The Parasites

  Niall stared in front of him. Something seemed to click inside his brain. The beggar maid in the snow…

  “She tried to reach the light in the window,” he said slowly. “She tried to reach the light, but she was too weak and too tired and the snow kept falling. I’d forgotten all about it. She didn’t do it very often. I think I only saw it about once in my life.”

  Freada lit another cigarette and put it in the long holder.

  “You thought you’d forgotten. You hadn’t really,” she said. “As a matter of fact, your father wrote the music for the dance of the beggar maid. It was the only thing he ever wrote.”

  “My father?”

  “Yes. I think that’s why your mother did not dance it often. The whole affair was a mix-up, you know. Nobody really knows what happened. She never talked about it, not even to her friends. But that’s beside the point. The point is that you’re a composer and you don’t realize it, and I don’t care whether it’s a polka or a nursery rhyme that comes out of that head of yours, I’d like to hear you play it on the piano.”

  “Why should you be interested? Why should you care?”

  “I was a great friend of your mother’s, and I’m devoted to Pappy. And I don’t play too badly myself after all.”

  She turned to him and laughed, very much amused, and Niall felt himself go hot under the collar. How frightful. He had forgotten. Of course, she used to play and sing in cabaret; perhaps she still did. He ought to have known about it. The only thing he had remembered was the Concours Hippique and the bag of macaroons.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Whatever about? The only thing I’m sorry for is that you have to go back to school tomorrow and I shan’t be able to hear that tune. Can’t you come round to my house in the morning before you go? Number seventeen Foley Street.”

  “My train leaves at nine o’clock.”

  “And I’m off to Paris in two days’ time. Well, it can’t be helped. When you leave school for good we’ll do something about it. Tell me more about everything. Is old Truda still alive?”

  She was so easy to talk to, one of the easiest people he had ever known, and he was really sorry when she got up and said good-bye.

  Down at the other end of the table everyone was laughing very much and making a racket. Pappy was getting tight. When Pappy was tight he was funny. He was funny for about an hour, and then the fun turned to tears. At the moment he was still in the middle of the fun. He began to sing, and it was his joke voice, the one he put on when he imitated the hearty ballad-monger type of baritone. He used to make up the words as he went along, and they were always dead right, just the sort of words a hearty baritone would sing. There was always the surging sweep of the rolling deep, and a bit about it being grand to be alive with his comrades five, and the feel of a horse between his thighs. Then, of course, he would let the words run away with him, and they would become more and more vulgar and the people sitting round him who could hear what he sang became more and more hysterical. And he always laughed himself, which was somehow touching, and made it funnier still.

  He was sitting at the end of the table now, leaning back in his chair, with his arm round some woman’s shoulders, Niall had no idea who, and as he sang he shook with laughter and the whole room became aware now of what was happening. The waiters paused, grinning, to watch him, and people looked up from the other tables. The dance band went on with its drum and patter, and the dancers continued dancing, but nobody took any notice of them at all.

  Then Pappy suddenly stopped being nonsensical and vulgar, and began to sing in his true voice. And it was “Black Eyes,” and he sang the words in Russian. He started very softly, very slowly, the notes coming from deep in his belly, and someone at another table said “Hush,” and the band wavered and stopped, and the dancers paused in their dancing. All sound died away, and the conductor of the band held up his hand and made a signal to his pianist, who softly took up the accompaniment. And the pianist followed Pappy, he took up the theme of “Black Eyes.” Pappy sat quite still, his massive head thrown back, his arm still round the shoulders of the woman beside him, because he felt comfortable that way, she was something to lean against. And from him came the gentle, heart-tearing sound that was his real voice, deep and tender, deeper than anything in the world, so tender and true that it did something to your heart as you listened, and it got you by your throat and you wanted to turn away and cry.

  “Black Eyes,” ranted by singers everywhere, hammered out on a thousand dance bands and little third-rate orchestras, but when Pappy sang it you felt there had never been another song like it. It was the only song that had ever been written.

  When he stopped, everyone was crying, and Pappy was crying too—he was really very tight—and then the band went on playing “Black Eyes,” but to quick time so that the people could dance, and Pappy was dancing too, pushing someone round the floor. He had no idea whom he was pushing and it could not matter less, but he kept bumping into everybody and roaring with laughter, and Niall heard someone say, “Delaney is absolutely blind.”

  Celia kept her eyes on him all the time. She wore her anxious face. Niall knew she was not enjoying herself a bit. And Maria was nowhere to be seen. Niall looked everywhere, but he could not see her. He went out into the lounge of the hotel to look for her, but he could not find her.

  Quite a lot of people had gone already from their party. Perhaps she had left with them. The man had gone. Perhaps the man had taken her home… Niall felt suddenly that he did not want to stay any longer either. He was sick of the party, he hated the party. He was bored stiff with the whole affair. Somebody would see that Celia and Pappy got home all right. He was not going to stop. The party might go dragging on for hours, with Pappy getting tighter and tighter. Niall went and got his coat, and left the hotel and started walking. There were no buses and no tubes. Perhaps he would pick up a taxi. He had exactly two shillings left in his pocket. The taxi could take him part of the way home. The streets were empty and white and still. Fresh snow lay on the pavements. It was late, it was about a quarter to two. He found a taxi at the top of Bond Street, and when the driver asked him what address he did not give the name of the house in St. John’s Wood. He said “Seventeen Foley Street.”

