Out of the Blackout

by Robert Barnard

  Suddenly windows opened above the dirty courtyard. Voices began to be raised in protest. One woman screamed: ‘I’ve called the police.’ The man straightened up, bellowed back an obscenity, and in a moment was barging past Simon, down the passage, and out into the street.

  Gradually the panic subsided. He shook himself and opened his eyes, feeling very much less than heroic. He walked over to the sobbing bundle of clothes on the paved floor of the courtyard.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, go to hell.’

  An overpowering smell of sweat, urine and cheap spirits rose up and over him from the sobbing heap.

  ‘You really ought to see a doctor, you know.’

  ‘Oh, f—off.’

  ‘Don’t bovver abaht ’er, mate,’ said a voice from the window above. ‘It ain’t the first time.’

  ‘Enjoys it, if you ask me,’ said a woman’s voice.

  ‘You might as well save yer breath,’ said another. ‘You’ll get no thanks from ’er, I can tell you.’

  So Simon, awkwardly and unhappily, turned on his heels and slunk away. Out into New Oxford Street, along to the tube at Tottenham Court Road, then down into its depths, where he bought a ticket for Paddington.

  When he emerged from the station he made his way, straight, confident, unflinching, to Farrow Street. He knew the way. Suddenly it occurred to him that he knew the way from Farrow Street to the Station. That was the way he had done it—or had done it as Simon Cutheridge. But he seemed to know the reverse journey equally well. How often had he done it as—as whatever his name was then?

  As he walked, he asked himself why he had come back. Because he had just funked intervening in a fight, and had by some quirky idea of compensation determined to follow through what he had funked eight years ago? But he had been in fights before, and had not funked them: playground fights, the brush with the Fascists, an after-hours pub brawl in Leeds. What had been crucial here had been the domestic violence, the man and woman fighting. Had he funked it, or had it dredged from the silt of his early memories . . . something?

  He walked on, a tallish man in a not very fashionable sports jacket, good-looking in a not-too-obvious, English way, a way that had been more admired in the ‘fifties than it was in the ’sixties. Fair-haired, engaging, but somehow reserved, with the beginnings of lines of care along the high forehead and from the corners of his eyes. A fresh, well-meaning, slightly troubled boy-man.

  That was what the woman saw when she opened the door of No. 17. He had gone up to the house confidently, walked up the steps, knocked without hesitation on the door, and then waited.

  ‘Coming! Won’t be a mo! Just got to put me frock on!’ came a voice. It was a voice that wakened no memories. Simon’s stomach remained stable. When the woman opened the door it was obvious she had been dressing after a bath. There was a smell of talcum, and her dress hung loosely on her substantial body, and was not done up at the back. Suddenly, but not for that reason, Simon felt awkward.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m sorry—this is going to sound rather funny—’

  ‘Won’t be the first time I’ve heard funny things at my own front door,’ said the woman, her sharp, ironic face surveying him coolly. ‘It’s not religious, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not religious.’

  ‘Because they can be a bit over the top, in my experience. Oh, and by the way, I don’t ever buy things at the door.’

  ‘It’s not that either. You see, I used to live here . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’ The woman was polite, not specially interested. A house, for a Londoner, is usually no more than a machine for living in, not a repository for sentimental memories.

  ‘It was a long time ago, at the beginning of the war.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been more than a nipper then.’

  ‘That’s right. The point is, I wondered . . . Have you lived here long?’

  ‘Matter of five years. Bit of a draught-trap, and bigger than we need, but we’ve got Bert’s parents living with us, and it means we can keep out of each other’s way.’

  ‘Do you remember who you bought it from?’

  ‘People called Ponting.’

  ‘Had they lived here long?’

  ‘Only three or four years, as I remember. They retired to the coast somewhere. Why?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Simon’s face had fallen with disappointment, but he began to improvise a story. ‘You see, my parents were killed in the war, and I lost touch with my relations.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ The story made him human, interested her distantly, as something she might read in the Sunday Pictorial would. ‘You wanted to find someone who knew them, did you? Really, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘I wonder whether the neighbours . . .’

