Bond Street Story

by Norman Collins

  It was certainly a master stroke on the part of the Furies, this bilious attack of Miss Underhill’s. Because Mr. Rammell relied on Miss Underhill. Couldn’t do a thing without her. He had tried hard enough. With that dark, intense verse-drama student, Miss Winter, for example. But it hadn’t worked. In sheer self-defence he had been forced to transfer Miss Winter and her gloom-tidings to another department. But her successor, Miss Lipscombe, was about as bad. In some respects, even worse. Alert, clear-cut and eager looking like a young Wren Commandant, and with hair cut very short to denote sexless and almost inhuman efficiency, she proved on closer acquaintance to be as nervous and jumpy as a kitten. A kitten, moreover, with a touch of the evil sprite and mad fairy thrown in. She sprang new surprises on him at five-minute intervals. She produced wrong documents by the basketful, and whisked away from under his nose the papers with which he was dealing, sending them down to Registry marked “Urgent”. It was like having a poltergeist about the place. And that was not all. She cut him off abruptly in the middle of important telephone conversations. She heard imaginary bells and voices. She would come darting into the room all sparkle and freshness to know if he wanted her. And then, when she was needed, she would disappear as completely as if she had handed in her resignation. She had, too, like Miss Winter’s, a highly developed sense of the dramatic. She could register the emotions—alarm, panic, remorse, consternation, bewilderment and the rest of them—simply by standing there in front of him, and saying nothing. It was all done by a quick intake of breath and clever use of the hands. R.A.D.A. would have given Miss Lipscombe a gold medal at any time. And whenever Mr. Rammell saw the neat white shirt waist start heaving, he knew that out there in the mystery of the outer office something else that she hadn’t told him about was going wrong as she stood there. Some message, dimly remembered for a passing moment, had passed clean out of her mind again for ever. Some urgent outgoing call had been remorselessly suppressed at source.

  If she had come romping into the office blowing a tin trumpet and banging on a toy drum she could scarcely have got him jumpier. By 10.30 a.m. it was obvious that it was Mr. Rammell versus Miss Lipscombe, with Mr. Rammell hopelessly on the losing side.

  And, as the day wore on, it became equally obvious that it was Mr. Rammell versus quite a lot of other people as well. A correspondence with the Board of Trade about carpets had produced the worst possible effect. In the result, some blasted Inspector from Whitehall was calling on the chief buyer that very afternoon to satisfy himself that all the other export-reject clauses were being properly administered. Then one of the Unions had discovered a technical breach in their agreement, and unless the Industrial Relations Officer got down to some pretty heart-to-heart discussions with the Organizing Secretary it looked as if all Rammell’s vans would be off the streets by the following Monday. Two large consignments of American shoes had been held up by the Customs for a week already, and the way things were going they looked like remaining in bond for ever. By sheer mishandling at the Bond Street end, Rammell’s had just lost a small but highly profitable contract with one of the better girls’ schools. The licence for rebuilding the soft-furnishing section, the part that had been hit by an incendiary in ’42 had just been turned down for the eleventh time ...

  By the time Bond Street had closed down for the night, Mr. Rammell was a jumpy and exhausted man.

  “Give up smoking,” he told himself. “It’s ridiculous. Simply killing myself. No digestion left. Sheer madness to go on with it. Can’t imagine why I ever started. Wish Tony didn’t. Cut it right out ...”

  On and off, Mr. Rammell had been giving up smoking for the last twenty-five years. He had become an expert. He knew when he really meant to give it up—this was one of those occasions—and when he was merely telling himself that he meant to do so. He knew, too, about all the proprietary devices that help. The mouthwashes that make tobacco in all forms taste horrible. The injections. The little sugar-coated pills. He had even during some of his serious bouts of non-smoking tried playing at smoking instead—puffing away at imitation cigarettes. Things made of coltsfoot and herbs and dried dandelion. Little bundles of mixed weeds that reduced the inside of the mouth to a furnace and left the whole room smelling like autumn.

