The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small (21 page)

“Regarding you as a friend
I
would patronise
you
,” said Solly Schwartz. “But the majority of people wouldn’t see any sense in spending sixpence where fivepence would do.”

“And there you are, you see. The business went down like … like sand out of an egg-boiler. And here I am.”

Solly Schwartz asked, eagerly: “And did he break you in a year?”

“Ten months and eleven days,” said Mr. Lumpitt.

“And then?”

“Then I had nothing but a few pounds I put aside, and I didn’t know what to do. Then, when I’d put up a clearance sale notice before I got out, Narwall comes into the shop. I had a jar of pickles in my hand and I don’t mind telling you I came pretty near to letting him have it between the eyes like Cain and Abel. But he said: ‘Lumpitt, I’m sorry to see you in this state, but you must admit that I gave you a fair word of warning. If you’d done what I suggested last January all this wouldn’t have happened—you’d’ve been established in another business in some other place. Now look at you.’ I said to him: ‘Ay, established in another business in another place, to keep it warm for you, I dare say, damn you, you hypocrite!’ He’s a churchgoer, you know; a thorough-going Christian. Sell all you have and give to the poor … suffer little children to come unto me … you know, all that kind of thing, He suffered little children to come unto him all right. And, my eye, he made ’em suffer, I can tell you! Got ’em out of orphanages—always the true-blue Christian—put ’em to work in his shops, fed ’em on cocoa and skilly, paid
‘em something less than half o’ nothing a week, and made a song of it, all about ‘the least of these’, and ‘better a millstone were tied around his confounded neck and he were chucked into the sea’, etcetera, etcetera. You know that kind?”

“Only too well,” said Solly Schwartz. “But go on, it’s
interesting
. You’re a marvellous talker, you know. You make
everything
seem so real.”

“Well, I’ll cut a long story short. Narwall says: ‘Look here, Lumpitt’—
Lumpitt,
mind you, him as had been thankful if I smiled at him when he raised his hat to me in the street—he says: ‘If you haven’t made any plans and haven’t had the providence to put by sufficient capital to establish yourself elsewhere, being as I know you, Lumpitt, I am prepared to offer you a responsible position in one of my branches.’”

Lumpitt paused, and Solly Schwartz, feeling that he was expected to say something, said: “You don’t mean to say!”

“Yes, I do mean to say,” said Lumpitt, doggedly. “Naturally, I was going to tell him to go to Hull and Halifax. But then the wife pinched my arm—poor lass, she was worried out of her life—and cut in first and said: ‘All right, Mr. Narwall.’ Naturally, she was right. What else was there to do? I didn’t have enough to start again on my own, and otherwise it would have meant hunting about for a crib, and eating up the little bit that was left. So I humbled myself. And I said: ‘All right, but I if work for you for mercy’s sake don’t let it be in Slupworth where I’ve been my own master all my life. Send me somewhere else.’ Then he said: ‘All right, Lumpitt, I will do what you ask since it means so much to you, because as a matter of principle I have always returned good for evil.’ And I actually said: ‘Thank you very much;’ but as soon as he was gone I ran after Phyllis into the shop-parlour and pushed my face into her lap and cried like a baby. And here I am, and that’s all about it. So now you know——”

“—Yes, but when did he start canning peas?”

“Eh? Oh, I don’t know. He got hold of it somehow or other, don’t you worry. You know the saying, We eat what we can and what we can’t we can? That’s Narwall for you, all over. Nobody knows the ins and outs of Narwall’s business.”

“And there you are,” said Solly Schwartz, shaking his head sadly. “And I wouldn’t mind betting that he’s worth thousands.”

“Thousands? Hundreds of thousands!”

“Living like a lord in Park Lane, the dirty dog I bet you. Eh?”

“Him? Oh no. You won’t catch him living in no Park Lane. He won’t leave Slupworth, where the factory is.”

“I suppose he’s got his wife and family there?”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Lumpitt gloomily.

“If you’ll excuse the expression, he sounds like a proper bastard,” said Solly Schwartz, “a real swine.”

“His wife is fifty thousand million times worse, I can tell you for a fact.”

“My word! She must be a tartar! I’d hate to come up against
her
.”

“Think yourself lucky you never have. She’s the wickedest woman in the world. Her name is Charlotte, but everybody calls her Jezebel. Oh, what a cow!”

“It says on the label,
W.
W.
Narwall
,” said Solly Schwartz. “What does the W. W. stand for?”

“William Wilberforce—you know, the man that freed the slaves. And there’s another good joke for you. All this is between you, me, and the gatepost, you know?”

“It stands to reason, Mr. Lumpitt. But it does a man good, it eases his heart, to have a chat once in a while, doesn’t it? It eases his nerves, I always think. And you’re a bundle of nerves, aren’t you? Why don’t you let me take you out one of these nights, to the West End, just to get your mind off things; because your work is brain work, Mr. Lumpitt.”

