‘She lives in Ealing now. We didn’t get on. Let me do it.’
I tried to take the apron off him but of course he had to put it round my waist and tie it. When he had finished it his arms got back round my waist.
‘Did I tell you you were pretty?’
‘. . . watch the toast.’
‘Well it isn’t true any more. Now you’re beautiful.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I slid round the side of the stove.
‘It’s too true. Because now you’re pale – and tired. It fines off the shape of your face, makes just the difference.’ He kissed the back of my neck.
‘Terry, if you do that I shall go home.’
‘Why?’
I pulled the toast out, put it on the table and began to cut the crusts off. ‘Have you made the coffee?’
‘Why will you go home if I do that?’
‘I just feel that way.’
He was still standing near by. A lot too near by. ‘I don’t think I’m exactly well acquainted with you yet, Mary. I don’t at all know how you tick.’
‘Just like anyone else. Tick-tock-tick-tock.’
‘No, you’re not like anyone else. I’ve – well, to put it in a genteel way, I’ve had my adventures. Girls, women, not to exaggerate, my dear, are not exactly a closed book to me. But you’re not like them. Your mechanism’s different.’
‘I expect it’s the hairspring. Could you turn off the grill, please.’
He reached back and switched it off without ever taking his eyes from me. ‘Bury me deep if I lay claim to too much, my dear, but with most women I know – I’d know what they’d do or say if I made a pass at them – I’d know it before they knew themselves – I’d know if they were willing. Not you.’
‘Here’s your plate – careful, it’s hot.’
We went back into the living-room and started in on breakfast. He was quite right about one thing; I was hungry. I ate like I was hungry in spite of feeling on a knife edge. He kept looking at me. Opposite me like this, his face was pear shaped. It wasn’t a nice face but it was an interesting face. It was wild and sly and very, very alert. I felt scared, and a bit mad at being stared at. I wished I’d never come.
‘Mary, can I say something very, very rude?’
‘I can’t stop you.’
‘Well, you could slap my face.’ He pushed out his lip. ‘This is what I’m going to say, if I may. I know your husband has been dead for only a short time but . . . well, you don’t look like a married woman.’
The light from the window had got brighter while this was going on, and the room with its card-table and its empty glasses and its full ashtrays was a pretty ghastly sight. I got up.
‘Well, I think that’s a good cue for me to go home.’
He got up too and came round the table. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘What for?’
‘This is the best side to slap. The other side is already well coloured behind the ear.’
It was the first time he’d mentioned his mark. I said: ‘Why should I? It’s only your opinion.’
‘You could prove me so wrong.’
‘I could but, thank you, I still think of Jim.’
His eyes were a sort of gum colour – that gum you get in grip-spreaders for office use. Only it wasn’t thinking of offices that made them like that.
‘I wish you’d slap my face.’
‘Why?’
‘D’you remember Through the Looking Glass and the Queen who cried before she pricked her finger?’
‘I never read it.’
‘Women usually slap men – if they feel that way – after they’ve been kissed. I thought you might like to try before. It would be a variation.’
My heart was going now. ‘No, thank you. But will you ring for a taxi?’
I made to step away but he got his arms around me very expertly and nearly squeezed the breath out of me. Then as I jerked my face away he began to kiss my neck. I put my hands on his chest and when he felt the pressure he stopped and let me go to arm’s length, but still held me round the waist. I nearly forgot my new voice then and let him hear the way I could really talk the Queen’s English. But I had to get out of it nicely if I could.
‘Consider yourself slapped.’
He said: ‘Sorry, beautiful, but you really are enticing. And you bend like a wand. Like a wand. Shall I say something else?’
‘Yes. Good night.’
‘It’s morning. And very early in the morning like this, after not having been in bed all night, is a delicious time to make love. You’re tired and relaxed and your skin’s cool and slightly damp, and there’s nobody, nobody, nobody awake. Have you tried it?’
‘I will sometime.’
‘Nothing doing now?’
