The Walking Stick (22 page)

‘It doesn’t mean a thing. I’m in nobody’s confidence. But that sort of date must be of some importance in their young lives . . . Anyway, forget it. I love
you.’

Easy to forget then. I’d thought once, right at the beginning, that first day, if one could only lift away one’s thinking mind, put it on a shelf somewhere for the time being, forget
the smart words and the smart answers . . . It was easier now, grew easier every day. Your individuality, nature, tastes changed – not drastically, dramatically, but subtly like a plant moved
to new ground and growing in different soil. ‘What did you mean, Leigh, by saying there might be much more for us in this?’ ‘Did I? Well, obviously three hundred more if we all
keep our bargain.’ ‘You didn’t speak as if you meant it that way.’

His
ways were changing too. His voice was less aggressive, he used expressions I used, swore less, didn’t make so many little slips in grammar. I’d never said anything to him,
but he seemed peculiarly apt to take on the colour of his company – and most of his company, I suppose, was me.

To Jack Foil’s again, and after drinks to the Caprice to supper. His wife in an expensive black taffeta frock, very short and deeply V-ed at the back, with a big frill running down the
back and round the hem, so that to sit down she had to move it like a bustle. Seen from a distance with the ashy hair she would have passed for twenty-two. The present fashion for very short skirts
didn’t suit me. Our conversation tonight would have made Douglas and Erica groan; traffic problems, television, dogs, holidays abroad.

After supper when we went downstairs to the Ladies: ‘Do call me Doreen, won’t you, I feel we’re going to be friends. Jack’s very fond of Leigh . . . Jack’s never
had a family – I’m his second wife, you know . . . Oh, I’ve only been married six years; I think maybe one of these days I’ll produce, but it’s a bit of a
disappointment, especially with Jack being a family man.’

‘Has he known Leigh long?’

‘Oh, it’s about three years since he first brought him home . . . He did look sweet. Leigh, I mean. Half scared, half ready to fight. He’s changed so much. Does Leigh talk to
you much, Miss Dainton? There, but I must call you Deborah, mustn’t I? Jack doesn’t talk to me much, you know. He’s always very sweet, but I sometimes think – oh, but
really, I mustn’t say it! . . . Well, I sometimes think he likes me most because I’m an ornament. You know. He’s a
collector
. He’s always bringing home beautiful
things. Not that I think I’m beautiful, mind, but I’m an ornament – or he thinks so. Do you and Leigh
talk
?’

‘Yes, quite a lot.’

‘You see, Jack doesn’t ever
tell
me things. I never know what his plans are. He loves bringing me presents and dressing me up and all that, and he’s always so sweet. You
know. And you can
trust
him. Ever since we’ve been married I’ve never seen him look at another woman. He’s sweet. But there’s something brewing now, isn’t
there?’

‘Is there?’

She tucked in a wisp of hair with the end of her tail comb. ‘Hasn’t Leigh told you?’

‘We hardly ever discuss Jack. We talk about – oh, music, painting, motorcars . . .’

Our eyes met in the mirror.

She said: ‘Leigh does paint ever so well, doesn’t he. I saw that painting of you that Jack had. Really very good. But you’re lovely, I think. Such colouring.’

I smiled and turned away from her eyes.

‘Are you afraid for Leigh?’

‘Afraid for him?’

‘Oh, you know. When you’re fond of someone you’ – with a tissue she wiped a corner of her mouth – ‘get afraid for them. Or I do. Whenever Jack’s late I
always think he’s been run over or something . . . D’you think it’s funny for me to be satisfied with an old man?’

‘I’d never thought. But is he old?’

‘Well, oldish. But I had a young one before. He only had one idea what women were for, and he didn’t know any better. Nor never would. It’s nice to have someone like Jack.
Dotes on you. Even though he never talks. Not about important things . . .’

When we got upstairs they were waiting, and Leigh was listening rather deferentially to what Jack Foil had to say.

‘I’m terribly late tonight,’ I said to Maurice Mills. ‘Can I work on a bit? With Mary being away . . .’

‘Yes, I’ll let the guards know. But don’t overdo it. A lot of this new stuff is practically undatable.’

