Dance and Skylark (7 page)

Stephen went out and scratched off the poster with a penknife. There was something of the Nelson Touch, he
thought, about Miss Foulkes' campaign; and he smiled as there came into his mind's eye a picture of that angular little figure padding about the town in the small hours, probably wearing gym-shoes and the kind of dirty old mackintosh which revolutionaries all over the world seemed to favour; dabbling away with the paste-brush, scurrying round corners, lurking breathless in the dark shadows, and imagining herself to be at last of true fellowship with Sacco and Vanzetti and Dimitrov and all the other martyrs in the Leftists' hagiology. (But Dimitrov, Stephen remembered, had deviated; he had been liquidated and expunged from proletarian memory.) Poor little Miss Foulkes! he thought, and hoped sincerely that Inspector Heyhoe wouldn't catch her and drag her to court on some such silly charge as Unauthorised Billposting—if indeed there was such an offence in the catalogue. The way to deal with Miss Foulkes was not to take her seriously; and to laugh off the posters as if they were a boy's prank.

Stephen threw the bits of paper into the gutter and continued on his way to the Red Lion.

Lounging On the bar, in a canary-yellow polo jumper
t
and a segmented tweed cap with a little button on the crown of it such as English milords are supposed by the French to wear, Sir Almeric Jukes, Baronet and Master of
Foxhounds, was holding forth on the subject of the Beauty Queens.

“A good-lookin' pair of fillies,” he said. “High-spirited. A fine pair of fillies.”

The Festival Committee had appointed him Master of the Horse. He had also been cast originally for Edward Prince of Wales; but he had seemed to think that his horsemanship would show to better advantage if he were on the winning side, so he was going to lead the victorious charge of the Yorkists on his own grey steeplechaser. He was an arrogant and supercilious young man, who had made it clear at the first rehearsal that he did not intend to take orders from anybody—least of all from a second-hand bookseller. Stephen disliked him intensely.

“I dunno which of 'em to put my money on,” he drawled. “'Pon my word I don't.”

He was addressing Mr. Gurney, who sat in his customary corner with his umbrella between his knees. At the other end of the bar, Florrie, the old barmaid, had just hung up one of Robin's posters, and her two most faithful customers, Mr. Oxford and his friend Timms were admiring it and talking about History.

“What I always says,” declared Mr. Oxford, whose real surname was possibly Huxford, but he had persuaded the world to accept his own version of it, “is that 'istory is tradition and tradition is 'istory, if you see what I mean.”

“Plain as a pikestaff, old man,” agreed Timms the pianotuner—at least that had been his profession long ago, but the owners of pianos nowadays mostly regarded them as pieces of furniture, which had to be dusted but need not
be tuned, so Timms had drifted into a more profitable job, that of bookie's runner to Mr. Oxford. Fortunately, for he was as scrimp and meagre as Francis Feeble, he didn't have to do any running; his morning round of half a dozen pubs was accomplished at a leisurely pace, for Inspector Heyhoe was the last man to look for trouble, though he found it everywhere; and besides he liked a little flutter himself. Regularly at twelve o'clock Timms brought the betting-slips to the Red Lion, where he met his employer, and they drank together till closing time, doing a bit of business now and then. At night they went round the pubs wearing broad and benevolent smiles as they distributed largesse in furtive little envelopes to those of their clients who happened to have won. It was a pleasant, profitable and not a very arduous existence if you had no particular desire to look upon the world with a clear and sober eye; and neither of them had any such ambition.

“Now take those knights,” Mr. Oxford went on, prodding a fat finger into the poster, which was still sticky with printing ink. “Just like the good old 'Ome Guard, I bet they was, comin' in 'ere arter the battle for their pints of mead or sack or whatever they drank in those days. There's tradition for you!”

“Quite right, old man.”

“What's more,” said Mr. Oxford, “I've heard that battles were nice comfortable affairs then, nothing like Arras and the Somme where
we
got our feet wet, and I dare say the 'habitants of this town were standing on the touchline 'avin' a bet on the result: just like you and me at a game of football. An Englishman will bet on anything.”

“Just like you said; tradition,” echoed Timms dutifully.

