The Penguin Book of the British Short Story

by Philip Hensher

  ‘What do you mean “young Mr Julian”?’ asked Isabel, speaking in a whisper. ‘I saw a Mr Julian, but he was old and quite bald on the top.’

  ‘That’s young Mr Julian,’ said Bentley. ‘Give us a chance. He’s not fifty yet. I’m sixty-two, Palfreyman’s seventy-three, but you’d think he was ninety, wouldn’t you?’

  Isabel moved away from Mr Bentley, who smelt of old clothes, old fish, and cough medicine inextricably blended. Reggie came quietly in. Mr Bentley took off his outdoor glasses and put on another pair, which had a long black ribbon tied at the side of them, stared at him fixedly and said, ‘Where have you been? I bet you left the office door open, and that means sudden death, you know.’

  Isabel noticed that the boy was very small for his fifteen years. But he had upstanding fair hair, a stiff Eton collar on, very short trousers and very dirty knees.

  ‘I’ve been helping with the fire,’ he said in a rapt voice. ‘You ought to see Peckett’s place. It’s soaking, and every window’s broken. I’ve been on the roof.’

  Mr Bentley leaned over towards Isabel and said in a croaking whisper, ‘This boy doesn’t exist yet. He’s only been here a couple of weeks. But the last one was a corker. He was sliding down the banisters and fell between ’em, three flights on to a stone floor. His father was just coming in the door – a real coincidence this is, his father’s an insurance man – and he says, ‘Lay there, sonny, come back and lay down,’ for this lad was bolting upstairs again, frightened to death of getting the sack at one end and a belting from his father at the other. He wasn’t hurt a mite. He went back and groaned no end. But unfortunately somebody had seen him – seen what he was doing. And the case came to nothing. We don’t employ boys who slide down banisters, you know.’

  Isabel didn’t know whether Mr Bentley was speaking the truth or not. She just looked at him with large eyes. Mr Palfreyman called from the other office, ‘Less noise, less noise, please,’ then ‘come here, Reggie, take these envelopes out and cut them. And give these letters to Mr Bentley.’

  Bentley went on talking to the girl in his croaking voice: ‘Using up the insides of used envelopes as scrap paper. Dirty, messy old thing. You don’t know where they’ve been, do you? Things like that want destroying, I say. And there’ll be a hell of a mess over this fire. Excuse me, miss, I can’t help swearing in a small way – my old girl at home, she swears like a trooper – but it’s the second fire in three months, not that it’s our fault; it wasn’t started here; but any insurance company’d cut up rusty, what do you think?’

  Isabel was warming her hands at the fire and looking round helplessly. ‘Who tells me what to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t, thank God,’ said Bentley piously. ‘But I can tell you one thing: dodge old Palfreyman like the devil. Stick to young Mr Julian, don’t get across with the office-boy, keep on looking as pretty as you do now, and you’ll get on all right.’

  ‘Do you have any dusters?’ asked Isabel, suddenly resolute. In spite of his friendliness, she did not much care for Mr Bentley. The older man was peculiar, but she liked his loyalty. She would do something to get on the right side of him, help him, be as nice as she knew how.

  ‘You’ll find any amount in the pattern room.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘Through that door.’

  She came back with an armful of dusters, soaked one in water, and began wiping the wet desks. She did not feel like the irresolute girl who had walked up to that bookstall. In a few minutes she was warm all over, her face flushed with the good work of clearing away an unwanted mess of water.

  ‘I’m doing something without Jem or anyone having to tell me,’ she thought happily. She had found a pail in the lavatory, and was busy wringing in her dusterful of water, when Mr Palfreyman called her.

  She dried her hands on a handkerchief, and went into the private office. The old man was standing with his back to a very cheerful fire. There were two chairs, two desks, and an ornamental brass coal-box. Over the mantel was a curled map.

