The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small

by Gerald Kersh

  Slupworth is self-consciously working-class and belligerently conservative. Liberal-minded Slupworthians admit that the British Museum, although it is crammed with foreign rubbish, is in its way a better museum than their own. They even admit that Bond Street in London has more shops than Royal Road; and that after sunset, in London or Paris, one may go out and have dinner in a restaurant. But in admitting this they pump a little more wind into the bloated bladder of their civic pride. They thank God that they are not the kind of folk that have to go to restaurants to eat; they thank God that home cooking is good enough for them; they thank God that the citizens of Slupworth do not waste money supporting dirty filthy night clubs in which fools empty their pockets and lower their constitutions with foreign wines, weaken themselves in the arms of women with dyed hair, and chuck away sixpences to cloak-room attendants. Whenever a wealthy Slupworthian, visiting the Capital on business, meets another Slupworthian with a flushed face in a night club, palpating the thigh of some apathetic blonde, he winks and makes a moue, as if to say: It’s all right, old man, I understand. You’ve got to know what this sort of thing is, for the children’s sake, so that you can tell them what to avoid.

  Then the man with the blonde pretends to brush cigarette ash off her knee while he lifts his eyebrows, depresses the corners of his mouth, and contrives to say without words, with a twitch of his cheeks: I am trying to reform this young woman, but for goodness’ sake don’t breathe a word to the wife.

  Certain Slupworthians, after many years of toil, go abroad. In 1928 the soap-and-candle man, whose name is Dong, made a grand tour. Dong visited London, Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Capri. When he returned, and fellow-Slupworthians asked him what he thought of it all, he said: “There were a lot of beggars. There were a lot of flies. They mess up the grub with sauces. You can’t understand a word they say. They go in for old-fashioned buildings. The policemen wear funny hats. Otherwise it’s nowt different from Slupworth.”

  This man Dong had married the daughter of the builder and brickmaker, Calvin Lamb, and was, like W. W. Narwall, a great man in Slupworth.

  There are cinemas in Slupworth now, and electric signs; motor-buses, dance halls, sixpenny bazaars, and automobile agencies: but still the wind seems to blow from all the thirty-two points of the compass at once; and what with a tannery, the soap-and-candle factory, the colliery, the foundry, and the new fertiliser works, Slupworth still stinks under a smoky cloud that drops black snow, as it did when young Solly Schwartz came in with his great suitcase that looked heavy but felt light because it was full of empty tin cans wrapped in tissue paper.

  A porter, with a face like a hangman, looking at him as though he were measuring him for the drop, cocked an eyebrow at the suitcase and, when Solly Schwartz told him to take it to a cab, exerted his strength and fell down—at which Solly Schwartz made music with his stick upon his iron foot and shouted with laughter. Then he gave the man two shillings to buy balm for his hurt feelings, and asked: “What’s the best hotel here?”

  “Well, that depends on what yow mean by best.”

  “Where do the best people go, you trottel?”

  “That depends on what yow calls best,” said the porter.

  “I see. All right. Then tell me this: what’s the most expensive hotel?”

  “The Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Put that bag in a cab and tell him to go to the Queen Elizabeth.”

  The porter said, querulously: “There’s nothing in it. It’s light.”

  “I’m sorry. Next time I come here I’ll fill it up with lead. Take it to a cab.”

  “Gentleman from London wants yow to take ’im and the luggage to Queen Elizabeth,” said the porter to the driver of a four-wheeler who crouched on his seat and shivered in the mist.

  “Elizabeth? Cost you half-crown.”

  “Get on with the job,” said Solly Schwartz, climbing into the cab.

  The cabbie flapped the reins, beat his horse out of the apathy of its misery, and the cab rumbled over the cobblestones. It stopped a hundred yards from the station. “What are you waiting for?” asked Solly Schwartz.

  “Yow wanted the Queen Elizabeth, and ’ere yow are,” said the driver.

