Arnold

by Ray Jones

ARNOLD, THE ANGLER AND THE ARTIST

  Mrs Tibbs and her ten year old son Arnold sat together on the settee watching television. Mrs Tibbs was also knitting, very slowly - she did most things very slowly - looking up every now and again to see what was happening on the screen. Arnold allowed nothing to distract him when he was watching television. When there were programmes on that he liked, and he liked a great many, he gave them his undivided attention. At the moment they were watching wrestling, an exciting bout between Mad Madigan and Konoko the Phantom.

  “Isn’t Mad Madigan like your Uncle Bert, Arnold?” said Mrs Tibbs. “Don’t you think he looks like him?”

  Arnold didn’t reply. He was used to his mother seeing likenesses between people on television and people she knew. She did it all the time. Sometimes, she pointed out that an actor in one programme was very much like an actor in another. It never occurred to her that they might be the same actor. Mrs Tibbs was not a very perceptive woman.

  The wrestling had reached an exciting stage. Mad Madigan knocked Konoko down. When he tried to get up he knocked him down again, and then again and again.

  “That isn’t fair,” said Mrs Tibbs, stopping her knitting for a moment. “He ought to let him get up. He’s a dirty fighter. He’s always bending the rules. That’s what the commentator says. He broke Randy Andy’s arm once and he couldn’t wrestle for six months.”

  Konoko now managed to get up and was knocking his opponent down with forearm-smashes and two-footed drop-kicks. The crowd in the wrestling hall went wild with excitement; they didn’t like Mad Madigan. Now Konoko picked him up and threw him down onto the canvas with a body slam, knocking the wind out of him, and he knelt on his shoulders. The referee counted: one, two, three. Konoko had won the fight by two falls to one.

  “He does look like him,” said Mrs Tibbs as the wrestlers left the ring. “Mad Madigan looks just like your Uncle Bert.”

  A canal ran at the back of the Tibbs’ house. Once it had been alive with boats delivering coal, bricks and iron to the factories, but now the factories were closed and the canal was still and tranquil.

  When Arnold arrived on the scene the tranquillity was shattered. He was no longer Arnold Tibbs, ten year old schoolboy, he was the famous wrestler, Konoko the Phantom, and he was engaged in a violent bout with Mad Madigan. He strode along, his legs apart, making loud grunting noises. Mad rushed at him, but he dodged out of the way. He took hold of Mad’s wrist and threw him down with an Irish whip. Then he took hold of Mad’s legs and turned him over for a Boston crab. Mad cried out in a loud voice, begging for mercy.

  A few hundred yards along the canal there was a spot where trees and wild flowers grew in profusion, where birds sang, bees buzzed from one flower to another, and dragonflies hovered over the water. Sitting on the towpath, in front of a pretty stone bridge, there sat an angler. He watched his float as it gently moved across the surface of the water. How quiet everything was, he was thinking to himself, how peaceful. But now strange noises were coming from along the towpath. He looked up to see a small boy approaching. He was lurching from side to side of the path, his eyes fixed straight ahead in a ferocious stare. Every few steps he fell down with a cry of pain, then he got up and hurled himself forward, struggling with an invisible opponent. Suddenly, he stopped as though he had run into a brick wall and fell flat on his face.

  What was the matter with the kid? He must be having a fit. He’d heard of such things. They swallowed their tongues, people who had fits, so he’d heard, and you had to pull their tongue out with your fingers. But when he looked again he decided that the kid was just playing some stupid game. He’d ignore him and he’d go past.

  But Arnold didn’t go past. “I was being a wrestler,” he explained, stopping beside the angler. “Konoko the Phantom. I was fighting Mad Madigan..”

  “Go and play,” muttered the man out of the corner of his mouth.

  “My Uncle Bert’s a wrestler,” said Arnold, recalling something his mother had said half an hour ago.

  “I’m trying to catch some fish,” said the angler. “Go away and leave me in peace.”

  “He fights dirty,” continued Arnold. “He broke Randy Andy’s arm. He couldn’t wrestle for six months.”