  ‘On that side it’s Pakis. They’d be no use, because we didn’t have Pakis then, did we? Not here. On the other side there’s people I don’t know, but they moved in after us. Have you tried the pub?’

  ‘No. Do you think they’d know anything there?’

  ‘Pubs are always good places to go to with something like that. Then even if you don’t get what you want you can always have a drop of something so you haven’t wasted your time.’ She laughed with the rich laugh of someone who’s had a drop or two in her time. ‘It’s the Fox and Newt, down the end of the road. Arnold Stebbings has been there an age, I do know that, so you could do worse than try him.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Simon. ‘Many thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Sorry I couldn’t be more help,’ said the woman, with that uninvolved friendliness the English rather go in for.

  Why didn’t I ask to see the house? Simon asked himself as he walked down the road in the direction she had pointed out. Too embarrassed. And it wouldn’t have told me anything. Everything would have changed inside. They’d have taken their furniture—them, my family. Unless—you never knew—the wallpaper in one of the rooms had been the same . . . But how would I have explained why I wanted to see it?

  Certainly the Fox and Newt aroused no memories, but then: how could it? It was a steamy, varnish-and-brass suburban London pub, but he could never have seen the inside of it. It was still early in the evening, and possible to have the landlord to himself for five minutes’ conversation.

  ‘Oh aye, I’ve been here a while,’ said Arnold Stebbings, polishing glasses, ‘but not that long. Only since ’forty-nine. Not before the war. I was in the war, my lad, and I only came to London on my demob.’

  ‘Hell!’ said Simon, drinking into his pint disappointedly.

  ‘What was it you wanted?’

  ‘You see, I lost both my parents in the war.’ (Suddenly there came, unbidden, to Simon’s mind that line from The Importance of Being Ernest: ‘It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me . . .’). ‘I was . . . adopted. And I wondered if there was anybody still living around here who . . . would remember me. And them.’

  It would do, as a story. It was getting better. The landlord, anyway, was displaying that non-committal but friendly interest.

  ‘Let’s see now. There’s been a deal of changes, I can tell you. Well—Paddington’s not really a place where people settle down, is it? There’s still some of the old ‘uns around, though. Jessie Pyke, but she’s senile, more or less, so I wouldn’t . . . Jack Watkyns! That’s the chap for you!’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘He’s a regular here. What’s today? Wednesday. He wouldn’t thank you for disturbing him during Coronation Street, but he’ll be in here directly afterwards. Have you got the price of a pint for him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, you settle Jack down at a table with a pint he hasn’t had to pay for, and he’ll tell you all he knows. And he’s a straight bloke: he won’t make up what he doesn’t remember.’

  So when the torrid doings of the young Elsie Tanner were over for the night, Simon was introduced to old Jack Watkyns. He bought him a pint, took him ov
er to a table, and let him tell all he knew. He was a fat, none-too-clean old man, probably around his mid-sixties, and he’d lived just round the corner from Farrow Street all his life. What he didn’t know about the inhabitants he had been prevented from knowing by the inbuilt privacy-mania of Londoners, not from any lack of will to find out.

  ‘You say you used to live here? As a boy, was it? Now, which number in Farrow Street would that be?’

  ‘Number seventeen. It’s got a green front door now, but it was brown then, and there’s yellow roses in the garden.’

  ‘Got it. Three up from the shop. You’re right, that front door did used to be brown. So this was wartime, was it?’

  ‘Yes. The beginning of the war.’

  ‘So that would be when the Simmeters were there, then—they’d be your people, would they? I remember there were children.’

  The surname aroused the faintest of echoes in Simon’s mind.

  ‘Do you remember much about them?’

  ‘But you won’t need to ask me, young man, if they’re your folks.’

  ‘We got separated . . . I think they were killed.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Jack Watkyns, pulling deeply on his pint, and clearly wondering if there was likely to be any follow-up. ‘Could be. They moved, I remember that. They were here for years and years, but they moved early in the war . . . Was it northwards?’

  ‘Northwards? Like Yorkshire, you mean?’

