1951 - But a Short Time to Live (2 page)

chapter two

T
he girl — her name was Clair Dolan — watched them come with a cold, set expression. She sat still, her legs crossed and one elbow resting on the table, and looked pointedly at the distant bar, dissociating herself from the approaching two.

"This is Mr. Wicks," Wingate said, sitting down heavily beside her. "The truth is, little girl, I brought him over because he was lonely. If you don't want him we can always send him away, but I thought you wouldn't mind. He's a nice young man, and I was clumsy enough to upset his drink."

Clair gave Harry one brief glance and looked away again. She didn't say anything.

Harry stood uneasily before her. Her manner and bored expression made him feel uncomfortable.

He wanted to go away, but was afraid Wingate might make a scene.

"I'm afraid I'm intruding . . ." he began, nervously fingering his tie.

"Bosh!" Wingate said loudly. "Sit down, old chap. I said she'd be pleased to meet you, and so she is; aren't you, my dear?"

Clair looked fixedly at Harry.

"Of course, I'm delighted," she said sarcastically. "But I'm sure Mr. Wicks has other things to do than bother with us."

Harry turned a fiery red.

"The name's Ricks," he said, determined at least she should know who he was. "Harry Ricks. I'll be getting along if you don't mind. Thank you for the drink," he went on to Wingate. "I'll say good— night."

"You'll do nothing of the kind!" Wingate said, turning a deeper shade of purple and struggling to his feet. "You haven't even tasted your drink. What's up? Don't you like her? Damn it! You sit down or I'll lose my temper, damned if I won't!"

Heads turned and eyes stared at them.

"Oh, sit down and make him shut up!" Clair said furiously, in an undertone. "I don't want a scene even if you do!"

Harry sat down, feeling hot and embarrassed and immediately Wingate beamed on him, slapping him on the shoulder.

"That's the way, old boy," he said, sitting down himself. "You talk to the little girl. I've a bit of a headache. Don't mind me. You keep her amused while I have a little nap." He rubbed his face with his handkerchief. "S'matter of fact, old boy, I'm a bit under the weather. You look after her while I close my eyes."

And he did close his eyes, swaying on his chair and looking as if he was going to pass out at any moment

Clair gave him a disdainful look and turned her back on him, and in doing so faced Harry.

"I'm sorry about this," Harry said in a low voice. "I didn't want to come over. I'm sorry to have barged in. I really didn't mean to."

She lifted her shoulders in an impatient shrug.

"Oh, it's all right. If the old fool doesn't pull himself together in a moment, I'm going," and she stared at the bar as if it was the only thing in the place that interested her.

In spite of her bored, sulky expression, Harry still thought she was marvellous, and even though she was snubbing him so pointedly, he was pleased to be sitting next to her.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, seeing her glass was empty.

"No, thank you," she returned, not looking at him. "You don't have to make conversation, so please don't try."

"I wasn't going to," Harry said, a little nettled.

They sat in silence for several minutes, while Wingate snored gently and swayed to and fro in his chair.

Harry studied Clair's face, trying to think how he could break down her bored indifference. It was absurd to sit like this without saying anything to a girl as beautiful as she was. His scrutiny irritated her and she jerked round and frowned at him.

"Must you stare like that?" she demanded. "Haven't you any manners?"

Harry grinned at her.

"Well, yes," he said. "I suppose I have. But you're worth staring at, you know, and there's not much else to do."

"Oh, be quiet!" she said angrily, and turned away.

Inspired suddenly by an idea, Harry said softly as if speaking his thoughts aloud, "She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless chimes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright, meet in her aspect and her eyes."

She didn't move or turn, but after a moment or so, he heard her try to suppress a giggle.

Encouraged, Harry said, "I don't suppose I'll ever see you again so perhaps you won't mind if I say you're the most beautiful girl I have ever seen."

She swung round to stare at him.

"I think you're crazy, and what's worse, you're sloppy too."

But he could see she was looking at him with a little more interest, and the cold, bored expression had gone from her eyes.

