No Laughing Matter (70 page)

‘That was the year,’ Sukey was almost shouting as though to drive the general conversation from her ears, ‘when we had to put Winnie the Wolseley to sleep. She just wouldn’t take the hills any longer, poor old girl! So despite the pleas of our Tearful Trio, Hugh the Hard Hearted sent her to the knacker’s yard and we acquired a brand new Morris Oxford. It was the first new car we’d ever had. The boys were frightfully scornful, thought it was a terrible show off. And secretly I rather agreed. However, when the sheen had begun to wear off we became devoted to Oxford Olga as we called her …’

But somehow, however much Mrs Latimer and Mrs Oldbourne quarrelled, they and the other parents clearly agreed that no tact was permissible at this time, every one must stand up and be counted.

‘
You
wouldn’t have the
Observer
in the house, would you Mrs Pascoe?’ Mrs Oldbourne pressed.

And Mrs Latimer said, ‘Mrs Pascoe’s much too sensible to believe in censorship of opinion.’

But what was Mrs Pascoe’s opinion they all began to ask, was she pro? was she anti? did she care what happened to the British Empire? to the Hungarians? did she like Jews? did she trust Arabs? Suddenly Mrs Pascoe, so sensible, so reliable, weather beaten, energetic, dowdy yet not unhandsome, began to shout at them, beating with her clenched fists upon the back of a chair.

‘Damn your Jews! And damn your Arabs! Damn the government! Haven’t they done enough to us, taking everything that gave life meaning? And don’t think God’s on our side! He doesn’t care!’

She began to cry and, taking her little handkerchief from her cardigan pocket, put it to her eyes and ran from the room. Hugh almost collided with her as, waving a list in his hand, he came in saying, ‘Yes, I was right, Oldbourne, Andrew’s maths marks are 50 per cent up….’ He stopped. ‘Sukey, my dear, Sukey.’ And he followed her.

Young Birkenshaw was able to explain: her youngest son had been killed in all that Palestine business nine or ten years ago. But, though they dispersed with expressed solicitude the parents felt that the present crisis was no time for such ghosts, perhaps, in fact, it was just that sort of living in the past that had brought England to her present humiliations. There was something in what Mrs Birkenshaw, young, oommonsensical and very energetic, suggested: that the Pascoes deserved, needed a bit of a rest.

*

‘But that’s ridiculous, Mr Coppings,’ Gladys said. Catching sight of her dull, streaky hair in the mirror, she wondered whether it would be appropriate to have it set and blued before the funeral. Benny had always liked her to look her best. ‘No. That’s absolutely out. I’m willing to pay any money you ask, you know. It was Mr Murkins’s special wish. You see,’ and she explained all over again, for really the long, gaunt undertaker was obtuse, though everyone in the village had recommended him. ‘You see, Mr Murkins’s family are
all
buried in Bromley. And his first wife, too. So naturally he must be there. And then he loved the countryside, you see. Especially the New Forest and the Surrey Hills. So I promised him faithfully that he should be taken to Bromley by road, sort of passing for the last time the land he loved and so on. So obviously we’ve got to do it. There won’t be a lot of us to follow. Two cars will be all we shall need beside the hearse.’

‘If the coffin was to go by train from here, Mrs Murkins, say to Waterloo, he’d pass through the New Forest anyway. And the Surrey Hills in a sense. And then I daresay we might get enough petrol at a pinch to take three cars down to Bromley from our London branch. Oh yes, I think we could do that.’

She wanted to explain that it wouldn’t in any sense be the same by
train, closed up in a goods van, no window, but, of course, that was all a bit fanciful; the thing was her promise.

‘Well, if you can’t arrange it, Mr Coppings, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I shall have to go to someone else, one of the big London people. But I do want you to understand that money is no object.’

‘And I want you to understand, Mrs Murkins, that I would do it for you if I possibly could. And for my usual very reasonable fee. But I just haven’t got the petrol and I can’t get it. Of course, we could start out and hope to pick up a little here and there on the way. But then again we might get stranded. That would be most unsuitable.’

‘It certainly would. Good Lord! What an idea! No. Well, I must see what someone else can do for me.’

‘I should hardly think any reputable firms would use black petrol.’

‘As if I care what colour the petrol is!’

‘This is a national emergency, Mrs Murkins.’

