‘Nice to meet you Harry. I’m Phyllis.’ She frowned at him. ‘You look miserable.’
‘Do I?’
‘It’s a Saturday and the sun is out. You have no right to look so sorry for yourself.’
‘Are you here alone?’
‘A girlfriend said she was going to meet me before we went to work but she threw me off to go on a date,’ Phyllis said, throwing her head back in mock frustration at the slight. ‘Lucky cow.’
It made Harry smile.
‘Are we going to get a drink somewhere?’ she asked.
‘What about your shoes?’
‘How about you escort me while I find myself a new pair and then as a reward you can buy me a drink?’
Harry smiled again.
‘If you don’t think it’s too unmanly to go shopping with a lady, that is,’ she said.
‘I’d be delighted.’
The two of them walked down through Piccadilly, Harry hardly aware of the crowds groaning under the heat of the sun, and Phyllis soon found a shoe store in which she chose a simple black pair of flats. The shop assistant tried to entice her into purchasing another pair of heels, mourning over the broken shoe as though it were the greatest tragedy that might befall a person, but Phyllis resisted. Harry was embarrassed when he caught the shop assistant glancing at his hand in search of a ring and finding his hand empty the assistant had given him a knowing glance. Harry didn’t like the idea of people having to wear rings or rather he didn’t like the smugness with which some people wore them. When he thought of Jean’s marriage, it annoyed him to think how everyone had fixed their smiles and said how lovely she had looked, when it was plain that she was utterly bewildered. She had been squeezed into a dress that was too small for her and strong-armed down the aisle by their father in what Harry believed was his last great act of violence. Would it have been so terrible for Jean to walk down the aisle on her own two sturdy feet? Or better yet, Frank should have been the one walking to meet her, crawling even. Still, Harry had to concede that he too had noted the absence of a ring on Phyllis’s hand as she slipped on her new shoes and that the knowledge she was unmarried pleased him.
After an awkward moment in which Harry offered to pay for the shoes and Phyllis declined, she suggested they go and sit in St James’s Park. They found a patch of dappled shade under a tree near the Piccadilly side of the park and began to talk. It surprised Harry that the conversation was so easy and he found himself telling her about growing up in the countryside and how he and his sister had been able to run off and do as they pleased for much of the time. He found himself romanticizing. His words painted a rural idyll of his childhood that would have impressed the likes of Capability Brown and he saw that Phyllis was looking at him as though he had walked out of a fairy tale. It was an odd sensation but he suddenly felt that he did not have to impress her and that he should be more straightforward.
‘I know it all sounds very pretty but I never really felt it was my world,’ he said, abruptly. ‘I mean you’d think with all that open air and land you’d feel great freedom, but people expect you to be a certain way. At least here you can hide.’
‘Is that the best you can say about being here?’
‘I think if I could be anywhere, I’d actually like to be a hermit sitting on a mountain somewhere.’
‘That sounds lonely to me.’
‘I think choosing solitude is not quite the same as being lonely.’
‘You sound like a Buddhist.’
‘Oh no, not at all. I mostly find people exhausting. I like to think of myself as a fledging misanthrope.’
‘Charming.’
She smiled a beguiling smile and Harry could not tell if she understood what he was saying.
‘I don’t mean you. Oh, I must sound like I’m a hundred and fifty.’
‘You’re a little serious.’
‘What about you anyway? How did you end up here?’
Phyllis told him dribs and drabs of her childhood and he listened intently. She had never known her father and her mother died while she was still too young to remember. She brushed over the details and found herself talking at great length about her recent life. She worked two jobs, one in an east end bar and the one to which she was headed that evening, a cabaret bar in Soho.
‘I should get on or I’ll be late,’ she said.
‘I’ll walk you if you like?’ Harry replied.
The bar was behind a large blue door on Dean Street.
‘You should come in. I’ve only got to work a three-hour shift and then we can have a dance if you fancy.’
Harry accepted because he could feel the need to be near her growing with every minute and the idea of going back to Chalk Farm seemed too ghastly to contemplate. The bar was quiet and he sat at a table drinking gin martinis, a drink he’d learned to like from evenings out with his office colleagues. Now he drank them out of habit and a belief that it made him appear more sophisticated than he actually felt, although he realized that was little to do with the alcohol and all to do with the shape of the glass.
There was nothing particularly first rate about the early evening entertainment and Harry had never been a fan of variety. It reminded him too much of the war when entertainment was enlisted rather bluntly to distract from the business of fighting. A sweaty comic made cheap jokes about the Germans and then a young pianist fumbled his way through a few tunes, some of which were occasionally recognizable. Harry spent most of the time watching Phyllis as she attended to the patrons and he found he was attracted to her or at least the idea of her. Every now and then she would glance over at him and make fun at whoever she was serving. At about nine there was a break in the show and he became aware that the bar was beginning to pack out and then Phyllis came over to his table with two men at her side.
‘This is Michael and Joe, don’t let them frighten you. I’ll be done in about half an hour,’ she said and left them to it.
