Tomato Cain and Other Stories Page 20

  The film would be one I had not seen for a long time; I bought a shilling ticket and found one of the less-worn seats. The lights were still up. People were trickling in. A middle-aged couple sat down next to me and talked busily. Children poured into the front seats, whistling and shouting. At about quarter-past seven somebody must have decided there was a quorum, and switched on the panatrope behind the screen.

  To my surprise, everybody stood up. It was playing “God Save the King.” One verse, right through.

  “You a stranger?” It was the man in the next seat. “Tha didn’t reckon on ’em to play t’ King at start, eh?”

  “Oh,” I said, “I know it is sometimes done.”

  “Ay, but Charlie plays ’im at th’ end as well. That’s when he really lets hissen go. This is just warming up, like.”

  His wife leaned across. “He means Charlie Peace, as runs this place. Half telling a thing!”

  I must have looked surprised again.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “Poor lad! To call him Charlie, t’wur downright wicked of the Peaces, but they say th’ owd man wanted a daughter. Hallo, here we are!”

  The lights snapped out. From the projection box at the rear, a beam shot out and fastened a little shakily on the screen; one of those droning American shorts about baseball aces. A howl of disappointment went up.

  Conversation broke out strongly all over “Cinema House.” A hand thrust into the low beam made rabbits’ heads on the screen. In every row people bought out bags of hot chips and passed them, crackling, to each other.

  “Tha’d be interested in owd Charlie,” said my neighbour above the din. “Wouldn’t he, luv? He’s a character, is Charlie!”

  “Don’t bother people, Stan!” his wife whispered.

  “Nay, Mother, but he couldn’t help be interested.” He turned to me again. “Ey, tha’st no idea the trouble Charlie’s had wi’ t’ King. (Luk at those poor fools playing at kids’ rounders yonder, thinking they’ve a game!) It’s not that Oglethorpe folk aren’t loyal - ba gum, any one of ‘em would be right proud to shake t’ King by th’ hand! But sithee, playing ‘im at th’ end of pictures is different, like, and only rightly to be dodged. So everybody thought, any road, and they got cute.

  “Tha shouldst have been here in yon days. Folk’d rush out at th’ end of picture as if Owd Scratch hissen wur on their tail, nigh trampling over each other to get free. Many a time when a picture’s had a sudden end, I’ve marvelled they weren’t plucking corpses from th’ exits. Even after weepy tales, tha’d find ‘em scamperin’ out wi’ hankies to their eyes, and bumping into each other. Tha’d see ‘em straining in their seats whenever the picture looked like coming to a finish, fretting to be off. Sound of a drum roll ‘ud send ‘em frantic. For it wur counted no small disgrace to be caught by t’ King and made to stand still wi’ hat in hand half-way to t’ door.

  “Now Charlie, wi’ it being his place, and a lad for dignity, wur upset by such behaviour. He took to clapping t’ King on within th’ split instant of t’ other finishing. ‘The End’ never had a chance to grow on t’ screen before Charlie’d banged th’ head of t’ King on top, and - ‘tarara, ta, tara!’ - full speed and as loud as machine’d bear. Just to show folk, like.

  “But they our equal to ‘im. Ey, they showed such cunning to scent out th’ end o’ pictures, it wur hardly worth while o’ film men to finish ‘em. Charlie’d see ‘em stealing out, and he’d grind his teeth in th’ operating box wi’ t’ King clutched hot in his hand. Once he went up on t’ stage, and appealed to folk to be respectful. He tried switching off th’ exit lights and leaving doors shut. It made no difference, but that a lad broke his nose. (Yon’s a daft game, look. Dressed up wi’ paws like great munkeys!)

  “Now, some of t’ lads wur on for a jest wi’ owd Charlie. ‘Hast not heard,’ says one, ‘t’ King’s coming up this way next month - so council say. ‘Ay? Happen he’ll look into thy cinema, Charlie,’ says another, ‘there being nowt else much to see, bar t’ pickle factory.’ Charlie had read of t’ King travelling north, and he took this into his head very deep.

