The Boarding-House Page 3

  They all thought as Rose Cave did; that The Boarding-House must surely now come to an end. Mr Obd, tying his polka-dotted bow tie, thought it, and Mr Scribbin and Venables and Major Eele. Miss Clerricot drew off her black gloves and sat before her looking-glass, examining her face and visualizing her future. The Boarding-House was convenient, and Mr Bird had been so kind. Mr Bird had looked at you with his simpatico gaze, like an uncle, a certain Uncle Beg whom she had known in her childhood, a jolly man who had taken her often on his knee and had nipped the back of her neck with his lips, like a playful horse. In the privacy of her mind. Miss Clerricot played a harmless game: identifying Mr Bird with Uncle Beg. Unlike Rose Cave, she had never lived alone in a bed-sitting-room. She claimed she could not boil an egg and had hinted at a gracious background.

  In the kitchen that night, the night of the funeral, Gallelty voiced again her graveside cry: ‘What shall become of us?’ And Mrs Slape, occupied with meat, said that Gallelty had little need to act so broken-hearted. ‘I have known this kitchen since the early days of Mr Bird, since first he came into power. You, on the other hand, have been here but a fortnight, and came in any case by accident.’ But Gallelty, who bit her nails and had many fears, wept with the vigour of one whose luck had turned and then abruptly turned again.

  In that August in SW17 no emotion existed to match the hatred between Studdy and Nurse Clock. It was almost a feat, like a piece of engineering: a great bridge, their only source of communication. In his later lifetime two things had been remarkable about Mr Bird’s house: his own paternity and the venomous relationship of his two senior people. Senior they were and none questioned it; although in years they could not have thus aspired. Only Venables and Mr Bird had been longer in The Boarding-House; and Mr Bird was outside such competition, and Venables somehow did not count.

  What heightened the rivalry and the ugliness between the nurse and Studdy was a singular fact and one that had nothing at all to do with the house they lived in. Instead it involved a certain Mrs Maylam, an old woman of eighty-nine whom Studdy visited for purposes of his own and whom Nurse Clock had recently begun to visit too, in order to put injections into her legs. ‘That’s a dangerous man,’ Nurse Clock had said to Mrs Maylam, after she had met Studdy leaving the old woman’s flat. ‘What’s he doing here anyway? Smoking cigarettes, Mrs Maylam; it doesn’t do you any good, you know.’ But Mrs Maylam, tetchy and disliking the ignominy of having the stranger nurse lift up her clothes to put the needle in her leg, would hear no ill of Studdy and was clearly on his side – a fact that Studdy was aware of and played upon. Nurse Clock considered that he had stolen a patient from her and threatened to report him to some authority. She said there was a case against him, exercising influence over the elderly.

  On the very morning that William Bird died Nurse Clock had visited Mrs Maylam. ‘I’m having no more,’ Mrs Maylam had said, meaning injections. ‘No more jabs for me, madam.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Nurse Clock.

  ‘Bloody,’ said Mrs Maylam. ‘Can’t you see I’m listening to my wireless?’

  ‘Time for your little prick, dear.’

  ‘You can put it up your jumper for all I care. I can look after my frigging self, you know.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Mr Studdy’s given me a potato. I’m trying the potato for a while now.’

  Nurse Clock could see Studdy’s coarse face grinning in triumph. She could feel him near her, repeating the story to himself, reminding himself. As she cycled away from Mrs Maylam’s place she prepared her attack on him, but when she arrived at The Boarding-House there had been a message from Mr Bird to say he wished for her presence. His death put the incident temporarily from her mind.

  ‘Now,’ said Nurse Clock on the night of the funeral, ‘we must think of a headstone. Should we have a few simple words? Or let the name and the dates speak for themselves? What does anyone think?’

  ‘I would like the television on,’ said Major Eele, making for the set and fiddling with the switches.

  ‘A line from the scriptures,’ suggested Rose Cave. ‘He had a thoughtful ear for God.’

  ‘No, no.’ The matter was an important one: Miss Clerricot saw it as one on which she might openly disagree. ‘Surely not the scriptures? Surely a line or two from Pope, his favourite poet? A brave man struggling in the arms of fate or Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Major Eele, staring at everyone in turn. Had they gone out of their minds? he thought. ‘He was not a Holy Roman,’ he said aloud.

