Old Filth

by Jane Gardam

  But the tall shadow would fall across his book and he would have to find a garden chair and she would sit with him among the dying dahlias in the remains of the cutting garden—every foot of land, she had instructed, to be used for vegetables. The Duchess fumed, and one day came thumping down to look for Eddie and complain.

  “She brought fifty-five servants,” she said. “She’s stopped them wearing livery because of the War and Churchill in that awful siren-suit. Six of them are leaving. They’ve worn scarlet since they were under-footmen and they’re old and say they can’t change. Can you do nothing with her?”

  “What—me? No, your Grace. Couldn’t; c-c-couldn’t.”

  “Well, you’ll have to think of something. Distract her.”

  “I’ve stopped the tree. Well, I hope s-s-so.”

  “Oh, good boy. But listen, she’s determined to take you to London. Her chauffeur, old Humphries, is half-blind and not safe. Once he lost Her Majesty for over an hour in Ashdown Forest. She won’t sack him. And she makes him stop and pick up any member of the forces walking on the road. Once she picked up a couple who were walking the other way and once it was an onion seller. She’ll be murdered, and then we’ll all be blamed.”

  “Eddie,” said the Queen, a little later. “I am determined to get you to London. When I first came here I went back every week, you know, on the train. Then it became painful because of the bombing. The Guildhall. The City churches. All gone. And of course the antique shops are all closed or gone to Bath (you and I might perhaps go to Bath one day). But I have a great desire to see London again. It might not be patriotic to insist that the Royal coach be put back on the train, but I have plenty of my petrol ration untouched, and you could do the driving, on the main roads, Eddie, if it is too much for Humphries. We shall of course need two outriders.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t drive, Ma’am.”

  The expedition was put off until Eddie had learned to drive, instruction being given in a tank on the estate.

  “I can only drive a tank, Ma’am,” he said when a London visit was again suggested.

  “The principle must be the same,” said the Queen.

  “We must clear it with Security.”

  She looked imperious. The ex-Empress of India. “Well, we’ll go out wooding, Eddie. Get my bodyguards and my axe. No, I’ll keep my hat on. I’m determined to take you to London.”

  It was fixed at last that Queen Mary should make the journey to London by the train, the Royal coach still being rested in a siding near Gloucester. Some of the Badminton staff were sent to wash it down and the stationmaster of Badminton railway station had to look out for the white gloves he had worn to haul the Queen aboard the 6.15 a.m. in 1939 at the beginning of her evacuee life.

  “Good luck, Ma’am.”

  The lady-in-waiting followed her in, and Eddie and a couple of Other Ranks with rifles took up their posts.

  “Hope you don’t meet Jerry, Ma’am,” said the stationmaster. “Everyone stand back from the lawns.”

  “Oh, the bombing is totally over,” said Queen Mary. “I shall go to the Palace and have a look at the ruins of Marlborough House. And there is a little shopping—”

  He blew the whistle and waved the flag. The Queen’s progress had cheered him up. She’d be back on the 5.15 from Paddington. She wasn’t dead yet.

  “She’s got some spirit,” he told the empty platform. Even at Badminton there were no porters. “We’re better off than Poland. Or Stalingrad.”

  Just before Paddington, Eddie in a different side-carriage alone, the Queen sent for him and handed him a slip of paper.

  “Here are the things you ought to see. I haven’t given you too many. It is not only a first visit but you will find it confusing without signposts, and all the bomb-damage. You ought to have time for the Abbey and take a glance at St. James’s Park and No.10. And Big Ben. Here we are. It’s a pity you don’t know anyone who could show you about. Have a splendid time. Now, lunch—I really don’t know what to suggest.”

  “I’ll miss lunch, Ma’am. It’s going to be a tight schedule.”

  She stepped from the train. There was a bit of rather old red carpet down for her and she stood in silver grey with doves’ feathers in her toque, grey kid gloves, ebony stick. A whisper began—“It’s Queen Mary. Hey look—Queen Mary”—and a crowd gathered up like blown leaves. There were feeble hurrahs and some clapping, growing stronger, and the little crowd closed round Her Majesty and the lady-in-waiting. The two bodyguards melted away.

