The Players And The Game

by Julian Symons

  At lunchtime Paul Vane had one drink more than usual, and when on his return he met Joy Lindley in a corridor he stopped and spoke to her. They went that evening to a pub that he knew people from Timbals did not use.

  ‘You’re looking prettier than ever, Joy.’ It was the kind of remark he had been making to women for nearly twenty years. In fact the best thing about her was her legs, but she had that elixir of youth which in the last decade he had become more and more anxious to drink.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten me.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be possible.’ They were sitting on bar stools, and he put a hand on her knee. ‘How are things? Are you happy in your work?’

  ‘Miss Popkin’s back now, and she’s a bit of a trial, always going on about this and that. And Mr Hartford’s all right I suppose, but he never says if he likes anything you’ve done, only if there’s something wrong. I mean, it’s as though what he’d really like is for you to be a machine.’ She took Paul’s hand off her knee and put it on the bar. ‘And I’m not a machine.’

  ‘That’s very interesting.’ He knew that he ought not to be talking to a girl who worked for Brian Hartford in this way, but he plunged on. ‘Do you know my deputy, Esther Malendine?’

  ‘The one with those funny glasses? She doesn’t come into the office much, but she’s always talking to Mr Hartford on the phone. She’s terribly clever, isn’t she? I mean, terribly interested in all sorts of new ideas. I can’t understand half of them, but then my mum always did say I was a bit dim.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Joy. I can’t understand them either.’ He felt a glow of pleasure at the way she talked, calling her mother ‘mum’. Why, she might be fourteen, and in the exhilaration of the moment he felt that he was no older. ‘Perhaps I’m a bit dim too.’

  She stayed another half-hour, and had one more drink. He told her a bit about the problems of being personnel director in an organisation like Timbals. ‘The great thing is to remember that the group’s made up of people, and you have to deal with those people as individuals. It’s no use talking to them about work-study methods, they don’t know what you mean.’ She nodded, wide-eyed. He did not put his hand on her knee again.

  Alice spent the afternoon playing bridge. In fact, she spent all her afternoons now playing bridge. When she and Paul had first married they had played a little, what is sometimes called honeymoon bridge, but now she found subtleties and refinements in the game that she had not known to exist. She got bridge books out of the library, and played through at home the games and problems given as examples in the newspapers. She also began to smoke, not cigarettes, but small cigars, which she often kept in her mouth until they had gone out.

  At first Penelope had been her partner, but Penelope could not be bothered to remember which cards had fallen, and was liable to be led into erratic calls or responses by inability to keep her mind on the game. Alice now played regularly with a blue-rinsed, sharp-nosed woman named Mrs Clancy Tumbull, whose husband was director of an insurance company. Mrs Clancy Turnbull was a chain-smoker. The concentration of both women was terrifying to see, or at least it terrified Penelope, who felt like a hen that has taken an eaglet under its wing.

  She told Dick something of this one evening. She had left the club at teatime (they had another au pair after all, so there was no need to hurry home), and Alice had seemed hardly to recognise her when she said good-bye.

  ‘Unstable type.’ Dick got his pipe going. ‘Some sort of stress condition. Early menopause, very likely.’

  ‘What, at her age?’

  ‘Can come at any age. Get all sorts of ideas and habits. Start thinking your husband’s a pork chop and you don’t fancy pork. Extreme concentration on a particular idea or subject isn’t unusual.’

  ‘I’m worried about her, Dick. It seems so – abnormal. I mean, she wasn’t even interested in bridge.’

  Like most psychiatrists Dick considered normality such an illusory concept that he was not disturbed by departures from it. ‘Nothing to be done. May even be a good thing, give her something to think about. Once women start behaving oddly they’re liable to go on doing it for years.’

  When Paul got home it was to find Jennifer washing up things in the kitchen, making a tremendous clatter. Alice was laying the table. She said that Jennifer was in a mood, and this was quickly confirmed.

