The Rescue Man

by Anthony Quinn

  Baines smiled at this. ‘There used to be a saying, you know, “Liverpool gentleman, Manchester man.”’

  ‘Liverpool gentleman? He must be in hiding. You wouldn’t believe the looks I get when I go into a pub – there’s a real hostility towards women. Or maybe it’s just me they don’t like.’

  ‘It could be the trousers,’ said Baines, only half joking. ‘They might not excite much notice in Chelsea, but around here …’

  ‘And it’s such a sad city, don’t you think? Those streets we walked through today, that little boy we saw – there’s such terrible destitution, and everyone seems to turn a blind eye to it.’

  ‘I gather that London has its poor, too.’

  ‘Yes, of course it does, but it’s nothing like here. Liverpool feels like a place that’s dying on its feet, there’s no industry holding it up. If it didn’t have the docks there’d be … nothing left.’

  ‘Well, if the Luftwaffe have their way there will be nothing left.’

  For a while they talked about the war. Bella told him about her younger brother, David, who had recently joined the RAF.

  ‘I imagine your parents must be worried,’ said Baines.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid they’re not here to care any more.’ Her father, she explained, had worked for the Foreign Office, and when he was posted to Egypt he and his wife had taken their three children – there was an older sister, Nancy – to live in Cairo. ‘David was a baby at the time. I still remember the policeman turning up at school, and our headmistress calling Nancy and me out of class to tell us that there’d been an accident, and that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be coming home. And I asked Nance – she was three years older than me – when would Mummy and Daddy be coming home, then? She got furious, and just shouted at me, “They’re not, stupid – they’re dead.” So that’s how I found out.’

  She spoke with a kind of brave jauntiness, as if the story’s frequent retelling might have smoothed the edges off its pain.

  Baines, not looking her in the eye, said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  At this moment the waitress bustled over with the teacakes, which Bella received with the quick ‘social’ smile she’d used on meeting him that morning. She began eating with school-boyish alacrity.

  ‘Do excuse me,’ she said between mouthfuls, ‘I really am half starved.’

  Watching her, he was unaccountably touched by her lack of self-consciousness; he had always felt awkward eating in front of strangers. She cleared the dainties quickly, and looked up to find herself being watched.

  ‘Sorry. Richard’s always telling me off for bolting my food.’

  Baines smiled. ‘You looked so hungry I thought you might eat the pattern off the plate, too.’ She laughed throatily, revealing her teeth like the half-raised lid on a toy piano. Then she offered him a cigarette and lit one for herself.

  ‘So,’ she said, exhaling from the side of her mouth, ‘do you have family here?’

  ‘I have an aunt and uncle I’m close to. My parents died years ago, before I really knew them.’ She nodded, and waited for him to go on. At length he said, ‘I always used to think it was easier, in a way, their being strangers to me. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t yearn for, you know? But just recently I had a pang – I was looking at a photograph of them, and something about my mother’s expression made me feel … not lonely exactly, but cut adrift. I had this idea that my life had been not just unparented, but – unwitnessed.’

  He had never properly spoken about this before, and was surprised to find the words came quite easily. Perhaps it was an instinctive solidarity of one orphan with another.

  Bella said, ‘No brothers or sisters?’ He shook his head. ‘That must have been hard,’ she went on. ‘I mean, Nance and I used to fight a lot, but she was very protective of me. And we both adored David. Adore. I don’t know why I’m talking about him in the past tense.’

  Just then Baines happened to glance over her shoulder, and caught sight of a woman hurrying through the cafe. From the back he thought she looked familiar, and, having collected something at the counter, she turned again to leave. It was Evie, on a break from the Echo; in her haste she would have passed right by their table without noticing him.

  ‘Evie!’ he called, and she stopped, almost in fright, to look round. ‘Hullo,’ he said, with a reassuring lift in his voice.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, focusing, as if she’d been woken from a dream. Her gaze momentarily shifted to Bella.

  ‘Sit down for a minute,’ he said, though he could see she looked quite distracted. Recovering herself, Evie slid into the space that Baines had vacated for her on the banquette. He introduced her to Bella, and briefly explained their association.

