London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  ‘You’re quite sure that this is the woman?’ the magistrate asked.

  The policeman took one look at Connie.

  ‘Quite sure, sir,’ he said.

  It was her turn now. The usher handed her a Bible and she took it with the easy nonchalance of someone who is used to Bibles.

  ‘…the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God,’ she said, speaking almost as fast as the Inspector.

  The magistrate looked even harder at Connie than the policeman had done. He was, in fact, staring at her so hard that Connie felt uncomfortable. Because he was staring, she began shifting from one foot to the other.

  ‘Is the prisoner sitting down or standing?’ the magistrate asked at last.

  The policeman who had handed Connie the Bible answered for her.

  ‘She’s standing, sir,’ he said.

  The magistrate, however, appeared unconvinced.

  ‘She seems very short,’ he remarked resentfully. ‘I can scarcely see her.’

  For a moment he regarded his finger nails again. Then he turned to Connie again.

  ‘You have heard the evidence,’ he said. ‘Have you anything to say?’

  ‘Only that it’s all a lie, sir.’

  ‘You mean that you didn’t turn off the electric light switch?’

  ‘Not deliberately.’

  ‘Then how did you turn it off?’

  ‘I slipped.’

  There was a titter from the public gallery when Connie said this. The magistrate removed his horn‐rimmed glasses and placed them on the desk in front of him.

  ‘This is a court of justice, not a pantomime,’ he observed in the same cold lifeless voice. ‘If I hear more laughter I shall order the Court to be cleared. I am frequently amazed that there should be so many idle persons who apparently have nothing better to do than to sit in court deriving merriment from the misfortunes of others.’

  The magistrate – who was quite famous for that kind of thing – waited long enough for the reporters to get down his saying‐of‐the‐week correctly, and then resumed.

  ‘I am expected to believe that suggestion about slipping?’ he asked. ‘It’s God’s truth, sir,’ Connie answered.

  The fact did not seem to impress him unduly.

  ‘I trust that it’s all God’s truth that I’ve been hearing,’ he said. ‘You have been on oath ever since you entered the box, remember.’

  ‘I’ll remember, sir,’ Connie answered contritely.

  The magistrate replaced his glasses and contemplated her solemnly.

  ‘And what did you do with your arms when you were falling?’

  Connie thought for a moment.

  ‘I held them in front of me to break my fall,’ she said.

  ‘Do you remember what it was you fell over?’

  Connie thought again. She felt that there was a catch in it somewhere.

  ‘My feet, sir,’ she replied at last.

  At the reply a titter started up again in the body of the court. But the usher was up on his toes all ready, and the laughter died away before it had really come to anything.

  As for Connie, the magistrate appeared to be satisfied with her for the moment. He asked her to stand down and invited the moon‐calf into the box again.

  ‘How high on the wall is the switch?’ he asked.

  ‘Seven foot, eight inches, your worship,’ he answered.

  That was all from him. For the magistrate called Connie once more. It was to be the last time he would worry her.

  ‘How tall are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Five foot one, sir,’ she told him.

  ‘Yet you invite me to believe that in falling you became entangled with an electric light switch nearly a yard above your head.’ He paused: ‘Even if you had extended your arms to their full length it would still have been a remarkable coincidence if you had worked the switch. It must in fact have been either a very extraordinary switch or a very extraordinary slip. But your arms were not extended above your head, you say. On the contrary, on your own oath, they were held in front of you to break your fall. In the circumstances I can only conclude that you did turn out the light. Possibly it was before your fall. Indeed, your fall may have been the result of putting out the light…’

  ‘Silly old buzzard going on about my fall,’ Connie was thinking. ‘They go on about anything you tell them.’

  But the magistrate was still speaking.

  ‘There is nothing in the evidence to show why you extinguished the light,’ he continued. ‘I will conclude that you did so under instructions. Fourteen days…’

  The magistrate had removed his glasses and was now sitting back once more. The bench in fact was feeling a bit peckish and was just about to go over to the Club for its lunch.

  But Connie had not moved.

  ‘Fourteen days,’ she repeated incredulously.

