London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  ‘Everybody got what they want?’ she enquired meaningly.

  This time, however, Mrs Josser was too much preoccupied to notice. She kept glancing nervously at the marble clock on the mantelpiece as though she suspected that if she took her eye off it for a single moment it might begin playing tricks on her. It had become a part of their life by now, that clock. They no longer hung round nervously waiting for it to strike. It boomed and blasted its way past the hour, and they ignored it.

  ‘I hope Percy’s not going to be late,’ she said suddenly. ‘I wish now we’d ordered a cab like I said.’

  ‘Percy’s never late.’

  It was Mrs Boon who had spoken. The obvious untruthfulness of her remark passed unnoticed in the fact that she had spoken at all, and spoken so forthrightly. And having said what was in her mother’s heart, having defended her offspring, she withdrew into obscurity again.

  ‘I only meant that something might stop him,’ Mrs Josser said lamely. ‘It’s very good of him saying that he’ll take us at all.’

  Mrs Boon nodded her head in that slow sad way of hers.

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ she said placidly. ‘He’ll be here.’

  ‘He’s a son to be proud of,’ Mrs Vizzard said charmingly. ‘So handsome, too.’

  She was feeling at her most gracious this morning, and it pleased her to be able to pay a compliment in this way. It helped to keep the atmosphere of No. 10 refined and as it should be. Also by addressing herself to Mrs Boon it served to exclude Connie from the conversation.

  But not entirely. At the mention of Percy, she screwed up one eye into a wink and wagged her forefinger in Mrs Vizzard’s direction.

  ‘Now, remember, no cradle snatching,’ she said.

  It was three toots on the horn that interrupted them. Mrs Josser hurried over to the window, and there below them was Percy getting out of a large Daimler. Inside, the car was a bit tatty and threadbare. But from above it looked magnificent. It was as though a small battleship had berthed herself alongside.

  Mrs Boon smiled contentedly.

  ‘I knew we could rely on him if he promised,’ she said.

  As a matter of fact, she was thinking of something else that Percy had promised – her own holiday at the seaside. He hadn’t mentioned it lately. But she was sure that it was in his mind all right. She wasn’t worrying.

  Mrs Josser in the meantime had taken charge of things. A mood of desperate action, of panic almost, had taken possession of her. At one moment she was sitting there talking quietly to them, and at the next she was struggling with the cases. It was Mr Josser’s umbrella that was the trouble. Lying sideways across the string bag with the provisions, the handle had caught itself on to the arm of a chair. From the way Mrs Josser was behaving she seemed ready to cut her losses by sacrificing the chair.

  Mr Josser started up.

  ‘Wait a minute, Mother,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry. We’ve got an hour yet.’

  He was very fond of that umbrella and it hurt him to see the way it was being jerked about.

  Connie, however, interrupted him.

  ‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘You’re an invalid. This is where you need Connie.’

  She removed the two umbrellas – though Mrs Josser’s was shorter, and wasn’t really in the way at all – and Mrs Boon took the smallest of the three cases. Then with Mrs Vizzard in the rear they all went downstairs together. Mr Josser descended shakily, one step at a time, like a child. He was still very weak.

  When they reached the downstairs passage, a voice greeted them. It was Mr Squales’.

  ‘Might I, a mere acquaintance, say bon voyadj?’ it asked. ‘May I wish your invalid a speedy recovery?’

  Mr Josser was really touched. He had never liked Mr Squales, and now felt sure that he must have misjudged him.

  ‘Thank you ever so much,’ he said.

  Mr Squales stood there smiling and bowing in that charming half foreign way of his.

  ‘My love to Brighton,’ he said. ‘It knew me once in happier days.’ His eye caught Mrs Vizzard’s and he paused. ‘In former days, I should say,’ he corrected himself.

  By the time they reached the car, Percy had everything ready for them. He had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth but, apart from that, he was very much the professional chauffeur showing what he could do. He even held out a large moulted rug which he insisted on wrapping round the Jossers once they were inside.

