The Love Department Read online

  ‘A fine old brandy,’ said Captain Poache.

  ‘Have some more,’ said James. ‘We’re all in need of brandy.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Captain Poache.

  ‘My wife’s not here,’ said Mr Linderfoot to Mrs Hoop. ‘She’s out in Purley.’

  The Bolsover children awoke to find the light on in their room and a severe-looking woman in pink peering in through the door. ‘Where’s the lavatory?’ said this woman, but the children, confused and sleepy, and thinking her to be part of a dream, told her to go away.

  ‘I’m on the phone to old Beach, see,’ said Mrs Hoop, ‘minding my own business, and up comes this animal, see, and lays hold on me. Well, I was that terrified. “Get away, you old brute,” I shouted at the thing. “Off with you,” but the devil wouldn’t budge. Up he comes closer and grips me in his jaws. “I’m attacked by an ape,” I says to old Beach. “I’m being eaten alive.” And old Beach says, “Are you up a tree?” Well, I couldn’t understand that at all. I couldn’t make head or tail of old Beach standing there in the Hand and Plough saying was I up a tree. Then the whole thing goes blank until I’m being helped up to my feet and given a drop to drink by kind friends. My clothes is damaged to the extent of a pound, and to tell you straight I feel unsteady on my pins.’

  James said then that perhaps Mrs Hoop could manage the journey back to the kitchen, but Mrs Hoop shook her head and replied that she thought she could not. The big man was making a pass at her, she noted, keeping himself close to her. She lifted a hand to her hair to tidy it. ‘I’m knocking them all for six,’ she said to herself.

  ‘Mr Bolsover,’ said Mrs Poache, entering the room at speed, ‘I must insist on knowing where the lavatory is.’

  In the taxi-cab hired by Beach, Edward said:

  ‘Did Mrs Hoop give details? She’ll need the attention of a doctor.’

  ‘A doctor, son?’

  ‘Mrs Hoop may be injured. She may need a stitch.’

  Beach again poked the taxi-driver’s back with the end of his sweeping-brush. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Slow up at a doctor’s place. We need a doctor.’

  ‘Stop that immediately,’ said the taxi-driver. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  Edward leaned forward and explained that a woman had been attacked by an animal escaped from a zoo. He added that she was alone in a house except for children, and would need urgent medical attention. ‘Draw up at the first brass plate,’ he said. ‘We haven’t time to pick and choose.’

  The taxi-driver drove slowly along the suburban roads, peering through the dusk for a doctor’s sign. He halted his cab after about five minutes. Edward leapt out and pressed the night-bell.

  A short man in a cardigan opened the door and looked tired in the brightness of his hall. He said, with a sigh:

  ‘What’s up, lad?’

  Edward explained that an ape had attacked a woman and that the nature of the damage was not yet known. He explained what he knew of the circumstances.

  ‘O.K.,’ said the doctor wearily, and went to fetch his bag. ‘Tell me what happens,’ he muttered to his wife, referring to a television play they had been engrossed in.

  ‘Who’s this man?’ shouted Beach as the doctor stepped into the taxi-cab.

  ‘A medical doctor,’ said the doctor with stiffness, ‘since that, it appears, is what you require.’

  ‘It’s Mrs Hoop,’ said Beach. ‘She’s caught up with an ape.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ said the doctor, closing his eyes. ‘We’ll do our best.’

  The taxi moved forward, gathering speed, while in Crannoc Avenue the situation remained unchanged. Eve Bolsover, carrying coffee to her sitting-room, observed that Mrs Hoop was still occupying an arm-chair in the centre of the room and was surrounded by the dinner guests, who were standing up, drinking brandy or liqueurs, since they had felt the need of them. Captain Poache, she saw, was again filling the glass that Mrs Hoop drank from, while Mr Linderfoot was bending over Mrs Hoop, telling her something. James was leaning against a wall listening to Mrs Clinger’s whisper. He seemed unaware of the social chaos; he seemed not to care.

  ‘Now, Mrs Hoop,’ Eve said. ‘I think we could get you back to the kitchen.’

  Mr Linderfoot smiled.

  ‘I’m that shaky,’ was what Mrs Hoop said. ‘I’m that shaky, dear, I’d never make the kitchen.’

  ‘Well, you can’t sit here all night,’ said Eve, smiling too. ‘Now can you?’