  On the path beside the angler was his bait tin. It was open and full of white, seething maggots. Arnold picked some up and watched them wriggle on the palm of his hand.

  “They’ve got no eyes,” he said. “Why haven’t they got any eyes?”

  “Put them back,” growled the angler.

  “I could catch some fish if I had a rod,” Arnold said, dropping the maggots back into the bait tin. “I could catch big fish.” He spread out his arms to show the size of the fish he would catch. “I could catch pike if I had a rod. I could catch…what do you call those big fish in the sea?”

  “Kippers,” said the man.

  “Sharks,” said Arnold, ignoring the sarcasm. “I could catch sharks. Have you ever caught any sharks?” he asked, looking meaningfully at the two fish, hardly bigger than tiddlers, in the man’s keep-net. “I could catch whales,” he said, his imagination now in full flow. “I’ll bet I could catch the Loch Ness Monster if I had a rod and some of them.” He said pointing to the maggots in the tin.

  A tall man walked along the towpath. On his back was a rucksack and under his arm he carried a folding easel. He was an artist, a fact he proclaimed to the world by his mauve shirt, red spotted bow-tie and his neat, pointed beard. He was on his way to paint a picture of the pretty stone bridge just round the next corner.

  He put his things down on the towpath. It was a pity that the fisherman and his kid had chosen this same part of the canal he thought, but it couldn’t be helped. He set up his easel and took out his painting equipment - drawing board, paper, paints, brushes, water- jar and stool - from his rucksack, and placed them ready to start work. But first he must decide on the composition of his picture. Should he have the bridge on the left hand side or the right? And how much sky should he have at the top, and how much of the canal at the bottom? He formed a square, using the fingers and thumbs of both hands and looked through it at the scene before him, moving the square from side to side and squinting through it with half-closed eyes.

  Arnold left the angler and stood behind the artist. He watched his strange behaviour with interest.

  “What you doing, mister?” he asked.

  The artist took a pencil from his rucksack and began to draw the scene in front of him on his paper with quick, deft strokes.

  “What you doing, mister?” Arnold asked again.

  The artist was used to having children watching him. He’d talk to him in a moment. He picked up a brush and began to mix some blue paint.

  “My Uncle Bert’s a wrestler,” said Arnold, trying to make conversation.

  The artist paused in his mixing. “Really,” he said. He glanced over at the fisherman, a small weedy-looking man wearing a cloth cap. “He doesn’t look like a wrestler.”

  “He fights dirty,” said Arnold. “He broke Randy Andy’s arm.”

  “Indeed,” said the artist, looking at the angler with new respect.

  “He couldn’t wrestle for six months” said Arnold.

  The artist shuddered. He hated violence. But he mustn’t allow this kid to distract him. He dipped his brush into the blue paint and rapidly painted the sky in his picture. He mixed some green paint and spread it on his paper. While it was still wet he dabbed in different shades of blue, yellow and green. As though by magic the puddles of paint turned into trees and the reflections of them in the canal.

  “I think fishing is stupid,” said Arnold. “Do you think fishing is stupid?”

  “Mmm,” said the artist, not listening to the question. He was concentrating hard on his painting.

  “I think fishing’s a waste of time. Do you think fishing’s a waste of time?” asked Arnold

  “Mmm,” agreed the artist, absentmindedly. He really had to concentrate on his painting now or it could be ru
ined.

  “I think fishing’s cruel. Do you think fishing’s cruel?” said Arnold.

  “Mmm,” said the artist again, squinting at his picture, his head on one side, before mixing some fresh colours.

  Arnold left the artist’s side and went back to the angler.

  “That man says fishing’s stupid,” he said. “And he says it’s cruel and a waste of time.”

  The angler glared angrily at the artist. He’d never liked artists. In his view they were a lot of cissies with their beards and their fancy clothes. He reeled in his line. He was having very little luck. He took the maggot off the hook and dropped it in the canal. He chose a fresh one from his bait tin and, still seething with indignation, he pushed the hook into it. It went right through and into his thumb. His face contorted with pain. He put his thumb into his mouth and sucked it. Forgetting that the hook and the maggot were stuck to it he put these into his mouth as well.

