The Walking Stick (17 page)

It’s very awkward when this happens. These pieces had all been giving pleasure and satisfaction to their owners ever since they were bought seventy-odd years ago. So long as they remained
as showpieces in a case in Norfolk, they fulfilled just the same purpose as the genuine pieces that they copied. But once they came into the market their value and charm had to be destroyed in the
eyes of their owners – because no man who thinks a thing is genuine can prize it when he knows it’s only imitation. This is something wrong with human nature, but there doesn’t
seem to be any cure. And often the owners – apart from the financial disappointment – don’t appreciate being told.

Mr and Mrs Bustard did not. They came in full of a hard, well-groomed, patronizing good-will; but when I told them that the entire collection had been specially manufactured as copies of the
originals, all in the same French factory about 1880, and that the whole lot was worthless, they froze up. I thought they were even going to withdraw their invitation to us to spend the night. What
they did do instead was cast doubts on my competence, and the meeting was thoroughly unpleasant all round. Grant Stokes, of course, backed me up, but he hadn’t had a lot to do with porcelain
and he couldn’t speak with the authority of Maurice Mills. The furniture, he told them, was all fairly good.

We went on working through the evening. If you’re a rich Victorian brewer and don’t know an awful lot about antiques it isn’t difficult to be taken in. If he’d been
content to buy decent stuff of his own period it would have been worth far more than this.

But about ten o’clock, fishing in the back of a cupboard upstairs, I found a porcelain statuette about nine inches high and a foot long. It was a statuette of a Chinaman sitting down, with
a disproportionately big brown dog beside him. The workmanship was exquisite, and I knew I had come on a treasure at last.

That one piece of genuine early Meissen – a perfect specimen of which perhaps only four were ever made – was the only piece of china of any value in the whole rambling mansion; but
it took much of the sting out of the rest. We were there all the following day and didn’t get back to London until seven in the evening, so Grant Stokes dropped me in Ennismore Gardens.

As I went up the steps I saw my father’s Vauxhall parked almost opposite the front door. A second too late, I realized I’d left my gloves in Grant Stokes’s car, and this took
my mind off ‘coo-eeing’ as I usually did to let Sarah know I was in. It was a pretty small flat, and I went through into the kitchen to prop my stick in its corner. As I did so I heard
my father’s voice coming through the serving hatch, which was half open.

‘You see, Erica feels that she’s not like you and Arabella. She’s been delicate and handicapped and that makes her more a special charge on us all – a responsibility, as
it were.’

Sarah said: ‘I think you’re wildly wrong to look on her as delicate. I think she’s tough. I mean, when has she ailed of anything ever – I mean apart from the effects of
the polio? I can’t remember anything at all.’

There was silence, and then the chink of a glass. Douglas said: ‘Thanks. Oh, no, I quite agree. But one wonders how far stamina is impaired. Is she still sleeping with the man
regularly?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘She does come back here?’

‘Yes, always. But it’s not my business to ask, is it?’

‘No. Oh, no. I thought she might be quite open about it, that’s all.’

I tried to turn silently to move away. Douglas said: ‘Erica’s surprisingly concerned. She persists in trying to worry me.’

‘I honestly can’t see why she should be so worried.’

‘Well, a pregnancy for one thing. Has Deborah sought any advice from you?’

‘Hardly! Strange as you may think it, I’ve never yet slept with anyone!’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sarah, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that you’re so medically qualified. It would be rather a reflection on us all if she got caught, as Minta would
call it. And I suppose Hartley can’t marry her, even if he wanted to.’

‘No.’

I got back to the door, trying to keep my breathing quiet.

‘Have you seen the first wife?’

‘I hardly know Leigh even. We’ve only met a half-dozen times.’

Douglas said: ‘I wonder if she’s in any way handicapped.’

‘Who?’

‘The first wife. Of course Deborah is very pretty indeed, but most men would sheer off. The odd man who doesn’t may find her bad leg fascinating rather than repellent. Deformity
fetishism isn’t as rare as you’d suppose.’

I went out through the kitchen door but his cool, clinical, uncommitted voice followed me.

‘. . . Men of that type, with that peculiarity, are usually unsatisfactory as husbands and lovers. There tends to be some hidden inadequacy in their own characters . . . They
seek—’

I went out, quietly closing the front door again, and went down the steps. I walked the length of the square and then turned towards Knightsbridge. I raised a hand to a prowling taxi.

