The Love Department Page 11

  11

  Five days passed by and turned a damp summer into a sunnier season by far. A newspaper predicted the finest autumn of the century, and was not entirely correct in that because rain came later. But for the first days of September there was no rain at all, and people all over England remarked upon the fact. Londoners said it gave them a new lease of life, meaning that it cheered them up after the disappointments of the months before. ‘Well, you need it,’ people said in shops, buying tobacco or soap or almost anything else. ‘You need a few good days to set you up for snow and ice.’ A child in London asked her father what autumn was, having heard it spoken of these days, and the father in explanation said it was a season, though not a major one. In cities, this father said, you did not feel autumn so much, not as you felt the heat of summer or the bite of winter air, or even the slush of spring. He said that, and then the next day sent for the child and said he had been talking nonsense. ‘Autumn is on now,’ he said. ‘You can see it in the parks,’ and he took his child for a nature walk.

  Miss Brown, remarking that the season suited her, was contradicted with a smile by Lake, who informed her that spring was the better time for her in every way. In spring, he said, she got a flush on her cheeks which perked up her appearance. In summer, he explained, she was liable to sunburn and its peeling aftermath, and in winter there was the common cold which, he reminded her, she caught with more than usual ease. As for him, all seasons suited him, since he had never suffered from a cold in his life and took a tan if there was sun to tan him, and was equally at home in autumn and spring. ‘That is life,’ said Lake to Miss Brown. ‘Some of us are made for it.’

  The nurse in Gloucestershire telephoned James twice during those five days and wrote him a letter and a postcard. ‘I think it better to keep in touch,’ she said, ‘although I’ve become more used to his nonsense.’ James was glad to hear that, but was unable to prevent the nurse from regularly communicating. ‘He swears he’ll be pushing up the daisies, sir,’ she said, ‘by September the fourteenth. I’ve told him that’s terrible talk. I’ve told him you’re coming down to see him. He says he won’t be here.’ She talked to James of other matters, telling him about the house and gardens and what she imagined the place must once have been like. ‘It’s sad here in the autumn weather,’ she said. ‘As well he’ll not see it.’ James sensed in her voice a softness that had not been there before and thought that as well as becoming used to the nonsense she had come to feel pity for the man who could no longer walk about, whose property was falling into rack and ruin around him. James remembered the gardens as they had been in the autumns of the past: chrysanthemums stacked in the greenhouses, wallflowers and asters still in bloom, long rows of sprouting celery and cauliflowers, leaves swept up and leaves falling down, bonfires blazing in a mist. Now there were apples rotting in the long grass. There were thick layers of decay, and broken glass in the greenhouses, and wood that needed more than a coat of paint. Weeds were everywhere, sturdy still after the wet summer. ‘Aw, it’s terrible,’ said the nurse. ‘I think so when I see it. God alone knows, sir, what it’ll be like in this house in wintertime.’ It sounded more hopeful to James that she mentioned winter, as though she had resolved to stay that long. His father had stubbornly refused to be moved, saying he liked the place and asking that the wishes of a dying man be honoured in that matter. ‘Mind you,’ said the nurse, ‘he hasn’t ceased. He’s not so bad about the plants as the days go by, but the other’s on the increase. He says the passion for that wife is more intense: he’s like a young fella out courting.’ The nurse laughed and then was solemn. ‘He says the hand of death has neither skin nor bone. I was repeating, sir, what I told you in the way of a diagnosis the other day; I was repeating it to the woman who comes in for the cooking. Well, she quite agreed. I mean, she couldn’t but.’ But James again thought that his father was dying in his fashion, and saw no cause for theories.

  One afternoon James overheard Lake saying on the telephone, ‘I’d best handle the whole thing myself, sir. Mr Bolsover is having one of his off days.’ The man at the other end asked some question, and Lake replied, ‘Oh yes, sir; a regular occurrence these times. We have to send the doorman round in a taxi to get the poor man home. I shouldn’t mention it, sir; it’s a secret shared between Mr Bolsover and his immediate staff.’

