Читать книгу Here's Luck - Lennie Lower - Страница 9

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I had a meal; a meal which Stanley described as an artist's breakfast, being a combination of breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. It lacked nothing in quantity, but it left me with the impression that if the tinopener ever got mislaid while Stanley ruled the kitchen, we would starve to death. It seemed a long time since I'd had chops.

I wandered listlessly about the house while Stanley cleared the table and carried the crockery up to the bath and turned the shower on it. I really should have been at work, but what with one thing and another, I couldn't face the idea of going back to the office. The Gudgeons are temperamental, and I, perhaps the most temperamental of them all, coming as I do from a long line of Gudgeons—the end of the line so to speak, am over-civilized. When I say that I am the end of the line, I do not disregard Stanley. Stanley, so far as the family is concerned, is a blank file.

Being over-civilized and highly strung, there are times when the mere thought of work turns me sick. Had I not met Agatha I might still be making a comfortable and easy living at the billiard-room. But the propagation of the species is the sole aim of Nature and I was torn from the pool-table, and my cue was put back in the rack by the inexorable hand of Fate that Stanley might infest the world. Truly, there are some things that are beyond the understanding of mortal man. Things of which it is no earthly use to think. Still, there are times when thought, long held back by the physical activities of our daily lives, bursts all restraint and floods our minds like the restricted water bursting through a crack in a clogged sewer-pipe. I wandered aimlessly as a telegraph messenger from room to room and finally flung myself on the bed and surrendered myself to meditation and indigestion.

Lying there I seemed to see the difficulties of life line up, number off, and form fours. I have read in books that the events of a drowning man's whole life flash through his mind before he finally utters the word "Mother" and sinks.

I have not shared with the authors of these books the pleasure of being drowned, and so can offer no corroborative evidence, but I underwent a dreadful enough experience on the bed. Doubt descended on me and the confidence I have always felt in my ability to carry on the affairs of daily life, drained from me. There were so many things to prey upon my mind. Agatha was gone. Gertrude was gone. My home was broken up. My bootlace was broken and I had not a clean collar to call my own. The tradesmen had to be paid, and the landlord and Flannery.

Where was the money to come from? Agatha, with that careless disregard of responsibility common to all women, had calmly left me without making any provision whatever for my future. It would never occur to her that I needed money. That she would think gratefully of the pounds and pounds I had given her to fritter away on groceries; and that she would endeavour to repay me was a thought to be dismissed with a bitter laugh.

Apart from these problems of domestic economy, there was Stanley. That he was still out of jail was due solely to my unremitting efforts to keep him on the straight and narrow path, and in this endeavour I was unassisted and even opposed by Agatha and Gertrude. It was left to me to orient his moral compass and embark him on an occupation that would carry him safely through the stormy seas of life, with myself as adviser and supercargo. His sole ambition seemed to be to own a motor-cycle and sidecar, his wavering inclinations were at present in the direction of bull-fighting, his only study was racing-form, his chief occupation seemed to consist in falling in and out of love with cat-like frequency. He had a positive flair for getting into trouble and everything he touched was automatically wrecked.

Could I have made him an alderman of the City Council he might have had some scope for the exercise of his peculiar genius. Given work where he would be in the position to assist in the resumption and demolition of whole blocks of buildings, in the tearing up of roads and putting them back, in the reviling of his colleagues, and the playing of practical jokes on the rate-payers—then he might have been happy. Contractors would have showered wealth on him from motives purely tender and his name would have appeared in the papers in company with society leaders, wife-beaters, archbishops, eminent murderers, modest hospital-cot endowers, and racehorse owners. But it was not to be, and failing the aldermanic life, I could only hope for the next best thing and make him a useful at Flannery's.

My melancholy train of thought was shunted into a side-station as Stanley burst into the room and commenced to roll up the rugs on the floor. The sight of him annoyed me.

