Something Short and Sweet Page 3

  He could not understand, for a time, why only he was enthusiastic about it. Then, at the first rehearsal of the new idea, he saw why. Apart from Baby Doll he hadn’t a performer who, without clothes, wasn’t repulsive and pathetic. They were all monstrosities. He felt sorry for them, angry with himself. And it seemed to be the end of the idea.

  Then, almost a fortnight later, when he had almost forgotten it and was glad to forget it, the girl herself had a scheme.

  ‘You could do it,’ she said, ‘if you had ordinary people. Not little people. If you had two girls a little taller than me, then two taller, then two taller, and so on, until you got two girls almost as tall as you are. Have them in a kind of big V, all dressed alike with me in the middle. You could do it then.’

  ‘My God,’ Purchase said. ‘By God I could do it, couldn’t I?’

  ‘You could. It would be terrific.’

  Then he half changed his mind. ‘No. I can’t do it. I’ve always stuck to you little folks. It’s a separate game from all the rest. You’ve got to keep midgets together. It’s no use. They won’t mix. No, I can’t do it.’

  ‘Who said they won’t mix? If you say so they’ll have to. They mix in circuses. I don’t mind for myself. Surely the rest won’t?’

  ‘Wouldn’t they? I don’t know. I don’t like it.’

  But gradually, as before, he came round to it. He’d see. He’d think about it. He might try it. It took all her urging and cajoling to make him listen and see the sense of it. She put all her heart into it. It gave her a good deal of happiness to be able to do something for him. All the time he did not realise it, and she did not show it.

  Then he came round. And coming to it at last, he overtook even her in enthusiasm. He advertised, went to London and had interviews and auditions. And gradually, that autumn, he got what he wanted, eight girls ranging in pairs upwards, from just under five feet to just over six. It was his idea to bill them, with her, as the Nine Naked Ninepins. It was the only thing she did not like about it. She said it was cheap.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Suggest something else.’

  She suggested nymphs, and he agreed that it was better. So that autumn, after a month of rehearsal, he put them on, the Nine Naked Nymphs, the kind of act that for him was a revolution.

  At once it was a terrific success. Before Christmas he had bookings all over the Midlands and the South. Contemplating the immense success of it, looking at the big normal girls standing on each side of the Baby Doll, girls with long graceful legs and fine breasts and faces in which there was no hint of the forlorn midget expression of mockery, he wondered how the old Baby Doll act had ever succeeded in impressing either him or the rest of the world.

  Even so he had sense enough to see that it was still she who made it. The big girls threw her into a lovely miniature relief. She was so sweet and doll-like, such a dear creature, a real pink lovable doll in a box. It was she who was the heart of it.

  And from time to time he praised her: ‘That was a fine idea of yours. A grand idea. You’re a real living little wonder. Why, if it hadn’t been for you I might still be going on in the same old way.’ And he would put his hands on her shoulders and give her a little shake and a squeeze of affection. ‘You don’t want to go back home, do you? Don’t want to leave me?’

  No, she didn’t want to go back home. She didn’t want to leave him. And to express it she would simply stand there and look up at him and shake her head, in dumb adoration. She wanted simply to be near him. That was all. Nothing else. It was a clear and quite uncomplicated desire – uncomplicated by any jealousy or spite or foolishness, and so clear that he ought to have seen it at once. But he never suspected it. The idea of her being in love with him would have been simply ludicrous even if he had thought of it at all.

  Then suddenly he did see it. One night, during the second performance, one of the nymphs fainted. She fell forward from her doll’s box as stiff as a ninepin, in the middle of the act. Purchase had the curtain rung down and rushed on to the stage and carried her off to her dressing-room himself.

  She was a big girl, beautifully built, with platinum hair that was almost white. She had full drowsy lips and in the ordinary light of the dressing-room, away from the footlights, her painted eyes were bright green. The act had got as far as the early Victorian scene and underneath her dress the girl had on four more dresses besides her bathing costume. Knowing that, Purchase loosened her top dress and began to take it off.

