London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  Finally, she went through to her bedroom and changed her lace cuffs. The new pair looked exactly the same as the old ones. But Mrs Vizzard was very particular about her cuffs. ‘No lady,’ she remembered reading as a girl, ‘will ever tolerate soiled lace.’ She had remembered it in fact right through from 1890 until 1938, until she was almost the only person left in London still wearing lace cuffs.

  When she changed her cuffs, she studied herself carefully in the mirror. There was a wisp of hair out of place and she shackled it with another hair‐pin. Apart from that there was nothing that needed doing. The face that gazed back at her was as smooth and unwrinkled and expressionless as it had always been. The long dark hair, plaited tightly in the nape of the neck, was so smooth that it might have been melted down and poured on.

  But it was still too early. Four‐thirty, she had said, and it would be unthinkable to make it earlier, to appear impetuous. As it was, she was growing apprehensive again. The folly of what she was about to do became apparent to her, and she half regretted it. But only half.

  To occupy the time, to kill the intervening twenty minutes she took out a cushion cover that she was embroidering. The design, like that on the tea‐cups, was a rose; a rose so full blown as to be almost wilting. With quick deft stitches she began filling in the red unfolded heart. But her mind was too full of other things this afternoon to concentrate. And finally she gave up the attempt. Thrusting her needle right in up to the eye she sat back, pondering.

  ‘It may be foolish of me,’ she admitted to herself. ‘It may even be rash and indiscreet. But I have no one but myself to consider in the matter. And no one need ever know. It’s only because he’s lonely that I’m doing it. And he really is rather distinguished. I’ve never known one socially before. It will be very stimulating. I wonder if I shall find that I’m sensitive to anything.’

  She looked at the clock. It was four‐thirty now.

  ‘No one need ever know,’ she repeated. ‘It is only just this once. And it will be quite private.’

  All the same, as she realised how close the moment was, her heart was fluttering a little. And it was pounding and thumping most remarkably as she got up and left the room. Outside Mr Squales’ door she paused, hesitating.

  ‘But this is absurd,’ she rebuked herself. ‘I’m getting myself into a state just like a girl.’

  Controlling herself, she knocked.

  ‘Mr Squales,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady and natural sounding. ‘Would you be free to join me for a cup of tea?’

  The reply was not so prompt as she anticipated. She had expected that he would rise at once and open the door to her. Instead, there was a grunt and the scraping of a chair – of two chairs – almost as though he had been asleep in the deep arm‐chair with the broken springs with his feet up on the hard Windsor one opposite. There was a further sound of scraping as though he were searching about for his slippers and then the door opened and a squalid and tousled Mr Squales stood there. His black cravat was undone and hanging downwards. And his velvet jacket was secured by the wrong button as though he had pulled the thing hastily together whilst he was still rather muzzy. On the mantelpiece behind him stood a beer‐bottle and a dirty glass.

  ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘So late already. I’m afraid that I must have dozed off for a moment. You were asking to… to take tea with you. How delightful – how very delightful it would be.’

  Mrs Vizzard re‐inspected him, and then averted her eyes.

  ‘In… in ten minutes’ time?’ she suggested.

  ‘In less, in five,’ he answered. ‘Almost straight away. I’m practically ready.’

  Mrs Vizzard returned to her room and stood there for a moment motionless.

  ‘It was wrong,’ she confessed. ‘I’ve lowered myself and I’ve been punished for it. Mr Squales is not a gentleman. No gentleman would have been in such disorder.’

  But five minutes later when he arrived, he certainly looked a gentleman. His hair – except for the lock that naturally hung downwards – was sleeked back across his head and his cravat was now tied‐up with a flourish. He had buttoned his jacket up properly, and put on a pair of shoes in place of his slippers. Also, his manners were perfect. He came in diffidently, apologetically, as though he knew that he was in disgrace.

  ‘I shall never forgive myself,’ he said. ‘Never. I had been working and I fell asleep. I can only say that I was very, very tired.’