  ‘No—Kilburn, Edgware, somewhere like that. Wait, though: I’ve an idea it was Islington, not the north at all. Anyway, never heard of them after that. Not that I had much to do with them while they were here.’

  ‘You didn’t know them well?’

  ‘No. Private lot, so far as I remember. No disrespect, but they kept themselves very much to themselves—that kind of folks. Church, too, I reckon. I never saw him in here that I remember.’

  ‘Who was he, then?’ Simon felt his heart beating faster.

  ‘That was the son. Let’s see, what was his name? Lawrence? Lionel? Leonard. Leonard Simmeter, maybe. Sounds about right. Could be I never heard it, though.’

  The name aroused no response in Simon. But if it was his father, he would always have known him as Daddy, presumably.

  ‘Was it a large family?’

  ‘Fairly so, as families go these days. And all crammed in together there.’

  ‘Who actually was there in the family?’

  ‘Oh, my God, it’s a long time ago. You’re asking a lot, young fellow. Yes, I will have another, since you’re so kind . . . Thanks. Pulls a good pint, does Arnold. Well now, I can remember Mother. Big woman of fifty-odd then. Widow lady. Then there were three or four children. This Lawrence or Lionel or Leonard. And his wife—pale little body. And his sister—about the same age, or perhaps a bit younger. Good-looking girl. And . . . oh dear . . . I think there may have been a younger brother. Don’t know that I could put a name to him—Ernie, could it be?—but I seem to recall a lad in RAF uniform. This Len—I’m sure it was Len, now I come to say the name—he worked at Paddington Station, that I do know. In the ticket office. I had a spell as a porter, so I’m pretty sure of that. But more I can’t call to mind.’

  ‘It’s a lot. I’m very grateful.’

  ‘You say they were killed?’

  ‘Yes . . . I think so.’

  ‘You don’t seem too sure, lad. That’s a bit queer, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be looking to find relatives, would you, young feller?’

  ‘Well—something like that.’

  ‘I never knew folks as was happier for finding relatives. Y’know, lad, if they didn’t care for you then, they’re not going to care about you now.’

  ‘I know,’ said Simon, getting up abruptly. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’

  But when he got back to his hotel room that night, the first thing he did was to take up the last volume of the London Telephone Directory. There were four entries under Simmeter:

  Simmeter, E., 16 Leith Grove, SE5.

  Simmeter, L. J., 25 Miswell Tce, EC1.

  Simmeter and Fox, TV Repairs, 76 High St, SE6.

  Simmeter W., 7 Burdett St, NW3.

  He looked under Simmetter, Simeter, even Scimeter, but he found no more entries.

  He took out his pocket book and pencil, and noted down the details of the four.

  CHAPTER 5

  Next morning, over scrambled eggs and toast and marmalade, Simon propped his pocket book up against the teapot and contemplated the entries. Thank God it was an unusual name, he said to himself.

  It was fairly clear where he ought to start—supposing, that is, he decided to start at all. NW3 was Hampstead, that he did know, because his professor at Leeds had moved there when he got a job at London University. He had as yet no clear picture in his mind of the Simmeter family of Paddington, but Hampstead seemed an unlikely locality for them to rise to. In any case, the L. Simmeter was a much better bet. Jack Watkyns had mentioned Islington as a possibility. Simon turned to the theatre column in that morning’s Guardian. Sadler’s Wells Theatre, he knew, was in Islington. It was listed as EC1. Simon took it as his working hypothesis that Leonard or Lionel Simmeter had moved to Islington, where he had remained, while possibly his brother had eventually moved out to SE5. But his imagination had fixed on Simmeter, L. It was with him that Simon felt his mission lay.

  Somehow by the end of breakfast there was no question that the mission would be undertaken.

  Simon did not do anything about it at once. He took his suitcase along to King’s Cross, and put it in the Left Luggage. He had an appointment at the Zoo for 11.15, and he took the tube to Baker Street. In the administrative offices that straddle the Zoo he was told that he would in the next day or two get a letter offering him the appointment. It was his if he wanted it.

  ‘And we very much hope that you do want it,’ said the Head of the Scientific Staff.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Simon. ‘I think I do.’

