London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  Dr Hapfel gave another twist to the knob of his stylo so that the ink should flow really freely and went on with the second page. And with the third. And with the fourth. And with the fifth. And with the sixth. And with the seventh. When he had finished, he was quite exhausted. He sat back in his chair wondering how a race like the English which had once been so vigorous and ruthless could have decayed so rapidly. He thought that perhaps it had something to do with the women. English women, he had already noticed, habitually smoked in public, wore their hair short and arranged their own marriages.

  The clock in St Pancras Church at the bottom of Southampton Row chimed midnight and Dr Hapfel put away his writing materials in the flat zip‐fastened brief case that he always carried about with him.

  When the room was tidy he stood at attention and saluted the Führer’s photograph on the mantelpiece.

  Then he started to undress.

  Chapter X

  1

  Mr and Mrs Josser were sitting facing each other.

  Mr Josser, his waistcoat undone and his feet up on the fender, was the more placid figure of the two. Spread out on his knees was a copy of the Homefinder, and he was buying cottages. One after another, he marked them down. ‘Delightful secluded cottage residence. Old‐world garden. Main water. 1 mile from good bus service;’ ‘Genuine Elizabethan snip. 5 good rooms. 15th‐century well in garden;’ ‘For lovers of the antique, sit. outskirts small country town thatched barn converted into labour‐saving pied‐à‐terre’ – the list grew, and Mr Josser went on buying.

  The matter of price was a difficulty, of course. All the cottages that he liked seemed to cost between five and six hundred pounds, and Mr Josser had only got five hundred altogether. But he had long since passed completely out of the world of reality. He was now in an enlarged dream state in which he bought everything that took his fancy. Thatched, Elizabethan, Cotswold‐stone, brick‐built, ivy‐covered, Queen Anne – it made no difference. For the past half an hour he had been living in Essex, in Hertfordshire, in Middlesex, in Bucks, in Kent and in Surrey.

  Glancing up he saw Mrs Josser regarding him. And rather self‐consciously he tried to conceal what he had been reading. But he need not have troubled: Mrs Josser wasn’t thinking about cottages.

  ‘If Doris was so unhappy here that she wanted to leave home, why didn’t she say so?’ she demanded. ‘I shouldn’t have stopped her.’

  ‘But that’s just what she has done,’ Mr Josser answered. ‘She’s said she wants to go.’

  ‘It’s no use now,’ Mrs Josser replied, scornfully. ‘She ought to have said so before.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When she first thought of it.’

  ‘But she hadn’t got anywhere to go to.’

  ‘She was planning, wasn’t she?’

  It was no good. They’d been over it all before. Mrs Josser was offended. Bitterly offended. She found it difficult to forgive her daughter for this piece of family treachery. It savoured of everything that was scheming, underhand and deceitful. She drew in her lip – as she thought about it.

  ‘If she goes,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’m going to find a p.g. I’m not going to leave that room standing empty.’

  As Mrs Josser didn’t appear to be inclined to go on with the conversation, Mr Josser returned to the Homefinder. Of course, if you were prepared to go as far away as Cumberland there were waterfalls, and uninterrupted views of magnificent, unspoiled mountain scenery (bus service, one mile) to be had simply for the asking.

  ‘It’s my belief she was influenced,’ Mrs Josser said suddenly.

  ‘You mean… ?’ Mr Josser began.

  Mrs Josser nodded.

  ‘I mean that Doreen person,’ she said. ‘She’s at the bottom of it. She’s the one I’d like to talk to.’

  ‘Then why not?’ Mr Josser asked innocently. ‘Get Doris to bring her here.’

  ‘Have her here?’ Mrs Josser answered. ‘Not likely. She’s done enough harm already, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Then how are you going to talk to her?’

  ‘I’m not. I’d only like to.’

  Mr Josser was silent again.

  ‘You know, mother,’ he said at last, ‘it isn’t anything very serious she wants to do. Plenty of other girls have done it. She only wants to leave home.’

  ‘Only!’ Mrs Josser repeated, raising her eyebrows a little.

