A Mixture of Frailties tst-3 Read online

  O, for a Muse of fire—

  and so to the end of the speech, with horses, monarchs, and apologies for the inadequacy of the Elizabethan theatre, all complete. She was becoming quite pleased with herself, torn between her pride in being able to satisfy Molloy, and a sense of shame in the amount of noise and strutting which that involved.

  In these declamatory exercises she was not permitted to speak the words in her accustomed way, and at first she used her true ear to copy Molloy’s own accent. But when she did this he astonished her by declaring that she was speaking with a pronounced Canadian twangs and compelled her to adopt a tune and colour of speech which certainly was not English as she heard it spoken by Mrs Merry, or by any of the people she met in chance contacts, but which she learned to identify in the theatre, at the performances of classical plays to which she was constantly being urged by Molloy. It was not the “English accent” mocked by Kevin and Alex, and forbidden by her mother, but it was not Canadian either; it was a speech that Garrick would not have found very strange, and of which Goldsmith would have approved.

  Going to the theatre was, at first, a lonely business, and she did not like it. She had studied one or two of the plays of Shakespeare in school, but she had never associated them with any idea of entertainment. Nor was her first visit to the Old Vic a happy one, for the play was The Comedy of Errors, very cleverly transformed by a young director with his name to make into a mid-Victorian farce, in which the two Antipholuses, in chimney-pot hats and Dundreary whiskers, and the two Dromios, in identical liveries, rushed up and downstairs on a twirly scaffolding which was called Ephesus, until at last they were united with an Aemilia and a Luciana in crinolines and ringlets. Several critics had said that this treatment illuminated the play astonishingly, but for Monica it remained a depressing mystery. She was happier when, in a few weeks, it gave place to Romeo and Juliet. Peggy Stamper, dirtier than before, had hunted her up, and they went together. Afterward they discussed the play in detail at a Corner House and Monica expressed strong disapproval of the conduct of Friar Lawrence; if he had not tried to be so clever, everything might very well have been straightened out, and the lovers made happy. But then, said Peggy, where would the tragedy have been? And was it not better that Romeo and Juliet should have been unhappy, and tremendous, than happy, and just like everybody else? Monica would not have this; common sense, said she, was surely to be expected of everybody.

  “But if you fill the world with common sense,” countered Peggy, there’ll be precious little art left. Art begins where common sense leaves off.” And, perhaps as a result of Money’s unbuttoning process, Monica had to agree that this was so.

  Without becoming intimate with Peggy, Monica saw a good deal of her, and they did much of their theatre-going together. She met some of Peggy’s friends, who were all art students and not particularly articulate or interesting, inclining to shop-talk, dirt, corduroys, beer and fried foods. But in their company she visited some of the galleries (for Molloy had urged her to study gesture and bodily posture in paintings and sculpture, as visible evidences of muhd) and learned enough from them to realize that she had no taste, and was unlikely ever to develop any. Peggy kindly attributed this to her musical interests, and Monica reconciled herself to possessing, like Molloy, th’ear but not th’eye.

  These casual acquaintanceships were not enough to keep Monica from being very lonely and often in low spirits. Except for her visits to Molloy most of her days were long and dull. True, she went every morning to Madame Heber for a lesson in French, which she shared with two dry young men who were preparing for the Civil Service, and every afternoon at five o’clock she had a lesson in German from Dr Rudolph Schlesinger, in the company of a spotty girl who was mastering that language so that she might read Freud in the original. Language study, and the exercises which Molloy ordered, filled up much of the time she spent in her rooms in Courtfield Gardens. But she still had plenty of time in which to be lonely. The few sticks which she and Mr Boykin had purchased had made her rooms convenient, though far from luxurious, and she had learned how to feed herself economically and fairly well. She was even able to keep almost warm, though the gas-meter was remorseless in its demand for shillings. And, as winter wore away and spring came she began to see some of the strange, irregular beauty of London. But loneliness would not be banished, and Sundays were an endless weariness. Against all Thirteener custom, she began to go to Sunday movies.

