The Doctor Is Sick (14 page)

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' began Edwin, clearly and confidently, ‘is Cockney a dialect?' The Alsatian, whose tongue had been lolling, now closed its mouth and gave Edwin its full attention. ‘It all depends, does it not, on what we mean by a dialect. By a dialect I think most of us
would mean a form of a language assignable to a region, a part of a language as a region is part of a country, possessing features which relate it directly to the standard version of the language but differing from that standard in possessing a phonetic system, a vocabulary, and peculiarities of syntax and accidence which are hardly to be found reproduced in any other form of the language. Not, of course, that one dialect does not shade into another, as one region shades into another. Life, after all, is a continuum, and language is an aspect of life.' The eyes of the audience, which had been glassy, now looked sharply at the cellar door, on whose threshold two bulky men stood, chewing imaginary chinstraps. ‘An important aspect of a dialect,' continued Edwin, ‘is its claim to be considered as seriously as the standard version of the language, its equal antiquity with that standard, its development according to the same phonological laws and principles of semantic change. For what, ladies and gentlemen, gives the standard version of a language – say, for example, the Queen's English–its claim to particular esteem, its – shall we say–hegemony? Not any intrinsic merits, surely – only the fact of its having been used for a long time by the most influential people in the land.'

‘What,' asked one of the policemen, a sergeant perhaps, ‘is going on in here?' He was the bulkier and elder, breathed the more authority.

‘A lecture,' said Edwin. ‘On philology.' The Stone twins held their peace.

‘It sounds fishy to me,' said the sergeant. ‘And I wasn't talking to you, either. I was talking to whoever it is who runs this place, whatever it is.'

Edwin was nettled. This was his parade. ‘At the
moment,' he said, ‘you are standing in a lecture-room and interrupting a lecture which I am giving. Will you kindly complete your official business, if any, and allow me to continue?'

‘That,' said the sergeant, ‘is no way to talk. It's very fishy, this is, and I'll deal with you later.' He pointed a finger in the direction of Leo Stone. ‘You,' he said. ‘I know you.'

‘Are you referring to me or the dog?' asked suave Leo Stone.

‘You know who I'm referring to,' said the sergeant. ‘Don't act soft with me. We know each other too well.'

‘Are you,' said Harry Stone, ‘freatenin' 'im?' ‘Keep your big trap shut,' said swift Leo. ‘Yes?' he said to the sergeant.

‘Information received,' said the sergeant. ‘Which is to say that we have reason to believe that intoxicating liquor is sold freely to all here at any time, that these premises are moreover used for the illicit peddling of narcotics, for the sale and handing on of stolen goods and smuggled goods, and as a house of ill fame. There.' he said.

‘We don't allow no murders 'ere,' said Harry Stone. ‘Vat's somefink, anyway.'

‘We won't have no lip from you,' said the sergeant. ‘I'll have you in charge for obstruction. What I want to know is, what's everybody doing here?'

‘Education,' said Leo Stone. ‘Education being the opposite of ignorance, and educated people being the opposite of ignorant ones, if you get my meaning.'

‘I didn't come here,' said the sergeant, ‘to have the carrying out of my lawful duty impeded, hindered and obstructed by the use of sarcasm.' He looked worried, and then at Edwin. ‘Who's he, anyway?' he asked. ‘I've never seen him before. What's his racket, I'd like to know.'

‘My name,' said Edwin, ‘is Dr Spindrift. Linguistics is my racket.'

‘I don't like the sound of that,' said the sergeant. ‘And you don't look much like a doctor to me. Pyjamas on and that cap thing on your head.'

‘He's eccentric,' said Leo Stone. ‘Being a man of learning, he has to be eccentric. That stands to reason, doesn't it? But perhaps the police don't come into contact much with men of learning.'

‘That,' said the other policeman, speaking for the first time, ‘is not a fair thing to say.'

‘Let's see him prove he's a doctor,' said the sergeant. ‘He's got no socks on, neither.'

‘Just come,' said Harry Stone, ‘from a sick bed.' He realised he had spoken the truth: his mouth remained open for some seconds.

‘Here,' said Edwin, ‘is my diploma.' He pulled out his parchment and the sergeant examined it sceptically.

‘Could be forged,' he said. ‘Doesn't make much sense to me.' He handed it back. ‘Go on,' he said. ‘Carry on with making your speech. Let's see how much you know.'

