Gustav G

BY J. P. DONLEAVY

THE purple house with the peeling paint was in Gardenia Road in a western district of London. Five minutes walk beyond the social pale. It stood some yards back from the road with a front garden neither neat nor mussed. The windows gleamed. And inside all smelled of lavender wax and the floor boards creaked.

It was October, the month before the fogs which clung to this flat area and the year before had killed prize cattle at an exhibition up the road. After his wife left him, Gustav had come here to live with another woman, called Queenie, and brought his two dark-haired daughters. Across the road was a club for Australians who reveled late at night singing songs of Down Under and emerging in the wee hours to crank their vintage cars.

Gustav G was tall, light-brown-haired, and an ex-Polish-cavalry-officer. With drink taken, his manner often insisted upon his impeccability. Which his English wife had found painful. At these times, Gustav rummaged in the wardrobe, fetching out from the moth balLs his riding breeches and boots to stomp indignantly into the onion reek of the kitchen adjusting his insignia and rapping his crop against his thigh.

“I am a true Pole.”

His English wife, pressing back her hanging hair, turned toward the onions and sliced on. Gustav retreated to the bedroom where he stood in front of the full-length mirror, eyes swelling with tears. And later his wife packed up and left.

Gustav met Queenie during three bereft alcoholic days and wove her into his life and she found them the flat of three rooms in the purple house. With one narrow bed for his two daughters. And mornings, as the traffic increased on the road outside, Gustav pulled back the covers in the front room and reached for cotton wool and Eaude-Vie de Lavande with which he wiped cheeks and brow and cleaned his awaking nostrils. Behind the house was a railway siding and coalyard and the black dust seeped up between the floor boards under the carpets.

Queenie went out to work each morning as a secretary in a factory making nurses’ uniforms. Taking a tortuous trip through the fashionable parts of London to disappear at the other end beyond a bleak door in a bleak wall of Camden Town. Often she brought home lengths of white cloth for dusters. Gustav with some clever folding sported these as hankies in the breast pocket of his blazer. When many a lonely afternoon betweenwhiles, he stood stiffly and sadly clutching a pint of beer in the basement shadows of an airless drinking club.

Weekdays while he waited for a great pot of porridge oats to cook, Gustav plunged his two daughters into the tub for a wash. Sometimes retreating from the wild splashing to pop on a threadbare silk shirt, the fortunate color of his skin. And with gay cravat, black sword stick, gray flannel trousers and sports coat, he cut a figure and struck several early-morning poses in the doorway. Later standing in one final attitude as his daughters wolfed through the porridge.

At ten to nine he led them down the stairs and at the bottom in a blood-tinted light, he made some comments he knew would seep under the landlady’s door.

“Amanda and Laurinda, you must pay strict instructions to your riding master, straight back, remember.”

These daughters with their long dark tresses, standing, waiting for Gustav to open the door.

“O daddy, please shut up.”

Gustav stomping sword stick, the stick leaving the sword as he stood in the hallway, waving the glistening blade.

“Do not speak in that fashion. One day you will listen. When I die, you will listen.”

“Daddy we know you’ll die, but we’re late, will you please give over.”

And the taxi passing in the road was flagged down with Gustav’s stick. A clipped command to the driver as he held the door open.

“The Lycée, please, haste.”

Gustav leaning back in the leather comfort. Amanda sitting lacing this father.

“Daddy Queenie is going to be furious.”

“I will not have you riding on buses.”

“You’re wasting the money Queenie slaves for, you know we can’t afford a taxi.”

In silence they reached that alley with the smooth accents, mothers, chauffeurs, intellectuals. Gustav led Amanda and Laurinda. He held his chin high and blinked his lids. He sniffed frequently with his nose. And flicked a finger in the corner of his eye. He stood by the doorway of the yard as Amanda took Laurinda by the hand and they fled across the bright concrete into school.

With an audible click of heel, Gustav turned and marched out the alley into the thriving life of South Kensington. He looked in the window of the harp shop and hummed a Hungarian Rhapsody. He waited loftily to cross on the black-and-white safety stripes, a girl in a gay white sports car stopping and he gave her a little bow and she grimaced and nearly killed him as she roared past. Gustav took her license on yesterday’s bus ticket, the pencil constantly going through the cheap paper until it was a series of holes and he threw it away.