  ‘I come home in that filthy train, having to stand all the way, and the breakfast things haven’t even been washed up. Do you know what she’s been doing all day? Playing bridge. I can tell you I’m fed up with it.’

  ‘Now, Jen.’ He put an arm round her shoulders. He was a man who found something comforting in bodily contact. ‘I smell something cooking.’

  ‘Pork chops. You may have to live in Rawley, but I don’t. I’m getting a flat in London.’

  Alice came in. She gave the impression of floating rather than walking.

  ‘A couple of girls at work will come in with me. We’ve got one lined up. Twenty pounds a week, we split it three ways. You won’t have to subsidise me, don’t worry. I’ll be going at the end of the week.’

  Alice must have heard, but she did not give the impression that she was listening. She floated out again without comment.

  Jennifer turned the pork chops. ‘I can’t help it, I have to get away.’

  ‘I’m not arguing.’ The whole scene contrasted jarringly with that delightful chat in the pub. ‘I hope we’ll see something of you. Don’t cut yourself off.’

  ‘I expect I’ll be down most week-ends.’ She bent down to take plates from the oven. ‘You’ll look after her, won’t you? I don’t think she likes it much down here.’

  He talked to her about this after supper, when Jennifer had gone to her room. Alice said that she was perfectly content. Nor was she upset about Jennifer leaving. ‘She must do what she wants. But don’t worry about me, I have the bridge club. I know several people there.’

  He watched with distaste as she lighted a cigar. ‘You used not to smoke.’

  ‘And now I do. And I play bridge. Do you object?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  You should face the fact that in many ways we are simply incompatible.’

  There seemed no answer to this. He said that they must do a show in London next week, and she assented, but again he had the feeling that she was not listening. Later he watched TV. She took out a book called 100 Bridge Problems for Advanced Players, got a pack of cards and lighted one of her cigars. Later they went upstairs and lay unspeaking in their separate beds.

  Joy Lindley’s father worked in the architect’s department of the Greater London Council. He liked to hear about things that happened in Joy’s office, and she often gave him a slightly embroidered account of life there. She told him now about the Personnel Director taking her out to drinks.

  ‘He s ever so nice. I mean, quite old, but you’d never guess it from his clothes and you can talk to him, I mean, just as if he was someone about twenty-five. Of course I suppose being Personnel Director makes a difference. I mean, you’ve got to get on with people. Mr Vane’s very good at that.’

  Mrs Lindley had an arthritic condition that kept her more or less immured in an armchair, from which she rose only with the aid of a stick. Like many invalids she had an enormous appetite, and also a tenacious memory for misfortune and catastrophe. Now she paused with a piece of pork pie from the tray in front of her half way to her mouth. ‘What name did you say, Joy?’

  ‘Who? Oh, Mr Vane. I think his name’s Paul. Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Edgar.’ Mr Lindley, who had been listening with placid pleasure to Joy’s recital, looked startled. ‘Get my letter file from the bedroom.’

  Edgar never queried his wife’s requests, but did as he was told. The file contained all the correspondence she wished to preserve, her battle with the Electricity Company over an account, the complaints to the Council about a new housing estate uncomfortably near their home, the angry correspondence with other members of t
he family about things that should have been left to her in an aunt’s will. Now she went slowly through the file until she found a particular bundle of letters. The pork pie was pushed aside. ‘Edgar.’

  He had watched with apprehension. Abandonment of food meant something serious. ‘My dear.’

  ‘You must ring your sister Hetty. At once.’ She contemplated the tray in front of her, and said with satisfaction, ‘I shan’t want any more supper.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Conference

  The problem of Louise Allbright had now passed far beyond the range of Hurley, who had received such savage rebukes that he wished he had never heard her name. The people present at the conference called for discussion at County HQ in Markstone, ten miles from Rawley, were the top brass of the county police. Hazleton was there from Rawley, with Detective Chief Superintendent Paling from the County HQ, and the Chief Constable, Sir Felton Dicksee. The most important question to be settled was whether the county should handle the investigation, or whether they should call in Scotland Yard.