‘I am sure it can’t be meant to apply to funerals. The government can’t be such asses.’

When he had gone she gave herself another sherry because the whole interview had annoyed her so. She wasn’t pretending to herself that Benny’s death was knocking her sideways or anything like that. She would never, she knew, feel anything really deeply again since those last awful weeks of seeing Alf die at the London Clinic. What she and Doris had been through…. She decided to ring Doris now. Doris knew how to get things done, much of Alf had rubbed off on her over the years. And she owed it to Benny, who had been so good and sweet, to see that his last wishes were carried out, emergency or no. If she rang Bournemouth she’d catch Doris before she went out for her morning coffee.

‘Doris. About the funeral. The undertaker bloke here says we can’t go by road because we can’t have the petrol. You know – this Suez business. I promised Benny – he’d set his heart on it – so I must arrange it somehow. Yes, I know, that’s what I thought immediately. Alf would have known where to go straightaway. I wondered if you could help. You know a lot of his business friends. Will you, dear? That’s so good of you. Bless and bye bye. Hope you’re resting.’

Doris at the other end, replied to their usual joke.

‘Of course, dear, and you’ve got your feet up, I hope. I’ll ring you back.’

Gladys even now laughed when she heard that ‘got your feet up?’
How like Alf to have kidded each of them along all those years that the other was an invalid. Only he could have pulled it off. She could see that little look in his eye as he sat up in bed there the day the new nurse had let her in when Doris was already there. He’d looked sideways at each of them to see how they’d take each other, and, when he saw it was all right, he’d winked, crafty beggar, although his eye was only set in skin and bone. And then he’d made them promise to be friends. Well, she thought, going out to meet Mrs Palmer who was clattering in the kitchen and singing, ‘Jesus loves me, that I know’, but softly this morning, out of respect, I haven’t regretted it, Doris is a good sport as far as women know how to be. And she was good over the legacy; not that she had to grumble with all that Alf left after years of war surplus and post-war building.

‘I shan’t stop on here, Mrs Palmer, I’d better tell you now. I always prefer to be straight.’

‘No, Madam, of course I understand. I said to my husband, “Mrs Murkins won’t stop on here, I’m sure. But I wonder what she’ll do,” I said.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I may join Mrs Pritchard in Bournemouth. Two old girls together. Though I’m not sure hotel life is for me. Or with winter coming we might go on a cruise. Travel broadens the behind they say. Not that mine needs it. But first I must carry out Mr Murkins’s wishes.’

‘There’s no petrol, dear,’ Doris said when she rang after lunch, ‘It’s the very first days of rationing, Glad, and they’re being very strict.’

‘But I promised Benny.’

‘Well, I’ve tried everyone I could, dear. They all say the same. Besides the roads are terrible. What October weather! Benny wouldn’t have wanted a lot of trouble for you. He was the last man.’

‘But I promised him …’

‘Glad,’ Doris spoke quite sternly, ‘I know you’ve been out of things these last weeks, nursing and so on. But it’s a serious time for England, dear. Very serious. It’s a national emergency. Benny was very patriotic, you know. A government servant all those years. He’d have died rather than …’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘That’s just what I thought. I was the same when Alf died. Well, look at all you did for me then. So I’ve done the same for you. Taken
it out of your hands. I’ve been on to the people who buried Alf. Very good people. They’ll arrange it all. He’ll travel by train. But he won’t be alone. You’ll go on the same train and I’ll come with you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s what Mr Coppings …’

‘Yes, you do, dear. It’s the right thing at the moment. And Benny would have wanted you to do the right thing.’

Gladys was silent, then she said, ‘Well, as long as he’s not got his back to the engine. He couldn’t bear to have his back to the engine.’ And she laughed so loudly that Doris had to hold the receiver away from her ear.

*

‘Mummy, I’m absolutely sure it’s the right thing for him to do.’ Looking at her mother across the little luncheon table at Fortnum’s Tanya wondered how to tell her not to wear those sort of Osbert Lancaster smart hats. ‘You can’t possibly go to Hollywood with him this winter. It’d be bad enough
his
not being at Christopher’s wedding, with the Ambassador there and possibly Princess Alexandra, but the profession’s a sort of excuse, everybody excuses film stars. But if
you’re
not there as well! Poor Christopher! Senhora Serraoes just won’t forgive.’

