The Song of the Flea by Gerald Kersh Read Free Book Online Page B

stew. He could buy a few Portuguese sardines, a quantity of Norwegain brisling, or several tins of herrings in tomato sauce. Who but a madman would buy tinned strawberries for one-and-ten?
    He sucked his mouth dry, went to the counter, put down his money and picked up his parcel. Blodwen rang the cash register and scraped up the change.
    “ How much are strawberries?” said Pym, making conversation .
    “Strawberries are one-and-ten, strawberries.”
    “You have only large tins, I suppose?”
    “Yes, only large tins there is.”
    “Give me a tin of strawberries.”
    Back in his room Pym cursed bitterly: he had a blunt knife with an ivorine handle, a steel knife with a black handle, one heavy fork marked with the name of a restaurant, one nickel-plated fork with uncertain prongs, two spoons, a rusty tea-strainer, and a wooden handle that had belonged to an ice-pick .
    There was no tin-opener.
    He went out to eat in a restaurant.
    Pym was angry with himself. Strawberries were symbolic of all the folly in the world; he hated strawberries. In all his life Pym had never felt quite so disgusted and unhappy.
    On his way to the Escurial Palace Restaurant in Charlotte Street, where anyone could buy a dish of spaghetti for ninepence , Pym began to cross-examine himself. What had he done? What did he mean to do, and with what motives? Where had he been all his life? What right had he to strut with peacock feathers in his hair while his toes were sticking out of his boots—to swagger from pawnshop to rag-and-bone shop and so, cock-a-hoop, to a hash joint?—he, with his one-and-tenpenny tin of strawberries, and no tin-opener! Who was he, what was he? He had sold his birthright for a typewriter and some clothes,pledged everything for a tin of salmon and a week in a dirty bed; and exchanged the clothes for the typewriter, another week in the same bed, and a tin of strawberries which he couldn’t even open. He was nothing. He was lost.
    Near Warren Street someone called him by his name. He stopped and exclaimed: “Why, Win!”
    “Johnny!” cried the girl called Win. “My God, Johnny!—This is a sort of an act of Providence’”
    “It’s nice to see you again, Win.”
    “I don’t suppose you really mean it, but you’ll never know how nice it is for me to see you again, Johnny. You’ve got thin: what have you been doing with yourself?”
    “Oh … this and that. What’ve you been doing with yourself?”
    “Don’t let’s go into that just now, Johnny. How is the book going?”
    “It goes, it goes. How’s Ted?”
    “Well, I suppose he’s all right. As a matter of fact, I don’t really know.”
    “Is it like that?”
    “I suppose it is in a way like that.”
    “Since when?”
    “Oh, since about a month ago. I was looking all around for you, but nobody seemed to know where you were. I’ve got all sorts of things I’ve been wanting to tell you. Where are you off to?”
    Pym said: “I was thinking of going to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich, or something. And you?”
    “Well, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t going anywhere.”
    “Come and have a cup of coffee, Win.”
    They walked twenty yards before Win said: “It seems so silly, somehow, saying you’re not going anywhere, doesn’t it?”
    “Why should it?” said Pym. A little later, embarrassed by his own silence, he said: “Tell me about Ted.”
    “Well, as a matter of fact, there’s nothing to tell. As a matter of fact, he found out about us.”
    “I thought he knew,” said Pym.
    “It’s a complicated business,” said Win. “I’ll tell you all about it when we sit down.”
    They had reached the corner of Percy Street before Pym said: “I thought Ted knew all about you and me before you and he got together?”
    “Well, you see, as a matter of fact, it isn’t that, entirely. I can’t talk in the street.”
    Pym found a table in a comer near the door. “All I want is some coffee and a sandwich,” he said. “You go ahead.”
    He had lost