"Is it sloppy to say you're beautiful?" Harry asked. "Anyway, I don't care if I am; it's the truth."

She studied him. He was a species of male which had entirely gone out of her life: a young man without money, with a pleasant, engaging smile, and without that hot intent leer she was used to seeing in a man's eyes when she met him for the first time. And unlike the other male pests he was shabbily dressed, and this she found quite a novelty after the padded shoulders and flashy ties of the numerous men she knew. She particularly noticed how clear his eyes and skin were and how white his teeth were, and rather surprised at herself, she felt less hostile towards him, and even began to think he was rather nice looking.

"What did you say your name was?" she asked.

"Harry Ricks. What's yours?"

She frowned at that, not sure if she wanted him to know her name, then said distantly, "I don't really know if it's your business, but if you must know it's Clair Dolan."

"I knew it would be something like that," Harry said, determined not to lose an opportunity to soften her towards him. "I once made a study of names. Did you know Clair means bright and illustrious?"

She looked sharply at him.

"Who do you think you're kidding?"

"But I'm not I have the book at home. I'll lend it to you if you like."

"Well, I don't like," she said shortly.

There was a pause, then he asked, "Do you come here often?"

She said, no, she didn't. In fact she had only once been here and that was during the last big blitz on London. So they began to talk about the blitz, and Harry told her he had been an Air Raid Warden before he went into the Army and had been in charge of a shelter not three hundred yards from where they were sitting. That was one of the reasons why he came to the Duke of Wellington. Every night during the blitz he and a fellow warden used to have a beer here before beginning their night's duty.

"Gets you into the habit," Harry said, pleased to see she was showing interest in what he was saying. "It's a friendly place, and it has memories." He looked at her admiringly. "What did you do in the war?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, shrugging her shoulders, and remembered how she used to gad about the West End with American officers and drink their whisky and dance with them and struggle with them in taxis, and she giggled. "A girl can't do anything very important, can she? Besides, I was too young."

Harry had known some girls who had done a great deal more than he had, and they had been young too. He had known a girl who dropped into France, and had been caught by the Gestapo and shot. But it was unthinkable, of course, that a girl like Clair should be mixed up in looking after people in shelters or to be bossed around in the WRAF or the WRAC or spoil her hands working in a factory. Some girls could do that sort of thing, but not Clair. Harry saw that all right.

Then suddenly a discordant note sounded. Wingate had shaken off his fuzziness and had decided it was time to have another drink. He put his hand in his pocket and discovered his wallet had disappeared.

Still feeling dazed, he groped carefully through his other pockets. His movements were so deliberate that both Clair and Harry broke off their conversation to stare at him.

"Have you lost anything?" Harry asked, wishing Wingate would go to sleep again.

Wingate didn't reply. Instead, he stood up and emptied everything he had in his pockets on to the table. He continued to go through his clothes with growing alarm.

"I've been robbed!" he exclaimed violently. "My wallet's gone!"

The two barmaids and the barman, the grey-faced man and his perky wife and the three mysterious gentlemen in homburg hats all turned to stare at Wingate.

Harry felt the colour rise in his face. He was young enough to be acutely embarrassed by a scene like this, and was also aware the three mysterious men in homburg hats were looking suspiciously at him.

"Robbed!" Wingate repeated in a hard, angry voice, and turning to Harry, pointed an accusing finger at him. "All right, young fellow, a joke's a joke, but this has gone far enough. Hand it over or I'll send for the police!"

"Hand what over?" Harry asked, turning crimson.

"My wallet!" Wingate snapped. "Hand it over and I'll say no more about it. There's fifty pounds in that wallet and I'm not going to lose it!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said, getting to his feet, confused and embarrassed. "I haven't taken your wallet!"

The barman appeared from behind the counter. He came over and planted himself before Wingate, a heavy scowl on his blunt-featured face.

"Now then," he said, "what's all this in aid of? What are you complaining about?"

Wingate welcomed his appearance. He felt ill and dizzy and the loss of the wallet was a disaster. He pointed a trembling finger at Harry.

"That young man has stolen my wallet. Make him hand it over."