  ‘Fourteen days,’ the usher repeated and tapped on her shoulder.

  ‘But… but I’ve got a dependent,’ she said. ‘I can’t leave him.’

  The magistrate regarded her for a moment without his glasses and then regarded her again with them on.

  ‘You wish to say something?’ he asked.

  Connie nodded.

  ‘I’ve got a dependent,’ she said again. ‘There’s no one to look after him.’

  ‘Is it your husband?’ the magistrate asked. ‘Is he an invalid?’

  ‘No, sir, he’s quite all right. That is to say I haven’t got a husband.’

  Again the titter. And again the usher up on his toes.

  ‘Then who is this dependent?’

  ‘He’s a canary.’

  This time it was more than a titter in the body of the court. It began somewhere with a loud guffaw and broadened into a general murmur of laughter.

  The magistrate rapped on the desk.

  ‘My orders have been disregarded,’ he said. ‘Usher, clear the Court.’

  Next morning, Mrs Josser received a cheap‐looking Government envel ope containing a letter in a ragged, unreliable hand like a child’s. It was on the notepaper of Holloway Prison.

  ‘Dear Mrs Josser,’ it ran. ‘Owing to a slight misunderstanding, I shall be here for fourteen days. Please ask Mrs Vizzard to on no account let the room which I shall be requiring. Tell her the rent will be attended to prompt on my return. Also please look after Duke. His water will need changing. The birdseed packet is in the top drawer with my hair‐brush. Give him enough to cover a penny. Please tell Mrs Vizzard it’s only for a fortnight or sooner if I can get solicitors. If it gets very cold please have Duke down with you. Again thanking you and apologising for bothering you, and hoping that you and Mr Josser are both well.

  Yours truly

  Connie.’

  PS. ‘Please don’t on no account let Duke out of the cage even if he asks, he’s very uncertain. Tell him we’ll stretch our wings together when I get home.’

  Chapter VI

  They had finished with Mr Puddy at the sorting‐office. With the pay‐packet they gave him a little slip telling him that he wasn’t needed any more. To soften the shock of dismissal, however, there were a few lines in italics at the bottom of the slip to say that in case the Postmaster General should want Mr Puddy to help him with the next Christmas rush Mr Puddy might in due course get in touch with him. Mr Puddy took the pay‐packet and the slip with the philosophic detachment of a man who for years has been plunging in and out of employment like a porpoise. So far as he was concerned it simply meant that this was another of those occasions when he was temporarily tail up in mid‐air.

  It was twelve noon when the slip was handed to him – he had been working only morning shifts ever since Christmas – and he told himself that the best thing would be to go and get a bit of lunch. In success or failure, Mr Puddy remained faithful to his food. He thought of the Marquis of Granby up the street. But he dismissed the idea because they never served enough pastry with the steak‐and‐kidney pie – and he had already decided in his mind
on steak‐and‐kidney. Then he thought of the Pillars of Hercules. But somehow nothing at the Pillars of Hercules was ever really hot. The Irish stew there came out with small eyes of fat like ice floes floating on it. A bit further afield, there was the Rose and Crown which had everything – huge chunks of pastry, soup so hot that men like Mr Puddy who wore glasses had to keep on taking them off and wiping them, and boiled syrup roll that swam lazily in a treacle sea. But the trouble there was the waitresses. They were overworked and this meant that he would be kept waiting. Also, the waitresses had their regulars and reserved the best portions for them. Mr Puddy had to be in a specially good mood not to mind that happening. And somehow to‐day he felt that it might upset him. So, in the end, he went to the White Rose Eating Rooms just opposite.

  The time was half‐past twelve when he got there and at five‐and‐twenty to two when he emerged he was a replete and contented Mr Puddy. What he would have liked best would have been to loosen his boots, remove his collar and have forty winks. A sense of duty, however, overcame him. A sense of necessity. There was nothing for it but to go off straight away, all heavy and sleepy as he was, and start looking for something to fill in the awkward gap while he was waiting for next year’s sorting rush to begin again.