  Her cold resisted treatment, and became a sullen catarrh. Molloy refused to recognize its existence. “It’s nothing at all,” said he one day when she apologized for a coughing fit; “it’s the dust in the air. You’d probably never get rid of it unless you took a long sea-voyage—maybe not then. Lots o’ people have a congestion like that all their lives. Now me, for instance: I’d spit y’up a cupful o’phlegm any morning in the week. But I don’t let it bother me.” And so Monica decided that she would not let it bother her, either. But it did bother her, and particularly at night.

  Her work with Molloy was the only life-giving element in her existence. Little by little he satisfied himself that she had some rudimentary notion of what muhd was, and could summon a small amount of it at will. It was true that Monica found it difficult to make love to a chair, which he regarded as an important test.

  “Garrick could do’t,” said he; “time and again he’d astonish his friends that way. And it’s all a question of muhd. To th’artist, with his imagination at command, and his experience of life to draw on, making love to a chair is just as possible—not as easy, maybe, or as pleasant—but just as possible as making love to a pretty girl. Now watch me: I’m going to make love to you.”

  The somewhat severe and admonishing expression which Molloy usually wore when he was teaching gave way to an alarming leer, and he approached Monica with youthful step. Seizing her hand he dropped on one knee and pressed it to his lips. “My darling,” said he and, rising, pressed her to him with many variations on this simple endearment, which appeared to be the only one he could think of. When it seemed that he must inevitably kiss her he suddenly broke away, and looked sternly into her eye.

  “Y’see? That’s the way it is with the living subject. Now—what d’you say to this?”

  And with a sudden turn he addressed himself to an armchair, caressed its dingy upholstery, knelt to it, entreated it to be his, praised its hair and complexion, called it his jewel, and swore that he could not live if it spurned him. Monica could not laugh, for unquestionably Molloy had the muhd, and however ridiculous his behaviour might be, the power in his voice might not be denied.

  Nor could she rid herself of a feeling that Molloy liked showing her how to make love. He never missed a chance to feel her diaphragm, or gauge the expansion of her ribs at the back. And now, in these exercises with the chair it was always hard to know what he might do next. Obedient and teachable, Monica would do her best to pour out adoration for Molloy’s unappetizing armchair.

  “It’s feeble,” he would say. “Now you’re not going to tell me that a girl like yourself doesn’t know what love-making is. Eh? Don’t blush; if you expect to be an artist you must get your feelings at command. Work on it at home, and show me what you can do next day.”

  Part of Monica’s inability to enter whole-heartedly into these scenes of passion with the chair sprang from a feeling that other eyes than Molloy’s were upon her. There were two doors in his teaching-room, one of which led to the landing, and the other, which had a glass transom over it, presumably to his private apartments; it was from this latter door that occasional rustlings and soft thumpings were heard while lessons were in progress. And one day, as Monica was leaving, she met a short, grey-haired woman on the landing, who gave her a gimlet look through a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles—a look which, from a stranger, was surprising indeed. As soon as the woman had disappeared into Molloy’s apartment a sound of voices raised in high and unamiable converse broke out, and was audible until Monica had gone down the stairs and into
the street.

  3

  It was late in her first spring in London that Monica visited Lorne and Meg McCorkill in South Wimbledon. She never fully understood how they came to know of her existence, although they explained it at length; but as they both talked at once, the chain which led from a friend of theirs in Salterton, who knew a Thirteener who had obtained her address from Pastor Beamis, and who had (the Salterton friend, that is to say) mentioned it in a letter to—no,—no, not the McCorkills, but to another Saltertonian, now resident in London—who had passed it on to them: she had never fully understood it. But it was a beautiful spring day, when she had been wishing that George Medwall wrote better letters, less concerned with the inner politics of the Glue Works, that a letter arrived for her, written in an unknown hand, which addressed her thus—

  Dear Monica,

  You don’t know us, but mutual friends in Canada have told us about you, so Hi and all that stuff. Lorne and I have been over here in the Great Frost for over two years now, and we know just how tough it can be for a lonely Canuck. So why don’t you come out and have a real Canadian meal with us some night next week, Friday maybe? We are always home, so if Friday is no good, pick your own night. You can just get on the Underground at Earl’s Court and come right to the end of the line. Anybody will direct you from there. Better let us know by mail when you are coming because Gawd only knows what will happen if you try to phone in this country.

