, I said, “Excuse me, may I see your ticket stub?” Then Dilly made the kind of sucking, squeaking noise old ladies make when they call cats and said, in a mincing voice, “Oh, stop it, Horace darling!” So I had to throw him out.

I invited him to step into the aisle and be thrown out like a gentleman. He would not. He made a circle of the thumb and the forefinger of his left hand into which he inserted the first two fingers of his right, while, with tongue and lips, he made a loud noise. From all over the hall people began to complain. I got into the row behind him and took his throat in the crook of my arm, dragging him into the aisle. His trousers held as I lifted him off the ground. Not knowing what to do with him then, I carried him into the vestibule, where Copper Baldwin was waiting.

“Like this?” I asked.

Copper Baldwin’s mouth twitched a little, but his stomach heaved with laughter. He said, “Better let him down.”

Dilly sprawled on the floor, gasping. I picked him up and shook him. “You know,” I said to him, “you’re supposed to pay for your ticket, and not to whistle.... Mrs. Edwards, please give this gentleman a complimentary ticket.” But young Dilly blinked at me and, easing his neck by a series of gyrations, went quietly out into the street.

Copper Baldwin said, “All right. The arse o’ the trousers is good psychology.”

“Sam Yudenow told me—”

“Don’t be silly,” I told Sam
Yudenow!
”Read your Von Clausewitz, read your Falkenhayn. Go for the weak spot. Not more than three in five round Fowlers End ‘ave got an arse to their trousers. Remember that. Those three are scar tissue, if you like. Say you’ve ‘ad your appendix out and it’s just sewn up, and I make a feint at you. Where will your guard drop to? Your belly. That’s ‘ow it is ‘ere, with the arse o’ the trousers. But remember, everybody in Fowlers End wears a muffler, and there’s a vulnerable point, son. Go for that choker and twist it. Whatever the bastards breathe, they can’
t do without it for long. In the ‘ot weather, ‘it ‘em in the kidneys. They’re ain’t a ‘ole pair o’kidneys in Fowlers End. But you shouldn’t ‘ave offered young Dilly a complimentary.... But wait about a bit. The turns should be turning up about now.”

He took from Mrs. Edwards a fragment of paper upon which were listed our “Live Bookings” for the next three days. At the top of this list stood the name of:

Johnny Mayflower, Trick Skater

But this was crossed out in blue pencil, and close beneath it was written, in violet ink:

Canceled—pawned skates; substitute

Johnny Lambsbreath, the Man Who Made the Prince of Wales Laugh

Copper Baldwin said, “That was Edward VII, when ‘e was Prince of Wales. Oh, the poor bastard! Now this next one, Sam Yudenow will turn up for ...” He put his thumb on:

Eena, Oriental Contortionist

“Oh, ‘e loves ‘em, ‘e loves ‘em, them Oriental contortionists! And last, but not least, the Double Turn...”

Hanky and Panky, Eccentric Dancers

“Don’t worry, son. Show ‘em where they dress, and et cetera. One o’ these days we must ‘ave a real intellectual conversation, but in the meantime better let me give you a few wrinkles in applied psychology. Just be calm, look everybody straight in the face, and say nothing. Look at it this way: if you do ‘em a good turn, they think you want something out of ‘em; if you don’t do ‘em a good turn, they think you already done ‘em a bad ‘un. You can’t lay down law, bylaw, formula, rule, or regulation. Do nothing, but do it at the right moment. There’s the royal road, son, when the last comes
to the last. But if you’ve got to do something
positive,
follow your intuition; and then do it as if your life depended on it. Which it will, son. See what I mean?”

I thought it polite to say “I see what you mean.”

But I did not see what he meant, for the time being. He continued: “Gawd give me fruit flies! ‘Ere’s where the ‘uman element’s always got you bolloxed. Destiny depends on the individual. Lenin, Mussolini, me—too many of us. The trouble with the world today is, a bloody sight too many chromosomes flying about all over the place. Spermatozoa, et cetera, swarms of ‘em, in every yob in
Fowlers End. And to every tart that’ll come into the generator room with you, ova. It makes you think, don’t it? Gawd give me fruit flies! I’d ration their eggs, I would!”

I said, “Can’t very well, can you?”

Copper Baldwin said, “No, I know. Bu
t I would if I could.”

“Be God Almighty?” I asked.

“Why,” said he, “what does young Dilly, for example, want with spermatozoa? Are you aware—I’m not pretending to give you the right figures—that in about ninety years from now that layabout Dilly will have devoured about a quarter of the earth’s surface, or something like that, ‘im and ‘is spermato-bloody-zoa? Aquick X ray right in the testicles, and sterilize the buggers.”

“And what business had
your
mother with an ovum?” I asked provocatively.

“You wait and see. You’d laugh if you knew,” said Copper Baldwin. “Now that I come to think of it, if you imagine you’ve seen the end-all of everything—talking o’ variety turns—wait till you meet Billy Bax the Agent. Wickedness. It works by kind o’ centripetal force. It rushes in on itself and makes an ‘ard lump. With the possible exception o’ ‘Acker the Breaker, Billy Bax the Agent is about the only man in the world Sam Yudenow looks up to.”

“How’s that?”

“Because Billy Bax the Agent is a bit lower than ‘imself, so ‘e looks up to ‘im. Wrong end o’ the telescope, get me? The cosmos upsy-down.... Meanwhile, better ring Sam Yudenow—I daresay ‘e already give you the office— about the Chinese contortionist. You know the signals? The password is
generator room—do
you fluff?”

I said, “I fluff, Copper.”

The manager’s office was a kind of cubicle between the rewinding room and the ice-cream machine. It was furnished with the skimmings of some of Hacker the Breaker’s
job lots—a boule table, an Elizabethan ash tray left over from a bankrupt production about Sir Walter Raleigh, a chaise longue of the Second Empire, one of the earliest Japanese imitations of an old American typewriter that had as many keys as a calculating machine, and a telephone upon which Sam Yudenow had evidently been trying out some silver paint so that it had a flaky and leprous look about it. I got Sam Yudenow’s number and told him that there was trouble in the generator room.