Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

‘Secret?’ I said. ‘There’s no secret about it. It comes to me naturally.

‘A mere gift,’ I added modestly.

I was thinking of some means of extracting myself from Moon’s company. I didn’t like the look of him in the least, desperately afraid of me for some reason.

Suddenly Moon’s will seemed to slump. I said I must go.

‘Don’t go until you’ve told me how you came to know.’ Moon was quite mild now, quite blank.

‘Know what?’ I said impatiently. ‘What have you been drinking?’

‘Either tea or coffee,’ Moon replied, gazing into his cup, for he was extremely truthful. One thing about Moon, he is always very fond of the truth.

‘The uprise of your downfall,’ said Moon. ‘I must say when you came out with it just now, I was fit to bust, but I’ll get over it in a day or two. Only tell me how…’

‘That phrase,’ I said, ‘refers to my downward progress up to the dizzy heights, as they concern the art of letters.’

‘I know,’ said Moon. ‘I mean,’ he added, having conceived a new thought, ‘I think I know.’

I said, ‘What are you talking about and why are you talking in italics?’

‘You say first,’ said Moon suspiciously, ‘what you’re talking about.’

‘Nothing doing,’ I said mysteriously — because I’d begun to get interested in the thing in Moon’s mind.

‘Well,’ said Moon, ‘it’s the Moon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, because I never have scruples about artistic lies.

Moon breathed a long draught of invisible nourishment from the air, then sighed it out again.

‘Anything else?’ Moon inquired.

‘Hampstead,’ I ventured, remembering that this word had started him off.

‘Ah,’ said Moon. ‘Well, now, I’ll tell you the true story, because whoever told you the secret has ten to one told you the wrong thing. You’ll get the truth from me.

Before I tell you Moon Biglow’s story, I must tell you something about him. He’s the sort of friend whose family and background you know nothing about. I always felt he came from Ireland or Chicago or somewhere like that — because of the name, rather strange, of Moon Biglow. Moon must be about forty, and he describes himself as a freelance, which I suppose means journalism once a month. The strange thing is, I can’t remember where I first met Moon. It was probably at a party. I must have known him for ten years. I would often see him in Kensington High Street in the late morning, short and fair and dressed in brown. His face is small, but his features are big, a pleasant face. I doubt if I shall see it again for some time, for Moon has left London now.

Well, to get back to the story that Moon Biglow told me when I was downcast about my downfall rising up.

‘I used to live at Hampstead,’ said Moon. ‘That was just after the Flood.’

‘Did they have a flood?’ I said. ‘When would that be?’

‘The Flood,’ said Moon. ‘I mean Noah’s Flood — the big one. You just listen to me. I’m telling no lies.

‘I lived at Hampstead just after the Flood. Of course, it was very different then, but there was a pleasant little society of people — long before the palaeolithic savages appeared, of course. The son of Noah called Ham begat this particular crowd — hence the name Hampstead. There were six of us,’ said Moon, ‘six to begin with — later seven. Of course, we were total strangers to the place, but everyone made us welcome.’

‘Where had you come from?’ I asked.

‘The Moon,’ said Moon. ‘You know that very well. Don’t interrupt me with insincere questions. We came of our own free will on the Downfall of our Uprise, and we settled at Hampstead; seeing it was the most civilized place on the globe in the post-Flood years. It was almost like the Moon — of course, the Moon has changed since then, but I remember the Moon in her prime. She was a beauty to live on. Still, we left her and came to settle in Hampstead.

‘The nice thing about the people,’ said Moon, ‘was their discretion. They never inquired why we came, they simply accepted us.

‘After the first eighteen months, when the ice was broken, we told them why we had come to the earth. We got the Mayor of Hampstead and his wife to call a meeting at the Town Hall. That was where Keats’s house is now. I wrote out my speech and learnt it by heart. Of course, I was more eloquent in those days than I am now. I still remember every word.

“‘Friends, brothers and sisters,” I said, “The Six Brothers of the Moon give you greeting, and beg the privilege, nay the honour, of addressing your inmost hearts. There will, brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, — there will come a time when these words will no longer reverberate new and thrilling to the ear. And why? Will your progeny, generation upon generation, remain unmoved by a brotherly appeal to the heart of man? No. Why then, will they shun and mock at such a speech as I deliver to you this evening? — For upon my prophetic honour, they will do so. They. will call it, my friends, empty rhetoric. They will term it by the names of blah, drip, ham, and bloody awful.

“‘That things should not be otherwise than thus, my brothers and my sisters, is in the nature of this earth, your home. I need not dwell on the cycles of birth, growth, decay and death, which you sum up in your profound philosophy, ‘Nothing lasts long.’ It is the same, my dear children, with all expressions of life, and if I may say so without offence to that tenderness, that ineffable refinement of spirit which I perceive within you, your language is in a shocking condition. As for your art, it does not exist.

“‘Sisters, we are come from the Moon to teach you the language of poetry. Brothers, we are here on what you might term an art mission.”‘

At this point Moon Biglow stopped talking and took a large bite from a Chelsea bun. As you can imagine, I was somewhat puzzled by his story. If you had met Moon Biglow, you would never doubt the sincerity of the man. There was something very honest, also, about the way he was eating the bun; it seemed as undebatable as the story he was telling. Of course, I wanted to question him, but decided this might put him off. As a provisional measure, I worked it out that either he was mad or that he was not mad.

‘What happened next?’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Moon, ‘I finished my speech, shook hands with the gentlemen, kissed all the ladies, and went home to bed.’

I could see that somehow I had hurt Moon’s feelings.

‘Do tell me what transpired,’ I said urgently.

‘I am not mad,’ said Moon; then he continued his story.

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Moon, ‘the whole race of Hampstead was dying out from the sheer lack of something to do in its spare time. They had only one recreation. In the evenings they would get together at the local Welfare Centre. All they did was to sit on the floor and chant. The chant went like this: Tum tum ya, tum tum ya — the same thing over and over again. Nothing else. Just tum tum ya the whole evening until they were tired. And it was the same every night. Naturally, at this rate, the race was beginning to die out.

‘Well, we put it to them that what we had to offer was a very good thing. We proposed to set up a playhouse at Hampstead, and give nightly performances for a small fee. We proposed to bring them the Changing Drama of the Moon. I told them,’ said Moon. ‘“Once you have seen and heard the Changing Drama of the Moon,” I said, “you will never more be content, my friends, with your own national classic, the Unchanging Tum tum ya. It is not,” I added, “that we of the Moon do not hold the classical tradition in the greatest possible reverence. But you will have observed amongst yourselves that the time-honoured tum tum ya no longer possesses the power to keep you interested in life. Many of your youth have died from the disease of boredom. No babies have been born for the past two years.