London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  The tea did Mrs Josser good. After drinking it, a light perspiration broke out on her forehead. And, after she had furtively and politely wiped it away with her handkerchief, she felt better. It was her turn now to begin asking Mrs Marble questions. Was the cottage dry? How long Mrs Marble had lived there? What the water supply was like? When did she propose to leave? Was an Elsan easy if you weren’t used to one?

  Mr Josser did not say anything at all. He just sat back admiring his wife. She might have been buying cottages all her life. Mrs Marble was impressed, too. She asked again if Mrs Josser had ever lived in the country before.

  While the two women went upstairs, privately and mysteriously on their own, Mr Josser sauntered out into the garden. It wasn’t a large garden. There were bigger gardens in many of the suburbs. But after one look at it, Mr Josser decided that he’d never seen a nicer one. There were two fruit trees, and a well, and a kitchen plot and a bit of a lawn with a rustic seat at one end of it. When he came to the conservatory he saw why the cottage had been named after it. The conservatory was very nearly as large as the cottage. It had been put up in the best style with a length of ornamental metalwork running along the top of it, and there was a handle for winding up the windows at the sides. It was quite the most beautiful conservatory that Mr Josser had ever met.

  He had been in the garden for some time when Mrs Josser and Mrs Marble came out. Mr Josser looked up eagerly. He hoped that Mrs Josser liked the upstairs.

  But even if she did, Mrs Josser was being guarded.

  ‘We’ll write and let you know,’ was all she said.

  When they got as far as the gate a happy thought came to Mrs Marble.

  ‘If only we were on the phone we could phone up for a car,’ she called after them. ‘But I doubt if it would be any good. You ought to order it the day before really if you want to be sure of getting it.’

  They went round by the road because Mrs Marble had left them confused about the route across the fields. And Mrs Josser didn’t say very much.

  ‘How that poor woman manages I can’t imagine,’ was all that she remarked. ‘Nothing but oil to cook with and lost her husband at Easter. It was his idea the conservatory. They had it built for them.’

  ‘But what… what did you think of the cottage,’ Mr Josser asked, trying to keep the note of excitement out of his voice.

  ‘You didn’t go upstairs,’ Mrs Josser told him. ‘Or come down again. If you had, you’d know what breaking your neck meant.’

  It was after eleven when they got back to No. 10. And Mrs Josser was too tired by then to discuss anything further. Her attitude was one which suggested that she could not understand how any one who had been wafted by Destiny into a haven like Dulcimer Street could ever think of going to sea again.

  Chapter LXXIX

  1

  But don’t forget that some of the other occupants of No. 10 had cut themselves adrift already. And, if we want to keep them in sight, we shall have to follow.

  For instance, the doctor’s wife at Chelmsford is worried about the new housekeeper whom she has just engaged. Wouldn’t it have been better, she wonders, to have waited and seen if the London Registry Office were going to send someone after all? Not that anything would have come of it – she consoles herself with that thought. It’s really just like 1914 all over again. From the very moment war was declared all the good maids threw up their jobs and rushed off anywhere to make munitions or aeroplanes. And the salaries these workers get! Only that morning the doctor’s wife had read about girls of sixteen getting five and six pounds a week simply doing piecework – whatever piecework might be.

  It isn’t as though there is anything actually wrong with the new housekeeper. She isn’t as young or as strong as she might be; and she is rather slow in consequence. But she is careful, very careful, and conscientious. She isn’t a smasher. She doesn’t drink. And she doesn’t seem to want any time off. Nor is it the fact that she is a Roman Catholic that upsets the doctor’s wife – though naturally she would have preferred that the new housekeeper should have been Church of England like other people. No, it isn’t any of those things. It is simply that the doctor’s wife is afraid that the new housekeeper is perhaps a little mad.

