“So refreshingly common,” Simon murmured to himself as she came back into the room.
“Just as bloody well,” Molly told him. “And don’t drag class into it. Fact is, you’ve had a shock and I’m sorry. But we’re up the creek here. If it goes on –” The phone rang again. She answered it.
“Arnie,” she cried, sounding delighted. “Well – nice to hear yours, too. Yes – yes – oh, of course you have. Well, look here – do you think we could have an extra couple of days, just to make sure the books are in apple pie order – you know, we’re so busy – Good. All right then, look forward to seeing you –” She put the phone down and said to Simon, “That’s Arnie. He’s coming in with the accountant in a week’s time for a routine check. He says routine – he can probably smell trouble.”
Mrs Jones came in with the tray of coffee and sandwiches. She looked at the pile of markers on the table and put the tray down. She was walking out, full of silent disapproval, when Molly called her back. “Mrs Jones,” she said, “you’ve been trying to warn me, haven’t you? So why don’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee and tell me whose markers are good and whose are dodgy?”
Mrs Jones did. She ruffled through the markers rapidly delivering comments Molly took down. “No problem there – mother’s an American heiress, Chicago meat packers, only son. No problem there – eldest daughter of a bishop, can’t afford a scandal. You’ll never see that £20,000 again – he just left for Argentina, owing everybody, Whoops-a-daisy. Whatever were you thinking of – no other house would take this one’s marker for ninepence.” When she finished Simon stood up silently and handed her five pounds, which she tucked in her apron pocket before she left, remarking, “Well – half of them’ll cough up, at any rate.”
Later, Simon said, “I’d never have thought of that one. Asking the attendant in the ladies’ lav.”
“What do we do next?” said Molly.
“First the polite note, then the phone calls, then the phone calls designed to cause embarrassment, to workplaces, parents’ houses, and so forth. We hint a bit about spreading the word about but the really hardened cases don’t usually care – the trouble with gambling debts is that they’re slightly distinguished. Mark of a gentleman to owe bookmaker, tailor and wine merchant, you see. As a last resort we can threaten to tell interested parties, Mr Arnold and Norman Rose. I’ve never had to do that yet – it suggests a lack of class I’m not prepared to risk. We’d probably get the money and lose the clients.”
“It all sounds a bit long-winded to me,” Molly said. “All that’ll take a month or more.”
“More like three,” Simon told her.
“We’ll have to speed it up a bit,” Molly told him. “We’ve got to get half those markers redeemed before Arnie Rose turns up. And that’s only a week. We’d better cut out the polite letter for a start.”
Simon looked doubtful. “All right,” he said. “But if I move too fast this place is going to look like a bucket shop. You can’t hurry the upper classes where money’s concerned.”
“I’ll cut upstairs and re-check this list with Steven,” Mary said. “He knows a lot of gossip – we can see where levers can be tugged, who’s engaged and wouldn’t like the rich in-laws to find out before the ceremony, where people are at the moment. You’re due for lunch with Geoffrey now at the brasserie. If you could get back at three you could start phoning then. I’ll get a sort of dossier together and give it to you before you start. I’d do it myself but it’s no good – I’m too common. I don’t know the cliches to show I mean business but I’m a lady, really. Anyway, they’d take no notice of a woman.”
Simon, startled, agreed. Molly rushed out saying, “I’ve got to catch Steven before he starts out to fix the old dowagers’ backs, or whatever he does.” She added over her shoulder, “No boozing and not too much crying and sobbing over that horrible Bassie.”
Upstairs, Steven Greene came out of the bathroom wrapped in a large towel. “Spare me half an hour?” Molly asked.
“For anything you like.”
“Keep your towel on,” she said. “It’s information I want.”
While they were talking over the names on the markers an agitated ring on the doorbell brought in a tall and beautiful blonde girl in a black suit, with a white fur stole round her shoulders. She kissed Steven, looked at Molly, decided she was harmless and demanded, “Did you get it?”
“In here,” he said, pointing into the bedroom. She came out, seconds later, looking less worried. After she left he said, “Poor girl – couldn’t pay the rent. I had to lend it to her.”