  ‘Late lunch?’ he said, gesturing at Evie’s parcel of sandwiches.

  Evie nodded. ‘The newsroom’s been mad busy all day.’ She said it in a way that seemed to assume they would know why, but then she took in their suspicionless faces. ‘Haven’t you heard? The Germans have invaded Poland. It came over the wire this morning.’

  Baines looked across the table at Bella, who was wide-eyed with shock. Evie was talking on about the speed of the German advance and the likely British response, but Baines wasn’t quite listening. So this was it, he thought. This quiet afternoon cup of tea would be his final memory of peacetime. But no – they weren’t at war. Not yet. Mightn’t they pause at the abyss one more time?

  Evie said, ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I’ll have to be getting back.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Baines, forcing himself to sound cheerful. He imagined the scene of gathering urgency Evie would be returning to, as fresh bulletins thrummed down the wires.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she called over her shoulder to Bella, and hurried out. For a few moments they seemed at a loss, not quite trusting themselves to find a tone equal to the occasion. Eventually Bella said, with a theatrical lightness, ‘Well, that’s torn it.’

  Baines smiled in spite of himself, and pulled from his breast pocket a leaflet he’d just remembered picking off his doormat the previous morning. Its front page announced, SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW IF WAR SHOULD COME. He handed it to Bella, who briefly scanned the drill on lighting restrictions and fire precautions.

  ‘Thanks. I suddenly feel that much safer,’ she said.

  * * *

  Later, as they walked down Dale Street, Bella asked him if his publishers had set a deadline for the book.

  ‘Two, as a matter of fact, and I’ve missed both of them. But then they’ll have to revise it in any case now that it’s going to carry photographs instead of drawings.’

  ‘You don’t seem all that worried.’

  ‘The irony is that, just as I’ve rediscovered some of my old enthusiasm, the whole place will probably go up in flames.’

  ‘Oh, but you’ve got to keep going!’ she said, with a vehemence that bemused him. ‘Richard is really impressed with how much you know, I mean about the city and everything. He said you were like Mr Memory in The 39 Steps.’

  Baines laughed. ‘Right, and look how he ended up.’

  They walked by two men who, idling at a pub door, stared at Bella from beneath their caps. As they passed Baines thought he heard one of them mutter something – it sounded like ‘lezzie’, though he couldn’t be sure. He glanced at Bella, who didn’t seem to have noticed. The Friday rush hour was beginning to gather momentum; people were filing out of offices and queueing at tram stops, and motor cars were streaming towards the Tunnel. Bella came to a halt at Old Haymarket.

  ‘I’ll be off home, then,’ she said.

  ‘Well, thanks again,’ he said, shaking her hand, which felt dry and rather bony – she had long painter’s hands. He had wanted to finish on an optimistic note, something to restore the convivial spirit they’d established in the Kardomah, before Evie’s arrival. But the moment seemed to have gone. Bella looked at him levelly, and said, ‘I’ve a feeling we won’t forget this afternoon in a hurry.’ She turned an
d, with a little wave, walked off. He stood watching until her figure receded into the crowds.

  He had one more errand to do. A notice outside the Record Office on William Brown Street announced that it would be closed from next week until further notice. At the desk an assistant had begun to explain that it was not a lending library when Baines produced a letter bearing the School of Architecture’s crest at its head. Professor McQuarrie had obligingly written requesting permission for his former student to borrow certain materials for ‘vital’ research purposes. The desk clerk cast a sceptical eye over the letter before he retreated behind the storeroom door, returning some minutes later with the three weathered volumes. Baines signed a release form, and the books were handed over. The journals of Peter Eames were now his responsibility.

