London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  And the Jossers?

  They were a good deal nearer sleep than either Mrs Vizzard or Mr Squales. They were lying, as they had lain every night for more than thirty years, back to back with just the middle of their spines touching. It was an attitude that was at once comfortable, intimate, and in winter – with a little more pressure – distinctly warming.

  Mrs Josser herself was very nearly asleep. The gates were fast closing, and her thoughts no longer belonged entirely to her. ‘I ought to get him away before he’s too much mixed up in it. I hope he finds that cottage,’ she was telling herself. ‘Poor Clarice. I’m sorry for her. She never deserved it. She’ll have to stay with us when it’s all over.’ Only a chink of light filtered in through the gates by now. In the dim obscurity of the interior the figure of Percy had been lost somewhere in the shadows, and the whole grim business had become exclusively Mrs Boon’s affair. It wasn’t Percy’s murder any longer. ‘Poor Clarice,’ she repeated once or twice more. Then she fell asleep.

  Mr Josser was still half awake. A little earlier, he’d given up hope of ever getting to sleep at all. During the hour in which he had lain there he had gone over the whole of young Percy’s case‐history. And he saw it all quite clearly – his latenesses, his extravagance, his unreliability, his vanity. ‘I suppose in a way it’s my fault,’ he told himself. ‘I ought to have done more for the boy. What young Percy needed was a father…’

  If you could have seen No. 10 Dulcimer Street in cross‐section, opened clean through the middle like a doll’s house, you would have realised how narrowly separated in space the various family existences fulfilled themselves. Mrs Boon, for instance, was within fifteen feet of the Jossers at that very moment. But utterly cut off. When she had closed her own door the separation was complete. At that moment, she was probably the loneliest woman in London. Lonely, but surrounded. And it was because she was surrounded that she had stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth so that other people shouldn’t hear her crying ‘…now and at the hour of our death,’ were the words she had got to.

  There was someone else from Dulcimer Street who was nearly asleep. And that was Connie. Only she shouldn’t have been nearly asleep: she was on duty. But it’s very easy, when the cloak‐room is empty, and no one wants to be pinned up behind because a shoulder strap has gone, and there isn’t even any one in the lavatory, just to nod for a few seconds. Connie was nodding now and her thoughts were not noticeably different from those she’d been having while she was still properly awake. ‘Business Miss, indeed,’ she was saying to herself. ‘Business Mischief. I’d like to know what she’d been up to. It isn’t just gone under the arms; it’s rotten. Not that they’d hang anyone of his age. Not actually hang him. Twenty years more likely. He’ll come out looking like Rip Van Winkle. I ought to have taken it over to the light before I bought it. You can pull the stuff apart with your fingers. Connie, you fool, you’ve been sold a pup. That seven and six has gone straight up the spout. Not that they’d actually hang him.’

  And Mr Puddy, don’t forget Mr Puddy. He was wide awake and on the job. Well, not exactly on the job, perhaps, but wide awake all the same. As a matter of fact he was taking a few minutes off in which to snatch a meal. Not a sumptuous meal, admittedly, but something to help to keep him going. A tin of Baked Beans, in fact. And he was sitting hungrily watching them as they came to the boil in a tin saucepan on the gas ring in the caretaker’s little office. They wouldn’t be long now: the printed band had already detached itself from the tin and was swirling round in the water.

  ‘There’s nothing like a few Heinzes if you just want a snack,’ he said half aloud – talking to himself had become a habit in these long night‐watches. ‘They’re quick and they’re tasty.’ He paused. ‘And if he dud it,’ he told himself, ‘if he dud it, I say, he ought to bay the benalty. You can’t go about burdering people.’

  But nothing about Percy? He’s a bit of Dulcimer Street, isn’t he? He’s a Number Tenner. Hasn’t he got the right to any views on his own position?

  Yes, he has. But they’re shaky views. Decidedly shaky. He’s sitting up in the trestle thing that they call a bed and he’s arguing it all out with himself. They’ve had him up in Court twice already. Once for stealing a car. And once for murdering a blonde. It’s enough to worry anyone.

