Bond Street Story

by Norman Collins

  Mr. Privett knew when he was beaten.

  “I’m giving up,” he told himself. “It’s no use. Mother’ll only be worrying.”

  Chapter Fourty-six

  1

  Just as Mr. Privett was turning back, Mrs. Rammell’s Rolls-Royce was drawing up outside the clinic.

  A distinguished-looking woman at all times, she was at this moment wearing an expression of relief mingled with anxiety. It suited her. The relief softened the lines of her face that tended to be hard ones. And the anxiety gave her a keenness that would have been impossible to assume. It was the second visit that she had paid to the clinic that day.

  And everything was going to be all right. That was something that she kept telling herself. Over and over again. She had her doctor’s word for it. And Mr. Huntley Cary’s. And the matron’s. And the day sister’s. But it was not enough. Even though they couldn’t have been kinder at the clinic—and everything so spotless and efficient, too—she demanded more from them than that. Something positive. A definite statement. Not just a vague assurance.

  Her own doctor was the most adept at consoling her. He had a habit of not letting go of her hand while he was talking. And, at moments like this, it was strangely comforting. It amounted to an unspoken declaration that, come what may, they would see this thing through together. She had never been more grateful for a hand-clasp.

  Mr. Huntley Cary, on the other hand, was frankly discordant. She had begun by merely not liking him. Now she recognized that it was actual dislike that she felt. He was so insensitive. So impersonal. If it had been a piece of broken down farm machinery and not her own husband that he was discussing he could hardly have shown less emotion.

  And, as soon as she got out of the lift, she saw him. There he was, talking in the corridor to Dr. Webber. Looking so well, too. The sight of all that brawn and muscle in such a smartly-cut grey suit jarred on her. And there was nothing there in the face, bronzed and weathered as it was by sun and rain, to reveal what he must have been through that morning. The ordeal, the sense of awe, at having a human life in his sole keeping. Evidently he had felt nothing. No emotion at all. Just a craftsman’s superior pleasure at the job in hand.

  Mr. Huntley Cary saw Mrs. Rammell at the same moment. He came forward. His step was the springy, confident one of someone who has successfully finished a difficult job and now expects to be thanked for it. And he could not understand why Mrs. Rammell drew back from him a little.

  “Well, Mrs. Rammell,” he said. “This must be a great relief to you. You’ll find him quite comfortable.”

  Mrs. Rammell braced herself.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I will.”

  “Stood up to the anaesthetic very well,” Mr. Huntley Cary added. He spoke as though the anaesthetic were the only really dangerous part of any operation. “Not quite out of it yet. So don’t expect too much. But nothing to worry about. Going along very nicely.”

  Dr. Webber had come sidling round behind him. Compared with Mr. Huntley Cary he looked half-dead from the strain. Almost as though he’d been the one on whom they had been operating. He reached out his hand to Mrs. Rammell and another of those long manual embraces began.

  “You’re not to worry,” he said. “He’s come through splendidly. His heart’s in fine condition.” He paused. “Of course it was quite a big operation,” he added. “So don’t be upset when you see him. It’s only the after-effects. He’ll look very different to-morrow.”

  “But ... but what was it?” Mrs. Rammell could not restrain herself from asking. “Why did it happen like that? Nobody’s told me anything.”

  Dr. Webber looked across at Mr. Huntley Cary.

  “It’s nothing serious,” he said. “I think we can set Mrs. Rammell’s heart at rest about that, can’t we?”

  Mr. Huntley Cary seemed almost surprised by the question.

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that. Nothing to worry about. Just one of those things. Lucky we operated when we did, though. Got in just in time.”

  “But ... but what was it?” Mrs. Rammell persisted.

  It was difficult to talk in the corridor. Too many people passing. And the Clinic isn’t like other nursing homes. It is half hospital, half hotel. The trolley that a nurse was pushing past them might have been on its way up to Sir Harry’s suite in Mayfair. From underneath the fold of a white linen napkin the narrow top of a Hock bottle was just showing.

  Mr. Huntley Cary drew them into a small waiting-room on one side.

