The Grin of the Dark Read online

  'No, I meant...'

  'Nobody's listening if that's the problem. I'm sorry things didn't go as planned last night. Actually, I think you've made a fan.'

  'Well, I hope he knows I'm one of his.'

  Natalie is silent long enough for me to grasp I've missed the point before she says 'A fan of this Tubby of yours. He couldn't talk about anything else all the way home.'

  Does that mean he thinks it best not to tell her about the circus? 'Remind him I said he could watch it again.'

  'I don't know if he even needs to. I wouldn't be surprised if he was laughing in his sleep.' Her voice stays indulgent as she adds 'By the way, I shouldn't have to tell you he's fond of you.'

  'I'm glad.'

  'Or that I am.'

  'I hope you can hear an echo. So what happened last night?' I risk asking.

  'I'm sorry I kept you wondering. I might have lost my temper if I'd phoned from Windsor.'

  'With me, do you mean?'

  'I will do if you make that sort of comment.' Natalie sighs at one of us and says 'I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't answering their phones so that I couldn't find out why they wanted me till I got there.'

  At least her parents couldn't have minded leaving Mark with me, unless they were hoping I would prove to be somehow untrustworthy. 'And what was that?' I have to prompt.

  'They wanted to put me together with someone I used to know.'

  'Is it the fellow they were saying has done well for himself?'

  'You never told me they had.'

  'It was when they ran me back here from your flat. I expect it slipped my mind.'

  'It sounded as though it mattered to you just now.'

  'Should it?'

  A wave sweeps all the combinations of variety and video off the monitor, and I nudge the mouse to hush the soundtrack of the screensaver. 'Are you sure I'm not interrupting your work?' Natalie says.

  'Of course you aren't. All right, you are but I want you to.' I'm thrown by having realised that I ought to be searching for Charley Tracy, compiler of Those Golden Years of Fun. 'That's all they told me,' I protest. 'Not even who he is.'

  'He's Nicholas. I went to school with him. He's involved in a publishing company and he's offered me a job.'

  'Natalie, I'm sorry. I should have asked Rufus if he could put some of all this money your way. Shall I?'

  'Honestly, I'd rather you didn't. It might cause arguments.'

  'You don't want any of those.'

  'Not if they can be avoided, and I think this one could be. We aren't having one now, are we?'

  'I don't see why we need to. So what's your job?'

  'One of their magazines is about modern art and they want a more modern look. Nicholas thinks I can do it because of how Cineassed looked.'

  'I expect there was thunder in the air if he talked about that in front of your parents.'

  'There wasn't, actually.'

  I might express surprise if not disbelief, but I'm busy examining the cardboard slipcase of Those Golden Years of Fun. The distributors were based in Oldham. 'Have you got the job, then?'

  'I'll obviously have to go for an interview, but it sounds as if I might have it if I want it.'

  'And do you?'

  'It pays a lot more than the magazine I'm with now, and I think there'd be more satisfaction in it too.'

  I hunch up my left shoulder to hold the mobile to my ear while I type Charley Tracy and Oldham on the Directory Enquiries page of British Telecom. 'Then I don't know what you're waiting for.'

  I mean to be encouraging, but Natalie says 'Would you rather I hadn't rung? I'm getting the impression you want to be left by yourself.'

  'Not by you. You mustn't ever think that. I may have found a good lead, that's all,' I say, because I appear to be looking at the phone number for the compiler of the film.

  'I'd better leave you to it, then.'

  'Hold on,' I say, having caught a hint of tentativeness in her voice. 'Is there any reason you shouldn't go after this job?'

  'I can't think of any right now.'

  'Then go for it. When shall I see you?'

  'Whenever you can tear yourself away from your computer.'

  That seems unfair, but I say 'Shall we do something tonight?'

  'I may want to draft some ideas to show them at the interview.'

  'I expect that's a good plan. Let me know how it goes if we don't speak before.'

