Fowlers End (38 page)

Copper Baldwin came down from the projection room: one of the machines had started to run backward. “Poxy Sam,” he said, “what ‘ave you been up to?”

“Up to what? Up to where? Who, me?” said Sam Yudenow.

“You been doing something wicked,” said Copper Baldwin.

“Don’t make me laugh, please, I got a cvacked lip. It pains. But listen, I want your advice, yours too, Laveridge. For a name for a dance ‘all, what’s the matter miv the ‘Covered Wagon’? Temporary, under a tent, like a covered wagon. Shafts—’Acker the Breaker could find me old telegraph poles; ‘orses ‘e’s got from the roundabouts. A good name, the ‘Covered Wagon,’no? I’m thinking o’starting a little company: Yudenow Developments Limited. I’m only pissballing and I don’t want you should give it another thought. Only kind o’ think it over, sort o’ style.... ‘Ow’s the house?”

“About five hundred and fifty,” I said.

Instead of urging me to rush into the street and drag in a few more, to my astonishment he said, “Nicely, nicely.”

Just then there came the reverberation of a shocking explosion. It shook the Pantheon. The projectionist had a heart attack and had to be smacked in the face while young Headlong took over—and what that boy did with
Sinners Beware!
should not happen to a dog. He ran it too fast, he ran it too slow; it was all one to him if two frames appeared at once on the screen; and, having developed a weakness for the woman who shows one of her legs when the soldier takes his belt off, he managed to rerun that reel for the rest of the night. Nobody noticed; they thought she must be somebody else.

Sam Yudenow said, “Did you ‘ear th
at ‘orrible bang?”

Copper Baldwin said, “Didn’t you?” “Don’t answer a question miv a question! Was it Gveeks?”

“Don’t talk like a berk. Where ‘ave you been all your life? That’s dynamite; they must be blasting for foundations round Ullage.”

Impulsively, Sam Yudenow said, “By me this is music!”

“Why, what’s Ullage to you?”

“It means so little to me I’m delighted it should be blasted,” said Sam Yudenow.

Later Copper Baldwin took a walk up the road, and came back laughing. As soon as he caught his breath, he said to me, “Ever ‘ear about Deucalion? Aquarius? The Water Carrier? Stone me blind, I never trusted Greek cooking. That bloody stuff went orf, and there ain’t a window left in Ullage. Nor a square inch uncovered with mud. The ‘Ippodrome ‘as got a crack in it you could lay three fingers in. No casualties, except one old woman—but they’ll ‘ave to wipe ‘er orf before they can tell. The cream o’ this jest, cocko, is that this ‘ere stuff blasted down to an underground spring, and
Ullage is knee-deep, more or less. I never laughed so much since Father died. Fancy a bit o’ gin? This calls for a celebration. Laugh? You would ‘ave pee’d yourself. The War Memorial fell onto the roof o’ the chapel, which, unfortunately, was empty at the time. Nothing left but a stump. Oh, it’s lovely. This almost makes me believe in Gawd. ‘Ave a bit o’ gin, do ‘ave a bit o’ gin!”

I asked, “What’s so funny?”

He said, “Sam Yudenow bought the ‘Ippodrome orf Johnny Wills, and the insurance policy ain’t been renewed. What is more, I got news for you: I called that man in Chicken Lane. That bastard Yudenow nipped up to the City
and bought a portion of our ‘oldings in Ullage for seven thousand quid. ‘Ow d’you like that?”

I said, “I never was very good at figures, Copper. Let’s work out the percentages. Seven hundred produces seven thousand—”

“Ah, money breeds money.”

I said, “I don’t believe in money. What I was trying to work out was the percentage due.”

“I’m against vested interests myself,” said Copper Baldwin, “therefore, I say, bugger off and give the bastards an object lesson in the capitalist system. Thirty-five hundred for you, thirty-five hundred for me, and Bob’s your uncle. What say?”

“Nothing of the sort,” I said. “My mother is an investor, a lady in whom I am interested is an investor ... Damn it all, Copper, let us be equitable. I hate greed—”

“But we chewed Sam’s bollocks off, didn’t we?”

“Keep them, and much good may they do you,” I said. “But what this takes is an accountant. Take it first and last, Copper: everybody gets it on a percentage basis, and quick! My mother first of all, then Miss Whistler. Deduct Mr. Cruikback’s percentage—”

“I love that man,” said Copper Baldwin. “I’d like to make ‘im managing director. Three and a half per cent? I’m surprised at you. Mr. Cruikback? Three and a half per cent? Now look ‘e gets two hundred smackers—let ‘im plow it back and give ‘im ten per cent. Where’s your bloody acumen?”

