he: A Novel(3)

5


Fred Karno, Fred Karno, what manner of beast are you?

An anarchist on the stage, a purveyor of farce and mummery; but an authoritarian off it, an enforcer of rules. The greatest impresario of the British music halls, and a genius in the business of pantomime burlesque, but too blinded by his own legend to see that the Karsino, his Tagg’s Island resort folly in the River Thames, will die with those same music halls, and The House That Karno Built, his great lair on Southwark’s Camberwell Road, will lead him into bankruptcy. A husband with an eye for other women, around whom rumors of domestic brutality swirl like a London Particular.

But he loves Fred Karno, the Guv’nor. When he wishes to leave A.J.’s employ, it is Fred Karno to whom he turns. A.J. is disapproving – Fred Karno is not A.J.’s kind of man – but A.J. does not stop him.

So you’re funny? Fred Karno remarks. Says who?

– They laugh at what I do.

– Who laughs?

– The Audience.

– And what does the Audience know? The Audience will laugh at a cat being burned. The Audience will laugh because others are laughing. Never trust the Audience.

– The Audience laughs because I’m funny.

If Fred Karno permits, he will show Fred Karno, even here in this cluttered theater office, more grim than grand, and smaller than A.J.’s. He will show Fred Karno, and he will make Fred Karno laugh like the rest.

Do you think so? Fred Karno says.

– I do.

Fred Karno considers. Fred Karno regards the slow accretion of sand upon the shore, and the rise and fall of mountains. The clock in the corner marks the seconds of Fred Karno’s life, and Fred Karno’s life alone.

Well, a man that knows his own mind is good enough for me, says Fred Karno, at last. Find Mr O’Neill. Ask him to explain what’s required of you.

What is required is slapstick. What is required is falling down and getting up again. What is required is not choking on paint and custard. Up to Manchester with Mumming Birds, ￡2 a week, a foot soldier in Fred Karno’s Army, solely on his word to Fred Karno that he is funny.

Fred Karno knows, though. Fred Karno has eyes and ears: his own, and those of others.

And Fred Karno has Chaplin.

Already it is clear to Fred Karno, clear to all, that Chaplin is different: touched by god, but which god? There is discipline to Chaplin’s anarchy, just as there is to Fred Karno’s, but Fred Karno is human, in his gifts as much as in his failings, while Chaplin is beyond human in both. Chaplin believes in himself, but nothing else. Chaplin will not stay with Fred Karno. Chaplin is simply passing through, and will always be so.

Chaplin is the best that he has ever seen.

And Chaplin is the worst.

There is no joy in Chaplin, or none beyond what Chaplin can generate in others.

Chaplin feeds and feeds, but Chaplin remains forever hungry.

Chaplin, as an artist, must be perfect because Chaplin, as a man, is so flawed.





6


At the Oceana Apartments, he conjures Babe: the grace of him, the gentleness, the ability of one so vast to carry himself as though the excesses of his flesh are hollow within, so that only his willpower keeps him in touch with the ground.

Babe tells tales against himself, of the implausibility of his brief boyhood attendance at the Georgia Military College, turning the horror of it into a skit, an opportunity to perfect his pratfalls. But when a voice suggests that this would make a fine two-reeler, Babe veers away, moving on to his days singing in Florida nightclubs, his bulk like an anchor to be dragged everywhere behind him.

Fatty Hardy, the Ton of Jollity.

Babe: invent the tale of a barber slapping your cheeks, comparing you to a little baby. Share it over and over, so that it concretizes in the telling and lends you a new name.

Babe Hardy.

Babe.

Not Fatty or Chubby, not Roly or Dumpy, not Lardy or Blimpy or Butterball.

Just Babe.

Keep smiling, and they will keep smiling.

Keep laughing, and they will laugh.

Keep moving, keep dancing, keep adding layers to the legend, and your truth will pass unnoticed among them, because all they will see is what you tell them they are seeing.





7


Chaplin stares at the name of the ship.

The Cairnrona, Chaplin says. We’re all doomed.

It is September, 1910. He is walking behind Chaplin at Southampton docks, trying to keep pace with the older man because Chaplin knows the world and he wishes to know it also. Chaplin was with Fred Karno in Paris, and speaks of the women fucked in brothels, and the dancers charmed from the stage of the Folies Bergère and into Chaplin’s bed – or those claimed to have been charmed, because Alf Reeves says that nothing about Chaplin can be believed, not if it comes from the man’s own mouth. But he wants to believe Chaplin, wants to be like him, wants to be him. Chaplin dresses like a star, and tells the world of the star Chaplin is, and the brighter star Chaplin will become, the brightest ever. Chaplin has decreed it, and so it shall be written.

– What about it?

It is Fred Karno, Jr who speaks. Fred Karno, Jr and Alf Reeves have the task of corralling the fifteen-strong herd for the American tour. Fred Karno, Jr will have to account to his father for every penny spent, and the Guv’nor has delivered warnings about Chaplin. If a way could be found to do so, Chaplin would have booked himself a stateroom for the crossing, and left the rest to sleep beneath the firmament, rain or shine.