  Eddie, all alone, made at once for the taxi-rank and the bedsit in Kensington of Isobel Ingoldby.

  “I’m not sure how far it is,” he told the taxi-driver, after waiting in a long queue, tapping his leg with his military stick. His uniform helped him not at all for everyone seemed to be in uniform. “It’s Kensington. Off Church Street.”

  “Twenty minutes,” he said, “unless we’re unlucky.”

  “You mean an air raid?” Eddie was looking round the Paddington streets disappointedly. This was London: sandbags, shuffling people, greyness, walls hanging in space.

  “Nah—air raids ain’t a trouble now. We’ve licked all that. We have him on the run, unless he starts with his secret weapon, he talks about. Not that we believe he’s got one.”

  (They really do talk like the films, Eddie thought.)

  “You’re here. D’you want to borrer a tin ’at?”

  He was set down at the end of a narrow curving street of shabby cottages with gardens. There was no paint anywhere and grime everywhere. Nobody much about, and most windows boarded up. Isobel Ingoldby’s number must almost certainly be a mistake for it had Walt Disney lattice windows, and a shaggy evergreen plant trailing over it which would have sent Queen Mary into action before she’d even knocked at the front door. There was a squirrel made of plaster on the doorstep and a tin case full of empty milk bottles with a note saying None today. Do not ring.

  It’s somebody’s who’s out. This couldn’t be hers, he thought, at the gate, as the door opened and she was standing there.

  His first thought was a blankness.

  She was ordinary.

  She was big and ordinary and bored.

  She had a cigarette in her hand and leaned back against the door saying, “Come on in then,” as if he had come to read a gas meter.

  Her hair was untidy and too long. Her feet were bare and she wore a shapeless sort of dressing-gown.

  “Ciao,” she said, closing the door behind him. He saw how tired she was, and sad.

  And maybe disillusioned? Was she disillusioned about him, too? She’d last seen him in hospital, pale and almost dying, the centre of attention. But she had made no effort of any kind though she’d known he’d be coming. He’d written a fortnight ago. She looked as if she’d just turned out of bed. She was even yawning.

  “You’re tired?” he said.

  “No. Well, yes. I’m always tired. Ghastly job.”

  “I thought you were some sort of egghead hush-hush type?”

  “I am. Of a cryptic variety.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Secret. D’you want—?”

  She vaguely gestured towards the kitchen.

  “Tea or something? A wee?”

  “No. I thought of taking you out to lunch. To the Savoy, or somewhere?” He’d heard of the Savoy. He looked anxiously at her night clothes.

  “I was there yesterday.”

  “Isobel—what is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “What have I done? Have I changed or something? You said to come.”

  She put out the cigarette on the hall table ashtray, caught sight of herself in the mirror and said, “Oh my God! I forgot to comb my hair.” She turned to him and grinned and it was as if the sun had come out. The sloped cat’s eyes were alive again. Her long arms went up behind her head to gather up her hair into a bundle and she pinned it there. A piece of it fell down, a lion-coloured tress. Slowly, she pinned it back again
, her fingers long, and lovely, and her fingernails painted the most unflinching vermilion. The dressing-gown fell open when she dropped her hands and stretched them out to him.

  “Oh Eddie. You are golden brown like a field of corn.”

  Her fingertips were at his collar. When he took off his British warm, then his officer’s jacket, he saw that she had loosened and then removed his tie. She draped it over a wall-light and then was in his arms.

  On the kitchen floor, naked, he thought the taxi must still be outside. He had got out of it only a minute ago. Then he forgot all that; where he had come from, where in the world he had landed, which was upon a kitchen floor, the filthy lino torn and stuck up with some sort of thick paper tape. There was an old fridge on tall legs. It was gas. Lying on the floor beside her, then above her, he could see the fridge’s blue flame. It must be the oldest fridge in the world—oh, my God, Isobel. Isobel.

