The Londoners

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Course I wouldn’t,’ Mavis had said five minutes later when she had breezed into their orbit and Carrie had grabbed her by the arm and again asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. ‘It’s only a bit of fun. If Ted doesn’t mind, I don’t see why you should.’

  Carrie had looked across to where Ted was talking to Danny, his youngest child asleep in his arms. He certainly didn’t look overly concerned, but then he was such a self-contained man that even if he were, she doubted if he would allow it to show. ‘Never assume,’ she had said, suddenly seriously worried about the problems her elder sister was making for herself. ‘Ted isn’t a fool. And quiet types are the worst, when roused.’

  ‘Roused over what, for Christ’s sake?’ Mavis had said, her carefully pencilled eyebrows flying high. ‘We’ve only been ’aving a laugh and a joke together. It isn’t a crime, is it?’

  ‘It isn’t sense,’ Carrie had retorted grimly. ‘Jack Robson isn’t a bloke you can lead on and then dump.’

  Mavis had rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘Just listen at her!’ she’d said, presumably speaking to the Almighty. ‘Four hours married and she’s an expert on men!’ Returning her attention to Carrie, she had placed her hands on her hips and said with exaggerated patience, ‘Listen, Carrie. When I want your advice I’ll ask for it. Until then, do us both a favour an’ keep it to yourself.’

  Knowing there was no way she could recount this conversation to Miss Pierce, Kate said adroitly, ‘I’m not sure I would describe Mavis as delightful but she is . . . lively.’

  Miss Pierce smiled indulgently and glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Time to be getting back to work,’ she said regretfully. As they pushed their chairs away from the table and rose to their feet, she said hesitantly, ‘Do you think your friend would allow you to bring some of the wedding photographs into the office? I would so like to see them, especially a photograph of the little bridesmaid and a photograph of Bonzo wearing his bow.’

  ‘I’m sure she would,’ Kate said, picking up her clutch bag. For the first time it occurred to her that the older woman was lonely and as she made her way back to her office she wondered if there was a way in which she could introduce Miss Pierce to Miss Godfrey.

  ‘Did you have a nice lunchbreak?’ Mr Muff, the General Sales Manager asked her as she returned to her desk in the little room adjoining his. ‘You should bring a packed lunch and take it into Greenwich Park. It’s far pleasanter picnicking in the park than it is eating in the staff canteen.’

  Kate liked Mr Muff. He was even older than Miss Pierce, and his manner towards her was kindly and avuncular. Right from the first he had made things easy for her. ‘Voigt?’ he had said musingly when she had told him her name. ‘Voigt? I think that’s perhaps originally a Tyneside name. Very nice people the Tynesiders. All heart.’

  Kate hadn’t disabused him and nothing more, by anyone at Harvey’s, had ever been said about her name. He had made things equally easy where her work was concerned. ‘Don’t worry if you make a few mistakes,’ he had said to her reassuringly. ‘Everyone makes mistakes in a new job and they’re nothing to be ashamed of. The most important thing to remember is this. When in doubt, ask. Do that, and you won’t go far wrong.’

  Kate hadn’t gone wrong at all. Naturally quick-witted and conscientious, she had soon become familiar with the building and contracting terminology Mr Muff used when dictating letters to her and within a week had gained enough self-confidence to embark on a complete overhaul of the office filing system.

  ‘The lights are on the blink again,’ Mr Muff said to her now, scooping up a sheaf of papers from his desk. ‘If the electrician comes while I’m in my meeting with Mr Harvey and young Mr Harvey tell him the fuse-box is in the postroom.’

  ‘I will,’ Kate said, sitting at her desk and winding a piece of letter-headed stationery into her typewriter. ‘How long do you think your meeting will take?’

  ‘That’s a difficult one.’ Mr Muff’s usually genial face was slightly harassed. ‘Mr Harvey wants me to give young Mr Harvey an idea of my responsibilities. Quite what is going to happen after that I don’t know. Mr Tutley of Planning and Design met with both Mr Harveys this morning and he found the experience quite unnerving.’