In his pocket he jingled six and sixpence, gritting his teeth at the expense of the taxi ride. Measuring in his mind his second breakfast in the Continental coffeehouse just past the station. Where collected the former members of deposed European governments and there was a warmth of food and greetings. Gustav took a seat at the windows, and reaching out touched the leaves of a prospering aspidistra. Marianna, the waitress, smiled and said, “Good morning sir.”

“Good morning Marianna. I would like coffee with fresh cream and apple strudel. And how are you today Marianna.”

“Not good. And you.”

“Not good.”

OUT the window frosty air, and curled brown leaves scraping across the shadows of trees. The young students passing on their way to learn of art and some science at the colleges up the road. The girls wore hair long and careless. Gustav saw Amanda and Laurinda growing into these assured nubile young women floating by. But, my God, where was the money to come from and even a dignified place to live. There might never be a good address again. But the apple strudel was fine today. Just as it was fine yesterday and the day before. The juice had a light sweetness and the pastry melted in the mouth. There were young apples in Poland. And woods and forests around Malkinia some miles from the river Bug in the province of Warsaw.

His English wife had not been unpleasant. She never questioned his background or military rank or honors. She would, as she sliced through the onion, sigh, and say yes, how nice, I heard you, that was nice, I’m glad you loved the peasants on your estates and cried and danced with them. And how one day, that last day, he found his hands reaching for the pots, the pans and how they seemed to go through the windows, glass showering down, a great mirage of curtains, sash cord, and putty. Later feeling hands leading him by the arms. Blue uniforms ushering him to a seat in the back of a dark van. And a woman with gaudy mouth smiling at him. “What did they get you for, dearie.” They brought water to the cell whenever he requested and led him slowly out for natural acts whenever he asked. And further in the dismal morning of that last day they let him free with a yellow slip of paper to make his way to the dock where the judge said it’s sad to see a man of your background behaving in this fashion, pay ten pounds.

The incident received a column in the Times, and with a careful fourpence Gustav bought this paper. Sitting, rustling it high in front of his face, and clearing his throat, a pearl pin stuck in the silk around his neck, and he had lain for three recuperative days between white sheets and brown blankets, a bowl of water, spiced with lemon juice and vinegar, on his bedside chair. He dipped a towel and laid it across his brow and eyes.

And now in this month of October there were western moist winds, the first smells of smoke at evening. With a place to live there was a quiet respectability in his life. And although it was lonely London, it was a city of freedom to hang or gas yourself if you so wished, but please leave a note for the milkman to stop the milk and the news agents to stop the papers. I am Gustav G a foreigner. And if I let taxis run over me till Christmas in the middle of the road, they would pass by tapping their umbrellas, poor chap, he’s trying to do himself in.

Queenie left instructions pinned outside the food cupboard. Sweep. Wipe. Wash. He felt she watched him as he took helpings of what he fancied. In his marriage he always got the biggest chop. Women who say they love you covet the choicest morsels for themselves. Then try to make you a mat. Trampling your dignity with the household chores, Who tell you to look at the employment board of the meat pie factory. And then call you a sneaky devil because you sit and enjoy an hour’s sunshine in the Asian garden of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Where the fountain plays mid the lead sphinxes and the darkgreen leaves of the cherry trees stir.

WEEKS quietly by in the purple house. Gustav repressing his thirst for avocados for the sake of financial peace. There was the odd opera and Sunday evening concert at the Festival Hall where they held hands and squeezed during the passionate passages, later to walk out on the deck strung with stanchions over the river and watch the squat tankers plow dark ways on the ebbing tide. Later to stroll a long way home by the fairy lights of Battersea and the water’s deep sweet smelt.