  ‘Miss Allat, I’m going to let you do something. You shall look after Mr Julian’s desk; see that the inkwells are always filled, blue-black, red, and copying. And that the nibs are in order. And fresh blotting-paper, plenty of it, always on hand. It is a great privilege; I have attended to this, and to Mr Julian’s father’s desk, for many years. Oh, and Miss Allat’ – he lowered his voice – ‘I should not talk to Mr Bentley a great deal. It is true he has been here for some years, but he has always acted as a stranger. He is not – Miss Allat, I grieve to tell you this – but he is not a gentleman. Miss Allat, he goes to funerals in a bowler hat. Now you may go back.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Palfreyman. I shall be very pleased indeed to look after the desk. I will begin in the morning.’ She went out, wishing that the private office had been a sumptuous place and that Mr Julian would have flowers and a large picture of a very beautiful wife in a silver frame. But perhaps his wife was ugly. So many are, she thought wistfully.

  She went back to her manual work, wiping up the water, wringing her dusters, looking brightly round for more wet places.

  ‘Good morning!’

  Suddenly, the whole place was alive. Mr Palfreyman was a devoted old slave, with his ‘Good morning, Mr Julian.’ The office boy was a kind of tolerated worm. Mr Bentley was simply Mr Bentley, the stranger who had been with the firm for fourteen years, and no more.

  ‘Why, Miss Allat, whatever are you doing?’

  Mr Julian had taken off his hat with a sweeping bow. ‘What a long bald head. But what a nice bald head,’ she thought. ‘I’m clearing up after the fire,’ she said in a clear voice.

  ‘Don’t trouble, please. Mrs Withy will do that.’

  He looked in a very pleasant way at her young, fresh face, at her thin coat hanging on the peg, at her small hands competently wringing out the duster, and smiled. She smiled back widely, delightedly.

  Yet she kept on wiping up the pools of water and hearing the droning voice of Mr Palfreyman, the hard, harsh cough of the friendly Bentley. Behind her, the boy Reggie sat at a dried desk cutting open the old envelopes, saving the smooth sides for the old man to make notes on. She felt little gusts of wind coming from the broken window, and every moment a little more of Jem and the girls and the scent and the coloured paper fell away from her memories.

  ‘They’ll be going on, close all together, feeling well, or ill, or hungry, or good-tempered or bad, and Jem’ll be at the big machine waiting for them all to come up and flatter him and praise him.’ She felt alone and exhilarated. ‘But I’ve got away. I’m going to be my own self. There’s no Jem here to take all the responsibility. I’m going to work well, and do exactly what they tell me. I’d love, yes, I’d simply love to be dignified. But nice, too. So many people are like marshes, slopping sluggishly about.’ She laughed, and tried to whisper ‘slopping sluggishly’ to herself. ‘But I’d rather be a lake,’ she went on thinking, ‘a lake with good, straight edges. A lake mightn’t do much, really, but it is nice to look at, and marshes are such treacherous things. They run into one another, and rot everything that gets in the way.’

  She went on thinking as she worked, about the dusters, about Mr Julian, about the copy of The Times on her desk, about her home and her family.

  ‘I’m going to learn something here. Not business, not good arithmetic, not even shorthand. But some day, I’ll – what will I do some day?’

  She had not the remotest idea what she would do some day, but when she had washed down her wet desk and put away the dusters and the bucket, she opened her typewriter, got some paper from the top drawer and began typing figures, long columns of figures that she could add up. She did not add so very well. She began tapping, at first slowly, then with more and more confidence; and soon she was pulling out the filled paper, bending her head to it, frowning, looking the very picture of somebody who had plenty of fine work to do in the world and who knew exactly what she was doing.

 
; JACK COMMON

  Nineteen

  When the curtain went down on the last act of La Bohème they stood up immediately, glad to escape the discomfort of a gallery seat and eager, too, to take a last look down at the little glimmering stage below where the performers now assembled to take their applause. That last glance was a sort of seal upon the night’s entertainment, fixing it in the memory. There stood Mimi arisen from her deathbed but with the romance of her pathetic end still about her; and Rodolphe whom one does not love so well but who gains our sympathies at the last; and Colline the friend we all wish for. Romantic trinity, bowing themselves out of their parts before the dim-lit house and the rolling plaudits.