  After a time, James began to enjoy acting the part that Lake had willed upon him. ‘Where’s the mail?’ James would ask Miss Brown and she’d reply that he had already asked her to get Lake to deal with it. ‘Oh, yes, I remember now,’ James would say, causing Miss Brown to raise her eyebrows. He could organize the dismissal of the pair of them, on the grounds of poor time-keeping, stupidity, insubordination and, in Lake’s case, a general and total inability to do the work he was required to do. It was not widely known that Lake’s annual errors cost the firm a good deal more than his salary amounted to.

  James didn’t know what he would do when Lake struck his final blow, and he didn’t much mind not knowing. He had heard of cases like this in the business world: men who one day were highly successful and were the next reduced to selling motor-cars in provincial garages, working out their commission on the backs of envelopes. He had heard of men who had taken to petty crime in order to keep up appearances, sacked men who left their houses every morning as though nothing at all had happened, and spent the day filching bicycle bells and small electrical fittings from the open counters of shops. He had heard of men with all the heart gone out of them, who cared no longer for their wives and children, who sold their houses and took on inadequate rented property, living on small capital and hanging about the kitchen all day, unwashed and drinking beer.

  James supposed that the future might turn out to be something like that. He saw himself selling a second-hand Ford Estate car to a woman in a fur coat and receiving from her a hundred and forty pounds. He saw himself as a door-to-door salesman, interesting housewives in brushes and tea-towels and nylon gadgets, and he thought he’d be rather good at that. He thought he’d be good as a demonstrator of kitchen aids: vegetable dicers, garlic presses, frying pans that didn’t burn. He saw himself selling racing tips at Epsom, and pouring petrol into people’s cars, and working in a tube station, as Mrs Hoop had. He saw his children ill-dressed, with holes in their shoes, his wife exhausted, going out to work herself. ‘The others don’t take kindly,’ one of the board-men said to him. ‘They think you’re being casual.’

  James offered no explanation. He had never seen Lake throw the flour, but once he had seen the Colman’s mustard tin on Lake’s desk and had noticed a little flour fall from it when Lake hastily put it in his pocket. They’d have to sell the suit of armour in the hall, he thought, and the medieval gardening instruments, and the house itself, and quite a bit of the furniture. He thought they’d probably move down to s.w.17 and rent a basement flat. He saw himself returning to a basement flat one foggy evening in winter, in the company of a man with a wide R.A.F. moustache, who worked with James, selling washers and nails to ironmongers. ‘He’s been telling me all about it,’ James said to Eve. ‘Prospects are pretty good.’ Eve smiled at the man. She told the man how bored she once had been, when they had lived in a large house in Wimbledon with a suit of armour in the hall. ‘We bought it for fun,’ said Eve, ‘and sold it later for fifty-eight guineas.’ Eve was going out to work, and was looking pale, but happier, James thought. ‘Where’s the lav?’ asked the man with the wide moustache, and laughed to cover his embarrassment. Afterwards, many years later probably, the man rose to the top of the business, while James remained contentedly where he was, eliciting repeat orders for washers and nails from the ironmongers of SW17. Eve had learned how to trim poodles, and brought home twelve pounds ten a week from a pet shop.

  James saw himself in a court-room, answering a charge. They said he had been drunk and disorderly, and had broken a shop window in order to take from it a tin of biscuits. He pleaded guilty, and walked away to prison. He saw himself lying on the g
round in Victoria Station, pulled to one side so as to be out of the way. ‘He’s drunk on brandy,’ a passer-by said, ‘a man like that.’

  During those five days Edward became a familiar sight in Putney. He watched the rooming-house at the corner of the street and was spoken to by people who wondered what he was doing. He asked in the local shops if a man called Septimus Tuam was known, but he met only with a negative response. ‘A handsome man,’ said Edward. ‘I’ve heard him called beautiful.’ The people in the shops shook their heads and referred Edward to the Hand and Plough and other public houses. ‘Not known here,’ said Harold in the Hand and Plough. ‘Not known here,’ said the barmen in the other places, too. ‘I am becoming the idiot of the neighbourhood,’ said Edward to himself. ‘I’ve been taken for a ride.’ Septimus Tuam looked from the window of his room and saw the loitering figure, and raised his eyebrows.