Queenie had ridden to the hounds in the west of Ireland. And talked as Gustav talked about his cavalry days. She said some blustering pinched type once sounded the horn and upon the last soulful note promptly pitched face first in some cow-softened mud. Gustav to his feet, slightly in his cups, declaring Queenie an equestrian gossip and the Irish, peasant pigs. Queenie, breasts heaving, hands straight down at her sides, eyes blazing, letting go with convent-bred epithets. And next day Gustav found his riding boots gone. To discover them one week later in the window of a gentlemen’s clothier’s near the Portobello market. Paper begonias in a Japanese vase, the glistening toes of his boots facing a water-color picture of the harbor at Lyme Regis.

To inquire after one’s wardrobe in another’s possession took courage. Gustav walked up the street reasoning with his dignity, pushing through the throngs of people surrounding the stalls. Returning with stiff carriage he entered the shop.

“I say.”

“What can I do for you, guv.”

“I say there, the window.”

“Yes guv, the window.”

“Those happen to be my riding boots.”

“ It’s all right guv.”

“It’s not all right.”

“Now look guv, I paid good money for them boots.”

“All right, how much money do you want.”

“Well guv, as I say I paid good money, three pounds fifteen shillings they’re going for.”

“Very well.”

Gustav spinning on his heel which was rapidly going down. Flagging a taxi. Arriving back at the purple house. Bounding up the stairs. Tearing the day’s list of assignments off the wall and throwing it in the garbage. To the gas meter. One fork on one little lock. Just a bit of leverage. Gustav swept the shillings out into his pockets.

Back at the gentlemen’s secondhand clothier’s, Gustav strode in, eyebrows aloft. Ladling the handfuls of shillings out on the counter.

“I say, guv, you been at the gas meter.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Sorry guv, just a joke like. Some come in here you know, blokes rifled the gas meter. Wouldn’t say a thing like that if I thought you’d really cleaned out the meter, wouldn’t be manners.”

“If you don’t mind, my boots, please.”

“Sure guv. I’ll fetch them out of the window. Good quality boot.”

“I think you’ll find sufficient shillings there.”

“Sorry guv about the crack about the gas meter. It’s like we’re all human. Some folks these days take a penny from an orphan. It makes you think.”

“Good day.”

“So long guv.”

Gustav entered a public house where they drew wines and spirits from the wood. In the mahogany interior he put back mugs of claret reading a little sign against the decanter stand.

These were solemn times. Good blood flowed through his veins and even in the veins of some close relatives. On winter nights he had come out to the hovels on the plains and given gifts to their peasants, sacks of potatoes and turnips. They were ungrateful. And snarled behind your back. But the air at night had the distant barks of dogs and the chimney smoke and fires glowing at tiny windows when you pounded by. Horses loved the moonlight.

ON THIS Friday, shilling Friday, in this snug public house, Gustav recalled other Fridays. With one hand in the pocket to take out more shillings for more claret. A taste of musky death. Like the rafters of the purple house. Three weeks ago there was the funeral of the Russian bishop. Laying the prelate to rest on this flat land of white stonery and overgrown paths between forgotten graves spreading everywhere. Chanting through the streets. He had dressed in full uniform. Stepping into the road, patting the coal dust out of his cuffs. Taking his place in the long line of mourners in their raiment. Executing the slow march when necessary. Taking a sprinkle of balm upon his person.

And this early evening, boots in brown paper bag. At this bar. Hiding in the north of London. When one ought to be meeting one’s daughters from school. But claret calls, and you hear singing. On Moscow Road near here is the Russian Church. The mornings when one walked cold and cheerless, coatless, dragging two reluctant kids. Tune the ears to listen to the song chanted, the kids kicking your shins saying, “When is it going to be over daddy.” And as Gustav waited for the bus, lost in memories happier, his youngest daughter gently leaned over and sunk her teeth deep in his thigh. Gustav reared up screaming in agony, the local windows opening. The bus queue laughed.

And tonight winter is coming down the road, the gas fires are lit everywhere. To the barman wrapped in white.

“I should like another bottle of Latour.”

“Certainly sir. The half?”

“The whole.”

“Very good sir.”

“And a sliver of Cheshire.”