  Mrs Vizzard accepted his apologies. It was flattering, decidedly flattering, to have a professional medium, an international one even, paying so much personal attention.

  ‘I shall ask him,’ she thought, ‘what it feels like to be a medium, what are the sensations of being one of the spiritually chosen.’

  But all that she said was, ‘Do you take milk and sugar, Mr Squales?’

  And, in a way, Mr Squales’ reply rather disappointed her.

  ‘Milk please and two lumps,’ he said. ‘I like it very sweet and rather milky.’

  There seemed something oddly unspiritual in such an answer. It was almost as if Mr Squales were a greedy man. And he certainly made an uncommonly good tea. He sat there wolfing scones, bread and butter and two kinds of cake.

  ‘Poor man, he’s ravenous,’ Mrs Vizzard reflected. ‘It’s more than a pleasure. It’s a duty to feed him.’

  And Mr Squales seemed to repay feeding. Under the influence of food and several cups of his specially sweet milky tea, he lost the reserve that had hung over him and been so chilling. But his manners remained perfect just the same. He asked Mrs Vizzard’s permission before he smoked his first cigarette. Apparently, he smoked a lot of cigarettes. His fingers were stained and discoloured right up to the nails.

  ‘Now,’ thought Mrs Vizzard. ‘I’ll put my question to him.’

  But Mr Squales spoke first.

  ‘Have you lived in this house long, Mrs Vizzard?’ he asked.

  Mrs Vizzard dropped her eyes.

  ‘I came here as a bride,’ she said.

  ‘So‐o‐o‐o.’

  Mr Squales very deliberately prolonged the word. He made of it a sound that was at once infinitely understanding, sympathetic and consoling.

  ‘And now you are alone?’ he went on.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ Mrs Vizzard told him.

  ‘Sad. How sad,’ Mr Squales replied. ‘In the midst of life, as the poet says… And is it long since Mr Vizzard died?… passed on, I should say?’

  ‘1922,’ Mrs Vizzard answered. ‘Michaelmas Quarter Day.’

  She had a concise and businesslike mind even in matters of the heart. She remembered dates just as she remembered figures.

  ‘Since then you’ve been alone?’ Mr Squales persisted, as though the loneliness of Mrs Vizzard held a special fascination for him.

  ‘I’ve had my guests,’ Mrs Vizzard replied sharply. ‘From the time I took matters into my own hands I’ve never had a room empty.’

  It was not true as Mr Squales knew. But Mrs Vizzard was quick to answer any aspersion. She had, however, misunderstood the observation.

  ‘No, no,’ said Mr Squales, brushing the point aside with tobacco‐ry fingers in the air. ‘Not in that sense. In the more important one. You have been alone in the world, I mean?’

  ‘I’ve had my Faith,’ she told him. ‘I only really learnt to know my late husband after he went across.’

  Mr Squales drew himself up sharply.

  ‘Ah yes. The other world. What a comfort it can be,’ he remarked. ‘What an awakening!’

  A dreamy look came into Mr Squales’ dark eyes, and Mrs Vizzard drew in her breath expectantly. Now was the moment. Without any prompting from her, Mr Squales was going to talk about the Life Beyond. But in this she was disappointed. At least for the time being he seemed entirely preoccupied by things on This Side.

  ‘I have a curious feeling,’ he began, ‘that it was no accident that brought me here. I had other addresses, other houses, to go to. I knew no one. Yet I came. I knew from the mom
ent you answered the door to me that there was no need to go further. There was something that told me that I had arrived.’

  ‘I… I’m glad you’re comfortable,’ Mrs Vizzard faltered.

  Mr Squales’ eyes were cast full on her.

  ‘I am more than comfortable; I am at home,’ he assured her.

  For some reason Mrs Vizzard found herself blushing. It was an unfamiliar sensation. Rather unpleasant, as though hot ants were running over her. And she was aware that Mr Squales was still looking at her. Looking at her hand, and smiling. The ants began to run round in circles.

  Mr Squales cleared his throat.

  ‘It’s very strange,’ he said. ‘I see now how wrong I was. When I first saw you I took you for a much older person. I took you for a woman already middle‐aged.’