  There was always the Labour Exchange, of course. But Mr Puddy felt himself a cut above that. The Exchange was all right for men who were in grooves already, men like paper‐hangers and bricklayers and carpenters. But for a man of Mr Puddy’s sort who had ranged the whole world of possible employment it was mostly pretty fiddling stuff that the Labour Exchange had to offer. Nearly all their jobs meant clocking‐in, a practice that Mr Puddy detested.

  The place that he was making for was Bert Bowman’s Employment Agency in the High Street. It cost money to go to Bert Bowman’s. But there was the satisfaction of knowing that having gone there you had done the best by yourself. If Mr Bowman didn’t know about a job there probably wasn’t one going. But there was no fear of that. Mr Bowman was bristling with jobs. A small board at the foot of the stairs advertised a whole host of tempting occupations.

  Mr Puddy mounted the stairs, his breath coming in short, after‐luncheon gasps, and then had to wait for nearly half an hour for Mr Bowman to get back. While he was waiting, Mr Puddy read the testimonials of satisfied clients and employers which plastered the place like wall‐paper. The letters all seemed to have been drafted by the same pen, even though the handwriting was different, and all mentioned Mr Bowman’s name somewhere in the body of the message. ‘So thank you, Mr Bowman, for finding me my niche. Your fees are most reasonable,’ or ‘…I am glad, Mr Bowman, once more to be able to thank you for helping me in my recent labour difficulty.’ ‘Your fee, as always Mr Bowman, was strictly reasonable…’

  Then Mr Bowman himself came in. He was wearing a black coat and striped trousers and a butterfly collar with a bow tie. He was brusque and very businesslike.

  ‘Take a seat, please,’ he said, even though Mr Puddy was already sitting. ‘The fee is five shillings.’

  Mr Puddy counted out the coins and handed them over the desk. Mr Bowman, who had got his coat off by now, promptly shovelled the fee into an open cash‐bowl in the drawer.

  ‘Name an’ address,’ he asked.

  Mr Puddy told him. He was rather hurt that Mr Bowman didn’t remember him. He had been there often enough.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked bluntly.

  Mr Puddy explained his position carefully. He wanted something senior and responsible, something that brought good money and prospects with it. He was a man who could look after things, he said, and supervise other people.

  ‘Ever done any waiting?’ Mr Bowman demanded. ‘Public banquets and that sort of thing.’

  Mr Puddy shook his head.

  ‘Mind living in?’ Mr Bowman asked. ‘House duties?’

  Mr Puddy went back over the ground again and painted in his own past life so impressively that he scarcely recognised it. It was like talking about a man of the same name who had been a success at everything.

  Mr Bowman turned furiously through the pages of his ledger. ‘Cooking for four hundred in a large institution? No good no experience. Foreman in a big cabinet‐makers? No good no experience. Brewer’s representative? No good no connections. Animal trainer in a private circus? No good no experience. Cutter in an artistic furriers? No good no experience. Sewing silks traveller? No good no connections. Optical lens polisher? No good no experience. Ah…’ His finger remained poised over one entry rather far down the page where Mr Puddy couldn’t see it. ‘Ah,’ he said again. ‘I have it.’

  Mr Puddy felt his heart pounding against all that lunch inside him.

  ‘What is it?’ he blurted out.

  ‘Night watchman in a tea warehouse, respectable, sober, live out,’ Mr Bowman recited to him. ‘Must be of large build, under sixty‐five.’ He paused and looked up sharply. ‘That all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’be under sixty‐five if thad’s whad you bean,’ Mr Puddy admitted grudgingly.

  His voice was flat and adenoidal. It made him sound as though he were grumbling even when he wasn’t.

  ‘Salary two pounds five a week to right man. References taken,’ Mr Bowman continued.

  He picked up his pen again and began rapidly copying the address on to a gilt‐edged card bearing the words ‘With Bert Bowman’s compliments to introduce.’

  ‘First week’s salary comes here and we give you back half,’ he said. ‘After that the prospects are what you make of them.’

  He had risen from his seat by now and was holding out the little card to Mr Puddy.

