by Mark Dawson
“Likewise,” she said, taking his hand. “It’s Bella, though. Call me Bella.”
Her hand was slender and cool and it felt nice. “Really,” he said. “You mustn’t worry about me. I’m more than a match for a bully like him.”
She looked fretful. “He’s an awful man. I’ve seen him set about a fellow who looked at him the wrong way. Took out his razor and slashed him across the face.”
Harry tilted his face and stroked his fingers down his cheek. “You think I’d let him do something like that to something like this,” he said, grinning.
She smiled at his impudence; it lit up her face. “That would be a shame.”
“You are alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine. What you did”––she frowned as she recalled it––“you shouldn’t have, but, well, thank you, anyway.”
“I was wondering,” he said, sliding away from the wall, “whether I could take you out for a drink?”
“Really?”
Her surprise was charming. “I thought tonight, maybe? If you can get the time off, of course?”
“I don’t work Thursday nights,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I usually go to the pictures.”
“Well, then,” he said. “That’s fortunate, isn’t it? But only if you’d like to, of course.”
“No, no––I’d like that very much. I’m sure it would be very nice.”
“That’s grand. Shall I come and get you?”
“No,” she said, the worry returning. “Not here. You shouldn’t be here, really, you shouldn’t. I’ll meet you in town.”
6
THEY ENDED up on Wardour Street. The fog that hung motionless in the air turned the passers-by into ghosts at twenty yards’ distance; but in the little pools of light about the lamp posts he saw faces, darting eyes, suspicion and wariness. She led the way into a narrow alley that led off the street and into a narrow pub halfway down it. There was a small room on the first floor with a bar, tables, chairs and sofas. There were a few other punters, although not many, and an automatic piano which was activated by the insertion of a penny. Isabella sat down on one of the sofas, crossing her ankles demurely, and Harry asked what she would like to drink. She asked for a gin and peppermint and he went to the bar to get it. When he returned she had fed a penny into the piano and it responded with a brisk rendition of a waltz that he didn’t recognise. He smiled at her between sips of his beer. She was extremely pretty. She was wearing a simple black dress, the hemline daringly short––just below the knee––and a tubular bodice that draped straight down to a dropped waist. He especially liked the hat she was wearing; one of those flat felt hats which seemed to be in vogue.
They paused, a little awkwardly.
She took off her hat and smoothed her hair.
“What do you do?” she asked him finally.
“For a living?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sort of between jobs. I’ve just got back.”
“You’ve been fighting?”
“Yes. The Somme.”
“France?”
“That’s right.”
“What was it like?”
He paused, his thoughts jerking against the restraint that usually kept the nightmares hidden in the dark recesses of his mind. He got glimpses: muddy trenches, brackish water and blood; shells detonating, dirt and debris scattered overhead; bayonet charges across no man’s land; machine guns roaring through belts of bullets; the smell of cordite and of death. The first Hun he had killed, the man’s hands pressed against the wound in his abdomen but his guts still spreading out through his fingers anyway, looking unaccountably like gore-streaked strings of sausages, and––just as his memory threatened to paint on the clearer detail––he wrenched himself back into the present: the warmth of the pub, the taste of the beer, the pretty girl in front of him. He put the memories away again, forced himself to focus his unfocused eyes and put a smile on his face. “It was war,” he said. “That’s all there is to say about it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
There was another pause.
“So,” she said. “What do you like to do for fun?”
“I’m a normal kind of chap,” he said. “The normal things.”
“Do you like music?”
“I do. You?”
“Oh yes. I like dancing especially.”
“And I expect you’re excellent at it, too.”
She blushed. “I don’t know about that. I reckon I’m alright.”
“Where do you go?”
“The Top Hat, in Ham Yard––it’s the best place in London. Do you know it?”
“I don’t think I do. I was young when I went away. I never really went out doing any of this before.” He indicated the glasses on the table and shrugged at the awful mechanical piano.
“You haven’t been dancing?” She sounded incredulous.
“Can’t say I have.”
“It’s not far from here. You can get drinks till twelve.”
