Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow (3 page)

‘You and your fur coat,' said Mrs Harris.

‘You and your telly,' Mrs Butterfield was compelled to answer, but then she was immediately contrite, besides which she'd had an idea to reclaim her chum's ruined Sunday.

She said, ‘Look 'ere, Ada, the TUC which our Office Cleaners' Union is connected with is givin' a big charity do at the Tradesmen's Hall in Bermondsey tomorrow night. We all 'ad to buy two tickets. 'Ow about us going?'

Mrs Harris said contemptuously, ‘Unions,' for she was an independent soul, right wing politically, and steered clear of them. Mrs Butterfield, however, who had been an office cleaner before she had gone up in the world via the Ladies' Room of the Paradise Club, had had to join.

But Ada recognized the peace offering and with her heart momentarily flooded with warmth for her friend, said, ‘Okay, Vi, we might as well use them and 'ave a look.'

Thus it was that Mrs Harris in a sense acquired a lien on a new £450 Giant Screen, Dyna-Electro,
True Colour, Super Vision Television Set, and if not exactly physical possession of the article then at least what appeared to be the promise of same guaranteed and confirmed in Mrs Harris's mind by none other than her occasional friend and protector, the All-Powerful-From-On-High, her Personal God.

The affair at the Tradesmen's Hall the next night turned out to be a happy and relaxed evening for the two. Ada and Vi met a number of their kind, some of whom were friends, uncomplaining, hardworking women who in support of their families tackled the work of cleaning up the big city's offices or scrubbed and mopped and dusted as dailies from sun up to sun down. There was music, food and a floorshow, but best of all, the opportunity to win prizes. There was not only a tombola, where for a few pence one could purchase a sealed cylinder, containing a number of which perhaps one out of every fifty collected a small gift, but also a Grand Lottery for which the list of rewards was dazzling, with tickets priced at a pound each.

The Union, an expert at the modern type of coercion, had been more than usually successful in coaxing ‘contributions' out of the companies interested in having their premises cleaned without any trouble. Thus they were able to present an alluring and tempting array of loot headed by an elegant maroon Mini Minor car mounted on a rotating pedestal plus a long list tacked up on either side of
further valuables, many of them displayed in a roped-off enclosure. Giant refrigerators, electric stoves, washing machines, package tours for two to foreign climes, hi-fi and stereo equipment, complete furniture suites, carpets, expensive cameras and the like.

But Mrs Harris did not even consult this catalogue nor did she spare so much as a glance for the revolving motor car or any of the other winners, for there amongst them it was; her television set.

Oh, the beauty of it. In a polished and carved mahogany cabinet, its doors thrown wide, the set was in full operation and on its giant glass screen a pair of ballet dancers in multi-coloured costumes leaping and pirouetting through the air. Every shade of the rainbow was represented and the music which emerged from the speaker was flawless.

While Mrs Butterfield wandered over to the tombola, Mrs Harris remained riveted. A pound was still a great deal of money to her and translated into two hours of hard labour on her knees. But against that treasure trove displayed before her eyes? And yet for another moment she hesitated and waited for she knew that she was on the verge of playing one of her famous hunches which occasionally would suffuse her and were received and accepted as messages dispatched to her by her Personal Deity sitting in his office somewhere behind the firmament and part of whose job it was to concern himself
with her affairs. By and large Ada could look back upon the fact that up to that point he had not done too badly by his client.

And as she waited the message came through loud and clear. ‘Buy the ticket, Ada.' She opened her purse, produced a pound note and handed it to the pretty girl selling the chances and received in exchange a piece of white pasteboard bearing the name of the TUC Charity Committee Grand Annual Lottery, Number 49876TH. She filled in a stub with her own name and address as Mrs Butterfield returned triumphant, carrying a bottle of cheap champagne. ‘Look what I got,' she crowed, ‘and it only cost me five pence and I might 'ave won one of them electric pop-up toasters standing right next to it.'

‘Cor,' said Mrs Harris, ‘that's nuffink,' and she waved her lottery ticket, ‘I've got me telly.'

Violet looked confused and the pretty girl smiled in sympathy.

