No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  Many thousands of viewers who might have turned off in face of another documentary, another dose of politics at this all too political time, took heart at the sight of that long face, those disdainful lips, those amused eyes. There was sure to be fun with the outrageous Q. J. Matthews – a brilliant bloke, even when you couldn’t understand, you could sit back and watch. Many other tens of thousands who felt shame of one sort or another over Suez or shame of a more definite kind over Hungary, or, rather helplessly, all sorts of shame at the same time were compelled to meet Q. J. Matthews’s lazy gaze, to hear what sort of nonsense the fellow would talk, to know how far the renegade would mountebank this time. They were not disappointed. The producer angled the camera as much as possible on to him while the others were talking. As the Colonel’s solemn soldier tones boomed forth like an honest cannon in these days of warfare by slide rule and ‘stinks’ (he was, they said, a peculiarly wily and ambitious politician), Q. J. stared in amused yet not unloving fascination at this mammoth brought back from extinction especially for the delectation of himself and – for he always shared his fun – the millions of viewers who, no doubt, were watching tonight the Q. J. Matthews show. As Mr Cobmarsh talked, quick, eager, passionate, voluble (an up and coming back bencher, they said, if there weren’t too many lawyers already in his party) one could see a more sickened recognition on Q. J.’s face, his eyes became veiled with ennui, he shuddered a little at the thought of the possible harm that might come to all those million, faithful viewers from all this stale; cleverness and too often shown enthusiasm. At last when the visitors had had their full time and more – as viewers felt and the interviewer, rather implied – the question was put to Q. J. Matthews:

  ‘Does it matter all that amount?’ he asked, ‘Oh, granted that, as my idealistic old friend John Cobmarsh has suggested with so much emotion, had it not been for our Government’s palaeolithic expedition in defence of the all red route and the dreams of Cecil Rhodes, we might now be able to offer rather more aid than President Eisenhower’s Episcopalian pieties to the insurgent government in Budapest…. ‘Camera to John Cobmarsh protesting with many gestures. ‘Q. J. Matthews knows perfectly well that it’s not just a question of rather more aid, it’s a question of that extra help….’ Camera to Q. J. Matthews.

  ‘Very well….’ Q. J. Matthews smiling at the clever child who points out the utterly irrelevant minor mistake in addition in the Chancellor’s annual budget, ‘Very well, we could have given enough to alarm our ebullient but ultimately exceedingly cautious friend from the Ukraine, Nikita Sergeyevich, and have given the worthy Dr Nagy a year, two years more of precarious Revisionist Socialist – let us not forget the magic language – rule.’ Camera to Cobmarsh.

  ‘More, much more.’ Camera to Q. J. Matthews, waving his long tapering hands in liberal allowance.

  ‘Very well. More. But our little systems, you know…. And they are such very little systems! To replace the ruthless, satellite government of Mr Rakosi who pretends to govern by every word that came out of the mouth of a bearded, worthy, but misguided bourgeois gentleman of the Victorian era now lying in Highgate cemetery, by the more insecure, somewhat less dependent government of Dr Nagy, who really does believe that the words of the late and wholly irrelevant Karl Marx are gospel truth, is that such a very valuable change? Is it something for which we should risk the annihilation by radiation of man such as he is and his achievements such as they are?’ Camera to Colonel Brown.

  ‘Hear! Hear! – Hear! Hear!’ Camera to Q. J. Matthews smiling with a kindly acidity all his own.

  ‘Oh, don’t mistake me, Colonel, no doubt if our left hand had not trembled so agitatedly,’ camera to John Cobmarsh shaking with fury, ‘our right hand could have smitten the Egyptian hip and thigh with the same agility that we showed in those days when Lord Cramer and Lord Kitchener walked before the Lord. But what would that have done, Colonel? Really, what would that have done? Prolonged the British Empire a few more years before it inevitably goes the way of Nineveh and Tyre; and put some extra dividends into the hands of some already overweight, thrombotic shareholders and directors in the City of London. And you both ask me to take all this seriously.’

  On the whole it was first-class Q. J. Matthews stuff. Yet only once did he rear his head and spit fiercely as viewers above all liked. It was when John Cobmarsh pressed him about his personal friendship with Dr Nagy, his long conversations with Professor Lukač.