‘Cockney,' said Edwin, ‘is, phonologically, a dialect, and its peculiar phonemes have received close attention from phoneticians.' His audience sat quiet, but their eyes were on the law. ‘But its structures and vocabulary do not differ materially from those of the standard form of the language. This is natural enough, as Cockney is the speech of part of the capital, and the standard form had its origins in the East Midland dialect which, of course, was spoken here in London. The peculiar forms of Cockney are not dialectal developments but deliberate and conscious perversions of standard forms. Let us take rhyming slang——'

‘If,' said the sergeant, ‘you're giving a lecture, you should give a lecture properly, and not bring slang into it. All right,' he said to everybody. ‘We're offnow. But there's something very fishy going on here. It's a very queer lot here to want education, and especially education of this sort.' He reserved a special look of suspicion for Edwin. ‘It won't,' he said, ‘be so easy next time.'

‘Arse,'
said Edwin loudly, ‘will do for an example.
Arse
becomes
bottle and glass
. There is then a kind of apocope, intended to mystify. But
bottle
itself is subjected to the same treatment, becoming
Aristotle
. Apocope is again used, and we end with
Aris
. This is so like the word originally treated that the whole process seems rather unnecessary. Admittedly I've picked a rather exceptional case, but from this you can see——'

‘You bet you've picked an exceptional case,' said the sergeant. ‘So this is your lecture, is it? Dirt and obscenity. I thought there was something not quite right going on here. You lot have been warned,' he said. ‘Just watch your step, that's all.' Heavily they left. The booted quadruped mounted the stairs, was heard on the ceiling again, then hoofed off. The audience breathed relief, then broke up into single foul-mouthed disreputables, howling for drink. Edwin called:

‘Wait! Nobody gave you permission. I did not dismiss the class.' He banged on the plywood counter.

‘All right, perfesser,' said Harry Stone. ‘You take it easy now. You've done your bit, you ‘ave. Alvough,' he said, ‘you shouldn't ‘ave said vat abaht
arse
. Vere are limits, as vat copper said. Vere were over words you could ‘ave taken, instead of vat one. Vat was goin' a bit too far.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A sentry was posted at the street-door – a small inarticulate man with a strained Duke-of-Windsor face – and interrupted drinking was resumed. But Edwin sulked. ‘A thing,' he said sulkily. ‘Something used, that's all I am, something used and then discarded.' Harry Stone punched him, saying with passion:

‘You'll ‘ave your chance again, vough we 'ope not. If ve law comes back we'll 'ave all vem yobs on veir arises listenin' again and you can carry on where you left off. In ve meantime,' he said, ‘look at all vem drinks what grateful pupils 'as set up for you on ve counter. Drink vem up,' he said fiercely, thumping Edwin. ‘Drink vem up quick. We don't want anybody should be standin' vere wiv all vat number lined up if we get ve signal.'

But the Stone twins tried, in a shy fumbling way, to show Edwin gratitude. They told doubtful tales and anecdotes, chopped off raw chunks of autobiography for his delectation. Both had been briefly East. Both had been dipped in the Merchant Navy. Neither had been anything for long. Leo had once been a child-actor, touring in
Peter Pan
, a catamite – till his voice broke – of the man who played Mr Darling. He had been a comic's feed, a soft-shoe shuffler, a bogus sanitary engineer, a waiter, a sailor, a market-seller of hair restorer, a quick-foot-jammed-in-the-door traveller in stolen encyclopedias, Japanese shirts and dog food, a fryer of potato crisps in engine oil, a runner of clubs, a bankrupt. Harry had been a bookmaker's runner, a
ship's steward gladly bringing sex with the morning tea, a scullion, a cook, a Christmas postal worker, a kept man, a greyhound trainer, a hawker of cheap summer dresses, a railway dining-car steward, an assistant in a fish-shop, a procurer of sausage-skins for shady sausage-makers, a stain-remover demonstrator. But, though each had mostly gone his own way, the calls of twinhood – which are deeper than love– had brought them together often in disastrous ventures at home and, on two occasions, abroad. When the rap had to be taken, Leo normally elected to take it. Prison life he found not uncongenial if the stretches were short and not too frequent – masochism aching back to the Land of Egypt and the House of Bondage.

