On the first floor under the beams was the big stock of instruments, especially the strings, mandolins, pledged harps and cellos, a closetful of violins, bits of guitars and zithers, an awful hotchpotch… a whole cartload of clarinets, oboes, cornets, flutes, piccolos, an entire trunk full of ocarinas, all kinds of trick gadgets for the wind… and exotic instruments, two Madagascan drums, a tom-tom, three Japanese balalaikas, enough to make all London dance, to accompany a continent, to stock a couple of dozen orchestras in the Horror’s garret alone… merely with the securities of musicians who’d evaporated… the unredeemed pledges, the junk hanging around. The old guy was supposed to clear it out, to get rid of it all in Petticoat Lane, the headquarters for second-hand stuff, their flea market, so as to give himself room! But he kept putting it off from day to day… It was too painful, he couldn’t make up his mind… He was too fond of his instruments… He even bought up others… especially pianos… The latest one a Pleyel, a perfect baby grand at retail price, a smart-looking model from Maxon’s, a dream… Shows you how bad he was bitten!… How music got him… Not that he played personally, he couldn’t have hit out a note, but his place was full of it and it gave him such a kick that he couldn’t find a reason for putting it on sale… He accumulated piles of harps and trombones, it was such a jammed chaos under the rafters that it just wasn’t possible… you couldn’t push the door, it blocked all the skylights… He could have made dough, he who was so damned tight, hence his nickname, old sordid, a monster who’d eat rat, a miser who’d skin a penny; he’d have sold fishbone if there’d been a taker anywhere, but when it came to music he took such a stand that he forgot all about his natural bent…
In order to make room, Boro would knock everything right and left… with big kicks… he’d pick at something in the pile, a saxophone, a piccolo, a mandolin… he’d fool around with the gadget for a while… just so… a bit of a prelude… a fantasy… nothing at all… he’d drop it… just a whim!… Then he’d yank out his piano, ferociously… clear away all the junk… whatever was in his way… the whole museum!… Bara-boom!… Finally installed, stool, all ready!… On with the waltz!… Arpeggios, trills, gingerbread… you know… plugging it, street stuff… with the best possible variations for charm… plaintive, tinsel, sob stuff, it could go on for ever… it was irresistible… It would make a crocodile start daydreaming… But you’ve got to have the knack… It’s the magic know-how… to turn on the charm anywhere, jolly place, dull occasion, smart salon, cuckold ball, gloomy lofts, sinister squares, hopeless streets, communions, country inns, All Saints’ Day, low dives, Bastille Days!… A zim! Bang! Ding! And it starts… never meets resistance!… I know what I’m talking about… Later on, after lots of ups and downs I sold some of that marketplace stuff with Boro, that nice strummed jigging… Should’ve heard our “three-handed” numbers… I did the “one-armed” bass, my share of octaves, I had time to think about how the charm works… later on, as the days went by… it has to keep going! That’s the big secret… never slow up, never stop! It’s got to keep popping away like seconds, each with its little tick, its little dancing hurrying soul, but, by God, kept on the move by the next one!… Perks you up with a trill… nicks you!… Tinkles right into your worries… plays tricks with time, tickles your trouble, teases, pleases and tinkles your worries, and tum! Tum! Whirls you round!… Carries you off… constant gallop! Notes and notes!… And then the arpeggio!… Another trill! The English air sweeps along cool and saucy!… A high jig!… Pedal thunders! Never backs out!… Or sighs… rests!… That’s what’s sad when you think about it!… All that wild sweetness, always shooting ahead, note after note… Should’ve seen Boro at it! Some performer! When it came to the ivories… flashiness… but flighty rhythms!… And what a repertoire!… Some memory!… variations ad infinitum… He, rather uncouth by nature and really just a brute and pretty impossible with his mania for explosives, would get all fluttery, all showery, all elfin!… His mind was in his fingers… Pixie hands!… Butterflies on the ivories… He’d spin about the harmonies!… Snatch them on the wing!… Dreams and fancies!… Garlands… twists and turns… nimble pranks… Possessed!… That’s the word for it!… By twenty little devils in his fingers!