Sixty Days to Live (24 page)

Comforted somewhat by the man’s apparent honesty, Hemmingway produced a ten-shilling note. ‘You can take this on account,’ he said, ‘and there’ll be another like it if the lady’s had a good sleep by the time I get back.’

‘Thanks, guv’nor.’ The publican thrust the ten shilling note into the pocket of his dressing-gown. ‘Follow me, will yer?’ He turned and led the way upstairs.

The hallway smelt of stale cabbage. The stair carpet was threadbare and the paper on the walls faded with age. But the landlord led them to a room on the first floor overlooking the street, which, while unpretentious, looked reasonably clean.

A big, old-fashioned, brass bedstead occupied nearly half of it while a marble-topped washstand with a jug of water and coarse-looking towels was wedged in one corner, Hemmingway noted with satisfaction that the door had a key on the inside. The second Lavina entered it, she collapsed upon the bed.

‘Poor lady’s in a shockin’ state, ain’t she?’ said the landlord. ‘Like me to get the Missis up an’ give ‘er a nice cup o’ tea or somethin’?’

Hemmingway shook his head. ‘No, thanks all the same. All she needs is sleep.’

The man nodded, and shuffled out of the door. ‘So long, then. Tell ‘er just to give a shout if she wants anything. You can find yer own way out an’ I’ll let you in again when you get back.’

As the publican closed the door behind him, Hemmingway looked down at Lavina. Dark circles showed under her eyes and her eyelids were blue, as though she had made them up, but actually from exhaustion. She was certainly all-in.

He shook her by the shoulder. ‘Look here, we’ll have to set off for Stapleton directly I get back from St. James’s Square with the car. It’s no good just flopping down like that with your clothes on. You must undress and get into bed so as to get as much real rest as possible out of the short time you’ve got.’

Lavina blinked up at him wearily. ‘I can’t, Hemmingway. I’m too tired. I can hardly stand up.’

‘Now, do be sensible. It won’t take you a moment to slip out of your things.’

She raised herself on one arm. ‘All right. If you’ll help me.’

Hemmingway was not used to undressing young women. He was not in the least a prude but his complete lack of social life and his preoccupation with learning when young had kept him right out of the sphere of the girls in his own home town. While he had been struggling to earn his living in New York he had had an unfortunate affair with a girl who had let him down extremely badly; and it had gone so deep that for a long time afterwards he had studiously shunned all feminine advances. Since then, although he had met many pretty women in Sam’s company, his whole heart had been in his work. He and Sam travelled a certain amount but, even in the luxury resorts they sometimes visited, there were always big deals in progress, cables to be decoded, long-distance telephone calls coming through and schemes to be thought out for the development of this or that business, and Hemmingway never found himself particularly attracted to the elegant, but so often empty-headed, young women that he met in such places.

Women, too, were a little frightened of him; yet, had they known the truth, he was much more frightened of them when they did attract him; so, while he was not actually cold, he had fallen into the habit of never attempting to go further with them than casual friendship. The fact was that he no longer thought about women as women and was so absorbed in Sam’s affairs that he had more or less drifted into the same sort of celibacy as that of a worldly priest who has fought and conquered all desire.

Lavina caught the rather queer look on his face and, exhausted as she was, could not repress a flicker of amusement at his shyness. Her three years on the films had long since accustomed her to acting, often in the scantiest of costumes, before crowds of technicians and lookers-on. She was very proud of her beautiful body and rather liked to show it off whenever she could do so without positive immodesty; so it had not even occurred to her that Hemmingway would be embarrassed by helping her shed her outer garments.

His hesitation was only momentary. As she slid off the bed and, crossing her arms, plucked at the hem of her frock he quickly took hold of it and pulled it over her head. Then, as she sank down again, he unlaced her shoes, took them off and helped her roll down her stockings.

‘Thanks. That’ll do,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll wriggle out of my
body-belt somehow when you’ve gone; my chemise will have to do as a nightie.’

