The Best of Gerald Kersh (4 page)

‘Twenna-five quid ada Convent!' he shouted.

Mona Lisa still smiled inscrutably.

‘Fifty!' cried Busto. He returned to the table, poured three more drinks, and emptied another cup. Nobody spoke. Fifteen minutes passed. Ouif, brought back to consciousness by pain, began to whine.

‘No good,' said Busto. He clenched his teeth and again aimed at the dog's head. ‘Gooda dog, hah? Lil Ouif, hmm?'

He pressed the trigger. There was a sharp click, nothing more. The revolver had misfired. The dog whined louder.

‘I knoo a bloke,' said Mick, ‘a bloke what made money during the War aht o' profiteerin' on grub. Done
everybody
aht of everyfink, 'e did. So
'e
'as to live; this 'ere dawg 'as to die.'

The walls of the room seemed to be undulating in a pale mist; the wine burned my throat. Busto opened a third bottle, drank, and returned to the bed.

‘You look aht you don't spoil that there piller,' said Mick, ‘if you get what I mean.'

I shut my eyes tight. Out of a rickety, vinous
darkness
, there came again the brief click of the hammer on the second cartridge.

‘Now, agen,' said Mick.

Click
….
Click
….

‘For God's sake call that vet back, and let him——'

‘You minda you biz-ness, hah?'

‘It's 'is dawg. 'E's got a right to kill 'is own dawg, ain't 'e? Provided 'e ain't cruel. Nah, go easy, Busto, go easy
——
'

I hunched myself together, with closed eyes.

Click,
went the revolver.

‘Last cartridge always goes orf,' said Mick. ‘Try once agen. 'Old yer gun low
-er
…. Nah,
squeeeeeeze
yer trigger——'

I pushed my fingers into my ears and tensed every muscle. The wine had put a raw edge on my sensibilities. I shut my eyes again and waited. I heard nothing but
the pulsing of blood in my head. My fingers in my ears felt cold. I thought of the revolver-muzzle, and
shuddered
. Time stopped. The room spun like a top about me and the Red Lisbon wine, the Lunatic's Broth, drummed in my head like a boxer with a punching-ball –
Ta-ta-ta,
ta-ta-ta,
ta-ta-ta.

I opened my eyes. Busto was still kneeling by the bed. The revolver, still unfired, remained poised in his hand; but Ouif had ceased to whimper. He lay motionless, the petrified ruins of a dog.

‘Anyway 'e die,' said Busto.

‘Of 'is own accord,' said Mick. ‘Bleedn war-profiteers is still alive. So 'e 'as to die, if yer see what I mean.'

‘Some people complain,' I said, ‘because men die and dogs go on living.'

Busto made an unpleasant noise, with his tongue
between
his lips:
‘Pthut!
Men is rubbish. Dogs is good.'

He drank the last of the wine. Then, pensively raising the revolver, he cocked it and let the hammer fall. The last cartridge exploded with the crash of a cannon; the big bullet smacked into the ceiling, bringing down an avalanche of plaster; the revolver, loosely held, was plucked out of Busto's hand by the recoil and fell with a tremendous clatter and jingle of broken crockery among the teacups. For a moment we all sat still, stunned with shock. The clean piercing smell of burnt gunpowder cut through the close atmosphere of the underground bedroom. Busto jumped to his feet, kicked over the table, jerked his elbows sideways in an indescribably violent gesture and, raising his fists to the ceiling, yelled:

‘Ah, you! Death! Greedy pig! Wasn't you a-belly full yet?'

Then he grew calm. He pointed to the body of Ouif and said to Mick: ‘Chucka disaway.'

‘Where?'

‘Dussbin.'

‘Wot, ain't yer goin' to
bury
'im?'

‘Whagood dat do?' Busto turned to me, and made a familiar gesture. Raising his eyebrows and sticking out his chin, he pointed with the index finger of his left hand to the palm of his right, and uttered one sound:

‘Hah?'

I remembered; paid him my rent, nine shillings and sixpence, and went up the creaking stairs to bed.