  ‘You need not be,’ said Rose Cave sharply, or sharply for her, ‘you need not be a Roman Catholic to have words on your gravestone.’

  Major Eele remembered the first day that Mr Bird had brought him to Green Street. A cold day, it had been, in early spring; on the tiny stage, on the left-hand side, there had been a single-bar electric fire. ‘Some interesting stuff,’ Mr Bird had promised, limping in front of him. ‘I think you’ll find it exciting, Major.’ He followed Mr Bird down a narrow passage, across a yard, and then up uncarpeted stairs. In the room they entered men were sitting singly, staring hard. In a spotlight a woman of forty or so was taking off her brassiere. Major Eele gave a little grunt. ‘Sit down,’ said Mr Bird. The woman was dark-skinned, an African or a West Indian. She moved her body about, swinging banana-shaped breasts. A man, an official, probably the proprietor of the place, flashed a powerful torch on her writhing torso. The woman smiled quite gaily, playing with the elastic of her knickers, the only garment she now wore. The curtains were pulled to. Mr Bird released his breath, signalling to Major Eele that something of greater worth was about to break. The curtains reopened: the woman had removed her knickers. She sat quite still upon a chair, looking vacantly into the middle distance, forgetting to smile. The man with the flashlight played the beam on her. He said something and she smiled. There was jazz music of a kind; Major Eele would have preferred something directly from Africa: the beat of tom-toms or the recorded sounds of jungle-birds and mosquitoes. The next performer was younger; white and slim. Major Eele kept thinking she must once have been a millgirl in the mill area of the North. The thought excited him for some reason, but he was disappointed because she was thin and white and didn’t remind him of the tom-toms of Africa. They stayed for an hour and a quarter, seeing each performer many times. Afterwards, they didn’t speak about it. They sat in silence in the bus that took them back to SW17, Major Eele with his thoughts, Mr Bird seeming bored, seeming not to think at all.

  ‘He wasn’t that kind of man,’ said Major Eele. ‘Not the sort to have slop on his gravestone. No, no, truly …’ His voice trailed away, leaving a pause that implied his greater knowledge of Mr Bird, and a manly relationship.

  ‘Slop,’ said Rose Cave. ‘What on earth do you mean, Major Eele?’

  ‘Slop. Gush. Like the inside of a summer fruit. You know as well as I do, madam.’

  But Rose Cave shook her head, and Major Eele crept close to the television and turned up the volume. He was withdrawing himself from the conversation: he made that clear by turning his back and fixing his attention on the screen.

  ‘I did not know,’ said Rose Cave, ‘that Pope was Mr Bird’s favourite poet. I did not know that at all.’

  ‘The world forgetting, by the world forgot,’ murmured Miss Clerricot.

  Nurse Clock drew her short nails against the fabric of her skirt. She frowned to herself, keeping the frown in her mind, not showing it in her forehead.

  ‘Surely we should simply say that Mr Bird has died and has in his time brought comfort and lived a pleasant life. Is that not all? I see no call for argument.’ She spoke in this matter-of-fact way, a little loudly; like a matron who knew her way about. She had not informed the newspapers, as Mr Bird had wished, that he died in the manner he said: legs first, a creeping business from below. She believed that the newspapers might not be interested, that they had more to print than anecdotage of men dying in a particular manner. And now she be
lieved that it did not matter much what went on the stone of Mr Bird’s grave, except to state that it was he who lay below, that he was dead and had died in a certain year.

  ‘Go, good fellow! I saw that once,’ said Major Eele. ‘Why not say that?’ He turned from the television to speak, making it clear that he had listened to the others’ conversation, and then regretted that he had allowed the disclosure.

  Mr Scribbin suggested something: A friend in need; and Venables waved his arms in the air, agreeing or not agreeing.

  ‘We are no nearer satisfaction,’ said Nurse Clock.

  ‘Or Inordinate mastery of human affairs,’ suggested Mr Scribbin. ‘Just that. Words like that. Simple and direct.’