He was right. Some things any expert could identify, but in the last hundred and fifty years an enormous amount of china had been turned out anonymously by good factories which could only be
assembled in large general categories. I could have left at seven easily. Last Saturday in that café in Evelyn Street a girl had come across to Leigh; skirt too tight; hair like a meringue.
‘Hi, Leigh, where you been hiding?’ A couple of minutes of uncomfortable talk; he didn’t introduce me; she moved off. I didn’t ask. Two drinks later he said: ‘That
girl Sue Jones, trying to butt in, trying to make out she knew me well.’ ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten her.’ ‘No, it was just done to rile me.’ ‘Well, it did,
didn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it sure did.’ ‘She certainly looked
me
up and down. Particularly down.’ ‘That’s clottish. I thought you’d grown out of
that feeling.’

A tap at the door. ‘Excuse me, miss, I wondered, as you was still here, whether you’d like a cup of tea?’

‘I’d love one, thank you. Shall I come for it?’

‘No, I’ve got it here just outside.’

Ginger-haired man of fifty. Bad skin, with shaving rash. Square jaw. Square nails not scrubbed. Blue uniform, just like a policeman, heavy truncheon in belt.
Safeguard
shoulder flash.

‘Sorry if I’m in your way,’ I said. ‘I’m about ready to go.’

‘No, it doesn’t make no difference to us, like. Stay as long as you want. We don’t often have comp’ny so late as this.’

‘What time is it? Good heavens, nearly ten! I’ll go in a moment now.’

Sipping tea. Slightly worse-tasting if anything than the usual office tea. He sipped too.

‘Has your partner got one?’

‘Oh, yes, he’s upstairs; I took him his first.’

‘I suppose one of you always has to stay by the telephone?’

‘Well, that’s the general plan. Not that it matters s’much as all that. It is pretty safe here, y’know, against surprise.’

‘D’you have a private line to your own headquarters, or something like that?’

‘Yes. We ring up every half hour. Give a code word to identify ourselves, see. Tonight’s is . . . Well, last night’s was
Lowestoft
. If they don’t get it – if
they don’t get it every quarter and three-quarter hour they know there’s trouble and come round in force.’

‘That’s terribly ingenious . . . But supposing you’re investigating some noise and happen to be a bit late?’

‘Oh, well, they’re not so eager to turn out in the night as all that! They give us five minutes’ grace.’

Tea finished. Pretending a little left. Stirring the dregs. He was looking at the china.

‘Lovely stuff you get in here. I said to the wife this week, I said, it’s a good job you can’t see all I see of a night or you’d be discontented for the rest of your
life! It’s true as true.’

He looked like a retired Army sergeant. A fair pension, but this extra would make all the difference. Tough and not easily frightened. Jack Foil and his friends had better try some easier
meat.

Suddenly he said: ‘Oh, I’d best be going. It’s quarter past, and I have to clock in at ten-twenty on the first floor.’

‘Clock in?’

‘We’ve three clocks in the place, you know, miss. We do ’em each by the hour, one every twenty minutes. If we let ’em overrun they set off the alarms.’

‘Isn’t that clever!’

‘Well, it’s a good system. Let us know, will you, when you’re thinking of going. We wouldn’t want you to try and unbolt the doors by mistake!’

‘I’ll go now. If you’ll – er – clock in and come down again, I’ll get my coat.’

I said: ‘They’ll never break in, not in this world. When you were saying how careless Whittington’s were, I thought, I expect they’re not really
careless at all!’

‘You sound pleased.’

‘I am. Oh, I am. Relieved anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘Doesn’t it stand to common sense? Now your friends can try somewhere else, where I
can’t
help them!’

‘They may not want to.’

‘What choice have they?’

‘I don’t know . . .’

‘It seems to me, Leigh, that this is the perfect answer. No one can say I haven’t done my part.’

‘They certainly can’t.’ He was silent a minute. ‘There may be a way round all this, see. I don’t know. We’ll have to consider it.’

‘
We’
ll have to? It’s their plan, not yours!’

‘Oh, I know. But you get involved.’

I looked at him. ‘How involved?’

‘Well, as I’ve said before, they’re friends. Jack is, and Ted. And the others in a way.’

‘So what does this come to?’

‘Well, after a time, talking of it, you get drawn in. It’s like a game – a sort of game.’

‘Nasty game if it goes wrong.’

He looked back at me moodily. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, but, as the whole thing may be off now, I’ll tell you. They offered me a part of it.’

No drama. Careful, no drama, now. ‘D’you mean actually in the breaking in?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said yes.’

‘. . . I see.’

