A Kid for Two Farthings (2 page)

‘Don’t show your ignorance on the subject, Shmule,’ Mr Kandinsky said. Then he told Joe about unicorns.

‘Every animal when it was made by the Almighty was given one extra-special present,’ said Mr Kandinsky. ‘The squirrel was given a wonderful tail to hold on with so he wouldn’t fall from the trees; the horse was given strong fine legs so he could run fast; the lion great jaws; the elephant a trunk so he could take a shower whenever he felt like it, because an elephant is so large, how else could he keep clean? But the unicorn got the most special present of all. He was given a magic horn which could cure anything anyone was ever sick from. It could grant anybody’s wish – straight off. And this horn consequently was worth £10,000 cash on sight, anywhere in the world. Don’t ask me why the unicorn got this present. Someone had to get it, so why not him? Anyhow, he got it and no one else. But because of this very gift unicorns became so scarce you won’t even find one in the zoo, so it is in life.

‘At one time unicorns were common as carthorses: wherever you went in the streets you would see half a dozen. In those days no one was poor. You needed something, so, all right, you just reached out your hand and there it was: a glass of lemon tea, a new hat. Then, when people became poor, all the unicorns had their horns stolen and sold. You can imagine what that did to them. Could a lion live without his jaws, could a squirrel swing from the trees without his tail, could an elephant go on without a shower-bath, could I eat if I stopped making trousers? Of course not. So how could a unicorn live without his horn?

‘Ah, Joe, they died in their thousands, the lovely unicorns. They gathered together in dusty yards and at the bottom of those streets which lead nowhere. They nuzzled one another for comfort, and closed their eyes so as not to be reminded of what they had lost. Their fine white coats became spotted, their beautiful sleek muscles slipped away into twisted sinew. They pined, they shrank, they faded, they died, and their death was sad, for they had been eaten up by poverty, swallowed in the darkness of a pit with no bottom, so that no one ever saw them again.’ Mr Kandinsky sighed as he bent to throw his cold goose-iron on to the gas-ring. He looked at Joe with big eyes and sighed. ‘This was the pity of it, my Joe,’ he said. ‘The unicorns passed away, but poverty was still in the world, poverty and sickness. Strong men have wasted away, beautiful girls have grown ugly, children have been lost before they could yet walk, the unicorns are all gone and yet poverty is still here. Don’t ask me why. What do I know?’ He sighed again, then put his hand on Joe’s shoulder, pressing so as to feel the small fine bone. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, in spite of everything, a child grows well, a man goes from strength to strength, a woman’s face does not fade. In the same way some unicorns must have lived. They were the clever ones. They saw how things were going and didn’t waste time blaming men or cursing life, or threatening God, or any other foolishness. Instead they came forward and said to the rest, “Listen, friends. If we don’t do something soon there will be no unicorns left in the world."

‘“Be quiet,” some of them shouted. “Can’t you see we are too unhappy to do anything?”’

‘“Don’t be blasphemous,” others cried. “It’s the will of God.” ’

‘ “Don’t interrupt us when we are crying,” others said. “It is the only thing left for us to enjoy.” ’

‘But some gathered together to escape, some with hope in their hearts, some with doubt, a few with the spirit which does not care either for hope or doubt. These said, “Living means waste, but let who wants to live, live.” ’

‘One old unicorn who had been told about Africa when he was a baby had never forgotten. He told them, and to Africa they went that very night. In Africa they are today, although their terrible experiences made them careful about being seen by men, so that nowadays you don’t see them so often. But they are even bigger now, and stronger even, and so fierce they fight at the drop of a hat. Without doubt, Joe,’ said Mr Kandinsky, ‘without doubt, Shmule, you wrestler,’ he said, ‘there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn’t be unicorns in Africa.’

‘What do I know?’ asked Shmule.

‘Could you get a unicorn into the house?’ Joe asked.

‘A small unicorn,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘certainly. There is no reason why a small unicorn couldn’t be got into the house. Would you like another spoonful, Joe?’ He stirred the carrots in the saucepan on his gas-ring so that a great cloud arose.

2

After Kandinsky the day-old chick died, Joe went to the animal market, because if you wanted a unicorn the best place in the world to look for it was Club Row.