“This seven thousand pounds is to be divided among the shareholders in this company,” I said, “of which you are the least.”

“It ain’t business,” said Copper Baldwin, in protest.

“And a good job too,” said I. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve got ten times your investment. For goodness’ sake, what more do you want? And I may tell you,” I
added severely, “there’s not many jobbing mechanics in times like these that can put their hands on a couple of hundred pounds. Better be grateful.”

“Grateful. To this I ‘ave one word to say,” said Copper Baldwin; and he moistened his lips, filled his lungs, and blew out a disgusting noise. “For beer money, et cetera, I am compelled to rely on extracurricular activities. Jesus, I want to show you the coast of Cuba coming up like a thread o’ fog! Let alone the porpoises. No, really and truly, they
play.
I caught one once by accident, and you’d be surprised the difficulty I ‘ad trying to chuck ‘im back. ‘E went to chew my foot orf, but that was only a love bite. Fixed ‘im with a fire ax and served ‘im for a stew off Venezuela
. Surprising amount o’ oil. But there was a Nicaraguan boy liked the liver. Man’s best friend is the porpoise—I cut ‘is jaws out, dried them out, and mounted them on a board. Sold ‘em for a pound. What about this drink? I’ll grant you your principles, so come on now!”

So we went to the Load of Mischief. Copper Baldwin was in such a state of exaltation that he could not stand on one foot for more than a few seconds at a time. He shouted, “Drinks on me!” And, in the murmurous, respectful half-silence that followed—drunk with triumph—he said, “Anybody mind if I oblige with a little song?”

Nobody minded. Clearing his face of all traces of cheerfulness and emptying his glass, he turned up an imaginary collar and proceeded to sing. But before he did so he warned the company: “Okay. This’ll cheer you up, you grizzling lot o’ miseries. Bleeding juveniles. You never ‘eard the like o’ this before, and you’ll never ‘ear the like o’ this again, you bastards, you!”

A heavy-set man with a fixed expression of melancholy, but with a polite air, shrugged himself into a halfupright position and said, “Excuse me, but did you apply that remark to me?”

“You’re drinking wiv me,” said Copper Baldwin, “that’s unanswerable, ain’t it, wage slave? ... I will now give you a ditty.”

Then, to a combination of tunes, he sang as follows:

My poor mince pies are full o’tears,
My raspberry tart is jelly,
My daisies I bullock’d for two pig’s ears
To warm my Auntie Nelly.

A
tosser on a Wilkie Bard,
A lord on a Charing Cross,
Is ‘ow I fell, and it’s bread-n-lard
To bear my milkman’s ‘orse.

No titfer to my loaf-o-bread,
No strike-me-dead to eat,
No place to go for an Uncle Ned,
Or boots to my plates-o’-meat.

On the Johnny Horner I must stand
In this land of the yet-to-be,
‘Olding out my Martin’s-le-Grand
For the price of a Rosie Lee.

Without ‘eavens above or china plate
I know I can never be missed,
So I shake in the chivvy of ‘orrible Fate
My trembling Oliver Twist.

I must die for the want o’ Johnny Rann,
No Little Nell shall be rung for
This Pope-o’-Romeless pot-’n-pan
My ding-dong has been sung for...

When we went back across the road, deafened by applause, the Inspector was waiting in the vestibule. “Copper, where were you last night?” he asked.

“Naturally, on the premises.”

“Whose?”

“Whose what? Premises? Generator trouble, Inspector. You want to see our generator? Come and put your ‘and on it. Only first of all make a chain ‘and to ‘and, you and the boys. Try it and see. Doctors say it’s good for the nerves. They can always identify you by your teeth, anyway. ‘Ave a go?”

“None of your sauce. There was a burglary in Thurd Street, Pickles Road. House of a gentleman in the legal profession. Thief took only cash out of a safe, but the skivvy recognized him, you know.”

“Good girl!” exclaimed Copper Baldwin.

“Was this man with you last night, sir?” the Inspector asked me.

“Oh, definitely,” I said.

“An alibi, eh?” the Inspector said, looking daggers. Then he went away.

After he was halfway down the street, I asked Copper Baldwin, “Where
were
you last night?”

“Cocko, don’t talk shop. And if you do, don’t go
too deep.”

TOO MUCH money is too good to be true. It ceases to be real. Call yourself a treasurer and you can simply print the stuff. Whether you can roll purchasing power of bread and meat off the presses after you have eaten the wheat and the cattle is a problem for the economists, and I know nothing of economics. But you can get drunk on them. And, you know, drunkard breeds drunkard. Hence, inflations. Now that I come to think of it, I was a one-man inflation; and I am sick at the thought of it.