He pulled out his gun and showed it to her. ‘Ever handled one of these things?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, often in my film days but only with blanks.’

‘Right. It’s fully loaded. Just in case someone starts something while I’m away I’ll leave it with you; and you’d better lock the door. Don’t open it to anyone until I get back. The landlord seems a decent guy, but you never know in a place like this.’

Turning his back to her he went over to the mantelpiece and scribbled a note on an odd piece of paper from his pocket. It ran:

‘I didn’t want to scare you unnecessarily but accidents are more frequent than usual these days. If it’s after midday
when you wake and I’m not back you’ll know I’ve slipped up. In that case give the landlord his other ten shillings, go along to the docks and get yourself taken on one of the ships. There were so many prisoners that they’re certain to be still evacuating people then. I’ll have to be a hospital case or in the can myself before I fail you; but, if I have to, best of luck!

H.H.’

He laid the message and a little wad of pound-notes under the automatic. When he turned again Lavina had already crawled between the sheets and was just dropping off to sleep, but he roused her up and made her get out of bed for a moment to ensure her locking the door after him.

‘Happy dreams!’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll be back in less than a couple of hours and we’ll be off to the country.’

‘Bless you!’ she said, and closed the door behind him.

Out in the street Hemmingway set off at a brisk pace westward. Although he had been up all night, finding Lavina had acted as a tonic to him and, after the frowsty atmosphere of the public house bedroom, the fresh morning air lent him new strength.

Outside a church a hoarding which bore the legend, IF YOUR KNEES KNOCK TOGETHER KNEEL ON THEM, caught his eye and he took off his mental hat to the stout-hearted parson who was sticking to his ship with such an appropriate slogan nailed to the mast. Except where they were still evacuating cases from the East End Maternity Hospital few people were moving
in the streets and the Commercial Road seemed interminable, but at last he reached Whitechapel High Street and there he saw an event which gave him furiously to think.

One of the very few private cars he had seen that morning was coming down it, moving east, when a group of toughs ran out into the roadway in front of it. The car slowed up. The people in it, who appeared to be a middle-class family, were unceremoniously pulled out and, piling into it, the six or eight roughs drove off, leaving its owner cursing in the gutter.

It was quite understandable that East Enders should be just as anxious as anyone else to get out of London to the greater safety of the countryside but a little disconcerting to find that some of them were using such high-handed methods. He might be faced with the same sort of trouble himself when he drove back to pick up Lavina; so he determined that directly he entered the East End he would ignore all limits and lights. The police were much too occupied to bother about motoring offences and it was better to risk a crash than the loss of the car.

In Cannon Street he was lucky enough to strike a convoy of food lorries proceeding West which had just collected a supply of fish from Billingsgate, and seizing his chance as the last one rumbled by he ran out into the roadway, caught the tailboard and pulled himself up on to the load of boxed fish.

The lorries turned right, east of St. Paul’s, into Newgate Street and rumbled through Holborn, so Hemmingway guessed that they were probably heading for Hyde Park. As they passed the top end of Bond Street he dropped off and, with renewed energy after his free ride, strode out down it towards Piccadilly.

It was five to seven when he arrived at St. James’s Square. Letting himself in with his key, he went straight upstairs to his bedroom to rouse Derek; but directly he opened the door he saw that Derek was no longer there.

He was not in the bathroom either, and his clothes had gone; so, after having visited the kitchen and called his name loudly several times, Hemmingway concluded that he must have left the house.

Derek was a countryman and used to early rising; moreover, he had passed most of the previous day asleep in the Park. Evidently he had woken about six, found himself much better after his night in bed and felt too restless to remain indoors; but
Hemmingway was justifiably annoyed, because he had definitely told him that he was not to go out.

Now he had, it meant either waiting for his return, which would delay picking up Lavina and getting away into the country, or having to leave him behind.

