No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  Six o’clock. Billy Pop tried every position of cosy warmth he knew to counteract the increasing pressure of his overfull bladder, but at last he was forced to get up and make use of the chamber pot. He did so, as always, kneeling beside his bed; this and saying the Lord’s Prayer at night in the same kneeling position were rituals he had maintained from his childhood. He had first been made conscious of their absurdity by the Countess ‘mockery in their early married days when they still shared the double room. On this coldish morning in the solitude of the little dressing-room where he now slept, he thought of it again, because in returning from the club last night he had managed to bruise his left knee. It would have been more comfortable to pec standing up, but he somehow felt unable to do so, for he connected the kneeling position in his mind, as he did the Lord’s Prayer and bowing whenever you saw a piebald horse, with good luck. And God knew he was a man who could ill afford to dispense with any luck that might be going. Not that but good luck might well be running his way again, for last night at the club Murphy of Locke, Harrap had spoken to him for the first time since that unpleasant business in the war over the contract –’ When are you giving the world another, Matthews?’ he had asked. Non-committal of course; these people were fundamentally business men. Murphy had added that historical romances were two a penny these days, but good historical novels were as precious as rubies. He had said, of course, that he was busy with his memoirs. But the conversation was pleasant to dwell on – After all, we can all do with a fillip now and again; the confirmation of talent, the belief that we have the goods to deliver. We bring nothing into the world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. May be. But in between, man, being the sort of animal he is, does need a little coddling now and again.

  Relieved by urination, warmed with the thought of recognition, he set down the chamber pot and decided that his new luck must be followed up. He never felt too well in the mornings these days; indeed a persistent sort of ill health – nothing you could put your finger on – had a lot to do with his small output in recent years. Headaches and a little giddiness were not a help to morning concentration; all the same he’d feel better out of this fusty little apology for a bedroom. Vaguely it seemed to him, too, that if he got down to work early on this morning, Sunday morning, luck might reward him tomorrow in the shape of a cheque for unexpected royalties, or, after all, as he suddenly remembered, the old lady was coming to lunch today…. Musing, he knocked his button hook off the dressing table. Her voice sounded from the bedroom, ‘Billy, Billy.’ He had not heard her call so softly to him, he thought, for years. Something so unexpected was, on top of the throbbing pain in his temples and the sudden big wheel revolutions of the room as he stooped to pull on his socks, more than he could cope with if he were to keep himself fresh for a morning stint. He hummed a few bars of that pretty thing from ‘Les Cloches de Corneville’ to cover his inattention. But, of course, her voice came more sharply, ‘Billy, stop making that horrid noise and come here.’ Holding his brown brogues in his hand, he opened the communicating door. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t wake, Countess. I was creeping about in my stockinged feet.’

  ‘Of course I was woken up. You wee wee like Niagara Falls.’

  He looked wistful. ‘I’m glad I can still perform some sort of wonder in your eyes, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so coarse, Billy.’ She lay back on the pillows with her eyes closed. Then she patted the bed. ‘Come and sit down here.’ He sat very gingerly at the end. ‘Have you minded it all very much, Billy?’ And when he didn’t answer, she opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘I don’t believe I’ve hurt you at all. What a ghastly little piece of nothing you’ve turned into.’

  He picked up the brogues and moved back to the door. She clenched the sheet tightly in both her hands. He thought she was going to scream. He said, ‘My dear girl, that won’t do any good.’

  ‘He’s going back,’ she shouted at him, ‘he’s going back. Next week. I hate every bone in his body.’

  He looked at her primly. ‘I suppose so. But you’ll get over it.’ He became aware suddenly both that he was smiling broadly and that his sudden, involuntary sincerity had goaded her into fury. He added, ‘The children will miss him.’ He sought for other benevolent phrases to restore their usual relationship. ‘We shall all miss his wonderful Yankee directness.’

  She seized the ivory box of cigarettes from the night table and flung it at his head. He ducked and it crashed against the wall, showering the floor with black, gold tipped Turks.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ He mocked her antics, but all the same he turned tail and fled. Her screams followed him. ‘Take your filthy smirk out of here. You gutless swine!’

