Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York

by Paul Gallico

  Mrs Harris defended little Henry’s father vigorously, but the barker remained sceptical. He said, ‘Take my advice, ma’am, and don’t trust none of them GIs. I know them.’ Mr Brown had never been in England, but his grandmother had been English and this formed a bond between Mrs Harris and himself. He said, ‘Would you like to come back and meet the girls? They’re as nice a bunch of kids as you could want. I’ll pass you into the show first.’

  Mrs Harris spent a pleasant half hour watching Mr Brown’s assortment of ‘kids’ doing bumps, grinds, hulas, and cooch dances, after which she was introduced to them and found, as Brown had said, that they were as described, good-natured, modest about their art, and far cleaner in speech than many of the celebrities who came to the Schreiber parties. She went home after an interesting evening, but no nearer finding the man she sought, though the barker promised to keep an eye out for him.

  She learned to like many parts of Brooklyn, where her search took her, for the older and quieter portions of this borough on the other side of the East River, where the brownstone houses stuck against the side of one another, as like peas in a pod for block upon block, sometimes shaded by trees, reminded her somewhat of London far away across the sea.

  Since she took the Browns as they came, one George she found was a ships’ chandler who lived over his shop on the waterfront of the Lower East Side. Here again she was an infinitesimal speck in the grand canyons of the downtown skyscrapers, but standing on the cobbled pave by the docks that smelled of tar and spices, she looked up to the great arches and wondrous spiderweb tracery of the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, across which rumbled electric trains and heavy traffic with such a shattering roar that it seemed to be the voices of those vast spans themselves shouting down to her.

  On a visit to the Staten Island George Browns via the Staten Island Ferry, Mrs Harris found one of them to be a tug-boat captain working for the Joseph P. O’Ryan Towing Company, in command of the twin diesel-engined tug Siobhan O’Ryan, who was just leaving to go on duty as Mrs Harris arrived.

  Captain Brown was a pleasant, brawny man of some forty-odd years, with a pleasant wife half his size, who lived in a cheerful flat in St George not far from the ferry landing. They had once had something in common, for the Siobhan O’Ryan had been one of the tugs which had nursed the s.s. Ville de Paris into her berth the day of Mrs Harris’s arrival, and the sharp-eyed little char had noted the unusual name painted on the pilot house of the tug, and had remembered it.

  Those Browns too were fascinated by the saga of the deserted boy and Mrs Harris’s quest for his father. The upshot was that Captain Brown invited Mrs Harris to come aboard his tug and he would take her for a water-borne ride around Manhattan Island. This she accepted with alacrity, and thereafter was sailed beneath the spans of the great East River bridges, past the glass-walled buildings of the United Nations to look with awe upon the triple span of the Triborongh Bridge, thence over into the Hudson River and down the Jersey side, passing beneath the George Washington Bridge and afforded the view unsurpassed of the cluster of mid-town skyscrapers - a mass of masonry so colossal it struck even Mrs Harris dumb, except for a whisper, ‘Lor’ lumme, yer carn’t believe it even when you see it!’

  This turned out to be one of the red letter days of her stay in America, but of course it was not the right Mr Brown either.

  There was a George Brown in Washington Square who painted, another in the garment district of Seventh Avenue who specialised in ‘Ladies Stylish Stouts’, yet another in Yorkville who operated a delicatessen and urged Mrs Harris to try his pickles - free - and one who owned a house in the refined precincts of Gracie Square, an old gentleman who reminded her somewhat of the Marquis, and who, when he had heard her story, invited her in to tea. He was an American gentleman of the old school who had lived in London for many years in his youth, and wished Mrs Harris to tell him what changes had taken place there.

  She found Browns who had been airmen in the war, and soldiers, and sailors, and marines, and many of course who had been too young or too old to fill the bill.

  Not all were kind and patient with her. Some gave her a brusque New Yorkese brush-off, saying, ‘Whaddaya trying to hand me about being married to some waitress in England? Get lost, willya? I got a wife and t’ree kids. Get outta here before you get me in trouble.’