  Even so, from sheer force of habit he found himself with a lighted cigarette between his fingers as soon as he was inside the car. This annoyed him. He promptly stamped it out again. Then he told himself that it was not cigarettes that were the trouble, Cigarettes were nothing. Mere paper. Not so cigars. They were as dangerous as sticks of dynamite, those big Havanas of his. The sensible thing was to go on smoking cigarettes—in moderation of course—and cut out the cigars entirely. But that would be a pity. Because the pleasure of cigar smoking was something quite apart from all other smoking. Cigars belonged to the very highest order of things. As sex began to wane, the taste for a good cigar grew keener. Cigars were the one thing in life that had got better as a man grew older. Whereas he hadn’t so much as properly tasted a cigarette for years. Just gone on smoking them one after another—forty a day—two hundred and eighty a week—and getting nothing for them in return.

  But there was no point in being silly about it, in administering a shock to the system by giving up smoking altogether. Far more sensible to cut down on them gently. Thirty-five one day, thirty the next, twenty-five the day after, and so on. Stabilize the thing at ten or fifteen. Ten cigarettes a day had never harmed anyone. Satisfied that he was doing the right thing, Mr. Rammell brought out his case again and lit the first of the new ten ...

  It was over a drink at his club that it occurred to Mr. Rammell that perhaps he ought to cut out drinking, too. Spirits particularly. No gin. No whisky. And easy on the sherry. Give his tummy time to settle down again. Then, when he was feeling really fit, he could start taking a little wine with his meals once more. Only the lighter wines at that. Stick to hock and claret. Leave the burgundies and the brandies alone for the time being.

  By now practically a non-smoker and total abstainer, Mr. Rammell got into the car to go home. But the undeniable fact was that after a couple of whiskies he felt better already. Easier and freer all over. And it would clearly be absurd for any man to deny himself the very medicine that so obviously was good for him. He began to see things more clearly, get them into their proper perspective.

  “It isn’t smoking and it isn’t drinking,” he told himself. “It’s over-work that’s doing it. Too much of it. For too long. What I need is a holiday. Get right away from it all. Go somewhere quiet with Eleanor so that I can relax ...”

  As he said it, however, he realized how ridiculous it was. With a wife like Mrs. Rammell, there was no possible chance of relaxing. Mrs. Rammell was anti-relaxation. Ever since he had married her she had been growing steadily more tense and energetic. Talking louder and faster all the time. Sitting on more and more committees. Having nervous headaches. Being treated by more and more specialists. Rushing about from one party to another. Filling the house with hangers-on and acquaintances that he didn’t even know by name. Fulfilling her own nervous and exhausting destiny.

  “I’ll go somewhere quiet this year even if I have to go alone,” he promised himself. “My God, yes, that’s what I’ll do: I’ll go off alone.”

  He put his feet up on the rest and settled himself firmly back against the cushions. At the mere thought of asserting himself, of walking out on Mrs. Rammell, even if only for a month in the summer, he began to feel stronger, more carefree.

  But only for a moment. Already those two drinks that he had taken at the Club were boring holes inside him. It might have been nitro-glycerine that he had just swallowed. He could feel the drilling and blasting going on as he sat there.

  “It’s no use,” he resumed. “I must watch myself. Must go carefully. Better skip dinner. Turn in early and try to get some rest. Haven’t been sleeping properly. That’s my trouble. One good early night, and I’ll feel better in the morning.”

  2

&nbs
p; “Darling!”

  It was his wife’s voice that had called him. And coming through from the hard, glazed walls of the bathroom on the other side of the interconnecting door, it sounded shriller and more metallic than ever. There was a note of urgency behind it that startled him.

  “Yes, dear?” he said, aware how flat and weary his own voice sounded after the panic note in hers.

  “What kept you?”

  The door had opened by now, and Mrs. Rammell was standing there. She was undeniably a handsome woman. Tall, fine-limbed, distinguished looking. But distinctly unrestful. Too much of the race-horse about her. Even in the loose bathrobe that she was wearing there was something in the dark, observant eye, the distended nostril, that suggested the starting-gate and the photofinishes.

  “Not ... not going out anywhere, are we?” he asked.

