Keeping Bad Company

by Ann Granger

  I must say the first view of the area served to confirm my fears that I’d be considered the wrong person. It was depressingly genteel. Coming from where I was living, it was like being beamed down to another planet. The house itself was tall and narrow in a long curving terrace of such houses, all white-washed, with freshly painted doors and sparkling windows. One flight of steep steps ran from pavement to front door and another down into the basement. The road seemed unnaturally quiet. One or two householders had put shrubs in ornamental containers outside their doors.

  That sort of thing wasn’t recommended on the balconies of my tower block. The tub and plant would disappear inside five minutes, very likely pitched over in a light-hearted attempt to brain someone on the ground below. What I saw in Daphne’s street was life, all right, but not as I knew it.

  One oddity struck me. At intervals along the pavement, before each house, was a round brass disc like a small manhole cover. Before Daphne’s house the brass disc had been replaced by a circle of opaque toughened glass similar to the glass skylight in subterranean public toilets. Strange.

  Before I announced myself, I crept down into the basement and took a look around. The entrance area was cramped because part of it was taken up with a newly constructed wall which ran between the house and the pavement above. I couldn’t see the purpose of this and it had me puzzled. There was a window by the front door and taking a look through it I saw a large room brighter than many basements because additional light was admitted through a window at the far end, which appeared to be an outlet on the garden. It was furnished with quite decent furniture. Through a half-open door, I glimpsed a kitchenette. Even this first sight revealed the place to be clean, newly decorated and highly desirable. I was amazed it was still empty.

  I was already certain I wasn’t the sort of person who got to live in flats like this, even with the council’s help. Daphne Knowles would probably press an alarm button or something the moment she set eyes on me. I might find a job, at some future date, that would pay a decent wage and enable me completely to transform myself and my life-style, but as of that moment I had neither job nor money and this place was right out of my league.

  I’d come this far and Alastair would be asking Miss Knowles whether I’d been in touch, so I climbed back up both flights of steps, and rang her doorbell.

  After a moment I heard a regular padding footfall. The door opened and there stood a tall, very thin woman with wiry grey hair. She was wearing jogging pants and a sweat-shirt. On her feet were brightly patterned Fair Isle socks with soft leather soles attached. I was prepared for her to say, ‘Go away, I don’t give at the door!’ But she didn’t.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘I’m Fran Varady,’ I introduced myself. ‘Alastair sent me.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ she replied. ‘Do come in.’

  She shut the front door behind us and set off ahead of me down the hall at a brisk pace. I scurried along behind her, trying to get a look at the place as I went.

  What I saw only convinced me more that I had no chance. The house oozed respectability. The furniture was old but polished and probably valuable. We were talking antiques here. Narrow stairs with carved wooden balusters ran up to unseen regions. The stair wall was lined with early French fashion prints. There was a lingering smell of coffee brewed fresh at breakfast time, lavender wax and fresh flowers.

  We arrived in a large, airy sitting room overlooking a scrap of garden. The sun beamed in and lit up the spines of rows and rows of books. This was a librarian’s home, all right. There was a table by the window and on it, a cumbersome old-fashioned manual typewriter. A sheet of paper was sticking out of the top and a pile of other paper was stacked beside it. It seemed I’d interrupted her at work. That would probably also count against me.

  Daphne Knowles seated herself in a cane-framed rocking chair upholstered with bright green and pink flowered cretonne, and indicated I should take a seat on the sofa. I sank down into feather cushions and sprawled there, trapped, and feeling at a considerable disadvantage. Daphne, beaming at me, began to tip back and forth in her cane rocker, which groaned a teeth-grinding protest.

  ‘So you’re Alastair’s girl!’ she observed.

  For one dreadful moment I thought there had been a mix-up, and she imagined I was Alastair’s granddaughter, who was dead. I tried to lean forward as I hastened to explain, ‘No, I’m only Fran who – ’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know that.’

  She waved a hand at me and I sank back again. Getting out of this kind of sofa was always more difficult than collapsing down on it. I couldn’t get leverage from my legs and it was a question of grabbing the arms and hauling oneself up and out.

  ‘It was such a sad business, but life does go on. I’m a firm believer in reincarnation.’ The rocker creaked and I could see why she preferred it to this sofa or either of the matching armchairs.

  ‘I’ve a friend who believes in that,’ I told her.

  She leaned forward, serious. ‘It isn’t the dead, you see, who have the problem. The problem is for the living who have to go on, well, living when they’ve lost a dear one. I’ve told Alastair he mustn’t worry about Theresa but he took it all very hard.’ She sighed, then perked up. ‘He tells me you want to be an actress.’

  ‘It’s what I dream about.’ I added apologetically, ‘We all dream about something. I did start a drama course, but I had to drop out.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she said and her eyes drifted towards the typewriter. I wondered whether it was in order to ask what she was working on. Before I had a chance, she asked, ‘Would you like to see the flat?’

  Jangling a bunch of keys she led me out of the house and down to the basement steps.