  He didn’t open them that evening, however, and when Saturday dawned he still found himself too distracted to read. Late afternoon he switched on the wireless and listened to the sports results. Liverpool had beaten Chelsea 1–0 at Anfield, the home team having been rounded up from territorial camps that morning to play the fixture. In Hove, spinner Hedley Verity had taken 7 for 9, helping Yorkshire to a nine-wicket victory over Sussex. Life was going on, in its somewhat unreal way. He opened a tin of sardines, but their oily brackishness made him feel nauseous, and he tipped them into the bin. At about nine o’clock he thought he might go for a drink; by the time he had finished moping about the flat an hour had evaporated, along with his plan to venture outside. When he heard the clocks strike eleven, he poured out a Scotch, and flopped on to his bed with the earliest volume of Eames’s journal. He lit a Player’s and resumed reading.

  8th January 1862

  News obliges me to consider the possibility that I am, finally, a Genius. Old man Sandham summoned me to his office to announce that the design I have submitted for the Temple-street building has been chosen by the Corporation, with a premium of 150 guineas. In a perfect frenzy of delight – after little less than a twelvemonth engaged at A&S I have secured my first project! Chiltern & Dalby toasted me yesterday evening at the Lyceum with many huzzahs – Chiltern candidly amazed, & asks me whether I am surprised to have won it. I replied that I could only have been surprised had I not won it.

  Tuesday Twenty-eighth January, 1862

  To St George’s Hall last night, with Ma & Cassie – both in excitable spirits – to see Mr Charles Dickens on his reading tour of the provinces. Outside the Hall a long line of carriages blocked the way, & on the steps so vast a number of people it seemed that half of Liverpool had flocked thither. (Hundreds were turned away, as I later discovered.) Inside, at the threshold of the beautiful concert room, we encountered more heaving crowds, so rough & unyielding in their eagerness to be admitted that I feared for Ma & Cassie being trampled underfoot – but on the contrary they appeared to thrive in this disorderly cram, & took possession of our seats more swiftly than I could have managed myself. After a good deal of jockeying & jostling, & some adjustment of the gas-light, a hush fell upon the audience at last – & precisely at eight o’clock the Man himself walked on to the stage, to be greeted by a roar of cheering that might have been heard on Brownlow-hill. He looked about the room, seeming to take this applause as his due, & then silence fell, so profoundly that the hiss of the gas jets was all that one could hear. As he began to read I could not help myself scrutinising him, & at first felt surprise to note how aged he looked, his face lined, his hair thin & his neat beard grizzled – a man not yet fifty. But he is a little spitfire of a fellow withal, trim, well-knit, with a military precision & briskness of movement. His dress was as smart as a carrot – he wore a white waistcoat & white geranium in his buttonhole, with a heavy gold watch chain hung across his chest. His eyes are the most disconcerting, glittering like a cobra’s, & apparently able to bewitch a whole room at once, like an actor – indeed he is as much actor as author onstage, for the characters whom he impersonates seem to stand & almost walk about the place. He read from Nickleby & Mr Bob Sawyer’s Party, & as he performed (only occasionally glancing at the book before him) it was notable how much he was entertained by his audience’s responses – their cheers & guffaws – so that he began to laugh with them at the remarks of his own creatures! I was unsure as to what intrigued me the more, Dickens himself, or the people undisguisedly entranced around me. At the conclusion when he took his bow, the noise of the cheering & clapping was more thunderous than that which had met his entrance; Ma & Cassie looked so inflamed with delight I felt a shiver of envy, & considered – what a thing it is to have Power.

  Yet this was by no means the end of the evening’s astonishments. As we were making our way out through the teeming Hall I came up face to face with my former employer Sir Wm Rocksavage, closely attended by his wife & Miss Rocksavage. As it was impossible for him to pass without cutting me he stopped & with all the graciousness at my command I introduced my mother & sister, & we talked briefly of the performance we had recently witnessed; or rather, Sir Wm talked briefly – my tongue ran twelve score to the dozen in praise of Mr Dickens, the majesty of the concert Hall & I scarcely know what else, for by chattering on I purposed to conceal the one true object of my attention – her. We had not met since last June, nor had I received word of whether my drawings were liked or not – indeed our whole acquaintance might have occurred in some fever-dream, so suddenly & unsatisfactorily did it end. Upon seeing her this evening, however – her pale brow, the grey-green eyes that accord everything its fair weight, the modest and maidenly bearing – I felt a passionate rekindling of all those feelings that assailed me during the weeks at Torrington Hall, & I conceived a determination not to allow this second chance to go begging.

