No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  When he returned to London, responsibility and fun and games did not seem so sadly in conflict. He spoke in a debate at the Conway Hall where his fierce attack on the ILP delegate’s anti-sanctions warning was strongly supported from the platform by a Liberal Lord and a Trade Union Leader, and loyally cheered by the Communists in the audience. Afterwards in a continued debate with some of the audience in a Holborn pub he picked up a young student from an art school and took her back to his flat in Brunswick Square. As the next day was Sunday they had a lot of time for fun. When late next morning, about eleven, she stood, enchanting little waif, lost in the voluminous folds of his so-much-too-big-for-her spotted dressing gown, inexpertly cooking sausages over his little gas stove, he got on beat all over again. And when she said, in a naive, schoolgirl’s downright way, that, for her part, she couldn’t see how it was possible to be anything but a party member, to be anything else was a failure to comprehend the logic of history, he forced her into bed again almost brutally. He thought with excitement of her reaction when she read his article the following Friday in the New Statesman, giving his analysis and his prophecies concerning hidden events in Russia.

  The article, in fact, was inevitably conjectural, and its effect was not helped by editorial disagreement with its pessimistic forecasts. But when, later, the full scale news of the purge broke his reputation was considerably enhanced. True, he was unable to report any of the subsequent trials first hand, and even his most anti-Fascist speeches were coolly received by party members in the audiences, but he was among the first to receive a top assignment from the News Chronicle when the Spanish war broke out. Above all, this double row with authority, first, like everyone else with Germany, then on his own with Russia, gave him a greatly renewed vigour, an increased energy which seemed to him to be reflected in sexual potency – but that was probably just superstition.

  *

  At about the time when Quentin and Sally Sloman, art student and declared supporter of the CP (she never actually got round to asking for a card) were resting after their second orgasm, Regan was knocked down by a taxi in Victoria Street, up towards the Westminster Abbey end. She said later that it come at her sudden from behind out of the darkness like a blow from the Heavens; but the taxi driver said the old girl swerved off the pavement like she’d been knocked off with a hammer, and he couldn’t brake in time. Whether, as the doctor thought possible, she might have swerved as a result of a slight stroke remained uncertain, for her injuries called for prior attention – she had suffered concussion, a broken wrist, multiple bruising and a wound in the thigh that required five stitches; she was also very drunk. She was taken to Westminster Hospital. Her absence from 52 provoked an immediate crisis that was only settled temporarily when Marcus arranged a three months ‘cruise for his parents to the Canary Islands and to the Cape; and when all six of the Matthews children combined to send Regan for convalescence to Hastings after her discharge from hospital. As her sister Em said, thinking of the monstrous series of Regan’s Saturday visits that had before the accident seemed only likely to end with life itself,’ that taxi was a Dispensation, really, for she’d got too old to be so lively.’

  THE RUSSIAN VINE

  An English play

  Scene: the back garden of No. 52, the house of Mr and Mrs William Matthews, a warm late September morning in 1935. CLARA MATTHEWS, a smartly dressed woman of about sixty, is seated in a deck chair under a plane tree whose leaves are turning yellow. A rickety garden shed is weighed down by a vast overgrown Russian vine which has clambered over the wall into the next garden. For the rest, the garden consists of weeds which throughout the act periodically shed their seeds in the breeze (this may be effected by means of bellows blown off stage) and two or three cane garden chairs and a garden table in the last stages of desuetude. The back-cloth represents the back facade of the house, from which a central door opens out into the garden down a small flight of steps. Intermittently the scene is punctuated with whistles of trains, screeching of brakes, hooting of motor buses and the noise of cats fighting. MRS MATTHEWS is writing a letter with her back to the audience. Although her figure is young, when she turns to face the audience we see that a pair of youthful, glowing dark eyes look out from athin ravaged face almost clownishly disguised with makeup.

  CLARA MATTHEWS [calling]: Billy! Billy! [No answer comes from the house and Clara Matthews gets up, when we see that her movements are agile and young. She is fashionably dressed, only her greying shingle stamps her with the previous decade. She calls again]: Billy! Billy! [A middle aged, rather beery looking woman puts her head out of the door.]