  ‘Myra, Myra,’ he kept saying. ‘Myra, come on now. Come on, Myra. You’re all right, Myra.’

  ‘Take me home,’ she said at last.

  ‘Can’t you go on?’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘I feel ghastly. Take me home.’

  So, with her dress half off, he took her back to her lodgings in a taxi; on his way out of the theatre he had to push past girls and midgets and stage-hands, and lastly Ida. She just stood by the stage door and stared at him as he went past. But it was such a fixed look, so odd, almost fierce, that he stopped and spoke.

  ‘I’ll be back in about ten minutes. You see that the show goes straight on. Straight on as if nothing had happened.’

  The show went on, but Purchase was not back when it finished. Ida waited about long after the rest of the company had gone home, but it was no use. Then, after about half an hour, she took a taxi to the girl’s lodgings. It was then almost midnight.

  At the lodgings the landlady let her in and she went straight upstairs, alone. She came almost straight down again. The girl had a room on the second floor and there was a light in it, but Ida did not go in. She did not even knock. It was almost enough for her to hear Purchase’s voice, but not quite enough. By his voice she knew that he was there, in the room with the girl, but she could not tell what he was doing.

  After a moment she bent her head and looked through the keyhole. That was enough. The girl was lying on the bed, undressed, and Purchase was kissing her.

  She went straight home. Next day she said nothing. But somehow, for the first time, Purchase knew what was in her mind. He felt exasperated. It was so silly. Surely she had the sense to see that there could never be anything between himself and a midget, between her and a normal man? The physical incompatibility of the thing made him shudder. Surely she saw that too?

  She did see it, but almost for the first time too. Having seen him with the girl, almost in the very act of love, she saw now quite completely and quite clearly how far she was from him. Formerly she had reasoned that if she was good enough to kiss and squeeze in a friendly way she ought to be good enough to love. She had always hoped. Now there was no hope at all.

  Even so, she did nothing. There was very little that she could do. She had no jealousy. She simply went about quietly, dumbly, avoiding Purchase as much as possible. Her heart was full up. All the time Purchase was taking the girl Myra home to her lodgings, night after night, after the last performance.

  Then suddenly Ida did exactly what the other girl had done: she collapsed in the middle of the show. Purchase was furious. It was so obvious and silly, so infuriating, such a cheap feminine trick of sensationalism. Angrily he got a taxi and took her to her lodgings. All the way she did not speak. She looked exactly like a wax doll, so white and dumb and bloodless.

  In her room Purchase laid her on the bed and covered her over.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ he said.

  She did not speak.

  ‘You did it on purpose,’ he said. ‘You did it to attract attention. Didn’t you?’

  Still she did not say anything.

  ‘Didn’t you?’ he insisted. ‘Didn’t you? Say something. You did it on purpose?’

  Suddenly he saw why she did not speak. She could not. She was ill. She lay in a momentary paralysis, so white and still that all at once he was afraid.

  ‘Ida,’ he said. ‘Ida. Baby. What is it? Whatever is it?’

  He got hold of her hands. They were stone cold. ‘Ida, Ida,’ he said. ‘What is it? What is
it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She spoke suddenly, but faintly.

  ‘How do you feel? Tell me. Tell me and I can get a doctor.’

  ‘I feel so big – like – look, I can touch the foot of the bed.’

  ‘Yes, but how do you feel? Inside? How do you feel?’

  ‘It’s my heart.’ She was holding his hands very tightly. ‘It hurts me.’

  He was scared. She looked so cold and white and small. It was beyond his understanding. ‘Let me get somebody,’ he said. ‘Let me get somebody.’

  ‘No, stop here. Don’t go,’ she said. Then in a minute she said: ‘Can you see how big I am? I feel as big as you. I feel enormous. Look at me,’ she said. ‘I can reach to the foot. Do I look big?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Do you like me any better like this? Big?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much better?’

  He could not speak. She seemed smaller than he had ever known her, the smallest midget in the world.