  In the carriage home Ma & Cassie could talk only of Dickens (they even sang ‘Charley is my darling’!) but I could think only of that belle dame Emily Rocksavage, & of how best I should recommend myself to her.

  Saturday, First February, 1862

  On South Castle-street this morning a lightning-bolt of inspiration smote me. I happened to pass Geo. Philip’s bookshop, & spying a large-headed caricature of Mr Dickens displayed in the picture window (his reading triumph this week has blazed through the Liverpool papers) I hit upon the pleasing idea of a present for E.R. The three volumes of his most recent novel sit plump on the desk before me, to be dispatched to Blundell Sands once I have enclosed a note, though the title of the book should perhaps suffice: Great Expectations.

  10th February 1862

  A letter, at last, from her, conveying sincere thanks for the book, with a closely considered evaluation of its merits & its standing in the corpus of his works. Her judgement I cannot fault – she liked the character of Joe Gargery the best, as did I, & owned that she had wept at the note he left for Pip after nursing him back to health – ‘fur you are well again and will do better without’. In truth, while I acknowledged her powers of critical discernment, my eye raced on in hopeful search of an avowal concerning the donor of her gift. But inexhaustibly she continued her scrutinising of Dickens & his genius – the felicity of this expression, the fineness of that observation, &c. – until I feared that the stratagem had failed & my great expectations come to naught. O ye of little faith! – There in the very last paragraph of this tormenting epistle the lady, having enquired after my family’s health, expressed the hope that I would accept an invitation to dine at Torrington Hall on the fifteenth of next month.

  15th March 1862

  ‘Beware the ides of March’ – not I, Caesar! Yet I had forecast it to be a day of reckoning ever since I received the invitation to Torrington Hall. For the dinner itself I did not care a rap, my only purpose being to renew my pursuit of her. I wore the bottle-green frock coat for the occasion; it felt slightly queer to walk again up the long drive, first because I had not seen the Hall in moonlight before, second because I was no longer a hired draughtsman but a dinner guest – & still I had to check myself when from habit I turned for the tradesmen’s entrance. The dining-room, illuminated by a great bril
liancy of candlelight, revealed a quite different aspect from the one I had drawn last year – it bestowed a lustre upon everything, from the crystal decanters that circulated briskly to the heavy silver on the table. Everything, that is, but the guests, who seemed to be exclusively drawn from the merchant class, & a louder, more uncivilised crowd I never met – jowly, mottled men with short legs & prominent paunches, who talked of little but the counting-house. Their wives even more formidable – a coarseness of feature matched by an outrageous breadth of figure; they sat at table looking satisfied & absolutely immovable, like vast battleships in time of peace.

  I discovered, as much to my relief as to my delight, that I was seated next to Miss Rocksavage, we two being, aside from her older sister Francesca, the only persons who might truly be considered representatives of Youth (and Beauty, if I’m not mistaken). She appeared at first unsettled in this boisterous company, but soon we were talking quietly of books, music (she adores Liszt) & sketching, a recent habit to which she owed the inspiration, so she professed, of my example. This was a gratifying disclosure, & I would eagerly have pursued the subject had our colloquy not been interrupted at that moment by a man seated opposite, who had become very expansive under the influence of the hock & champagne. He quickly impressed upon us his achievements: a millionaire, a sugar magnate, a member of the Imperial Legislature – whatever that is – & a man of intellect, of which I doubted none but the last. Clever in a sense he plainly was, having earned his fortune from the refineries & extended his business operations all over Europe, but in manners & address he could hardly have done less to recommend himself. At one point he broke from his orating to enquire as to my profession, & having established that I could be of no use to him, he merely reverted to being a prodigious bore. The man (whose name I have willingly forgot) is typical of the Liverpool merchant, I dare say, embodying at once a pride of energy & an outright ignorance of letters, culture & art. I might have been amused had I been granted leave to argue with him, but no word of mine could pierce his steely self-regard.