They evidently hadn’t wasted any time over Percy.
2
Mr Josser himself was at the Elephant and Castle when he learnt the news. It was about 4.30 when he bought the LATE NIGHT EXTRAS from the man at the corner. And he stood there on the kerb‐side searching through them. Any one looking at him would have thought that he was a racing‐man with a big bet on, his hands were trembling so. And from the way he tilted his hat back and wiped his forehead when he had found what he was looking for, it was equally obvious that his horse had lost. He didn’t move away at once. He just folded up the papers and stood there with them all crumpled under one arm, looking out across the traffic. When he did move away, it was to go straight back to Dulcimer Street.
This, in itself, was a breach of duty. By rights, he ought to have gone back to 23a Tankerville Road, and Flat D, Pewman’s Rents, to see if there was anyone in this time. But he didn’t. Instead, he opened the two rent‐books and, in the best writing that he could manage in a moving bus, he wrote: ‘Out, despite repeated applications,’ and signed his initials.
It was dishonest, of course. Downright dishonest. In the language of rent‐collecting two visits don’t amount to ‘repeated applications.’ But he was glad that he had done what he had. Because things were going pretty badly in Dulcimer Street when he got there. He wasn’t actually first with the news. Connie had beaten him to it again. By the time Mr Josser had arrived, the full impact of the disaster had been received. But it was left to him to put matters right. Every one looked to him to do something.
And the trouble here was not that Mr Josser was unwilling but simply that he hadn’t got the least idea what to do. So far as he could see, things had gone rather a long way for him to try to intervene. And what made it all so peculiarly difficult was that it was not Mrs Boon, but his own wife, who kept goading him.
‘Well, what are you going to do, Fred?’ she demanded. ‘We can’t just sit here doing nothing.’
‘I know, I know,’ he answered. ‘I’m thinking.’
Mrs Josser drew in her lips.
‘It’s doing we want, not thinking,’ she told him.
‘All right,’ he answered, miserably. ‘Give me time to get my breath.’
He felt rather hurt. Right up to the moment of arrival, it had seemed that merely his presence there would do something to comfort and reassure. And apparently it wasn’t so. In inaction, the very sight of him was clearly maddening. And what made it worse was that he was supposed to be at the South London Parliament at 8.15. There was a question about Spain which involved His Majesty’s Government pretty seriously, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that he cared to trust to his parliamentary secretary. But, of course, he wouldn’t be able to go now. And what was more he wouldn’t even be able to say that he ought to be there. Merely to refer to the South London Parliament at this moment would have been another of those things that make men despised by women.
And there were not just two women: there were three. For Connie was there as well. She was not actually saying much at the moment because she had constituted herself a kind of sick‐nurse attendant to Mrs Boon and had sunk herself in the part. Everything that she did was in character. She spent her time giving little nudges at the cushion behind Mrs Boon’s head and stroking the poor woman’s hand whenever she got an opportunity. Outside night‐club hours, the pair – despite one or two pretty terse hints from Mrs Josser – were practically indivisible.
But Mrs Boon herself maintained an air of placidness and detachment. Of stupor almost. A damp‐looking handkerchief in her lap was all that there was to reveal the desperate present in which she was living. And when Mrs Josser for the third time abruptly demanded if Mr Josser had thought of anything yet, it was Mrs Boon who protected him.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I shall be better in the morning. Then I’ll be able to do something. I know I shall be better in the morning.’
She didn’t say what it was that she proposed to do. And every one had the good taste to make things not any worse by asking. Finally, Mrs Josser managed to persuade Mrs Boon to go upstairs to bed. And she even offered to sit with her. But in Mrs Boon’s present state there was no need for it. The stupor, the merciful anæsthetising stupor, was still on her, and she didn’t mind being left. Preferred to be left, in fact. She wanted to pray, she said.
When she returned, Mrs Josser found Mr Josser just as she had left him. He hadn’t even attempted to put the chairs straight or start to wash‐up. He was just sitting forward in his chair, mooning.
