No Laughing Matter

by Angus Wilson

  Jack leaned back, ‘Oh, my Gawd!’

  Mary, too, took a hand. ‘Horrid words, Marcus. I do think ideas must be judged a little by the words they breed.’

  Well then, Hansi, ‘Jack said,’ I’ll come to the studio this evening since you say you want them seen by electric light. You do mean that? All right. We could dine and go to the cinema or theatre first. Is there something you wish to see?’

  ‘What is there of Shakespeare?’

  Marcus saw that there was nothing for it but to accept the opportunity of recovering his temper that Jack and Mary had so civilizedly combined to offer him.

  He said: ‘Well, you could see my brother in Twelfth Night.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Markie. We couldn’t go to the Old Vie.’ When the lemur’s eyes grew round in question, Mary explained:

  ‘It’s all terribly earnest and unlovely.’

  ‘The décor!’ Jack cried, ‘They think it’s clever to do without colour or splendour.’

  ‘I think,’ Mary suggested, ‘it’s because they do it all on the cheap.’

  ‘Oh no, my dear, they like it like that. Like Heal’s furniture. Do you remember, Markie, we went to Othello, and it was dressed in vomit colour. Othello and Renaissance Venice, of all things! Oh, no, you’d hate it, Hansi. We could go to Nellie Wallace at the Bedford. Or there’s Duck Soup. Perhaps Nellie Wallace is a bit difficult for you, I think it had better be Harpo Marx.’

  ‘My God, you are snobbish,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Darling Marcus,’ Mary observed, ‘I don’t see why it’s snobbish to go to the things one likes.’

  But Marcus had left the tropical scene.

  *

  Under the thickly white-painted shell that surmounted the entrance to Kingsway Hall (was it classical? was it baroque? no, eclectic) there gathered the eclectic group of speakers selected to represent a wide cultural front of opposition to the growing Fascist tyrannies. Reg Smalley, the Chairman, Free Church guardian of civil liberties, had news for each in turn as they arrived, of the Government’s repressive Bill shortly to be before the House. ‘It’s Clause ten that we’ve got to concentrate on,’ he said to each as he met them. The two Trades Council men, the comrade from the Ex-Servicemen’s League Against Fascism, the Co-op Guild woman, and, of course, the Labour League of Lawyers worried and fought over the clause with Mr Smalley eagerly, as the pack dismembers the fox. Matthias Birnbaum stood aloof in metaphysical and artistic grandeur – the great foreign visitor observing the antics of the Pytchley or the Quorn. Margaret, no hunting woman, dangerously dressed indeed in fox furs, felt it her job, as fellow-writer and co-innocent, to bring life to the Olympian brow.

  ‘Not our happiest sort of architecture, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No? I suppose it’s the usual Jugendstil of its period.’

  So firm was his tone that Margaret looked around her. However, he was wrong; the building was not Art Nouveau, but argument did not appear likely to be fruitful.

  ‘Thomas Mann’s declaration was very inspiring.’

  ‘His declaration? Oh, his statement to the P.E.N. Club. You found that inspiring? He inspired also many patriotic German ladies in the Kaiser Time with his new democratic faith. But as a Jew I was not so happy with his nationalism then, so I remain a little bit sceptical now.’

  She had the impression that he counted the minutes of silence until he felt he had adequately reproved her.

  ‘On what will you speak this afternoon, Miss Matthews?’

  ‘Oh, the old business, just say a word or two about the writer’s inevitable commitment to freedom and his consequent implacable hatred of Fascism in any form. It’s mainly important that we should be seen to take a stand.’

  ‘Oh. What a great pity that John Galsworthy is not here to speak for the English writers. He was very much known and admired in Germany.’

  ‘Yes, I know. He wasn’t a very good novelist, you know.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But then the English novel is not an aesthetic novel, it is a social novel. The Forsyte Saga has great importance as the mirror of the British high bourgeoisie.’

  To her relief Rupert, in a green Tyrolean hat and a camel hair coat, brought some glitter of the stage to dispel Herr Birnbaum’s solemnity. But not for long. For even praise barely worked.

  ‘I can hardly tell you, Herr Birnbaum, how excited my children were that I was going to meet the author of The Goat Boy.’

