Prelude To A Certain Midnight

he picked them up, cut away the bruised parts and ate them.

Next day, Mrs Kipling cooked him an apple pie. She was jealous: she loved him; but The Tiger was not interested in her or any other woman, as a woman. He had got out of the habit of that sort of thing many years before, although he was — and still is — something of a ladies’ man; a Casanova, all talk and reminiscence.

If anything was needed to make The Tiger’s aspect thoroughly nightmarish, that thing was a bowler hat. He has taken to wearing a bowler hat. A woman, of course, was responsible for this — some painted scarecrow or expiring balloon who told him that in 1912 she knew a gentleman who worked in an office, and this gentleman wore a bowler hat day and night, and was a nice gentleman.

Mrs Kipling has made no secret of her intention to tear this woman’s eyes out.

‘Take it easy,’ says The Tiger Fitzpatrick, who has got very heavy in the past few years. ‘Take it easy…’

11

Another of Asta’s unpredictable friends was a demented theologian who was working on a crack-brained scheme: he proposed to modernize and dramatize the whole of the Bible and so bring the modern world to God. You may still see Mr Pink, as he is called, in the Bohemian pubs. He sees no harm in a glass of beer, and cracks little jokes of a slightly clerical flavour. ‘Our Lord turned the water into wine, Mr Landlord; you appear to have worked the miracle in reverse’ — that sort of thing. He is a quaint, not unattractive figure, in spite of a badly scarred chin. While elucidating a point of doctrine one evening, gesticulating with a cigarette, he set his celluloid collar alight and burnt off his little silky beard, of which he used to be inordinately proud. He has always taken a finical pride in his appearance, and gets himself up like a parson on holiday at the seaside, in a prim but natty grey alpaca coat, black trousers, a high stiff collar and a narrow tie. In all weathers he wears a straw boater, much too small for him, into which he screws his big round head. He laughingly refers to this hat as his ‘little crown of thorns’; it leaves a vivid red ring around his bald scalp. Mr Pink is never to be seen without an old-fashioned umbrella with a silver handle, and an armful of papers. There never was such a man for carrying papers. All day long, he sheds sheets of notes as a dying chrysanthemum sheds its petals. If you are in a hurry, you will be well advised not to help him pick up his dropped papers, for if you do he will engage you in conversation, and it is impossible to resist his shy, childish eagerness and the trusting look of his clear blue eyes. In no time at all, he will tell you all about himself — that is to say, the work to which he has devoted himself:

‘… the modern trend, my dear sir, is to the staccato, the crisp, biting, slangy phrase. I have not the slightest doubt that our Lord in his lifetime talked so as to appeal to the great mass of the people — simply, dramatically, colloquially. Twen’ty years ago, struck with this idea, I determined to translate the Gospels into the sort of language the younger generation prefer to read and talk in this day and age — to retell it all as if it were a story. Perhaps I don’t make myself clear, sir? —’

Out comes a quire of paper closely covered with illegible scribbling. He flips over the sheets, muttering to himself: ‘Judas, Judas, Judas … Judas and the Priests… that awful scene of the betrayal of Jesus… Judas, Judas, Judas, where’s Judas? Aha! Here he is. Allow me to read it. Or no, perhaps it is a little long. I see you’re in a hurry. Here, sir, is a shorter passage, the tremendous drama of Peter when the cock crows. I have put it into modern dialogue. I should greatly prize your opinion…’

In an incongruous, high-pitched, academic voice Mr Pink reads:

— Say, aren’t you one of Jesus’ mob?

— Who me?

— Yeah, you!

— You’re nuts, I never saw de guy in my life.

(A cock crows. Enter Servant Girl)

— Listen, boss!

— What is it, honey?

— This bastard with the beard was with that God-damn Radical agitator_.

— Who, me? Honest to God de dame’s screwy! I was not!

— Why, you lying son of a bitch, you were so!

— Who, me? One of that mob, well whadda ya know about that? Ha, ha, ha! I wouldn’t touch dat guy Jesus with a disinfected barge pole.

— Guess you made a mistake, honey.

— Well, maybe I did at that, Moe.

— What do you say we go nibble a drink?

— Okay by me.

(Exeunt. A cock crows again.)

— Holy Jesus, holy Jesus! What a rat I turned out to be!

‘… Do you see? Does it strike you as clear? Does it hammer home the lesson? If you had time I should have liked to read you some of my notes on the modernization of The Lamentations — quite forceful. Or perhaps Joseph in Egypt and Potiphar’s wife:

— Joe, I feel terrible; I got a terrible pain, Joe.

— I am sorry to hear that, Madam.

— I got a lump coming up here — just here — I think I got a cancer, Joe.

— Let us hope not, Madam.

— Put your hand here, Joe; no, not there — here. Yes, right here. A bit lower. I guess I got cancer of the womb or something. Oh Joe, Joe, Joe!

— But Madam, please!