There were other Friday memories and indignities. Connected with gentlemen’s secondhand clothier’s. Friend of Queenie’s, a particular revolutionary from Ireland. Who was to blow up Waterloo Bridge when the signal to take over England was given. And the night they asked him to baby-sit and returning they found their pound of chopped steak gone and reposing in its place was a kipper. Later, a sheepish apology over many drinks was that the Irishman, who was overcome with an awful thirst for meat and not having been able to control himself, devoured it. For he had work to do for the cause, and he hoped they understood and enjoyed the kipper which ounce for ounce had more nourishment. However, he did not relish fish himself.

A chill outside tonight, along these hard-bitten streets. In the lonely steamy windows women boiled cabbage and others smoked the air with sausages under the grill. Gustav’s boots stood in their brown wrapping at his feet. He was at attention as he swirled, sniffed, and tasted the wine. Queenie was a good skin. She was young and headstrong. Who took him and his children to her large bosoms. And on those nice nights when she placed the glass of honeyed milk on the chair, and unfolded the convertible sofa, gently so as not to smother in the dust, there was peace. A candle burning to kill the brownness general in all directions. Two little daughters asleep in the next room as they lay a head at each end of the bed, clutching each other’s feet, chubby cheeks soft on the pillows.

Pay night across London. Friday faces, lit-up eyes, heavy wrists with heavy hands, the gray overcoats crowd in. Gustav remarking between the heads.

“I should like another bottle of Latour.”

“A little more cheese, sir.”

“I think the cheese, too.”

Lights go on. Hold out the night and winter. He had been taking bus routes which skirted all the agonizing parts of town. Until he now ended up on the water bus from the Zoo to Paddington. The Irishman had said he often used this boat trip to confuse Scotland Yard. Which recalled the next time they had this Gael baby-sit which was the last time. When they returned to find him gone and a note.

DEAR GUSTAV,
I cannot disclose any more information. But the uniform and boots will be returned after the present operation in the best of condition.
P.S. I was also forced to take the street map of Warsaw. All the best.
RYAN

And tonight as the white gray fog drifts down on the street and shifts in under the doors of this mahogany public house, Gustav G cried out suddenly.

“It cannot last.”

As the people turned to stare and some to edge away, Gustav looked deeply into the dried-blood color of his wine. Open the escape valve when the boiler is throbbing with pressure. Queenie often resorted to this practice in public places, rearing up and often as she shouted, fleeing the premises. She said it prevented violence. And the first time she had ever done it was the most embarrassing he had ever known. It happened one Thursday before Friday payday and in the purple house he had gone to the water closet for a natural act in the dark. For the light switch was bust. And as he groped for paper, he felt only clammy wall on all sides. There was nothing for it but to get some scrip from one’s pocket. He had reached in and found a tiny piece, most appropriate he thought as it was a canceled Sweepstake ticket. He used this paper and then set forth to the local public house where he was to meet Queenie and some friends.

Queenie had entrusted to him their last ten shilling note that morning to buy bread. And she waited with these persons one of whom had a goatee. Gustav entered. Stomping and hoofing in a rather reserved but definite way. He joined the joyful group and asked what would they have. Pints were ordered. Gustav digging in his pocket lor the ten shilling note. Deeper and deeper digging in the pockets. And he felt the piece of paper and drew it out. Looking at it, a sudden wave of blankness came over him. He read the conditions of the Sweepstake ticket over and over. Queenie asked him what was the matter, to pay for the drinks. And Gustav set again to searching for the note. All pockets now hanging out. Whipping off his jacket, tugging at all trouser flaps. Making a great act of looking in his cuffs. Queenie asking how a ten shilling note could have got there. And suddenly as the search for the ten shilling note was finished, Gustav’s past life passed in front of his eyes. Then he laughed. And assuming a dignified stance he recounted to them the story of the ten shilling note and how it must now be heading in some lonely sewer deep under the city toward the river Thames in the neighborhood of Fulham.

It was then that Queenie shouted. And rushed out into the night. Gustav overcome. There were times when one could only collapse in tumult and clamor and laugh. Which did not last long. For returning. Queenie lay in wait. Gustav entering well oiled. She sprang from behind the door driving him through the flimsy coat cupboard wall. He fell his boots sticking into his back. Queenie was like a lioness. As she was on top savaging him, he was curious that the only thought that went through his mind was that he had not uttered a sound but went down and suffered in silence. Military training never left one. The fingernail treatment of the face was another matter. He finally got hold of her wrists and held them off. As she raged. Shouting, our last ten shilling note, you bestial Pole.

