by Nina Bawden
At last she said, “But Willy, I’ve seen her. She used to come to the Flamingo. I recognised her when I saw her picture in the paper.”
I said, incredulous, “But I asked the barman and the band. They said they had never seen her.”
She said, “But that’s not true. She came often. They must have seen her.”
She spoke just loudly enough for the men to hear and the big one glanced angrily in her direction. She saw him and said, in a soft, hurried voice, “We can’t talk here. Let’s go out. Have you had dinner?”
She ran out of the room, ahead of me. It was almost as though something had suddenly frightened her. The light was on in the little box at the top of the narrow stair and the man who had sold me my membership card was seated inside. He drew back as I came level with the box, almost as though he didn’t want to be seen, and made a great performance of lighting a cigarette.
I recognised him now without difficulty. He was the man who had been in the pub at Shepherd’s Market. The unremarkable man with the greasy hair. The man who had been talking to Piers.
Kate took me to a restaurant that she knew. It was small and cheap but the food was good and the tablecloths were clean. The woman who ran the place greeted Kate as if she knew her well; she stood by our table for a while and talked. She asked Kate whether she was quite better now and Kate said yes, quite better, as though she did not want to talk about herself. When the woman had gone away I asked her if she had been ill and she flushed and said, almost curtly, that she had been in hospital for a little while, that was all.
She offered no further explanation and, looking at her in the cruel light of the café, I thought that she looked tired and much too thin. I wondered if she ate enough; she played with her food as if she did not really want it and was only eating to be sociable. I wondered how much she earned and, sentimentally, if there was anyone to see that she looked after herself. Her parents had been already dead when I had first known her and she had never mentioned any other relatives. I remember that it had surprised me, lapped around as I was by family, that she should apparently have none.
We talked, while we ate, but not of Rose. It was almost as though Kate did not want to talk about her. I found, a little to my surprise, I think, that we had a great deal to talk about. So much, in fact, that by the time we were drinking coffee I felt as if it were impossible that I had not seen her for so long a time. It was the sort of restaurant we had always gone to together; I had been a captain in the gunners when we had first met and quite able to afford something better, but Kate had affected to despise the better places.
In the end I said directly, “Kate, will you tell me about Rose?”
She said with some slight nervousness, “You know, I may be hopelessly wrong. Will you show me the photograph?”
I gave it to her. She looked at it for a moment and then she nodded. “I’m quite sure that is the girl,” she said.
She lit a cigarette and stared at the tablecloth. She told me a little of what she knew. I thought, at the time, that she had told me everything.
She had first seen Rose one evening in the late spring. She had come into the Flamingo with a crowd of young men and one other girl. The men were noisy and a little drunk, they wore thickly padded suits and they carried flashy cigarette cases. The other girl was pretty and vivacious and Kate had thought her rather ordinary.
Rose, on the other hand, was far from ordinary and, in those surroundings, completely unexpected. Kate said, with a sincerity that prevented her words from sounding cheap and sentimental, that the girl had been as out of place in the Flamingo as a country flower in a town alley.
She said; “I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t just that she was obviously young and exceptionally lovely to look at, although that would have been impressive enough. She looked so extraordinarily innocent, Willy. It was startling and in an odd sort of way almost horrifying.”
The party sat at the biggest table in the club and bought a good many drinks. The boys paid for everything with notes. Kate had been seated near to their table and had heard a great deal of what was said. None of it she remembered; there had been a lot of pointless innuendo, nudging and sudden laughter. Rose had said very little except, “I don’t mind,” when she was offered a drink. She laughed when the others did but a little after them, as if she did not know what she was laughing at. Later in the evening one of the men sat next to her. He put his arm round her shoulders and fondled her. Rose did not attempt to move away; she sat still, like a little doll, without any expression on her face at all. By the time that Kate left the club Rose was leaning her head against the man’s shoulder, hiccuping a little, and her eyes were closed.
Kate said, “The man I was with said …” She stopped and suddenly blushed as if she did not want to tell me what he had said.
I said, “Go on,” and she looked at me oddly and warily as if she wasn’t sure what to say next. Then she talked more slowly and with a new caution. I thought that she was afraid of saying too much. I wondered why. I remember that I was feeling sick at the thought of Rose in The Odd Flamingo.
Kate said that she went to the club fairly frequently. I did not ask her why she went although I wondered why. I thought her too adult for that kind of place; it did not occur to me then that she might be lonely, and that when you are lonely any place where you are known is better than no place at all.
Rose had been to the club quite often, usually with the same group of young men, sometimes with only one of them. She always seemed quite ludicrously out of place, although after the first time she seemed more at ease and laughed and talked quite happily.
I said, “What about her friends? The men she came with. Would you recognise them again?”
She said doubtfully, “I expect I would. But they were all very ordinary. There wasn’t anything about them to remember.”
I said, “If she went there so often, why on earth didn’t the barman recognise her photograph?”
She didn’t look at me. She said, “I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t want to be mixed up in anything. They live in an odd sort of world, Willy.” She looked at me almost shyly.
