No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  ‘If Clara had been anything of a wife to him …’

  ‘She’d have let him land her with twelve unwanted children instead of six.’

  ‘She’s not been unwilling to grant her favours elsewhere if these terrible stories are true.’

  ‘My dear woman, would you give yourself happily to a jellyfish?’

  ‘It’s easy to see why she has no morals, no warmth.’

  ‘And he no stamina, no will. Your will-less Will!’ MISS MARGARET MOUSE laughed dry sand in GRANNY SUKEY’s face, who replied, ‘How can you laugh at such a time, you godless suffragette?’ And now the two old beldames had come to hair pulling and slaps.

  ‘One expects no better than brawling from Mrs Pankhurst’s crew.’

  ‘You ignorant woman!… Oh dear,’ Margaret broke away, panting, ‘What is that name Mouse is always boasting? Her leader! Some dowdy old battleaxe. Oh, I know, Mrs Fawcett….’ She engaged in physical battle once more. ‘You ignorant woman, my leader was Mrs Fawcett. We never used violence.’ But whether because of Margaret’s momentary fluffing of her lines or because he was impatient to take the stage again, MARCUS THE COUNTESS lay back across the nursery table, egret-duster flopping over one eye, long bead necklace flying wide. ‘Don’t force it Billah, for God’s sake don’t force it,’ she shrieked. And, as though from a long way off, from memories of some half forgotten game, RUPERT THE BILLY POP said sadly, bewilderedly, ‘I don’t know any other way of doing it, my dear.’

  For a good two minutes there was silence, then Quentin catching Gladys ‘eye, took brisk control. MR JUSTICE SCALES said:’ All five accused are charged with deceit, with bad faith, with cruelty and with negligence. In addition the defendants the Countess and Billy Pop are accused of being accessories to the crime of murder. The defendant Regan is charged with murder. What have you got to say in your defence?’

  MARCUS THE COUNTESS smoothed upon her thin white arms a pair of elbow length white kid gloves and turned her head to look haughtily at the judge over her shoulder. She said, ‘Guilty to producing a generation of horrible little prigs.’ He added, ‘Am I a ci-devant comtesse, now, Quentin?’ To which Quentin, warming up, finding a childish desire to emulate, answered, ringing his Fouquier-Tinville bell, ‘Who slanders the younger generation with opprobrious epithets attacks the principles of the Revolution. You condemn yourself, Citizeness.’

  ‘I am an old man,’ RUPERT THE BILLY POP said, ‘a very old man, my lord, a very old writing man. I played for Thirsty Scribblers against the Cheshire Cheese Chaps, an annual village green shandygaff fixture, in ‘06. Even then I was out for a duck.’

  ‘Age and incompetence were the pleas of Methuen, Moltke, Von Falkenhaym, Joffre and Fisher in a greater crime than yours. The plea is insufficient.’

  ‘I was poor but I was honest. And when I wasn’t it was because it slipped out of me ands like,’ said REGAN THE PODGE, attempting a ridiculous handspring and falling bump, bump on her you know where.

  ‘A plea of diminished responsibility is accepted. In seeking to cling to it you are your own class’s worst enemy.’

  ‘I’m sure I was only looking after my poor little Pom.’

  ‘A dog in a manger attitude. A nice thing for a respectable Churchwoman, monthly communicant at Saint John the Evangelist, Ladbroke Square, to put such an animal in that holy birthplace. Guilty.’

  ‘I am in no way morally obliged to sustain the younger generation in sentimental illusions. That the wretched animals were subsequently drowned in an amateurish fashion only shows the good sense of my recommendation that they should be disposed of by a professional veterinary surgeon.’

  ‘Real polly talk! A mouse should be careful how glibly she disposes of cats. Guilty. I find,’ he added, ‘none of these justificatory pleas adequate. Have you got anything more general to urge in your defence?’

  ‘He understood once when I was frightened of the dark after Regan had been telling stories of Jack the Ripper. When I screamed She came and smacked me, but He rebuked Her and carried me down to His study in a blanket, set me before the fire, fed me with the ginger sticks out of the tin of Edinburgh Rock.’

  ‘Why,’ asked THE JUDGE, ‘did you do this apparent kindness to your youngest?’