  But the new housekeeper is too tired to notice her employer’s suspicion. All that she is concerned with is giving satisfaction. She was lucky to get the job at all in her state of health – she knows that. And even if the work is heavier than she had reckoned on – ‘working housekeeper’ was the expression the advertisement used – she tells herself that there are other people who are working harder. Above all, it is the money that counts. And thirty‐two and six a week and everything found is wonderful. The new housekeeper is secretive and has plans of her own. So long as she can hold the job, she reckons that she will be able to save sixty‐five pounds a year easily.

  At the moment she is standing at the window of her bedroom looking towards the city. She spends a lot of time alone in her room and sometimes she is heard talking to herself. It is partly this that makes the doctor’s wife think the she must be mad.

  But she isn’t. Not a bit of it. The cause of all the trouble is merely that the person she is speaking to, the only person she cares about, isn’t there. That is why morning, afternoon and evening – and sometimes at night as well – she peers out across the garden in the direction of the missing one.

  ‘Don’t worry, Percy boy,’ she tells him. ‘Mother’s here. She’s watching. Everything’s going to be all right, Percy. Just try to forget what’s happened, and remember to say your prayers. Be a good boy, Percy, that’s the main thing. And don’t fret yourself about money. There’ll be some more ready for you by the time you want it. Mother’s near you. She’ll see that you’ll get everything you need.’

  Then with that expression of sadness that she has worn for years – the expression that she wore before she had any real reason for it – Mrs Boon goes over to the bed and kneels there, her rosary in her hands and the patchwork showing in the heels of her darned stockings.

  2

  Mr and Mrs Josser made two more trips to Conservatory Cottage. And after their second visit, they went along to Sprackett & Clutt and paid their deposit to the kind fatherly clerk.

  There was some little difficulty about this because the money, Uncle Henry’s money, was all in Mrs Josser’s name, and she had never written out a cheque before. Mr Josser had to stand over her to show how it should be done and even so she signed herself ‘Mrs Josser’ before he could stop her.

  But there was really more to her hesitation than mere inexperience. She was suddenly appalled at the enormity of what she was doing. The purchase price was seven hundred and fifty pounds, and here was she solemnly writing away a tenth of it, a whole seventy‐five pounds, with a flick of the pen. And seventy‐five pounds was something she could get her mind fixed on to – the whole seven hundred and fifty was too large to be imagined: she had never really pictured herself actually paying away that amount.

  ‘Couldn’t you do it, Fred?’ she asked quite humbly after the second attempt. ‘My hand’s all trembly: I’ve been doing too much.’

  And she was still shaky when they came out of the estate agent’s. Still shaky and still appalled.

  ‘It’ll be Ted’s some day,’ she said, suddenly. ‘That’s one comfort.’ Mr Josser was rather taken aback.

  ‘Don’t say that, Mother,’ he told her. ‘We’ll have a bit of time there ourselves first.’

  He was disappointed in this sudden change in Mrs Josser’s attitude because, right up to the very moment of writing out the cheque, she had been so eager and enthusiastic about it all. Almost girlish in fact. She had brushed difficulties and disadvantages aside impetuously. For example, when Mr Josser had said something about its being rather a long way from the station, Mrs Josser had suggested cycling. And when Mr Josser had reminded her that she couldn’t ride a bicycle she had been offended.

  ‘I suppose I could learn, couldn’t I?’ she had
demanded. ‘Other people of my age go about on bicycles. Hundreds of them…’

  But now everything was different. She was timid and unsure of herself.

  ‘I hope we’ve done the right thing,’ she said twice over in the bus, as much to herself as to Mr Josser. ‘I do hope we’ve done the right thing.’

  All Mr Josser’s assurances, however, counted for very little until she herself thought of Doris.

  ‘It’s Doris I did it for as much as any one,’ she said. ‘It’s what that girl needs, plenty of fresh air and sunshine. It isn’t really healthy living with Cynthia the way she does.’ She paused. ‘She’ll get used to the ride,’ she added complacently. ‘There’s no harm in a great strapping girl like Doris cycling to the station every morning.’