  No relaxation, only grim: ‘Girl. The translation is very bad.’

  After a pause, Rupert, ‘Of course our great gain in the theatre from all this wickedness has been Reinhardt’s arrival.’

  ‘You admire him?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I was disappointed with his “Dream” at Oxford. I know it was undergraduates, but even so …’

  ‘Oh, what did you expect then?’

  Margaret could tell that Rupert found such questioning unfamiliar.

  ‘Well, the reports had been so…. One really thought, well here it is.’

  ‘Here is what.’

  ‘It’s rather a ridiculous expression, but what I mean is, the production was so old fashioned in the spectacular manner, almost Beerbohm Tree stuff. I saw no trace of genius …’

  ‘Oh, das Genie. That, Reinhardt has not. But I suppose he is more advanced than what you have here.’

  ‘That’s what our critics had led us to suppose …’

  ‘Oh! Your critics. I am right, isn’t it so? that they have no training in Dramaturgie.’

  Rupert withdrew his chin from his green and white spotted silk muffler. Sniffing the air he said:

  ‘Oh, none, I’m glad to say, none at all.’

  ‘We can’t wait for Q. J. Matthews.’ Reg Smalley’s voice broke in before the great man could react. ‘As people are arriving in good numbers I think we might repair to the vestry. We can go straight on to the platform from there.’

  Crowded into a small room of hideous yellow pitch-pine panelling, Rupert and Margaret stood disconsolately together like two flamingoes with their wings cut.

  ‘I have no training in Dramaturgie.’ Rupert was so much the awful Birnbaum and also the old Rupert imitating Germans in the nursery that she burst into a loud laugh. Everyone turned for a moment and stared.

  ‘Oh, blast! Quentin is going to be late. They won’t let him on the platform.’

  ‘My dear Mag, why on earth not?’

  ‘He’s in disgrace politically.’

  ‘Silly old ass!’

  ‘Well, do be very nice to him, Rupert. I’m sure he’s following his conscience’

  ‘Oh, good Heavens, yes.’ Rupert immediately looked stiff and pompous.

  At that moment Quentin, hatless, and wearing a filthy raincoat, pushed his way into the little room. His sister and brother made to greet him. He waved to them, but before they could reach him he was deep in the conclave about Clause Ten.

  ‘The man you want to lobby,’ they heard him say, ‘is Emrys Evans. Get him to ask questions. He’s a good lawyer and he hates Simon’s guts. Oh, it’s an old legal story.’

  Once more Rupert and Margaret huddled in dishevelled isolation.

  ‘I’m sorry I let you in for this, Rupert.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. I suppose one had to accept.’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Though I oughtn’t to, for I’m just in the middle of a new novel.’

  ‘It’s not going very well, is it?’

  ‘No. Oh, Rupert, do you mean you can still tell after all these years? And we never meet!’

  ‘Well, yes, actually I can, Mag. But your last was good.’

  ‘As good as I could make it. But your Malvolio. Raves, Rupert!’

  ‘Yes, I wish I …’

  ‘You’re not sure? I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I wish you would. If you said yes … Come tonight. I can get you a ticket.’

  Margaret only had time to mouth acceptance before Reg Smalley marshalled them all on to the platform.

  Marcus was late a
t Holborn Underground where he was to meet Jane Farquhar. She was furious, had a cold, looked like hell as they ran across the empty Saturday afternoon Kingsway through stinging, icy rain. When they got to the entrance ushers warned them they would have to stand at the back of the hall. A deep social instinct made Marcus greet the whole unfortunate, wet, rubber-smelling occasion by pointing out the thickly moulded shell ceiling.

  ‘Not the happiest use of baroque. Perhaps it would be wisest to excuse it by calling it eclectic’

  Jane Farquhar growled and contrived, as they squeezed their way into the packed crowd, to give off an even more pungent smell of wet mackintosh.

