No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  There was one chap, Markie, who couldn’t write at all. I’d told them to put their names, numbers, and platoons on the top right hand corner of the test paper. His was a total blank. Of course the Colonel fumed and created hell. The chap had been sent back for special instruction. Probably the company commander had got the bumph just as they were going up the line and so he recommended the first name he could. And the chap didn’t say anything, he wasn’t going to refuse a Blighty leave, why should he? But the Colonel felt he’d been made a fool of. We want officer material here, Matthews, and they send us cannon fodder. So the chap was packed off back to France. With luck he’d have missed a spell of front line duty. Something he said stuck with me though. He was talking to a group of other duds before they entrained. They were standing there in the great court of Trinity with the sun shining on the russet brick and grey stone, and the fountain sparkling, and some spring flowers or other in the beds. I shouldn’t think most of them knew where they were or noticed, for that matter. Just another kip and a place to booze in. Across the yard came two or three dons in their gowns and mortarboards. And this chap said in his country accent – Somerset or Devon, I should think – Look at they rooks. Then he pointed to that figure over the great doorway – Henry the Eighth or whatever it is. Oh, no use putting up scarecrows. Rooks don’t scare easy if they’ve found a tidy field of barley or oats. And I don’t reckon there’s a better field of oats than this in all the bloomin ‘land. It was the relating of one experience to the other that struck me as much as the fresh country language. The Colonel couldn’t have done it to save his thick red neck. But the man couldn’t write his name so he was cannon fodder. I knew then what I wanted to do when the great day came. Don’t think I’m sentimental. They must all be given a trial, but of course many will never profit from it. The half literates are usually no good. There was one chap in that very intake. He could write his name all right but after that he’d written a lot of nonsense – fittoon, footoon, fotoon, fatoon and God knows what. Trying to write platoon I suppose. I should have thought that was original enough, Marcus said. But Quentin, having made his testimony, had returned to workers’ representation in socialized industry. Marcus painted fittoon and fottoon in green and then interwove them with fattoon and futtoon in purple, then with black India ink he wrote beneath these strange words, ‘on foot’, ‘on fat foot’, ‘on hot fat foot’, ‘on hot fat foot in India’. But at last he wrote again fottoon, foottoon, fittoon, fattoon and he liked them better, with their suggestion of baboons and spittoons and feet and fits that needed no overt expression. Looking at his brother so solemnly intent on crocodile slime, he felt quite sure that of the few who would ever see what was new, he himself would be one. He laughed with sheer pleasure at this certainty.

  Gladys laughed as Billy Pop folded the two five pound notes and placed them in his waistcoat pocket. He hummed a few bars of Chu Chin Chow. He smiled a warm, humorous smile at her before he left her room. And people say that Micawber’s an impossible character. They haven’t met me, you know. I always believe that something will turn up. And it usually does! When his observation drew no laugh from her, he looked to see if at least it had angered her, but she was staring at the wall, smiling and apparently entirely forgetful of his presence. He hummed more jauntily and went away. For a moment his parting steps brought her back from Alfred’s kisses, from the tip of his tongue tickling an entrance between her lips, but only for a moment.

  ‘What you get out of it anyway? Kids! When Emmie had her second they had to crush its head with the forceps, it was either her or him and they took away four pints of blood. Old Harry Tate’s got the proper word for that – very nice I don’t think. Oh, you’d soon be sick of them. Nappies, rubber teats, and up every night like they was with Master Marcus bedwetting and sleepwalking. I don’t think I should, Regan, I’m very used to it. How does Marcus get these huge holes in his football socks? To hear him you’d never think he moved an inch on the field. Ah, you put a good face on it becos you don’t want to see things untidy, but you don’t like it? Like it? Of course I don’t like it, but it’s got to be done. Look at these cuffs of Rupert’s, somebody’s got to turn them. And anyway it wouldn’t be the same. They’d be my own children. And the man I loved would have given them to me. Well, fancy you to talk like that, Miss Sukey. Still waters run deep, eh? But still what’s marriage? I was a MUG. Oh, Regan, how absurd you are, every woman, every natural woman anyway wants a husband and children. Oh I didn’t mean, I didn’t…. You think I’ve never had me chances. Well you’re wrong. There was a Canadian come after me. French he was. Well I’ve always had a taste for a bit of oolala after Monser Jooles. And then me cookin the French way drew him I expect. Anyway he was all right – to look at I mean and he was well supplied where it matters. But … well, she asked me not to, warned me against him. I’d be ungrateful she said, after they’d took me in without a reference. Mrs Marshall wouldn’t give it on account of the drinkin. Where’d I be she said, if it wasn’t for them? So I promised. And now I’m past it. I didn’t like tellin him though. But there you are I expect she was right. There were hundreds let down by them Canadians and Aussies. There was I waitin at the church, waitin at the church.

