THE FLY
'Y'ARE VERY SNUG in here,' piped
old Mr. Woodifield, and peered out of the great, green-leather armchair by his
friend the boss's desk as a baby peers out of its pram. His talk was over; it
was time for him to be off. But he did not want to go. Since he had retired,
since his... stroke, the wife and the girls kept him boxed up in the house
every day of the week except Tuesday. On Tuesday he was dressed and brushed and
allowed to cut back to the City for the day. Though what he did there the wife
and girls couldn't imagine. Made a nuisance of himself to his friends, they
supposed....Well, perhaps so. All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as
the tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar
and staring almost greedily at the boss, who rolled in his office chair, stout,
rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, still at the helm. It
did one good to see him.
Wistfully, admiringly, the old
voice added, 'It's snug in here, upon my word!'
'Yes, it's comfortable enough,'
agreed the boss, and he flipped the Financial Times with a paper-knife. As a
matter of fact he was proud of his room; he liked to have it admired,
especially by old Woodifield. It gave him a feeling of deep, solid satisfaction
to be planted there in the midst of it in full view of that frail old figure in
the muffler.
'I've had it done up lately,' he
explained, as he had explained for the past - how many! - weeks. 'New carpet,'
and he pointed to the bright red carpet with a pattern of large white rings. 'New
furniture,' and he nodded towards the massive bookcase and the table with legs
like twisted treacle. 'Electric heating!' He waved almost exultantly towards
the five transparent, pearly sausages glowing so softly in the tilted copper
pan.
But he did not draw old
Woodifield's attention to the photograph over the table of a grave-looking boy
in uniform standing in one of those spectral photographers' parks with
photographers' storm-clouds behind him. It was not new. It had been there for
over six years.
'There was something I wanted to
tell you,' said old Woodifield, and his eyes grew dim remembering. 'Now what
was it? I had it in my mind when I started out this morning.' His hands began
to tremble, and patches of red showed above his beard.
Poor old chap, he's on his last
pins, thought the boss. And, feeling kindly, he winked at the old man, and said
jokingly, 'I tell you what. I've got a little drop of something here that'll do
you good before you go out into the cold again. It's beautiful stuff. It
wouldn't hurt a child.' He took a key off his watch-chain, unlocked a cupboard
below his desk, and drew forth a dark, squat bottle. 'That's the medicine,'
said he.'And the man from whom I got it told me on the strict Q.T. it came from
the cellars at Windsor
Castle
Old Woodifield's mouth fell open
at the sight. He couldn't have looked more surprised if the boss had produced a
rabbit. 'It's whisky, ain't it?' he piped feebly.
The boss turned the bottle and
lovingly showed him the label. Whisky it was.
'D'you know,' said he, peering up
at the boss wonderingly, 'they won't let me touch it at home.' And he looked as
though he was going to cry.
'Ah, that's where we know a bit
more than the ladies,' cried the boss, swooping across for two tumblers that
stood on the table with the water-bottle, and pouring a generous finger into
each. 'Drink it down. It'll do you good. And don't put any water with it. It's
sacrilege to tamper with stuff like this. Ah!' He tossed off his, pulled out his
handkerchief, hastily wiped his moustaches, and cocked an eye at old
Woodifield, who was rolling his in his chaps.
The old man swallowed, was silent
a moment, and then said faintly, 'It's nutty!'
But it warmed him; it crept into
his chill old brain - he remembered.
'That was it,' he said, heaving
himself out of his chair. 'I thought you'd like to know. The girls were in Belgium
Old Woodifield paused, but the
boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.
'The girls were delighted with the
way the place is kept,' piped the old voice. 'Beautifully looked after.
Couldn't be better if they were at home. You've not been across, have yer?'
'No, no!' For various reasons the
boss had not been across.
'There's miles of it,' quavered
old Woodifield, 'and it's all as neat as a garden. Flowers growing on all the
graves. Nice broad paths.' It was plain from his voice how much he liked a nice
broad path.
The pause came again. Then the old
man brightened wonderfully.
'D'you know what the hotel made
the girls pay for a pot of jam?' he piped. 'Ten francs! Robbery, I call it. It
was a little pot, so Gertrude says, no bigger than a half-crown. And she hadn't
taken more than a spoonful when they charged her ten francs. Gertrude brought
the pot away with her to teach 'em a lesson. Quite right, too; it's trading on
our feelings. They think because we're over there having a look round we're
ready to pay anything. That's what it is.' And he turned towards the door.
'Quite right, quite right!' cried
the boss, though what was quite right he hadn't the least idea. He came round
by his desk, followed the shuffling footsteps to the door, and saw the old
fellow out. Woodifield was gone.