And even that altercation passed. It was good tonight to remember things. Certain incidents, if enough time had elapsed, looked colorful in one’s background. He did not like the landlady. Or people who lurked behind doors for long periods of time. Women marry weak men but take strong lovers. He was perhaps a nice combination of the two. At least his wife had left him completely. Never hearing of her much except his daughters’ fortnight visit to her somewhere in the northeast of London.

This Friday night was a night upon which one might draw conclusions. And avoid convulsions. Taking hold, perhaps, of a few minutes of the past. Thereby looking into the future. And now no horse, without which the bedchamber was the only proper place for a gentleman to take exercise. And there in love, to guide one’s little ship on the wide wide sea. Hoping for the winter ahead to be mild. And the frost was collecting on the stone statues in Gardenia Road as they stood ghostly in the garden at night. The black smokestack of the meat pie factory. Crabitch, the pawnbroker around the corner who ended up custodian of his boots and uniform when they vanished with the Gael. The church of the Methodist Connection, into which he had almost been persuaded. The funeral furnishers. There were those too. And when that day came. His turn with appropriate military honors. His coffin with insignia, medals lying on it and the white silk. Perhaps his rank was not sufficient for a march through the streets; however, there would at least be an occasion. Queenie would weep. His wife would go her cowlike way at the back, saying, I knew the bastard for what he was. The Gael had promised to bring up the rear with an Irish ass.

TONIGHT in this mahogany pub over the claret. Folk were keeping their distance. They wondered what they could see in the paper parcel. But they wouldn’t find out. Tonight was the night of drinking, recalling yester months and days. A memorial service to himself. How sad and wistful one was. To push aside light brown and gray hair. To pass the high tide of years and begin the ebb. Queenie was twenty-seven summers. And sometimes she woke late at night and said what’s that coming in the window. It was these times as he laid a sympathetic hand on her bare back that he liked Queenie deeply. Women, often the hard ones in daylight, woke fearful as dreams closed in. And horsemen hammered around the laneways. Her tattered underwear was sorrowful. His whole hand fitting through a great tear. Take her head on his shoulder and press back her hair. And she’s asleep and never knew how good he was to her in the dark. Only for her to rear up in the reality of the next day and let fly with epithets.

Now there were more men parking their bicycles outside. And inside just this lucid liquid. Emitting the shout had left him much elbow room. And there would be no joining in others’ conversations for most of them would be about him. And he could only think of a strange songless tune.

No limelight
Wherever
This wretched Pole
Lamented.

The English language was nice. He was glad of his alacrity with it. Broken as it sometimes was. On the other hand his accent was one of quality. He had behaved himself in this foreign country, albeit one or two little altercations. For which he now substituted the public shout. Working-class men were drifting in. Stiffly making their way to the bar with their comments and money ready. He was not like other Poles who growl as people come close or sit next to them. These new arrivals had not heard him shout. It was like time itself, nothing lasts. And they looked upon him as just another bloke. All extending their pleasures in this pub.

To return tonight, O my God, to the purple house in that evil road. A sunflower grew in another front garden near. And when that died he would die. That was the symbol. The little gas meter’s door would be hanging open. And Queenie would come in. It was her epithets he could not stand. It was frightening. And as a father he shouted his two little kiddies into tears. Two defenseless creatures who wanted only that their daddy be nice to them.

Queenie would be out looking the streets and pubs for him. Track him down for the sneaky act of emptying the meter. This was no way to enjoy claret. To lurk now in absolute fear of her rage. He must go back. Back to the purple house in that evil road. With those curtain-tugging, evilwhispering upper working class people. With his own class nothing but a relic.

GUSTAV took up his parcel of boots. He walked out the door, a silent austere figure, and stood for a moment in the murky air. A distant prospect of a long line of lights disappearing down the road. He undid his laces and leaning up against the iron fence, pulled off his shoes and slipped his feet into the boots. He stomped and walked forward. Shoulders back. Head erect, he marched up Kensington Park Road. Between the tall gray Victorian houses. His heels clicking on the sidewalk. One shoe under each arm. Ahead the lights of Nottinghill Gate.