  Be seeing you—

  Meg McCorkill

  Beaver Lodge

  Hubbard Road

  Wimbledon, sw 20

  Thus it was that a little after six on the following Friday evening Monica walked down Hubbard Road looking for Beaver Lodge. It was not hard to find, for on the gate was painted the name in rustic lettering which simulated sticks of wood, and at one of these a painted animal, not too hard to identify as a beaver, was gnawing. The woodwork of the semi-detached villa was bright with new paint, and a man on a ladder was dabbing delicately at a second-floor casement. He spied Monica as she came in the gate, and with a shout of “Hi!” he climbed down and hurried forward to greet her.

  “Good to see you,” he roared; “certainly good to see you. Can’t shake hands—all over paint; just grab me by the wrist. Hey Meggsie!—I’m Lorne McCorkill; just call me Lorne. This is Meg. And where’s Diane? Hey, Diane!”

  “She’s playing with that Pamela, and I suppose we’ll have to get an earful of what Pamela’s Mothaw’s been saying,” said Meg McCorkill, who had appeared in a very gay and brilliantly clean apron. “Hello dear, it’s certainly great to see you. Come on in.”

  They bustled Monica into Beaver Lodge, which was a beautifully clean and bright little house—so clean and bright, indeed, that Monica was startled, for her eyes had become accustomed to the dinginess of Mrs Merry’s, the comfortable but seedy furnishings of Molloy’s teaching room, and the downright squalor of the Heber and Schlesinger quarters.

  “Isn’t this lovely,” said Monica; “it’s like being at home!”

  “Aw, you poor kiddie!” said Meg McCorkill. “Did you hear that, Lorne? Oh he’s gone to change out of his paint-clothes.” She raised her voice to a piercing shriek. “Lorne, didja hear what Monica just said? The minute she set foot in the door she said this was like home. How’s that, eh?”

  Lorne returned; he was wearing moccasin slippers, and was struggling into a sweatshirt which had the name of a western Canadian university printed across its chest. “That’s swell,” he said; “just swell. That makes up for all the trouble it was to get this paint here. Because let me tell you kid,” said he, very emphatically, “every wall and piece of woodwork in this house is covered with real Canadian rubber-base paint. None of this English oil-base stuff for me. We brought it over, and fought it through Customs, and now it’s on, and at least we know it isn’t all going to shale off in wet weather. And that’s something you can certainly count on here, boy—wet weather. Now how’s about a real drink. Do you have yours straight, or on the rocks, or with water?”

  Monica had been brought up in strict abhorrence of alcohol in all forms, but mixing with Peggy Stamper’s friends had taught her to drink beer, in very small quantities. Meg saw her hesitation.

  “Make us a Canadian Lyric, Lornie,” said she. “Monica’s too young for straight hard liquor.”

  They were in the kitchen, a gleaming room with a Canadian electric stove and a Canadian refrigerator in it; in a corner a Canadian washing-machine, with a round window in its middle, spied on them with this Cyclops eye. While Lorne worked with ice and bottles, Meg explained that they had imported these kitchen articles into England, because they could not possibly make do with the inferior local products. And what a trouble it had been! Everything electric had to be altered to accord with English notions of electrical current. And as for repairs—it was lucky that Lorne was able to turn his hand to pretty nearly anything—a real Canuck in that respect. God! cried Meg (who was very free with strong language, but did not seem to mean anything much by it) English women certainly put up with murder in their kitchens. Frankly, in their place, she’d just tell some of these English husbands where they got off at. But then, the poor mutts never knew anything better, so what was the use of telling them? They just seemed to be born sloppy. Their clothes! Had Monica ever seen anything like some of the comic Valentines you met just walking around the streets? In Medicine Hat—she and Lorne were both Westerners—they’d be taken in charge by the police.