  Mrs. Rammell repeated her question. And Mr. Huntley Cary, balancing his weight on the radiator and thrusting his long legs out in front of him, answered her.

  “That’s what we’re finding out now,” he said. “But don’t you worry. He’s in good hands. The danger’s all over. There’s no cause for anxiety. You can just relax.”

  Relax! Idiotic word. How could she possibly relax when she still didn’t know? And wasn’t there something sinister, something furtive, about the way they wouldn’t tell her? Dislike Mr. Huntley Cary or not, she had to throw herself on his mercy.

  “Then it’s not ... not ...” she began.

  But when it came to it she could not utter the word. Even saying it made it seem somehow more possible. So Mr. Huntley Cary said it for her. Not that he actually used the same word that she had been afraid of. In his profession he had encountered just this situation so many times before.

  “Carcinoma?” he said blandly. “Why should it be? Your husband’s a very fit man. None of the usual signs. We made a very thorough examination, remember. If there had been anything like that we’d have found it. No suggestion of anything malign. Nothing like that.” He came forward and gave Mrs. Rammell a handshake that she felt was brutally strong. Brutally strong and ominously firm. “Now just you go in as though nothing had happened,” he said. “It’s all over now. No more worries.”

  He broke off and looked at his watch.

  “Well, I must be off,” he said. “I’ll look in again in the morning. And don’t worry, Mrs. Rammell. Don’t worry.”

  2

  There was a small cul de sac on the right-hand side. And Mr. Privett decided to have one last, farewell look along it. The other little shops were all shut. But, at the far end, there was a window with a light still glowing. On an ornamental bracket outside hung the sign Peggoty’s Pantry.

  “Might as well make sure,” Mr. Privett told himself. Then he made his way towards the little café.

  The light in the interior did not look so bright as it had done from the far end of the alley. And the blind was half-down. Mr. Privett’s heart sank, moreover, when he saw that the table in the window had two wicker chairs piled on top of it. Either Peggoty’s Pantry was shut already, or it was just shutting.

  But Mr. Privett had come too far to turn back now. And, when he pushed the door, it opened all right. A chime-mechanism set high up under the rather fancy fanlight went ding-dong, and Mr. Privett was inside among the empty cake trays, the piled-up chairs, the dimness.

  There was only one light on. And that was burning in a small alcove at the far end. Mothlike, Mr. Privett made his way towards it. He was already half-way there when a tired-looking woman in a gaily flowered overall came round from behind the service screen.

  “Oh, A’ime afreed we’re clewsed,” she said in the polite accents of all serving gentlewomen.

  But Mr. Privett was not listening. He scarcely saw her. All that he could see was a pair of feet. They were facing towards him, stuck out through the flimsy legs of the small wicker table with its orange tablecloth. Nothing else was visible. Because on the table stood a tall vase of Michaelmas daisies. And leaning against the flowers was a spread out copy of Fur and Feather.

  Mr. Privett ignored the serving gentlewoman and went forward. At the sound of approaching footsteps, the Fur and Feather trembled. There were movements behind it. A moment later, a large, rather puffy hand reached out. It folded down one corner of the paper. And there, over the top of it, Mr. Privett’s e
ye met Gus’s.

  It was a difficult reunion. The serving gentlewoman kept interrupting them to say that she reahly merst ersk them to leave because she should have clewsed herf-en-ewer ago. Mr. Bloot kept lifting the empty teapot and putting it disconsolately down again. And Mr. Privett was too near to tears to be able to say anything very much.

  What chiefly upset him was Mr. Bloot’s appearance. Instead of the florid, slightly purplish complexion, Mr. Bloot’s skin was a kind of dull, elephant grey. It sagged. There were pouches under his eyes that Mr. Privett had never noticed before. And the folds of his cheeks had grown looser as though he had been fasting for days. He no longer looked a large man. Only a large-boned one.