  Not all who had been to London were enamoured of that city, and learning that Mrs Harris came from there said that if they never saw that dump again it would be too soon.

  She interviewed Browns who were plumbers, carpenters, electricians, taxi drivers, lawyers, actors, radio repairmen, laundrymen, stock-brokers, rich men, middle-class men, labouring men, for she had added the City Directory to her telephone list. She rang the door bells in every type and kind of home in every metropolitan neighbourhood, introducing herself with, ‘I hope I ain’t disturbin’ you. My name’s ’Arris - Ada ’Arris - I’m from London. I was looking for a Mr George Brown who was in the American Air Force over there and married an old friend of mine, a girl by the name of Pansy Cott. You wouldn’t be ’im, would you?’

  They never were the one she sought, but in most cases she had to tell the story of the desertion of little Henry, which almost invariably fell upon interested and sympathetic ears, due as much to her personality as anything else, so that when she departed she had the feeling of leaving another friend behind her, and people who begged to be kept in touch.

  Few native New Yorkers ever penetrated so deeply into their city as did Mrs Harris, who ranged from the homes of the wealthy on the broad avenues neighbouring Central Park, where there was light and air and the indefinable smell of the rich, to the crooked down-town streets and the slums of the Bowery and Lower East Side.

  She discovered those little city states within the city, sections devoted to one nationality - in Yorkville, Little Hungary, the Spanish section, and Little Italy down by Mulberry Street. There was even a George Brown who was a Chinaman and lived on Pell Street in the heart of New York’s Chinatown.

  Thus in a month of tireless searching the George Browns of the metropolitan district provided her with a cross-section of the American people, and one which confirmed the impression she had of them from the soldiers they had sent over to England during the war. By and large they were kind, friendly, warm-hearted, generous, and hospitable. They were all so eager to be helpful, and many a George Brown promised to alert all the known others of his clan in other cities in aid of Mrs Harris’s search. So many of them had an appealing, childlike quality of wanting to be loved. She discovered about them a curious paradox: on their streets they were filled with such hurry and bustle that they had no time for anyone, not even to stop for a stranger inquiring the way - they simply hurried on unseeing, unhearing. Any who did stop turned out to be strangers themselves. But in their homes they were kind, charitable, neighbourly, and bountiful, and particularly generous hosts when they learned that Mrs Harris was a foreigner and British, and it was warming to her to discover that the Americans had never forgotten their admiration for the conduct of the English people during the bombing of London.

  But there was yet something further that this involuntary exploration of New York did for Mrs Harris. Once she lost her awe of the great heights of the buildings to which she was frequently whisked sickeningly by express elevators that leapt thirty floors before the first stop, as well as the dark, roaring canyons they created of the streets, something of the extraordinary power and grandeur, and in particular the youth of this great city, and the myriad opportunities it granted its citizens to flourish and grow wealthy, impressed itself upon her.

  This and her glimpses of other cities made her glad that she had brought little Henry to his country. In him, in his independence of spirit, his cleverness, resourcefulness, and determination, she saw the qualities of youth-not-to-be-denied visible on all sides about her in the great metropolis. For herself it was indeed all too much as scene piled upon scene - Mid-town, East Side, West Side, New Jersey, Long
Island, Westchester - and experience upon experience with these friendly, overwhelming Americans, but it was not a life to which she could ever adapt herself. Little Henry, however, would grow into it, and perhaps even make his contribution to it, if he might only be given his chance.

  And this, of course, was the continuing worry, for none of this brought her any closer to the conclusion of her search. None of the George Browns was the right one, or could even so much as give her a clue as to where or how he might be found.

  And then one day it happened, but it was not she who succeeded - it was none other than Mr Schreiber. He came home one evening and summoned her to his study. His wife was already there, and they were both looking most queer and uneasy. Mr Schreiber cleared his throat several times ostentatiously, and then said, ‘Sit down will you, Mrs Harris.’ He cleared his throat again even more portentously. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think we’ve got your man.’

