The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  When he had finished his newspaper he refolded it neatly and put it aside for Mrs. Moore, and then sat smoking his pipe and thinking, sometimes looking up at the gold-framed portrait of his wife; the pretty little widow whom he had married so late in life and who had died so young. Then he grew sad and went to the window to look at the rain and think of flesh and grass, youth and old age, life and death, the world and the hereafter.

  Sometimes his friend, a fiery, decrepit retired admiral, also a widower, came to play chess and stayed to lunch, and then Mr. Mellish opened a bottle of claret. “What’s this, hey? Lamb cutlets? God bless my soul, this is a surprise!” said the admiral, and the two old men laughed heartily and settled down to eat and drink and talk of things that had been in times that were so woefully changed. But this day started badly.

  Mrs. Moore knew that something was wrong when Mr. Mellish tore open the flimsy blue envelope instead of cutting it, and with an unsteady hand ripped out its contents as if he was gutting a rabbit. One of the sheets slipped through his fingers and floated to the floor. Mrs. Moore picked it up. She recognised the handwriting—that loose, self-conscious scrawl so expressive of idleness, from the lines of which little curly flourishes sprouted in all directions like hairs in an armpit … that dreaded, routine-wrecking writing which made her think of spiders and was associated, in her mind, with treachery, selfishness and conceit. It made her think of all the things she instinctively hated—two-facedness, untruthfulness, unscrupulousness, greediness, cowardice, thievishness, false sweetness, and sluttishness. Above all, it upset Mr. Mellish, her kindly, clean old gentleman. She gave him the sheet of notepaper, holding it between two fingertips, and said: “I couldn’t help recognising the writing, sir. Don’t tell me it’s from Miss Winifred!”

  “I’m afraid it is from Miss Winifred,” said Mr. Mellish.

  “I should never have thought anybody could have the impudence!” said Mrs. Moore, “after all that——”

  “Mind your own business, Mrs. Moore!” cried Mr. Mellish, in a breaking voice, “Why can’t you mind your own business, Mrs. Moore? What do you want to have a finger in every pie for? My family affairs are … my family affairs, and not your affair, Mrs. Moore. I’ll thank you to mind your own business, Mrs. Moore!” He waved a shaky old hand so that the unread letter crackled and rustled. “Take all this stuff away, Mrs. Moore. Why don’t you take this infernal rubbish away? What has my correspondence got to do with you?”

  She took away the tray and, when she saw that the old gentleman’s eyes were heavy with tears, her tightened mouth relaxed and she said: “I’m sorry, Mr. Mellish. I didn’t mean to poke my nose in where it wasn’t wanted. I’ll just clear this away. Now don’t you upset yourself, please now, don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore. I didn’t mean to speak to you like that. I apologise. You must forgive me. I’m very sorry.”

  “God bless your heart, sir, that’s all right.”

  “Don’t go, Mrs. Moore. Stay. I’d rather you stayed.”

  He smoothed the letter on his knees, glanced at it and looked away, turning his head. He was afraid of it. There never had been a letter from Winifred, or about Winifred, that had not been a forerunner of trouble, sordid, disgusting trouble. He covered the upper sheet with his hands and, as he looked at Mrs. Moore a heavy old tear found its way out on to his cheek.

  “Ah, there now …” she said, shaking up the pillows behind him. “Poor thing, don’t you read it, then. Don’t read it, Mr. Mellish. You only upset yourself.”

  “I must read it, Mrs. Moore. How do I know what it is this time?”

  “Well now, look at it like this, Mr. Mellish: it couldn’t be any worse this time than what it was last time—now could it?”

  “I daresay you’re right, Mrs. Moore. I don’t suppose it could be very much worse, could it?—But it might be, though, it still might be. And of course, it could be better news. There’s always a possibility. No, I’d better see, if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone now, just for a minute or two, Mrs. Moore. And forgive me if I was a little hasty just now.”

  “Bless your heart, there’s nothing to forgive,” said Mrs. Moore, going out with the tray.