  Sir Felton turned over the papers and reports in front of him. His dislike of paper work was well known. His friends said that he was essentially a man of action, his enemies that he was unable to read. ‘Never mind all this bumph,’ he said now. ‘The thing is, where are we, Paling? What have we got?’

  Angus Paling put his fingertips together. His fingers were long and narrow. They were in keeping with a long narrow body and a long narrow head, with a cockscomb of silver hair. There was a sort of fastidiousness about Paling which irritated Hazleton, who thought that he was not much of a working copper. At the same time, Hazleton grudgingly admitted that he knew how to talk.

  ‘The crucial thing, as I see it, is the discovery of the holdall and bag. Unless Louise left it on the bus by accident, which is so unlikely that we can rule it out, we must accept that something has happened to her. If so, then there are two possibilities. Either she went up to London and whatever happened occurred there, or the holdall was deliberately planted in that bus to take attention away from Rawley.’

  Thank you for a statement of the blindingly obvious, Hazleton thought. Sir Felton said quite so, the thing was whether they were happy to deal with it themselves. Paling arched his silver eyebrows and looked at Hazleton, who recognised an old tactic of the DCS. Hazleton would express an opinion. Paling would say that he was prepared to go along with what had been suggested. If everything worked out well Paling would take most of the credit, if not Hazleton would get all of the blame. But still, he knew what he wanted, and he was prepared to go out on a limb to get it.

  ‘My feeling, sir, is that we can handle it best down here. I don’t think there’s any doubt that whatever happened started in Rawley. Somebody here was responsible for her disappearance, whether she went up to London or not. There’s an advantage in having our own men asking questions. They know the territory, and they know what to ask. And they know the people. We can look after it.’

  A bell rang. Sir Felton said, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’ The sound came from the watch on his wrist. He stopped it, got out of his chair and did a series of brisk exercises which began with a knees bend and ended with some quite violent arm and body swings. Hazleton, who had heard about these performances but never quite believed in them, watched in astonishment. Paling remained unmoved.

  ‘Three times a day.’ Sir Felton sat down again. ‘Now, where are we? You want to keep it in the family. Paling?’

  ‘There’s a lot in what Chief Inspector Hazleton says. At the same time we have to face the fact that we’ve turned up nothing very useful so far. A couple of confessions with the facts hopelessly wrong, and the usual crop of people who saw her getting into a car, dragged into a car and so on. One woman who saw her beating at a window in a house trying to get out – that turned out to be somebody having a row with her husband. So far it’s a load of nothing, isn’t that so?’ Hazleton nodded. Paling held up a thin hand as though to forestall objections, which were in fact not being made. ‘I’m sure everything possible is being done. That film show, for instance, seems to be important. Louise went to that quite out of the blue instead of going home. Why? We’ve talked to all the members the secretary can remember as being present.’ He made a gesture towards the papers in front of the Chief Constable. ‘Without result, except that the secretary says she was looking round as though she expected to meet somebody who hadn’t turned up. Say that was so, how does it help? There is a case, I don’t say more than that, for taking further steps.’

  Hazleton said doggedly, ‘Calling in the Yard, you mean? I still say we can handle it.’

  Paling was not going to be caught in a definite expression of opinion. ‘I don’t want for a moment to express any lack of confidence.’

  The Chief Constable looked from one to the other of them. He knows what’s happening, Hazleton thought, he’s not a fool. ‘Right, then. It seems to me we’re agreed. We keep it in the family. Good. Hazleton.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This journalist who knew her, Gordon. You’ve checked on him? Nothing in that?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir. I gather from Gordon that he only took her out a couple of times, rather on the rebound from another girl at the club named Sally Lowson. It seems that he was keener on this Lowson girl than she was on him, and she suggested he might give Louise Allbright a turn. No serious attachment.’

