The Grin of the Dark

FOUR - LISTS

Tubby Thackeray

Date of birth (location)

1880?

England

Date of death (details)

?

Mini biography

Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he (show more)

Actor – filmography

1. Leave 'Em Laughing (1928) (uncredited) ... Driver in traffic jam

2. Tubby Tells the Truth (1920, unreleased)

3. Tubby's Trick Tricycle (1919)

At once I realise something is wrong, though not with the Internet Movie Database. I scroll down the list and try to ignore my neighbour at the adjacent terminal, who is humming under his breath a bunch of notes with which a pianist might accompany a chase in a silent film.

4. Tubby's Tremendous Teeth (1919)

5. Tubby's Tiny Tubbies (1919)

6. Tubby's Telephonic Travails (1919)

7. Tubby Turns Turtle (1918)

8. Tubby Takes the Train (1918)

9. Tubby's Terrible Triplets (1918)

10. Tubby Tackles Tennis (1917)

11. Tubby's Table Talk (1917)

12. Tubby Tattle-Tale (1917)

13. Tubby Tastes the Tart (1916)

14. Tubby's Telepathic Tricks (1916)

15. Tubby's Telescopic Thrill (1916)

16. Tubby's Tinseled Tree (1915)

17. Tubby's Trojan Task (1915)

18. Tubby's Troublesome Trousers (1915)

19. Tubby Turns the Tables (1915)

20. Tubby Tries It On (1914)

21. Tubby the Troll (1914)

22. Tubby's Twentieth-Century Tincture (1914)

23. Just for a Laugh (1914) ... Avoirdupois the Apothecary

24. The Best Medicine (1914) ... Pholly the Pharmacist

Writer – filmography

Leave 'Em Laughing (uncredited gag writer)

Archive footage

Those Golden Years of Fun (1985)

The biography button on the sidebar brings me a reference to Surréalistes Malgré Eux (Éditions Nouvelle Année, 1971). That's all, and in one sense it's more than enough, because the dates in the list are wrong. Whatever ended Thackeray's career, it couldn't have been the Arbuckle scandal. The party at which Fatty caused Virginia Rappe's death began on Labor Day in 1921, the year after Tubby last starred in a film.

Where did I get the idea that the events are connected? From somewhere on the Internet or here in the harsh light of the British Film Institute's reading room? It surely doesn't matter, though I'm irritated that so recent a memory is stored beyond retrieval. I click on the biography link to be shown more. Thackeray Lane began his career in English music hall. After he put on so much weight that a stage collapsed beneath him – after he was banned from theatres for making suggestive jokes about telescopes and tarts – after he turned out to be incapable of uttering a sentence that didn't contain at least a trio of Ts – For all I know, any of these could be the case, because the link doesn't work. I abandon it and search the web for Thackeray Lane.

It's at least two places in England. The name also belonged to a professor of mediaeval history whose papers are archived at Manchester University, but I can find no reference to a comedian. A search for Tubby Thackeray brings me no results at all, and he isn't listed in the library catalogue. The Institute's Summary of Information on Film and Television database lists his films, but the National Film and Television Archive has none of them, not even Those Golden Years of Fun.

I can't quite restrain a sigh, which apparently draws the man who was humming an old tune. He keeps his breath and its burden to himself as he leans over my shoulder. When I glance up, sunlight through the blinds behind him sears my vision. I have the impression that his face is very pale, at least in part, and unnecessarily large, perhaps because he's looming so close. As I blink like an unearthed mole he shuffles out of view beyond the only bookcase, and I head for the counter, above which a screen announces that a copy of Silent Secrets is awaiting a reader called Moore. 'Did you find what you wanted?' the librarian says.

'I was hoping for more, to be honest.' When she tilts her long face up as though her interrogative smile has lifted it I say 'You won't have heard of Tubby Thackeray, by any chance?'

'He does seem to ring a bell.' She ponders and then shakes her head, displacing her smile. 'I must have someone else in mind. I don't think I've heard of him.'

'Some of us have.'

I turn but can't identify the speaker. None of the readers at the tables is looking at me, nor at anyone else for having spoken. I'm not even sure how close the man's voice was. 'What was that?' I ask the librarian.

'I said I haven't heard of him.'

'Not you, the other person.' When she looks perplexed I murmur 'The one who just spoke.'

'I'm afraid I'm not able to help you there.'

How could she have been unaware that someone was talking so loud? I'm about to wonder when I realise that every time I've addressed her she has gazed straight at my lips. 'Sorry, you're, I see,' I babble and swing around to question our audience. 'Tubby Thackeray, anybody?'

Do they think I'm inviting someone to reveal he's the comedian? Nobody betrays the least hint of having spoken earlier. Was it the man who craned over my shoulder? He isn't behind the shelves now. He must have made the comment on his way out. I sprint past the security gate, which holds its peace, into Stephen Street. He isn't there, nor can I see him from the junction with Tottenham Court Road. He should be easily identifiable; he was bulky enough, or his clothes were. Once I tire of gazing at the lunchtime crowds I retrace my frustrated steps. It's the quickest route to meeting Natalie for lunch.

As I turn corner after narrow corner the wind blows away my misty breath. An awning flaps beyond an alley, a sound like footsteps keeping pace with me, except that they would be absurdly large. I dodge across Oxford Street behind a bus full of children with painted faces and sidle through the parade of early Christmas shoppers to Soho Square. In the central garden, around which the railings look darkened by rain that the pendulous sky has yet to release, a loosely overcoated man is opening and closing his wide mouth in a silent soliloquy or a tic.