… Never out of sorts or tired! For hours and hours I’ve seen him like that capering from thirds to fourths and dotted rests… a run… gingerbread… never just musing, or sighing… never a single word… “That’s enough!”… Always brisk… gay hypnotic nodding with his big dome, five, three fingers, crash!… Back to the keynote!… A big chord! Sharp! He made it!… The charm follows through! It’s the old refrain, dignified and tricky… Never coming… never ending!… All hearts!… And so much for that!… And no nonsense!… And let’s drop the music! And goodnight for the pedal!… And it’s just sob stuff!… Just a plugging!… Sleight of hand!… Crossing fingers!… Beat it, cheapjack!… And go on, go on!… Break down the F!… The A!… The B!… The C! C! Skid… At it again!… Beat it to the end of the sharps!… There it goes again!… Never dies out!… What a break!… Rum-ti-ti-tum!… Everyone’s puffing! Swooning… giving up!… Kidding the ivories!… Low-down style… Rough and winning!… Brutal and stinging! With ping! Pang!… Loosens the notes!… Wizard with his hands! Conquers and strikes!… Dum-ti-ti-tum!… Sweeps all before him!… Everyone’s sailing!… Everything’s spellbound, dissolved, blinking! Blinking at the waves! Ding! Ding! Dong!… Don’t buckle!… Hold on to the B! Sharp! Sharp! Sharp!… Tum!…
The thing’s been all the rage since, done a thousand times, chewed up, puked out by all the tin pans in the world, by all the jazz bands of the continents!… By Negroes practically everywhere… botched-up tinsel… But at the time I’m talking about, it was still new… a hash no one had ever heard… the tough sentimental kind of thing, the kidding throb, message of the low-down times that were on their way! Roguish tinkling at the corners of squares… at the doors of pubs, the tart, nervous music… soft-pedal and oop-la staccato!… snappy screw, by far the best!… The cream and pepper!… No one wanted anything else! Cynical, basic and hurried!… Notes stripped!… Heart stripped!… Tum!… Tam!… Tum!… Frolicking, four, five, three-fingered crack! On with the whirligig and with arpeggios and you know what!… Hold pedal!… And it’s up in the air!… And not tired on the left… the accompaniment full of little dreams… naughty as possible!… I can’t tear myself away from it!… No use talking… it sounds delicious!… It’s spellbinding, it’s free and easy! It’s a treat rolled off by a pianist who knows zum! Pim! Wham! The heart of things!… Who knows how to get at it, merciless! To take command, cruelly, right from the start… to pack the theme in!… To carry way… and yoop! And zoom!… Zim! Keep moving, trills! and chords!… Shake it, scales and sharps galore! Waves all screwball!… It’s tough!… It’s masterful!… Puffy!… The spell of technique!…
Titus understood it… You wouldn’t have thought so at first from his face, by looking at him, a potbellied sneaky-looking hippo, stuck away in his filth and semi-darkness, and yet he was sensitive, influenced, in seventh heaven as soon as it got going… hypnotized, frozen, swooning, especially when it went on and on and on… He’d sit there all washed out, prostrated, aching with the charm. He didn’t dare move at all… It was just too much… he’d close his eyes… he’d shrivel up in his pillows, deep in his easy chair, he’d let the customers float by, he’d stop answering questions… He’d even put them out… impolite… with their pledges, their saucers, their second-hand junk… he wanted to be left the hell alone!…
He became indifferent to everything as long as the music kept coming… still kept falling from upstairs!… The waves of harmony!… The pretty tunes, the playthings, the little ripplings, the string of variations!… Reeled off this way, that way… everything that came from that big hulk’s fingers… sorcery…
Ah! But he mustn’t stop! Ah! By God!… Mustn’t slacken a single minute!… Not a second!… He’d suddenly get awful! He’d yell, swear something fierce!… He’d grab anything�
�� He’d lose all control!… Banging on the ceiling, enough to scatter everything!… To bring the house down!… In a fury!… Fit to be tied!… Keep playing!… Get started, by God! Death!…
Boro upstairs knew all about it… he knew the act!… The charm or death! Shit!… Shit!… Shit!… He’d draw out the little torture… He’d announce, yell out his price… his tax!…
“Hand me the money!… One bob, Master! One bob!… Right away or I won’t ever play again!” One shilling! One shilling! Or nothing! The categorical condition… take it… leave it!…
The musician stuck to his guns!… His shilling right away!