  “What! Do you think you’re going to charge me half a crown for half a minute’s ride, you thief?”

  “Oi said half a crown and yow said——”

  “—Shut your mouth and stop yow-ing! You and your yow! Half a crown for that? I’ll see you in hell first,” said Solly Schwartz, gripping his suitcase. “Here you are, yow-yow—take a shilling and think yourself lucky … and stop shaking your fist at me, or I’ll break your arm. I’ve got your number, cabbie. Go about your business.”

  Thoroughly quelled, the cabman drove away. His hungry old horse with its hunched shoulders, sway-back, and lowered head reminded him of his passenger; so, having a whip in his hand, he gave it a terrible thrashing. Sweetlips, the horse, took it patiently: the gelder’s knife, the breaker’s lash, the cold iron bit; the harness, the blinkers, the heavy shafts, the iron-shod hooves, the toil, the wind and the rain, and the whip … that was life. At the end of it all, peace: a little oats, a little hay, and, after the delicious relief of the unbuckled harness, a little sleep. Man was God; God was good.

  Meanwhile, having established himself in the best hotel’s best room, Solly Schwartz was eating steak pie and insinuating himself into the confidence of the waiter.

  “Stranger here, sir?”

  “I’ve never been here before, but one of my best friends comes from Slupworth, a man called Lumpitt. I don’t know if you know him. He used to have a shop in the Royal Road.”

  “What, Lumpitt? We all knew Lumpitt’s. It’s Provincial Stores now, though. They say he went up to London.”

  “That’s right, that’s where I met him. We’re the best of friends. According to what I hear,” said Solly Schwartz, lowering his voice, “he was, as you might say, pushed out of it here by … what’s his name? …”

  “Narwall, you mean. Is that it?”

  “A bad ’un, by all accounts.”

  “It’s not for me to say, sir.”

  “A sort of a catch-’em-alive-o, or so I’ve heard.”

  “I don’t know about that, sir,” said the waiter uneasily.

  “You can’t help admiring the man, though, can you, eh?”

  “Yow’re right there. Started with nothing and now … why, I dare say Narwall could put his hands on half a million pounds.”

  “You don’t mean to say! Put his hands on half a million pounds?”

  “Ah. Put his hands on half a million pounds—and keep ’em there.”

  “Would you believe it! My good old friend Lumpitt told me he started small.”

  The dining-room was almost empty, so the waiter, glancing left and right, went on: “He started small. Yow’re not far wrong there. So does a corn on yowr toe. So does a boil on yowr neck. So does a cold in yowr chest. The Narwalls ’ad a little general shop, and they lived like pigs. They lived on fried potatoes and saved every penny. My cousin on my mother’s side ’ad a green-grocer’s in Paradise Lane, three doors up. ’E struck a rough patch and went to Narwall for a loan of twenty-five pounds. Narwall got the shop in the end. After that ’e got rich all of a sudden: I never could make it out. We were at school together. ’E was always a bit of a fewel—I helped Narwall with ’is spelling and now ’e’s the biggest man in Slupworth. In my opinion it’s all because of ’is wife. There’s a bad ’un for yow, if vow like!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mister, did vow ever go in for dog-foighting? Ever foight tarriers?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “ ’E’s a foighting dog but she’s a foighting bitch,” said the waiter.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Whoi, dog’ll stop when ’e’s killed yow: bitch’ll go on till she’s got yowr liver out and ate it—that’s all. And religious, mind yow, on top on it! Charlotte Nornie, she used
to be, prettiest girl in Slupworth. We were all surprised when she took up with Willie Narwall, that shrimp.”

  “Shrimp?”

