Best of Myles
Page 32
Easily first is the person, usually a woman, who says: ‘Christmas? Do you know I wish it was over.’
Next possibly is the person who says:
‘Christmas? Do you know, I do always think it is a sad time.’
Next:
‘Well well. Another Christmas! The way time flies is somethin’ shockin’.’
And next?
‘Do you know, the best Christmas I ever had was in Morocco. There was a crowd of us on the boat—I hadn’t been married more than a week at the time—and we dropped anchor at Algiers. The first thing we see is …’
Then there is the gambit:
‘Do you know the hardest day in the year to get through?’
‘I don’t. What?’
‘Christmas Day.’
Then there are the alternative commentaries, each proffered with the utmost earnestness:
‘Do you know what it is, I never seen a quieter Christmas.’
‘I’ll tell you wan thing about this Christmas. It was the fiercest Christmas I ever seen.’
Then there is this terrible thing:
‘Do you know what I do of a Christmas Day?’ (Looks of interest.)
‘No. What?’
‘Bed.’
‘Bed?’ (Looks of incredulity, stepped up to please the moron.)
‘Off up to bed after dinner. Never put a leg out of bed until 4 o’clock Stephen’s Day. Fair enough if there’s a game of cards fixed up after that. But get me up before four? (Fearful faces are made.) No—fear.’
Finally, this portrait of undead human decomposition, not peculiar to Christmas but most frequently encountered about that time.
(Enters public house on St Stephen’s Day, obviously shattered with alcohol. Lowers self into seat with great care, grips table to arrest devastating shake in hands. Calls for glass of malt. Spills water all over table. Swallows drink with great clatter of teeth against glass. Shakily lights cigarette. Exhales. Begins to look around. Fixes on adjacent acquaintance. Begins peroration.)
‘Bedam but you know, people talk a lot about drink, Whiskey and all the rest of it. There’s always a story, the whiskey was bad, the stomach was out of order and so on. Do you know what I’m going to tell you …?
(Pauses impressively. The eye-pupils, almost dissolved in their watery lake, rove about with sickly inquiry. Accepts silence as evidence of intense interest.)
‘Do you know what it is?’
(Changes cigarette from normal inter-digital position, holds it aloft vertical; taps it solemnly with index finger of free hand.)
‘Do you see that? That thing there? Cigarettes. Them lads. Do you know what I’m going to tell you …?’
(Is suddenly overcome by paroxysm of coughing; roots benightedly for handkerchief as tears of pure alcohol course down the ruby cheeks. Recovers.)
‘Them fellas there. Them fellas has me destroyed…’
(Collapses into fresh paroxysm. Emerges again):
‘I wouldn’t mind that at all (indicates glass). I know what I have there. There’s eatin’ an’ drinkin’ in that. Damn the harm that done annywan, bar been taken to excess. But this…’
(Again points to cigarette, looks of sorrow and horror mingling on ‘face’.)
‘Them lads has me destroyed.’
MY NOTES of some days ago on the man who, shattered by whiskey-drinking, swears he is ‘desthroyed be the cigarettes’, prompts me to record a few other bores who have standard lines of chat. For instance—
THE MAN WITH THE WATCH
Somebody remarks that his watch, solid gold, 98 jewels, cost £50, wears it swimming, has broken down after only five years’ service. The Man smiles primly at this, produces a turnip-watch, and puts it solemnly on the table. The harsh tick silences further talk. Those present perceive that the thing was once nickel-plated, but is now a dull brass colour at the edges.
‘Do you know what that cost me?’ the Man asks.
Everybody knows that the answer is five bob or thereabouts, that it was bought eighteen years ago, that it never lost a minute, and was never even cleaned. But nobody is brutal enough to spill that out. People are weak, and tend to play up to bores.
‘I suppose about two quid,’ somebody says innocently.
‘Five bob,’ the Man says.
Fake surprise all round.
‘Know how long I have it?’ the Man asks.
‘Five or six years, I suppose.’
