The Best of Gerald Kersh (16 page)

Then, in his breast, something uncoiled. He gazed, whistling. ‘Ye Gods!’ he said. ‘Ye Gods!’ But even as
he looked he was inclined to laugh: his reflection was wearing a bowler hat.

Still,
why
not?
thought Mr Wainewright. But then he remembered that he was an important person, that the glaring eyes of the world were focused on him. He walked across the court and pushed open the door of Flickenflocker’s Select Saloon.

Calm!
thought Wainewright.
Calm!
Keep
calm!
The door of the barber’s shop was fitted with a compressed air brake: it hissed behind him and closed with a gentle tap.

As the door hissed, Wainewright stood still, tense. Then he also hissed: he had been holding his breath. When the door closed, he also made a tapping noise: he had been standing on his toes.

Flickenflocker said: ‘Harpust one! Quarder-nour late! For fifteen years so I never knew you to miss a second! Eh?
Tsu,
tsu,
tsu!’

‘Am I late?’ asked Wainewright.

‘Fifteen minutes in fifteen years,’ said
Flickenflocker
. ‘One minute every year. In a hundred-twenty years, so you could save enough time to go to the pictures.’

‘The usual,’ said Wainewright, sitting in a chair.

‘Nice and clean back and sides,’ said Flickenflocker.

Wainewright nodded. But as he did so he noticed that a peculiar quietness had come over the people in the shop. They were exchanging hurried words in lowered voices, and looking at him out of the corners of their eyes. Deep in the breast of Mr Wainewright something broke into a glow which spread through him until he felt all his veins were burning brilliantly red like
neon-tubes
. He knew exactly what was being said:
That
is 
Wainewright,
the
witness
for
the
prosecution
in
the
Tooth
murder
case.

In a clear, slightly tremulous voice, he said:

‘And I’ll have a lavender shampoo.’

‘Why not?’ said Flickenflocker, as his long sharp scissors began to nibble and chatter at the fine, colourless hair of the little man in the chair. ‘Why not?’

*

Flickenflocker worked with the concentration and exalted patience of a biologist cutting a section, and as he worked he whistled little tunes. His whistle was a whisper: he drew in the air through his teeth, for he had been taught never to breathe on customers. At all times he seemed to be working out some problem of fabulous complexity – breathlessly following a fine thread through infinite mazes of thought. Occasionally he uttered a word or a mere noise, as if he had found
something
but was throwing it away …
Tss!
…
Muhuh!
…
Tu-tu-tu!
…
Oh
dear!
Wainewright liked this strange, calm barber who demonstrated no urge to make conversation; whose shiny yellow hands, soft and light as a pair of blown-up rubber gloves, had touched the faces of so many men whose pictures had filled posters while their names topped bills.

For Flickenflocker’s was a theatrical establishment, or had been. A hundred photographs of forgotten and
half-remembered
actors hung on the walls. As small boys cut their names on desks and trees, actors and sportsmen pin their photographs to the walls of pubs and
barbershops
. Thus they leave a little something by means of which somebody may remember them … until the flies, in their turn, deface the likenesses which Time
has almost wiped away; and the dustbins, which gape around the relics of little men like sharks in a bitter sea, close with a clang. Even in the grave nothing is
completely
lost as long as somebody can say:
Lottie
had
a
twenty-four-inch
thigh;
or
Fruitcake
bubble-danced;
or
J. J.
Sullivan
could
have
eaten
Kid
Fathers
before 
break
fast
.
We hang about the necks of our to-morrows like hungry harlots about the necks of penniless sailors. So, for twenty-three years, singers, boxers, actors, six-day cyclists, tumblers, soubrettes, jugglers, dancers, wrestlers, clowns, ventriloquists and lion-tamers had given
Flickenflocker
their photographs – always with a half-shrug and a half-smile of affable indulgence. Flickenflocker hung up every one of them: he knew that the day always came when a man returned, if only to look at the wall and dig some illusion about himself out of the junk-heap of stale publicity.

