London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  It was like a small white moth resting there on his upper lip.

  Chapter XL

  As it turned out, they were early; very early. It was only about twenty minutes to seven when they arrived at the Trocadero. Mr Josser was for killing time by going round the block once or twice. But Mrs Josser insisted on going straight in. It was her shoes that were troubling her again.

  There were plenty of people about, of course. There were at least a dozen other diners who had turned up round about half‐past six for seven. And because all the others had ordered themselves a drink, Mr Josser did the same. When he asked Mrs Josser what she would have, however, the offer caught her at a disadvantage: she was unfamiliar with every one of the cocktails on the list in front of her. And, in the end, when Mr Josser decided to have a pink gin, Mrs Josser said that she would have one, too. Mr Josser’s familiarity with pink gin rather surprised her. It was a side to his character that she had not known before.

  But, in comparison with the change in his appearance, this new revelation was nothing. She still could not look at him without being surprised. It was like having a stranger, who in certain lights looked oddly like her husband, sitting there beside her. And he had a more than usually far‐away look in his eyes. That was because he kept on remembering about Percy. He just couldn’t help it.

  Mrs Josser, however, had more than Mr Josser to look at. She was doing what she described to herself as ‘keeping her eyes skinned’ for the Davenports. Some psychic sense told her that, though she had never seen them, she would recognise them at once. And, indeed, she recognised them several times in quick succession. There was a large man in black coat and striped trousers, very obviously a doctor, accompanied by several ropes of pearls with a thin pale lady inside them; there was a broad, ruddy‐faced countryman with a jolly, closely‐shingled woman in a rough tweed costume – just the sort of thing that the wife of a rural medical man might wear; there was a tall melancholy man in dark grey – clearly a specialist who made his living by keeping people off red meat and spirits – and a shrivelled little woman who might have been under the treatment for years. It was all very exciting and very disconcerting as the imaginary Davenports, one after another, passed before her.

  Then, when she was least expecting it, she saw something that made her blood run cold. Through the swing doors in front of her a woman came in wearing a new‐looking dark blue dress with a white ornament on the left shoulder. A man might have seen it and experienced no concern. Mr Josser did, in fact, glance at the woman and then glanced away again. But for Mrs Josser it was disaster. It ruined everything. She felt as though, instead of being nicely dressed for the evening, she were in a kind of three‐guinea uniform. The price ticket might still have been sticking to her. The other dress was identical.

  Mrs Josser was still hoping that the woman would eventually be given a seat on the far side of the restaurant when Bill and Doris came in. They had picked each other up somewhere on the way, and they were wearing the idiotically happy expression that they habitually wore when they were together. It might have been some private unexplainable joke that they were sharing. Bill came straight over to Mrs Josser and kissed her. They were still in the early stages of kissing. And they were awkward about it. Mrs Josser put her cheek up as though she were avoiding him. Then Doris kissed her father, and the evening was ready to begin.

  ‘We’d better order a drink,’ Bill said. ‘I bet my people’ll be late.’

  ‘Not for me, thank you,’ Mrs Josser said firmly. ‘I’ve just had one. Fred can have another if he likes.’

  But Bill wouldn’t listen to her. He ordered White Ladies all round. And because they had actually been paid for before Mrs Josser realised what was happening, of course she had to drink hers. She liked it rather better than the pink gin.

  She was still sipping it when the identical dress entered the lounge again. Mrs Josser was feeling better after the White Lady. She merely averted her eyes, and waited for the woman to go away. But the woman didn’t go away. She stood surveying the circle of faces and then came straight towards them.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Billy,’ she said. ‘I told Father I was sure we were waiting in the wrong place. He’s through there by the door.’

  As soon as he had introduced his mother to everybody – he noticed, without having any idea why, that she seemed to be staring rather hard at Mrs Josser – he went off in search of his father. He returned a moment later with a diminutive white‐haired man in a neat blue suit, with a Masonic emblem dangling from his watch‐chain. The newcomer had evidently spruced himself up specially for the occasion. His hair, recently cut very short, was brushed out flat on to his head.