It was on coming up from the kitchen that Hemmingway noticed a letter addressed to himself propped up on the hall table. He tore it open and read:

‘I’m still feeling pretty groggy but better after a good sleep. I can’t stay here doing nothing, though, as I’m so terribly worried about Lavina. I’m going out to see if I can find her and, if I don’t have any luck, I’ll get back this evening round about ten o’clock. If you haven’t had any either, we’ll consult then as to the best thing to do; but, if one of us has run her to earth in the meantime, we can all drive down to Stapleton to-night
.

D.B.’

Hemmingway rarely gave way to temper but, as he tore the note slowly across, his eyes were narrowed and his teeth were clenched. If Derek had been there he would have hit him, his annoyance was so intense. The whole wretched muddle had been Derek’s fault in the first place, for not having been firm with Lavina at the Dorchester two nights before; and now he had messed everything up again.

If Hemmingway was not back at the ‘Main Brace’ by midday and Lavina woke to find his note, she would at once assume that some accident had befallen him and, leaving the pub, go down to the docks where all trace of her would be lost again.

There was only one thing for it. Lavina was the person who mattered; not Derek. He must darned well take care of himself; it was his own funeral now how he got out of London. Going into the lounge, Hemmingway wrote a brief note himself:

‘I have found Lavina but I had to leave her at a pub in the East End. If I’m not back there by midday with the car, she’ll read a note I left, think something has happened to me and, according to instructions, go off on her own. If you had remained here as I told you to, this mess-up would not have occurred. As it is, I’m afraid you’ll have to get down to Stapleton on your own as best you can
.

H. H.’

He propped it up on the table in the hall, where Derek’s note had been, collected the satchel of private papers from his room and, leaving the house, went round to the mews at the back to get his car.

As he pulled out his key to unlock the garage door he noticed with sudden apprehension that the lock on it had been broken. Pulling the door open, he saw that the car had gone. Scrawled in chalk on the inner side of the door were the words: ‘I
hope you don’t mind, I’ve borrowed your car. Derek.’

Mopping his brow with his pocket handkerchief Hemmingway damned Derek to all eternity.

It was still only a little after seven so Hemmingway had at least the consolation that he had plenty of time to get back to Lavina before midday, even if he had to walk the whole distance.

His stolen lift on the lorry coming up had enabled him to do the journey in just under an hour and he could cover the six odd miles back on foot in two hours, or less if he hurried; but the problem now was, how the devil was he going to get Lavina to the country without a car?

Any attempt to hire one was out of the question. All the hire companies and taxi-cabs had been taken over by the Government for the purposes of the evacuation, while practically everybody who had a private car and was not detained in London on some official duty had used it to get his own family away; so, apart from vehicles in use by the various Services, London now was virtually stripped of motor transport.

Yet Hemmingway knew that he could not expect Lavina to walk the thirty odd miles from the East End of London to Stapleton. She was a healthy girl and, although she was much too lazy and uninterested in sport to make a fetish of exercise, the activities demanded by her film work had kept her fit, so that in normal circumstances she might conceivably have made the journey; but definitely not right on top of the strain and exhaustion of the last two days.

Like those modern military experts who are sometimes haunted by the thought of their entire forces being immobilised by a petrol shortage, Hemmingway pondered for a moment on the possibility of finding horses, only to realise immediately that all horse-drawn vehicles had also been pressed into service to aid in the evacuation. Fortunately, however, he possessed a sense of humour, and the mental picture of himself driving a hansom cab down to the East End did much to mitigate his mounting exasperation.

There was only one thing for it. Derek had borrowed his car so he must borrow, or rather steal, somebody else’s. He did not like the idea a little bit, although it was not the moral aspect of the matter that troubled him. In such an emergency he considered that he would be perfectly justified in doing all sorts of things that he would never have dreamed of in normal times.

What did perturb him was the fact that, having evacuated the Capital, the Government’s principal concern now was to prevent looting. He had listened-in to the stringent regulations issued over the wireless on the previous day. As the country was under martial law, any persons discovered attempting to break into enclosed premises, or in the act of looting, were to be summarily dealt with by courts martial and, if they attempted to resist arrest, the police and troops had authority to fire upon them.