by Gerald Kersh
Middleton knew. And he knew that the other letters in the bundle contained first payments on the Klever Kitchen Kabinet. In this little handful of letters, eighty or ninety harassed women were signing away their peace of mind, agreeing to pay only five shillings a month for two years. “After all, it’s only eighteenpence a week,” they said to themselves, “and only five shillings with order.”
Then Middleton understood exactly what is meant by “Bitterness”. He had taken his first taste of it. It was as if his mouth was full of copper coins, green with verdigris. One by one these green copper coins slipped down his throat, until the weight of them dragged his heart and stomach down and down, and there was nothing in the world but an awful heaviness that no sigh could lift; a turbulent emptiness in his head, and in his mouth a bitter taste which he associated with bad pennies.
He washed his face, took a long drink of water, and went back to work – to work like a madman, chasing lost time.
Wherever he turned, Middleton felt a slimy little fish writhing from the back of his collar to his waist-line and escaping with a cold shudder down one or other of his legs. This slippery fish was the general manager’s eye. Middleton had made himself conspicuous, now. That coldness was always between his shoulder-blades. If he had been an unmarried man he might have walked out of the office and taken his chance in the world. But Middleton said to himself: “If I was single, with nobody but myself to consider, the situation wouldn’t have arisen. As it is, here I am – a married man, a father, most likely, in five or six months. Only four months ago I was my own master. Now I’m a slave under three masters: Louie, the baby, and Mr. Mawson. A slave, that’s what I am, a slave. . . . Oh, all right, let it be like that,” said Middleton, and went on working.
Middleton had a lucky piece, an old spade-guinea with a hole in it. When he left the office at five o’clock that afternoon, he went to a jeweller’s shop, sold it for twenty-three and sixpence, and carried home a flowering shrub in a pot, and a new pound note, both of which he gave to Louisa, saying: “Little bonus for you. A present for a good girl. I want you to buy something nice for yourself. . . . Yes, Louie dear, I want you to; it would please me if you did. Go and spend it on something silly.”
He was stubborn in his insistence that the pound be squandered in frivolity, so she went to a cut-price hairdresser near Tottenham Court Road, who advertised a permanent wave for only one pound, and had her glossy, straight brown hair curled. The effect was ravishing: Middleton was delighted. She could honestly reassure herself that at least half of the pound had been spent on him. Breathing admiration, and stroking his wife’s new curls, he said that he had never seen anything so pretty, while he thought: Now this is the right way to spend a pound. This is value. What a fool I was to keep that skinny little golden guinea with a hole in it all this time!
But the poor little potted shrub died in two days. Louisa’s hair became straight again in ten days; and things were as they had been before Middleton sold his spade-guinea. All that remained was the dead twig in the little flowerpot. Louisa kept it on the window-ledge where the sunlight could reach it and watered it every morning: refusing to accept death as inevitable, half-hoping for a miraculous resurrection, a new blossoming. Once, she thought she saw green buds. They were nothing but flecks of mildew. Then although she knew that it was foolish to cry over a plant, she shed a tear or two, and threw the flower-pot into the dust-bin.
Louisa disliked Trew and he knew it. Therefore he hated her. He needed admiration: there was a spoiled child wrapped in the thick hide of that irrepressible jester.
Now fingering the fine notepaper of the lawyer Pismire, Trew thought of Middleton, whom he had come to regard as a traitor, and Louisa, whom he saw as a climber, a designing woman, a scheming waitress who had married above herself and taken away his best friend.
Wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. Smiling, he went to his desk, took a pencil, and carefully drafted a letter on a bit of scrap paper. He was not unacquainted with commercial jargon and legal terminology, but he wanted this to be clean-cut, perfect, and unsmudged by erasures. Soon he had it right. His smile became triangular; an office boy, who had observed Trew and understood him, said to another office boy: “I wonder wot old Podgy’s got up ’is sleeve.”
Out of earshot the office boys called Trew Podgy, because he was prematurely corpulent: they knew that if he overheard them, they would sooner or later feel between their shoulder-blades the quick, quiet stiletto of his malevolence. If you forgot to laugh when Trew called a club-footed man “Hoppy”, or addressed a one-eyed and one-armed beggar as “Lord Nelson”, he might be offended; but if you called him “Podgy”, or “Baby Face”, he would lie awake at night thinking of revenge.