For a long moment the boss stayed,
staring at nothing, while the grey-haired office messenger, watching him,
dodged in and out of his cubby-hole like a dog that expects to be taken for a
run. Then: 'I'll see nobody for half an hour, Macey,' said the boss.
'Understand! Nobody at all.'
'Very good, sir.'
The door shut, the firm heavy
steps recrossed the bright carpet, the fat body plumped down in the spring
chair, and leaning forward, the boss covered his face with his hands. He
wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep....
It had been a terrible shock to
him when old Woodifield sprang that remark upon him about the boy's grave. It
was exactly as though the earth had opened and he had seen the boy lying there
with Woodifield's girls staring down at him. For it was strange. Although over
six years had passed away, the boss never thought of the boy except as lying
unchanged, unblemished in his uniform, asleep for ever. 'My son!' groaned the
boss. But no tears came yet. In the past, in the first months and even years
after the boy's death, he had only to say those words to be overcome by such
grief that nothing short of a violent fit of weeping could relieve him. Time,
he had declared then, he had told everybody, could make no difference. Other
men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he. How was it
possible! His boy was an only son. Ever since his birth the boss had worked at
building up this business for him; it had no other meaning if it was not for
the boy. Life itself had come to have no other meaning. How on earth could he
have slaved, denied himself, kept going all those years without the promise for
ever before him of the boy's stepping into his shoes and carrying on where he
left off?
And that promise had been so near
being fulfilled. The boy had been in the office learning the ropes for a year
before the war. Every morning they had started off together; they had come back
by the same train. And what congratulations he had received as the boy's
father! No wonder; he had taken to it marvellously. As to his popularity with
the staff, every man jack of them down to old Macey couldn't make enough of the
boy. And he wasn't in the least spoilt. No, he was just his bright natural
self, with the right word for everybody, with that boyish look and his habit of
saying, 'Simply splendid!'
But all that was over and done
with as though it never had been. The day had come when Macey had handed him
the telegram that brought the whole place crashing about his head. 'Deeply
regret to inform you...' And he had left the office a broken man, with his life
in ruins.
Six years ago, six years.... How
quickly time passed! It might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands
from his face; he was puzzled. Something seemed to be wrong with him. He wasn't
feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided to get up and have a look at the boy's
photograph. But it wasn't a favourite photograph of his; the expression was
unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like that.
At that moment the boss noticed
that a fly had fallen into his broad inkpot, and was trying feebly but
desperately to clamber out again. Help! Help! said those struggling legs. But
the sides of the inkpot were wet and slippery; it fell back again and began to
swim. The boss took up a pen, picked the fly out of the ink, and shook it on to
a piece of blotting-paper. For a fraction of a second it lay still on the dark
patch that oozed round it. Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling
its small, sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning the ink from
its wings. Over and under, over and under, went a leg along a wing as the stone
goes over and under the scythe. Then there was a pause, while the fly, seeming to
stand on the tips of its toes, tried to expand first one wing and then the
other. It succeeded at last, and, sitting down, it began, like a minute cat, to
clean its face. Now one could Imagine that the little front legs rubbed against
each other lightly, joyfully. The horrible danger was over; it had escaped; it
was ready for life again.
But just then the boss had an
idea. He plunged his pen back into the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the
blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings down came a great heavy blot.
What would it make of that! What indeed! The little beggar seemed absolutely
cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because of what would happen next. But then,
as if painfully, it dragged itself forward. The front legs waved, caught hold,
and, more slowly this time, the task began from the beginning.
He's a plucky little devil,
thought the boss, and he felt a real admiration for the fly's courage. That was
the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die; it was only
a question of... But the fly had again finished its laborious task, and the
boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair and square on the
new-cleaned body yet another dark drop. What about it this time? A painful
moment of suspense followed. But behold, the front legs were again waving; the
boss felt a rush of relief. He leaned over the fly and said to it tenderly,
'You artful little b...' And he actually had the brilliant notion of breathing
on it to help the drying process. All the same, there was something timid and
weak about its efforts now, and the boss decided that this time should be the
last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot.
It was. The last blot fell on the
soaked blotting-paper, and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The
back legs were stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen.
'Come on,' said the boss. 'Look
sharp!' And he stirred it with his pen--in vain. Nothing happened or was likely
to happen. The fly was dead.
The boss lifted the corpse on the
end of the paper-knife and flung it into the waste-paper basket. But such a
grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened.
He started forward and pressed the bell for Macey.
'Bring me some fresh
blotting-paper,' he said sternly, 'and look sharp about it.' And while the old
dog padded away he fell to wondering what it was he had been thinking about
before. What was it? It was... He took out his handkerchief and passed it
inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.
1922.
1922.
Katherine Mansfield
The Dove's Nest and Other Stories
Londres: Constable, 1923
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