The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [706]
‘Walter!’ cried Matthew, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. The bats had left their rafter now and were swooping about the godown squeaking unpleasantly. Matthew’s skin crawled: he did not care for bats.
‘Yes, my mother used to hold court with a circle of young men around her … young lads who would come out East and get themselves into debt, silly beggars, by signing chits. My mother used to take charge of them just as if they were her own children. She’d see that they ate proper meals and didn’t spend all their money drinking. She used to say to them: “What would your mother in England say if she could see you now? Think how her feelings would be hurt!” Ah, they adored her. Many of ’em were secretly homesick, you know, but didn’t like to admit it because they thought it wasn’t manly. They’d have done anything for her.’
Matthew again wafted his arm feebly to clear the smoke between them which grew thicker by the minute. ‘Yes, it must have been pleasant here in those days,’ he agreed with a sigh.
There was silence except for a crackling of wood from downstairs. Presently, Walter cleared his throat, then stood up abruptly. He pawed the smoky air in surprise.
‘What’s all this smoke?’ he demanded irritably.
71
That afternoon Matthew, the Major, Mr Wu and Adamson went to the cinema. The Mayfair unit’s last pump had broken down near the Gas Works and the water pressure throughout the city had fallen so low, thanks to burst mains, that it was no longer possible to use hydrants. On their way back from the Gas Works they passed two cinemas beside the Volunteers’ Drill Hall on the sea side of Beach Road. Surprisingly, one of the cinemas, the Alhambra, a small and rather shabby-looking place at first sight, was still open and was showing a film called Ziegfeld Girl. This seemed such a cause for wonder that they stopped and consulted each other. Why not? Just for a minute or two. They had such a craving for normality, even if only a glimpse of it… even if only for a few minutes. So they went inside, and once inside in the darkness they kept falling asleep and waking up, paralysed by weariness and comfort. With one thing and another they found it difficult to leave, now that they were inside.
When the light dimmed a newsreel, cheerful in tone, showed housewives with their hair tied up in handkerchiefs collecting pots and pans on the Home Front; next, iron railings were being harvested from parks and gardens. Matthew found this ridiculous and touching and was surprised to find himself in tears. The newsreel was followed by Ziegfeld Girl. He fell asleep for a few minutes and when he awoke it took him some time to fathom that the film concerned the destinies of a number of chorus girls. One of the girls, played by Hedy Lamarr, was beautiful, grave and sad. Her husband, a violinist of temperament, took a dim view of her being a chorus girl.
‘Well, what is it you want me to do? Give up the job? I know it’s a rather foolish way to earn money, but Franz, we need it!’
‘Do you really imagine that I would stand by while you showed yourself to other men?’
Matthew sighed, his head dropped on to his chest and it seemed to him that he slept for a while. But when he awoke the same conversation still seemed to be going on.
‘So we never really had the thing I thought we had,’ Hedy Lamarr was saying. ‘Faith in each other. If you have that you don’t mind about the other things. You don’t even know you haven’t got them.’
‘All right, take the job! Be a showgirl!’
‘But Franz!’
A plane roared low overhead and the heads of the audience, many of them wearing helmets, wilted in silhouette against the flickering screen. ‘I suppose it would be as well to put one’s tin hat on,’ mused the Major, returning his attention to the screen. But he put the matter out of his mind. He was too susceptible to the cold, rather sad beauty of Hedy Lamarr. He had never been able