  ‘It’s a very comfy chair,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘I’ll grant you that.’

  ‘Come along now, Mrs Hoop.’

  ‘What, dear?’

  ‘She’s as happy as Larry,’ said Mr Linderfoot.

  Eve smiled again and moved away.

  ‘James, we must get Mrs Hoop out. She’s had all this drink and says she can’t move.’ She smiled at Mrs Clinger. ‘We can hardly sit down to our coffee with Mrs Hoop in the middle of the room.’

  ‘You have lovely hair,’ said Mr Linderfoot to Mrs Hoop. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?’

  ‘Get on with you,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘My mother looked a picture, mister.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ said James. ‘I’ve said to her she should go to the kitchen. I’ve asked her if she wanted a doctor.’

  ‘Perhaps we should go,’ said Mrs Clinger.

  ‘Go?’ said Mr Clinger. ‘At this hour of the evening? Have sense, Diana.’

  ‘Oh, no one must go,’ protested Eve. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘Look here,’ said Mr Linderfoot to Mrs Hoop, offering her an arm. ‘I’ll help you out to this kitchen.’

  Mrs Poache, descending the Bolsovers’ stairs, had reached the last step when a loud knocking on the hall-door arrested her progress. ‘Someone at your door,’ said Mrs Poache, throwing her voice in the direction of the Bolsovers’ sitting-room. She then stepped forward and opened it.

  ‘Where’s Emily Hoop?’ demanded an old man with a sweeping-brush in his hand, scowling at Mrs Poache. ‘What’s become of her?’ He pushed his way roughly past her, followed by a youth and a short man with a bag.

  ‘That’s Mr Beach,’ said the young man to Mrs Poache. ‘He’s come about this ape thing.’

  ‘Ape thing?’ said Mrs Poache. ‘The woman has been given drink by my husband.’

  ‘Whoa up there,’ cried Mr Linderfoot merrily, an exclamation that caused the monkey to chatter again. The door opened violently, and Mrs Hoop, sniggering on the arm of the heaviest of the board-men, uttered a cry. ‘There’s old Beach,’ she shrilled. ‘Whatever’s he doing here?’

  Attracted by this ejaculation, the monkey at once streaked to her side and gripped with his teeth part of her red coat. Beach, the only member of the company who was in any way armed, aimed a firm blow with the sweeping-brush from the Hand and Plough.

  ‘Ah,’ said the doctor, coughing. ‘May I see the patient?’

  Mr Clinger, seeing his pet molested by what in the confusion of the moment he took to be a street-cleaner, shouted loudly at the man with the brush, saying the animal was valuable and was not to be struck. Mrs Poache, who from the hall had had but a brief glimpse of Mr Linderfoot with the charwoman on his arm, tried to peer over the old man’s shoulder to see what her husband was up to. ‘I can’t see,’ she said to the young man who stood by her side. ‘Can you look in there and tell me what a fat man with glasses is doing?’

  Edward looked and said that there were three fat men with glasses. None of them, he reported, was doing much.

  ‘Look here,’ said the doctor. ‘Where’s this injured woman?’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Mrs Poache.

  ‘I’m a doctor that’s been called out. Where’s the woman? Have they caught the ape?’

  ‘Typical,’ said Mrs Poache. ‘You’ve been drawn out on false pretences. Mrs Bolsover,’ she called, ‘there’s a doctor here, if anyone needs him.’

  ‘Who are you?’ said James to Beach. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Emily Hoop rang me up on the telephone, saying about th
e ape. Here I be.’

  ‘Down, sir,’ said Mr Clinger to the monkey, whose teeth were still attached to Mrs Hoop’s red coat.

  ‘Would you mind repeating that?’ requested Mr Linderfoot of Beach. ‘Tell us who you are again.’

  ‘Here’s a doctor,’ said Mrs Poache. ‘Come to put down the monkey.’

  Beach broke into obscene language. He prodded the monkey with the bristles of his brush. Mrs Hoop, having heard that a doctor had come, said nothing. She had a feeling that she was being fought over, that the big man who had held her by the arm and old Beach from the public house were coming to blows over her body. It didn’t matter to Mrs Hoop: all she wanted to do was to sit in the middle of the room again and watch it going round.

  ‘You are making matters worse,’ said Mr Clinger furiously to Beach, ‘with that sweeping-brush. You are maddening the animal beyond measure.’

