The Walking Stick (18 page)

What risk is Leigh running in your company? Of course he talks big, about breaking the law; but isn’t he
basically
too well balanced, too level-headed . . .

‘Leigh tells me you’re going to be married, Miss Dainton. Oh, of course, I know, there are obstacles but they can be removed, can’t they. Time and patience. That’s a
Catherine Wheel Plant you’re staring at – very nice and easy to grow . . . Oh, yes, I knew her slightly. But she wasn’t his type. Type? Ha, ha, well of course there isn’t
any, is there? But you know what I mean. Leigh’s rather an elite sort of chap, in spite of coming from a simple home. Deserves somebody like you, Miss Dainton, if I may say so.’

Genuine benevolence in his voice? Never anything but courteous and kind to me. Another mistake of the conventional mind to suppose that a man who lived illegally was any less human or ordinary
or, indeed, likable in his everyday life.

Leigh, I thought, was not quite at ease in his company. Less pugnacious, less jolly, more concerned to please.

He got temporary work in a clothing warehouse in Percy Street. Money good, but no prospects. One day he confessed to me he owed Jack Foil £500. I was appalled and wanted
to help him to pay it back at once. He said no, what did it matter; but all that day and for many days afterward I worried about it. I had saved about £400, but he wouldn’t accept any
of it, saying: ‘Look, sweetheart, can I take from you now the cash I spent courting you? What sort of a lark would you call that? I know you want to help, and in some ways maybe you can help;
but don’t you see you just can’t help
that
way!’

Most of the time now I never used a stick. In fact, I’d left it in a cupboard at Whittington’s. I sometimes woke in the night with an unallayable ache in the small of the back, but
this might have been caused by any one of the changes in my changed life. Leigh was encouraging me to dance: half of the studio was uncarpeted and he had a small record player and we tried there.
He wanted me to go with him to a dance hall. ‘Darling,’ I said, ‘it isn’t so much that I’m afraid of people pointing me out and saying, “look at that
freak”. I’m afraid of people pointing me out and saying “look at that brave girl”. D’you get what I mean?’

‘I get that you care a hell of a lot too much what other people think.’

‘Don’t we all? You care too much what those silly dealers think of your painting.’

‘They’re experts. And don’t change the subject.’

‘It’s all part of the same subject.’

One or two weekends we went out of London, and he let me drive the car. I seemed to get into it pretty quickly, and actually, with the weak leg being the left one, I didn’t have much
trouble. The only real difficulty was the headlight dipper, but of course this didn’t matter during the day. I applied for a test.

At Whittington’s the big autumn sales were coming up, and I brought home a stack of catalogues. He thumbed through them.

‘What a packet of folding money there must be in all this stuff! It isn’t till you see it all listed that you realize. Hundreds of thousands of quid all humped together in those junk
showrooms of yours!’

It was swan-feeding time – we did this twice daily – and we went out on the balcony in the evening light. A white vessel was just passing flying a Trinity House flag. It seemed to
move as easily as a swan, gliding with the stream, completely silent. The water had a slightly pink glow like fashionable champagne. A premature light winked here and there.

‘We ought to go into business together,’ he said, ‘as junk dealers. You with your strict honesty, me with my knavery. We’d be an unbeatable team – slap into the
First Division.’

‘D’you know that’s not a bad idea.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘We
might
go into business together – in an antique shop. I mean – I know almost as much as anybody about china and porcelain, and I’ve a working knowledge of a
few other things. You understand a lot about painting.’

He stared at me. The swans were coming downriver; four fully grown and six cygnets; they steered and manoeuvred into a position where they could most easily grab the bread and meat we
offered.

‘We could work together,’ I said, ‘instead of on separate things. And what we made would be our own.’

‘What do we use for money?’

‘To set up? Oh, I know . . .’ Neither Douglas nor Erica had any personal capital behind them. They always claimed to have educated their children on overdrafts. ‘But it’s
worth thinking about. It’s the first real idea we’ve had.’

No more then, but the following morning he said: ‘I wonder what we’d need to set up. We could rent a shop somewhere to begin. But even then it’d cost the earth. Three thousand
pounds I’d think to get started properly, to buy in a bit of stock, and to wait for people to come in and buy. I could ask Jack Foil.’

‘Don’t.’

‘OK, OK. But we’d have to have money from somewhere. Even a barrow boy’s got to buy his barrow!’

