Читать книгу Here's Luck - Lennie Lower - Страница 7

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It was still dark when I awoke the second time, feeling cramped and cold, but much better than before. Sorrow like everything else, passes away and is forgotten, but it's the first time a great grief has left me so furry in the mouth. It felt late. As I groped around on the chilly floor, still only half awake, a distant clock chimed the usual preliminaries and then struck two. Almost immediately a voice welled up from somewhere in the remote darkness. It seemed to come from the wash-house. "It's two o'clock in the mo—o—orning. La da de da de do—" Crash!

It was Stanley.

"Stanley," I called.

He was too far away to hear and the crashing that was going on was terrific.

"Stanley!" I yelled.

Somewhere a door opened and a voice filtered through the darkness. "You can't have the axe. I'm using it."

The door slammed again and the crashing went on once more. I got up and walked down the hall, feeling my way. Stanley was in the laundry all right. I groped my way through the kitchen and out to where a candle flickered. Stanley, with his shirt off, was chopping up the kitchen cupboard. He was just getting in the last swipe as I entered.

"Stanley," I said, sorrowfully waving my hand at the debris on the floor, "What is this?"

He hung his head.

"I did it, father, with my little hatchet," he murmured.

"Did you do this with the hope of becoming president of America at some future date?" I asked, when I had got a grip on myself again. "Well—no," he said, "I hadn't thought of it. Is there a vacancy? I'd take it on, you know. I might get a motor-bike and side-car out of it." I lowered myself to the floor and sat down. "Stanley," I said, "I'm a sick man. Sorrow and domestic worries have left their mark on me. Don't toy with me. Why did you chop the cupboard up?"

"Going to make a cup of tea," he replied, idly chipping a piece out of the wash-tubs.

"What!"

"You see, before they left they turned the gas off at the main, and I blew the main fuse off the switch-board when I put the electric iron in the saucepan to boil some water—"

"Before who left?"

"Ma and Aunt Gertrude. I don't know where the gas tap is"

I reached out and took the axe from him. "Listen, Stanley," I said, as he backed away, "explain from the start, speaking slowly and distinctly. What happened?"

He picked up a piece of the cupboard; a thick piece, with a nail in one end, eyed it thoughtfully, and then leaned back on the wash-tubs.

"After you went out," he said slowly, "they came upstairs to me and started questioning me."

"And you told them everything, you human cicada!"

"Well," he replied hotly, "isn't it better to tell everything straight away and get the credit for being honest, than to have it dragged out of you and be regarded as a mug?"

There are times when I am proud of Stanley.

"Go on," I said, waving the axe.

"Well, Aunt Gertrude said that it was the last straw. She told Ma that no woman would put up with it. She said you were a selfish, loafing, drunken—"

"Never mind about that."

"But she said you were a dipsomaniac and that when you were drunk you weren't responsible for your actions. She said you were not safe to live with and—"

"That's enough."

"Well, anyhow, they packed up and went before lunch. Aunt Gertrude said it would teach you to behave like a human being if Ma left you to look after yourself for a while. I think they've gone to Granny's place at Chatswood."

"When will they be back?" I asked, getting to my feet.

Stanley grasped his piece of wood in both hands.

"Dunno," he replied gruffly.

The blood throbbed in my temples; a roaring sounded in my ears and I felt as if I would burst. I gazed, axe in hand, at Stanley, till I could contain myself no longer.

"Horray!" I shouted. "Stanley! Bone of my bone!"

With a supreme effort I controlled myself.

"Bring out your mother's dressing-table, we'll need more wood than this," I said, removing my coat.

"I knew you'd be broken up when I told you," said Stanley, moving off. "Cheer up, dad."

"Bring something to boil the water in," I called after him, "and root around for something to eat."

A thought struck me. "Stanley," I called, as he groped his way through the kitchen. "Why didn't they take you with them?"

"They wanted to," came the answer, "but I said I'd better stay and take care of you, and Aunt Gertrude said it would be a good idea to have someone to keep an eye on you, and I was to write regularly about everything you did."

"I can see you writing far into the night," I replied. "Hurry up with the dressing-table."

I heard him barging his way to the bedroom, and sat down.

Here was I, a lone man, left to look after the house and Stanley, my wife selfishly gone off to her mother's, leaving me to manage as best I could, with only memories for companionship. Deserted. Bereft. Alone...Horray!

I rose as Stanley backed into the laundry dragging the dressingtable.

