Gerald Kersh - The Best of Gerald Kersh

I said: ‘You might have run down to Wettendene yourself, and got the doctor.’

‘“Might” is a long word, mister. I’ve broke my ankle and my left wrist. Look at the mud on me, and see if I haven’t tried…. Third time, working my way on my elbows – and I am an agile man – I fainted with the pain, and half drowned in the mud…. But Jumbo swore his Bible oath to send a physician for Dolores. Oh, dear me!’

At this the woman between short, agonised coughs, gasped: ‘ Alma de mi corazan – heart of my soul – not leave? So cold, so hot, so cold. Please, not go?’

‘I’ll see myself damned first,’ the man said, ‘and so will Dot. Eh, Dot?’

At this the poodle barked and stood on its hindlegs, dancing.

The man said, drearily: ‘She’s a woman, do you see, sir. But one of the faithful kind. She come out of Mexico. That alma de mi corazan – she means it. Actually, it means “soul of my heart”. There’s nothing much more you can say to somebody you love, if you mean it…. So you’re not a doctor? More’s the pity! I’d hoped you was. But oh, sir, for the sake of Christian charity, perhaps you’ll give us a hand.

‘She and me, we’re not one of that rabble of layabouts, and gyppos, and what not. Believe me, sir, we’re artists of our kind. I know that a gentleman like you doesn’t regard us, because we live rough. But it would be an act of kindness for you to get a doctor up from Wettendene, because my wife is burning and coughing, and I’m helpless.

‘I’ll tell you something, guv’nor – poor little Dot, who understands more than the so-called Christians in these parts, she knew, she knew! She ran away. I called her: “Dot – Dot – Dot!” – but she run on. I’ll swear she went for a doctor, or something.

‘And in the meantime Jolly Jumbo has gone and left us high and dry. Low and wet is the better word, sir, and we haven’t eaten this last two days.’

The girl, gripping his wrist, sighed: ‘Please, not to go, not to leave?’

‘Set your heart at ease, sweetheart,’ the man said. ‘Me and Dot, we are with you. And here’s a gentleman who’ll get us a physician. Because, to deal plainly with you, my one-and-only, I’ve got a bad leg now and a bad arm, and I can’t make it through the mud to Wettendene. The dog tried and she come back with a bloody mouth where somebody kicked her …’

I said: ‘Come on, my friends, don’t lose heart. I’ll run down to Wettendene and get an ambulance, or at least a doctor. Meanwhile,’ I said, taking off my jacket, ‘peel off some of those damp clothes. Put this on her. At least it’s dry. Then I’ll run down and get you some help.’

He said: ‘All alone? It’s a dretful thing, to be all alone. Dot’ll go with you, if you will, God love you! But it’s no use, I’m afraid.’

He said this in a whisper, but the girl heard him, and said, quite clearly: ‘No use. Let him not go. Kind voice. Talk’ – this between rattling gasps.

He said: ‘All right, my sweet, he’ll go in a minute.’

The girl said: ‘Only a minute. Cold. Lonely ——’

‘What, Dolores, lonely with me and Dot?’

‘Lonely, lonely, lonely.’

So the man forced himself to talk. God grant that no circumstances may compel any of you who read this to talk in such a voice. He was trying to speak evenly; but from time to time, when some word touched his heart, his voice broke like a boy’s, and he tried to cover the break with a laugh that went inward, a sobbing laugh.

Holding the girl’s hand and talking for her comfort, interrupted from time to time by the whimpering of the poodle Dot, he went on:

They call me Alpha, you see, because my girl’s name is Beta. That is her real name – short for Beatrice Dolores. But my real name is Alfred, and I come from Hampshire.

They call us ‘tumblers’, sir, but Dolores is an artist. I can do the forward rolls and the triple back-somersaults; but Dolores is the genius. Dolores, and that dog, Dot, do you see?

It’s a hard life, sir, and it’s a rough life. I used to be a Joey – a kind of a clown – until I met Dolores in Southampton, where she’d been abandoned by a dago that ran a puppet show, with side-shows, as went broke and left Dolores high and dry. All our lives, from Durham to Land’s End, Carlisle to Brighton, north, south, east, west, I’ve been left high and dry when the rain came down and the money run out. Not an easy life, sir. A hard life, as a matter of fact. You earn your bit of bread, in this game.

Ever since Dolores and me joined Jolly Jumbo’s Carnival, there was a run of bad luck. At Immersham, there was a cloudburst; Jumbo had took Grote’s Meadow – we was two foot under water. The weather cleared at Athelboro’ and they all came to see Pollux, the Strong Man, because, do you see, the blacksmith at Athelboro’ could lift an anvil over his head, and there was a fi’-pun prize for anybody who could out-lift Pollux (his name was really Michaels).

Well, as luck would have it, at Athelboro’ Pollux sprained his wrist. The blacksmith out-lifted him, and Jolly Jumbo told him to come back next morning for his fiver. We pulled out about midnight: Jumbo will never go to Athelboro’ again. Then, in Pettydene, something happened to Gorgon, the man that eats bricks and swallows glass. His act was to bite lumps out of a brick, chew them up, wash them down with a glass of water, and crunch up and swallow the glass. We took the Drill Hall at Pettydene, and had a good house. And what happens, but Gorgon breaks a tooth!

I tell you, sir, we had no luck. After that, at Firestone, something went wrong with the Mermaid. She was my property, you know – an animal they call a manatee – I bought her for a round sum from a man who caught her in South America. A kind of seal, but with breasts like a woman, and almost a human voice. She got a cough, and passed away.

There never was such a round. Worst of all, just here, Dolores caught a cold.

I dare say you’ve heard of my act, Alpha, Beta and Dot? … Oh, a stranger here; are you, sir? I wish you could have seen it. Dolores is the genius – her and Dot. I’m only the under-stander. I would come rolling and somersaulting in, and stand. Then Dolores’d come dancing in and take what looked like a standing jump – I gave her a hand-up – on to my shoulders, so we stood balanced. Then, in comes poor little Dot, and jumps; first on to my shoulder, then on to Dolores’ shoulder from mine, and so on to Dolores’ head where Dot stands on her hind legs and dances….

The rain comes down, sir. Dolores has got a cold in the chest. I beg her: ‘Don’t go on, Dolores – don’t do it!’ But nothing will satisfy her, bless her heart: the show must go on. And when we come on, she was burning like a fire. Couldn’t do the jump. I twist sidewise to take the weight, but her weight is kind of a deadweight, poor girl! My ankle snaps, and we tumbles.

Tried to make it part of the act – making funny business, carrying the girl in my arms, hopping on one foot, with good old Dot dancing after us.

That was the end of us in Wettendene. Jolly Jumbo says to us: ‘Never was such luck. The brick-eater’s bust a tooth. The mermaid’s good and dead. The strong-man has strained hisself … and I’m not sure but that blacksmith won’t be on my trail, with a few pals, for that fi’-pun note. I’ve got to leave you to it, Alph, old feller. I’m off to Portsmouth.’

I said: ‘And what about my girl? I’ve only got one hand and one foot, and she’s got a fever.’

He said: ‘Wait a bit, Alph, just wait a bit. My word of honour, and my Bible oath, I’ll send a sawbones up from Wettendene.’

‘And what about our pay?’ I ask.