Dance and Skylark (20 page)

“To be precise,” said Jno. Wilkes, “
one
foreign visitor; but we hope—like the first swallow, eh—that he's the forerunner of many. I met him in the street as I came to the Town Hall to change: an obvious foreigner, you could tell by his clothes. And he was smoking a large cigar. I said to myself, as soon as I caught sight of him, ‘Dollars,' I said. Even our little town is doing its bit!”

The Mayor chattered happily on, but Stephen was not listening. He was wondering how long it would take the Mayor to perceive what must be obvious to everybody: that his Festival Organiser was drunk at midday on the opening day.

“Stephen,” said the Mayor, with sudden gravity. And
Stephen thought: He's twigged at last. He's going to tell me to go and lie down, and on no account to show myself till I am sober. He liked Jno. Wilkes and felt sorry that he had disgraced him.

“Stephen, have you ever considered taking any active part in public life?”

Stephen stared at him helplessly.

“You've done a great deal for this town in the last few months. I only want to assure you it hasn't passed unnoticed. Noakes and I were talking about you only yesterday. The Council will have to elect a new Alderman shortly.” Becoming aware of Stephen's blank and bewildered look, he added:

“You mustn't think of Aldermen as city fathers with watch-chains stretching across their tummies. Not a bit of it! What the Council needs is a bit of young blood to liven it up. So if you'll allow us to put your name forward— well, there it is. Think about it, my boy, when your present anxieties are over, give it a little thought.”

When the Mayor had gone, whisked off in a hired car to fetch the Mayoress to the opening ceremony, Stephen was able to collect himself sufficiently to walk the hundred yards or so from the Town Hall to his shop. A most improbable picture of himself as Alderman tickled his fancy and reawakened his feeling that the spirit of comedy was stirring, that some large jest was in the making, that Dionysus had mischievously chosen the town's little Festival as his theme for a piece of improvised sport. This feeling was fortified as he approached his shop and saw in the street
outside it that which at first he took to be a circus but which resolved itself into a herd of donkeys, at least a dozen of them, all sorts and sizes, little ones such as children ride at the seaside, big raw-boned asses which hucksters drive in carts, donkeys of every shade from pale beige to dark brown! Thus was manifest the Power of the Press; but Stephen with his head full of furious fancies preferred to ascribe the whole thing to that ancient president of the amphitheatre and the grape-gathering, the boisterous son of Zeus and Semele whose immanent presence he had been conscious of all the morning. The satyr's unexacting master, the beloved of the nymphs, the charioteer of the swift panthers, the wearer of the crown of vine—let him now take charge. He who lords it alike over feast, fiesta, fête and festival, thought Stephen—wildly rejoicing now in his drunkenness which only a few minutes ago had appalled him—he who presided long ago over the orgies of Thrace and who now broods kindly over the Vicar in charge of bowling for the pig—let him take as his tribute our balloons and our donkeys, our flags and our roses, our Odo and Dodo and even our chinchilla rabbits ! Let him mix them up together and make what he will of them !

Having performed this strange act of dedication, Stephen patted the nearest donkey heartily on the rump and strode somewhat unsteadily into his shop.

Faith came out into the front to meet him. Whatever turmoils she had been through during the morning had left her unmoved. Wherever she stood or sat, thought Stephen, she carried about with her that oasis of quietude!
She regarded him now with calm and untroubled eyes and gently took his arm. Thus had her mother and her grandmother, thus had some six generations of farmers' wives, welcomed their wayward men back from market.

Leading Stephen towards the back room, she pronounced the single word:

“Peart.”

“What?”

“What we call market-peart,” she explained, patiently and without reproof. “We used to say father was peart if he could just climb into the trap and let the old horse bring him home after market; but nowadays with the motor-car he has to be more careful. Hot black coffee'll put you right.”

She paused outside the door of the back shop.

“There's nothing to worry about. Bloody Mary hasn't got measles, it was too many strawberries. The modesty of the elocutionists will be preserved; we are running up slips for them. The chinchilla rabbits have been found, all except one which was eaten by a greyhound. We have thirteen donkeys here at the moment and forty-three offers of donkeys by phone and wire.”