They always came back to Flickenflocker, whose memory was reliable and unobtrusive as a Yale lock. One sidelong look at a profile opened a flap in his head and let out a name. After ten years he could glance at you, name you with matter-of-fact enthusiasm, and make appropriate casual chatter. As soon as the shop door closed and your heels hit the street he kicked the flap back and waited for the next customer … looked up, segregated; silent except for hisses, gulps, and
monosyllables
.

Yet Flickenflocker could talk. Now, while Pewter’s flat French razor chirped in the lather like a sparrow in snow and, on his left, the great hollow-ground blade of Kyropoulos sang
Dzing-dzing!
over the blue chin of a big man in a pearl-grey suit, Flickenflocker talked to Mr Wainewright.

The barber made conversation with the least
distinguished
of all his customers.

*

‘You’re the man of the moment, Mister Wainewright.’

‘Nonsense, Mister Flickenflocker.’

‘I can read the papers, thank God, Mister
Wainewright
. I’m not
altogedder
blind yet, God forbid. Hm!’

‘It’s all got nothing to do with me.’

‘No? Your worster enemies should be where that poor woman is now. In your hands is already a rope. A … a … a loop you can tie; you can tie a noose round her neck.’

‘It’s the Law, Mister Flickenflocker.’

‘You’re right there, Mister Wainewright. That’s what the law is for. That’s what we pay rates and taxes for. You want to kill somebody: right, go on. But afterwards don’t say: “Huxcuse me, I forgot myself.” Don’t say: “Once don’t count – give me just one more charnsh.” A huxcuse me ain’t enough – murder ain’t the hee-cups. Murderers get hung: good job too. Poor woman!’

‘But if she’s guilty?’

‘Mmmmyes, you’re right. But a woman’s got a lot to put up with. With a certain class of man a woman can put up with a lot, Mister Wainewright.’

‘But murder!’

‘Murder…. Mnyup. Still, in a temper…. I knew a baker, a gentleman. In … in … in the electric chair he’d of got up to give a lady his seat. So one day in a temper he put his friend in the oven. They found it out by trousers-buttons; by trousers-buttons they found it out. Afterwards, he was sorry. Still, I didn’t say it was
right
;
only I don’t like hanging ladies. N-hah, mmmmyah! Well, you got nerve!’

‘Why? Why have I got nerve?’

‘Judge, juries: I’d be frightened out of my life.’

‘But why?’

‘They can make black white. White black they can make.’

‘I’ve nothing to fear: I can only tell the plain truth.’

‘And good luck to you! What class of people is a murderer? No class. A man in the prime of life, so she goes and kills. With scissors, eh? She kills her husband with scissors! It shows you. Scissors, pokers – if
somebody
wants to murder a person, hm! Daggers they can find in … in … in chocolate cakes, if they put their minds to it. Even a razor they can kill somebody with. Present company excepted. With a murderer,
everything
is a revolver. But what for? Why should she do it to her own husband?’

‘For love, I think, Mister Flickenflocker.’

‘Eeeeh! Love. People should settle down, with a home, and plenty children, with plenty work; happy they ought to be, people. If there’s an argument, so sometimes one gives way, sometimes another gives way. For peace in the house, you got to give way. It looks bad to fight in front of the kids. So in the end you have grandchildren. What do they mean,
love
?
To
kill
a person for love? In a book they read such rubbish, Mister Wainewright. For hate, for money, for hunger kill a person. For your wife and children kill a person. But love? Never heard of such a thing.’

‘We’d better leave that to the judge and jury,’ said Wainewright, coldly.

‘We got no option,’ said Flickenflocker. ‘We got to leave it to the judgen-jury. Anyway, it didn’t have nothing to do with you, thank goodness.’

‘No?’ said Wainewright.

‘No,’ said Flickenflocker, easily.

‘It happened in my own house. I was in the next room. It does affect me a
little
bit,’ said Wainewright,
frowning
.

‘It’s all for the best I dessay,’ Flickenflocker picked up a pair of fine clippers. ‘Lots o’ people’ll want to live there now.’

‘More likely they’ll want to stay away from my house, Mister Flickenflocker.’

‘Don’t you believe it! If there was a body (God
forbid
) in every cupboard, people’d pay double to stay there. For every one that don’t like a murder, there’s ten that’d rather have a murder than a … a … a
hot-water-bottle
. Don’t you worry. I know people, so they’d give fifty pounds to have a murder in their place.’