Gustav G marched on jobless and drunk. And last night he had a dream. He dreamed he came around a street corner like the one ahead. And in front of him stood a figure he recognized. His wife. And when he said come and have a drink she fixed him with a stony eye. She side-stepped to pass. He shouted, “Didn’t you hear the story of the ten shillings. What about that.” And his wife was running. And although Gustav was no slouch in dreams he could not catch her. And he had to stop against a wall to find his breath and a figure came out on an iron trellis balcony and said down to him as he lay against the bricks, “God love all little children.”

Climbing on a bus, Gustav sat by himself up front. And got off at Gardenia Road. He walked toward the purple house in the fog. A lone light glowed up in the cold window, misted with steam. Gustav rang the bell. Waiting in the chill. Footsteps on the stairway. Coming down. He would have to dodge the first few blows. The door opening, he ducked and lifted an arm. Standing watching him was his wife. He said, “O my God.” She said, “Come in, you better go up the stairs.”

Gustav reading a strange message on her face. Climbing the stairs he paused outside in the hall. Through the crack of the door he saw his two daughters clutching themselves in the back bedroom. Queenie lay with her head in her arms at the dining table, the burning light bulb over her head. And he was near the fireplace and the oatmeal box on the mantel, watching. His wife came in. A sober strange little scene considering he had emptied the gas meter only that afternoon.

He stood accused. In all this silence. With the brown curtains hanging so limp and long at the windows. The air around the drafty panes billowing them out as buses roared by on the road. Both women in his life were present. Surrounded by security. Women protected you. Held the world at bay. You could push them ahead to buy tickets, groceries, even to a little innocent stealing at times. Traces of youth should still be with me. Especially needed now in a setting like this. One wife, one mistress. Two kinder. One purple house. Several aluminum pots and pans. Many cracked plates. Lots of useless lace at the edges of things. Women who antagonize the same man have something in common. Certainly he had not associated with women beneath him, nor very far above.

There were some quiet sobs. Queenie looked beaten. Did they both see the open gas meter. Then called a general consultation to put him down. In the next room the children were quietly crying. Two little girls holding each other. Gustav looking from one face to another, sheepish in his boots. Finally putting his shoes on the floor. Putting a hand up to his cheek and rubbing it once. Had the gas company trapped them and caught them with the meter busted. Gustav spoke. “What’s the matter.”

His wife turning and looking out toward the window. Queenie unmoving, head in arms. Sobs from the kids. Gustav going into the children’s bedroom. They were draped over one another on the bed. Laurinda, tears in large brown eyes.

“Daddy, I am getting smaller and smaller and when I’ve got small enough I won’t be alive any more.”

“Do not cry over that. You’re growing big.”

“Mommy is taking us away, daddy.”

A taxi came at eleven late at night. Amanda and Laurinda went down the stairs with a little bag each. Queenie and Gustav stood at the doorway and waved as the car pulled away and went past the white frosty statues of the garden across the street. The next morning the note was already under the door from the landlady. This is a respectable house and be out of the premises by Friday. Gustav picking it up. Reading the message written in an evil hand on the lined paper.

On Friday morning, Gustav rose from his bed. Wrapped in his yellow dotted robe, he padded across the floor boards and dusty brown carpet. There were some blue thistle flowers in a vase. He picked one and held it in his hand as he moved into the hallway and down the flight of stairs to the water closet. This was the coldest closet in the world and gave out upon the blackness of the coalyard. He stood there over this white morning bowl. A quick glance at the busted light switch. Opening both eyes. Pushing the window up and looking to the horizon of distant tracks and the arches of a bridge. A church steeple. A red underground train curving on the tracks. If the landlady popped up the stairs to see if they were gone, he would offer her this thistle. Antagonize her mind somewhat. People took no notice of other things if you carried a flower. As a child, his tutor, a distant impecunious uncle, had taught him this. Carry a flower through life Gustav and even if there is tragedy there will be fragrance and beauty as well.