The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 16

  ‘HENRY GREEN’

  The Lull

  1

  There was a bar in this fire station. On the bar was a case of beer. A fireman was taking bottles from this case, placing the full bottles onto shelves. He was alone.

  Another came in. This one was minus his tunic. He wore a check shirt. The barman began to take him off, without looking up from what he was doing.

  ‘You – you – you fool,’ the barman said. The way he spoke you would have thought one or the other stuttered.

  ‘Ten Woodbines, thank you.’

  ‘Ten,’ the barman said.

  A bell in the cash register. Then silence. These two men stood in silence.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘No, not just yet, thanks all the same, Gerald. I don’t smoke such a lot these days.’

  ‘Not like you used to, eh?’

  What lay behind this last remark was that Gerald, the man in the check shirt, was echoing an opinion widely held in the station, that this barman often put his sticky fingers, which were of the same length, into the till. But it was said without malice. The barman let it pass. He knew the personnel expected to be robbed, within reason. He lifted another full case onto the bar. After a pause, he said: ‘They don’t get any lighter. Is there anything on tonight?’

  He asked this pleasantly, to get his own back. He was referring to the fact that Gerald, because he did odd jobs carpentering for the officer in charge, was excused the tactical exercises held every evening to keep the men out of bed.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ the other replied. His tone of voice was to show, elaborately, that he did not care.

  ‘We want another blitz,’ remarked the barman.

  ‘We do,’ he was answered.

  Neither of these firemen stuttered.

  ‘I saw old Sambo today.’

  The other did not make a move.

  ‘Why d’you wear that bloody shirt?’ the first man went on. He kept his eyes on the bottles he arranged. ‘Has your Mrs got such a number that she can’t put your dusters to the proper use? Because we could do with one or two at ’ome. Yes,’ he broke off, ‘I seen Sam.’

  ‘That fellow with a squint.’

  ‘That’s right. Sam Race.’

  A short silence.

  ‘You know the last time I seen him?’ the barman went on.

  ‘On a working party?’ This was a reference to the fact that, because he pleaded he had to check his stock, the barman was excused fatigues.

  ‘On a working party! No! Along Burdett Road the night of that bad blitz.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve not seen ’im since the night Willy Tennant got down under the pump, when old Ted Fowler moved up one. It was surprising it didn’t break his leg.’

  ‘The wheel went right over?’ the man in the shirt asked, as though enquiring whether the blackbird had got the worm.

  ‘You’re telling me. I was there. Yes, from that day until this morning I didn’t set eyes on Sam. That’s a strange thing, come to look at it.’

  They stood, in silence again, leaning each side of the bar. They pondered at the linoleum which covered the counter.

  ‘Sure you couldn’t do with a drink?’ the barman asked at last.

  ‘Quite sure, thanks.’

  At this a third fireman came in.

  ‘Well brother?’

  That is to say the barman and the third fireman were both members of the Fire Brigades Union.

  ‘I’ll ’ave one of them small light ales, Joe, please. Will you try one?’

  ‘No, thanks all the same. Been out on short leave?’ He called it ‘leaf’.

  ‘Yes, I ’ad a drop of short.’

  A bell in the cash register.

  ‘I was just tellin’ Gerald,’ the first man went on, ‘I seen Sam Race as I was on me way round to the brewer’s this morning.’

  ‘Wally Race you mean, Joe.’

  ‘No, Wally Race is the brother.’

  ‘Wally Race ’as no brother,’ the third man stuck to his guns.

  ‘What’ll you bet me, Gus?’

  ‘Wally Race ’as no brother. ’E’s lived at ’ome ever since I can remember. With ’is mother and ’er old man. No, he’s an only child, Wally Race is.’

  ‘Come on, Gus, what’ll you bet?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to take your money, Joe.’

  ‘What if you do, that’s my business! It’s my money, ain’t it? Come on now, just for a lark, how much?’

  ‘What, on three fourteen and six a week?’

  ‘Some of you chaps just won’t ’ave a go. Forgotten what it’s like I suppose.’