Trew walked sedately to a typewriter, and carefully wrote a letter to Edward Hugh Middleton, Esquire, of 3, Wheeler Square, W.C.1. He regretted to inform Mr. Middleton of the death of his uncle, Joseph Hugh Middleton, Esquire, of Wagga-Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. He had been advised of Mr. Middleton’s present address, and begged to inform him that he, Edward Hugh Middleton, was sole beneficiary in his uncle’s will. Joseph Hugh Middleton had left £103,751 6s. 8d.: net personalty £76,100. If Mr. Edward Hugh Middleton would call at his earliest convenience, Mr. Charles Pismire would be happy to clarify the situation. In the meantime, with condolences, he ventured to congratulate Mr. Middleton on his good fortune.
Between the respectful salutation, and the punctiliously typed
CHARLES PISMIRE
Pismire & Pismire
Trew scrawled a black signature.
Then, enclosing the letter in one of Forty Richards’s very best white envelopes, he sent it to Middleton, Express. To do so, Trew had to go to the post office. If this had been any other day, his absence, if only for five minutes, might have been noticed; but this was that hot Saturday before August Bank Holiday. The letter was mailed, and Trew was back at his desk before anyone knew that he had left it. He was poring over a great red-and-green ledger when Big Ben struck ten. Counting the chimes, Trew calculated that Middleton ought to receive the letter before three o’clock, and then there would be fun. Pretending to work, he waited. At one o’clock the office closed. In the good old days, Trew thought, sadly, Middy and I used to walk back home on Saturday – we used to walk westward, and have a bite to eat in one of the Italian places around New Oxford Street, or somewhere. Now, of course, he’s got his Louie!
Trew went out to eat alone. A bank clerk to whom he tried to tell a funny story about microbes said that he had to catch a train to Brighton, and ran away. In a few seconds, as it seemed, life departed from the City; dark-coated, shiny-coated swarms disappeared like flies under a Flit spray. Trew, solitary on earth, ate in a restaurant in Charing Cross Road, and killed time with a magazine. He read a newspaper and went for a walk. At three o’clock he went home to take off his dark suit and change into light grey. On the way he was accosted by a flower-seller with a barrow-load of moribund carnations at four for sixpence. Trew bought a shillingsworth. He meant to call on the Middletons, casually, and ask them to come for a walk in the park.
His landlady was waiting for him. Before she could speak, he said: “Here’s a nice thing! Had to go and deal with a couple of things in Leadenhall Street – a firm by the name of Koestler and Dunlap, dare say you know them – and when I got back the cashier was gone, all locked up. Never mind, everything will be all right Tuesday.”
“Well, Mr. Trew, I sincerely hope so because——”
“ – Don’t worry. Don’t you worry. On Tuesday, mark my words, everything’ll be all right. I’m going to have a cold bath. I’m hot.”
“I’d hoped you’d be able to let me have something on account, Mr. Trew,” said the landlady, vitiated by the heat and thoroughly discouraged. “My rent’s overdue, too. I promised——”
“ – They can’t do anything to you before Tuesday, can they?” said Trew.
“No, but——”
“
– Well, Tuesday morning I settle up.”
“You’ve said that so often, you see. I don’t like to ask, but . . .” She made a helpless gesture with one hand, and wiped her damp face with the other: she had never dreamed that she would be forced to come down to this. “. . . but what else can I do? I hate asking for money, but . . . When my poor husband was alive, it would have been . . . you promised faithfully, you know. Oh dear me!”
“Would I have walked in this heat if I’d even got the price of a bus-ride?” asked Trew, almost indignantly. “Look at me – wet through. If I say Tuesday, I mean Tuesday! Is it my fault if they kept me waiting in Leadenhall Street? D’you think it’s pleasant for me, having to put you off like this? Eh?”
