A Kid for Two Farthings (6 page)

‘So play,’ said his partner, who was winning.

‘Anyhow,’ Mr Kandinsky continued, ‘Moishe comes to the baths on Fridays and you think you can argue, but that Moishe is one to argue you out of business. Doesn’t matter what you say, he knows better. Whatever it is, politics, history, business, anything, he knows better. I just come from Shafchick’s and you know what happened?’ Mr Kandinsky stopped to giggle again and to give the domino players a chance to look round from their game. ‘He just got cooked.’

Naturally they all wanted to know what happened, so after laughing a bit more to drag it out, Mr Kandinsky told them.

He and Moishe were talking about the slump and he said that if only he had a patent steam presser he could do all right, slump or no slump, because if you could do the work fast enough, it didn’t matter if you got paid less, just so long as you kept turning it over, and if you keep working you can always make a living. Also with a patent presser you could take in pressing when the trousers were slack. At once Moishe says what does Kandinsky know about economical matters, leave it to the specialists who get employed to know these things, they take years of study.

‘I been studying my trade with the goose-iron for enough years,’ Mr Kandinsky replied. ‘I know what’s what.’

‘Kandinsky,’ said Moishe, ‘that’s where you make your mistake. Do you know what is a price spiral with an inflation? You don’t. Do you know we are dropping off from the gold standard? You don’t. Do you understand the economical problem of today? You should worry.’

‘What is all this to do with making trousers for a living, if you don’t mind a question?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.

‘That’s what I mean,’ replied Moishe; ‘trousers-making you know, but what else?’

‘And what else am I talking about? I read plenty books in my time and now also, but leave that to one side; what am I talking about except trousers-making? I am saying a patent steam presser is what I need. I don’t know what is good for my business?’ But Moishe went on and on about gold prices and unemployment figures. He read the financial column of the paper very carefully every day as a hobby, and he was enjoying himself, especially as there was a shortage of cap-makers and he had plenty of work.

They went into the heavy steam room, where you can hardly breathe or see at all. But in spite of that Moishe went on talking and talking from his end of the room, lying on the marble bench with his towel under him, talking and talking. So Mr Kandinsky left him to it. ‘Let him talk to himself, since he’s the only one who knows what he’s talking about,’ Mr Kandinsky thought, as he went out for a massage.

He had his massage talking with Luke the Litvak about his brother-in-law, the doctor in the children’s hospital, although, funny thing, no children of his own. Afterwards he sat down quietly in a deck-chair in a second-class cubicle. He drank a glass of lemon tea and read the paper. Then he settled down for a little sleep.

Suddenly, just when Mr Kandinsky is dreaming he is picking cherries in an orchard at home, and though the cherries are full and ripe, there is yet blossom on the trees, which is impossible but looks wonderful and the smell, there is a shouting, and he wakes up. There, the colour of borsht and steaming like a pudding, is Moishe, cursing him and saying what a thing to do, locking him in like that, and it’s wonderful he’s alive to tell Kandinsky what kind of a lousy dog he is. ‘And what happens,’ laughed Mr Kandinsky, ‘is this. I am so fed up with Moishe talking and talking, I slam the door of the heavy steam room, and it jams. I told him, is it my fault the door jams? It’s the heavy steam from him talking so much. What’s it got to do with me? You should have seen him, just like a stuffed neck he looked, stuffed with red cabbage. Luke and me laughed our heads off.’

The men laughed and said it should teach Moishe to argue the whole time; they must remember to ask him how he got cooked and how was his price spiral. Then they went back to their own arguments, which, since Mr Kandinsky was there, came down to the question who would win the fight tomorrow night. They placed bets with the man who was making the book, and Mr Kandinsky said as it was a special occasion he would put a shilling on for Joe. The platinum man said to the white gold man, ‘Even if he don’t win, I don’t want to make a crust out of that lousy Python Macklin, who is, without doubt, one of the dirtiest fighters in the ring today. Also if Shmule wins, it’s good for the tailors, and we should all be behind him, even if he loses.’

Joe put down the buttered roll he was eating.

‘Shmule will be the winner,’ he said.

They all looked at him in silence for a moment. ‘Put another bob on, Hymie,’ said white gold. ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ said Mr Kandinsky. Just at that moment one of the old men stopped clicking dominoes and said to Mr Kandinsky, ‘Kandinsky, you want a patent presser? My brother-in-law, the one with the big factory.’

‘Big factory,’ the other old man said.

‘You got a bigger factory?’ the first old man asked.

‘So?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.

‘He just got a new presser for his new factory, and he’s chucking out the old one.’

‘It works?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.

‘To look costs nothing,’ the old man said.

‘So I’ll look,’ replied Mr Kandinsky, and patted Joe’s head.