  ‘Much better?’ she said. ‘A lot better?’

  Purchase nodded. He could not speak, but she seemed satisfied. Very white and still, she looked at him steadfastly, with her tiny doll’s eyes in which there was no emotion at all except delight.

  ‘Am I a living wonder?’ she said. ‘Say I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re a living wonder.’

  A moment later she let go his hands, and he knew that he had spoken just in time.

  Something Short and Sweet

  The car was stationary, by the wood-side, under snow-wet beeches. The man and the young woman sat in the front seats. They were also quite still. Outside nothing moved except the snow, which fell wetly, a slither of watery whiteness on the windscreen, a wet frosting on grass and branches. The car hood was ripped and some snow had feathered in on the piles of books on the back seat. They were all red books, all the same book. The man had one of them, open, in one hand, with the other hand palm downwards on the flattened page, so that momentarily he looked like a man expounding a sermon.

  ‘What is it you don’t understand?’ he said.

  The girl looked anaemically at the snow, without speaking. She was about twenty. Her face reflected the dull whiteness of the snow, making her eyes snow-glassy.

  ‘Is it anything in the book?’ the man said. ‘In here? If it is I can explain it. Don’t be afraid. Tell me. Is it the book?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘Which chapter?’ He waited for her to speak. She said nothing. In the intervals of speech he twitched his weak eyes, as though his spectacles were troubling him. He was about forty, with very dark hair that was greasy, and his coat collar shone at the edges with a sort of lead-coloured wax, the result of years of rubbing. He had many raw pimples on his face. ‘Tell me which part, which chapter?’ he said. His hat sat low down on his ears, giving him an almost fanatical look of correctness. ‘The Displacement of Self by God?’ he said. ‘Is that it? Is it that which is troubling you? I admit it’s difficult to understand. Is it that?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she said.

  She sat huddled up, cold to the bone, simply looking at the snow.

  ‘You’re not losing faith?’ he said.

  She shook her head. Waiting for her to speak, he twitched his weak eyes rapidly.

  ‘You need vision,’ he said earnestly.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘But people are so rude!’ she burst out. ‘They’re so rude. They treat you like dirt.’

  ‘They don’t know,’ he said blandly. ‘They don’t understand. Vision hasn’t been granted to them as it has been to us. Vision isn’t granted to everybody. It’s just what happened to Christ. When you’ve been in the mission as long as I have you’ll understand. You’re new to it. We must bear the burden. It’s our task. It’s our mission. Don’t you believe it?’

  ‘I believe it when you say it,’ she said. ‘But I’m not so sure when I say it myself.’

  He wetted his thumb and began turning over the leaves of the book. Looking at him, she saw suddenly that he had a button off his overcoat.

  ‘You’ve lost a button,’ she said. ‘I’ll sew it on. Where did you lose that, I wonder?’

  ‘Where? What button?’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Here, this is it. Here—’

  But she was out of the car. Merely to get out was a blessed, almost hysterical relief to her. She went round to the back of the car quickly. It was snowing fat wet blots. She undid the suit-case strapped to the luggage-grid and foraged in it and found needle and cotton. Above the grid, on the back of the car, was chalked ‘Galilee Gospel. Prepare to Meet Thy God’. The snow was beginning to wash the words out a little.

  Back in the car she tried to thread the needle, but her hands were numb. She tried and tried again, until she outdid the man in extreme earnestness of expression. And all the time, as she vainly wetted and screwed and pointed the thread, he was expounding from the book on his knees.

  ‘So long as the self dominates there can be no God,’ he read out. ‘And until there is God we shall know no fulfilment of true happiness. The worship of self means the rejection of Our Lord. Vice versa the acceptance of our Lord means the burying of the graven image of self. God is with us for ever, but the self is not and must perish.’

  He left off reading and blinked. ‘Surely that’s clear?’ he said.