‘But, darling, if he goes on his own he’s terrified that he’ll start drinking again and the studio have already said …’

‘I think he’s right. That’s why I’m sure he ought to take this Len Farrer offer. You can keep an eye on him here. Anyway it’s time he did stage work again. He can’t go on doing V.C.s and diplomats and war heroes in those silly films for ever. And it isn’t as if he needed all that money now. You’ve got all of us off your hands. Christopher’s going to be terribly rich. And now Timmy’s gone to Hambro’s …’

‘But, Tanya darling, it’s such an awful play. No poetry, no real theatre and all about such dreary people – mostly lorry drivers; it’s all in a horrible little café on the Great North Road. And there’s a girl from a reformatory, at least I think she is, and a boy who makes long speeches.’

‘Heavens! Daddy won’t be very good as a lorry driver.’

‘No. Your Father’s to be the only gent in it – a Wing Commander who’s down on his luck and tries to seduce this awful girl. I can’t think why. It’s all terribly unreal.’

‘Oh, Mummy, really! Just because it isn’t the Noël Coward world you grew up in or S.W.1. I think it’s terribly exciting really, his
wanting Daddy to play. Because everybody’s saying how these new plays could be really good if only some of the best older actors played in them. And now Daddy’ll steal a march on all the Knights. Of course, a lot of it’s silly show-off. But it’s new and that’s what people want. Len Farrer got wonderful notices for his first – almost as good as
Look
Back
in
Anger.
I can’t think why it wasn’t transferred.’

‘But we can’t think why he wants Rupert. We gather from his agent’s letter that he saw all Rupert’s films in the years after the war. He must have been in arms. But then we can’t tell whether he means this Wing Commander to be a sort of bad egg or what. He’s
obviously
meant to be a gent, though it’s so unreal.’

‘Well if he’s a gent you can bet he’s meant to be everything that’s awful. That’s one of their troubles, they simply can’t get class out of their heads. But then if people like Daddy play in these plays, as Ian said – he told me by the way to tell you he was all for it – the whole thing will get broadened and away from all these dreary layabout types.’

‘Well, I shall urge him then, darling, to see the young man.’

‘Yes. And tell him whatever he does not to crawl to him. They’re awful, snotty little creatures, but they’re terrifically keen on guts.’

Rupert had suggested that they should meet at the Garrick, but Len Farrer would have none of this. He would come, with his agent, to the Salisbury. And there they met. The noise, the unfamiliarity and the crush put Rupert at once out of ease; but he liked the young chap – he was simpler than he’d expected, with a boyish grin and a very honest North Country accent. The astonishing thing was that he really did know all those old films –
The
Day
the
Engine
Cut
Out,
Safe
Return,
Incident
in
Kuwait,
Busted
Flush
and the rest of them – and could quote from them too. ‘You simply don’t know the mess I’m in, Tuppence. Lying has become my second nature.’ ‘It’s not very easy to believe in religion and all that when the good ‘uns don’t come back, and the bad ‘uns like me have seven lives,’ ‘Four Kings, von Epp. Can your Führer beat that?’ – these seemed to be his
favourites
which he repeated again and again, raising his beer glass in a toast, standing with one knee up on his chair, generally posturing and delivering them in various dialect accents but particularly in a clipped parody of Rupert’s own voice in those roles. Rupert supposed it was all a send up and began to tell him how they had guyed the terrible
stuff on the sets. But there was something in the young man’s eye that stopped him.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I knew what cad or gent meant, but you had me in tears in the one and nine’s. I even forgot to try to get my hand up Marlene Johnson’s skirt. Lovely nosh! I don’t think I’d have forgotten to grope her for any man except Rupert Matthews. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

Rupert thought, well even if he is tight, one can’t help liking him.

It was left to the agent to ask Rupert how he felt about the part and he found it hard to answer, for Len was immediately seized with a nervous impatience that made him drum on the table, whistle pop tunes, get up and greet people at the bar. When at last he’d been persuaded to remain still, Rupert said: ‘I suppose this chap I’m to play is the waste stuff that gets left over when any system, any old order breaks up. Your young hero, by the way, has got a lesson or two to learn out of life, but I like his guts. And all he feels, I take it, is that the sooner Lane and his type are swept under the carpet …’