She put her hand on the door-knob.

“One more thing. Your many-seeded gentleman has arrived. He's peart too.”

She opened the door, and Stephen's heart gave a great and glorious bound, for it seemed to him as if his prayer had been miraculously answered. There sat at Faith's untidy desk, with a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, if not Dionysus, at any rate his emissary, his chief of staff, his
plenipotentiary upon earth. An enormous brick-red Westerner was balanced precariously on the back of his head. In his hand he clutched, as if it were a talisman, one of the balloons which had been sent off to advertise the Festival. He was gently snoring.

“Polly!”

His eyes opened, those lazy laughing eyes, and for a moment he looked about him in bewilderment; then, as he jumped up, the whole office seemed to contract until it was about the size of a rabbit-hutch. The tall crown of his hat just touched the ceiling.

“Stevie!”

He seized Stephen's hand in his great hairy one, and with his other hand bounced the balloon on Stephen's head. Thus they performed a foolish sort of jig together, while Faith quietly pulled the chairs out of their way. When they had stopped for lack of breath Polly said contritely:

“Oh, Stevie, your knee! I forgot about your knee.”

“It's all right when I'm sober,” said Stephen.

“I feel kinda bad about that knee.”

“Forget it,” said Stephen. “You got my letter, then?”

“Sure I got your letter. It caught up with me in a place called Magnolia, Alabama. I was there with my circus. I've gotten a circus now, Stevie, five elephants, two lions, a grizzly bear called Theodore Roosevelt, the only duckbilled platypus in the United States, forty-eight horses, ten clowns, some performing fleas, and six ecdysiast dancers. Ecdysiast's strip-tease. And I left that circus in Magnolia, and came over in the Lizz. No more flying for me, Stevie! And then I got your balloon.”

“You got my balloon?”

“I-got-your-balloon. I went to see about a zebra at Clifton Zoo. That's Bristol—you know. I want to buy six zebras, Stevie, for the ecdysiasts, because they're kinda graceful things, the zebras, I mean (but you ought to see those dames), and I reckoned they'd match the dames just swell. Nobody's ever thought of teaming up a strip-tease act with riding on a zebra. Get this, Stevie—I'd have those girls in black and yellow striped dresses and as they cantered round the ring on the zebras they'd strip-tease. Can you beat it? Trouble is the man at Clifton says you can't really train a zebra so's to make it a nice quiet ride for a young lady. Anyhow, there I was looking at the sea-lions and suddenly a balloon comes down out of the sky and falls in the pond, and the sea-lions start poking it with their noses. I saw some writing on the balloon, so I hooked it out with a stick. And here it is, and here I am.”

Faith had gone upstairs to fetch another cup of coffee. She put it on the desk and said to Stephen: “Drink that.” Polly went on:

“I've had that balloon on my mind for a week. I went back to London and tried to find out how to feed a duckbilled platypus: ours is on hunger-strike. And all the time I was worrying about that goddam balloon. It dropped into the pond right at my feet; it was as if you'd sent it me. I didn't mean to come down before the end of the week; but I jest couldn't wait. So I got on a train which took me seven times round England before I got here. It's a swell little island, Stevie, but all the railway stations look alike and by the time I'd seen each of 'em seven times
I'd had enough. There was no diner and no bar; but luckily I had a flask.”

“He had a flask,” said Faith softly. “You two had better drink your coffee. It's half-past two.”

“My God!” said Stephen suddenly. “The Beauty Competition! Did you tell the Mayor?”

For once Faith was startled out of her customary calm.

“Oh, Stephen! How awful. I meant to ring him up and I put the M.P.'s telegram on my desk, but I suppose it got mixed up with the donkeys. How
awful
What shall we do now?”

Stephen glanced at Polly. The spirit of comedy was on the march. Let Dionysus have his head!

“Polly.”

“Yes, Stevie?”

“Do you think you'd be capable of judging the final of a Beauty Competition?”

Polly threw back his great head and laughed.