  The barman pretended disgust. He lifted two empty cases down. He began to polish glasses when Gerald, in his check shirt, turned all at once, and hurried out of the room.

  ‘What’s ’e making now?’ the third man asked.

  ‘Bedside table. Bloody marvellous the work he turns out. You can’t see ’is joins, only with a magnifying glass.’

  ‘Yes. The Boy Marvel.’

  Silence yet again. Then a fourth man entered.

  ‘Quite busy, thank you, this evenin’,’ the barman remarked in greeting. He meant it. ‘Bloody awful quiet it is in behind this bar sometimes. What can I do for you, brother?’

  ‘Wallop,’ the fourth man demanded.

  ‘Now then, Ted, you know there ain’t none. We can do you light ale, in quarts or ’alf pints, ditto brown ale, or a nice bottle of Guinness.’

  ‘What, at eightpence ’alfpenny. Not likely.’

  They looked at each other, amiably.

  ‘What’s become of the Bar Committee?’ the fourth man enquired.

  ‘What’s become of it?’ the barman Joe echoed. ‘It’s still in existence.’

  ‘Then it’s time it ’eld another meeting.’

  ‘These small lights aren’t bad, Ted,’ the third man said.

  ‘I don’t want none o’ that. I like it all right, but those lights don’t like me. Too gassy.’

  ‘All right then, mate, but make up your mind.’ Having said this, the barman began to polish glasses again.

  ‘’Ow much a week, now, is this job you’ve got behind that bar worth to you?’ the fourth man went on.

  The barman ignored it. Instead he remarked: ‘I seen Sam Race this morning.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll risk a brown, Joe. Out of the large bottle.’

  ‘Pronto. Yes, ’e looked very queer, did old Sambo.’

  ‘Sam who?’

  ‘Sam Race. Why you must remember him, Ted.’

  ‘Wally Race you mean.’

  ‘No, Sam.’

  ‘What station?’

  ‘’E’s moved,’ the barman replied, nonplussed for the instant. ‘I disremember where exactly,’ he went on rather lamely. This attracted the third man’s attention, who asked: ‘What station was ’e at?’

  The barman had pulled himself together. He knew what to say to this.

  ‘Where d’you think, Gus? Up Goldington Road, at 4U of course, with Matty Franks.’ He was improvising.

  ‘With ’oo?’ the fourth man objected.

  ‘Old Matty Franks,’ the barman answered irritably.

  A bell in the cash register. A pause.

  ‘Never ’eard of ’im,’ the fourth man announced. ‘Good ’ealth,’ he said.

  ‘God bless,’ the third fireman replied.

  ‘Never heard of Matty Franks?’ the barman went on. ‘The rottenest old bastard in the Service. Up Goldington Road just past the Ploughshare?’

  The two men looked at the barman, ruminating. The fourth man was about to object he was not acquainted with a pub of that name up that road when they all heard a sad cry of ‘Come and get it,’ from below, from the messroom.

  ‘Already?’ the fourth man asked aloud. He gulped his down. He left.

  The third fireman finished his half pint, and went.

  The moment he was alone the barman poured himself out a light from one of the quart bottles.

&n
bsp; A bell did not ring in the cash register. Joe had his drinks on the house, when no one was looking.

  Silence. He let a lonely belch. He pondered the linoleum which covered the counter.

  After five minutes, a kitchen orderly for the day brought the barman up his supper.

  ‘Fred,’ the barman said, ‘it’s getting very slow in this bloody dump.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Fred replied.

  ‘I’ve ’ad Gus and Ted on about Sam Race.’

  ‘Oo?’

  ‘Sam Race.’

  ‘I don’t seem to recollect a Sam Race, Joe.’

  ‘No, nor there ain’t never been. There’s only the one Wally Race, who squints something ’orrible. Yet they wouldn’t ’ave a bet on it. Not one o’ them. What a game, eh?’

  ‘You’ve said it,’ Fred replied, uninterested. He went out.

  The barman began to eat his supper.

