31st Of February (10 page)

“What’s that?”

“Skip it. Care to tickle your tonsils?”

“What’s that?”

“Lift the elbow. I mean to say,” said Miss O’Rourke patiently, “have a drink.”

“Oh ah. Just a little drop of It then. I like a little of It.” The barman poured a drop of It. “Good luck. You’ve certainly got a funny way of talking.”

“We’re in advertising. That explains everything, doesn’t it’ Andy?” She swung her body in its uncreased blue tailored suit round on the barstool.

“If you say so. Look, Molly, there’s something I want –” The barman leaned forward a little. “All sorts we get in here, you wouldn’t believe.” He made a gesture that embraced the empty bar. “Had a raid last week and it’s done for business. But they’ll be back?”

“Who’ll be back?”

“The boys’ll be back. You don’t scare ’em away for long.”

“What boys?” Molly asked, and the barman’s sad look lightened. He put a hand on his thick waist.

“You know – the boys. The boys that wish they were something else.”

“Oh,
those
boys.”

“Antics they get up to sometimes. I could tell you—”

“Two more whiskies,” Anderson said. “Look, I want to talk to you, Molly.” He pointed to the little empty tables in one corner of the bar. The barman was offended.

“All right, then, all right; you want to be alone, that’s all right. I can take a hint. I know when I’m not wanted.” He poured two nips of whisky. “But I’ve got my feelings like anybody else. Your young lady got into conversation with me, don’t forget that. I was passing the time of day in conversating when asked, that’s all.”

“No offence,” said Anderson. “Have another drink, Jack.”

“No offence at all. I shouldn’t like you to think I was pushing, that’s all. I’ll just have another drop of It. But my name’s not Jack.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name’s Percy.”

They left him at the bar, and sat down at one of the empty tables. Molly O’Rourke’s knee was warm against Anderson’s leg. “What’s on your mind, Andy?”

“Molly, how well did you know Val?”

She leaned back and let out breath in a sigh. “Still chasing lost causes. Why don’t you give up and make a fresh start?”

“What did women think of Val? Did they like her?”

Molly placed one lean bony hand upon the breast that pushed out her jacket. If you’re asking one woman the answer is No. I thought she was a snake in the grass. I never went for that dewy innocence. Whatever she got was what was coming to her.”

Anderson put down his glass quickly upon the tabletop. Some drops of whisky bounced out. “What do you mean by that?”

“Mean? I’m not using up any spare handkerchiefs on her, that’s all.”

“You said she got what was coming to her. What did you mean?”

“Oh I don’t know, Andy, I don’t know.” She looked away from him and said: “I suppose the thing is I never thought she was good enough for you. That’s all I meant.”

“What about men friends? Did she know anybody well – anyone in the firm?”

“Here, here.” She moved her knee away from Anderson’s leg. “What’s all this about? What does it matter now, anyway?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Anderson was elaborately sarcastic.

“It’s just that I’d like to know who she was running round with, that’s all. Just that I’d like to know how long I’d been wearing horns.”

“Look here, Andy, I don’t know anything about this. But I think you’ve got it wrong somehow.”

“I’ve got nothing wrong,” he said violently.

“I mean I don’t think there was anyone in the office.”

“There was someone in the office.”

“If there was I don’t know about it. You believe me, don’t you, Andy? But I tell you who would know all about it – if there was anything to know. That girl she worked with – Elaine Fletchley.”

They were both silent. Then Anderson said: “Let’s get out of here.”

All right, let’s go and eat.”

“I don’t want to eat.”

“Right you are, then, let’s go and drink. Where shall we drink?”

“I know where to go,” Anderson said.

As they went out Molly called: “Good night. Percy. Don’t mix any gin with that It.” The barman ducked his head and looked pleased. Outside, a thin rain blew into their faces. Anderson called a taxi. When they went inside Molly placed her bony hand on his. Charing Cross Road went by, the bookshops all in darkness. Irving’s statue stared under the lights of fluorescent blue.

“Look, Andy, I know it’s none of my business, but you’re taking this too hard. People are talking. Little Jean had some tale about your giving her a calendar and saying it was magic. It’s all over the office.”

“Somebody was altering my calendar.” Anderson leaned back on the cushions. “Every time I was out of the room it was changed to February the fourth. That’s the day Val died.”

“Why – you poor darling.” Molly’s hand gripped his convulsively. “Who would have done that?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

“Sure you didn’t imagine it?”