Joe had his own way of walking through the market. It made it much larger if you started in the middle where the herring-women fished salted herrings out of barrels with red hands, dipped them in water and cleaned and sliced them thinly with long thin knives. From there you walked up to Alf, the singing-bird man, then cut round the back, coming through to the other end where the dogs were. But if there was something you wanted to buy it was much better to start at one end by the singing birds and walk through, looking carefully at every stall.

Alf, the singing-bird man, came to Mr Kandinsky for repairs, so he knew Joe and always spoke to him, even if he was busy selling someone a canary. Alf was against day-old chicks as pets. He pulled his light brown overall coat down, pushed his cap back from his eyes and told Joe when he bought Kandinsky, ‘You ain’t doing that chick no favour, Joe, taking him away without his mother, alone; he doesn’t know how to give a peep-peep yet; putting him in a box with a drop of water and a handful of straw. That rotten day-old chick man should be put in a box himself, the louse, selling chicks to anyone with a sixpence. A chick like this needs his mum or a special hot-box; he don’t just grow up any old how any old where; he must have special care; he shouldn’t catch cold.’ Alf turned to a fat lady with a big grey fur round her neck. ‘That canary, lady,’ he said, ‘is such a singer I should like to see better.’

‘He don’t appear to be singing much just now,’ the lady said, taking a handful of potato-crisps from a bag and crunching them. ‘Tweet-tweet,’ she said to the canary, spitting a few little bits of potato-crisp at him, ‘tweet-tweet.’

‘Here, Oscar,’ Alf said, because all his birds were sold with their right names on small red certificates. He whistled softly to the bird. Oscar turned his bead eyes towards Alf, listened for a moment, and then began to sing.

‘Lovely,’ the fat lady said, finishing the crisps and brushing her fur. ‘How much for the bird?’

‘That Oscar,’ Alf said afterwards, ‘I had him nearly a year.’ And he started to whistle softly to a dark gold canary.

Near Alf ’s stall there was a jellied-eel stand with a big enamel bowl of grey jellied eels, small bowls for portions, a large pile of lumps of bread, and three bottles of vinegar. There were also orange-and-black winkles in little tubs, and large pink whelks. People stood around shaking vinegar on to their eels and scooping them up with bread. A little thin man in a white muffler served them and sometimes dropped a large piece of eel on the ground. Behind the stand a very fat man with a striped apron and an Anthony Eden hat waved a ladle in his hand and shouted, ‘Best eels, fresh jellied; buy ’em and try ’em.’ Over the stand a red, white and blue banner flapped. ‘The Eel King’, it said. The King himself never served.

Opposite the Eel King was a red barrow with dark green water-melons, and a white enamel table-top with halves and slices of melon and a large knife. Joe pretended he couldn’t make up his mind whether to buy some jellied eels or a slice of melon. He watched people eating eels and shaking vinegar on them, and then looked back at the large wide slices of red melon with glossy black seeds bursting from them.

In the end he bought a twopenny slice of melon and pretended it was jellied eels, scooping the red flesh with his teeth and saying ‘Blast’ and ‘Bloody’ when the seeds dropped to the pavement. Some of the seeds he saved so that when they were dry he could crack them between his teeth and get the thin nuts inside.

While he scraped the thick skin of the melon, Joe watched the Indian fortune-teller who wore a turban and sold green, yellow and red perfume in small bottles. Whenever a woman bought a bottle of perfume the Indian looked at her strangely. ‘A little moment, dear lady’, he said, ‘a little moment while I look into the bowl.’ He looked darkly into a large glass bowl which turned purple or orange, and sliding his hand beneath brought out a small envelope with a fortune in it; the pavement all round his stall was covered with torn envelopes. Once, when the market finished, Joe kicked his way through empty boxes and newspapers past the Indian’s stall. He saw him counting sixpences into piles, and putting them into small blue bags, but the bowl looked like an ordinary bowl for goldfish. An Indian girl who wore a long blue silk robe was packing the bottles into boxes on a barrow. When the Indian pushed the barrow away, the girl walked behind him; they went to the bottom of the street and turned away into the darkness under the railway arches, back to India.

The Sunday came when Joe had saved enough of the sixpences Mr Kandinsky gave him every week for helping in the workshop, to buy a unicorn, should one appear. Mr Kandinsky was always busy on Sunday mornings, and he hardly noticed Joe leave. He was arguing with a customer who wanted a zip fastener on his trousers, something to which Mr Kandinsky could not agree.

