65 Short Stories (173 page)

‘Am I likely to see any pals of mine?’ I asked drily.

‘You never can tell. I shouldn’t be surprised if you had had friends who’d passed bad cheques once too often or were caught in a compromising situation in one of the parks. You’d be surprised how often I run across chaps I’ve met out at dinner.’

One of Ned’s duties was to see prisoners through the first difficult days of their confinement. They were often badly shaken by their trial and sentence; and when, after the preliminary proceedings they had to go through on entering the jail, the stripping, the bath, the medical examination and the questioning, the getting into prison clothes, they were led into a cell and locked up, they were apt to break down. Sometimes they cried hysterically; sometimes they could neither eat nor sleep. Ned’s business then was to cheer them, and his breezy manner, his natural kindliness, often worked wonders. If they were anxious about their wives and children he would go to see them and if they were destitute provide them with money. He brought them news so that they might get over the awful feeling that they were shut away from the common interests of their fellow-men. He read the sporting papers to be able to tell them what horse had won an important race or whether the champion had won his fight. He would advise them about their future, and when the time approached for their release see what jobs they were fitted for and then persuade employers to give them a chance to make good.

Since everyone is interested in crime it was inevitable that sooner or later, with Ned there, the conversation should turn upon it. It was after dinner and we were sitting comfortably in the drawing-room with drinks in our hands.

‘Had any interesting cases at the Scrubs lately, Ned?’ I asked him. ‘No, nothing much.’

He had a high, rasping voice and his laugh was a raucous cackle. He broke into it now

‘I went to see an old girl today who was a packet of fun. Her husband’s a burglar. The police have known about him for years, but they’ve never been able to get him till just now Before he did a job he and his wife concocted an alibi, and though he’s been arrested three or four times and sent up for trial, the police have never been able to break it and he’s always got off. Well, he was arrested again a little while ago, but he wasn’t upset, the alibi he and his wife had made up was perfect and he expected to be acquitted as he’d been before. His wife went into the witness-box and to his utter amazement she didn’t give the alibi and he was convicted. I went to see him. He wasn’t so much worried at being in gaol as puzzled by his wife not having spoken up, and he asked me to go and see her and ask what the game was. Well I went, and d’you know what she said to me? She said: ‘Well, sir, it’s like this; it was such a beautiful alibi I just couldn’t bear to waste it.”

Of course we all laughed. The story-teller likes an appreciative audience, and Ned Preston was never disinclined to hold the floor. He narrated two or three more anecdotes. They tended to prove a point he was fond of making, that in what till we all got democratic in England were called the lower orders there was more passion, more romance, more disregard of consequences than could ever be found in the well-to-do and presumably educated classes, whom prudence has made timid and convention inhibited.

‘Because the working man doesn’t read much,’ he said, ‘because he has no great gift for expressing himself, you think he has no imagination. You’re wrong. He’s extravagantly imaginative. Because he’s a great husky brute you think he has no nerves. You’re wrong again. He’s a bundle of nerves.’

Then he told us a story which I shall tell as best I can in my own words. Fred Manson was a good-looking fellow, tall, well-made, with blue eyes, good features, and a friendly, agreeable smile, but what made him remarkable so that people turned round in the streets to stare at him was that he had a thick head of hair, with a great wave in it, of a deep rich red. It was really a great beauty. Perhaps it was this that gave him so sensual a look. His maleness was like a heady perfume. His eyebrows were thick, only a little lighter that his hair, and he was lucky enough not to have the ugly skin that so disfigures red-heads. His was a smooth olive. His eyes were bold, and when he smiled or laughed, which in the healthy vitality of his youth he did constantly, his expression was wonderfully alluring. He was twenty-two and he gave you the rather pleasant impression of just loving to be alive. It was inevitable that with such looks and above all with that troubling sexuality he should have success with women. He was charming, tender, and passionate, but immensely promiscuous. He was not exactly callous or brazen, he had a kindly nature, but somehow or other he made it quite clear to the objects of his passing fancy that all he wanted was a little bit of fun and it was impossible for him to remain faithful to anyone.

Fred was a postman. He worked in Brixton. It is a densely populated part of London, and has the curious reputation of harbouring more criminals than any other suburb because trams run to it from across the river all night long, so that when a man has done a job of housebreaking in the West End he can be sure of getting home without difficulty. Fred liked his job. Brixton is a district of innumerable streets lined with little houses inhabited by the people who work in the neighbourhood and also by clerks, shop-assistants, skilled workers of one sort or another whose jobs take them every day across the river. He was strong and healthy and it was a pleasure to him to walk from street to street delivering the letters. Sometimes there would be a postal packet to hand in or a registered letter that had to be signed for, and then he would have the opportunity of seeing people. He was a sociable creature. It was never long before he was well known on whatever round he was assigned to. After a time his job was changed. His duty then was to go to the red pillar-boxes into which the letters were put, empty them, and take the contents to the main post-office of the district. His bag would be pretty heavy sometimes by the time he was through, but he was proud of his strength and the weight only made him laugh.

One day he was emptying a box in one of the better streets, a street of semi-detached houses, and had just closed his bag when a girl came running along.

‘Postman,’ she cried, ‘take this letter, will you. I want it to go by this post most particularly.’

He gave her his good-natured smile.

‘I never mind obliging a lady,’ he said, putting down his bag and opening it ‘I wouldn’t trouble you, only it’s urgent,’ she said as she handed him the letter she had in her hand.

