Mansfield with Monsters (8 page)

Bank Holiday

A stout man with a pink face wears dingy white flannel trousers, a blue coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and a straw hat much too small for him, perched at the back of his head. He plays the guitar. A little chap in white canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like a broken wing, breathes into a flute; and a tall thin fellow, with bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons—long, twisted, streaming ribbons—of tune out of a fiddle. They stand, unsmiling, but not serious, in the broad sunlight opposite the fruit-shop; the pink spider of a hand beats the guitar, the little squat hand, with a brass-and-turquoise ring, forces the reluctant flute, and the fiddler's arm tries to saw the fiddle in two. Their music has a hypnotic rhythm, a slow, maddening cadence which hints at something beyond understanding. They are watching the sky.

A crowd collects, eating oranges and bananas, tearing off the skins, dividing, sharing. One young girl has even a basket of strawberries, but she does not eat them. “Aren't they dear!” She stares at the tiny pointed fruits as if she were afraid of them. The Australian soldier laughs. “Here, go on, there's not more than a mouthful.” But he doesn't want her to eat them, either. He likes to watch her little frightened face, and her puzzled eyes lifted to his: “Aren't they a
price
!” He pushes out his chest and grins. Old fat women in velvet bodices—old dusty pin-cushions—and lean old hags like worn umbrellas with a quivering bonnet on top; young women, in muslins, with hats that might have grown on hedges, and high pointed shoes; men in khaki, sailors, shabby clerks, handsome men in fine cloth suits with padded shoulders and wide trousers, ‘hospital boys' in blue—the sun discovers them—the loud, bold music holds them together in one big knot for a moment, worms its way between and through them.

The young ones are larking, pushing each other on and off the pavement, dodging, nudging; the old ones are talking: “So I said to 'im, if you wants the doctor to yourself, fetch 'im, says I.”

“An' by the time they was cooked there wasn't so much as you could put in the palm of me 'and!”

The only ones who are quiet are the ragged children. They stand, as close up to the musicians as they can get, their hands behind their backs, their eyes big. The music weaves its spell on them and they look up, beyond the clouds. Occasionally a leg hops, an arm wags. A tiny staggerer, overcome, turns round twice, sits down solemn, and then gets up again. They can feel the pull.

“Ain't it lovely?” whispers a small girl behind her hand.

And the music breaks into bright pieces, and joins together again, and again breaks, and is dissolved, and the crowd scatters, moving slowly up the hill. Toward the sky.

At the corner of the road the stalls begin.

“Ticklers! Tuppence a tickler! 'Ool 'ave a tickler? Tickle 'em up, boys.” Little soft brooms on wire handles. They are eagerly bought by the soldiers.

“Buy a golliwog! Tuppence a golliwog!”

“Buy a jumping donkey! All alive-oh!”

“Su-perior chewing gum. Buy something to do, boys.”

“Buy a rose. Give 'er a rose, boy. Roses, lady?”

“Fevvers! Fevvers!” They are hard to resist. Lovely, streaming feathers, emerald green, scarlet, bright blue, canary yellow. Even the babies wear feathers threaded through their bonnets.

The band moves with the crowd, the silent children falling into step behind them. The voices from the stalls blend with the piercing notes of the music, rise and fall and propel the crowd forward, up. They adorn themselves in feathers and ribbons as they go.

And an old woman in a three-cornered paper hat cries as if it were her final parting advice, the only way of saving yourself or of bringing him to his senses: “Buy a three-cornered 'at, my dear, an' put it on!” She watches the crowd, its steady, swaying movement, and frowns. She is deaf; the music cannot reach her. The hats are taken, money clatters onto her table, yet she shivers.

It is a flying day, half sun, half wind. When the sun goes in a shadow flies over; when it comes out again it is fiery. The men and women feel it burning their backs, their breasts and their arms; they feel their bodies expanding, coming alive… so that they make large embracing gestures, lift up their arms, for nothing, swoop down on a girl, blurt into laughter. Something within them is being drawn up, awakened. There is music from above now, music from the sky. They hear it in their bones.

“Let these little birds tell you your future!” She stands beside the cage, a shrivelled ageless Italian, clasping and unclasping her dark claws. Her face, a treasure of delicate carving, is tied in a green-and-gold scarf. And inside their prison the love-birds flutter towards the papers in the seed-tray. The crowd surges toward her but she flashes a gold-toothed smile, waves a claw toward the hill-top, and opens the cage. The birds flutter out. She falls into step with the crowd. The music has found her heart already.