The barman eyed Harry's confused face suspiciously.

"All right, son, don't let's 'ave any trouble. “ And it over and be sharp about it."

"But I haven't got it!" Harry declared. "He's drunk. You can see that, can't you?"

"And that's all the thanks I get," Wingate wailed. "I befriend this young man and he robs me and says I'm drunk. Call a policeman."

"All right, all right," the barman said hastily. "We don't want any trouble. The three of you — just step this way. We'll soon see who's who and what's what. Come on. Just step this way."

And he seized Harry's arm in one hand and Wingate's arm in the other, and jerking his head at Clair, conducted them to a room at the back of the bar where the manager received them with a set smile which threatened to disappear at the first sign of unpleasantness.

"Gent ‘ere says this ‘un's pinched ‘is wallet," the barman said, jerking his head at Wingate and his thumb at Harry.

The manager rose from behind his desk. His smile fairly jumped off his face.

"And who's this?" he asked, looking at Clair.

"The gent's friend," the barman explained, and gave Clair an admiring glance.

The manager also seemed taken with her. He pushed a chair forward and invited her to sit down.

"Right-ho, Bob," he said to the barman when Clair was seated, "just stand by the door while I sort this out."

When Bob had taken up his position before the door, the manager asked Wingate what he had to say for himself.

"My wallet's gone," Wingate said. He was pale and shaken. "I spoke to this chap who is a complete stranger to me, and a moment or so later I found my wallet gone. It contained fifty pounds."

The manager stared hard at Harry who had now recovered from his embarrassment and was getting angry. The manager liked the look of Harry. It seemed unlikely that he was a pickpocket. He just didn't look the type, and the manager decided to treat him cautiously. He had seen him often enough in the bar and wasn't going to lose a regular customer if he could help it. He had never seen Wingate before and noticed he was scarcely sober, and that sort of thing was bad for business. So he asked Harry in a mild voice what he had to say.

"I don't know anything about his wallet," Harry declared, growing red in the face again. "And I can prove it!"

Before anyone could stop him he emptied the contents of his pockets on the desk in exactly the same way as Wingate had but a minute or so ago piled his possessions on the table in the bar. The manager, the barman, Wingate and Clair looked at the articles which lay on the desk with interest: they were a miscellaneous lot. There was a packet of ‘You've Just Been Photographed' cards, three metal cases containing films, a handkerchief, a penknife, a half-eaten bun, some crumbs from the other half that had been eaten, three half-crowns and a piece of string.

The manager peered at the collection, shook his head doubtfully, looked at Wingate and asked him if he was satisfied.

Wingate turned even paler, licked his dry lips and then suddenly turned and pointed an accusing finger at Clair.

"Then she's got it!" he exclaimed. "It's either one or the other. I — I picked her up in Regent Street. I've never seen her before. It was her idea we should come here and he was waiting for her. That's it! They're working together. He took my wallet and passed it to her."

Clair rose to her feet. She looked surprised and inclined to laugh. She walked up to Harry and stood by his side, facing Wingate.

"So we're working together, are we?" she said. "Well, that's funny, considering you knocked his drink over and introduced him to me. Can't you think of a better yam than that?"

"Now, steady on," the manager broke in, frowning at Wingate. "You can't go accusing everyone like this. You just said this young man had it. Well, he hasn't You'd better be careful."

Wingate thumped the desk.

"I want my wallet. If he hasn't got it, then she has!"

"If you don't watch out," Clair said, smiling at the manager, "he'll be saying you took it next. Oh well, I may as well set his mind at rest," and in spite of the manager's growl of protest, she opened her handbag and dumped its contents on the table side by side with the articles that had come out of Harry's pockets.

Now it was Harry's turn to peer with interest. There was a gold powder compact and cigarette case combined, a gold cigarette lighter, a fountain pen and chequebook, several pound notes and a lot of silver, some letters, a comb, handkerchief, a lipstick in a gold holder and a number of keys on a ring.

There was a long and heavy silence, then Clair said brightly, "I'll take my clothes off if it'll satisfy him. I only want him to be happy."