“Could I judge a Beauty Contest?
Could
I? Stevie, I've been judging Beauty Contests all my life. I started when I was about fourteen. There were ten little girls in my class at school and I placed them one, two, three, four, all the way down to number ten. I've been judging my private Beauty Contest ever since.
Could
/judge?” He gulped his coffee. “Let's go.”

A
Small boy, one of those numerous alley ragamuffins who obtained hooks from Mr. Handiman on indefinite tick, had taken it upon himself to give an unofficial commentary upon the Fishing Match. He trotted along the banks of the Bloody Meadow shrilly crying the latest catches; and now for the third time he returned to Mr. Handiman's peg and announced:

“Number Two-eight-nine's got another roach. That makes seven. ‘E pulls 'em out as easy as shellin' peas.”

This didn't mean, of course, that Number Two-eight-nine was necessarily winning; for nearly a thousand competitors lined both banks of the river for several miles. Who could say but that downstream or upstream someone beloved of fortune had drawn out Leviathan with an hook? However, if Number Two-eight-nine had really caught seven roach already it was probable that he had been lucky enough to find a whole shoal on the feed, and would catch a good many more before the contest was over. Mr. Handiman's chances began to look very slight indeed; for he had caught nothing at all. He hadn't even had a bite.

The positions, marked by numbered pegs, had been drawn for some days ago; and it happened that Mr. Handiman's peg was close to the spot where Lance and Edna had been lying on that Sunday afternoon. Even before he put his tackle together his hopes had begun to fade, for a gravelly ledge ran far out into the river and he could see that he would have to make a long and difficult cast to reach the deeper water. Moreover, immediately downstream was a big patch of yellow brandy-bottles; and it was clear that the current would carry his line towards them and that at the end of every cast their stems would entangle his hook. There was no shade or cover where a good fish might lie save for a single willow-tree twenty yards away; and besides being practically out of reach, this tree was guarded by a phalanx of brandy-bottles. Mr. Handiman, who was accustomed to wandering along the bank in search of likely eddies—who stalked his fish, indeed, like a big-game hunter—felt helpless and frustrated because the rules compelled him to remain in this one unpromising spot. He felt as if he were tethered to his peg, like a gipsy's pony on a common which sees delectable grazing all around but cannot reach it.

His sense of constriction, of lacking elbow-room for his fishing, was increased by the proximity of the competitors on either side of him. His immediate neighbour upstream was accompanied by a girl, and the one downstream had brought no less than three women to give him encouragement. From time to time these women cried loudly:

“Eow, 'e's got a boite!”

“'Is float's gone deown!”

“Neow, it in't a boite. ‘E's caught up on the bottom!”

Mr. Handiman, dragging up a long water-lily stem every few minutes, was conscious of a feeling of malicious satisfaction each time he heard of his neighbours' misfortune; but he sternly reproved himself for an emotion so unbecoming to a follower of gentle Izaak Walton, who had written that all anglers were brothers. This, he reflected, was what fishing competitions did to you; they engendered jealousy and envy. Never would Mr. Handiman take part in one again!

His brother of the angle on the upstream side seemed less interested in fishing than in the interminable discourse of his girl-friend, who related with the minimum of modesty her experiences at the hands of another young man, presumably her present squire's rival, with whom she had gone to a dance in a Works' Canteen.

“Eow I said stop your squeezin', you needn't think you can treat me like one of your sixpennies at the pally. I'm only tryin' to 'old you up, 'e said sharp-like; so I says to 'im, D'you mean that nasty, I says; and 'e says wistful, Them sixpennies is as light as a fewer. …”

The small boy had trotted off, but soon he was back with tidings of two more roach hauled out by Number Two-eight-nine.

“‘E's caught a bloody little yale as well,” said the boy. “‘Ad to cut its yud off to get the 'ook out.”

“You shouldn't swear, Jimmy,” said Mr. Handiman primly. “At your age!”

“You calls this the Bloody Meadow,” said Jimmy. “Don't you?”

“That's different. It's to do with the battle. It means the meadow was once covered with blood.”

“Well, so was the little yale,” said Jimmy triumphantly.

“When 'e cut its yud off.” He set off upon another tour of inspection.

Mr. Handiman landed his twentieth water-lily stem.