Mother London Page 2

  ‘Mr Kiss.’ Mummery lifts his hat. ‘Can you eat fire?’

  Josef Kiss throws back his head and roars.

  ‘My dear boy!’

  With his usual mixture of trepidation and pleasure David Mummery waits for his rival’s generous arm to enfold him so that side by side they may enter the doors of the Clinic. His misery subsides, as he knows it must, for he is recognised at last.

  Upon the dark green and cream walls, a postwar hangover, are pictures of Cornwall by R. Wintz, chiefly pastels and gouaches of St Ives before the formica signs engulfed it. Some of the brown steel-framed armchairs contain other regular patients. They call themselves The Group and are unusual only by virtue of certain individuals.

  From his corner seat Mr Faysha’s benign smile greets Mummery and Mr Kiss. The tiny muscular African is about sixty, his beard and hair both grey, his skin so youthful he resembles a schoolboy preparing for a rôle in a nativity play. Hardly able to glance up, as if frozen in mid-dive, Ally Bayley is poised on the edge of the next chair. She is the youngest of them, hiding under a weight of curly brown hair, her clenched fingers revealing fresh scabs. Reading with gloomy arrogance from a fairly recent number of Country Life, Petros Papadokis, a Cypriot, ignores her. He attends the Clinic only, he insists, under pressure from the Islamic Mafia who run his local medical centre. Beside him an older man with red curly hair and the slightly bloated good looks of a 1950s English film star, an empty pipe gripped in his mouth, sports the corduroy suit, woollen scarf and Fairisle pullover of a vanished bohemian Soho. Admitting it is not his real name, the older man calls himself ‘Hargreaves’ because he fears a publisher will discover his attendance at the Clinic and stop commissioning his paperback covers. ‘Hargreaves’ is particularly wary of Mummery, whom he has run into once or twice in editors’ offices. ‘Morning, old boy.’ His reluctant courtesy amounts to a snub.

  Doctor Samit, in his usual grey pinstripe three-piece, throws open his office door and grins out at them revealing strangely even teeth which are probably cosmetically treated. ‘Hello again! We’ll be ready in a minute. I saw Miss Harmon coming up the road. Is everybody here? What terrible cold weather, eh?’

  ‘That new chappy, the pie-shop chappy, hasn’t turned up yet.’ Doreen Templeton believes he lowered the tone last week. ‘And we’re waiting for Old Nonny as usual.’

  ‘But where’s our Mr Mummery?’ Doctor Samit is surprised. ‘He’s always on time. Oh, do forgive me. I didn’t recognise you, David.’

  Apologetically, with a trembling hand, Mummery removes his hat. ‘I’m a bit paranoid about keeping warm this year. I don’t want another dose of flu.’

  ‘And Mrs Weaver’s probably off sick again.’ Doreen Templeton reports the remaining absentee. ‘She was looking seedy last week, you’ll remember. Her bronchitis gets to her around Christmas. I can’t recall a Christmas it didn’t.’ She enjoys reminding them that she has been ‘In Group’ longer than anyone apart from Mrs Weaver herself who nowadays only comes for the company when she feels like it.

  Cold air blows in as the outside doors are opened and they can smell the powerful scent of lavender before they see Old Nonny, whose clothes in spite of the weather remain bright blue, lilac or violet, even her hat, even her eye-shadow. She has wound several chiffon scarves around her neck and wrists wherever her skin shows outside her blouse and cardigan. ‘Stay!’ With almost theatrical command she addresses her invisible Lulu. As optimistic and as ebullient as her mistress, the Pomeranian will wait in the drive. ‘Good morning, everybody.’ She has the strangest of accents, ancient London English on which are layered a thousand other influences and aspirations. ‘Good morning, Doctor Samit, darling. And how’s our dusky quack?’

  The doctor straightens his perfect cuffs and offers her his habitually sardonic bow. ‘The better for seeing you, Mrs Colman, thank you.’ Nonny claims to have wedded Ronald Colman in 1941, just before the church and all its records were bombed. ‘How,’ he asks laboriously, ‘are you, is more to the point.’

