“Jack Tait was an achondroplastic dwarf, twenty-four years old, with a handsome head and a normal torso, but tiny arms and legs. His partner, Davis, was a melancholy young man, six feet six inches tall. They were billed as The Long And The Short Of It, and were to be paid twenty-five dollars for this afternoon’s work.”
This unforgettable story by one of Belfast’s all-time greats gives us a day in the life of an acrobat named Tait. Dressed in baggy checked trousers and a “tiny tailcoat”, Tait paints a clown grin and star-shaped dimples on his face, readying himself for the afternoon’s performance.
The audience comprises eight-hundred children with a range of physical disabilities. (The terms used to describe the children are hugely outdated and offensive, the story first published in 1957). In addition to Tait and his acrobatic partner Davis, the day’s line-up includes: Tommy Manners, an overweight accordionist whose “great rump bumped against Tait’s forehead”; Len the balloonist, wearing “a magenta suit with silver lapels”; Arnoldi, the alcoholic magician, and his partner Doris, who distracts the men with her “black-meshed legs and comely hips”.
Top marks to Moore for the character line-up, each perfectly poised on the tragicomic tightrope. As Tait prepares to go on stage, he’s verbally abused by his fellow performers. Davis and Doris call him “Shorty” while Arnoldi calls him “runt”. Moore’s unflinching prose is clean as a bone. The discrimination is awful – and far too believable.
What’s wonderful about this story is the awe with which the disabled children observe Tait on-stage. They watch him with wonder, smiling at “the pratfalls, the somersaults, the running and the catching.” Tait was the children’s favourite – “the lion of the afternoon” – and this story by Moore brings him to life.
Moore was a multi-award-winning novelist, shortlisted three times for the Booker prize; as a short story writer he’s renowned as one of the masters of the form. ‘Lion of the Afternoon’ is a shocking story about a complex character. With empathy and courage, Moore somersaults onto terrain most writers wouldn’t dare to tiptoe.
First published in The Atlantic, November 1957, and available to read here. Collected in The Dear Departed, Turnpike, 2020
A Personal Anthology 