  “Well,” said the waiter, weighing his words, “’e’s not as foine a figure of a man as Sandow, yow moight say. We used to call ’im Sixpenn’orth-o’-Ha’pence. He was good at figures, was Willie, but when it came to spelling ’e couldn’t tell an A from a cow’s foot. ’E was a bit of a tittle-tattle too. Once, when Oi gave ’im a friendly kick up the backsoide, ’e told teacher, and got me into trouble. ’E’d never lift a ’and to defend ’imself loike a man, Willie wouldn’t: it was straight to teacher with a rigamarole. We used to follow ’im ’ome singing:

  “Tell tale tit,

  Yowr tongue shall be slit,

  All the little puppy dogs shall ’ave a little bit.

  “That’s what ’e was. ’Is father kept a chips-and-fish shop and drank.”

  “You mean a fish-and-chip shop?” said Solly Schwartz, licking his lips.

  “That’s what Oi said—a chips-and-fish shop. We used to call young Willie The Shrimp. ‘Tell yowr father to froy yow’; that’s what we used to say to ’im.”

  “And what about his wife?”

  “Ow ’er. Jezebel, they call ’er, after the wicked woman in the boible that the dogs ate, all but the palms of ’er ’ands and the soles of ’er feet—and Oi don’t blame ’em. ’Er mother was a widow woman. She came from Milchester. ’Er ’usband got drownded in the docks. That was ’er story, and she ’eld to it. She did sewing. But fair’s fair, and Oi will say one thing: young Charlotte was the noicest-looking girl in Slupworth—although we did call ’er Charlotte the ’Arlot.”

  “What, she was like that, was she?” asked Solly Schwartz, avidly.

  “No respectable man would ’ave anything to do with ’er, not seriously, I mean. She went out sewing for some people called Buncup—’e was an engineer as came to put new machinery in a foundry—and she left in a ’urry with a black oiye and went and married Willie Narwall. The baby was born premature, so they said; eight months after.”

  “You mean it wasn’t Narwall’s?”

  “That shrimp? Whoy, ’e couldn’t get a mouse into trouble, let alone a Jezebel.”

  “That was their only child, was it?”

  “Oi wouldn’t go so far as to say that, no. They ’ad another one, but it took ’im years to do it. And Oi wouldn’t take moy boible oath that that one was Willie’s oither. There’s rumours, take it from me. And there yow are. She goes about in silk and satin whoile moy woife ’as to make ’er own clothes and mend ’em too.” Then the waiter, recollecting himself, turned pale and said: “For God’s sake, sir, don’t repeat one word of what Oi just now said, because if yow do they’ll ’ave moy loife.”

  “Don’t be silly. Where do they live?”

  “Up on Hodd’s Hill.” The waiter was beginning to feel uneasy.

  “Do they live well?”

  “Oi don’t know. Jezebel—Mrs. Narwall—feeds the servants off leavings, that’s all Oi know.”

  “Yet I am told that he’s very good to children.”

  “That’s roight,” said the waiter, with a short laugh. “Wrap Willie up in red and yow couldn’t tell the difference between Willie Narwall and Father Christmas…. The bloody little shrimp! When Oi was a boy at school with ’im, if Oi’d only known what ’e was going to turn out to be Oi’d’ve tanned ’is arse till ’e saw stars.”

  *

  W. W. Narwall was, in fact, by no means unlike a shrimp before it is boiled pink. He was small, slippery, elusive and his colour was the colour of sand-and-water. Only his protuberant dark eyes took the light and threw it back—threw it back dead. His frock-coat and billycock hat were hanging on the door behind him. He was wearing an alpaca jacket. He did not look at Solly Schwartz—his shrimp-eyes were everywhere else, and he seemed to be taking note of every thud, rumble, rattle and buzz of the factory, in the centre of which his office was. Scraping his stiff, sandy whiskers, he said: “You wanted to see me urgently, Mr….” and, looking at the card, pretended to have forgotten his visitor’s name.

  “Schwartz, ’r Mr. Narwall, S. Schwartz. Quite right. I wanted to see you.”

  Solly Schwartz was angry. He felt that he was face-to-face with an adversary.

  Quick and cool as a shrimp W. W. Narwall said: “What about?”