  He stood straight, gazing at the stage but dissociating himself from the applause which, being too voluminous, affected him with a sort of shyness for the actors. She leaned forward and rested an arm on him to balance. He was proud to be her support. This was his first love, and he was nineteen.

  Then, hurrying so as not to be caught by the national anthem, she gathered her things and they began moving along the aisle picking a way among people’s knees and orange peel. Just as they reached the gangway the lights flashed on; the strange multitude of applauding shapes and white faces became an ordinary crowd of clothes, and spectacles, and limbs; and the introductory rumble of the anthem began. But Ella and he were safe through the doorway and among the advance contingent tripping down the stairs for the exit.

  The theatre opened on a windy, silent side-street in which was a row of taxis, and a white globe of electric light with ‘Gentlemen’ printed on it over an underground lavatory. Beside the taxis stood three heavily-clothed men like Cossacks waiting for fares.

  Ella shivered and fastened her little fox about her neck. He was lighting a cigarette against the wind and when he had finished she tucked her arm in his and they hurried off to the tram-stop.

  ‘O-oh, it’s cold,’ she shivered, as they awaited the dilatory tram, which was just turning the bend in the road, losing its lights, while the trolley shot blue sparks, then steadying like a ship and blazing forth again. ‘But wasn’t it good?’

  ‘Fine. Miles better than Butterfly. Better story.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? I love that last scene. She’s a splendid Mimi. I’m so glad we went.’

  ‘Here we are,’ said he, as the tram ground its brakes and the line of windows with the dummy faces came to rest.

  They pushed among the group of passengers, mounted the steps, and shoved along the gangway. There was only one seat which she took, while he grabbed a strap and swayed to the jolt of starting.

  They did not talk on the journey, partly because of the difficulty of bending down, but mainly because he was a little shy of talking to her before strangers. He was immensely proud to be seen with her, to have a sweetheart and travel delightfully paired, but he was so new to it all that he was not sure he knew how to behave, and to talk would subject him to the criticism of these distantly malevolent passengers. This young man next to him, for instance, had a contemptuous glance and obviously thought himself much more capable of entertaining a pretty girl.

  She was pretty; a dark fluff of hair curled on her cheek and through it one could just see the delicate shell of her ear. Oh, to be witty and keep her always laughing, or to be masterful, or admirable, so that one did not feel so uncertain about her affection! How is it that people in books find it so easy to make love, and one’s acquaintances never confess any difficulty, yet oneself is such an awful fool that any conversation comes easier than the language of the heart. But then to Ella you couldn’t say made-up things, and however much your heart ached no words came but stupid ones.

  The tram-wheels ground on a steep bank and set up a long moan. Six great windows of a draper strolled blankly by. Ella looked up and smiled. It was time to get off.

  The tram-lines shone in the light of a great moon which lit the roofs so plainly you could count the tiles and watch the shadows of thinning smoke from the chimney-pots waver there. But the other side of the road was a black wedge of shadow and in it a policeman was standing. Past him they hurried, not meeting his eye, the eye of the law. Ella stooped to avoid the wind.

  ‘Oh, dear, dear! Aren’t you cold? Come, let’s hurry.’

  ‘It’s healthy weather, Ella. A splendid night, I think. Look at that moon. Isn’t it marvellously bright?’

  ‘It is a beauty; you can see the mountains on it. Wouldn’t like to live there, though.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? Why not? Just you and I, Ella. With a moon to ourselves. I think it would be wonderful.’

  ‘Silly, you’re making me shiver. It would be so cold up there.’

  ‘I’d keep you warm.’