  2

  Another evening. The same bar. Five or six firemen sat around. Two were without a drink. A fifth man held the floor.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a great big woman, my aunt was, twenty-two stone she weighed. And a real wicked old lady. My dad wouldn’t allow us kids to have nothing to do with ’er. I’ll tell you what she did once. It was a Sunday morning, on the way to church.’

  ‘On the way to church?’ another fireman asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, mate, that sort are churchgoers, very often. I’ll never forget. Just as she came up on a sheep she put her umbrella right into it. “Err,” she said, “you horrid thing.” Went right in, the point did.’

  No one accepted this. He realised it. He had to go on.

  ‘Terrible she was. Used to kill cats for the enjoyment. She was well hated. D’you know the manner she used to despatch ’em. By strangilation.’

  ‘Strangled them, eh?’ another asked.

  ‘Yes, mate. She put a cord round the neck with a slip knot. Then she’d pass the end through the keyhole. She took the key out first, of course. Then she’d take a turn round her body with the free end. To finish up she just leaned on that door. With all her weight it didn’t take more’n a minute.’

  ‘How d’you mean, a turn round ’er body?’

  ‘Well, she’d entice the cat in first, see. After that she’d put a slip knot round its neck,’ and this fifth fireman went on into an involved description of the method favoured by his aunt. No one was wiser at the end. In the pause which followed two of the others started a quiet argument between each other as to the performance of a particular towing vehicle.

  The fifth man began his last attempt.

  ‘She was hated, real hated she was in the country thereabouts,’ he told them. ‘My dad always said she’d come unstuck at the finish. And so she did. It was remarkable the way it come about.’

  ‘What was that then, Charley?’ someone asked, from politeness.

  ‘The way she died, mate. It was to do with a duck for her supper. Eighty-six years old she was. She couldn’t manage to wring this duck’s neck. So she got out the old chopper, held the bird down on the block and plonk, the ’ead was gone. Well, this head, it can’t ’ave fallen in the basket. When she bent down to pick up the ’ead, she let the carcass fall. And it fell right side up, right side up that bloody carcass fell, on its bloody feet and all. And did it run! Well she must ’ave taken fright. She must ’ave started runnin’, with the duck ’ard after. She run out into the garden. The blood from the stump left a trail behind. It followed ’er every turn, that decapitated duck did. Until in the finish she fell down. Dead as mutton she was. ’Eart failure. She’d took a fright. But credit it or not, that duck landed on her arse as she lay there, stretched out. That’s where my first cousin, the nephew, came on ’em both. Cold as a stone, she was, already.’

  ‘Damn that for a bloody tale, Charley.’

  ‘You don’t believe me, ah? Well, I tell you, it’s the bloody truth. It’s the nerves or something. You’ll see the same with chickens that’s had their heads cut off. If it’s done sudden they’ll run around.’

  ‘Not that distance.’

  ‘I’m sayin’ to you, this ’appened just like I told you, Joe. All right, disbelieve me then.’

  A game of darts was suggested. All joined in.

  3

  But it was noticeable that, whenever a stranger came into the bar, these firemen, who had not been on a blitz for eighteen months, would start talking back to what they had seen of the attack on London in 1940. They were seeking to justify the waiting life they lived at present, without fires.

  A stranger did not have to join in, his presence alone was enough to stimulate them who felt they no longer had their lives now that they were living again, if life in a fire station can be called living.

  These men were passing through a period which may be compared with the experience of changing fast trains. A traveller on the crowded platform cannot be said to command his destiny, who stands, agape, waiting for the next express. It is signalled, he knows that it will be packed, it is down the line. The unseen approach keeps him, as it were, suspended, that is no more than breathing, but more than ready to describe the way he has arrived to a man he does not know, waiting in the same disquiet, at his shoulder.

  4

  It was an evening session in this bar. They had all had a few beers. The stranger, posted to this station for the night because it was short of riders, stayed bored, expressionless, without a hope of comfort. They were sitting back against the walls, in a rectangle. A silence fell. Then the sixth man began. He asked: ‘Joe, remember the night we were called to Jacob’s Place?’

  ‘I’ll likely never forget that, mate.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  Silence. But everyone listened.

