In Youth Is Pleasure by Denton Welch

Author:Denton Welch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Irish, Welsh, English, Literary Criticism, Scottish, European
ISBN: 9781904634171
Publisher: Plume
Published: 1944-07-14T14:00:00+00:00

“Bring out your hundred-dollar coffin,

Bring out your rubber-tyred hack,

To take poor Johnny to the cemetery,

Never for to bring him back.

He was her man—but he done her wrong!”

The effect was very lovely; it cut straight through to Orvil.

“Sing it all from the beginning,” he shouted urgently. “I want it all. I want every word.”

The man thought for a few moments, then sang verse after verse of ‘Frankie and Johnnie.’ Orvil listened, holding his breath. He thought, ‘It’s beautiful, because the man sings it absolutely properly. He never pretends it’s funny.’

Orvil made the man go on singing to him. He joined in sometimes. The singing melted Orvil’s heart. He wanted to stay in the hut for ever, singing and talking and helping to do the housework.

The man put down the hand-made instrument and picked up his pipe again. It had gone out, and so more matches were held to the bowl, until blue smoke belched out at last. The man looked at Orvil through the smoke.

“Now you wash up the tea-things and put them away,” he said. Orvil stood up awkwardly. He was a little surprised at the curtness, but felt quite willing to do odd jobs for the man.

“There’s some water in one of the white basins over there; just rinse each piece round and then dry it on one of the towels.”

Orvil felt a mixture of pleasure and annoyance.

‘The lazy sod just sits there on his arse, pretending I’m his slave,’ he said to himself, with a tingle. Usually, he hardly ever used these particular coarse words, but something prompted him to do so now.

When he had polished the last piece of china, he turned to the man and said in burlesque impudent servant’s language, “Will you be wanting anything else, sir?”

The man’s retaliation was to take him quite seriously.

“Yes, you can polish my brown shoes, if you like,” he said; “they’re under the bed, and the polish and brushes are at the bottom of the dresser.”

The man took no more notice of Orvil, but began to cut his nails noisily with one of the gadgets on his large penknife.

In a dazed way, Orvil fetched the shoes and started to polish them. As he thrust his hand into one of them, he thought, ‘It’s always mysterious inside shoes; like a dark cave. No light ever reaches the end. You can only feel along the walls blindly.’ He placed his fingers in the little hollows—like a string of graded pearls—made by the toes. He traced the curve where the ball of the foot fitted. Pressing his knuckles up, he touched the over-arching leather, which seemed cracked and yet humid. He thought that there was a whole atmosphere and little world inside the shoe.

Orvil polished away lustily until the shoes glistened like wet brown stones.

“You ought to be able to see your face in them good enough to shave by now, sir,” he said with the same facetiousness and cockney accent.

“Come over here and let me pass them,” said the man sternly.

Orvil went across and poked the shoes under his nose.

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