Gazooka (7 page)

Humphries let his eyes go right around the room, nodding at each of the cages.

‘Would that men were more like them. So bright, so brief, so harmless, and no sorrow in their singing.'

‘You're right, boy,' said Milton. ‘Good and deep as the singing has been in most of our chapels, I think we've overdone the note of death and desperation in certain types of cadence.' He pointed at the cage of the bird that had let out the solitary note. ‘Give us the same seed and the same sure accommodation and we'd be there with the budgies.'

Milton's reference to the chapel singing and the slightly demagogic tilt of the last sentence had made Humphries very wary again.

‘Your business, gentlemen?'

‘We want to thank you,' said Gomer, ‘for the fine stand you made at Tregysgod and the remarks you made about Cynlais Coleman's band. We think the same. Those home-grown dervishes have cancelled out the landing of Augustus. We are collecting among ourselves to fit Coleman and his men out in such a way that they will not cause the very hillsides to blush as they do now. Could you help us?'

Humphries stood stock still for at least two minutes, his lips drawn in and his eyes fixed hypnotically on the most forbidding of the portraits. Uncle Edwin muttered to Gomer that someone should give Humphries an investigatory push in case he had chosen this moment to die just to put us in the wrong. But Humphries came suddenly back to life, shaking his head as if recovering from some spell laid upon him by the granite features of the voter in the portrait.

‘That was my uncle, Cadman Humphries,' he said, his voice still a little muffled, uncertain. We remembered Cadman. He had been a quarry-owner, the only quarry owner whose face had made his employees think they were working double time or made them constantly doubtful about where they should place the explosive charge.

‘
A
s a matter of fact I could and will help you,' he said. His voice was now loudly vibrant and overwhelming. Four of the birds came rushing to the bars of their cage and Uncle Edwin pressed his body against the plush flank of a settee to mute the effect of Humphries' outburst. ‘It will be my great pleasure to do so. I am vice president of a committee which is gathering funds to supply wholesome entertainments for the valley folk during this emergency. Just in case these carnivals should become a permanent part of our lives we must at least see that minimum standards of decorum are accepted, and that the marchers are decently covered against both wind and temptation. As for Coleman, whose first appearance before my wife gave her such hiccups as would take a lagoon of small sips to cure, I will leave it to you men to think out an alternative cos tume for this buffoon and you may leave the bill, within reason, to me. Nothing too royal or lavish, of course.'

‘Of course,' said Gomer. ‘By the way, Mr Humphries, have you seen Georgie Young's women's band, the Britannias?'

Humphries' eyes became a twitch of embarrassed guilt and he whipped back around to face Cadman Humphries and to salute the need for a really stony ethic in a softening world.

‘I'm afraid I haven't had a good look at them. I've heard about them and I've had some good reports of Mr Georgie Young's excellent work as a driller. But I haven't really seen them. Last week at Tregysgod, for some reason they didn't arrive as far as the judges' stand.'

‘Take a good look at them, Mr Humphries. When you see them you'll lose what is left of your hair. Then you'll start an other fund to have Young hung and the bands-women treated with balsam of missionary.'

Milton tugged at Gomer, thinking that any more talk that Humphries might construe as being morally double-jointed and we would be getting the boot. But Mr Humphries did not seem put out. Through his eyes I thought I could now see a film of comfortable steam above his thoughts. We said thank you and goodnight.

‘Goodnight,' said Humphries. ‘I'm surprised to find you men so helpful, such watchdogs in the cause of wholesomeness.'

‘Just let us catch a whiff of anything that isn't wholesome, Mr Humphries,' said Milton Nicholas, ‘then watch us bark and bite.'