He was surprised and delighted; it was the first time I had ever gone to him uninvited; then he saw my face in the light of the studio.

‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong? You’ll stay the night?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Darling . . .’

‘No, I don’t mean that way. Not tonight. You’ll have to give me a day or two.’

‘What
did
they say? Were they blackguarding me?’

‘Not specially. Don’t ask me, I’d rather not talk about it now.’

‘But you’ll stay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Permanently?’

‘I don’t know.’

I sighed, trying to shake off misery and anger and malaise, to share his pleasure and sense of adventure. ‘Don’t you have a shift on a Saturday?’

‘I’ve been going to tell you, Deborah. I’m out of a job again.’

‘Leigh, when?’

‘I got the sack last Monday. I wanted to tell you on Tuesday but I hoped I’d have something fresh by the end of the week.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was one of these rush hours. I grabbed a man and shoved him off. He’s threatening to bring a case.’

‘Oh, I’m
sorry
. You should have told me.’

I made some scrambled eggs and we sat together in companionable ease. We talked only about his future that night. Then we went to bed and lay together quietly, and it was only in the last drowsy
minutes that I moved closer to him and went to sleep in his arms.

In the morning he was up and out before I woke, and while I was in the bath I heard him come back.

‘I went to telephone Jack Foil,’ he said. ‘I think he’ll help.’

‘In what way, though?’

‘Don’t fret yourself. He’s never yet been in trouble with the police.’

‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘I wonder sometimes . . .’

‘You
think
too much,’ he said, ‘that’s the only trouble with you. D’you remember what you said in Spain? Just be. Exist. Just live. That’s the only
answer to life really. That’s the only answer
I’ve
found.’

After three weeks at the Studio, Rotherhithe, SE24, I had got used to the bus journey to Piccadilly, shopping on the way home, cooking for him at weekends, the companionship
and the demands of love. Hampstead seemed to be something only now observable through the wrong end of a telescope.

I felt relatively little anger against Douglas. Or if it was there it hid itself within, or transformed itself into a deeper commitment on behalf of Leigh. I felt more than ever, more deeply
than ever, that I had to help him make something of his life. Whether we ever married or not, we were partners working toward a common end: my realization of myself, his realization of himself.
This was all.

Much of the time I was happy. He often seemed younger than his age because of this boyish sense of adventure and fun. He still spent money freely, but had accepted that I should pay for the food
and drink that came into the place. He hadn’t found work, but I knew he was seeing a lot of Jack Foil.

A district utterly strange to me. And lonely. No neighbours – except the great warehouses – and ten minutes walk to the nearest shop. It seemed a curiously respectable neighbourhood.
I didn’t know whether this was part of the welfare state; but everyone seemed to be moderately prosperous, decently dressed, well found. The shops were unlike those I normally knew. The
multiple stores, the supermarkets were only just moving in. For the most part shops were still privately owned, one storey, personal, friendly. Jim’s Pie Shop . . . Betty’s Footstore .
. . Martin’s for Meat. People soon recognized you, called you dear, took an interest. They were a bit suspicious of my accent, but it soon went. There seemed scarcely any coloured people,
only a few Indians and Chinese. It was all very homely. I had somehow imagined Rotherhithe to be a slum area with wicked lascars and dark deeds by the docks. Anything but.

We had only one near quarrel, Leigh and I, when I told him of my visit to Norfolk and discovering one piece of Meissen among all the fake. He was thoughtful, tapping a cigarette around but not
lighting it. ‘
Where
was it, this piece?’

‘At the back of a cupboard, among some old candlesticks.’

‘Would the owners know they had it?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. There was so much junk.’

‘What size was it – a foot square?’

‘The ornament? Oh, less.’

‘And how much d’you think it will fetch when it comes up for sale?’

‘Oh, not less than £2000.’

‘Oh, my God!’

‘What’s the matter?’

He at last flicked his lighter. ‘Hadn’t you a bag? Anything like that?’

‘Of course. But what . . .’

‘The rest of the stuff was junk. No one knew of this piece. You could have just slipped it into your case. What a chance!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said angrily, ‘I obviously need an awful lot of educating!’