"Stanley!" I snapped. "How often have I told you to knock before entering a room? The private detective manner does not become you. Next time you omit the necessary ceremony I'll lift you such a swipe in the teeth that your unborn grandchildren will stagger with the shock. Remember—knock or be knocked. Get out! Come here! What are you doing with those mats?"

He paused in the doorway and stood with his eyes cast down like a cab-horse in the rain.

"Well! Speak up! What are you standing there like a damn fool for?"

"I am abashed and confused, father!" he said softy.

"Bashed and contused!" I shouted wildly, rolling off the bed. He leapt outside the door and, closing it, bellowed through the keyhole.

"I want the mats because I'm getting the place ready for the party." The key clicked in the lock as I reached the door. "You don't mind me locking you in?" he cried pleadingly.

Locked me in! His father! I looked around wildly for a moment, then wrenching the end off the bed, battered the door down. I do not wish to give the impression that I had lost my temper. Far from it. It was with the utmost calmness that I walked over the splintered door, carelessly swinging the end of the bed in both hands. My bedroom is on the ground floor. I proceeded rapidly along the hallway and tripped over a mat that Stanley had dropped. Smiling, I rose to my feet and called affectionately to Stanley. He did not answer, but I could hear him scurrying about, upstairs. The boy seemed to be avoiding me. I hurried up the stairs, and arriving breathless at the top searched each room. Stanley was nowhere to be seen. There was only one place. The roof.

Throwing down the bed-end I hurried downstairs and secured the meat chopper and then returned to the upper floor. By standing on the outer window-ledge of Stanley's room it was easy to reach the guttering of the roof and so haul myself up with the chopper gripped in my teeth. Kneeling on the sloping roof, I espied Stanley clinging to the chimney and staring at me in a most unfriendly manner with his mouth wide open.

"Vanvly," I called, "vor varver wavs you."

The chopper made it difficult for me to speak, but I kept it in my mouth and started the ascent of the roof. Stanley, after a savage attempt to tear a brick loose from the chimney, slid down the farther side. Reaching the ridge, I slid down after him. He was balancing on the balcony roof gazing desperately about him. Our house is separated from the next in the terrace by a narrow passage-way, four feet wide, and the roofs of both balconies are just that distance apart. I anticipated Stanley's intention and was almost on him with the chopper when he leapt. In his haste, he missed his footing, caught the guttering of the next-door roof, yelped as the guttering came away, and gasped quietly as the end of it held and he remained suspended in the air, swinging gently from about eight feet of galvanized iron. I had him. I had only to step across the intervening four feet and chop him loose to spend the remainder of my life in peace and quietude. Taking the chopper in my right hand, I placed one foot in our balcony gutter and stepped easily across. It was then that my rear foot became stuck. Straddled between the two houses, I vainly strove to dislodge it. Struggling my other foot became wedged in the guttering opposite, and I was done.

Had I been younger I might have extricated myself fairly easily. Not that I lack either strength or ability; young flapnoodles can show me no points when it comes to strength and vigour, but a man of fortyeight accumulates a certain amount of dignity which breeds a distaste for violent physical effort. A rapidly increasing and very interested crowd was gathering in the street while my fiend son hung limply in the air and laughed himself black in the face. I missed him with the chopper, and it whirled past him and clattered into the passage-way below. Nice position for a grown man of forty-eight to be in! Had it not been for Stanley's ridiculous desire to avoid me I should never have been exposed on the roof-tops as an object of ridicule. It was always Stanley. Who, but Stanley, would have thought of cooking meals in the laundry at two o'clock in the morning?

My position was intolerable. I waved my arms to the mob in the street.

"Send for the fire brigade!" I shouted.

They cheered.

"Send for the —— fire brigade!"

They cheered again.

I gazed sadly at Stanley. He was clinging with one hand and pointing excitedly at the crowd with the other.

I turned and gazed down at that sea of chattering nincompoops as a voice floated up to me. "Ooo—hoo! Ja—ack!"

Two white handkerchiefs fluttered below.

"Cooee!" screamed Stanley. "It's Eggs! And Steak! Cooee!"