  ‘This is really abominable, Matthews. You’ve known both Nagy and Lukač personally. You know what sincere and courageous men they are. You also know that your voice on the television tonight like all influential voices from the West may make the whole difference to the Russians’ attitude towards these men who are in mortal danger.’

  ‘Oh, you flatter me, my dear fellow. Quite honestly, I doubt if anything we can say here will influence Comrade Nikita and his thugs. In any case I have the greatest personal liking both for Nagy who’s a good chap and Professor Lukač who’s a clever one. I hope they come well out of these bad times. But if you’re suggesting that I have any concern for their cause, I must remind you that to me the Marxist nonsense they believe in is no more respectable than the crudest sort of Flat Earthism. And, do remember – they chose politics and politics like all games of power carries its own risks.’ Camera to John Cobmarsh, gesticulating wildly.

  ‘This is too disgraceful. Well, even if you won’t consider the fate of your personal friends …’

  ‘Oh, but I do, my personal friends are many, are …’

  ‘… perhaps you’ll have some concern for the Hungarian common man.’

  ‘I have no concern for the common man except that he should not be so common.’ The contempt with which Q. J. Matthews looked into the camera as he spoke was the masochistic moment for which his million common viewers waited every week.

  ‘All right, quibble if you will! Let us say the thousands of ordinary people – young men and women, many of them just beginning their lives – who are now streaming over the borders into Austria, into a Western world, sick with disappointment, sick with despair.’

  ‘Oh, my dear fellow, I have. Unlike many of my friends of the humanitarian and liberal section of our country, I am not busy telling these wretched young people to expect a paradise here. I have too much concern for man’s spirit, man’s real self, to suggest to them that by leaving the drab earnestness of the Marxist Utopia for the glittering triviality of tie affluent lollygarchy they have gained anything whatsoever but a hire-purchased Hoover and a sleeping pill salvation.’

  Putting down their whiskies and sodas, their cocoas and their cokes, a million viewers felt comfortably rebuked.

  *

  ‘No, we shall be living quite close. Hugh will do some of the Latin Common Entrance so long as Mr Birkenshaw wants him.’ Sukey shot the young man in question a glance that forbade him to deny his need of Hugh. Then:

  ‘Me? Oh, I’ve got so much to do, you know. Five grandchildren. Then I shall go on with my weekly talks for the Western Region. I’ve only missed six weeks in twenty years. And I’m on the bench now and the R.D.C. So what with that and Cathedral business I shan’t be at a loose end. Although, of course, I shall miss the school. You can’t shake off old habits, can you?’

  ‘And the school will miss you,’ one woman said, and then another. And soon it was spreading amongst the whole group of these mothers arrived to take their boys out for half-term weekend.

  ‘I shall try out the Birkenshaws, of course. But it won’t be the same without Mrs P.’

  ‘Mr Pascoe was a first rate teacher, but it was she who kept the school together.’

  ‘I remember three years ago when Jerry first came here, I was terrified of her. But she’s been like a second mother to him.’

  ‘What age would she be? She looks indeterminate.’

  ‘She’s looked exactly the same to ray knowledge since my eldest boy came here which must be five or six years ago. But of course she’s got such energy.’


  Poor little Mrs Birkenshaw listening thought, oh, how will it work out? however will we undo the Pascoe legend? Oh, thank heavens, they’re retiring at last. And now boys were appearing in the drawing-room to be taken off by indulgent, impatient parents. Among the fathers even this customary half term parental impatience to be gone was drowned by the National Debate. Mr Oldbourne, the bank manager from Taunton had started up an argument with Wing Commander Jackley who was stationed near Beer. It was not that either of them had any doubt about the rightness of our cause, the shame of our withdrawal, it was only that the Wing Commander was unhappy lest we might perhaps alienate the right kind of Arabs, the splendid chaps, and unhappy that we should find ourselves mixed up with Jewish politics; while Mr Oldbourne thought all this was sentimental nonsense, the Arab world was three hundred years out of date, medieval, while Israel was a going concern. But they both rounded on Mr Latimer, who produced children’s programmes for West Region, when he said that it was we, with our gunboats and our ultimata, who were living in the past. In a few moments the political debate had engrossed all the fathers and spread to the mothers, even some of the boys in their best Sunday long trousered suits had begun to punch and pummel one another over the rights and wrongs of the affair. Hugh and the Birkenshaws tactfully withdrew from the discussion, tactfully finding errands – boys to call, marks to show, the new Rugger XV photos to pass round. Sukey appeared to show her tact in a different way by reminiscing right through the torrent that raged around her, now indeed most fiercely, for Mrs Latimer had quoted the Observer and Mrs Oldbourne had been shocked that anyone should still read that rag – ‘the traitor’s paper we call it.’