Harry told of conquests of rich old richards when he had had a big head of curly air and was handsome; of the revivifying of listless greyhounds by giving them a kill, of the dispiriting of lively greyhounds by giving them a big drink; of the time when he had been the only Yid in London to join both the Fascist and Communist parties at the same time; of brief morning tumbles with Australian nursing sisters in cabins of wartime troopships; of how to tell fresh herrings; of tic-tac technique; of the Somaliland hangman he had once met who had wept with thwarted revenge when his victim spat in his eye
in articulo mortis
. Leo spoke of amation, of the importance of afters and the special role of the man in the boat; of how to tell heads or tails by the sheer sound; of the private lives of Shakespearian actors; of perversions in Hamburg; of a Thai lady contortionist he had lived with; of a rich queer he had nearly lived with; of great gang figures like Big Harry, Tony the Snob, Quick Herman, Pirelli; of Qwert Yuiop, the Typewriter King.
Meanwhile the drink ran out, bottles with unknown labels were obtained from a shady back door, and Sheila did not come. Renate waddled in, however, drunk on sour cabbage, plonking down Edwin's change on the counter and saying: ‘Now I buy for myself. Doppel gin.' Edwin grew angry and four different accents shrilled and rumbled at the bar.

It was at this moment that four members of the Kettle Mob – or ke'o mob, as Harry Stone whisperingly called it –came down the stairs and in, passed with no trouble by the sentry. Edwin, student of philology, knew what kettles were, cheap smuggled watches guaranteed to go for a day or two. The four men, though drunk, looked well on their racket. One was fair, big-boned, handsome as a film-star in tweed suit and a very good raglan, but with mad eyes and a thin mouth. One was large and tubby, seemed ready to cry, endeared to Edwin by the fact that
he
too wore pyjamas under well-creased strides (he had a pyjama-cord that seemed to spring from his navel), sports jacket, loose cravat, raincoat. One man, very saturnine, carried a large chinking gladstone. The fourth was called Jock, much disfigured through, evidently, Gorbals fighting. These four brought their own drink – whisky in flat bottles – and seemed to have come solely for the company. The fair handsome mad-eyed one called for music.

‘Not today,' pleaded Leo Stone from the bar. ‘We've had to kill it today, Bob. We've had a visit.'

‘Cobblers,' said Bob, swaying handsomely. He looked at Edwin and said: ‘You got up for a turn. You sing.'

But a small dark ugly man had appeared, soundlessly. He said to Bob: ‘What did Nobby get?'

‘Free mance,' said the saturnine gladstone-carrier.

‘What? Not get fined nor naffin?'

‘No.'

‘Fackin' lacky he was.' And the dark ugly man left. Edwin said:

‘What did Nobby get three months for?'

‘He had a grand's worth of kettles when he was caught,' said Bob. ‘There's where he made his mistake, see? Getting caught with them on him. No import licence nor nothing. What,' said Bob, ‘do you know about Nobby?' He came closer to Edwin, suspicious but fascinated.

‘Nothing, nothing. I always get interested when I hear that somebody's copped something. That's all,'

‘Why? What have you done?'

‘A tray on the moor,' said Edwin, without hesitation, smacking the words with pleasure, words being – to a philologist – only a game.

‘What did you do? What did you cop that for? What are you, anyway? What have you got that get-up on for? What name do you go under, eh?' Bob was excited. ‘You're kinky, aren't you? I can tell from your eyes you're kinky. I'm kinky, too. What is it you like best, eh? Go on, tell me. What sort of thing do you like?' His eyes shone with excitement. Edwin grew frightened. He was saved by the lurching in between of the tubby man. The tubby man said:

‘Nobody loves poor old Ernie. Nobody talks to poor old Ernie.' He had a pint Johnny Walker in his right hand. ‘Not even my mother won't speak to me now. Poor old Ernie.'

‘You keep out of this,' said Bob. ‘Nobody asked you to start shoving your fat belly in the way. You're a big slob.
We're talking, him and me. Where's your bleeding manners?'

Ernie screwed up his eyes for tears. ‘There you are, you see,' he said in a crying voice. ‘Nobody wants me.'

‘I want you,' soothed Edwin. ‘There, there.'

‘You do?' said Ernie, with a fearful joy. ‘You'd be a pal to old Ernie?'

‘He's no good to you,' said Bob irritably to Edwin. ‘He's no good at all. He's normal.'