Then somewhere inside the flat a door opened. And a moment later he heard the soft swish-swish of slippers. It took longer to open the front door than he had expected because it was apparently bolted at the top and bottom, and the chain was up. But, in a sense, this relieved him. He was glad to think that Hetty took such good care of herself. It must simply have been that she must have overslept.
And when, finally, she sprang the catch back he could see immediately that everything was all right. For there she was, wearing a pale blue dressing-gown with a lot of swansdown round the neck and cuffs. And—delightful touch of intimacy—her hair, her glistening raven hair, was not yet wound across her head. Instead, gleaming and hawser-like it hung, schoolgirlishly over one shoulder, tied up with a piece of baby ribbon.
“My, you’re early, aren’t you?” she said.
Her voice sounded warmer and more vibrating than ever in the confines of the tiny hall.
Mr. Bloot started to reply. He tried to explain. Apologize. Excuse himself. But it was no use. He felt confused suddenly. Sheepish. That rich plait of hair resting on the swansdown had knocked him temporarily off-balance.
“Just lakh Ah said,” was the best that he could manage.
But Hetty saved him.
“Was he looking forward all that much?” she asked softly.
As she said it, she reached out her arms. Mr. Bloot removed his hat and took hold of it in his left hand along with his umbrella. But there were still the flowers. These were particularly difficult. The bunch really was too large. Or the florist had not secured the stems tightly enough. Whatever the reason, as soon as Mr. Bloot loosened his hold for a single moment they began to undo themselves. Unless he were careful, instead of offering a neat bouquet, he would find himself simply thrusting a bundle of mere garden refuse upon her. So, in the end, he thrust the whole sodden parcel under his arm, and came towards her. But as soon as she touched him, she drew back.
“Good gracious, you’re sopping,” she said. “Whatever’s happened?”
By now, however, Mr. Bloot had recovered himself. He produced the flowers from behind his back like a conjuror and, with a little bow, presented them to her.
“A few flahs, m’dear,” he said gallantly. “Jurst something smawl to go into a vawse.”
Hetty Florence might never have received a gift before she was so pleased with it. And, despite the wetness of Mr. Bloot’s hand, she took hold of it again. This time, moreover, she did not withdraw it. She clung on. And more than clung. She drew him near her.
“They deserve a little kiss,” was what she said. “That’s what flowers are for, aren’t they?”
Remembering his disastrous impetuosity in the shop, Mr. Bloot was careful. But again because of his inexperience he bungled things. He did not know whether it was her cheek or her lips that she was offering. And finally it was on the side of her nose that he kissed her. Moreover, he kissed her wetly. When he brought his mouth away again he could taste the strange, wicked flavour of her face cream.
“Pord’n me,” he said.
He was about to try again, properly this time, when Hetty Florence stopped him.
“Now, now,” she said. “Be a good boy, Gussie. Just you go into the room at the end and wait for me. I shan’t be long. I’m only going to slip something on.”
The room in which Mr. Bloot found himself was in partial darkness. That was because the curtains were still drawn. Even though it was brilliant midday outside it was no better than late evening in the drawing-room. But he didn’t imagine that Hetty could really intend him to sit there in the dusk. And, after a moment’s pause to get his bearings, he began to move over to the window. It was not so easy, however, as it had seemed while he was still standing by the door. There were so many things about. First he stumbled over a cushion, lying unaccountably upon the carpet. Then, in avoiding a tumbler which was beside the cushion, his heel came down hard upon an ash-tray. It must have been made of something quite thin. Glass or china by the sound of it. And the scraping sound that his foot now made as it moved across the carpet showed that some of the pieces must still be sticking into the quarter-rubber of his heel.
