The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small (17 page)

Soon he became calm. Monopol had won a trick, but the game had only begun. Solly Schwartz began to be convinced that Monopol, not he, was the fool, because anyone but a fool would realise that in a gigantic adventurous enterprise of this sort a Monopol without a Schwartz was like bread without yeast, like a balloon without gas. He foresaw Monopol’s ruin, and smiled. Thinking of ruin he remembered Cohen, and scowled. If the old fool had the nerve of a mouse, Solly Schwartz would not have been subjected to this humiliation. He was finished with Cohen, once and for all, doddering old
schneider-tukhess
that he was, with his tea and coffee and rolls and butter.

It was necessary to make a plan. But the brain and the nerves need food, and Solly Schwartz was ravenously hungry. He could throw ten shillings in gold to a Samuels or stand treat to an I. Small in Appenrodt’s, but when he was alone he was
parsimonious
. Not unlike one of those jolly fellows who splash their money about among boon companions but begrudge their wives
and children a mouthful of bread, Solly Schwartz, when he came home to himself, treated himself with severity; grumbling at himself, accusing himself of wanton extravagance for every penny that he spent on himself; shouting to himself:
What?
You
stuff
yourself
with
steak
while
the
bank
account
goes
hungry?
… Until, exhausted, he forgave himself, took himself to bed, and,
affectionately
kissing himself good-night, slept peacefully with himself.

When he dined alone, which he generally did, he dined for sixpence, or even less, off boiled beef and pease-pudding and a glass of ale or, preferably, fish and chips in a lowdown fish-shop. He loved, above all things to eat fried fish and chips out of an old newspaper. The flavour of discarded newsprint and the subtle aroma of stale printer’s ink really do blend with the combined savours of fish and potatoes fried in nut-oil, to make something exquisite. Sometimes he took a parcel home; devoured the food with his fingers, and read every word of the paper it had been wrapped in. But generally, having his dignity to consider, he sat down in the shop and ordered a fourpenny piece of fish and twopennyworth of chips (no mean order, in those days) to be served on a plate, with a roll and butter and a bottle of
ginger-beer
, or a cup of tea.

Now, his mouth watering at the thought of these good things, he went to a fried-fish shop in a side street off Vauxhall Bridge Road, where he forgot everything in the contemplation of a blackboard upon which the proprietor had chalked:

Then there was a decorative scroll and, in extra large letters:

He went in, sat down, and ordered: “A fourpenny plaice, two penn’orth, roll and butter, cup of tea.”

Making music with a fork and the marble top of the table, he looked about him. His brain was cool but swollen like the belly of the spawning codfish that lays a hundred thousand eggs so that
ten may hatch. At an adjacent table a man with a wine-coloured face who was eating haddock with the abrupt voracity of a drunkard spat out a bone, which landed upon the brim of Solly Schwartz’s hat; but he did not notice. He was listening to other things.

He heard a voice cry: “Dick! Taters!” A tiny shutter opened with a slam, and a gnome-like man appeared, bawling: “Taters, guv’—right you are!”—and out came a wire cage packed with cut potatoes, which the proprietor, sweating like a horse, plunged into a great pan of steaming oil so that every chip hissed like a snake in a cloud of steamy smoke, under a sputtering shower of bubbles. A little boy with congested nostrils asked for “Dapoth o’ crackligs”—halfpennyworth of cracklings, which are the detritus of fried fish that have been dipped in batter—and Solly Schwartz beckoned him to his side and gave him threepence, saying: “Cracklings won’t do you no good, get yourself a
tuppeny-and
-a-penn’orth.” The fryer, with bared teeth, shook his wire basket as a terrier shakes a rat and tossed out of the pan another heap of chips—then, snatching at the handle of another basket, shook into a hot container a quarter of a stone of skate, while the proprietor, beating the little shutter with his fists as if he was trying to knock it down and escape into the open air howled: “Dick! Haddock! Are you asleep?”

