London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  ‘Anybody else have one?’ he enquired.

  ‘We haven’t finished yet,’ Mrs Josser told him.

  But apparently Doreen didn’t mind in the least not having finished. From the way she took the cigarette it was apparent that it was the one thing for which she had been longing. She left the two cubes of pineapple and the iceberg of jelly on her plate untouched, and took a cigarette holder out of her bag. Then she sat there blowing out slow coils of smoke across the table.

  Mrs Josser said nothing. But she made a note of it – both of smoking at table and using a cigarette holder. She had already made a note of the way Mr Josser had invited Percy without consulting her.

  But Mr Josser seemed unaware of having done anything wrong. He was talking to Percy in a familiar, friendly fashion as though Percy often spent the evening with them.

  ‘How’s everything at the garage?’ he asked.

  Before Percy could answer, Doreen had interrupted the conversation. She turned her back on Mrs Josser (which was another thing that Mrs Josser made a note of ), and suddenly became quite animated.

  ‘Oh are you one of those marvellous people who know about the insides of cars – valves and things?’ she asked. ‘I think they’re terribly clever. I’m quite sure I shouldn’t even know one end of an engine from the other.’

  ‘She’s a bouncer. She is a lady. She’s hot stuff. She’s the only girl I know who uses a holder,’ Percy was thinking.

  But he didn’t know how to answer. She talked too quickly for him.

  It was Mrs Josser who answered for him.

  ‘It’s not your job: that’s why you don’t know,’ she said.

  She herself could see absolutely nothing marvellous about young Percy, and she didn’t see any use in pretending that there was anything.

  Doreen turned towards her just long enough to give offence again.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think it’s absolutely wonderful being able to do things with engines. Men are so much cleverer than women. Don’t you think so, Mrs Josser?’

  Mrs Josser drew in her lips. It was obvious that she did not think so.

  ‘Will anybody have some cheese?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh I couldn’t, thank you,’ Doreen answered. ‘I’ve eaten a gigantic meal.’

  ‘Then I’ll give Doris a hand with the clearing away,’ Mrs Josser offered.

  Outside in the kitchen mother and daughter scarcely spoke. It was not until they were going back into the front room that Doris said anything.

  ‘How long do you think Percy’s going to stop?’ she asked.

  ‘All night if your father has anything to do with it,’ Mrs Josser replied. ‘And I want to have a private word with that Doreen of yours before she goes.’

  It was even worse than they had feared when they got back. They found that Mr Josser had suggested rummy. Obstinately misreading the nature of Doreen’s visit, he was trying to make things go with a swing. He was counting out little heaps of coloured tiddleywinks saying humorously, ‘Five pounds ten for Miss Smyth. The same for Mother. Same again for Percy. Ditto for Doris. And what’s left for me. No cheating, mind.’

  This was too much for Mrs Josser. She had no intention of sitting down to rummy with young Percy.

  ‘Where’s your mother, Percy?’ she asked.

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Did you tell her you were stopping?’

  Percy shook his head.

  ‘Don’t you think she might be lonely?’ she said pointedly.

  A pleased, unself‐conscious smile spread across Percy’s face.

  ‘You mean bring her down?’ he asked. ‘Thanks ever so.’

  There was a rather strained silence when he had left, and Doris turned to Mrs Josser.

  ‘Oh Mum, why did you?’ she asked.

  ‘Me?’ Mrs Josser replied indignantly. ‘I didn’t do anything. It was your father.’

  ‘Never opened my mouth,’ Mr Josser answered, still arranging the chips. ‘You asked her down yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Mrs Josser said emphatically.

  ‘Well, she’s coming, that’s the main thing,’ Mr Josser replied. ‘We shall be a big party before we’re finished.’

  But Mrs Boon evidently needed a bit of persuading. Five minutes passed, and then ten, and there was still no sign of either her or her son. Finally Mr Josser insisted that they should begin without waiting for them. Mrs Josser, however, seemed reluctant even to pick up her cards. It was not, indeed, until she had actually got them in her hands and begun studying them that she seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing. Then something happened. She adjusted her spectacles, frowned, made little clicking noises of disapproval at the luck of the deal and began arranging her cards into a fashionable fan‐shaped pattern. In her youth she had cut a pretty good figure at the whist table, and she still knew how to hold her cards.