"Send—for—the—fire—brigade!" I bellowed. "You must be pretty friendly with the fire brigade, dad," said Stanley, shifting his grip.

"Oo—hoo! Ja—ack! Has the party started?"

"Send for—"

"For the love of Mike, father! We haven't enough lager for the fire brigade. I've invited all the people we want."

As the last word left his mouth the guttering gave a rasping screech and ripped away another eight feet, leaving him with an easy drop to the ground. Whether it was the sudden shock or the hand of fate that threw me back at the same time on to my own roof, I do not know, but as I lay back, perspiring, against the slope, a hoarse murmur of anger went up from the crowd and I looked to see numbers of them walking away with the attitude of people who wanted their money back. I had disappointed them. It was clear to me that they regarded me as a fraud; a person who gathered a good crowd and then didn't fall down and break his neck. They were dispersing sullenly, mumbling to one another, and at last all were gone except a few optimists and local residents who watched me, hoping against hope, until I disappeared from view. Climbing through the window into Stanley's room I surprised him furiously brushing his hair.

"Why don't you knock?" he demanded slowly?

"Sorry, son, I didn't think you'd be here."

"Thasall right, dad," he said, laying down the brush and turning to me. "Come and help me welcome the guests."

Stanley is given to sudden fiendish fits of bad temper, a deplorable trait which he inherits from his mother, but relenting Providence has made him somewhat like me, in that he bears no malice after his fit has passed off. That is to say, not much. We descended the stairs together and proceeding arm in arm along the hall, opened the door and admitted Steak and Eggs.

"Come in, my dee—ars," crooned Stanley.

"You men are the limit!" said Eggs, wagging a roguish finger at Stanley.

"You silly boy!" exclaimed Steak, patting me on the cheek. "You might have been killed! Whatever were you doing up there?"

"Stanley got into difficulties and I went to his rescue," I explained with simple modesty.

"Oh, you big, brave man!" gurgled Eggs. "But what was my toreador doing up there?" she asked, snuggling her hand into Stanley's and looking up into his eyes.

Stanley paused and then spoke in a low voice.

"A poor little motherless kitten, blind and homeless, had collapsed on the roof and was mewing so plaintively that it wrenched my heart. I listened until I could bear it no longer. Then I hurled myself, careless of consequences, on to the roof."

"I'll say that was something like a hurl," said Steak admiringly.

"Later, the guttering gave way as you saw—"

I interrupted, thinking Stanley had been in long enough.

"I rushed to his assistance—"

"But what about the poor little blind kitten?" gushed Eggs.

"I—I gave it a drink of water," said Stanley, "which seemed to revive it, and it gazed gratefully at me for a moment and then spread its little wings and flew away."

"The kitten!"

"Ah, yes. I was thinking of the canary I rescued yesterday. It just licked my hand and toddled off."

"You dear thing!" cooed Eggs, squeezing his hand.

I thought Stanley had gone far enough.

"Well, come on, girls," I exclaimed jovially. "Make yourself at home. Take your hats off, or your coats, or whatever it is you want to take off. Don't mind us; we're all friends together."

I herded them into the drawing-room.

"Stanley's been getting things ready. I suppose everything's fixed, Stan?"

"Well—no. Not quite," he replied. "I didn't expect anyone yet. You girls are a bit early," he added, smiling at them.

"We've been to enough parties," said Steak, "to know that the firstcomers know where the beer's hidden."

"Where is it?" asked Eggs.

"It's in the stove, most of it, Maureen," confessed Stanley. "Care for a gargle."

"We wouldn't take much holding down if you wanted to force it on us," drawled Steak. "Trot it out."

I had seated myself and was admiring the shape of Daisy's ear, when what seemed like a herd of buffaloes struck the front door and a raucous howl came from the front of the house. For a moment I thought it might be the fire brigade. Stanley rushed into the room with a bottle in each hand and a delighted smile on his face.

"What's that?" I gasped.

"It's the Boys!" cried Stanley, and rushed to let them in.