  *

  Mr. Mellish compelled himself to read:

  … I hope you are satisfied now that I am punished and broken. I hope you are happy now that you have made me a convict and an outcast. I am out of prison now, but I don’t suppose you’ll be any too pleased to hear that, because I happen to know for a fact that you put me there, but I know you always hated me and wanted to get rid of me. I know and everybody else knows that I was always in your way, you didn’t want me, only my mother, you were jealous of me because my mother loved me more than she loved you and you always wanted to get me out of the way. Well you did. I never did anything wrong but you had me thrown into prison like a common criminal just to get me out of your way, but now I am out of prison a free woman with a criminal record thanks to you my dear stepfather. I am writing this not to reproach you but to comfort you and make you feel happier, because I know you will not be sorry to hear that I suffered the Agonies of the Damned, have been very ill and am still weak and penniless. I was going to have a baby, but I was so weak and miserable I had a miscarriage. He would have been your grandson. I am pretty sure it was going to be a He but he is dead, and I envy him. I wish I were dead too and I’m glad he is dead because that makes one person less to interfere with your nice little comforts or come between you and your Mrs. Moore. I am glad Mother is not longer alive to see it. I shall never see you or speak to you again and do not want to hear from you. You cannot communicate with me because I have no home. The only address I have is Poste Restante, Charing Cross Post Office. Set your mind at rest, I’ll manage to struggle along as I always have. I have not quite lost the few good looks I used to have, and have made several useful friends in the prison to which you sent me, so eat your little cutlets in peace, with your Mrs. Moore, because I will never trouble you again. Good-bye once and for all.

  WINIFRED.

  P.S.—Do not attempt to find me.

  *

  “Oh, unjust! Unkind!” cried old Mr. Mellish, and then Mrs. Moore came in, deliberately calm, consciously composed, and asked him what he fancied for lunch that day.

  “Cold meat.”

  She put a hand to her bosom and tried to laugh. “How about a nice cutlet?” she said.

  “Cold meat. And will you please send Roberts to Admiral Pope and ask him if he’d care to step across the street for luncheon?”

  “The cold beef, Mr. Mellish? Not a nice lamb cutlet? They’re lovely to-day. Just one little teeny lamb cutlet, eh? Just one.”

  “The admiral will have the cutlets. To-day I want cold meat.”

  “With a nice salad?”

  “Bread.”

  “Shall I open a bottle of claret?”

  “Yes, open a bottle of claret by all means.”

  As soon as Mrs. Moore left the bedroom she began to cry. When she came back, half an hour later, old Mr. Mellish was lying on his back. The Daily Telegraph was still unopened. She said: “Admiral Pope will be glad to come, sir. And you left these three letters on your tray.”

  “Good, Mrs. Moore. See that the angostura bitters are out. … Letters? I don’t want any letters. Put them on my desk. I’ll deal with them another time. Just leave me alone for a minute, Mrs. Moore.”

  “Oh, Mr. Mellish, let me get you some Bovril. Or a nice glass of nice warm milk.”

  “Go away and leave me alone.”

  “Very good, Mr. Mellish.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Moore!”

  “Sir?”

  “Once again, I’m sorry if I’ve been a little short with you this morning, but the fact of the matter is, I’m a little upset.”

  “I know you are, you dear kind soul.”

  In the kitchen Mrs. Moore threw her apron over her face and wept. Mr. Mellish got out of bed. He dressed perfunctorily. His collar was a nuisance and his buttons were a burd
en. Mrs. Moore lifted his feet on to a little padded stool. He smoked his pipe mechanically. When she came in with coffee and a biscuit at eleven o’clock she saw that the Daily Telegraph was still unfolded. “Aren’t you looking for a job to-day?” she asked.

  He replied: “Job? No, Mrs. Moore, I’m not looking for a job to-day.”

  “Aren’t you going to read your paper?”

  “I think I have had all the news I can assimilate for to-day, Mrs. Moore, thank you.”

  *

  The admiral arrived at twelve o’clock, brushing raindrops from the silky surface of his fine white beard. “Well?” he said, according to formula, “what dirty trick have you thought up this time, hey? Not another Queen’s Knight gambit, I hope.” Five years ago Mr. Mellish had opened a game of chess with a Queen’s Knight gambit, and the admiral had beaten him.

  “I hope you don’t mind if we don’t play this morning, Pope,” said Mr. Mellish.