  Mr Scribbin, a shy man, as awkward in his manner as his gangling movements suggested, had never married. In later life he had sat in Mr Bird’s room and reminisced, especially about his childhood, the time of life his tallness had affected him most. ‘Small men are terrors,’ had been the view of Mr Bird; ‘given to outbursts of anger to prove their spirit. I never knew a small man I cared for, Mr Scribbin. Take heart from that. Imagine, He might have made you a dwarf instead.’ But Mr Scribbin only said: ‘A dwarf?’ and mulled the image over in his mind, thinking of other dwarfs, female dwarfs whom he might have set up house with. ‘Don’t hold yourself so straight,’ Mr Bird had said. ‘Ease up, Mr Scribbin, you’re like a ramrod.’

  ‘I mean,’ said Mr Scribbin, but no one listened. The television noise was loud. He left the sentence in the air.

  ‘Miss Clerricot’s quotations,’ said Rose Cave. ‘The lines from Pope. Too long, I’d have thought? Am I wrong? Perhaps I’m wrong.’

  ‘D’you mean too expensive? Too much from the money point of view?’ Miss Clerricot was leaning forward, her body folded like a boomerang, her chin jutting. ‘I’ll pay the extra,’ said Miss Clerricot. ‘How about the tombstone? Are we all going to chip in? How about the funeral?’

  ‘Funeral?’ said Mr Obd, not knowing he would have to chip in for anything.

  ‘Who pays?’ Miss Clerricot asked. ‘Some funeral parlour’ll send a bill. A couple of hundred I’d imagine.’

  Mr Obd’s lips moved, counting out his share. He licked the same lips; a nervous look developed in his eyes. ‘We must pay?’ asked Mr Obd. ‘For the burial and the tombstone? Is that convention? I had not ever guessed.’

  Miss Clerricot repeated: ‘Does Miss Cave mean the Pope quotations would add considerably to the stonemason’s bill? I’ll give a little extra, I’ve got a bit put by: the dead come first.’

  ‘I did not ever know,’ said Mr Obd, and rose and left the room.

  ‘You’ve upset him,’ cried Nurse Clock. ‘A shame, a shame, all this talk of money. Poor dear fellow–’

  ‘Like misers,’ said Major Eele. ‘They save their pennies for the rebel armies.’

  ‘Oblige us by turning down the sound,’ said Nurse Clock. She turned to Venables and Mr Scribbin. ‘What do the gentlemen say?’

  ‘It is early to erect a tombstone,’ said Venables. ‘That is not done, I thought, until a year or so after the decease.’

  ‘We need a decision,’ snapped Nurse Clock. She did not think much of Venables: she thought of him as a fat fool and suspected him of laziness over washing.

  ‘Ha,’ said Venables. ‘We have a whole year to make it in.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Nurse Clock, speaking with scorn. ‘Who says we have a year? What is this new idea that we should spend a year discussing so morbid a subject? Yes, death is morbid, Mr Venables; you cannot escape that.’

  Venables had a familiar pain in his stomach. He felt in the pocket of his flannel trousers for a pill. ‘I wouldn’t escape that,’ he said, getting the pill surreptitiously into his mouth.

  ‘Why shilly-shally, Mr Venables? We’re here tonight; surely we can come to an agreement?’

  ‘People like time, though–’

  ‘Oh, stuff, stuff!’

  Venables smoked incessantly. He would sit and smoke far into the night and when he rose he would find himself grey with ash. In a half-hearted way he would push it away with his hand, forcing it into the fabric of his clothes.

  ‘In my kind of work,’ Venables began, but Nurse Clock broke into his sentence with a fresh ejaculation. It was just a high noise that she made, but she suggested unmistakably that whatever it was that Venables was about to say it would not be pertinent and would, as well, be boring. Nurse Clock wished to have the subject of the gravestone dealt with then and there, because Studdy was absent, because Studdy in time would be presented with a fait accompli. Studdy had caught her napping and had taken it upon himself to organize the wreaths. She wished for no repetition of that.

  On the television screen a man in a white coat was offering a packet of detergent to a downcast woman. The woman, feigning suspicion, took it cautiously. ‘Very funny,’ said Major Eele, and began to laugh.

  ‘We should not come to any decision,’ said Mr Scribbin. ‘We are not all gathered together.’ Studdy rarely came to watch the television in the evenings. Now and again he would come in later to see some boxing.