  There was no difficulty about conversation at first because they all had to admire Doris’ ring. It was a small single diamond set in a thin band of platinum, and the novelty of the design quite overcame them. They passed Doris’ hand round and round the table to re‐examine it. Then, when Bill had ordered two more White Ladies for his people, and Mrs Davenport had nibbled a few of the salted almonds in the little dish in front of them, they all passed through into the restaurant.

  The conversation by now was not so easy. They couldn’t go on talking about Doris’ ring for ever, and apparently there was nothing else that even mildly interested them. Mrs Davenport was a quiet faded woman who left most of her sentences unfinished, and Dr Davenport had a habit of referring everything to her in a way that made other people superfluous. As soon as they were seated, he beamed across at his wife – the Jossers could see now that he was one of the beaming kind – and addressed her.

  ‘We don’t often dine out nowadays, do we, Mother?’ he said.

  Mrs Davenport shook her head.

  ‘No, dear, it must be nearly…’

  ‘I expect you’re used to it,’ Dr Davenport went on, turning the beam in Mrs Josser’s direction. ‘That’s because you live in London. We’re just country mice, aren’t we, Mother?’

  The waiter, like the younger son of an Italian count, hung over them and they ordered what he told them to. Then the wine‐waiter, like the count himself, came along and Dr Davenport got out his glasses. He was evidently a man who understood the subject because he went right through the wine list from the champagnes on the first page, through the hocks and moselles, to the clarets and burgundies, and only looked up when he came to the liqueurs at the back. But the result, after all that, was disappointing.

  ‘Well, what would everybody like?’ he asked, as though they’d all been reading the list over his shoulder while he was holding it.

  When nobody spoke, Dr Davenport passed the wine‐list over to Mr Josser.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You take it. I expect it’s more in your line than mine. We aren’t great wine drinkers, are we, Mother?’

  They took so long in deciding that the wine‐waiter went away and came back again. But Mr Josser hadn’t been wasting his time. He’d been thinking busily. And he had cause to: he’d just remembered that he’d only got two pounds on him, and it hadn’t definitely been decided who was going to pay for the dinner. It had sounded like Dr Davenport’s party in the invitation. But if Mr Josser started ordering things how was he to know that the waiter wouldn’t give him the bill at the end of it all?

  So he decided on Moselle to be on the safe side. Every one always liked Moselle and it was only eight and six a bottle. He pointed to it victoriously.

  ‘No. 86,’ said the wine‐waiter meaningly. ‘One bottle?’ Mr Josser nodded.

  ‘One bottle,’ he said.

  At the words Dr Davenport looked up sharply.

  ‘Better ask him to make it two,’ he said. ‘This is a celebration, remember.’

  Even though it was evidently meant nicely, Mr Josser didn’t altogether like the sound of what Dr Davenport had just said. It still left the question of payment in abeyance. From the way Bill’s father had put it, it might have been either a generous invitation, or a kind of nagging reminder not to stint people who’d come ha
lf‐way across England for their dinner. Mr Josser became frightened again.

  But Dr Davenport was happy enough. He’d taken charge of things with an easy professional heartiness. He was rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘we want to get to know our new friends, don’t we, Mother? And I expect they want to get to know us. Do you live right in the centre of town, Mrs Josser?’

  Mrs Josser drew in her lips.

  ‘Just a bus ride,’ she said. ‘Kennington.’

  ‘I used to know Kensington when I was a young man,’ Dr Davenport went on. ‘Had a friend there. Used to walk over to him.’

  ‘It isn’t Kensington. It’s Kennington,’ Mr Josser told him.

  Dr Davenport seemed surprised.

  ‘I could have sworn it was Kensington,’ he said. ‘I used to go there quite often. Through the Park, y’know. He’s a surgeon now.’