“Then I can see a benefit already.”
There was another silence as they both wondered whether he was going to deliver the conversation to its natural conclusion. She self-consciously sipped her drink. He watched her. She was awfully pretty. He saw a man, at a nearby table, looking at her. Jealous eyes. Covetous, pretending not to look but unable to resist. The man turned his face back to his own companion as he noticed Harry looking at him. It was all that Harry needed to see.
“How do you fancy it?” he said.
“What––the Top Hat? Now?”
“Why not?”
“We could go,” she said, pretending uncertainty for the sake of her modesty. “They don’t start with the dancing till eleven, though.”
“Time for another drink here then. What do you say?”
“I’d say that sounds wonderful,” she said.
He went up to get them another drink. When he returned she had fed the piano for a second time and another song––as bad as before––was playing out in a riot of badly tuned notes. She grinned sheepishly at him. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”
“It is awful, isn’t it?”
They listened to the song play out, both of them laughing as the final notes ebbed away. She smiled broadly at him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have a girl?”
“I don’t,” he said.
“Get away!”
“No, I haven’t––really.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I bet you do and I bet she’s a right picture. Stops traffic, I reckon, don’t she?”
“Would I be out with you tonight if I had a girl?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Some men––”
He smiled at her, but it was a serious smile, not to be misunderstood. “I’m not like that,” he said.
“I bet she’s just the opposite of me. A nice English girl––not Italian, not Latin, not like me. Blond and blue-eyed, not dark-skinned and with all this hair.” She shook her head and the generous black ringlets shimmied across her shoulders. He saw that while she disparaged her own looks, she knew very well that she was stunning; it was a shallow artifice, but charming nonetheless.
They had two more rounds of drinks, and they sat on for an hour and a half. They laughed, the conversation flowing with encouraging ease, and she went into detail about herself. Harry realised afterwards that she had done most of the talking.
7
AS THEY CAME out into Wardour Street again she took his arm. He felt reassured. They turned onto Coventry Street, and walked along by the Corner House, navigating their way through a clutch of people lit by the garish shop lights and the glow from the gaslights. She still had his arm, and they did not speak much. He wondered what she was thinking about. She smelled nice and the feeling of her body pressed into his own was wonderful. She took him to a cheap
and cheerful restaurant off the Haymarket, the sort of place where you can get a three-course dinner for half a crown. They had sausage with bread and butter, fried plaice, entrecôte aux pommes frites and slices of caramelised pineapple for pudding. Harry ordered a bottle of Médoc Supérieur, three and sixpence the bottle, and they worked their way through that so quickly that he ordered another. They talked, their subjects ranging widely across work and family and how they thought the country was recovering from the war, and when they were at last ejected, at eleven o’clock, it was in high spirits that they made their way again across the cold and still crowded streets.
They hurried to the Top Hat. The club was in Ham Yard, a hard living quarter of Soho that Harry knew by reputation. It was on the cheap side of the West End, north of Shaftesbury Avenue, surrounded by near beer bars, bottle parties and dowdy spielers. The first-floor flats above the local shops were walk-ups where the Piccadilly Commandoes brought back their poor hapless Johns; a few pence for a grope, just a little more for a ten-minute knee trembler. It was grimy and dowdy and was depressing in the daytime, but there was an energy in the air that was impossible to ignore at night. A buzz, a fizz. There was a queue at the club and they wondered whether they would get in but, after a short pause, they did.
The club was as down-at-heel as the area in which it was situated. It was a large room with little in the way of décor: painted hessian and dried-up palm leaves around the walls, a hardwood floor leading to a crude bar at the far end. A glitter ball spun slowly from the ceiling, scattering chequered light into darkened corners. A low stage, erected along the right-hand wall, accommodated the house band. They were playing a jazzy number. A dozen drunken dancers moved around on the floor in front of the stage, and others sat in darkened booths, two-seater tables and dilapidated sofas with razor slashes spilling out discoloured stuffing. Everybody was drunk. The law forbade you from drinking unless you made a pretence of eating as well, so customers ordered sandwiches which mostly went untouched.
