The Garden Party and Other Stories

13.  Bank holiday.

A stout man with a pink face wears dingy white flannel trousers, a blue coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and a straw hat much too small for him, perched at the back of his head.  He plays the guitar.  A little chap in white canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like a broken wing, breathes into a flute; and a tall thin fellow, with bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons—­long, twisted, streaming ribbons—­of tune out of a fiddle.  They stand, unsmiling, but not serious, in the broad sunlight opposite the fruit-shop; the pink spider of a hand beats the guitar, the little squat hand, with a brass-and-turquoise ring, forces the reluctant flute, and the fiddler’s arm tries to saw the fiddle in two.

A crowd collects, eating oranges and bananas, tearing off the skins, dividing, sharing.  One young girl has even a basket of strawberries, but she does not eat them.  “Aren’t they dear!” She stares at the tiny pointed fruits as if she were afraid of them.  The Australian soldier laughs.  “Here, go on, there’s not more than a mouthful.”  But he doesn’t want her to eat them, either.  He likes to watch her little frightened face, and her puzzled eyes lifted to his:  “Aren’t they a price!” He pushes out his chest and grins.  Old fat women in velvet bodices—­old dusty pin-cushions—­ lean old hags like worn umbrellas with a quivering bonnet on top; young women, in muslins, with hats that might have grown on hedges, and high pointed shoes; men in khaki, sailors, shabby clerks, young Jews in fine cloth suits with padded shoulders and wide trousers, “hospital boys” in blue—­the sun discovers them—­the loud, bold music holds them together in one big knot for a moment.  The young ones are larking, pushing each other on and off the pavement, dodging, nudging; the old ones are talking:  “So I said to ’im, if you wants the doctor to yourself, fetch ’im, says I.”

“An’ by the time they was cooked there wasn’t so much as you could put in the palm of me ’and!”

The only ones who are quiet are the ragged children.  They stand, as close up to the musicians as they can get, their hands behind their backs, their eyes big.  Occasionally a leg hops, an arm wags.  A tiny staggerer, overcome, turns round twice, sits down solemn, and then gets up again.

“Ain’t it lovely?” whispers a small girl behind her hand.

And the music breaks into bright pieces, and joins together again, and again breaks, and is dissolved, and the crowd scatters, moving slowly up the hill.

At the corner of the road the stalls begin.

“Ticklers!  Tuppence a tickler!  ’Ool ’ave a tickler?  Tickle ’em up, boys.”  Little soft brooms on wire handles.  They are eagerly bought by the soldiers.

“Buy a golliwog!  Tuppence a golliwog!”

“Buy a jumping donkey!  All alive-oh!”

“Su-perior chewing gum.  Buy something to do, boys.”

“Buy a rose.  Give ’er a rose, boy.  Roses, lady?”

“Fevvers!  Fevvers!” They are hard to resist.  Lovely, streaming feathers, emerald green, scarlet, bright blue, canary yellow.  Even the babies wear feathers threaded through their bonnets.

And an old woman in a three-cornered paper hat cries as if it were her final parting advice, the only way of saving yourself or of bringing him to his senses:  “Buy a three-cornered ‘at, my dear, an’ put it on!”

It is a flying day, half sun, half wind.  When the sun goes in a shadow flies over; when it comes out again it is fiery.  The men and women feel it burning their backs, their breasts and their arms; they feel their bodies expanding, coming alive…so that they make large embracing gestures, lift up their arms, for nothing, swoop down on a girl, blurt into laughter.

Lemonade!  A whole tank of it stands on a table covered with a cloth; and lemons like blunted fishes blob in the yellow water.  It looks solid, like a jelly, in the thick glasses.  Why can’t they drink it without spilling it?  Everybody spills it, and before the glass is handed back the last drops are thrown in a ring.

Round the ice-cream cart, with its striped awning and bright brass cover, the children cluster.  Little tongues lick, lick round the cream trumpets, round the squares.  The cover is lifted, the wooden spoon plunges in; one shuts one’s eyes to feel it, silently scrunching.

“Let these little birds tell you your future!” She stands beside the cage, a shrivelled ageless Italian, clasping and unclasping her dark claws.  Her face, a treasure of delicate carving, is tied in a green-and-gold scarf.  And inside their prison the love-birds flutter towards the papers in the seed-tray.

“You have great strength of character.  You will marry a red-haired man and have three children.  Beware of a blonde woman.”  Look out!  Look out!  A motor-car driven by a fat chauffeur comes rushing down the hill.  Inside there a blonde woman, pouting, leaning forward—­rushing through your life—­ beware! beware!

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am an auctioneer by profession, and if what I tell you is not the truth I am liable to have my licence taken away from me and a heavy imprisonment.”  He holds the licence across his chest; the sweat pours down his face into his paper collar; his eyes look glazed.  When he takes off his hat there is a deep pucker of angry flesh on his forehead.  Nobody buys a watch.

Look out again!  A huge barouche comes swinging down the hill with two old, old babies inside.  She holds up a lace parasol; he sucks the knob of his cane, and the fat old bodies roll together as the cradle rocks, and the steaming horse leaves a trail of manure as it ambles down the hill.

Under a tree, Professor Leonard, in cap and gown, stands beside his banner.  He is here “for one day,” from the London, Paris and Brussels Exhibition, to tell your fortune from your face.  And he stands, smiling encouragement, like a clumsy dentist.  When the big men, romping and swearing a moment before, hand across their sixpence, and stand before him, they are suddenly serious, dumb, timid, almost blushing as the Professor’s quick hand notches the printed card.  They are like little children caught playing in a forbidden garden by the owner, stepping from behind a tree.

The top of the hill is reached.  How hot it is!  How fine it is!  The public-house is open, and the crowd presses in.  The mother sits on the pavement edge with her baby, and the father brings her out a glass of dark, brownish stuff, and then savagely elbows his way in again.  A reek of beer floats from the public-house, and a loud clatter and rattle of voices.

The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.  Outside the two swing-doors there is a thick mass of children like flies at the mouth of a sweet-jar.

And up, up the hill come the people, with ticklers and golliwogs, and roses and feathers.  Up, up they thrust into the light and heat, shouting, laughing, squealing, as though they were being pushed by something, far below, and by the sun, far ahead of them—­drawn up into the full, bright, dazzling radiance to…what?