The Classical Annex

The Municipal Museum at Bigglesmouth was badly off for Greek and Roman stuff, and the Curator rather neglected what was known as the Classical Annex. So imagine his guilty conscience when one dark afternoon, just as the museum was closing, the custodian came to his office with news of a breakage there. It was like hearing of the death of a worthy but tedious relative. “Not the Early Christian sarcophagus?” he inquired, secretly hoping that it might be.

No, not the sarcophagus nor the nude neither, no, only minor objects.

“Objects? What? More than one breakage?”

“Well, sir, to be quite frank it’s a couple of terracotta items in Wall Case A.”

“Not the Tanagra statuette?” he cried with increasing emotion.

The custodian hastened to assure him that one of the items was not the Tanagra—everyone knew how valuable she was. The other, on the other hand, was.

“The best thing in the room—the only good thing in it. How on earth did it happen? Were you leaning on the case? Were you pointing her out to the public?”

The custodian waxed indignant. Most certainly he had not been pointing her out to the public. There never was any public in the Classical Annex.

“When did the accident happen?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Oh, couldn’t you? That means you haven’t been going your rounds properly.”

Having silenced all criticism, except what came from his own conscience, the Curator snatched up his keys and went to inspect. Crossing the entrance hall of the museum, with frieze entitled Motherly Love, he passed the unique series of wooden churns discovered in the bed of the Biggle, and the reconstruction of the Town Pump. Modern Art opened behind that. Beyond Modern Art was the Classical Annex. It was by far the least attractive room in the museum—stuffy, badly lit, and not too clean. He unlocked Wall Case A. Alas and alas! The Tanagra, a charming little girl, had fallen, pedestal and all, and chipped her pretty hat. The other statuette

—a bearded Etruscan thing—had suffered even more, but this did not signify, as the City Council had been told that he was bad.

“You can go now, I will let myself out,” he told the custodian, “and you had better think over what you propose to say to the Committee on Thursday. See! There is dust on the arm of the male statuette. He must have been broken for days.”

Alone in the museum, he examined the wall case carefully, and discovered several further breakages. A small plaque representing a nymph had cracked, and an Apis bull had slid towards it, toppling onto its nose.

Misfortunes tended to come in pairs—and as for the two terracottas it was almost as if they had picked their way to their common doom. With delicate fingers he tidied up the shelves, and was about to take the damaged objects to his office, and consider how best they might be repaired, when there was a tinkle behind him. The fig-leaf attached to the nude in the centre of the room had fallen onto the floor.

“Really, the things might be alive,” he grumbled, picking it up. It was a veritable giant among fig-leaves, the work of a local ironmonger. He did not like to leave it for the charwoman to find it in the morning—employees at Bigglesmouth were easily upset. Owing to its weight, it had chafed through the suspending circlet of string.

The nude, now wholly so for the first time, was a worthless late Roman work, and represented an athlete or gladiator of the non-intellectual type.

He had never liked it, and had reported strongly against purchasing it, and he liked it less than ever in the twilight that began to invade the dingy museum. The City Fathers had wanted something life-sized and cheap, “and they’ve got ’em both, by gad,” he murmured, climbing fastidiously upon a chair, with the fig-leaf swinging from a new piece of string, and thinking how much more personable was his own son Denis than this classical lout.

“Scrap-heap’s the place for you,” he said, as he embraced the stone buttocks and fastened the string above them. “Broken up for road metal—

that’s all you’re worth.” Stepping down, he gazed at his handiwork. The fig-leaf didn’t hang right—tilted out unsuitably. He quite lost his temper. Why should his time be wasted over all this rubbish? And clenching his fist he hit it hard. It fell into position with a ping. Dusting his hands against one another, he went back to the two statuettes.

He had put them for safety on the plush couch, at least a foot apart. Now they lay together, and, queerer still, appeared to have stuck. He had never known terracottas stick before—probably the result of the damp Bigglesmouth climate—and he felt quite despairful—everything he turned his back on seemed to go wrong. Would he never get home to his tea? As he bent down to separate them, he heard a string snap, and the fig-leaf whizzed across the room. It might have killed him. “Damn and blast you, that’s too much,” he cried, then shrieked, and leapt into the Early Christian sarcophagus. He was not an instant too soon. The nude had cracked off its pedestal and was swaying to fall on him.