  ‘Well, you’d have left home yourself if you’d had the chance, wouldn’t you?’ Mr Josser asked her. ‘You often said so.’

  Mrs Josser turned on him. To throw the past up in her face in this fashion was intolerable. So she denied it.

  ‘What? Me leave home?’ she asked. ‘Never!’

  With that, she got up and went round the room, tidying. Tidying – particularly tidying of this kind – was always an indication that she was badly upset. She jerked the corner of the hearthrug straight, thumped up the cushions and rearranged the ornaments on the mantelpiece.

  Mr Josser sat watching her.

  ‘There’s one thing, mother,’ he said. ‘In a way it makes it easier, not having to consider Doris. You were against her making the journey, remember. If we’ve only got ourselves to consider we could have a cottage anywhere.’

  ‘And leave Doris with that Doreen person,’ Mrs Josser replied over her shoulder. ‘Not likely. If Doris goes, we let her room and stop where we are.’

  2

  Percy was flat on his back underneath a car thinking about Doris. ‘This is love,’ he kept telling himself. ‘This is the real thing. This isn’t just something passing. This one hurts. This is the real thing.’

  He removed the last nut and the silencer fell down on him spattering bits of dried mud and rusted metal into his eyes and hair. He could hear the burnt‐out baffle plates rattling about against each other.

  ‘This’ll be a spot‐welding job,’ he told himself.

  As he worked his way out from under the chassis he was still thinking about Doris.

  ‘She’s different,’ he began all over again. ‘She doesn’t know anything. No one’s woke her up yet. She’s never been kissed. She’s just an ice queen.’ And then, as though defending her, ‘But that’s because she’s just a kid. She’s got a heart all right. Only it’s hidden. She’s afraid of love. She needs teaching. Someone’s got to show her how.’

  It wasn’t any use leaving the silencer there on the ground and Percy went through into the workshop with it. He’d have to write out a repair ticket. As he went he sang:

  ‘Little girl Blue,

  Is it a ghost, or is it you,

  That haunts my dreams that never come true,

  Little girl Blue?

  Is it a moth on my lips I feel

  Every night in the darkness, or something real,

  Little girl Blue?’

  A lump came into his throat as he thought about the words. That was him all right. It was at night that it got him most. Late at night. Two o’clock in the morning. That sort of thing.

  ‘I’ll give her chocolates in round boxes. I’ll buy her a hundred State Express. I’ll take her to get her photo done. I’ll show her where life begins,’ he went on to himself. ‘She’ll wake up and think she’s still dreaming. She’ll think Father Christmas did it. She’s just Cinderella. She’s never been kissed.’

  Never been kissed! Something hot and uncontrollable ran through him. And he wanted her.

  ‘I’d kill any man who got her first,’ he said aloud in the empty workshop with the motor tyres and the headlamp bulbs and the cheap accessories all round him. ‘I’d kill anyone who looks at Doris.’

  He wrote out the repair ticket, and went upstairs again. It was his last job. And when it was finished he was through. He didn’t intend to take too long over it.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll meet her on the stairs as I go in,’ the thought struck him. ‘Perhaps I’ll be close to her. Perhaps she’ll say something to show she cares. Perhaps I’ll meet her on the stairs as I go in.’

  Then he had a
new idea. He had got the end of the silencer off by now and taken a look inside. Two new baffle plates would make it O.K. again. It’d last for years then. Last as long as the car. But they’d have to be spot‐welded. And it would all take time. His time. What was the big idea behind it anyway? He wouldn’t make anything out of it. It was just his job. Nothing on the side. And no commission. Someone must think he was a sucker. Or was he?

  Picking up a monkey wrench he did a bit of work inside the silencer and held it up to the light. The light came shining through in places and he widened one of the places with his thumb.

  Then he put the silencer up on the bench as evidence.

  ‘Bung on a new silencer in five minutes,’ he said. ‘It’s sweated labour anyhow.’

  It was eleven o’clock when he left the garage.

