Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories Read online

  bung landlord

  square, to to settle a bill

  omee man-in-charge; governor; landlord (when used by a landlord about himself)

  cream of the valley gin

  splodger lout

  mizzle, to to depart with great speed; to vanish

  half-a-grunter sixpence

  ruggy adj. — frowsty, unclean

  carser house, home

  poll young lady with whom a gentleman is having an irregular relationship

  killing adjective of high commendation; outstanding; unique

  ginger-hackled adj. — having auburn or flaxen hair

  skull-thatcher a straw-bonnet maker

  on the nose, to be on the look-out

  jomer sweetheart

  fake the rubber, to stand treat in an extravagant manner

  mendozy dear, darling; a term of endearment probably from the valiant fighter, Mendoza

  out and out adj. — first-rate; splendid

  glorious sinner dinner (rhyming slang)

  alderman in chains, an a turkey hung with sausages

  Ben Flake, a a steak (rhyming slang)

  neddy, a a large quantity of commodity, as in “a neddy of fruit”, “a neddy of fish”

  Sharp’s Alley blood worms black puddings. Sharp’s Alley was very recently a noted slaughtering place near Smithfield

  Irish apricots potatoes

  Joe Savage cabbage (rhyming slang)

  storrac carrots (back slang)

  beargeared

  bleary

  blued

  primed

  lumpy

  top-heavy

  moony

  scammered on the ran-tan

  ploughed

  muddled

  obfuscated

  swipy

  kisky

  sewed up

  all mops and brooms

  lap the gutter, to

  not be able to see a

  hole in the ladder, to

  } adjectives and phrases denoting various stages of drunkenness

  go to a Bungay Fair and lose both legs, to to have reached the ultimate degree of intoxication. In the Ancient Egyptian language, the determinative character of the hieroglyphic verb “to be drunk” has the significant form of the leg of a man being amputated

  flare-up, a row

  soush house (back slang)

  drop into somebody, to give them an unprovoked beating

  twist appetite, e.g. “Will’s got a capital twist for a Ben Flake” or, in the case of the hero of our anecdote, a capital twist for …

  batty fang, a a sound beating, a drubbing

  dragging time the evening of a country fair day, when the young fellows begin pulling the wenches about

  sick as a horse popular simile denoting extreme ennui

  catchy inclined to take undue advantage

  fancy-bloke gentleman friend

  bed-fagot bed companion

  gooseberry pudden

  Gill

  Moll } terms of disapprobation applied to females

  blast, to to curse

  give jessie, to to commit assault and battery upon someone

  Mullingar heifer said of a lady whose ankles are “beefy”, or thick. A term of Irish origin. It is said that a traveller passing through Mullingar was so struck with this pecularity in the local women that he determined to accost the first he met next. “May I ask,” said he, “if you wear hay in your shoes?” “Faith, an what if I do?” said the girl. “Because,” says the traveller, “that accounts for the calves of your legs coming down to feed on it.”

  barnacled adj. — applied to a wearer of spectacles (corruption of Latin binnoculi?). Derived by some from the barnacle (Lepas Anatifera), a kind of conical shell adhering to ships’ bottoms. Hence a marine term for goggles, and for which they are used by sailors in a case of ophthalmic derangement

  cove or covey; a man or boy of any age

  spoffy adj. — officious, intrusive

  blackberry swagger a person who hawks tapes, bootlaces, etc.