  His voice startled her. By a great effort she had almost threaded the needle. When he spoke her fingers trembled and she felt suddenly upset. She looked for a second as if she would cry out. But she just did nothing. The man also did nothing, taking no notice of her. In a moment she took up the thread again and he went on expounding and saying: ‘That’s clear isn’t it? You understand, don’t you? You must see. It’s vision you need. That’s all.’

  As he was speaking she felt painfully hungry. It was long after midday. That morning they had come about thirty miles out of Oxford, from headquarters. In other districts other workers for Galilee would have covered the same distance, for the same purpose. It was part of the spring campaign. Clear of the town, the man would stop the car every mile or so and the girl would get out and with a large piece of chalk would print the symbols of the creed on field-gates and telegraph poles, while the man kept a look out and waited. ‘In the Midst of Life we Are in Death,’ she chalked, or ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand’. At the top of hills she chalked, ‘Prepare to Meet Thy God’, in the biggest letters of all. It had been savagely cold from the very beginning. Then the snow came on, her hands got frozen, and she made the journeys in absolute misery, in slush up to her ankles. Once he had a brain-wave. ‘The Canker of Self is Eating your Soul,’ he said. ‘Put that.’ She had to chalk the words on two gate bars. The snow blinded her. She felt the snow go right through her heart. Then whenever they came to houses or a village he stopped the car again and she took a bundle of books and went the round of doors and chanted what was really, for her, a meaningless rigmarole:

  ‘I speak for the Galilee Mission. In this great book you will find the solution to the problem of our existence here on earth. God is at hand. At any moment he may strike you down. Have no fear. Find God in this book. We are offering it at our special price of half a crown. Normally it is ten shillings. You will never see such a chance again. Make your peace with God before it is too late.’

  Sometimes, often, she never got as far as that. She stood on the doorstep and, after a moment found herself speaking to space. It was that which crushed not only her but the meaning of it all too. Malfry was always telling her to emulate him, to have vision, to be inspired. But what was the use of being inspired if nobody listened?

  ‘Shall we have something to eat?’ she said.

  ‘Do you feel clear about it?’ he said. ‘Until you believe it yourself how can others believe it?’

  His voice was impersonal, hard as bone. She stuck the unthreaded needle absently into the dashboard and looked all the time at the snow. Then she got out some food from among the books o
n the back seat: four beef sandwiches and an apple. She ate ravenously. The man ate without pleasure, ascetically. Afterwards there was a little tea, in a thermos flask. All the time, as they drank, the girl kept looking at the man, expectantly, waiting for some kind of softening and change in him. Nothing happened. He kept turning over the pages of the book, reading odd paragraphs, making pencil notes, his earnest eyes blinking.

  Then, when the food was finished, she was still cold. The wind came through the slit canvas hood and made a continuous mournful draught. The snow slithered everlastingly down the windows and the girl shivered.

  ‘I think I’ll put another jumper on,’ she said. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind.’ He did not look up.

  She got out of the car again and fetched in the suit-case. The snow was almost yellow on the road, the tyre-tracks a dirty orange. In the car, kneeling on the seat, she opened the suit-case and found a dark green jumper. Then she put the suit-case back among the books and took off her coat. Underneath it she had on a brown jumper.

  Suddenly she gave one look at the man and took it off. Her heart was thumping. Her small breasts were just visible above the skirt top.

  ‘Mr. Malfry, shall I look best in the green one or the brown one?’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’ He looked up, blinking, with open mouth. ‘Oh! which you like.’

  She waited for him to do something. She turned the green jumper right side out and sat there almost stupidly expectant, her heart pounding.

  ‘I never showed you my birth mark, did I,’ she said. ‘Look here at it, on my shoulder. It’s like a walnut.’

  She let down her right shoulder strap. The man just looked at the birth mark, blinking his eyes, as though he could not see it properly.

  ‘Isn’t it funny?’ she said. ‘I’ve always had it. It’s just the shape of a walnut.’

  ‘So it is.’ He laid his hand on the book. ‘I’ve marked all the passages in the Displacement of self by God which I think are obscure. You can have a look at them to-night. It’s only vision you need. It’s only faith.’