  And when he fancied he was past love, it was then he met his last love, and he loved her better ever than before. I suppose you will one day, dear boy. Will what, Countess? Meet your last love. You can’t just have an old mother, you know, to grace the end of your table when you’re rich and famous. But do choose someone with style, darling. A woman can make or mar her husband’s career. I’ve thought about that. I don’t believe it would do unless she was professional too. Marry a professional! Well you’ve started all right. Bringing that tart what’s her name home here. I could see at once what she was. And if I’d turned my back for a minute you’d have had her up in your bedroom. You’ve begun your filthy tricks early. She’s not to come here again, Rupert, do you understand? She’s not to come here again. I won’t have filthy harlots in the house. I’ve been so careful to bring up the twins as happy, healthy minded girls. And Marcus is only a boy. She’s not to come here again, do you understand? Oh shut up, you silly strumpet! You’ve paraded your cheap adulteries in front of your children until…. If you do that again, I’ll smack your face, Countess, and I can hit harder than you. Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve hit your mother. Yes, and if my father had done it long ago…. Leave me alone, how dare you? You’re hurting my arm, Rupert, you’ve hurt me. Go up to your room. I don’t want ever to speak to you again. I’m not pretending either. You’ve horrified me. Oh, wonderful son to astonish such a mother. For I have astonished you, haven’t I, Mother? I was pretending, you see. Perhaps you’ll believe me now that I can be an actor. I believe that you can be a rough, foul mouthed lout. I’ll tell you this, Rupert, you’ll go on the stage and you’ll fail. You smell of failure like your father, with all your sloppy good looks and your weak mouth and your chocolate box smile. They’ll throw things at you and I hope they throw them hard.

  ‘Elizabeth rejoined her sister in the sewing room. Jane looked up for a moment from her book. “Were they throwing things, Liz, or was it only nasty words?” “Nasty words. Of course, they stepped them up for my benefit.” “But you didn’t show, darling, I hope?” “Of course not.” From below their mother’s laugh came, a jangling treble scale. “Oh dear, hysteria.” But now there followed their father’s raucous bellow. “They can’t both….” “But what….” “I think,” said Elizabeth, “that perhaps they’re laughing at me.” “Oh, Liz! you’ve brought them together. You’re a little healer. A go-between. A peacemaker.” Jane commenced that series of gulping sounds which always evidenced her delight at her own occasional sharpnesses, and soon Elizabeth, in recollection of so many previous occasions of Jane’s self-delight, began to laugh also. Their giggles punctuated the laughter of their parents. A child of ten might have guessed that it was a happy home.’ Margaret wrote the last sentence with care and satisfaction, then
she read the whole passage over. It was the final sentence that gave shape, of course; and yet the shape irked her. All the patterns of conflict and cohesion were present in the laughter. The last sentence was the master stroke, was herself scoring. She flushed red at the thought, erased the sentence and sat back. For the first time for months she felt contented.

  The front door bell rang. Regan, hearing it, said, ‘About time. We don’t want the ducks dried up.’ ‘Oh dear, Regan,’ Sukey cried, remembering the hour and the importance to it of well fed old girls, ‘You must put them into a cooler oven. We can’t have anything go wrong.’

