Chapter Sixteen
Gimball was quite agreeable to my having the first two weeks of June for my holiday, and thought it was a good idea as I had known he would. I wrote to Brighton and booked a room at the Prince Regent Hotel, which is just off the front between the Palace and West Piers. I didn’t tell Sheila, however, and in fact didn’t see her before the holiday. This may seem strange, after I’ve said that it seemed to me I’d been given an almost open invitation to come down to Brighton when she was there. I think, to make things as clear as I can, I ought to try to explain it.
When you’re indulging a fantasy like mine you try to make it as real as possible, that’s one thing. That’s why I’d taken Sheila out, tried to make love to her, played tennis as well as I could. Those were all part of the attempt to make the fantasy real. But there’s another part of you that tries to do just the opposite, that flinches from putting the fantasy to the test because it’s afraid of being told that the whole thing is a day-dream and you’re just being stupid. You want to make the fantasy real yet you want to prevent it from being broken, and the reason I didn’t try to see or speak to Sheila in the two weeks before we went away was because I wanted to preserve the dream. But then again this was something I never completely admitted, even to myself. Does all this explain anything? If not, it’s because I can’t really explain things even to myself.
During the two weeks before my holiday things didn’t go well at the office. There was one satisfactory thing, and that was the note about my promotion which came through, initialled by Lacey. It confirmed that I was to take over as the manager of the reorganised Service and Complaints Department, and that my salary from August 31 would be increased to eight hundred and fifty pounds a year. This was fifty pounds more than I had said to May, and it helped to reconcile me to the fact that, as I was quite certain by now, Lacey had pinched my idea.
The unsatisfactory thing was my relationship with Gimball. He was supposed to be showing me how the wheels went round, although I knew this pretty well, and he was simply unable to do this without being as icily sarcastic as Gimball knew how. He was always saying things like: “This is the way I used to arrange the flow of correspondence, but I fear that it may appear antiquated to anybody with all your up-to-date ideas,” or “This is what you will no doubt call the old fogey’s filing system, which you will reorganise in a manner much more complicated, and so marvellously efficient that it is proof even against any blackouts that may be suffered by the department manager.”
When he said this I really saw red. I slapped my hand on the desk. “You don’t really think I’m capable of doing this job, do you?”
Gimball twinkled at me. His eyes were of a very bright, piercing blue. “I must confess to being a little worried by your, shall we call it forgetfulness.”
“You said you put forward my scheme with your warmest recommendation. That isn’t true, is it?”
Gimball fingered the silver ink-stand that had been given him after twenty-five years’ service. “Those who ask silly questions–”
I knew that there was little point in going on, yet I couldn’t stop. “You don’t like the new scheme and you don’t like me, that’s the answer, isn’t it?”
“I like efficiency. You can draw your own conclusions.”
“You don’t think merging Service and Complaints is going to lead to greater efficiency?”
Gimball shook his head. “It’s one of those ideas that look good on paper. In practice I doubt very much if it will work, particularly with the reduction of staff Mr Lacey envisages.”
“So he’s using my idea simply to cut down staff. Is that what you mean?”
Gimball shrugged his neat shoulders. “I said you could draw your own conclusions. No doubt I’m out of date.”
I had to push right through to the end. “And you don’t think much of me, you don’t think I’m efficient?”
“You won’t rest until you know, will you?” He stared at me, then went through the ritual of finding a key on his golden chain. Today it was not used to unlock the wine cupboard, however, but a drawer of his desk.
From this drawer he took a sheet of flimsy, which he handed to me.
I read:
Report on John Wilkins
You have been good enough to ask for my views on Wilkins’ capacity to act as manager of the proposed merged Service and Complaints Department. As you know, he has been in this department for several years, and has risen to the position of my assistant. In the past he has shown undoubted administrative ability. He has done good work, and is ambitious. I do not think, however, that I could conscientiously recommend his promotion to a position of responsibility. In recent months he has shown a lack of stability. The standard of his work has declined and he has become careless over small points of detail. It may be felt that these are not vitally important, but my belief is that those who are careless in details will neglect larger matters also. As you know, I have little confidence in the proposed merger, but if a decision has been reached in favour of it I would advise that a departmental manager be appointed from outside the firm.
“I typed this myself,” Gimball said. “You need not disturb yourself with the thought that anybody else has seen it.”
I read and re-read it. “You gave this to Mr Lacey?”
“Yes.” Gimball permitted himself a tight little smile.
“And he appointed me in spite of it.”
“Precisely. You can draw your own conclusions as I said before. I retain this sheet of paper just in case any queries should be raised in the future. One can never be too careful.” The key was produced again, the flimsy locked away.
I thought about some of the phrases in Gimball’s report all that afternoon. I do not think that I could conscientiously recommend… What I can only call a lack of stability… The standard of his work has declined. Those words should have meant that I couldn’t possibly get the appointment. Instead Lacey had ignored Gimball, streamlined the scheme and taken the credit for it, and was buying me off. Thinking about what Gimball had put in the report, I had to admit that the standard of my work had declined. Somehow my ability to concentrate seemed to have gone. Yet even Gimball admitted that I had administrative ability and after all my basic idea had been accepted. I argued round and round with myself.
