He raised his eyes and saw Jesus hanging on his cross above the altar-rail in front of him. He looked fed up and Colin said to him, ‘Why did Chloe have to die?’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Jesus. ‘It’s not my responsibility. Let’s talk about something else …’
‘Whose responsibility is it then?’ asked Colin.
They were talking together quietly and the others could not hear what they were saying.
‘Not mine, at any rate,’ said Jesus.
‘I did ask you to my wedding,’ said Colin.
‘That was fun,’ said Jesus. ‘I had a smashing time. Why don’t you spend a bit more money now?’
‘There’s none left,’ said Colin. ‘And anyway, this isn’t a wedding …’
‘Um,’ said Jesus.
He looked as if he felt awkward.
‘This is something very different,’ said Colin. ‘This time, Chloe’s dead … I can’t bear to think about that black box.’
‘Mmmmmm …’ said Jesus.
He looked somewhere else and seemed bored again. Father Phigga swung a rattle while shouting a Latin chorus.
‘Why did you make her die?’ asked Colin.
‘Oh! …’ said Jesus. ‘Shut up.’
He wriggled to get more comfortable on his nails.
‘She was so sweet,’ said Colin. ‘She never did anything bad – and she never had an evil thought.’
‘That’s nothing to do with religion,’ mumbled Jesus with a yawn.
He shook his head to the other side to change the angle of his crown of thorns.
‘I don’t know what we did to deserve this,’ said Colin.
He lowered his eyes. Jesus did not reply. Colin raised his head. Jesus’s chest was going gently up and down. His features were smooth and calm. His eyes were closed and Colin could hear a soft smug purring sound coming from his nostrils like an overfed cat. At this moment Father Phigga jumped from one foot to the other, blew down a tube, and the service was over.
Father Phigga was first to leave the church and went back into the sacristicks to put on his big hob-nailed boots.
Colin, Isis and Nicholas went out and waited behind the lorry.
Then the Husher and Adam Browbeadle, the Unisexton Bedull, appeared, richly dressed in their brightest colours. They began to hoot at Colin and danced round the lorry like savages. Colin stuffed his ears, but he said nothing as he had agreed to a pauper’s burial. He did not even flinch when their fistfuls of stones began to hit him.
66
They walked through the streets for a very long time. People had stopped looking round and the daylight was fading. The pauper’s graveyard was quite a long way away. The red lorry rolled along, jumping over the bumps in the road while the motor let out joyful bangs and explosions.
Colin heard nothing. He was living in the past and occasionally smiled as he remembered it all. Nicholas and Isis were walking behind him. Now and again Isis would touch Colin’s shoulder.
The road stopped – and the lorry too. They had reached the water’s edge. The porters dragged down the black box. It was the first time Colin had been to the cemetery. It was hidden away on a nebulous island whose shore-line was constantly changing with the shifting tides. It could be seen only vaguely through the drifting fog. The lorry was left on the shore. The island was reached by a long springy plank whose furthermost extremity disappeared into the mist. The porters let out five great funereal oaths and one of them ventured on to the plank. It was just wide enough to be walked on. They put thick ropes over their shoulders and round their necks to carry the black box. The second porter was nearly suffocated and turned purple. It looked very sad against the grey of the fog. Colin followed. In turn, Nicholas and Isis set out along the plank. The first porter deliberately jumped on it to make it wobble and swing to right and left. He disappeared in the midst of a cloud which drifted across like strands of sugar in a syrupy solution. Their steps echoed along the plank in a descending scale. It curved more and more as they drew nearer to the centre. When they were there, the plank touched the water and symmetrical wavelets went out on each side. The water almost covered it. It was dark, but looked transparent. Colin leaned over to the right, thinking he could see something white vaguely moving in the depths below. Nicholas and Isis stopped behind him. They seemed to be standing on the water. The porters trudged on. The second half of the journey was uphill and when they had gone past the middle the little waves grew smaller and the plank detached itself from the water with a little sucking noise.
The porters began to run. As they stamped their feet the handles of the black box rattled against its sides. They reached the island before Colin and his friends and plodded heavily up the little winding path between thick hedges of dark sinister plants. The path wriggled, turned and twisted in peculiar ways past desolate landmarks. Then it became dry and crumbly and began to widen out a little. The leaves of the plants were a lighter grey, and their veins stood out in a silver filigree on their velvet flesh. The trees, long and supple, curved in an arc from one side of the road to the other. The daylight made a dull white glow through the vault formed between them. The path branched off into several different directions – but the porters automatically turned to the right. Colin, Isis and Nicholas had to run to keep up with them. No signs of life were heard in the trees, but occasionally a grey leaf would fall flatly to the earth. They followed all the twists and turns of the road. The porters kicked the tree trunks and their heavy boots left deep purple bruises in the spongy bark. The cemetery was right in the middle of the island. By scrambling on to rocks the other shore could be seen far away, over the tops of the sparse straggling trees. The sky there was scratched with fierce graffiti by two-headed eaglets flying low over fields of chick-weed and fennel.
