Portrait of Elmbury

by John Moore

  “’E was ill,” said Reuben, “and ’e couldn’t get work, so ’e took to Football Pools. Could never see the sense in ’em myself. But that’s where the rent went. Two or three bob a week, and always ’oping to make a fortune.”

  There was the familiar, trivial, undramatic story. He fell ill and he couldn’t get work, because employers don’t want sick labourers. He could have gone to hospital? Not unless he was an urgent case; the hospital has no beds for “chronics” who are also paupers. He could get help from the Parish? from Public Assistance? from some charity? No doubt; but men— even the meanest, idlest, most ineffectual men—often have an absurd pride. He preferred the romantic dream; he preferred Football Pools. What was two bob a week after all?—when he might wake up any Monday morning the possessor of a thousand pounds? Thus he could get his own back on the world that had used him badly; thus he could establish himself again, in his own esteem and others’, as a proper citizen, who’d got the better of ill-fortune and made himself master of his fate. … After all, it did happen sometimes. It happened to somebody every week.

  But it didn’t happen to him. Perhaps he wasn’t very good at Football Pools. He wasn’t very good at anything: not even at committing suicide.

  “Reuben,” I said, “can’t anything be done? Must we go through with it?”

  “Can’t stop it now,” said Reuben inexorably, nodding towards the poster on the wall: The Sale will commence at twelve o’clock promptly. (Why do auctioneers always write commence instead of “begin”?) “Can’t stop a Distress,” said Reuben indignantly, “just because a bloke tries to commit suicide.”

  He didn’t mean to be funny, I’m sure he didn’t mean to be funny, but I’ll swear he added, “or we’ll have everybody else doing it.”

  And now indeed it was too late; for the time was twelve-fifteen, and two women with babies in their arms, and Mr. Parfitt, and the unpleasing Mr. Eric Smith, had come into the room. Others were on their way down the creaking stairs. Eric Smith said cheekily:

  “Come along, Mister, we ain’t got all day. Can’t wait all morning for a few sticks of furniture which ain’t much more than firewood.”

  So I began; I commenced. I felt as if I was committing some appalling indecency, but there was no escape and I sold the bric-a-brac and the ornaments and the cooking utensils and the only comfortable chair. Reuben continued to occupy it, and I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh when one of the women called out:

  “Are you selling Reuben as well, Mister?” and another one said coarsely:

  “From what ’is missus tells me ’e ain’t worth as much as the chair!”

  Then I went upstairs and sold the rubbish in the bedroom; and in the end I made eight pounds seventeen and sixpence for the landlord and according to the law I left the bed.

  I got in my car and drove away from the damp, dreadful cottage and the miserable village of Tirley where the rain still dimpled a hundred acres of flood water and made a sound like a soft sigh. I was angry and bitter and I asked myself whose fault it all was: not the tenant’s, who’d never had a chance; not the Football Pool promoter’s, who provided quite honestly a few hours’ cheap entertainment each week for millions of people who had little entertainment in their lives; not even the landlord’s, perhaps, who for all I know may have been himself a poor man to whom fifteen pounds was desperately important. Who, then, was to blame? I didn’t know the answer then, and I am not sure that I know it now. But at least I determined, as I drove back to Elmbury, that I would take no further part in a business of which some aspects were so unpleasant and distasteful. I walked into my old uncle’s office and to his great astonishment told him I was going to chuck up my job.

  Farewell to the Office

  This action of mine was not so quixotic and impetuous as I have perhaps made it out to be. There were other reasons as well as my genuine distaste for the “distress” sales which decided me to take leave of my uncle’s dusty office. There was the matter of trigonometry. It was deemed necessary that I should pass an examination for a Fellowship of the Surveyors’ Institution; and in order to do so I must know both the theory and practice of surveying. Mr. Chorlton, good classicist, while teaching me to love Latin had also taught me to hate mathematics. Moreover, he had very improperly taught me that it was a good and gentlemanly thing to despise mathematics, unless they were of the Higher kind when a philosopher might take note of them. I therefore despised mathematics at school and in my uncle’s office; and when I went up to London for the examination I despised trigonometry so successfully that I got nought for my paper on that subject. However, I got 100 for forestry and 100 for Agricultural Botany and nearly 100 for a curious subject, about which I have now forgotten everything, called Agricultural Chemistry. I might have scraped through; but unfortunately there was also a practical exam in the course of which I was confronted with an instrument called a theodolite. I knew that the purpose of the thing was to measure angles; and indeed there were two striped posts some distance away and I was requested to find the angle between the instrument and those two posts. I pointed the telescope in the direction of the first post and looked through the eyepiece but could see nothing. I therefore resolved to bluff. I swung it slowly in what I thought was the direction of the second post, looked hard through the eyepiece, frowned, calculated, and made a guess. The angle, I said, was thirty-one degrees. The examiner looked surprised. “As a matter of fact,” he told me, “you are very nearly right; but I can’t give you any marks for your guess, because you omitted to take off the cap from the end of the telescope.”