“No, but——”
“ – Tuesday without fail,” said Trew, and went upstairs. On the way he stumbled, and the landlady heard a jingling of loose change in his pocket. Then she wanted to run after him, take him by the throat, and kill him, crying: Liar, liar, liar! You have got money and you did not walk from Leadenhall Street! But she was overwhelmed by an appalling realisation of her impotence. If she went to Trew’s room and said: “Get out!” – what would happen if he replied: “I won’t!” What could she do? Throw him out bodily? Scream for policemen? If only poor Dick were alive, this could never have been. She went to her bedroom and sat by the open window, wishing that she had never been born.
In his room, Trew relaxed, keeping an eye on his alarm-clock. Five o’clock, he thought, would be a good time to call on the Middletons.
Trew set the alarm-clock for four-forty-five, in case he fell asleep. The joke was going to be too rich to miss.
* * * * *
As for Middleton, he walked home slowly, with a heavy heart. On the stroke of one the whole City (in a manner of speaking) threw its bonnet over the windmill, and kicked up its heels with a joyous whoop, at the prospect of the Bank Holiday. All the week the clerks had been talking of what they meant to do, and how they hoped to enjoy themselves. Smith, Jones and White, who pretended to be very desperate fellows, were going to Southend-on-Sea for a couple of days; hearing them talk, a naïve stranger might have been tempted to warn Southend that it had better shutter its windows and lock up its daughters. Robinson and Brown were going to Margate on a steamboat – one of those gay boats in which carefree bachelors used to sing sentimental songs until they were hoarse, cool their throats with bottled ale, and, wearing silly little paper hats, brazenly flirt with the girls, who had put on their lightest, brightest dresses and were ready for a little fun, harmless or otherwise. Middleton, in his time, had staggered with a staggering group of jolly good fellows – Trew in the lead, of course – to catch the last train from Southend to Fenchurch Street on Bank Holiday Monday. He, too, had looked forward to August Bank Holiday, putting a little money aside for a little orgy: two Bank Holidays ago he had squandered three pounds in two and a half days. But now he walked homewards heavily, tired and discouraged, thinking with dread of the long week-end. Should he take Louisa to Hyde Park, where they would simply sit on their behinds on the burnt-up grass, cheek by jowl with half a million similar unfortunates, most of them with feverish, sun-scorched children that needed to be smacked or screamed at every five minutes? Or go to the Zoo and make part of a fretful mob, a million strong – half of them children howling their heads off because they couldn’t see the lions being fed? Then, suddenly the sky grows black, the rain pours down. There is a stampede for the buses, which are all full. So you stand in the middle of another endless line of fathers and mothers who are beating wet, shivering, terrified children and saying: “Stop grizzling, you little wretch! You’re here to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you will, if I have to wring your neck” – or words to that effect. Then comes a peal of thunder; the caged lions, wolves, and apes roar and howl and gibber, and the children kick and scratch at their parents while the parents hiss and strike at their children. If, later, you want to relax in the glamorous darkness of a cinema, you must wait somewhere near the end of a line of a million mothers and fathers, all worrying about their children left at home.
And in a few months, now, I shall be a father, thought Middleton. I’d rather it was a boy. Perhaps it won’t cry very much, though I never came across one that didn’t.
He was near Wheeler Square, walking through a street which, on Saturday, was an open-air market. In the gutters, between two short rows of shops, the street vendors, the barrow-pushers, the costermongers had set up their stalls. They were cutting their prices, now, and shouting like madmen – especially the costers who were selling perishable soft fruits and flowers. By Tuesday, their goods would be rotten. One unfortunate fellow with half a barrow full of peaches still unsold had reduced the price of his fruit from threepence to a penny, and had so exhausted himself with shouting that he could only say, in a husky whisper: “Eech! . . . Eech!” Middleton bought sixpennyworth. Then another coster, roaring like a bull, thrust a fourteen-inch cucumber under his nose and said: “Lookatit, lookatit, lookatit, ain’t it lovely? Tenpence!” Middleton bought it. Whilst he was counting out the money he remembered what someone had told him – that this was the costermongers’ holiday, and that on the Monday they sometimes spent as much as twenty pounds apiece at the fair and in the pubs around Hampstead Heath. The thought must have soured his face, for the coster clapped him on the shoulder, said: “Cheer up, you’ll soon be dead – ’ere’s a bit ’o creese for the missus” – and slapped a bundle of watercress into Middleton’s hand.
