The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  Pym had forgotten his lamb’s wool and his barbed wire. He yearned for one glimpse of these people’s faces as some men yearn for women, drink, or drugs. There were no mirrors in the Dive Bar, so he swallowed his beer and went back for another. While the barman, with his sullen air of injured innocence, was drawing it, Pym turned, leaning back nonchalantly on the bar, and looked. Thomas Paine Sherwood, whose real name was Sedley Pryor, was sitting with his back to the wall. He was beautifully dressed in brown. There was a fascinating careless elegance about the man—a certain premeditated looseness of tie and collar suggestive of the fine arts. He was almost—not quite—the man Pym had met in the police court. Then he had the air of an easy-going businessman on holiday. Now a casual observer in the know would have put Sherwood down as a publisher, or as the proprietor of an unconventional but highly prosperous art gallery. On his right sat a man dressed all in black—a tiny man with a big bare head, heavy eyebrows, and fat V-shaped lips which he constantly sucked into his mouth, tasted and pushed out again with an affectionate lick of a thick brown tongue. On Sherwood’s left, nearest to where Pym had been sitting, sat the foreigner, a woman who wore a starched collar and a black tie. She had close-cropped woolly red hair and, although her face had the coarse, dirty whiteness of a neglected bath tub, she reminded Pym of a negro witch-doctor. Something about her compelled him also to think of a bit of gristly fibre out of which all the goodness had been chewed, spat out by a glutton with bad table manners. She was drinking lager beer. Sherwood had a glass of whisky. The other man was sipping tonic water.

  Pym returned to his table unobserved: Sherwood was writing something in a notebook with a gold pencil.

  Then Proudfoot came in with another man and said: “Ah, Sherwood, there you are, are you? My dear fellow! How are you, Mr. Fury? How are you, my dear Doctor Weissensee? What will you have? How are things? You have already met Bellamy Gee, I believe? … I beg your pardon, no, of course Doctor Weissensee has not. Doctor Weissensee—Bellamy Gee … possibly the greatest living authority on comparative religion.”

  Proudfoot was wearing a new suit and a bowler hat. He radiated confidence, indescribable satisfaction, like a gambler who has drawn three cards and made four aces. He was in one of his brilliant moods, and he struck Pym as having slid an inch or two over the frontier of sobriety. There was no mistaking the significance of his suave, sly, bold good-fellowship.

  CHAPTER TEN

  UNQUIET, almost worried, Pym got up quietly and hurried out of the Jack Cade. He wanted to be alone. He would go into the Temple and piece together the shattered shards of his exalted mood: that softly glowing, round, radiant thing that had gone “pop” like an electric bulb. Like lamb’s wool on barbed wire he began again. Then a man hit him on the back and said: “Johnny! Long time no see.”

  “Who the hell——” began Pym; but he recognised the man and said: “—Oh, Rocky.”

  “You don’t sound pleased to see your old pal.”

  “I was thinking,” Pym said. “I’m sorry if I seemed abrupt. How are you?”

  “Johnny, old boy old boy old boy, I wake up worrying in the middle of the night—things are bound to get worse as far as I’m concerned because they couldn’t be better.”

  “Why, what the devil!” cried Pym, “what are we coming to? That’s twice in ten minutes I see a friend in a lovely new suit when his backside ought to be sticking out of his trousers. Rocky, you look terrific. You didn’t get that outfit off the hook in a Natty Gent’s Outfitters,” said Pym, feeling the lapel of Rocky’s jacket and tut-tutting like a Hounsditch clothier. His cheerfulness was taking a malicious turn. “Pure silk handkerchief and all—God bless my soul! Old Harrovian tie——”

  “It isn’t Old Harrovian: it’s just a striped tie.”

  “—And look at his shirt! Wheee! … Hand-sewn gloves, eh? And where did you get that hat? Adorable! Allow me, moddom, to turn down this brim the teeny-weeniest bit more.”

  Rocky caught Pym’s snatching hand and pulled himself towards the Jack Cade, saying: “Cut that out and come and have a drink.”

