GS Marlowe - I Am Your Brother

by (epub)

  “Oh no,” says Viva. “It’s a surprise. Hold this for me, Peggy. I must take out my key.”

  And these two females, one bubbling with stupid joy, the other Miss Williams, slowly growing into stale understanding and love, have quite a coy scene in Greek Street. In bright sunshine. At the entrance to Julian’s house. Love nest and all.

  Julian jumps up from the piano and walks up and down the room quickly, nervously. Now he stops and looks out of the window. “No,” he says to himself. “No, that won’t do.” And trying again: “Love . . . came . . . no—” singing—“and love came overnight—that’s it, that’s it. . . . No . . . no. That’s all wrong. That’s better. . . . ‘The night was long . . .’ And now,” he says, “something with ‘daybreak.’ ” Walking over to the piano: “Out of those weary nights love was born . . .’ ” And he starts playing again, quietly humming those words. Then he jumps up, making a few hurried notes on his manuscript: “Dee-daa-dee-daa . . . was long . . . was lo——”

  “Darling! Sorry, dear, I didn’t know you were working.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” says Julian, all happy and smiling. “I’ve got it this time, Viva. You know, I’m sure I’ve got it this time.”

  “Lovely,” says Viva, but she expected a different reception, so her ‘lovely’ is rather toneless and flat.

  “Listen,” says Julian, “listen to this.” And still standing, he plays a few chords, looking attentively at the manuscript before him. “Isn’t that good?” he asks. “It really shows . . .”

  “Shows what?” asks Viva, who is very good on fancy songs.

  “But, my dear, don’t you see? It’s—no, I’d better tell you the words.”

  And Viva. “You’re not going to write the words yourself?” she says, with ugly eyebrows. “As a matter of fact last night, after you’d gone I talked to a very clever little man—you probably know him—Julian, are you listening?”

  “Of course, dear,” says Julian, still making notes on the score, “Of course.”

  “Now—what is his name?” insists Viva. “He wrote the lyrics for ‘Apple Blossom’ and ‘Kiss my Aunt.’ Now Julian, what is his name? Oh, I know it so well . . .”

  “Of course you know it,” says Julian.

  “Don’t you know,” says Viva, “he wrote those beautiful lyrics for ‘The Cornish Maid’?”

  And Julian, writing: “Never heard of it.”

  “Goldberg!” she shouts, “Sam Goldberg! Oh, you must see him—he’s the man. Oh, he writes lyrics like that—” snapping her fingers—“and he means success—he wouldn’t bother with experiments and——”

  Julian stops, and he looks at Viva. “Goldberg? Success? I really don’t understand. You see, Viva, I work differently. You know I must write these words myself—I mean nobody can possibly write words for me—I must do everything myself. It’s all very well, but——”

  “I didn’t want to annoy you,” says Viva quietly. “It was only a suggestion. Please don’t be angry with me. Promise you won’t.”

  “I’m not annoyed,” says Julian tenderly. “I know you do everything you can to help me.”

  “You know,” says Viva with reduced baby voice, “to-night is our dinner? Oh, they’re all so excited about it. I met Ritornelli in the street. He was just on his way to buy a top hat, if you please. They all simply don’t know what to do.”

  “They are good people,” says Julian. “They work hard and they’re glad if they have a little bit of fun.”

  “After all, you’re one of them,” says Viva. “And that’s why I liked you from the very beginning. I didn’t mind your mother making scenes. I didn’t mind.” And she wants to go on with all the things she did mind. Julian cuts into her excursion into the past: “No, you were always a darling. You needn’t say another word.” And he sits down and plays the tune he is working on.

  “It’s a beautiful tune,” says Viva, slightly bored. “You’ll always write nice tunes now—radio, gramophone records—oh, you’ll make a fortune. The moment we live together and everything is nicely arranged for you—what’s the matter, Julian?”

  “Everything will be different,” says Julian hesitatingly, and not so very sure of this, but it’s a lovely morning and one always hopes for a change for the good. And after all, Viva looks lovely, and she is very beautiful, so he leans down and kisses her tenderly and very long. . . .

  “Now I must go,” says Viva, “and you go on composing. Oh, it will be so beautiful—don’t I know it! And now I must rush. . . . Oh, sweet, don’t look so sad! No, not now!”