  ‘I wonder if I’ll be O.K.?’ he’s thinking. ‘Mr Barks said not to worry. And he’s smart. He knows the ropes. I think he likes me. I’m his big break now, I’m headlines.’ He paused. ‘It’s me it’s not so good for. I’m the one to take the rap.’ His stomach turned over inside him at the thought. ‘I wonder if I’ll be O.K.?’ he asked himself again.

  It is about the hundredth time that he’s asked himself that question. And each time the answer seems farther away and more dubious than before.

  ‘I wonder if I’ll be O.K.?’

  Chapter XXXVIII

  1

  A week had passed. A gnawing, insistent, sleep‐defying sort of week. And the strain of it proved too much for Mrs Boon. She collapsed under it.

  Nor was this really surprising. Refusing everything that Mrs Josser sent up for her she had simply shut herself in her room, fasting. In consequence, she grew weaker and weaker. And then, just when she had realised that she must eat something if she meant to keep going – when she was actually on her way to the shops in fact – she fainted.

  There is after all nothing very exceptional in the simple act of fainting. It is something that has happened to most women and they have not been noticeably any the worse for it. And nothing especially disastrous occurred in the act itself. Even the situation of the faint was fortunate – just outside Littell’s, the chemist’s, in the Walworth Road. Two men, a postman and a van‐driver – strong, unemotional fellows both of them – lifted her up with ease and carried her into the front shop. Mr Littell himself came forward, mixed a dose of sal volatile, and waved a bottle of smelling‐salts under the unconscious woman’s nose, while the two men, the postman and the van‐driver, stood around wearing the strained, slightly self‐conscious expression of rescuers.

  But when the smelling‐salts had no effect, and when Mr Littell, supporting Mrs Boon’s head in the crook of his arm found that he couldn’t force any of the sal volatile down her throat, he surrendered his charge to higher authority. Laying her down flat, he informed his two hearers that he was going to phone up for an ambulance. To cover up his failure he uttered the single word ‘Heart,’ indicating on his own body the position of the affected organ as he did so. He said the word impressively as though to indicate that it was no inadequacy on his part, but merely professional etiquette that was involved.

  Because there was clearly nothing else that they could do – indeed they hadn’t been doing anything for the last five minutes – the postman and the van‐driver went off on their individual jobs. And a policeman turned up and took over from them. But it was different for the ordinary passers‐by who had only just noticed what was happening. They were naturally fascinated by the presence of an elderly woman in black lying stretched out flat in a small lock‐up shop. A crowd formed itself around the doorway. And this inevitably shut off the newcomers. In consequence rumour began to spread among those who arrived late. The woman was mortally injured. She was dying. She was dead already…

  There was one person in particular who was anxious to see anything that was going, and this was a small woman in a very tight blue dress with a design in sequins all down the front. She had been almost at the other end of the Walworth Road when Mrs Boon had her attack, but her sixth sense, or whatever it was that told her where to find excitement, had brought her along just in time. She wasn’t engaged on any particular business; just cruising, as she called it. And when she got to the doorway things looked pretty hopeless. There were a dozen spectators already, and they none of them seemed to have seen enough. Even saying that she had called round for a prescription that was being made up for her little girl had no effect on them: they were a stubborn, obstinate l
ot. And small as she was she couldn’t ferret her way in because the doorway was too narrow.

  ‘Silly lot of rubbernecks,’ she thought to herself contemptuously, as she stood there watching them. ‘Proper pack of nosey‐parkers. It probably isn’t anything anyway.’

  The sound of the ambulance bell urged her on, however. Evidently it was something, and she wasn’t going to get so much as a peep at it. Then, as the big white Talbot drew up smoothly at the curb and the two attendants and a policeman jumped down, she had an idea. It was something that she had worked before in similar circumstances. And it worked again this time. When the two attendants got out their stretcher and walked importantly through the middle of the crowd, Connie followed them closely like a kind of plain‐clothes nurse. She was inside the shop as easy as kiss your hand.