  ‘Getcher there in a jiff,’ he said.

  Connie looked at the seat alongside the driver. ‘Who’s going in there?’ she asked.

  ‘No one,’ Percy answered.

  Connie’s eye brightened.

  ‘O.K. if I don’t talk to the driver?’ she asked.

  That was how it was that Connie became mixed up in the start of the Jossers’ holiday. Naturally Mrs Josser objected as soon as she saw Connie sitting up in front as a kind of second coachman. But by then it was too late to do anything about it. After all, it was Percy’s car, and if he cared to pick up passengers on the way it was no affair of hers. What really irritated her, however, was the way Connie leant over the side waving to Mrs Boon and Mrs Vizzard as though she were going with them all the way. And, when she squirmed round and remarked through the glass partition that they were off at last, Mrs Josser simply didn’t answer.

  They had just over half an hour to spare when they reached Victoria. And Mrs Josser had got the tickets in advance. So naturally they went into the tea‐room under the clock and had something to keep them going. It was not a restful meal, however, as Mrs Josser was in a twitter in case the time should somehow slip past without their noticing. In consequence, Connie had to wolf up her Banbury cake and leave half her tea untasted. And when they emerged again there was still more than twenty minutes before the train was due to leave.

  Mr Josser used up quite a lot of this time at the bookstall. He went right round it from the Book‐of‐the‐Month at the lavatory end to the secondhand political biographies on the other side. And he ended up by buying ‘Popular Gardening,’ and a kind of rubber strap for carrying library books. Mrs Josser followed him round urging him to hurry. She, too, examined everything, and it was a Daily Mirror that she bought finally.

  There was a bit of a scramble at the last moment. Mrs Josser suddenly looked at Platform 2 and saw a train standing there. The four of them were making slowly towards it when Mrs Josser saw a porter going along closing doors. The sight shook her. It seemed that at any moment the green flag might be waved and the train draw away without them. In consequence she made a dash for it. Laden as she was, she ran. And so did Connie. Together they pounded up to the barrier. But Connie of course couldn’t get through without a platform ticket. There was some unpleasantness about that, and by the time Percy and Mr Josser had caught up, Mrs Josser was already on the platform telling the guard that her husband was an invalid and that it was no use telling him to hurry because he couldn’t. But at last when Mr Josser, rather grey looking in the face and breathing heavily, arrived leaning on Percy’s arm, the crisis had passed over. The train standing there wasn’t the Brighton train at all. It was all stations to Redhill. They stood back and let it go without a pang.

  At the last moment Bill and Doris turned up. This was an entire, a carefully concealed, surprise. It had been planned and executed all in secret. They arrived just five minutes before the train – the right train – was due to leave. Which was perfect. There was just time to say everything and there were no awkward pauses. The only person who was put out was Percy. He kept glancing at Doris and then looking away again.

  ‘She doesn’t mean nothing to me now,’ he told himself. ‘Doris doesn’t. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ve found someone who understands me. I’ve got the real thing now. Doris doesn’t mean nothing to me.’

  Then the guard, a quiet steady‐looking sort of man, came up behind them from nowhere and blew a whistle that he’d been hiding under his moustache.

  It was the signal for the final good
‐byes.

  ‘Mind the crabs when you’re paddling,’ Connie shouted.

  For no reason at all – except that he was sentimental and easily moved – two large tears ran down Mr Josser’s cheeks as he sat there.

  Then he roused himself and thrust his head out of the train window.

  ‘See you all soon,’ he said. ‘Be good.’

  Chapter XXVIII

  We really are somewhere now. Not that it looks anything very much at first glance. It’s a high, bleak room with bare distempered walls and a dark green dado; the sort of room that might have been designed by an architect who specialised in booking offices or hospital corridors. In short, it’s a room to be occupied rather than lived in. And this is evidently the case at the present moment. Four of the five men sitting there – the fifth, whose room it is, is facing them – have got their hats with them. Three trilbies and a bowler are resting on the top of the steel filing cabinet just inside the door, and an umbrella hangs down with its crook inside a wooden tray marked ‘OUT.’