  Naturally enough, I did not pass the exam; and I was very unwilling to try again. For I had discovered, while sitting on the high stool in my uncle’s office, a passionate and painful pastime, that of writing stories. With my uncle’s foolscap paper and my uncle’s scratchy office pen, and for dissemblance’s sake a copy of some such book as The Law of Landlord and Tenant open on the desk in front of me, I wrote with fierce delight two whole novels. The first was very properly rejected by seven publishers; the second was accepted by the first I sent it to. Its subsequent fortune has nothing to do with this book; but at least it provided me with an answer when my astonished uncle, shaken for once out of his quiet courtesy, almost shouted at me:

  “But what the devil are you going to do instead?”

  “Write,” I said.

  “Write! That’s a hobby, my boy, not a profession!”

  So I showed him the publisher’s letter, and a cheque for a hundred pounds.

  Turkey Trouble

  However, I did not leave his office at once; for it was late autumn, a season when auctioneers are generally busy, and I volunteered to stay on until the Christmas markets were over. I therefore took part in one more Grand Christmas Fat Stock Show and Sale at Elmbury; and I unwittingly enlivened the occasion with a great comedy.

  I had graduated, during three years, from sticking labels on the behinds of cattle to selling cattle myself. At Christmas Market, however, it was my uncle’s custom to mount the rostrum and with due dignity auction the finest fat beasts; when he grew tired one of the partners took on the job. So I was relegated to that part of the market occupied by the poultry. Fat turkeys, geese, ducks, cockerels and the like, even rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets were my humble merchandise that day.

  I must explain that all this miscellaneous livestock was housed in little pens or hutches arranged in tiers along a wall, and numbered from 1 to 200. As each lot arrived before the sale it was taken out of its hamper and placed in one of the pens. That curious old man, Fred Pullin, who had been my grandfather’s coachman, had the job of doing this and also of writing down, on a sheet, the owner’s name, the description of the lot, and the reserve price, if any, thus:

  Lot 7. Mrs. Trotwood. Fat Turkey. Reserve 22/-

  That meant, of course, that I mustn’t sell Mrs. Trotwood’s turkey under 22/-; if less was offered I must buy it in on her behalf. Unfortunately old Fred, who was half-blind and couldn’t
see the lines on the foolscap paper, wrote this particular reserve price in the wrong place; so I sold Mrs. Trotwood’s fat turkey to an old woman called Mrs. Peel for seventeen and sixpence.

  Mrs. Trotwood, however, was unaware of this; for auctioneers often use false names when they “buy in” a lot that has failed to reach the reserve. Mrs. Trotwood had faith in me and remarkable faith in Fred, and finding Pen 20 unoccupied she carried her turkey thither in order that I might try again.

  When I came to Pen 20, there was a turkey of which I had no record in my book. I asked whom it belonged to. “Mrs. Trotwood.” I assumed that Mrs. Trotwood was the possessor of more than one turkey; and I knocked it down to a farmer’s wife called Mrs. Doe for nineteen shillings.