  2

  Percy was feeling pretty good. Quite O.K., in fact. He had got himself just where he liked to be – right in the ringside seats. And there was no doubt about being in the thick of things. Trainers and managers and press‐men kept pushing past him. And, when one of the boxers managed to get the other up against the ropes it was as though the fight was not merely going on in front, but actually on top, of him. Only two seats away, another gentleman, a big man in a light grey suit with a carnation in his buttonhole, had burnt himself on his own cigar when a feather‐weight had come slithering out of the ring on his back into the midst of the spectators. It was life all right, hot life, where Percy was sitting.

  Next to Percy was Mr Josser. They hadn’t just met there by accident either – Mr Josser wasn’t the sort who went about to prize fights. It had all been a part of a carefully thought‐out scheme, a plot almost – of Percy’s. He’d told himself that the best way of getting to know Doris was to put himself on easy terms with her family. And it was because he didn’t know how to tackle Mrs Josser straight away – he couldn’t, for instance, ask her to put on a dance frock and come along with him to the Palais – that he’d begun on Mr Josser.

  Even then he’d been cautious. The one thing that he wanted to avoid was being obvious. So, in the end, after paying five shillings each for the seats he’d told Mr Josser that they’d been given to him. It gave him a pleasant sensation of well‐being – he’d already got twenty‐five pounds in advance on account of the hot Bentley – to be able to lay out half a quid for the sake of the girl he loved. And Mr Josser had quite innocently accepted.

  He’d never seen a boxing match before. He didn’t, indeed, particularly want to see one. But it seemed so nice of the boy to have thought of him that he was afraid that he would be disappointed if he refused. Mrs Josser remained frankly disapproving of prize fights. And Doris was cross with her father for going at all. It seemed to lower his dignity somehow.

  The only person, other than Percy, who was thoroughly delighted by the arrangement was Mrs Boon. She gave a great sigh of relief when she learned who her son’s companion was to be. It was the first time she could ever remember since Percy had grown up when she had really known where he was going and with whom.

  The fight was taking place at the Baths. And about four hundred people were watching it. It was, of course, only the ringside seats that were so expensive. Elsewhere in the house the prices of admission went right down to a shilling – for standing room, of course. But there were plenty of people in the middle income classes, people who were ready to pay two shillings or half‐a‐crown to sit in one of the galleries, craning their necks round the ornamental iron pillars, to see the pugilists, from that distance looking no larger than frenzied pygmies, hammer away at each other about thirty feet below.

  The air was thick with tobacco smoke, and blue spirals of it went drifting in little eddies across the brilliant block of light that was shed by the shaded lamps above the ring. By now the lesser weights, the trivial stuff, had frisked and feinted and glissaded and were over. Percy and Mr Josser had watched a fly‐weight, a feather‐weight, a bantam‐weight and a cruiser‐weight. And they had come at last on to the serious business, the real purpose, of the evening. Tiger Stoneman (of Stoke Newington) who turned the scales at twelve stone seven was about to put himself to the supreme test of strength against Battling Charley (of Balham) who was a full thirteen stone one. It was to be a battle of the giants, and most of the audience was outside priming itself on beer to be ready for the ordeal.

  There was, indeed, something pretty impressive about the way in which since seven‐thirty the spectacle had been devised in a mounting crescendo of calves and biceps. Starting off with agile, flimsy creatures like fierce dwarfs it had now got itself among the Titans. And it looked like going on in that way. There was the half‐veiled hint behind the arrangements that if the display lasted for even another half‐hour gigantic monsters about ten feet in height and weighing twenty stone, would trample their way into the ring like dinosaurs.