‘Well, I mean I will 'ave it,' explained Ada.

All Mrs Butterfield's pessimism rose to hand. ‘Ada Harris, a quid! You know you ain't got that kind of money to spend. You're the limit. Whatever makes you fink you'll win it? They're sellin' thousands of those tickets, not only 'ere, but all over London. You ain't got a chance.'

Mrs Harris's snapping dark eyes twinkled mischievously, almost disappearing in the recesses
made by her apple cheeks as she replied, ‘I 'ad a hunch. You know me and me hunches. I carn't lose. It's as good as in me front room. 'Ere, look,' and she exhibited her ticket which stated that the drawing would be made in three weeks and showed the number 49876TH. ‘You know what the TH stands for? Television Harris. Come on, Vi, I'll buy you a drink at the bar to celebrate.'

Mrs Butterfield had a shandy, while Ada indulged in her favourite, a port and lemon, and raised her glass with, ‘ 'Ere's to me new telly.'

Hence she was not unduly surprised three and a half weeks later when she returned from work to find a letter had been dropped through her slot, on the envelope of which was the imprint TUC Charity Committee Grand Annual Lottery. The telly, of course. It had to be. Nevertheless, she had the fortitude and courage to wait for the arrival of Mrs Butterfield for the evening tea so that she, too, would be able to share in the excitement.

It therefore came as a considerable shock when the envelope produced a letter from the committee advising Mrs Ada Harris of 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, that as holder of Ticket Number 49876TH she was the winner of a five-day round-trip package tour to Moscow for two, all expenses paid and enclosing vouchers to be presented at the Intourist Bureau in Upper Regent Street in exchange for same. Congratulations!

The result of this astonishing and wholly unexpected side-swipe by Lady Luck was to draw almost immediate battle lines between Vi and Ada and furnish the subject of the first serious rift in the long-standing friendship of the two women.

For when the vouchers upon the London office of Intourist, the Soviet Union's all-embracing travel service, to supply them with two round-trip tickets for Package Tour 6A, five days and four nights in Moscow, were produced and lay on the table, Mrs Butterfield, with as much horror as though they had been a pair of black mambas, shrieked, ‘Roosha! I wouldn't go there if you gave me a million pounds. Torturers, murderers, savidges is what they are. I've read all about them in the newspapers and so 'ave you, Ada 'Arris. And don't get any idea of taking
any trips to where we can get our 'eads cut off or get put in some dungeon for the rest of our lives.'

But Mrs Harris did not reply to this tirade. She sat there staring at those trenchant bits of paper without the slightest qualm of disappointment for while she was saying farewell to her colour telly she was bidding hello to something much more exciting and beautiful. The fantasy which she had entertained some weeks back arising out of Mr Lockwood's dilemma and which had passed from her thoughts now came sweeping back with double impetus. Who would have thought such a thing possible and yet there they were, two tickets to Russia, and to her suddenly inflamed and vivid imagination there came a vision of what surely must have been an arrangement and corroboration from On High, almost a direct communication, ‘Forget about that telly set, Ada Harris. You go off to Russia and get Mr Lockwood's girl out for him. And here are the tickets I've provided for you.' There was not the least doubt in Ada's mind but that this was the message.

Her first impulse was to hurry off to Mr Lockwood's flat or at least telephone him and announce the news of establishing a possible line of communication between himself and his lost love when she remembered that he was out of town for a week.

A week's grace and perhaps this was all for the best. It would give her time to work on Violet, for
Mrs Harris was far from being a fool and while she did not subscribe to Mrs Butterfield's portrait of unrestrained violence she was not completely happy at the thought of penetrating that sinister barrier known as the Iron Curtain by herself. Two was more of a safety measure than one lone woman.

The speed with which an entire film strip of thought can unreel through a person's head is well known and so hardly a second had elapsed from Mrs Butterfield's anguished outburst before Mrs Harris replied calmly, ‘Oh, I don't know, Vi, you carn't believe everything you read in the papers. It might be nice for us to take a little 'oliday what's been dropped in our laps.'

