Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 3, Page 3

  I thought at first he might be a commercial traveller by profession, as he spoke as if accustomed to making social contacts by way of a kind of patter, though he seemed scarcely sure enough of himself for that profession. The way he talked might be caused by mere embarrassment. The cloth of his tunic was stained on the lapels with what seemed egg, the trousers ancient and baggy. He looked as if he had consumed quite a few drinks already. There could be no doubt, I saw with relief, that he was older than myself. If he had ever played rugby for Wales, he had certainly allowed himself to run disastrously to seed. There could be no doubt about that either. He seemed almost painfully aware of his own dilapidation, also of the impaired state of his uniform, at which he now looked down apologetically, holding out the flap of one of the pockets from its tarnished button for our inspection.

  ‘When I’m allotted a batman, I’ll have to get this tunic pressed,’ he said. ‘Haven’t worn it since I was in Territorial camp fifteen or more years ago. Managed to spill a glass of gin-and-italian over the trousers on the way here, I don’t know how.’

  ‘You won’t get any bloody marvellous valeting from your batman here, I’m telling you,’ said Pumphrey. ‘He’ll be more used to hewing coal than pressing suits, and you’ll be lucky if he even gets a decent polish on those buttons of yours, which are needing a rub up.’

  ‘I suppose we mustn’t expect too much now there’s a war on,’ said Bithel, unhappy that he might have committed a social blunder by speaking of pressing tunics. ‘But what about another round. It’s my turn, padre.’

  He addressed himself to the Anglican chaplain, but Father Dooley broke in vigorously.

  ‘If I go on drinking so much of this beer, it will have a strong effect on my bowels,’ he said, ‘but all the same I will oblige you, my friend.’

  Bithel smiled doubtfully, evidently not much at ease with such plain speaking in the mouth of the clergy.

  ‘I don’t think one more will do us any harm,’ he said. ‘I drink a fair amount of ale myself in civilian life without bad results.’

  ‘You want to keep your bowels open anyway,’ said Dooley, pursuing the subject. ‘That’s what I believe in. Have a good sluicing every day. Nothing like it.’

  He held up his glass to the light, as if assessing the aperient potentialities of the contents.

  ‘Army food gives me squitters anyway,’ he went on, roaring with delight at the thought. ‘I’ve hardly had a moment’s peace since we mobilized.’

  ‘It makes me as constipated as an owl,’ said Pumphrey. ‘I should just about say so.’

  Dooley finished his beer at a gulp, again giving his jolly monk’s laugh at the thought of man’s digestive vicissitudes.

  ‘Even if I’m all bound up, I always carry plenty of toilet paper round with me,’ he said. ‘Never be without it. That’s my rule. You can’t know when you’re not going to be taken short in the army.’

  ‘That’s a good notion,’ said Pumphrey. ‘We must follow His Reverence’s advice, mustn’t we. Take proper precautions in case we have to spend a penny. Perhaps you do already, Iltyd. The Church seems to teach these things.’

  ‘Oh, why, yes, I do indeed,’ said Popkiss.

  ‘What do you take Iltyd for?’ said Dooley. ‘He’s an old campaigner, aren’t you, Iltyd?’

  ‘Why, yes, indeed,’ said Popkiss, evidently pleased to be given this opening, ‘and what do you think? In my last unit, when I took off my tunic to play billiards one night, they did such a trick on me. You’d never guess. They wrapped a french letter, do you know, between those sheets of toilet paper in my pocket.’

  There was a good deal of laughter at this, in which the RC chaplain amicably joined, although it was clear from his expression that he recognised Popkiss to have played a card he himself might find hard to trump.

  ‘And did it fall out in the middle of Church Parade?’ asked Pumphrey, after he had finished guffawing.

  ‘No, indeed, thank to goodness. I just found it next day on my dressing table by my dog-collar. I threw it down the lavatory and pulled the chain. Very thankful I was when it went away, which was not for a long time. I pulled the chain half a dozen times, I do believe.’

  ‘Now listen to what happened to me when I was with the 2nd/14th—’ began Father Dooley.