  ‘Fighting fit as always. Strong as a horse. I’m not here, doctor darling, because of my health. I’m here because like most of us it’s the only way I can stay out of the bin. There’s nobody sick here, as you well know, unless it’s poor Mrs T. Good morning, dear.’ And laughing in the face of her declared enemy she turns her back. ‘What ho, Mr Kiss!’ She winks. ‘Had any good parts lately?’ She was, she said, on the stage herself before the War, as Eleanor Hope. She met Ronald Colman through Alexander Korda when she auditioned for Hearts of Oak. ‘He should have got the OBE, at least, for what he did.’ She turns to a startled Mr Papadokis. ‘The sisters wrote to the King, you know, but never heard back. Did they, Mr K?’

  Embarrassed, Doctor Samit utters a professional chuckle. ‘Well, well, well.’

  Old Nonny waves her chiffon in eccentric patterns. ‘Stuffy in here, isn’t it?’

  Doreen Templeton’s thin features become whiter and narrower, her lips tighten and her eyes are furious slits. Even Ally enjoys her dramatic discomfort, for Old Nonny never loses in these exchanges, which is why Doreen chooses to address her next remark to the ceiling. ‘She really should get rid of her pans. I blame those home helps.’ Several times Doreen has offered the theory from Reader’s Digest that Old Nonny having contracted Alzheimer’s Disease from ingesting too much aluminium therefore has no business at the Clinic.

  guts nobody bitch all blood me no salt doss ist eine ferbissener

  Mary Gasalee frowns and becomes startled, grateful when Josef Kiss, noticing her reaction, rises in stately fashion to be beside her. ‘I suppose it’s time to get my prescription again,’ she says. ‘Are you okay?’

  He presses the hand she lifts into his. ‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear, Mary.’

  Glancing across at them Mummery pretends to notice nothing. Long ago, when he was a teenager and she in her thirties, she gave him up for Josef Kiss whose tolerance, security and variety of experience Mummery at any age was incapable of providing. Even now, considering himself no longer a child because he has endured the discomforts of treatment and therapy, Mummery’s insights are merely conventional and his attempted sympathy lacks understanding. He means well, but his fear makes him ungenerous. He can say only what he feels will please her since she is his main chance of returning to the golden past where he briefly enjoyed being the object of her romantic idealism: her twin soul. Her enthusiasm had made him feel of value in the world. At one point it had seemed she might go back to him, but no doubt she had only been getting her bearings. Yet he lived in hope. For him hope had always been preferable to reality. Mary Gasalee had realised what it would mean to be the perpetual source of Mummery’s self-esteem and had refused that burden. Only dimly aware of her reasons, Mummery enjoys the sensation of sadness rather than jealousy while continuing secretly to envy her intimacy with Josef Kiss, who at different times had commended the Clinic to them both. Mummery wonders why Mr Kiss is shaking his head.

  pork all leave Jerusalem pork all go into Babylon

  The retiring actor visits Mrs Gasalee once a week, on Saturdays, when he likes to help her with her week’s shopping. On Sundays she sees her friend Judith. Wednesday is Mary Gasalee’s only other constant. Mr Kiss’s physical life, however, is one of strict routine which he refuses to change. His routine and his own particular medicine are his protection against a chaos he is willing to risk perhaps three or four times a year and then usually only in the controlled environment of the Abbey, his costly asylum. Each year he saves for his few weeks’ sabbatical. He is divorced.

  Dobrze! Czego Pan chcesz? Lord Suma fought the Cockney Bulldog that night, beyond Waterloo, but fell like a collapsed barrage balloon. The Bulldog had him stuffed, they say, and used him as a couch in his Blackheath mansion. It was raining. I was so miserable I almost went back to the tattoo parlour. There’s some comfort in those needles. But it’s a habit, too. I’ve seen people just like Lord Suma. Not an inch of skin left. He was a Londoner, it turned out, from Uxbridge. Could have fooled me. She’s got that scent back. Is it natural or does she put it on?

  ‘Come along everyone.’ Miss Harmon throws wide the double doors to the Meeting Room. ‘Let’s get stuck in, shall we?’

  Obedient they rise, merge and in single file enter a room with dark blue carpet and grey velvet curtains. On the eggshell walls hang more pastels of the seaside, the Cotswolds, an alp. A coffee table, some floral easy chairs, three straight chairs and a sofa are at facing angles on the carpet. Taking their usual places, with the exception of Ally Bayley, they appear to relax.