“Very sad,” Molly said dryly, not believing him. Before they had done with all the names on the list the phone had rung twice. Each time he answered the speaker in his usual brief and cryptic way. “If he tells you that, he’s not being exactly truthful, and you should ask him again,” he said. And, “There are limits to my powers, you know, and also to my funds.” After the calls he would come back to Molly’s side, quite unruffled and say, “Tonia Thompson – don’t bother to try. She’s in the South of France with Onassis. Dirk Frogett? Never heard of him. Someone’s having you on. Ah – Joe Templeton – fifteen thousand. I’m amazed anyone signed that. Hint you’ll tell his mum – he’s terribly Oedipal. Gordon? You’ll have to ring Inverkyle. Sir A – what? – Milligatawny – oh, Mulvaney – no trouble there, he’s a rich racehorse owner. Try this one, Pat Jamieson, and say next time you’ll ring him at the bank. He won’t like that and he can easily afford to pay.” When they had finished he leaned back and said, “Don’t forget – I had no hand in this. It wouldn’t suit me to become known as a man who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“Thanks, Steven,” said Molly, rushing out. “I owe you a favour.”
“You do, dear, but try not to sound too much like the Rose brothers,” he told her.
In the afternoon the phone calls were made. The evening was quiet. The word was out and the customers were discouraged.
“I hope this isn’t the end of the business,” remarked Molly, coming into the flat and kicking off her shoes. “After all the trouble we’ve all gone to.”
“Probably temporary,” Steven Greene told her. He was lying on the sofa reading a book. “Pour us a drink and have a rest. In a minute I’ll run you a nice, hot bath.”
He did. When Molly went into the bathroom she found he had poured scent into the water.
“You’re so kind,” she said, when she had bathed and got into her dressing-gown.
He put his book down. “I shouldn’t be. It only corrupts me, probably. What do I want, in fact? To be liked?”
“You help people and they have to help you,” Molly observed. “That’s your system.”
“Sharp girl,” he said. “You should read more – you’re too intelligent to be so ill-informed.”
“Yes,” she said. “I should get a book. It’d take my mind off all these problems. Can you recommend one?”
“Have a look over there,” he told her. “That item against the wall is what is commonly called a bookshelf. On it you will find books. Look at them and see what you can find to read.”
“Sarcastic,” murmured Molly and went to the shelf. She looked at the books, then said, suddenly, “I’m haunted by the thought of Johnnie Bridges.”
“Let him haunt you, then,” Greene said, his eyes still on his book. “It’ll end. Unless you’re neurotic – which you aren’t. In the meanwhile, try improving your mind.”
“I’m not the sort,” muttered Molly. “I’m going to get a television and put it in my room.”
“Molly Flanders,” he said. “I’m telling you something for your own good. Carry on as you are, and you’ll in the end be a pain in the neck to yourself and everybody else. Endless confusion, rows, scenes and arguments – spinning around doing this, that and the other – no contemplation, no inner life, no nothing. You know what becomes of women if all that goes on too long? They get thoroughly tiresome, and disappointed.”
Moll
y realized he might be telling her a truth. She also spotted the male desire for peace and quiet when faced with female urgencies. She had seen Sid and Ivy driving each other mad like that often enough.
“Where is he anyway?” she said angrily. “Shacked up with some floosie, I daresay.”
“You can find out, I expect,” Greene said coolly. “I’m advising you, before you take him back, as you undoubtedly will, do try and find out something about yourself first. What do you want?”
“I don’t know – Johnnie,” Mary answered.
“Just ‘Johnnie’ isn’t a good enough reply. ‘Johnnie’ won’t suffice for a lifetime, nor will any number of Johnnies. As I say, either you find some kind of course for yourself, or others, usually men, will come along and suggest one for you. You’ll follow that course until it doesn’t work any more – then again, and then again, getting tireder and tireder. It’s a case of think now or find out the hard way.”
“Oh – very clever,” said Molly. “And what about you, then? What’s your course you’re following? Tell me that?”