  RUPERT THE BILLY POP seemed quite bemused by the question. He hummed and ha-ed – a kind of noise that few men produced so exactly. ‘It was concerned for the little lad. Literary man,’ he said, ‘more imagination than Woman. God bless her. I’ve written one or two ghost stories, they’re not perhaps my finest. Unmarketed in fact But…’

  ‘Will hated to be alone as a little boy. We never left him,’ said GRANNY SUKEY.

  ‘Ha,’ commented THE JUDGE.

  ‘Getting back at is old trouble. That’s what it was,’ Regan THE Podge cried. ‘I know im. Men are all the same. Just like our old man. Use us any time it suited im.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Marcus, ‘He needn’t have given me the ginger sticks. He likes them himself. I know because he usually wolfs them down and leaves the horrible strawberry ones.’

  ‘The plea is dubious,’ said THE JUDGE.

  ‘She knew when I first got fat how much I minded. He wanted me to go on with the tennis lessons altho’ I knew I was no longer any good and that people laughed. She cancelled the lessons and took me to San Toy instead.’

  ‘Explain your unexpected kindness to your elder daughter.’ The Judge said.

  MARCUS THE COUNTESS laughed harshly. ‘I had no intention of letting Billy waste the money just to show off at his club.’

  But MISS MARGARET MOUSE intervened. ‘Clara was a much shyer girl than you would think. Perhaps I made her do things on her own too much as a girl. But I’ve always believed that shyness must be overcome. Perhaps she was thinking of her own girlhood.’

  ‘A sort of transferred egoism,’ said THE JUDGE.

  ‘But she needn’t have taken me to San Toy,’ said Gladys.

  ‘Did you want to go?’

  ‘Well, not very much, but it was nice when we got there,’

  ‘Another dubious plea.’

  ‘When I played Wolsey at school She forgot the afternoon and He arrived late and squiffy. But the old lady came in time and applauded and prevented Him making a fool of Himself in front of the House. And she gave Him a terrific talking to afterwards.’

  Here JUDGE SCALES rang his bell furiously. ‘I cannot accept any of these exceptional, quixotic and inexplicable acts as pleas. They run contrary to the well known personalities of the defendants. We’re concerned with general influences and overall trends in judging our elders. In any case these are your children’s memories, not your own. You have filched enough from them already without barefaced robbery in the court.’

  His words left them bewildered, then RUPERT THE BILLY POP said, ‘Only today we offered our children advice, valuable advice for life’s journey ahead. I seem to remember that your mother said, Marry. She addressed her advice to the girls. The Lord save us from spinsters. But I invite you, my boys, to come with me to my club and watch the bachelors sitting there spinning out the hours, holding on to us luckier fellows like so many ancient mariners with their glittering eyes. No, God forbid! Marry, all of you, marry!’ At which MARCUS THE COUNTESS put her hand on his arm in silent thanks for this tribute to her wifely virtues, and then, smiling slyly, lisped, ‘But, Oh, Billy, do see that they marry well.’

  Rupert whispering in Quentin’s ear, the latter banged on the table and called, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you your own, your only, your oonique Rupert Matthews. ‘At which Rupert, tripping across the room, seeming all feet and no body, sang,’ Cash in the bank she said she’d plenty, I was a MUG.’

  ‘But,’ continued RUPERT THE BILLY POP, ‘it was the companionship, the often laughed at but the very real comradeship of marriage that I particularly stressed as the real staff for you children to lean upon in life’s uphill journey.’

  ‘If you please, Mr Chairman,’ said Rupert. And as Quentin banged once more upon th
e table, Rupert the incomparable coster, white silk choker round his neck, billycock set jauntily on his head, waltzed with arms folded towards his dear old Dutch. ‘We’ve been together now for forty years, and it dont seem a day too much (bowing to her) There aint a lady livin in the land as I’d swop for my dear old Dutch.’

  His Lady making him an awkward curtsey, he trips her up and smacks her bottom. He then goes off singing, ‘My word, if I catch you bending, my word, if I catch you bending.’

  To recover the proceedings from yet another of these marital knockabouts that seemed to threaten all orderliness, The Judge reminded the court that not all the advice they had received had been parental. At which RUPERT THE BILLY POP, seemingly irrepressible, intervened once more, ‘Ah, no!’ he said, ‘My dear old mother gave you her bit of wisdom. God bless her! True to the good old days and the good old ways as usual, she told you, if I remember rightly to cultivate a sense of the past.’

