Oliver and the genteel ladies must have been sorely disappointed much of the time as, retired to some inner chamber – the maid dismissed for the afternoon, a chair back inserted under the doorknob to prevent ingress – they settled back, toes wriggling expectantly, a glass of reviving sherry within reach (the salacious contents might induce a momentary faintness), for a couple of hours of shocked and delighted tut-tutting. They were of the I-was-so-disgusted-that-I-had-to-read-it-four-times persuasion, but even they must have struggled to find something to shock them in the majority of the interdicted publications. In the right mood – they must possess rich inner lives unshared by the majority of the population – Mrs. Albert Comstock and the Goodchilds were probably capable of discovering covert obscenity in Mrs. Alexander Diddecott’s cloyingly sentimental poems and paintings with their endless depictions of puppy dogs, fluffy kittens, and winsome waifs and urchins. (Alice would be as one with them on the waifs and urchins.) Mrs. Alexander Diddecott liked to think of her artistic endeavors as “heart-warming,” though Alice opted for the term “stomach-churning.” It captured the uniqueness of their vision better, she thought. If Mrs. Alexander Diddecott, and not her father, had designed the stained glass windows of All Saints’, horrified martyrs would have found themselves being disemboweled by chubby, dimply-smiling cherubs, or chewed to death by cuddly, limpid-eyed lions.
Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster was clearly grooming Max to be the new Reynolds Templeton Seabright. Max was – he had always been – a particularly theatrical child, nurtured as such from infancy. The word “theatrical” irresistibly dipped into italics when used in connection with him. He spoke in everyday life with the same intensity of expression with which he performed his many – his very many – recitations and songs, stressing every syllable thrillingly. His inevitable extravagant hand movements made it impossible for him to request “a large can of beans” in Comstock’s Comestibles without sweeping elaborately stacked displays from the counter onto the floor. Loud crashes accompanied him around all the local stores.
As soon as he was capable of speech he was wheeled out to perform “You’d scarce expect one of my age/To speak in public on the stage.”
“… Where’s the boy but three feet high
Who’s made improvement more than I?”
This is what he would recite, laboriously ingenuous, wide-eyed and winsome, and everywhere in the room the buttocks of the more discerning members of the audience clenched audibly, with a sound like colliding cows. His pronunciation of “Demosthenes” and “Cicero” in the fourth line was much acclaimed. “Large streams from little fountains flow,” he’d pipe, and you could hear the threatening roar of thunderous tidal waves engulfing everything before them, and when he informed the enthralled listeners that “Tall oaks from little acorns grow,” you saw a land darkened and devastated by an impenetrably gloomy forest. Seldom had the lines “These thoughts inspire my youthful mind/To be the greatest of mankind” (received by a chorus of sentimental ahhhs) sounded more sinister and threatening, even if he did – rather grudgingly – concede that he’d be Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood,/But only great as I am good. Very likely. His repertoire expanded rapidly, and no musical evening was complete without his lengthy contribution.
“What a treat!” Alice would mutter – this was the expected response – as the joyful news that Master Max was to be amongst them was revealed to the gathered throng of expectant æsthetes. One theory was that his father hypnotized him to preserve the radiant purity of his voice, though Alice embraced darker theories with enthusiasm.
Snip-snap! Snip-snap! Snip-snap!
After you with the scissors, Mrs. Albert Comstock! Make sure they’re well sharpened, Mrs. Goodchild! (No, on second thoughts, file them down until their blades are as blunt as teething rings. That would be far more enjoyable.)
Worse was to come when Serenity Goodchild, several years younger, was launched as a feminine rival. At first, she had sought to harrow them with the most heart-rending of Mrs. Hemans’s compositions. She’d tried “Alaric in Italy.”
“… Still rolls, like them, the unfeeling river,”
– she squeakily intoned, drawing to a close –
“The guardian of his dust for ever.”
