Hannie Richards

by Hilary Bailey

  HANNIE RICHARDS

  Hilary Bailey

  Contents

  1. The Hope Club

  2. The Adventure of the Little Coral Island

  3. The Adventure of the Small African Child

  4. Christmas

  5. The Adventure to Find a Cure for Death

  6. The Luck Runs Out

  7. The New Hope Club

  A Note on the Author

  1. The Hope Club

  The Hope Club in D’Arblay Street, London W1 is unlike any other club. Situated in the middle of Soho’s network of narrow streets and alleys, its members are not cabinet ministers, merchant bankers or army generals snoozing in leather armchairs. Nor are they the pimps, prostitutes and gangsters who frequent the gambling and strip clubs and blue movie cinemas near by. Behind its façade the Hope Club offers the same facilities found in the grander gentlemen’s clubs of Mayfair or Belgravia—a restaurant, comfortable sitting rooms, bedrooms, a bar. The Hope Club is different for one reason only: all its members are women.

  The Hope Club was started during the war when a group of women friends decided to rent a flat where they could meet each other and talk or retreat from the pressures of the world outside, a flat where they could spend the night or meet a friend for a drink. The new club fulfilled a need and was an immediate success, attracting, over the years, an increasing number of members. Gradually it grew and had to move from the tatty two-room flat to a large building with many rooms. The outside remained oddly scruffy and the entrance was down one of those narrow, pitted alleys so frequently found in Soho, but inside the rooms were elegant and large, with comfortable furniture, open fireplaces and a well-stocked bar.

  The members of the Hope Club each contributed one-sixth of their net income. This meant that some paid little or nothing, while others paid a great deal. Prospective members had to be sponsored by three actual members, and, similarly, any prospective member could be blackballed by three other members. Like all thriving clubs, the Hope Club flourished on a basis of friendships, connections and previous associations between the members. Decisions were made by consultation. The real managers were Mr and Mrs Knott, who paid the bills, kept the restaurant and ran the bar, called the plumber and hired the help. They ran it very smoothly.

  These days the Hope Club is larger and grander than it was, but let us go back before recent renovations and visit the Club a few years ago.

  Turning into the dark alley to enter 41 D’Arblay Street, we pass a fish shop with its big marble slab displaying magnificent fresh crabs and large baskets of oysters. Opening the front door with its peeling green paint, we find ourselves in a narrow, shabby passageway covered with linoleum so old it has lost all recognizable pattern. Continuing down, we come to a second door, not much smarter than the first, but beyond that lies the bright, freshly painted restaurant with a dozen tables covered with red gingham cloths. There are a few plants, including a daisy tree of which Mrs Knott is very fond, and a fish tank containing tropical fish, which is Mr Knott’s pride and joy. In the restaurant breakfasts, lunches and dinners are served.

  To the left of the restaurant a curved, green-carpeted staircase with white wrought-iron banisters leads upstairs where, on the next floor, two small rooms have been knocked together to form a clubroom. On the floors above are bedrooms for overnight stays.

  This is the Hope Club, a haven for women in the heart of London. And it is here in the clubroom, with its long bar, pale paint, comfortable chairs and sofas, that on a chilly summer evening some years ago, with a bright fire burning in the grate, we begin our tale.

  ‘My big advantage,’ said Hannie Richards, ‘is that I can disguise myself as a woman, which, in most societies, means that no one notices you.’

  She was wearing a slightly crushed pink linen suit and leaning back in a big, cream leather armchair. Her long, tanned legs were stretched out before her, and her bare feet, with their painted toenails, rested on the brass fender. She was a tall, attractive woman in her thirties with dark brown eyes and dark red hair. A pair of cream linen sandals lay beside her on the floor, next to two plastic bags one marked ‘Portobello Health Stores’, the other, ‘Posh, Georgetown, Barbados’.