  A crash below her bed woke Margaret suddenly. And then came the Countess’s screams to make her at once, as always, tense with renewed childhood terror. Slowly, practisedly she relaxed by means of the familiar stringing together of words. ‘If a certain cacophonous crying is the hallmark of Greek tragedy, Sophie Carmichael qualified for Clytemnestra herself, a role which she would dearly have loved to play if only in order to shock the bridge club gossips. Her adulteries, though suburban, could perhaps have passed for something more regal if only her husband, James, had been more worthy of Agamemnon’s role. As it was, thought their daughter Elizabeth, rudely awakened by parental quarrelling, their noise might as well be mice as Mycenae.’ Margaret relaxed but she was hardly content with the words. The long analogy was altogether too cumbrous, and the pretension of someone of her half-education scribbling about Agamemnon and Clytemnestra made her blush. Then through the words came a sudden intense vision of her mother’s bare shoulder, and with it the sensation of rubbing her cheek against it, of being squeezed in her mother’s arms, stroked by her mother’s cool, long-fingered hands. It was when she had fallen down on the rocks at Cromer and cut her forehead (the scar was still there, but hidden under her fringe). Her mother had responded at once, had whispered and kissed away her fright. Pity, if not love, nagged her. But she would never be able to reach them, never. At least she could bring them to life again in words that were more complete, more understanding, more just to her own comprehension of them than the flat self-protective ironies of her Carmichael writing. But first she must get away, far enough off to be fair and just and creative. In a room perhaps in the Adelphi (a real writers’ world from what she could tell) she would sit at her desk and words, exact and living, would flow from her pen like the river flowing past her window. Exactly, definitely, she relaxed her long, immature body enough to fall into a light sleep, not so fully that she would fail to awake in time for her early morning duties.

  At the sound of Regan’s retching in the basement, Billy Pop almost cut off Teddy’s long tail. Instead he so jolted the scissors that the blade pricked his left thumb. He searched for a wad of cotton wool that he had put away in one of the drawers of his desk. He could ill afford such a loss of precious time. Gingerly dabbing the tiny drops of blood, he reflected on how often work, certainly over the years, his work had been interrupted by trivia. Regan’s regular drunken Saturday night visits to her family in South London, for instance. He’d written something about it during the War, ‘Our Cockney Cook goes over the Water’, but for some reason or other he’d abandoned the essay unfinished. He thought to look for it now, but to find things was always such a business and a half. Also, hunting for something, he might make a noise and wake the Countess again. And then Regan banged the lavatory door. Oh Lord! that would put the cat among the pigeons.

  But the Countess, half dozing, was jolted into drowsy speculation, not into anger. How did she get back to Victoria, tipsy and with those poor, old swollen feet, stumbling along through silent early morning streets, lurching over Westminster Bridge? Why didn’t the police charge her? What must it be like? She had been a bit squiffy herself once or twice after parties with Milton and some of the other American officers – suppers at the Waldorf or the Savoy. The next morning the back of one’s throat seemed stretched so dry tha
t it ached, one’s eyeballs throbbed with each step one took. But every week! Why did she do it? Stretching her legs down to the cool of the untouched sheets, stroking her thighs, she supposed that it must be, poor old cow, a consolation, an oblivion for years and years of never having had a man’s arms round her, never a man inside her. Poor old Regan, poor old cow! To have been ugly always and now to be old.

  ‘This isn’t important to you, Countess, don’t let it get under your skin. You’ve got a lovely home and a fine bunch of kids. And well, if Pop’s no great shakes … you’re still a beautiful woman. And so what? Bed isn’t everything.’ She twisted the sheets in her hands as though they were his rotten neck. How dare he offer her her own children, as compensation, vulgar little Yankee! And to tell her what was everything and what wasn’t. I can tell you, Milton J. Ward, that muck like you wouldn’t be everything to me if I hadn’t made a mess of it all, of everything that really matters. And you’re not, in any case; there’ll be others. Yes, worse and worse muck. And the end of the road couldn’t be far off. With her right hand she took the fingers of her left and twisted them until she cried out against the pain. Stop dramatizing, she told herself. Don’t be soft. And then the memory of Billy’s scared rabbit face as he bolted down his dressing-room hole came back to her and she shook the bed with laughing. If they didn’t care they could at least be frightened. And relaxing she remembered that it was Sunday morning. Everyone at home and under orders. She had decreed that the children should take it in turns to bring Sunday breakfast to her so that Regan could sleep off her Saturday orgies. It was such a benefit for them instead of wasting half the morning lazing in bed! She savoured the word ‘benefit’. Smiling gently at her own hypocrisy, at the hypocrisy of all the world – we humans really were too absurd! – she stretched again luxuriously and, forgetting, fell into dozing thoughts of Milton’s strong legs straddling her.