  By this time Lorne, with much shaking and measuring, had composed the Canadian Lyric, a cocktail made of equal parts of lemon juice and maple syrup, added to a double portion of rye whisky, and shaken up with cracked ice.

  “The trouble we had getting real maple surrp!” said Lorne. “But I ran it down, finally, in a dump in Soho—a grocery that gets all kinds of outlandish stuff—and here it is, with that real old Canuck flavour! Boys-o-Boys! Just pour that over your tonsils and think of home! Say, where is Diane, anyway?”

  Perhaps it was lucky for Diane that she made her appearance at this moment. She was a pretty little girl of about ten, with a fresh complexion.

  “Sorry to be late, Mummy,” said she; “I was playing with Pam, and I forgot.”

  “Hear that?” said Meg to Monica, as though expecting her to notice some serious symptom of disease in her child. “That’s what we’re up against, all the time. Of course, she hears it in school, and it’s sure tough to fight school. Now, Little Pal,” she said, directing her attention to Diane, “how often does Mom have to tell you to call her Mom, or even Mommie, but not that awful Mummy? Jeez, you make me sound like something in a museum.”

  “Sorry, Mom,” said the child.

  “I just can’t bear that awful mush-mouthed way they have of talking,” said Meg to Monica again. “If she takes that home, she’ll be a laughing-stock.”

  Monica, not knowing what else to do, agreed.

  As the evening progressed, she found herself agreeing to many other things, for in Beaver Lodge not to agree in any criticism of England was to be a traitor to Canada. Monica had never given much thought to Canada, as an entity, before; she was a Canadian, and if she had been challenged on the point she would have said that she was proud of it, but if the challenger had probed further, and asked her upon what foundations her pride rested, she would have been confused. But at Beaver Lodge there were no uncertainties: England was a compost-heap of follies, iniquities and ineptitudes. A great country—well, at one time, perhaps—but its greatness was passing. How could a country, where fish was offered for sale on marble slabs, perfectly open to dust and dirt, expect to hold a position of supremacy? The dirtiness of the English, in the eyes of Lorne and Meg, was their greatest crime.

  Such conversation was apparently intended to lend savour to the meal, which consisted of tomato juice out of a can (they had their juices sent to them from Canada, every month) and real Western Canadian beef.

  “You couldn’t touch the beef here,” said Lorne, as he carved. �
�It’d be criminal to feed it to Diane. This country, I tell you—their herds are riddled with TB.”

  “What’s TB, Daddy?” asked Diane.

  “It’s an awful disease you get from dirt, honey,” said Lorne. “You know how Daddy tells you to always hold your breath when you’re passing a drain in the road, and it’s steaming? The cows breathe dirt, and they get TB.”

  Having eaten the safe beef, they had a banana-cream pie which was, in part, a traitor, for although the lard in the pastry was from Canada (as was the flour too, of course) the bananas were purchased in England, and were from the Canaries, and thus not the large plantains to which Canada is accustomed. The meal concluded with coffee, made in what Meg declared was “the real, old-fashioned Canadian way” in an electric percolator; it was very good coffee, and Monica was grateful for it.

  She ventured to ask how it was that the McCorkills were able to get so much of their food from home?

  “Lorne’s work makes it possible,” said Meg. “And if it didn’t I don’t know where we’d turn. He’s with the marketing board, you know, and we can make arrangements which probably wouldn’t work otherwise. And, frankly, if we couldn’t get most of our stuff from home, I’d kick right over the traces; I wouldn’t risk feeding Diane the stuff they have here. I’ve warned her not to accept food in the houses of any of the kiddies she plays with. It’s not an easy rule to enforce, but if a kiddy knows just what germs she may be taking into her system, she uses her head.”