  He knew that there was only one thing at the moment that he wanted to do, and that was to forget about the party and to play his tune on the piano to kind Freada who once, years ago, had given him a bag of macaroons.

  “If I had drunk some of the champagne I should think I was tight, like Pappy,” he said to himself, “but I didn’t have any. I hate champagne. I feel wide awake, that’s all. Queer and strung-up and wide awake.”

  He had not enough money to get all the way to Foley Street, because it would have meant being mean about the tip. The taxi took him part of the way and he walked the rest.

  “She’s probably asleep,” he thought. “She won’t hear the bell.”

  He could not see any lights, but perhaps there were shutters to the windows. He rang the bell four times, and after the fourth time he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and someone came and rattled a bolt and chain. The door opened, and Freada stood there. She wore a dressing gown, a sort of red affair, and she had a patchwork quilt round her shoulders. She was still smoking.

  “Hullo,” she said, “I thought it was a policeman. Have you come to play me the tune? What a good idea. Come in.”

  She was not angry, or even surprised. It was most unusual, and such a relief. Even Pappy, who was an unusual person, would have raised hell if someone had rung his bell at two o’clock in the morning.

  “Are you hungry?” she said, as she led the way up the stairs.

  “Yes,” said Niall, “as a matter of fact I am. How did you know?”

  “Boys are always hungry,” she said.

  She switched on a light in a bare untidy drawing room. There were nice pieces of furniture in the room and some good pictures, but it was all in a m
ess. There were clothes thrown about the place, and a tray on the floor. There was a grand piano in the room. That was the only thing that mattered to Niall.

  “Here, have some of this,” she said. She spread him a hunk of bread and butter, and laid two or three sardines on top. She was still wearing the patchwork quilt. Niall began to laugh.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “You look so funny,” said Niall.

  “I always do,” she answered. “Go on, eat up your sardine sandwich.”

  The sandwich was very good. When he had finished it he had another. She did not bother about him. She went on pottering about the room, making it more untidy than ever.

  “I’m packing,” she said. “If I spread everything on the floor, I know where I am. Do you want a shirt?”

  She threw him a checked shirt from the pile of debris.

  “It’s a laborer’s shirt I got in Sardinia, but it’s too small for me,” she said. “That’s the worst of being tall.”

  “Look out,” said Niall, “you’re standing on a hat.”

  She moved her bare feet and bent to pick up the hat. It was an enormous straw affair, the shape of a cartwheel, with two floating streamers.

  “Theatrical Garden Party five years ago,” she said. “I ran a hoopla stall and everybody kept throwing their rings onto my hat. Do you think Maria would like it?”

  “She never wears hats.”

  “I’ll take it to Paris. It would do upside down instead of a dish for fruit, oranges and things.” She threw the hat onto a heap of clothes.

  “I can’t offer you anything to drink,” she said, “unless I make some tea. Want any tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’d like some water.”

  “You’ll find some in the bedroom jug. Something’s gone wrong with the tap in the kitchen.”

  He went into her bedroom, picking his way carefully over the clothes spread on the floor. The jug of water on the washstand was full, and the water was quite cold. There did not appear to be a glass, so he drank straight out of the jug.

  “Come and play the tune,” she called from the drawing room.

  He went back into the other room, and she was kneeling on the floor with the patchwork quilt still round her shoulders, examining a silver fox cape.

  “Riddled with moth,” she said, “but I don’t believe anyone would know unless they got very close. I borrowed it from someone and never gave it back. I wonder who.”

  She sat back on her haunches thinking and combing her hair with her cigarette-holder, and eating a piece of bread and butter at the same time. Niall sat down at the piano and began to play. He did not feel nervous at all, he was laughing too much.

  The piano felt good. It did what he wanted it to do, and even if he made the most frightful noise he knew it would not matter and that Freada would not mind. He forgot she was in the room once he started to play. He was thinking of the tune, and it was coming right. Yes… that was what he meant. Of course that was what he meant. Oh, it was exciting, it was fun. Nothing mattered but this, this crazy exploring for the right note… Got it. Now again, try it again. Shut your eyes and listen for the sound, but you have to feel it in your feet and your fingertips too, and in the pit of your stomach. That was it. Now he had the whole thing, and it was dance time, it was his old thing of playing against the beat, but the piano alone was no good. You wanted someone with a sax, you wanted someone with a drum.

  “You see what I mean,” he said turning round on the stool. “You see what I mean.”

  She was not packing. She was still kneeling on the floor.

  “Go on,” she said, “don’t stop. Do it again.”

  He went on playing, and it came easier and better. It was a damn good piano, better than any piano he had tried before. Freada got up from the floor and came and stood beside him. She hummed the tune in her deep, funny voice, and whistled it, and hummed it again.

  “Now play something else,” she said. “What else have you made up? Anything, it doesn’t matter what.”