‘You are Phyllis’s latest,’ said Joe, with a tone somewhere between question and statement. ‘Well at least you have a decent pair of trousers. More than can be said for some of them,’ he continued, passing a coin between his fingers as though he were about to perform a magic trick.
‘Why do you always have to be so uncouth?’ Michael said.
They sat down in unison. Even in the dim light of the bar Harry could tell that Joe was much older than Michael. They were both of them impeccably groomed, both suited with thin pencil ties and pristine white shirts. Michael, who had unsuccessfully attempted to age himself by growing a thin moustache, had covered his hair with copious amounts of brilliantine, which Harry could smell across the table.
‘I only met her this afternoon,’ Harry said.
‘Well that’s our Phyllis for you,’ Joe said, with a dirty laugh and a hint of an American accent. ‘We’ve known her for years. She’s a good old gal, so don’t you try any funny business or there’ll be trouble. She’s had enough of that, I can tell you. The fellas she usually hangs around with tend to be a little rough around the edges. She is much better off in this part of town but she insists on going back to those dirty east end haunts of hers,’ Joe continued, while Michael looked on disapprovingly.
‘Will you stop being so rude,’ Michael said and slapped the back of his hand against Joe’s arm.
The slap and subsequent exchange of looks between Michael and Joe confirmed for Harry the relationship between the two men. That momentary connection between hand and arm, between two parts of flesh, revealed an intimacy between Joe and Michael that went beyond the casual friendly slap of a shoulder. He thought they looked so unlikely a pairing, but he was not alarmed by them and smiled pleasantly.
‘I don’t think much of the entertainment in this place,’ Harry said and drained his own glass, finding it difficult to concentrate.
‘I hope you don’t mean us,’ Joe said.
‘No, of course not.’
‘He’s only teasing,’ Michael in
terrupted. ‘Don’t pay him any attention. He gets sour this time of night. He’s not as young as he used to be and gets tired.’
‘I could still drink you under the table,’ Joe said.
‘What do you both do?’ Harry asked.
‘Do? What do you mean?’ Joe said, looking as though it was an obtuse thing to ask.
‘I think he means for a living,’ Michael said.
‘I did my work in the war organizing entertainment for the Americans. Afterwards I worked in selling off the jeeps and military equipment they left behind. Now I am retired,’ he explained, relishing the word retired.
‘And you?’
‘I work in accounting,’ Harry said, looking at Michael to see if he had recoiled in judgment, but Michael nodded and smiled. ‘Perhaps I could buy you both a drink?’ Harry asked, feeling as though he had to get the two of them onside if he was to succeed with Phyllis.
‘That would be jolly good of you,’ Michael replied.
As Harry ordered another round of drinks, he felt his mood petering and wondered whether he should make his excuses and leave. If he was honest, he felt a little browned off at Phyllis for leaving him but then he noticed Michael was watching him with a look of curiosity and he realized he should try and be sociable. Phyllis joined them a few minutes later just as a swing band began their set, and the combination of her and the music injected new energy into the group. She was insistent they all dance so they knocked back a couple more drinks and moved to a small area in front of the stage. There was a moment of awkwardness but then they began to loosen their bodies into the rhythm of the music. It was just what Harry needed to do. He closed his eyes and tried to forget about everything and simply enjoy the sensation of moving but when he opened his eyes, he cast a wild look about him, taking in the frenzied mass of people. Phyllis slipped her hand into his and he squeezed it and then kissed her with one eye on Michael and Joe.
More and more people came onto the dance floor, overcome by the infectious almost resolutely optimistic beat of the music, and it wasn’t long before they were at the centre of the crowd. The music kept going and the crowd tottered backwards and staggered forward, unwilling to give in, the band slurring one piece into the next and pushing everyone’s ears and body to the limit, until a saxophone sloughed through all the other instruments and the set finished in an explosion of drums. There was a cheer and then slowly people became aware of how sweaty and disheveled they were, the men reaching for their collars and the women patting at their hair and dabbing surreptitiously at their clammy lips. Harry wiped his brow with a handkerchief and blew out his lips in a mock expression of exhaustion.
The next thing Harry remembered was being outside the club. It was dark and Joe and Michael had both disappeared. He held onto Phyllis who was nearly as drunk as he was and walked her to her bus stop.
‘What do you think of those two boys then?’ she asked.
‘They’re very affable,’ he said.
‘You figured them out?’
‘I dunno,’ he said.
‘They are some of my dearest friends,’ she said.
‘I liked them.’
‘What about me? You figured me out yet?’
‘Definitely not,’ he said and kissed her, feeling unwieldy and clumsy as he drew her body near to him, but she did not seem perturbed and he relaxed a little, feeling contentment in the knowledge that he would spend the rest of the night making love to her. It appeared Saturdays weren’t so bad after all.
*
The memory made Harry want to get drunk. He knew full well that Phyllis would not be easily located. He had already checked with Michael and Joe, who both said they had not seen her. What was he supposed to do, check every public house and café in Soho and the east end? He did not have to play at being a husband. It was her choice to go gallivanting about and she had always said that he shouldn’t worry too much about her. She would turn up eventually. He began to walk back in the direction of The Ten Bells, knowing that his body was pulling him there because of some inevitable need.
