Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours,
that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers
and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous,
anybody could tell he didn’t belong - belong to the early
summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the
holiday crowd. They came in by train from Victoria every
five minutes, rocked down Queen’s Road standing on the
tops of the little local trams, stepped off in bewildered
multitudes into fresh and glittering air: the new silver
paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away
into the west like a pale Victorian water-colour; a race in
miniature motors, a band playing, flower gardens in
bloom below the front, an aeroplane advertising some-
thing for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.
It had seemed quite easy to Hale to be lost in Brighton.
Fifty thousand people besides himself were down for the
day, and for quite a while he gave himself up to the good
day, drinking gins and tonics wherever his programme
allowed. For he had to stick closely to a programme:
from ten till eleven Queen’s Road and Castle Square,
from eleven till twelve the Aquarium and Palace Pier,
twelve till one the front between the Old Ship and West
Pier, back for lunch between one and two in any res-
taurant he chose round the Castle Square, and after that
he had to make his way all down the parade to the West
Pier and then to the station by the Hove streets. These
were the limits of his absurd and widely advertised
sentry-go.
Advertised on every Messenger poster: ‘Kolley Kibber
in Brighton to-day.’ In his pocket he had a packet of
cards to distribute in hidden places along his route;
those who found them would receive ten shillings from
the Messenger y but the big prize was reserved for whoever
challenged Hale in the proper form of words and with a
copy of the Messenger in his hand: ‘You are Mr Kolley
Kibber. I claim the Daily Messenger prize. ’
This was Hale’s job to do sentry-go, until a challenger
released him, in every seaside town in turn: yesterday
Southend, to-day Brighton, to-morrow
He drank his gin and tonic hastily as a clock struck
eleven and moved out of Castle Square. Kolley Kibber
always played fair, always wore the same kind of hat as
in the photograph the Messenger printed, was always on
time. Yesterday in Southend he had been unchallenged :
the paper liked to save its guineas occasionally, but not
too often. It was his duty to-day to be spotted - and it
was his inclination too. There were reasons why he didn’t
feel too safe in Brighton, even in a Whitsun crowd.
He leant against the rail near the Palace Pier and
showed his face to the crowd as it uncoiled endlessly past
him, like a twisted piece of wire, two by two, each with
an air of sober and determined gaiety. They had stood
all the way from Victoria in crowded carriages, they
would have to wait in queues for lunch, at midnight half
asleep they would rock back in trains to the cramped
streets and the closed pubs and the weary walk home.
With immense labour and immense patience they
extricated from the long day the grain of pleasure : this
sun, this music, the rattle of the miniature cars, the ghost
train diving between the grinning skeletons under the
Aquarium promenade, the sticks of Brighton rock, the
paper sailors’ caps.
Other Graham Greene songs:
all Graham Greene songs all songs from 1938