  “Lost your nerve, hey? Lost your nerve, is that it?” said the admiral. Then he saw Mr. Mellish’s face and said: “You look a little hipped, young feller,” and put the little bundle of veins and tendons that was his right hand on his friend’s shoulder. “What’s the matter, young feller?” He was on the churchyard side of seventy, five years older than Mr. Mellish, who urged him forward with a hand in the small of his back, saying, mechanically:

  “Age before beauty.”

  The admiral had lived thirty years in an iron corset. His spine had been broken in an explosion off Trieste. An old manservant who had been a Master-at-Arms—a tattooed pessimist with eyebrows like dried pine cones—washed him and dressed him, laced him up and sent him out in the morning, and, having unlaced him at night, listened to his every sigh.

  “How is the back?” asked Mr. Mellish.

  “Improving, improving. What’s up with you?”

  “Pope,” said Mr. Mellish; and choked.

  “None of that, none of that!” The admiral saw a letter in his friend’s hand and said: “Ah!”

  Mr. Mellish gave him the letter and said:

  “Can you tell me what I ought to do, Pope? This isn’t fair. It’s not right. It isn’t just. For the life of me I can’t see what I’ve done wrong, Pope. I’ve tried to do everything for the best. What can I do? It’s cruel. It’s unkind. How could she speak of her dear mother like that? How could I possibly have been jealous of her? What does she mean by that? Of course her mother loved her more than me. Who denied it? I never denied it—I know it. Why should her mother have loved me? What was I but a silly old man? And her mother was very young and beautiful. She was fond of me, yes, but love me? I never hoped for that. I never expected it. I was just a husband, somebody to be comfortable and contented with. Pope, it stands to reason I expected she should love her child better than me, doesn’t it? Then why say things like that? I tried to make them both happy. I do honestly assure you, Pope, I loved her mother very dearly, and I gave Winifred all I could, within reason. How could she say what she said about … the grandson? It’s not true, you know. She says that she’s glad he’s dead, because of my comforts! It’s not fair, Pope—it’s untrue, it’s unjust, it’s unkind! But how can you tell these things to these young people? Anybody who knows me ought to know that all I ever wanted was a child about the house. When I was ever so much younger I used to think how nice it would be to have a son who’d get a Prix de Rome, a great man. Laura and I often talked about it. … And Winifred writes to me about cutlets! Why cutlets? What do I care about cutlets? I’d gladly have given everything I have. I’d have sold everything to keep the little fellow alive. And then she talks about one person less to interfere with my nice little comforts and come between me an my Mrs. Moore! My Mrs. Moore! Why, Pope, you know as well as I do how much Laura, her mother, liked Mrs. Moore. Is it decent, Pope? Pope, is this proper?”

  “Be damned if it is.”

  “—And at the end—perhaps you notice—she says something about managing to struggle along, and not having quite lost good looks; and something about making several useful friends in the prison I sent her to. I sent her to! I went and I almost fell on my knees before one of these bohemian fellows to keep her out of prison. I paid out money, I pulled strings to keep her out of prison. Pope, if only she’d wanted to be honourable and decent she could have done whatever she liked, if only for her dear mother’s sake. But she doesn’t want to. She hates me. ‘Eat your little cutlet in peace with your Mrs. Moore’ she says. My little cutlet! My Mrs. Moore!”

  “Young feller, this isn’t a thing to upset yourself about.”

  “It may not be. You’re accustomed to dealing with people, Pope. Tell me: why not?”

  “Why, look at the postscript. Do not attempt to find me, she says. She protests too damn much. ‘You can’t communicate with me because I have no home. The only address I have is Poste Restante, Charing Cross Post Office’ she says. Bah! She’s inviting communication, you mark my words. All this ‘weak and penniless’ and whatnot! Bait, bait, Mellish—bait, young feller! Take my advice, don’t be impressed. You can take one of two courses. Send her a letter to her Charing Cross Post Office, enclosing a ten-pound note for immediate expenses and offering her a hundred a year if she behaves herself—or ignore her absolutely. Mark my words, young feller, a gel who writes a letter like that is determined to be a thorn in your flesh anyway. Stop looking so hipped, and make your mind up. Send her a few pounds and wait and see.”

  “I don’t like to think of the girl with the mark of the jail on her. Say I send her twenty-five pounds to buy clothes with an offer of ten pounds a month as long as she keeps out of trouble? You know the world, Pope. Advise me.”