  Billy Pop, hearing the bell’s tone and remembering all that depended on his mother’s amiability, gave himself another sherry. ‘I am Chu Chin Chow from China,’ he bawled. Gladys thought, of course I was right to lend, and if it comes to a battle I shall tell the old girls about it. Quentin had said war’s foul; but Alfred: war’s a bad business, old girl. And there’s only one rule – make sure you win. Quentin looking up, said ‘Beginners please,’ and Marcus answered: ‘Five minutes please. How lucky that Rupert has told us all about the rules of the theatre.’ The Countess seized a new music sheet from the piano top. ‘I left my love in Avalon,’ she sang. ‘Have I got the ragtime rhythm right, dear boy?’ ‘Yes, Contessa, darling. And sailed the sea,’ sang Rupert.

  The bell rang again. ‘Whatever it is, Elizabeth Carmichael thought, whatever it is that’s coming – a sudden fortune from an unknown uncle in Johannesburg, a mysterious letter from an unknown quarter, a fair young man from next door, a dark young man from over the sea – I’m open to it.’ Exulting, Margaret reached the bottom step, crossed the hall, opened the front door. There was Mouse – in her pepper-and-salt tailor made, a severe tricorne pulled down over her pepper-and-salt hair.

  ‘How ever long have you been there, Aunt Mouse?’

  ‘My dear Margaret, when you get to my age you’ll cease to count the minutes. In any case,’ she kissed her great-niece, ‘it’s your job to keep time, not mine. How is the dancing?’

  ‘There’s so much noise I didn’t hear the bell.’

  Indeed the cacophony of voices raised in song appeared to overwhelm Miss Rickard a little, for she stepped back from the front door. A gust of wind blew among the green feathers of the parrot that sat on her shoulder and set it shrieking.

  ‘Hush, Mr Poll, don’t you add to the noise. At least one can make no mistake about it’s being a happy home.’ She set her lips in a twisted, ironic smile.

  THE FAMILY SUNDAY PLAY

  ACT 1

  The first floor drawing-room of MRS WILLIAM MATTHEWS JUNIOR at No. 52 Gillbrook Street, London S.W.1. Left a fireplace with coal fire burning; right a door leads on to landing and staircase; back stage casement windows with curtains (through which a revolving light may show the falling leaves of late autumn, swirling in the high wind). A deep sofa and two deep armchairs in flowered cretonne, with many cushions, round and sausage shaped in bright primary colours; a pouffe in the same cretonne; two or three Victorian imitation Hepplewhite chairs and two Victorian imitation Louis Seize tables on which are black bowls and Wedgwood blue jugs filled with bronze and yellow chrysanthemums; a rose pink Wilton carpet; at one end of the chimneypiece a late Dresden figure of a shepherd with a goat and at the other a shepherdess with a lamb; in the centre a pewter mug filled with cape gooseberries and honesty pods. A grand piano on which a white Spanish shawl with red and green embroidered roses and on this some silver framed photographs and a china bowl containing potpourri. At the piano MRS MATTHEWS is seated on a piano stool playing and singing, ‘I left my love in Avalon’. She is a slim, dark, gipsy-like woman in her late forties smartly dressed in a blue gaberdine coatfrock with patent leather appliqué and a toque made of artificial violets. Beside her, facing upstage, is her nineteen year old son, RUPERT, tall, handsome and fair-haired (young man’s lounge suit of the period). He joins her in the song, both are almost guying the rag-time rhythm, and their gaiety becomes more hectic as the sound of voices and steps outside the door grows nearer. It is clear they have recently been quarrelling violently and are now putting on a show for visitors. The door opens and MARGARET MATTHEWS, a tall girl of seventeen, with dark untidy hair and a general air of having ‘come down to earth’ somewhat uncomfortably (a testing air for the young actress to assume) enters with MOUSE, an elderly woman of sixty-five or so dressed in a rather manishly cut grey tweed skirt and coat and a tricorne hat. On her shoulder is perched a green Amazon parrot.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: Should I vamp here, dear boy?