  Newgate fringe, a the collar of beard worn under the chin; so called from its indicating the position of the rope when Jack Ketch operates

  sing out, to exclaim in a loud voice

  knife it, to to stop, to bring to a halt

  stow faking, to to cease evil activity

  stunning adj. — astounding

  fag blow

  twopenny head

  Albertopolis a facetious appelation given by Villagers to the Kensington Gore district

  buy the rabbit, to make a bad bargain; obtain a deal of trouble and inconvenience by some action

  slubberdegullion worthless wretch

  pepper, to

  clump, to

  leather, to

  } degrees of beating

  flop down, to go to collapse totally

  Rory O’More floor (rhyming slang)

  step it, to abscond

  frog and toad main road (rhyming slang)

  Joe Blake the Bartlemy, to go to to visit a low woman in a house of ill-repute

  hop the twig, to to run away; to leave someone in the lurch

  vertical care-grinder treadmill

  chive, to to shout

  marinated, to be transported; from the salt pickling herrings undergo in Cornwall

  poll up, to to live with a member of the opposite sex in a state of unmarried impropriety

  liver-faced adj. — mean, cowardly

  chatty adj. — infested with lice

  beef-headed adj.— stupid

  cupboard-headed an expression designating one whose head is both wooden and hollow

  culver-headed adj. — weak and stupid

  fiddle-faced adj. — applied to those with wizened countenances

  glumpish adj. — of a stubborn, sulky temper (our hero certainly fits the bill here!)

  squabby adj. — fat, short and thick

  dab tros bad sort (back slang)

  in half-mourning, to be to have sustained a black eye, or “mouse”, in the course of tussle

  fadge, it won’t expression meaning “it just won’t do”, or “it just won’t work”

  Jerry go Nimbles diarrhoea

  stun, to to astonish

  streak, to to abscond

  pick up one’s sticks and cut, to to collect one’s possessions and leave an establishment without notice; to do a “moonlight flit”

  bolt, to to run away, escape

  a speel on the drum, to take to take a trip to the country

  top of Rome home (rhyming slang)

  Shitten Saturday corruption of “Shut-in Saturday”; the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday

  worm policeman

  pin, to to arrest, to apprehend

  scaly adj. — unpleasant, disgusting

  shaver young person

  Tom and Jerry, a a drinking shop

  star the glaze, to to break the window or show-glass of a jeweller or other tradesman, and take any valuable articles and run away. Sometimes the glass is cut with a diamond, and a strip of leather fastened to the piece of glass cut out to keep it from falling in and making a noise. Another plan is to cut the sash

  go over the stile, to to go for trial (rhyming slang)

  Spike Park the Queen’s Bench prison

  topped, to be to be executed. Which the brute richly deserved

  FIREWORKS:

  NINE PROFANE PIECES, 1974

  A Souvenir of Japan

  The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter

  The Loves of Lady Purple

  The Smile of Winter

  Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest

  Flesh and the Mirror

  Master

  Reflections

  Elegy for a Freelance

  A Souvenir of Japan

  When I went outside to see if he was coming home, some children dressed ready for bed in cotton nightgowns were playing with sparklers in the vacant lot on the corner. When the sparks fell down in beards
of stars, the smiling children cooed softly. Their pleasure was very pure because it was so restrained. An old woman said: “And so they pestered their father until he bought them fireworks.” In this language, fireworks are called hannabi, which means “flower fire”. All through summer, every evening, you can see all kinds of fireworks, from the humblest to the most elaborate, and once we rode the train out of Shinjuku for an hour to watch one of the public displays which are held over rivers so that the dark water multiplies the reflections.

  By the time we arrived at our destination, night had already fallen. We were in the suburbs. Many families were on their way to enjoy the fireworks. Their mothers had scrubbed and dressed up the smallest children to celebrate the treat. The little girls were especially immaculate in pink and white cotton kimonos tied with fluffy sashes like swatches of candy floss. Their hair had been most beautifully brushed, arranged in sleek, twin bunches and decorated with twists of gold and silver thread. These children were all on their best behaviour because they were staying up late and held their parents’ hands with a charming propriety. We followed the family parties until we came to some fields by the river and saw, high in the air, fireworks already opening out like variegated parasols. They were visible from far away and as we took the path that led through the fields towards their source they seemed to occupy more and more of the sky.