  ‘That is unnecessary,’ said Nurse Clock. ‘What do you suggest, Mr Scribbin: that we should call a meeting? Are you putting us all on a tombstone committee, is that it?’

  ‘Mr Studdy should be here. He was Mr Bird’s right-hand man.’

  ‘What nonsense! Studdy to be the right-hand man of anyone! You’re making a big fat joke, Mr Scribbin!’ She laughed. Good humour came on to her face. She laughed again, trying to turn the situation, trying to make it that Mr Scribbin had issued an excellent joke, that he was dryly witty.

  ‘We know where Mr Studdy is,’ Rose Cave said, laughing too, because being in a public house was something one laughed affectionately over, or laughed knowingly.

  Miss Clerricot smiled and thought of an occasion when Studdy had come back to the house and had, in this same lounge, tripped over the feet of Mr Obd and fallen heavily to the ground. Remembering this and the amusement it had caused, Miss Clerricot laughed too.

  All were laughing now except Mr Scribbin: Nurse Clock at the joke she wished to make it seem had been made, Major Eele at the downcast woman and the man in white giving her detergent, Rose Cave at the weakness of Studdy, and Miss Clerricot at the remembered image of Studdy falling. Venables was laughing because of nerves. Observing all this, Mr Scribbin was puzzled. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ cried Nurse Clock, running a hand across her eyes to clear away imaginary tears. And Mr Scribbin assumed then that all were laughing at the joke she said he had made. He hunted among the words he had used for some unconscious pun but could find none there. He looked about at the others, and to show that he took no offence he joined in the fun. Nurse Clock watched him, the smile still stretched upon her face. She gave a final honk of merriment and saw him give one too, and knew that she had won.

  ‘He’s never here,’ she said. ‘He takes no interest. That’s all I meant, Mr Scribbin. See?’

  Mr Obd returned and said he thought expenses should be kept low. A lot was said about the gravestone, and further ideas were put forward as to the wording. Nurse Clock knew a man, a local stone-mason, who would do the whole job for a little less than the usual charge, being under some obligation to her. He was very good, she said: they were lucky to be able to place the matter in the hands of so good a man: he had won prizes for his gravestones. So the matter was left, with The Boarding-House inmates who were present, all except Major Eele, feeling under some small obligation to Nurse Clock, as the stone-mason was to her. She had proved to be of sterling quality, knowledgeable about people who could do a good job and still charge less, eminently able to conduct a conversation and see it through to a happy conclusion.

  In Rose Cave’s mind there sat a pretty gravestone, a thing of elegance, slim and beautifully cut, bearing upon it the name of Mr Bird together with his two important dates and a single line from the wisdom of St Paul. Miss Clerricot saw a similar thing, a tombstone that was elegant too, though
a little dumpier and which bore the comforting words of Pope: Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying! Inordinate mastery of human affairs the tombstone said for Mr Scribbin; and nothing, save name and dates, for Venables. By discreet nodding and winking. Nurse Clock had agreed with everyone in a private way, even with Mr Obd, who had thought it a good idea in the interests of economy to have simply a plain stone: a virgin surface, as he put it, without any words at all.

  Late that same evening, at nine forty-two, the hall-door bell of The Boarding-House rang and an intoxicated man entered the hall and was led by Gallelty to the television lounge. The man, a small and almost elderly person, merry on the surface but seeming depressed beneath it, gave his name and stated his business. He spoke generally, to the collected residents, for his business, he claimed, lay with them all. He was the solicitor with whom Mr Bird had deposited his will. He called so late, he said, because he wished to find them all together and to read out the news to the collected company. Later on, Studdy put out a story that the solicitor was not fully speaking the truth; that he came so late because he was a solicitor only by night and pursued some different trade by day. Certainly, the aspect of the man lent some credence to Studdy’s claim: there was a seediness about his clothes and about his face; he had not led a dissipated life, one would have guessed, but somewhere in his life something had gone wrong. Studdy, who took against the man, although he had no call to, for the man insisted upon waiting for Studdy’s return before making an announcement, put it about that in the daytime the man was employed as a postal official.

  ‘Will you take cocoa, sir,’ said Major Eele, ‘while we wait for Mr Studdy?’

  There was excitement in the television lounge; it ran around from face to face. It was there not because of personal expectations but because at least they would know what was to become of The Boarding-House.