‘Let’s think of it for a while. Perhaps I can think of something.’

I felt much happier just for having this to dwell on. Before there hadn’t been any future; one went on from day to day, happy but blinkered. But this was a possible solution only just out
of reach.

On 3 November I found our balcony piled with wooden cases, cardboard cartons stuffed with straw, three old chairs, coconut matting with holes in it, old clothes, a moth-eaten
feather boa. You couldn’t see out of one window at all. Leigh came in a few minutes after me and laughed at my face.

‘This is the beginning of our antique shop, mate; I’m going to buy a horse and cart and collect junk.’

‘No, seriously! Tell me.’

‘Well, you said you wanted a bonfire.’

‘D’you mean it? Can we?’

‘I went and asked one of the dockmasters of the PLA. They don’t mind so long as we keep it reasonable.’

‘And fireworks?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ve got a whole bunch here.’ He picked up the parcel. ‘The lot. Other people are bringing theirs as well.’

I laughed. ‘What other people?’

‘Lay off. This is my joint still and I’m giving the party.’

‘But, darling, can we afford it?’

‘No, we can’t, but that adds an extra zing. Anyhow it’s your birthday party as well – a week early.’

‘I didn’t know I’d ever told you.’

‘You didn’t. It leaked out when I was talking to Sarah last week.’

‘Is she coming?’

‘You wait and see.’

The fifth was a Saturday, so we could spend all day getting ready. I made a female guy out of the smelly old clothes. The tides were right. Leigh had made sure of that before anything else
– but of course he couldn’t start building the bonfire until four when the river ebbed. Even then it meant building on wet stones.

The night was a bit windy and overcast and dark but not cold. By six we could see other lights flickering here and there over the city and docks, and a few rockets and flashes. At six-thirty
Arabella and a young man came. To my surprise it was not Bruce Spring, but I didn’t catch his name and had no chance of asking her about him. Then four other people, including two I’d
met at Ted Sandymount’s. Then Ted himself, blinking and twitching; he’d been away on holiday, and his nose was peeling; whenever I looked at him all that evening he was picking at the
loose skin on his nose. Then Sarah came with Philip Bartholomew and David Hambro. And then my father and mother.

When I saw them I glanced at Leigh half in anger, half in panic; but he pinched my elbow and a minute later I was kissing them coolly and welcoming them as if I’d expected them all the
time.

Fortunately more guests came, so the shock was absorbed and embarrassment was breathed out in commonplaces. I was still half angry inside, but Douglas and Erica were never bad partygoers, and I
wasn’t surprised at the way they entered into the thing. I’d never been allowed fireworks at home, but now they said they found them ‘tremendous fun’, and particularly in
the setting of London River.

This setting, you had to admit, made all the difference. It was probably rather absurd – and yet it was beautiful. We started off with twenty rockets fired from bottles; then I had to
light the bonfire with a torch Leigh had made, and everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in the dark flickering, spark-blowing night and drank my health in Rioja and bit into sausage rolls.
The fire’s reflection was mirrored in metallic grey and green and orange in the quiet lapping river. The pyre was soon a mass of flame leaping up to the feather-boaed witch on the top. Faces
laughed, talked, peered, drank, in flickering setting-sun colours; then, as if arc-lighted in a pantomime, turned green, crimson and yellow as flares were lit on the stones.

A cruising river boat flickered its searchlight over us; a great rocket flowered and died, silhouetting Tower Bridge; Roman candles popped and spluttered; the witch sagged and tottered, flames
licking, and then fell sideways upon the stones. Her hat struck the water and hissed and floated away. The red wine was too cold, the sausages too hot, but no one seemed to mind. About now I looked
up and Mr and Mrs Jack Foil had come, were standing beside Douglas and Erica on the balcony looking down. Her ash-blonde hair fluttered like a flag.

Another flurry of rockets; more crackers; then the men began to push together the remnants of the bonfire to encourage the blaze. The tide had turned and was creeping gently in, lapping at the
stones at our feet. We had had our fun, it told us; time to go.