  And having convinced herself that it was for her children that she had bought the cottage, Mrs Josser felt better. She recovered all her old excitement. On the way up in the train she kept on telling Mr Josser where the various pieces of furniture were to go. It was rather a one‐sided conversation, however, because Mr Josser with a man’s natural vagueness on the practical side of things hadn’t thought about furniture at all: he had been too busy simply thinking about the cottage. But Mrs Josser was ready to arrange the furniture for both of them. She gave her whole mind to it. And she gave it so decidedly when it came to Doris’ room that Mr Josser had to warn her that Doris might want to have some say in it herself.

  The warning annoyed Mrs Josser: it seemed to suggest some division of taste that she refused to admit existed.

  ‘If I don’t know what Doris likes, I’d like to know who does,’ she answered. ‘I’m her mother, aren’t I?’

  She paused. Another aspect of it all had crossed her mind.

  ‘And the first thing in the morning I’ll go down and tell Mrs Vizzard,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to worry her when we were only looking. But she ought to know now. It’ll be a shock when she hears.’

  Chapter LXXX

  1

  The date for Mr Squales’ wedding had been fixed. It was to take place on Wednesday week.

  In consequence, with time so short, Mr Squales had been nearly distracted. His face showed unmistakable signs of the strain. It was pale – a kind of chalky, milky paleness – under the olive tan, and his eyes had pouches under them like a parrot’s. Also, he was smoking much more. From the moment he woke up in the morning until he went to sleep at night, even during meal‐times and while he was dressing and undressing, he had a cigarette clutched nervously between his fingers or hanging feebly from his lips. It now required the better part of three packets of twenty simply to keep him going from one daybreak to the next.

  But it was all right now. He had got what he wanted. That was all that mattered. With less than a fortnight to spare he had got it. The future was all golden. And with the sudden lessening of the tension, he was almost light‐headed. He began talking to himself aloud. Not loud enough for any one else in the house – Mrs Vizzard, for instance – to hear. But loud enough for him to be able to savour the unique satisfaction of hearing of his own success.

  ‘So I was right,’ he told himself. ‘I haven’t been wasting my time. I thought I hadn’t been. But I couldn’t be sure. And all the time the noose was closing. Another ten days and I’d have been dangling there.’

  He sat back in his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  ‘Just fancy her letting herself go like that,’ he went on. ‘Talk about Merry Widows.’

  He gave a little chuckle and took out of his pocket the wallet that Mrs Vizzard had given him for his birthday. From the inside pocket, the very private part under the flap, he took out a letter and began to read. He had just got to the bottom of the first page – there were nearly five pages of it in impulsive looking royal blue ink – when there was a coy, dainty tapping on the door. He shot up instantly in his chair and shoved the letter all crushed up in his hand back into his pocket.

  ‘Come in, my kitten,’ he said. ‘Come in…’

  He scrambled to his feet as he said the words and thrust back the loose lock of hair that trailed across his forehead. He only wished that he weren’t trembling. Trembling was so conspicuous somehow. And, above all things, he wanted to avoid anything that was even in the tiniest degree conspicuous. He just wanted to be himself. Not that it was going to be easy. Before the evening was over, it would have called for more poise and aplomb even than poker playing. But because he was so anxious that everything should pass off smoothly and without a hitch, he rose obediently and followed Mrs Vizzard into the front‐room where the cold meat and salad was already spread out for him.

  The ordeal of meal‐time was worse, however, than Mr Squales had even imagined possible. Mrs Vizzard was at her most playful. She had moved her chair to his side of the table and, at intervals, her hand kept stealing across the table to nestle confidingly in his. Each time it arrived, Mr Squales obediently squeezed it. Once or twice to keep up appearances it was his hand that went out first. But there was no warmth, no passion in the grip. Only a hard, unyielding muscular pressure like a man wringing something out.

  ‘I’ve arranged with the photographer,’ said Mrs Vizzard softly. ‘A cabinet study.’

  Mr Squales started.