"Don't chop the mirror," he puffed. "It's seven years' bad luck. Besides, it won't burn."

"I don't see the use of keeping it," I replied, seizing the axe. "We have no use for the thing now. I look on a mirror as worse than useless."

"That's how I'd look on it if I were in your place," said Stanley.

I let it pass.

"Well, if you don't want it smashed," I said, rolling up my sleeves, "take it away and put it somewhere. Put it in the gas-stove where it will be out of the way. We must keep things tidy. Everything in its place. System, Stanley! That's what a house needs and a woman never has. I'll introduce some system into this place. You won't know it in a week or two."

"No doubt about that," he agreed, ducking as I turned the first sod on the dressing-table.

When he was younger, Stanley was a Boy Scout. He was so enthusiastic about the training, especially the "one good deed a day" part of it, that the neighbours got up a petition and he had to resign. Before he left, however, he had accumulated such a rash of badges for path-finding, water-boiling, toast-turning, etc., that his uniform resembled an Oriental rug made by an epileptic Arab who I had learnt to Charleston. Accordingly I allowed him to make the fire, boil the water, make the tea and fix things up generally, while I watched him. We sat down at last, beside the fire, with all the windows open to let out the smoke. There, reclining on our elbows on either side of the fire, we drank our tea and ate our burnt bacon and toast like North-west Mounted Police. The axe gleamed dully in the glow, and as the candle guttered out, the noise of crickets chirping came floating in on the night air. The smoke curled lazily off into the darkness and a shower of sparks shot up as I threw some wood on the glowing embers. A long drawn-out wail came startlingly from out of the blackness of the night.

"Wolves!" gasped Stanley.

"Cats," I said. "That reminds me. I wonder if your mother and Gertrude really did go to Chatswood?"

"What does it matter," yawned Stanley. "I'll go and get a couple of blankets."

Taking a piece of flaring wood to light his way, he stumbled off, and presently was back with the blankets, and as a concession to civilization, two pillows. I removed my vest, and rolling up in the blanket, got out my pipe and filled it. Stanley gazed across the fire at me; wistfully I thought.

"Worried, Stanley?" I asked as I lit up.

"Aw—n—no," he said hesitatingly, "just sort of unsettled."

I lay back on my pillow and puffed contentedly.

"Don't you think pipe smoking is bad for you, dad?" he asked after a while.

"Not a bit of it. You don't want to take any notice of that fool, Gertrude. Smoking is good for me. Those women don't realize that it's better for me to burn holes in the carpet and be contented than to take to knitting and go mad."

"Er, have you got plenty of tobacco?" he asked after a long pause.

I looked up. He was fumbling with a huge meerschaum, which, judging from its blackness, must have come from one of the old Egyptian tombs. He mumbled as I stared at it.

"Your mother and your aunt forbid it," I said harshly.

He mumbled again. I threw my pouch across to him: he made a queer, glugging noise in his throat, and fell on it. Dense clouds of smoke fouled the air before he spoke again.

"You're all right, Jack," he said, and spat into the fire.

I settled my pillow and fell to musing.

How on earth is it that women, cannot make us men comfortable? Take Agatha for instance For years I had been complaining about her cooking. Not that she couldn't cook, but she didn't seem to know what to cook. I'll admit she tried, after a fashion, but it is impossible to please a man once he gets particular about his meals. Why the devil hadn't she thought of lighting a fire in the laundry and giving me burnt bacon and toast? No imagination. Women are slaves to domestic routine and precedent. They are all alike, so far as I can see. Complaining when a man comes home a bit merry: like the time, for instance, when I pulled the front fence down and reared it against the wall so that I could get on to the balcony. What else was there to do? I couldn't find the keyhole. Then there is the perpetual asking for money, and worrying about the rent. Doesn't matter if a man goes short! Oh, no! I knocked my pipe out on the floor and absent-mindedly reached for the switch to turn the fire out before I went to sleep. I was beginning to doze, when a belated thought tiptoed into my mind.

"Stanley," I said softly.

"Yairz."

"We might see Steak and Eggs again, and in that case—"

"Azzal right," he replied sleepily. "I had Eggs's telephone number so I rang her up this afternoon and they'll be here t'morrow night. Goo' night."

"Elephant's fins!" I gasped.

"Elefunz," mumbled Stanley dreamily.

He was asleep. The floor was concrete; not the best of beds; but the fact that I slept as soundly as a liftdriver speaks well for the clarity of my conscience and the adaptability of my hip-bones.