But, on the whole, Mrs Josser was perfectly satisfied with things as they were. She had done her utmost, with the help of the Kennington Secretarial College, to make Doris a bit better than herself. And she felt that it was unreasonable to drag her back down again. As for Doris she remained aloof, romantic and unsure of herself. Also a trifle ashamed of her parents, her brother Ted’s wife and the whole background of Dulcimer Street.
But then they were all – except, apparently, Ted – ashamed of Ted’s wife. At this very moment Mrs Josser was sitting back, bitterly regarding the girl through half‐closed eyes. She didn’t belong: that much was obvious. There was something definitely dollish and un‐Josserish about her. It wasn’t merely her light golden hair worn longer than was decent for the mother of a child. Or her ridiculous childlike figure. Or her small slim hands with the two enormous artificial‐stone rings on them. Or the piece of Burma jewellery worn glitteringly over one breast instead of in the centre where any sensible woman would have worn it. Or the shoes cut away so that the big toe was open to the weather. Or the clip‐on ear‐rings. (Mrs Josser’s own ears had been pierced and it seemed unreasonable that so much smartness on Cynthia’s part should have been obtained at no pain at all.) Or the name Cynthia itself. There had never been another Cynthia in the Josser family. And it had injured Mrs Josser more deeply than she could say that Ted’s daughter, Baby, her own grandchild, should have been christened with the same absurd, irritating name. It was just one of those things that she didn’t like and had to keep quiet about.
And this wasn’t all. There was Cynthia’s voice. And her laugh. Mrs Josser was prepared to admit that anyone had a right to speak as he or she pleased. But giggling was another matter. Not to mince words, Cynthia was a titterer. And no Josser before her had ever tittered.
Even so she would have been prepared to overlook that annoying simpering laugh if only the girl’s background had been better. But no amount of hushing it up was ever going to put that right. The plain fact remained that Ted had met her on her own ground in the one‐and‐threes. And not merely once, by accident. But night after night by arrangement and subterfuge. Sometimes seeing the same film three or four times over in the course of his fatal infatuation. Ted Josser, the pride of the family, the steady young man who at twenty‐five had risen to be assistant manager in the fancy goods department of the local Coop., had fallen for an usherette.
The afternoon, so far as the young people were concerned, had reached the stage of placid somnolence which is the result of plenty of food, and good fire and no windows open. Only Baby remained wakeful and energetic. The others were in a state not far removed from hibernation. Mr Josser in his arm‐chair kept dozing off and coming to and dozing off again. And Ted in his large, comfortable way undid several of his buttons and redistributed himself. Doris was reading. And Baby continued to destroy a doll.
Then Uncle Henry arrived.
He had been anticipated – his impending presence had hung over the party – but, in a way, not been expected. There was always something hauntingly uncertain about the exact moment of Uncle Henry’s arrivals. He was a man of many engagements and much information. A greengrocer by trade – he had a shop with two assistants in Stoke Newington – he also cultivated outside interests. The chief of these at the moment was treasurership of the South London Parliament and Debating Society. And it was a long way from his business to the Parliament. In fact, it was only his bicycle that saved him. Independent of buses and trams, openly contemptuous of the Underground, he came and went on his green bicycle as his impetuous heart directed. It was nothing for Henry Knockell to turn up in his Norfolk jacket and cycling knickers at half‐past ten on a Sunday evening simply because he had picked up a depressing piece of news that he wanted to share with someone.
Reliable information, dubious information, false information – it was all one to Uncle Henry. The only thing that he demanded was a steady flow of fresh sensation. Rumours about Continental Royalty, about reputable City companies hovering on the verge of bankruptcy, about impending changes in the Government, about corruption in the Metropolitan police force, about dissension among the Bishops – he was a free‐thinker himself, and was particularly partial to ecclesiastical scandal – and about war. Above all, rumours about war. For the past seven years, Uncle Henry had been emphatically prophesying war. During times when trade had not been too good, it had been pretty much the only thing that had kept him going.