  I don't mean this to sound as final as perhaps it does, or have we been cut off? I can't think of enough to add that would justify ringing her back. Instead I key the number on the screen. The distant phone rings and then issues an invitation to commence to dancing, just like Laurel and Hardy. After a good few bars of the song Charley Tracy says 'Films for fun. Don't go away till you leave us a message or call my mobile if there's a panic.'

  'Mr Tracy? My name's Simon Lester. I'm researching Tubby Thackeray for the University of London. I was wondering if I could discuss him with you as an expert. Could you give me a buzz so we can arrange some kind of interview? That's very kind of you,' I say and add my number.

  I hope none of that is too awkwardly phrased, but I was realising there may be more useful footage on Those Golden Years of Fun. Suppose the footage Smilemime described is there too? I switch off the computer and take the film downstairs. Having cleared another pizza box or entirely possibly the same one as yesterday off the armchair, I sit down as the tape races to the thirty-minute mark.

  As Oliver Hardy sets about his scene once more, I speed him onwards. Everyone else on the remainder of the tape is as familiar as he is. I gaze out at the underside of the sky, which the window may be tinting even greyer, while I wait for the tape to rewind. Once it halts with a plastic clatter I restart it. Before I speak to Charley Tracy I should listen to his comments on the whole film.

  The white bars of static last longer than I thought they did. The tape mustn't have been fully rewound when I watched it with Mark. I accelerate it with the sticky remote control, and then I wrench a distressed creak from the frame of the armchair by crouching forward. The screen crawls with a white mass like a nest of eggs that have just hatched as the digits on the counter race on. When they count to half an hour, Oliver Hardy bobs up from the blankness and the image stabilises. I rewind several minutes' worth and play the tape while I attempt to tune it in, but it's useless. The first half-hour, including the Thackeray extract, is blank except for static that hisses in a rhythm I could imagine is actively gleeful.

  NINE - SOME SENSE

  A voice is rising from beneath the sound of waves or forming out of them. 'Simon. Simon.'

  It's my impression that the waves lulled me to sleep, and I resent the interruption until I wonder where the sound has been coming from. I wobble into a sitting position under the clammy quilt and see that the computer screen is as dark as the underside of a stone. I must have been listening to my own blood or dreaming the experience; what other kind of waves would have been inside me? The voice has driven them away now, helped by a knocking that keeps pace with its syllables. 'Simon. Simon Lester.'

  'I know who I am,' I mutter and then shout 'What do you want, Joe?'

  'Are you by yourself? I've got something here for you.'

  I wrap the quilt around me as I stumble to open the door. The landing is even dimmer than my room, which is steeped in twilight that seems designed to obscure the time of day. Joe is wearing baggy denim overalls and puffy white trainers and a T-shirt that says STUFF THIS TSHIRT. He's holding a padded envelope, but steps forward to peer past me. 'Everything working all right? Doing whatever you want it to do?'

  I'm just sufficiently awake to grasp that he's referring not to the bed but to the computer. 'It's a lot healthier, thanks. Is that mine?'

  He appears to consider the question before handing me the package. 'It came for you before.'

  'Why did they give it to you?'

  His unmanageable blond hair is already bristling, and several reddish patches on his pallid oval
face grow inflamed. 'I thought that's what chums are for.'

  'I don't mean you particularly. I damn well near had to knock the postman down the other day to get my own parcel.'

  'That's a bit violent, isn't it? Maybe you've been watching the wrong kind of films.'

  'Instead of spending half the night zapping people on your computer, you mean.'

  Joe looks wronged, which seems all the more unreasonable when he says 'I'd better get back to it.'

  'Thanks for being the postman,' I feel bound to say as I close my door.

  I slough the quilt onto the bed and take the package to my desk. As I search for the end of the parcel tape I notice that the tape is rucked up, exposing a crooked line of staples, all of which are loose. Has somebody opened the parcel? Perhaps Customs examined it on its way from Quebec. I wrench the envelope wide, and the padding begins to shed grey matter. I drag the sash up and shake the pulp out of the window rather than attempt to catch it with my bin. The envelope contains a small book wrapped in a French-language newspaper. ANARCHIE! a headline declares, approvingly or otherwise. I stuff paper and envelope into the bin on the way to taking my prize to bed.