  ‘I’m being shoved at,’ protested Beach, ‘and Emily Hoop’s the worse for wear.’

  ‘I want to get into that room,’ said Mrs Poache. ‘This affair’s an orgy. I’ve never seen the like of it.’

  ‘Is it a joke?’ said the doctor. ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘My husband’s in there,’ said Mrs Poache, ‘drinking himself to death, if it interests you at all. He’s never been happy on dry land.’

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ shouted the doctor.

  Within the room Eve said:

  ‘James, there’s a doctor here. For Mrs Hoop.’

  ‘Who sent for him?’ said James.

  Mrs Poache tried to push again, but Beach, still blocking the doorway, did not respond. He could not, for his own way was blocked by Mrs Hoop, held by Mr Linderfoot on one side and by Mr Clinger, who sought to ease the monkey’s grip on her red coat.

  ‘This is quite scandalous,’ complained the doctor. ‘I’m called out to attend an accident, and here we are with a lot of drunks.’

  ‘Mind your tongue,’ said Mrs Poache.

  In the sitting-room Mr Clinger managed to persuade his monkey to release Mrs Hoop’s coat. Beach stood aside, having no longer cause to brandish the sweeping-brush, no longer requiring space for the gesture. Mrs Hoop, held upright by Mr Linderfoot and sensing that the limelight was slipping away from her, demanded the attentions of the doctor.

  ‘Hullo, there!’ shouted Mr Linderfoot. ‘Bring that medic back.’

  ‘James, for goodness’ sake!’ said Eve.

  ‘What?’ said James.

  ‘It’s really singular,’ murmured Mrs Clinger.

  ‘Singular?’ said Eve, having seen Mrs Hoop falling drunkenly about and a strange elderly man poking at the Clingers’ monkey with a brush, and Mr Linderfoot trying to hold Mrs Hoop up and an innocent doctor shouting his head off. ‘It is certainly singular.’ She wanted to ask Mrs Clinger if this always happened when they took their monkey to dinner. She wanted to ask her why she kept such a monkey, if such a monkey was necessary in a world in which there was starvation. She wanted to ask James if the other five men talked of central heating until kingdom come, and were determined about door-handles.

  ‘This is an absurd business,’ remarked Mrs Poache to Edward. ‘My husband and I were invited to dinner by these people, and trouble occurred at once.’

  ‘It’s the time of the year,’ said Edward. ‘I’m in trouble myself.’

  Mrs Poache nodded, and then regarded this young man more closely. ‘You remind me of a son of the Captain’s and mine,’ she said. ‘Our name is Poache.’

  ‘Poache?’ said Edward. He repeated the word slowly. He savoured the word, rolling it over his tongue. He was silent. Then he said, ‘Not Mrs Poache of 23, The Drive, Wimbledon?’

  ‘That is so. Married to a naval officer, as was.’

  For Edward it was as though they had suddenly made him an emperor. The love department glowed before him, the ferns and the palms sprouted fruitfully to the heavens, the typists in their glory sang a hallelujah that was full of the mysterious words, Lady Dolores took her cigarette-holder out of her mouth and pressed scarlet lips to his forehead. She left the mark of her lipstick there and warned him not to wipe it away. The scent from the typists warmed his nostrils.

  ‘D’you know who I am?’ said Edward. ‘I’m the brother of Septimus Tuam.’

  ‘Septimus Tuam?’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  Mrs Poache did not reply at once. She again examined Edward closely; she said in a low voice, ‘I knew Septimus Tuam. I knew him a few years back. Yes, I did.’

  ‘Are we thinking of the same man? Listen, Mrs Poache, could I come out and talk to you about Septimus Tuam? I am trying to find him; he’s come into a fortune. Could I come and see you?’

  Mrs Poache nodded her head. She had forgotten where she was. She had forgotten her husband drinking heavily, sitting alone, talking to no one. She had forgotten the Clingers, the monkey, the Bolsovers and their strange ways, the old man with the sweeping-brush, the doctor, the young man who questioned her now. Mrs Poache went into a state of nostalgic fascination, which lasted for twenty minutes.

  ‘There is nothing whatsoever the matter with this woman,’ said the doctor. ‘I was dragged away from my well-earned rest. Show me a scratch on this one.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said James. ‘I can’t think how you got here. I mean, who sent for you?’

  ‘I’m going away,’ replied the doctor, glaring about him. ‘A childish display if ever I’ve seen one.’