“I knew a Rechabite once,” mused Mr. Oxford, “who had two children called Peter and Josephine; and although he disapproved of 'orse-racing, he had a standing order with me for five bob each way every time an 'orse ran with Peter or Josephine in its name. He put his winnings into Savings Certificates for his kids. But Josephine didn't get much, did she, Timms?”

Timms shook his head.

“The name was too uncommon,” said Mr. Oxford. “But it just shows you: an Englishman, be he Rechabite or racing-man, will bet on anything. For example, there's Sir Halmeric wantin' to 'ave a pony with me on the Beauty Comp. Two to one bar one, Sir Halmeric, two to one bar!”

“Which d'you bar?” asked Sir Almeric swiftly.

“We'll discuss it together later,” said Mr. Oxford with fine sensibility. “It wouldn't be right to bandy the names of ladies about over the counter, like. But, as I say”—he jabbed the poster again— “that's tradition, that's England. And these Communists or whoever they are that are kicking up such a row, they ain't got no tradition, they ain't what I call English.”

“I'd put the rats up against a wall,” said Sir Almeric.

“That's right. Shoot 'em,” said Timms into his whisky glass. “Jolly good tradition.”

Just then John Handiman came into the bar and Florrie made haste to serve him.

“You look tired, dearie,” she said. “Need a nice glass of stout to buck you up.”

An empress in black lace with jet buttons and a pink artificial rose, she had ruled over the Red Lion Bar for nearly thirty years. Like a constitutional monarch, although she took no part in the conduct of affairs, she had a clearer view than the more active participants of everything that went on. She knew all about the balloon factory and John Handiman's financial troubles, and because it was unusual for him to drink in the morning she guessed that he was on his way to or from an uncomfortable interview at the Bank. She knew all about the ups-and-downs of the Festival too, about the midnight doings of Miss Foulkes, about the Beauty Queens' quarrel and about the tentative and tangled courtship of the Beauty Queens by Robin and Lance. She knew that Sir Almeric hadn't as much money as he pretended to have and that Mr. Oxford had a great deal more; that Mr. Gurney made a good thing out of selling “antique” furniture with artificial worm-holes in it, and that Stephen's bookshop was tottering to its ruin. And she locked up all this knowledge in her large and compassionate heart, regarding the whole distressing scene with the tolerance and calm of one who had married three husbands and buried them all.

They had been no ordinary husbands either. Her first was said to have been a lion-tamer from a circus. Her second had endeavoured to predict the winners of horse races by studying the stars, and had lost all her savings, as as well as his own, through a trifling miscalculation about the date when Jupiter entered the aqueous sign of Pisces. Her third had possessed the absorbing hobby of collecting the labels off whisky-bottles and sticking them in a scrap-book;
he had drunk himself to death during the war and left the labels of ninety-nine different brands as his strange memorial. From these and other experiences Florrie had acquired her comfortable conviction that it took all sorts to make a world.

But the manager, Old Screwnose as she called him, who now came creeping into the bar through the door at the back, nevertheless tried her patience sorely. He was carrying by their necks, as if they were snakes which might bite him, two bottles of whisky. “This is all you get,” he said defensively, dumping them on the counter. “It's our Allocation.” That was one of the words which he always spoke reverently and as it were with a capital letter, as if they were some sort of abracadabra or mumbo-jumbo of which he stood in awe: Allocation, Triplicate, Quota, Directive; for in the war he had been a Temporary Civil Servant. To Florrie, who had worked for nearly a dozen innkeepers in her time, good and bad ones, drunken and sober ones, gamblers, spendthrifts, wife-beaters, likers of bits of skirt, and even one who had cut his throat in the cellar all among the beer barrels, Mr. Hawker was a source of perpetual astonishment and dismay. Not that there was anything remarkable about him, except his crooked nose; he was just an ordinary petty puritan, with a thin peaky face, sandy moustache, and rimless glasses, habited in the shiny black pin-stripe which had been his bureaucratic uniform. Among Licensed Victuallers, however, puritans and teetotallers are rare birds; and Florrie often caught herself staring at him as if he were a hoopoe hopping about on the lawn. All her previous employers, even the worst of
them, had been like large or lesser suns, giving out light and warmth to customer and crony. They shone, they glowed in her memory, each the centre of a miniature solar system which revolved merrily about him. But Mr. Hawker generated no warmth; he was as cold as a dead star; he possessed no planetary cronies. His only interest in the customers took the form of a niggling apprehension lest they should misbehave themselves; and his only concern about the bar was how many glasses had been broken last week. He disapproved strongly of the Festival because he thought it would bring undesirable charabanc people to the town.

