The Grin of the Dark (9 page)

Sorry to bring facts into the argument, but the compiler of
Those
Golden Years of Fun
confirms I was right. My name isn't what
you said, by the way. Not even my screen name.

Is that too sarcastic? Not by comparison with Smilemime's gibes,
and I've sent my answer now. I don't expect to hear from him again,
but if I do my book can be the answer. He has been enough of a
distraction from my work. At least he can't do it tomorrow, and I
leave him with another laugh.

On the train from Euston I have to sit opposite an intrusively lanky
teenager who chortles for almost three hours at some game on
his laptop. His feet are too big as well. I might find more distraction
in the landscape, even though it's dulled by the featureless grey sky, if
I weren't facing away from the engine. I keep feeling that the journey
I haven't completed is already rewinding before my eyes. By the time I
reach Manchester Piccadilly I've had enough of trains for a while, and
walk across town to Victoria Station as fast as I can dodge and sidle
through the lunchtime crowds. If anyone were staffing the barrier I
suspect they would tell me I'm too late, but I dash to the last carriage
and clamber in and slam the door as the train comes to life. I've
sprawled panting on the nearest seat, and office workers at computers
are sailing past on both sides of me, when my phone strikes up.
'Hello?' I gasp with half a breath.

'You sound surprised, or is it worried?'

'Neither.' I take a deep breath in order to tell Tracy 'So long as you
aren't calling to cancel.'

'Why do you reckon I'd be doing that?'

'I don't.'

Rather than ask if he is I fall silent, and he demands 'Did you send
me a message?'

'I left you the time I'll be arriving.'

'That's all you've left.' When I confirm it Tracy says 'Where are
you?'

The train is racing a tram on the road below. 'Leaving
Manchester,' I assume.

'Get off at the one after next.'

'That'll give me the Mumps, you mean.'

'No.' He sounds displeased that I've made a version of his joke.
'The one after next,' he repeats at half the speed and shuts his phone
off.

The train is approaching a station that resembles a hasty sketch of
one. On either side of the tracks, metal benches or their outlines
occupy the angle between a concrete platform and a concrete wall
beneath a scrawny awning. Before I can see a signboard, a break in
the coating of the sky fills my eyes with the glare of the shrunken
white sun. I'm still trying to blink away the pallor, which robs the
carriage of most of its substance, when the train reaches its next stop.

It could be the same one. At least the platform feels solid
underfoot, however token it looks. A concrete ramp scattered with
dozens of handbills –
TEAR THE MOSQUES DOWN
and
WHITE MINORITY UNITE
– leads down to a street bordered by a single elongated
windowless building as grey as the clouds. As I step onto the ramp,
a dilapidated white van parked on yellow lines flashes its headlamps
from the shadow of the building. The side of the van reads
FILMS FOR FUN
.

The driver's seat is more than full of a man. His grey track suit
manages to be loose on him; perhaps he stretched it larger. The small
cramped features of his rotund face are keeping any cheerfulness to
themselves. I'm making to climb in beside him when I see that a film
projector is strapped into the passenger seat. 'Have you been showing
films today?' I ask as he drags his door open and descends to the
road.

He turns away, displaying how the black dye has fallen short of
the shaggy tail of his grey hair. 'I've not, no,' he grumbles.

I wait while he plods to unlock the rear doors, and while he fails
to transfer the projector from the seat. The rest of the van is empty
except for a tattered strip of film and no cleaner than the pavement.
When Tracy jerks a fat hand at the interior I say 'Couldn't your
equipment go in there?'

'That's you if you're coming.'

I have to hope that the interview will be worth it. I clamber into
the back and twist around in a crouch to see Tracy thrusting out a
hand. When I make to pass him the strip of film he gives a terse laugh
that the van renders metallic. 'Try again,' he says. 'You won't get
another word out of me else, and we'll be going nowhere.'

I dig out my pocketful of notes, still in the envelope from the bank.
Tracy splays the envelope wide to finger them. As he reaches for the
doors I offer him the film again, but he hardly bothers to shake his
head. Before I can discern the images on the six or seven frames
they're extinguished by a double slam that nearly snatches the film
out of my hand.