  Edward sat by Mrs Poache in the sitting-room and knew that at last all was going to be well. He would have to disguise himself neither as a representative of the North Thames Gas Board nor as a window-cleaner, nor as anything else. He would cycle out to Mrs Poache’s house and hear from Mrs Poache’s lips a full description of Septimus Tuam; he might even see a faded photograph. Then he would move in upon the man. He would spot the right figure coming out of the rooming-house. He would haunt Septimus Tuam so that Septimus Tuam’s life was a misery; he would cause Septimus Tuam to commit a misdemeanour; he would see him incarcerated in a cell.

  Captain Poache, who had not noticed the young man earlier in the evening, wondered what he was doing sitting by his wife, since his wife seemed to be struck dumb. ‘He’s like a son of ours,’ said Mrs Poache after a time to Mrs Clinger, who nodded and smiled and thought that Mrs Poache, after all the havoc, appeared to be a changed woman.

  ‘He’s the Poaches’ son,’ said Mrs Clinger to Eve, ‘come to fetch them home. Nice-looking boy.’

  In the kitchen Eve made more coffee. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Hoop,’ said Eve.

  ‘Where’s that Linderfoot guy?’ asked Mrs Hoop.

  ‘Give Emily Hoop a hot coffee, ma’am,’ said Beach. ‘She’s had an experience.’

  ‘I’ve had an experience,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘All me togs torn off.’

  Beach explained how he had been waiting in the Hand and Plough and how Emily Hoop had telephoned through to say she was being savaged by an ape, how he and the young man had come at once in a taxi.

  ‘The young man? He came with you, Mr Beach? They said he was the Poaches’ son.’

  ‘Oh, happen he is,’ said Beach, ‘but he come here in a taxi-cab with me.’

  ‘Tell the Linderfoot guy I was asking for him,’ said Mrs Hoop.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Eve in the drawing-room. ‘Your friends are in the kitchen.’

  ‘Friends?’ said Edward, smiling.

  ‘Mr Beach and Mrs Hoop.’

  ‘Look,’ said Edward with great new enthusiasm, walking to the door with Eve, ‘what can you tell me about that couple? I belong to an organization. Resettlement, the elderly. Well, stuff like that. And love.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Love for all ages, Mrs Bolsover. Love for Mr Beach and Mrs Hoop. Love for the lady in pink.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand you.’

  ‘Love in marriage, Mrs Bolsover. I may say no more.’

  ‘Have some coffee in the kitchen,’ said Eve, wondering about this well-spoken y
oung man who was apparently a friend of her charwoman’s. She didn’t wonder for long, however, for she was beginning to feel immensely depressed.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Bolsover,’ said the young man politely. ‘I would welcome a drink of coffee.’

  14

  Once upon a time they might have laughed because they could not help it, or played some game they understood, communicating yet not seeming to. How could it be, Eve thought, that a tartan-clad monkey had leapt upon Mrs Hoop and that the Bolsovers would never come to laugh together over that ridiculous fact? Would they refer again to the arrival in their house of an elderly stranger with a sweeping-brush? Would they shake their heads over what Mrs Poache must have thought of the increasing pandemonium? Or wonder what tale had been borne to Mrs Linderfoot on her couch? She thought they mightn’t.

  The guests had gone their way, shaking hands in the hall, Captain Poache staggering, his wife seeming less vexed than she had been, Mr Linderfoot saying he’d like to come again, the Clingers quarrelling. Mrs Hoop and her friends had gone off also, the three of them in a taxi, since that had seemed the best way. The house had been silent then, for James had not spoken, nor had she. James had sat down and she had stood with an unlighted cigarette between her fingers, and James had fallen asleep.

  Eve felt a headache beginning to thump behind her brow. She lit and smoked the cigarette, which made her headache worse. James slept in his chair, his mouth slightly open, his body full of brandy.

  One by one, the scenes passed before her: moments of her marriage day, for she continued in her obsession about it and she knew the day well. She stood about, and walked and spoke; she was there in white, saying the right thing, moving among people: the scenes were like parts of a slow film. Would she, she wondered, take to a sofa like Mrs Linderfoot, when the children had grown up and gone? Would she lie there and dream all afternoon of the distant past, of a man she had married on a sunny day? What did Mrs Linderfoot think about? Or Mrs Clinger, come to that? Or Mrs Poache?