  ‘They’re different places,’ Mrs Davenport interrupted. ‘Kensington is over by Harrods and Kennington is… it’s the other place your friend used to…’

  But Dr Davenport was drinking up his soup hastily because the waiter was hanging round them again.

  ‘Well, it’s a small point, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Everybody can’t live in the same place. We’re all here together and that’s the great thing, isn’t it, Mother?’

  He leant over and patted Doris’ hand.

  ‘I’m sure we’re going to be great friends,’ he said. ‘Bill’s a very lucky man, I can see that.’

  There was a pause for a moment because it was really Bill’s turn to say something. But he couldn’t help because he was sulking. Ever since he and Doris had become engaged he’d been trying to avoid this dinner party, but his mother and father had insisted. At the moment he was just sitting there, eating gloomily.

  Then there was a movement from the other end of the table. Mrs Davenport was trying to say something. She was making those little signalling motions – slight raisings of the eyebrows and wordless lip movements – with which partners, long‐married, seem to address each other as though by some prearranged code. And as soon as Dr Daven‐port became aware of it he lost all that easy confidence that he had been displaying earlier. He began to dissemble, and instead of looking anybody in the face he talked down at the table cloth.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it’ll have to be some time. Can’t be at once, you know. No runaway marriage or anything like that. Bill isn’t even qualified, remember. Great mistake for a young man to tie himself down before he’s properly got going. May affect his whole career.’

  He paused for a moment, and Bill took hold of Doris’ hand under the table and squeezed it. But before Dr Davenport could say anything further, Mrs Josser had spoken for him.

  ‘We’re not pressing it,’ she said.

  Dr Davenport looked up. He had entirely misunderstood the remark, and thought that Mrs Josser was on his side and behaving very generously.

  ‘There you are, you see,’ he said. ‘We’re very pleased to have our Bill marry the young lady, aren’t we, Mother? But not just yet. That’s all it is – not just yet. Say in a year or two.’

  But Mrs Josser was far from satisfied.

  ‘How do we know what his prospects will be in a year or two?’ she asked.

  Dr Davenport was beaming again.

  ‘Well, they’ll be better than they are now, won’t they?’ he replied. ‘That’s as may be,’ said Mrs Josser. ‘But they mayn’t be good enough for our Doris.’

  ‘Oh, Mother, really!’ Doris had removed her hand from Bill’s and was facing Mrs Josser across the table.

  ‘Well, what have I said that I shouldn’t?’ Mrs Josser asked her.

  It was all turning out just as Bill had known it would. He’d warned Doris as they came what his father would say. He’d said it already by letter, and his mother had written the same things by the same post. He couldn’t let it go any further now.

  ‘It isn’t as bad as all that,’ he said. ‘Plenty of fellows get married as soon as they qualify. It’s all a question of what you’re going to do.’

  ‘You were going to do surgery,’ his father said firmly. ‘That’s another two years.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Doris said.

  For a moment it seemed as though the point had been settled. Dr Davenport even tried a faint, rather flickering beam on the company. But he was reckoning without Mrs Josser. As soon as his eye caught hers, the beam died out again.

  ‘And what’s going to happen at the end of two years, I’d like to know,’ she demanded. ‘He’ll only just be qualified even then.’

  ‘Bill’s a very clever doctor. He’s going to make a lot of money. He…’

  It was Mrs Davenport who had spoken. Her voice died away halfway through but, even so, it indicated a remarkable change of attitude on her part. From opposing the whole proposal she was now actually defending it. She appeared to be trying to sell her son in fact. Her duplicity shocked Dr Davenport profoundly. Everything that he had said had been what Mrs Davenport had told him to say. He felt suddenly isolated and betrayed.

  Altogether it was a very awkward moment, and Mr Josser did his best to make things easier.