  Later, oh much, much later, they rolled apart.

  “I don’t like this lino,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “You’re spoiled. Living in palaces.”

  “I was not living in palaces when you last saw me.”

  “You were hardly living at all.”

  They had moved on to a tiny sitting-room which was in darkness. It smelled of booze and dust. They felt their way to a divan that stank of nicotine.

  “Why is there no light?”

  “Do we need it?”

  “Oh, Isobel.”

  “It’s blacked-out. Permanently. Convenient. We’ve never taken down the shutters since the Blitz.”

  “We?”

  “The other girl and I.”

  “Is she likely to come in?” His head was on her stomach. His tongue licked her skin. She was warm and alive and smelled of sweat and spice and he went mad for her again.

  Later, “Who is she?”

  “No one you know. She’s Bletchley Park. Like me.”

  “It’s a man, isn’t it?”

  “No. No, certainly not. Shall we go upstairs?”

  The bedroom was lighter. It had a sloping ceiling and the windows looked country as if there had once been fields outside. It had the feel of a country place; a cottage. So here’s London.

  “It is a cottage,” she said. “London’s full of cottages. And of villages. This bed is a country bed. We found it here.”

  The bed was high and made of loops of metal. Its springs creaked and groaned beneath them.

  “Please never get rid of it. Keep it forever.”

  The hours passed. Wrapped, coiled, melded together they slept. They woke. Eddie laughed, stretched out to her again.

  “You are like a jungle creature,” he said. “In an undiscovered country.”

  “Eddie,” she said at last, winding herself into the sheets, “I have something very important to say. How much time have we got? When’s your train?”

  “Five-fifteen.”

  “It’s nearly five o’clock already.”

  He fled the bed, he ran for the stairs, he limped and hopped into scattered garments, he yelled with terror.

  She laughed and laughed.

  He found one shoe, but the other was gone.

  “This will finish me,” he said. “This will be the end of the Army for me.”

  She howled with laughter from the bedroom; came laughing down the stairs wrapped in the sheet, lighting a new cigarette.

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I am in love with you, Eddie.”

  “I have a bad reputation already. With my Colonel. And I am in charge of Queen Mary. Oh God—there’s my shoe!” He was in his jacket, in his British warm, had found his cap as she wrapped herself around him.

  “Eddie, Eddie. You look still the boy in the trees at High House.”

  “What time is it? Oh God. I’ve fifteen minutes. There won’t be a taxi.”

  But there was a taxi. God has sent me a taxi, he thought. It was standing outside the door. “Paddington,” he said. “In ten minutes. I’ll give you ten pounds.” He did not look back to see whether she was watching.

  “Ten pounds, sir.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” (It’s only what I’d have spent at the Savoy. God but I’m hungry.)

  “Yes. Platform one. Where’s the bit of carpet? Is it gone?”

  It was there. And word had gone round. Somehow a crowd had gathered beside the Royal coach and the top of the toque with its doves’ feathers could be seen passing between the clapping avenue of loyal subjects. The lady-in-waiting was invisible, a small woman to begin with, and no doubt weighted down now with more wool. The bodyguards were already on the train. Eddie gave a brief nod to the guard and jumped into his private cabin, slammed the door and fell on the banquette. I’ll go along in a minute. Just get my breath.

  The train began to steam slowly, powerfully, inexorably away from London.

  Go along in a minute, he thought and fell asleep.

  He woke to a crash and shriek of brakes. The whole train jolted, shuddered and stopped. Outside it was now dark and he jumped from his long blue velvet couch and made for the corridor, to meet one of the bodyguards coming to find him.

  “Emergency, sir. Probably unexploded bomb on the line. Queen Mary’s sent for you.”

  The lady-in-waiting was trembling. From outside came a series of shouts. The train began to shunt backwards, squealing and complaining.

