In the basement of the building lived a young man and woman of mildly intellectual aspect. At that time, however, the man worked in the local branch of a well-known provisions chain; and the woman had a part-time job with a credit bookmaker. These dispositions were consequent upon their having four children and, therefore, little margin.
Even the very smallest of the children, none the less, had reached some kind of age for schooling; and the young wife used to flit up to my attic in the afternoon for a cup of coffee and a talk after her return from the bookmaker's establishment and before her departure to collect the child.
At first, I was not too keen. I was scrupulous about her position as a married woman living in the same house. Moreover, her visits soon became more and more frequent, almost daily; while at the same time I noticed that she always refused to commit herself about the day following, which I thought vaguely sinister. I fancied I owed it to myself to object a little to being interrupted in the course of composition (or editorship). Needless to say, none of this reserve availed for much or for long. It was no more than the subjective initial slowness or protest of the youthful male, respectably reared. Soon I was looking forward to this woman's visits so much that my morning's work suffered noticeably; and regretting in an entirely different way her continuing refusal to say whether tomorrow she would be back. "I simply can't tell you," she would reply. "We must make the most of the present." But her putting it like that helped to make it difficult for me to do so. Her name was Maureen. The name of her husband was Gilbert. Once she asked me to visit their place after the evening meal, but it could hardly be expected to be a success. The husband just sat there, worn out after a hot day in the provisions shop, and reading the New Statesman; and two or three of the children were old enough to stay up and ask questions and fall about. We never tried it again, I think.
The ground and first floors of the building were originally unlet, but that could not be expected to continue for very long now that the country was getting back on to its feet again. All the doors on to the hall and staircase were kept locked, and Maureen used to complain that it made the house seem depressing. I told her that it made for peace and quiet, but I appreciated that peace and quiet were not what Maureen was principally looking for, despite the hullaballoo of four small children in a not very large flat. One day I observed her in conversation with the window cleaners who swilled away once a month at the outsides of the never opened sashes. Of course they were glad of a few words with a pretty housewife having time on her hands. "They say there's nothing inside but emptiness," Maureen told me later. I made no comment, but filled in by kissing her hair or something of the kind. Maureen had at that time rather droopy hair, possibly owing to lack of vitamins during the war; which she kept off her brow with a big tortoiseshell slide. Her brow was really beautiful, and so were her eyes. They had that gentle look of being unequal to life, which, as I later realized, always attracts me in a woman.
One night the numerous office staff of Freedom did not depart at the usual hour; and, as late as ten or eleven o'clock, looking over my banister, I saw them still heaving and rolling great packages on the landing below. They were being very quiet about it as far as conversation went: not at all like foreigners, one felt. Obviously, there was a crisis, but for that very reason I felt it unkind to probe. In bed, I was kept awake not merely by the stolid thumping downstairs but also by the likelihood that the crisis was one affecting the whole building and the harmless, neutral way of life we had all worked out within it. Conceivably it was my first clear apprehension of the truth that is the foundation of wisdom: the truth that change of its nature is for the worse, the little finger (or thick gripping thumb) of mortality's cold paw.
And, duly, the next day the builders moved in. They actually woke me up with their singing, whistling, jostling, rowing, and other customary noises. They were in for an endless three weeks (though nowadays it would be six or nine); and, as serious work became impossible, I moved back to my mother's cottage for a spell, my first of more than a night or two since I had gone to London. The day of my departure was the first time also, as I well remember, that I kissed Maureen full and passionately on the lips. I had feared, if I may be honest, to commit myself so far: with Maureen's husband and children in permanent residence just below me, to say nothing of my own narrow circumstances. Now the break in my regime seemed to make it less of a commitment. It was not a very sympathetic way of seeing things perhaps, but the options are so greatly fewer than people like to think.
When I reached the cottage, I found it impossible to work in the little bedroom that was always reserved for me, as the gravel lane outside was being "metalled" and widened. Even in the small sitting-room facing the other way, the noise was disturbing, and I had to throw the Daily Chronicle over work sent me by Valentine, every time I heard my mother's step, which was frequently, as she was solicitous and would have liked to keep me with her. In the end, the rumbling, indecisive steamroller, the clanking tar-boiler, the roadmenders more loudly jocund than Michael Fairless, withdrew to agitate other households, to diminish the more distant hedgerow. "Do stop as long as you can," said my mother.
Maureen had told me, before I left, that our ground, first, and second floors had all been made the subject of a single new letting. She had a way of picking up such things. She did not know whether the Freedom people had been actually driven out. It was impossible to believe that the enterprise could have much future in any case; and, indeed, I never heard of it again after that late sad night of removal and retreat, nor saw a copy of the paper on any bookstall or barrow.