  ‘Would you? I wish you would come along to our shop then. It’s been freezing in there to-day. And Miss Hales would have the window dressed as usual. How would you like to stand by a cold shop-window with the draught from the door cutting through you? Miss Hales never notices the cold. She’s so cold-hearted herself it doesn’t make any impression on her. You know, Miss Carter’s hands are in a terrible state with chilblains and Old Hard-as-nails, that’s what Belle calls her, caught sight of them to-day, she says, “Look at your hands, Miss Carter, can’t you do something about them?” Belle says, “Well, Miss Hales, it’s the constant hot water, they never get a chance to heal.” Halesie wasn’t taking the hint. She says, “I’ve cleaned plenty of windows in my time and I never had hands like those. You must see about them. The sight of them is enough to drive customers out of the shop.” Belle came across to me and whispered, “No, and I never had a face like hers. Something’s got to suffer; I’m glad it’s only my hands.” Belle’s a scream; if she wasn’t there, I don’t think I could stick it. And she’ll be leaving in a few months’ time.’

  ‘Will she?’ said he, thinking of other matters.

  ‘Yes, her boy has got a good job now and they will be getting married soon as he has saved enough.’

  He was thinking as he watched her bright face how curious it was that she took so much delight in relating the trivialities of the day, wasting the time precious to them which might be given to more significant conversation. Perhaps it was because he did not take the lead forcibly enough. Or was her love of a lighter, less-absorbing sort?

  They turned the corner of her street and the usual little panic assailed him. The distance was so short to her door and sometimes she disappeared behind it after a brief goodnight. That left his evening pitiably truncated. What he wanted was a long pause in the shop doorway nearby, where he might hold her close to him, inhaling her fragrance, and taste the desirable no-taste-at-all of her lips. He walked in silence until they came to the doorway. Then he put his arm round her waist and said, ‘Let us stay in here to say goodnight.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, resisting, ‘It’s late and I’m so cold.’

  ‘But I’ll keep you warm. Just for a minute or two, Ella.’

  ‘No longer, mind,’ she whispered.

  He caught his heel against the door and the noise startled him, it was so loud. Then he wedged an elbow into the corner and brought her close to him. He kissed her and felt full of pity because her lips were so cold.

  ‘Poor little thing. Poor little Ella.’

  But she pushed him off to arrange a strand of her hair which had escaped and was blowing about her cheek.

  ‘Are you warmer now,’ he whispered.

  ‘Not very.’

  ‘It is sheltered in here. Keep close and you will soon be warm.’

  ‘But you are shivering.’

  ‘It is because I love you, Ella,’ he said, confused, and trying to stop it.

  ‘Silly,’ she said.

  He kissed her again.

  Then she drew her head away and looked over the silent roadway. He didn’t know what to say next, he was so glad to have her close like that, and so aware that something should be said and that he should kiss her again and again many times, and that kissing was no use either. The moonlight lay on the p
avement and on the cobbles beyond the pavement, a strange silent light. In the quiet, little things stood out like gems and were distinct. There were black streaks of frozen water in the gutters, and between the cobbles tiny wedges of shadow; a piece of paper fluttered but could not get away from the middle of the road, or would it not have sailed upward to the moon like a great white moth?

  His back was turned to the street and all he could see was the angle of the shop window, an oval flaw in the glass sparkling, and a dusty pyramid of cigarette packets with a dead spider on one of the ledges. It was better to look at her; to watch the white curve of her cheek against the fur and her eyelids fluttering when she had stared too long.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be splendid, Ella, if we could go away to-night, and wake up to-morrow in a village miles away. Or, outside a village, a little cottage of our own. A little cottage on a slope with trees and fields all in front of it, and a river below where we could go for walks. And hurry back at night, run up the hill and have a big fire burning. You would look so pretty in the firelight.’

  She looked up at him curiously, and he kissed her.

  ‘Do you love me, Ella?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be better than working in a shop?’

  ‘Rather. I’d miss Belle though. I’ll miss her when she gets married. Do you think she’s in too much of a hurry?’

  ‘Eh? I don’t know,’ said he, taken aback.

  ‘I don’t believe in long engagements though. Do you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, pursuing his own thought and impatient of the interruption. ‘There are so many marvellous places to live in. I’d love to take you round the world. If we could set off tomorrow—’

  Just then a church-clock struck; its distant boom rippled over all the moonlit roofs. He held her closer.

  ‘No, I must go. Half-past eleven.’

  ‘One more kiss.’