  And she rushes off, leaving Julian standing in the middle of the room. He wants to run after her, say something or—but she is gone, and slowly he walks back to the piano, sits down, starts playing the same motif again: but it simply won’t work, it won’t go, and so he gets up, walks through the room, up the stairs, up to the attic. . . .

  “Like ‘Blonde Bombshell,’ platinum blonde, almost white,” explains Romeo Whiteman, the hairdresser, the owner of Maison Kurtz, Permanent Waving, Dyeing, and Chiropody, Frith Street, right next to the grocer, one flight up. On the first floor. “Maybe two shades lighter,” says Mr. Whiteman. “But on these lines.”

  On a little ivory ring he holds a long strand of hair, brushing it, combing it, and there are always two or three hairs which won’t obey, so he pulls them out.

  “Second quality, definitely,” he says, and to the middle-aged woman who changes her shoes with painful expression: “Never be late, Mademoiselle Julie, never be late. Not in the morning. Heavy day to-day. Two permanents in the afternoon, and a manicure at six—the day is filled up, Mademoiselle Julie.”

  The French female gets up from her stool and says, looking at her new shoes: “Hell, what of it?”

  “That’s all right,” says Romeo, brushing the postiche. “But I just don’t like it.”

  And a little boy rushes in from the semi-elegant shop: “Miss Naldi’s just arrived—she’s in a hurry.”

  Romeo, rushing out: “Miss Naldi,” he says, with great sugary delight. “A pleasure, a pleasure it is! We’re all ready for you.” And turning back to his workroom, clapping his hands. “Mademoiselle Julie!”

  Julian closes the door gently. “Yes,” he says. “It’s going to be very beautiful.”

  And through the chink of the door in the attic, the Brother’s voice: “I’m sure it will.”

  And Julian locks the door. Slowly he walks down the stairs. Happy; full of confidence; relaxed. Suddenly he stops, and raising his forefinger: “He understands me.” With a smile: “He does. Maybe too much. Maybe a little too much. It’s dangerous to be understood too well. Very dangerous. He liked those few chords—or”—and he stops again—“he only said so—one never knows. He wants something. He likes the sound of her voice. He knows it’s written for her.” He reaches the landing: “If I could only trust him. I could have him always around, somewhere—somewhere hidden. Nobody would know.”

  He enters his living-room and sits down at the piano. “He could help me . . . he could always help me. He has the mind of a child . . . believes everything—everything he is told. He scents what’s good, what’s bad—not influenced. Somehow I love him. No, no, I hate him! He is evil! Every inch—evil! Every ounce of him! No, but he never lies. I’d hate to miss him. He is in my way. All the time. Good or bad. Yes. I do love you!”

  And shouting—bursting out in fury and anger: “No, no, I hate you! Don’t be a fool, Julian, suddenly taken in! Dangerous! To stagger over something day and night, something that’s in your way. No, I hate you! Just wait!”

  How glorious to be fourteen or fifteen, quite young and carefree; to have a few shillings in your pocket and go out hunting in one of those stores where they keep plugs and wires and little cables and tools, and rubber rings, swiftly curved, and stubborn, square ones. You can buy anything there. Look, for instance, up on that shelf—traps—all sorts of traps. Nightmares of overfed mice. One chops your head off. Another one is tower-like and in the middle
there is a cool basin where you fall in, snout first, with a splash. Drowned and done for. Some people haven’t the heart to put up those wiry contraptions, so they kill their enemies in another sinister way. Slow and sly. Poison. Not only rats and mice, but beetles and bugs. Open revolt against those evil-minded cunning little pests. Long shining syringes—bundles of them; and some very expensive, wrapped up in white tissue paper, in neat little oblong boxes. Liquids in small bottles. Some clear and clean, others mischievously clouded and labelled with a skull. Poison. And down below, in dusty corners, peaceful machines to shave the lawn. And little baskets attached to walking-sticks, so that you can cut a rose or two as you go down the garden path, sweet hymns on your lips. Or you might sit by a dreamy pond, and look at water-lilies of wax. And that little gnome—that German fairy-tale invention—child’s face and Teutonic beard—watches you wistfully, all very terra-cotta. Deer, lying and standing; frogs, cats and dogs; and fabulous mushrooms you can sit on. It’s all so very rustic and cosy and homely. But you must water your garden and that’s why you find in this store of William Selfish and Co., 18 Edgware Road, coils of python-like hose. Bird-seed and onions—narcissus and daffodils, tulip and hyacinth: all still bulb and dust and immaturity. Signs on the walls. Some just plain words: others with pictures. One is so elaborate it covers practically the whole wall: a rustic man of uncertain age, legs wide apart, heavy-shod, sowing his corn; while a woman stands in the left-hand corner of the painting, shawl round her head, with two brats leaning against her, attentively watching how Dad does the work. It’s all very ornamental and Selby’s seeds are no doubt far the best on the market. It’s all very peaceful. But to have peace you must go to war. At least you must be ready to go at a minute’s notice. War on beetles, rats, mice, and caterpillars. Hence these little signs: Get Rid Of Your Beetles. Or another one: Misekyl Will Help You To Live In Peace. And a few rats and mice with grief-stricken expressions lie hopelessly on their backs, dead and killed. And it’s all very simple. Kill, Kill, Kill. But, you must understand, it’s all just self-defence. . . .