I tried to smile and shook my head. ‘Nothing doing.’
‘One kiss ere we part?’
Oh, well . . . he looked clean and healthy. ‘And then you’ll get a taxi?’
‘Sure will.’
I turned my face up to his and he put his lips against mine. Then instead of it being just a kiss it grew and grew. His lips and tongue were wet and thrusting all over my lips and clenched teeth. I jerked my head away violently, trying not to be sick. I must have caught his nose with my cheek-bone because he let me go suddenly and I nearly fell down on the floor. I clutched hold of a chair and looked at him and he was rubbing his nose and looking at me in a way that put the fear of God into me. It really did. I saw my coat on the chair and grabbed it up and my bag beside it and walked to the door. I fumbled about with the catch, all fingers and thumbs, thinking he was just behind me. The door opened somehow and I was out and had slammed it shut. Then I beat it down the steps at full speed and got out into the cold morning air, rubbing my mouth with the back of my hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
I wondered if I ought to give in my notice and leave. I wondered a lot about it. I expect it would be small change to most women, just a kiss in a flat. But I didn’t like it at all. I felt sick every time I thought of it, and I didn’t want to meet him again.
He didn’t turn up at the firm that Saturday at all. Dawn said: ‘Where did you get to last night; I thought you was coming when we went?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The MacDonalds took me home.’
‘Oh. Very a la. I didn’t think she was pretty, did you? My life, didn’t his Lordship have an eye for you! Where’d you get that frock? – really, you are a dark horse.’
When Terry came on the Monday he didn’t look the side I was on, and that suited me fine, if it would just stay like that. All the same I felt pretty unsettled all that week – until the following Monday when I was transferred to the reorganized cash office in the main works. Then the sight of all the money I would be handling soothed me like a tranquillizer.
There was a lot of extra work to do that week. I was technically ‘under’ Susan Clabon, but in fact I’d had a rise in salary and was on equal terms with her. The same week a holiday list was posted up in the main office. Susan Clabon at once put down for the fortnight beginning Saturday 10 September, so I wrote my name in for the following fortnight. She would be due back on the 26th. I began to work on these dates.
On the Thursday I was alone in the office when Mark Rutland came in. He went to the safe and put some books in, and as he passed on his way out he dropped a ticket on my desk. I stared at it.
He said: ‘Just in case you’re really interested.’
It was a ticket for the National Rose Society’s show. I looked up at him in real surprise, nothing pretended.
‘Oh, thank you. You shouldn’t have bothered, Mr Rutland.’
‘No bother.’
‘Well, thank you.’
At the door he said: ‘First day’s the best. But then you can hardly get there, can you. They’re still pretty good on Saturday afternoon.’
He’d hardly spoken to me except in the way of business since I came. And after all, nothing could be more innocent than being given a ticket for a flower show.
After he’d gone out I took up a compact and powdered my nose. I exchanged a look with myself in the mirror. I was imagining things.
The only rose I had ever had was the dusty rambler that bloomed every year in the back yard at Plymouth; but it always got smothered with greenfly and fizzled out. It used to make me wonder about that song, ‘Roses of Picardy’ and why anyone should bother to go nasal and wet-eyed about a plant as feeble as the rose I knew. I’ve never had any room for things that gave in without a struggle.
Not that ‘Roses of Picardy’ didn’t mean something special to me. One day I’d been watching some men clearing a bombed site in Union Street when they found an old portable gramophone buried in the rubble. They turned it over and laughed, and one of them said: ‘Yur, ducky, you ’ave it.’ I went scuttling home with it and found it still worked, but the only unbroken record in the bottom shelf was ‘Roses of Picardy’ sung by some Irish tenor with adenoids or something. For three years after that I couldn’t afford to buy any others, so I just played that and played it until it was worn out.