We went straight from the house of Ephraim Humphries to that of Cynlais Coleman. Cynlais' mother, a ravelled woman whose fabric, even without Cynlais, would not have stood up to too much wear and tear, took us instantly to Cynlais' bedroom, glad to be sharing her problem. Cynlais was in bed, flattened under the load of his grief and a big family Bible, trying to re assemble the fragments of himself after the two disasters. We were puzzled by the Bible and were going to ask Mrs Coleman whether she had meant it just to keep Cynlais in bed and off his feet, but she explained that she had given it to him to read the Book of Job to help him keep his troubles in proportion, but Cynlais had kept flicking the pages and referring to Moira Hallam as Delilah, and saying that Job seemed to have come right out of one of the blacker Thursday night sessions at the Discussion Group in the Institute.

At the sight of us Cynlais drew the Bible and the bed-clothes up to his face as if to hide.

‘Hullo Cynlais,' said Gomer. ‘Big news, boy. We've got the money for the new costumes. What fancies have you got on this subject, and for goodness' sake keep inside Europe this time because we're hoping to have enough to cover you all from top to bottom.'

There was now nothing of Cynlais except his very small brow, and he had his hands clenched over the sides of the Bible as if he were thinking of throwing it at Gomer as a first step to clearing the bedroom. Uncle Edwin, at the foot of the bed, knocked solemnly on Cynlais' tall foot as if it were a door.

‘Come on, Cynlais,' he said. ‘Buck up, boy, and stop looking so shattered. This isn't the end of the world; it's only the first crack.'

Cynlais' whole face came into view. It was grey, shrunken and lined. Uncle Edwin said that between Caney's kidney-whipper and carnal wishes it was clear that Coleman had been through the mill.

‘I keep thinking of what Moira told me,' said Cynlais, with a look in his eye that made Milton Nicholas say that Caney should be held on charges of making a public mischief.

‘What did she say?' asked Gomer.

‘She said, “Cynlais, has your heart ever been in the orange groves of Seville?”'

We all tried to relate this statement to the carnivals and the news we had brought from Ephraim Humphries.

‘You can't possibly have a band of marching oranges,' said Gomer. ‘Just drop this greengrocery motif, Cynlais. You can be too subtle in these matters. Look what happened to those Eskimos from the top of the valley. You remember their manoeuvre of shuddering at the end of every blast from the gazookas to show extreme cold and the need for blubber, no one ever understood it. They shuddered themselves right out of the carnival league.'

‘I don't mean oranges,' said Cynlais. ‘I mean bullfighters, with me dressed up in the front as an even better bullfighter than Moelwyn Cox.'

We had to move away from the bed at this point and explain in low voices to Milton Nicholas about Moelwyn Cox and his appearance with the Birchtown Amateur Operatic company as the matador Escamillo. Milton's first impulse on hearing Cynlais make this reference to bullfighters was to think that Cynlais, between the weight of that Bible and the bushfires of his lustful wanting, had been flattened and charred into madness. Cynlais, with a glare of one hundred per cent
paranoia, told us to stop whispering or get out of his bedroom.

Gomer went back to the bedside and shook Cynlais gravely by the hand.

‘That's a wonderful idea, Cyn,' he said. ‘Come over to Tasso's tomorrow night and we'll talk it over. Do you think you can manage it?'

Cynlais said at first that without some word of encouragement and hope from Moira Hallam he would never again leave that bedroom except to show the rent collector that he was not a subtenant. But we got him out of the bed and marched him around the room a few times, taking it in turns to catch him when his legs buckled. We all agreed that he would be able to do the trip to Tasso's on the following evening with a few attendant helpers on his flank.

Willie Silcox was in Tasso's the next day. He was interested when we told him about our visit to Ephraim Humphries, and he made notes when he heard about the various quirks of body, face and thought we had noted in Humphries when we mentioned the Britannias.

‘One of these nights,' said Willie, ‘Humphries will draw a thick serge veil over the portrait of Cadman Humphries, the quarry owner whose eyes and brows keep Ephraim in a suit of glacial combinations, and he will slip forth into the darkened street, just like Jack the Ripper, but knifeless and bent on a blander type of mischief altogether than was Jack. And you say he's going to foot the bill for a new band for Coleman? That will bring him closer to the physical reality of these carnivals and allow his senses a freer play. What is this new band going to be called?'