  Along the path were stalls where shirtless cooks with sweatbands round their heads roasted corncobs and cuttlefish over charcoal. We bought cuttlefish on skewers and ate them as we walked along. They had been basted with soy sauce and were very good. There were also stalls selling goldfish in plastic bags and others for big balloons with rabbit ears. It was like a fairground—but such a well-ordered fair! Even the patrolling policemen carried coloured paper lanterns instead of torches. Everything was altogether quietly festive. Ice-cream sellers wandered among the crowd, ringing handbells. Their boxes of wares smoked with cold and they called out in plaintive voices, “Icy, icy, icy cream!” When young lovers dispersed discreetly down the tracks in the sedge, the shadowy, indefatigable salesmen pursued them with bells, lamps and mournful cries.

  By now, a great many people were walking towards the fireworks but their steps fell so softly and they chatted in such gentle voices there was no more noise than a warm, continual, murmurous humming, the cosy sound of shared happiness, and the night filled with a muted, bourgeois yet authentic magic. Above our heads, the fireworks hung dissolving earrings on the night. Soon we lay down in a stubbled field to watch the fireworks. But, as I expected, he very quickly grew restive.

  “Are you happy?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re happy?” I was watching the fireworks and did not reply at first although I knew how bored he was and, if he was himself enjoying anything, it was only the idea of my pleasure—or, rather, the idea that he enjoyed my pleasure, since this would be a proof of love. I became guilty and suggested we return to the heart of the city. We fought a silent battle of self-abnegation and I won it, for I had the stronger character. Yet the last thing in the world that I wanted was to leave the scintillating river and the gentle crowd. But I knew his real desire was to return and so return we did, although I do not know if it was worth my small victory of selflessness to bear his remorse at cutting short my pleasure, even if to engineer this remorse had, at some subterranean level, been the whole object of the outing.

  Nevertheless, as the slow train nosed back into the thickets of neon, his natural liveliness returned. He could not lose his old habit of walking through the streets with a sense of expectation, as if a fateful encounter might be just around the corner, for, the longer one stayed out, the longer something remarkable might happen and, even if nothing ever did, the chance of it appeased the sweet ache of his boredom for a little while. Besides, his duty by me was done. He had taken me out for the evening and now he wanted to be rid of me. Or so I saw it. The word for wife, okusan, means the person who occupies the inner room and rarely, if ever, comes out of it. Since I often appeared to be his wife, I was frequently subjected to this treatment, though I fought against it bitterly.

  But I usually found myself waiting for him to come home knowing, with a certain resentment, that he would not; and that he would not even telephone me to tell me he would be late, either, for he was far too guilty to do so. I had nothing better to do than to watch the neighbourhood children light their sparklers and giggle; the old woman stood beside me and I knew she disapproved of me. The entire street politely disapproved of me. Perhaps they thought I was contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile for he was obviously younger than I. The old woman’s back was bowed almost to a circle from carrying, when he was a baby, the father who now supervised the domestic fireworks in his evening undress of loose, white drawers, naked to the waist. Her face had the seamed reserve of the old in this country. It was a neighbourhood poignantly rich in old ladies.

  At the corner shop, they put an old lady outside on an upturned beer crate each morning, to air. I think she must have been the household grandmother. She was so old she had lapsed almost entirely into a somnolent plant life. She was of neither more nor less significance to herself or to the world than the pot of morning glories which blossomed beside her and perhaps she had less significance than the flowers, which would fade before lunch was ready. They kept her very clean. They covered her pale cotton kimono with a spotless pinafore trimmed with coarse lace and she never dirtied it because she did not move. Now and then, a child came out to comb her hair. Her consciousness was quite beclouded by time and, when I passed by, her rheumy eyes settled upon me always with the same, vague, disinterested wonder, like that of an Eskimo watching a train. When she whispered, Irrasyaimase, the shopkeeper’s word of welcome, in the ghostliest of whispers, like the rustle of a paper bag, I saw her teeth were rimmed with gold.