  “All right; but not in here, if you don’t mind. Some other place,” said Pym.

  “Anywhere you like,” said Rocky. “No, but seriously, as man to man, do I look all right?”

  “Honestly, you look like a millionaire playboy. I am inclined to ask you how about the seven-and-six you owe me.”

  Rocky laughed long and heartily with his mouth wide open, like a conceited man who has been told that he has beautiful teeth; and when he slapped Pym’s back for the second time he knocked tears into his eyes. Rocky was a giant with powerful hairy hands, big bright eyes, great gleaming teeth, large ears, a vast mouth, and a blue chin as thick and blunt as the toe of a diver’s boot. He had the charm that goes with cheerful shamelessness. Rocky was a shameless borrower, drunkard, liar and fornicator; a shameless wheedler of credit under false pretences; a shameless utterer of worthless cheques and worthless promises of marriage; a shameless beggar and a shameless chooser— a lion among jackals and a jackal among lions, a beggar among princes and a prince among beggars—a putter-on of acts. He was, in fact, an actor by profession. No one knew anything about him except that he was an Irishman; his name was Rockwell Gagan. On second thoughts, people decided that they did not know if even this was true, because he had sworn dreadful oaths on convenient occasions that he was a Cascon, the illegitimate son of a nobleman. Rocky was not real: he was a servant-girl’s love-story, an errand boy’s public-school story, a schoolboy’s adventure story … a dummy dressed in dreams.

  Pym said, with sudden resolution: “Yes, Rocky, as God’s my judge, you shall pay me that seven-and-six.”

  “Look,” said Rocky, taking out a red morocco wallet in full view of the passers-by. It was full of new banknotes. “There’s nearly a hundred pounds in there, Johnny, old pal old pal old pal. Seven-and-six! Come and have lunch. Have some champagne. And oysters—have some oysters. Let’s go to the Heinrich Heine. They know me there. Luigi saves a special sort of oyster for me. Do you know what? They’re lousy with iodine, and you know what that means, eh? That’ll put hair on your chest—that’ll put lead in your pencil! Come on, come and have a noggin of oidine! Where did you get that nose, speaking of hats?”

  “I was just naturally kicked in the face by a gentleman friend. Where did you get that suit?”

  “Johnny,” said Rocky, with thunderous gravity, “it has happened at last.”

  “You made a hit? I always thought you would, one way or another.”

  “One way? Let’s say another,” said Rocky, laughing again. A passing typist looked at him with round eyes. Rocky smiled at her. She looked back over her shoulder. He blew her a kiss. She went on, reluctantly, to the post office, but never forgot him. She thought of Rocky when she was about to conceive her second child nine years later. “Another is right! … Johnny, old son old son old son, all that has been is past.”

  “Who denies it?”

  “I’m finished with all this hand-to-mouth existence. It wasn’t living, Johnny: it was existing. Oh, by the way, I thought up a good gag yesterday. Stooge says: ‘Haven’t I seen you in Captains Courageous?’ Then I say: ‘No, you mean Barber’s Rash.’ Or is that too subtle?”

  “If you remember rightly, Rocky, it was I who gave you that gag about three years ago.”

  “Did you, Johnny? I daresay you did. And that is just what I was wanting to talk to you about. Not the gag, as a gag, in itself, but something bigger.”

  “—And for your information, Rocky, I gave you that Henry the Eighth gag, when Catherine Parr says: ‘Thank goodness, Henry, you’ve finished chopping and changing.’”

  “Too intellectual. Come and have a drink in here.”

  In Ogden’s Saloon Pym said to Rocky: “What is all this about? And what brings you to Fleet Street at this hour of the day?”

  “I came to see a man about my publicity,” said Rocky.

  “Your publicity? Since when did you have any?” s
aid Pym, irritated. “You know perfectly well that you were never anything more than a tuppenny-ha’penny corny comedian. Don’t give me that stuff, Rocky.”

  “You’re quite right, old Pym old Pym old Pym, but times have changed. I’m going to need a good publicity man before very long.”