  ‘What was that, then?’ a seventh man enquired.

  ‘They called us on to Number five Jacob’s Place,’ he began again, consciously dramatic.

  ‘Number seventeen, Alfred,’ the barman said.

  ‘You may be right at that,’ the sixth man answered, unwilling to argue because he wanted to get on with his story. ‘It’s of no consequence,’ he added, already beginning to be put out, ‘the point is some geezer in the street tells us there’s a job in the roof, so of course Joe here an’ me gets crackin’. The rest of the crew set in to a hydrant, while the two of us run upstairs with the stirrup pump in case we can put it out easy. It turns out to be one of them houses where there’s just a caretaker, like, an’ all the furniture is covered with sheets be’ind locked doors. Ghostly. You know the kind, a smashing place, but ’aunted. There must’ve been fifteen or sixteen rooms. Well there’s a lot of cold smoke choking us on the top floor, but we find the old trap-door to the roof all right. It was quite a pleasure to get out in the air again, it certainly was, wasn’t it, Joe?’

  ‘It was that,’ Joe said back.

  ‘We begin taking a few tiles off,’ he went on, ‘and we find a place where it’s a bit ’ot, but we still ’aven’t come on the seat of the fire, we’re rummagin’ about, like, on top of that bloody roof when all of a sudden there’s a bloody blubbering noise up in the sky over’ead, yes, like a dog bloody ’owling in a bass voice, and coming down out of the moon though we couldn’t see nothink. Was I scared. I thinks to meself it’s another bloody secret weapon. I called out to you, didn’t I, mate?’

  ‘You may ’ave done Alf. I was too busy tryin’ to get down out of it.’

  ‘Yes, we had a bit of a scramble. Joe ’ere was nearest, so he goes down first. Well, there was no point in that “after you” stunt, was there? Yes, and as I was coming last down through the trap-door, I looks up, and I sees what had put the wind up me to such an extent. Know what it was?’

  Everyone in the room, bar the stranger, could have told him. They had heard this story often. And the stranger was not interested.

  Alfred answered himself.

  ‘A bloody barrage balloon,’ he said. ‘The shrapnel had got at it. The blubbering noise is occasioned by the fabric rubbin’ together as it com
es down, or the gas escapin’ out of the envelope, one or the other. I couldn’t rightly say. But it didn’t half put the wind up me.’

  ‘And me,’ said Joe.

  Silence fell again. Each man drank sparingly of his beer. Knowing the story had not been a success because it had been told before, Alfred tried to get some response from the stranger.

  ‘What station are you from?’ he asked.

  This man awoke with a start from a doze of misery. He replied obliquely, saying: ‘I’m a CO you know.’

  ‘A conchie? Well, why not,’ Alfred generously said.

  ‘I’ve never been out on a job,’ the stranger answered. ‘And I don’t know if I should put out fires,’ he went on, desperate, ‘I don’t rightly know if I ought.’

  A heavier silence followed.

  5

  Hyde Park on Sunday. It was hot. A fireman in mufti and a young girl were, of an afternoon, by that part of the Serpentine in which fishing is allowed. They had put themselves back from dazzling water, on deck chairs.

  A girl of eighteen went slowly by, dressed in pink, a careful inexpensive outfit, one of thousands off a hook. From her deck chair the other said, rapid and sly: ‘La petite marquise Osine est toute belle.’

  He had been admiring the calves and tender ankles that girl dragged through thin, olive-green grass. He laughed. He was caught out. He turned to his companion.

  ‘Henry,’ she went on, bilingual, speaking only a little less fast, ‘surely you remember?’

  He was sleepy. He shook his head. She recited, quick and low:

  Oui, certes, il est doux,

  Le roman d’un premier amant. L’âme s’essaie,

  C’est un jeune coureur à la première haie.

  C’est si mignard qu’on croit à peine que c’est mal.

  Quelque chose d’étonnamment matutinal.

  He said, ‘Yes.’ He did not turn away again. He admired her nose, which had caught his eye, as it always did.

  ‘Verlaine?’ he asked.

  She wondered what he was looking at so particularly about her.