  She added to her friend Elizabeth Lord who was sitting opposite, ‘The last time I smuggled something, I was dressed practically all the time in something resembling a black plastic rubbish bag—like the ones you find clustered round lamp-posts when there’s a dustmen’s strike. No one noticed me as long as I kept my eyes on the ground. No one bothered to check what I had stuffed up my burkha either.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s like that when my husband’s colleagues come to dinner with their wives. The men don’t expect us women to say much or offer opinions.’ Elizabeth was a pale, pretty woman with anxious blue eyes and blonde hair which reached to her shoulders. She was wearing a raspberry-coloured woollen dress from Harvey Nichols. She added wryly, ‘The last time I managed to cook a huge dinner one of the guests, a man from the Foreign Office, turned to me and said, “And what do you do?” I just started to sweat and said in panic, “Nicely, thank you, sir.” Like a Victorian servant. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then I burst into tears and cried so much that I had to leave the room. Anyway,’ she continued, ‘what did you have stuffed under your black draperies, Hannie?’

  ‘Just a passport, tickets and a bit of money—and a spare burkha some of the time,’ Hannie said. She paused.

  Julie St Just, who was sitting on the rug in front of the fire, drew on her roll-up cigarette, grinned at Hannie and said instantly, ‘You were smuggling another woman—right?’ She was wearing a shiny blue trouser suit and her hair ended in matching beads of the same colour. She had a long, coffee-coloured face and her eyes looked tired. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘what was it all about?’

  ‘A couple living in Cumberland rang,’ explained Hannie. ‘They’d been put on to me by a man I once did some work for. And they told me that their only daughter, a nurse, had suddenly got restless and shipped herself out to Saudi Arabia as a children’s nanny to an Arab family. After a few months the parents lost contact with her. They weren’t getting replies to any of their letters, and when they phoned they were always told that the girl was away somewhere with the children. They knew there was something wrong, but no one could help them unless the girl herself asked for help. They sent a man from the Foreign Office round and he saw her and said she was all right. She still didn’t get in touch, and the parents went on worrying, but after the initial check the FO was unhelpful. The employer, needless to say, was from a big oil-owning family, and they didn’t want to upset anybody. They even suggested the parents were being overprotective. When the parents decided to go out there themselves this old client of mine suggested it would be better if I went. He even helped them out with the money. So I went and found her. Guess where.’

  Julie’s eyes opened wide. ‘In the wicked sheikh’s harem, guarded by eunuchs with machine-guns,’ she said.

  ‘Nearly true,’ Hannie laughed. ‘They’d got the poor girl in custody and she was under heavy siege from the sheikh’s eldest son. His mother was tearing up the letters from home and keeping off strangers. They had her passport and her bankbook. The young man from the Foreign Office had never seen her—just a girl they must have got to impersonate her. I got in by hiding in a deep freeze in the back of a truck—the driver was sympathetic and greedy. And we shuffled out with our knees sagging so’s not to look too tall and also to try to persuade the menfolk that underneath we weren’t young and beautiful. And back she went to her parents in Cumberland.’

  ‘How wonderful!’ exclaimed Elizabeth.

  ‘I’m a public benefactor,’ Hannie declared. ‘No doubt about it.’ She y
awned. ‘My goodness, I’m tired.’

  ‘Jet lag?’ observed Elizabeth.

  Hannie shook her head. ‘I’ve only been in Notting Hill Gate,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s the mothers.’ She yawned. ‘It’s the mothers that did it.’ She yawned again, shut her eyes and was, according to her usual habit, instantly asleep.

  ‘Mothers? What’s she going on about?’ asked Julie. She foraged in the big red leather bag at her side and fished out her tobacco tin. As she rolled another cigarette she muttered, ‘I need mine that’s for sure, to look after me. I ought to go home to Mother—back to Barbados.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Elizabeth.

  Julie lit up the cigarette. ‘Ah, man, I only got up at six o’clock, that’s all, to do a make-up commercial. For the darker skin, of course. My manager tells me I owe him money for the last tour—like I always do. And I got this bill for unpaid tax he’s supposed to have taken care of, only he didn’t do it. After that there’s a whole afternoon in the recording studio, but we never did anything, and while I’m there I get a call from my friend Leona, who takes care of the kids while I’m working, and she tells me my Thomas probably has the mumps, only the doctor’s not sure about it and also she says that my son John is out on the street again with the boys who got him in trouble the last time. I have to call everyone to get him home. Now I’m waiting until ten and then I have to go on to the club and sing. That’s the day,’ she said, ‘and like my mother used to say, “Oh, Lud—oh Jesus Chris!—I wish I never was born.”’ She paused, then grinned at Elizabeth. ‘Well, that’s the moaning over—I feel better. Maybe even Mother couldn’t help me out of this one. How’re things with you?’