“I’m like you, dear Molly,” he said. “I go where the wind bloweth, like a girl, but I suspect you’re firmer-minded than I am. Now – would you like to come to bed with me?”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Molly said, looking at the title of a book and putting it back on the shelf.
“Well, I’ve done my best. I’ve offered the alternatives of a well-stocked mind or a satisfied body and you’ve rejected both –” he said and, finding his place in his book, began to read again, looking up only to remark, “I’m on your side, you know. I don’t recommend reading to all the pretty girls I’m acquainted with – I think your course may be a complicated one, Molly, and you’re going to have to steer it yourself. I’m trying to help you save some time and agony.”
“You said you’d do my horoscope,” Molly grumbled.
“Your horoscope’s a dog’s breakfast,” he told her. “Someone must have invented your birth certificate from their imagination. It made no sense, so I gave up.”
“That’s nice,” said Molly. “So much for black magic.”
He went on reading. The doorbell rang. A young man Molly recognized as a client of the club stood there, holding an envelope. “So sorry to disturb you,” he said. “I rushed round as soon as I could – Simon Tate said you were calling in a few markers. A woman let me in but I couldn’t find anybody so she said I should come up here –”
Molly was amazed and grateful. She had begun to imagine that none of the defaulters would pay up without many phone calls and hints of blackmail. “Thanks,” she said, taking the envelope. “You’re very prompt. Would you like to come in for a drink?”
He hesitated. “I’m with a friend,” he said.
“Bring them in,” she said expansively.
“This is very nice,” said the young man, whose name, she recalled, was John Christian. He called down, “Charlie – I’ve been invited in for a drink. Do you want to come?”
“I always want to come,” said a voice and Charlie Markham came round the bend in the stairs and up the steps two at a time.
Mary was horrified. Charlie Markham seldom came to the club now. When he did he tended to come up too close to her, to make dubious remarks and offend her. Because she worked there she had to endure him. Sometimes Simon Tate protected her. Sometimes she clenched her teeth and put up with it. Once, when he came too close and put his hand on her breast, she had hacked him in the shins and hissed, “Leave me alone, Charlie.”
He had winced and then recovered, saying, “Sorry, Moll. Just a joke – I’ll be careful in future, especially as you’re a special friend of Arnold Rose’s.” He was always well informed. Now, it seemed too late to back out so she had to invite them in.
“Thought I might bump into you, Moll,” he said, sitting on the sofa with his glass. He was already rather drunk, she noticed. “Anyway, poor old John got windy about coming here on his own. Thought he might be greeted by one of the Rose brothers’ friends, I imagine.”
“Steady on, Charlie,” said the other. “I didn’t think anything of the kind.”
“Well, I did,” said Charlie. “Their interest in the club isn’t exactly a well kept secret. And I thought – well, help a friend to face it out and, who knows, perhaps the charming Molly will be there.”
“Any news from Allaun Towers?” demanded Molly, attempting to change the direction of his thoughts. But he just sat lolling in his chair, grinning at her.
“Remember our rencontre in the bushes, eh, Moll?” he said. “You and me and cousin Tom? A boy’s dream came true.”
“I hope there’s been more in your life since taking my knickers down in the bushes when I was four,” said Molly rudely. She surveyed him. “Though, now I look at you, maybe there hasn’t.”
John Christian snorted, then said to Charlie, “Come on, Charlie. We’d better be going.”
“No need to rush, old man,” said Charlie. “What could be nicer than this snug spot. An old friend – and her friend –” he added, looking askance at Steven Greene. “I ask you, what could be more pleasant. I’m at a loose end, Moll,” he told her confidingly. “I left the army after a disagreement – just avoided being sent to Cyprus to be shot by some unsavoury gentleman of Mediterranean appearance. Now, here under a cowslip’s bell I lie, wondering what to do with the remainder of my life. Any suggestions?”
“Long walk off a short pier,” Molly suggested agreeably.
“Cockney wit – so delightful,” he said to Greene. “No wonder you love having our Molly in your flat. No,” he said to Molly, “actually I think I’ll be forced to enter the family business. I forget what it’s all about but it’s something to do with money so it can’t be too bad.” He turned to Greene and said, “I hear you’re the Queen of the Gypsies? Any chance of getting my fortune told while I’m here? No – on second thoughts I’d rather you didn’t.”