  But already Mrs. Rammell had turned her back on him. She was over at her dressing-table. And when he suddenly caught sight of her reflection in the mirror he could see that her face was now smeared all over with white stuff. It was like finding oneself married to a witch doctor.

  “Don’t say you’ve forgotten,” she said.

  She broke off for a moment because some of the cream had gone into her eye. There was a sudden grab for a tissue.

  “It’s Swami Lal,” she continued, speaking indistinctly from behind the tissue. “That’s why we’re dining early.”

  Mr. Rammell felt the old, familiar trapped feeling returning to him.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Seven-thirty.”

  Mr. Rammell braced himself.

  “Think it’d matter if I don’t show up?” he asked. “Feeling a bit under the weather. Thought I might turn in early.”

  From one of the drawers in the dressing-table Mrs. Rammell had suddenly produced a little rubber trowel and was violently smacking her own face with it.

  Slap! Slap! “If you don’t feel well,” Slap! Slap! “of course, you ought to go to bed.” Slap! Slap! “As a matter of fact,” Slap! Slap! “I’ve got a raging headache myself.” Slap! Slap! Slap!

  There was a real viciousness about the last bout of slapping. Mr. Rammell winced as he heard it.

  Mr. Rammell loosened his collar.

  “Think if you don’t mind ...” he began.

  But it was too late. There was a sudden whirring sound from Mrs. Rammell’s bedroom. It was like a small vacuum cleaner. Mr. Rammell recognized it as the electric massage affair that she used on her chin. Attempting to speak against it was impossible.

  Whrrrrrrrrmp! She stopped the motor for a moment.

  “But only if you really feel well enough, of course,” she told him. “I don’t want you making yourself ill. Why don’t you take something? Then you’d feel better.”

  Whrrrrr! She had started the motor up again.

  Mr. Rammell stood there in the doorway.

  “I’m not coming down,” he said firmly. “I’m going to bed.”

  Whrrrmp!

  “It no use, darling,” she said. “I can’t hear you with this going on. And do start dressing. They’ll be here in a moment.”

  Whrrrrr!

  Mr. Rammell walked over to the fireplace and rang the bell. He felt he needed something. A whisky and soda probably.

  There was silence in the room for a moment.

  “I just told you ...” he began again. But there he stopped. It was useless. There was now a loud hiss, hiss, hiss coming through the open doorway.

  Mrs. Rammell was spraying herself.

  Because of the whisky and soda, he felt better again. Much better. He didn’t any longer resent the fact that he had been made to put on a black tie. After a day in the office—particularly after such a day—it was really rather pleasant. The only thing that irritated him was the fact that he had been compelled to take his bath and get into a dinner jacket, all at the double. If it had been an exhibition display the whole thing could scarcely have been done faster.

  And, apparently, without the slightest reason. It was 7.30 already. And so far there was no sign of anyone. Moreover, in the lull, Mrs. Rammell had sneaked away somewhere. Whenever she found herself with a spare moment on her hands, she always rang up someone. She was probably in the morning-room at this very moment fixing up for the ruination of another perfectly good evening. Mr. Rammell poured himself out a drink, lit a cigarette and waited for his wife’s friends to arrive.

  Mr. Aubrey Burnett, very pink and extremely apologetic, was the first. He was a thin, reed-like young man with a high, lisping voice and big agonized eyes like a fawn’s. He had a nervous habit of glancing over his shoulder while he was speaking. If there had been a large dog in the room he would probably have fainted.

  But at the reassuring sight of Mr. Rammell he rushed forward. He wathn’t late, wath he? he asked. It had been thimply terrible all day: really he hadn’t known whether he wath on hith head or hith heelth. Ath it wath, Felithity would be arriving theparately. She had been athithting with an exthibition over in Thouth Kenthington, and wath ruthing over here. Whatever else Mr. Burnett was not sure about, he was positively certain that Felithity wath ruthing.