  I never heard the climax of this anecdote, no doubt calculated totally to eclipse in rough simplicity of language and narrative force anything further Popkiss might attempt to offer, in short to blow the Anglican totally out of the water. I was sorry to miss this consummation, because Dooley obviously felt his own reputation as a raconteur at stake, a position he was determined to retrieve. However, before the story was properly begun, Bithel drew me to one side.

  ‘I’m not sure I like all this sort of talk,’ he muttered in an undertone. ‘Not used to it yet, I suppose. You must feel the same. You’re not the rough type. You were at the University, weren’t you?’

  I admitted to that.

  ‘Which one?’

  I told him. Bithel had certainly had plenty to drink that day. He smelt strongly of alcohol even in the thick atmosphere of the saloon bar. Now, he sighed deeply.

  ‘I was going to the ’varsity myself,’ he said. ‘Then my father decided he couldn’t afford it. Business was a bit rocky at that moment. He was an auctioneer, you know, and had run into a spot of trouble as it happened. Nothing serious, though people in the neighbourhood said a lot of untrue and nasty things at the time. Nothing people won’t say. He passed away soon after that. I suppose I could have sent myself up to college, so to speak. The money would just about have run to it in those days. Somehow, it seemed too late by then. I’ve always regretted it. Makes a difference to a man, you know. You’ve only got to look round this bar.’

  He swayed a little, adjusting his balance by clinging to the counter.

  ‘Had a tiring day,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll smoke just one more cigar and go to bed. Soothing to the nerves, a cigar. Will you have one? They’re cheap, but not bad.’

  ‘No, thanks very much.’

  ‘Come on. I’ve got a whole box with me.’

  ‘Don’t really like them, thanks all the same.’

  ‘A ’varsity man and don’t smoke cigars,’ said Bithel, speaking with disappointment. ‘I shouldn’t have expected that. What about sleeping pills? I’ve got some splendid ones, if you’d like to try them. Must use them if you’ve had just the wrong amount to drink. Fatal to wake up in the night when that’s happened.’

  By this time I had begun to feel pretty tired myself, in no need of sleeping pills. The bar was closing. There was a general move towards bed. Bithel, after gulping down a final drink by himself, went off unsteadily to search for a greatcoat he had mislaid. The rest of us, including the chaplains, made our way upstairs. I was sleeping in the same bedroom as Kedward, Breeze and Pumphrey.

  ‘Old Bithel’s been allotted that attic on the top floor to himself,’ said Pumphrey. ‘He’ll feel pretty lonely up there. We ought to make a surprise for him when he comes to bed. Let’s give him a good laugh.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll just want to go quietly to bed,’ said Breeze, ‘not wish for any tomfoolery tonight.’

  Kedward took the opposite view.

  ‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘Bithel seems a good chap. He would like some sort of a rag. Make him feel at home. Show him that we like him.’

  I was glad no such welcome had been thought necessary for myself the previous night, when there had been no sign of horseplay, merely a glass or two of beer before bed. There was perhaps something about Bithel that brought into being such schemes. What shape the joke should best take was further discussed. The end of it was we all climbed the stairs to the top floor of the hotel, where Bithel was housed in one of the attics. The chaplains came too, Dooley particularly entering into the idea of a rag. At first I had envied Bithel the luxury of a room to himself, but, when we arrived there, it became clear that such privacy, whatever its advantages, was paid for by a severe absence of other co
mfort. The room was fairly big, with a low ceiling under the eaves. Deep shelves had been built along one side, so that in normal times the attic was probably used as a large linen cupboard. The walls were unpapered. There was a strong smell of mice.

  ‘What shall we do?’ asked Kedward.

  ‘Put his bed upside down,’ suggested Pumphrey.

  ‘No,’ said Breeze, ‘that’s plain silly.’

  ‘Make it apple-pie.’

  ‘That’s stale.’