He had become worse if anything, since Mrs Knockell had died. With her had passed away the only modifying influence. It was she who had taken a supervisory interest in his clothing, not allowing him in her time to wear that ridiculous Norfolk jacket except when on holiday. But with his face, itself, she had of course been powerless to tamper. It was a startling and slighting alarming sort of face; the kind of face that is to be seen on the shoulders of dissenting Ministers and patent‐medicine pedlars in country fairs. The hair was grey and bushy, the cheeks lean and cadaverous, the chin long. An untrimmed moustache almost obscured the mouth. But it was the eyes that were the remarkable part. They were deep set and gimlet‐like. Or at least one of them was. For, while the right eye was glaring incriminatingly, the left one was simply ranging playfully around as though looking for fun. Until you really got to know Uncle Henry it was all rather disconcerting.
He came straight in and sat down in Mr Josser’s chair meditatively cracking his knuckle joints.
‘You’ve have heard about Hitler’s latest?’ he began.
Mr Josser shook his head. So far as he and Hitler were concerned they seemed to get along without telling each other anything.
‘He’s castrating the Jews.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
It was Mrs Josser who had spoken. As his sister she felt herself entitled to contradict him. And in all the years she had known him she’d never found him right yet.
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ she added.
Uncle Henry turned and faced her, cyclops‐like.
‘In every German hospital there’s a special ward where…’
This was worse still, and Mrs Josser roused herself. She looked meaningly at Doris.
‘It’s time that somebody got some tea,’ she said.
She didn’t really expect Doris to get tea. After all, it was as much her Christmas as it was anyone else’s. But what she did want was to have her offer.
As it turned out, however, it was Cynthia, silly fragile little Cynthia, who volunteered.
‘Let me get it,’ she said with a giggle, as she got up. ‘I’m ever so good at getting tea. Aren’t I, Ted?’
But Mrs Josser had risen too. She had no intention whatever of allowing an ex‐usherette to go chipping bits off her tea service.
‘You sit down,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re the visitor.’
‘But I like getting tea,’ Cynthia answered, still giggling. ‘I do reely.’
Mrs Josser skilfully changed her tactics.
‘Mind Baby,’ she said warningly. ‘She’s going over to my work‐box again.’
The giggle changed to a little shriek of anxiety and Cynthia rushed over to her daughter.
‘Nasty pins,’ she said. ‘Box full of nasty pins.’
But pins apparently were exactly what Baby wanted. She was a substantial and determined sort of child. Taken over all, she had the appearance of a small but thick‐set police‐woman: if crossed, it seemed that she might start blowing a whistle or applying a half‐Nelson. At this moment, she was stretching both hands grimly towards the work‐box and pushing out her nether lip to indicate her feelings in the matter.
‘I know,’ Cynthia said quickly. ‘We’ll take her in the kitchen with us.’
It was obvious that she was anxious to avoid any direct clash of wills with her daughter.
But Mrs Josser wouldn’t hear of it.
‘And let her get herself scalded to death with the kettle?’ she asked scornfully. ‘Not in my kitchen, you don’t.’
With
that she left them. And to distract Baby, Cynthia was now making a new doll walk along the floor towards her, Mr Josser was blowing out a paper squeaker that expanded to nearly three feet when fully inflated and Ted was trying to dance her up and down on his foot.
Baby, meanwhile, was still trying purposefully to get over to the work‐box.
2
After so much pandemonium, the kitchen at the other end of the passage seemed wonderfully quiet and civilised. Mrs Josser let out a long ‘Ah’ of relief when she got there. Compared with what she had been up against, the task of cutting bread‐and‐butter single‐handed was nothing.
She had not been out in the kitchen long, however, before she heard a sound like that of someone crying. It was faint, but unmistakable. Quite unmistakable. There is something about human misery that is sharply and insistently recognisable. Ordinary conversation, or laughter even, in another room passes unnoticed: the ear simply doesn’t trouble about it. But with crying – especially the low sobbing kind – it is different. The misery communicates itself. It is impossible to work within ear‐shot of it. Mrs Josser put down the bread knife and listened.