  Very few customers at this time of the day, and Mr. Selfish sits at the desk next to the door. He is short and bald-headed. A black coat, a nondescript necktie, and the whole man is rather weak, like a bone without marrow, or maybe just the marrow, rather quabbly.

  “Sixteen, twenty-one, carry one, three, six, nine, carry two. . . .” He would probably go on for ever carrying figures all over the paper, if the door were not suddenly opened, and a woman—husky and heavy-set, wool mittens on her fingers, no make-up on her lips or cheeks, woollen cap on her head—if the door were not suddenly opened and this hunk of female didn’t shout extra loud: “Sel . . . fish! Sel . . . fish!” Ending up with a quiet and subdued, “William, where are you?”

  Whereupon humble William gets up and says: “Cup of tea will do me good, Hetty.”

  So Hetty sits down heavily at the desk and William leaves for tea, shutting the door behind him.

  Hetty turns on the light, and some canary-birds Selfish has somewhere in his hardware shop suddenly start rolling their tongues in grand Herzer fashion. Mrs. Selfish looks towards the door and sees in the fog-drowned street a man who is obviously interested in traps, or rat poison, or whatever it may be. Might be a customer. So Mrs. Selfish gets up, wiping her hands on her skirts. Sniffs twice, and—ah, in comes the customer.

  It’s Julian Spencer. He’s very nervous and he looks round like a man who has just had something stolen from him, or maybe somebody was killed. It was all so quiet and peaceful here a minute ago: now there is a terrific nervous tension. It has even got the two canaries, who sing like mad. Disgusting.

  “I want some information,” says Julian. “Maybe you could tell me——” And interrupting himself; “I don’t want you to tell me anything. I just want to look about. I mean, I would like to buy some bird-seed and a few sprigs of groundsel. . . . And . . . I need a trap, but I would rather speak to the manager . . . it’s a very special trap I want.”

  “Oh,” says Mrs. Selfish, “my husband will be here shortly . . . just gone out for tea.”

