by Paul Gallico
To Katie Fairman
Anyone who insists upon trying to identify characters in this book with living persons simply isn’t playing the game. This is wholly a work of fantasy and fiction and I trust will be accepted as such.
P.G.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
A Note on the Author
Also available by Paul Gallico
1
John Bayswater reached over and switched off the television set, and all three – Mrs Harris, Mrs Butterfield and the prim, handsome-looking, elderly chauffeur – remained sitting for a few moments more in the semi-darkness, watching the dying spot of light at the centre of the now blank screen.
For the past forty-five minutes its surface had been occupied by a pseudo-intellectual programme entitled ‘What Do You Think?’ A panel consisting of a famous author, a lawyer and a Member of Parliament had been giving their opinions on questions of the day submitted by the audience, a caucus in which the Hon. Ronald Puckle, MP had rather smothered the others, hogging the screen on every possible occasion.
‘Phew!’ said Mrs Harris. ‘Wasn’t ’e a one!’
‘I thought he delivered himself of some extremely sage remarks,’ said Mr Bayswater, ‘particularly when he recommended lowering the tax on motorcars. It’s quite shocking what we pay on the Rolls. As for what the poor people do …’
‘Garn!’ said Mrs Harris. ‘He had a real bran-tub. No blanks. Prizes for everyone. I know his kind.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on and make the sandwiches,’ said Mrs Butterfield, raising her portly form from the deep settee, which was hers by right due to her weight and bulk.
The occasion was the regular Thursday night tea-and-telly session that took place in the living-room of Ada Harris’s house, No. 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, London.
From eight sharp to eleven, Mrs Harris the adventurous London char, Violet Butterfield her best friend and Mr John Bayswater, chauffeur to the rich, whose status somewhat defied classification but whom Ada might have listed modestly as ‘a gentleman friend’, watched television programmes. Promptly at eleven they had tea, sandwiches and little cakes covered with icing in violent colours and conducted a small forum of their own on the subjects they had seen. At 11.45 by the mantel clock, the face of which was supported by two cupids, Bayswater would arise, clear his throat, send his starched cuffs back into the sleeves of his smartly cut jacket and say, ‘Well, ladies, I’m indebted to you for a most pleasant evening,’ and take his departure.
The three had met on a liner going to America where Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield had been employed by a film magnate and his wife, Mr and Mrs Joel Schreiber, and Bayswater was accompanying the Marquis de Chassagne, French Ambassador to the United States, and his Rolls-Royce.
Their lives had become briefly entangled over the matter of a small boy, whom Mrs Harris, via the Marquis, had introduced illegally into America in an effort to find his long-lost father.
However, all were London born and bred and found they were not happy too far from the sound of the Bow bells. Now they were back again in their familiar haunts with Mrs Harris, char, and Mrs Butterfield, part-time cook, having collected clients for whom they ‘did’ on an hourly basis.
Mrs Harris and Bayswater had something further in common in that they were now working for the same man, Sir Wilmot Corrison, property tycoon and influential, behind-the-scenes politician of the Centre Party. Bayswater was chauffeur to Sir Wilmot’s new Golden Cloud Rolls-Royce, while Mrs Harris dropped in for an hour or so each morning at the small mews house behind Eaton Square which Sir Wilmot maintained as a pied-à-terre in London when it was necessary for him to remain late at the office, and where he often slept when he did not feel like returning to his country home in Buckinghamshire.
Twice a week, it might be noted, Mrs Harris also numbered John Bayswater amongst her clients, for she would pop in to tidy up the little flat he owned in that section of London which had the same name as his, Bayswater. But there was no charge for this, since Mrs Harris had never forgotten Bayswater’s kindness and help during her difficulties in America. But for the rest, the friendship with Bayswater had remained static.
The chauffeur was a confirmed bachelor whose only real loves, apparently, were the various Rolls-Royce cars he had driven and over which he fussed internally and externally, groomed, and polished until everything in their interiors was reduced to an inaudible whisper, while their exteriors glittered and shone immaculately.
This night the debate raged around the personality and opinions of the Hon. Ronald Puckle, Conservative Member of Parliament for Marley Vale.