In the end, I went to London for the morning in order to prospect. The whole front of the house had had its woodwork repainted, partly in blue, partly in white; including my two small square attic windows that looked on to the street. The early nineteenth-century front door had been brightly blued, and, to the left of it, at shoulder-height on the whited jamb, was an unusually large brass plate: Stallabrass, Hoskins and Cramp. Chartered Accountants. The plate needed polishing, possibly because it had only just arrived from elsewhere.
It was the time of day when Maureen was working with her bookmaker. I let myself in and mounted towards my abode. The internal paintwork had been renewed from top to bottom, though rather roughly, as was to be expected so soon after the war, and in crude colours. The staircase walls had been repapered in an assertive mid-green. There was even a mottled carpet, where before there had been dark lino and unravelling drugget. It occurred to me that the heterogeneous impression might be a consequence of drawing upon stock-ends sold off (in this moment of world historical renewal) at bargain prices. There was no one about, and all the doors were closed, and everything was silent. At least, and at last, the builders were out.
My own front door contained a letter-box, though no postman had in my time ever ascended to it, all our letters being left on a shaky shelf in the ground floor passage. Now I found a billet-doux marked "By Hand": the agents were upset because I had not been there to admit the decorators. Would I please call in at their office as soon as possible? I never did anything more about that and nor did the agents. The building belonged to a vague charitable foundation which supported a school for needy boys. The school had been moved out of London before my time and the offices of the foundation with it. I had not found the agents to be over-officious. It had been one of the attractions.
My rooms were filled with every kind of grit and dirt owing to the decorating activities outside. They looked almost uninhabitable. I had never thought of affording any kind of professional cleaner; nor, indeed, had I ever noticed such a person in the whole place, though I realized that someone must have brushed the stairs from time to time. Now I wondered whether I should not have to solicit Maureen, or at least Maureen's advice.
It would have to be postponed. I had seen enough to know that in other, more important respects, I could return. Upon a writer unsuccessful and successful also in the degree that I then was, work always waits and pr
esses. I went back to my mother's cottage for another night or two. "You must have found your flat very dusty," said my mother. "You had better let me give it a good spring-clean."
She had not been there before and I was hesitant. But, fortunately, when the time came, she seemed quite to like the attic, despite the disconcerting approach, with all the new colours staring out, and all the doors still locked. I know that at least most of them were locked and not merely shut, because my mother tried many of the handles, and in no uncertain way, which I on my own had not cared to do.
"How do you get on with the people in the basement?" asked my mother.
I told her in some suitable words.
"I'm glad the wife's taken to you. You need a woman around. I'm glad she's pretty too."
It was not until several days after I finally returned that I again saw Maureen. My habits were pretty mousey, and I do not think she had realized that I was there. For my part, I held back from taking the initiative. In the first place, I had never done so hitherto. In the second place, I was more uncertain than ever, after the spell of absence, how things were going to develop, or even how I wanted them to develop. Then, one morning within the first week, as in a column of burning fiery chariots, entered into possession Messrs Stallabrass, Hoskins and Cramp, with all their force, all their mechanism, all their archive. Their arrival was as confident, rowdy, and cheerful as the withdrawal of Freedom had been obscure and muted. On the instant the staircase was alive with short-haired, short-skirted girls running up and down as in Jacob's dream, except that these girls were exchanging backchat with shouting removal men. (Short hair and short skirts were, of course, new at that date, though my mother had already gone in for both, even though she rarely travelled far from her cottage.) Moving through the throng were several men in white shirts, stiff collars, dark trousers, and braces. Could they be partners? Even Stallabrass, Hoskins and Cramp in person? Certainly they were going through motions which might well be a form of giving orders. The total number of persons involved quite eclipsed Freedom, even relatively. And that afternoon came Maureen tapping at my door.
"Why didn't you let me know you were back?"
"I hesitated."
She was willing to let it go at that.
"What do you think?" I went on, inclining my head downwards and sideways.
Maureen twitched up a corner of her mouth.
"Do you suppose they'll quieten down?" I asked.
"I don't see why they should. They're a pretty awful lot from what little I've seen."
"I've seen quite enough of them already." Authors always tend to be hasty in their judgments. It is the strain of searching for peace and concentration.
"Have you seen Mr Millar?"
"Not that I know of. Who's Mr Millar?"
"He's the man whose outfit it really is. The names outside don't exist, or are all dead, or something. My guess is that Mr Millar's bumped them all off."
I remember Maureen using that exact expression, which was then as new as short hair and short skirts.
"Not necessarily," I said. "You often find these firms with lots of names and none of the people really existing."
"You haven't seen Mr Millar," replied Maureen.
"Not that I know of. There seemed to be about a hundred of them. Is there anything special about Mr Millar's appearance?"
"Yes," said Maureen. "He looks like Cordoba the Sex Vampire." This, I should observe, was a silent film that made a mark at the time, though I was a little surprised to find Maureen citing it.
"Then you'd better rub yourself all over with garlic before you go to bed," I replied; and this helped to make things go more easily between Maureen and me after our separation.