When he had finally pulled back the curtain, he saw at once that one more breakage in such a room would pass entirely unnoticed. As it was, a tumbler with a half-moon snicked out of the rim stood on the piano. And with the light that now came pouring in through the window he saw several other things as well. There was a green baize table, heavily ringed where glasses had been standing. And left scattered across it as though the play had broken up rather suddenly was a pack of playing cards. Two more packs, one still in its paper cover, were piled neatly at one corner. There was a whisky bottle amid a lot of empty beer bottles on an occasional table over by the couch. And there were unemptied ash-trays everywhere.
What Mr. Boot could not understand was that the ash-tray nearest to him contained the fat butt of a half-smoked cigar. Then he understood. It must have been some friends in the trade that Hetty had been entertaining. And it struck him then that they must have been rather a jolly, carefree set of chaps.
He was still wondering whether he would have liked her friends, when Hetty returned. She had changed into a pale blue dress with rather a lot of open lace-work about the bodice. The shoes that she was wearing were white and toeless.
“Oh, my,” she began saying. “It smells terrible in here. Why ever didn’t you open a window?”
Mr. Bloot, however, did not reply. He was standing there, silently admiring her.
Hetty meanwhile was going rapidly round the room. She picked up cushions. Emptied ash-trays into the fancy waste-paper basket. Collected the bottles, holding them one by one up against the light.
“All empties,” she said at last, almost as though talking to herself. “I guess that’s why they went.”
By now she had crossed over to a very highly polished walnut cabinet that stood in the corner. When she opened the doors a little light came on inside. Mr. Bloot could see that the interior was filled with every kind of wine-glass, as well as with an ingenious sliding tray that held the bottles. Outside Rammell’s furniture showrooms, he had never seen such a cabinet. It had certainly never occurred to him that one day he might actually know the kind of woman to possess one.
Hetty turned and faced him. She held an unopened bottle of Haig in her hand, and she had deftly detached two heavily-cut glass tumblers from the side rack.
“What about a short one?” she asked. “There’s no point in eating anything yet. That is unless you’re hungry. I’ve only just had breakfast.”
A short one! Mr. Bloot’s heart stood still. How was he going to explain that he didn’t ever drink? That he was teetotal? Remembering the state of the room in which he was standing, he decided that he couldn’t explain it. It just wouldn’t be possible. She would think him queer. A crank of some kind. Besides, he felt in a reckless, playboyish sort of mood to-day. It was the kiss that had done it. He couldn’t very well go back on that.
So reaching out to take the bottle from her he smiled back blandly.
“That’s the ticket,” he said, surprised and incredulous at the sound of his own voice uttering such words. “Let’s ’ave er nappitizer. That’s what we both need—er nappitizer.”
And as he said it, Emmie’s ghost—pale, anaemic-looking, slightly catarrhal as in life—rose from the clay of Highgate Cemetery, and stood confronting him. Mr. Bloot tried to ignore the spectre. But it was impossible. He knew what was behind the visit. Because Emmie had always been a solid non-drinker like himself, a pledged total abstainer. The present moment was the nearest that he had ever come to being unfaithful to her memory.
Chapter Thirteen
1
More than once as the weeks passed Irene told herself that Rammell’s must have forgotten. Either that, or had second thoughts. She saw herself an actress again. The house lights had long since gone down. The last bars of the overture—admittedly recorded, but who cares?—had just died away.
The tabs were parting ...
But it was no use. Rammell’s had remembered all right. The familiar envelope with the heavy embossed “R” on the back, was there waiting by her place when she came down to breakfast. And Mr. Privett, already half-way through his corn flakes and his News Chronicle, was wearing the sort of happy birthday expression that Irene recollected from her childhood.
It was, indeed, largely because of the expression on her father’s face that Irene pretended that she was pleased, too. Ever since his accident Mr. Privett had not been looking at all well. He seemed suddenly to have grown older. Older. And shakier. And more hurtable. She noticed for the first time in her life that his eyebrows were shaggy. And there was a little tell-tale quiver at the corners of his mouth when he was drinking. Not that any of this was surprising. The accident alone would have been enough. But coming on top of it, the strain of all this legal trouble had only made things worse. Nowadays, even the sight of any letter lying there on the breakfast table was sufficient to upset Mr. Privett.