  “He sought out a new picture to show, special, and then got to work wi’ a wonderful ‘God Save,’ the like of what nobody’d ever seen in t’ world. He made it in his back room yonder, where he has snippets of owd films. King and t’ family he had of course, and guns and palaces. Soldiers, aeroplanes, boxing matches, jungles, dancing natives, dog shows, ghosts, soccer, weddings, dam-building, Roman gladiators, volcanoes, collisions, hunger strikes, murders an’ all. Nowt wur missed. And then he cleaned up the place, even chewing-gum from under t’ seats. Ey, he must’ve believed in tale!

  “O’ course t’King got no further than Manchester when he came up this way. And Charlie had a great disappointment. He felt t’King had let him down proper.

  “But he isn’t a lad to lie down under such a thing when he’d put in so much time and trouble, isn’t Charlie! He reckoned to be as crafty as t’ rest o’ folk, and he thought nowt o’ their silly laffing - but set to hatching out a scheme.”

  “This picture’s ending,” said his wife, “Tha best hurry up. Dost see,” she said to me, There’s no dogs or racing to watch here in Oglethorpe, and folk need summat more lively than t’ pools —“

  “Ay, well!” Stan said. “I’m telling. Owd Charlie reckoned that folk like a gamble - hallo!”

  A scratched Donald Duck burst upon the house and further talk was impossible.

  The main film was given a fair hearing in spite of savage cuts, and stoppages between reels, and a sly unfocusing on the part of the projector that brought yells of “Charlie!”

  At last it was over. I was interested to see what would happen. But - nobody moved. People rose attentively in their places.

  “God Save the King” rolled out for the second time that evening. It completed a verse, to the accompaniment of pictures of the Royal Family, made many, many years before. I got ready to leave.

  But it was going on. To a silent, motionless audience, two more full verses rumbled slowly from the panatrope. From what flickered across the screen, this was apparently Charlie Peace’s special: the one Stan had mentioned. Every human and natural activity seemed to be there, in tiny eye-twisting flashes of colour and monochrome. Finally, after what seemed about ten minuts, the thing ended with shots of flamingoes and the Mint.

  Still nobody stirred . And I recognised the feeling in the audience. It was not duty, but expectation.

  I was turning to ask my neighbour what the next stage in the ceremony was to be, when something bright flashed on the screen. “F 9” it said, scratched hurriedly on a black slide. A faint cheer rose somewhere in front.

  “All right? Come round to the box after, then!” a voice shouted. Through the projection-slit, apparently.

  “That’s Charlie,” said the man next to me. Every one was beginning to move now. “He draws seat numbers out of a hat after t' show. Whoever’s sitting in the winner gets in free next time. He’ll draw twice if first turns out to be empty. As Mother here said a while back, folk like a touch of try-your-luck.”

  He grinned in a sort of admiration.

  “And, ba gum, it keeps ’em quiet for t’ King.”

  END

  Chapter 30

  The Patter of Tiny Feet

  “Hold on a moment. Don’t knock,” Joe Banner said. “Let me get a shot of the outside before the light goes.”

  So I waited while he backed into the road with his Leica. No traffic, nobody about but an old man walking a dog in the distance. Joe stuck his cigarette behind one ear and prowled quickly to find the best angle on Number 47. It was what the address had suggested: a narrow suburban villa in a forgotten road, an old maid of a house with a skirt of garden drawn round it, keeping itself to itself among all its sad neighbours. The flower beds were full of dead stems and grass.

  Joe’s camera clicked twice. “House of Usher’s in the bag,” he said, and resumed the cigarette. “Think the garden has any poss
ibilities?”

  “Come on! We can waste time later.”

  Weather had bleached the green front door. There was a big iron knocker and I used it.

  “It echoed hollowly through the empty house!” said Banner. He enjoys talking like that, though it bores everybody. In addition he acts character - aping the sort of small-town photographer who wears his hat on the back of his head and stinks out the local Rotarians with damp flash-powder - but he’s one of the finest in the profession.

  We heard rapid footsteps inside, the lock clicked and the door swung open, all in a hurry. And there appeared - yes, remembering those comic letters to the office, it could only be - our man.

  “Mr Hutchinson?”