Anderson pulled his hand away. “What do you take me for?” The taxi lurched as they turned into the park and he was thrown against her. As they kissed her hard fingers dug into him, moving furiously over his back, holding him tightly as if he were a plank that might save her from drowning. In the flickering darkness her head moved down to his neck, and her corkscrew curls bobbed over her face. He jerked his head back and pushed her away. “I like you, Andy,” she said. “I’ve always liked you. There goes Buckingham Palace. Goodbye, Buckingham, and goodbye Palace. I’ll tell you something, Andy – shall I tell you something?” Her body rested in the crook of his arm. “Percy didn’t doctor that drink.”

He grunted. How many times, he thought with a nostalgia that surprised himself, how many times have Val and I ridden in petrol-scented darkness past Buckingham Palace and down these streets. The bombs dropped a mile away, pieces of shrapnel clattered on the pavement like toys, reminders of the delightful impermanence of life. On such nights Anderson had come as near as it was possible for him to come to a confused love for everything around him, love for the people who might today or tomorrow be killed quite casually, love for the civilization being reduced to rubble under his eyes, love even, momentarily, for Buckingham Palace and his companion in the cab. Such possibility of sudden death imposed upon life a design. But tonight there were no bombs and life had no design and a different companion rested in the crook of his arm.

They stopped. “Here we are,” Anderson said. “My home ground.” He glanced upward at the sign, faintly visible in the light streaming from the saloon bar, of a grinning figure with cloven hoofs, harlequin clothes and flames coming out of its hair. Underneath the sign, in mock-Gothic lettering, could be read THE DEMON.

Molly seemed disappointed when they got inside the pub, although she did not refuse a drink. “I thought we were going home.”

“Home, home? I have no home.” Ironically Anderson declaimed: “Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch of the ranged Empire fall. Here is my – home. Drink up.”

“Oh, be your age,” she said a little impatiently. “Where can I go to spend a penny?” When she had gone he stood pressing his fingers upon the glass and looking at the imprint. He slipped one hand into his pocket, and fingered Val’s letter, assuring himself that it was still there, a perfectly tangible proof of disaster. Why disaster? he thought. Why disaster when I never loved her? Because, he answered himself, because the letter had opened up one of those terrible gaps in personal relations which we all know to exist, but are generally able to ignore, the sudden revelation that, in the lives of the people we know best, there exist great unexplored areas of jungle, places where primitive loves and hatreds battle silently together like tigers. Anderson asked for another drink. “Sorry, Mr Anderson, no more whisky.” He ordered gin and paid for it. A boy came round selling the Greyhound Special, printed slips which showed the results of the evening’s dog racing. A big dark man with a broken nose standing near Anderson bought the sheet. A man with a checked cap and the pointed nose of a weasel looked over his shoulder. The third member of their party, a small faded blonde woman wearing a pink dress and white high-heeled shoes, sipped a small port apathetically.

The big man exclaimed angrily. “Your bleeding Melksham. The bleeder never even showed.”

“You musta got the wrong race, Jerry. Couldn’t come unstuck, Melksham.” The weasel nose appeared over the big man’s shoulder, little eyes looked hastily over the sheet, thin lips exclaimed: “Would you Christmas Eve it! Never showed.”

“I thought it couldn’t lose,” The big man said bitterly. “I thought it could win on three legs. I thought the others weren’t in the race.”

“It was a racing certainty, Jerry.”

“And what kind of a bleeding certainty do you call that? Never even showed.”

“It couldn’t lose on the book, Jerry.”

“Couldn’t lose. Couldn’t lose. What about your info that cost me half a nicker?” The little woman moved convulsively, but did not speak. “What about the others being ready to lie down?”

“Do you know what I reckon, Jerry?” the checked cap asked solemnly. Molly came back. Anderson, absorbed, pointed to her drink upon the counter. “I reckon it’s next time out.”

“Next time out!”

“Look at it this way. It’s a good thing tonight, see. It can’t lose. So it’s three to one, maybe five to one on. So nobody can really make a killing. Next time it’s odds against, see, and you get right in with both feet.”

“Next time! It’s cost me ten bleeding nicker
this
time.”

Like a clockwork toy suddenly moved to action, the small blonde woman gave a small scream, and spoke in a voice of the utmost refinement. “Not ten pounds, Jerry. Oh really, not ten pounds.”