  *

  Before Margaret could knock on the door of her mother’s bedroom, the Countess called to her, her babyish drawl a little sharpened in tone.

  ‘Don’t knock, Wendy. Bring my tea straight in – I can’t stand the slightest noise this morning and your knock isn’t exactly fairy-like, darling.’

  Propped against the white, lace-edged pillows between a mass of mauve crêpe de chine night gown and a mauve muslin boudoir cap, the Countess’ thin face was all darkly smudged skin and Pharaoh-sized black eyes. She’ll tell my fortune, but it won’t be a pleasant one.

  ‘Dancing with all those little brats is giving you a permanent stoop. If you’re like this at seventeen, you’ll look like a battered lamp post before you’re twenty-one. Dear little Wendy.’

  With the bed table arranged and the tray set on it, Margaret felt free to skirmish.

  ‘My name is not Wendy.’

  ‘Well, darling, I didn’t give it to you. It was your sensible granny M. who found you that name. But it is rather irresistible. Oh, Margaret, have some sense of fun.’ Wendy’ applied to a great gawk like you! If you can’t laugh, take Billy’s breakfast down to him in his study. I’d only just got to sleep after all the noise you children made upstairs last night. Toing and froing! Did Regan put senna pods in your pudding? I’ve never heard such a noise.’

  Margaret made no answer and suddenly her mother shouted at her.

  ‘No one’s to pull that chain at night. No one. Do you understand? No one!’

  Margaret’s attention was so intent upon her mother’s expression that she showed no reaction. The Countess returned to her usual drawling ennui. ‘Oh, really, Margaret! If you can’t laugh at that! “The Forbidden Chain”! Why the whole ideas’s too delicious. Sanitary inspectors descending upon us. “Mother’s inhuman order” headlined in the West London Gazette. Heavens knows what absurdity! But perhaps with such constipated children as I have…. Yes, you are constipated, mentally and physically, all of you … Oh, go away, Margaret. I’m tired and I can’t bear you so early in the morning. And tell all of them I require absolute silence. I mean it. Not a sound until eleven. You can call me then. And now give me one of my cachets fêvres for my head. Oh, and Wendy you really must learn to consider others a little. I’ve told you again and again to use lavender water when you’ve got the curse on. Poor Sir James! Poor Peter Pan! Wendy indeed!’

  As Margaret handed her the tablets, the Countess sank back on her pillows, mopping the tears from her eyes with a little lace-edged handkerchief. Then she put one long elegant hand to her head to ease the pain that so much laughter had caused her. Her voice followed Margaret out of the room.

  ‘Now don’t go being hurt. And, Margaret, silence means your father and Regan as well, please.’

  Making her way downstairs to her father’s study, Margaret fixed accurately the little stream of frothy spittle that had run from the side of the Countess’ mouth. Later she would make a phrase about it, connecting it perhaps with snakes and venom, and write the phrase down in her notebook. Yet with venomous spittle alone she would satisfy, she knew, only today’s resentment; to give full shape to the Countess …

  The smell of stale tobacco smoke halted Margaret for a second when she opened Billy Pop’s study door. Through the blue grey haze she could see him like some soft toned impressionist sketch by Whistler – a symphony in grey: grey, curly hair, neat grey moustache, grey tweeds, grey foulard bow tie, dove-grey cloth waistcoat and dove-grey cloth spats. And to bring the picture together, of course, two dancing, gay points of colour – the amber stem of his curved pipe, the rosy pink of his peach-soft cheeks. ‘Mr Carmichael thought of himself as a symphony, his children knew him to be a nocturne.’ Phrase-happy, Margaret was sucked into his soft grey cloud-kingdom and let herself be kissed on the lips.