  Mr. Rammell had Mr. Burnett all to himself for nearly ten minutes. And if it had been one moment longer, Mr. Rammell was afraid that he would do something terrible. Like kicking little Mr. Burnett on the shins. Or woof-woofing at him. Ballet was the subject of their conversation. And Mr. Burnett was firmly of the opinion that in variouth athpecth of décor and dethign Mr. Rammell’s own son, young Tony Rammell, thowed more than promith, he thowed real geniuth ...

  Mr. Burnett was saved from assault only by the arrival of Mrs. Rammell. She was apparently devoted to Mr. Burnett. They started talking together intimately. Mr. Rammell had the uncomfortable feeling of being an outsider. From time to time he caught odd snatches of conversation. Thkandinavian thoprano at the Wellth ... thimply marvellouth—thuperb voith ...

  Then the Cuzzenses arrived. Judith and Mrs. Rammell were old friends. And rather demonstrative. Even though it was only last Monday that they had seen each other there was more than a hint of the pierhead and arrival platform about the embrace they got into. Mr. Burnett came dangerously near to being crushed between them as they flung themselves into each other’s arms. He retreated cautiously until his back was right up against a bookcase, and remained there quivering.

  Major Cuzzens himself kept right out of it. He was a big, gloomy man with immense dewlaps like a bloodhound. There was something essentially sad and forlorn about him as though he was aware that he was entirely superfluous and at a loose end unless he was given something to smell and go trailing after. Mr. Rammell rather liked him.

  “Do’you do,” he said, in a deep melancholy bay, and then went silent again.

  But Judith was never silent. She had, Mr. Rammell decided, the loudest voice that he had ever heard from any woman. Loud and hard and piercing. It was like the sound of a wireless set that had been turned up too high. Even the crackles and the atmospherics were there. It was as though at any moment she might start giving out police announcements and news bulletins.

  Major Cuzzens turned to Mr. Rammell.

  “Who’s the fellah?” he asked.

  Mr. Rammell tried hard to forget how much he disliked young Burnett.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said. “Weren’t you introduced?”

  “Do’you do,” said Major Cuzzens, thrusting out a large flat hand. “Goin’ to dance for us, eh?”

  Mr. Burnett gave a shudder. The hunted look was inescapable now.

  “Oh, no,” he explained. “Really, I athure you. That ithn’t me. I’m not Thwami Lal. He’th bithy rehearthing. We than’t be theeing him until after dinner.”

  Major Cuzzens turned a deeply-set, rather red-looking eye in Mr. Burnett’s direction.

  “Thought you couldn’t be,” he said. “Fellah’s black, isn’t he?”

  Mr. Burnett started quivering again.

  “Good grathiouth, no,” he said. “Not black. Ju
tht paletht coffee. Nothing in the thlightetht negroid. He’th Perthian acthually.”

  Major Cuzzens gave a little sniff. It seemed as though he had got on to something at last and had no intention of being fooled by anybody.

  “Same thing,” he said. “I’ve been out there. I know ’em.”

  By now Judith and Mrs. Rammell had screamed their way through the arrangements for a charity party, and had joined the others in front of the fireplace. Then Felicity Burnett arrived.

  Mr. Rammell wasn’t really sure which of the two Burnetts it was that he disliked the more. Mrs. Burnett was young—not much more than twenty-two or twenty-three—and pretty in a china doll, fancy powder bowl kind of way. She looked as if she might have been first prize at a better class hoop-la stall.

  Round her neck she wore a thin strip of black velvet ribbon, and another piece was tied round her left wrist. Her hair, which was ash pale and quite straight, was cut into a fringe in front. And she stared very straight and fixedly out of a pair of deep cornflower blue eyes. The eyes were so fixed, indeed, that there was just the suggestion that perhaps they didn’t ever close. It could have been that the manufacturer, satisfied that he had produced a winner for looks, didn’t care very much whether this particular doll could go to sleep, or talk, or even move its joints.

  Mr. Rammell was instinctively suspicious. The Burnett affair didn’t seem to him like a real marriage at all. It was more like a conspiracy. It was as though young Aubrey, all purple socks and amber cuff links, must have combed London to find someone more aggressively feminine than himself. And to show how right he had been in his choice, Felicity had developed a speaking voice that might have come from beneath a pink bassinette cover.