‘Maybe you don’t quite . . .’ He leaned forward and took my hands. I tried to draw them away, but no good. He kissed them, knuckles up, then finger tips. ‘
You
always reason things out, Deborah. What about
me
for a change? What about me doing it? When they suggested it, when they first said how about it, I thought, this is crazy, but I didn’t
ask you, because I thought, God, a man’s got to make his own decisions sometimes. And after a time, turning it over, it seemed to me – it seemed to me – here have I been spouting
to you, to myself, I’d do this, I’d do that if I had the chance. Well, here was the chance. You can’t go on talking about raising the Jolly Roger for
ever
, and doing
nothing when your number comes up. You bluff. And fate calls your bluff. And if you don’t back it with your guts, then you won’t listen to yourself next time you spout. You’ll
know
you’re an all-time sham!’

I got my hands back, but not before they’d responded to him, to what he said and did, like self-governing colonies, without my full consent.

‘Leigh, we can argue about this all night—’

‘I know—’

‘—You’re
wrong
. I don’t think I can prove it but I just know this is the
wrong
way to do
anything
. Not morally wrong – that may be but
I’m not talking of that – but wrong as a way of getting on. Just that. It doesn’t work. It may seem to for a time, but sooner or later . . . It’s like gambling and drug
taking . . . In the end you can’t win. Now that I know this I’m more than ever relieved!’

‘Maybe . . .’

‘I’m relieved because they’ll
have
to call it off.’

Jack Foil said: ‘You’ll get the three hundred tomorrow, Miss Dainton. Or Leigh will if you want him to have it. You can see the picture now, can’t you? I
wonder what Whittington’s pay for the service.’

Ted Sandymount said: ‘You got a telephone check every quarter and three-quarter hour, and a clock check at the hour, at twenty past the hour, and at twenty to the hour. That means
there’s never more’n a few minutes without a check. An’ they’re all the worst sort of checks – things that raise the alarm if they’re
not
done.’

‘So do we give it up?’ Leigh asked, hands in pockets, leaning against the wall between the windows. ‘Do we drop it?’

This in
our
studio; Jack and Ted arrive; just casually calling; make coffee; Leigh’s friends; gossip about the district; I’ve been waiting but perhaps it’s just what it
seems; drop in and talk. Then it begins.

‘Well, we’ll just have to think about it for a day or two, won’t we? Never despair, that’s my motto.’

‘I been getting around a bit—’ Ted began.

‘When things are worked to a pattern,’ Jack Foil went on, ‘it gives people confidence. They think they’ve got it all fixed. Nobody can beat it, so they relax. But you can
beat nearly everything with time and patience.’

‘You mean we don’t drop it?’

He wiped the outside corners of his eyes. ‘They say I’ve got cataract. But it’s early stages – doesn’t really interfere. It must be fine to have lovely young eyes
like you, Miss Dainton.’

Ted was fumbling in the pocket of his big check velvet-cuffed jacket. ‘I got a list here of the Safeguard staff. I got it last week from Roland. A hundred and forty-two of ’em.
I’ve been through ’em name by name, with all the records Roland’s got. You don’t recruit all that lot without a few slip-ups. Four of ’em have got prison
records!’

‘It doesn’t follow,’ said Jack Foil. ‘You ought to know that. And besides . . . set a thief to – er – well, you know how it goes.’

‘There’s two of ’em I’d bank on for certain. A man called “Baker” Evans and another, Fullerton. One’s got a record, the other hasn’t. But you
could get at ’em both – not for what they’ve served time for but what they haven’t. Anyway, money’s all they care about. Money’ll buy ’em. I promise
you.’

‘It’s not much good, is it,’ said Leigh, ‘if they’re like that and busy guarding a fur store in Hammersmith, or something.’

‘They’re both on the right rota.’ Ted grimaced as he turned over the sheets. ‘Fullerton we don’t know when, but it’s “Baker” Evans’s turn to
take over duty at Whittington’s some time next month. It’s a toss-up, like, but it might fit. If it just happened to be the right week. Or he might be able to switch it to
fit.’

Sip at the last of my coffee but it is cold. Hands and feet are cold. Still don’t believe in this yet, but in the middle of the night I shall. Stop it? Accessory before the fact. I can go
to prison too. But they’re only
talking
. Still only talking. No real plan yet. There’s no leader in these three men. Who’s the fourth? It won’t happen. Pick up the
coffee cups while they talk. It won’t happen. That woman in the hospital paralysed from the neck down. She said: ‘Well, there’s always hope; and I find pleasure in little things.
I never look further than tomorrow.’