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Christopher Hampton

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The Man With The Club-Foot

He talks to himself, and splutters when he speaks;
Clumps mumbling down the bare wooden stairs,
In labour, sideways, lugging his booted club-foot.
Fifty, balding, tall, and partly deaf, he bears
His defects without grudge — though sometimes (if upset)
He’ll stamp round shouting at himself and slamming doors.
In this mood, a fury which is almost madness in him breaks.

Next to me in his two-roomed basement flat
He lives alone. But he doesn’t shut himself away.
Up at six each morning, he serves at the parish church,
Then works from nine till five for the SPCK,
Dragging home tired at six. And if he suffers much
From being a cripple, he tries to live actively —
Trading on no one, refusing to think of defeat.

I see him muttering away, as if to a friend,
Alone in the street, in his kitchen. At first
When I heard him, at it high-pitched in the bathroom,
Humming again and again a single note interspersed
With snarls of self-scorn, I felt alarmed. But for him
These fits are salves, and bring calm — pent pressures dispersed.
Loneliness, impotence, rage, are eased off his mind.

He wants no one’s pity; knows that it would never pay
To go round begging it, from us or himself.
He can laugh, likes people, has friends in to tea
(Though in rooms he seldom cleans) and except with himself
Is always good-tempered. Knowing how gentle he can be
With children, I accept his moods and count him safe,
Although in his kitchen at night the rabid voices bray.

 

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