‘ 'Oliday amongst them monsters?' squealed Violet. ‘Ada, you carn't be serious. You wouldn't get me to go,' and she added, ‘not for a million pounds.' And here the small ‘o' of her mouth fell silent as she gazed at her friend in complete terror. In the world of Mrs Butterfield one million pounds was the absolute summum of impossibility of attainment and yet looking at Ada's calm countenance and knowing her and what she was like if ever she made up her mind to something it was almost as if she expected Ada to open her handbag and lay the money on the table or borrow it from the Bank of England.

Mrs Harris was aware that she was going to have her work cut out. She forced a laugh and remarked, ‘Oh, come on, Violet Butterfield, use your nut.
Maybe it's true about some of them bigwigs killin' each other off, but 'oo'd ever want to make trouble for the likes of us?'

‘Don't you believe it, Ada 'Arris,' countered Mrs Butterfield. ‘The likes of them and the likes of us ain't no different to them Rooshans. The way I've seen you carry on and go about and your sharp tongue and they'd 'ave you down in one of them cells pullin' out your fingernails quicker than you could say Dick Robertson.'

‘Garn,' scoffed Mrs Harris. ‘You've got rats in your loaf. 'Oo 'ave I ever given any trouble to or done anything worse than maybe cheat on a bus fare when the collector forgot to come around and served 'im right for not bein' on the job. 'Oo do you fink in Moscow would ever 'ave 'eard of Mrs 'Arris, char?'

Six o'clock in London was eight o'clock Moscow time. It might not have been at the exact moment when Mrs Harris asked her rhetorical question that her name actually did come up in that far off city, but appear it did in a file lying upon the desk of the conscientious servant of the KGB, or Secret Police, Vaslav Vornov. To Vornov his organization took the place of the Orthodox Church which he served with unending zeal as evidenced by the fact that though it was well after working hours he was still at his desk with a pile of cuttings clipped from the various
issues of the capitalist press in key cities before him. Comrade Vornov's job in the vast system of Russian espionage and internal and external security was to ferret out the movements of the enemies of the Soviet Union, ticket them and label them and, should they cross the boundaries of Holy Mother Russia, see to it that steps were taken to render them harmless.

The clipping near the bottom of the pile which now commended itself to his study was the same one from the British newspaper which several weeks ago Mrs Butterfield had called to the attention of Mrs Harris, the one that dealt with the change of post of the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, France's Ambassador to the United States, to a senior adviser upon foreign affairs at the Quai d'Orsay.

Comrade Vornov read through the item, then pushed a button and commanded a junior officer to produce the file on the Marquis who was too big a fish to be buried merely in the innards of a computer. There would be a thorough dossier upon him in the section listing
Enemies of the Soviet Union
.

The file produced, he read through it carefully and from the very beginning to follow the history of the Marquis, birth, education, politics, friends and acquaintances, his rise to diplomatic eminence and a long list of his actions inimical to the welfare of the Soviet Union and its hierarchy.

The dossier was as thorough a compendium of a
hostile subject as could only be amassed by the far-flung tentacles of the KGB and contained a list of names of practically anyone and everyone with whom the Marquis had ever come into contact.

Now that the Marquis was again to become a power in the direction of French foreign policy it was certain that his voice would be raised once more in potent resistance to the swallowing of the Soviet master plan of a phoney
détente
designed to lull the West into a false sense of security. He read through the names carefully. Many of them were familiar to the Comrade Inspector, others far down the list he had never heard of and their position indicated that they were not considered of major importance but, in casting his eyes over them, they fell upon that of one Ada Harris of 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, London, sw 11. There were no details as to the who, what, why or wherefore of her connection with the Marquis and so the Inspector read on making a note of the more familiar associates who from that time on were to be more closely watched.

‘Whoever has heard of Ada 'Arris in Moscow?' Mrs Harris had asked. Comrade Inspector Vaslav Vornov of the KGB had. And one reason that Vornov had attained his position in the organization was that he possessed a memory such as might be encompassed by a whole herd of elephants, but of this Ada was blissfully ignorant. Not that at this stage it
would particularly have worried her. She was too busy planning her counter-attack to weaken the defences of Mrs Butterfield.