After what was clearly designed to be a moving pause – you could see her lips going as she counted up to ten – she bowed her head, with her hands folded in front of her eyes. Then she’d tried “The Wife of Asdrubal,” killing her children and perishing in the flames of the temple. (Alice had enjoyed this. The concept appealed enormously.) A count to ten. Head bowed. Eyes covered. Then she’d tried “He Never Smiled Again,” spoiling the intended effect by dissolving into giggles in mid-recitation. No. Not dissolving. The flesh involved was too too solid for dissolving, even in the most thunderous of downpours. On the occasion of the giggles, there was no count to ten, no bowed head, no covered eyes from Serenity. It was the audience who’d counted, bowed, covered, writhed. Whatever she’d tried, the results were always the same: audiences cramming yards of handkerchief into their mouths, falling off their seats, and struggling in vain to control their hilarity. It was as if Childe Roland – Myrtle Comstock’s fiancé – had convulsed Flanagan’s bar yet again by treating all its patrons to one of his celebrated impersonations of her Mama’s doggie’s farts, an unprecedentedly spectacular Chinky-Winky Krakatoa, one of those vein-bulging efforts that misted all the mirrors and rattled the light fittings. Myrtle sometimes described him as her “affianced” because she thought it sounded impressive, or, if in flirtatious mood (this, terrifying to witness, had been known to happen), as her amoroso (an understandably morose-looking amoroso). She did not know about Childe Roland’s contributions to the gaiety of Flanagan’s, a particularly rowdy bar, blinding with electric lights and acres of beveled glass, all of it imperiled when he let fly. This heady scent of danger set Childe Roland’s pulse racing.
Sobriety Goodchild and – er – Mrs. Sobriety Goodchild (Alice was not sure whether or not she had ever been allocated a Christian name), Serenity’s ambitious parents, and the Reverend and Mrs. Goodchild (who pinned on their Schiffendecken’s Grins like badges), the even more ambitious grandparents, had to rethink their strategy. They were prominent amongst the humorless of Longfellow Park, but decided to abandon attempts at serious declamation (Longfellow Park was clearly not in a mood to be harrowed), and demonstrate their well-hidden depths of chucklesomeness. The four of them trained Serenity to perform a whole series of nightmarish comic recitations, and sat there beaming with isn’t-she-just-adorable? expressions on their faces as she was launched into action.
“Isn’t-she-just-adorable?” was a question soon answered.
Serenity’s version of “Only a ’Ittle Dirly Dirl” would have had Herod leaping into enthusiastic action, elbowing his soldiers aside so that he’d be the first in line for lopping. Dressed in a many-layered pink dress, a frog in frills (once seen, never forgotten, and – my God! – how you tried to forget), and with much roguish rolling of eyes, simpering winsomely (every gesture was painfully and pedantically rehearsed), Serenity assured her audience:
“… For I’m only a ’ittle dirly dirl,
A innocent ’ittle dirly dirl!
With my dollies I play,
In the nursewy I stay,
Unless I walk out with Papa;
Yes, I’m only a ’ittle dirly dirl,
A good ’ittle quiet dirly dirl!
Evwy hour in the day
Twying hard to obey
My dearwest, my sweetest Mama …”
It was the most stomach-churning rendition of baby talk since Lewis Carroll had unleashed Bruno upon the world. (What on earth could the author of the Alice books have been thinking of when he wrote Sylvie and Bruno?) Even Mrs. Molesworth’s creepy cuties – lithping fearthomely – sounded like representations of courageously stark realism when you compared them with Serenity Goodchild once those eyelids of hers started batting.
Re
actions were instantaneous.
(“Ahhhhhh!” from the Goodchilds and Griswolds who had been hauled in to cram the rooftops.
(“Ahhhhhh!” from the Goodchilds and Griswolds in the woods.
(“Ahhhhhh!” from the Goodchilds and Griswolds in the music room.
(“Heeeeeeave!” from everybody else within hearing. They didn’t heave-ho, they just heaved, and up the nausea rose.)