  And, once inside, there was the surprise of her life waiting for her. At first she stood back politely near the doorway knowing that in a crowd policemen quite often have a habit of kicking out backwards just like a horse. But as one of the attendants lifted the victim’s head Connie caught sight of her face. She shot forward.

  ‘Just in time,’ she exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t get here sooner.’

  In the result, she was accepted. And more than accepted. She went off victoriously in the ambulance, climbing up the little collapsible ladder at the back like a Lady Mayoress. She had always liked Mrs Boon, especially since IT had happened, and she was glad that she was there in case there was any little thing that she could do for her. But so long as Mrs Boon’s coma lasted there was nothing. So she made herself pleasant to the policeman who had got in with her. Dropping her voice in case Mrs Boon should come round again while she was still speaking, she touched him on the shoulder.

  ‘Name of Percy Boon, car bandit murderer, convey anything to you, inspector?’ she asked. ‘Because that’s his old mum you’ve got there.’

  2

  They were ever so nice to Mrs Boon in the infirmary; couldn’t have been nicer, in fact. Everything was of the best – the food, the service, the medical attention. There was even a pair of headphones over the bed in case she wanted a bit of music or a sports commentary. But, for the present at any rate, all that she seemed to want was just to be left alone. She still cried a lot.

  When visiting day came round, Mrs Josser managed to get the Sister to herself for a moment. The Sister was inclined to be cagey at first. But Mrs Josser persisted, and finally she got it out of her. It was just as she had expected – a stroke – and it was going to be a Long Job. All that Mrs Boon could do, the Sister explained, was to lie there taking things easily and not worry. That was why it was so important that the things they talked about when they came to see her should be bright and cheerful.

  ‘Keep her spirits up,’ the Sister said firmly. ‘It’s the little things that count. Just let her feel that everything is going pleasantly – here and at home.’

  The ignorance of the Sister’s remarks amazed Mrs Josser. Either the Sister was a very stupid woman, or else Connie had somehow or other overlooked her. The explanation turned out to be quite simple: the Sister was only a temporary relief while the regular was away. The regular knew all about Mrs Boon’s secret, and she appreciated it. In nearly twelve years nursing Mrs Boon was the first interesting patient that she had ever had.

  In point of fact, Mrs Boon didn’t give Mrs Josser very much opportunity of talking. She merely lay there with her eyes closed, occasionally reaching up for the handkerchief that was under the corner of her pillow. Only once did she emerge from her lethargy – after her first grateful smile to Mrs Josser for having come at all – and that was to beckon her over and whisper in her ear.

  ‘Ask Fred to keep an eye on Percy,’ she said. ‘He can see him any Thursday. I’m afraid he may be missing me.’

  ‘We’ll look after him. Don’t you worry,’ Mrs Josser promised.

  She drew in her lips, however, as she said it. She was not at all anxious that Mr Josser should get himself drawn any deeper into Percy’s affairs.

  What was more, it would be the first time that any member of her family had ever been inside a prison, even on a visitor’s day.

  Chapter XXXIX

  1

  But Mrs Josser couldn’t be expected to keep her mind on Percy. Not entirely, that is. Because Doris was already taking up a large part of it. Without asking anybody’s advice or permission – behaving, in fact, exactly as Mrs Josser herself had behaved some thirty years previously – she had become engaged. In other words, within a fortnight of having her safely back home after the fiasco of the Hampstead flat of hers, they were going to lose her again.

  Like all important things, it had seemed sudden. Less than a week ago – last Tuesday to be exact – Doris had announced what was going to happen. And to‐day – the day on which Mr Josser was supposed to be seeing Percy – the Jossers were to meet Bill’s people. It promised to be an over‐crowded sort of day – prison in the afternoon and an engagement party in the evening.