And it wasn’t easy for Irene. You can’t chuck away a vocation just to keep a parent happy. She had it all worked out, too. Her life belonged in dingy little dressing-rooms. In agents’ offices with photographs of Vivian Leigh and Peggy Ashcroft and all the rest of her friends round the walls. On board ship going out to Australia, with the scenery and props stored away somewhere in the hold. In front with terrific explosions of applause still coming down from the gallery. Back at her old school judging the end-of-term drama contest ...
But already her father was addressing her.
“Tell us what it says,” he demanded. “Then we can all breathe easy.”
2
It was a Monday. It was raining. It was eight forty-five. And as Irene took her place in the stream of smart girls, all dashing up the staff staircase and all as eager as a pack of young tigresses to get their teeth into the first customer, she hated the lot of them.
But with her father beside her there wasn’t anything that she could say. Anything more, that is. It had all been said on the evening of the big row. But Mr. Privett had obviously forgotten all about that. He had even tried to hold her hand as they set out. And that was something else that Irene didn’t care for—this prospect of endlessly being taken in. And presumably waited for again at night. It would be like starting Kindergarten again.
But there was worse coming. Much worse. At the head of the staircase, with the men’s cloakroom on one side and the ladies’ on the other, Mr. Privett suddenly kissed her. In front of everybody, too. And he didn’t even remember to drop his voice.
“Now don’t you worry,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”
If her father had lain awake all night thinking of some way of humiliating her in front of everyone he could not possibly have done better. But she need not have worried. All round her, a busy feverish preoccupied sort of life was already going on. Even though it was still not ten to nine, there was as much noise as though Rammell’s were throwing an early morning cocktail party. The guests were fairly pouring in. And Irene was the only one who had turned up alone. All the rest were arriving in twos and threes. Not that this was surprising. Because by now the rate of arrival was about one hundred and fifty a minute. They had met coming along Piccadilly. Or turning up Bond Street. Or in Hurst Place itself. There was a whole converging procession of them. And conversations were everywhere being taken up where they had been broken off before the week-end.
They were mostly rather rushed, scrappy sort of conversations. That was because there was so much to do. And so little time in which to do it. There were dust sheets to be snatched off. Folded. Put away. Traysful of stuff to be arranged on the counters. Furs and dresses to be hung out on stands. Hats to be stuck about on the tall silver knobs in the millinery department. Bowls of flowers to be arranged. Cash books issued. Hands washed. Faces made up. Hair tidied. And all by eight fifty-five.
Admittedly nobody ever came into the shop at nine o’clock when the doors opened. That wouldn’t have been Bond Street behaviour. More the way Marks and Spencer customers go on. But that wasn’t the point. Mr. Rammell and Mr. Preece were both great believers in punctuality. They would still have had the store opened dead on nine even if there had been a bye-law forbidding any buying and selling before midday.
It was the noise of conversation that reminded Irene that she was a stranger. A new worker turning up for duty at an already over-populated hive. The whole honeycomb was full and swarming. The buzz was incessant. And what her antennae did pick up made no sense to her. All wrong wave-length stuff, or something.
“ ... so naturally I didn’t wait. Can you imagine me standing there like that waiting for him?”
“ ... and when I got them home and tried them on you should have seen them. You’d have killed yourself. They must have been tens at least ...”
“ ... was there all that time. I didn’t know. Last Tuesday it must have happened ...”
“ ... then I said, ‘It isn’t even as though it’s a front room’ I said. ‘You can’t expect three guineas a week,’ I said ‘not for ...’”
“ ... but the end was lovely. She’s absolutely marvellous in the third act. I didn’t care for ...”
“ ... well, it may be ‘art,’ I said. ‘But it’s still photography. You don’t catch me having any.’”