‘Who is it to-a feller?’ he grinned. ‘None of your business.’

‘All right, be haughty. But I tell you this, he’s no good. Don’t you trust him.’

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she said.

‘So they tell me.’

He took off his cap and ran his hand through his mop of curling red hair. The sight of it made her gasp.

‘Where d’you get your perm?’ she asked with a giggle.

‘I’ll show you one of these days if you like.’

He was looking down at her with his amused eyes, and there was something about him that gave her a funny little feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Well, I must be on my way,’ he said. ‘If I don’t get on with the job pretty damn quick I don’t know what’ll happen to the country.’

‘I’m not detaining you,’ she said coolly.

‘That’s where you make a mistake,’ he answered.

He gave her a look that made her heart beat nineteen to the dozen and she felt herself blushing all over. She turned away and ran back to the house. Fred noticed it was four doors away from the pillar-box. He had to pass it and as he did so he looked up. He saw the net curtains twitch and knew she was watching. He felt pleased with himself During the next few days he looked at the house whenever he passed it, but never caught a glimpse of the girl. One afternoon he ran across her by chance just as he was entering the street in which she lived.

‘Hullo,’ he said, stopping.

‘Hullo.’

She blushed scarlet ‘Haven’t seen you about lately’

‘You haven’t missed much.’

‘That’s what you think.’

She was prettier than he remembered, dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather tall, slight, with a good figure, a pale skin, and very white teeth. ‘What about coming to the pictures with me one evening?’

‘Taking a lot for granted, aren’t you?’

‘It pays,’ he said with his impudent, charming grin.

She couldn’t help laughing.

‘Not with me, it doesn’t.’

‘Oh, come on. One’s only young once.’

There was something so attractive in him that she couldn’t bring herself to give him a saucy answer.

‘I couldn’t really. My people wouldn’t like me going out with a fellow I don’t know. You see, I’m the only one they have and they think a rare lot of me. Why, I don’t even know your name.’

‘Well, I can tell you, can’t I? Fred. Fred Manson. Can’t you say you’re going to the pictures with a girl friend?’

She had never felt before what she was feeling then. She didn’t know if it was pain or pleasure. She was strangely breathless.

‘I suppose I could do that.’

They fixed the night, the time, and the place. Fred was waiting for her and they went in, but when the picture started and he put his arm round her waist, without a word, her eyes fixed on the screen, she quietly took it away. He took hold of her hand, but she withdrew it. He was surprised. That wasn’t the way girls usually behaved. He didn’t know what one went to the pictures for if it wasn’t to have a bit of a cuddle. He walked home with her after the show She told him her name. Grace Carter. Her father had a shop of his own in the Brixton Road, he was a draper and he had four assistants.

‘He must be doing well,’ said Fred.

‘He doesn’t complain.’

Gracie was a student at London University. When she got her degree she was going to be a school teacher.

‘What d’you want to do that for when there’s a good business waiting for you?’

‘Pa doesn’t want me to have anything to do with the shop-not after the education he’s given me. He wants me to better myself, if you know what I mean.’

Her father had started life as an errand boy, then became a draper’s assistant, and because he was hard-working, honest, and intelligent was now owner of a prosperous little business. Success had given him grand ideas for his only child. He didn’t want her to have anything to do with trade. He hoped she’d marry a professional man perhaps, or at least someone in the City. Then he’d sell the business and retire, and Gracie would be quite the lady.

When they reached the corner of her street Gracie held out her hand. ‘You’d better not come to the door,’ she said.

‘Aren’t you going to kiss me good night?’

‘I am not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want to.’

‘You’ll come to the pictures again, won’t you?’

‘I think I’d better not.’

‘Oh, come on.’

There was such a warm urgency in his voice that she felt as though her knees would give way.

Will you behave if I do?’ He nodded. ‘Promise?’

‘Swop me bob.’

He scratched his head when he left her. Funny girl. He’d never met anyone quite like her. Superior, there was no doubt about that. There was something in her voice that got you. It was warm and soft. He tried to think what it was like. It was like as if the words kissed you. Sounded silly, that did, but that’s just what it was like.

From then on they went to the pictures once or twice a week. After a while she allowed him to put his arm round her waist and to hold her hand, but she never let him go farther than that.

‘Have you ever been kissed by a fellow?’ he asked her once.

‘No, I haven’t,’ she said simply. ‘My ma’s funny, she says you’ve got to keep a man’s respect.’

‘I’d give anything in the world just to kiss you, Grade.’

‘Don’t be so silly.’

‘Won’t you let me just once?’ She shook her head. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I like you too much,’ she said hoarsely, and then walked quickly away from him.

It gave him quite a turn. He wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before. What she’d said finished him. He’d been thinking of her a lot, and he’d looked forward to the evenings they spent together as he’d never looked forward to anything in his life. For the first time he was uncertain of himself She was above him in every way, what with her father making money hand over fist and her education and everything, and him only a postman. They had made a date for the following Friday night and he was in a fever of anxiety lest she shouldn’t come. He repeated to himself over and over again what she’d said: perhaps it meant that she’d made up her mind to drop him. When at last he saw her walking along the street he almost sobbed with relief That evening he neither put his arm round her nor took her hand and when he walked her home he never said a word.

‘You’re very quiet tonight, Fred,’ she said at last. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ He walked a few steps before he answered.