Fancies and Goodnights
Page 33
«I will,» said Edna. «Oh, I do hope it lives!»
With that she gingerly cracked the shell, the tapping increased, and soon they saw a well-developed beak tearing its way through. In another moment the chick was born.
«Golly!» cried Jack. «What a monster!»
«It's because it's young,» said Edna. «It'll grow lovely. Like its mother.»
«Maybe,»said Jack. «I must be off. Put it in the nest. Feed it pap. Keep it warm. Don't monkey with it too much. Goodbye, my love.»
That morning Jack telephoned home two or three times to find out how the chick was, and if it ate. He rushed home at lunchtime. In the evening everyone came round to peep at the nestling and offer advice.
Charlie was there. «It ought to be fed every hour at least,» said he. «That's how it is in nature.»
«He's right,» said Jack. «For the first month at least, that's how it should be.»
«It looks as if I'm going to be tied down a bit,» said Edna ruefully.
«I'll look in when I pass and relieve your solitude,» said Charlie.
«I'll manage to rush home now and then in the afternoons,» said Jack, a little too thoughtfully.
Certainly the hourly feeding seemed to agree with the chick, which grew at an almost alarming speed. It became covered with down, feathers sprouted; in a few months it was fully grown, and not in the least like its mother. For one thing, it was coal-black.
«It must be a hybrid,» said Jack. «There is a black parrot; I've seen them in zoos. They didn't look much like this, though. I've half a mind to send a photograph of him somewhere.»
«He looks so wicked,» said Edna.
«He looks cunning,» said Jack. «That bird knows everything, believe me. I bet he'll talk soon.»
«It gave a sort of laugh, »said Edna. «I forgot to tell you.»
«When?» cried Jack. «A laugh?»
«Sort of,» said Edna. «But it was horrible. It made Charlie nearly jump out of his skin.»
«Charlie?» cried Jack. «You didn't say he'd been here.»
«Well, you know how often he drops in,» said Edna.
«Do I?» said Jack. «I hope I do. God! What was that?»
«That's what I meant,» said Edna. «A sort of laugh.»
«What a horrible sound!» said Jack.
«Listen, Jack,» said Edna. «I wish you wouldn't be silly about Charlie. You are, you know.»
Jack looked at her. «I know I am,» said he. «I know it when I look at you. And then I think I never will be again. But somehow it's got stuck in my mind, and the least little thing brings it out. Maybe I'm just a bit crazy, on that one subject.»
«Well, he'll be transferred soon,» said Edna. «And that'11 be the end of it.»
«Where did you hear that?» said Jack.
«He told me this afternoon,» said Edna. «He was on his way back from getting the mail when he dropped in. That's why he told me first. Otherwise he'd have told you first. Only he hasn't seen you yet. Do you see?»
«Yes, I see,» said Jack. «I wish I could be psychoanalyzed or something.»
Soon Charlie made his farewells, and departed for his job on the company's other project. Edna was secretly glad to see him go. She wanted no problems, however groundless, to exist between herself and Jack. A few days later she felt sure that all the problems were solved forever.
«Jack,» said she when he came home in the evening.
«Yes, »said he.
«Something new,» said she. «Don't play with that bird. Listen to me.»
«Call him Polly,» said Jack. They had named it Polly to be on the safe side. «You don't want to call him 'that bird.' The missus doesn't love you, Poll.»
«Do you know, I don't!» said Edna, with quite startling vehemence. «I don't like him at all, Jack. Let's give him away.»
«What? For heaven's sake!» cried Jack. «This rare, black, specially hatched Poll? This parrot of romantic origin? The cleverest Poll that ever —»
«That's it,» said Edna. «He's too darned clever. Jack, I hate him. He's horrible.»
«What? Has he said something you don't like?» said Jack, laughing. «I bet he will, when he talks. But what's the news, anyway?»
«Come inside,» said Edna. «I'm not going to tell you with that creature listening.» She led the way into the bedroom. «The news is,» said she, «that I've got to be humoured. And if I don't like anything, it's got to be given away. It's not going to be born with a beak because its mother was frightened by a hateful monstrosity of a parrot.»