When he reentered the pub, George was still there, slightly more inebriated than before and from what Harry could see of the boy’s glass, he had graduated to drinking scotch. Harry ordered more of the same and drank it with deliberate quickness hoping it would give him the temporary courage he needed. He went back outside, smoked another cigarette and waited. A couple of minutes later George came out.
‘Found her then?’ George said.
‘I’ve run out of places to look.’
‘Bad luck.’
Harry shook his head and they walked over the road to Christ Church and climbed up the steps and round the side of the church. They sat on a brutally cold stone ledge and shared a cigarette. Harry felt George place his hand on his leg.
‘You know this place was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor?’
‘Who is that?’ George asked.
‘He was a protégé of Christopher Wren.’
The boy nodded vaguely.
‘Who designed St Paul’s,’ Harry added.
He was about to launch into a history of the building but he stopped himself. He knew other men liked to play teacher but he already felt too old as it was.
‘I remembered your face,’ George said. ‘I don’t always remember people’s faces.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
George shrugged.
‘You looked so scared that first time. Didn’t know what you wanted. Most fellas know exactly what they want. They just want you to get on with it and they have this mad look in their eyes, like they’re trying to eat you up. You looked like you were somewhere else.’
Harry leaned in and kissed George on the lips and all too quickly George was fumbling with the buttons on Harry’s flies. The hard stone pressing into Harry’s buttocks and the freezing cold air didn’t seem to matter as much as it had. He focused on the scotch in his belly and the feeling of warmth it produced. He gave himself up to the act and drifted into a daze. It was the second time in a week he had committed an indiscretion, but he tried to shrug it off. He had been faithful for so long and what good had it done him? Phyllis had driven him to this. And really he was just satisfying an urge, nothing more. It did not even feel like a betrayal.
When they were done they both jumped to their feet quickly and pulled their jackets close around them. The feeling of cold overwhelmed them, punished them for being outside so long. They moved back towards the pub.
‘I need to use the lavatory and then I should head off,’ Harry said.
‘You don’t want to stay for another drink? My friends have buggered off.’
‘I’m all right, thank you.’
George gave a casual nod but Harry could tell he was hurt.
‘I don’t mean to be rude.’
‘You have to go look for your wife,’ George said, resigned to the fact that he would always be playing second fiddle to some girl he would never meet.
‘Well, yes.’
‘Let me have another look at the photo.’
Reluctantly Harry removed it once more from his jacket and held it in front of George’s face.
‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ the boy said.
‘That’s good of you.’
‘She ought to be careful. A woman was murdered last night. Smithfield’s Market.’
‘Who was she?’
‘They found her hanging from a meat hook. Stark naked, apart from a pair of shoes. Some tart so they say.’
Harry flinched at the mention of her as a tart. He thought it a bit rich that George could use the word so casually and without irony.
‘Well I hope you’re not implying my wife…’
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ George answered quickly, his eyes darting with embarrassment. ‘I’m just saying be careful. In weather like this all sorts of devils come out of their holes. She’s left a two-year-old boy an orphan.’
‘She had no family of her own?’
‘No, she was an orphan too. That’s the second killing in just over a week.’
Harry felt a shiver run down his body.
‘You should go find your friends.’
‘I’ll wait for you. We might as well walk to the station together,’ the boy said.
Harry did not know what to say. He had no desire for George to wait for him.
‘Please don’t worry over me.’
Harry went straight to the lavatory and tried to calm down. He could feel the effects of the whiskey and he took a moment to steady himself. It was no good carrying on like this, he thought, but when he considered the events of the last week and the accusations Phyllis had made, he began to reason that he had a right to do as he pleased. Yet he also felt the fragile pieces of his being were pulling themselves in different directions. He knew that men like George had the power to tear him apart, but they were as much a part of him as Phyllis or any of the other intimacies of his life.
When Harry emerged from the lavatory he noticed the young man with grubby nails had returned and was sitting at the same bar stool. Their eyes met for a brief moment and then the man picked up his pint glass in what appeared a very deliberate manner to Harry, and downed almost two-thirds of a pint. He placed the glass carefully on the bar and Harry could see spittle and the dregs of beer trailing down the inside of the glass. Then the man looked over his right shoulder. Harry followed the direction of the man’s gaze and saw another fellow, a great landslide of flesh dressed in black standing by the door. Something about the large man’s size and weight made Harry shudder. He looked for George but couldn’t see him. All of a sudden he felt deeply uneasy and extremely conspicuous. It was time to leave. Slowly he made his way to the exit, keeping his head down. He brushed passed the large man, who seemed to be ignoring him and went out onto the pavement. George was not outside either. Harry walked quickly but heard the door open behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw, to his horror, that the large man was following him. Harry increased his pace until he almost broke into a run.
He turned the corner and walked straight into a third man with a face that was all chin.
The Smog (A Jean Clarke Mystery Book 1) Page 4
