The Spring Madness of Mr Sermon (15 page)

^{One of the first shops he reached was Tapper's. He recognised it instantly by its clutter of furniture piled under the boulevard-like awning of striped canvas and its heart-shaped sign with the single omnibus word
tablesnchairs
painted in crude Gothic characters.}

^{It was a much larger shop than he had imagined and from the outside it looked neat and clean. All the goods displayed in the open were priced in chalked figures and some of them he recognised as stock that had travelled there yesterday on the van. He looked through the window, shading his eyes against the reflection and saw a boy of about fifteen sitting at a davenport at the back, absorbed in a folded newspaper and presumably transferring memoranda into a notebook. The street was empty so, after a moment's hesitation, he opened the door and went inside, his action touching off a bell that brought the boy to his feet as if he had been prodded in the back with a bayonet.}

^{"Good morning!" said Mr. Sermon, breezily, "I suppose you must be Blessing?"}

^{The boy's expression underwent a sudden change. As he had advanced towards Mr. Sermon it had been obvious that he anticipated a sale. His rather pudgy features had assumed a painfully unctuous expression and Mr. Sermon would not have been surprised if he had bowed like a stage Chinaman and then 'washed his hands' as earnest of his desire to serve. Immediately Mr. Sermon spoke his name, however, his face straightened out, becoming almost sullen and resentful and he said, carelessly: "S'right! An' you're a bloke me Dad give a lift to yesterday. Said you might look in. He's out the back wi' Gramp!" and having reached and perhaps exceeded the limits he had set himself as host, he at once returned to his copying}

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^{and left Mr. Sermon to find his own way through a pair of threadbare baize curtains and into a long, low-ceilinged room that had once been a bakery, for the ovens were still in position and sawn-off ventilators projected from the ceiling like a row of broken teeth.}

^{The room was crammed with furniture: at the far end sat an old man shaped like a cider barrel with a grizzled poll and steel-rimmed spectacles perched half-way down a pomegranate nose. Mr. Sermon concluded that this must be Grandfather Sugg, or "Flash" as Tapper had referred to him, and it occurred to Sebastian that the old fellow was not disposed to be any more friendly than his grandson. The suspicion was confirmed at once. Flash rolled one poached-egg eye at the intruder and emitted a fruity grunt but he did not attempt to get up or remove his enormous calves from the backless chair on which they reposed. Looking down at him, Mr. Sermon was reminded of the porter in Tom Brown's Schooldays, whom the Rugby boys used to torment by whipping his calves. He seemed an extremely truculent old man and, like the boy outside, resentful of having been disturbed but Mr. Sermon was in such a cheerful mood that he pressed forward, extended his hand and said: "I'm a friend of your son, Tapper, Mr. Sugg. We . . . er . . . we did a little buying together yesterday."}

^{"Arr, he told me!" growled Flash. "You're the one who dropped a bit o' marketry on that bleeder Trowbridge! Glad to hear about that I was," he went on, as though this could be offset against nameless other shortcomings on the part of the visitor, "taken all the profit out o' the game that type has. Easy enough to make a bob or two in the old days but not now, not now by thunder! Licked the plate clean they 'ave, what wi' their lah-di-dah talk an' their dashing about here, there an' everywhere in their stinking moters. Siddown! Tapper's making the elevenses in the scullery. Tapper!" and he roared the summons in a voice that would not have shamed a Company Sergeant Major quelling a mutiny.}

^{The scullery door flew open and his son appeared, his mouth splitting in the familiar gap-toothed grin the moment he saw Mr. Sermon standing beside the foaming Flash.}

^{"Well if it ain't the Perfesser!" said Tapper, cordially, putting dowjn a tin tray on which stood three handleless and saucerless}

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^{cups, seizing Mr. Sermon by the shoulders and rocking him gently to and fro, "I didn't reckon you'd show up for a day or so. I figured you'd be building up your strength for a bash at our Bella, mate. Proper struck on you she was! You're okay there boy, if you play your cards right. Likes a gent, Bella does! Never one to go for my type, 'cept in fun o' course. Here," he gave Mr. Sermon a painful jab under the ribs and closed one brown eye in a wink that could have had but one interpretation anywhere in the world, "how'd you make out when you come round, eh? Breakfast and usual in bed was it? Or was she too scared o' the boss coming in an' catching her at it? He has before you know, but he'd never sack her, not 'im! Brings too much trade into the place, and no wonder either! 'Streuth, where would you find & girl with a chassis like hers who can cook as well ?"}

