FACE VALUE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 11 (Supplement)

FACE VALUE

T WAS talking to the Life and 1 Soul when I first saw her. I ought not to have noticed her really, because the Life and Soul would have taken your attention off anything. Tlie Life and Soul used to slap your back every five minutes. He used to dig you in the ribs and call you Old Son. He was always filling your glass for you and running things for you. If you said you thought you'd spend liic afternoon at the Roman Camp he'd cnlmly alter it all for you. He'd tell you it was much better at Lavender Ferry. Better beer at a better pub and all that sort of thing. He'd tell you where the bus started. He'd put your hat on and take yon to the bus. He'd shove you on the bus. And, however much you might want to see the Roman Camp, you'd finish up for tlie afternoon at Lavender Ferry. He wan the most Life and Soul person I'd ever met. He would tell you funny stories by the million, and he was always the first to see his own jokes. He'd roar with laughter at 'em and stick h?3 finger in your ribs and say: "See the po'.ii!. Old Son? You don't see the point, Old Son, do you?" He'd organise games in the evening. If you thought of a game he'd think of a much better one and wash yours right out. His games were real rompy

games. You usually ended by smashing a chair, but he'd only roar with laughter and pay for the chair and tell a funny story about the time whe« he broke a chair in Torquay. Everything reminded him of funny stories. If a, dog bit you, it reminded him of a funn/ ttory about a man who was bitten by a dog. If a dog didn't bite you, it reminded him of a man

who *Mn't bitten by a dog. If there was absolutely nothing whatever to do, it would remind him of a funny story. And he'd thump your back all over again and toll you to cheer up, Old son, you'd soon be dead, Old Son, ha! ha!

—By Will Scott

Which would remind him of a funny story. So you'll realise it was very difficult to realise there was anybody else at all in the boarding house except the Life and Soul. In fact, I don't suppose I'd have noticed the woman at all but for the fact that I knew her. Well, when I say knew her I don't mean I knew her at all, because I didn't. At least. . . . Well, it was very difficult, anyway. He Could Not Remember Her I didn'4 like to go up to her and ask her who she was. But I was absolutely certain that if I didn't know her well I had known her well, once upon a time. The trouble was I couldn't remember where, I couldn't remember when and I didn't know what her name was. And, although I 6tared hard at her a good many times, she didn't seem to know me at all. She was about the most miserable woman I have ever seen, I think. Drooping mouth, drooping eyelids, sighing all day, knitting, speaking to nobody. It gave you the doo-dahs just to look at her.

And that was a remarkable thing. I didn't know people who gave you the doo-dahs. But I knew her! It worried me. I always swank I've got a good memory for faces and names, but I couldn't fix her face in any particular spot, and I couldn't remember her name at all. I tried going over names to see if one would stick to her. Gladys, Mabel, Audrey, Jones, Smith, Emma, Robinson, Jane, Cleveland-Cleve-land, Muriel. No good. I couldn't place her. So then I tried all the places I'd lived in to see if I could stick a pin through her in that way. Bristol, Brighton, Greenwich, Billericay, Dover, Henley, Twickenham, Highgate, Birmingham. Not a ha'p'orth of use. She didn't tie up to any of those places, and I've never lived anywhere else. It began to get on my nerves, because you don't like to think your brain's going, even if it is, do you? Here was a woman I knew perfectly well, who didn't connect up with any place in which I'd ever lived, whose name I didn't know, and who didn't know me. I thought perhaps if I could speak to her I might be able to place her. But I was sitting on the other side of the room, and I'd feel a fool if I crossed right over with everybody watching

and she gave me t"ie bird. What I wanted was an excuse for crossing right over. So I got up and said I'd sing. And I went to the piano and sang. Just one song. Then the Life and Soul was down on me like a ton of kisses. "Fine, Old Son! Wonderful, Old Son!" he said, thumping my shoulder-blade out of place. "Have a cigar, Old Son. Have two cigars, Old Son. Which reminds me of a funny story." And he told us a funny story and screamed with laughter when he came to the point. Then he sat down at the piano. "Now. here's a song. Old Son," he said. And he sang 20, bellowing out the choruses till they began to come along from the other end of the promenade to listen to him outside the house. Still, it gave me a chance to sheer off, and I went and sat beside her. "Pleasant evening," said I. She sighed. "Keeps warm," said I. She sighed. "Nice little town," said L She sighed.

So I gave up and went and had one. Surely to Pete, I thought, I couldn't ever have known anything like thatT But it kept on worrying me, all the same. I went home next day, after saying good-bye to the Life and Soul of everybody. and coming up in the train something suddenly seemed to hit me. Shepherd's Bush! The Most Miserable Woman on Earth and Shepherd's Bush. That was the connecting link —Shepherd's Bush! But that was a new puzzle, because I had never lived in Shepherd's Bush, and I scarcely knew the place. Why, it must be 20 years since I was last there. Twenty years . . . But He Got It at Last Yes, I used to go visiting a chap who had rooms there, 20 years ago. But he was the only person I had known in Shepherd's Bush. I hadn't known her in Shepherd's Bush, I was pretty certain. And yet the thing stuck in my mind. The Most Miserable Woman on Earth and Shepherd's Bush. Well, it worried me so much that the next evening I went out to Shepherd's Bush to see if this chap was still there and could gii'e me a band at solving the puzzle. And not a hundred yards from the station I got it! There was the same old little photographer's shop, founded 55 8.C., with the same old photographs and the same old dead flies in the window that there used to be 20 years ago. With the same old picture of her in the middle, the picture that I used to stop and stare at once a week on my way to this chap's rooms. That's how I knew her. I stopped and looked at it again. Twenty years younger she was in the photograph. Smiling and happy and cheerful, with her bride's veil and her orange blossoms and her bouquet. The Most Clieesful Woman on Earth. Cuddling her bridegroom's arm . . . I had another peep at him. He had a moustache then, and was much thinner, but there was no doubt about it. It was the same man. So she was Mrs. Life and Sord. And had been for 20 years. Well, I heaved a sigh myself.