‘It’s the likes of ’im as what’s wrong with the Government,’ Mrs Harris announced, casting a resentful look at the television screen, as though the somewhat flabby image of the Hon. Member was still etched upon it. ‘A windbag and not much of a bag at that!’
‘Indeed!’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘Well, now, he struck me as very sound on a number of subjects.’
‘Sound!’ echoed Mrs Harris, then she mimicked the voice of the interlocutor, ‘ “And how do you feel about the future of Britain, sir?”’ and followed with the reply of the worthy parliamentarian, ‘ “Oh, very good! Excellent! Splendid!” And then he goes on for ten minutes and what does he say? What goes up must come down; what’s too lean wants a bit of fat; what’s too fat wants to lose some weight. Cut off the tops of the hills to fill up the valleys and keep runnin’ in one place as fast as you can. Coo! He was as false as his teeth. Couldn’t you see ’is eyes shifting about every time they asked ’im a question?’
‘Was something wrong with ’is teeth?’ queried Mrs Butterfield, who always managed to lag somewhat behind the arguments. ‘I thought they was very ’ansome.’
‘Too ’ansome,’ snapped Mrs Harris. ‘Dentures! If I was ’im I’d stay away from those television cameras. They look right through you.’
Mr Bayswater protested slightly starchily, ‘I suppose you, being Labour, would naturally feel …’
Mrs Harris interrupted him with a snort, ‘Who, me Labour? Not on your life! If anything they’re worse. I’ve ’eard and seen and ’ad me fill of them. What they’re going to do for the working man! They’re ignorant as well as ’ypocrites. I’ve got me own party, “Live and Let Live”, I calls it. Me and Vi here, if we were in Parliament we’d tell ’em a thing or two, wouldn’t we, Vi?’
Mrs Butterfield’s small mouth formed into a tiny ‘o’ of alarm in the large round moon of her face as she said, ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t dare!’
‘Well, I would!’ stated Mrs Harris with such vehemence that the pink silk fringe on the lampshade stirred. ‘I’d tell the lot of them what’s wrong with the Government and how the country should be run.’
Mr Bayswater smiled a friendly and tolerant smile, for he was really very fond of Mrs Harris, found her company most pleasant and hugely enjoyed their tea-and-telly evenings. ‘I’ll wager you would, Ada,’ he said, ‘and maybe you’d even do them some good.’
Here the mantel clock went into its imitation of Big Ben chiming the three-quarter hour.
Mr Bayswater rose, adjusted his jacket, shot his cuffs, said, ‘Well, ladies, I’m indebted to you for a most pleasant evening,’ and took his departure, as did Mrs Butterfield after the dishes had been done.
Mrs Harris went to bed, but she did not sleep for a long time, for she kept thinking of the words of Mr Bayswater, whose judgement and intellect she greatly respected, ‘I’ll wager you would, Ada, and maybe you’d
even do them some good.’ And the more she thought, the more apt her slogan of ‘Live and Let Live’ appeared to her and, in the manner of those who dream, she began to embellish it as she thought of all the injustices that abounded not only in her life, but in the lives of everyone; injustices which only needed some common sense and goodwill to correct. How was it that such insincere creatures as the Hon. Ronald Puckle could get themselves elected into the Parliament of England?
Ada Harris did not know quite how the Parliament operated and certainly nothing about politics, beyond her feeling that all politicians were worth not very much. She had never been inside the House, and so she had to imagine the delectable scene where someone in some kind of gorgeous costume with knee-breeches, and carrying a mace or crozier, tapped for order and cried, ‘Pray silence, ladies and gentlemen and Right Honourable Members! We will now hear from Mrs Ada Harris on the subject: “What’s Wrong With Britain?”’
While organizing the various details of her speech, Ada Harris finally fell asleep.
2
The following morning Mrs Harris arose betimes to begin, as did so many thousands of her fellow charwomen, their rounds of homes and offices that would leave them sparkling until their owners or inhabitants pigged them up again. She was still filled with echoes of last night’s discussion and her subsequent fantasies. These had left her with a curious sensation of unfulfilment, the way she often felt when she remembered something she had meant to do and had not done. It had been rather a beautiful dream. The later life of Ada Harris had somehow managed to be filled with beautiful dreams, some of which, astonishingly, she had been able to realize.