The big man did not look at her. “He’s smart. He knows it’s a good thing. He has the inside dope it can’t lose. He tells me to step in with both feet and help myself.”

“You got no call to say that, Jerry.”

“But ten pounds, Jerry. What about the rent?” The little woman stared with horror at her port.

“Now don’t you stick your nose into this.”

“But the rent, Jerry. Are you sure the rent’s all right?”

“…the rent.”

“Oh, Jerry, you’ve spent the rent money. I never thought you’d do it.”

The big man shook his head like a dog. “That’s enough now. Let’s get out of here.” But the clockwork toy, wound up, was not now to be denied action. Without a word the little woman launched herself at the checked-capped weasel. The table at which they sat went over. Beer flecked Anderson’s trousers and Molly’s stockings. Red marks appeared on the face of the checked-capped man. He pushed at the woman, not hard, and she fell over. The big man roared angrily and advanced, not upon the checked cap, but upon the woman. With one hand he pulled her to her feet and with the other struck her in the eye. She would have fallen again, but for the hand that held her up. Molly cried out. The barman ducked under the counter, caught hold of the big man by the neck and waistcoat and ran him out of the door. The big man made an attempt to resist, but maintained firm hold of the woman, who was crying and holding a hand to her eye. The man with the checked cap picked himself up, dusted himself and went out after them. The barman came back, looking rather pleased. Molly said to Anderson: “Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Never interfere. That’s my good-neighbour policy.”

“But he might kill her.”

“Not he. She’ll have a black eye tomorrow, that’s all.”

Her nose was twitching. “It’s horrible.”

“Haven’t you seen a fight in a pub before?”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s the way you just get them out of your sight and then don’t worry about them. Suppose he
did
do some injury to her – we should be responsible.” Anderson shrugged. She put down her glass and ran out of the pub door. Anderson followed her. Under the sign of THE DEMON the faded woman in pink sat propped on one elbow crying feebly, and trying to staunch a flow of blood from her nose. There was no sign of the two men. Molly knelt by her side, Anderson stood above them. A confused flow of words came to him: “Nose…rotten little devil…the rent…Rampole Street…”

We’ve got to get her home,” Molly said. “Forty Rampole Street. She says it’s just round the corner. That swine!” she said encouragingly to the woman. “I’ll tell him something if I see him. Give her your handkerchief, Andy.” Reluctantly Anderson applied his handkerchief to the woman’s bleeding nose, and helped to lift her to her feet. She was as shapeless as a feather pillow. “I suppose there isn’t a spare room at your place for her,” Molly said.

“There certainly isn’t.”

“She shouldn’t be left with that man.” Together they supported her, each with an arm around her. The woman took not the least notice of them. She lurched forward with Anderson’s handkerchief against her nose, muttering. A policeman looked at them suspiciously. They turned the corner into Rampole Street and suddenly the woman came to life again, darting out of their arms to a figure half visible in a doorway. “Jerry!” The big man with the broken nose emerged.

“Oh Jerry, take me home.”

“Come on, then,” the big man said. With one malevolent glance at Molly and Anderson he strode away along the street. The woman followed a step or two behind him, still clutching Anderson’s handkerchief to her nose.

Anderson burst out laughing at the expression on Molly’s face. “You’ve worked in advertising too long; it’s softened you up. Come to my place and have another drink.” They walked back. Anderson felt suddenly and unreasonably gay, but as they passed the Demon he was oppressed for a moment by a sense of foreboding. Something had happened when he came out of the pub; he had seen something strange, something out of place. What was it? The thought escaped him, and he put it away.

The tubular lights flickered, and then illuminated their two figures. “Drink,” Anderson said, and poured it. Molly looked round the room curiously.

“Not your taste.” With his back almost turned to her, Anderson shook his head. “Val’s, eh? Just what she’d like. My my, you need a spring clean, don’t you. What’s here.” She opened the door to the bedroom and stood, hands on hips surveying it. “Blime, a symphony in pink.” When Anderson came in she had Val’s photograph in her hand. Something about her tall, bony figure drinking in the room and the photograph, sniffing it all up with her big nose, shamed and excited him. “Put that down,” he said, and then as she turned in surprise he gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her over to the bed. The glass of the photograph frame broke as it dropped to the floor. Like a man burning with fever dropping into a cool stream, he coupled with her.