In the studio everyone crowded, talking at once. Wine had unlocked tongues; people too hot in coats now, dropping them in corners; clink of bottles; Leigh passing by me: ‘OK, love?’
‘OK – devil.’ Smiles, loving smiles between us. ‘Well, I reckoned it a good idea, birthday and all that. Where’s your glass, David?’ Separated again. But
together. I love him. God, it almost hurts. Don’t let this end. Not the party but the love. A blissful amity. Founded on sex but almost independent of it. I’d die for him. Schemer.
Scheming all this up. Still treating me like a juvenile. I’ll show him.

My father’s voice, lighter in timbre than some others but very clear. ‘It’s a question of reaction formation. Obsessional morality was the obvious example in Victorian and
Edwardian days. Now we see others at work.’ ‘Pyorrhoea,’ said Mrs Foil, close by me. ‘But then she’s nearly twelve. Otherwise as healthy as could be.’ A hand on
my arm. ‘Darling, a lovely party,’ Arabella said. ‘Fabulous idea and all.’ ‘Who’s the new man?’ ‘Benjy? Not really new. Sort of
da
capo
.’ ‘Bruce?’ ‘Oh, lots to tell you about him. Suddenly things went sour – desperately, tragically. It shows how wrong we would have been to marry.’ Ted
Sandymount’s sniff and snicker. ‘So I said to him I said, you can stuff that, what d’you think I am, an
au pair
girl?’ Wine was running out, anyway, it must be
getting on for ten. Sarah had miraculously produced two big trays of chocolate biscuits. Those
went. Everybody
took one, even Douglas. Good sign. Good party. Leigh by the door, face smudged
with bonfire ash; I took the last biscuit, munched deliciously; people going now. Met Leigh’s eyes; he wanted me. Go now; go everyone. ‘Thank you. Delighted you came.’ ‘Yes,
wasn’t it fun? We’ll do it again next year!’ ‘
Glad
you came, Erica. I think it’s going to work out.’ ‘Goodbye, Douglas, thank you. For coming, I
mean.’ ‘Mr Foil . . . Well, Jack, then. Thank you, thank you.’ ‘Sarah, did you
bring
the biscuits?’ ‘Next week? Yes we could, I expect. I’ll ask
Leigh.’

Going, going now. Cars outside had choked the lane. Much revving of engines, people trying to manoeuvre, laughter, slammed doors. Ted here still, talking to Arabella, eyeing her as if he’d
like to bed her; she eyeing him back, flirting as usual with anyone for the fun of it. Leigh came back from outside, looking at me again. The room a shambles. Cigarette smoke and ends, empty
glasses, gloves someone had forgotten, burned out Roman candles in a jar, bottles on their sides not even dripping, a paper bag with Catherine wheels. Arabella’s young man. ‘Thanks,
Deborah, lovely to have met you. The car’s outside and it’s just raining. Goodbye, Leigh.’ Only Ted now. And Leigh knew Ted well enough to get rid of Ted.

Back to the door. We were alone.

We knew it had been a great success. We knew everyone had enjoyed it. We stood a moment and smiled at each other, and then laughed. Then we moved and met, and kissed, still laughing. We fondled
each other, breathing a sort of deep fundamental affection, of which desire was only a part. But because of the amalgam breadth and depth were added in some chemical synthesis of which perhaps even
Douglas would have approved. In the wreckage of the party we made love as never before, moving the very wells of body and spirit where for a while we dwelt together and alone. It happened. I know
it happened like that. Even though it never happened like that again.

Deep in the breathing dark of the night he said: ‘You awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I heard the rain. You?’

‘I been thinking.’

‘Nice thoughts?’

‘Of you – fabulous. But not all of you.’

‘Tell me.’

He drew me against him. ‘No. Sleep.’

We lay for a time, warm and deliciously drowsy. The wind was blowing and rain beat on the windows. All the more infinitely comfortable here. Twice I dozed, each time woke knowing him awake.

‘What is it, darling?’

He moved his arm, stretched. ‘God, you were marvellous.’

I lay with my face against his hand.

After a while he said: ‘Lucky about last night.’

‘What?’

‘The rain kept off.’

‘Yes, it would have been a mess. What’s worrying you, Leigh?’

‘D’you want to know now?’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s only five.’

‘Well, I shan’t sleep if you don’t.’

Silence. He said: ‘I’ve been asked to ask you something and don’t dare.’

‘What?’ I giggled. ‘I can’t
imagine
anything you wouldn’t dare—’

‘
No
. This is serious. Somebody like Jack Foil. Not Jack Foil but somebody like him. They want information.’