  ‘He’s clever all right,’ he said. ‘When I had pleurisy he operated on me a treat…’

  But Mr Josser wasn’t allowed to get any further. Dr Davenport turned to Bill immediately.

  ‘You did what?’ he asked in amazement.

  ‘Only a paracentesis,’ Bill told him.

  ‘Only a paracentesis,’ Dr Davenport repeated.

  He was obviously shaken. ‘And what would you have done if anything had gone wrong, may I ask?’

  ‘Nothing did go wrong,’ Bill told him.

  ‘But suppose it had. Only suppose it had,’ Dr Davenport went on. ‘Where would you have been then?’

  ‘And where would my husband have been?’ Mrs Josser demanded. This time Dr Davenport ignored her. His professional sense was so deeply shocked that he could think of nothing but Bill’s crime.

  ‘You’d have gone to prison,’ he said. ‘That’s where you’d have gone.’

  Then Mrs Davenport joined the conversation.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done it, Bill,’ she said. ‘You ought to have remembered.’

  ‘Remembered what?’ Bill asked her.

  ‘Why, all the money your father’s been spending on you,’ she explained.

  Mrs Josser raised her head sharply.

  ‘Money…’ she began.

  But Mr Josser stopped her.

  ‘It was all my fault, really,’ he insisted. ‘He could see I was in pain and I… I… asked him to.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, I did,’ Doris interrupted.

  ‘It wasn’t either of you. I asked myself,’ Bill said emphatically. ‘He’d have been dead if I hadn’t.’

  ‘And you let him do it knowing he wasn’t qualified?’ Dr Davenport asked Mr Josser.

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ Bill replied.

  A thought flashed across Mrs Josser’s mind.

  ‘Did you know, Doris?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I knew.’

  ‘And you let your young man experiment on your own father?’

  Dr Davenport sat back for a moment and wiped his forehead. For the time being the centre of the storm had passed outside his own family. It was a matter for the Jossers now. And Mr Josser tried to save things. He gave a rather nervous little smile and pushed his plate away from him.

  ‘Well, I don’t see what the trouble is,’ he said. ‘It all turned out very nicely. I’m better and… and it gave Bill a bit of practice. It’s all over and done with now.’

  As he said it, the original Dr Davenport returned to the table. He was a man of peace himself, and he recognised just such another in Mr Josser. He began beaming more brightly than ever.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘No good crying over spilt milk. I’m sure Bill’s learnt his lesson. And no harm’s been done. Let’s all have another glass of wine.’ He pau
sed. ‘We don’t often come up to town for the evening, do we, Mother?’

  But in her present mood Mrs Davenport appeared to be quite capable of contradicting him. She seemed on the point of telling him that they were always coming up to town. She rose from the table and said rather shakily, ‘I’m just going to leave you all for a moment.’

  Mrs Josser rose simultaneously.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ she said.

  In a strange way the two women seemed to be on each other’s side now. It was two keen‐witted and far‐seeing women ranged against two stupid and easy‐going men.

  They left Bill and Doris out of their calculations altogether. And Bill and Doris left them out of theirs. As soon as Mrs Josser and Mrs Davenport had gone Bill got up and took Doris by the hand.

  ‘How about a bit of dancing?’ he asked.

  Then, when they had gone, too, Dr Davenport looked across at Mr Josser. They grinned rather sheepishly at each other.

  ‘What do you say to a cigar?’ Dr Davenport asked. ‘A cigar and a spot of brandy? It’s my little dinner, remember.’

  The party broke up affectionately on the pavement of Shaftesbury Avenue at 11.15. Mrs Josser and Mrs Davenport were bosom friends by then. And so were the two husbands. Between the four of them, they’d got it all fixed up. Bill and Doris could go on being engaged, of course – they saw clearly that there was no way of upsetting that – but there would be no more talk about getting married until Bill was a doctor.

  Anything else, it was agreed, wouldn’t really be fair to either of the two young people.

  Chapter XLI