  ‘The photographer?’ he said. ‘Ah yes, the photographer.’

  ‘And will you do something for me?’

  Mr Squales turned a baleful, bloodshot eye in her direction. ‘Anything you ask,’ he answered.

  ‘It’s your collar,’ Mrs Vizzard explained. ‘I know it’s silly. And I suppose it’s just that I’m made that way. But I’ve always loved men in butterfly collars. So I wondered if just for once, just for the wedding, you’d wear one. It’d be in the photograph, too. I’d love to have you in the photograph in a butterfly collar.’

  Mr Squales shifted in his chair and the letter in his pocket crackled like a five pound note. He shuddered.

  ‘This is dreadful. Positively dreadful,’ he told himself. ‘Why must the woman go on? Can’t she see that I’m not enjoying it?’

  But he was not a man to give up simply because the part was difficult. He braced himself.

  ‘Butterfly or Oxford,’ he said. ‘It’s all one to me. And if it means anything to you…’

  He broke off with a little gesture of accommodatingness, leaving the rest of the sentence expressively unfinished. He felt so sure that he had got over that hurdle all right that he even allowed himself to relax for a moment. Slumping back in his chair he started to whistle idly through his teeth. He soon found, however, how wrong, how disastrously wrong he was. Something told him that all was not well with Mrs Vizzard. And when he looked toward her he saw that she had her handkerchief pressed against her face.

  ‘Don’t… don’t you mind what I wear on Wednesday week?’ she asked.

  Mr Squales cast one quick, agonised glance in her direction. Then he looked away again. Really it seemed as though she were doing her utmost to embarrass him.

  But once more he controlled himself. Controlled himself, and smiled.

  ‘For my part,’ he said, ‘I would like nothing better than what you are wearing now. But you’re a woman. You must decide when the time comes…’

  2

  It was nearly eleven when Mr Squales escaped to his own room. And by then he was about knocked up. He took off his coat and opened up the front of his shirt because it was sticking to him.

  ‘Phew,’ he said. ‘What an evening.’

  And it wasn’t over yet. The really delicate and dangerous part was still coming. That was why Mr Squales made no attempt to undress. Instead, he lit another cigarette and lay on his back on the bed with his knees up, gazing at the ceiling. Twinges of something that might have been conscience but clarified themselves each time into foreboding kept passing through him.

  ‘It’ll about be the end of her,’ he reflected silently. ‘She’s the type that takes things badly.’

  After half an hour spent cogitating on the future,
Mr Squales got up off the bed and removed his shoes. Then when he could move about without being heard, he went round the room in his stockinged feet.

  There was a lot that he had to do even though he had all night, or practically all night, in which to do it. First of all he got out his night things, the brocaded pyjamas and frogged dressing‐gown that Mrs Vizzard has given him, and folded them carefully for travelling. After all he could hardly arrive at his destination and begin by asking for the valet‐service, could he? Then he took out his old suit – the suit that he had been wearing when he came to Dulcimer Street and folded that up, too. He was already wearing the still almost new light check that had been an earlier present of Mrs Vizzard’s. Beside it the old suit looked so pathetically shabby that for a moment a lump came into Mr Squales’ throat. Nothing looks worse than a double‐breasted black cashmere that shines like a mirror across the seat and shoulders.

  It was the overcoat that presented the real problem. It was so enormous; lined with bear and trimmed with astrakhan, it hung like a hunting trophy on the peg behind the door. And the inside of the overcoat was as saddening as the outside of the black cashmere. Moths had made their meals there. And a cigarette end dropped carelessly in a railway carriage had burnt clean through the massive skin itself.

  ‘To think,’ Mr Squales reflected, ‘to think that if I’d got there before the moth I could have raised fifteen pounds on it.’

  But partially devoured or not, the coat was unfoldable. Mr Squales tried it all ways – folded in half, folded in threes, rolled up like a mattress. And still it remained a sprawling mass of skin and fur. In the end he recognised that there would be nothing for it but to carry it over his arm.