The Complete Short Stories (39 page)

‘Do you want Elise?’ I
called, thinking it was one of her friends.

He looked up, and I recognized
the soldier, the throwback, who had given us cigarettes in the train.

‘Well, anyone will do,’
he said. ‘The thing is, I’ve got to get back to camp and I’m stuck for the fare
— eight and six.

I told him I could
manage it, and was finding the money when he said, putting his parcel on the
floor, ‘I don’t want to borrow it. I wouldn’t think of borrowing it. I’ve got
something for sale.’

‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘A funeral,’ said the
soldier. ‘I’ve got it here.

This alarmed me, and I
went to the window. No hearse, no coffin stood below. I saw only the avenue of
trees.

The soldier smiled. ‘It’s
an abstract funeral,’ he explained, opening the parcel.

He took it out and I
examined it carefully, greatly comforted. It was very much the sort of thing I
had wanted — rather more purple in parts than I would have liked, for I was not
in favour of this colour of mourning. Still, I thought I could tone it down a
bit.

Delighted with the
bargain, I handed over the eight shillings and sixpence. There was a great deal
of this abstract funeral. Hastily, I packed some of it into the hold-all. Some
I stuffed in my pockets, and there was still some left over. Elise had returned
with a cab and I hadn’t much time. So I ran for it, out of the door and out of
the gate of the house of the famous poet, with the rest of my funeral trailing
behind me.

You will complain that I
am withholding evidence. Indeed, you may wonder if there is any evidence at
all. ‘An abstract funeral,’ you will say, ‘is neither here nor there. It is
only a notion. You cannot pack a notion into your bag. You cannot see the
colour of a notion.’

You will insinuate that
what I have just told you is pure fiction.

Hear me to the end.

I caught the train.
Imagine my surprise when I found, sitting opposite me, my friend the soldier,
of whose existence you are so sceptical.

‘As a matter of
interest,’ I said, ‘how would you describe all this funeral you sold me?’

‘Describe it?’ he said. ‘Nobody
describes an abstract funeral. You just conceive it.’

‘There is much in what
you say,’ I replied. ‘Still, describe it I must, because it is not every day
one comes by an abstract funeral.’

‘I am glad you
appreciate that,’ said the soldier.

‘And after the war,’ I
continued, ‘when I am no longer a civil servant, I hope, in a few deftly turned
phrases, to write of my experiences at the house of the famous poet, which has
culminated like this. But of course, I added, ‘I will need to say what it looks
like.’ The soldier did not reply.

‘If it were an okapi or
a sea-cow,’ I said, ‘I would have to say what it looked like. No one would
believe me otherwise.’

‘Do you want your money
back?’ asked the soldier. ‘Because if so, you can’t have it. I spent it on my
ticket.’

‘Don’t misunderstand me,’
I hastened to say. ‘The funeral is a delightful abstraction. Only, I wish to
put it down in writing.’

I felt a great pity for
the soldier on seeing his worried look. The ape-like head seemed the saiddest
thing in the world.

‘I make them by hand,’
he said, ‘these abstract funerals.’

A siren sounded
somewhere, far away.

‘Elise bought one of
them last month. She hadn’t any complaints. I change at the next stop,’ he
said, getting down his kit from the rack. ‘And what’s more,’ he said, ‘your
famous poet bought one.’

‘Oh, did he?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No
complaints. It was just what he wanted — the idea of a funeral.’

The train pulled up. The
soldier leaped down and waved. As the train started again, I unpacked my
abstract funeral and looked at it for a few moments.

‘To hell with the idea,’
I said. ‘It’s a real funeral I want.’

‘All in good time,’ said
a voice from the corridor.

‘You
again,’ I
said. It was the soldier.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I got
off at the last station. I’m only a notion of myself.’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘would
you be offended if I throw all this away?’

‘Of course not,’ said
the soldier. ‘You can’t offend a notion.’

‘I want a real funeral,’
I explained. ‘One of my own.’

‘That’s right,’ said the
soldier.

‘And then I’ll be able
to write about it and go into all the details,’ I said.

‘Your own funeral?’ he
said. ‘You want to write it up?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘But,’ said he, ‘you’re
only human. Nobody reports on their own funeral. It’s got to be abstract.’