*

I should say, I suppose, that there was a great deal of good in Pio Busto – that a man who could love his dog must have something fine and generous somewhere in his soul. It may be so, but I doubt it. I said I feared him. That was because he was my landlord, and I had no money and knew that if I failed to pay my rent on
Saturday
I should be in the street on Sunday as surely as dawn follows night. How I detested him for his avarice, his greed, his little meannesses with soap, paint, and matches! Yet I admit that I felt a queer qualm of pity for him – that grimy, grasping, hateful little man – when he gave away cups of Lizzie Wine that night in the
wash-house
when the little dog Ouif lay dying in his bed. I don't know … there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.

I have met many men who inspired me with much more loathing than Busto, several of whom passed as
Jolly Good Fellows. It is terrible to think that, after the worst man you know, there must always be somebody still worse.

Then who is the Last Man?

The same applies to places. The insects at Busto's drove me mad. But, say I had been at Fort Flea? You will not have heard the story of Fort Flea, for it was hushed up. I got it from a man who learned the facts through an account written by a Mr de Pereyra, who knew the Commanding Officer. It went into the official reports under the heading of
Fuerte
di
Pulce,
I think.

During the Spanish campaign in North Africa, in the latter years of the Great War, a company of Spanish soldiers occupied a fort. There was the merest handful of Spaniards, surrounded by at least two thousand Kabyles. Yet the tribesmen retreated and let them take the fort. Later, a Kabyle, carrying a flag of truce, approached the soldiers and, screaming with laughter, cried: ‘Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!' They didn't know what he meant, but they found out before the day was over.

The Doctor, who had been attending two men who had been wounded, came to the Captain and, in a trembling voice, asked him to come to the improvised hospital. ‘Look‚' he said. The wounded men were black with fleas – millions of fleas, attracted by the smell of fresh blood. They were coming in dense clouds, even rising out of the earth – countless trillions of fleas, which had their origins in a vast sewage-ditch which, for
centuries
, had received the filth of the town. They were mad with hunger; attacked everybody, swarming inches deep; drew pints of blood from every man; killed the wounded, devitalised the rest, made eating impossible by pouring into the food as soon as it was uncovered, prevented
sleep, made life intolerable. And nothing could be done. The Spaniards had the strictest orders to hold their position. A desperate dispatch was rushed to the General – General Sanjurjo, I believe – who sent a scathing reply. What kind of men were these, he wondered, who could let themselves be driven back by the commonest of vermin? So at last, when reinforcements arrived, there were only twelve men left, all wrecks. The Kabyles hadn't attacked: they had stood by, enjoying the fun. The rest of the men had been eaten alive; nibbled to death.

And I complained of the polite little insects in the bedrooms at Busto's.

‘Y
OU
always were such a confounded milksop,’ said my uncle. ‘I shall never forget that time when you came down from Cambridge, pure as a lily. I gave you a
ten-pound
note, and told you: “Here’s a tenner, Rodney – go to the West End, find some lively company; have a good time, make a man of yourself!” And out you went,
buttoned
up like a blessed parson. And you were back by midnight, all flushed…. What? You’re blushing again, are you? Better watch out, Rodney. You make me think of the little train that used to run between Wittingley and Ambersham – when the driver blew the whistle, the engine lost steam, and stopped. Don’t blush; you can’t spare the blood for it. Oh, you curd, you!’

I said: ‘Oh, Uncle – please!’

But he had no mercy. He was in one of his savage, comic humours. He went right on, in apostrophe, talking to the crystal chandelier: ‘… He comes back by
midnight
, does this Rodney, all of a glow. I say to myself: “Well, now, at last this bookworm has made a bit of a fool of himself. About time! Let’s have a little vicarious pleasure …” And I ask him to tell me how he has spent his evening – not, mark you, that he can have sowed many wild oats between tea-time and the Devil’s Dancing Hour. “Been dissipating, Rodney, my boy?” I
ask him. And: “Oh yes, Uncle Arnold!” says this little nobody. And, as I am a living sinner, he puts down nine pounds-three-and-six, with – Lord help us! – a look of guilt, saying: “Here is the change!”’