  The padres wanted to see the fun, but without too deeply involving themselves. The idea that we should all lie on the shelves, then, when Bithel was already in bed, appear as a horde of ghosts, was abandoned as impracticable. Then someone put forward the project of making an effigy. This was accepted as a suitable solution to the problem. Pumphrey and Kedward therefore set about creating a figure to rest in Bithel’s camp-bed, the theory being that such a dummy would make Bithel suppose that he had come into the wrong room. The shape of a man that was now put together was chiefly contrived by rolling up the canvas cover of Bithel’s valise, which, under the blankets, gave the fair semblance of a body. Two of Bithel’s boots were placed so that they stuck out at the foot of the bed, a head on the pillow represented by his sponge-bag, surmounted by Bithel’s ‘fore-and-aft’ khaki cap. No doubt there were other properties too, which I have forgotten. The thing was quite well done in the time available, a mild enough joke, perfectly good natured, as the whole affair would not take more than a couple of minutes to dismantle when Bithel himself wanted to go to bed. The effigy was just completed when the sound came of Bithel plodding heavily up the stairs.

  ‘Here he is,’ said Kedward.

  We all went out on to the landing.

  ‘Oh, Mr Bithel,’ shouted Pumphrey. ‘There is something you should look at here. Something very worrying.’

  Bithel came slowly on up the stairs. He was still puffing at his cigar as he held the rail of the banisters to help him on his way. He seemed not to hear Pumphrey’s voice. We stood aside for him to enter the room.

  ‘Such a fat officer has got into your bed, Bithel,’ shouted Pumphrey, hardly able to control himself with laughter.

  Bithel lurched through the door of the attic. He stood for several seconds looking hard at the bed, as if he could not believe his eyes; not believe his luck either, for a broad smile spread over his face, as if he were delighted beyond words. He took the cigar from his mouth and placed it with great care in the crevice of a large glass ashtray marked with a coloured advertisement for some brand of beer, the sole ornament in the room. This ashtray stood on a small table, which, with a broken chair and Bithel’s camp-bed, were its only furniture. Then, clasping his hands together above his head, Bithel began to dance.

  ‘Oh, my,’ said Breeze. ‘Oh, my.’

  Bithel, now gesticulating whimsically with his hands, tripped slowly round the bed, regularly changing from one foot to the other, as if following the known steps of a ritual dance.

  ‘A song of love . . .’ he intoned gently. ‘A song of love . . .’

  From time to time he darted his head forward and down, like one longing to embrace the figure on the bed, always stopping short at the moment, overcome by coyness at being seen to offer this mark of affection – perhaps passion – in the presence of onlookers. At first everyone, including myself, was in fits of laughter. It was, indeed, an extraordinary spectacle, unlike anything before seen, utterly unexpected, fascinating in its strangeness. Pumphrey was quite scarlet in the face, as if about to have an apoplectic fit, Breeze and Kedward equally amused. The chaplains, too, seemed to be greatly enjoying themselves. However, as Bithel’s dance continued, its contortions became increasingly grotesque. He circled round the bed quicker and quicker, writhing his body, undulating his arms in oriental fashion. I became gradually aware that, so far as I was myself concerned, I had had sufficient. A certain embarrassment was making itself felt. The joke had gone on long enough, perhaps too long. Bithel’s comic turn should be brought to a close. It was time for him, and everyone else, to get some sleep. That was how I felt. At the same time, I had nothing but admiration for the manner in which Bithel had shown himself equal to being ragged; indeed, the way in which he had come out completely on top of those who had tried to make him look silly. In similar circumstances I should myself have fallen far short of any such mastery of the situation. Nevertheless, an end should now be made. We had seen enough. You could have too much of a good thing. It must, in any case, stop soon. These were idle hopes. Bithel showed no sign whatever of wanting to terminate his dance. Now he placed the palms of his hands together as if in the semblance of prayer, now violently rocked his body from side to side in religious ecstasy, now whirled past kicking out his feet before him in a country measure. All the time he danced, he chanted endearments to the dummy on the bed. I think Popkiss was the first, after myself, to begin to tire of the scene. He took Dooley by the arm.

  ‘Come along, Ambrose,’ he said, ‘Sunday tomorrow. Busy day. It’s our bedtime.’

  At that moment, Bithel, no doubt by this time dizzy with beer and dervish-like dancing, collapsed on top of the dummy. The camp-bed creaked ominously on its trestles, but did not buckle under him. Throwing his arms round the outline of the valise, he squeezed it with abandon, at the same time covering the sponge-bag with kisses.

  ‘Love ’o mine . . .’ he mumbled, ‘Love ‘o mine . . .’