I used to come home from school at half past four. Mother and Lucy would be out at work still, and Mother used to leave a paper with the things she wanted, and I’d go shopping. Then I’d get the tea ready, which was usually ham and chips, or kippers, with bread and butter, in time for when they got home about half past six. Always I’d play ‘Roses of Picardy’ over and over because it was the only tune I had.
Sundays were sombre because they were all church; but Saturdays, with Mother and Lucy at work, I was free most of the day. Of course it was my job to clean the rooms, but I’d fly through this and be ready to join the others by about ten. We’d go mooching around Plymouth and watch the bulldozers and the builders at work; then when they stopped we’d wriggle under a gate and scavenge around on the site seeing what we could pick up. Sometimes we’d lift off the bricks that hadn’t set and bury the spades and fill the cement mixer with stones. Later we’d walk round the stores, or go into one of the pin-table arcades or find some boys and stand at a corner giggling, or we’d climb up by the railway and throw stones at the trains.
One Saturday, in the February that I was fourteen, I’d been out all day with a pimply girl called June Tredawl, whose mother was doing three months; there’d been these two other girls with us but we’d split up, and all afternoon June and I had been hanging around looking for trouble.
It was a cold day, I remember, with a frosty look, and when we went on the Hoe the sea was grey as a skating rink. We wandered about for a time, kicking our cheap shoes together to keep our feet warm, and talking about all the things we’d like to do if we had money. When we came to the car park we looked over the low wall at the cars. There was every proprietary brand there, from little Austins made before we were born to smart MGs and Rileys.
June said: ‘I’ll dare you to go in and let down the tyres.’
‘Go’n do it yourself.’
‘I’ll give you half a dollar to see you do it.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I’ll give you these stockings as well. I’ll dare you. Are you scared to try?’
‘Be a dope,’ I said. ‘What’s the good of it? It doesn’t help us, so I’m not doing it. See?’
We snarled at each other and walked on. Round the corner there was no one in sight, so we got on the wall and looked over the car park.
June said: ‘Well there, look at that there shoulder bag in the back of that car. I’ll dare you to pinch that, and that’s something we both want!’
This leather shoulder bag was lying on the back seat.
I said: ‘Go on, the flaming car’s locked, and I’m not going to break it open, even for you, you pimply tramp.’
We walked home mauling each other, but when she left me it was still only five and still quite light and I reckoned if I walked back to the car park again it would be going dusk by the time I got there. I didn’t like being dared, and I thought, if I get the bag I’ll show it to her tomorrow.
I walked back and loitered past the car park, and the car hadn’t gone. I walked past twice because I wanted to see where the attendant was. He was at the other end and busy. The third time I climbed over the wall. When I was arguing with June I’d seen that one of the triangular front windows for ventilating didn’t look as if it was quite closed, and sure enough when I sidled up and touched it with a finger it moved on its swivel. If you’ve a small hand it’s easy then to put your fingers in and flick open the catch of the door. Then you stop to squint round the car park at all the silent cars. Then you open the door and lean over to the back seat and grab the shoulder bag.
I hid the thing under my coat and slithered back over the wall. Then I began to run.
It was the first thing I’d stolen since four years ago when Mam had beaten the fear of God into me, and I was in a panic for a time. It wasn’t till I got near home that I really began to feel good. Then I showed the first bit of sense. I remembered that when I was caught before it was because the girl I’d done it with had turned yellow and gave us both away. If June saw the bag I was never really safe any more. I went into a dark alley and looked what was in the bag. There was two pounds eleven and sevenpence and a book of stamps and a cheque book and a handkerchief and a compact.
I took out the money and the stamps and left the rest in and I walked as far as the harbour near the Barbican and dropped the shoulder bag in the sea.
So I went to the Rose Show on that Saturday afternoon. I didn’t care whether I saw the flowers or not, but I thought he might ask if I’d been, and it’s not easy to pretend if you haven’t an idea what a thing looks like.
When I got there I really did get rather a lift out of seeing those masses of banked roses, and I realized my miserable rambler wasn’t much of a specimen to judge by.