  ‘Bob Lowson’s daughter. Talked to her, have you?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. The connection’s a bit remote.’

  ‘She knew the Albright girl though. Might be an idea to talk to her. I’ll have a word with Bob Lowson, explain it to him.’

  The telephone rang. Paling took the call and passed the receiver to Hazleton. The DCI listened, said a few words, made a note. He put down the receiver, looked again at the note, spoke.

  ‘That may be something interesting. A girl who saw Louise getting out of a car about ten-fifteen that night. More promising than usual, the girl was at school with her.’

  ‘Why hasn’t she come forward before?’ Paling asked.

  ‘Away on holiday, didn’t read the papers.’

  ‘Where did she see her? In Rawley?’

  ‘No, outside. High Ashley.’ They looked at each other. High Ashley was a village in the heart of the downs that lay between Rawley and the coast. ‘She was with a woman. And she looked as though she was drunk.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Extracts from a Journal

  June

  I write at a time when my whole life has been changed, a time after the two Great Events. These are real, they are etched in my memory with the corrosion of acid or the splendour of the lines in a great painting. They seem to contradict everything I have already written. I have said that my theory of life is that of Behaviour as Games, but can what happened be called a Game? Has it not gone far beyond the games of the Count and Bonnie?

  This was a question I faced in wretchedness and agony of spirit. I sought for the answer in the Master, in Friedrich Nietzsche. And I found it. Hear what Zarathustra says of the Pale Criminal:

  One thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and another thing is the idea of the deed. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them.

  An idea made this pale man pale. Adequate was he for his deed when he did it, but the idea of it, he could not endure when it was done.

  So far you might interpret that we may think things, yet must not do them, that the idea of the deed is permitted but not the deed itself. This is Behaviour as Games. But it is wrong! For what the Master says in the end is that the purity of intention is what matters. When the judge says: ‘Why did this criminal commit murder? He went to rob,’ Zarathustra replies: ‘I tell you that his soul wanted blood, not booty. He thirsted for the happiness of the knife.’ The impulse was pure, the desire for the happiness of the knife. The Superman is lightning, is frenzy. ‘It is not your sin – it is your moderation that crieth unto heaven.’

  I am not a Super
man, I am a poor weak feeble being. (As the Master was too.) Yet I have been part of Great Events, I have not been tamed into moderation.

  Two Great Events, I say, but really only one. A Great Event should have a plan and a design, and the first occasion lacked both. It was crude, unfortunate, wrong. The girl expected sex, and Dracula and Bonnie – what was their intention? I have tried to understand, but remain unsure. Yes, I do know – they wanted it too. Then she became frightened, and Dracula was angry. Perhaps he was frightened also. We were all weak, all foolish.

  I do not regret what happened. The way it happened I deplore. If the Event was Great the humans were not equal to it.

  I shall say no more about it.

  But the Second Event was different. All planned, all perfect. The design of superiority.

  Sitting in the darkness watching that film (a Dracula, made in 1958, too modern but with some exciting scenes – in one Dracula’s eyes are bloody) I considered the girl. I sat one row back from her, I could have touched her on the shoulder. But the time was not yet! I looked at the images chasing each other on the screen and I watched the head in front of me and I thought my thoughts.

  Bonnie had told her that I would be there, and that she would meet me. Her curiosity had been roused. I could see that she was disappointed, bewildered, thought it all a fraud. Bonnie was waiting down the street and spoke to her, saying I’d been delayed. I got into my car and flashed the lights as I passed, the signal to say that everything was all right, we should go ahead. Then I waited down the road and leaned out of the window as they were passing. Bonnie said, ‘Here he is,’ and half-pushed her into the car – although not exactly pushed, for the girl was getting in quite willingly. I spoke to her, then drove off. All perfectly done.