  “Like a cat on a roof. Like a bitch on heat, that’s how you need publicity. Like a tart on a street corner under a lamp-post. Like a foghorn. Don’t be silly.”

  Rockwell Gagan smiled and said: “You heard of Sissy Voltaire? We’re looking for a play. You’ve heard of that agent Albutt in Northampton Street? He had an idea. Sissy and I are looking for the right sort of thing—a tragedy that is partly a comedy. Or, if you like, a comedy that is partly a tragedy.”

  “Sissy Voltaire must be at least seventy years old,” said Pym.

  “Never you mind. We want a play. Seventy years old my eye! What of it, anyway? Sissy has the … the spirit of eternal youth.”

  “The rumour goes,” said Pym, “that she’s popped in and out of bed with every young actor in the British Isles since about 1880, or some such date.”

  “Johnny, I don’t want to talk like that about Miss Voltaire,” said Rocky. Then he laughed. “Well, okay, old boy old boy old boy. I’m fed up with midnight flits and hocking the last decent suit of clothes and not knowing where I stand next. She happens to love me. It’s true love, Johnny; and I love her, too … No, what the hell, to hell with that. I’m anything you like, but not a hypocrite. Put it in a nutshell: I’m living on the old girl. Never mind your 1880’s, by the way: Sissy’s only about fifty-four or five at the most. And, by God, she’s still the best actress that ever set foot on a stage—by Mary and Joseph she is! So cut out your sneers—they’re unworthy of you, Johnny.”

  “I wasn’t sneering: I was just repeating what I’d heard. I should think, Rocky, that it might be a very good match. After all, you’re both comedians.”

  “Comedians me foot! Well, yes, comedians if you like. But there are other things we want to do, Sissy and I, and we’re looking for a play.”

  The light was out, the shards were scattered. Pym said: “You would want a tragi-comedy, Rocky. About ninety-nine times out of a hundred a clown is a would-be Hamlet with a yellow streak.”

  “Where do you get that ‘yellow streak’?”

  “Yellow streak: scared of being laughed at as a tragedian: saving an emergency exit.”

  “Don’t be silly. Once you can make a man laugh you’ve got him by the short hairs,” said Rocky.

  Pym said: “You got that from me, too.”

  “Sure I did,” said Rocky, showing twenty sharp white teeth in an enormous smile; “and that’s why I’m so glad to see you now. Why don’t you write a play? And why don’t you have another drink?”

  “Play? I can’t write plays.”

  “Look: may God strike me down dead on this spot this very minute—I was thinking about you, Johnny. Why don’t you write me a play? A play for me … I mean, a play for Sissy Voltaire and me. We’ve got the money, we’re ready to take a theatre, and all we want is a play: something suitable for the two of us. My God! If I only had your grasp! Your flow of thought!”

  Then Pym began to laugh. Laughter overtook him while he was swallowing a mouthful of beer so that he had to turn away. At this Rocky became angry: comedians hate laughter. He said: “I’m a good-natured fellow, Johnny, but I give you one word of warning——”

  “No, excuse me, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I wasn’t laughing at you, Rocky, but at something I just thought of. Let me tell you about it: there’s a play called That We May Not Weep.”

  “It’s not a bad title. Come to think of it, I’ve heard of it. Yes, of course, Johnny—now, who was it wrote it?”

  “You never heard of it in your life, Rocky, because it’s unheard of. Shall I tell you what it’s about? The plot is rather like the plot of Esther Waters.”

  “Esther Waters but my boots leak!” shouted Rocky. “There’s a gag there, except that no one ever heard of Esther Waters.”

