Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow

by Paul Gallico

  The breach had been made, Mrs Harris spilled, ‘To Russia, to Moscow for five days. We won it in a lottery. We’ve got the tickets and everything. On a plane. Next Sunday. I’ve notified all me clients but you’re sort of special, you know, bein’, – like now,’ and here she suddenly dried up but fixed her glance upon the photograph of the girl which had reposed on the desk ever since she had bade him to leave it out.

  Mr Lockwood laid down his red proof-marking pen and looked up at Mrs Harris with some bewilderment, eyes staring out of a face that had gone quite pale. He said, not entirely coherently, ‘What? – Moscow – you? Who is Mrs Butterfield? You say lottery. I don’t understand.’

  But he did understand very well, had understood her, which was the reason for his confusion and the draining of all colour from his face caused by the sudden whirlwind of impossibilities, hopes, fears, yearnings and the barest and most remote, hardly even to be considered, thought of salvation. Here was the familiar figure of this spry old lady who impinged on his life only when she arrived to put his living quarters in order, who had never broken from this mould except for that one moment which he preferred to forget when he had unburdened himself with regard to his unhappy love affair and she had lent a sympathetic ear. And here she was in mob cap and some kind of an anonymous garment that concealed the rest of her, leaning on her mop telling him, in effect, that the following Sunday evening, of all places, she would be in Moscow. The incredible was made credible by the excited twinkling of her eyes. Moscow! Liz! Communication! He regarded Mrs Harris still in confusion. Of course, it was out of the question. With a shaking hand he took out a cork-tipped cigarette from a box on his desk, put it in his mouth and lit the wrong end. Impossible!

  The astute cockney mind of Ada Harris read him like a book; every change in complexion, every shade, every shake and every quiver. She knew exactly what he was thinking which, of course, was the same as she herself had in her mind.

  Once more speaking aloud Mr Lockwood said, ‘Would you repeat that, Mrs Harris. Did I hear you say Moscow?’

  ‘Package Tour 6A,’ replied Mrs Harris. ‘I’ll bring you the brochures if you’d like to see. A proper lark. I bought me a chance to try to win me a colour telly set and instead …’ She stopped because apparently something in her remarks had set off Mr Lockwood into a series of new gyrations. He seized his cigarette by the burning end to take it from his mouth, swore, dropped it on the floor, stamped on it, shook his singed finger and now from paper-pale turned as bright red as his pen and then suddenly put his head in his hands. Mrs Harris, therefore, saw no further reason not to come right out with it; not the whole of the fantasy, of course, but the part that anybody would consider reasonable. She said, ‘Why couldn’t I try to get in touch with your young lady for you?’ staring hard at the photograph. ‘Maybe give ’er a letter or a message?’

  From the depths of the emotions that were gripping him Mr Lockwood, removing his hands from his fevered brow, groaned, ‘Oh, Mrs Harris, could you? Would you? Oh, my God, a letter. Something for her, for us both to hold on to. Communication. A thread.’

  But immediately the reaction set in and dully he said, ‘But of course, it’s utterly impossible. You’re very kind to offer it, Mrs Harris, but I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous?’ scoffed Mrs Harris. ‘Come on, Mr Lockwood, what’s dangerous? They couldn’t ’ave been nicer to us at that Intourist office. Everything fixed up for the ’ole of the trip and tickety-boo. I arranges to meet the young lady and slips ’er the letter. ’Oo’s to know?’

  Mr Lockwood now had more of a grip upon himself and said, ‘Mrs Harris, the Russians are the most suspicious people on the face of the earth. They are constantly looking for spies, not only under the bed, but in, on top and over and everywhere else. Nothing sets them off like a foreigner trying to contact a Russian national. You’ll …’ He had been about to say that she would be under constant surveillance from the moment she entered Russia until she left but thought it stupid to put the wind up her and perhaps spoil her trip since the particular kind to which tourists were exposed was merely routine, unobtrusive and harmless.

  Besides which the image of the letter he would write to Lisabeta Nadeshda Borovaskaya had formed in his mind, flaming words were already curling up from the pages. Lisabeta, Liz, Liz, Liz, and his eyes, too, wandered to the photograph of the beautiful girl. He said, ‘If they were to find the letter on you, you would be in great trouble and she too.’