‘Dry shampoo, please,’ said Wainewright.

Flickenflocker unscrewed the top of a bottle. ‘Curiosity,’ he said.

‘Hm?’

‘Curiosity. Were they open or shut?’

‘Were what?’

‘The scissors. The scissors the lady killed the gent with.’

‘Shut.’

‘It only shows you, eh? What can cut, can cut out lives from people.
Psss!
…
Hwheee!
Even a road – fall on it from a high roof, and where are you? … Scissors, eh? Temper, that’s what it is: temper. A stab and a cut, and there you are: you’ve hanged yourself.’

Wainewright did not want to talk any more. He was looking into the mirror. Two men, awaiting their turn, were exchanging whispers and looking in his direction.
He knew what they were saying.
That’s
Wainewright,
they were saying;
that
quite
ordinary-looking
man 
hav
ing
the
lavender
shampoo
is
Wainewright,
the 
Waine
wright
who
has
the
house
where
Tooth
was
murdered
by
his
wife.

He smiled. But then old Pewter flipped the linen cover from the man in the chair on Wainewright’s right – a big, swaggering man with a humorous, rosy face. One of the whispering men got up and said, in a voice that shook with awe: ‘Excuse me, but aren’t you Al Allum?’

The big man nodded gravely. ‘
That
is my name,’ he said.

‘May I shake hands with you? Would you mind?’

‘Not at all.’ The big man held out a heavy, manicured fist, caught the stranger’s hand in a grip that made him jump, gave Pewter a shilling, and went out with a cordial and resonant ‘Good-bye’.

The man who had shaken hands with him said to Pewter: ‘I’ll give you two shillings for that shilling Al Allum gave you just now.’

The old man handed him a shilling with a faint smile. The other man, putting it in his breast-pocket,
explained
: ‘It’s for my boy. He’s crazy about Al Allum: you know what kids are.’

Somebody else said: ‘The greatest comedian alive
today
, Al Allum. Ever see his fake conjuring sketch? Brilliant!’

‘Brilliantine?’ asked Flickenflocker.

‘Cream,’ said Wainewright.

‘Mmmmmyah! … There.’

As Wainewright was paying his bill he said to the cashier: ‘Is your clock right?’

The girl replied: ‘It wouldn’t be working in a
barbershop
if it was.’ Everybody laughed. A man said:
‘Dead
clever,
that!’

Mr Wainewright went out.

The city muttered under dry dust and blue smoke; the day was warm. Girls passed looking like bursting flowers in their new summer dresses. Wainewright looked at them. Here – passing him, jostling him and touching him with swinging hands in the crowded street – here walked thousands of desirable young women with nothing more than one-sixtieth of an inch of rayon, linen, or
crêpe
de
Chine
between their bare flesh and his eyesight. Why – ah, why – did his destiny send him out to walk alone?
What’s
wrong
with
me?
Wainewright asked himself.
Tramps,
cripples, 
hunch
backs
,
criminals,
horrible
men
deformed
and 
dis
coloured
and
old
–
they
all
know
the
love
of
women.
What’s
wrong
with
me?
What
have
they
got
that
I
haven’t
got?
I
am
a
man
of
property
…
still
a
young
man.
He stared piercingly at a pretty girl who was slowly walking towards him. Wainewright felt that his eyes were blazing like floodlights. But the girl, looking at him incuriously, saw only a small ordinary man with mild, expressionless eyes; if she thought of him at all, drawing conclusions from what she saw, she thought of him as a dim and boring little family man – a nobody – the same as everybody.

Mentally addressing the passing girl,
That’s
what
you
think,
said Wainewright.
If I
told
you
who
and
what
I
am
you’d
change
your
ideas
quickly
enough,
Blondie!
He stopped to look at hats in a shop window. A furry green velour caught his eye, and he decided to buy a hat like that – a two-guinea hat, a real Austrian hat
and not a ten-shilling imitation such as Tooth used to wear. That, and a younger-looking suit, a tweed suit; a coloured shirt, even….
Why
have
I
waited
so
long?