Free Umbrella by Will Self Page A

boy! Then resumes, We’ll be headin’ up West, you and I, time a farver showed iz dotter ve runuv ve place, ain’t it so, Arnold? Collins only twitches his tight lips, fiddles with the brim of his boater, pats the lush brown wings of his pomaded hair. Audrey feels the dampness of her shift at the backs of her thighs and sighs. – But, Father, Mother’ll be wantin’ –. A chop of the smoky hand: Yer mother’s always wantin’, Audrey – allus will be. He fiddles out a coin and drops it on the paving stone – anticipating this, the boots is there, grubby face ruffed with white-blond curls pushing up from beneath his corduroy cap, a single tooth questing from his bottom lip. Givovah, yer worship, he says scrabbling for his penny. Dob uss two more like vat an I can make me passage fer Noo Yawk. Death’s sardonic smile snips him a pair of jowls he wags at the boots. They ain’t letting your sort in juss now, he says, you’re best off sticking it out ’ere on ha’pence a boot! Uneasily, Audrey takes in piece by piece how Collins dresses much snappier than he did when he was with London General: a swallow collar clips his plump neck, his boater has a blue-and-purple-striped ribbon, his patent-leather boots have cunning suede darting, his tongue darts from side to side in his mouth each time he opens it to speak: And, ah, the, ah, goods, guv’nor? Death slowly transfers his contempt from the boy to the man: Whatever you say, Arnold – shall I cable to you at your a-part-ments to arrange our ren-dez-vous, or have they by any chance a telephone appliance at that sixpenny ding-dong of yours over Marylebone way? After all, this is a new century now, ain’t it – no need to wait any more is there? Time, distance . . . our wizard mechanical contrivances have them altogether ee-lim-ee-nated. Collins is throttled , his cheeks flush. Ah, he says, ah-ah, his tongue darting until Death relieves him: Givovah, Fred, I’ll see you at the Magpie like always, and now – good-byee! Taking Audrey by the arm, he propels her ahead of him off along the road at such a lick that for the first hundred paces she has the disturbing image of herself hooping-the-hoop , her skirts flaring, then falling to expose her bloomers. She looks back just the once to see Arnold Collins arranging his boater on his springy hair, the boots still supplicant at his feet.
    Manners got yer tongue, Missus Ward? Since when has her father’s every second utterance become a puzzle she feels it may be dangerous to solve? For how long has she been this tremulous in his presence? And, liking the fluttery sensation of the word in her mind, Audrey rolls it around, trem-u-lous, trrr-em-u-lous , this, surely, is one of the finer feelings felt by advanced young ladies as they stroll among the hollyhocks –. I said, manners got yer tongue? His cleaver nose, glanced side-on, slashes through bricks and hedge and shop awnings. They turn into Parsons Green Road – There goes Roffschild an’ iz dotter, says a white-aproned butcher with a calligraphic moustache, the words in their wake, but surely . . . mennabe heard? Audrey teeters between shame and pride while her father – the personage – seems oblivious, ramrod-straight he promenades, the ferrule of his umbrella striking hard every fourth paving stone. Rotten egg, he mutters, exuding not malice but Coniston’s hair tonic, which, blown from his shiny face, whitewashes the walls of the dingy courts and alleyways around the railway bridge. When they reach the New King’s Road there is a cream-and-brown ’bus clopping in towards the kerb, a lodestone drawing people to it, and Audrey too feels the static thrill , as once when Stan rubbed a celluloid dickey on a scrap of velveteen and held it to her neck and the hairs at her nape prickled . – Hi! Fentiman. Her father raises his umbrella and, thrusting her in front of him, they cut through the gaggle. Mister Death, the conductor says, tipping his hat, and they squeeze