Mrs Josser let herself down wearily into the chair opposite to him.
Now that she and Mr Josser were alone together they had reached the next stage in the tragedy. There was no room for dissimulation any longer.
‘There isn’t really anything that we can do, is there?’ she asked.
Mr Josser shook his head.
‘Not a thing,’ he answered. ‘Not a blinking thing.’
‘I was afraid there wasn’t,’ she said. ‘But it seemed kinder to let her think there might be.’
3
They were in bed, really in bed with the sheets pulled up to their chins, when Uncle Henry arrived. The impetuous peal at the bell told them right away whom it was. But, even so, Mr Josser prayed that it wasn’t. Getting back into his trousers he went through into the living‐room and peered out of the window into the dark street. There in the dim light of the half‐moon he saw the shape of a bicycle up against the kerb. And it was Uncle Henry’s bicycle all right: there was a bracket at the back for a trailer.
‘Coming here at this time of night,’ Mr Josser grumbled to himself as he descended the stairs in the darkness. ‘It’s disgraceful.’
The hope – only a half‐hope admittedly – occurred to him that perhaps Uncle Henry had only come to deliver something. A message, possibly. Perhaps, after a word on the doorstep, he would go away again.
But whatever it was, it was urgent. By the time Mr Josser got there, Uncle Henry had started ringing again. And ringing vigorously. The bell wires were scraping and flapping against the plaster as Mr Josser passed them.
‘Sshh!’ he said as soon as he had managed to slide back the heavy bolt. ‘You’ll wake every one up.’
But Uncle Henry was in no mood to be trifled with.
‘It’d do this country good to be woken up,’ he said. ‘It’s what it needs.’
He stepped across the mat as he spoke, and Mr Josser’s hopes of a fleeting message vanished. Uncle Henry passed on up the stairs, stumbling heavily as he mounted.
‘We… we were all in bed,’ Mr Josser told him.
Uncle Henry seemed surprised.
‘In bed,’ he repeated. ‘To‐night.’
‘Well, why not?’ Mr Josser demanded. ‘It’s nearly midnight, isn’t it?’
Uncle Henry did not reply immediately. He had walked into something. He stood there rubbing his forehead. But by the time Mr Josser had struck a match and lit the gas, Uncle Henry had recovered. He had reached the door of the living‐room by now.
‘Do you realise how much time we’ve got?’ he asked. ‘Do you realise that even now it may be too late to prevent it?’
‘Prevent what?’ he asked.
‘Murder,’ Uncle Henry answered slowly. ‘Judicial murder.’
‘You mean about Percy?’ Mr Josser asked.
He was surprised. Because, so far, Uncle Henry hadn’t shown any interest in Percy’s trial. He’d been too busy organising protest meetings about something else – the treatment of conscientious objectors, Mr Josser thought it was.
‘I mean a lot of things,’ Uncle Henry answered.
He took two paces forward, and glared at Mr Josser. These sudden ferocious advances of Uncle Henry’s were one of the most alarming and least predictable things about him. At one moment he was over on the other side of the room and at the next he was right on top of you, glaring. Glaring, that is, with one eye while the other roved moodily, and with no apparent interest, in space.
‘This isn’t justice,’ he said finally. ‘It’s class vengeance. Remember what Marx said.’
Mr Josser didn’t remember. But he nodded his head just the same. He could tell from his manner that Uncle Henry was preparing to stop, and he didn’t want to prolong it.
‘Suppose that Percy was the scion of some noble family,’ Uncle Henry continued, ‘would he be where he is now?’
Mr Josser considered the point.
‘It all depends on what he’d done,’ he said at last.
‘It depends on nothing of the kind,’ Uncle Henry contradicted him. ‘It depends on whether he could have bribed the judges.’
‘You couldn’t have bribed this one,’ Mr Josser said feelingly.
‘You could – by class‐influence,’ Uncle Henry retorted. He paused. ‘The rulers have got to show their power sometime otherwise they would cease to rule. They have to make an example of someone. That’s what Percy is: an example.’