Joe ran quickly through the crowd to the singing-bird end of the market. Alf was talking to a budgerigar and a tall thin man with a sad face. The bird wasn’t replying, but every so often the thin man said, ‘It’s no good, Alf – it’s no good,’ till at last Alf put the cage down. Then the bird suddenly said, ‘Hello’, and Joe said hello back. The thin man looked sadder still and left, and Alf said, ‘Talks better English than I do. Hello, Joe, what are you after? No more chicks, remember.’

‘Do you know where I can find a unicorn, Alf?’ Joe asked.

‘Try down by the dogs, Joe,’ Alf suggested. ‘Hello,’ the bird said again.

‘Hello,’ Joe replied and started towards the other end of the market.

On the way Mrs Quinn, the hen woman, called him over.

‘Joe,’ she said, ‘tell your mother I’ll bring the eggs over meself tomorrow.’ She was holding a fat hen which squawked as an old woman pinched it and complained. ‘If you don’t like the bird, for the love of St Patrick leave it,’ shouted Mrs Quinn in Yiddish. ‘So tell your mother now,’ she said to Joe.

‘Do you know where I can buy a unicorn, Mrs Quinn?’ Joe asked.

‘What do you want with heathen animals?’ she answered. ‘Get yourself a nice day-old chick.’

‘That day-old chick man, the louse,’ Joe said, ‘he should be put in a box.’

‘Will you leave the bird alone now?’ screamed Mrs Quinn at the old woman, who was still pinching its bottom.

‘There’s no harm,’ Joe thought, ‘in at least having a look at the chicks.’

At the stall, hundreds of them were running about in a large glass enclosure with a paraffin lamp in the middle of it, all squeaking like mice. When someone bought them they were put into cardboard boxes with air-holes, and the squeaking became fainter. It was a pity they had such small lives.

‘Another one already, cock?’ asked the chick man.

‘Not today, thank you,’ said Joe. ‘I’m not a born chick-raiser.’

‘You got to know the trick of it, cock.’

‘I’m going to buy a unicorn this time,’ Joe said. ‘You do that,’ the man said, ‘you do that.’ He bundled two dozen chicks into a box and tied it up with string.

Just about the middle of the market, near the herring women, was the fritter stall which also sold hokey-pokey ices and sarsaparilla fancy drinks. The smell rushed up so thick from the great vat of frying oil that if you stood nearby for a while you had a whole meal of fritters. The hokey-pokey man called out, ‘Get your hokey-pokey, penny a lump, the more you eat the more you jump,’ but Joe hurried on. He passed the cat-lady with her basket of kittens mewing, and the long line of hutches where the rabbits were always eating. He waited for the bearded sandwich-board man to shout at him, ‘The wages of sin is death, repent lest ye perish,’ because he was studying to spit when he spoke. ‘Sthin – death,’ Joe spluttered as he hurried on.

The dog-sellers mostly stood in the gutter or against the bill-hoardings holding a puppy in each hand and one in each pocket. They didn’t say anything unless you patted a pup. Then they told you he was a pedigree Irish retrieving elkhound, his mother was a good house dog. A few of them had cages with bigger dogs in them, and one or two men just stood around with four or five dogs on leads, trying to make them stop walking round in circles and jumping at people. There were dogs with short legs and long tails, and dogs with short tails but long ears. They were all dogs all right, all yelping and barking, just dogs.

Joe walked right to the end of the dog-end of the market, hurrying past the man who bit off exactly at the joint dogs’ tails that needed lopping, to the very last man standing by the arches under the railway. The four sixpences and four pennies in his pocket clinked and three men tried to sell him pedigreed pups, but the last man stood by the dark opening of the arches without speaking. He held a large white rabbit under one arm, and in the other hand a piece of tattered string, and at the end of the string, a small unicorn.

While Joe looked at the unicorn, a little man with three pullovers on came up and took the white rabbit. He held it up by its ears, and it kicked its feet at him. Then he handed it back, saying, ‘Flemish?’

‘Dutch,’ the last man said.

‘Thought it was Flemish,’ the little man mumbled as he turned away.

‘Dutch,’ the man said again.

‘Funny thing,’ the little man mumbled, pulling his pullovers down, ‘funny thing.’

People pushed past with bags of fruit and dogs and birds in cages, but none of them spoke to the man. Then a tall boy came up and stared at the white rabbit for a while.

‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Twelve and sixpence,’ the last man said. ‘It’s Dutch.’

‘Half a bar,’ the boy replied.