  Solly Schwartz had concocted a tremendous story, but, finding himself in the presence of Narwall and seeing the man he had to deal with, like a good general he changed his strategy in a split second; snapped the locks of his case, threw back the lid, pulled out a can of Narwall’s peas, slammed it down on the table and said: “What’s that?”

  “That is a tin of my garden peas, of course.”

  Then Solly Schwartz took out one of the self-opening tins, wrapped in one of Abel Abelard’s labels, and said: “And what’s that?”

  “Eh? What’s that?” said W. W. Narwall, taken off his balance.

  “There’s your tin of Narwall’s Garden Peas. And this is my tin of Narwall’s Garden Peas, If you were going into a shop to buy peas, and you saw these two tins side by side on a shelf, for the same price, which one would you choose—give me an honest answer!”

  W. W. Narwall blew his nose, which did not need blowing, while he considered the matter. Then he said: “Well?”

  “Well!” said Solly Schwartz, “what’s the good of the well without the water? You know what tin you’d buy as well as I do, specially if you could do this with it—look——” He turned the wheel and opened the tin; threw the jagged top of it on the table and thrust the empty can, neatly folded at the rim, under Narwall’s nose. “What would you say to that, eh?” he shouted. “Would you say yes, or would you say no, eh?”

  “That’s clever,” said W. W. Narwall.

  Solly Schwartz, dripping with sweat, snatched five tin cans out of his suitcase and arranged them in a line on the edge of the table—one of the self-opening Pelly-Cans, labelled by Abelard, and four others, two on each side of it. Then he said: “You’re a housewife out shopping. Quick—choose!” While Narwall blinked at him he pushed across the table one of the ordinary cans, with a tin-opener, saying: “Open it. Or perhaps you’ve opened a tin before, with a tin-opener, eh? All right. Take this. Take the little wheel with your finger and thumb and turn … that’s right, right, left, any way you like, turn … that’s what I’ve come to show you. Will you have it, or these people?” He pulled out of his bag another Pelly-Can of peas, packed by The Express Canning Company, and rolled it into W. W. Narwall’s lap.

  Narwall fingered the beautifully smooth folded edge of the can he had opened, at the same time looking at the neatly-cut lid, while Solly Schwartz, compelling himself to be calm, went on: “I could have gone to any of the bigger firms. I could have gone to America with this can. But I came to you first.”

  “Why did you come to me first?”

  “Ask yourself why, Mr. Narwall. The big ’uns are all settled—they’re all fat, lazy,” said Solly Schwartz, “you’re only a little man working your way up——” At this consummate impudence, Narwall’s eyes grew more prominent and his cheeks became pink—“No, no, now wait, Mr. Narwall, let me finish. Compared with the big canners, you’re … like a sprat to a whale. And you’re trying to Work your way up to being a Crosse & Blackwell. Now listen to me, just for a minute, and don’t get excited.”

  “Don’t you worry, young man, I won’t get excited. Go on with what you’ve got to say, because I’m busy.”

  “I came to you first because you’re not on top, do you follow? Because you’re on the way to the top,” cried Solly Schwartz, striking the table with his open hand. “You’re on the way to the top. So am I. This tin can will put you on the top. Put your stuff in it, advertise it, and everybody’ll ask for it. Look at it—go on, open another one. Would you sweat your insides out and cut your fingers off with a rusty tin-opener if you could get a tin like that for the same price as an ordinary one? Answer me that quest
ion, Mr. Narwall.”

  “Did you invent this yourself?”

  “That is neither here nor there, Mr. Narwall. Will you answer my question?”

  “I don’t see any patent number, Mr. Schwartz.”

  “I know you don’t, for the simple reason that it isn’t stamped on, because these are samples. But you needn’t worry, Mr. Narwall. With all due respect, I wouldn’t trust my own father. You don’t think I’d show you this if it wasn’t patented already, do you? Don’t be silly. Now answer my question. Which would you buy: my tin, or that tin?”