  At which GRANNY SUKEY, settling her hearthrug sables round her shoulders and spraying the room as her teeth rushed forward cheerfully to correct him, said, ‘Not too serious, of course. Just remembering all the funny family things.’

  This time, before Quentin could bang upon the table, in came Rupert the Wrecker carrying a small stepladder and a pot of paste, and after him his mate Ghastly Gladys with a roll of paper, and My Mate Marcus with a broom. After some screamingly funny acrobatics and some witty backchat, they joined together in chorus – ‘When Father papered the parlour …’

  But now MISS MARGARET MOUSE claimed their attention. ‘In all this welter of comic sentimentalism may I pour just a little cold water to restore a little common sense. If you remember I urged self-reliance upon you children. You would have done better to have taken notice of what I said.’

  THE JUDGE allowed himself a comment here. ‘At least you took good care by your subsequent action to see that we could not rely on you,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘You have to look after yourself in this world,’ MISS MARGARET MOUSE said, ‘for no one else will.’

  And in cakewalked Ragtime Rupert, straw boater all ajaunt, playing upon his old ukelele cane. ‘I love me, I love me, I’m wild about myself. I wrote myself a letter …’

  Self-reliance,’ said MISS MARGARET MOUSE acidly, ‘is not always self-love.’

  So Rupert the Baritone threw aside his boater and his cane, and thunderingly gave it to them: ‘The top of the hill hasn’t room for two, be sure the one that gets there must be you.’

  MARCUS THE COUNTESS smiled. ‘Yes, darlings, and who was the one who pointed out that self wasn’t quite enough? Your cynical old mother. Responsibility for others, for …’

  ‘For your own dear self,’ said RUPERT THE BILLY POP, ‘that was what I advised them. As some little return for all you have done.’ And in a second, putting on his bowler hat again, he was Rupert the Cheeky Chappie (a prophetic role at that date). ‘And now I’m in the money, and I’ve lots of LSD, I’m looking after my old mum as she looked after me.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said THE JUDGE, ‘that only Regan had no advice to offer us.’

  ‘Most proper. Knows her place,’ GRANNY SUKEY smiled benevolently. ‘Her broad wisdom learnt in the school of the streets,’ said RUPERT THE BILLY POP, ‘needs no words to express itself.’

  ‘To expect advice from a servant owed wages,’ began MISS MARGARET MOUSE, but Marcus was whispering in Gladys’ ear. And now REGAN THE PODGE rolled forward. ‘I’ve got me little word to say. It was master Markie I give it to. I’m careful who I talk to in this ouse. But between these four walls, ere it is for the lot of you. Keep away from the muck. Get to know the upper tens. Get yourselves asked to their ouses. All them weekend goins on.’ Broadly she winked at them.

  MARCUS THE COUNTESS laughed delightedly. ‘Adorable, delicious Regan,’ she cried,’ of course she would be the one to teach us. She’s right, my dears, she’s right. Go for the fun and the beauty in life and let all the solemn duties fit in where they can.’

  And now at a signal from MR JUSTICE SCALES (their own their ownerly Chairman and MC, acting Major Quentin Matthews, wounded but without the MC) she played at an invisible piano and Rupert the Lothario all whiskers, light tenor and a smile’s caress, sang to his Bohemian girl, ‘I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls with vassals and serfs at my side.’

  When the singing faded away, Regan the Podge could be seen polishing the floor. Sweat pouring from her, she looked up at the company. ‘Doin the floors is fersty work. Wot about a pint of wallop?’

  ‘The advice – such as it is – offered by the defendants is accepted,’ said THE JUDGE, ‘in mitigation of their actions. But we also note the comment on that advice offered by the musical reflections for which we were particularly indebted to that fine old favourite of the Halls, Mr Rupert Matthews. Before I deliver judgement, I shall retire for a moment in the approved fashion.’