^{He did not wait for Mr. Sermon to answer any of these somewhat intimate questions, but thrust a cup of cocoa into his hand and motioned to him to sit on a forlorn chaise-longue from which the stuffing oozed in several places. Mr. Sermon sipped the cocoa and told him briefly what had happened at the inn, not forgetting to mention the excellent effects of Bella's hangover cure.}

^{"Conner stay long, or just passing through, Perfesser?" asked Tapper, when Flash had returned to his newspaper.}

^{"I'm going to stay," said Mr. Sermon, "I think this is a very attractive little town and I've decided to find lodgings and look around a bit. After all, if I'm going to walk I might as well have a base and it's wonderful country round here whichever way you go. Do you think you could recommend me a place? Somewhere quiet and near the sea ?"}

^{"Olga Boxall!" said Flash, without looking up from his newspaper, and Tapper exclaimed and thumped Mr. Sermon's knee.}

^{"Just the job, Flash! I'd never have thought o' that but wait, she's going a trip somewhere, ain't she?"}

^{"Not till June," muttered Flash, "the times I've heard about it!"}

^{"That's right," said Tapper, "she ain't taking visitors this season and you-" and here he broke off and subjected Mr. Sermon to a steady, critical survey, "Yerse," he continued, "Olga'll take to the Perfessor! She's his type, educated an' likes a bit of a chat between}

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^{times." He took out his notebook and a stub of a pencil and wrote, "The Chalet, The Coombe' and handed the page to Sebastian. "Down the High Street to the Front, turn right and second lane right opposite the jetty. Can't miss it and I'll ring her an' tell her you're coming! And lissen, Perfesser, I'll be in touch with you, 'cos there's several sales coming up and I reckon you an' me could pull something at one or two of "em!" He turned to the absorbed Flash, whose paper, Mr. Sermon noticed, was a week old but nevertheless seemed to claim his entire attention. "You ought to hear the Perfesser when he gets goin", Flash! Do you good, it would! Line o" sales talk drips from him like a leaky tap-paintings, furnichure, everything! Cor 'streuth, wot money I coulder made if I had your brains an" memry," he went oh, turning to Sebastian again, "there ain't a thing in this shop that wouldn't have a little bit of history stuck to it and me with it all orf pat! Now I got to go over to Podsmeade this morning but there's no sense in taking you along there, it's on'y terrace-house stuff an' dead modern, so I'll put you on the road to Olga's and tip her off on the blower. I'll ring when something in your line comes up!" and he steered Mr. Sermon back into the shop, past a Blessing still doggedly transferring columns of figures from newspaper to notebook, and out into the sunny street. Mr. Sermon's curiosity had been aroused by the Sugg family's apparent absorption in old newspapers so as soon as the door was closed, he said:}

^{"Your father was reading a week-old newspaper and there's today's sticking in the letter-box. Doesn't he know it's arrived?"}

^{"You bet he does," said Tapper, casually, "but he won't give it a look until next Friday. Never does. Makes a pile of 'em and then begins reading from the bottom. That's the way he likes it, always a week behind!"}

^{"But in Heaven's name, why?" enquired Mr. Sermon.}

^{"I dunno, really," said Tapper, who had obviously never thought about it, "I suppose because that way he can't get worked up over what's happening to the world. Everything he reads about is past, you see, and it's no good upsetting yerself over it, is it? It's all over an' done with, like reading a book. Come to think of it, that must be why he hates the radio an* TV, I reckon. They're up-to-date and too bloody worrying!"}

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^{"What about your boy, Blessing? That was Saturday's Financial Times he was reading, wasn't it?"}

^{"Oh, him, he's different again," said Tapper. "Never surprise me if he didn't turn into one o' them take-over tycoons. Marvellous at it, he is, marvellous!"}