  Pym said: “Here is a rough idea of the plot. A clergyman’s wife falls in love with a clown. She has children, a fine home, property, everything you like; but she’s so much in love with this clown that she leaves everything and runs away with him. The clown is on tour, earning about three pounds a week while it lasts, and they meet in a cathedral town. The clergyman’s wife, who has never left the cathedral town in her life, is the only person on earth who ever laughed whole-heartedly at his silly old jokes. He is, by the way, a rotten clown and a third-rate actor in general. He becomes devoted to her. If everyone was like her, what a great man he would be, do you see? They go away together. She is a lady, you understand—a woman of refinement. So she refines him and teaches him certain subtleties; she shows him how to say ‘How do you do?’ to people, and how not to drink tea out of a saucer, let us say, so that with her charm and personality—he is, incidentally, a tall, dark and handsome man—he becomes famous and rich. Then he falls out of love with this sweet but inconspicuous clergyman’s wife, and runs off with a young and passionate-looking tragic actress. See? He always wanted to be a gentleman and a tragic actor. His discarded mistress dies in the gutter. He marries a millionairess and lives happily ever after. That We May Not Weep. You know: We laugh that we may not weep! The clergyman’s wife, who has read very widely, gives him all his best gags. You could even go in for a long title à la Pirandello and call it We Laugh That We May Not Weep.”

  Very quietly for him, Rocky said: “Johnny, old boy, where is this script of yours?”

  It was significant that he said “old boy” without two or three uproarious repetitions. He did not even slap Pym on the back.

  “Where is it? Under my bed—in a box.”

  “Under his bed in a box! Christ Jesus! Under his bed in a box! (That wouldn’t be a bad line for an act—‘Under my bed in a box’). Now listen. You go under your bed and you get out that box, and you let me see that script of yours. D’you hear?”

  “It isn’t a script of mine,” said Pym. “I didn’t write it. An old lady wrote it. Why,” he said, amazed, “I was only pulling your leg when I told you about it. I never imagined for one moment that you’d take it seriously.”

  “When you say pulling my leg—do you mean to say you haven’t got that script under your bed in a box?”

  “No, I’ve got it all right, but it’s rubbish. I grant you that it’s not a bad idea to turn Pagliacci upside down, but she had no idea of how people talk. It reads, in fact, corny.”

  “Who is she? Where is she?”

  “She’s dead and buried.”

  “We Laugh That We May Not Weep—who’s handling it?”

  With a self-conscious laugh Pym said: “Well, she gave it to me before she died.”

  “—And may she rest in peace; God have mercy on her soul. Can I have a look at it?”

  “You can, if you like,” said Pym.

  “Come on, then,” said Rocky, punching him in the ribs.

  “No, excuse me: I’d rather you didn’t come along to my place just at the moment. It’s in a devil of a mess.”

  “To hell with the mess, old son old son old son! You know me—I’m a bohemian. Lead on, lead on, old boy old boy old boy! Where are you staying? Where’s your flat?”

  “Flat?” said Pym, startled. “Not far from here; but if you don’t mind I’d rather make a date and bring it along to you since you seem to be interested.”

  Rocky’s eyes became shrewd and full of secretive understanding. “Cherchez la femme,” he said “cherchez la femme, cherchez la femme! Okay, okay, old boy old boy, come along to my place.” He took out a cheque-book, tore off one of the corners, borrowed a pencil and wrote:

  *

  62a, Brow House,

  South Street,

  Park Lane.

  He underlined Park Lane so that the pencil broke. “Can you make it six o’clock this evening, Johnny? Six o’clock exactly?”

  “Yes,
if you like,” said Pym.

  Rocky paid for the drinks with a new five-pound note. He flicked three florins and three sixpences out of the change and bellowed: “The seven-and-sixpence I owe you, old pal old pal old pal!”

  Pym, with exaggerated irony, said: “Rocky, you are too kind.”

  “Don’t be silly, don’t be silly; what do you mean—‘too kind?’ No more than just, old duck old duck old duck! I pay my debts! Jesus, Mary and Joseph know that Rockwell Gagan keeps his word. I said I’d let you have it back, didn’t I? And I did, haven’t I? All right, then, Johnny—see you at six. Remember the address. Got it? 62a, Brow House, South Street, Park Lane. Park Lane.”

  On his way home Pym began to work out a horror story about a stray lamb caught on barbed wire. But when he squared up to his typewriter and began to batter it mercilessly with both hands, he wrote:

  BEFORE DAWN. No. 1

  Bloodshot Celery and Naughty Boys