«What?» said Jack.
«That's what,» said Edna, smiling and nodding.
«A brat?» cried Jack in delight. «A boy! Or a, girl! It's bound to be one or the other. Listen, I was afraid to tell you how much I wanted one, Edna. Oh, boy! This is going to make everything very, very fine. Lie down. You're delicate. Put your feet up. I'm going to fix dinner. This is practice. Stay still. Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Or girl as the case maybe!»
He went out through the living-room on his way to the kitchen. As he passed the window he caught sight of the parrot on the dark porch outside, and he put his head through to speak to it.
«Have you heard the news?» said he. «Behold a father! You're going to be cut right out, my bird. You're going to be given away. Yes, sir, it's a baby.»
The parrot gave a long low whistle. «You don't say so?» said he in a husky voice, a voice of apprehension, a quite astonishing imitation of Charlie's voice. «What about Jack?»
«What's that?» said Jack, startled.
«He'll think it's his,» whispered the parrot in Edna's voice. «He's fool enough for anything. Kiss me, darling. Phew-w-w! You don't say so? What about Jack? He'll think it's his, he's fool enough for anything. Kiss me, darling. Phew-w-w!»
Jack went out into the kitchen, and sat down with his head in his hands for several minutes.
«Hurry up!» cried Edna from the bedroom. «Hurry up — Father!»
«I'm coming,» said Jack.
He went to his desk, and took out the revolver. Then he went into the bedroom.
At the sound of the cry and the shot, the parrot laughed. Then, lifting its claw, it took the chain in its beak, and bit through it as if it were paper.
Jack came out, holding the gun, his hand over his eyes. «Fool enough for anything!» said the parrot, and laughed.
Jack turned the gun on himself. As he did so, in the infinitesimal interval between the beginning and the end of the movement of his finger on the trigger, he saw the bird grow, spread its dark wings, and its eyes flamed, and it changed, and it launched itself toward him.
The gun went off. Jack dropped to the floor. The parrot, or whatever it was, sailing down, seized what came out of his ruined mouth, and wheeled back through the window, and was soon far away, visible for a moment only as it swept on broader wings past the new-arisen moon.
VARIATION ON A THEME
A young man, with a bowler hat, cane, flaxen mustache, and blue suit, was looking at a gorilla in a zoo. All about him were cages floored with squares of desert. On these yellow flats, like precise false statements of equatorial latitudes, lay the shadows of bars. There were nutshells, banana skins, fading lettuce; there were the cries of birds who believed themselves mewed up because they were mad, the obeisances of giraffes, the yawns of lions. In an imitation of moon crags, mountain goats bore about ignobly eyes that were pieces of moon. The elephants, grey in a humidity of grass and dung, shifted from one foot to another. Jurassic days, it seemed, would quite definitely never be here again. Mice, moving with the speed of a nervous twitch, were bold in the freedom of a catastrophe of values.
Perceiving that they were alone, the gorilla addressed the young man in an imitation of the American accent, which he affected for reasons of his own. «Pal, you look a decent sort of guy. Get me a suit like yours, only larger, a bowler hat, and a cane. I guess I can do without the mustache. I want to get out of here. I got ambitions.»
The young man was greatly taken aback to hear a g
orilla speak. However, common sense reminded him that he was in a city in which many creatures enjoyed that faculty, whom, at first sight, or at any hearing, one would hardly credit with sufficient intelligence to have attained it. He therefore recovered from his wonder, but, having a nice sense of distinctions, he replied to the gorilla, «I do not see that I can do that, for the place for a gorilla is either a cage or the Congo. In the society of men you would be like a fish out of water, a bull in a china shop, or a round peg in a square hole. You would be a cause of embarrassment, and would therefore yourself be embarrassed. You would be treated as an alien, disdained on account of your complexion, and slighted because of your facial angle.»
The gorilla was very much mortified by this reply, for he was extremely vain. «Here,» he said, «you don't want to say that sort of thing. I'm a writer. Write you anything you like. I've written a novel.»