  ‘As you see,’ she said. ‘It’s completely separate down here, quite self-contained. There’s no longer any communication through from my place. It’s been bricked up.’ She unlocked the front door and we went in.

  She seemed to think I’d want to look around by myself, so she stayed by the door and waited.

  I could see now that the furniture consisted of a pine rustic-style table and four chairs, and a large old-fashioned sofa covered in blue rep. There was a small television set on a low pine occasional table. The floor was newly carpeted wall to wall in dove grey.

  I opened a door and found a small bathroom, also newly equipped. I inspected the kitchenette glimpsed from outside. Like the main room, it had a small window admitting light from the garden. It would be at ground level outside, but here it was halfway up the wall. There was a dinky little cooker and a fridge.

  She must be asking the earth for this place. I was grateful to Alastair, but he just didn’t realise. I knew I could never afford it.

  Out of curiosity, I went back to the main room and asked, ‘Where does the new brickwork you can see from outside come in?’

  ‘It’s a corridor leading to the bedroom.’ Daphne led me to a door to the left of the basement window. She opened it and sure enough, the new brick wall outside created a narrow corridor inside that led into a small square windowless room. Windowless, that was, in the normal sense. Light permeated through from a round skylight above and I realised that we stood beneath the pavement. Eureka!

  ‘Victorian coal cellar,’ explained Daphne. ‘These houses had all the mod cons of their day. The coal was tipped down a chute through one of the brass manholes you probably saw in the pavement as you came along here. Straight into the cellar, no need for the coalman to invade the house. Most houses still use the cellars as junk rooms. One or two, like this one, have made an access from the basement flat. Previously the only access was in the well of the building, completely detached from the house.’

  She switched on the light. A pine bedstead and wardrobe more or less filled the space. It gave you an odd sort of feeling in there and wouldn’t do if you were at all claustrophobic. It was reinforced by the sound of footsteps passing over our heads. I wondered if this might be a bargaining point when it came t
o fixing the rent. Not everyone would fancy the setup.

  ‘No one can see through the glass,’ Daphne said reassuringly, perhaps thinking my silence meant I was worrying about that. ‘And not many people go past. It’s a very quiet street.’

  It was confession time. I owned up. ‘It’s all very nice, but I couldn’t afford it. I’m sorry. Thank you for taking time to show me around.’

  She put her head on one side like a tall thin bird. ‘If you really like it, and it would suit you,’ she said delicately, ‘we can discuss mutually convenient terms.’

  My heart hopped. I sternly ordered it to calm down and not start getting excited about what wasn’t going to happen.

  Daphne led me back to the sitting room and we both sat down on the blue rep sofa.

  ‘I should explain,’ she began. ‘I’m seventy-one now.’

  I expressed surprise because she didn’t look it. She waved my words away.

  ‘My friends and relations, who mean well but will interfere, say I oughtn’t to live quite alone. I can’t see why not. I’m perfectly fit and not a bit gaga. They keep nagging at me. So I had the basement flat done up and the cellar turned into extra living space and joined on as you saw. I was playing for time with the alterations. I didn’t really intend to let it. I hate the thought of strangers living in my house, even detached strangers down here. But eventually the work was finished and then they all began asking, when was I going to advertise the flat?

  ‘Never, was what I told them. I’d wait until someone was recommended to me. So then they began recommending people and none of them was at all sympathique, as the French say. There was absolutely no rapport between us. My family said it didn’t matter because I needn’t ever see the tenants. But then, what was the point of them being down here? The idea was, if there was an emergency, I could get hold of someone quickly. But if there’s an emergency you don’t want to get hold of people you don’t like, do you? So I kept making excuses not to let.’

  She paused to look at me anxiously, her eyes asking whether I understood. I told her I did. It was her privacy and her independence all those well-meaning people were intent on chipping away at. Knowing how much I valued my independence, I knew exactly how she felt. I tried to explain this.

  She beamed and nodded enthusiastically. ‘I thought you’d understand. Alastair was pretty sure you’d be just the person but I was cautious. I wanted to wait and see. But I think you are sympathique and so, if the flat would suit you, we can fix a rent you can pay.’

  I was in no position to turn the offer down. Besides which, it was far and away the best offer I was likely to get, probably in my entire life. I had a couple of qualms, I admit. One was that nothing comes without a price tag of some sort. It doesn’t have to be money. The other doubt had to do with that strange little bedroom under the pavement. But I could worry about all that later. I told her the flat would suit me fine.

  ‘Sure he saw a kidnapping,’ said Ganesh. ‘He also saw pink snakes, giant pandas and little men in green jackets playing fiddles.’

  Ganesh can be difficult and he was being particularly so right now. We’d gone straight to my new flat from the station and had argued all the way there. Now we were sitting over plates of reheated dal and still arguing. (I’m not a cook. Ganesh had brought the dal from High Wycombe in a plastic tub.) Not only the dal had been rehashed. We were picking over Alkie Albie’s story for the umpteenth time.