  “It’s the Invasion,” said the lady-in-waiting.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Margaret,” said the Queen. “Eddie, take her along to your compartment and find her an aspirin. She needs a rest. Then come back again and we can talk. I want to hear every single thing you’ve done today.”

  “So tiresome,” she said an hour later. “The carriage so dark. These blue spot-lights are very clever but they’re just not bright enough to read by.” She fell silent. “But it’s nice to look out at the moonlight.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” (And he realised she was afraid. He’d heard that though she never showed it by a tremor she was terrified of kidnap.)

  “And you did no more than that, Captain Feathers?” (Captain Feathers? What’s this?) “No more than go about in taxis? You didn’t even go to the Savoy for luncheon as you’d so wished?”

  “I’m afraid not. I found London—overwhelming. Kensington seemed quite like an unknown vil-vill-vill-village.”

  “A village? How very odd. I was born there. In Kensington Palace. I never felt it a village.”

  “I—couldn’t find Kensington Palace.”

  “Oh dear,” she said.

  The train at last jerked forward, stopped, jerked again and then began to steam sweetly along towards the West.

  “That is a pity,” said Her Majesty. “By the way” (looking out at the moonlight) “whatever has become of your tie?”

  On the way home from their walk about the meadows around Badminton House, Old Filth asked the girl and her grandmother if they would stop the wheelchair at the post office for him to buy postcards. “No, no,” he said. “Let me get out and walk. Do me good,” and he hopped into the shop and back again, carrying three postcards of the village, all ready and stamped. He was able to hop around the car, and hold open the door for the grandmother as the girl put the folding chair back in the boot.

  “So extremely kind of you,” he said. “A splendid afternoon.” Sitting by the reception desk he thought he would write the postcards at once though it was too late for the post, for a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had gathered around the recollection of his departure from home. He would write to Mrs.-er—to Kate—and to Garbutt. Perhaps he would write to lacy Chloe, too, and make her day.

  Then he found that he had never had Mrs.-er’s (Kate’s) address. It was somewhere in the next village. It would be offensive to send it c/o Garbutt, for she had preceded Garbutt in his employment by years. He addressed one card to Garbutt at the house down the hill from his own, well known to him. Peep o’Day. Easy to remember. So was Chloe’s: The Manor House, Privilege Lane.
On Garbutt’s card he wrote, “Please say I’m sorry to Kate.”

  He had one card left over now and wrote it to Claire, mentioning that he had sprained something but was otherwise having a very good holiday by himself in Gloucestershire at this beautiful hotel. He was exalted. His optimistic self, he felt, was just around the corner.

  But in the early hours of the next morning he woke with a chilling certainty that all was not well. He switched on his bedside lamp, hopped from the bed, opened a window upon the night. He shivered, and then flushed and sweated. He went for a pee, then drank a glass of water, hopped back, hot and cold by turns, clambered between the sheets. He knew that he was ill.

  He knew that he was very ill. He had no idea what it was, but he knew that he was not in control. He lay and waited.

  He stretched his hand out to the bedside table drawer and felt about for the never-failing Gideon’s Bible that had seen him through many a sleepless hotel night during his legal life. In skyscrapers in Hong Kong, in the Shangri-la in Singapore, the dear old Intercon in Dacca. Lonely places, until he’d been married and able to take Betty along with him. He thought he needed a Gospel tonight, and turned up one of Christ’s dingdongs with the lawyers.

  He wondered, the pages shaking as he turned them, why Christ had so hated lawyers when He’d have been such a brilliant one Himself. Christ, when you considered it, was simply putting a Case. He may well have been enjoying the lawyers’ examinations of him. Pilate’s was his most respectable interrogation. Pilate had not been a lawyer, but another excellent lawyer manqué. Pilate and Christ had understood each other.

  “We still use a little Roman Law, here,” he told Christ tonight. “The Law can always do with a going-over as you pointed out then. Execution should be entirely out. Execution leads only to victory for the corpse. You proved that,” he informed the Holy Ghost.