Joe was very pleased, especially when you remember that Africana wasn’t really with him in the cellar at Madame Rita’s. It may have been the green remnant, because you can never tell where an odd bit of magic is going to turn up, so why not in the cellar of Madame Rita’s? Joe thought they had better get home quickly now, because it might start to happen any minute.

The first thing Joe did when they got home was to go into the yard and thank Africana. He put his arm round his neck and kissed him gently on the head, next to his horn bud. Africana coughed and his head jerked up and hit Joe’s jaw, making him bite his tongue.

9

The following day the weather was cold again.

It was going to be one of those springs which stops and starts, unable to make up its mind whether to stay or not. One moment the stone streets were pink and bright in the sunshine, and the next they were grey and dirty again, the sun sunk away somewhere behind a million chimneys on a million slate roofs. But though Saturday morning brought no quick pools of sunlight and the Kremlin, a disused shirt factory, looked blank and dead in the grey light, no one bothered, for they were all impatient for the evening. Once the evening comes, what does it matter how bright or dull the day has been? So far as the evening is concerned, all days are bright, and tomorrow can be still brighter. Hurry along tomorrow, a brighter day, and for an overture, let the evening bring great moments of life such as the spectacular fight between the Aldgate Hammer and the dreaded Python Macklin. And for the sake of tailors everywhere, let the tailor win.

Shmule gave Mr Kandinsky four seats in the second row for Joe and his mother, Sonia and himself. The fights didn’t begin until half-past seven, and Shmule’s bout came up an hour later. Mr Kandinsky was going to get them there in good time for Shmule’s fight, but he would in no circumstances hear of them seeing the fights which came before.

‘We are not,’ said Mr Kandinsky, ‘savages to go and watch the gladiators fight and to enjoy the struggles of people we don’t know. Shmule is our own boy, so we must encourage him, not have a good time while other people get broken necks. If it wasn’t for Shmule fighting we would never go, not in a hundred years.’ And even Sonia, who enjoyed wrestling even if she didn’t know the wrestlers – and she knew most of them, of course – had to wait round the house talking about her trousseau with Joe’s mother until it was time to leave.

Africana was shivering. Joe tried to make him comfortable in his house, which had had so many bits and pieces tacked on to it through the winter that it looked like a wooden patchwork quilt. It was a shame that animals weren’t allowed at the wrestling, because if Shmule did win it would be Africana’s doing. Joe promised to tell Africana everything in the morning, and anyhow Africana’s cough was bad. He wouldn’t take Gee’s Linctus, even on cubes of sugar, and what with the break in the weather making it treacherous for bronchial complaints, it was just as well for Africana to stay at home. Joe told everybody that Africana wasn’t very well. Being the first dressed, he went out to have a word with Mavis on the subject.

The street looked quite different at night. Great deeps of shadow gathered in the corners of the Kremlin, and the small shops were warm with lamps. The baker’s lamp was gas and spluttered, but Mavis’s were electric and steady. On the street corner there was a barrow with a big naphtha lamp spitting away white and blue, and two large iron braziers with iron trays red hot on them, roasting chestnuts and baking potatoes. Someone stood by the barrow, and Joe was surprised to find it was the man who helped the Eel King on Sundays, so it looked as if with the coming of the night everyone became someone else. Even Mavis looked different, older and paler in the yellow light, with tired markings on her face, her flowered overalls dirty from where she had clasped bins of potatoes all day long. She was surprised to see Joe up and about at that time of night.

‘You do look a toff, Joe,’ she said, ‘in long trousers and a jacket to match, a real toff. Where are you off to? You should be in bed.’

‘Yes, they are nice,’ Joe said, putting his hands deep into the pockets of his long trousers. ‘They have real flies, with buttons.’

‘I suppose old Mr Kandinsky run them up for you,’ Mavis said. ‘He run up all my old dad’s.’

‘You look a bit old, Mavis,’ Joe said. ‘The whole street looks sort of different at night.’

‘I am a bit old, dear, I reckon,’ said Mavis, ‘and with the end of the day you feel it more.’

‘You’ll have to hurry, because we’re going soon,’ Joe said, and told her about Shmule’s fight.

‘I shan’t come, Joe dear,’ Mavis said; ‘there’s still a lot to do, though no morning market to think about, and I don’t think blood sports should be allowed anyway, and wrestling is a sort of blood sport. Would you like a nice apple?’

‘Thank you,’ said Joe, taking a large bite of the russet apple she handed him. ‘What’s a blood sport?’

‘Where they hunt poor dumb animals,’ Mavis said, ‘for their sport, like the early Christian martyrs and saints that were thrown to the lions.’

‘You mean the lions ate them up?’ Joe asked, thinking it was a good thing he never did get that lion cub for a pet.

‘Yes, poor souls, limb from limb,’ said Mavis, sorting through the tomatoes.

‘They must have been hungry,’ Joe said, taking another large bite of his apple.