  The more he talked the happier and more determined Mrs Harris became. Actually the delivery of a missive had played not too important a part in her thoughts. It was rather the fantasy, the great design of exporting Liz, which was so exciting her. But now Mr Lockwood was even adding a fillip of menace to this simple enough transaction, one incidentally in which she did not believe for a moment. She laid her mop aside, moved closer to the desk and said, ‘Come on now, Mr Lockwood, ’oo’s going to be looking for anything on the likes of me, an old biddy with ’er pal going around with a bunch of tourists admiring the sights? I ain’t no fool, Mr Lockwood, what do you fink, I’d be carrying the bloomin’ letter in me ’and and ’aving the young lady paged? ’Ere’s a chance if you’ve ever ’ad one.’

  Mr Lockwood succumbed as he had known he would all along. He said, ‘Mrs Harris, if you were to do that for me I would be grateful to you to the end of my days. I’d forgotten that you’d be with a crowd all the time.’

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ said Mrs Harris happily, ‘and if you let me ’ave the letter I’ll …’

  ‘I’ll write it immediately,’ said Mr Lockwood. ‘I’ll not only let you have it but I’ll read it to you as well.’

  ‘Read it to me!’ exclaimed Mrs Harris. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, pryin’ into a person’s personal affairs.’

  ‘But in this instance I want you to and you must,’ insisted Mr Lockwood moving towards his typewriter. ‘For you know the story. You see, to make it easier for Liz I shall be writing it in Russian and it would be wrong to ask you to take a letter into Russia without your being completely conversant with the nature and innocence of its contents.’

  Mrs Harris folded her hands across her overalls and her mischievous eyes were all aglow. She was beginning to be crowned with romance like a halo.

  ‘By the way,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘ ’ow will I find Miss Liz?’

  Mr Lockwood looked up from the typewriter into which he had slipped a sheet of letter paper. He said, ‘You won’t have any difficulty. Perhaps you noticed my agitation earlier on when you mentioned the number of your tour. She is the Intourist guide for your package tour Number 6A to Moscow.’

  Like so many first-class professional writers Mr Lockwood wrote rotten love letters, his cool literacy and sentence structure deserting him for such phrases as ‘I thought I would go mad when I couldn’t see you again’ and ‘There never has been, there isn’t now, there never will be anyone but you in my thoughts and my life, my darling’, and several more pages of treacle plus explanations of how it all happened and that he was trying to ‘move heaven and earth’ to bring their separation to an end. It took him another page to complete the subject of the high quality and undying nature of his love.

  But Mrs Harris as he translated it for her adored every word of it, felt thrilled and uplifted and borne away upon the wings of the highest sentiment, almost as though the words had been written to herself as the sheets came steaming out of Mr Lockwood’s over-heated mill.

  She sniffed audibly several times and tears gathered in her eyes as she listened to the inspiring declaration of love eternal, inspiring to the point where if her thought about extracting Liz from behind the Iron Curtain had been only a kind of sweet daydream it had now become annealed into a steely determination.

  If Mr Lockwood had had so much as a hint of this, he would of course have put an end to the entire operation immediately, but naturally how could he suspect such a thi
ng of the little char? As it was he had the good sense to take normal precautions both for the protection of Mrs Harris as well as Liz. He took the sheets, folded them, put them in a plain envelope and sealed them without superscripture, signature or address and the manner in which he moistened the gum on the envelope flap was practically a kiss delivered to the lady of his heart. But to Mrs Harris he said, ‘You see I haven’t addressed it or signed it or anything so that if it should fall into the hands of any but the one for whom it is intended, why …’

  ‘It won’t,’ cried Mrs Harris fiercely, ‘and you can put all your money on that. And not to worry.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mr Lockwood and repeated a half dozen times how deeply grateful he was, adding, ‘The first time you are alone with her you need only tell her who it is from and the circumstances. By the way, are you in need of any money. Can I perhaps … ?’ and he made a gesture towards his wallet.