  I should have looked up that healer he recommended. This is doing me no good I don’t know about him but it’s right across London there isn’t even a tube stop for Temple Fortune is there it’s all mock Tudor it gives me the shivers they say he’s very good, though. The electric shocks did nothing but make my hair fall out.

  Mummery positions himself to look through the tall window onto the chilly Heath with its miscellany of ugly trees, road signs and ruined grass. By comparison the interior is pleasant.

  One V-Bomb landed on the common. Nobody realised it would be followed so closely by another. By mine.

  Placing his pencil and notebook on his chair’s arm and acknowledging Miss Harmon, Doctor Samit opens the session. ‘So what have we been doing with ourselves since we last came together? Who wants to begin?’

  Gently Miss Harmon leans forward. ‘How about you, Ally? What happened to your hand?’

  At once Ally begins to sob. ‘He just left me,’ she says. ‘Broken milk bottles over the step and I couldn’t stop bleeding. The people from the pub came out with flannels. I was so ashamed.’

  Ally’s stories make them all uncomfortable. She cannot find it in herself to leave her husband.

  ‘He
’s subhuman, Ally.’ Old Nonny’s eyes glitter with outrage. ‘He’s a beast. He’s worse than most. He should be put away. Can’t you get into one of them shelters?’

  ‘He came after me.’ Ally returns to her private tears, rocking herself silently in her chair. They are unable to disturb her. Mr Faysha’s own eyes are filling. He puts a tiny hand near her on the next chair, in case she should find it useful.

  ‘And what about the rest of us?’ Miss Harmon’s hair hangs in dark, lank slabs at the back and sides of her long head. Her prominent nose and chin help her cultivate a crudely Pre-Raphaelite appearance. She wears a dress of William Morris material normally used to cover furniture. Occasionally, when half dreaming, Mummery will start awake, convinced that one of the armchairs has come to life. ‘How have we all been?’

  Under Miss Harmon’s and Doctor Samit’s conduction, some eagerly, some reluctantly, some resentfully, some gladly, the others recite accounts of their week or tell stories of adventures which have the ring of truth or else are clearly invented. Mr Kiss enjoys these sessions. His tales are anecdotal and frequently sensational, even humorous. He cannot easily stop himself from entertaining whereas Mrs Gasalee recounts as a rule something she has heard from an acquaintance, sad stories concerning small injustices and frustrations, how she feels the help she gave or offered was inadequate. Sometimes she will admit having overheard people telepathically, but she knows this tends to make a few patients, and certainly Doctor Samit, embarrassed. Old Nonny tells of famous friends, unlikely events, incredible gatherings, chance meetings with household names, not a few of whom are long dead, and requires no response save the occasional nod or exclamation. Doreen Templeton listens through all this with disbelieving resignation and then discusses how badly people behave towards her even when she tries to help them. Mr Papadokis, in a low murmur which makes them strain to hear, if they make the effort at all, with eyes on the ground, speaks chiefly of troubles with his wife and mother, with his three children, his brother, his sister-in-law. ‘She says such filth. She asks about my girlfriend’s knickers. She can’t be clean. She’s not Greek. You know.’ Only occasionally does his voice rise, taking on a note of rhetorical protest. ‘What is it? How can I be responsible for that? Am I Superman? I said.’

  With a shrug Mr Faysha accepts his turn. ‘Oh, it’s just the usual old stuff.’ The movements of his hands and shoulders are apologetic. His smile is perpetually gentle. ‘But what am I to do?’ For forty years he has been married to an Englishwoman. They still live in Brixton but are thinking of moving. For years they suffered the prejudice of their white neighbours; now it is the young West Indians who give them most trouble. Mr Faysha is inclined to dismiss his personal problems and drift into a general philosophical argument. ‘What can you do about it?’ he asks The Group. ‘We’re definitely victims of history, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’ He was sent here from the mental hospital after he bit a taxi-driver who refused to take him home one night from the West End. He was surprised to discover Mummery, but it has become a comfort.