“It's our Allocation,” he repeated. “Two for the Saloon, two for the Public; and lucky to get it.” The poster which Florrie had hung up over the Price List of drinks caught his eye, and he said:

“You oughtn't to clutter up your bar with advertisements. I've told you before, you want to keep it dignified. And that one hides the prices.”

He shut the door behind him with a petulant slam just as Florrie was beginning to fluff herself up like an angry old hen.

“Well——” she said, taking a deep breath; and with her bosom heaving expressively she drew pints of beer for Lance and Robin, who had just come in together. Mr. Oxford resumed his historical discourse— “Take Lords and Ladies now—” and suddenly broke off, looking at Lance. Stephen was staring at Lance too, and Mr. Gurney had put down his drink and turned round in his chair in order to get a better view; for Lance had a really remarkable black
eye. Robin's swollen lips and bruised chin were only slightly less obvious.

“Well, here's to you, my dear chap,” said Robin, with a painful grin.

“Bless your old heart,” said Lance, raising his glass.

Florrie winked at Stephen, as if to say: “I know all about it”—which undoubtedly she did; and Robin and Lance clinked their glasses together as if they were drinking a loving-cup. In his lazy and offensive drawl Sir Almeric addressed them both:

“A little difference of opinion over a lady, perhaps?”

Lance swung round angrily, and Stephen had the pleasant fancy that his sword-hand moved towards his hip. Once again Stephen was aware of the feeling of conflict he had had in the street, which had reminded him of Verona: “And now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.” Lance and Robin might indeed have been two tall young Elizabethans, lean, eager, quick on the draw, their days and nights gloriously compounded of poetry and brawls and Juliets and Rosalines; nor did it take much imagination to turn the arrogant Sir Almeric into Tybalt. The thought occurred to Stephen suddenly that the real Pageant was here, in this bar, in the streets, in the shops and houses, in the balloon factory; and that whatever happened six weeks hence in front of the grandstand on the Bloody Meadow would be by comparison but a rattling of dry bones.

Robin touched Lance on the arm and they drew apart, taking their beer into the farthest corner of the room, where they soon began to chuckle together over some private
joke. The Mayor had just come in, with Councillor Noakes as usual at his heels; and now Mr. Runcorn joined them, and the three Elder Statesmen, sipping their drinks, began to shake grizzled heads over the Outrage of the posters. Mr. Gurney put in some sharp comment which Stephen couldn't hear, and Councillor Noakes snapped back at him; you could almost see the sparks fly. The Mayor, turning to John Handiman, said genially: “Well, John, I suppose your factory's full of flat-footed policemen this morning, eh?” and John, looking straight at him, replied:

“That's nothing. We're expecting the bailiffs at any moment.”

There was an awkward silence during which Stephen in embarrassment glanced about the bar, and then forgot his embarrassment as he became fascinated by the assortment of faces. His glance travelled from John's fine-drawn face to the Mayor's kindly and puzzled one; from Florrie rising majestic behind the counter to Sir Almeric lounging upon it, and Mr. Gurney contemplating his umbrella-handle and thinking his thoughts; from Councillor Noakes who collected “little books printed in Paris” to those ardent young men, Robin elegant in a flowered waistcoat, Lance wearing his black eye with an air of You-be-damned; and as Stephen looked about him he was struck not for the first time by the infinite permutations and combinations of character which even a small town could afford. “What a rich hotch-potch,” he said to himself, “is there within these four walls now, and how it sizzles and steams and boils up like a witch's cauldron!” He felt life swirling about him; man's proud and angry dust was bestirring itself, the air was
charged with emotions as it was charged with thunder; and in a flash he thought of his Festival as a sort of Frankenstein's monster which perhaps would take command of those who were trying to create it.