  Elizabeth’s anxious face relaxed a little. ‘My problems come from the other end to yours,’ she said. ‘With you it’s all movement and flashing lights. With me it’s all static and solid grey. And what you need, Julie, is an accountant.’ She spoke firmly.

  Julie smiled wryly. ‘I’ve got one of those. I got a lawyer, a manager, a bank manager and an accountant. Everywhere I look there’s a white man in a suit saying I owe him money and telling me to go and get some more. And I can hardly pay my bills. I don’t need any more white men. I’m thinking of running away, like a slave.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Why don’t you get all the papers together—contracts, bank statements, manager’s records—and bring them along to me. At least I could look at them for you.’

  ‘You couldn’t make any sense of it all,’ Julie said, shaking her head. ‘They can’t and I can’t and now I got the bailiffs breathing down my neck.’

  ‘Bring all the papers along to me,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Please. You can’t get much worse off. I’m a trained accountant. I don’t need to understand your business to understand the accounts, and I’d like to help.’

  ‘I’d be really pleased. Even if you can’t help, I’d be pleased. You can have ten per cent of what you save me.’

  ‘I’ll do it for the fun,’ Elizabeth said.

  Julie grinned. ‘Has your analyst told you to find an outlet, then?’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘He thinks I have a deep problem. At the moment he just asks me if I think I’m coping better. He told me last week I should think about whether it was something to do with having two older brothers.’ Her face took on lines of weariness and defeat. ‘It’s this idea of coping. What he really means is am I getting in a firm to clean the carpets or lying in bed all day, too weary to get up. I’m sure John wouldn’t mind if I got a job. The children are old enough now. But he says—the analyst—that the problem is deep-seated.’

  ‘That’s a tiring word—coping,’ Julie said. ‘It makes me feel weak when I hear it.’

  Elizabeth stared into the fire flickering in the grate. ‘Women are expected to cope; men manage.’

  ‘Coping just means keeping up,’ said Julie.

  Elizabeth nodded. ‘No progress, no joy.’

  ‘No satisfaction,’ carolled Julie.

  ‘No hope,’ droned Elizabeth.

  They looked at each other and laughed. ‘I wouldn’t let your analyst use that word to you no more,’ suggested Julie. ‘If he changes his vocabulary, maybe your deep-seated problems will get a lot shallower.’

  ‘I’ll pull them up like weeds,’ Elizabeth said lightly, looking at her watch. ‘It must be time for a drink.’ Getting up, she went to the bar and poured herself a gin and tonic. ‘What’s yours?’ she asked.

  ‘Just a lager from the fridge,’ Julie replied quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping Hannie.

  Elizabeth made a note of the drinks on a pad on the bar counter and carried them back to the fireplace. She sat down, and the two women drank them quietly. The fire burned, the clock ticked. The noise of rush hour traffic subsided.

  The door by the bar opened, and both Julie and Elizabeth hissed ‘Shush’ across the room as a tall woman entered and started to pour herself a whisky at the bar. Margaret Wilkinson glanced over at Hannie as she shot soda into her glass. ‘Why isn’t she in bed? She usually goes to bed when she’s got jet lag.’