  Edward telephoned Lady Dolores.

  ‘I’ve been standing about Putney for five days,’ he said. ‘People are looking at me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ said Lady Dolores. ‘Have you filled up that dossier?’

  ‘I haven’t even established the man’s identity, Lady Dolores. I don’t even know if he exists.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s a spirit? You may be right. He drove three women to their graves: God knows what he is. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘It’s no good hanging about here. I’d be better off at a desk.’

  ‘Who told you that? Listen, I have a list of questions I want answers to. Another thing: sneak up on our friend and take a snap or two. Get on with it, now.’

  ‘I haven’t got a camera. I haven’t even got a bicycle. I have to borrow a woman’s bicycle every day.’

  ‘Listen, pet,’ said Lady Dolores on the telephone. ‘I’m going to read you a story. Are you ready now? Listen. He always wore dark clothes and was neatly turned out in every way, though never a dandy. The tip of his umbrella swung against my stocking and laddered it, and then he apologized, and was determined to pay for what damage he had inflicted, which goodness knows was slight. He told me about Lord Marchingpass, his uncle, and wondered if I knew him, and somehow the name seemed familiar. But now he’s gone and everything is empty once again. I can’t stop crying. “See a doctor, for Christ’s sake,” my husband says. I’ve come to dread it, hearing him saying that. What d’you think, Mr Blakeston-Smith? Wouldn’t it affect you?’

  ‘An awful lot of people wear dark clothes,’ said Edward. ‘Should I not try to get hold of this Lord Marchingpass?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ shouted Lady Dolores crossly, ‘will you be your age?’

  Whenever I look at him I see my friend instead. My friend is there, sitting in Colin’s chair, sitting quietly and nicely, not shouting out with laughter at something that’s not the least bit funny, not telling me an obscene story picked up in a bar. When I see Colin for what he is, unbuttoning his shirt, I think of my friend, who did things beautifully. I cannot bear to see Colin eat now. There are certain foods that I will not serve; I never noticed anything before.

  The sentences were there in front of her. They increased her wrath, but they coloured it, too. Edward said:

  ‘I’ve been five days on it, Lady Dolores. It’s no good at all.’

  ‘What are you on for five days? Where are you, pet?’

  ‘In this telephone-box opposite the house.’

  ‘How’s he getting on with Mrs FitzArthur?’

  ‘Mrs FitzArthur’s gone away. A note has been left for the milk to say that Mrs FitzArthur is in America.’ Edward had not told Lady Dolores about mistaking Mrs FitzArthur’s husband for Septimus Tuam; nor had he told her that he had mistaken several other men as well, that he had followed one of them across London to Wapping, and that the man had rounded on him, realizing that he was being followed, and without a word had struck Edward a heavy blow on the face. Edward, certain that this man was at last the right one, had wiped blood from his cheeks and had observed the man entering a butcher’s shop and placing around his waist a butcher’s apron.

  ‘I’m in a terrible state,’ said Edward, ‘with loss of confidence.’

  ‘We are all well in the love department,’ said Lady Dolores quietly. ‘We are all doing a good day’s work. We are earning our wages, Mr Blakeston-Smith.’

  ‘I’ve come across a case that might interest you,’ said Edward. ‘A Mrs Hoop and an old boy called Beach. This Mr Beach is deeply attached to Mrs Hoop, and wishes very much to marry her. Mrs Hoop, however –’

  ‘Am I still speaking to Blakeston-Smith?’

  ‘I thought there might be something in it for you –’

  ‘Septimus Tuam is a creature of the devil, while you are standing in a telephone-box telling me about some man who wants to get married.’

  ‘It’s not that –’

  ‘What is it then? Why are you delaying me half the day with old rubbish like this? What’s on your mind, Mr Blakeston-Smith?’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m suited to this work.’

  ‘I wonder if you go at it hard enough. We’ve all got our noses to the grindstone in here, you know. No fresh air for us boys.’