When Middleton was on his way the salad-seller turned to his wife and said: “All boot-blacking and no bloody boots. No bread to ’is feet, no boots to eat, eh, gel?”
“Go on, give the stock away! You’d give me away if I let yer.”
“ ’Oo’d ’ave yer?” said the coster, and then, drawing a deep breath, roared at the world again: “Come on, come on, come on! Cucumbers! Cues! Cues ’n creese! Lovely, lovely, lovely! . . .”
Middleton stopped at a barrow loaded with imperishable goods – second-hand books and back-numbers of popular magazines. The proprietor of this stall did not shout: he stood still, stroking his long white moustache. Middleton bought three back-numbers of Real Love Tales, for Louisa to read, so that she might keep the dull truth at arm’s length over the week-end. For himself, he bought a copy of Adventure, so tattered that the old man let it go for twopence. Then he went home. Louisa had prepared a lunch of cold corned beef with a little faded lettuce. The cucumber was just what they needed to make it perfect. With peaches for dessert, what more could a man or woman desire? If all this was not enough, there was something good to read. Middleton sighed deeply, and this sigh loosened something heavy that had been weighing on his back. If Louie was happy, why, then, so was he. They ate heartily of the corned beef, the salad, and the peaches; and drank tea. He complimented her on her housewifery, she thanked him for being such a good provider, they kissed each other, sat down to read their magazines.
Middleton was reading a story about a battle between lumberjacks when his landlady knocked at the sitting-room door, and his head was full of the rumbling of logs and the trampling of cleated boots; the clashing of canthooks and the By Gars and Sacré Dames of infuriated French-Canadian loggers.
“Yes, Mrs. Gibson?” said Middleton.
“This came for you, Express,” she said, giving him a letter. “There was nothing to pay.”
“Oh, thanks very much, Mrs. Gibson. . . . Oh I say, Louie, look at this. An Express letter!”
“Oh dear,” said Louisa. Urgent communications filled her with nameless terrors: she associated them with death. She watched her husband’s face while he opened the envelope, and clutched at her throat when she saw his jaw drop and his cheeks turn grey. “What is it?” she asked, “for God’s sake, what is it?”
“Don’t upset yourself,” said Middleton.
“What is it?”
“It’s a letter. I mean, it’s a letter from Pismire – biggest solicitor in the City. He’
s Lord Herring’s solicitor. Well – you remember my Uncle Joe in Australia?”
“He never answered your letter when you wrote and told him about you and me,” said Louisa.
“Well, he’s dead, Louie.”
“Oh, well——”
“ – And he’s left me seventy-six thousand pounds, that’s all,” said Middleton. “Seventy-six thousand pounds, that’s all. A mere seventy-six thousand——” he choked.
“Oh no!”
“Well, here’s the letter, Louie – read it for yourself.”
“Sole beneficiary,” said Louisa, reading aloud. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, nothing – only that he’s left me everything, that’s all,” said Middleton, half-crying. “A mere seventy-six thousand pounds. . . . Oh Louie, Louie!”
“It seems too good to be true,” said Louisa.
“There’s the letter,” said Middleton. “. . . Let me have another look at it . . .” He fumbled in his pockets, and found twopence. “I’ll telephone and confirm,” he said. “There might be some mistake.”
“Will they be in the office this afternoon?”
“Of course not,” said Middleton, “but there can’t be many Charles Pismires in the telephone book. I’ll ring his private number. Come with me, Louie.”
There was no telephone in the house, so they crossed the square and squeezed themselves into the telephone booth on the northern corner. Middleton had some trouble with the thin pages of the directory; some of his fingers were numb; others were wayward, and fluttered in wrong directions. But he found a Charles Pismire who lived in Highgate, and dialled the number. God, let this be true! he prayed, while the ringing sound rhythmically buzzed. Then the buzzing stopped, and a loud, expressionless voice said: “Yes?”