  She sneezed violently. On the tip of the nose of the young man on his other side hung a mucous stalactite; against Marcus’ ankles his trouser bottoms clung in cold, wet sogginess. The Chairman’s voice came through clouds of tobacco smoke and warm steam from the soaked clothing. What he said was difficult to hear, literally dampened, befogged, or else, Marcus thought, the fog was in his own head – no doubt the heavy beginnings of the pervasive head cold that threatened to bring a more complete unity to the meeting than anti-Fascist emotion. It was as though he was being compressed into the cheerless crowd like papier mâché, yet he had never felt more completely alone. He could see almost nothing in front of him except navy blue raincoats. The heroic flame that had burnt within him more fiercely each day since the Bermondsey battle flickered feebly in this watery world. All his desperate determination to fight approaching doom weakened into thoughts of evasion, into distaste for a last few months of peace spent in fruitless fumbling. It was all right for Jane Farquhar, her face set in militancy, for the stalactite young man, no doubt, but for…. He forced himself to listen and was rewarded with Margaret’s name (some clapping). Craning over the acres of wet wool and water he saw a dark haired, darkly anxious looking, befurred woman, conspicuously middle class in the setting, before he fully realized that it was Margaret. How middle-aged she looked, he thought; for all Douglas’s soothing and her steady stream of well received books she looked haggard, fidgety, as though something were biting her bottom. Now came Rupert’s name (some clapping) and he at once recognized that tall ageing (but it had been ageing in the nursery) blond splendour with an amused but affectionate admiration which only turned to embarrassment when he took in the awful stagey clothes – camel hair coat and suède shoes! No doubt he played Malvolio in the dressing gown he’d worn for Private Lives in repertory.

  ‘Margaret’ll be quite good, I expect, but I can’t think what dear Rupert will say,’ he told Jane. Speaking of his family, he talked in his usual loud, drawing-room voice. Heads turned towards him. Jane whispered, scowling:

  ‘It doesn’t matter what they say. The arts are always hopeless politically, but it’s very important that they should show solidarity.’

  He was quite familiar with these tactical considerations by now; but he had not until then associated them with Margaret’s arid honesty and Rupert’s talented blague. He would have found it easier to accept Jane’s ruling if he had not caught her looking around their neighbours to see how impressed they were by this familiarity with the platform. However, there was no mistaking the genuine delight of Jane, and of all, at Haldane’s name (clapping, calls and cheers). Beside this demonstration the applause for Matthias Birnbaum, though general, was formal. Nevertheless, unlike all the others, he rose from his chair – a lion surveying a group of Bank Holiday rubbernecks – tossed his mane and looked down his long, fleshy nose. A pride of lions, Marcus thought; and then, remembering a banker cousin of Jack’s, Jack’s physicist sister, he thought, and a disdain of Jews. How tiresome they could be! But now it was Q. J. Matthews and more barracking than applause. He could hardly glimpse Quentin at the other end of the platform, but something in his manner must have infuriated the audience – some pipe smoking smugness, no doubt – for there were cries of,’ Get off the platform!’ ‘Mosley’s man!’ ‘Trotskyite!’ and ‘Pouf!’

  ‘They’re quite wrong there,’ Marcus whispered to Jane, ‘He couldn’t be more normal. ‘Jane glared at him.’ Oh, I don’t defend him,’ Marcus went on, ‘He’s always been a show off. He would be a Trotskyist.’ Emboldened by the weak protestations of the Chairman, he shouted, ‘Trotskyist!’ loudly.

  Among the many protesting voices, he heard Margaret crying ‘Shame!’ and wondered if she were addressing him personally – she’d always taken Quentin at his own inflated estimate. Indeed the fuss and palaver on the platform was considerable as the barracking and counter protests from the audience grew. All that Marcus could see of Quentin were his crossed legs, but they appeared unperturbed, perhaps imperturbable. Now Reg Smalley was bending over Haldane in discussion and now Haldane passed a note down to a man who circulated it round the audience. A moment later the demonstration against Quentin was broken into by a small bald headed man in the body of the hall who shouted: ‘Free speech, comrades, free speech!’ ‘We may not all agree with Q. J. Matthews….’ Mr Smalley began, and from all parts of the hall came shouts of, ‘We don’t’ but here and there were cries of, ‘Free Speech. Let him have his say, comrades. Let him speak. Leave him alone. Unity, Unity,’ that in time subdued and at last drowned the cries of ‘Trotskyist P.O.U.M. Traitor.’ Marcus alone was left shouting abuse.

  ‘For God’s sake, shut up.’ Jane said.

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘Why should I?’ he asked.