  Elizabeth shrugged. ‘She hasn’t got jet lag,’ she said. ‘She told us she’s only been to Notting Hill Gate.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ replied Margaret as she joined them by the fire. ‘That bag says Georgetown,’ she added, pointing at the plastic bag near Hannie’s chair. ‘Anyway, look at that tan,’ she added conclusively. She took a swig of Scotch. ‘Phew,’ she exclaimed, sinking back into the armchair. She smiled at Julie. ‘What a day! I must say, you look very glossy.’ In contrast to Julie St Just’s shiny suit and dangling seahorse earring, Margaret was dressed in a shapeless oatmeal-coloured dress, which hung loosely on her spare figure. Though less than forty, her brown hair, piled bird’s-nest style on top of her head, was heavily scattered with grey. She had a long, sharp nose, an authoritative manner and a great deal of energy. She was already getting up to pour herself another drink. ‘I’ll end up in the dock on a drunk and disorderly charge at this rate,’ she muttered. ‘You know, I was in court at Chelmsford today when my clerk rang and said he’d made a mistake and that I was, in fact, due to start a case at the Old Bailey instead. I had to put a junior in to cover for me. Then I sat and prayed that the jury would return soon—even if the verdict went against my client. When they came back in ten minutes and pronounced him guilty I almost cheered. That’s a shocking thing for a barrister to do. Then, still in my wig and gown, I drove all the way to the Old Bailey for the other case. And I’ve spent the last two hours with a surgeon accused of malpractice. Not easy to sort out the facts, since he was drunk while I was talking to him. I’m cross-eyed now. I daren’t go home until the steam’s stopped coming out of my ears.’ She noted down her second drink on the pad. ‘I don’t believe Sir Patrick Hastings used to fight a case, see his murderer walk forth a free man and then go straight home and take complaints about the tough roast beef.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘He probably went to his club, and all his friends said what a jolly fine chap he was and bought him drinks. Sir Margaret, will you allow me the honour of buying you a drink?’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Margaret, ‘that’s extremely generous of you! I accept with pleasure.’

  ‘I wish my Thomas would become a lawyer,’ brooded Julie. ‘But he can’t even read. His teacher says I don’t read to him enough—but how can I when I’m working so much?’

  ‘Can’t your friend who looks after him read to him sometimes?’ asked Margaret.

  ‘Leona?’ said Julie. ‘I doubt it. I don’t think she’s that keen on reading. She never paid attention at school. The teachers don’t expect much, especially if the kids are black.’

  Hannie awoke. She looked round in confusion for a moment but then her face relaxed. ‘I’m at the club,’ she murmured in a satisfied tone. She stretched. ‘Margaret, how are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been wondering what you were doing in Georgetown?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘I was
in Notting Hill today,’ Hannie said. ‘Before that I was in the Caribbean. I must tell you one day.’

  ‘You can tell us now,’ Margaret said firmly.

  At that moment the telephone rang. Margaret got up and answered it. After a brief conversation, she put down the receiver and went to the door. ‘I must go down into the restaurant for a few minutes,’ she said. ‘A witness the solicitors have been trying to track down for two months has turned up at last. She’s downstairs now. I’ve just got to run through the evidence with her—it won’t take long.’ She pointed a finger at Hannie. ‘Don’t you dare start until I return, Hannie. You’re the only source of fantasy in my life.’ With that, she was gone.

  ‘Only source of fantasy, my foot,’ said Elizabeth sceptically. ‘She’s got a thriving barrister’s practice and a husband and a lover. You’d think with courtroom dramas and her private life she’d have enough excitement and fantasy to satisfy several women.’

  ‘Everything gets down to a dull routine in the end, I guess,’ said Julie.

  ‘I’d give a lot to be jaded like that,’ Elizabeth told her. ‘I think I need romance.’

  ‘Now you’re getting excessive,’ Hannie replied. ‘There’s not much of that about. Sex, yes. Love, yes. Thrills and spills—yes, if you know where to find them. But romance? That’s rare.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said Julie. ‘Because that’s the worst drug they ever invented.’ She looked very tired as she sat sipping her glass of lager in front of the fire.

  ‘It’s a Western luxury most people can’t afford,’ Hannie said, looking sympathetically at her friend. She said tactfully, ‘Know where I was—want to hear about it?’

  Julie said, ‘You’re going to tell me a story to take my mind off my problems.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hannie agreed. ‘It’s all about an island called Beauregard.’

  Julie sat upright, suddenly alert. She began to laugh. ‘That was you? That business on Beauregard?’