  In the months she had been working at Harvey’s Kate had never come into personal contact with Mr Harvey but she was well aware that members of staff who did so found him disconcertingly intimidating.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Mr Muff,’ she said encouragingly, rather as if their positions were reversed and he was her age and she was his. ‘Onwards and upwards.’

  It was one of his many trite, favourite sayings and recognizing it, he grinned. ‘You’re a treasure,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ and squaring his shoulders he marched resolutely from the room.

  Kate grinned to herself, flicked open her shorthand pad and began to type. Without Mr Muff working away in the adjoining office it was relatively quiet. All the offices led off a linoleum-floored corridor and occasionally she was aware of footsteps passing up and down and distant doors opening and closing, but apart from that the only sound was the rapid click-click-click of her typewriter keys and the slam of the typewriter carriage each time it was returned.

  When an unfamiliar male voice broke the comparative silence it was totally unexpected, for she had neither heard her visitor knock at the door nor open it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I wonder if . . .’

  Without looking up from her notepad she said, ‘You’ll find the fuse-box in the postroom. It’s the second door down the corridor, on the left.’

  ‘I wasn’t actually in search of the fuse-box,’ the voice said, bemused. ‘I was in search of Mr Muff.’

  It was an attractive voice, languid and educated.

  Realizing she had made a grave error of identity, she looked up and said with an apologetic smile, ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were the electrician. Mr Muff is in a meeting with Mr Harvey. Perhaps I could take a message for him?’

  From the way he was dressed it was immediately obvious not only that he wasn’t an electrician, but that he wasn’t any member of Harvey’s large, manual workforce. Tall and loose-limbed, he was dressed in beige flannel trousers and a tweed jacket. Though both garments were comfortably well-worn they bore the unmistakable imprint of having being made by a high-quality tailor. His shoes, too, looked suspiciously as though they had been hand-stitched.

  ‘Which Mr Harvey would that be?’ he asked, walking the few yards that separated him from Mr Muff’s desk and perching on a corner of it, one leg swinging free, ‘Mr Harvey senior or Mr Harvey junior?’

  With the toe of her foot, Kate nudged her revolving typing-chair around so that she was facing him. At Harvey’s no-one sat on desks, not even their own desks, and for a stranger to do so was an effrontery that almost robbed her of breath.

  ‘Both,’ she said with uncharacteristic tartness. ‘And I don’t think Mr Muff would appreciate you sitting on his desk. If you intend waiting for him it would be preferable if you sat on a chair.’

  His eyebrows shot high. ‘Are you always so school-marmish?’ he asked, not the least trace of offence in his voice. ‘And if so, why do you wear your hair like a schoolgirl’s?’

  His own fair hair was well cut, growing thick and smooth. His eyes were grey and long-lashed and there was a faint hollow under his cheekbones that gave his features a classically sculptured look. It was an intelligent, forceful face. And its owner was being intensely annoying.

  ‘My hairstyle is my own affair,’ she said freezingly, ‘and I am not being school-marmish. I just don’t think it’s good manners to sit on someone’s desk. Especially when they’re absent from it.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said, sounding mildly surprised, as if such a thought would not have occurred to him if she hadn’t brought it to his attention, ‘I see.’ He stood up and said in easy familiarity, ‘Your hair. I’ve never seen anyone other than a child wear it like that. At least not in Eng
land. Are you Swedish?’

  ‘No,’ Kate said shortly, wishing she knew who on earth he was. ‘Why do you wish to see Mr Muff? Are you a site engineer?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  With easy, well-knit movements, he strolled across to the open doorway between the two offices. Leaning nonchalantly against the jamb, one foot crossing the other at the ankles and revealing socks of a startling shade of yellow, he said, ‘I’m just an all-purpose dogsbody, though not likely to be so for long.’

  It sounded the statement of a braggart, but despite his annoying high-handedness he didn’t look like a braggart. As she looked into his eyes she saw humour there. And admiration.

  Swiftly she looked away, flicking over the page of her notepad, colour rising to her cheeks. ‘Never assume,’ she said archly, not wanting him to become aware of the unsettling effect he was having on her. ‘No-one gains promotion quickly here because no-one ever leaves.’

  It was a piece of information she was able to give with authority because Mr Muff had often complained to her of the ‘dead mens’ shoes’ situation that baulked his own hopes of promotion.