  You couldn’t at first glance tell what manner of business it is that goes on in this office. It’s evident enough that the customer doesn’t ever come here or there would be more effort to impress. And it’s evident, too, that the business is a sound old‐fashioned one. There’s almost an ancestral note about the rubbed arms of the bentwood chair behind the desk. And the desk itself has clearly seen a lot of use. Round the wooden ink‐stand, the ink splashes have hardened and congealed into a permanent dark stain. The fact that the pins and the paper clips are in the up‐turned top of a tobacco tin shows that no money had been wasted on office furnishings. On the other hand, there are three telephones beside the ink‐stand – which shows that business must be pouring in pretty steadily.

  But take a look at the framed photograph over the nest of drawers. That ought to give a clue. It’s a close‐up of a winning team in the Metropolitan Police inter‐divisional sports for 1903. And it’s the only piece of decoration in the whole room, except for a large street map of London, with the Thames winding like a thick blue snake through the middle of it.

  Then, for a moment, the door opens – and the whole show is given away immediately. It’s a policeman – a policeman without his helmet – who has come in. He gives a buff envelpe with ‘G.R.’ on it to the man behind the desk, and withdraws again. It’s plain enough now that we’re in a police station. But not just an ordinary police station – not the sort of place where the drunks and pickpockets get taken. This is Scotland Yard, the Buckingham Palace of police stations, the real House of Lords of crime. It’s here that the big things get attended to. And it’s all depart‐mentalised like the head‐office of a chain stores. On the floor above is the Counterfeit and Forgery department. But that doesn’t take up the whole of the floor. There is also the Prostitution and White‐Slavery section. The Burglary and Breaking‐into room. The Crimes with Violence room. The Aliens and International room. The Gang room. And the Confidence‐Trick room. Each with its resident specialist. Nothing has been forgotten. The fingerprint laboratory is one floor higher still – and everything is ticking over as smoothly as clockwork. Knock a man on the head with a jemmy, draw a cheque on somebody else’s account, or be an unregistered alien and there’ll be a neat little dossier in a buff folder, the same colour as the envelope, all to yourself and neatly filled in with a space left in the front cover for the name.

  But come back for a moment to the room with the five men sitting in it. What’s happening in there? It’s the time for the young one on the right to speak. He turns towards the man behind the desk and as he does so you can see his face. What’s more you know him. It’s Mr Todds, the night‐shift worker at the Power Station, Mrs Josser’s p.g.

  So Connie’s marked sixpence has done the trick, has it? But surely they wouldn’t bother Scotland Yard with a special interview about a thing like that. No: Mr Todds hasn’t got himself into trouble. He’s getting someone else into it. Not spitefully or maliciously. Just in a quiet matter‐of‐fact sort of fashion, because it’s his job, and because he’s good at it and wants promotion.

  He’s one of Them. ‘The owner identified the radiator figure, sir,’ he is saying, in a smooth sing‐song voice as though he’s memorised his speech before saying it, ‘and I’ve since replaced it. I described the lamps on brackets and they tallied with his memory of them. The salesman from Jack Barclay’s was also present and confirmed the owner’s impressions. Similarly with the car rug being used as a mat in the other bedroom. It’s a special body on the Bentley and the measurements should confirm it.’

  ‘Have you got the measurements?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the man answered and looked abashed.

  ‘Don’t you carry a measuring tape?’

  ‘Not in those clothes, sir.’

  ‘Then take this for a lesson. There’s men back on point duty because they didn’t carry measuring tapes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The man behind the desk is obviously thinking whilst he is talking. He is drawing round smudgy daisies on his blotting pad.

  ‘So you want a warrant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The man at the desk draws one more daisy.

  ‘All right,’ he says at last. ‘You can have your chance. Report back here when you’ve picked him up.’

  Chapter XXIX

  It was lovely at Brighton. The weather was perfect. And the wind came blowing up the narrow streets from the front with a whiff of old rope, fish and sea‐weed that made you glad to be alive, and proved once again that there’s nothing like the ocean for a tonic.