Solly Schwartz thought:
Look
at
that
—
look
at
this
bloody
mess.
All
this
could
be
done
properly.
Those
stinking
frying-pans
I’d
put
behind
glass,
with
chimneys,
or
something,
to
take
the
smell
away.
Those
fryers
I’d
put
into
white
coats
and
white
hats.
Look
at
that
woman
behind
the
counter
wiping
her
face
with
her
hand.
In
any
place
of
mine,
that
would
be:
‘Out,
with
a
fortnight’s
wages,
at
a
minute
’
s
notice!
’ …
And
fish
and
chips
to
be
taken
away
in
newspaper,
eh?
God
knows
how
many
Tom
Dick
and
Harrys
have
plastered
dirty
hands
all
over
old
newspapers.
There’s
a
point!
It’s
unhealthy.
Hygienic
paper
bags
for
fish
and
chips.
Hygienic.
Branches
all
over
the
country
——

He was about to have another idea, but the harassed waiter threw down his plate, saying: “Eightpence,” stamping and
blinking
impatiently. Solly Schwartz gave him tenpence, and prepared to eat. But when he looked up to find the salt, he saw the great tin salt box in the hands of the most repulsive-looking individual that ever offended the eyes and nostrils of the world, who had taken a chair on the opposite side of the little table. Solly
Schwartz, dreaming his dreams, had not noticed him. If he had, he would certainly have said: “Excuse me, if you don’t mind—that chair’s engaged.” For, although he had observed and
despised
the scum of the slums—pickers of poor men’s dustbins and eaters of unclean things so heavily bodyguarded by lice and stench that no policeman dared arrest them—he had never seen a man like the man who was playing with the salt box. He was as dirty as it is possible for a living creature to be. The frock-coat in which his tall, stooping, skeletal body was wrapped was not merely disintegrating: its fibres were so impregnated with animal and vegetable matter—soup, beer, meat, fish, vomit—that it was in a state of putrefaction. But this was nothing. He wore a celluloid collar white and shiny as a false tooth, fastened with a brass paper clip, and a necktie which showed evidence of having been used as a pocket handkerchief, but no shirt, and his
fingernails
, which were thick and fluted like oyster shells, were full of black dirt. This, again, was nothing. It was the face of the man that caused Solly Schwartz to drop his fork with a clatter. It was like an artist’s conception of Death—there was no flesh on the bones, only skin, in a pimplous patchwork, stretched so tightly over the bones that the mouth and eyes, seemingly lipless and lidless, were pulled wide open. It was a head-hunter’s smoked trophy with the rictus of the last agony miraculously preserved. Of his teeth, only the four canines remained, long and orange-coloured. He made you think of what you would look like and smell like when your time came and you had been a little while underground.

Solly Schwartz drew back his chair with a start, at which the macabre stranger started too and put down the salt shaker.

“I’m so sorry, I beg your pardon,” he said, in a strange, high, peculiarly sweet and gentle voice, “do forgive me. May I pass you the salt?”

The salt was damp. Solly Schwartz had to bang the sprinkler on the table, and afterwards slap its bottom vigorously before he shook out a few reluctant grains. The stranger watched him with his bloodshot yellow-green eyes and said: “Is it not incredible? In this year of grace we still cling to these archaic devices!”

The very sight, let alone the proximity, of such a creature would have killed an ordinary man’s appetite. But avid Solly Schwartz, hungry for everything, replied: “What do you mean?” Then, when another fishbone rattled upon the crown of his hat he turned
and said to the man behind him: “Keep your bones to yourself, can’t you? Spit them out on to your plate like a gentleman!”