It couldn’t be Doris who was crying because Mrs Josser had seen her only a moment before. It wasn’t coming from Mrs Boon’s room because, if it had been, it would have been louder. It wasn’t coming from Mrs Vizzard because it was coming down and not up. It couldn’t, even if the sex of the sound had been right, have been coming from Mr Puddy because he was out. That left only Connie.
Mrs Josser opened a jar of fish‐paste and set out six little paper d’oyleys on the tray. Connie’s unhappiness, she told herself, was no affair of hers. And, in any case, she wasn’t the sort of person to go pushing her nose into other people’s business.
But the sound of sobbing, faint and almost imperceptible, at times, continued.
Mrs Josser had finished cutting the bread‐and‐butter. She opened half a dozen small buns that she had bought, and put jam inside them. Then she took the Christmas cake out of the tin and stood back admiring it. It was a handsome, solid‐looking cake, reinforced within by raisins and cherries and sultanas, and covered with a thick blanket of marzipan paste and pink‐and‐white icing. It was while she was still looking at it that she became uncomfortably aware of the sobbing again.
She hesitated. Hesitated quite a long time in fact. Because she didn’t really approve of Connie. Then, irritably, she decided that something must be done about it. She just couldn’t bear to have another human being in the house so miserable as all that. It spoilt everything.
All the same, as she mounted the top flight of stairs she felt a bit dubious: she had known Connie before. And when she came to the door she paused. She raised her hand to knock and then let it fall to her side again. There was no doubt about it, however. Connie was in a pretty bad way. Now that she was so near to it, Mrs Josser could hear that it was the sort of sobbing that began high in the throat and ended somewhere deep inside the chest. It was the real thing, all right.
And it was so loud that Connie didn’t even hear Mrs Josser the first time she knocked. Then, when she had knocked the second time, there was a sudden alarming silence. It was as though Connie had died abruptly in the middle of her misery. Mrs Josser turned the handle of the door and walked in.
It was obvious from the first glance of her that Connie must have been crying for a good long time. For even longer than Mrs Josser had heard her. Her eyes had bright red rims to them and the tears had been coming so fast that she had been unable to catch all of them. The bosom of her pink silk blouse was splashed and dappled.
Mrs Josser stood in the doorway regarding her.
‘Connie!’ was all she said.
But Connie was apparently in no mood for answering. She just buried her face in her hands and seemed to be trying to hide herself.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘There isn’t anything anybody can do about it. It’s just the way things are.’
And the sobbing started up again.
‘But it must be something,’ Mrs Josser pointed out.
Having come up all those stairs, she wasn’t going to be put off with that sort of reply. In any case, she didn’t propose to go back down again until, somehow or other, she had stopped the noise that Connie was making.
The sobbing ceased abruptly.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Connie persisted. ‘It isn’t the first time I’ve skipped a meal because there isn’t anything to eat. I’ll get over it. I’m slimming.’
‘Nothing to eat?’ Mrs Josser demanded.
Connie shook her head.
‘And nothing that’ll fit the meter,’ she added. ‘If you’d like to eat a raw potato on Christmas Day, you’re welcome.’
Mrs Josser regarded her suspiciously. For a person who had just been howling her head off there seemed to be an unusual amount of spirit left in her.
‘Didn’t you know there wasn’t anything?’ she asked.
‘Of course I knew,’ Connie told her. ‘I’ve known all the week. I’ve seen it coming.’ She gave a gulp as though the sobbing were about to start up again. ‘It was me, or the rent. And the rent won. Mrs Vizzard saw to that.’
Mrs Josser’s lips had been drawn in tightly while she was listening. Then she relaxed them again.
‘I’ll send you something up,’ she said.
Connie tried to clasp her hand.
