Funny Ha, Ha

by Paul Merton

  “Do you think father would mind if we gave his top-hat to the porter?”

  “The porter?” snapped Josephine. “Why ever the porter? What a very extraordinary idea!”

  “Because,” said Constantia slowly, “he must often have to go to funerals. And I noticed at—at the cemetery that he only had a bowler.” She paused. “I thought then how very much he’d appreciate a top-hat. We ought to give him a present, too. He was always very nice to father.”

  “But,” cried Josephine, flouncing on her pillow and staring across the dark at Constantia, “father’s head!” And suddenly, for one awful moment, she nearly giggled. Not, of course, that she felt in the least like giggling. It must have been habit. Years ago, when they had stayed awake at night talking, their beds had simply heaved. And now the porter’s head, disappearing, popped out, like a candle, under father’s hat… The giggle mounted, mounted; she clenched her hands; she fought it down; she frowned fiercely at the dark and said “Remember” terribly sternly.

  “We can decide tomorrow,” she said.

  Constantia had noticed nothing; she sighed.

  “Do you think we ought to have our dressing-gowns dyed as well?”

  “Black?” almost shrieked Josephine.

  “Well, what else?” said Constantia. “I was thinking—it doesn’t seem quite sincere, in a way, to wear black out of doors and when we’re fully dressed, and then when we’re at home—”

  “But nobody sees us,” said Josephine. She gave the bedclothes such a twitch that both her feet became uncovered and she had to creep up the pillows to get them well under again.

  “Kate does,” said Constantia. “And the postman very well might.”

  Josephine though of her dark-red slippers, which matched her dressing-gown, and of Constantia’s favourite indefinite green ones which went with hers. Black! Two black dressing-gowns and two pairs of black woolly slippers, creeping off to the bathroom like black cats.

  “I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary,” said she.

  Silence. Then Constantia said, “We shall have to post the papers with the notice in them tomorrow to catch the Ceylon mail… How many letters have we had up till now?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  Josephine had replied to them all, and twenty-three times when she came to “We miss our dear father so much” she had broken down and had to use her handkerchief, and on some of them even to soak up a very light-blue tear with an edge of blotting-paper. Strange! She couldn’t have put it on—but twenty-three times. Even now, though, when she said over to herself sadly “We miss our dear father so much,” she could have cried if she’d wanted to.

  “Have you got enough stamps?” came from Constantia.

  “Oh, how can I tell?” said Josephine crossly. “What’s the good of asking me that now?”

  “I was just wondering,” said Constantia mildly.

  Silence again. There came a little rustle, a scurry, a hop.

  “A mouse,” said Constantia.

  “It can’t be a mouse because there aren’t any crumbs,” said Josephine.

  “But it doesn’t know there aren’t,” said Constantia.

  A spasm of pity squeezed her heart. Poor little thing! She wished she’d left a tiny piece of biscuit on the dressing-table. It was awful to think of it not finding anything. What would it do?

  “I can’t think how they manage to live at all,” she said slowly.

  “Who?” demanded Josephine.

  And Constantia said more loudly than she meant to, “Mice.”

  Josephine was furious. “Oh, what nonsense, Con!” she said. “What have mice got to do with it? You’re asleep.”

  “I don’t think I am,” said Constantia. She shut her eyes to make sure. She was.

  Josephine arched her spine, pulled up her knees, folded her arms so that her fists came under her ears, and pressed her cheek hard against the pillow.

  II

  Another thing which complicated matters was they had Nurse Andrews staying on with them that week. It was their own fault; they had asked her. It was Josephine’s idea. On the morning—well, on the last morning, when the doctor had gone, Josephine had said to Constantia, “Don’t you think it would be rather nice if we asked Nurse Andrews to stay on for a week as our guest?”

  “Very nice,” said Constantia.

  “I thought,” went on Josephine quickly, “I should just say this afternoon, after I’ve paid her, ‘My sister and I would be very pleased, after all you’ve done for us, Nurse Andrews, if you would stay on for a week as our guest.’ I’d have to put that in about being our guest in case—”

  “Oh, but she could hardly expect to be paid!” cried Constantia.

  “One never knows,” said Josephine sagely.

  Nurse Andrews had, of course, jumped at the idea. But it was a bother. It meant they had to have regular sit-down meals at the proper times, whereas if they’d been alone they could just have asked Kate if she wouldn’t have minded bringing them a tray wherever they were. And meal-times now that the strain was over were rather a trial.

  Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter. Really they couldn’t help feeling that about butter, at least, she took advantage of their kindness. And she had that maddening habit of asking for just an inch more of bread to finish what she had on her plate, and then, at the last mouthful, absent-mindedly—of course it wasn’t absent-mindedly—taking another helping. Josephine got very red when this happened, and she fastened her small, bead-like eyes on the table cloth as if she saw a minute strange insect creeping through the web of it. But Constantia’s long, pale face lengthened and set, and she gazed away—away—far over the desert, to where that line of camels unwound like a thread of wool…

  “When I was with Lady Tukes,” said Nurse Andrews, “she had such a dainty little contrayvance for the buttah. It was a silvah Cupid balanced on the—on the bordah of a glass dish, holding a tayny fork. And when you wanted some buttah you simply pressed his foot and he bent down and speared you a piece. It was quite a gayme.