I slip the film into my inside pocket as Tracy drags his door shut. The
van jerks forwards before I can brace myself, and I slide across the floor.
I scrabble backwards into the corner behind the driver and jam my fists
against the walls as the van swerves around a bend, and another. It feels
as if I'm being flung from location to unseen location in the dark. When
the road grows straight, every foot of it contains the threat of another
unexpected bend. The van is climbing as well, tilting so precipitously that
I bruise my knuckles against the walls and strain my knees high in an
effort to wedge my heels against the floor. I'm feeling altogether too
foetal, not least in terms of being menaced with ejection, when the van
swings left and halts with a rasp of the handbrake.

The inside of my head is unconvinced that I've stopped moving. As
I close my eyes to recapture equilibrium, I hear Tracy haul his door
wide and tramp around the van. The rear doors squeal apart,
admitting a chilly breeze. I scramble for the exit, only to be
confronted by a void as blank as a dead computer.

It's the sky, which is no comfort, because there appears to be
nothing else beyond the floor of the van. Tracy must have stood
somewhere to open the doors. When I inch forward I see that the rear
of the vehicle is overhanging the edge of a cliff. No, not quite: it's close
to the end of a lay-by, beyond which the slope is rather less steep than
it looked. I thrust my legs out of the van and wobble to my feet to find
I'm surrounded by a moor.

It's darker than the sky but nearly as featureless. The black road
winds from horizon to horizon. The solitary lay-by is deserted except
for Tracy's van, and attended by a single picnic table carved with
initials and longer words where it isn't charred. Tracy is occupying
much of the bench that faces the road. As I sit opposite him he says
'I come up here to be on my tod.'

I could take this as unwelcoming, but I only say 'You're never
alone with your mobile.' Since he doesn't seem amused I add 'Unless
you switch it off.'

'They're still there waiting till you turn it on.'

'Anybody in particular?' I ask mostly out of politeness.

'Whoever texted me in the middle of the night off their computer,
for a start. Said they were getting rid of some films I'd be interested
in. Sent all the directions but when I got there it didn't exist. That's
where I've just been. That's why I took the projector, to check what
they had.'

His accusing tone provokes me to wonder 'Was that the message
you asked if I'd sent?'

'Seemed a bit of a coincidence, hearing from you out of nowhere
and then getting that. It's not like I knew who you were.' He peers
harder at me as he says 'And some of these films were meant to have
your friend Tubby in.'

I'm growing as suspicious as he looks. 'Do you happen to recall
who the sender was?'

'Some stupid made-up name like people use on computers. Miss
Isle, that was it. Don't tell me that's their real name.'

'I'm sure it isn't. I think it may be partly my fault, sorry. I
shouldn't have brought you into it.'

'Into what?'

'There was a disagreement about which of Tubby's films you used.
That's why I asked when we spoke.'

Perhaps he didn't clear the copyright. His gaze is avoiding mine
now, pretending to search the road or the moor. 'It was already out
there on the Internet,' I point out. 'All I did was put it right.'

'So you say.'

'I'm sorry if I drew too much attention to it. Would you rather I
didn't acknowledge you in my book?'

'A book, is it? You can call me Charles Trace. See if anybody gets
the joke.'

I'm not sure I do, but feel bound to smile, which apparently
prompts him to say 'Any road, do you want what you came for?'

'I'd love to watch anything of Tubby's you can show me.'

'Maybe you should hear about him first.' Tracy leans across the
table, lowering his voice, and a charred patch of wood splinters
under his elbows. 'How's this for a start? My grandpa saw him
once.'

Presumably he's trying to make the information more dramatic; he
can't imagine that we could be overheard. 'On stage, do you mean?' I ask.

'In Manchester. First place he appeared and the last time he did.
My grandpa said there was nearly a riot.'

'Why, because Tubby was leaving the stage?'

Tracy lets out a laugh that seems close to reminiscent. 'Because he
got them all going too much.'

'Going.' I then have to repeat 'Going...'

'Daft, it sounded like.' Tracy giggles, perhaps at his verbal
dexterity. 'He had them playing jokes on one another. Made some of
them laugh so much they couldn't stop.'

'A riot, though, you said.'

'Some of them carried on outside in the street and the rest still
couldn't stop laughing. The theatre had to call the police. My
grandpa used to say it was worse than when the country went on
strike. He didn't hold with unions.'