  “At your service, gentlemen!” He shot a look over Joe’s camera and the suitcase full of equipment, and seemed pleased. A small pudding-face and a long nose that didn’t match it, trimmed with a narrow line of moustache. He had the style of a shop-walker, I thought. “Come inside, please. Can I lend you a hand with that? No? That’s it - right along inside!” It sounded as if the word “sir” was trembling to join each phrase.

  We went into the front room, where a fire was burning. The furniture was a familiar mixture: flimsy modern veneer jostling old pieces built like Noah’s Ark and handed down from in-laws. Gilt plaster dancers posed on the sideboard and the rug was worn through.

  “My name is Staines,” I said, “and this is Joe Banner, who’s going to handle the pictures. I believe you’ve had a letter?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Hutchinson, shaking hands. “Please take a seat, both of you - I know what a tiring journey it can be, all the way from London! Yes. I must say how extremely gratified I am that your paper has shown this interest!” His voice sounded distorted by years of ingratiating; it bubbled out of the front of his mouth like a comic radio character’s. “Have you … that is, I understand you have special experience in this field, Mr Staines?” He seemed almost worried about it.

  “Not exactly a trained investigator,” I admitted, “but I’ve knocked out a few articles on the subject.”

  “Oh … yes, indeed. I’ve read them with great interest.” He hadn’t, of course, but he made it sound very respectful. He asked if we had eaten, and when we reassured him he produced drinks from grandmother’s sideboard. Banner settled down to his performance of the “Hicks-in-the-Stick Journal” photographer out on a blind.

  “You - you seem to have brought a lot of equipment.” Hutchinson said quickly. “I hope I made it clear there’s no guarantee of anything … visible.”

  “Guarantee? Why, then you have seen something?”

  He sat forward on his chair, but immediately seemed to restrain himself and an artfully stiff smile appeared. “Mr Staines, let’s understand each other: I am most anxious not to give you preconceived ideas. This is your investigation, not mine.” He administered this like a police caution, invitingly.

  Joe put down his empty glass. “We’re not easily corrupted, Mr Hutchinson.”

  To scotch the mock-modesty I said: “We’ve read your letters and the local press-clipping. So what about the whole story, in your own way?” I took out my notebook, to encourage him.

  Hutchinson blinked nervously and rose. He snapped the two standard lamps on, went to the window with hands clasped behind him. The sky was darkening. He drew the curtains and came back as if he had taken deep thought. His sigh was full of responsibility.

  “I’m trying to take an impersonal view. This case is so unusual that I feel it must be examined … pro bono publico, as it were … ” He gave a tight little laugh, all part of the act. “I don’t want you to get the idea I’m a seeker after publicity.”

  This was too much. “No, no” I said, “you don’t have to explain yourself: we’re interested. Facts, Mr Hutchinson, please. Just facts.”

  “For instance, what time do the noises start?” said Joe.

  Hutchinson relaxed, too obviously gratified for the purity of his motives. He glanced at his watch brightly.

  “Oh, it varies, Mr Banner. After dark - any time at all after dark.” He frowned like an honest witness. “I’m trying to think of any instance during daylight, but no. Sometimes it comes early, often near midnight, occasionally towards dawn: no rule about it, absolutely none. It can continue all night through.”

  I caught him watching my pencil as I stopped writing; his eyes came up on me and Joe, alert as a confident examination-candidate’s.

  “Footsteps?”

  Again the arch smile. “Mr Staines, that’s for you to judge. To me it sounds like footsteps.”

  “The witness knows the rules of evidence, boy!” Joe said, and winked at us both. Hutchinson took his glass.

  “Fill it up for you, Mr Banner? I’m far from an ideal observer, I fear; bar Sundays, I’m out every evening.”

  “Business?”

  “Yes, I’m assistant headwaiter in a restaurant. To-night I was able to be excused.” He handed us refilled glasses. “A strange feeling, you know, to come into the house late at night, and hear those sounds going on inside, in the dark.”

  “Scare you?” Joe asked.

  “Not now. Surprising, isn’t it? But it seems one can get used to anything.”

  I asked: “Just what do you hear?”