  Josephine could hardly bear that. But “I think those things are very extravagant” was all she said.

  “But whey?” asked Nurse Andrews, beaming through her eyeglasses. “No one, surely, would take more buttah than one wanted—would one?”

  “Ring, Con,” cried Josephine. She couldn’t trust herself to reply.

  And proud young Kate, the enchanted princess, came in to see what the old tabbies wanted now. She snatched away their plates of mock something or other and slapped down a white, terrified blancmange.

  “Jam, please, Kate,” said Josephine kindly.

  Kate knelt and burst open the sideboard, lifted the lid of the jam-pot, saw it was empty, put it on the table, and stalked off.

  “I’m afraid,” said Nurse Andrews a moment later, “there isn’t any.”

  “Oh, what a bother!” said Josephine. She bit her lip. “What had we better do?”

  Constantia looked dubious. “We can’t disturb Kate again,” she said softly.

  Nurse Andrews waited, smiling at them both. Her eyes wandered, spying at everything behind her eyeglasses. Constantia in despair went back to her camels. Josephine frowned heavily—concentrated. If it hadn’t been for this idiotic woman she and Con would, of course, have eaten their blancamange without. Suddenly the idea came.

  “I know,” she said. “Marmalade. There’s some marmalade in the sideboard. Get it, Con.”

  “I hope,” laughed Nurse Andrews—and her laugh was like a spoon tinkling against a medicine-glass—“I hope it’s not very bittah marmalayde.”

  III

  But, after all, it was not long now, and then she’d be gone for good. And there was no getting over the fact that she had been very kind to father. She had nursed him day and night at the end. Indeed, both Constantia and Josephine felt privately she had rather overdone the not leaving him at the very last. For when they had gone in to say good-bye Nurse Andrews had sat beside his bed the whole time, h
olding his wrist and pretending to look at her watch. It couldn’t have been necessary. It was so tactless, too. Supposing father had wanted to say something—something private to them. Not that he had. Oh, far from it! He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even looked at them when they came in. Then, as they were standing there, wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh, what a difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of him, how much easier to tell people about it, if he had only opened both! But no—one eye only. It glared at them a moment and then… went out.

  IV

  It had made it very awkward for them when Mr. Farolles, of St. John’s, called the same afternoon.

  “The end was quite peaceful, I trust?” were the first words he said as he glided towards them through the dark drawing-room.

  “Quite,” said Josephine faintly. They both hung their heads. Both of them felt certain that eye wasn’t at all a peaceful eye.

  “Won’t you sit down?” said Josephine.

  “Thank you, Miss Pinner,” said Mr. Farolles gratefully. He folded his coat-tails and began to lower himself into Father’s arm-chair, but just as he touched it he almost sprang up and slid into the next chair instead.

  He coughed. Josephine clasped her hands; Constantia looked vague.

  “I want you to feel, Miss Pinner,” said Mr. Farolles, “and you, Miss Constantia, that I’m trying to be helpful. I want to be helpful to you both, if you will let me. These are the times,” said Mr Farolles, very simply and earnestly, “when God means us to be helpful to one another.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Farolles,” said Josephine and Constantia.

  “Not at all,” said Mr. Farolles gently. He drew his kid gloves through his fingers and leaned forward. “And if either of you would like a little Communion, either or both of you, here and now, you have only to tell me. A little Communion is often very help—a great comfort,” he added tenderly.

  But the idea of a little Communion terrified them. What! In the drawing-room by themselves—with no—no altar or anything! The piano would be much too high, thought Constantia, and Mr. Farolles could not possibly lean over it with the chalice. And Kate would be sure to come bursting in and interrupt them, thought Josephine. And supposing the bell rang in the middle? It might be somebody important—about their mourning. Would they get up reverently and go out, or would they have to wait… in torture?

  “Perhaps you will send round a note by your good Kate if you would care for it later,” said Mr. Farolles.

  “Oh yes, thank you very much!” they both said.

  Mr. Farolles got up and took his black straw hat from the round table.

  “And about the funeral,” he said softly. “I may arrange that—as your dear father’s old friend and yours, Miss Pinner—and Miss Constantia?”

  Josephine and Constantia got up too.

  “I should like it to be quite simple,” said Josephine firmly, “and not too expensive. At the same time, I should like—”

  “A good one that will last,” thought dreamy Constantia, as if Josephine were buying a nightgown. But, of course, Josephine didn’t say that. “One suitable to our father’s position.” She was very nervous.

  “I’ll run round to our good friend Mr. Knight,” said Mr. Farolles soothingly. “I will ask him to come and see you. I am sure you will find him very helpful indeed.”

  V

  Well, at any rate, all that part of it was over, though neither of them could possibly believe that father was never coming back. Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. “Buried. You two girls had me buried! “She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn’t be expected to understand that father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?

  She heard him absolutely roaring. “And do you expect me to pay for this gimcrack excursion of yours?”