“Have it you dirty dog! Have it you rascal!”
The old guy thrashed about… insults!… But he had to fork over!
“Here, take it! You pig! You bandit!”
He’d get them… force his hand!… About two or three shillings an hour… Two or three pauses!… Boro had character when it came to that!… He wouldn’t have played again! never!… The old guy had to bring up the two shillings himself!… With difficulty… he’d struggle up the stairs… Boro wouldn’t budge from the piano… he’d never have gone down… and then he’d make him wait a little while… work him up… susceptible as all that!… After all, he was fed up!… Let the old boy rave downstairs… let him get jumpy, let him beg again… Then he’d start, very low, muting it all, with a sly turn on the pedal, with a plaintive refrain… dreamy… doing the whole bass in arpeggios… the melody, B-minor beaded, and always ragging the tonic! Ah! Watch it! Bringing back everything to the quick tremolo rigadoon rhythm. That’s the trick!… The magic!… The lost plaintive sweetness!… Flim! And ding! Bim! Dead little things dancing to the tune… three fingers… five fingers… and then the rest of it… and then the chord and everything rushes off!… Goblins!… And it’s won spruce and shrill!… All the little live ones dash in! Dawdling from a scale played in thirds, weaving motifs, and spattering! All the fingers spattering!… The brisk rondo!… The refrain! And everything topples!… And it all zips up again!… Giddily!… Zim! Zang! Ping!…
And so on until dinner, sometimes three or four hours at a stretch!… Wilting, galloping! octaves in D!… Ding! Dim! Bim! Twitteringly!… Hearts and flowers! Five! Three! Four! Zim!… A shower of sharps! From sad to gay! And rigadoon!…
In his three or four hours of banging away Boro easily wangled his quid!… From pub to pub, always his style, “Sugar, please!”… A dead stop… and off again… It was flashy stuff, hard work, but not so tough as his number outside. He didn’t like being indoors, he much preferred the street, life in the open air! The piano on wheels to play outside standing up… Still the street’s no joke, you can realize, much worse than the pubs when it comes to cops… You’re in their paws, that tells everything!… Always there crabbing and bullying, that you’re bottling up their gutters!… Treated like mutts!… And then the street… the competition! The minstrels! The blackfaces!… Ought to see the type! What yappers! Coal-heads! They banged out the bamboola! The thing they were doing at the time!… The day’s jazz… screaming it out a little like Joconde!… Their yowling!… The people ate it up!… Those bums came up from the beaches, they were allowed since the war. They’d finish a sidewalk in three yelps. They’d take in enough for a week! For that, it was less dumb doing the pubs, Boro was forced to admit…
Circumstances forced us to work in the open too, pushing around our instrument on rollers!
Naturally it turned out badly… I’ll tell about it later on…
* * *
The mountains of junk around Titus were an amazing sight. Everything was just itching to fall down… Things would topple over for no reason at all. It would collapse in avalanches, in valleys, in rushes of hardware, over baby carriages, women’s bicycles, crockery and knick-knacks, curios, it would thunder down, down on the mattresses, pillows blankets enough to cover the fourteen docks, loads of bottle baskets, fiendish slaughters, pyramids of top hats, fans for a thousand tropics, enough to uncurl the cutting blasts, to brush off all the north winds, such a wall of quilts that if they came down on you it meant sure death by soft swooning, a coma under feathers!… Titus felt quite comfortable in the midst of this enormous mass!… In the heart of trading… right in the chaotic crater, that’s where he felt in top form, with a reason for living, right in the sanctuary, behind his globe, his water lamp… Had to see him in action, there was no one like him for breaking down a customer, for brushing away all his shrewdness… just by undoing the package, his way of feeling the weight of the thing under the lampshade… the lace… the tea service, the delicate knick-knack, the cherished bauble, the way he depreciated the article, just by breathing on it… so that it wasn’t worth a thing… it was just cheap junk, a rabbit fart… it was amazing enough that he, Titus in person, so difficult and delicate, let himself be interested in such cheap, shoddy stuff, such paltry filthy slop, it wasn’t worth the string it was tied in!… He’d start just by putting it on the scale… the way he’d tap the pan… it didn’t weigh anything… really nothing!