  And Mr. Privett could see at once why the Brighton police had failed to pick him up. The description that he had unwittingly given was so entirely false. Mr. Bloot was in disguise. He was wearing a check overcoat on top of a red Harris tweed jacket. And in place of the usual cravat he had a yellow tie with a design of stars and anchors. The tie clashed violently with the pink sports shirt. Mr. Privett could not take his eyes off it.

  Mr. Bloot saw him looking.

  “Ah don’t wonder,” he said. “Ah feel ashamed mahself.” He paused. “She wouldn’t let me have mah others,” he went on. “Not after Ah’d told her Ah was leaving her. Ah’d undressed by then. Ah thought she was sorry. But Ah was wrong. Quaht wrong.” He paused again as though reluctant to relive those moments of his sad past life. “These were all there were,” he added. “In mah suitcase in the hall. Mah honeymoon togs. It was ’Etty who chose ’em.”

  The serving gentlewoman came up and went away again. Mr. Privett tried to bring the conversation round to the difficult bit.

  “Why didn’t you let us know where you were?” he asked.

  Mr. Bloot shrugged his shoulders. “Too much on mah mahnd,” he replied. “Ah’ve had er sorter blackaht, I suppose. Because of mah budgies. You understand. The shock. Losing all of them. And Hetty. Just lahk that.”

  He snapped his fingers feebly in the air as he said it.

  “Poor old Gus,” Mr. Privett said feelingly.

  “You’re raht. It’s been er nahtmare,” Mr. Bloot confessed. “Er nabsoloot nahtmare. Ah don’t rahly know how Ah’ve survived it. Ah haven’t eaten a thing just for thinking about it. Four days withaht a proper meal. Just hanging arahnd waiting.”

  “What for?”

  “To make mah mahnd up,” Mr. Bloot told him. “Decahd what to do.”

  “Where ... where have you been sleeping?” Mr. Privett asked.

  As he put the question, he regretted it. He feared that the answer was going to be too heart-rending. He suddenly saw his friend on the pebbles under the Pier, beside the hull of some upturned boat, sitting up all night in a steel-and-glass Corporation shelter.

  “Ah fahnd er notel,” Mr. Bloot told him. “Very comfortable. Rather nahce, in fact. In nappier circumstances, that is. No complaints on that score.”

  “You know the police are looking for you,” Mr. Privett told him. “You’ve been reported officially as missing.”

  Mr. Bloot passed his hand across his forehead.

  “Ah maht have known it,” he said. “That’s what Ah was afraid of.”

  “It’s a wonder they didn’t spot your name. In the hotel register, I mean.”

  But there Mr. Bloot only shook his head.

  “Ah didn’t use it,” he said. “Ah used ’Etty’s. It was all Ah could think of. Ah didn’t want to be fahnd. Ah needed tahm to sort things aht. Tahm to think.”

  “And have you decided?” Mr. Privett asked.

  Mr. Bloot shook his head.

  “No,” he admitted. “Ah’m still thinking.”

  “Don’t ... don’t you wonder how I found you?” Mr. Privett asked.

  He was a little hurt that Mr. Bloot had not been more openly astonished. Frankly incredulous.

  Mr. Bloot did not reply immediately.

  “It must have been Fate,” he said at last. “Bringing you here lahk that. Ah was just leaving when ...”

  But he was allowed to get no further. The serving gentlewoman had reappeared. She had her hat and coat on this time. And she was carrying her handbag.

  “Ay ebsolutely merst ersk you to leave new,” she said. “A’m definitely clewsing. It’s fer too leet already.”

  She moved towards the electric light switch as she said it. Mr. Bloot folded up his paper and got rather unsteadily on to his feet.

  “Ah quaht understand,” he said. “Ah’m afraid me and mah friend have been detaining you. We’re much oblahged.”

  Once outside in the alleyway, Mr. Privett made a fresh attempt.

  “Well, you can’t stay in Brighton for ever, can you?” he said.

  “Ah’ve got nothing to go back for,” Mr. Bloot replied. “Not nahw.”

  “There’s Rammell’s,” Mr. Privett reminded him.

  But Mr. Bloot did not seem so sure.