When he turned again the hideous stranger was drawing with a pencil on the marble top of the table. Even the pencil was dirty, but Solly Schwartz saw that guided by the stained forefinger and the filthy thumb it described beautiful lines, pure curves and shapes as clear as daylight, while the stranger, talking to himself, said: “It is childishly simple really. It is perfectly obvious. That thing there, that absurd thing punctured with open holes—it is barbarous, it is unhygienic, not clean. I have seen flies swarming about the tops of such bronze-age devices. A salt sprinkler is good, necessary. Given salt cellars, in a place like this, people whose hands are not necessarily clean—artisans, mechanics, engineers, etcetera—would plunge their fingers into the salt. Or their knives, which would be just as bad, since people who are reduced to eating in these establishments generally eat with their knives.” All the time he was drawing with marvellous speed and accuracy. “… I remember an occasion in a cabmen’s shelter when some poor hungry fellow, eating steak-and-kidney pudding, thrust his knife into his mouth with such unrestrained violence that he cut his uvula, yet with that same knife he took salt from the salt cellar, and who can say what harm might come of this, assuming the man to have had an infected throat, and that the silver—I mean, cutlery—were not thoroughly washed? … On the other hand these sprinklers, while they are advantageous in that they keep the salt from contact with the human hand, which, as you must know, is not necessarily hygienic, have a certain grave disadvantage … the humidity of our climate and the
deliquescence
of salt tend to combine—as you have just demonstrated, sir—to … in effect, make salt damp and therefore difficult to pour. Now what could be simpler than this—a salt sprinkler with a moveable air-tight cap motivated by a spring and operated by a simple movement of the thumb? There it is,” he said, pointing to his drawings on the marble. “The cap, spring, mechanism, and container could all be manufactured for sixpence. People who buy such things would gladly pay a shilling. But what is the use of talking, what is the use of talking?”

Solly Schwartz, chewing a mouthful of chips, stared at the table. In a few seconds the stranger had drawn three beautifully accurate diagrams marked A, B, and C, with neat arrows pointing to D, E, F, G, and H. “When did you think of that idea?” heasked.

“Oh. just now. A triviality, a nothing.
Think,
my dear sir—
think
of
that?
”
he smeared the diagrams away with his cuff. “Pah! I have thought of a thousand things better than that. But my real work, ah, that!”

“Have something to eat,” said Solly Schwartz, panting. “Have whatever you fancy. Go on, have … have a large piece of plaice. Have some chips. Ginger-beer, lemonade, kaola, a cup of tea—whatever you like.”

“Thank you, sir, I believe I will,” said the stranger. “You are very kind. I might take a little of that excellent fish which you seem to have relished——” Solly Schwartz’s plate was full of chewed bones “—and, perhaps, a fried potato.
Ginger
-beer no. Beer yes. Ginger, no. I do not agree with those who insist that ginger is an excellent stomachic. I am infinitely obliged to you——”

Then the waiter came and said: “What’s this? You again? I told you once before, we don’t want you around here. Go on, clear off—I won’t tell you again. Out you go!”

Solly Schwartz said: “Leave him be. He’s my guest. What do you mean by insulting my guests?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s the guv’ner’s orders.”

The stranger said: “I accept your apology——”

“—I wasn’t talking to you.”

“—I accept your apology and if my presence embarrasses your governor I will relieve him of my presence.”

“He drives customers away,” said the waiter to Solly Schwartz, who was following the stranger to the street.

When they were outside Schwartz said: “Do you live
anywhere
?”

“Why, of course. I have rooms in Wilkin Street. Could I live nowhere?”

“Then I’ll tell you what,” said Solly Schwartz, “if those dirty dogs want to be independent—and I can tell you I won’t spend a penny in
their
place again—what say I get some fish and chips and a bottle of beer and we go back to your place to drink it, and you can tell me all about machinery and all that. Eh?”

“I could wish for nothing better, sir, but I warn you that neither I nor any man can tell you all about machinery. I can tell you only what I know, which is the little that is known. Did you mention beer?”

“What sort do you like?”

“I am indifferent. I patronise, impartially, Barclay Perkins,
Watney Combe Reid, Meux, Guinness … but I have observed that there is no brew that cannot be improved by a judicious admixture of gin, in the combination known as Dog’s Nose.”