  Outside the public houses groups of people were standing as though having spent the rest of the evening together, they could not bear to part so abruptly now. But elsewhere the streets were deserted. There were stretches of a hundred yards or so without anyone in sight. Kennington in fact had put itself to bed leaving Percy, one of the world’s workers, without anything to do.

  He thought for a moment of the All Night Café in Brixton. But it seemed a long way to go simply on the off‐chance of meeting someone. And it wasn’t adventure he was wanting to‐night: it was Doris.

  ‘Anyhow, Mum’ll be pleased to have me home early for once,’ he told himself.

  So he crossed over and stood waiting for a bus. He was still humming ‘Little Girl Blue’ and he felt in a romantic exalted sort of mood. He wanted to go upstairs on a rainbow and dream. Then suddenly the mood changed and he began feeling feverishly through all his pockets. He was afraid he’d run clean out of cigarettes and all the bloody shops shut. But he was O.K. He’d got a packet of twenty not started. He’d just recovered from his anxiety and was back upstairs on the rainbow again when a voice greeted him.

  ‘Hallo Perce,’ the voice said. ‘I hoped it was you.’

  He was aware of a strong waft of perfume as he turned, a mixture of shampoo and cachou and scent and fancy toilet soap. He knew before he saw her that it was the Blonde from the Fun Fair.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said unenthusiastically.

  ‘I was horrid to you the other night,’ the Blonde said. ‘I’ve been sorry ever since. I teased you.’

  ‘Teased me?’ Percy repeated coldly. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Her voice was husky and she seemed undecided whether to be relieved or offended that he had not remembered.

  ‘Can’t say I do.’

  She came nearer to him.

  ‘You know. About me being married?’

  ‘Oh that.’

  He could feel her arm pressing up against his and he told himself that she could save herself the trouble. Because of Doris, neither this blonde, nor any other, had any meaning for him. He could have found himself on a desert island full of blondes and he wouldn’t have cared.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said loftily. ‘It doesn’t matter in the least.’ The Blonde drew in her breath quickly.

  ‘In that case it doesn’t matter to me either,’ she said. ‘I only thought that perhaps it might.’

  Percy wasn’t even looking at her now. He was looking down the Brixton Road. And he saw what he wanted.

  ‘’Scuse me,’ he said. ‘This is my bus.’

  He pulled his hat down a little more firmly over one eye and stepped into the gutter with his arm raised. He liked getting on a bus that way – simply slowing it down a bit and then jumping on as it was going. It showed you knew your way about.

  ‘Good‐night, Perce,’ the Blonde said, and there was a little break in her voice as she said it. ‘I’m sorry I spoke to you. I just didn’t understand.’

  ‘That’s O.K.,’ Percy answered, and made the mistake of looking back at her.

  If he hadn’t looked at her he wouldn’t have known that she was in tears. And then he would have been on the bus all right, instead of simply looking after its red tail light vanishing down the long street. But for as long as he could remember he’d always been weak on tears. They got him right there, and he couldn’t stand up to them. So he let the bus go by and asked her what was the matter. She was only a little thing, about Doris’ size. And already he felt sorry for her. He couldn’t help feeling sorry when women cried because of him.

  But the Blonde was already perking up a bit.

  ‘I didn’t mean to start crying,’ she said. ‘I don’t like girls who cry. It was only that you were so cold I couldn’t help it.’

  Percy remembered his bus again.

  ‘Well, what’s the trouble?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t done anything, have I?’

  ‘Only come into my dreams,’ she said, more like her old self. ‘That’s all you’ve done.’

  She took hold of his arm and pushed it through hers. ‘I can’t make you out,’ she said. ‘Honest I can’t. You’re so funny I reckon you must be afraid of me. You didn’t seem to be the other night and now you are again.’

  Percy looked down at her. He was right: she wasn’t bad‐looking. And she’d had her hair brightened up again. She was almost a real blonde now.

  ‘Why should I be afraid?’ he asked defiantly.

  ‘You shouldn’t be,’ the Blonde answered, brightening up again. ‘Come and buy me a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you all about yourself.’