  MOUSE: I have never known her to do anything else when men were about, Rupert.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: Mouse! Really! Before my own children! But how lovely to see you, darling! It’s so nice that you’ve been able to spare time for us before you go off again. Where is it this time? Patagonia?

  MOUSE: No. Nothing so exotic. Just Constantinople. Though after being cooped up for nearly five miserable war years in this overcrowded island I should be perfectly justified in seeking the Kalahari desert. But my desert days are over. The small taste of Tunis after the Armistice told me that. Keep to the tourist beaten tracks from now on.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: I don’t believe it for a moment. And I’m sure Mr Polly looks as though he could cross the Sahara unaided. Would I be wrong, or has he lost a few feathers on top?

  MOUSE: Wrong. I’m the only one that’s going bald. Well, Mag, you haven’t answered my first question. How’s the dancing?

  MARGARET: My left foot is less painful than the right, Aunt Mouse. Somehow the little boys of Claremont School seem to tread on it less often.

  MOUSE: Little boys? What little boys?

  MARGARET: The boys of Claremont Preparatory School. They come to Miss Lamont’s for dancing class each Saturday morning.

  MOUSE: You don’t mean to say Miss Lamont …

  MRS MATTHEWS junior [interrupting]: And of course, as you may suppose, Mouse, all the little boys are desperately in love with our Mag. Notes and billets doux and, no doubt, a bunch of roses from the head prefect. The stems a little sticky from the sticky little fingers but no less a genuine offering of love. Oh! I can imagine it all.

  MARGARET: You do.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior [more desperately interrupting, sings, playing the little tune on the piano]: Sir, she said. Sir, she said. Your face is your fortune, my pretty maid. [She breaks off singing and rattles on in speech.] But your feet are your fortune, Mag. Well, of course, seventeen can hardly be expected to care about the broken hearts of thirteen year olds. She wants to break older hearts, Mouse. I tell her that if she would get out of these old maids’ browns and greys [RUPERT smiles] – No, I know what I’m saying, Rupert. I don’t make gaffes so easily. Mouse chose the single state. That’s not old maidish, it’s just being less foolish than other women. But don’t you think, Mouse, if she wore warmer colours? She’s got beautiful eyes. You have, Mag, but you don’t give them a showing.

  MOUSE: Warmer colours won’t help her feet. Her feet are the source of her art, Clara. Like a painter’s eyes.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: I don’t agree with you at all, Mouse. If Mag has one really good feature – and everybody has one – it’s her eyes.

  MOUSE: If she lets her feet get misshapen, she won’t get a showing anywhere. What can Miss Lamont be about, letting a ballet dancer …

  MARGARET: It’s been decided that I shouldn’t go on with ballet …

  MOUSE: Decided? Who’s decided? What do you mean decided?

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: What indeed? Nothing’s decided, Margaret. You know that.

  MARGARET: Well, the action’s been taken without decision.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: Action? That’s just what we need. All this can be discussed later, but at the moment poor Mouse is dying for a glass of sherry. Take some action, Rupert. Stir your stumps. You’re not there just for your beauty. What do you think this ridiculous boy wants to do, Mouse? Go on the stage! And with a wonderful business career ahea
d of him!

  MOUSE: One thing at a time, please, Clara. What’s this about Margaret giving up ballet? Why haven’t I been told?

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: My dear Mouse, the girl’s whole future is hardly something one could discuss through Coutts’ Bank and the camel post, is it? If you will go to the ends of the earth…. I intended to have a good long chat with you this afternoon. About that and all sorts of other things that just wouldn’t do in letters.

  MOUSE: You could find time to write about your own money difficulties, Clara.

  MRS MATTHEWS junior: They were very pressing, Mouse. I hope everyone’s not going to bully me. Today’s not a very easy day for me, Mouse. You understand, dear boy, don’t you. Well then, do something. If Mouse doesn’t want a sherry, I want a cocktail. Mix me a Bronx like Milton showed you. Oh, we’ve been so American, Mouse, these last months. [Playing and singing feverishly.] But it’s all quite over over here. Oh well. Oh, Rupert, do something. Act, dear boy. Now’s your chance to show us. Prove you can act.