  WOMAN: Ees barthin isself.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Bless his heart! He loves his long morning baths! He gets inspiration in them, you know, Mrs Hannapin.

  MRS HANNAPIN [uncomprehendingly but darkly]: Ah! [after a pause] Lady Alice Montague Douglas-Scott. That’s her name. Ah, well, it’s better than foreigners, isn’t it, mum?

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh, nonsense, Mrs Hannapin. Princess Marina has wonderful style. [She sits down and MRS HANNAPIN comes down into the garden to gossip. On further appearance she proves to be a slummocky, heavily breathing fat woman in a dirty old apron and a woollen hat that seems like a dead cat.] If they had their way the poor boy would have to queue in the mornings for his bath. And my dear little garden! Where would we get that again in London? Has that Miss Whatshername gone?

  MRS HANNAPIN: Oh, yes, mum. And the taxi man didn’t arf grumble, carryin all that luggage down.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: ‘Do we dress for dinner?’ I ask you! I expect they sat down in full evening dress to half a cutlet each at the bishop’s palace. Bishop’s daughter indeed! Miss Gladys must be off her head! I can just imagine the sort of cheeseparing we’d have suffered. As well as the airs and graces! She’d only been here one afternoon when she said that we didn’t need cut flowers as well as chrysanthemums in pots. I didn’t say anything, Mrs Hannapin, I couldn’t. For my own daughter to send me someone who doesn’t love flowers!

  MRS HANNAPIN: She took those chrysanths you done in Miss Stoker’s room and throwed em away. She said the water wasn’t ealthy. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ Regan told er, ‘I never drinks water.’

  CLARA MATTHEWS [laughing down the scale]: Of course! silly fool! She would get as good as she gave from Regan.

  MRS HANNAPIN: Well, mum, she didn’t understand er. Or pretended not to. I don’t know which. Not that I understand Miss Stoker too well these days. Not now er mouth’s all gone crooked.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh, nonsense! I understand every word dear Regan says. The same dear old clown, she is! And they imagine we could live in this house without her! But you’re all the same. You all exaggerate that accident. If it hadn’t been for Mr Matthews and me the poor old thing would be buried by now.

  MRS HANNAPIN: It’s not the accident, mum, it’s the stroke she ad at Astings that done it.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Hastings! How any children of mine could have been so mad as to choose Hastings. I knew before I opened the letter. There’s something very psychic about the atmosphere of Cape Town. We were staying at the Mount Nelson. It’s so charmingly situated under the Mountain. And the view over Table Bay! The native boy always put fresh chicherinchees on my dressing table. Oh, I wish you could have seen those chicherinchees, Mrs Hannapin! Though they’re not as beautiful as my dear old Russian Vine. Miss Margaret used to call it the snow vine when she was a little girl. She’d already inherited her father’s pen, you know. As if I could live without my Russian Vine! [She pauses and sighs. As she seems to have the lost the thread of her discourse, MRS HANNAPIN feels it necessary to comment.]

  MRS HANNAPIN: Ah! Dear old 52. I said to my usband the other day, for all that I’ve only been goin in daily for two years come March at Mrs Matthews, I feel as though I’ve known that ouse a undred years.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: You’ve been very loyal to us in all our tiresome upsets. Of course August was far from the month for Cape Town. Quite cold winds at times. I’d
never have arranged to go there at that time. But Mr Marcus would have it. He’s in the smart set now, but that is not the same as being travelled. I know because my dear old Aunt Mouse was a real traveller! Do you know that ridiculous woman would have it that the piece of rock from Sinai came from Ararat! And there it is labelled in my dear aunt’s own hand. Just because her father confirmed a lot of little boys with sticky heads in Jordan water or something. But I’m not going to get angry about her. She’s gone. And, where was I? Oh yes, such charming people – Sir George Latham who’d been Governor of St Vincent and Mrs Harcourt-Wemyss who was quite an old friend of the Duchess of Buccleuch. And – so amusing – Renée Lamont – you remember she starred in Going Up and all those pretty shows – she lives permanently at the Mount Nelson now. But when I saw that letter on the breakfast table something told me. I said to Billy, ‘The children have done something silly.’ I couldn’t eat my paw-paw. There was always paw-paw for breakfast. And there it was – a letter from Mister Quentin to say they’d all got together and sent Regan to Hastings! To Hastings! I was nearly frantic. With that buoyant air and the cliffs! Of course I wasn’t a bit surprised when we got the news at Las Palmas that she’d had this stroke. How is she getting on with luncheon?