  ‘No, sir, oh no,’ protested Mrs Harris, ‘not a penny. The trip is all pyde for and we ’ave all we want.’ She wasn’t going to have the exquisite beauty of this romance and her share in it sullied by the squalor of cash.

  8

  Sunday morning was one of those heavenly, clear, azure days provided occasionally by the Celestial Management when it wants to reassure the inhabitants of Planet Earth that things aren’t really as bad as they might think they are and Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were all packed and ready to go.

  Ada looked like money, clad in a dark blue Norman Hartnell (By Appointment to The Queen) suit with white blouse, patent leather shoes with a Rayne’s label inside, white gloves and handbag from Asprey’s in Bond Street. Her Simone Mirman toque was in the £50 millinery class.

  However, all the money this looked like had not been Ada’s. Her outfit might have borne the tag of her best-liked, long-standing clients, Lady Dant, the Countess Wyszcinska, Mrs Schreiber and Lady Corrison, who in sudden fits of generosity or moments of irritation with a certain garment had bestowed them upon Ada.

  Mrs Butterfield had somehow confined the bulges of her rotund person into a modest travelling outfit, also the gift of Mrs Schreiber at the time they went to America, and looked neat but not dowdy, the perfect satellite to Ada.

  Each carried two suitcases bearing blue and white stickers and, in addition to their tickets and passports, clutched several Intourist folders plus a small booklet instructing visitors to Holy Mother Russia how to behave upon arrival there, what to do and what not to do.

  In the very last moment while the taxi that was to take them to the West London Air Terminal in Cromwell Road was ticking over, Mrs Harris went to the china soup tureen on her sideboard, lifted the lid, removed therefrom an envelope and with every appearance of not being really very much interested in what she was doing put it into the Asprey handbag, a gift from Lady Dant, and snapped it shut.

  But Mrs Butterfield, whose nerves had been brought to the very edge by this moment of departure to a land from which deep down she never really expected to return, saw her and queried, ‘What’s that?’

  Mrs Harris replied noncommitally, ‘Nuffink. Just a letter.’

  If Mrs Butterfield had been equipped with bells she would have jangled like a dozen fire alarms. ‘A letter,’ she cried. ‘To ’oo? What’s it abaht? What’s it doing in your bag? What was it doing ’iding away in your soup dish? Ada ’Arris, what are you keeping from me?’

  Ordinarily this inquisition would have irritated Mrs Harris to the point of a snappish retort or even a refusal to give. But her conscience to begin with was still not entirely clear on the subject of dragging her friend off to a place into which she didn’t want to go. And the fact was, too, that she had not been unaware that for all of his precautions Mr Lockwood had still been uneasy about the transaction and not wholly happy about burdening Mrs Harris with this missive. And furthermore there was a question of ethics which was one of Mrs Harris’s strongest points. She had been at no pains to conceal the fact that she had been hurt when her friend had tried to hide from her that her club had closed down and she was thus perfectly able to take a holiday. And now she herself, Ada Harris, was proposing to keep from Mrs Butterfield that she was acting as a courier for Mr Lockwood.

  ‘Oh, very well, Vi,’ she said. ‘Keep your hair on. It ain’t nuffink to get excited over. It’s a letter to Mr Lockwood’s sweetheart in Moscow ’oo he can’t get in touch wif and the both of them dyin’ of worry and love,’ and briefly and succinctly she quickly recounted the saga of Geoffrey Lockwood and his Liz.

  Mrs Butterfield’s immediate reaction offered a choice of metaphors. She neither kept her hair on nor did she take this news lying down. In fact her coiffure was practically standing up straight and she took three steps forward pointing a finger and shouted, ‘Ada ’Arris, you put that letter right back where you got it from. ’Ave you gone barmy in your old age? Don’t you know what ’appens to people what carries secret papers to Roosha? The rest of our lives in a dark ’ole on bread and water. I just read a harticle where you carn’t even bring a Bible into Roosha. If you carn’t take the Good Book and they catch us wif a letter we’re both for the ’igh jump. You put that right back or I ain’t goin’.’ And to emphasize her determination she reached up and began to make those motions that ladies make preparatory to removing their hats.