  AT this abrupt, and though not wholly unexpected, but still startling piece of news, Mrs Harris leapt from the edge of the seat she had taken as though propelled by the point of a tack, and cried, ‘Blimey - ’ave you? ’Oo is he? Where is he?’

  But Mr and Mrs Schreiber did not react to her excitement and enthusiasm. Nor did they smile. Mr Schreiber said, ‘You’d better sit down again, Mrs Harris, it’s a kind of a funny story. You’ll want to take a grip on yourself.’

  Something of the mood of her employers now communicated itself to the little charwoman. She peered at them anxiously. She asked, ‘What’s wrong? Is it something awful? Is ’e in jyle?’

  Mr Schreiber played with a paper-cutter and looked down at some papers on his desk before him, and as Mrs Harris followed his gaze she saw that it was U.S. Air Force stationery similar to the kind she had received, plus a photostatic copy of something. Mr Schreiber then said gently, ‘I think I’d better tell you, it’s - ah - I’m afraid, someone we know. It’s Kentucky Claiborne.’

  Mrs Harris did not receive the immediate impact of this statement. She merely repeated, ‘Kentucky Claiborne little ’Enry’s dad?’ And then as the implications of the communication hit her with the force of an Atlas missile she let out a howl, ‘Ow! What’s that you say? ’IM little ’Enry’s dad? It can’t be true!’

  Mr Schreiber eyed her gravely and said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t like it any better than you do. He’s nothing but an ape. He’ll ruin that swell kid.’

  Waves of horror coursed through Mrs Harris as she too contemplated the prospect of this child who was just beginning to rise out of the mire falling into the hands of such a one. ‘But are you sure?’ she asked.

  Mr Schreiber tapped the papers in front of him and said, ‘It’s all there in his Air Force record - Pansy Cott, little Henry, and everyone.’

  ‘But ’ow did you know? ’Oo found out?’ cried Mrs Harris, hoping that somewhere, somehow yet a mistake would have occurred which would nullify this dreadful news.

  ‘I did,’ said Mr Schreiber. ‘I should have been a detective, I always said so - like Sherlock Holmes. I got a kind of a nose for funny business. It was while he was signing his contract.’

  Mrs Schreiber said, ‘It was really brilliant of Joel.’ Then her feelings too got the better of her, and she cried, ‘Oh poor dear Mrs Harris, and that poor, sweet child - I’m so sorry.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘What’s it got to do with ’is contract?’

  ‘When he signed it,’ said Mr Schreiber, ‘he used his real name, George Brown. Kentucky Claiborne is just his stage name.’

  But there was a good deal more to it as Mr Schreiber told the story, and it appeared that he really had displayed acumen and intelligence which would have done credit to a trained investigator. It seemed that when all the final details were settled and Kentucky Claiborne, Mr Hyman, his agent, Mr Schreiber, and the battalions of lawyers for each side gathered together for the signing of the momentous contract and Mr Schreiber cast his experienced eye over it, he came upon the name ‘George Brown’, typed at the bottom and asked, ‘Who’s this George Brown feller?’

  Mr Hyman spoke up and said, ‘That’s Kentucky’s real name - the lawyers all say he should sign with his real name in case some trouble comes up later.’

  Mr Schreiber said that he felt a queer feeling in his stomach - not that for a moment he suspected that Claiborne could possibly be the missing parent. The qualm, he said, was caused by the contemplation of how awful it would be if by some million-to-one chance it might be the case. They went on with the signing then, and when George Brown alias Kentucky Claiborne thrust his arm out of the sleeve of his greasy black leather jacket to wield the pen that would bring him in ten million dollars, Mr Schreiber noticed a number, AF28636794, tattooed on his wrist.

  Mr Schreiber had asked, ‘What’s that there number you’ve got on your wrist, Kentucky?’

  The hillbilly singer, smiling somewhat sheepishly, had replied, ‘That’s mah serial number when I was in the goddam Air Force. Ah could never remember it nohow, so Ah had it tattooed.’