  ‘That was the year,’ Sukey was almost shouting as though to drive the general conversation from her ears, ‘when we had to put Winnie the Wolseley to sleep. She just wouldn’t take the hills any longer, poor old girl! So despite the pleas of our Tearful Trio, Hugh the Hard Hearted sent her to the knacker’s yard and we acquired a brand new Morris Oxford. It was the first new car we’d ever had. The boys were frightfully scornful, thought it was a terrible show off. And secretly I rather agreed. However, when the sheen had begun to wear off we became devoted to Oxford Olga as we called her …’

  But somehow, however much Mrs Latimer and Mrs Oldbourne quarrelled, they and the other parents clearly agreed that no tact was permissible at this time, every one must stand up and be counted.

  ‘You wouldn’t have the Observer in the house, would you Mrs Pascoe?’ Mrs Oldbourne pressed.

  And Mrs Latimer said, ‘Mrs Pascoe’s much too sensible to believe in censorship of opinion.’

  But what was Mrs Pascoe’s opinion they all began to ask, was she pro? was she anti? did she care what happened to the British Empire? to the Hungarians? did she like Jews? did she trust Arabs? Suddenly Mrs Pascoe, so sensible, so reliable, weather beaten, energetic, dowdy yet not unhandsome, began to shout at them, beating with her clenched fists upon the back of a chair.

  ‘Damn your Jews! And damn your Arabs! Damn the government! Haven’t they done enough to us, taking everything that gave life meaning? And don’t think God’s on our side! He doesn’t care!’

  She began to cry and, taking her little handkerchief from her cardigan pocket, put it to her eyes and ran from the room. Hugh almost collided with her as, waving a list in his hand, he came in saying, ‘Yes, I was right, Oldbourne, Andrew’s maths marks are 50 per cent up….’ He stopped. ‘Sukey, my dear, Sukey.’ And he followed her.

  Young Birkenshaw was able to explain: her youngest son had been killed in all that Palestine business nine or ten years ago. But, though they dispersed with expressed solicitude the parents felt that the present crisis was no time for such ghosts, perhaps, in fact, it was just that sort of living in the past that had brought England to her present humiliations. There was something in what Mrs Birkenshaw, young, oommonsensical and very energetic, suggested: that the Pascoes deserved, needed a bit of a rest.

  *

  ‘But that’s ridiculous, Mr Coppings,’ Gladys said. Catching sight of her dull, streaky hair in the mirror, she wondered whether it would be appropriate to have it set and blued before the funeral. Benny had always liked her to look her best. ‘No. That’s absolutely out. I’m willing to pay any money you ask, you know. It was Mr Murkins’s special wish. You see,’ and she explained all over again, for really the long, gaunt undertaker was obtuse, though everyone in the village had recommended him. ‘You see, Mr Murkins’s family are all buried in Bromley. And his first wife, too. So naturally he must be there. And then he loved the countryside, you see. Especially the New Forest and the Surrey Hills. So I promised him faithfully that he should be taken to Bromley by road, sort of passing for the last time the land he loved and so on. So obviously we’ve got to do it. There won’t be a lot of us to follow. Two cars will be all we shall need beside the hearse.’

  ‘If the coffin was to go by train from here, Mrs Murkins, say to Waterloo, he’d pass through the New Forest anyway. And the Surrey Hills in a sense. And then I daresay we might get enough petrol at a pinch to take three cars down to Bromley from our London branch. Oh yes, I think we could do that.’

  She wanted to explain that it wouldn’t in any sense be the same by train, closed up in a goods van, no window, but, of course, that was all a bit fanciful; the thing was her promise.