  It was notable that in THE JUDGE’S short absence a marked bifurcation of personalities occurred. MARCUS THE COUNTESS said, ‘Give me a gasper, Billy.’ But when RUPERT THE BILLY POP presented his silver cigarette case, Gladys intervened, ‘He’s not to, Rupert.’ Meanwhile Margaret, asserting her Mousehood, got away with smoking, though only by forcing an unwilling Sukey into the act, who with natural giggles and little puffs miraculously produced a perfect Granny Sukey coy exhalation. ‘Oh I don’t know if I ought, but after all one’s only on trial once in one’s life’ – ‘How lucky you are, Mrs Matthews, most of us have been on trial all our lives,’ said MISS MARGARET MOUSE, as, old campaigner and rough sleeper out, she smoked a Wild Woodbine from a battered old square tin just like the Tommies in the trenches.

  ‘Oh God!’ said MARCUS THE COUNTESS, ‘I wish there was some fun, some gaietah, some beutah in meh life.’ Then Marcus, putting aside his pencil cigarette-holder, helped himself to three toffees from the Mackintosh tin. Cheeks bulged, words swallowed, he said, ‘I must say, Quentin makes the game pretty grim. He’s so solemn.’ Gladys looked shocked. REGAN THE PODGE, said, ‘I’ll catch you one over the lug ole if you’re narky about the Judge, me lad.’ Gladys added, ‘Surely you’re not too young to realize how much Quentin is doing for us all these days.’ ‘Yes,’ said Rupert, ‘Put a sock in it, bedwetter. And put your shirt on properly. Actually,’ he added, ‘I should think it’s jolly bad for you pretending to be a woman.’

  MARCUS THE COUNTESS said, ‘You cad, you’re twistin mah wrist,’ whereat RUPERT THE BILLY POP, twirling imaginary moustaches and grinding his teeth cried, ‘Ho, ho, my pretty maiden, I have you in my power.’

  ‘Have you ever heard the Billy Pop trying to imitate?’ Rupert asked, ‘It’s absolutely putrid.’

  The flushing of the water next door caused Margaret to remark, ‘I can’t think what happens to prisoners when they’re taken short, can you?’

  But GRANNY SUKEY beaming, said, ‘The dear boy. He’s always so regular. That’s Ladbroke Grove training.’

  So that when Quentin opened the door they were all in fits of giggles. ‘I shall now pronounce sentence,’ he said as he sat down. The five accused trembled and shook until their teeth chattered. MARCUS THE COUNTESS, lovely white arms outstretched, went down on her knees and cried, ‘Remember you once loved me, D’Artagnan.’

  But all was to no avail. ‘I thought,’ said THE JUDGE, and it could be seen from his manner that he did not intend to forgo any part of his role, ‘I thought ‘I when I retired that I should have to condemn you as a generation, or rather as two generations, indeed as all the older generations, perhaps as the embodiment of accumulated history. You are, after all, all we know of the past. It’s you who’ve put us in the soup and don’t seem prepared to help us out of it for fear of scalding your fingers. Not to put any pretence upon it, you are a guilty lot. But as in my moments of retirement I reflected, I soon saw that this business of generations just would not do. Here we have a system and a class in decay. Granny, you with your large annuity, your servants, your house property …’

  Su
key said to Margaret, ‘Miss Lampson wanted me to wait on customers on Thursday. I may be an apprentice teacher, but I drew the line there.’

  ‘… And Aunt Mouse,’ THE JUDGE was saying, ‘is just as much part of the system. She may go to Kamchatka or Tierra del Fuego but she only does so on what she inherited…. And with her non-violent tactics, what will she do with her vote? Why, vote for her gilt-edged, of course, or the occasional safe gamble like …’

  Margaret said, ‘Penelope Skinner gets relief by bathing them in boiling water and washing soda when she gets home, but it’s so hard to tell whether they were always rough looking or whether it’s the soda that’s doing it …’

  ‘… As to Regan, she’s a pitiful victim of the system, but now so pitiful that it’s hard to imagine the system without her. She flatters our…’

  Gladys frowned hard in order to appear to give adequate weight to her brother’s words. She thought, if I took six guineas out it wouldn’t be a lot and I could buy that black taffeta evening dress for when we go to the dinner dance at Maidenhead, but then probably Alf would say I was dressing old just to fit in with him. But the white does make me look a size!

  ‘… As to our dear parents, they have been entirely destroyed by the economic system in which they have been brought up. They have learned to expect its benefits automatically. Some greater emancipation of women might have allowed Mother …’