  MRS HANNAPIN: Well er legs drag somethin terrible and then all them grunts and groans. It’s ard to know whether she’s in pain or not.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Good Heavens! no. All those grunts and groans as you call them are just Regan. Oh, dear, I don’t know what I’d do without them. Those and Mr Matthews humming round the house. Heavens! There’s eleven striking. Do pop down to the kitchen Mrs H. and make some coffee, there’s a dear. I’ve got my three daughters coming. Quite an occasion! Although I’m afraid Miss Sukey and I are going to have words. Interfering with Regan’s family life like that. But there you are – a schoolmaster’s wife. I don’t see her often, but she’s got very bossy. [As MRS HANNAPIN moves indoors, MRS MATTHEWS calls her back.] Oh, just before you go. What do you think of Mrs Sankey’s work? Is she thorough?

  MRS HANNAPIN: Oh, I wouldn’t like to tell stories out of school, mum.

  CLARA MATTHEWS [grandly]: And I shouldn’t want you to. But you and she are working as a team now and it’s only right that I should know how you find her work.

  MRS HANNAPIN: Well, she does er best. But of course I appen to know er ome circumstances. It’s not only that Mr S. is in one job today and out the next. But there’s the son …

  CLARA MATTHEWS [delightedly preparing herself to hear gossip]: Ah, now, what about that famous son of hers?

  MRS HANNAPIN: Well, if you arsk me, ees a nasty piece of work. My usband … [But a ring on the bell interrupts them.]

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh dear! That must be one of the girls! And I was so interested. But another time. Go and answer the bell, will you? And hurry the coffee up.

  [After MRS HANNAPIN goes out MRS MATTHEWS gets up, picks up a handful of gravel from the path and with surprisingly youthful agility throws it against one of the first floor windows. The sash window goes up slowly and the still handsome and boyish but now very lined and red face of her husband WILLIAM MATTHEWS appears, his grey curly hair dripping.]

  WILLIAM MATTHEWS [singing loudly]: And we’ve fought the bear before and we’ve fought the bare behind, and the Russians shall not take Constantinople. We don’t wan’t to fight…

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Billy! Billy! What will the neighbours say? [But at the idea of the neighbours he pulls a solemn parsonical face, and they both burst out laughing.] Oh Billy! You’re impossible. One of the girls has arrived already. What will they think? You don’t want to appear lazier than you are. Still in the bath and the morning half over. And, oh, Billy, it’s so beautiful out here in our dear garden. The Russian vine’s still a mass of flower and the plane tree …

  [As she speaks her eldest daughter GLADYS MATTHEWS, a fortyish woman, handsome, well proportioned, in a black suit with a silver fox fur over one shoulder, appears at the back door.]

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: Who on earth’s that terrible old creature who answered the bell, Mother? All the faces seem to be changed these days. Where’s Miss Agnew?

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh, my dear Gladys, she didn’t do at all. I dare say she’s very good at harvest festival and that sort of thing. But neither your father nor I have ever been churchgoers. No, I should take her off your books, dear, if I were you. Just look at our old plane tree, Gladys. Do you remember how Rags used to chase the leaves at this time of the year? Some people think autumn a sad time, but I’ve never felt that. To me it’s always been a coming home time. All those holidays with old Granny M. at Cromer, everything so stiff and formal, all you children hushed at the least thing – how glad we all were to get back. I used to have a phrase for it – we’ll loosen our stays. That was in the days of stays. [She calls up to the window.] Do you remember, Billy? Loosen our stays? Billy! Billy! [But Mr Matthews has shut the window again.]

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: No, I can’t say I do. I always enjoyed myself at Grannie’s. Anyway what are you sitting in the yard for? And what do you mean you’ve sent Miss Agnew away?