  “Oh,” groaned poor Josephine aloud, “we shouldn’t have done it, Con!”

  And Constantia, pale as a lemon in all that blackness, said in a frightened whisper, “Done what, Jug?”

  “Let them bu-bury father like that,” said Josephine, breaking down and crying into her new, queer-smelling mourning handkerchief.

  “But what else could we have done?” asked Constantia wonderingly. “We couldn’t have kept him unburied. At any rate, not in a flat that size.”

  Josephine blew her nose; the cab was dreadfully stuffy.

  “I don’t know,” she said forlornly. “It is all so dreadful. I feel we ought to have tried to, just for a time at least. To make perfectly sure. One thing’s certain”—and her tears sprang out again—“father will never forgive us for this—never!”

  VI

  Father would never forgive them. That was what they felt more than ever when, two mornings later, they went into his room to go through his things. They had discussed it quite calmly. It was even down on Josephine’s list of things to be done. Go through father’s things and settle about them. But that was a very different matter from saying after breakfast:

  “Well, are you ready, Con?”

  “Yes, Jug—when you are.”

  “Then I think we’d better get it over.”

  It was dark in the hall. It had been a rule for years never to disturb father in the morning, whatever happened. And now they were going to open the door without knocking even… Constantia’s eyes were enormous at the idea; Josephine felt weak in the knees.

  “You—you go first,” she gasped, pushing Constantia.

  But Constantia said, as she always had said on those occasions, “No, Jug, that’s not fair. You’re the eldest.”

  Josephine was just going to say—what at other times she wouldn’t have owned to for the world—what she kept for her very last weapon, “But you’re the tallest,” when they noticed that the kitchen door was open, and there stood Kate…

  “Very stiff,” said Josephine, grasping the door-handle and doing her best to turn it. As if anything ever deceived Kate!

  It couldn’t be helped. That girl was… Then the door was shut behind them, but—but they weren’t in father’s room at all. They might have suddenly walked through the wall by mistake into a different flat altogether. Was the door just behind them? They were too frightened to look. Josephine knew that if it was it was holding itself tight shut; Constantia felt that, like the doors in dreams, it hadn’t any handle at all. It was the coldness which made it so awful. Or the whiteness—which? Everything was covered. The blinds were down, a cloth hung over the mirror, a sheet hid the bed; a huge fan of white paper filled the fireplace. Constantia timidly put out her hand; she almost expected a snowflake to fall. Josephine felt a queer tingling in her nose, as if her nose was freezing. Then a cab klop-klopped over the cobbles below, and the quiet seemed to shake into little pieces.

  “I had better pull up a blind,” said Josephine bravely.

  “Yes, it might be a good idea,” whispered Constantia.

  They only gave the blind a touch, but it flew up and the cord flew after, rolling round the blind-stick, and the little tassel tapped as if trying to get free. That was too much for Constantia.

  “Don’t you think—don’t you think we might put it off for another day?” she whispered.

  “Why?” snapped Josephine, feeling, as usual, much better now that she knew for certain that Constantia was terrified. “It’s
got to be done. But I do wish you wouldn’t whisper, Con.”

  “I didn’t know I was whispering,” whispered Constantia.

  “And why do you keep staring at the bed?” said Josephine, raising her voice almost defiantly. “There’s nothing on the bed.”

  “Oh, Jug, don’t say so!” said poor Connie. “At any rate, not so loudly.”

  Josephine felt herself that she had gone too far. She took a wide swerve over to the chest of drawers, put out her hand, but quickly drew it back again.

  “Connie!” she gasped, and she wheeled round and leaned with her back against the chest of drawers.

  “Oh, Jug—what?”

  Josephine could only glare. She had the most extraordinary feeling that she had just escaped something simply awful. But how could she explain to Constantia that father was in the chest of drawers? He was in the top drawer with his handkerchiefs and neckties, or in the next with his shirts and pyjamas, or in the lowest of them all with his suits. He was watching there, hidden away—just behind the door-handle—ready to spring.

  She pulled a funny old-fashioned face at Constantia, just as she used to in the old days when she was going to cry.

  “I can’t open,” she nearly wailed.

  “No, don’t, Jug,” whispered Constantia earnestly. “It’s much better not to. Don’t let’s open anything. At any rate, not for a long time.”

  “But—but it seems so weak,” said Josephine, breaking down.

  “But why not be weak for once, Jug?” argued Constantia, whispering quite fiercely. “If it is weak.” And her pale stare flew from the locked writing-table—so safe—to the huge glittering wardrobe, and she began to breathe in a queer, panting away. “Why shouldn’t we be weak for once in our lives, Jug? It’s quite excusable. Let’s be weak—be weak, Jug. It’s much nicer to be weak than to be strong.”

  And then she did one of those amazingly bold things that she’d done about twice before in their lives: she marched over to the wardrobe, turned the key, and took it out of the lock. Took it out of the lock and held it up to Josephine, showing Josephine by her extraordinary smile that she knew what she’d done—she’d risked deliberately father being in there among his overcoats.