Mama, Papa, Grandmama, and Grandpapa, cultivating expressions of dewy-eyed fondness, gazed upon the ogling offspring. They appeared to be convinced that the rest of the audience were as enraptured as they purported to be, clamoring crowds eager for her every coy syllable. They ignored the desperate fighting to escape, the frantic attempts at hiding under sofas or in the grandfather clock, those diving behind chairs or hurling themselves out of the windows, those pretending to faint in order to be carried from the room, the suicide attempts. These were people understandably overcome by emotion at the thought of what they were about to hear. The comic recitations signally failed to convulse the audience as much as the serious ones had done. You winsome. You lose some. No thrills from those frills. “He Never Smiled Again” had never been received in such stricken, heartbroken silence, by such still and shattered listeners. Alice survived these occasions by gazing at Serenity with an expression of rapt attention, imagining that she was fat and forty-nine, and still performing that same song, still utilizing those meticulously practiced gestures. This helped to stave off the worst effects of nausea.
On really bad days she imagined that it was the late Albert Comstock performing in front of her, miraculously restored to life as an enormous small girl, dressed like a frilly marquee all ready for an especially lavish and well-populated circus. Even Phineas T. – “T” is for Tiny! “T” is for Trivial! “T” is for Tin-pot! – Barnum would have struggled to have filled this Colosseum-sized immensity of space. Three rings wouldn’t do it; neither would four, five, or six.
“… I’m six years old two weeks ago,
An’ weigh just thirty-nine …”
– Albert Comstock unblushingly recited (it took a Coleridgean suspension of disbelief to cope with this line; rarely had poetic faith been quite so tested) –
“… My hair is short but it will gwow,
My eyes are large and fine,
I wear the cutest ’ittle fwocks
That ever you did see,
An’ all the way from hat to socks,
I’m sweet as sweet can be …”
On the worst days of all, Papa appeared alongside Albert Comstock, dressed in his music box ballerina dress, up on his points and wobblingly edging sidewise. He was looking straight at her.
She was an innocent ’ittle dirly dirl.
She was not going to play with her dollies; she was not going to stay in her nursewy.
She was going to walk out with Papa.
Evwy hour in the day she twied hard to obey.
Albert Comstock and Papa linked their hands and danced. This time the music was not “Narcissus.” It was – such a universal favorite – “The Dance of the Gigantic Cygnets” from Swan Lake. As this drew to a close – “Ahhhhhh!” from all points of the compass, including even south-south-south-west, they were so sweet as sweet could be in their cutest ’ittle fwocks – Papa (he did not forget the Mary Benedict simper) assumed the third position, the heel of his right foot pressed against the instep of his left foot. It was the position in which she imagined penguins sometimes stood when they were not being observed, feeling a secret need for grace in their posture.
“Third position!” he announced, for the benefit of those who were not devotees of the ballet.
It was the position assumed by well-coached children who were about to recite in public, the position of Sobriety Goodchild in his dimpled days of yore, the position of Max Webster, Serenity Goodchild, the position that warned you that something dreadful was about to be unleashed, and – hard luck! – it was too late to escape. Mary Benedict had seemed to expect applause just for assuming the position. No recitation followed as she posed, swayingly expectant. Then the pirouettes would be unleashed. She’d do this with the air of Dr. Moreau demonstrating the capabilities of the Beast People. Papa clasped his hands loosely in front of him, low down, as if he were about to demonstrate the correct manner in which to twiddle thumbs, or protect himself from Miss Stammers’s enthusiastically sniffing dogs. An encore had been prepared, in the correct and confident assumption that an enraptured audience would insistently demand one.
“‘The Children’s Hour’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” he announced, in the special little voice of the sentimental public speaker, as if to demonstrate that he possessed a magical rapport with the special scenes of childhood.
She began to lift her hands to cover her ears.
(She could think of only …
(… only four of Shakespeare’s male characters who disguised themselves as women – and three of these were acting parts in plays, if Ariel disguised as a water nymph counted as such – curious when they were written in a time when boys acted the rôles of women. Yet she could think of …
(She could think of …
(Seven of Shakespeare’s women characters who disguised themselves as men or boys.
(Boys disguised as girls disguised as boys. You had to concentrate on this one, and Mrs. Albert Comstock was easily confused.