With rare presence of mind, the Curator made the sign of the Cross, and the Classical Annex and all its contents became instantly still. It might have been a dream but for an obscene change in the statue’s physique. He gazed from his asylum in horror. He glanced at the fig-leaf, now all too small. He backed away from it, crossing himself constantly, he could still see it from

Modern Art, it was even prominent from among the oaken churns, he did not lose sight of it until he sidled under Motherly Love. Then he ran—yes, he did run. He let himself out of the museum, not forgetting to lock it carefully behind him as you may well imagine, then he rushed over Coronation Square and down Bonfire Street, where he boarded a municipal tram.

The Curator was no materialist, like too many savants of the nineteenth century. Oxford had taught him to admit the supernatural willingly, and he wasted no time in indignation or brooding. As soon as his natural terror subsided and one particular apparition ceased to threaten him, he began to think what should be done. Clearly something was loose in the Classical Annex, some obscene breath from the past, and it might not be impossible to convince the City Fathers of this, for they were God-fearing men. They did not really care for Greek and Roman stuff, and had only been tempted to the nude by its cheapness. “You never know where young people may not pick up dirty thoughts,” Councillor Bodkin had said, when they sent the order to the ironmonger. Once get them impressed and all would be easy.

His best plan, he decided, would be to close the museum on his own authority, and wire for one or two friends of his, eminent experts, whose names would intimidate the Mayor. Sir Newton Surtees the great speleologist, Canon Bootle Anderson who exposed the behaviourists, Dame Lucy Ironside, president of the Self-Health Association and organizer of the World Retention Movement—these were not inconsiderable figures, and their outlook was his own. In their presence the museum should be unsealed. If nothing was found—and he was well aware how impish the powers of darkness can be—he would resign his post and they would find him a new one. If anything was found, steps should be taken to exorcise the town and to dispose of the nude as a Priapus to some connoisseur.

It was night when he left the tram, but the walk down Michaelmas Avenue held no terrors for him. He had thought the thing out, with a mind

both powerful and modern, and wiping his spectacles he looked calmly into the lighted doorway of his residence, and into the pale blue eyes of his wife.

“Hullo, dear, where’s Denis?” she said.

“Denis? I don’t know.”

“He went to meet you.”

“Did he? I must have passed him in the tram.”

“You don’t usually take the tram. What a nuisance, now he will probably rush all the way down, foolish boy, and he’s practically nothing on but his football shorts. They’ve won that match and he wanted to tell you.”

“Well, when he’s rushed down he’ll rush back.”

“Unless he looks for you in the museum.”

“He can scarcely do that,” said the Curator quietly. “The museum is locked up.”

“Oh yes he can, dear. He snatched up your duplicate keys. I couldn’t stop him. He’s getting awfully headstrong and excitable—dear, whatever’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He rang the museum up and got Number Unobtainable.

While his wife was preparing tea, he slipped out of the house. He reminded himself that it was only a statue, and a debased one right away in the Classical Annex, where Denis was unlikely to go. He compelled himself to keep calm, while running at full speed up Michaelmas Avenue and down Bonfire Street, until he was again in Coronation Square.

The museum squatted on the margin like a toad. He inserted a key into its skin, oilily, and it received him. None of the lights were on, which gave him hope. Then far away he heard a familiar, an adorable sound: a giggle. Denis was laughing at something. He dared not call out or give any sign, and crept forward cautiously, guiding himself by well-known objects, like the oaken churns, until he heard his son say, “Aren’t you awful?” and there was the sound of a kiss. Gladiatorial feints, post-classical suctions, a brute planning its revenge. There was not a moment to lose, and as the giggling started

again and soared up into hysterics against a ground-bass of grunts the Curator stepped into the Christian sarcophagus and made the sign of the Cross. Again it worked. Once more the Classical Annex and all its contents became still.

Then he switched on the light.

And in after years a Hellenistic group called The Wrestling Lesson became quite a feature at Bigglesmouth, though it was not exhibited until the Curator and the circumstances of his retirement were forgotten. “Very nice piece, very decent” was Councillor Bodkin’s opinion. “Look ’ow the elder brother’s got the little chappie down. Look ’ow well the little chappie’s taking it.”

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