They sat down to the blare of the band, the noise of shuffling feet moving across the floor and the cacophonous confusion of talking and shouting, cigarette smoke cloaking the room as densely as the smog that rolled in off the Thames. Harry ordered drinks. They finished them quickly and he screwed up his courage and asked her to dance. Her response gave her away: she had been waiting all night for the invitation and accepted it quickly. She danced beautifully, as he had suspected she would, and he did his best not to show himself up. The next number was slower and she pressed herself into his body. Other men looked at them and he was very proud. They might have more money than he did, perhaps they had better prospects, but he was making progress on that score and he had the prettiest woman in the room in his arms. Yes, he thought, things were good. He could hold his own with any of them.
The dance drew to its pleasant conclusion, couples separating and clapping the band, and Harry and Bella returned to their table. A fresh round of drinks was waiting for them there. Harry finished his quickly and ordered another round, dimly aware that the alcohol had settled in his brain in a pleasing fugue: he was in an excellent mood. Another tune began and another man approached their table and asked Bella to dance. She looked at Harry, he nodded his approval, he watched her glide around the floor. The dance finished and another started; he stepped up, dismissing the interloper and taking her in his arms again. He ordered more drinks. Another man approached and asked her to dance and he said yes and then watched her again.
She was magnetic, the prettiest thing in the room, and Harry noticed with pride how all the other men were watching her. He observed her slender figure, watched embracing the man as he had embraced her, watched her sashaying to the tune. She was desirable and he was pleased with himself for asking her out. Her partner’s hand dipped down into the small of her back and he felt the first stirrings of jealousy. The song ended and she politely disengaged herself.
He decided that there would be no more dancing with others; she would stay with him from now on.
He realised that he was fast becoming drunk. The conversation between them flowed more easily, inconsequential fripperies that amounted to very little yet it all seemed to draw them closer. His face ached from smiling and then he was dancing with her again, spinning around the floor, then they were seated again, his right hand resting atop hers on the table, and then she reached across and kissed him on the cheek.
“Were you serious?” she asked.
“What about?”
“About not having a girl.”
“I told you––I’m not like that.”
“I swear you’re having me on.”
“I’m not.” He slid his left hand beneath hers and squeezed it. “Why do you ask?”
She blushed. “I just can’t believe it, that’s all.”
She finished her drink. “Come on,” she said. “This is the last one. I’d like to dance it with you.”
8
HARRY HEARD the knock on the door the next morning. The knocker clapped twice against the plate, making the whole house shake. A solid, confident knock. It was early and, since he couldn’t think of anyone who might want to talk to him, he rolled over and closed his eyes again. It was probably the postman. What time did the postman make his rounds? He realised that he didn’t know; no-one ever wrote to him. Then, just as he was about to drift back into somnolence, he thought of the police. Was it possible? Could the burglary have been attributed to them? It was possible, he supposed, opening his eyes again; the skivvy could reveal something under questioning or perhaps someone saw them going into the house. The more he considered it, the more he worried whether he could be right and the less able he was to relax again.
There was a shuffling below. Mrs. Weaver always brought the letters up herself. Harry thought she was a nosey bitch. He had seen her with the post: she would prod and poke them, squeeze them to see how thick they were, examine their postmarks, hold them up to the light and speculate on their contents, before delivering them to their recipients. The shuffling changed to footsteps and a nasal wheezing. He listened as Mrs. Weaver came up the stairs.
“Mr. Costello?” she called.
“Yes?” he hissed at the door.
“There’s someone to see you and your brother.”
“Who is it?”
“He says his name is Mr. Scarpello.”
Harry got dressed. George’s small room was next door. He had heard Mrs. Weaver and he was already awake and dressed, the door opening at Harry’s soft knock. They went downstairs.
Mrs. Weaver had shown Scarpello into the dining room.
“Good morning, lads,” he said genially. He was sat at the dining room table. He was wearing flannel suit with a purple overplaid and a bow tie.
“What do you want?”