(In Twelfth Night Viola – shipwrecked off the coast of Illyria, and trying to believe that her twin brother had not been drowned – resolved to serve Orsino disguised as a boy, and sing and speak to him in many sorts of music …)
She could still hear Papa.
(In As You Like It, Rosalind …)
He did not begin at the beginning.
He leaped straight in at the eighth verse.
“… Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!…”
Odd that he should have opted for the spelling “mustache” instead of “moustache” when – later in the poem – he chose “moulder” and not “molder”.
Later in the poem …
He was leading up to the last two verses, the very worst verses.
The ninth …
The tenth …
The tenth was the worst of all.
His voice rose. He was going to recite the last two verses, and he was going to make certain that she heard what it was they had to say. He wasn’t just an old moustache either. He was a Bearded One, his multi-fronded growth arranged like the foliage hiding the mouth of a pit dug in the forest, one of those innocent-looking traps whose floor was set with sharp-pointed sticks, and from which it was impossible to clamber free.
“I have you fast in my fortress …”
His voice became higher, became louder, more triumphant.
He was a match for them all.
He had her fast.
She couldn’t abide either Max Webster or Serenity Goodchild, but she was intriguingly tempted to enter this Battle of the Cuties as it lurched on, out of control, flattening all in its path with its pink-frilled high-voiced weaponry, threatening death by terminal nausea, and she’d begin with Max Webster. It would be easy to organize a little mischief, and Mrs. Albert Comstock’s birthday was only a few months away.
The next time she arrived at 11 Park Place, just before ten o’clock one Wednesday morning (assuming that she survived her imminent incarceration in the Webster Nervine Asylum, and assuming – a fairly safe assumption – that she’d still need the – er – gentle nurturing of Max’s Papa after this), she’d go up to Max in the hall with a winning, conspiratorial smile. If Max wasn’t there, Theodore was bound to be. One or other of the Ichabod Cranes – lank, narrow, dangling – was always there, furtively lingering in the shadows near the staircase, as if pausing contemplatively on his way to somewhere else. They loitered about during the school holidays, always keen to discover
who the loonies were who came to see their father, to seek for guidance in The House of the Interpreter. This wasn’t so that they could avoid them in future – you shouldn’t get too close to a loony – but so that they would have something to laugh about together. It was rare to see an uninserted index finger in the neighborhood of Theodore or Max. If it wasn’t shoved up the nearest nostril (you had to be careful not to get too close, or, easily confused, they might start rummaging about in the wrong nostril), it was sure to be vigorously employed in a thorough, thoughtfully luxurious, bottom scratch. If, however, they recognized an approaching loony, the finger would be pulled out – with an audible pop! like a bottle of (how incongruous) cheap champagne being opened – and pointing.
“There’s one! There’s one!”
They didn’t run away, with shrill cries and loping gaits, rather in the manner that Mrs. Albert Comstock and Mrs. Goodchild fondly imagined the male youth of Longfellow Park would react to the nearness of a threatening Magdalene, but – on the contrary – came lumbering closer, for a good stare, activating their nudge-nudging elbows. They’d lean forward – it was a wonder they didn’t carry binoculars and notebooks about with them like conscientious ornithologists – and gape, studying this specimen for giveaway signs of madness, whispering and sniggering, crusted pointy-pointy fingers all ablur. It was a little hobby they had. They were birders, specializing in just one species, the cuckoo.
“There’s one!”
“There’s one!”
In the crowded cloud-cuckoo-land of Longfellow Park, their right arms would be going up and down like a lone lowly sailor’s, aching with saluting in a ship full of officers, as they permanently pointed.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! they’d blow into their bird callers. Allen’s Improved Cuckoo Callers – … the most natural toned, the easiest blowing, made of red cedar, silver mounted … (nothing but the best for Theodore and Max) … with silver reed which gives it perfect tone, the finest cuckoo call made, used in the field by all the best cuckoo shooters in America, and only $1 each – would sound like a wallful of cuckoo clocks as they blew with reddened, ballooned-out cheeks, their guns held at the ready, all poised for potshots.
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