‘You see my predicament?’
I said.

‘I see it,’ he replied. ‘I
get off at this stop.’

This notion of a soldier
alighted. Once more the train put on speed. Out of the window I chucked all my
eight and sixpence worth of abstract funeral. I watched it fluttering over the
fields and around the tops of camouflaged factories with the sun glittering
richly upon it, until it was out of sight.

In the summer of 1944 a
great many people were harshly and suddenly killed. The papers reported, in due
course, those whose names were known to the public. One of these, the famous
poet, had returned unexpectedly to his home at Swiss Cottage a few moments
before it was hit direct by a flying bomb. Fortunately, he had left his wife
and children in the country.

When I got to the place
where my job was, I had some time to spare before going on duty. I decided to
ring Elise and thank her properly, as I had left in such a hurry. But the lines
were out of order, and the operator could not find words enough to express her
annoyance with me. Behind this overworked, quarrelsome voice from the exchange
I heard the high, long hoot which means that the telephone at the other end is
not functioning, and the sound made me infinitely depressed and weary; it was
more intolerable to me than the sirens, and I replaced the receiver; and, in
fact, Elise had already perished under the house of the famous poet.

The blue cracked
bathroom, the bed on the floor, the caked ink bottle, the neglected garden, and
the neat rows of books — I try to gather them together in my mind whenever I am
enraged by the thought that Elise and the poet were killed outright. The angels
of the Resurrection will invoke the dead man and the dead woman, but who will
care to restore the fallen house of the famous poet if not myself? Who else
will tell its story?

When I reflect how Elise
and the poet were taken in — how they calmly allowed a well-meaning soldier to
sell them the notion of a funeral, I remind myself that one day I will accept,
and so will you, an abstract funeral, and make no complaints.

The Playhouse
Called Remarkable

I was telling my friend Moon Biglow the
other day that I Was going to Hampstead to see some literary people.

‘Oh, littery people,’
said Moon — because that’s how he talks.

‘Oh, Hampstead!’ said
Moon.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m
going to read a story to illustrate the Uprise of my Downfall.’

Moon turned a little jerky.
It’s strange how you think you know people, and then they do something odd, and
you have to start on virgin ground again.

‘What’s the matter,
Moon?’ I asked him. We were sitting in a milk-bar drinking coffee, or whatever
it really was.

‘Have another coffee,’ I
suggested.

‘The Uprise,’
said
Moon,
‘of your Downfall?
Did you say…?’

‘Oh,’ I said hastily, ‘it’s
got nothing to do with the Fall of Man, you know. This is just a way of
expressing my venture into that bourne from which no traveller returns, I mean…’

‘Then you know the
secret!’ Moon exclaimed.

‘Secret?’ I said. ‘There’s
no secret about it. It comes to me naturally.

‘A mere gift,’ I added
modestly.

I was thinking of some
means of extracting myself from Moon’s company. I didn’t like the look of him
in the least, desperately afraid of me for some reason.

Suddenly Moon’s will
seemed to slump. I said I must go.

‘Don’t go until you’ve
told me how you came to
know.’
Moon was quite mild now, quite blank.

‘Know
what?’
I
said impatiently. ‘What
have
you been drinking?’

‘Either tea or coffee,’
Moon replied, gazing into his cup, for he was extremely truthful. One thing
about Moon, he is always very fond of the truth.

‘The uprise of your
downfall,’ said Moon. ‘I must say when you came out with it just now, I was fit
to bust, but I’ll get over it in a day or two. Only tell me how…’

‘That phrase,’ I said, ‘refers
to my downward progress up to the dizzy heights, as they concern the art of
letters.’

‘I
know,’
said
Moon. ‘I mean,’ he added, having conceived a new thought, ‘I
think
I
know.’

I said, ‘What are you
talking about and why are you talking in italics?’

‘You
say first,’
said Moon suspiciously, ‘what
you’re
talking about.’

‘Nothing doing,’ I said
mysteriously — because I’d begun to get interested in the thing in Moon’s
mind.

‘Well,’ said Moon, ‘it’s
the Moon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, because I
never have scruples about artistic lies.