«That alters the situation entirely!» cried the young man with enthusiasm. «I am a novelist myself, and am always ready to lend a hand to a struggling fellow author. Tell me one thing only, and my services are yours. Have you genius?»
«Yes,» said the gorilla, «I certainly have.»
«In that case,» said the young man, «I shall bring your suit, hat, cane, shoes, and body-linen at this hour tomorrow. I will also bring you a file, and you will find me awaiting you under the large chestnut tree by the West Gate, at the hour of dusk.»
The gorilla had not expected the file. As a matter of fact, he had asked for the outfit, not for purposes of escape, but in order to cut a figure before the public. He was rather like one of those prisoners who wrote from old Spain, and who were more interested in what they got in than in how they got out. However, he hated to waste anything, so, having received the file, he put it to such use as enabled him to join his benefactor under the dark and summer tree.
The young man, intoxicated by his own good action, shook the gorilla warmly by the hand. «My dear fellow,» said he, «I cannot say how glad I am to see you out here among us. I am sure you have written a great novel in there; all the same, bars are very dangerous to literary men in the long run. You will find my little house altogether more propitious to your genius. Don't think that we are too desperately dull, however; everyone drops in on Sundays, and during the week we have a little dinner or two, at which you will meet the sort of people you should know. By the way, I hope you have not forgotten your manuscript.»
«Fellow came snooping in just as I was making my getaway,» said the gorilla. «So I had to dump it. See?» This was the most villainous lie in the world, for the unscrupulous ape had never written so much as a word.
«What a terrible pity!» cried the young man in dismay. «I suppose you feel you will have to return to it.»
«Not me,» said the gorilla, who had been watching some singularly handsome limousines pass the spot where they were standing, and had noticed the faultless complexions and attractive toilettes of the ladies whom these limousines were conveying from one party to another. «No,» said he. «Never mind. I got the whole thing in my head. You put me up; I'll write it out all over again. So don't worry.»
«Upon my word, I admire your spirit!» cried his deliverer enthusiastically. «There is something uncommercial about that, which appeals to me more than I can say. I am sure you are right; the work will be even more masterly for being written over again. A thousand little felicities, necessarily brushed aside in the first headlong torrent of creativeness, will now assert their claims. Your characters will appear, so to speak, more in the round than formerly. You will forget some little details, though of course you will invent others even more telling; very well, those that you forget will be the real shadows, which will impart this superior roundness to your characters. Oh, there is nothing like literature! You shall have a little study on the second floor, quiet, austere, but not uncomfortable, where you shall reconstruct your great work undisturbed. It will undoubtedly be the choice of the Book Society, and I really don't see why we should not hope for the Hawthornden as well.»
By this time they were strolling along under the dozing trees, each of which was full-gorged with a large block of the day's heat, still undigested, and breathed spicily upon them as they passed below.
«We live quite near here,» said the enthusiast. «My wife will be delighted to make your acquaintance. You two are going to be great friends. Here is the house. It is small, but luckily it is of just the right period, and, as you see, we have the finest wisteria in London.» Saying this, he pushed open a little wooden gate, one of some half-dozen in a quiet cul-de-sac, which still preserved its Queen Anne serenity and charm. The gorilla, looking discontentedly at certain blocks of smart modern flats that towered up on either hand, said never a word.
The front garden was very small. It had flagstones, irises, and an amusing urn, overflowing with the smouldering red of geraniums, which burned in the velvet dark like the cigarette ends of the lesser gods.
«We have a larger patch behind,» said the young man, «where there is a grass plot, nicotianas, and deck chairs in the shade of a fig tree. Come in, my dear fellow, come in! Joanna, where are you? Here is our new friend.»
«I hope,» said the gorilla in a low voice, «you ain't given her the low-down on you know what.»
«No, no,» whispered his host. «I have kept our little secret. A gentleman from Africa, I said — who has genius.»
There was no time for more. Mrs. Grantly was descending the stairs. She was tall, with pale hair caught up in an unstudied knot behind, and a full-skirted gown which was artistic but not unfashionable.