He laughed his great, coarse laugh, and the crystals of that detestable chandelier vibrated with it, seeming to titter in sympathy. Knowing that it would be useless now to beg for mercy, I remained silent.

He continued: ‘Change, I ask you,
change
! – the chandelier sang:
Change!
Nine pounds-three-and-six out of a ten-pound note. And had he dissipated? “Oh yes, Uncle Arnold.” … On sixteen shillings and sixpence, this fellow had had his first big night in town, by all that’s marvellous! … “The cost-of-living must have dropped,” I say, “because when I was twenty-two,
forty-odd
years ago, and if
my
uncle had given me a tenner to blue in town,
I
’d
have come home with an empty pocket and an unpaid bill from Gervasi in the Strand – yes, and had to borrow half a sovereign from the butler to pay the cabbie…. What in the world,” I ask this tame mouse, “what in the
world
can a gentleman do, to have an evening in town on sixteen-and-six?” And he tells me, does this Rodney: “I met my friend, Willikens, of Jesus College, and we went to a picture palace. We saw Rita Anita in
Passion’s
Plaything,
and after the show we went to a café in Soho and had ham and scrambled eggs.”’

I cried: ‘Oh, Uncle——’

‘– Oh, nephew!’ he snarled, glaring at me again. ‘I decided, from that moment on, that you were a beastly little prig. I promised my dear sister-your unhappy mother – that I’d look after you. Poor girl! Your father, whom she went and married – bolts and bars wouldn’t hold her – against all our advice, was a blackguard and
a scoundrel and a rogue and a vagabond. But at least he had the decency to go to the devil like a man, if not a gentleman. Whereas you – you whey-faced
marigold
——’

‘– Uncle, I cannot help the colour of my hair!’ I said.

‘You can’t help anything, you!’ said he. ‘I wonder that you have the nerve to interrupt me. Why, you spaniel, for less than half of what I’ve said to you, I would have struck my own father in the face! My elder brother practically did so to my father for much less, and was kicked out of doors, and went and made his fortune in Africa … and I wish I’d gone with him…. Oh, you spiritless thing – I’d have thought better of you if you had knocked me down, just now, instead of whimpering: “Uncle, Uncle, Uncle!”’

And I could only say: ‘But,
Uncle
!’

‘– And yet,’ my uncle said, ‘there must be some kind of a spark of spirit in you, somewhere, or you wouldn’t have had the nerve to fall in love with this Mavis of yours. All the same, you should have got that kind of nonsense out of your system, the time I gave you that ten-pound note. “He who commits no follies at twenty will commit them at forty.” Whoever said that was quite right. So here you are, infatuated, at your age——’

‘– Uncle, I’m only thirty-nine!’ I said – and, to save my life, I could not have stopped my voice breaking – ‘and it isn’t infatuation. It’s true love!’

‘That would make it a thousand times worse, if it were true. Only it isn’t. It can’t be. True love, indeed – you, of all people!’

‘And why not me, as well as anyone else?’ I asked.

‘Why not you?’ he replied. ‘Because … you are
you.
True love’s for men. And what are you? A
marigold
,
a carrot – aha, there he goes, blushing again like a tomato! – a weed, a vegetable; anything you like except a man. Love, young Rodney, takes blood and fire. All the fire in you has gone into your ridiculous hair; and all the blood in your body you need to blush with…. Infatuation, I say – don’t dare to interrupt – infatuation with a common dancing girl, who gets paid a couple of pounds a week for showing her fat legs to every Tom, Dick, or Harry who has sixpence to pay for a ticket!’