  But it takes more than sea air to make a holiday. There’s eating. The old rope, the fish and the sea‐weed give you an appetite and, if there’s nothing to satisfy it but cold ham and a plateful of pink blancmange with a square of cheese afterwards, you’re worse off than if you hadn’t come at all. And that’s where the Jossers were lucky. They were at the Medusa Private Boarding Establishment – actually they were at the annexe across the road: but that didn’t matter because they ate in the main dining‐room with the twelve separate tables and the sea‐shell overmantel – where the food was famous. Other visitors who didn’t know Brighton and stayed at places like the Barbados Private Hotel, the Cyril or the Ogilvie Pension cast envious eyes on the Medusans when they heard of the standard of living that went on behind that neatly clipped privet hedge, those green painted railings, and the white front door.

  The Jossers were lucky, too, in the bedroom they’d got. It hadn’t actually got a view – except the Medusa Private Boarding Establishment opposite – but it had got a balcony. It was a large airy room with a double bed, an easy chair with a pull‐out flap so that Mrs Josser could put her feet up, and a shilling‐in‐the‐slot gas meter in case it turned cold in the evening.

  You could tell that the Medusa was good class simply by looking at the wash‐stand. The toilet set was a collector’s piece. Gracefully rounded and flounced round the top edge, it was new looking and unchipped – though obviously it came from the classic age of such things. And the flowers on the side – peonies in full splendour – might have been painted there only yesterday. The jug, with its delicate Grecian handle that didn’t look strong enough to support even its own mass of earthenware when empty, was the sort of thing that you picked up praying that you wouldn’t knock it against the tooth‐brush holder, or the soap‐dish or worst of all the side of the basin. Mrs Josser took one glance at it and decided that she’d do the pouring out herself for both of them.

  Mr Josser didn’t take very much notice of the bedroom the night he got there. He was pretty badly knocked out by the journey, and he went straight to bed as soon as he arrived at Medina Road. It was not until next morning that his holiday really began. But it began early. Round about six‐thirty, because he still woke up at his old hour as though there were a tram for him to catch. And, once awake, he simply lay in bed, thinking. Mrs Josser was still fast asleep beside him, and there was no interruption
to his thoughts. He recognised for a start that he was lucky to be there at all. It had been touch and go this last time, all right. Bill had come along only just in time. He liked Bill, and supposed that Doris was going to marry him. The idea was rather flattering: he’d never imagined that he’d have a doctor for a son‐in‐law.

  From thinking about Doris his thoughts turned to Ted for a moment. He was certainly lucky in both his children. All things considered, Ted was about the steadiest young man he knew. He’d got himself well up the ladder and if he just went on being steady for a few more years he’d be a manager one day. And after that there was really no end to what steadiness could do for you in the Co‐op. line…

  But he forgot about Ted and began thinking about the cottage instead. He had changed his mind on the way down, and decided on Sussex. He had even changed his mind as the train ride itself proceeded. First of all he’d fixed on the North Downs, which wouldn’t be too far away from the rest of the family. Then he’d gone for the Weald because he liked it better. And finally he’d decided on the South Downs because he liked them better still. The trouble was that Mrs Josser still didn’t want to leave Dulcimer Street. She’d said that nothing would induce her.

  Thinking about the cottage made him remember how much money he’d been spending lately. The illness had cost him something already. And now there was this holiday which they’d all recklessly insisted he should take. He was glad for Mrs Josser’s sake that they’d come away: she needed a holiday. As for himself, he could perfectly well have afforded to do without one. And he couldn’t forget it was costing him five guineas a week – for the two of them, of course. Five guineas was a lot of money. And it would be ten guineas by the time the fortnight was over. That meant that he’d have just £492 left – and he’d always prided himself on being over the £500 mark.

  A stirring beside him told him that Mrs Josser was waking. She always gave a series of little shudders almost as though someone were shaking her and then finally a bigger one as she actually woke up.