This was one of the evenings when May went to the Townswomen’s and Housewives’ Association. She would have left some cold meat, tomatoes and salad out for me, and there was no reason to hurry back for it. I walked out of Palings at half past five on that fine May evening and wandered down Oxford Street with the argument still going on in my head. When I found myself near to the little club called the Five O’Clock Shadow it seemed natural to go in. Without much believing it, I told myself that Uncle Dan might be there.
The club was just two rooms on a first floor, and Uncle Dan was not there. The proprietor’s name was Tony. He was a big man with a blue growth on his chin which was said to have been the origin of the club’s name. It may have been so, I don’t know.
There were five people in the place, apart from Tony, when I went in. A scrawny-necked man was sitting in one corner talking earnestly to a young woman wearing a jersey and trousers, and three prosperous-looking men wearing powerfully-striped suits stood at the bar discussing the afternoon’s racing.
I asked Tony if he’d seen Uncle Dan. “Dan Hunton, thin man with a shock of grey hair, often holds his head on one side?”
“Talks nineteen to the dozen, calls Vat 69 the Pope’s telephone number? Hasn’t been in for a week or two.” I sat down with a drink. Tony put his meaty arms on the bar and joined in the conversation of the three men standing there.
A fleshy-nosed man wearing a blue suit with a purple stripe, and with a trilby hat stuck on the back of his head, said, “Can’t understand how Morrie’s Folly came unstuck. If ever there was a bleedin’ certainty, that was it.”
“Wasn’t tryin’.” This was from a little man who had a tiny unlighted cigar in his m
outh. “In a race at Hurst Park a couple of weeks’ time, wasn’t tryin’ today.”
“What do you mean, wasn’t tryin’?” said the fleshy-nosed man indignantly. “Didn’t Mickey Day who trains the bleeder tell me to get right on it and do myself a bit of good. Didn’t Jack ‘Unter say it couldn’t lose?”
The little man rolled the cigar round quickly. “All right then, cock, just tell me why it lost.”
“I can tell you that,” said the third man, who wore a grey suit with a black and red check pattern. “He lost because two others came in in front of him. Drink up and drown your sorrows. Same again, please, Tony.”
I heard the tap tap of heels on the stairs. A woman came into the room. She was tall and dark, she wore a bright red frock, and she had beautiful dark hair. To my astonishment she walked directly over to me, put her hands on her hips and spoke.
“See what the cat brought in.” I looked behind me in bewilderment. “Yes, it’s you I mean, you, Johnny Wilkins.”
I stood up. “Have we met before? I’m afraid I don’t remember.”
“Come on now, don’t give me that.” She threw back her head in a roar of what seemed to be perfectly genuine laughter. “It’s not all that long ago that you stood me up in here.”
“I don’t think –”
“Oh, come on. It was a – let me see – a Wednesday, and you had big plans for the evening, dinner and a show and I don’t know what else. And then you said just pardon me while I make a phone call, I shan’t be two minutes, and that was the last of our wandering boy that night. Aren’t you going to buy a lady a drink? Gin and tonic, in case you’ve forgotten that too.”
I went up to the bar and got a gin and tonic. The fleshy-nosed man looked at me with what seemed to be distinct unfriendliness. Back at the table I said to the woman, “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. Or if I do I seem to have forgotten it.”
“You put on a good act. Chin chin.” She raised her glass. “Hazel Denison. As if you didn’t know.”
“When I was in here before, did you kiss me?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not joking. I asked if–”
“I heard you the first time. I may be a model but I don’t see that gives you the right to say that kind of thing.”
I leaned across the table. Seen close to, her skin was revealed as full of tiny spots and craters, minute imperfections that had been covered with powder. “I’m sorry, I’m putting all this very badly, but when I was in here last I must have lost my memory for an hour or two. I honestly don’t remember anything except that I was in here and then suddenly found myself at home with somebody’s lipstick on my cheek.”
“Kind of thing it’s hard to explain, eh? Don’t worry, I can see you’re a married man, you’ve got the look. When you put it that way it’s different and I wouldn’t deny, Johnny, that you were a bit warm that night.”
“Warm?”
“Oh, you know. Feeling your oats as you might say. And I wouldn’t say but that in the heat of the moment some of my lipstick might have got on to your cheek. You certainly were trying to kiss me.”
“In here?” I was horrified.
“Where else? Though as I said to you then, this is neither the time nor the place. Do you see my tongue hanging out?” An inch of pink tongue showed between blood-red lips.
“What? Oh, I see. Of course.” I went up to the bar and ordered a whisky and a gin. The three men were still talking, but not about racing. The fleshy-nosed man glared at me, and spoke to the others. “I said to him, you just take those bones away, Randy O’Connell, and stuff them. They’re loaded.”
The little man rolled his cigar round his mouth. “That caused it.”
“You bet your life it did. Just as well I had my knucks with me.”
Back at the table I asked Hazel Denison, “What are bones?”
“Sevens and ’levens. Dice. Here’s looking at you and hoping you won’t disappear again.”