  ‘Well, if you can’t arrange it, Mr Coppings, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I shall have to go to someone else, one of the big London people. But I do want you to understand that money is no object.’

  ‘And I want you to understand, Mrs Murkins, that I would do it for you if I possibly could. And for my usual very reasonable fee. But I just haven’t got the petrol and I can’t get it. Of course, we could start out and hope to pick up a little here and there on the way. But then again we might get stranded. That would be most unsuitable.’

  ‘It certainly would. Good Lord! What an idea! No. Well, I must see what someone else can do for me.’

  ‘I should hardly think any reputable firms would use black petrol.’

  ‘As if I care what colour the petrol is!’

  ‘This is a national emergency, Mrs Murkins.’

  ‘I am sure it can’t be meant to apply to funerals. The government can’t be such asses.’

  When he had gone she gave herself another sherry because the whole interview had annoyed her so. She wasn’t pretending to herself that Benny’s death was knocking her sideways or anything like that. She would never, she knew, feel anything really deeply again since those last awful weeks of seeing Alf die at the London Clinic. What she and Doris had been through…. She decided to ring Doris now. Doris knew how to get things done, much of Alf had rubbed off on her over the years. And she owed it to Benny, who had been so good and sweet, to see that his last wishes were carried out, emergency or no. If she rang Bournemouth she’d catch Doris before she went out for her morning coffee.

  ‘Doris. About the funeral. The undertaker bloke here says we can’t go by road because we can’t have the petrol. You know – this Suez business. I promised Benny – he’d set his heart on it – so I must arrange it somehow. Yes, I know, that’s what I thought immediately. Alf would have known where to go straightaway. I wondered if you could help. You know a lot of his business friends. Will you, dear? That’s so good of you. Bless and bye bye. Hope you’re resting.’

  Doris at the other end, replied to their usual joke.

  ‘Of course, dear, and you’ve got your feet up, I hope. I’ll ring you back.’

  Gladys even now laughed when she heard that ‘got your feet up?’ How like Alf to have kidded each of them along all those years that the other was an invalid. Only he could have pulled it off. She could see that little look in his eye as he sat up in bed there the day the new nurse had let her in when Doris was already there. He’d looked sideways at each of them to see how they’d take each other, and, when he saw it was all right, he’d winked, crafty beggar, although his eye was only set in skin and bone.
And then he’d made them promise to be friends. Well, she thought, going out to meet Mrs Palmer who was clattering in the kitchen and singing, ‘Jesus loves me, that I know’, but softly this morning, out of respect, I haven’t regretted it, Doris is a good sport as far as women know how to be. And she was good over the legacy; not that she had to grumble with all that Alf left after years of war surplus and post-war building.

  ‘I shan’t stop on here, Mrs Palmer, I’d better tell you now. I always prefer to be straight.’

  ‘No, Madam, of course I understand. I said to my husband, “Mrs Murkins won’t stop on here, I’m sure. But I wonder what she’ll do,” I said.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I may join Mrs Pritchard in Bournemouth. Two old girls together. Though I’m not sure hotel life is for me. Or with winter coming we might go on a cruise. Travel broadens the behind they say. Not that mine needs it. But first I must carry out Mr Murkins’s wishes.’

  ‘There’s no petrol, dear,’ Doris said when she rang after lunch, ‘It’s the very first days of rationing, Glad, and they’re being very strict.’

  ‘But I promised Benny.’

  ‘Well, I’ve tried everyone I could, dear. They all say the same. Besides the roads are terrible. What October weather! Benny wouldn’t have wanted a lot of trouble for you. He was the last man.’

  ‘But I promised him …’

  ‘Glad,’ Doris spoke quite sternly, ‘I know you’ve been out of things these last weeks, nursing and so on. But it’s a serious time for England, dear. Very serious. It’s a national emergency. Benny was very patriotic, you know. A government servant all those years. He’d have died rather than …’

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘That’s just what I thought. I was the same when Alf died. Well, look at all you did for me then. So I’ve done the same for you. Taken it out of your hands. I’ve been on to the people who buried Alf. Very good people. They’ll arrange it all. He’ll travel by train. But he won’t be alone. You’ll go on the same train and I’ll come with you.’