  Impatience and annoyance made Jane speak plainly. ‘Because we’ve been told to.’

  Again Marcus stared at her. ‘My God!’ he said, then he let out a shrill ‘Traitor’.

  A tough red-faced Scotsman in front turned round menacingly. ‘Will you hush your noise, or will we have to throw you out?’ But before the man had made his rebuke Marcus was already gone.

  *

  Gladys had spent the morning first with her bank manager, then with an auctioneer, and now she set off for Herr Ahrendt’s determined to tell him the whole story. She could offer him £6,000 straightaway or within days; she would ask him to give her a month or two to meet the rest. For all the disquieting, shifting glance and clenched fist of their last meeting, Gladys thought of him coming to the door, his old Santa Claus self, the thin scholarly figure, the shy eyes, the courteous bow, the gentle smile. His difficulty would probably be to find a means of accepting her offer that wouldn’t appear too abrupt – he was a great seeker for the right phrases, a genuinely sensitive old thing. She imagined them exchanging compliments on a chilly doorstep and smiled to herself. She would have to push him into acceptance of the scheme or they’d be all day salaaming at one another. Whatever happened she mustn’t let him realize that in order to pay she would be penniless, temporarily of course, until Alf – but she would not even think of Alf, his name must not get involved. If she didn’t choose her words carefully the old boy would urge her to take her time; if anyone were to be kind to her, she might break down. She decided to try a light touch; not, of course, to make light of her own stupid wickedness, but somehow not to alarm the old boy or to encourage his pity. ‘Look,’ she would say, ‘I’ve been an abominable idiot. The story’s not a pleasant one, but if you’ll give me a little time, I can do the decent thing.’

  She had thought of the old pair as living poorly, but she was not prepared for such a collapsing house in such a mouldering terrace. Ever since she had emerged from the lift at Kilburn Station and walked up the hill towards West Hampstead the desolation, decay and squalor had made it hard for her to hold on to the image of Herr Ahrendt, the courteous, neat, civilized old gentleman. Indeed by the time she faced the broken bell-pull under which a grubby, ink smeared, card said ‘Ahrendt’, she had reinforced him with a dandyish yet scholarly touch – a neat little amber velvet smoking jacket, Turkey carpet slippers, a book (no, a pile of books) under his arm, and, could it be? a little old-fashioned tasselled smoking cap. No doubt his distinguished little brown head would look more soignée, more silky in his own home. Much care, much sleekness would be needed
if it were to counter the scabrously peeling stucco front with its green mossy looking patches, the draped lace curtains like dirty dish cloths, the uneven steps and broken balustrade, the blistered door, the dog mess by the empty unwashed milk bottles. Their little rooms would have to be very neat and cosy to overcome the atmosphere of this house, not only the old boy but his wife…. Of course, there was Mrs Ahrendt. Gladys decided she would not intrude on the sick room, their privacy must be very dear to them. She would just call a greeting, and, conspiring with looks and finger on lips, agree with Herr Ahrendt to a little lie that would satisfy an invalid’s anxious fears.

  Pointless to pull the rusty bell, best get down to banging on the door straightaway, but then she thought that just because they weren’t English that didn’t mean this wasn’t their castle – the more to be treated so since they were old, poor and in exile. The bell when touched lightly clanged furiously, enough to waken any dead. It did, in fact, rouse a sharp featured harridan on the top floor to throw up her window and bawl as no dead could have done. After that window had banged down again Gladys could hear a shuffling coming towards her from behind the door. A slow shuffling – but at last the door opened and a drawn white face as wrinkled as a parrot’s peered at her. The eyes, too, were parrot’s eyes, hooded, small and suspicious. From the bent old body came a stale, sour smell that made her recoil.

  ‘I am Miss Matthews.’

  As though presenting a note for teacher she found herself holding out the envelope in which she had put a cheque for the three thousand pounds immediately available.

  ‘Is that the money? You should have consulted us before you sold. I own that picture, you know. It belonged to my uncle. But never mind, Hermann has been foolish, but …’ The old creature had opened the letter by now. She held out the cheque, having peered at it angrily, ‘What is this? What does it mean?’

  ‘I wanted to explain to Mr Ahrendt …’

  ‘Explain to me. What does it mean?’