Dance and Skylark by John Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

courage to do so, and he limped on down the slumberous street, past the offices of the
Weekly Intelligencer
outside which Virginia, on her way home, favoured him with an Enigmatic Smile, past the Mayor’s shop, JNO. WILKES, LADIES’ OUTFITTER, displaying grey bloomers, dreadful pink corsets, and peculiar garments called spencers, past the poor little dusty window of Mr. Handiman’s ironmongery with its fishing-floats, its mousetraps, its rusty garden trowels, and its bundle of skates which had hung there ever since the great frost of 1946—Mr. Handiman having routed them out from his store-room just in time for the thaw. Festival Committee Meetings always had a curious effect on Stephen: they implanted in his mind a rebellious disbelief in history; and now as he paused outside Mr. Handiman’s to rest his knee, he found it quite incredible that great events had ever happened here —that the knights had clattered down the street on their heavy chargers, striking sparks from the cobbles, pennons bravely flying, a red rose or a white one worn for a challenge in their shining helmets—that a Prince had been slain but half a mile away, and a King hunted like a fox had given the slip to his foes—that Shakespeare himself, if Mr. Gurney was right, had set foot here, had trodden where Stephen now trod! Yet these were the ancient glories he must somehow bring to life: with Councillor Noakes the literary man dressed up as Shakespeare, with a foxhunting squire in armour as Prince Edward of Wales.
    He knew that he could not do it. In a moment of self-revelation he saw himself as he was, well-meaning and timid and ineffectual, a faint-hearted dabbler alike in books and living. He had only been brave and competent once, and that was when he had Polly beside him—Polly laughing at the sizzle of bullets from the hidden ambush even as he cried “Get your head down!” and then suddenly toppling forward with a grunt. Stephen had lobbed three grenades one after another into the blackness of the wood, dragged Polly into the truck, and driven away. It had not occurred to him even that he had done well until Polly, returned from hospital, had thanked him for saving his life; and they had got rather drunk together on some wine that tasted like resin.
    Three days later the news of Germany’s capitulation came through on the wireless, and they got drunk again. It was a particularly exhilarating experience to drink with Polly, who when he was at the top of the world somehow managed to carry his companions there with him. He and Stephen danced down the village street with the whole population of sixty at their heels, and Polly kissed all the women, including an old crone who was said to be a hundred and hadn’t been kissed, she croaked, for seventy years. Then Polly climbed a chimney, the tallest in the place, and unfurled a Stars and Stripes at the top of it; for although his father had been a carpet dealer from Salonika he was an American citizen, whose home was in New Orleans. He made a long speech in Greek, and another in English, and sang some scandalous songs in both languages, and danced a hornpipe on the top of the chimney before he could bepersuaded to come down. Then they went back to the Headquarters and drank some more wine; and Polly, swaying in the doorway, took a grenade out of his pocket and very slowly, almost thoughtfully, pulled out the pin. “Must have a bang, Stevie. …” In a world of bangs he always wanted another. But the baseball player’s pitch for once in a way failed to come off; the grenade hit the telephone wire in front of the Headquarters, and fell to earth within ten yards of Stephen. He was lucky indeed to lose no more than his knee-cap and half his shin.
    Yet oddly enough he bore Polly no ill-will; indeed it was impossible to feel resentment against such a man. Somehow it cheered him up, now, simply to remember Polly, to remember his hip-swinging walk,