  “Damn generous,” said Admiral Pope.

  “Then I’ll do that … Poste Restante, Charing Cross Post Office. Poor girl, poor girl! Will you excuse me, Pope, while I write a note? Did you see what she said about having good looks and useful friends? If you don’t mind I’ll send this at once…. I have only about twenty pounds in cash here—will you lend me five pounds, Pope?”

  “Of course. But register it.”

  “Naturally I’ll register it. But——”

  When they sat down to eat, the admiral said: “What’s this, hey? Lamb cutlets?… Why, what the blazes? I’ll be damned! God bless my soul, cold beef!”

  “There are some cutlets for you, Pope. Somehow I don’t seem to fancy cutlets to-day.”

  The old admiral trembled with indignation, and his eyebrows and beard seemed to bristle as he said: “What? What?” He could not live without swearing, but disapproved of blasphemy and indecent language. “What! By the seven snotty orphans and the nine blind sons of Brian Boru, do you mean to say that you’re going to let that damn bit of hysterical claptrappery come between you and your cutlets? By the Lord Harry, fifty thousand madwomen might pelt me with fifty thousand pages of poppycock before I’d concede one iota of cutlet! Don’t be a damned fool, Mellish. Be a good boy and eat your cutlet.”

  “No, I’ll have cold beef to-day.”

  Mr. Mellish picked up a square inch of beef on his fork, and put it to his lips, but took it away again and said: “Ten pounds a month. Two-pounds-ten a week … Tell me, Pope, in your considered opinion, is that reasonable?”

  “Reasonable, young feller? Reasonable? More than generous. Much more than generous.”

  “She’s her mother’s daughter, Pope. It’s my duty to look after her. I wouldn’t want to have on my conscience——”

  “—To the Dickens with your conscience—to the Thackeray with your thundering conscience, Mellish! If a woman won’t go straight on fifty shillings a week, fifty pounds a week won’t make an honest woman of her. Mark my words. I know. I knew a seamstress who hanged herself by the neck until she was dead—hanged herself on a yard and a half of clothes line—rather than commit adultery. And I knew a countess with ten thousand a year in her own right who gave herself to a nigger. If a hundred and twenty pounds a year won’t keep a gel honest. a hundred and twenty thousand a year
won’t. Eat your cutlet.”

  “If she did something desperate, how could I ever forgive myself, Pope?”

  “She won’t do anything desperate, set your mind at rest.”

  “You think two-pounds-ten is enough, then?”

  “Beyond one iota of a shadow of a doubt. Come on, young feller, have a cutlet.”

  “As a matter of fact, Pope, I haven’t any appetite.”

  “Just this little one.”

  “As a matter of fact I don’t feel any too well. You eat it, Pope. Please eat it. I only want a bit of cheese and a biscuit.”

  “Here’s to your very good health,” said the admiral, raising his glass of claret.

  Mr. Mellish moistened his lips with the wine and sat playing with his glass.

  “Eat your cheese.”

  “Don’t think me discourteous, Pope, but I really can’t. I think there must be something wrong with my stomach.”

  “I have yet to come across a situation that was improved by any man’s starving himself to death, you know.”

  “I ate a great deal at breakfast time.”

  “Ha!”

  *

  The old gentleman sent twenty-five pounds in banknotes to Miss Winifred Joyce, Poste Restante, Charing Cross Post Office. He wrapped the money in a hastily scribbled note:

  … It was neither just nor kind of you to write to me in such a bitter vein. Surely you will realise, on reflection, that, in my small way, I have endeavoured to do everything in my power to assist you. You must know that I exerted myself to the uttermost in the hope of averting your recent calamity. If my efforts were in vain I beg you to believe that it was not because of any lack of effort on my part. You must not labour under the delusion that I have anything but affection for you. When you are quite calm you will, I am sure, regret having said all the terrible things you said in your letter to me. They wounded me more deeply than you will ever know. I tell you this, not that you may reproach yourself when you realise that you have done a foolish but well-meaning old man an injustice, but to assure you that I deserve your better opinion. I enclose twenty-five pounds. If you will let me have your address I shall see to it that you receive ten pounds on the first day of every month. This, I hope, may help you to find your feet. I am sure that in spite of this little contretemps you will settle down and do well yet.