‘I bought that watch in Leeds in September 1925. That’s nearly twenty years ago. Since then it has never stopped, never lost a minute and wasn’t even cleaned once!’
Phoney astonishment on every face.
‘A grand little time-keeper,’ the Man says, replacing the turnip in his pocket with considerable satisfaction.
(This particular type of pest also owns incredible cars, fifty-year-old fountain pens, gloves bought in 1915 and never lost or worn-out, makes his own cigarettes with home-made filter-wads at the ends, reckons that they cost him roughly (always this ‘roughly’) a farthing each, and is convinced that ‘people are mad’ to pay more. Let me present one further bore):
THE MAN WITH THE BLADE
Somebody says: ‘It’s very hard to get decent blades these days,’ and in explanation, grimaces and rubs jaw. ‘I haven’t had a decent shave for weeks,’ he adds.
The Man is present and looks puzzled.
‘You don’t mean to say you buy razor blades?’ he says.
Various people confess they do.
‘Well I don’t,’ the Man says. ‘I admit I have bought one, but that was two years ago …’
Again dutiful surprise is registered.
Everybody has heard of patent blade-sharpeners, the various sharpenings that can be attempted with mirrors, strops and tumblers, but nobody has any guts and nothing is said.
‘It’s quite simple,’ the Man says, thoroughly delighted with himself. ‘Get a good tumbler and keep it by you. Smear the inside with vaseline. Every morning before you shave, give both sides of the blade three or four rubs along the inside of the tumbler, keeping strong pressure on the centre of it with your finger. That’s all.’
Pauses to accept gratefully the due looks of incredulity.
‘You’ll get the best shave you ever got in your life, man. And a tuppenny blade’ll last you five years.’
(On your life don’t show this article to anybody. Nearly everybody belongs to one or other of these two classes in some capacity; you’ll get black looks for your pains. Ever meet the man whose petrol lighter always works, explains why? ‘It’s quite simple, the whole secret is …’)
I’M AFRAID I have some more bores here today. (I am sorry, but the function of the historian is to record completely, not selectively.)
Have you met—look, this hurts me as much as it hurts you—have you met The Man Who Buys Wholesale? (You’re in for it this time.)
You have asked this gargoyle to ‘dinner’ because he has put some business in your way during the year, and there may be more where that came from. The clown comes into your room rubbing his deformed, calloused hands, looks round, checks up on fittings, decoration, etc. Walks over to your radio. It is a year old—1947 should see it paid for. He examines it closely, taps it, disconnects it, turns it upside down, shakes it, breaks one of the leads, leaves it on its side, takes out handkerchief and wipes hands. Infuriated, you manage to say:
‘What do you think of the radio?’
‘Hah? The radio? Aw, yeh. Aw, with a bit of adjustment it’d be a nice job. I’ll get you a nice one. Them nine pound ones wears out in no time …’
By now you are practically rigid with hatred and disgust. This figure of £9 is, of course, a trap—and you are going deliberately to fall into it. You thoroughly despise yourself. You say:
‘But look here—nine pounds! That set is costing me eighty-seven pounds …’
The foul mountebank springs from the chair, comes over, puts both hands on your shoulders:
‘Are you mad, Mac? Are you in y
our right mind man?’
‘It’s a perfectly good set,’ you stammer, now loathing yourself utterly, ‘it … it … works quite well and eighty-seven pounds is the recognised retail price. I thought you’d know that!’
The claws are now taken off your shoulders. The monster elaborately averts the face and, addressing the far wall, says: Th’unfortunate man must be mad! Makes a show of walking away sadly, suddenly whips round and shouts, showering you with saliva:
‘Are you crackers? Have you taken leave of your wits? I wouldn’t have believed it of you, that’s all I can say. Of course I know it’s the retail price. But shure, man alive, no one is supposed to buy stuff retail! Shure that went out years ago. Now I’ve two sets at home …’
Is that enough for today? Could you take a little more?