  Mr ‘Hargreaves’ announces that he remains full of disgust for what he still terms The Establishment. Once again he lost his temper with his students at the art college where he teaches twice a week. The college will sack him if he does it again. He struck a youth. ‘Hardly touched him. I’m only violent where art’s concerned. The little fool said something silly about Pollock. The usual sort of half-witted philistine pun. Well anyone will tell you I’ve never been a fan of the abstract expressionists but this know-nothing attitude you get from kids these days just makes me blow my top. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t hurt him, really. Fifty years ago it would have been twelve of the best taken as a matter of course. Not any more. Anyway, the crux of it is, I suppose, that I’m born out of my time. Even in the way I paint. I always wanted to be a Pre-Raphaelite.’

  Miss Harmon’s smile is one of quiet yet profound sympathy.

  They sit patiently through his familiar discourse. All Mr ‘Hargreaves’ ever expects is a chance to express his anger once a week. Meanwhile Arthur Partridge comes in, to be introduced again. ‘You all met Arthur last week,’ Miss Harmon reminds them. Arthur shuffles on the spot, grinning about him.

  This is a kindergarten they turn us into children and then tell us we must learn to fend for ourselves they diminish us and accuse us of lacking self-esteem they steal our dignity while offering admonitions of our failure to confront reality.

  Arthur is a baker and even now his hands appear white with flour. They lie at his sides as if waiting for the oven. ‘You’ll get the hang of it.’ Doctor Samit points with his pencil. ‘Sit over there, Arthur, next to David, please.’

  Mary Gasalee opens her eyes, wondering who spoke last.

  They said the first bomb was a lucky escape. The second was a miracle. But Mr Kiss knows all about bombs and miracles and so does Mary G.

  Mummery remembers Arthur Partridge’s peculiar, unfinished tale of a threat from the sewers. He is interested in the story since his next book will be about London’s underground waterways. He first went down several years ago in search of legendary subterraneans. The Fleet’s pig herd was rumoured to be moving back to its old pastures, inhabiting the river just below Holborn Viaduct, having gone wild since the early nineteenth century. Mummery hopes Partridge will provide him with some authentic folklore or simply some small additional anecdotes, for he continues to justify his attendance at the Clinic as research, feeling no further medical need of it though he admits the pills still help. He is a stickler for taking them, refusing to run the risks Josef Kiss runs of deliberately releasing himself from the course. ‘Those pills are our anchor, young Mummery, but sometimes it’s as well to cut the cable and let our ship drift into more interesting waters. That’s why I maintain my habits. It’s between destinations that fresh adventures occur!’

  Mummery once accompanied Mr Kiss on several such adventures but the thought of fresh ones now disturbs him. Of late he has been increasing his own dosages, since the medicine has less and less effect. Tremors now seize him from time to time, making him fear that his problem has more to do with cerebral palsy or some related disease than with his psychological constitution.

  This grows more hideous. Have they no idea what damage they cause us? They’re without sympathy, it’s true. But worse, they’re without intelligence.

  Oh, God, there’s no pain in the fire.

  Those ladies. They would be a comfort more to him than to me. I wish they were transferable.

  Arthur Partridge sits on the edge of the sofa between Mummery and Mary Gasalee and describes a creature he knows cannot exist but which he is sure swallowed the dough he was preparing for a special order of wholemeal rolls. Mummery knows better than to get out his own notebook. All he can do as usual is try to memorise interesting details. Not that there is much to Partridge’s account. It lacks, Mummery decides, real imagination. It even lacks a sense of reality. The poor baker’s tale has the deeply banal quality frequently distinguishing the truly mad from those who, like so many in The Group, are touched by a sort of divinity, who are, as Miss Harmon sometimes condescends to tell them, ‘special’. Mary Gasalee for instance with the unnerving knack she shares with Josef Kiss is almost always able to guess what people are thinking. Mr Kiss frequently reveals powers bordering on the supernatural. Mummery himself has a firm faith in the miraculous; he believes he can predict the future. For this reason he gave up his Tarot party tricks. Not that he is otherwise disturbed; believing that some people are simply better at reading the coded signs of language, gesture, choice of clothing and so on around them, he takes these gifts for granted. He and his friends share this sensitivity, he believes, with many artists, though they lack genuine creative talent, which is why Josef Kiss when he gave up his original trade could never become a great stage performer, why Mummery’s attempts at fiction always fail. When the authorities actually tested them at the National Physical Laboratory, with picture cards and other well-used devices, the results proved disappointing to researchers anxious to believe only in certain forms of extrasensory perception.