  “And glorious tea it was,” says Mr. Selfish, who suddenly stands behind Julian. “I had a few slices of Swiss roll, and a few slices of toast, some with marmalade and some with strawberry jam. Two cups of Indian and two of China tea. And delicious little cakes and short-cake and chocolate biscuits and a few rashers of bacon on top. I’m feeling splendid, Hetty. Unfortunately we haven’t what Mr. Spencer wants. Excuse me, I forgot to introduce. . . . This is Mr. Spencer, Hetty. So famous, everybody knows him . . . haha! No privacy any more. What Mr. Spencer does to-day or intends to do is known all over town in a minute. You simply can’t do anything without their knowing what you’ve done or intend to do. Oh,” he adds, “that’s the drawback of fame. . . . But what is it you want, Mr. Spencer? Just explain to me quickly what it’s all about. You know, just man to man, straight from the shoulder. Call a spade a spade. Is it a trap you want? Or is it just plain poison? Both need very careful handling, but I always use both, to be safe, to make sure. Here,” he says, and takes a little step-ladder so that he can reach up to the top shelf. “Here is something quite new, and so very satisfactory. Rats, mice, and all that sort of animal which creeps round on the floor and round the bed, down the chimney, and up the steps to your drawing-room. That sort love music, or just a high shrill whistle, and all you have to do is to find the right sound. In the right key. Major or minor. Staccato or legato. You understand, Mr. Spencer? Some prefer the spoken word, and they come out of the dark and are completely intoxicated, drunk. If, on top of all that, they see a good blood-dripping hunk of meat then it’s quite a feast. And they snap and grab and down goes the knife. It’s very sharp and quick and heavy and safe. And off falls the head and down it rolls into a basket you have neatly prepared. A pound of sawdust thrown in. And the head all by itself whirls round in agony. And the tongue comes out and the eyes bulge from their sockets and it’s all guaranteed satisfactory, one pound ten, carriage paid. This,” he adds, smiling, “is something quite different, and much more elaborate.” And he holds up before Julian’s eyes some sort of guillotine. “Instrument for quick killing, for home and family use. We sell a large number to the colonies. Big game: crocodiles, lizards, and those noisy gigantic bull-frogs, and it’s much more fun.” Mr. Selfish jumps down the step-ladder and goes down on his knees. The elaborate trap he places in front of him. “Now this is gramophone and trap combined. You start the gramophone—some sort of lovely music—the beast in question hears it, and he comes out of his hole. He listens and he sways with delight. And now he sees a lovely pair of kidneys, or some liver, or whatever you have on hand. You put it up here—we give away fully illustrated booklets with this sort of instrument. The beast advances towards the meat—you see him from the distance, from your tent, where you are having a nice game of bridge and some whisky and soda with your friends. The beast doesn’t suspect you, and his head goes under the knife—oop! and it’s all over. Simple, charming, and far the best product on the market. Works with great accuracy. Once used, always used. The gramophone record I mentioned you can select yourself. Two and six each. Unbreakable. I’ll show you.” And he grabs a neat box from the shelf, takes out a little glittery gramophone record, and puts it on the machine. Starts it. “Hoola! Hoola! Hoola!” says a voice, and to the linguist it’s plain Swahili. “Hoola! Hoola! Very good,” says Mr. Selfish, looking up at Spencer. “Don’t you think so?” And he puts on another record. ‘Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon’ sings the Scotch voice, and Selfish explains: “Mostly used for conger eels, those huge snake-like fish caught in rocks off Scotland. Very amusing. And this one, Mr. Spencer”—he is quite determined about it—“will serve your purpose beautifully. You’ll like it. ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep. Mother will come back if you sleep . . . my Brother!’ ”

  It’s Julian’s voice, very beautifully recorded, and he is flabber­gasted, and grabs the record and smashes it on the floor, then seizes
the throat of Mr. Selfish.

  “Leave me alone!” whines Mr. Selfish. “Let me go . . .”

  “You stole my voice,” shouts Julian.

  “Let me go . . . I am your friend, let me go . . .” and suddenly he frees himself. . . . “Murder!” he yells. “I shall call the police . . . stand still, Mr. Spencer! Don’t move, and I shall help you out. Here,” he says, taking a little bottle from the shelf, “that’ll finish him off. I like to help talented young murderers. Young men who have the urge but no knowledge or guts. I love that sort of person, as I myself have such a dreary life. Hetty, breakfast, Hetty, dinner, Hetty, tea, Hetty, supper, and sometimes Hetty again. Bird seeds, and lawn-mowers, rat poison and hyacinth bulbs. It takes a hundred films and true detective stories, mystery thrillers, wars, and revolutions, murders, dictatorships, to bring some beauty into my humble life.”

  And suddenly he changes the tone of his voice: “Hetty!” he shouts. “Run down to the chemist. The gentleman isn’t feeling very well. Aspirin, anything, the gentleman . . . a doctor . . .”

  “La-la-la-la-laaah-la. ‘I will never leave you.’ ‘You’re here with me to stay!’ Mario! the anchovies! La-la-laaah-la! ‘Arm in arm, hand in hand, we’ll be found together!’ ”

  And there are twenty-five plates all in a row, and on each of them is a slice of tomato, more or less squashed, little pips smeared over the rim, one little anchovy cuddling a caper, and the dimly sparkling body of a deceased sardine.

  “One, two, three, four,” counts the greasy, enormously fat female cook of Luigi’s. She goes on singing, sniffing from time to time, and wiping her nose, which sits like a bulb in her puffy-cheeked face. “Heart to heart, lips to lips . . . six, seven, eight, nine. Mario, the eggs and the mayonnaise. Looks good,” she says, turning towards Mr. Luigi, the owner of the restaurant, who has just entered the kitchen.

  “Good,” he says, “and hurry. De dinner is ordered for eight. De onions, de pickles. It’s going to be a great evening, Lucrezia.”