Even if I had not been choked with misery and rage, I dare say I should have held my tongue. My uncle was in one of his moods, and if I had told him that Mavis had slender and beautiful legs, he would have corrected
himself
into further offensiveness by saying:
I
beg
your
pardon,
skinny
legs.
If I had argued that, say, Pavlova was also, by his definition, a ‘dancing girl’, and that Mavis was a serious Artiste in Ballet, he would have said, with an unpleasant leer:
Oh
yes,
we
know
all
about
that!
So
was
Signora
Scampi,
when
my
father
set
up
an
establishment
for
her
in
Brook
Street,
in
1883…. Brutal ignoramus as he was, he had a talent for turning any word to his own purpose. So I was silent, while he went on:

‘Now, if you’d been anything like a Man, I’d have been the last to object to your marrying a dancer. I nearly did myself, once – wish I had – she had legs, at least, to recommend her, which is more than my barren scrub of a Lady had … and, as for morals, if any: better. At least, La Palestina was frank, which is more than could be said for our own skinny-shanked,
goosefleshed
womenfolk … curse and confound them, from their droopy eyelids to their long cold feet! …

‘However, let’s not waste words. Marry your dancer,
and not only will I strike you out of my will, but I cut off your allowance. Now then! Decide.’

‘But, Uncle!’ I said. ‘I
love
Mavis, and she loves me.’

He said, with a sneer: ‘You are infatuated with your Mavis, and she is in love with the eight hundred pounds a year I allow you. I ask you, you radish, what else could any full-blooded woman find in you to love?’

I might have said that Mavis was not the type of ballet dancer of my uncle’s turbulent youth; that she was by no means what he, and his type, would have described as ‘full-blooded’, being dark and slender, petal-pale and serious. But then he would only have snarled a laugh and cursed himself, saying that it was just as he had thought all along – the girl was anæmic, unfit to breed from, and he would see himself damned before he countenanced such a blend of milk and water.

‘Rodney, my boy,’ he said, ‘I want your word, here and now. Give up any idea you might have of marrying this girl. If not, I send a note to Coote tomorrow, and that will cost you eight hundred a year while I’m alive, and my money when I’m dead. You know me, Rodney. I’m a bull-terrier when I lay hold, and my mind’s made up…. Well?’

I said: ‘I’ll do as you say, Uncle Arnold. I’ll give her up.’

Then he struck the table a blow with his purple fist, and shouted: ‘I knew you would! Oh, you milksop! If you had defied me, I’d have raised your allowance to twelve hundred, and given you my blessing; and kissed your bride for you. As it is, you stick of rhubarb, your allowance is henceforward reduced to six hundred pounds a year. And let this be a lesson to you…. True love, eh? And you’d sell it for eight hundred a year!’

‘Oh, but, Uncle——’ I began.

‘– Oh, but, Uncle! Why, do you want to know some thing? If I had been you, I would have confronted my old uncle with a
fait
accompli.
I’d have said: ‘Uncle, I have married such-and-such a girl. Take her, or leave her! And then – I’ll tell you something – I’d have been for you one hundred per cent. Oh, you …!’

And, of course, it must be at this wrong moment that I find the courage to say: ‘Uncle, Mavis and I were married three months ago.’

He started to puff out his cheeks, but, remembering that his doctor had warned him to control his temper, sucked them in again. When he subsided, I had never seen a more terrifying mixture of malignancy and mirth than his face expressed. He said: ‘Oh, you did, did you? And you have the gall to tell me so, now?’

I protested: ‘But, Uncle! You just said——’

‘– I just said, you worm, that if you had had the spirit to tell me so in the first place, I’d have thought better of you. But no, not you! You’ve got to sniff and fumble your wormish way, you have; until I let fall a word, and then you’re as bold as brass, you copper-headed Thing! … Oh, so! You married the girl, did you? Well, if I could half-guess that she loved you for yourself (as she might have loved me for myself) instead of for the money I provide you with, blast my eyes but I would have allowed you twenty-four hundred a year! But as it is, just because you’re such a sniveller, I cut you down to … did I say six hundred a year? Beg pardon: four
hundred
. Your allowance is cut in two, young Rodney. And for every time, hereafter, you whine
Oh,
Uncle,
I cut you another fifty. Now then!’

He knew my old servile habit; he tore the protest out
of me, as surely as if he had me on the rack. ‘Oh, Uncle!’ I cried.