The Man Who Is His Own Lawyer?
Is it fork out me good-lookin’ money to them hooky solicitors? Them fellas, that has th’office on a weekly tenancy and a season ticket to Belfast, ready to skip the minit they get their claws on some unfortunate orphan’s dough? Ah no, thanks all the same. I think I’ll just carry on a little bit longer the way I am. And I’ll tell you this much: I know more law nor anny ten of them put together. I didn’t want the help of anny solicitor back in nineteen and thirty-four when I made the landlord take down and rebuild back wall and replace gutters, and pull out the joyces in the front drawin’ room and put in new wans. Oh Gob no bloody fear, I know me rights. I took out the probate single-handed after the mother went and I got ten pounds nine for Christy the time he was humped offa the bike be a lurry. I know me law and I know me rights.
The foregoing samples, of course, represent attitudes. There are, however, troglodytic specimens who can get their effects by a single and unvarying remark which, injected into thousands of conversations in the course of their lifetime, enables them to take leave of humanity knowing that they have done something important to it. Have you ever heard this:
Of course Dan O’Connell Was A Freemason Of Course You Knew That?
IN TRYING to arrive at a proper conspectus of every-day bores, it is important not to overlook (merely because he has been mentioned so often and so casually before) the head-bore: I mean The Man Who Spoke Irish At A Time When It Was Neither Profitable Nor Popular. (Don’t forget that lad.)
And here is another: The Man Who Never Gives Pennies To Beggars.
This fearful know-all is walking with you, a beggar approaches; by accident you let slip into his hat a few coppers you were toying with in your pocket. As you walk on, you notice the ‘friend’ in a frightful state of agitation, the face growing redder, the shoulders heaving, the little eyes dancing in their puffy pig-skin pouches.
‘What’s wrong, man,’ you cry, alarmed, ‘Are you ill?’
A crackling ‘laugh’ is heard; he is very angry now.
‘Gob I thought you knew better than that,’ he says, ‘a man of your age …’
‘What are you talking about?’ you ask.
‘Shelling out a wing to that lad back there. You must be bats. Easy seen you were on the beer last night …’
‘I am not ashamed of such trivial eleemosynary acts, let me tell you. Charity …’
‘Charity? Charity? Oh-ho, that’s a good wan! I oney wish, listen here to me. I oney wish you were earning in the year what he pays in income tax in wan week! Yes! Your man has a house out in Carrickmines would take the sight out of your eyes. Ever see his wife?’
‘I can’t say that I did …’
‘Ah well you wouldn’t, of course, you don’t get asked to them Legation doos.’
‘But—’
No, reader; all the buts in the world won’t do you any good. You must not attempt to argue with this person. Just dial O and ask for the police.
Incidentally, if his talk is not as in the foregoing, it will inevitably be as follows:
Your arm is twitched. Eyes that are almost frightened peer into yours:
‘Look,’ the monster babbles, ‘you don’t mean to say you gave that person … money?’
‘I donated the sum of tuppence sterling,’ you reply facetiously. You are not yet aware that you are in the presence of a terrible disease. Your banal remark has a terrible effect. The shoulders are hunched, arms shoved down vertical into coat pockets, the eyes stare straight ahead, on the ‘face’ a black frown wherein disgust with you and a loathsome compassion for your failings and weaknesses struggle for dominance.
‘I say,’ you stammer, ‘what’s wrong with giving that poor old man a copper? Did you see his boots …?’
(You speak bravely, no doubt, but you know you are lost.)
‘What’s wrong with it? My God, man, have you no sense at all?’
The wretch has you now by the arm and is severely hurting some small muscle near your elbow, so fanatical the grip.
‘Do you know what that fellow will do with the money you have given him?’
‘No.’
‘Straight into a public house and drink it.’
‘But surely … tuppence, I mean …’
‘Tuppence, is it? That man makes a fiver a day on the touch and drinks every penny of it. It so happens that I know what I’m talking about. And it’s people like you that are responsible for every act and word of that unfortunate man. Offer him a day’s work in your garden and see what happens. O, I’m up to them, believe you me.’