  He remembered bits and pieces of things he had thought of from time to time, but nothing had ever come quite so clearly as the one that had come tonight.

  “The trouble is,” he said, “I can’t write them down. I don’t know how it’s done.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I can arrange all that.”

  He stopped playing. He stared up at her.

  “Can you really?” he said. “But are they worth the trouble? I mean, they’re nothing to anyone else. I just do it to amuse myself.”

  She smiled. She put out her hand and patted him on the head.

  “Those days are over, then,” she said. “Because from now on you’re going to spend your life amusing other people. What’s Pappy’s telephone number?”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “I want to have a talk with him, that’s all.”

  “He’ll still be at the party, or if he’s home he’ll be in bed and asleep by now. He was awfully tight when I came away.”

  “He’s got to be sober in the morning. Listen, you will have to catch a later train back to school than the one you planned.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve got to get that tune written down before you leave. If you and I can’t do it between us, there are plenty of people I know who can. It’s too late now. It’s a quarter-past three. Now listen, you’ll never find a taxi at this hour. You can sleep here on the sofa. I’ll put all the clothes on top of you. You can have my patchwork quilt. And we’ll ring up Pappy at eight in the morning.”

  “He won’t be awake. He’ll be absolutely livid.”

  “At half past eight then. At nine. At ten. Come on, you’re a growing boy and you must get some sleep. Let’s drag the sofa near to the fire and you won’t be cold. Want some more sardines?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Eat them up, then, while I make your bed.”

  He finished the loaf of bread and the butter and the sardines, and Freada made up the sofa for him, with blankets and quilts and a pile of her old clothes. It looked terribly uncomfortable, but he did not like to tell her so. It might hurt her feelings, and she had been so sweet, and so funny and so kind.

  “There,” she said, standing back, her head on one side, surveying her work. “You’ll sleep like a newborn baby in a cot. Do you want some pajamas? I believe there is a pair somewhere. Somebody left them behind once.”

  She went into the bedroom and came back with a pair of very patched pajamas.

  “Don’t know whose they are,” she said, “but they’ve been here for years. They’re quite clean. Now sleep well, my pet, and forget your tune for a few hours, and I’ll make you some porridge for your breakfast.”

  She patted his cheek and kissed him and went out of the drawing room and into her own room. He could hear her humming his tune through the door.

  He undressed and put on the pajamas and crawled under the pile of clothes onto the sofa. His feet came up hard on the sofa end. He tucked them up underneath him and sighed, and turned out the lamp. The sofa springs had gone in the middle, and there was something hard touching his spine. He did not mind any of it. The trouble was he did not feel sleepy. He had never felt less sleepy in his life. And the tune was still going around in his head, it would not go away. It was sweet of her to say she would arrange about writing it down, but he still did not see how it could be managed when he had to go back to school in the morning. School… Oh, God, what a waste of time. What a waste of effort. He did not learn a thing. He was in his last term, and as far as learning anything went it might have been his first. There was no one there who cared a twopenny damn whether he lived or died. He wondered if Pappy and Celia had got back home yet, and Maria. Maria would not be wondering where he was even if the others were. Maria had too many other things to think about. So many days and weeks stretched ahead for Maria, all of them exciting, all of them fun. Weeks of fun and adventure for Maria. Weeks of boredom and monotony for hi
m.

  He turned on the sofa, pulling the patchwork quilt round his neck. It smelled queer and strange, like amber. Freada must use amber scent. Smells were awfully important. If you liked the way a person smelled, it meant you liked the person. Pappy had said that once, and Pappy was always right.

  There was no fire left in the grate, and in spite of all these clothes it was cold on the sofa, cold and cheerless. The only good thing about the sofa was the quilt smelling of amber scent. If only everything in life could be blotted out except the smell of amber scent he would be able to sleep. Then he would be peaceful. Then he would be warm. He was getting colder and colder every moment, and the room was getting darker and stranger and more austere. It was like being in a tomb. It was just like being buried in a tomb with the walling closing in upon him. He flung the clothes aside, all except the patchwork quilt which he held against his face, and the scent of amber was stronger than ever, it was comforting and kind.

  He got up from the sofa and felt his way across the dark room to the door. He opened the door and stood in the entrance of her room. He heard her move in the darkness, and turn over in her bed, and she said, “What’s the matter? Can’t you sleep?”

  Niall did not know what to say. He did not know why he had got up from the sofa and come and opened the door. If he told her he could not sleep she would get up and give him aspirin. He hated aspirin. They were no earthly use at all.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “It’s just that—it’s awfully lonely in there.”

  She did not say anything for a moment. It was as though she was lying there thinking, in the darkness. She did not turn on the light.

  Then she said, “Come on in, then. I’ll take care of you.”

  And her voice was deep and kind and understanding, just as it had been years ago when she had given him the bag of macaroons.

  12

  Pappy was very drunk. Now that it was nearly three in the morning and most of the people had gone home, and there was nobody left but a few rather stupid women and tired men, Pappy was not funny any longer. He had reached the crying stage. He did not look any different, and he did not slur his words, nor did he fall down. He just cried. His left arm was round Celia’s shoulders, and his right arm was round some strange woman who wanted to go home.