  ‘Marvellous. Delighted all this grilling hasn’t put you off. You’ll have three months’ notice to give, I imagine, but with the summer vacation coming up, that might shorten it, perhaps? See what they say. We can be in touch as soon as we know when you can take up the appointment. We might be able to help you get somewhere to live.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Simon. ‘But just possibly I may be able to get something for myself. I have relatives . . .’

  Before he left the administrative block at the Zoo, he asked if he might use a telephone. It would sound better, he thought, if the call did not come from a call box. He decided to assume a slight accent, so that if this attempt aborted and he had to find some alternative way of approaching them, his voice would not be recognized. Some instinctive caution told him not to broaden his natural West Country burr. He assumed the accent he knew well from his last few years: that of Leeds.

  ‘Islington 4565,’ came a voice at the other end, after he had let it ring five or six times. It was an old voice, a woman’s voice, and it had once been a powerful mezzo—not a voice for telling good tidings to Zion, but one for launching Verdian imprecations. Now it was muffled and cracked by age.

  ‘Good morning, I’m sorry to bother you, but I heard you might have a room to let.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the voice. There was a silence while she pondered. ‘Well, I don’t know . . . Mr Blore has been saying he might be moving soon, but he hasn’t given notice.’

  Spot on! said Simon to himself. First time! They do let rooms.

  ‘It must be Mr Blore I heard it from,’ he said. ‘At a party. I shan’t be wanting the room while summer’ (he brought out this Leedsism with a sort of bravado) ‘but it would be very convenient if I knew it would be waiting for me when I move down.’

  ‘Well, as I say, he’s not given his notice,’ said the voice—hesitant, but as if hesitancy was not her natural mode. ‘If he’s leaving now he’ll have to pay us two weeks’ rent. That’s in the agreement.’

  ‘If he did leave before I was ready to take over the
room, I’d be willing to pay from the time he left.’

  ‘Oh . . . well, that’s fair,’ said the voice. It was the tone of one who called ‘fair’ anything advantageous to herself. But he seemed to have kindled sparks of interest. She added: ‘Of course, we’d want to see you.’

  It was a reasonable enough request, and just what Simon wanted, but the tone in which she said it was unendearing. There were plenty of Leeds landladies, Simon knew, who wanted to see their potential student lodger, but had unaccountably let the room already when they opened the door and found he was black. Was this the reason now, or would he have to present proof that he was house-trained, Christian, or non-smoker or drinker? The whimsical requirements of landladies could be legion.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, in his most boyishly ingratiating tones. ‘It would be quite easy for me to come round.’

  ‘Provided it’s clear I’m making no promises,’ said the voice, with a nagging, grudging insistence. ‘Would fiveish suit you? Then Len would be home.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Simon. ‘Fiveish it is.’

  When he put the phone down he felt very pleased with himself, and nervously excited. He had another brisk walk around the Zoo, struck up a friendship with the squirrel monkeys which was to last all his working life, and ate a goodish lunch at the Restaurant. But by three he could contain his impatience no longer. He walked along Albany Street to the Regent’s Park tube, and took a ticket to the Angel, Islington.

  He had his Geographers’ London with him, and he purposely avoided Miswell Terrace. He did not want to be seen hanging around before his appointment, and the form behind that voice on the phone could well be a peerer, a discreet puller-apart of lace curtains. He walked instead around every other street in the vicinity. Most of them were rows of terraced houses, built early in the last century. They were not unattractive, but their neglected state made them appear skimpy and mean. Many were down at heel, some derelict, and there lay over the district a miasma of half-heartedness, littleness, failure. The unlovely council flats were better: jollier, more open. In one of the streets there was a cheerful, dirty collection of market barrows, with friendly, untrustworthy sellers. He lingered round Sadler’s Wells. Elizabeth Fretwell in The Girl of the Golden West. No time for that tonight: he would get the 8.50 train back to Leeds. He turned away from the posters and went back to the dingy streets of terraced houses. Really, though they once had greater pretensions, now their effect was not unlike Farrow Street, Paddington. The Simmeters, presumably, had moved sideways, rather than up or down. What, he wondered, had made them move at all?