‘But if he did kill her…’ Mr Josser began quietly.
It was extraordinary how, talking to Uncle Henry, Mr Josser found himself compelled to take the other side.
But Uncle Henry interrupted him.
‘Were you there?’ he asked. ‘Did you see him kill her?’
‘No,’ Mr Josser admitted.
‘Neither did the judge,’ observed Uncle Henry significantly. ‘Nor the jury. But they found him guilty, didn’t they?’
‘They were only going on the evidence,’ Mr Josser said soothingly. ‘And where did the evidence come from?’ Uncle Henry demanded. ‘The police! And were they there?’
‘It’s very difficult to be certain in a case like this,’ Mr Josser admitted soothingly.
But Uncle Henry was in no mood for soothing.
‘Not if you understand class‐structure, it isn’t,’ Uncle Henry told him. ‘Not if you’ve read Engels.’
Mr Josser gave a deep sigh. He was wearing only his pyjama jacket and his trousers and, at this time of night, it was chilly. Also, it was clearly one of Uncle Henry’s bad spells. He had apparently come along at five‐past twelve just to give Mr Josser another lesson on class‐warfare.
But here Mr Josser was wrong. Uncle Henry rallied suddenly. ‘We’re wasting our time,’ he said. ‘If we let Percy die we shall have his blood on our hands the same as the judge has.’
‘I did all I could,’ Mr Josser replied, and left it at that. Remembering his two hundred pounds, he found this new attack on him unnecessarily hurtful.
‘But not all you’re going to do,’ Uncle Henry continued. ‘Your work begins to‐morrow morning. At dawn.’
‘What sort of work?’
‘We’re going to rescue him!’
Then Mr Josser became really alarmed. Alarmed for himself. And alarmed for Uncle Henry. The worst, the very worst, had happened. Uncle Henry’s madness had developed, and the man was now raving. Mr Josser saw him up a ladder at Wandsworth, tearing away at the bars with a hack‐saw. But he did his best to seem completely calm.
‘How do we set about it?’ he asked.
‘In this street,’ Uncle Henry answered. ‘Both sides of it. And then the street next to it. And the street next to that. Until we’ve got the whole of London on our side.’
‘You… you mean start a revolution?’ Mr Josser asked.
He deliberately kept his voice low and unconcerned. After all, he’d foreseen an attack like this for a long time.
Uncle Henry smiled and showed his teeth.
‘Not yet,’ he answered. ‘Not till the hour’s ripe. Not till the fruit is falling. We won’t overthrow our rulers this time. We’ll petition them.’
Mr Josser drew a deep breath of relief.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A petition.’
‘We will petition His Most Gracious Majesty,’ Uncle Henry went on, ‘through his servant the Home Secretary. We will present him with thousands and tens of thousands of signatures. And you will collect them.’
‘Me?’
‘Certainly, I’ve got my business to run.’
‘But do you think it’ll do any good?’
Uncle Henry looked at him pityingly. So pityingly that Mr Josser felt uncomfortable.
‘But do you?’ he persisted.
‘Would you sit easy on your throne if your subjects were rising all round you demanding mercy?’ Uncle Henry inquired ominously. ‘Would you risk your crown for a life?’
‘No, I suppose not, if you put it that way,’ Mr Josser conceded. ‘But do you think enough people will sign?’
‘They will if you make them,’ Uncle Henry told him. ‘Three weeks to go – that’s all there is. Three weeks to go – and every house in London to be visited.
Uncle Henry had to stop there, because Mrs Josser came in and asked them both what they were thinking about, talking at the tops of their voices when Mrs Boon just up above needed every scrap of sleep she could snatch hold of.
It was just like two men, she added.
4
In front of the large desk, with the Führer’s portrait staring down at him, a young man is standing. He is bolt upright at attention, with each thumb pressed in against the seam of his trousers. And he appears scarcely to be breathing. Even so, he doesn’t cut a very military figure. He is too short. And round‐faced. And plump. No matter how much he braces his shoulders, he still has somewhat the look of a nursery teddy‐bear. The man behind the desk is a colonel‐general. He is lean and grey. And, while he is speaking he keeps his hands clasped round a long ebony ruler. He is very much the high officer. While it is in his hands, the ebony ruler seems to become a baton.