“I hope not, too.”
We sat at that table and talked and drank, I suppose for half an hour. Why did I do it? I just don’t know. I knew I was spending money I couldn’t really afford, I didn’t much want to talk to this woman, I didn’t find her particularly attractive. Yet there I was and there I stayed. “Do you like me?” I asked her.
“What do you think?” She looked archly at me.
“But do you really like me?” I waved my hand to express what I felt, and one of the glasses on the table toppled slowly to the floor, in slow motion as it seemed, and broke. I called out, “It’s all right, I’ll pay for it. What I mean is, do you like being with me or is it just – you know, having somebody to drink with?”
The smile seemed to cut right across her face. “I might as well ask, do you like me, Johnny?”
“What do you think, do I like you? Of course I do. I like your hair.” I leaned over and stroked it.
She opened her handbag, looked quickly at her face in a glass, and snapped the bag shut. “I’ve got a little place round the corner. What would you say to coming round for a cup of nice hot coffee.”
Somebody was standing by the table. It was the fleshy-nosed man, his trilby hat still perched on the back of his head. “You don’t remember me?”
“No.”
“But I remember you, remember you when you were a nipper. Proper little squirt you were too. Big house in Kincaid Square.”
“I’m afraid I don’t–”
“You should.” He rocked backwards and forwards slightly on his heels. “Remember you had a garden? Remember you had somebody to look after it? Barney Colter, who used to bring his little daughter along with him.”
“Good God.” I stared at him, seeing slowly, through the mists of time and drink, the face of the man who had dug and weeded our garden and had brought with him the shy little girl. Painfully, the memory came back, although I had never seen him since that time, and the vulgarly prosperous figure standing in front of me bore little relation to the shabby Barney Colter I remembered.
“Barney Colter as ever was. Thought you were too proud to talk to your father-in-law. He married my daughter, know that?” he said to Hazel Denison.
“Did he? He doesn’t act that way. Do you want that cup of coffee, or are you going to talk over old times with your father-in-law?”
There was nothing I wanted less than to talk to Barney Colter. I said to him, “If you’ll excuse me.”
“A cup of coffee, it’s the first time I’ve heard it called that.” His face had gone very red. I remembered that he was an angry man. “I’m not good enough for you, eh.”
“It’s not that.”
He appealed to Hazel Denison. “Would you believe it, he’s been married I don’t know how many years to my daughter and I’ve never been asked round to see ’em, not good enough. What kind of a son-in-law do you call that?”
“We didn’t ask you round because we were never quite sure when you were out of circulation. You’ve only just come out now, I believe.”
It was a silly remark, as I realised the moment I’d made it, but I was not prepared for its consequences. Barney Colter roared like a bull and put his hand into his jacket pocket. I thought that he had a knife in there, and I ran forward and tried to pinion his arms. He shook himself free from me, drew something from his pocket and raised his right arm. I ducked, but not quickly enough. His hand, with the knuckle-duster on it, came down and struck me a blow on the shoulder, knocking me down. I pulled at his purple-striped trouser leg and brought him down with me. As he came down he upset the table at which I had been sitting.
There was pandemonium in the room. Hazel Denison screamed. The barman, Tony, was shouting something. I stumbled to my feet, hitting out blindly. I got one good punch in to Barney Colter’s stomach and heard him grunt, but his friends had joined in. I was kicked and punched, dragged to the stairs and thrown down them. As I went down I thought, quite lucidly, that it was the first time I had ever fallen down a flight of stairs. I picked myse
lf up at the bottom, to see a policeman looking in at me. “Been in a little trouble?” he asked.
“I slipped down the stairs.” My shoulder and ribs hurt, but there seemed to be nothing broken.
He was a young policeman, and he looked at me with the hint of a smile. “Sure you weren’t pushed? Think I’ll just go up and have a look.” He came in and went with measured tread up the stairs. When he came down five minutes later his expression was a little grim. “They say they don’t know anything about it. Sure you don’t want to say anything more?”
“No. I fell down the stairs, that’s all.”
“Don’t make a habit of it. You might get hurt.” He nodded to me and went off. Stopping to look at myself in a glass I saw that I had a few superficial scratches. There were one or two on the cheek and a big bruise over my left eye. My coat sleeve was torn. I explained the damage to May by saying that I’d foolishly tried to jump off a bus while it was going round a corner at speed. She clucked a bit about the tear in my jacket, but seemed to accept what I said.
Chapter Seventeen
I’m afraid I may have given the impression that I was feeling pleased with myself about all this, thought I was no end of a fellow getting thrown down the stairs of drinking clubs, and so on. That would be quite a wrong idea to get about my state of mind. Part of the time I was thinking about Sheila and the Brighton holiday, part of it I was worrying about the office and the new job, and then there was that other part of me which was always thinking about the way I made up things and forgot things. Some people would say, I suppose, that all these thoughts were part of one big thing, that the fantasies and the forgetting came because I hadn’t got a properly balanced life, or something like that. And then doesn’t that make nonsense of what I really believe, that a man’s got to take responsibility for his actions? I just don’t know.
The Colour of Murder Page 8