‘Three hundred and fifty pounds a year,’ he said, with satisfaction.

‘You don’t do me justice,’ I said. ‘You have always made a mockery of me, just because I have red hair and never liked to hunt or shoot!’

Talking to the chandelier, again, my uncle
murmured
, making a burlesque of my accent: ‘He didn’t think it was fair for the Hunt to ride after one poor little fox … and when I winged a partridge and knocked its head against my boot, he burst into tears…. Poor boy!’

‘I damned you, for a brute!’ I shouted, and was appalled by the reverberation of my voice in that big old house. ‘A brute, a brute! Keep your dirty money! Damn you, keep it!’

His old servant, coming in with a great silver tray at that moment, stood aghast. But my uncle laughed, and said: ‘A show of spirit, Rodney, what? Back you go to four hundred a year…. Bring in the oysters,
Lambert
!’

Lambert put down the tray. There were three oval silver platters, each platter indented at the periphery with twelve deep hollows. In each hollow lay a fat
Colchester
oyster in the deep-shell. In his ceremonious way, Lambert uncorked a bottle of Chablis, and poured a little into my Uncle Arnold’s glass. He, sniffing and mouthing the wine, grunted: ‘Sound! … Lambert, wine to Mr Rodney,’ Then, to me, with a sardonic twist of the mouth: ‘You won’t take an oyster, by any chance, will you, Rodney?’

I said: ‘Not for any consideration, thank you, Uncle
Arnold. You know oysters disagree with me. They make me ill. No, thanks, really!’

He was at me again like a bull-terrier. ‘Oysters
disagree
with him!’ he said, to the chandelier. ‘Disagree! As if any self-respecting oyster would condescend to agree or disagree with this grain of grit! An oyster would turn him into a seed pearl for a little girl’s bracelet…. Oh, bah! Last of the season – isn’t it, Lambert?’

Lambert said: ‘The last oysters of the season, Sir Arnold. This is the thirtieth of April. We’ll not have oysters again until there is an R in the month –
September
first, Sir Arnold, as you know.’

When Lambert had left the room, my uncle grumbled: ‘May – June – July – August … four months, before the oyster season opens in the autumn. And what am I to live on until then? … Chicken, I
suppose
…’ Then he glowered at me, and said: ‘Oysters disagree with you, Rodney, do they? They make you ill, what?’

‘Yes, Uncle,’ I said. ‘I am what they call “allergic” to shell-fish. They make me … they give me
convulsions
.’

‘Then I’ll tell you what,’ my uncle said. ‘Here’s three dozen oysters, the last of the season. I’m going to eat two dozen. You eat the third dozen, and I’ll give you back your eight hundred a year. What say?’

The very smell of the oysters nauseated me. I could only say: ‘I can’t, I won’t!’

Eating greedily, my Uncle Arnold said: ‘I’ll tell you what, young Rodney: for every oyster you eat, I’ll raise your allowance fifty pounds a year…. Come on, now!’ And he held out, on a three-pronged fork, a fat Colchester.

‘Go to the devil!’ I cried, starting back, and striking the fork out of his hand.

He grinned, taking up another fork, and said: ‘Spirit! Bravo! Your allowance is now four hundred and fifty.’

‘Oh, Uncle!’

‘Four hundred,’ said he, swallowing another oyster. ‘Oh, dear me, how we go to the dogs, poor us! … What wouldn’t I give, now, for a Saddlebag! You don’t know what that is, do you, Rodney?——’ my uncle slavered most unpleasantly, in reminiscence. ‘You take a great, thick, tender steak, and slit it down the middle on two sides so that it opens like a pocket. Stuff it with eight or ten succulent Whitstable oysters, with their juice, and sew up the open edges. Grill, preferably over charcoal. … Oh, the very idea of it turns
your
stomach, doesn’t it? We used to wash it down with porter, and chase it with port, you milksop…. And all the damned quacks allow me, now, is fish and white meat. Not even salt. My blood pressure is high, they say, and my arteries hard. … I never noticed that my arteries were hard.’