  “What did you do that for, Mister?” said Arnold as the angler spat out the maggot and the fish hook.

  The angler looked into Arnold’s brown, cocker-spaniel eyes and lifted his hand, as though about to knock him into the canal. Instead he stood up and walked along the towpath, his hand with the sore thumb gripped tightly under his arm, waiting for the pain to ease.

  The artist was putting the finishing touches to his painting. It was good. Yes he had to admit it was very good. Everything in the picture was in harmony: the bridge, the trees, the flowers, the reflections in the water. Just a few more details, that’s all it required.

  “I can paint good pictures,” said Arnold, now at the artist’s side again, absentmindedly dropping some maggots into the artist’s water-jar.

  “Really,” said the artist, sarcastically.

  “I could paint monsters and spaceships and robots, if I had some proper paints and paper,” said Arnold, looking at the artist’s equipment.

  “Indeed,” said the artist, backing away from his painting and squinting at it from a distance. Yes, it was good; the best he’d ever done. He sat down on his stool and washed his brush. There were some creatures moving about in his water-jar. Maggots! The wretched kid had put maggots in his water-jar. He flicked his brush behind him and saw with satisfaction that the dirty water had splattered all over Arnold’s face.

  “My Uncle Bert’s a wrestler,” Arnold solemnly reminded him. “He fights dirty. He broke Randy Andy’s….”

  “Yes, yes. I’m sorry,” said the artist, dabbing Arnold’s face with a clean paint rag. “An accident. Purely an accident.”

  The angler still hadn’t come back from his walk. Arnold decided to make use of his stool. He carried it along the towpath and placed it where he could watch the artist. He also fetched the bait tin. He took out some maggots and placed them on the path a few feet away. He would hold a race to see which of them would crawl back to the tin first.

  The artist put a few finishing touches to his painting. He got up and backed rapidly away to take a last look at it. He didn’t notice the angler’s stool just behind him and he tripped over it, falling heavily to the ground. In his right hand he’d been holding his favourite brush which snapped in half as he fell. His left hand rested on something soft and warm which crawled over his hand and arm. Maggots! Those disgusting maggots! He got to his feet and kicked the tin of maggots into the canal. But this hadn’t assuaged his anger. He picked up the angler’s stool and threw this into the canal - just as the angler returned from his walk.

  “Wh-wh-what…?” said the angler “Wh-wh-why…?” But it was no good. He couldn’t think of the words he wanted to say. Besides, words were no good. Only action could express the rage within his breast. He plucked the drawing-board with the completed painting pinned to it from the artist’s easel and threw it into the canal.

  The artist stood, frozen with shock, and watched his picture come to the surface, all the delicate colours melting into the dark water of the canal. His mouth hung open in disbelief and his fingers twitched at his side. He felt like crying. Instead he walked along the towpath, picked up the angler’s fishing-rod and threw it into the canal, and then he threw in his sandwich box and flask.

  Not to be outdone the angler threw the artist’s easel into the canal, then his stool, paint box, brushes, water-jar and rucksack. Still his anger wasn’t satisfied. He looked round for something else to throw into the canal, but there was nothing - only the artist. Although he was much bigger than himself he decided to throw him in. As he went towards him the artist gave a yelp of fear and ran away as fast as his frightened legs would take him.

  As Arnold walked home along the towpath he came upon two men fighting. The one was tall with a mauve shirt, a red spotted bow-tie and a neat, pointed beard. The other was small and wore a cloth cap. Arnold recognised them as the artist and the angler. The angler held the artist round the waist and was trying to throw him into the canal. The artist was pleading with him.

  “Not my arm, Bert. Please. Don’t break my arm.”

  Arnold would have liked to have stayed to see the outcome of the fight, but he remembered that there was an interesting film on the telly. It was about a man who turned green when he was angry. His body swelled up and he burst out of his clothes. He wondered whether he could do that. He thrust out his chest and blew out his cheeks. Yes, he was sure he could do it if he tried. It just needed practice that’s all.

  He ran the rest of the way home, anxious not to miss the beginning of the film, and forgot all about the angler and the artist.