  ‘You’ve misunderstood me,’ he said, not the least rebuffed. ‘I didn’t mean I’m not going to be a dogsbody because I’m going to be something far more glorified. I meant I’m not going to be one because I’m not going to be here much longer. I’m joining the RAF.’

  Kate wound a fresh piece of notepaper into her typewriter with unnecessary vigour. She would have liked to make a crushing reply, but she could hardly be disparaging about such a worthy ambition. Certain that he was gaining a great deal of pleasure out of wrong-footing her and determined to give him no further opportunities of doing so, she said crisply, ‘Mr Muff is likely to be some time. If you would like to leave your name and a message . . .’

  She was interrupted by the door bursting open. ‘Thank God!’ Mr Muff said fervently, as he entered what at first glance appeared to be his empty office. ‘I thought I wasn’t going to get here before him!’

  He hurried across to his desk, put the papers he was carrying down on it and in vast relief turned towards the permanently open door that led to the adjoining office and Kate.

  ‘I’m sorry about the confusion,’ the visitor said before Kate could even begin to explain his presence. ‘I thought it would be more sensible for us to meet here, where you have your paperwork to hand. The message altering the arrangements obviously didn’t reach you.’

  ‘No . . .’ Mr Muff looked quite shell-shocked and then, leaping gallantly to Kate’s defence, he said, ‘Though the fault for that wouldn’t lie with my secretary. She’s absolutely scrupulous where messages are concerned.’

  ‘I’m sure she is,’ Toby Harvey concurred, an underlying hint of amusement in his voice.

  Kate kept her eyes firmly averted from him and on her shorthand pad. Having now guessed his identity she was furiously angry. Not for a moment did she believe there had been a message informing Mr Muff of the change in arrangements. Mr Harvey’s grandson had merely wrong-footed Mr Muff just as he had tried to wrong-foot her.

  Frozen-faced she began to type at speed, her back straight, her thick braid of hair skimming the seat of her typing-chair.

  ‘Er . . . Perhaps it would be best if we closed the interconnecting door and allowed Miss Voigt to work undisturbed,’ Mr Muff said unhappily, almost as disconcerted by her frigid coolness as he had been at finding Toby Harvey in his office.

  Well aware that Toby Harvey’s dark grey eyes had again turned in her direction, Kate continued to type. Only when the rarely used interconnecting door creaked shut, leaving her in privacy, did some of the angry tension leave her shoulders. So that was Mr Harvey’s grandson! No wonder Miss Pierce had forecast that his working his way from office to office would cause disruption. And what was the purpose of his doing so if he was about to join the RAF?

  Gradually her excessive typing speed eased back to one of efficient normality. Perhaps his grandfather didn’t yet know of his intentions. If he didn’t, she wondered what his reaction would be when he found out. From everything she had heard about Mr Harvey he was not a man to take insubordination of any kind lightly.

  Mr Muff’s voice and Toby Harvey’s voice were intermittently audible as she worked and she reminded herself that Mr Harvey’s attitude towards his grandson would be very different to his attitude towards other members of his workforce. Perhaps, well aware of his grandson’s intentions, Mr Harvey was hoping that if he could interest him in the running of the family firm, his grandson might change his plans and not join the RAF after all. Certainly with war with Germany looming so likely it would only be natural for Mr Harvey to be unhappy at the thought of his grandson joining the forces. Even Hettie Collins, once so proud of Danny’s status as a sergeant, was beginning to express doubts as to the wisdom of his having chosen a military career. ‘The army’s all right in peacetime,’ she had been heard to say on more than one occasion, ‘but it ain’t so much of a doddle in wartime. Bloody Hitler. His mother should have strangled him at birth!’

  Having finished all her letters, Kate began to type the relevant addresses on to envelopes. No doubt Mr Harvey felt very much as Hettie did. After all, if war did break out, no-one in their right mind would relish the idea of a child or grandchild being in the very forefront of the fighting. She remembered that her first impression of Toby Harvey had been one of athletic ability. Certainly the way he moved spoke of training and perfect physical fitness. As she began marrying the letters to the envelopes she did so convinced that if Mr Harvey was trying to deter his grandson from joining the RAF, he was destined to meet with disappointment.