‘I wouldn’t let you,’ she replied. ‘It’d be sponging. Connie hasn’t come to that yet. Just because someone unnamed is after the rent, it’s no reason why…’
‘I’ve told you what I’ll do,’ Mrs Josser reminded her.
Connie gave another gulp. A more confident one this time.
‘In that case, if you insist, I’ll come down and fetch it,’ she said. ‘Just because you’re the Good Samaritan, there’s no reason why you should have to run up and down.’
She began re‐modelling herself as she was speaking. She went over to the chest‐of‐drawers and removed a bright yellow handkerchief. As a turban, it covered up the disordered hair completely. But it also gave her a startled, unnatural look. There didn’t seem to be any connection between the turban and the face beneath.
‘Just you wait a moment,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll come down to you.’
Her eye‐black was there already on the dressing‐table. She applied some shamelessly, with Mrs Josser standing by watching. And then she went round her cheeks with the rouge‐pad. Finally, she took out her surprise lipstick and gave herself a new mouth.
‘Just in case I meet anyone on the stairs,’ she explained.
3
It was silly, of course, for Connie to make a mistake as soon as she got to the Jossers’ floor. But it was just like her. Instead of waiting for Mrs Josser in the kitchen she went straight into the living room instead.
As soon as she saw her mistake, she apologised. Apologised to everyone. But by then it was too late and the harm was done.
‘What is it, Connie?’ Mr Josser asked, starting up.
Connie looked down at the carpet and began shifting her feet.
‘Mrs Josser very kindly offered to give me some tea,’ she said.
‘Mum!’
It was Doris who had spoken. Up to that moment, she had remained completely detached from everything – detached from Baby tumultuously entertaining herself on the floor; detached from Ted who, in a dreamy vacant fashion, was stroking Cynthia’s hair in a way that made Mrs Josser squirm every time she looked at him; detached from her father who was sitting smoking beside the fire, beaming contentedly on his family circle; detached from Mrs Josser who still hadn’t quite forgiven her for not offering to help; detached from the madness of Uncle Henry. Certainly detached from Connie. She couldn’t imagine whatever her mother could have been thinking of to ask her. Connie was just the last straw in a perfectly awful afternoon.
Mrs Josser thought so, too. She drew her lips in again.
‘On a tray was what I meant,’ she told Connie.
C
onnie gave a great gasp of embarrassment.
‘Oh, but that’s what I meant, too,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of breaking up a family party. One more can be one too many even if she is only a little one.’
‘Well, wait here till Mother’s got something ready,’ Mr Josser suggested.
That did it. There was no getting rid of her after that. As soon as Mrs Josser returned from the kitchen, Connie began admiring everything that she brought with her – the thinness of the bread‐and‐butter, the variety of the biscuits and the extreme richness of the cake. She was talking so hard that no one seemed to notice when Mrs Josser passed her a cup of tea without saying anything more about the tray.
Not that it really mattered. There was something else to think about – Mr Josser’s clock. There it stood on the mantelpiece – handsome, dominating and useless. There wasn’t much to show from the outside what had happened. It was simply that the carved bronze figure on the top had lost the trident that she had been holding, and now faced the world unarmed but still defiant. Inside the clock, however, things were different. Something had gone wrong with the striking part. Every few minutes, the clock roused itself as though it were going to play a full carillon, then paused for a moment and uttered a single hollow boom before relapsing into silence. That solitary boom, no matter how often it happened, was the signal for everybody to start laughing. The whole thing might have been devised simply for their amusement. And once when the clock struck, and then did it again almost immediately, it was too much for them. Mrs Josser had to sit back and wipe her eyes.
‘That clock’ll be the death of me,’ she said.
Mr Josser himself was rather hurt by this attitude. As he saw it, people weren’t being nice about his misfortune. So far as he was concerned, it was his clock and he had been unlucky enough to drop it, and that was all there was to it. But the others couldn’t see that. It seemed to them almost too funny to be endured, simply sitting there waiting for the thing on the mantelpiece to misbehave itself.
London Belongs to Me Page 6