  But before the round had reached her there was another knock on the door. Mr Josser put down his cards and glanced across at Doris.

  ‘That’ll be them,’ said Mr Josser. ‘Now I’ll have to re‐deal.’

  But it was not Mrs Boon. It was Mrs Vizzard. She was obviously agitated. And standing there in the dark passage with the light on her face she seemed pale. Unnaturally pale. Almost like a spirit herself. Doreen sat watching her, bewitched. She wondered how many more people were going to arrive.

  ‘Is your mother there?’ Mrs Vizzard enquired.

  Mrs Josser put her cards down and got up.

  ‘You wanted me, Mrs Vizzard?’ she asked.

  She had a respect for Mrs Vizzard and was even prepared to interrupt the game for her. After all it wasn’t every night that Mrs Vizzard paid them a visit.

  ‘I wanted a word with you in private,’ Mrs Vizzard began in a mysterious whisper, and then stopped herself. She, too, had become aware of a strange young lady at the table who was staring at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

  Doris recognised this for another occasion when poise was called for.

  ‘Oh Mrs Vizzard, this is my friend, Miss Smyth,’ she explained.

  Mrs Vizzard’s hand seemed like cold ivory. It was like shaking hands with a dead duchess. Doreen felt a kind of icy chill rising up her spine at the contact. It quite upset her.

  But Mrs Josser could not bear to be kept waiting any longer to hear what Mrs Vizzard had to tell her.

  ‘Come outside,’ she said in a whisper of the same mysterious hoarseness that Mrs Vizzard had used. ‘We’ll talk out there.’

  Doreen turned away and picked up her cards again. The game of rummy was beginning and breaking up again so frequently that she was losing count.

  And even now Mrs Josser and Mrs Vizzard got no further than the door. For at that moment Percy was coming back in with his mother. He was rather self‐conscious about being there at all. And so was Mrs Boon. They sidled in rather than walked. And Mrs Boon began thanking Mrs Josser straight away.

  ‘It was nice of you to ask me down, Mrs Josser,’ she said. ‘It can be a bit quiet, you know, just upstairs by yourself.’

  Percy had warned her about Doreen. But the presence of Mrs Vizzard was an entire surprise. She realised now that the Jossers must be throwing a party. What she didn’t realise of course was that half the party was trying to go into the passage for a secret session. She led the way over to the fire and the other two followed.

  ‘Oh, I do hope we’re not breaking up your game, are we?’ Mrs Boon said apologetically.

  She had a way of regarding herself as the least important guest wherever she was and therefore kept on excusing herself.

  ‘Quite all right,’ Mr Josser told her. ‘If you ladies want to talk we’ll make up a four with Percy. It might as well be whist as we’re the right number.’

  Doreen started and looked around her. Except for Doris, she didn’t seem to have any connection with the evening at all. And until Mr Josser actually named it she had never suspected anything quite so awful as whist. The
very worst that she had feared was Auction.

  There was a distraction, however. A very effective distraction. She became aware that the three women behind her were talking earnestly in low whispers. And if there is one form in which the human voice carries better than another it is the low whisper. Sitting up at the table waiting for Mr Josser to decide whether to throw away a two or come thumping in with a trump, she found herself in the middle of a shadowy conversation that fascinated her.

  ‘…nowhere else to go if you do turn her out,’ Mrs Josser was saying.

  ‘…poor old thing. I’m quite sorry for her.’ That was Mrs Boon’s voice.

  ‘But not’ – Doreen recognised Mrs Vizzard’s voice – ‘after this. She can come back for one night to pack her things. But after that she goes.’

  It was Mr Josser who interrupted Doreen’s eavesdropping. In the middle of the fourth round he suddenly forgot what trumps were, and had to ask. And then when they told him he wouldn’t keep quiet about it. Mr Josser was a man who enjoyed a good game of cards. But in particular he liked the lighter side of it. At this very moment he was going through a cheerful little pantomime, first of all pretending that he hadn’t got any trumps at all and then that his hand was full of them.