Look out! Look out! A motor-car driven by a fat chauffeur comes rushing down the hill. Inside there a blonde woman, pouting, leaning forward—rushing through your life—beware! beware!

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am an auctioneer by profession, and if what I tell you is not the truth I am liable to have my licence taken away from me and a heavy imprisonment.” He holds the licence across his chest; the sweat pours down his face into his paper collar; his eyes look glazed. When he takes off his hat there is a deep pucker of angry flesh on his forehead. He backs away from his stand of watches, backs up the hill. The Italian woman's claws seek out his eyes as the crowd surges forward and takes him. The music flows through them as the sun burns down, uncaring.

Round the ice-cream cart, with its striped awning and bright brass cover, the children cluster. Little tongues lick, lick round the cream trumpets, round the squares. The cover is lifted, the wooden spoon plunges in; one shuts one's eyes to feel it, silently scrunching. The screams of the ice-cream sellers are drowned in music and breaking glass, in the quick, sharp movements of the children. The table cloth, stripped from the table, envelops the bodies. Shrouded, the corpses are borne aloft by the crowd. They too will go to meet the sky. An offering.

Look out again! A huge barouche comes swinging down the hill with two old, old babies inside. She holds up a lace parasol; he sucks the knob of his cane, and the fat old bodies roll together as the cradle rocks, and the steaming horse leaves a trail of manure as it ambles down the hill. Its nostrils flare as the crowd nears and it springs into life, dragging the old babies faster than they've moved in years. The crowd parts as the horse crashes through. Limbs are caught, twisted, snapped, but no sound is heard. Nothing but the music.

Under a tree, Professor Leonard, in cap and gown, stands beside his banner. He is here ‘for one day', from the London, Paris, and Brussels Exhibition, to tell your fortune from your face. And he stands, sizing up the slow avalanche of revellers rising toward him. He thinks of Egypt, of the risen dead he fought in his youth. He thinks of the great walking gods of Africa, taller than mountains, which drove so many of his companions to madness. He remembers the ecstasy cults of Calcutta who tore themselves to pieces in moments of religious fervour. He hears the music too, and knows it. It is the cold piping of the deepest recesses of night, of the place beyond the stars where only hunger reigns. He knows this tide cannot be stopped, cannot be fought. He turns and flees, praying that he might survive the coming terror. Praying that the world will survive. He casts aside his cap, cheeks burning like a little child caught playing in a forbidden garden by the owner, stepping from behind a tree.

The top of the hill is reached. How hot it is! How fine it is! The public-house is open, and the fastest and fiercest of the crowd press in… A reek of beer floats from the public-house, and a loud clatter and rattle of voices. The screams are short-lived, then all is silence but for the music.

The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever. Outside the two swing-doors there is a thick mass of children like flies at the mouth of a sweet-jar.

And up, up the hill come the people. Up, up they thrust into the light and heat, silent, filled with music, as though they were being pushed by something, far below, and by the sun, far ahead of them—drawn up into the full, bright, dazzling radiance to… what?

The sky tears open, and through the ragged hole alien stars twinkle. Something moves in the darkness, blots out the stars, reaches down. A hungry, groping tentacle unfurls, drops into the crowd, and grips a morsel.

It is a fine day for a feast.

Mrs Brill

Although it was so brilliantly fine—the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques—Mrs Brill was glad that she had decided to bring her husband. She could reanimate him just twice a year and it would have been a shame to leave him behind. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting—from nowhere, from the sky. Mrs Brill reached down her hand and touched her husband's hair. It was nice to feel it again. Dear little thing! She had taken him out of his coffin that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given him a good brush, recited the incantation and rubbed the life back into his dim little eyes. “What has happened to me?” said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the wheel-chair!… But the patched nose, which was of some pale composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind—a little dab of white sealing-wax when the time came—when it was absolutely necessary… Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about him. Little rogue sitting unblinking in his chair. She could have locked the chair's wheels and laid herself across his lap. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly—something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.

There were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the Season had begun. For although the band played all the year round on Sundays, out of season it was never the same. Wasn't the conductor wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped with his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow, and the bandsmen sitting in the green rotunda blew out their cheeks and glared at the music. Now there came a little ‘flutey' bit—very pretty!—a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled.

Mrs Brill parked her husband alongside her ‘special' seat, shared on this occasion by two others: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Mrs Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. They were barely more lively than her reanimated husband. At least he had managed to turn his head once or twice, and raise a shaking hand to touch a low hanging branch.