As I worked it out, every investor had, already, in hard cash nearly a thousand per cent of his or her original investment. With deductions, call it a mere eight hundred per cent or so. I apportioned everything, according to capital investments minus outgoings. By this token June Whistler had two thousand, five hundred pounds to come, Copper Baldwin had two thousand and my mother had three thousand, five hundred pounds—the odd eighteen shillings, since I was bad at arithmetic, I put aside for “Entertainment.” And I had a hundred and fifty pounds under my belt, and was still a company
director holding massive projects in Ullage worth heaven knows what when A.A.A.A. moved in and started negotiations. I saw myself as somebody a shade more important than Uncle Hugh— one of A.A.A.A.’s stockholders, what they call a “comer.” If he thought I would let him in on the ground floor, I decided, Uncle Hugh would never have made a bigger mistake in his life. No doubt he would cringe for the handling of the remaining stock. Then my horse’s laugh would be something worth hearing.

I’d take him, say, to Claridge’s for lunch, and lecture him on imagination in business. Money, I would indicate, was a product of the higher imagination. If it came from produce, merely, we’d all be shoving wheelbarrows and
shouting in cracked voices, “Coconuts!” or “Apples-a-pound-pears!” or “Who will buy my blooming lavender?” As it was, henceforward he had better be careful. Economics, that was the word; and let him look it up in a dictionary. While I was willing to concede that Stafford Cripps, Montague Norman, and other such dilettantes had a smattering, it was a case of Youth at the helm. And his face would be red—it was never otherwise, but it would now be redder—and he would be sorry for having entertained the idea that I was not cut out for big business.

I indulged myself in the most delicious fantasies. I blazed with thought-forms of jewelry while my feet tingled with imaginary kisses. A ballerina bit my ear and I smiled indulgently until I discovered that it was a Fowlers End flea, striking at which—in blind rage at being nibbled out of my dream—I hit myself on the side of the head. I never knew I packed such a punch.

I was intoxicated, in the manner of some decent fellow who, never having had more than sixpence, finds himself with a five-pound note. Money really does burn a hole in your pocket if you are not acquisitive. Well, it had better burn a hole in your pocket than in your heart, I suppose.

I went, first, to June Whistler’s place. There a chill descended upon me as in the science-fiction stories; out of a clear summer sky comes a Something. Your bones turn to water. In this case, it was draped in mauve.

I had not time to open my mouth before June Whistler cried, “Daniel Laverock, really, I think you have behaved abominably! Oh, I know I have been a fool. But does this confer on you the right to be detestable? Parasite!”

I said, “This I don’t quite understand, my dear.”

“I beg your pardon,” she said, with indescribable
hauteur,
curling her back hair with two fingers of her left hand, “I’m not your dear.”

“If it comes to parasite,” I said, deeply offended, pulling out of my pocket an envelope full of money, “I promised you a return on your investment. Here’s about eight hundred per cent. Take it. Furthermore, you are a shareholder. I don’t suppose you meant it, but you have hurt my feelings. If you were a man I would punch you right on top of the nose—” I had already picked up Fowlers End usage—“Being a woman, you deserve a smack in the face and a good kick up the arse!” Then the Old Valetudinarian spirit came upon me as, opening the envelope, she saw the money and her eyes filled with tears. R
elenting, I said, “You might at least say thank you.”

June Whistler said, in a most plaintive manner, “I don’t deserve this. I don’t want it. Take it back. Oh, Dan, I’m sorry to say I took a man out of the gutter and he ravished me like a mad beast—”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Then I met an honorable man, a decent one. He offered me security. And then ...”

In a white rage I asked, “And precisely who was this bastard who ravished you like a wild animal, or whatever it was you said? I’ll kill the bastard!”

“No, darling, you mustn’t!”

“Oh, I see,” I said, “you still love him, is that it?”

“Very dearly. You mustn’t hurt him. He ravished me like a gorilla. No, really, he raped me like a buffalo.”

“Point him out!” I shouted. “And I’ll ravish him. I’ll show him buffaloes and gorillas!”

With a solemn and mysterious look, June Whistler opened her handbag and took out a powder compact, which she opened, and held the mirrored lid under my nose, saying, “It was you, but I forgive you.”

When I lose my temper I do it in reverse. When I am almost at my worst, I whisper; before the berserker, I become dumb. Now I whispered, with the extraordinary
deliberation that comes over me at such times, “Pardon me. You will excuse me. But what, precisely, is this act in aid
of?”