Greene said coolly, “I think I know your fate already.”
“What do you mean by that, oh Queen of the Gypsies and Prince of Ponces?” Charlie said, getting to his feet.
Steven Greene also stood up and said, “I don’t need to be clair-voyant to tell you that in the long term you’ll go on bullying women and people weaker than yourself as much as you can – or that, in the short term, you’ll be standing in South Molton Street in two minutes’ time, unless you happen to be on your back on the pavement.”
John Christian seized Charlie by the shoulders as he tried to pull towards Greene. He said, “I’m not letting him get away with that –”
“I don’t want a row,” Greene said.
“Come along, Charlie,” said John, getting annoyed. Charlie got free of him and took a step towards Greene. “Don’t be bloody stupid,” said his friend.
Charlie turned round and started for the door. “Perfectly right, John,” he said. “You’re so right. Makes no sense at all standing and arguing with a pimp. That’s rule I, after all: don’t argue with tradesmen, no matter what they deal in.”
Molly slammed the door behind them and sat down angrily in a chair. “Horrible Charlie. Horrible Charlie,” she said.
Greene laughed. “Was it true about the bushes?” he asked.
“Oh – you’re horrible yourself,” she said. “I suppose all men are horrible. Charlie gives me the creeps. He really does. He makes me go all gooseflesh.”
Greene, lying back on the sofa, said, “Do you have to sound so common? I love you dearly but it’s a great strain on me, having to listen to you. I sometimes think you do it deliberately.” He stood up and put on a record. Mary shouted furiously against a Chopin sonata, “Do you have to sound so queer? If you think I sound common I think you sound like a cream puff half the time, if you want to know. I expect you are. And what do you expect me to sound like or behave like? I’m not twenty and I’m the widow of a convicted murderer and I live in Meakin Street and I work at a club owned by gangsters. This isn’t Buckingham Palace is it? I’m not the
Queen? I’m like I am because of what I am, just like she is. And come to that, Steven Greene, who gave you the right to criticize me? I might come from a rough and ready home but my parents are honest and so am I. Can you say the same?” She stared at him, then said, “All right if I go to bed now, your high-and-mightyship?”
“Don’t go, Moll,” he said, “I’m sorry. Stay a little while – after all, I nearly got in a fight with that hooligan on your behalf. He’d have murdered me, I can tell you that.”
“Bugger off, smarmychops,” said Molly, although she had to admit he was telling the truth. Nevertheless, “Common!” she thought, as she undressed and flung herself into bed in a rage. “Common!” What a cheek! What a sauce! Then a wave of depression and loneliness came over her. She was tired and jaded, bored and angry. She needed more but did not know what she wanted. She thought of Johnnie with longing, in spite of what he had done. She thought of Charlie Mark-ham and shuddered. She had not had a holiday or an outing since Johnnie left. Now Steven Greene told her she was common. She was weeping with exhaustion and hopelessness when Steven Greene came into the room in his pyjamas, got into bed and put his arms round her. “You’re a valuable girl, Molly,” he told her.