I said, “It isn’t a very pleasant kind of world, is it?”
She said, “I suppose not.” Her eyes were bright and hurt. She said, trying to laugh, “It’s my kind of world, you know.”
I hadn’t meant to hurt her. I said, “I’m sorry. I’m a fool.” Then I said, “Is there anyone else who might have known Rose? It would be useful to have another witness if we are to go to the police.”
She said, “The police?” in a startled way as if she had not thought of them as being concerned in the matter at all.
I said, “Of course we shall have to go to the police.” She said reluctantly, “I suppose so.” She piled her cigarette ash into a little heap and knocked it down again. “We could go and see Carl,” she said.
On the way she said, “Carl was with me the night that I met you in the Flamingo. Remember? The man who wouldn’t let go of me. He’s not so bad, really. He’s a queer, but he’s kind. He’s beastly when he gets drunk but he’s always very sorry about it afterwards.”
She spoke as if she had a real affection for him.
Carl was at home. When he opened the door I saw that he was dressed in a bright robe of scarlet silk that swept from his little shoulders to his tiny feet. He was almost grotesquely small, his brown face was little and sharp like a monkey’s. He greeted us in a high, thin voice, waving his hands wildly in welcome.
“Lovely of you to come,” he said. “I was perfectly wretched as one is when one has decided to spend the evening at home and do a great many dull domestic things. Delightful as a prospect but quite incredibly dreary in fact. I’ll make you some coffee—I make perfect coffee, don’t I, Kate?”
It was very ordinary coffee, I thought, and almost cold because Carl insisted on filtering it through metal containers in the French way. But Carl was very proud of it; he was pleased with himself. He t
alked a great deal in his cheeping, sexless voice. The room was littered with small china figures. He brought them to me, one by one, to be admired and exclaimed over. He was like a child showing his toys. When he touched my hand my flesh crawled with a disgust that I could not control. I tried to hide it.
After a while he stopped talking for long enough for Kate to explain why we had come. He listened to her intently, his bright, intelligent eyes not moving from her face.
He pouted, “And I thought you had come to see me. I was so dull and that dreadful Rowley had gone out and left me all alone. We’d had a quarrel you see, and he’d gone out to punish me.” He sounded petulant. “And after all you only wanted to see me so that you could find out some dreadfully sordid facts. Such a blow. Never mind—give me the picture and I’ll tell you if I know her.”
I gave him the photograph and he gloated over it.
“Such eyes, what a stupid little beauty. Of course I’ve seen her. How very stupid of the people at the Flamingo not to know. She was there quite often. Such a lovely change from the dreary, dreary people—I always thought her quite exquisite, almost as lovely as my Dresden figurines. Only not quite so lovely, of course, because she was alive. There’s nothing like animation for ruining beauty like this. It should always be calm, perfectly calm and still.”
He clasped his delicate hands together in a kind of rapture. Under the tightly drawn skin the bones of his hands looked like birds’bones. My flesh began to crawl again as I looked at him. I glanced at Kate and she was watching Carl with a kind of amused, maternal fondness.
I said, “Do you know the men she was with at the club?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Not by name, you know, except one. The one she was with most often. Rowley and I used to call him `the wide boy.’ Such a pretty term. He was the perfect little spiv. That isn’t anything uncommon at the Flamingo, of course. There isn’t anything villainous about any of them, they’re very mild little spivs. The kind who used to sell nylons in Oxford Street—you can get nylons now, so I expect they are selling something else. Steel, perhaps. This one wore the most delicious socks. He had one quite original pair and I begged him to tell me where he’d bought them so that I could buy a pair for Rowley’s birthday, but he was dreadfully rude and refused to tell me.
“Everyone used to call him Jimmie. I don’t remember what they called your girl. They didn’t appreciate her, of course. I tried to talk to her one evening and this Jimmie fellow came up to me and said some very common things. He said that he would `flatten my face for me.’”
Carl looked pained and gestured with his tiny hands. “I ask you, was that kind? When all I had done was to tell his girl that she was like some precious, rare orchid? It was an unpleasant little scene and not at all worth while, because the girl hadn’t appreciated the lovely things I’d said to her. She looked at me all the time with her beautiful mouth ever so slightly open as if she couldn’t breathe properly through her nose. If these lovely creatures have to be alive, then they ought to have some character. Jimmie’s other girl had plenty. I think he must have found your Rose a little dim after Jasmine.”
I said “Jasmine?” and Carl looked at me carefully as if he were suddenly on his guard.
He said, “You didn’t know her too?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know her.” I hoped my face wasn’t giving too much away.
Carl went on, prattling happily like a child at a treat. “She wasn’t as beautiful as Rose, but then she had a thought or two in her pretty head and thought always takes away from beauty. She looked like a peach, all yellow and gold and velvety. I remember that I said so to Rowley and he was quite ridiculously jealous.” He giggled archly and happily. “She was always very gay and wild and imperious—she treated us all as if she were a queen and we were her subjects. Sometimes, when she was drunk, I used to call her the changeling.”