  ‘I believe him,’ I said. ‘Mostly because of the details, like the bit about the cloth with the knock-out drops on it.’

  Gan put down his fork. ‘Oh, come on, anyone could make that up!’

  ‘And the Alice band.’

  ‘The what?’

  I explained what an Alice band was. ‘He could have described her any way he liked, but a detail like that isn’t something he’d imagine. He saw her. Besides, because he’s down and out doesn’t mean he isn’t perfectly capable of observation.’

  Gan pushed his plate away. ‘You think I don’t know anything about that old fellow, don’t you? You’re wrong. He’s always around this part of town. You happen not to have run into him before. Let me tell you, you got him on a good day. He goes past the shop. Usually he’s roaring drunk and the drunker he gets, the more aggressive he gets. He staggers along shaking his fist and leaping in front of perfect strangers, offering to fight them. Hari runs and shuts the door in case he tries to come in the shop.’

  ‘I don’t know why Hari even tries to run that shop,’ I said, nettled. ‘He doesn’t trust anyone who goes in it. He’s getting an ulcer. Why doesn’t he go into another line of business which wouldn’t attract the kids? We need a dry-cleaner’s around here.’

  Ganesh’s face lit up. ‘You and I could – ’

  ‘No, we couldn’t, Gan!’

  ‘It’s a decent business.’

  ‘I can’t stand the chemical smell,’ I said firmly.

  This was also rehashing an old argument. We all have a dream, as I’d told Daphne. Gan’s dream was that he and I could go into business somewhere. The idea of being tied to a shop didn’t strike me so much as a dream as an out-and-out nightmare. I understood Hari’s neuroses only too well. Put in charge of a business I’d end up just like Hari, swallowing the herbal pills and working myself towards early heart failure. Just thinking about being tied to anything fills me with strong negative emotions, as they say. Scares me witless, in other words.

  I’d no present job and I’d no family. But I did, still do, have my independence and it’s worth more and more to me as I see the price other people pay for giving theirs up. That’s why I was in tune with Daphne. As for not owning anything, that doesn’t have to be so bad. Not owning anything means nothing owns you. I have a decent place to live right now, but otherwise I don’t have anything (except Gan as a friend but that’s worth a lot).

  But take Ganesh as an example. He has a close and loving family. But they have expectations of him. That’s a terrible burden for anyone to bear. No one has expectations of me, not any longer. Grandma Varady and Dad had hopes of me once but I let them down. I’m sorry about that and always shall be, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. There’s never anything anyone can do about the past except, possibly, learn from it and that’s not easy. ‘Learn from your mistakes!’ people say with varying degrees of smugness.

  ‘Listen, chums!’ I want to cry out. ‘We make the sort of mistakes we make because we’re the kind of people we are. We’re poor judges of character, or easily influenced, too kind-hearted for our own good or just plain lazy. So we go on making the same mistakes over and over again.’ I suppose you could say that in the end it gets to be a habit, a way of life.

  This is not to say I don’t have plans, hopes, expectations, dreams, call it what you will, for myself. I do. But as long as I don’t owe anything to anyone but me, Fran Varady, I can’t let anyone but myself down. That’s the way I like it.

  I stood up, collected the dishes and took them to my tiny kitchen. I was feeling rattled because perhaps, despite my earlier claim that no one has expectations of me, I realised it was possible Ganesh did. What’s more, I could see now that Alastair did. They both expected me to make good somehow in some acceptable way. Which meant, rejoin the human rat-race. Now there was Daphne as well. If I wasn’t careful, the pressure would get to me and if that ever happened I’d have to move on, walk away from them all.

  Enough about me. I didn’t want to get neurotic.

  ‘How are your people getting on?’ I called out as I filled the kettle for tea. ‘Any luck with new premises?’

  ‘They’ve found a couple of possibilities. Jay’s sorting out what they can afford.’

  Jay’s an accountant. An accountant as a son-in-law is useful and the Patels were getting good advice. Ganesh, however, sounded depressed. I guessed that other things weren’t going so well in High Wycombe. I went back into the sitting room. Gan had tidied up the table and was now wandering around tidying up the rest of the room.

>   ‘Look,’ I said. ‘They’ll sort something out.’

  ‘Yes. They’ll either get a place in High Wycombe and expect me to move out there to run it with them. Or they won’t get a place and I’ll have to stay on here with Hari.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell them what you want?’ I said, exasperated. ‘You can’t please everyone all the time.’

  He grunted.

  ‘In the meantime,’ I went on briskly, because there was no point in letting him mope, ‘what do we do about Albie?’

  He expelled air between his teeth in a hiss and spun round, long black hair flying. ‘We don’t do anything! We’d have to get him to tell his story again to the police. He probably wouldn’t even remember it. We don’t even know where he is now.’

  ‘You said yourself, he’s always around here. We could find him. He’s distinctive.’

  ‘There I agree with you!’ He jabbed a finger at me. ‘He’s also totally unreliable, Fran. When did this – or when was this snatch supposed to have taken place?’