Irene had taken her place in the queue by now, and began passing her things over the cloakroom counter. The attendant was an elderly woman in a brown apron. And she had hands like a slick conjuror’s. As soon as anything was put down in front of her, she snatched it up again, palmed it, tucked it under her arm, folded what was foldable, and handed over a little brass disc in return. She could carry as many as three coats, four umbrellas, a hat and an attaché-case at once and all with different owners, and still give everyone the right token.
With her elbow—it was the only part of her that wasn’t carrying something—she slid Irene’s handbag back towards her.
“You keep this, dearie,” she said. “You’ll be wanting it.”
The girl behind Irene gave a smile. She was a pale, sad-looking girl.
“There’s always room under the counter somewhere,” she said. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Thanks,” Irene said.
She hated all this new girl stuff. It made her feel silly. Younger than she really was.
“Which department?” the dark girl asked.
“I ... I don’t really know,” Irene admitted. “I’ve got to ask for a Miss Hallett.”
“Ground floor,” the dark girl told her. “Over by the handbags.”
“Thanks,” Irene said again.
Then, because it was obvious that the dark girl was trying to be nice, she added: “Thanks ever so.”
The dark girl smiled.
“Probably be seeing you,” she said. “Good luck.”
By now they were pouring out of the cloakroom at such a rate that at first Irene didn’t see her father standing there.
“Come on, dear,” he said. “I’ve just got time to take you down and introduce you. Then I’ll have to be getting back. It’s through here ...”
But this time Irene stopped him.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve asked.”
Mr. Privett seemed hurt. Was hurt in fact. He had looked forward to introducing his daughter to Miss Hallett.
Not that it really mattered. Sometime during the morning he would be able to step down for a few minutes to see how she was getting on.
There was no difficulty about finding Miss Hallett. No difficulty at all. Indeed, as soon as Irene got past the evening bags there was Miss Hallett looking out for her. She seemed a nice sort of woman, too. A bit worried-looking, Irene noticed. But that may have been only because she was getting everything ready. And she certainly went out of her way to be pleasant. But, for all the wrong reasons, it turned out. It wasn’t because she appreciated that she was lucky having Irene working alongside her at all. She didn’t even seem to know that I
rene had been one of the star pupils of the Eleanor Atkinson, that both Miss Preston and Mrs. Wells had said that Irene could have gone to the University if she had stayed on. It was simply because Irene was Mr. Privett’s daughter that she was pleased to see her at all. In Miss Hallett’s order of things a shopwalker, even though he didn’t happen to be on her floor, was a person of consequence. A figure.
“So you’re Mr. Privett’s daughter, are you?” she asked. “Well, we must see what we can do for you, mustn’t we? Put your bag down there, dear. And are your shoes all right? It’s all standing remember. Get ever so tired if you haven’t got the right sort of shoes. Feeling nervous?”
“I am a bit,” Irene admitted.
It wasn’t really true. But it seemed to be the answer that Miss Hallett expected. And Miss Hallett was certainly pleased by it. The worried look vanished, and she patted Irene’s hand.
“If you’re your father’s daughter you’ll be all right,” she said. “Now you stand about here. Of course, if the other young lady’s busy, you may have to cross over. But try not to get into each other’s way. And here’s your cash book. I’ll sign it for you just at first until you’re used to it. And don’t forget the carbons. That’s terrible if you forget them. If I’m not around, Miss Kent’ll show you.”
But so far there was no sign of Miss Kent. Even though it was already one minute to nine, Irene had the counter to herself. Then she really did begin to feel nervous. She wondered what would happen if a customer really did come in and want to buy something. But she need not have worried. Miss Kent was in sight by now. She was a large, dark, sullen girl. And not hurrying. She came in like a disgruntled black swan, quietly drifting when everything around her was rush and bustle. As soon as she got round behind the counter she began easing her feet out of her shoes.
“Oh, God,” she said. “Another week of it.” Then she looked up as if she had only just noticed that Irene was standing there. “Where did you spring from?” she asked.
Bond Street Story Page 12