His fingers were laced together on the table. Harry looked down at his fingernails; they looked as if they had been polished. He found that distasteful.
“I heard what you did the other night.”
The swung door open and Mrs. Weaver’s face appeared, glanced in suspiciously, and disappeared again. Harry knew that she would be hovering just outside, straining her ears, trying to find out who this was and what it could be about. He went over and closed the door.
“Is that going to be a problem?” he said.
“I don’t see why it would be. I know what happened––Trimmer was out of order. It sounds like he got what he deserved.”
“Trimmer?”
“That’s what they call Benneworth,” George said.
“He favours his knife,” Scarpello explained. “I would have said that he has a talent for it, but then you rather outshone him in that, didn’t you? He hasn’t sat down since.”
“What do you want?” Harry said again.
“Business. I know what you’ve been up to, boys.”
“And what’s that?”
“The burglary.”
“What burglary?” George said.
“Did you really think I w
ouldn’t find out?”
Harry stared at him. “What does it have to do with you?”
“I’ll allow you a little ignorance,” Scarpello said with a show of indulgence. “You’ve been fighting. But your brother hasn’t. He should be able to tell you.”
Harry stared at him implacably. “Why don’t you tell me?”
George intervened quickly: “We owe him.
“For what?”
“A tax.”
“I hear you and your brother have been stealing goods. But you don’t send me a tribute. You don’t even send me a piece of the jewellery you stole. My wife, it is our anniversary, she has a temper and I’m thinking yes, these boys, they’re good boys, their father the clockmaker will have brought them up correctly, they’ll let me have a necklace or a broach and I can give it to her for our anniversary but it doesn’t come. Nothing comes. You two need to remember who I am. You need to show me some respect.”
“And why should we do that?” Harry said.
Scarpello returned his stare. “Because Soho and Little Italy belong to me and, if you don’t, you will be arrested. You will be thrown onto the street. I’ll burn your father’s shop to the ground. I’ll let Trimmer and his knife have his way with you. Are those reasons good enough for you?”
“We’ve sold the jewellery,” George lied hastily.
“Then you will give me money instead. How much did you make?”
“Enough!” Harry said impatiently. His voice was hard and cold and vibrating with fury. “How much do you want?”
“Fifty pounds now and ten per cent of anything else you make. And we will forget this as an innocent misunderstanding.”
“Fine. Where?”
“I’ll be in The Griffin tomorrow evening. The same time as yesterday. Can I expect to see you?”
Harry stood. The conversation was over. “You can,” he said.
9
GEORGE CAME UP to Harry’s room. It was the top floor back and it was still dark, the curtain drawn over the narrow arrow-slit of a window. The room was just under the eaves and, with its sloping ceiling, it reminded Harry of a wedge of cheese. He felt his way to the gas jet and lighted it. The gas spluttered until it caught, the mantles gradually whitening, the resultant faint glow just sufficient to send the shadows into the corners. Their breath clouded before their faces. The room was small and yet still too big to be warmed properly by one defective oil lamp; it promised to be icy when winter really started to bite. It was furnished when Harry had taken it, at least in a fashion: a small, broken-backed bed with a holed patchwork quilt and sheets that were changed once a month; a deal table; a rickety kitchen chair; a gas ring in the fender. The floor was covered by peeling linoleum, bugs scurrying amid the cracks; there was a wash stand with jug and basin and a chamber pot. The room directly below housed a woman with a baby which cried all night; on the same floor was a young couple whose quarrels were so loud that they could be heard all over the house. When money was tight––which was practically all the time––Harry would come home from work and light the fire (when he could afford the sixpenny bags from the grocer’s) and get the stuffy little room passably warm. George would sometimes join him and they would sit together over a meal of bacon, stale bread and margarine and tea, cooked over the gas-ring. Harry would read a cheap thriller that he had borrowed for tuppence from the mushroom library on the Clerkenwell Road and George would do the Brain Brighteners in Tit Bits until the puzzles were all done, the fire was banked and they had turned in for the night. It was a depressing existence.