  I was wondering what would happen next, when I realized that he and I were alone in the room. Quite suddenly the others must have decided to leave, drifting off to bed, bored, embarrassed, or merely tired. The last seemed the most probable. Their instincts told them the rag was at an end; that time had come for sleep. Bithel still lay face-downwards on the bed, fondling and crooning.

  ‘Will you be all right, Bithel? We are all going to bed now.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We’re all going to bed.’

  ‘You lucky people, all going to bed . . .’

  ‘I’ll say good night, Bithel.’

  ‘Night-night,’ he said, ‘Night-night. Wish I’d decided to be a ’varsity man.’

  He rolled over on his side, reaching across the dummy for the remains of his cigar. It had gone out. He managed to extract a lighter from his trouser pocket and began to strike wildly at its mechanism. Hoping he would not set fire to the hotel during the night, I shut the door and went down the stairs. The others in the room were at various stages of turning in for the night.

  ‘He’s a funny one is old Bithel,’ said Breeze, who was already in bed.

  ‘A regular caution,’ said Kedward. ‘Never saw anything like that dance.’

  ‘Went on a bit long, didn’t it,’ said Pumphrey, removing a toothbrush from his mouth to speak. ‘Thought he’d be at it all night till he fell down.’

  However, although there was general agreement that Bithel had unnecessarily prolonged the dance, he did not, so far as his own personality was concerned, seem to have made a bad impression. On the contrary, he had established a certain undoubted prestige. I did not have much time to think over the incident, because I was very tired. In spite of unfamiliar surroundings, I went to sleep immediately and slept soundly. The following morning, although there was much talk while we dressed, nothing further was said of Bithel. He was forgotten in conversation about Church Parade and the day’s routine. Breeze and Pumphrey had already finished their dressing and gone downstairs, when Pumphrey’s soldier-servant (later to be identified as Williams, I.G.) came up to Kedward in the passage as we were on the way to breakfast. He was grinning.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  ‘What is it, Williams?’

  ‘I was ordered to look after the new officer till he had a batman for hisself.’

  ‘Mr Bithel?’

  ‘The officer don’t seem well.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Better see, sir.’

  Williams, I.G., enjoyed giving this information.

  ‘
We’ll have a look,’ said Kedward.

  We went upstairs again to the attic. Kedward opened the door. I followed him, entering a stratosphere of stale, sickly beer-and-cigar fumes. I half expected to find Bithel, still wearing his clothes, sleeping on the floor; the cap-surmounted sponge-bag still resting on the pillow. However, in the manner of persons long used to turning in for the night the worse for drink, he had managed to undress and get to bed, even to make himself reasonably comfortable there. His clothes were carefully folded on the floor beside him, one of the habits of the confirmed alcoholic, who knows himself incapable of arranging garments on a chair. The dummy had been ejected from the bed, which Bithel himself now occupied. He lay under the grey-brown blankets in a suit of yellow pyjamas, filthy and faded, knees raised to his chin. His body in this position looked like a corpse exhumed intact from some primitive burial ground for display in the showcase of a museum. Except that he was snoring savagely, cheeks puffing in and out, the colour of his face, too, suggested death. Watch, cigar-case, sleeping pills, stood on the broken chair beside the bed. In addition to these objects was another exhibit, something of peculiar horror. At first I could not imagine what this might be. It seemed either an ornament or a mechanical contrivance of complicated design. I looked closer. Was it apparatus or artifact? Then the truth was suddenly made plain. Before going to sleep, Bithel had placed his false teeth in the ashtray. He had removed the set from his mouth bodily, the jaws still clenched on the stub of the cigar. The effect created by this synthesis was extraordinary, macabre, surrealist. Again one thought of an excavated tomb, the fascination aroused in archaeologists of a thousand years hence at finding these fossilized vestiges beside Bithel’s hunched skeleton; the speculations aroused as to the cultural significance of such related objects. Kedward shook Bithel. This had no effect whatever. He did not even open his eyes, though for a moment he ceased to snore. The sleeping pills must have been every bit as effective as Bithel himself had proclaimed them. Apart from gasping, snorting, animal sounds, which issued again so soon as his head touched the pillow, he gave no sign of life. Kedward turned to Williams, I.G., who had followed us up the stairs and was now standing in the doorway, still grinning.