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Just that, dear. Sent her away. Oh quite politely. Anyway I think she saw as well as I did that it would never do. She’s a semi-evening, dear. And I could never fit in with that class. For me it’s either real evening dress or any old thing that’s comfortable.

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: Really Mother, this is not a question of clothes. I was trying to get you a first rate housekeeper to take everything off your hands now that Regan’s no longer with you.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh, but she is, darling. Your father and I went down to Clapham two days ago and fetched her back in a taxi.

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: You’ve brought her back here?

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Where else, dear? This is her home.

  [While they are talking, MRS ROOTHAM – MARGARET MATTHEWS – has appeared in the doorway. Tall and thin, she has already developed her own individual, eccentric manner of dressing at thirty-five. Her high black turban, shaped like a chefs hat, has magenta tulle hanging from, it – forerunner of the snoods to come – Her long black Indian lamb coat has a military cut. She wears magenta gloves.]

  MARGARET MATTHEWS: Whose home, Countess? For heaven’s sake there’s enough people to support here without succouring the stranger from the street.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: The stranger from the street! You call the woman who gave you her whole life to you children a stranger!

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: It’s Regan, Maggie. They’ve brought her back here.

  MARGARET MATTHEWS: Oh, no! But she’s an invalid, Mother. What were her family doing to let her go?

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Her family were doing what I told them. I’ve never liked that sister of hers, but she’s a respectful creature when it comes down to it. I hope, by the way, dears, that you two were not party to Susan’s cruel idea of sending Regan away like that.

  MARGARET MATTHEWS: I didn’t think of it, but I approved.

  GLADYS MATTHEWS: It was Sukey’s idea. And it was jolly good of her to go down there and arrange it all.

  [MR MATTHEWS appears at the door, dressed very neatly in grey Harris tweeds, grey foulard bow tie, grey spats and tawny brogues, but he walks a little arthritically and uses a malacca cane to aid him down the steps. He sings as he comes, but as his wife begins to speak, he stops.]

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Billy, these girls were part of the plot to shut poor Regan up in that horrible little house in Clapham.

  WILLIAM MATTHEWS [starting to sing again]: And the Russians shall not take Constantinople. Morning, Podge [he kisses Gladys]. You sent us a dragon, but your Mother’s slain her. Morning, Maggie [he kisses her]. I got your last from Mudie’s, dear, but it was too long. Condense your narrative, my dear. Read Maupassant. Bel Ami, there’s your model. Or that old fraud’s Esther Waters. You try to put in all this atmosphere. That’s all right for the big chaps, the Russians, Tchekov, Tolstoy, but we lesser fry must stick to hard work and art. So you thought it was your duty
to take a poor old sick mare out of the sweet hay she’s been stabled in all her life, and dump her down among a lot of strangers who happen to bear the same surname. And you’re supposed to be a fighter against convention, Maggie. Why, poor old Regan … [Mrs Hannapin appears in the doorway with her tray of coffee.]

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Pas devant les domestiques, Billy, s’il vous plait.

  [BILLY POP stops talking, but as he drinks his coffee he hums loudly through their conversation.]

  MRS HANNAPIN: The other lady’s gone to tidy erself.

  CLARA MATTHEWS: Oh, how like Susan. Thank you Mrs Hannapin. You and Miss Stoker have got cups of coffee, I hope?

  MRS HANNAPIN: Oh, yes, thank you. And she’s gettin on ever so nice drinkin out of the cup erself now – with a guidin and of course. [She goes.]

  [MRS PASCOE – SUKEY – appears in the doorway. She is dressed in a pepper and salt coat and skirt with sensible shoes, under her coat a navy blue jumper, a string of pearls, a small navy blue hat with matching eye veil – her ‘visit to London’ clothes.]

  SUKEY PASCOE: Mother! Father! It’s disgraceful! I’ve seen her. She no more ought to be in the kitchen than she should be flying an airship. And that old creature who opened the door to me is nearly as bad. And after all the trouble and tact I used to get her family to take her in. Haven’t you any sense of responsibility?