  From behind the closed interconnecting door came the sound of mutual laughter and she raised her eyebrows slightly. No matter how inauspiciously the meeting had begun it was obviously now on a very amicable footing. Which was not too surprising, considering Toby Harvey’s unorthodox manner.

  Her flare of anger had now ebbed and as she put the pile of letters waiting for signature in a neat pile by the side of her typewriter it occurred to her that she might have gravely misjudged Toby Harvey. If his manner was merely unorthodox he might very well have had no deliberate intention of wrong-footing either her or Mr Muff. And if he hadn’t, her manner towards him had been excessively impolite.

  She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. If she had been impolite, there was nothing that could be done about it now. He should have introduced himself properly and he shouldn’t have made such over-familiar remarks about her hair. She remembered the expression of admiration in his eyes when he had looked at her and felt her cheeks warm. Though excessively annoying he was also excessively good-looking. She gave a wry smile. There was no use setting her sights in that direction. The grandson of Mr Harvey of Harvey Construction Ltd was nearly as far removed from her social orbit as King Edward VII had been from Carrie’s.

  ‘The Harveys?’ Carrie asked as Kate walked with her down Magnolia Hill towards Lewisham market. ‘Why on earth ask me? You’re the one who works for them! All I know about old man Harvey is that he lives in a whopping great house facing the Heath and that he goes to all the nob events.’

  ‘What events?’ Kate asked curiously.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ Carrie said airily, ‘racing at Ascot and sailing at Cowes.’

  Kate’s curiosity deepened. ‘How on earth can you know that?’

  ‘’Cos I’ve seen photographs of him at Ascot and Cowes in the Tatler, and before you ask where the heck I read the Tatler, I read it at the hairdressers.’

  Kate, who had never been to a hairdressers in her life, said, ‘Are there ever any photographs of other members of his family in the Tatler?’

  ‘He doesn’t have any other family, does he?’ Carrie said as they turned out of the bottom end of Magnolia Hill and into the busy High Street. ‘He’s widowed. His son was killed, fighting in Flanders and his daughter-in-law was killed in a motoring accident somewhere exotic. France or Italy, or was it Switzerland? I can�
��t remember now, but I know there was an awful lot of fuss in the local papers when it happened. I’m surprised you don’t remember it.’

  Kate, who never read about accidents if she could avoid it, said persistently, ‘How long ago was it?’

  Carrie shrugged. ‘Donkey’s years ago. I must have been about twelve. I know I was impressed at the thought of someone local travelling as far as Italy or Switzerland. Why all the interest? Are you writing a family history for the work magazine?’

  ‘No, I’m just curious that’s all.’

  ‘Seems a funny thing to be curious about. All I’m curious about is whether Hitler’s going to invade Czechoslovakia and what the hell will happen if he does.’

  Kate was silent. If Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland then Europe would most likely be plunged into full-scale war.

  ‘Danny says all future leave has been cancelled,’ Carrie said as the first of Lewisham’s market stalls came into view, ‘and he says there are rumours that the navy’s about to be mobilized. It doesn’t look very good, does it?’

  ‘No,’ Kate said soberly, wondering how her father would be affected if war were declared between Britain and Germany; wondering if Danny would be sent straight to the front; wondering how long it took for an RAF recruit to gain his wings.

  ‘No war!’ Mr Muff said to her with vast relief three weeks later. ‘Mr Chamberlain has dealt with the matter and now we can all live in peace, thank God!’

  ‘It isn’t a very satisfactory peace, is it?’ Kate asked from behind her typewriter. ‘We haven’t stood up to Hitler. We’ve given in to him. He now has the Sudetenland, which is what he wanted all along. What happens when he wants more of Czechoslovakia? When he turns his greedy eyes towards Bohemia and Moravia? What are we going to do then?’

  ‘But he won’t,’ Mr Muff said patiently as he retrieved a letter from a filing cabinet. ‘The Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia is inhabited mainly by Germans, which is why ceding it to Germany is, in a way, quite reasonable. And now he’s got what he wants, Herr Hitler will settle down and we’ll all be able to enjoy a little peace and quiet.’