  ‘But there’s no sign at all of a beautiful man, Lady Dolores.’

  ‘You see what I mean? You’re not working your gumption. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. Didn’t you ever hear that one?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Make a round of the poor ladies who wrote in, and ask them the questions I’ve made out for you. See if you can get hold of a photograph. D’you know what I mean?’

  ‘I couldn’t do that. Whatever would they say to me?’

  ‘Get into a disguise. Go out as a window-cleaner or a man from the North Thames Gas. Get into the women’s houses and get into conversation with the women. Ask them about Septimus Tuam, as bold as brass; say you’re his brother. “Are we talking about the same one?” say, and ask them to describe the chap they used to know, or to show you a photograph. They probably have a photograph in a locket. I’m surprised to have to tell you.’

  ‘No, really,’ began Edward.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Dolores.

  Mrs Hoop, loitering about the kitchen, watched Eve making sauce Béarnaise. ‘What’s that stuff?’ said Mrs Hoop.

  ‘Sauce Béarnaise.’

  Eve measured wine and vinegar into a saucepan and added chopped shallot, tarragon, chervil, mignonette pepper and salt. ‘I have to boil this,’ she said, ‘and simmer it until it’s reduced by two-thirds.’

  ‘Boil it away?’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘There’s people hungry, Mrs Bolsover, you know.’ Still unsuccessful in persuading Beach to draw up his will, she wondered if she shouldn’t approach the matter in another way: if she shouldn’t quite openly make a bargain with him.

  ‘I really had to see about a friend’s troubles tonight, Mrs Bolsover. I shouldn’t be here at all. The drawing up of a will, you know.’

  But Eve, concerned with the mixture in the saucepan, didn’t hear what Mrs Hoop had said.

  ‘The drawing up of a will,’ repeated Mrs Hoop. ‘It was not the most convenient night to come out.’

  ‘It was very good of you,’ said Eve vaguely, aware that Mrs Hoop was complaining slightly. ‘My husband and I appreciate it very much. You are always such a help, he says, when we have a dinner party.’

  ‘I used to give a lot myself, when Mr Hoop was alive. We’d have quite a number of wines.’ Mrs Hoop paused to consider that. After a moment she added, ‘Not that I don’t have a social life still, you know. Me and young Blakeston-Smith are out a lot these days. The cool summer evenings are ideal.’

  ‘Peel twenty potatoes, please,’ said Eve. ‘Just in case these men are fond of them.’

  Hatred thundered within Mrs Hoop when she heard Mrs Bolsover say that she was to peel twenty potatoes. Streaks of red swept over her face and neck, the calves of her legs tingled, her back arched with anger.

  ‘Twenty potatoes?’ she said, not moving.
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br />   ‘What do you think? Twenty for seven people. Just to be on the safe side.’

  Mrs Hoop bent down and counted out a score of potatoes. She disapproved of this arbitrary number. She said:

  ‘How many will each person eat?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that. But the men may be hungry.’

  Eve added three yolks of eggs to her sauce, and then, having stirred for a minute, dropped in small pieces of butter. ‘I hope it’s not going to curdle,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s coming, then?’ asked Mrs Hoop.

  ‘A Mr and Mrs Clinger, a Captain and Mrs Poache, and a Mr Linderfoot.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever met them,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘Everyone mixes nowadays,’ she added. ‘The barriers is down.’

  ‘I have never met them either,’ said Eve.

  ‘Funny, that, having strangers in. They could be anything, I always say.’

  ‘My husband knows them –’

  ‘We have our own little social set: me and Blakeston-Smith, and Mr Beach, and Mr Harold.’ Mrs Hoop sucked her cheeks in. She said, ‘Young Blakeston-Smith was inquiring if I was interested in hunting at all.’

  ‘Hunting, Mrs Hoop?’

  ‘Hunting on a horse. Edward is that keen.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He says to me I should take it up. Anyone can, you know, nowadays.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘We meet for conversation, every now and again. As was done in the olden days.’

  ‘Of course. How are the potatoes doing?’