  ‘Better get along straight away,’ he added warningly. ‘That sort of post doesn’t remain vacant long.’

  ‘Is… is thad all you’ve got to offer?’ he asked.

  ‘Come and see me if you’re not suited,’ was all he said.

  For Mr Bowman had ceased to be interested in him. Another elderly man, slightly flushed from coming upstairs had just entered, and Mr Bowman had fixed him with his horn‐rimmed spectacles.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Mr Bowman was saying. ‘The fee is five shillings.’

  Chapter VII

  1

  It was Saturday afternoon, and Doris and Doreen were on their way up to Hampstead together.

  ‘I think it’s rather a pet,’ Doreen was saying above the roar of the Underground train. ‘But you may feel it’s perfectly loathsome. You must promise to say so if you do.’

  But Doris was perfectly sure that the flat was a pet and not in the least loathsome, because Doreen had been telling her so all the week. An artist had lived there, it seemed, and his studio was going to be their living room. The little cubicles that had led off it would make the simply sweetest bedrooms, Doris said. And above all things, the flat had got character. From the way Doreen spoke of it, it might have been smoking a pipe when they got there.

  They had reached Camden Town by now and Doreen started pushing her way towards the door. It was not easy. The whole of London was going home to its half‐day off, and most of them seemed to live somewhere on the Hampstead and Highgate Line. They were ranged all down the carriage like a submarine crew at action stations. And getting out on to the platform was as difficult as escaping under water.

  ‘But I thought this train went on to Hampstead,’ Doris said once they could talk once more. ‘It said so on the indicator.’

  Doreen seemed vexed at her for mentioning it.

  ‘It’s a different part of Hampstead we’re going to,’ she told her. ‘You can see the trees of Primrose Hill from our windows.’

  ‘Our windows,’ she said, Doris noticed. It was evident that she had already decided on the flat.

  They went up the escalator and came out into the High Street. Doris hadn’t been to Camden Town before. Just opposite was a splendid concrete‐and‐plate‐glass emporium, a kind of lesser Selfridges; and all down the street outside on either side was retail commerce, a bit lower down in the scale of gra
ndeur – greengrocers, butchers, tobacconists, fish shops, with a flourishing rival trade in fruit and flowers being carried on from the road in barrows. The pavements were packed with people as though a big excursion steamer had just berthed somewhere up Park Street, and a small body of disabled ex‐soldiers stood politely in the gutter playing jazz instruments to amuse the trippers. A little further up the street was a super‐cinema all chromium and carpet.

  Doris was a bit disappointed. It was all exactly the same as the Elephant and Castle on her side of the river. It didn’t seem likely that this was the way freedom and the gay life would lie. But Doreen was impatient. She was lugging Doris across the road in front of the ploughing army of trams and buses and private cars.

  ‘It’s always simply frightful here on a Saturday afternoon,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t know where the people come from.’

  They got into a 31 bus and started along a road that seemed to Doris to get steadily drearier, like penetrating further into a rather murky dream. The tram lines made it bumpy and after they’d shot under a railway bridge the bus ran beside the grey walls of a goods yard. It was as though somehow they had got round to the back of the stage by mistake, and Camden Town or Primrose Hill or wherever they were was showing them the side that wasn’t really meant to be looked at.

  Then the conductor said ‘Primrose Hill Road’ and Doreen dragged Doris out of the bus again.

  ‘We’ll just go and get the key from the agents and then in five minutes we’ll be there,’ Doreen assured her. ‘He’s an absolute little lamb the agent, I know he’ll let us go in alone.’

  They had to wait sometime for the key, however. The absolute little lamb was still out in the meadows somewhere having his feed, and a cardboard notice stuck in the door said ‘Closed for lunch.’ By the time the little lamb had returned, wiping his moustache, it was nearly three o’clock.

  When they reached the house, the afternoon had already darkened appreciably. The sun had disappeared entirely and all the sparkle had gone from the day. It was as though someone had deliberately smeared a wet dirty cloth across the sky. But Doreen was not in the least dispirited. On the contrary she seemed to take the weather as a kind of challenge.