By the time, however, she had scrubbed the offices of the Electro Appliance Company in Sloane Square, called in upon one of her oldest clients, Lady Dant, whose wardrobe once started Mrs Harris off to Paris in quest of, of all things, a Dior dress for her very own, cleaned up the surprising clutter that Major Tiverton succeeded in leaving every morning, considering that he was a bachelor, and finally messed about in the laboratory of Alexander Hero, the echoes had begun to fade.
They were revived by the unusual circumstances which developed as she fished the keys for No. 88, Eaton Mews North out of her rexine carry-all, and let herself into the cottage of Sir Wilmot Corrison. For a hoarse voice shouted down from the upstairs bedroom, ‘Hello! Is that you, Mrs Harris? Don’t be alarmed, I’m here in bed.’
A most unusual circumstance indeed and a most unusual time. For when he stayed in town, Sir Wilmot was always at his office by nine in the morning and here it was just past eleven.
‘You’re not ill, are you?’ cried Mrs Harris.
‘Just a bit of a throat,’ croaked Sir Wilmot from above, ‘I’ll be quite all right.’
Mrs Harris deposited her bag, shouting, ‘You just stay nice and quiet while I put the kettle on for a cup of tea and I’ll be right up to look after you.’
A cup of tea was Mrs Harris’s panacea for all illness, or at least the proper start of any cure. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil, donned her overall and dust-cap, marched upstairs and into the bedroom of Sir Wilmot saying, ‘Now then!’
While it was obvious that Sir Wilmot’s condition was not grave, it was also plain that he was not entirely himself. He had spent an uncomfortable night sweating, for his thinning hair was rumpled; his pyjamas were rumpled; the bedclothes were rumpled; there was an assortment of pastilles and medicines on his night-table and an open briefcase on his bed with papers scattered on the blankets as well as fallen to the floor. The ashtray full of cigarette stubs also indicated that he had been busy during the night counteracting whatever palliatives he had been taking with cigarette smoke and nicotine.
‘Hello, hello, hello!’ said Mrs Harris, ‘tsk, tsk, tsk!’ and went on, ‘Naughty boy! What have you been up to getting yourself sick?’
‘Just a relaxed throat,’ croaked Sir Wilmot, ‘I didn’t feel much like going to the office. I’ve sent Bayswater out to the country to fetch my wife. I shall be quite all right.’
‘You will, after I’ve done making you comfortable,’ Mrs Harris asserted. ‘Now then, for a beginning we’ll ’ave fresh linen and clean pyjamas.’ She was already at his chest of drawers reaching him the latter articles. ‘Just you pop into the bathroom and tidy up while I make the bed and clear away a bit. I’ll tell you when you can come out.’
In truth Sir Wilmot was glad to see her, for it would be several hours more before his wife could be expected to arrive. He was a large, florid, well-fed man, whose features might have been pleasant and attractive except that there was a slightly unfinished look about them. Everything was that shade too small for the rest of his face; the pointed nose; the somewhat pursy mouth, eyes a fraction too close together, and little ears, as though insufficient material had been used. But he was known as a kind enough man, particularly to those who worked satisfactorily for him, as well as a shrewd, ruthless operator and a wheel and a power behind the Centre Party which was trying to make an impression in the forthcoming General Election.
Now he trotted off obediently to the bathroom, clutching his clean pyjamas, looking somewhat like an overgrown baby. Once the door closed, Mrs Harris attacked the room with both fury and efficiency.
Twenty minutes later, Sir Wilmot lay comfortably and blissfully ensconced between clean sheets, the pillows punched up to support his back, a tray with tea, hot buttered toast, marmalade and orange juice resting on his lap; ashtrays emptied, curtains drawn, the room filled with fresh air. He was feeling a great deal better, a good gargle and wash-up having relieved the congestion in his throat.
‘Mrs Harris, you’re an angel,’ he said.