The Choice Cuts restaurant is across the square, next door to the film censor's offices. Three steps up lead directly into the bar, which is decorated with photographs of people who have had problems with the censor, a signed portrait of Ken Russell beside one of an equally fat-faced Michael Winner. Natalie is at a table in a semicircular booth halfway down the darkly panelled room, under a poster that repeats IT'S ONLY A MOVIE. As soon as she sees me she slides off the padded bench. 'Simon, I tried to call you.'

I forgot to switch my mobile on when I left the library. The table bears two drinks besides hers, and at once I know why she looks apologetic. Her greeting might be the cue for the door marked CENSORED next to the bar to open, revealing her parents. 'Was this place your idea?' Bebe says, perhaps before noticing me. 'Oh, hello, Simon.'

'It was mine,' I say. 'What's wrong with it?'

'I could do without the pictures in the comfort station. Warren says his was just as bad.'

'We were in the West End and we happened to call Natalie,' Warren says, closing a hand around my elbow. 'We can leave if you want to celebrate by yourselves.'

'Don't feel you have to leave when you've got drinks.'

'You'll have one for sure.' When I admit to it and identify it Warren tells the barman 'White wine for our guest.'

'I'll join you in a minute.' I feel driven to discover what offences the Gents may be concealing. The white-tiled room proves to feature framed stills from old sex comedies, of performers whose nakedness is obscured by their embraces. There's even the odd nipple, but nothing to hinder my using the nearest urinal. I'm distracted only by a flapping beyond the high window. Is it an injured bird? It sounds more like someone with outsize flat feet repeatedly leaping to try and peer through the grille of the window. I zip myself up as soon as I can and am nearly at the door when something behind me lets out a harsh rattling breath. Of course I strayed too close to the hand dryer.

Natalie's parents are next to her on the plump bench. Bebe pats the space beside herself. 'We ordered for you,' Warren says. 'We have to be out of here relatively fast. Natalie said what she thought you'd like.'

Does he see any connection between his last two sentences? As I take a mouthful of whatever the house wine is meant to be, his wife says 'So do you think that magazine will give your publisher a problem?'

'He's going to make sure it doesn't. He's my old film tutor.'

'He won't be working for the university any more, then.'

'He is, but now he's editing for them as well.'

'I guess relying on the state is safest.'

'We won't be doing that. An old boy has left them all his money to publish art books that'll sell.'

'Let's hope they do. Here's to his memory.' Warren clinks his glass against his family's and at last mine, at which point he asks 'What's the series you're planning?'

'It isn't a series as such, but I've got quite a few books in my head.'

'We thought you'd been commissioned to write a whole series, didn't we, Warren? Tell us what they're about, then, Simon.'

'I'm working on one about people in film who've fallen from grace.'

'You'll know about that.' Bebe finishes her drink and brandishes a finger and her glass for any waiter to respond, then lowers both in my direction. 'Didn't you write about it for your degree?'

'I did, and now Rufus wants me to expand it for publication.'

'You'll need to change it as much as you're able, I suppose.'

'I don't know why you should say that,' Natalie intervenes. 'I thought it was a good read, and Simon's tutor certainly did.'

'Your mother means he'll need to so the university don't think they're getting stuff they already paid good money for.'

'They won't be,' I say and take advantage of the arrival of a waiter to order another drink. 'I'm researching someone they'll never have heard of.'

'Researching,' Warren says. 'What's that going to cost in time and money?'

'As much as it has to, I should think. They'll be paying my expenses.'

'So long as your grant covers it,' Bebe quite unnecessarily says.

'It isn't a grant,' Natalie objects before I can.

'Grant, expenses, whichever. Money the university will be paying to keep him afloat. Do you have a title, Simon?'

'It's They Made Movies Too.'

'That's what you called your thesis, is it?'

'That was Forgotten Filmmakers,' Natalie says. 'This sounds like a real book.'

Though her parents are no more than silent, it feels discontented. I've no idea what I might be provoked to say if I weren't inhibited by the approach of waiters, one bearing glasses, the other with a tray of lunch. I was expecting an appetiser. I know we would have to be seated at the bar to share Canapé Apocalypse, but I thought the Hallorans might have ordered the mixed starters, In the Realm of the Senses. My kebab platter is called I Spitted Your Fave, while Natalie has ordered Duck à la Clockwork Orange and her father has chosen Last Grouse on the Left. Bebe inhales the aroma of her Mardi Gras Casserole and lifts her face prettily towards the waiter. 'Smells good, but why's it called that?'

'I couldn't say, madam. I'll have to ask.'

'Don't go anywhere,' Bebe says and turns to me. 'Here's the guy who can tell us.'

'I don't know either, sorry.'

'Oh dear. Maybe you don't know as much about the movies as you think.'

However irrational my reaction may be, the presence of the waiter makes Bebe's comment almost physically unbearable. I blank out for a moment as if my brain has crashed. At least when I regain my awareness, nobody seems to have noticed. Natalie's expression includes sympathy and a plea that I shouldn't lose my temper. I unload a skewer with my fork and lay the pointed shaft along the edge of the plate. I won't be responding to Bebe's challenge here or now, but I'll remember it. I'm all the more determined to put myself and Tubby Thackeray back where we should be on the map.