  It doesn't look like much, even for an old paperback. While the plain cover may once have been pink or brown, it's so scuffed that it's hardly coloured. I could imagine that someone has tried to erase the author's name, which I almost misread as Monster. The title page makes it clearer that I'm holding Surréalistes Malgré Eux by Estelle Montre, published by Éditions Nouvelle Année of Paris. I was hoping it might be illustrated, but it contains neither pictures nor an index. I'm leafing through it in search of Tubby Thackeray when I realise all the margins are blank.

  Though it wasn't a selling point, the copy was supposed to have been annotated. When I tilt the book towards the window I can just distinguish traces of words pencilled on the first page of a chapter, in a script so tiny it suggests furtiveness. Who would have rubbed them out? The remains of a word are almost legible at the foot of the page: fate, perhaps, or fête. The rest of the column of erased words is indecipherable, which is all the more frustrating when the page mentions Thackeray – in fact, it may be all about him.

  The chapter is entitled The Far Side of Comedy, but that's as much as I'm able to translate. I need help from the computer. I step into yesterday's underpants and grab a towel from the rickety wardrobe and dodge into the communal bathroom as a preamble to work. A misshapen whitish cake of soap, which bears an indentation like the mark of a large printless thumb, blocks the plughole of the bath. An elongated sock lies beside the piebald toilet, and a sodden towel that looks discoloured with some kind of makeup is huddled behind the door. The mirror above the sink is so variously grubby that I can't focus on my reflection. The unchained solitary plug is nesting in the sink, and I stop up the bath with it for the duration of a shower. I stay no longer than I absolutely have to, and hear Joe's computer chirruping like an electronic caged bird as I sprint back to my room. I lock the door and am still dressing when I switch on my computer.

  The search engine brings me a free site called Frenglish. I type the opening of the chapter in the window, which is framed by a pair of frog's legs, and click on the translation button. In a very few seconds the paragraph appears transformed in a lower window.

  If Mack Sennett were the father of film comedy, Tubby Thackeray was his/her son uncontrollable. In five years in Keystone Studios it made twenty films which threatened to turn over very that even Sennett judged crowned. Where Keystone Cops brought ring of circus in the streets, and Chaplin built a ring as a setting for its ego wounded, for Tubby the world whole was a tent to be pulled down on the heads of audience. He was the clown who showed us what meant the word before there was a word. If he had been a joker of court he would have been decapitated for his danger, only to reclaim his head and continue the performance. We never would invite it on our premises to amuse us, but when we went to the bed it would wait to direct our dreams. No wonder Surrealists assembled themselves to see its films during the short period before they were prohibited in Europe and Great Britain. Magritte borrowed the top hat which Feuillade kept in the glass case, but Dalí painted Tubby, because he could not forget it. These paintings can give the sense best of how Tubby almost released these most dangerous creatures of their cage of circus – the clowns. Its quiet laughter promised outrages beyond something we could imagine then or now. Perhaps us should breathe a sigh of relief that he stopped to be comedian just like master. If he had taught all that he knew, what would his pupils be making of the world? Rather we turn towards comforts of Lautréamont and Sade.

  I submit the next few paragraphs for translation in case they contain more about Tubby than I think. The writer believes Tubby may have influenced Fritz Lang's master criminals, who are either clowns or madmen – Lang apparently described Tubby as 'the one true comic of our age or other', and I assume that 'any' ought to be the penultimate word, however excessive this seems. She invites us to note that the 'temple of silence' in which Fred Astaire is reduced to miming at the start of Top Hat is called the Thackeray Club. She finds the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges decorous compared with Tubby, and then sets about arguing that horror films are the purest form of comedy in the cinema, which hardly helps my research. I'm not sure how much the first paragraph does. By comparing the translation with the original I manage to restore some of it to sense – for instance, 'very that even Sennett judged crowned' means 'everything even Sennett held sacred', and 'its quiet laughter' is 'his silent laughter' – but which master is Tubby supposed to have imitated, and did he do so by ceasing to be a comedian? I'm frustrated to feel that the text is addressed to readers more informed than I am. Still, there's one lead to check on the British Board of Film Classification site.