  The children lit sparklers under a mouse-coloured sky and, due to the pollution in the atmosphere, the moon was mauve. The cicadas throbbed and shrieked in the backyards. When I think of this city, I shall always remember the cicadas who whirr relentlessly all through the summer nights, rising to a piercing crescendo in the subfuse dawn. I have heard cicadas even in the busiest streets, though they thrive best in the back alleys, where they ceaselessly emit that scarcely tolerable susurration which is like a shrill intensification of extreme heat.

  A year before, on such a throbbing, voluptuous, platitudinous, subtropical night, we had been walking down one of these shady streets together, in and out of the shadows of the willow trees, looking for somewhere to make love. Morning glories climbed the lattices which screened the low, wooden houses, but the darkness hid the tender colours of these flowers, which the Japanese prize because they fade so quickly. He soon found a hotel, for the city is hospitable to lovers. We were shown into a room like a paper box. It contained nothing but a mattress spread on the floor. We lay down immediately and began to kiss one another. Then a maid soundlessly opened the sliding door and, stepping out of her slippers, crept in on stockinged feet, breathing apologies. She carried a tray which contained two cups of tea and a plate of candies. She put the tray down on the matted floor beside us and backed, bowing and apologising, from the room whilst our uninterrupted kiss continued. He started to unfasten my shirt and then she came back again. This time, she carried an armful of towels. I was stripped stark naked when she returned for a third time to bring the receipt for his money. She was clearly a most respectable woman and, if she was embarrassed, she did not show it by a single word or gesture.

  I learned his name was Taro. In a toy store, I saw one of those books for children with pictures which are cunningly made of paper cut-outs so that, when you turn the page, the picture springs up in the three stylised dimensions of a back-drop in Kabuki. It was the story of Momotaro, who was born from a peach. Before my eyes, the paper peach split open and there was the baby, where the stone should have been. He, too, had the inhuman sweetness of a child born from something other than a mother, a passive, cruel sweetness I did not i
mmediately understand, for it was that of the repressed masochism which, in my country, is usually confined to women.

  Sometimes he seemed to possess a curiously unearthly quality when he perched upon the mattress with his knees drawn up beneath his chin in the attitude of a pixy on a door-knocker. At these times, his face seemed somehow both too flat and too large for his elegant body which had such curious, androgynous grace with its svelte, elongated spine, wide shoulders and unusually well-developed pectorals, almost like the breasts of a girl approaching puberty. There was a subtle lack of alignment between face and body and he seemed almost goblin, as if he might have borrowed another person’s head, as Japanese goblins do, in order to perform some devious trick. These impressions of a weird visitor were fleeting yet haunting. Sometimes, it was possible for me to believe he had practised an enchantment upon me, as foxes in this country may, for, here, a fox can masquerade as human and at the best of times the high cheekbones gave to his face the aspect of a mask.

  His hair was so heavy his neck drooped under its weight and was of a black so deep it turned purple in sunlight. His mouth also was purplish and his blunt, bee-stung lips those of Gauguin’s Tahitians. The touch of his skin was as smooth as water as it flows through the fingers. His eyelids were retractable, like those of a cat, and sometimes disappeared completely. I should have liked to have had him embalmed and been able to keep him beside me in a glass coffin, so that I could watch him all the time and he would not have been able to get away from me.

  As they say, Japan is a man’s country. When I first came to Tokyo, cloth carps fluttered from poles in the gardens of the families fortunate enough to have borne boy children, for it was the time of the annual festival, Boys’ Day. At least they do not disguise the situation. At least one knows where one is. Our polarity was publicly acknowledged and socially sanctioned. As an example of the use of the word dewa, which occasionally means, as far as I can gather, “in”, I found in a textbook a sentence which, when translated, read: “In a society where men dominate, they value women only as the object of men’s passions.” If the only conjunction possible to us was that of the death-defying double-somersault of love, it is, perhaps, a better thing to be valued only as an object of passion than never to be valued at all. I had never been so absolutely the mysterious other. I had become a kind of phoenix, a fabulous beast; I was an outlandish jewel. He found me, I think, inexpressibly exotic. But I often felt like a female impersonator.