The old people sat on the bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch. To and fro, in front of the flower-beds and the band rotunda, the couples and groups paraded, stopped to talk, to greet, to buy a handful of flowers from the old beggar who had his tray fixed to the railings. Little children ran among them, swooping and laughing; little boys with big white silk bows under their chins, little girls, little French dolls, dressed up in velvet and lace. Her husband shifted slightly in the wheel-chair when a tiny staggerer came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees, stopped, stared, as suddenly sat down ‘flop', until its small high-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed scolding to its rescue. Other people sat on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday after Sunday, and—Mrs Brill had often noticed—there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms or even—even cupboards!

Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds.

Tum-tum-tum tiddle-um! tiddle-um! tum tiddley-um tum ta! blew the band.

Two young girls in red came by and two young soldiers in blue met them, and they laughed and paired and went off arm-in-arm. Two peasant women with funny straw hats passed, gravely, leading beautiful smoke-coloured donkeys which shied and brayed at Mr Brill. A sound like gravel falling onto a coffin emanated from his chest, a hollow echo of his old laugh. A cold, pale nun hurried by. A beautiful woman came along and dropped her bunch of violets in front of Mr Brill, and a little boy ran after to hand them to her, and she took them and threw them away as if they'd been poisoned. Dear me! Mrs Brill didn't know whether to admire that or not! And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in grey met just in front of her. He was tall, stiff, dignified, and she was wearing the ermine toque she'd bought when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw. Oh, she was so pleased to see him—delighted! She rather thought they were going to meet that afternoon. She described where she'd been—everywhere, here, there, along by the sea. The day was so charming—didn't he agree? And wouldn't he, perhaps?… But he shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face, and even while she was still talking and laughing, flicked the match away and walked on. The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly, played tenderly, and the drum beat, ‘The Brute! The Brute!' over and over. What would she do? What was going to happen now? But as Mrs Brill wondered, the ermine toque turned, raised her hand and drew a tiny effigy of the man from under her hat, and thrust a hat pin through its chest. She smiled as she pattered away, and Mrs Brill saw the man collapse against a tree. Her husband groaned another rattling chuckle. And the band changed again and played more quickly, more gayly than ever, and the old couple on Mrs Brill's seat got up and marched away, and such a funny old man with long whiskers hobbled along in time to the music and was nearly knocked over by four girls walking abreast.

Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted? But it wasn't till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little ‘theatre' dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Mrs Brill discovered what it was that made it so exciting. They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she'd never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week—so as not to be late for the performance—and it also explained why she had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her husband, lying cold in his coffin, how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Mrs Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage, and her sweet old zombie husband was to-day's prop. She thought of the equinoxes, when she could raise her husband from the dead and read the newspaper to him in the garden. She had got quite used to the frail form in the wheel-chair, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and torn, patched nose. He returned to a lesser state of life each time. He had talked a little, in the years following his death. Now he could barely move. If he'd stayed dead she mightn't have noticed for hours; she wouldn't have minded. But suddenly his wife had become an actress! “An actress!” The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes.

The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill—a something, what was it?—not sadness—no, not sadness—a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Mrs Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, her husband included, would begin singing.

Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Mrs Brill prepared to listen.

“No, not now,” said the girl. “Not here, I can't.”

“But why? Because of that stupid old woman at the end there?” asked the boy. “Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?”

“It's her husband which is so funny,” giggled the girl. “He's exactly like a creepy waxwork.”

“Ah, be off with you!” said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: “Tell me,
ma petite chérie
—”

“No, not here,” said the girl. “Not
yet
.”

Mr Brill's head swung around to face the young couple. His jaw moved soundlessly, his unblinking eyes fixing on the boy. Mrs Brill gasped—a sigh of surprise—and put a hand on his arm. The band struck up a driving, pounding beat as Mr Brill rose from his chair, his old, dry bones creaking, and lurched toward the couple.

Mrs Brill opened her mouth to recite the words that would return her husband to his long slumber, but no sound came. Something sad and heavy hung in her breast, quite stole her breath.

Mr Brill seized the boy's cheeks and twisted, wrenching and tearing his head free from his body. A great, solemn fountain of blood spurted into the air, showered over the green of the park. The girl began to scream, but had run less than half a pace before Mr Brill seized her by the hair and snapped her neck.

As he settled back into the wheel-chair, Mrs Brill found her voice and extinguished the light that moved in her husband's body. She hurried as she pushed his corpse from the park, the sound of screams mingling with the music as she went.

 

 

On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey-cake at the baker's. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present—a surprise—something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way. But to-day she passed the baker's by, pulled the wheel-chair up the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. Her husband's coffin was beside the bed. She hefted him from the chair quite quickly; quickly, without looking, laid him inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard someone crying.