‘Maybe you do. Maybe you do,’ he said, and got up. Then he turned. ‘
Sorry
, Deborah. I didn’t mean any of it. Forget I spoke.’

‘Why should I? You won’t.’

‘I know. But I spoke without thinking. It was just that we could have got probably seven or eight hundred pounds from Jack Foil for the thing. It was on a plate. And nobody would ever have
known.’

‘Except that I would have known. And you would. Doesn’t that count?’

‘D’you think being free of money problems for a while would have made us think any worse of ourselves?’

I picked up a scattered newspaper and for no good reason began folding it. ‘I’ve worked for Whittington’s for over seven years. Don’t you think I owe them any honesty
– even if I don’t owe it to myself?’

‘But you weren’t stealing from them – or at least only a bit of commission. It’s one of those cases, I think, where it would have done nobody any harm.’

‘I’m sorry!’ I threw the newspaper down. ‘It is obviously something we shall never agree on.’

There was a long silence. I don’t know how long it takes to get through a cigarette, but we sat there unspeaking until he had stubbed the end in a stone ashtray. Then he got up and went
out without a word.

Jack Foil’s flat was over his antique shop in Old Brompton Road. You went up steps at the side and came to a door of reeded glass with a light over it, and as soon as you
pressed the bell dogs yapped as if the electricity had been connected to their tails. He opened the door himself, and we went in between potted plants, with two very fat dachshunds monopolizing the
conversation. Then his wife slid from between more potted plants and led us into a long darkish room lit with five lamps in black drum shades.

Wife about thirty: bleached hair on shoulders, tired blue eyes, good figure but wearing a size ten frock where she needed a twelve. Plants everywhere.

‘It’s my hobby,’ said Jack Foil, taking my elbow. ‘This is an Umbrella Tree – know it? – it comes from Australia; very nice, don’t you think?
D’you take whisky or gin? Sherry, then. Sherry, Doreen. This they call Mother-in-Law’s-Tongue – ha, ha! – very long, if you understand, and wagging. Down, Rufus! Down! They
get excited, you know, we don’t have many visitors. Down, Paula! Leigh, you’ll take whisky, I suppose? . . . This plant’s called Scarlet Trails. Lovely red flowers in the spring,
but they don’t last. Comes from one of those American islands. There, it’s dry sherry, is that all right for you? . . . Down, Rufus! Let me look at your shoes, Miss Dainton . . . Ah,
you’re all right; no laces. Laces have a fatal fascination for Rufus. If he can, he’ll chew them right off. A friend came the other day and was
quite
annoyed. Sitting down, you
know, he didn’t notice until it was too late . . . Ice, Leigh? Ah, of course, I remember, no ice. Is Dr Sarah Dainton your sister, Miss Dainton? She comes in the shop sometimes. Fancy, and I
never connected! Very charming. Small silver pieces, as you know. She bought a Georgian silver tea canister. Only last week. Sit beside me and tell me what you think of this rug. You recognize it?
Ha, ha! I was looking at it the day we met in Whittington’s. But I wanted it for my personal use, not for the shop. The wife fancied it. Perhaps you think it’s a pity, what with the
dogs.’

Dark hair on the back of his hands, like fur; unpleasant contrast with the gold of the two signet rings. Pebbled eyes, never quite normal in size, wobbled as the lenses moved. Smell of
carnation. He looked sinister. Yet homely. A stout, heavy man of fifty talking, talking, with his two dachshunds snuffling at his feet, and green room plants giving a vegetable look, an underwater
look to a room insufficiently lighted, and a blonde corseted young wife flirting with Leigh and pulling her short skirt down to her knees so often that she drew his looks. (Yet a softer woman this,
much, than the moneyed blonde in Norfolk.) Sherry dry and fine, Corona smoke, central heating, settee too soft, enveloped one like a bed. I had read a book once about a fat man suffocating a girl
with a pillow. Careful. No claustrophobia.

‘Yes, Mr Foil,’ I said, ‘and is that a Stanley Spencer?’ Are these all stolen pictures on the walls? Did that handsome diamond on your wife’s finger come from some
Hatton Garden robbery? But surely not. Surely you’re too careful for that. ‘Well, I suppose he’s one of the easiest of all painters to recognize.’ ‘It’s what you
were talking to me about that day – developing a style that isn’t a mannerism. When we were talking about Leigh.’