  The name Doe is said to be legal fiction; Mrs. Trotwood certainly thought so, for she lifted her turkey again to Pen 36, where I sold it to the warrior wife of that old warrior Pistol for nineteen and six. The trade in turkeys improved somewhat as I came towards the end of them. Mrs. Trotwood hopefully removed her turkey successively to Pens 42, 49 and 55, where I sold it successively to a Mrs. Attwood, a Mrs. Phillpots and a Mrs. Holmes for prices ranging from nineteen shillings to a guinea. Mrs. Trotwood then lost hope and went to fetch her hamper in order to take the turkey home. In blissful ignorance of the storm which was about to burst over my head I went on to sell the geese, ducks, cockerels, the little boys’ rabbits and guinea-pigs, the ferrets, the bunches of mistletoe and all the other odds and ends which were somewhat oddly lumped together under the heading of “Poultry.”

  I had nearly finished when I became aware of a disturbance in the region of Pen 55. Mrs. Trotwood, Mrs. Holmes, and a turkey seemed to be engaged in a noisy flurry. I fondly imagined the matter had nothing to do with me, and went on selling.

  The row got worse; for Mrs. Phillpots and Mrs. Attwood had now joined in. I sent Fred Pullin to see what it was about; but Fred was excessively stupid and only succeeded in setting the four women more fiercely at loggerheads. Moreover Mrs. Pistol had now blown into the battle like a tornado. Fred retired discomfited.

  I had now finished selling, so I went across to see what was the matter. The row was appalling: five women—and a turkey —all cackling at once. There must have been something, a distinguishing mark or label perhaps, which made it possible to recognise the turkey; for Mrs. Doe and Mrs. Peel arrived on the scene and hastened to claim it. Mrs. Doe, far from being a legal fiction, turned out to be a most ferocious and belligerent woman with an umbrella which she waved recklessly to emphasise her claim. This provoked the anger of that Volumnia, Mrs. Pistol, who called up the whole clan to her aid: Pistol, Bardolph and Nym were always to be found hanging about the market on the chance of earning a tip, begging a drink, or finding something they could scrounge. They eagerly joined the noisy crowd which surrounded Mrs. Trotwood’s wretched turkey.

  A brief glance at Fred Pullin’s ill-written sheet told me what had happened: I had sold the turkey six times, but each time for less than the reserve; there were therefore seven claimants for it, since Mrs. Trotwood insisted on taking it back. I tried to explain the situation to the impassioned women. I might as well have tried to reason with a thunderstorm, to seek compromise with a cloudburst, to still the north wind with soft words. Mrs. Trotwood was easily squared; I promised to pay her 22/- for the turkey, which was what she wanted for it, and she went away satisfied. But there remained seven other women who all had an equal claim to the creature; who all complained that it was the only turkey they had been able to buy; who all protested that unless they took it home their husbands and their loving children would have to go without their Christmas dinner.

  “Seven children,” said Mrs. Pistol, “looking forward to the turkey I promised ’em three months ago.”

  “No Christmas dinner,” echoed Pistol, Bardolph and Nym ominously.

  Mrs. Doe, Mrs. Phillpots, Mrs. Attwood, Mrs. Peel and Mrs. Holmes all had a similar tale to tell. On sentimental as well as purely ethical grounds none had a better right to the turkey than the rest; legally, it seemed to me, each one of them owned it. Solomon, who solved an analogous but simpler problem, would, I felt sure, have been confounded by this one; and I was no Solomon. Tired of abusing each other, all six of the women now started to abuse me. There was no remedy but in flight. I therefore winked at Pistol, whom I knew would do anything for a drink, and suggested that he and I should discuss the matter in the market office. Bardolph and Nym, of course, followed us. As soon as we were out of hearing of the women, I said: “Let’s leave them to settle it. We shall find it quieter in the Red Lion,” and thither we hastened, where Pistol told me a lengthy and fantastic and probably untrue story about some long-forgotten campaign in Baluchistan, so that I never knew what happened in the end to Mrs. Trotwood’s turkey, nor which one of the six belligerent women triumphed over the rest. I heard tell of Mrs. Doe prodding Mrs. Pistol with her umbrella; and of Mrs. Holmes fetching a policeman; and of Mrs. Pistol pulling the bird’s tail-feathers out in handfuls when Mrs. Attwood tried by force to bear it away. But all that is hearsay; for as I have said I was leaning comfortably upon the Red Lion bar with Pistol, Bardolph and Nym and hearing them confess that though they feared neither shot nor shell, nor cannon’s roar, nor sniper’s bullet, nor tribesman’s knife, nor Zulu’s assegai, yet a pack of angry old women struck terror into their hearts. Uhlans were lambs, the fuzzywuzzy was a kitten, the wily Pathan was a cooing dove, said Pistol, by comparison with a woman in a temper. And he should have known.