“I’m a married man, sir.”

“Yes, but a change is as good as a rest. I shouldn’t be surprised if you’re irritable when you get home after your hard day’s work.”

“A man does get over-tired, although God knows I don’t mean any harm when I drop a hard word here or there.”

“And it’s all the fault of W. W. Narwall, the swine. Well, I’ll never buy another tin of his stuff as long as I live, and that’s flat.”

“Hey, just a minute, Mr. Schwartz—remember, what I said was between you and me and the gatepost—I’ve got my living to make, and the more I push——”

“—I was going to say, Mr. Lumpitt, that I’ll never buy another tin of his stuff again except from you.”

*

Solly Schwartz left the shop, exultant, saying to himself:
Good.
That’s
what
I
wanted
to
know.
W.
W.
Narwall
That’s
the
man
for
me
—
a
pig,
a
glutton,
a
crocodile;
always
hungry,
never
satisfied;
a
fresser-up
of
everything.
The
biggest
firms
are
too
big.
They
think
they’ve
got
all
they
want.
They
think
they
don’t
need
to
fight
…
as
yet.
If
I
go
to
one
of
them
—
me,
a
nobody
—
they’ll
give
me
a
polite
kick
in
the
bum.
Narwall.
Give
me
Narwall!

He might have ridden in an omnibus, or a cab, but he preferred to walk: thus he defied his deformity. In three-quarters of an hour he was in Frith Street in Soho, kicking open the shop door of a metal-worker named Anselmi, a withered, leathery, tanned Italian who made cooking pots for restaurateurs—copper saucepans, frying-pans, stockpots, fish-kettles; all elegantly finished, brilliantly polished, and beautifully tinned. He looked as if he had made himself—dull hammered copper head and tin moustache.

“Anselmi,” said Solly Schwartz, “I’ve got a job for you.”

“Please, please!”

“Do you see this?”

Anselmi took Goodridge’s self-opening can in his hard, dry hand, and shook his head, saying: “What you call-a dis?”

“Never mind. What I want you to do is, make me some copies of it. Oh it’s all right, I know you don’t make tin cans, Anselmi, but this is a special thing, see? It’s an invention, do you follow me? Look—this is the diagram. The tin is nothing, do you see? The thing is, this little business up here with the wheel. Do you grasp the idea, Anselmi? It opens itself. Does it mean anything to you?”

“Clever!” cried Anselmi, looking at the diagram. “
You
think-a this?”

“Don’t worry about that. What I want to know is, can you make me a few samples?”

“Sure, certainly, but-a what for? Better get a tin”—Anselmi, glancing at his polished copper pots, twitched a contemptuous lip—“and make only the top.”

“You’re quite right. But can you do it? I mean, this wheel-thing, and the way it goes round?”

“
You
make-a
this?
”

“Answer my question.”

“Sure, I can make. You bring-a dem tins I make-a top. Howa many you want?”

“Two dozen,” said Solly Schwartz. “How much are you going to charge me?”

“Five-a shilling each.”

At this Solly Schwartz became deathly pale and said: “What the hell are you talking about? What, five shillings? How, five shillings? Are you trying to make a fool of me?”—for a great dread had come down upon him—“Do you mean to say it’d cost five shillings to make a top for a fourpenny tin of peas?”

“No, to
you,
four-and-sixpence,” said Anselmi patiently; and when Solly Schwartz stared at him with sick horror he explained, gently, with infinite patience: “Now look, look-a this saucepan. You want to buy-a this saucepan, it’ll gonna cost you
twenty-five
shilling. You can go around a corner to a shop and buy a saucepan to hold so many pints, for a shilling, two shilling. Why? In-a first place is this—look, feel-a weight—copper, solid! And——”

“—To hell with your bloody copper!” cried Solly Schwartz, making harsh music with his stick upon the frame of his iron foot, “who the hell cares about copper? I don’t give a bugger for copper! I’m talking about tin cans, you … you …”

“Mistro please, permit-a me a-finish. This good solid copper cost-a me a few shilling. But-a between the copper and
this
”—he struck the saucepan with his dry knuckles so that it rang like a bell—“is
this!
” He held up his gnarled right hand. “It is this, and the time of my life, that cost-a twenty-five shilling. But my saucepan, your children’s children they’ll-a use it. It-a last a hundred-a years, because——”

“—Who the hell wants a saucepan to last a hundred years? Who the hell cares about children’s children? Let ’em buy their own damned saucepans! Where do you think it’ll get you? Making things to last a hundred years? Something to be used once, and then thrown away, that’s the idea! Something you can keep on selling and selling and selling, day and night. Take your bloody saucepan away and start talking sense for a change.”