… A piffle!… He’d listen to the sound of the poor thing… the bright-red coffee pot… really it was worthless!… He’d question the person with a frown… How much did he want? Very sceptical… He’d reset his turban… He’d scratch his head… He wouldn’t hear the answers… The remarks were blotted out because of his hearing device… He’d take it out just at that moment from under the table… at the end of the discussion, at the final veto… his ear trumpet of great deafness… He’d blink… squint… whistle… He couldn’t believe his big eyes… the naive person was exaggerating so… the nerve!… He’d put in his trumpet again… He wanted to hear it again!… The terrifying figure!… Ah! Shocked!… Couldn’t be possible! He didn’t believe his ear! He’d raise his eyelids to pronounce judgement… his offer? A tenth!… If that! And maybe!… First a fiver and then! And then that was all! Take it… leave it!… He’d bring the drama to a quick end… Ah! Not another word! Not another sigh!… It wasn’t worth insisting… He’d settle down in his easy chair… He’d pull his big coat over him… lower his turban over his eyes… He stopped seeing anything!… You wouldn’t see him!…
It was dingy in his place, almost dark, except for the globe lamp on the table which gave out a kind of gleam, an aquarium green… The blinds were never opened except for a moment before dinner when Delphine was cleaning, when the governess came, his “governess”! She wouldn’t have any other name.
“Call me Delphine or governess! But not your maid! I’m not your maid!”
As soon as you arrived she let you know then and there what her rank in the house was, so you wouldn’t look down on her, as soon as you said hello, that she wasn’t a maid, “Governess”!… And in a tone which you couldn’t answer!… It’d been going on for twenty years!…
She didn’t overwork keeping house, it was impossible at Claben’s, she’d sweep the centres of the rooms, she’d pile up the heaps, she’d arrange the valleys, so you could worm your way, get to the door…
Claben didn’t talk much, I mean with his customers, he stuck to his kind of mystery, he’d say things to himself in a sort of Yiddish, had to catch a word here and there… he’d bluff from the start with his pasha’s jacket, his enormous purple and yellow puffs, his jowled Pierrot’s head, his three-layered turban… he’d bewilder them… he’d shock the timid ones… he’d let them do the talking… whereas Delphine was the opposite, constant clamouring… endless monologues… about nothing at all… her troubles shopping, in the street, in the stores with arrogant people… that people had stepped on her feet, here, there, practically anywhere, in the trolleys, in the buses… Touchiness itself!… She’d go to do her shopping in the centre… as far as Soho… at the same time she bought her tickets… she needed her theatre at least three times a week… Which means that she followed what was going on! Ah! Not like a maid at all!… Like a real lady, like a governess!… Sometimes… not very often… there’d be s
pells of absence… she’d stay out a week… she’d come back streaked, swollen, her face all mottled, she’d got into a brawl with riff-raff… her dress in rags… and she’d drunk all her dough… her whole ex-teacher’s pension, all her wages from Claben, plus a tiny bit of cash that came to her from an aunt… she had to resign from teaching three times, we learnt how, little by little… because of violent rows she raised with her pupils over trifles, terrible changes of character!… Much later she realized what she was really cut out for… her true vocation… her tragedy!… She knew how to tell about it… to anyone who’d listen… and even those who weren’t interested… she’d let them see how educated she was! And what feeling she had!… What emotiveness! What soul! Ah! It was something out of the ordinary!…
She’d interfere in the business, too, at the drop of a hat… she took all kinds of liberties!… In the midst of a discussion about a pledge she’d put her word in… these unheard-of interruptions would drive Claben crazy, but he kept his temper and didn’t bawl her out; she would have been sore, might never come back… And he couldn’t do without her… not that she was very honest, she stole lots of little things from him… but someone else would have been worse!… It was far too tempting in his shop… too much of a bazaar, the whole enormous place… He preferred to keep Delphine and spy on her to death… They didn’t argue very often except over the word “governess”… but about that every day. He hated the word “governess”…
Guignol's Band Page 14