‘But—’
No, reader, it’s no use.
I HOPE I am not … a … a bore but there is one other character I would like to speak to you about privately. You probably know him. He was just leaving the Brothers beyond in Richmond Street the year your poor grandfather first came to school. Grandfather unfortunately is no longer to be seen due to the highly technical business of interment (1908 R.I.P.), but this other person is still in town, the button-less camel-hair overcoat worn slightly off the shoulders, the snap-brimmed green felt nestling in a nest of curls formerly worn by a certain foreign horse, present whereabouts unknown. To your certain knowledge this man is one hundred and four years of age (if he’s a day). Through a calamitous neglect of keeping your eyes skinned—I admit the skin does grow rather quickly, but what are surgeons for?—you meet this person. Then it starts. You are dragged into a public cottage, sorry public house, and drinks are poured into you while you listen to this person’s account of his life. The horse out on Merrion Strand before breakfast, after that a couple of brisk sets of squash (still before breakfast). Then out with the dumb-bells (they would need to be) and then a little toast and a glass of limejuice. After that, into the running shorts and round and round the lawn until the petit déjeuner: then, of course, the fencing class until lunch; after lunch brings togs down to Lansdowne Road on the off-chance and always gets a game, plays on the wing but is rather a useful back. A shower and home to dinner but not without a few sets on the hard courts. After dinner takes out the gloves and up to the SCR for a couple of bouts with the boys. On slack nights, you suspect, he goes down to Shelbourne Park and runs round the thrack in front of the electhric hare to show it the way. You assimilate all this without a word and then to your horror you hear yourself saying:
‘Begob you know you’ll want to go easy—you can’t do that forever. You’ll have to give a lot of that up, you know, when you pass thirty-five. Because …’
He is delighted. God forgive you—he stands there with the embalmed profile up to the light, he has raised the hand to stop you and then says:
‘How old would you say I am?’
You look at him steadily, unsmiling: you know that you are worse than he is and that the whole thing is the price of you.
‘Well,’ you say, ‘Well, Jack, I’m not going by your appearance—you certainly don’t look your age, never seen a man wearing so well. But from what I know of you around the town, knocking around and so forth, I’d say you must be a man of thirty-two, indeed I suppose you’d be a man that’s goin’ on for thirty-three. I’d say you’re pushin’ thirty-three, Jack …’
‘Mac, I was born in 1908.’
Suddenly your own face is blanched with horror; you tremble; you mutter some inarticulate excuse and stumble out into the cold, cursing bitterly. You know it was 1808.
Is there, you may ask, any remedy, any way out for weaklings like you, is there any hope for the man who is too cowardly to insult such ‘people’? Well, don’t go out at all is the only thing I can think of. Stay at home in bed, windows closed, blinds drawn, electric fire going full blast. Only the really tough bores will follow you there—and after all they’re your relatives, aren’t they? You can’t get away from them, can you?
A DUBLIN READER has kindly written to inform me of a bore (petrol lighter species) who infests a local public house. Apparently the lighter is used as an instrument for gaining admittance to parties of drinkers not known to the bore personally; naturally, this means free drink. I am terribly sorry but this type of person is not a bore within my terms of reference. The sort of bore I have been attempting to define in recent notes is a born and outright bore; boring other people is his sole occupation, enjoyment, recreation. No thought of gain would he permit to sully his ‘art’; indeed, many of them are prepared to lose money—to stand drinks—if they see a good opportunity of pursuing their nefarious vocation. Let me give a few further examples. Have you met The Man Who Has Read It In Manuscript? Let me explain.
You are a literary man, you never go out, all you ask is to be left alone with your beloved books. But the Man calls. A desultory conversation starts. The Man is peering and poking about your private apartments. You are interested in a book you read recently, would like to get other people’s opinion on it, innocently enough, you ask: