by Gerald Kersh
His furtive connection with the sport of kings had thrown him into contact with many queer characters. So he had met Tishy, who undertook to pay Groom fifty pounds for the lot.
Thus, meeting Shiv at the appointed place before half-past one that Sunday, Groom said:
“Look here. I haven’t got the whole amount, I’m sorry to say. I’ve got thirty pounds here, and I can let you have the rest by this time next week, I swear.”
“Well, let’s see the colour of the thirty,” said Shiv. “ – Eh, what do you call this, eh? No kites.”
“But it’s all right, I tell you! It comes from Jack Duck.”
“Who said so? The name I read here is Edward Middleton.”
“It’s all right, I tell you. As it happens, I know for a fact. Jack Duck cashed that cheque, and it’s as good as gold.”
Shiv reasoned that he had collected, at least, ten pounds on account. This little manservant was too badly frightened to try anything funny; he would pay, in the end; and if this cheque happened to bounce, why, then Shiv’s grip on Groom would be all the more unbreakable. He would, in fact, have been contented for the time being with the ten pounds in cash on account. But he said, fiercely: “Well, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to the boss. But I’ll tell you something – if – this – here – kite – turns – out – to – be – rubber . . . may I drop dead, but I’ll teach you a lesson that’ll last you just about as long as you live, see? It better be good, I warn you.”
Then Shiv put the cheque into a wallet stamped with someone else’s initials, and went away.
Groom steadied himself with a glass of gin, and one of Lord Ayrwick’s special cigarettes. Watching the smoke as it floated in the hot, heavy air, he prayed: “Oh . . . let it be all right! Lord, let that cheque be all right!”
The smoke thinned and disappeared, and Groom, fixing his little hard hat on his little hard head, walked sedately back to the house. It was possible – who knew? – the old gentleman might have died by now. But he hoped with all his heart that Edward Middleton, whoever he happened to be, was not one of those unscrupulous men that go about cashing worthless cheques.
* * * * *
Trew arrived one minute after half-past seven, for he believed in keeping people waiting. They went to the “Hero of Waterloo”, on his suggestion. Jack Duck found time to take him aside and ask: “Everything all right?”
“More or less,” said Trew, “but that girl friend of yours cost me every bean I had. Six pounds it cost me, before I could shake her off. And here I am, flat broke.”
“Hang around, if you’ve got a few minutes, and I’ll let you have the money back.”
So they waited nearly an hour until Mrs. Duck went to the kitchen, when the old fighter crushed five pound notes into Trew’s hands, saying: “I’m much obliged.” After that they went to the French restaurant for dinner, and stayed there until nearly ten o’clock.
“I had thought of going to a night club,” said Middleton, casually. “Eh, Louie dear?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Trew. “Which one?”
“I don’t know anything about them,” said Middleton. “Do you?”
“To tell you the truth, Middy, old man, I’m a bit out of touch just lately. I know what – let’s ask a taxi-driver.”
A taxi-driver, brooding over his wheel in a cab rank, said: “Well, if I was you, I’d go to the ‘Mustard Pickle’. They treat you right there. I know the doorman. I dare say I could get you in there, if you like.”
“Leave it to you, old man,” said Trew. “Eh, Middy, old man?”
“Go ahead, old boy,” said Middleton to the driver; and, since the driver assured him that there was nothing much doing before eleven o’clock at night, and offered to drive them round the park, they rode around and around. Trew told them funny stories. Middleton and Louisa, holding hands, looked at the stars. When, at last, the taxi stopped near a lurid yellow electric sign over a basement in a back street not far from Shaftesbury Avenue, the driver said: “Wait a minute in the cab and I’ll go and see about it for you.” He went to the doorman of the “Mustard Pickle” and whispered: “ ’Ere you are then – three good ’uns,” and the doorman gave him half a crown; whereupon the driver opened the taxi door and said: “Yes, it’ll be quite all right. I made it all right for you, and I only hope you’ll make it worth my while. It’s up to you.”
Middleton paid him five shillings over and above the correct fare. He paid the doorman fifteen shillings for entrance fee at five shillings a head. Then they went down into the “Mustard Pickle”. Middleton uttered a sharp exclamation as Louisa dug her nails into the softest part of his arm. Before he could ask her what she thought she was doing he saw what she had seen – a blond cigarette girl who, at first glance, appeared to be wearing nothing but a gold-frogged military tunic, high-heeled shoes, and black silk stockings.
“Oh crumbs!” said Middleton. But a very gentlemanly fellow in immaculate evening dress bowed to him and said: “Table for three, m’sieur? Yes m’sieur, with pleasure, m’sieur! – Hey, Tony! Table for three, the best we got, look sharp!”
“Oh yes, sure, certainly, of course! You bet!” said a waiter, and led them to an alcove hung with bamboo beads. The gentlemanly man clapped his hands like a pasha in an Arabian story, and four bored musicians snatched at their instruments, while something like a huge nosegay of rainbow-coloured artificial flowers burst and scattered as half a dozen hostesses came out of a scandalous conference and fluttered to their tables. Meanwhile the waiter, holding a wine list under Middleton’s nose, smiled with all his teeth. “Champagne for madam? Whisky for m’sieur?”
“What do you fancy, Louie dear?”
“Champagne?” whispered Louisa.
The waiter said: “Heidsieck, Veuve Clicquot, Bollinger, Mumm, Irroy——”
“ – Right you are,” said Middleton.
“Irroy. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Irroy, Irroy, Irroy. Right!”
The musicians, screwing their faces into smiles, began to play a quickstep. Customers were coming in now. At the sight of two men in dinner jackets and two women in evening dress, Louisa pinched Middleton’s arm again. He, deliberately looking away from the cigarette girl’s legs, kicked Trew under the table. “Chocolates? Cigarettes? Cigars?”
Trew bought a packet of cigarettes for five times its market price; at which Middleton looked thoughtful. But then the waiter came running with a gold-capped bottle in a silver bucket. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Middleton. “ – Louie, dear, you’re pinching my arm off!”
“Teddykins, I’m so excited!”
“Well, all right, no need to bruise a man from head to foot. I’m excited too; but you’ll have to learn to behave as if you’re used to all this kind of thing.”
Before they had emptied their first glass five very loving couples were dancing on the little round floor. The waiter whispered to Trew: “If m’sieur would like to dance, there is a young lady who would very much like to dance with him.” Trew shuffled his feet and looked foolish. A slender ash blond nodded and smiled.
“Well, to oblige a lady . . .” said Trew . . . and then he was half-walking, half-running up and down the dance floor in the arms of the ash blond, who was telling him that she was the granddaughter of a bishop. Louisa began to laugh: “Oh Ted, look – just look at him pretending to dance. With all his faults, I must say that you can’t help laughing sometimes,” she said. “ – Ted! What is it? What’s the matter?”
In the dim light, Middleton’s face was dead-white like a peeled egg. In a thick, sick voice he said: “Look who’s coming in.”
“The elderly man with that skinny little thing in the white dress?”
“Ssh! Not so loud, Louie dear! That’s Mr. Mawson, my boss,” said Middleton.
PART IV
It could not be: yet it was. Here was indeed Mr. Mawson, the general manager, unconventionally dressed in a blue flannel suit, and accompanied by a tiny, thin girl, exotically paint
ed about the mouth and eyelids. Middleton forgot everything but his hatred and fear of this man who had the power to kick him out of the office into the street. All in a moment he saw himself unemployed, dismissed at a second’s notice, with one of Mr. Mawson’s strictly honest references in his pocket saying that Edward Middleton had worked for Coulton Utilities for such-and-such a number of years during which time he had worked honestly, and diligently; but Mr. Mawson had been reluctantly compelled to dispense with Edward Middleton’s services (he would combine honesty with Christian charity, like Lord Herring) for certain reasons, which he did not care to disclose, concerning Edward Middleton’s personal habits.
Middleton could already feel that death sentence of a reference rustling in his breast pocket. And then he remembered that he had, in the same pocket, a document of vastly different significance, and the colour came back into his face. Touching the Pismire letter, he watched with narrowed eyes while the waiter bowed Mr. Mawson and the young lady into the adjacent alcove, and he distinctly heard the general manager say: “Well, Peach Blossom, name your poison” – in such an unfamiliar tone that Middleton began to wonder whether his eyes had deceived him. He drank some more wine and parted the bamboo curtain half an inch. The clothes were different. The voice was different; yet it was the voice of Mr. Mawson, curiously loosened. In any case there was no mistaking that peculiar bald head, the detestable double-crowned head that looked like a cottage loaf; and the parrot-face that had loomed, chattering A minute’s notice, a minute’s notice, a minute’s notice in a dozen anxious dreams. There was no doubt about it: Mr. Mawson was sitting there three feet away from him, and only three inches away from a young woman who was certainly not his wife, in the “Mustard Pickle”.
“Let us drink brandy, my pet,” said Peach Blossom. If everything else were not scandalous enough, she spoke with a foreign accent.
Instead of giving her a heart-to-heart talk about the evils attendant on the drinking of fermented liquor, Mr. Mawson said: “Brandy, you say? Then brandy it shall be, Peach Blossom. Tony, bring us a bottle of Courvoisier and a syphon of soda.”
The waiter brought the bottle, and Mr. Mawson clinked glasses with Peach Blossom and drank. Watching him, Middleton drank too. Then he took a cigarette out of Trew’s packet on the table and, having asked Louisa to excuse him, walked boldly into the next alcove and said: “Pardon the intrusion, but could you oblige me with a light?”
Theatrically speaking, Middleton’s timing could not have been better; Mr. Mawson achieved a perfect double-take. He said, genially: “With pleasure,” and struck a match. Then his eyebrows went up, his chin went down, and he stared in unutterable dismay until the match flame burned his fingers, when he gasped, said Uh? dropped the burnt match into his brandy, and sucked his thumb.
“Fancy meeting you here!” said Middleton. “This is a surprise, Mr. Mawson.”
“Mawson?” said Peach Blossom.
“This gentleman is labouring under a misapprehension,” said Mr. Mawson, trying to strike a match, and breaking it. “My name is not Mawson, sir. My name is Wood.”
“Accept my apologies,” said Middleton. “I thought for the moment that you were a gentleman I know named Mawson. Ever so sorry. Thanks for the light.” Then he went to wash his hands. Mr. Mawson followed him. Even in the rosy light under the tinted bulb in the men’s room, the double-crowned head and the parrot-face appeared yellow, and the strong, high voice was thin and unsteady as he said: “Why, Middleton, I could scarcely believe the evidence of my eyes, seeing you in a place like this.”
“No more could I,” said Middleton, drying his hands.
Mr. Mawson said: “It is necessary, in certain circumstances, to . . . to investigate, you understand, to look into certain aspects of . . . of . . . to see for oneself what . . . what . . .”
“Yes, sir. As soon as I saw you I thought Lord Herring must have sent you to look around. I admit I was a bit startled, though. I suppose Miss Peach Blossom is a sort of friend of the family, showing you round, like a guide.” Middleton carefully refolded a damp towel and was putting it back on the shelf when an attendant deftly took it away and threw it into a basket. He continued: “My wife and I came here to celebrate, sir. You see, I’ve had a stroke of luck.”
“I’m delighted to hear it, Middleton, delighted!”
His hands clean and dry, Middleton took out the letter and let Mr. Mawson read it.
“God bless my heart and soul, Middleton! I congratulate you! Net personalty £76,000! That certainly justifies a little celebration, I admit. Just for once, eh? And how is your wife? Well, I trust? Overjoyed by the good news, of course?”
“Definitely, sir. I hope Mrs. Mawson is quite well, sir.”
“Thank you, yes, yes, Middleton, very well, thank you. By the way,” said Mr. Mawson, in a whisper, “don’t call me ‘sir’, Middleton – just call me Wood. It’s necessary sometimes, to . . . to . . . Well, I must get back to – I had better get back. I congratulate you heartily, heartily, Middleton, with all my heart. We’ll talk of this when we meet again, in private, on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I beg you to exercise discretion, complete discretion. I really must get back now. And don’t be offended if I ask you again to address me by the name of Wood. Wood, John Wood.”
“Yes, sir,” said Middleton; and repeated to himself Wood, Wood, Wood, Wood, Wood. It was an order.
While he was fumbling for small change, Mr. Mawson said: “No, no, no, my dear Middleton, let me do this,” and gave the cloakroom attendant two shillings.
Wood, Wood, Wood, Wood, Wood, said Middleton, as they walked back to their tables.
“My name is Wood and I’m a glass manufacturer – eh, Middleton?”
“That’s all right, Wood.”
Trew was saying to Louisa: “Her grandfather was a bishop. . . . Oh, Middy, old man, do you mind if I bring that young lady over to the table? She’s a perfect lady, and her grandfather was a bishop. Make a foursome, eh?”
“Anything you say, eh Louie dear?” said Middleton, exuberantly. “It’s all right, Louie dear, everything’s all right.”
“Oh Teddykins, I’m so glad!”
“Bring your lady friend by all means, Trewie, old boy. Foursome? Let’s make it a six-some!” He knocked open the bamboo curtain, and said: “I say, Wood, would you and the lady care to join us in a glass of champagne?”
“Well, I don’t know, Middleton,” said Mr. Mawson, glancing at Peach Blossom.
She said: “But why not, my pet? I like this young man. He has an honest face. Introduce me . . . Yes, Mr. Middleton, we will make a party. You have champagne, we have brandy, and so we have champagne cocktails. Goody-goody!”
Trew appeared with the ash blond and said, proudly: “Meet Geraldine.”
Middleton, flushed with excitement, was saying in a loud voice: “I say, Wood, haven’t I got a pretty wife? Eh, Wood? Louie, dear, I’m sure you’ll like Wood. Wood is one of the cleverest wood manufacturers . . . pardon me, I mean glass manufacturers in the business, aren’t you, Wood, old boy? He manufactures glass, Louie dear – don’t you, Wood? Good old Wood!”
“I hope he didn’t manufacture this,” said Peach Blossom, holding up a wrist encircled by a narrow diamond bracelet; everyone laughed heartily – especially when Trew said: “He would if he could, I bet you.”
The party broke up when Louisa said she was sleepy, at half-past one in the morning. Trew stayed in the “Mustard Pickle” to talk to Geraldine, who made him buy a bottle of champagne, and, having got two pounds for dancing with him and drinking his wine, sent him home, disconsolate, with only five shillings in small change in his pocket.
Louisa and Peach Blossom touched finger-tips while Mr. Mawson and Middleton shook hands.
Mawson said: “No thank you very much, my dear Middleton, don’t trouble to give us a lift. I have to see this little lady safely home. Thank you for a very pleasant evening, and I’m overjoyed at your good fortune, Middleton, overjoyed! Let us have
a chat together on Tuesday, eh?”
“Yes, Wood, by all means,” said Middleton.
“We’re men of the world, I take it, Middleton?”
“Don’t worry, Wood. Good night, Wood, old boy.”
“Good night, Middleton, my dear fellow.”
Holding her husband’s hand in the taxi, Louisa said: “Oh Ted, what a nice evening! It all seems like a dream, doesn’t it?”
Kissing her, Middleton replied: “Louie dear, I can give you my word – I’ve never been so happy in my life.”
“Ted – that funny little man with that horrible little girl; is he the one you kept on talking about?”
“Who, Wood?”
“I thought you said his name was Mawson.”
“Of course, Louie, dear, so it is. Mawson? Yes, he’s not so bad when you get to know him. You have to meet him outside the office. No need to worry about poor old Wood. Oh-oh-oh!” said Middleton, yawning, “I won’t need any rocking to-night, Louie.”
“Nor me, Ted. I’m half asleep already. What do you want to do to-morrow, Teddykins?”
“I’m going to sleep all the morning, Louie dear. Then you and I’ll have something to eat in that French place, and d’you know what we’re going to do then? We’re going to Hampstead Heath.”
“Just what I wanted you to say! Aren’t you a clever Teddykins?”
The great Bank Holiday fair on Hampstead Heath is a kind of cockney mardi gras – a mardi gras turned inside out; for on this gay occasion the Londoner takes off the mask that he wears on working days before he lets himself go. Full-blood cockneys of the old school – may their breed never perish! – draw their savings for this uproarious day of reckless celebration. A diminishing few of the good-old-timers get out the traditional full-dress of the costermonger – the itinerant fruit-vendor, the proud aristocrat of the London gutters.