  With a quick wit and sangfroid that would have done credit to Bulldog Drummond, the Saint, James Bond, or any of the fictional international espionage agents, Mr Schreiber had committed the serial number to memory, written it down as soon as the ceremony was over and he was alone, and had his secretary send it on to Air Force Headquarters in the Pentagon Building in Washington. Three days later it was all over: back had come the photostat of the dossier from the Air Force records, and Mr Kentucky Claiborne was unquestionably the George Brown who had married Miss Pansy Amelia Cott at Tunbridge Wells on the 14th of April, 1950, and to whom on the 2nd of September a son was born, christened Henry Semple Brown. To make matters completely binding, a copy of the fingerprints was attached and a photograph of an irritable-looking GI who was incontrovertibly Mr Kentucky Claiborne ten years younger and minus his sideburns and guitar.

  Mrs Harris inspected the evidence while her mind slowly opened to the nature and depth of the catastrophe that had suddenly overwhelmed them. The only worse thing that could befall little Henry than to be brought up in the poverty-stricken, loveless home of the Gussets was to be reared by this ignorant, selfish, self-centred boor who despised everything foreign, who had hated little Henry on sight, who hated everything and everyone but himself, who cared for nothing but his own career and appetites, and who now would have a vast sum of money to splash about and cater for them.

  Mrs Harris in her romantic fancy had envisioned the unknown, faceless father of little Henry as a man of wealth who would be able to give the child every comfort and advantage; she was shrewd enough to realise that unlimited wealth in the hands of such a person as Claiborne would be deadlier than poison, not only to himself but to the boy. And it was smack into the fire of such a situation and into the hands of such a man that Mrs Harris was plunging little Henry after snatching him from the frying pan of the horrible Gussets. If only she had not given way to the absurd fancy of taking little Henry to America. With the ocean between, he might still have been saved.

  Mrs Harris left off inspecting the document, went and sat down again because her legs felt so weak. She said, ‘Oh dear - oh dear!’ And then, ‘Oh Lor’, what are we going to do?’ Then she asked hoarsely, ‘ ’Ave you told ’im yet?’

  Mr Schreiber shook his head and said, ‘No, I have not. I thought maybe you’d want to think about it a little. It is you brought the child over here. It’s really not up to us. It is you must decide whether you will tell him.’

  At least it was a breathing spell. Mrs Harris said, ‘Thank you, sir. I’ll have to fink,’ got up off her chair and left the room.

  When she entered the kitchen Mrs Butterfield looked up and gave a little scream. ‘Lor’ love us, Ada,’ she yelped, ‘you’re whiter than yer own apron. Something awful ’appened?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Harris.

  ‘They’ve found little ’Enry’s father?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Harris.

  ‘And ’e’
s dead?’

  ‘No,’ wailed Mrs Harris, and then followed it with a string of very naughty words. ‘That’s just it - ’e ain’t. ’E’s alive. It’s that (further string of naughty words) Kentucky Claiborne.’

  Into such depths of despair was Mrs Harris plunged by what seemed to be the utter irretrievability of the situation, the burdens that she had managed to inflict upon those who were kindest to her, and the mess she seemed to have made of things, and in particular the life of little Henry, that she did something she had not done for a long time - she resorted to the talisman of her most cherished possession, her Dior dress. She removed it from the cupboard, laid it out upon the bed and stood looking down upon it, pulling at her lip and waiting to absorb the message it had to give her.

  Once it had seemed unattainable and the most desirable and longed-for thing on earth. It had been attained, for there it was beneath her eyes, almost as crisp and fresh and frothy as when it had been packed into her suitcase in Paris.

  Once, too, the garment had involved her in a dilemma which had seemed insoluble, and yet in the end had been solved, for there it was in her possession.

  And there, too, was the ugly and defiling scar of the burned out velvet panel and beading which she had never had repaired, as a reminder of that which she knew but often forgot, namely that the world and all of which it was composed - nature, the elements, humans - were inimical to perfection, and nothing really ever wholly came off. There appeared to be a limitless number of flies to get into peoples’ ointment.

  The message of the dress could have been read: want something hard enough and work for it, and you’ll get it, but when you get it it will either prove to be not wholly what you wanted, or something will happen to spoil it.