‘Do you think so? Well, it’s very nice of you to say so. I like looking after people. Now, not any more cigarettes this morning and just you have your breakfast while I clear up downstairs. Then I’ll come back again and see how you’re getting on and maybe have a bit of a chat.’
There was nothing to alarm Sir Wilmot in this statement, for he was still euphoric and filled with gratitude, to the point where he had forgotten what every politician knows, namely that nothing, but absolutely nothing, is for free in life and that for every service rendered there is a little bill to pay.
For all the while downstairs that Mrs Harris was hoovering the carpet, dusting the paintings and ornaments and giving the mellow, antique furniture a rub-up, her busy, naughty little mind was reactivating all that had been seen, said and thought about the night before and preparing the speech she would make, not to Parliament, but to that maker of parliamentarians, Sir Wilmot Corrison. While he was not himself a Member of the House, she knew he was something big and powerful in politics.
To do her common sense and lively intelligence justice, Mrs Harris’s plans for that morning went no further than the sheer joy of having a captive audience pinned down in bed, unable to escape from the overflow she was about to get off her chest on what was wrong with the country. It simply was an opportunity too good to be missed. For while Mrs Harris was an incorrigible chatterer and conversationalist, her clients were usually not, and she was not fool enough to fail to see through their subterfuges: ‘Dear Mrs Harris, I should love to stay and talk to you, but I’ve sent for a taxi’; – ‘How very interesting Mrs Harris, I do wish I could hear the rest of your story, but I’m late for my dentist now’; – ‘Oh dear, Mrs Harris, what a pity, isn’t that somebody at the door?’ – ‘Next week, when I’ve more time, we must have a real, long chat.’
But there, upstairs, bound hand and foot, as it were, by ties of gratitude as well as indisposition, was someone who would not only have to listen to her, but might very well be expected even to understand what she was talking about.
And thus, Sir Wilmot, having enjoyed breakfast, mastered his craving for a cigarette and just about to sink into a blissful doze, found the bill collector appearing in the doorway of the bedroom in the shape of a little old lady with cheeks like shrunken winter apples, snapping, sparkling, dark eyes and
a mischievous quirk to her mouth, a frail, wispy woman with greyish curls leaking out from underneath her dust-cap, leaning not ungracefully upon her weapon, the dust broom.
Mrs Harris launched: ‘Did you watch the telly last night?’
‘Eh? What’s that? The which?’
‘I mean that programme called “What Do You Fink?”.’
‘What? Why yes, as a matter of fact I did. There was nothing else to do. Damn silly, wasn’t it?’
‘I’d like to ’ave your opinion on that what’s-his-name … ? The one that kept hogging the talk. ’Im with the fish eyes and the false teeth.’
Sir Wilmot was conscious of a mild feeling of amusement and the sense of incongruity. Lying in bed talking politics with his charwoman appealed to the innate snob in him. ‘You mean the Hon. Ronald Puckle, MP? He’s an ass!’
‘Then,’ demanded Mrs Harris, ‘wot’s ’e doing in our Government?’
‘Vote-getter,’ replied Sir Wilmot. ‘He talks down to a lot of other asses who vote for him.’
‘Coo!’ said Mrs Harris, ‘I never ’eard such a lot of eyewash in all me life! Add up everything he said he was going to do for the country and in the end what did you ’ave? Nothing!’
Sir Wilmot grinned at the shrewdness of Mrs Harris’s mathematics. Every plus offered by the Hon. Member from Marley Vale was immediately followed by a minus, leaving one with the sum total of nil. ‘That’s how you keep your seat in Parliament.’
‘Now, if it was me that was running the country, I’d know what to tell them and no shillyshallying.’
It was more the sudden change of Mrs Harris’s stance on her broom handle than her words which set up alarm bells ringing in Sir Wilmot. Fun was fun, but to be subjected to a long and boring tirade on the subject of what was wrong with the country, particularly when he was feeling under the weather and unable to escape, was something else again. There was never a dinner-party or a social gathering he attended but someone had him by the lapel, dinning into his ears their panaceas for Britain’s modern-age dilemmas.