Anselmi patted the shining saucepan in a friendly, intimate way, and put it down, saying: “I was-a saying: I make this-a tin, it take-a time. That-a worth four, five shilling. In a factory, a thing comes down like”—he stamped on the floor three times—“and it’s-a done for a farthing. Use it, throw it away.”

“Sorry, I misunderstood,” said Solly Schwartz, secretly ashamed. “For a minute I thought you meant to say that tin would cost five shillings apiece to manufacture.”

“Oh no,” said Anselmi, laughing. “To make-a by machine, nothing. By hand, for you, well, four-a shillings.”

“Right. I’ll bring you a dozen and a half tins to get to work on. Do you want the model or the diagram to work with?”

“Model, please.”

“All right. Oh, by the way, don’t try anything clever, you know, because the patent’s applied for, and if you want to be smart there’ll be trouble.”

Anselmi laughed with a sort of kindly contempt, flipping the tin can with a horny forefinger. “Use it once, throw it away,” he said; and picked up the saucepan again, pointing to a stamped inscription below the rivets of the handle. “You see there?
G.
L.
Anselmi.
In a hundred-a years somebody she’ll make a minestrone with this, and she’ll read my name and say: ‘This-a man Anselmi, that was a good-a workman. Then she clean it, a-polish it, hang ’im up on a nail and sit and look at ’im because the more-a you use ’im the better she shine. Solid-a copper in ’ouse, mister, is better an-agold. A good-a woman, she’s proud of ’im. She light a lamp, there ’e is—one two three four five six, all in a row. ‘Anselmi done it!’ she says.”

“But what difference could it make to you?”

“
Me la rideró nella tomba
.”

“What does that mean?”

“I laugh in my grave.”

*

Solly Schwartz hurried to the nearest branch of the Provincial Stores and astounded a salesman by ordering eighteen tin of peas—six of Narwall’s, and four each of three other popular brands. He put down his money, took his change, and picked up the
thirty-pound
parcel as if it weighed no more than a box of matches. Then he went to Vespasiano’s café in Frith Street to restore his energy with coffee and cake, and to think a little. Something was working in his head, fermenting like a distiller’s mash, and he beat a tune with a fork on his teeth while he wondered what that
somethin
g was. He knew that it had to do with W. W. Narwall, so he tore open a corner of his parcel and pulled out one of Narwall’s cans of peas; and then he knew. He turned the can in his hands, looking at it with distaste, saying to himself:
I
can
well
imagine
Narwall
having
to
push
this
muck.
If
he
didn’t
have
forty-eight
counters
to
push
it
over,
it’d
stick
on
the
shelves
and
rot.
A
starving
man
wouldn’t
look
twice
at
it.

It was obvious that W. W. Narwall had exercised the strictest
economy in his packaging. Solly Schwartz with his quick
imagination
, could see the old man (whom he visualised as something like a locust) standing over some provincial printer and haggling, niggling, nattering, droning on and on, rubbing his back legs together to make a chirping noise while he ate away the morale of his adversary. Looking at that label, Solly Schwartz felt that he was looking into the mind of W. W. Narwall. It was cheap, indescribably mean. This is what it conveyed: that Narwall had begrudged every inch of paper and every drop of ink—even in printing his own name—the typography was reminiscent of the handwriting of a miser who carefully writes small to save paper. As for the paper, its very colour was repulsive—the colour of German mustard with a tinge of green; evidently some wretched job-lot, otherwise unusable, disposed of with a gasp of relief. Solly Schwartz reasoned:
Now
if
you
stick
a
label
on
something,
what
do
you
stick
that
label
on
for?
To
hit
the
eye,
to
draw
attention.
Otherwise,
why
waste
money
on
labels?
Right.
This
label
of Narwall’s
—
does
it
draw
attention?
Yes,
it
draws
attention
like
dog-shit
on
the
pavement
draws
attention
—
just
long
enough
so
you
can
avoid
it
—
that
filthy
colour!
And
that’s
a
nice
thing
to
stick
on
a
shelf
in
a
grocer’s
shop.
A
part
from
the
new
tin,
what
that
bloody
fool
wants
is
a
new
label.
If
you’re
selling
peas
you
don’t
want
to
make
me
think
of
lavatories.
If
I’m
buying
peas
I
am
thinking
of
peas
—
you
crack
a
pod
and
out
come
nice
shiny
fresh
green
peas.
In
your
mind
there’s
a
picture.
What
you
say
doesn’t
matter
provided
you’ve
got
a
nice
picture.
A
label,
a
label,
a
label!
The
schlemihls
—
they’d
pay
six
pence
for
a
tin
of
dish-water
if
you put
a
pretty
label
on
it
and
called
it
Nourishing
Soup
….