  “Ah’ve blotted mah copy book,” he said. “That’s what Ah’ve done. Ah’ve blotted it.”

  “Well, what about coming back home with me?” Mr. Privett asked. “To Fewkes Road? Until it blows over.”

  “This won’t never blow over,” Mr. Bloot told him. “This is it.”

  “But you will come?”

  Mr. Bloot inclined his head courteously.

  “If you insist,” he said. “After Ah’ve paid mah bill, of course. And got mah bag.”

  They walked on in silence for a moment. Then Mr. Privett reverted to the secret of their miraculous meeting.

  “It was all because of the Bird Show ...” he began.

  But Mr. Bloot stopped him.

  “If Tiddleywinks had been there,” he said, “it would have been er walk-over. Er bloomin’ walk-over. That’s what Ah can’t forgive.”

  3

  Mr. Huntley Cary had been right. And so had Dr. Webber. Mrs. Rammell had never seen anyone look so utterly ill as her own husband. He was asleep when she went in to him. And more than asleep. Drugged and unconscious. Simply lying there, existing.

  So small looking, too. Mrs. Rammell felt a pang pass through her as she realized what a little man he was. Scarcely larger than a child. And no longer young. Definitely ageing, in fact. Without his teeth, his lips were limp and sucked inwards. They revealed new lines, new hollows, in his cheeks. It was more than ageing. He looked ancient. And the nurse, in combing his hair, had chosen quite the wrong parting. She had revealed all the pure silvery white parts underneath. Whereas the way Mr. Rammell did it, there was never anything to suggest more than here and there a sober flecking of respectable middle-aged grey. It was pathetic the way, now that he was defenceless, all the secrets about him were suddenly being exposed.

  And about her, too, she supposed. She was only eighteen months younger than Mr. Rammell. If he was breaking up at that rate, showing all the signs of time, so must she be underneath it all. It was only that she always took such care. Studied herself. Never allowed things to go too far. And she had been more than ever careful since the episode of that dreadful Marcia woman. She had deliberately remade herself. Spent hours in the hands of a masseuse, the hairdresser, the chiropodist. Literally hours. That was the dreadful part of it. Soon it would be very nearly a full-time job just going on being Mrs. Rammell.

  The sudden rediscovery of their joint ages brought a lump into her throat. She felt closer to him than she had done for years. She saw how silly all their bickering had been. How totally unimportant Marcia really was: a mere outsider who had tried, desperately no doubt, to invade this marriage that had outlasted her. How unimportant, too—yes, that was the only word for it—her music was compared with her own husband’s health and happiness. She was a woman of quick decisions. But also of immense resolution. As she came out of that drowsy, ether-laden air her mind was made up. Her one duty was to get Mr. Rammell well again. That and nothing else. She was ready to give up everything for it.

  The last, long handshake with Dr. Webber was now over. But it
had been too long this time. She had glanced at her watch during the course of it. Because it was not only her husband who was in her mind by now. It was her son. Her Tony. She had the flight number, the E.T.A., scribbled on a piece of paper in her bag. And her secretary had telephoned the Terminal before she had left.

  In an hour—and she wanted to allow a full hour to make sure that she was there ready at the barrier when he arrived—she would have him in her arms again. It would set the seal on everything that she had decided about herself and Mr. Rammell.

  There is a distinct flavour of wartime and prison camps about the Trans-Atlantic side of London Airport. Something to do with the huts and the wire, no doubt. And only the very simple living could be overwhelmed by the magnificence within. The basket-weave chairs, the pedestal ash-trays, the strip-lighting brackets clipped on to the ceiling struts are no more than the foundations of the jet age. Not the fullness of the age itself.

  But it’s a sacred meeting place, all the same. The air is thick with expectation. Little pools of hope everywhere. And it’s curious the way the barrier divides emotions as well as people. There’s the stupid helplessness of waiting on one side. The eager joy of coming forward on the other. Vaccination certificates and airport coffee are both forgotten as the two sides come together. Then it is Reunion United and Arrivals Unlimited. A continuous twenty-four hourly festival. The everlasting celebration party of all the travel agencies.