  There was a coffee stall opposite the Oval, and they went towards it. After the cold deserted expanse of the Brixton Road it was like stepping suddenly into a farm‐house kitchen. The tea‐urn sparkled like a fireman’s helmet and reflected the pile of ham sandwiches and the thick slabs of fruit‐cake and the coconut macaroons. They both had two cups and a hot meat‐pie apiece. And then because the coffee stall was crowded they crossed over to a neighbouring doorway where everything was private.

  ‘Put your arm round me,’ the Blonde said. ‘I’m cold.’

  He did so and held her pressed up close to him. He kept on pretending that it was Doris whom he was holding.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I only said that I was married just to tease you,’ she said. ‘Honest I did.’

  ‘O.K.,’ Percy told her. ‘Don’t go on about it.’

  ‘Well, kiss me. Just to show we’re friends.’

  It was the Blonde who prolonged the kiss. It was her kiss in fact. But Percy got something out of it all right. Towards the end it was O.K. so far as he was concerned as well.

  And then the Blonde told him what she had brought him there to tell.

  ‘Don’t let’s hang about out here,’ she said in a whisper. ‘What’s wrong with my flat?’

  ‘O.K.,’ said Percy hoarsely.

  It was no use pretending about Doris any more.

  It was 1.30 a.m. and the streets were quite empty now. Cherry Street, where the Blonde lived, was simply a blank brick chasm with lamp‐posts down it. And the Brixton Road itself was a dead watercourse with the glitter of tram rails under the moon where the river should have been.

  Coming down the Brixton Road was a man. He was the only living thing in sight. And he was hurrying. Darting along like a fox in a desert.

  ‘If I had a girl like Doris,’ he was saying under his breath, ‘I’d give over mucking about. I’d get a house out Purley way with a garage. I’d have friends in the evening…’

  Mrs Boon had lain awake for him.

  ‘That you, Percy?’ she called out.

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Mum,’ he answered with his fingers on the handle of his door.

  ‘D’you want a cuppa tea, or anything?’

  ‘No thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Come and kiss me good‐night.’

  ‘Coming, Mum.’

  Chapter XI

  It had been arranged. Doreen was coming, and Dulcimer Street was getting ready for her.

  It was already after tea‐time
and Mr Josser was standing in front of the little mirror in the kitchen, shaving. This was one of the little things that he had got slack about, shaving. Every morning except Sundays for nearly forty years he had shaved, hurriedly and uncomfortably, while the early tea‐kettle was boiling. But now he was taking things a bit more easily. Every day was a Sunday, in fact. He just pottered about, reading the papers and getting in the way, until about the middle of the morning and then borrowed a jugful of hot water wherever there was any going. Sometimes there wasn’t any and Mrs Josser told him that he should have asked for it earlier. But it didn’t matter: there was no fixed time for it any more. The only way in which he was strict with himself was in looking spruce and respectable by the time Doris got back. It was a point of honour not to do anything that would lower him in his daughter’s eyes. Least of all to‐night.

  Not that he’d have her much longer. It was a sad business. But apparently she’d set her heart on that flat of hers. He couldn’t blame her, he admitted. After all, it was her life and if she preferred spending it in a half‐converted attic in another part of London, there was nothing that could be done about it. He had hoped – before Mrs Josser stepped in and stopped it – to tempt her with the offer of a cottage in the Chilterns with an old‐world garden and a good train at five‐to‐eight in the mornings. But that simply wasn’t the way her mind was working. With her, it was the attic or nothing.

  He was only sorry that Mrs Josser was still taking it so badly. In her view the whole plan remained a subtle and deliberate slight. He could see her in the corner of the mirror as he stood there shaving. It was no more than a small glimpse of her back and shoulders. But there was something unmistakably uncompromising about it. The hard line of the backbone radiated hostility to attics.

  Then, quite suddenly, Mrs Josser turned on him.

  ‘And what’s going to happen if either of them’s ill? Who’s going to do the looking after? Just you tell me that.’