  In the meantime, Tiger Stoneman was quite big enough to please Percy – and even the bantam‐weights had been enough to satisfy Mr Josser. The Tiger entered the ring in his celebrated striped dressing‐gown, allowed his seconds – two bullet‐headed thugs like escaped convicts – to disrobe him as though he were too well‐bred to do that kind of thing for himself, and stood there, like a cockerel, turning himself about for people to admire him. This performance was interrupted at last by the arrival of Battling Charley. An older man and clad in a very drab sort of wrap he aroused no enthusiasm until he showed his chest. Then he got a round all to himself because he was so hairy. Mr Josser was amazed. Battling Charley did not look like a man at all. He was simply something from the trees that had come down to earth for half an hour to make mischief. And at the sound of the clapping, the great ape began grinning. He swayed backwards and forwards enthusiastically shaking hands with himself above his head.

  ‘Nah you’ll see,’ said Percy delightedly. ‘This’ll be murder.’

  It seemed to Mr Josser that Percy was very nearly right. Quite early in the first round Battling Charley darted into his opponent’s face with a straight right, that everyone except the Tiger seemed to have been expecting, and his glove came away scarlet. After that it was sheer jungle stuff. Every time he touched the Tiger’s body, even if it was only a jab, he left a small red print like a penny stamp. It seemed that bright terrible wounds were being opened at random all over the beautiful white body of the boxer. By the time the gong went at the end of the second round, the Tiger looked like a mediæval martyr. And Mr Josser was feeling sick.

  The rest of the evening was no more than a jumbled pageant of horrors for Mr Josser. Assault and battery, attempted manslaughter, torture, disfiguration, death itself it looked like, were all staged before his nose for him to laugh and wonder at. Great ham‐like fists thrashed the air and divided it. Eyebrows were cut clean open. Dust rose up in clouds from the flooring. And the sound of massive, hunted breathing filled the place. Altogether he might have been back in the red dawn of history.

  Out of all that brilliantly lit spectacle of commercial courage – there was prize money of fifty pounds for one of them – only two sights remained clear to Mr Josser afterwards. One was of the smaller of the two thugs who were the Tiger’s handmaidens, clad in a pair of dirty grey flannels, white tennis shoes and a singlet. The creature was bending forward over the Tiger, pouring drops of collodion into an open gash in his forehead. It was First Aid at its most brutal and elementary. And apparently the Tiger didn’t like it. He kept shaking his head and growling. About the whole proceeding there was the suggestion of a piece of intricate brain surgery being performed at the hands of a butcher’s boy.

  The other sight that remained with Mr Josser was a self‐contained nightmare. Battling Charley had worked his man into a corner and was getting ready to eat him like an ogre when the Tiger suddenly caught him full in the mouth with a half hook. The effect was appalling. Battling Charley was rocked backwards on to his heels and when he recovered himself what seemed to be his entire set of very white front teeth fell out on to the floor and were trampled on.<
br />
  Young Percy leant over affectionately, and thrust his mouth against Mr Josser’s ear.

  ‘There goes his gum shield,’ he said gloatingly. ‘I told you there’d be murder.’

  But Mr Josser was past caring. He was sitting there with his eyes closed and his hand up in front of his face so that Percy shouldn’t notice. Even with his eyes shut, however, he couldn’t keep himself cut off entirely from what was going on behind those springy ropes. For shutting his eyes didn’t keep out the sounds. There was the soft sinister thump of the punches when they hit the body, and the sharp click when the jaw or the forehead caught it. There was also a whole host of other horrid little sounds as well. He now recognised every one of them. He knew the noise that wet towels make as the seconds flap them in the faces of their wilting pets; the glug‐glug‐glug of water being drunk from a bottle – apparently it would have been unseemly for a pugilist to be caught drinking from a tumbler; the rough friction of hairy muscular legs being massaged.

  And it would have been absurd, when the climax came, to pretend that he hadn’t heard that. There was a bang that seemed to shake the whole Baths and somebody began counting ‘One‐two‐three‐four’ quite slowly. Mr Josser opened his eyes. Battling Charley, the hairy one, the old man of the trees, was lying flat on his back with his knees drawn up almost to his chin, and Tiger Stoneman, the young, the twelve stone seven, the beautiful, was standing beside him, wearing a slightly dazed and self‐conscious expression as though he wasn’t altogether sure about the politeness of what he had just done to the older man.