  ‘I’ll have two fried eggs and bacon, Mag. Marcus’s and Sukey’s – shall we call the two eggs? And your sister Gladys’s butter ration if my own has been used. It’s hard to believe that a child of mine can fail to distinguish butter from margarine, but so Gladys says, and she must pay for her Philistine boast. Golly, early work makes me hungry.’

  Margaret, determined to remove the twinkle from his eyes, looked fixedly at the mass of cut-out Bairnsfather Old Bills and Daily Mail Teddy Tails on his desk, but when he saw her expression he only twinkled the more.

  ‘Don’t be censorious, Mag. In any case I’m not as idle as you think. Memoir writing’s an oblique art, this is my hobby and the roots of art and play lie very close together. And then again trifles – the humour of an eye – like these stir the memory.’

  She could not help saying, ‘Oh! the memoirs!’ He spoke through her exclamation and so did not seem to hear it.

  ‘Besides, cuttings like these will be of great interest to my grandchildren if I’m vouchsafed any.’

  ‘Gladys’s twenty-first birthday should be still fresh in your mind, Father.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, I know. Oodles of time yet. Oodles of time. Especially for you. Especially for my Mag.’

  He took her hand. She did not withdraw it, but she said, ‘At seventeen I suppose so. But not more than for Sukey, I imagine, since we’re twins.’

  ‘You shouldn’t wear brown, Maggie, with your dark skin. Besides, brown’s old maidish. Take a tip from the Countess. Wear gorgeous reds, old golds. Nothing drab or dull.’

  ‘Old gold means that it is dull. Mother, by the way, wants complete silence this morning. We all disturbed her sleep last night. Especially you.’

  ‘Oh, Lor! Is she still awake?’ He crumpled for a moment, then triumphantly cried, ‘And she shall have it, bless her heart. Your mother’s energy and wit shine like a steady flame all day to illuminate this house, we mustn’t be surprised when now and again she’s burnt out and low. People suffer for being sensitive. I don’t suppose anyone will ever know how much the war took out of your mother. And the Armistice for that matter.’ He chuckled.

  ‘I’ll get your eggs.’

  As she prepared Billy Pop’s breakfast in the kitchen, Margaret was assailed by the whistles and snores of Regan’s drun
ken sleep. She wrote a note. ‘Her Serene Highness hasn’t slept. The mere dropping of a teaspoon may mean death to her in her present anguished state.’ Then she tore the note up and wrote another. ‘Mrs Matthews has slept very badly, please make as little noise preparing lunch as you possibly can.’ They had agreed last night that in this war there were no allies; besides there was no point in talking over people’s heads.

  When finally she returned to the top floor her eldest brother was already running hot water into the bath, the door wide open.

  ‘Mother hasn’t slept, Quentin, we’re none of us to make any noise.’

  The battered old geyser reverberated fit almost to wake the dead. The dead and the dying lay all around, teeth grinning vilely white through gas blistered, greenish lips; Harrison’s guts all spewed against the wire, Johnson’s brown eyes, that he had known and answered to, liquefying into no meaning. Only when the thin, dark-haired schoolgirl turned off the tap and made a sudden silence did he see her.

  ‘Mother wants absolute quiet.’

  ‘So did so many and they’ve got it. Let’s hope they like it?’

  If his meaning was lost to her, he could see that he had alarmed her by his fierceness. There seemed no way to speak to them, for he had nothing to offer them as yet that was speakable, and he could only guess to what absurd stereotype of the returned soldier they believed they were speaking. He tried as usual to banter his way through the thick walls that divided them.

  ‘Surely such orders don’t apply to wounded heroes.’

  She seemed to give his words serious consideration.

  ‘I think they do, Quentin. Anyway, you’ll soon be demobbed. And then you’ll see how little you’ll be indulged.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not asking for favours. God forbid! No blacklegging. Unity is strength.’

  The reference to unity – subject of their last day’s discussion – got through to her.