‘Done,’ said the last man and handed over the rabbit.

The tall boy left, talking into the rabbit’s ear. The last man pulled at the string on the unicorn as Joe came up to pat its head. The unicorn licked Joe’s hand.

‘He’s a bit twisted,’ the man said to Joe, ‘but he’ll grow straight in time.’

‘He is a bit twisted,’ Joe replied, looking at the unicorn’s hind legs, ‘and one leg is shorter than the other at the back.’

‘He’s a runt all right,’ the man said. ‘Still.’

‘How much is he?’ Joe asked.

‘Only five shillings,’ the man said.

‘Give you two shillings,’ Joe said.

‘Come orf it,’ the man said.

‘He’s a bit twisted,’ Joe said.

‘What if he is a bit twisted?’ the man replied. ‘He’ll grow.’

‘Give you two and fourpence,’ Joe said.

‘Kids,’ the man said, ‘kids.’ He turned into the arches, the unicorn limping beside him, and Joe behind them both.

Under the arches the air smelt of smoke and horses, and footsteps and voices echoed through the smell. In the corners old men with long beards and old women with feathers stuck in their hats, all wrapped up in rags, sat on sacks talking to themselves. As Joe passed, an old man took a long draught from a bottle, and coughed. At the other end of the arches the last man began to hurry, and the unicorn tripped and skipped after him.

When Joe caught up with him the man stopped and the unicorn sat down.

‘You still ’ere?’ the man asked. ‘Kids.’

‘What will you do with him?’ Joe said.

‘Have him for dinner,’ the man said.

‘Oh,’ Joe gasped.

‘With a few onions,’ the man said.

‘How much is he?’ Joe asked.

‘How many more times?’ the man said. ‘Five shillings. He cost me that to raise.’

‘If you come back with me to Mr Kandinsky at Fashion Street,’ Joe said, ‘he’ll give you five shillings.’

‘All that way?’

‘And I’ll give you two and fourpence as well,’ Joe added.

‘Give me the two and fourpence, then,’ the man said, and Joe counted the coins into his hand.

‘I don’t mind leading him,’ Joe said, ‘if you’re a bit tired.’

Back at the workshop Mr Kandinsky was fixing the zip fastener into the trousers because, after all, the customer is always right, even when he’s wrong. He was talking to the baker from the corner. ‘You know,’ he was saying, as Joe came in leading the unicorn, ‘the black bread agrees with me better, only I get the heartburn something terrible.’

‘I’m telling you,’ the baker said, ‘it’s the black bread. I’m a baker, shouldn’t I know?’

‘Hello, Joe,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘what you got there?’

‘Cripple, ain’t it?’ said the baker.

‘It’ll grow,’ the man said.

‘Can you lend me five shillings to pay for this unicorn, Mr Kandinsky?’ Joe said.

Later, Mr Kandinsky made a careful examination. ‘Clearly,’ he said, ‘this unicorn is without doubt a unicorn, Joe; unmistakably it is a genuine unicorn, Shmule. It has only one small horn budding on its head.’

‘Let’s see,’ said Shmule. Then after he looked and felt the horn bud he said, ‘Granted, only one horn.’

‘Second and still important,’ continued Mr Kandinsky, ‘Joe went to the market to buy a unicorn. That is so, Joe?’

Joe nodded.

‘Consequently,’ Mr Kandinsky continued excitedly, ‘it follows that he wouldn’t buy something that wasn’t a unicorn. In which case, he bought a unicorn, which is what this is.’

‘There’s a lot in what you say,’ replied Shmule, ‘although it looks like a baby goat; a little bit crippled, that’s all – not like a horse, which is, after all, a unicorn except for the horn.’

‘And this has a horn, yes or no?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.

‘Definitely,’ replied Shmule, ‘it has an undeveloped horn.’

‘One horn only?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.

‘One horn,’ agreed Shmule.

‘So,’ concluded Mr Kandinsky, ‘it’s not a unicorn?’

‘What do I know?’ said Shmule, shrugging his shoulders. The shrug reminded him of his shoulder-muscles, so he went on flexing and unflexing them for a while.

Then Mr Kandinsky sent Joe to the greengrocery to buy a cabbage and some carrots. ‘And a couple of heads of lettuce as well,’ he added. ‘What he don’t eat, we can put in the stew.’

While Joe was gone, Mr Kandinsky examined the unicorn again, while Shmule practised a half-Nelson on himself.