  The clickety-clack of the taxi engine outside added to Ada’s exasperation and she cried, ‘Violet Butterfield, you’re a silly goose. I ’aven’t got any Bible on me. Neither ’ave you and there’s nuffink in this letter that nobody couldn’t read. And what’s more it ain’t got any nyme or address on it of anybody, it ain’t signed by anybody, it’s just a poor bloke a pourin’ out ’is ’eart to ’is sweetie ’oo ’e’s lost. All I know is that ’er name is Liz, I’ve seen ’er photer, she’s the guide on our tour and when I get ’er alone for a moment I slips ’er the letter and what’s the ’arm in that?’ She didn’t even stop to reflect about how Mrs Butterfield would take on if she had any inkling of what somehow she felt she was going to attempt after making contact with Liz. Instead she picked up her suitcase and made for the door, leaving Mrs Butterfield stranded in mid-room with her hands up to her hat. Thus, the latter was compelled to a somewhat ignominious surrender, left her hat where it was, picked up her own luggage and followed Mrs Harris out of the flat muttering, ‘Suicide, that’s what it is. Daft in the ’ead. You can read any day about someone bein’ nobbled behind the Iron Curtain for ’avin’ suspicious papers. I carn’t see any good coming of this.’

  The grumbling went on in the taxi cab until Ada finally said, ‘Oh Vi, do shut up. We’re goin’ off on a free ’oliday to enjoy ourselves.’ The two then sat silent all the way to the air terminal which was not exactly the most auspicious beginning to a carefree vacation. Mrs Butterfield continued to regard Mrs Harris’s handbag as though it contained a bomb.

  Nor was Heathrow Airport that year, month and time exactly soothing to the nerves of even experienced travellers. Disembarking from the airport bus the pair were immediately plunged into the disconcerting atmosphere swirling about the entrance to a great metropolitan air terminal, thumping of car doors shutting, the rumbling of luggage trucks of the porters, the crying of babies, the cooing of unintelligible voices over the loudspeaker system, the revving up of motor car engines, all the chaotic clatter on the fringe of modern air travel. But within things were going on that were even more disconcerting than their normal check-in, weighing of baggage, handing out of boarding cards and the confusion of following directions of where to go next.

  For this happened to be the period of the greatest IRA attack upon London. Bombs were arriving in the letter post, incendiaries were being stuffed amongst the dry goods in Oxford Street department stores, innocent looking packages left in doorways were exploding with lethal violence and one never knew when a car parked at the kerb wasn’t going to blow sky high. Guerrilla action and sabotage were in the air. Heathrow was simply seething with police in uniforms, detectives in plain clothes, intelli
gence and security officers, not to mention inspection devices for turning up illicit hardware. Passengers were scrutinized not only by human bloodhounds but closed circuit television and X-ray machines as well.

  Mrs Harris caught the atmosphere at once but didn’t say anything, not wishing further to alarm Violet, but Violet being cockney herself had her own accurate seismograph and reacted. ‘Ada, what’s up? The plyce is crawling wif rozzers.’

  They were on their way to the news-stand to buy the morning papers and it was unfortunate that before Mrs Harris could reply something soothing there was the incident of the young man passing near by clad in dirty jeans and leather jacket encrusted with grime.

  He had a sinister beard, long filthy hair and a wild look in his eye. He was holding one of those paper shopping bags with the British flag emblazoned on the side of the type which had been considerably in the daily press of late. Two burly detectives materialized suddenly on either side of him, one firmly remarking, as he flashed his badge, ‘Sorry, sir, but we’d just like to have a look into that bag of yours.’

  Violet squeaked, ‘Oh, my Gawd, look at that. What’s ’appening?’

  The individual accosted made no protest and handed over the bag. It produced two apples, half a salami, two dirty shirts, four pairs of socks equally soiled, an extra pair of sneakers and a few toilet articles. The detective returned the bag with, ‘Sorry, sir, just routine, you know.’

  Violet asked, ‘What was ’e looking for?’ And Mrs Harris whose nerves were now becoming slightly frayed had been about to reply, ‘Bombs, ’ijackers, IRA, Arabs. That’s just the kind of bag they like to carry ’em about in,’ but remembering the timorous nature of her friend, refrained and merely remarked, ‘Suspicious looking character weren’t ’e?’