  Many comedies lost footage to the Board when it called itself a censor. One of Keaton's films was cut, two of Harold Lloyd's were shortened, as well as three Chaplins, four with the Marx Brothers and five that starred Laurel and Hardy. Tubby beat them all, however. Not only were Tubby's Troublesome Trousers and Telescopic Thrill and Telepathic Tricks censored to an unrecorded extent, but every film with his name in the title from 1918 onwards was refused a certificate.

  I'll add the information to the movie database once my book has been published, but I've another reason to visit the site. When I check Willie Hart's page, an agent is indeed listed in the sidebar. I email Hart via the agent to ask for help in reviving grandfather Orville's reputation, and then I'm drawn to Tubby's page. There's a reply from Smilemime on the message board.

  I've no idea who Questionabble Attribution thinks he is if he's even a he. Funny that I've never seen a post from him before, at least not named Leslie Stone. Let's all wait while he reads the title at the top of the page. It's T.u.b.b.y.s. T.i.n.y. T.u.b.b.i.e.s. Tripplets means there's three alright, because it comes from tripple, but it means babies, and they aren't babies in the film. Hey, maybe that's why it isn't called Tripplets. Maybe Mr Questionabble has never seen the film as well. Maybe Mr Questionabble should leave posting on here to people that know about films.

  I don't think this deserves more than a laugh in response. If Smilemime is spreading misinformation about Tubby, that will make my book more useful when it's published. I'm muffling a hearty chuckle for fear that Joe might want to know why I'm amused when my mobile strikes up its tune. As I lift it to my ear a man demands 'Is that the university?'

  'It isn't, sorry.'

  'You said it was.' Before I can deny this I'm more bewildered to be asked 'Who did you say you were again?'

  'I didn't, but I'm Simon Lester.'

  'That's who you said. The university man. What are you after?'

  I recognise him now. I've heard his voice on tape – on Those Golden Years of Fun and his answering machine – but he sounds older. 'Mr Tracy? Thanks for calling back. I saw your compilation. I'd love to discuss Tubby Thackeray if you can spare the time.'

  'Discuss.' His faint Lancashire accent grows stronger a
nd flatter as he says 'You said an interview.'

  'Whichever you prefer.'

  'The one as pays most.'

  'Do you have a figure in mind?'

  'Don't go thinking I've got time to chuck away,' Tracy warns, though I'm not aware of suggesting that he has. 'We're booked for months, me and my projector. There's still folks that want to watch old films that way, not on telly where they were never meant to be watched.' Perhaps he realises this rather contradicts his involvement with Those Golden Years of Fun, because he adds more sharply 'You can have me for three hundred. That's my price for an afternoon.'

  'It'll be fine,' I say, since my publishers will cover it.

  'You'll need to come up here.'

  From his tone I could almost think that he's trying to deter me. 'When would be convenient?'

  'Tomorrow. Better catch me while I'm in the mood. I'll be putting on shows for the rest of the week.'

  This is surely my cue to ask 'Do you show Tubby Thackeray films?'

  'You reckon I should show kids and their parents and old folk.'

  'I don't see why not on the basis of the one that's in your film. Have you managed to collect any others?'

  'You're not recording me, are you? Is this some of your interview?'

  'No, I was just – '

  'You're not recording.' This isn't merely a statement, because he says 'Leave the grilling till tomorrow so I can see you're not. And I'll want cash.'

  'Could I at least ask which film of Tubby's is on your tape?'

  'I thought you saw it. It said.'

  'The soundtrack's worn on my copy,' I say and grin without amusement at the rest of the truth.

  'You ought to be able to figure it out if you know about him.'

  'I'd have guessed I was watching the terrible triplets.'

  'Don't know why you bothered asking, then.' He sounds suspicious, and more so as he says 'Where'd you find it?'

  'On the Internet. I'd have bought it from you if I'd known I could. In fact, can I still?'

  'Why would you want to do that?'

  'I've managed to erase the part I need. Don't ask me how.'