Prelude To A Certain Midnight

ever be the same again… .

So thinks Mrs Sabbatani in her loneliness and her unhappiness. Her heart goes out to Catchy, who also has a sorrow. When Sarah is out of the house, and Catchy is at home, Mrs Sabbatani asks her to come down and have a cup of tea. The cup of tea carries a supplement of fried fish, stuffed fish, or something of the sort; bread-and-butter, cheese-cake, apple strudel — anything there happens to be in the house.

Mrs Sabbatani’s heart goes out to this wretched Catchy, who drinks too much and does not eat enough. It is a bad thing, for a woman to drink. Still, there must be a reason. Catchy has troubles. Therefore it is a mitzvah — a charitable act — to be kind to her. What Catchy’s troubles are is neither here nor there. One fact remains for ever: when Sam died, Catchy wept; and she thought the world of Sonia. When Mrs Sabbatani and her family were sitting on sawn-off chairs in deep Hebrew mourning, Catchy and her friend Osbert came to offer condolences.

Catchy was inconsolable, because other people were wretched. Catchy felt only for others, through others.

Now, therefore, Mrs Sabbatani feeds her secretly, when Sarah is not looking. Your own flesh and blood mourns your bereavement: that is normal. But when strangers weep, it is beautiful. Every tear shed by an outsider is a confirmation of the magnitude of your loss. Whenever Catchy thinks of Sonia and Sam, she cries bitterly.

Yet what is it to Catchy?

8

Mrs Sabbatani knows, or should know, that Catchy is ready to weep at any hour of the day or night on the slightest provocation. How many times has she seen her coming home with her mouth twisted into a quivering oblong; bubbling at the nose and dripping at the eyes, sobbing heart-brokenly because she has seen an organ- grinder with one leg, or a dog with a bandaged paw? Yet this good widow cannot bring herself to believe that Catchy hasn’t a special personal feeling for her and her troubles. In any case, Catchy weeps: that in itself is enough. God knows through what steamy, stinking jungles and scummy backwaters a psychiatrist would have to paddle before he found the source of her tears! Mrs Sabbatani is of the opinion that her unprofitable tenant is a victim of misplaced devotion. She is well aware of the meaning of love, yet she cannot pronounce the word except with a certain ironic emphasis and a half-smile; for in her world no one ever talks of Love. You and your husband get over the nonsense of sighing and pouting and billing and cooing early in your married life, and settle down. Love is more than an ‘affair’: it is the bedrock and the prop of life at home. As such it is taken for granted but never discussed. The word Love pertains to romantic stories, dramas, or picture shows. She has read stories and seen films about great tragic loves, and she thinks that she knows what they mean; although they have little enough to do with her. She agreed with Sam when, after having seen Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids, he grunted: ‘Love! Schmove! They should have a few children to bring up; they should have the cooking to do and a house to keep clean, and look after the shop. Love!’

(Yet Sabbatani died of grief.) Still, Mrs Sabbatani cannot get it out of her head that Catchy is devoured by a romantic yearning for someone — she suspects Osbert. She always liked that kind, quiet, considerate gentleman. But years have passed since she saw him last. He has grown prosperous, and has a wife and a smart flat in Kensington, now. No one sees him any more.

Once in a while she asks Catchy for something on account of arrears of rent. On such occasions — she always waits until Sarah has gone to the pictures — she approaches the subject in a roundabout way:

‘A nice cup of tea? And look, I made a nice cheese-cake. Look, it’s still warm; I made it this afternoon. Just a little bit. I made it with pure butter. Come on, you don’t look after yourself enough.’

Then Catchy crumples and twists herself and drips grey tears like a wrung dish-cloth and wails: ‘Oh, you’re so sweet, so sweet, so sweet! You’re always looking after me. And I don’t deserve it, Mrs Sabbatani! Oh, darling, darling, I owe you so much, so much!’

‘Well, if you could let me have a little on account…’

‘Oh, Mrs Sabbatani, Mrs Sabbatani! Why don’t you throw me out? Dear, darling Mrs Sabbatani, why don’t you throw me out into the street? It would be good for me. It would make me pull myself together. It would serve me right. I’m bad, bad — I’m no good! Don’t you see, I’m no good?’

‘Sha! Sha!’ says Mrs Sabbatani. ‘You’re a nice girl. Sha, sha, then.’

Still weeping, Catchy begins to laugh. ‘A nice girl! You don’t know what Asta Thundersley said about me.’

‘Go and have a nice lay down and I’ll bring you up a cup of tea,’ says Mrs Sabbatani, who is afraid that Sarah may come back at any moment and catch her fraternizing with this wet-faced, wild, disreputable woman who smells of gin and stale cigarette smoke. She follows Catchy upstairs with a cup of tea and something to eat on a plate. When she sees the bedroom, her heart contracts with pity and her nostrils with disgust. ‘A minute,’ she says going out; and comes running back with cleaning materials. She brushes up ashes, shakes sheets and blankets into position — although she can hardly bring herself to touch them — wipes up dust, scrubs the dry grey incrustations off the bath-tub, and does all that a human being can do in two minutes to mitigate the offence of the water closet.

Meanwhile Catchy whimpers: ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it! I’m no good. I’m no good. Ask Asta, she’ll tell you. Asta Thundersley will tell you all about me. I’m a bitch, I’m everything — everything that’s wicked. Ask Asta. Throw me out, throw me out — please, please throw me out!’

Mrs Sabbatani, embarrassed, looks at the filthy mantelpiece, and says: ‘Asta? What do I know about Asta? Why should 1 ask Asta? What for Asta?’

‘That lesbian,’ says Catchy.

‘Lesbian? What is it in English, Mrs Dory? I’m not an educated woman,’ says Mrs Sabbatani, apologetically. ‘String beans, broad beans, human beens, butter beans, has-beens, less-beens. I get mixed up.’

Catchy comes up bubbling and spluttering out of a great laugh.

‘Darling, you’re priceless! Has-beens, less-beens, human beens — may I have that? May I use it?”

But the waiting ear of Mrs. Sabbatani catches the click of the closing street door. Sarah is back from the shadowy embraces of Tyrone Power. ‘Drink up the nice tea, eat up the nice cake. Excuse me,’ she says, and runs downstairs.

‘_What is it in English?_’ says Catchy, laughing in the act of swallowing a mouthful of cheese-cake, and spattering particles like a charge from a sawn-off shot-gun.