There were a lot of people about – people of the type I’d only really seen since I came to London. Although I’d like to have put a bomb under them, you had to admit they carried their money well. I stood by and listened to one woman ordering six dozen Peace and four dozen Dusky Maiden and three dozen Opera, and I tried to think what the size of her rose garden was, because she only wanted these as ‘replacements’. I heard two men talking of a lunch they had had in New York yesterday. Someone was complaining that her villa in Antibes grew better roses than her house in Surrey and she wanted to know why. It was a far cry from this to the local Labour Exchange with its scruffy staff and its dead-duck unemployables. I wondered if these people knew that they lived on the same planet.
Well, maybe someday I should have my villa at Antibes, wherever that was.
‘Ah, so you came, Mrs Taylor. I hope you’re enjoying it.’
Mark Rutland. You never knew your luck, did you.
‘Yes. I’m awfully glad I did come. I’ve never seen such flowers!’
‘They get slightly better every year. I sometimes wonder how successful a thing has to get before it becomes vulgar. Have you seen the new Gold Medal Rose?’
We walked across the hall together. I thought, well, is he really another one? I didn’t want to end up having a fight with this partner too.
He was better dressed today – usually at the works he wore an old suit – but his hair looked as if it had been combed with his fingers, and he hadn’t a trace of colour in his face. Yet he wasn’t bad looking.
I didn’t want either him or his cousin, I only wanted to be able to rob them in peace.
Just as I was trying to think up an excuse for leaving him he said: ‘I have to be back in Berkhamsted for six o’clock, but I think there’s just time for a cup of tea. Would you like to join me?’
I was caught not thinking and said: ‘Where?’ He smiled. ‘Just round the corner. There’s a teashop that makes rather good toasted muffins.’
In the teashop, which was quite a discreet sort of place, with pink curtains and alcoves – not a bit like the A.B.C. or Lyons – he began to ask me about the firm and whether I liked my job and whether I thought th
e reorganization of the cash department was going to be OK. I thought, well, it’s a change, and he’s not interested in me after all, thank God.
He said: ‘We’re a family firm, as no doubt you’ve heard too often; but the trouble with these firms is that they get into a rut. When sons inherit and don’t come up the hard way it’s very much a toss-up whether they have a talent for the job. My father wasn’t temperamentally suited for business. Flowers were his hobby and his life. Nor do I think that some of the present . . .’ He stopped, and a quick smile went across his face. ‘But that’s another story.’
‘You’ve only been in the firm quite a short time?’
‘Yes, until my father died I was in the Navy. I had a brother, six years older, who was going in the business, but he was killed in the war.’
‘I’m told you’ve made big changes in the firm.’
‘Who told you that? But never mind; it’s true. Some of the departments hadn’t been touched since about 1920. I ran the firm into a handsome loss last year. Considering the state of business generally I think that was rather ingenious.’
‘I enjoyed the dance last month,’ I said. ‘Do you always go?’
‘No, it was my first time. The first year I joined, my wife had just been taken ill. Last year she’d just died.’
So Terry Holbrook was being bitchy.
‘You must find this a big change from the Navy, Mr Rutland.’
‘I find it’s equally possible to be at sea in either.’
Personally I doubted that, though I didn’t say so. He looked very much like someone who knew what he wanted and generally got it.
‘Why do they dislike each other?’ Dawn said. ‘Well what else could you expect, really? Family jealousy, and him coming into the firm like that, when they were all set to go along at the old jog-trot, drawing their fat salaries. Sam Ward practically ran it. Mark and Terry are opposites, if you see what I mean. And opposites in a family are worst of all. Their women were opposites too.’
‘Did you know them both?’
‘Well not exactly know them. Mrs Terry was an actress – still is, of course – she played fast and loose with some TV producer, so Terry divorced her. Blonde, she is; tall and wuh-huh. Sort of 38–25–38. Handsome of course, but going places. I don’t think our Terry ever quite caught up.’