‘It wasn’t them, poor dumb beasts, it was the sinfulness of their masters; and yet, Joe, they prayed for their torturers in the midst of their torment.’

‘What’s torturers and torment?’ Joe asked, although he really wanted to talk about Africana. ‘Don’t trouble your head about it,’ Mavis said. ‘Oh, what a rotten one,’ she added, throwing a soft tomato into a box, where it burst juicily. ‘How’s your little unicorn?’

‘That’s what I was going to tell you,’ Joe said. ‘He’s got this bad cold on the chest and coughs all the time, and he’s not interested in anything, and won’t touch the Gee’s Linctus, even on cubes of sugar. Do you think it’s the consumption?’

Mavis stopped sorting for a moment.

‘He never was very strong, you know, Joe. He was always a delicate little thing. This has been a rotten winter for the best of us.’

‘I know,’ said Joe. ‘Mr Kandinsky has been getting terrible creaks down his back this winter, and I saw someone with a cough.’ He was going to tell her about the cannibal king that time in Itchy Park, but he didn’t want to think about it.

‘Will you have a look at Africana, Mavis?’ he said instead.

Mavis closed the shop and they walked down to the house. They went through to the yard, and Mavis wrapped Africana in a piece of blanket and brought him into the workroom. In the light from the naked bulb over Mr Kandinsky’s bench Africana looked pinched and sick, and Mavis’s face was serious. While she examined Africana, Joe heard Mr Kandinsky call from the other room and went to see him.

Mr Kandinsky was walking about in polished boots, wearing a combination woollen vest and long pants.

‘I can’t find them blankety trousers,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine, Joe,’ he added, ‘a trousers-maker without a pair of trousers to his back? Here they are.’ Grunting, he drew a pair of striped black trousers out from beneath the mattress and pulled them on. Joe told him that Mavis was in the workroom having a look at Africana, who wasn’t at all well. Joe made his face serious like Mavis's, the lips pressed tight together.

‘That animal,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘has he ever been not sick?’

‘Maybe we should send him back to Africa, to his mother and father,’ Joe said.

‘Africa?’ asked Mr Kandinsky. ‘What’s with Africa?’

‘To the other unicorns,’ Joe said, a bit annoyed because Mr Kandinsky wasn’t thinking.

‘Oh my God, yes,’ said Mr Kandinsky. ‘Africa. Maybe we should. Quite right. Have a wine cherry, but only one.’

Mr Kandinsky’s bedroom was almost filled by a big mahogany bed with two large feather beds on it. A huge wardrobe stuffed with clothes and books and remnants took up one wall. The other wall had a small fireplace choked with coloured crepe paper. But in the corner was a small barrel in which Mr Kandinsky made cherry wine. It was the best thing in the room, with a little tap and a mug hanging from it, full of soaked black cherries scooped from the bottom of the barrel, making the room smell always of cherries and wine. Joe took a cherry and put it into his mouth. He tasted the wine while the cherry was still on his lips. Then he bit through to the stone slowly so that the wine-taste spread right through his mouth.

‘So,’ said Mr Kandinsky, ‘I’m ready. Just let me put on my watch. This was my father’s own watch and chain, Joe. A real watch, with an albert. So, lead on, Macduff. Forward to the big fight.’

In the workroom, Mavis was rubbing Africana’s chest slowly, and talking to him in a whisper.

‘Mavis,’ said Mr Kandinsky, ‘nice to see you. You coming to the fight?’

‘This animal isn’t at all well, Mr Kandinsky,’ said Mavis. She looked in Joe’s direction, and moved her head.

‘Joe,’ said Mr Kandinsky, ‘you can take one more cherry yourself and take some upstairs for your mother and Sonia.’

When Joe had left, Mavis said to Mr Kandinsky, ‘This poor little soul’s torment.’

‘Oy,’ said Mr Kandinsky.

‘It’s cruel to leave him,’ said Mavis, and she was suddenly very hard and determined. ‘It’s cruel.’

‘What must be, must be,’ said Mr Kandinsky. ‘But wait till we go.’

‘That man should never have sold it to him in the first place. How could it live in Fashion Street?’ She stroked the little animal’s head just where its stunted horn buds grew so close together as to seem one horn. ‘Poor little kid,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it to the People’s Dispensary.’

‘You’re right,’ said Mr Kandinsky with a sigh. ‘How can a kid like this grow up in Fashion Street? It’s not strong enough. I’ll find something to tell the boy.’

Joe’s mother and Sonia came down the stairs, still talking about Sonia’s trousseau. She had a nightdress of pure silk and another one with Flemish lace neck and hem; a shame to wear them really, except in hospital.

Joe said goodnight to Mavis, who held Africana shivering in the blanket. Mavis would look after him, and he was pleased to go into the dark street again. He hurried ahead of Mr Kandinsky and the women, and only for one moment did he want to run back again to Africana.