The porters stopped near a big hole. They began to swing Chloe’s coffin, singing ‘Roll Me Over’. Then they pressed the catch. The lid opened and something fell into the hole with a deep thud. The second porter went down flat, half strangled because the rope round his neck had not been loosened quickly enough. Colin and Nicholas came along, running, with Isis stumbling behind them. Then Adam Browbeadle and the Husher, in old oily rags, suddenly sprang out from behind a tuffet, yelling and howling like wolves and flinging stones and earth into the hole.
Colin had sunk down on to his knees with his head in his hands. The stones made a dull sound as they went down. The Husher, Adam Browbeadle and the two porters held hands, danced in a ring round the hole, and then dashed off down the path as fast as their little legs would carry them, playing ‘Follow My Leader’, until they disappeared over the horizon. Adam Browbeadle blew into a double-clarionet and the brittle sounds rang out through the still air. The earth began to crumble and tumble in little by little and, after a very short time, Chloe’s body had completely disappeared.
67
The grey mouse with the black whiskers made one final effort and at last got through. Behind it the ceiling sharply crashed down to the floor and long worms of grey spaghetti oozed out, slowly twisting through the cracks and broken joints. The mouse scooted as fast as it could across the darkened corridor whose trembling walls were crumbling closer and closer together, and managed to squeeze under the door. It reached the staircase and tumbled down, head over heels. Only when it was on the pavement did it stop. It stood still for a second, thought about which way to go, and started off again for the boneyard.
68
‘To tell the truth,’ said the cat, ‘I don’t really find the proposition very exciting.’
‘But you’re so wrong,’ said the mouse. ‘I’m still quite young and, until quite recently, I was very well fed.’
‘But I’m well fed now,’ said the cat, ‘and I haven’t got the slightest desire to commit suicide. That’s why I find it all so extraordinary.’
‘But then you didn’t know him,’ said the little mouse.
‘Tell me about him,’ said the cat.
It didn’t really want to know
. It was a warm day and the tips of its fur were tingling.
‘He’s standing at the water’s edge,’ said the mouse, ‘waiting. When it’s visiting time, he steps on to the plank and waits in the middle. He can see something.’
‘I shouldn’t think he could see much,’ said the cat. ‘Perhaps it’s a water-lily.’
‘Probably,’ said the mouse. ‘He’s waiting for it to come up so that he can kill it.’
‘That’s stupid,’ said the cat. ‘It’s not in the least bit inspiring.’
‘When visiting time is over,’ the mouse went on, ‘he goes back on the bank and stares at her photo.’
‘Doesn’t he ever eat anything?’ asked the cat.
‘No,’ said the mouse, ‘and he’s growing so weak. I can’t bear it. One of these days he’s going to slip.’
‘Why should you care?’ asked the cat. ‘Is he unhappy?’
‘He’s not unhappy,’ said the mouse, ‘He’s grieving. And that’s what I can’t bear. One day he’ll fall into the water through leaning over too far.’
‘Well,’ said the cat, ‘if that’s the way it is, I’ll see what I can do for you – although I don’t know why I said “If that’s the way it is”, because I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about.’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ said the mouse.
‘Just put your head in my mouth,’ said the cat, ‘and wait.’
‘Will it take long?’ asked the mouse.
‘Only until somebody treads on my tail,’ said the cat. ‘I just need something to make me jump. I’ll leave it stretched out, so don’t worry.’
The mouse opened the cat’s jaws and placed its head between the sharp teeth. It pulled it out again almost as quickly.
‘Ugh!’ it said. ‘Did you have shark for breakfast?’
‘Now look here,’ said the cat, ‘if you don’t like it, you can clear off. The whole story’s a bore. You’ll have to manage by yourself.’
It seemed angry.
‘Don’t lose your temper,’ said the mouse.
It closed its little black eyes and put its head back. The cat let its pointed canine teeth close delicately on the soft grey throat. The mouse’s black whiskers brushed against the cat’s. The cat’s bushy tail unrolled across the pavement.
The voices of eleven little girls, coming in a crocodile from the Orphanage of Pope John the Twenty-third, could be heard getting nearer. They were singing. And they were blind.
Memphis, 8 March 1946
Davenport, 10 March 1946
Anglicized
Carnaby Street, 28 December 1966
King’s Road, 21 February 1967
Boris Vian, Mood Indigo
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