  Hutchinson considered, watching my pencil. “He’s got the answer all ready,” I thought. “A curious pattering, very erratic and light. A sort of … playing, if that conveys anything. Upstairs there’s a small passage between the bedrooms, covered with linoleum: I’ll show you presently. Well, it mostly occurs there, but it can travel down the stairs into the hallway below.”

  “Ever hear - ?” Joe began.

  Hutchinson went on: “It lasts between thirty and forty seconds. I’ve timed it. And in a single night I’ve known the whole thing to be repeated up to a dozen times.”

  “- a rat in the ceiling, Mr Hutchinson?” Joe finished. “They can make a hell of a row.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard rats. This is not one.”

  I frowned at Joe: this was routine stuff. “Mr Hutchinson, we’ll agree on that. Look, in your last letter you said you had a theory - of profound significance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t we get on to that, then?”

  He whipped round instantly, full of it. “My idea is - well, it’s a terribly unusual form of - the case - the case of a projection - how can I put it? It’s more than a theory, Mr Staines!” He had all the stops out at once. His hands trembled.

  “Hold it!” Joe called, and reached for his Leica. “I’ll be making an odd shot now and then, Mr Hutchinson. Show you telling the story, see?”

  Hutchinson’s fingers went to his tie.

  “You were saying - ?” I turned over a leaf of the note-book.

  “Well, I can vouch for this house, you know. I’ve lived here for many years, and it came to me from my mother. There’s absolutely no … history attached to it.”

  I could believe that.

  “Until about six years ago I lived alone - a woman came in to clean twice a week. And then … I married.” He said this impressively, watching to see that I noted it.

  “A strange person, my wife. She was only nineteen when we married, and very … unworldly.” He drew a self-conscious breath. “Distant cousin of mine actually, very religious people. That’s her photograph on the mantelpiece.”

  I took it down.

  I had noticed it when first we entered the room; vignetted in its chromium-plated frame, too striking to be his daughter. It was a face of character, expressive beyond mere beauty: an attractive full-lipped mouth, eyes of exceptional vividness. Surprisingly, her hair was shapeless and her dress dull. I passed the portrait to Joe, who whistled.

  “Mr Hutchinson! Where are you hiding the lady? Come on, let’s get a picture of - ”

  “Then he also guessed. This was not a house with a woman in it. “She passed away seven months ago,” said Hutchinson, and held out his hand for the frame.

  �
�I’m sorry,” I said. Banner nodded and muttered something.

  Hutchinson was expressionless. “Yes,” he said, “I’m sorry too.” Which was an odd thing to say, as there was evidently no sarcasm in it. I wondered why she could have married him. There must have been twenty-five years between them, and a world of temperament.

  “She was extremely … passionate,” Hutchinson said.

  He spoke as if he were revealing something indecent. His voice was hushed, and his little moustache bristled over pursed lips. When his eyes dropped to the photograph in his hand, his face was quite blank.

  Suddenly he said in an odd, curt way: “She was surprisingly faithful to me. I mean, she was never anything else. Very religious, strictest ideas of her duty.” The flicker of a smile. “Unworldly, as I said.”

  I tried to be discreet. “Then you were happy together?”

  His fingers were unconsciously worrying at the picture-frame, fidgeting with the strut.

  “To be honest, we weren’t. She wanted children.”

  Neither Banner nor I moved.

  “I told her I couldn’t agree. I had to tell her often, because she worked herself up, and it all became ugly. She used to lose control and say things she didn’t mean, and afterwards she was sorry, but you can’t play fast and loose with people’s finer feelings! I did my best. I’d forgive her and say: ‘I only want you, my dear. You’re all I need in the world,’ to comfort her, you see. And she’d sob loudly and … she was unnecessarily emotional.”

  His voice was thin, and tight. He rose and replaced the photograph on the mantelpiece. There was a long silence.

  Joe fiddled with his camera. “No children, then?” Cruel, that.

  Hutchinson turned, and we saw that somehow he had managed to relax. The accomodating smirk was back.

  “No, none. I had definite views on the subject. All quite rational. Wide disparity in the prospective parents’ ages, for instance - psychologically dangerous for all parties: I don’t know if you’ve studied the subject? There were other considerations, too - financial, medical: do you wish me to go into those? I have nothing to hide.”