  Because of the engagement party Mrs Josser was on edge. She recognised the occasion for what it was – a full tribal evening; and she steeled herself. It was to be their first opportunity of talking over rival taboos and inquiring – not openly, of course, but discreetly and by innuendo – into the strength of the young man and the dowry of the maiden. The Trocadero12 at seven sharp had been chosen for the ritual ceremony.

  Mr Josser wasn’t particularly looking forward to it either. He knew Bill and that seemed to him enough. But Mrs Josser, who was looking forward to it even less, insisted. It was just one of those things that were required. Even if one of the Jossers didn’t know the first steps in the marriage dance, there was another tribe, her tribe, the Knockells, that did.

  What was worrying her was the question of clothes. She didn’t know what to wear. And she was afraid that Mrs Davenport would know only too well, and wear it. In the result, her plans alternated between something black and no hat, and her blue costume with her felt hat turned up in front. She wished now that she’d been in the habit of dropping into the Trocadero more often so that she could have seen what other people habitually wore at seven sharp.

  The dilemma had been facing her for nearly forty‐eight hours. But it was only as the day itself came round, that she grew really worried. On the very morning when she should have been looking forward to a pleasant evening in town with some nice new friends, and a bottle of wine on the table and a foreign‐looking waiter asking her if she’d take her coffee black or with cream, she woke up feeling nervy and depressed. And, by breakfast, the anxiety had increased to a fever.

  Only last night, she had been certain that of course her blue costume was all right – she had even pressed it carefully with a damp cloth in readiness. But in the harsh early light she saw things differently. She owed it to Doris, she told herself, to wear something different. A fine tribal impression it would make if Mrs Davenport and her brave turned up all covered in feathers and wampum, and she and Mr Josser were only in their second‐best blanket.

  The real trouble, however, was that she hadn’t got a best dress. What with Mr Josser’s illness and one thing and another it must have been… good gracious, it was nearly five years since she’d bought herself a dress. There had been blouses, of course; and an odd skirt or two. But nothing, absolutely nothing, which she would even have cared to catch sight of in one of the Trocadero mirrors.

  During breakfast, she finally argued herself into a fierce state of justification. She had left it far too long, far too long she told herself. It was positively ridiculous having nothing newer than 1935. She was so much preoccupied with the matter that Mr Josser noticed it, and looked across at her.

  ‘Everything all right, Mother?’ he asked.

  The question annoyed Mrs Josser: she was on the verge of deciding, and this wasn’t a moment when she wanted to be interrupted. Moreover, turning to him suddenly in this way she couldn’t help noticing that quite a lot was wrong with him, too.

  ‘Yo
u’ve got to go and get yourself a haircut, that’s what you’ve got to do,’ she told him.

  Mr Josser got up and examined himself in the mirror.

  ‘I’ve known it longer,’ he said.

  ‘Well, just you know it shorter,’ Mrs Josser told him tartly. ‘You’re not coming out with me looking like that.’

  She had got up and began clearing away as she said it. Mr Josser would have liked to sit there longer, with the breakfast things still on the table, and the possibility of another cup of tea if he felt like it. But he recognised that this was evidently not one of those mornings. Rather reluctantly, he put his cup on to the tray that Mrs Josser was loading, and saw it whisked away before his eyes.

  A note of extreme urgency was now discernible in all Mrs Josser’s actions. No sooner had she cleared away than she came back, with an apron tied round her, and went about putting the room to right. Mr Josser eyed her silently for a few moments and then went through into the bedroom because he was so obviously in the way in the other room. But at once Mrs Josser finished what she was doing and shot into the bedroom after him. Displaced from there Mr Josser went into the kitchen and started to do a little desultory washing‐up. Within five minutes Mrs Josser was beside him, snatching things out of his hands and drying them. Then, while the last cup was still swinging to rest on its hook in the dresser, she announced that she was going out. She didn’t say where or for how long – merely that if she weren’t back by lunch‐time, Mr Josser was to give himself a meal, and not wait for her. She added that he was also to have a haircut and that, above all things, he was not to get back late from seeing Percy.