A lot of people assume that when you go to the bad, as it used to be called – nowadays I suppose they call it indulging in promiscuity – you do it out of lust and high spirits, in a sort of devil-may-care, pleasure-loving spirit. But most of the time it comes from despair, not knowing what to do with yourself, casting around for a solution, a future or a bit of reassurance. So I’ve never resented Greene for putting me within an inch of the streets, the Maltese ponce and the clap doctor. It was what I wanted, I suppose, at the time. Anyway, Steven wasn’t what Charlie thought he was, not in any direct way. That’s to say, he never made a penny at the game. Half the time he was out of pocket. He just brought people together – ignorant millionaires who wanted to buy posh paintings and the dealers who had them in the shops – young, fast aristocrats who wanted to meet a real-life gangster, and gangsters, like the Roses, who enjoyed the connection. The same kind wanted cannabis – Steven knew the black dealers. And half his deals were in information. He got it and he traded it to other people for more information. I’m not saying he didn’t get ten percents from time to time, or a crate of champagne delivered at the door. He had to get those things, or how could he have lived? But mostly it was hand-to-mouth stuff and once I found out what was going on I could see the financial set-up was more like Meakin Street than anywhere else – ten bob borrowed till payday and “Excuse me, Mrs Waterhouse, mum says could you kindly lend us a cup of sugar.” Wendy Valentine never had the rent, which was only five pounds a week, and Carol always had ladders in her stockings so he was always pushing a note into her hand and telling her to go out and get new ones. The position was that among the people Steven brought together were us girls, and the people who wanted us girls – his posh friends and flowers of the gutters, like us. I swear I heard him on the phone using those very words – well, half these deals are in romance, aren’t they? It’s not what you’re getting – it’s what it means to you. Some crazy aristo must’ve fallen in love with the kitchen maid at the age of ten – so yours truly becomes a flower of the gutter. In fact I was the only one of the three of us who was. Wendy and Carol were both the kind of girls who’d spent from ten to fifteen years old dreaming about film stars on some estate in Dagenham or Gravesend. Then the big world presents itself in the shape of some teddy boy who knocks them up outside the local Roxy dance hall – then there’s the baby which has to be adopted because the parents can’t stand the shame, then they drift to the big city and become amateur prostitutes, only with glamour. The punters are all in the Cabinet, or diplomats, or prime ministers’ grandsons. I think that was what saved me from going too far in the game – I knew what was what and if I’d ever had any girlish dreams they’d been knocked out of me. Apart from anything else I was still getting back to Meakin Street to see Josephine over the weekends, though not as often as I should have done. But with what I knew, and a lot of Ivy’s horrible sense of reality behind me, I couldn’t go for the dream quite the way the other two did. I never even thought I’d get a lot of money out of it because I think both of them, Wendy and Carol, had the idea that in the end Prince Charming was going to come in with the diamonds and the big house with swimming pool in stockbroker Surrey. And I didn’t have the real nightmare either: they both thought that if this didn’t keep up they’d have to go to work in the only places their neighbourhoods had to offer a girl – somewhere like a boot factory or a bread factory, somewhere like that. The spectre of the white overall and the time-clock haunted them, the way it didn’t me. But I think Steven was in on the dream too, half the time. His was a bit different, but it was all glamour – Steven Greene, friend and companion of the great and the man they could trust to get what they needed when they needed it. Also, god of love, though pretty tatty love, you must admit. A lot of the time he couldn’t see one side of the deal was naughty girls and the other side was bent sods. They all were, one way or another, why would they have been looking for girls like us? So Steven helped them out, like he treated their old mums’ backs and drew their beagles and found another doctor for Aunt Winifred, who’d come by a habit in Berlin in the ’30s and got twitchy when the old quack died – yes, he helped but he wasn’t their friend. He was a convenience. Poor bugger. They dropped him like a hot potato when he got into trouble – I’ll bet the phones ran hot that day. I’ll bet the smoke from stuff being burned in the fireplaces would have made a full grown horse faint dead away. I was just a pawn in the game – a silly, depressed girl working in a hothouse atmosphere who’d had two men in her life so far. Jim Flanders, topped for murder. Johnnie Bridges, criminal. And in spite of all that – the hard work, the dodgy past – I suppose I still wanted some fun whatever sort it was. And it was fun, too, going to these parties and country house weekends in the summer, never knowing who you were going to meet or what was going to happen. I saw the world and how it worked – at the time it worked because everybody was a cousin of everybody else. And funnily enough, while I was living with Steven in that flat, he did broaden my mind. He wasn’t stupid, whatever else he was. He made me read books. He talked to me. The world got a lot bigger. That’s why I’ll never hear a bad word said about Steven Greene. And also, as I’ve said, I was a bit mad. I couldn’t have gone on just croupiering and helping Simon to run Frames, and then, if I had any time over, sitting up late chatting with Steven. I was too young and energetic – I wanted to get on the merry-go-round and I did, and stayed on it laughing till the music stopped.
All The Days of My Life Page 30