Moon breathed a long
draught of invisible nourishment from the air, then sighed it out again.

‘Anything else?’ Moon
inquired.

‘Hampstead,’ I ventured,
remembering that this word had started him off.

‘Ah,’ said Moon. ‘Well,
now, I’ll tell you the
true
story, because whoever told you the secret
has ten to one told you the wrong thing. You’ll get the truth from me.

Before I tell you Moon
Biglow’s story, I must tell you something about him. He’s the sort of friend
whose family and background you know nothing about. I always felt he came from
Ireland or Chicago or somewhere like that — because of the name, rather
strange, of Moon Biglow. Moon must be about forty, and he describes himself as
a freelance, which I suppose means journalism once a month. The strange thing
is, I can’t remember where I first met Moon. It was probably at a party. I must
have known him for ten years. I would often see him in Kensington High Street
in the late morning, short and fair and dressed in brown. His face is small,
but his features are big, a pleasant face. I doubt if I shall see it again for
some time, for Moon has left London now.

Well, to get back to the
story that Moon Biglow told me when I was downcast about my downfall rising up.

‘I used to live at
Hampstead,’ said Moon. ‘That was just after the Flood.’

‘Did they have a flood?’
I said. ‘When would that be?’

‘The
Flood,’
said
Moon. ‘I mean Noah’s Flood — the big one. You just listen to me. I’m telling no
lies.

‘I lived at Hampstead
just after the Flood. Of course, it was very different then, but there was a
pleasant little society of people — long before the palaeolithic savages
appeared, of course. The son of Noah called Ham begat this particular crowd —
hence the name Hampstead. There were six of us,’ said Moon, ‘six to begin with
— later seven. Of course, we were total strangers to the place, but everyone
made us welcome.’

‘Where had you come from?’
I asked.

‘The Moon,’ said Moon. ‘You
know that very well. Don’t interrupt me with insincere questions. We came of
our own free will on the Downfall of our Uprise, and we settled at Hampstead;
seeing it was the most civilized place on the globe in the post-Flood years. It
was almost like the Moon — of course, the Moon has changed since then, but I
remember the Moon in her prime. She was a beauty to live on. Still, we left her
and came to settle in Hampstead.

‘The nice thing about
the people,’ said Moon, ‘was their discretion. They never inquired why we came,
they simply accepted us.

‘After the first
eighteen months, when the ice was broken, we told them why we had come to the
earth. We got the Mayor of Hampstead and his wife to call a meeting at the Town
Hall. That was where Keats’s house is now. I wrote out my speech and learnt it
by heart. Of course, I was more eloquent in those days than I am now. I still
remember every word.

“‘Friends, brothers and
sisters,” I said, “The Six Brothers of the Moon give you greeting, and beg the
privilege, nay the honour, of addressing your inmost hearts. There will,
brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, — there will come a time when these
words will no longer reverberate new and thrilling to the ear. And why? Will your
progeny, generation upon generation, remain unmoved by a brotherly appeal to
the heart of man? No. Why then, will they shun and mock at such a speech as I
deliver to you this evening? — For upon my prophetic honour, they will do so.
They. will call it, my friends, empty rhetoric. They will term it by the names
of blah, drip, ham, and bloody awful.

“‘That things should not
be otherwise than thus, my brothers and my sisters, is in the nature of this
earth, your home. I need not dwell on the cycles of birth, growth, decay and
death, which you sum up in your profound philosophy, ‘Nothing lasts long.’ It
is the same, my dear children, with all expressions of life, and if I may say
so without offence to that tenderness, that ineffable refinement of spirit which
I perceive within you, your language is in a shocking condition. As for your
art, it does not exist.

“‘Sisters, we are come
from the Moon to teach you the language of poetry. Brothers, we are here on
what you might term an art mission.”‘

At this point Moon
Biglow stopped talking and took a large bite from a Chelsea bun. As you can
imagine, I was somewhat puzzled by his story. If you had met Moon Biglow, you
would never doubt the sincerity of the man. There was something very honest,
also, about the way he was eating the bun; it seemed as undebatable as the
story he was telling. Of course, I wanted to question him, but decided this
might put him off. As a provisional measure, I worked it out that either he was
mad or that he was not mad.