«This is Ernest Simpson,» said her husband. «My dear, Mr. Simpson has written a book which is going to create more than a passing stir. Unfortunately he has lost the manuscript, but (what do you think?) he has consented to stay with us while he rewrites it. He has it all in his head.»
«How perfectly delightful!» cried Mrs. Grantly. «We live terribly simply here, I'm afraid, but at least you will be quiet. Will you wash your hands? There is a little supper waiting for us in the dining-room.»
The gorilla, not accustomed to being treated with so much consideration, took refuge in an almost sullen silence. During the meal he spoke mostly in monosyllables, and devoured a prodigious number of bananas, and his hostess, with teeth and eyes respectively.
The young couple were as delighted by their visitor as children with a new toy. «He is unquestionably dynamic, original, and full of that true simplicity which is perhaps the clearest hall-mark of genius,» said the young man when they were in bed together. «Did you notice him with the bananas?»
Mrs. Grantly folded her husband in her arms, which were delightfully long and round. «It will be wonderful,» she said. «How I look forward to the day when both your books are published! He must meet the Booles and the Terrys. What discussions you will have! How delightful life is, to those who care for art!» They gave each other a score of kisses, talked of the days when first they had met, and fell happily asleep.
In the morning there was a fine breakfast, with fruit juice, cereals, bacon and mushrooms, and the morning papers. The gorilla was shown his little study; he tried the chairs and the sofa, and looked at himself in the glass.
«Do you think you will be happy here?» asked Mr. Grantly very anxiously. «Is the room conducive to the right mood, do you think? There are cigarettes in that box; there's a lavatory across the landing. If you'd care to try a pipe, I have a tobacco jar I'll send up here. What about the desk? Is there everything on it that you'll require?»
«I shall manage. I shall manage,» said the gorilla, still looking at himself in the glass.
«If there's anything you want, don't hesitate to ring that bell,» said his host. «I've told the maids that you are now one of the family. I'm in the front room on the floor below if you want me. Well, I suppose you are burning to get to work. Till lunchtime, then!» And with that he took his leave of the gorilla, who continued to stare at himself in the glass.
When he was tired of t
his, which was not for some time, he ate a few of the cigarettes, opened all the drawers, had a look up the chimney, estimated the value of the furniture, exposed his teeth very abominably, scratched, and finally flung himself on the sofa and began to make his plans.
He was of that nature which sets down every disinterested civility as a sign of weakness. Moreover, he regarded his host as a ham novelist as well as a milksop, for he had not heard a single word about percentages since he entered the house. «A washout! A highbrow!» he said. «A guy like that giving the handout to a guy like me, eh? We'll soon alter that. The question is, how?»
This gorilla wanted suits of a very light grey, pearl tie-pins, a noticeable automobile, blondes, and the society of the boys. Nevertheless, his vanity itself was greedy, and snatched at every crumb; he was unable to resist the young man's enthusiasm for his nonexistent novel, and instead of seeking his fortune as a heavyweight pug, he convinced himself in good earnest that he was a writer, unjustly hindered by the patronage and fussing of a bloodsucking so-called intellectual. He turned the pages of half the books in the bookcase to see the sort of thing he should do, but found it rather hard to make a start. «This goddam place stifles me,» he said.
«What's your plot like?» said he to the young man, one day soon afterwards, when they were sitting in the shade of the fig tree.
Grantly was good enough to recite the whole of his plot. «It sounds very trifling,» he said, «but of course a lot depends on the style.»
«Style? Style, the hell!» observed the gorilla with a toothy sneer.
«I thought you'd say that!» cried his entertainer. «No doubt you have all the vitality that I so consciously lack. I imagine your work as being very close to the mainsprings of life, the sultry passions, the crude lusts, the vital urges, the stark, the raw, the dynamic, the essentially fecund and primitive.»
«That's it,» said the gorilla.
«The sentence,» continued the rhapsodist, «short to the point of curtness, attuned by a self-concealing art to the grunts, groans, and screams of women with great primeval paps, and men —»