Lean and grey and thorough. He has been interviewing the young man for three‐quarters of an hour already. And still he has not quite finished with him.
‘Are you in love with any one?’ he asks suddenly.
The young man blushes and shakes his head.
‘With no one, mein General,’ he replies.
‘Have you a mistress?’
The young man blushes again. He is almost too much ashamed to answer. He feels so immature somehow, so unworthy of his superior’s confidence.
‘There is no one,’ he confesses.
The colonel‐general leans forward across the desk and points at him with the ruler.
‘Then you will not mind if you never come back?’
This time there is no hesitation, no embarrassment.
‘I am prepared,’ he answered. ‘Heil Hitler.’
As he says it, his right hand shoots upwards.
‘Heil Hitler,’ the colonel‐general says after him, raising his own right hand above the table top. Then he gets up. It is obvious that the interview is practically at an end.
‘You will say nothing about our conversation,’ he reminds the young man. ‘You will not even mention to your family that you’ve been here. You will go home and continue practising your English studies. Particularly your study of English newspapers. And you will wait quietly until you are called for. The final course of technical instruction is most intensive. It can be learned in six weeks.’
He comes round to the front of the desk and places his hand on the young man’s shoulder, a colonel‐general’s hand on Otto Hapfel’s shoulder.
‘You are fortunate,’ he says with a smile. ‘In spring England can be very beautiful. It is a flower garden. The Vale of Evesham is famous and much photographed. So also are parts of Kent and the cottage gardens of Devonshire. At Kew again there are many Oriental plants with much blossom.’
Chapter LXII
1
It was the third day of the petition. And with every hour it was gathering momentum.
Admittedly, the first day had been disappointing. Decidedly disappointing. Mr Josser had suffered the indignity of having three‐quarters of the front doors in Dulcimer Street closed in his face before he had been able even to explain what he had come about. The trouble was that every one imagined that he was trying to sell something. Either that, or emergency billeting. Or a g
as‐mask check. Or evacuation particulars.
And when he did manage to establish his real purpose there was the new difficulty that no housewife apparently cared to sign anything until she had spoken to her husband – which meant calling again after seven. By tea‐time on the evening of that first day when Mr Josser returned to No. 10 he had exactly 23 names on his scroll of paper. And he was tired – so alarmingly tired – that Mrs Josser advised him to chuck up the whole thing.
But that was reckoning without Uncle Henry. And things were different when he took over. He arrived as soon after he had closed his shop as the green bicycle could get him there. And he found fault with everything – the hole‐and‐corner way the campaign was being conducted, the absence of organisation, the unimpressive appearance of the scroll of paper itself, Mr Josser’s own half‐hearted approaches.
‘Another day lost,’ he complained. ‘And only twenty‐three signatures to show for it. Not enough to save a cat. What we want is 23 million. Something that’ll rock the government.’
Mrs Josser had not said very much so far: she had simply been listening, tight‐lipped, while Uncle Henry had been speaking. But she wasn’t going to have any one – even Uncle Henry – criticising her husband. She intervened suddenly.
‘Well, it isn’t going to be Fred who rocks it,’ she said. ‘He’s done enough already.’
‘Do you call 23 signatures enough?’ Uncle Henry demanded.
‘Yes, I do, so far as Fred’s concerned,’ Mrs Josser answered. ‘If you want any more you must get ’em yourself. It was your idea.’
Uncle Henry did not answer immediately. He was thinking. Not thinking about the petition, but about how rude he could be to his sister without ruining everything. In his own mind he was now calling her the most offensive thing he knew – a petty bourgeois capitalist rentier. Also a crypto‐Fascist. But these were fighting words, and he dared not utter them. He had set his heart on this petition, and he had to be careful.
London Belongs to Me Page 62