‘The Meadow Prospect Toreadors, Willie. What do you think of that?'

‘Very nice, very exotic. It will help to show what little is left of our traditional earnestness to the gate but good luck to you all the same. We are headed for an age of clownish callousness and we might as well have a local boy as stage hand in that pro cess as anyone else. These bullfighters will bring the voters an illusion of the sun and a strong smell of marmalade, both much needed.'

Gomer turned to Mathew Sewell the Sotto who was putting Tasso's teeth on edge by beating his tuning fork on the counter and bringing its pointed end sharply into play on the metal edge of the counter.

‘What about the theme tune for these boys when Cynlais gets his new band started, Mathew? What do you suggest?'

Sewell thought for a whole minute in silence, then brought his tuning fork across his teeth as if to bring his reflections to the boil.

‘Something Spanish, of course,' said Sewell, and Gomer told him to try his tuning fork on his teeth again to see if he could come out with something more cogent.

‘Try to make it something operatic, Mr Sewell,' said Cynlais Coleman, who had come in five minutes before wearing a long raincoat and the visor of his cap hiding the most significant parts of his face. It had taken some major wheedling to get him to shed this disguise. He sat now by the stove looking overt and edgy.

‘What did you say?' asked Gomer.

‘Something operatic,' said, Cynlais. ‘I want to show that Moira Hallam that I'm as cultured as Moelwyn Cox. What about that Toreador Song? That's a treat. That was what Moelwyn made such a hit with. Let's have that.'

Mathew Sewell ignored Cynlais except for a short glance that told him to pick up his cap and get back out of sight.

‘It will have to be something Spanish of course. There are strong affinities between Iberian music and our own and I don't see why we shouldn't exploit this. I can make it marks for you if ever I'm one of the judges. Did you know, Tasso, that we were once known as Iberian Celts?'

Tasso said no very politely, but we could see from his mouth that he was tired of having Sewell pitching on him with questions that were so well outside the catering trade.

There was a long silence from Sewell and Tasso worked the urn to cover his embarrassment.

‘What about the Toreador Song?' asked Cynlais again.

‘Just sing it over,' said Sewell very casually, as if to say that we might as well have something going on while he picked down the one he wanted from a hallful of Iberian alternatives.

Cynlais started in a tenor so thin he had us all bending over him to follow the melody. Cynlais had never been a vigorous singer, and his collapse had caused his cords to dangle worse than ever. We all gathered around him and tried as briskly as we could to give him support in the bullfighter's song.

Tasso tapped with his toffee hammer on the counter and smiled broadly at Sewell as if to tell him that this was just the thing, especially if played or sung without Gomer Gough, who was lunging at the melody as recklessly as he would have done at the bull.

‘No,' said Sewell. ‘I don't think so. It's a little bit too complicated to play on the march. We want something a bit wit less, something everybody'll know.'

‘What about “I'm One of the Nuts of Barcelona”?' asked Gomer Gough, and the title of this piece sounded strangely from the mouth of Gomer, which had been worn down to the gums by the reading of a thousand unsmiling agendas.

‘What's nutting to do with bullfighting?' asked Uncle Edwin. ‘Let's lift the tone of these carnivals. I'm for the operatic tune. Let's go through it again. It's got a very warming beat, although I still think a nation that has to make the fighting of bulls a national cult is just passing the time on and trying to keep its mind off something else.' Uncle Edwin gave Cynlais a nod
and raised his hand to lead the group back into Bizet.

‘Don't make difficulties, Edwin,' said Gomer, and he was clearly torn between two conversational lines; one to censure Edwin for hanging a little close to the boneyard spiritually, second, to explain to us how he had come to spare enough time from the dialectic to find the title of such a tune as ‘I'm One of Nuts of Barcelona', one of the least pensive lyrics of the period. But Willie Silcox nipped in before Gomer could make his point.