  ‘…of course she must have deserved it to get it. Magistrates aren’t monsters.’ This was in Mrs Vizzard’s voice again.

  ‘Fourteen days isn’t a very long time.’ (Mrs Boon)

  ‘It’s quite long enough for me with my good name to think of.’ (Mrs Vizzard)

  ‘But if we’re prepared to overlook it…’ (Mrs Josser)

  The rest of the sentence was entirely lost because Mr Josser finding that his pipe wasn’t drawing properly had removed the mouthpiece and was blowing noisily through the stem.

  ‘There’s more than ourselves to consider. There’s the reputation of this house.’ (Mrs Vizzard)

  Then Percy cut in.

  ‘Have another fag, Miss Smyth?’ he asked.

  He was holding out his cigarette case. It was one of those neat little toys in which the cigarette comes popping up like a small Jack‐in‐the‐box when the lid is slid off.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and thrust it into the holder that had overwhelmed him earlier.

  Percy turned towards Doris.

  ‘It’s no use offering you one, is it?’ he asked.

  Doris shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’ Doreen asked. ‘She smokes. At least she does in the office.’

  ‘Do you, Doris?’

  Mrs Josser had abruptly disengaged herself from the whisperers and was addressing her daughter directly. Everybody stopped talking for a moment.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Doris answered uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, please don’t do it here,’ Mrs Josser told her. ‘If you get among that sort at the office that’s your affair. It’s different in your own home.’

  Doris didn’t say anything. But she was angry. She felt herself blushing.

  ‘Thank you, Percy,’ she said. ‘I think I will.’

  He whipped out his cigarette case again and the cigarette came bobbing up as briskly as before. Then he produced the lighter that Mrs Boon had given him for a Christmas present. It worked at the first flick, and Doris sat back defiantly trying to blow the smoke out through her nostrils.

  ‘Well!’ said Mrs Josser.

  It was Mr Josser who was the first to speak after that.

  ‘What’s trumps, Percy?’ he asked.

  ‘Still hearts,’ Percy said.

  But his mind wasn’t in the game really. It was on Doris. And Doreen. For a start it was pretty exciting sitting down with a girl like Doreen at all. He’d dreamt about her sort. She looked the kind you saw pictures of in the Bystander. She had class. And a haughty voice. And long red nails that didn’t look as though they had ever touched a typewriter. She knew her way about, all right: you could tell that. But what had really gone to his head was seeing Doris blush. He’d been imagining it as he came home to‐night. It had been just one of those things. And now he’d seen it. There was something oddly rousing about it. To cover his confusion he pulled up his trouser leg and began scratching at his calf.

  The next couple of rounds passed off smoothly enough, except for Mr Josser taking Doreen’s Queen with his King. It was an awkward sort of situation. But Mr Josser managed to extract some fun from it. He gave his own hand a reproving slap, and looked across at Doreen to see that she had appreciated the significance of it.

  Meanwhile the whispering had begun again.

  ‘When she comes I shall tell her,’ Mrs Vizzard was saying. ‘It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll be better for all of us.’

  ‘But don’t you think…’ – Doreen missed this bit – ‘just for a bit while she’s making fresh arrangements.’

  ‘She’s made her fresh arrangements, so far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘It’s to‐morrow Connie’s coming out, isn’t it?’ Mr Josser asked suddenly, making no pretence of not having been listening to what the ladies had been whispering about. ‘I thought we might get things a bit ready for her – it can’t be much fun coming home from…’

  ‘This is a private conversation we’re having,’ Mrs Josser told him tartly. ‘Mrs Vizzard came up to see me.’

  ‘All right,’ Mr Josser answered good‐humouredly. ‘You can tell me afterwards.’

  They had finished the game by now and Mr Josser sat looking at the clock. It was just on ten o’clock and he was waiting for it to strike. It was a good long chime at ten, and he enjoyed every moment of it. When the last note had died away, he stacked the cards in front of him and addressed Mrs Josser.