'That wouldn't have been the act Orville Hart saw, would it?'

'That was after, down south. Seems Tubby wasn't just touring,
more like keeping on the move. Some places wouldn't have him when
they heard about him.'

'Do we know what sort of an act he had?'

'I'll give you a taste later.'

As Tracy's eyes lose a promissory glint I say 'I was wondering
what Hart saw in him.'

'He said in one of those Hollywood magazines Tubby made the
Keystone Kops look like a garden party with the vicar. That's how he
sold him to Mack Sennett. Still, you don't know how Tubby was
behaving when Hart saw him. The story goes Tubby kept trying to
calm himself down.'

'Only trying?'

'Did you just see him in my film?'

'So far.'

A wind shivers the grey pelt of the moor and rattles the open doors
of the van, which creaks as if someone has climbed in the back. As his
troubled hair subsides, Tracy says 'That's him being moderate.'
'I'd like to see him when he isn't, then.'

Tracy opens his mouth, revealing the lower gum as well as its
teeth, and I've time to wonder what goes with the expression before
he speaks. 'My grandpa never let my daddy go to Tubby's films, the
ones we even got.'

'Would you have any idea why some of them were banned?'

'People like my grandpa made a row about the ones that were let
in. Some woman had a heart attack laughing at one of the stage
shows, and they kept on digging that up till it got in all the papers.
And there was supposed to be trouble at his films like there'd been at
some of the theatres. My daddy heard there was more of a shindy at
a cinema in Eccles than they were showing on the screen.'

'These days they'd use all that in the publicity.'

Though I'm not suggesting the industry should, Tracy focuses his
disapproval on me. 'Shows the way the world's going. Anything to
get into your head and who cares what gets in. And you wonder why
I like it up here.'

'I'm surprised you didn't mention some of those stories in your
film.'

'Maybe I should have. They're what got me interested in him. I
was young, that's why. Anything you couldn't see had to be good.'

'Presumably he lost his contract when his films kept being banned
here.' When Tracy stares as if he doesn't need to speak I say 'Then
what happened to him?'

'On the payroll writing gags and they used some of his ideas, but
they wouldn't let him write a film. Then he went to Hal Roach and
thought up
Leave 'Em Laughing
, and you can just see him in a car at
the end if you look.'

'And after that?'

'He tried to give Stan Laurel more ideas but the story goes they
were too much for Stan, so Tubby went off with a circus.' Behind
Tracy the surface of the moor shifts like an image left too long
onscreen, and the van emits another creak. 'He's meant to have said
he wanted to get back to the start,' he says.

'I thought he started in the music-hall.' Since Tracy only lets his
bottom lip droop as some kind of response, I try asking 'Where did
you hear about it?'

'From a lad by the name of Shaun Nolan that sold me Tubby's
film.'

'Would it be worth my speaking to him, do you think?'

'Want to go and see him?' Tracy jumps up as if he has been
hooked by the corners of his sudden grin. 'I've had my sit,' he says
and peers at my lack of alacrity. 'Nothing to keep us here that I know
of.'

'Will you be showing me anything of Tubby's later?'

His grin subsides, and then his eyes glimmer. 'You want to see
what his act was like.'

'Anything you can put on for me would – '

I don't just leave the word unspoken, I forget what it was going to
be. Tracy has stepped back on the concrete stage and is clutching his
stomach with both hands. I think he's in pain until I see that he's
quivering with silent laughter. At first he pinches his lips together to
arrest his grin and confine his mirth. Very gradually his lips part as if
he's losing control of them, baring his teeth. There's still no sound
from him or anywhere on the moor. His mouth gapes so wide it can
barely hold on to the shape of the grin, and his eyes bulge with an
unblinking gaze that sets my head throbbing in sympathy. I'm
wondering how loud and sharp and huge his laughter may seem
whenever it bursts forth at last. I feel compelled to head it off, but I
don't think simple merriment will do it, although I can sense helpless
mirth building up inside the dam of my clenched teeth. Perhaps I have
to perform some routine that will lend his voiceless jollity a point, and
I leap up from the bench. I'm not sure whether I'm yielding to the
compulsion to amuse him or retreating from it when my knee collides
with the table.