  We Be Getting Old

  For reasons other than this comic one I remember my last Christmas market. It was the last time my uncle sold the champion beast and the last time the great fat butcher bought it; for my uncle was growing deaf, he could no longer hear the bids, and the butcher was sick of some mortal malady from which a few weeks later he died. I remember my uncle inclining his silvery head towards the bidders with his hand up to his ear. “Come, come, gentlemen! Only fifty-seven pounds ten for Mr. Parker’s champion beast! Only fifty-seven pounds ten I’m bid. Shall I make it sixty?” My uncle never shouted or swore or got excited when he was selling; he never mitigated his old-fashioned courtesy to match it to the rowdy, boisterous dealers, who stood round him now with their fat red shining faces rather like beeves themselves (for it always seemed to me that dealers grew to resemble the beasts they dealt in, that horse-dealers had a horselike countenance, sheep-dealers were inclined to baa and bleat, pig-dealers had little piggy eyes, and the cattle-men were generally rubicund and bull-like).

  “Come, come, gentlemen!” said my uncle. In his little way he was himself a great gentleman; there was pomp and ceremony, dignity and good manners, whenever he mounted the rostrum, and his company always behaved as gentlemen, being treated so.

  He looked towards the great fat butcher. “Come, offer me sixty,” he said.

  The fat butcher hesitated, then nodded his head.

  “Sixty it is. Sixty I’m offered. I’m going to sell this fine beast for sixty. You know where it comes from, gentlemen. Mr. Parker’s of The Reddings. Mr. Parker, who’s won the championship four years out of the last seven. At sixty. I’m selling at sixty. Going, going, gone.”

  The fat butcher smiled.

  “ ’Tis a lot of money, Mr. Moore,” he said.

  “ ’Tis a lot of good meat,” said my uncle. “Congratulations. Let me see, it’s twelve years running, isn’t it, that you’ve bought the champion beast? And this is the highest price you’ve ever paid, and this is the best beast, in my opinion. Congratulations to you and to Mr. Parker.”

  There was a sudden burst of clapping. Somebody shouted out, “And congratulations to you, Mister! It’s thirty-five years you’ve been selling here.”

  “Is it? Thirty-five years! Well, well. One doesn’t like being reminded of the years at my age. Dear, dear! Thirty-five years!”

  “Aye. We be getting old, Mr. Moore,” said the butcher. (I wonder if he had some queer premonition, a flash of foreknowledge?) “W
e be getting old, you and I. We be going, going, gone!”

  Falstaff he is Dead

  Three weeks later he fell ill, the great fat butcher with the fire-red cherubim’s face. He bore his great mountain of flesh up to bed, and lay there for three days, and then he died. I went into the shop next week and his wife was there, carrying on as best she could (for she had no sons). The rosettes of the champion beasts still hung on the wall behind her: twelve rosettes in a row. I told her I was sorry; and she said surprisingly:

  “He went very quiet, for a man of his size. As quiet as a little child, he lay. But once or twice he cried out, and once or twice he groaned; and I tried to hear what he was saying, but ’twas only a whisper. “What a job it is, Missus,” he said to me. “What a job it is, what a job!”

  I felt a little shiver run down my spine; for although the words were different, I could hear an echo more than three hundred years old: a faint far echo of what Mistress Quickly said when Falstaff died.

  Tempora Mutantur

  That year, for the first time, we had sold no fat beast for Mr. Jeffs. He was at the market; and I watched him standing beside the ring while my uncle was selling; but he, who had always been larger than life, seemed suddenly to have grown smaller. A month or two before he had left his great farm on the hill; he was growing old, he said, and he could no longer get round it. He had bought “a little place” in which to spend his last days, and somehow he seemed to have shrunk as his lands had shrunk. He still wore the flower in his buttonhole, the well-cut tweeds, the grey bowler hat; but he was no longer distinguished-looking, he was no longer Mr. Jeffs of the Hill. You would scarcely have noticed him, you would scarcely have picked him out from the lesser men crowding about the ring.