  ‘What about a cup of tea, Mother?’

  The suggestion was the signal for Doreen to start saying that she had to go. She’d had a perfectly marvellous time, she said, and she’d simply love to stop, but there was that awful journey. She spoke of the journey as though there would be St Bernard dogs out looking for her before she was finished with it. But Mr Josser wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘Can’t go out with nothing,’ he said. ‘Mother’d never forgive me if I let you.’

  Doreen was still saying at intervals that she would have to be going. But she saw that it was useless.

  ‘Oh well,’ she was thinking. ‘I’ll just gulp a cup of tea and then dash off. Heaven knows when I shall get back to Hampstead.’

  She felt sorry for Doris. But also resentful. She felt that Doris ought to have warned her what the evening was going to be like. If Doris had said to her: ‘Doreen darling I’d love to take you home, but I just can’t because everything’s too impossible,’ she would have understood. She could have forgiven her for it. But as it was, Doris had just made her ridiculous. It was really unthinkable that she should have been expected to spend an evening playing whist with people like Percy and Mr Josser.

  ‘Thank God it’s nearly over,’ she told herself.

  Nearly over, but not quite.

  She was just searching in her handbag for a last cigarette when there was a strange scuffling noise on the stairs outside. It was the sort of noise that furniture removers might make when carrying something heavy round an awkward corner. And it was a swaying kind of scuffle. It died away completely for a moment and then returned louder than before. There was the sound of someone coming down two stairs at once, probably backwards. Then there was a heavy thud, followed by a groan.

  ‘Careful,’ a voice said. ‘Mind her head.’

  Mrs Josser got up from the china cupboard and looked accusingly at Mr Josser.

  ‘What’s going on out there?’ she asked.

  Mr Josser put his pipe down on the table and got up.

  ‘Better go and see,’ he said reluctantly.

  But he was too late. Mrs Vizzard had already risen. The good name of No. 10 – already sullied – was at stake. And in front of a stranger, too. She was in no mood for trifling. It might be, she reflected, that others beside Connie would have to be asked to leave.

  But she was quit
e unprepared for what happened. As she reached the door, it flew open and she was swept back into the room by a sudden rush of bodies. She gave a little scream and retreated hurriedly behind the table. Doreen who had thought that she was ready for anything by now, screamed too. And even Percy felt instinctively in his pocket for his knuckleduster…

  But there was no need for it. It was only Mr Puddy and Mr Squales. Mr Puddy, Mr Squales, and another. The third figure who was precariously supported between them and was still kicking out vigorously with her legs, was only half the size of the others. She was a small elderly lady with dyed hair.

  It was Connie come home. Come home before the welcome was ready for her.

  ‘Lumme,’ said Mr Puddy trying to recover his balance.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded Mrs Vizzard.

  Mr Squales passed his hand across his forehead, thrusting back the lock of lank hair that hung there.

  ‘Perhaps I should explain that our friend here is not… not well. She came home unexpectedly and this gentleman’ – he indicated Mr Puddy – ‘found her on the stairs outside her room… er… crying.’

  ‘They’ve asshaulted me,’ Connie broke in.

  She said it very indistinctly, however. It was obvious that the poor old thing was quite used up. She swayed from side to side as she stood there.

  ‘Pounshed on me, they did,’ she went on. ‘Out of the dark. Like tigers.’

  Mrs Josser was regarding her closely.

  ‘Sit her down on one of these chairs,’ she said. ‘That is if Miss Smyth wouldn’t mind moving.’

  Doreen obliged by moving as far away as possible. And it was then that she noticed that the small elderly lady’s hands were clasped tightly together in front of her almost as though she was holding a prayer‐book. Even the fact that she was supported underneath her armpits didn’t make her separate her hands. But when the two men – the fat puffy one and the dark aquiline one like an actor – lifted her into the chair something happened. The hands came apart for a moment and for the second time that evening Doreen screamed.

  Out of the clasped hands, a small yellow bird shot upwards and began flying wildly in circles round the gas chandelier like a large saffron moth, while the little old lady struggled frantically to get at it.