I cannot say that Maureen's description of our new neighbour even stimulated my curiosity. As will have been gathered by now, I was an anxious and cautious youth, walking his own tight-rope, and rather afraid than otherwise of new company, of becoming involved. Possibly the frightful stuff that Major Valentine sent up to me contributed to my social timidity. I am sure I thought that the longer I could keep entirely out of contact with Maureen's Mr Millar, the better. I had very little idea of "gathering experience", and never doubted that I could spin books from inside me. For me the matter did not even need thinking about.
It was bad enough that the new tenants were all over the stairs and landings, with endless giggling, shouting, and banging of doors. Even during the first two or three days I noticed that they had a way of banging ordinary room doors several times in succession, as people do nowadays to doors of motor cars. None of it was at all the way I had supposed chartered accountants to behave.
"I wonder how they get any work done at all," Maureen was soon exclaiming. It was indeed on the next occasion I saw her.
I agreed with her: being one who needed complete silence and total absence of distraction before I could work at all. Or so I then thought. Indeed, I elaborated a little to Maureen.
"It's different for you," Maureen observed amiably. One of Maureen's many good points had always been her apparently sincere respect for an artist. It is probably grudging of me to term it "apparently sincere", but it is a thing one never really knows.
"You're welcome to use our living room at any time," Maureen continued.
"Thank you very much."
"If Mr Millar makes himself at home there, I don't see why you shouldn't. I like you much better," Maureen added coquettishly.
"Mr Millar! How did he get in?"
"He rang our bell the afternoon he arrived. The day I told you about him. You'll find he does the same to you soon. I rather fancy it's the way he goes about things."
"But what does he do in your flat?" I enquired feebly. I was astounded by what Maureen had said. The new people had been with us for only a few days.
"He lies down. In a darkened room, as he puts it. Though, as a matter of fact, our flat's not at all easy to darken properly. I once tried. Mr Millar says that he has to have what he calls intermissions. You can see what he means when you think about the din they all make."
"They're his staff, after all. Why can't he make them shut up?"
"I can't tell you, Roy."
"But what are you doing when he's there?"
"So far I've not been there. After all, it's only happened about three times. I suppose I can always keep the kids in the kitchen or put them in their bedroom."
"You'd better charge him something," I said sourly.
"Are you jealous, Roy?" asked Maureen.
"Yes," I said; though it was not entirely the truth.
"Oh, good," said Maureen. "We progress."
I had to admit to myself that I had probably invited remarks of that kind.
I had also to admit that, in the matter of meeting Mr Millar, to general distaste had now been added specific embarrassment.
I began to be upset by another irritating habit: the people downstairs had a way of letting their telephones (undoubtedly several of them—commoner now than then) ring and ring and ring before lifting the receiver. As they almost always left all their doors open, the trick contributed greatly to the distant uproar that ascended to my attic.
Sometimes I could not but overhear one end of these delayed telephone conversations; when I was passing through the house, I mean: I do not imply that actual definable words penetrated my floor or walls.
Whatever I did hear was always of unbelievable commonplaceness or banality. It never seemed to be business in any sense; only a flow of vapourings, mixed with giggles. It is obvious that I judged with prejudice, but, as time passed, and I heard more and more of these vapid utterances, and never anything else, prejudice began to be mixed with a certain wonder, and then with a certain concern. Yes, I am almost sure that it was these overheard inanities, in no way my business and not even overheard all that frequently, because I passed through the house during business hours as rarely as I could, that first made me feel disturbed . . . feel that about the new tenants was something that as well as continuall
y irritating me also frightened me. I had, of course, come upon jokes about typists talking on the telephone to their boy friends, but here was something that seemed to go much further. I think I might put it that a conversation as reasonable as a chat with a boy friend would have been positively welcome to my long ears, and explicable. Everything I heard or overheard was merely empty. For that reason nothing of it can be remembered. I doubt if I could have written down immediately what I had just heard as I climbed up to my third floor. Apart from anything else, I should have been ashamed to harbour such futilities in my thoughts or memory.
When I met them in the hall or on the stairs, the little girls leered at me forthcomingly, or smirked at me contemptuously, or sometimes manifested real hostility. Some of these words seem absurd; but they describe how the girls made me feel. All of them were very young. Many people would say that the fault must have been largely mine. No doubt in a sense it was. I admit that I could find no way of dealing with the girls. Conventional greetings seemed absurd. Moreover, the girls were always new: I suppose there might have been five or six working there (if that was the word) at a time, but faces that I had come to know soon disappeared, and were apparently replaced by complete strangers. It was not possible to think in terms of getting to know individuals; even if that had been what I wanted to do.
As for the men in the firm, who did not change (and were, needless to say, older), the custom was to stare me up and down, while, perhaps, I descended the stair or came in through the front door; to stare me up and down as if I were a stranger and an intruder off the street; and then sometimes, but not always, though always at the last moment, to utter an over-bland Good Morning or Good Evening.
The Collected Short Fiction Page 34