^{"Marvellous at what exactly?"}

^{"Shares!" said Tapper and there was pride in his voice. "Do you know, that there boy can tell you what's going up an' what's goin' down any time o* the day or night!"}

^{The town had one of everything, a rubbery-faced fishmonger in a straw hat, a grocer's with a bow window full of cheeses, a bookshop called "The Two Nieces' (late Ada Brockett) and a Wesleyan chapel that was not the usual eyesore but a pretty little Regency building, displaying a text proclaiming 'To Live Is To Know God' on its notice board. The High Street, steep and ever broadening until it funnelled into a square, was just like the street in the song 'Old Fashioned Town' that Mr. Sermon's father had sung at half-forgotten soirees before World War One. It was bizarre and yet friendly, a Peggoty town that seemed to have stopped its town clock about the time Frith was painting his first Victorian seaside scenes. It was as different from Mr. Sermon's suburb or the modern industrial city as was Kandahar or Damascus, and when he passed the square and reached the promenade this impression was increased, for the pebble beach was dotted with boats turned upside down and sported a hand-capstan draped with nets. Lean, yellow-eyed gulls strutted about, their plaintive wails muted as though they too had come under the Rip Van Winkle spell of Kingsbay. The scent of heather and pine, to be sniffed half-way down the High Street, did not reach this far, but in its place was the tang of the sea and dried weed and tar that carried Mr. Sermon back to the annual holidays of his childhood, so that he was not at all surprised when a caricature of a retired Colonel passed by in a Bath chair pushed by a human ramrod who had almost certainly served the veteran as batman in the days of Buller and Roberts. The old man in the chair lifted his stick (why a}

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^{stick? thought Mr. Sermon) and said, gruffly but amiably: "Mornin' to you, mornin'!" and Sebastian respectfully returned the greeting and thought that if Kingsbay ever issued a publicity poster, which seemed to him extremely unlikely, it could hardly do better than to display colonel and batman on their mid-morning jaunt. Such a poster, he thought, would surely qualify as a gimmick to out-gimmick all gimmicks.}

^{He ambled past the jetty and found The Coombe, a string of cottages roofed with red pantiles that climbed an unsurfaced lane as far as a pinewood that flanked the golf course, the greens of which occupied the slope of the large headland, but before turning off the promenade he lingered a few moments, leaning on the wrought-iron rail and looking out to sea.}

^{The beach was deserted, except for a long-legged young woman reading a book and two young children in her charge. The trio was grouped about twenty yards from where he stood and from his elevated observation post he could study the girl's profile, a little sharp-featured and serious-looking, with dark hair and knitted brows. Then one of the children threw a stone at a gull and she looked up and called, "Don't, Geraldine! Don't do that, dear!" and he was struck by her voice which reminded him of Sybil's but had more laughter in it. Watching her, and hearing her call to the child, he had a curious conviction that both voice and profile were familiar, that he had heard her call out and seen her throw up her head in that way somewhere before, a long, long time ago, but he dismissed this as pure fancy.}

^{Then, as Geraldine threw another stone, the young woman got up with a gesture of impatience and moved down the beach a few strides to collect and scold her and Sebastian noticed that she scurried rather than walked, as though she was not only impatient with Geraldine but with time itself. As she took the child by the hand and turned to face him, he again sensed recognition and smiled. She smiled back and half lifted her hand in what might have been a tentative greeting or an invitation to sympathise with her in the performance of thankless chores. He turned away, musing, and climbed The Coombe, walking up the steep path until he came to a house that might almost have been classified as a miniature folly.}

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^{Unlike all its neighbours, it was modern, half-timbered and gabled but not quite large enough to dwarf the cottages immediately below. Its pseudo-Tudor aspect should have made it the odd man out in that setting, but somehow it looked as if it belonged and even its banal name, 'The Chalet' seemed to suit it. He entered the gate and walked up the path flanked by daffodils and narcissi and was raising his hand to lift the lion's head knocker when the door opened and a woman stood in the doorway, smiling rather shyly and saying, with a slight stutter of nervousness: "Are you the gentleman Mr. Sugg phoned about ? I'm sorry, he didn't mention a name."}