His voice was warm as though he had been fond of Jasmine. He considered for a moment with his head on one side, looking like an old, old child who had dressed up in his mother’s house-coat. The high collar stood up stiffly; round his small, brown face. “I like that word,” he said. “It’s a prettier one than delinquent.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
He looked evasive. “Well, she was, wasn’t she? The poor child?”
“Did you know she was dead?” I said.
The monkey face jerked sharply towards me and I was sure that the sudden look of horror and surprise was genuine.
He said. “But how sad. How terrible. Poor, pretty child.”
“She was murdered,” I said and to my intense surprise and embarrassment Carl bowed his head and made the sign of the cross on his silken chest. It was not entirely theatre. He said, “God rest her soul,” and I was sure he meant it. There were tears in the sharp little eyes.
I told him then, briefly and guardedly, why it was important that I should find Rose. “Where does this Jimmie live?” I said. “Where could I find him?”
Carl gave me a sideways look. “You aren’t thinking that he killed the poor girl, are you? He’s not at all that sort of boy. He’s small fry, the kind that doesn’t kill. I don’t know where he lives. We weren’t on speaking terms.”
I said, “How long is it since you first saw Rose at the club?”
He wrinkled up his little nose. “I don’t know. Facts aren’t in my line. It’s only recently, I think. In the last six months or so. I practically live there, you see. It’s so full of human oddity. I get beautifully drunk there and when I’m drunk my head gets as clear as crystal. It’s a delightful sensation.” He was looking at me as he spoke and I wondered if he drugged. His eyes looked odd and his whole face had a curiously bright look.
I said, “How does the place pay? You go there often, don’t you? No one seems to buy many drinks and they aren’t particularly expensive.”
His mouth twitched. “Are you thinking of a gambling hell? It’s not that. None of these foolish little places pay. They run for a year or so and then they go bankrupt and start up under another name.”
I did not say that this place had not gone bankrupt, that it had been in existence, to my knowledge, for at least twelve years. I said instead, “Don’t you know anyone who could tell me more about Jimmie?”
He said, “Why, any of the other little spivs would know. But if the poor girl has been killed I should think they would be avoiding the Flamingo for a while just in case the police should want to talk to them. They are all a little shy of attracting attention from that quarter. Not that the police are showing much interest in the club at the moment. They aren’t lucky, like you. They haven’t me as a source of information.”
He chuckled, peeping at me shyly from the shelter of his bright collar. Then he said, “There is one person who might know. Though one would think you had already asked him. Piers Stone. He is your friend’s half-brother, isn’t he?”
I said, “But how would he know? He didn’t go to the place.” I felt a kind of chill as if the summer’s night had suddenly grown cold.
Carl said softly, “Now I wonder why he told you that?” His voice was patiently enquiring. “He isn’t what you might call a frequent visitor, but he is a member. And I thought that he knew our Jimmie.”
I said, “And Rose? Did he know her too?”
Carl frowned, he looked unhappy as though he was aware, suddenly, that he had said more than he had meant to say. He said, delicately, “He may have done. One can never tell.” He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. He was uneasy, his hands twitched and he did not look at either of us. “Just look at the time,” he said. “Beddy-byes for little Carl. I had been promising myself some beauty sleep to-night.”
It wasn’t very late but the dismissal was clear. I looked at Kate. She was sitting on the floor with her hands clasped round her knees.
Her face was white and stiff with shock and fear.
Chapter Eight
Carl saw us out of the flat, twittering brightly about nothing. H
is bird’s eyes flickered from Kate to me in a way that made him look furtive and alarmed. In the cruel light of the naked bulb on the landing outside the flat his little face looked old and sad and his brilliant coat seemed a pathetically tawdry piece of flamboyance.
In the street Kate walked beside me with the width of the pavement between us. There was a new and sudden constraint between us; the earlier, comforting sense of friendship had gone. When she spoke at last there was a forced, false note in her voice as though she were uncertain how I would take what she was going to say.
“You know, I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Carl. He’s a dear, and I’m fond of him, but he’s not always truthful. And he likes to make mischief.”
She turned towards me for the first time since we had left the fiat and gave me a bright, artificial smile.
I said, “Do you mean that he was lying when he said that Piers was a member of the club?”
She hesitated. “No. It isn’t that. He suggested, didn’t he, that Piers might be mixed up in this business? He couldn’t—I mean he doesn’t know. He only said it because he hates Piers. Carl is the sort of person no one ever trusts. No one ever tells him anything.”
I said, “Kate, what is the matter? Are you afraid?”
She said, “Most people are afraid.” Her voice was flat and final as if she didn’t want to say any more. She went on, “Please, Willy, don’t pry. It doesn’t concern you.”
I said, bewildered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t want to pry.”
She peered at me in the gloom and then she laughed and it sounded high and foolish in the soft night. She touched my hand lightly and said, “I’ve upset you, and for nothing. When Carl started to talk about Piers I was afraid he was going to tell you something I didn’t want you to know. Something there is no need for you to know.”
I took her hand and said, “I’m sorry, Kate. But if he was a member of this club why should he say that he never went there? Why should he bother to lie about it?”
