“I’ll come down.” Flora flung off the blanket as the door closed behind him. It wasn’t just a matter of the incongruity of lying there like the Lady of Shalott afloat in her barge while Vivian raced around on her behalf that got her going. There was enough light creeping in through the gap in the tattered curtains to let her know that the day had been up and about its business way ahead of her. She hadn’t taken off her watch last night and the hands pointed to nine o’clock. Opening the door, she called down: “I’ll have a quick bath and get dressed, so if you want to go and get a tin of petrol, Mr. Gossinger ...”
“Splendid!” His voice floated up to her. “No need to rush, because I may be a while. I’ll go home to shower and shave.”
“Be careful.”
“Not to spill the petrol?”
“I meant crossing the street; there’s so much traffic.”
Flora felt a blush fire up her cheeks and she ducked back into the room and unpacked a towel from her suitcase. She must have imagined Vivian’s laugh, because the sound of traffic was a permanent hum within the flat, sometimes interrupting its even flow with a louder rumble or explosion of tooting horns or the screeching of brakes. I must stop this, she thought while raiding her suitcase for something to wear. I have to remember that he’s here as a representative of the Gossinger Family. Doing his duty as he sees it, because that’s how men of breeding behave toward those who have served them.
When she was standing in the bath, which was not much bigger than an egg carton, getting sprayed with lukewarm water from a makeshift showerhead, the feeling crept back—the one that explained why she hadn’t been thrown into a tizzy when Vivian Gossinger had brought her breakfast in bed. She felt somehow as though the two of them had been shipwrecked together and after clinging to a piece of the wreckage, scarcely big enough for one let alone two, they had been cast up on a desert island where there was no one but them. Contact with the outside world was reduced to the occasional glimpse of a ship’s silhouette skimming the blue horizon.
“You’re deliberately escaping from reality,” she scolded herself as she toweled herself dry and poked her hair. “I suppose lots of people would find that understandable, considering the shock of Grandpa’s death. But I’m not going to let you make a complete fool of yourself. You’ll go downstairs and thank Mr. Gossinger very nicely for stepping into the breach and then let him go back to his own life. And no wistful glances as he heads out the door, do you understand me?”
But when Flora entered the poky little kitchen at the back of the shop Vivian seemed so at home it was hard to imagine he lived anywhere else. He was sitting on a stool by the sink looking exactly like the model of Rodin’s famous sculpture. “I found this outside the back door,” he tapped the wooden seat, “the dustman’s loss is our gain. I’ve been thinking,” he added, “about Aunt Mabel’s poor mother, having to cart every meal she cooked down here up to the flat. If you ask me, the woman had to die in order to give herself a rest.”
“I expect they ate down here quite a lot,” said Flora.
“What?” Vivian lifted his head. “Standing around the cooker with spoons in their hands?”
“It needn’t have been as bad as all that. They could have squeezed in a table.”
“Where?”
“Against that wall.” Flora pointed to the space between the draining board and the staircase doorway. “There’s enough room for a little drop-leaf table, and if they used folding chairs that wouldn’t get in the way when not in use, I am sure it would have been possible to manage.”
“Would it?”
Flora guessed what he was thinking and spoke more sharply than she intended. “There’s no point in feeling guilty because you were born into a life where you had more than most. That’s just the way it is and it’s a waste of time to hit yourself over the head for it. Other people—my sort, you could say—get used to squeezing in together. Sometimes it makes for a special sort of closeness. I remember ...” her voice went a bit wobbly, “that when I was little, I loved the bigness of Gossinger during the daytime, but it was always wonderful to be tucked in with Grandpa in our little rooms at night, with the curtains shut tight against the darkness and the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. That clock was like a member of our family, always chiming in without being spoken to ... that’s what Grandpa used to say.”
Vivian sat still on the kitchen stool, wanting to speak but realizing Flora hadn’t finished.
“Sometimes,” she said, “on Sundays, we’d have tea together in our sitting room, Grandpa and me, Mr. Tipp and Mrs. Bellows—she was the housekeeper I liked best. She used to tell me stories about the Queen. She went to live in some place called Ilford ...”
“I remember her.”
“Yes, of course you would.” Flora stood at the cooker, her concentration now on a chip in the enamel between the front burners. “Mrs. Bellows fixed up the cut in your head the night you drove into a lamppost coming to Gossinger.”
“And you made me a cup of tea.”
“Most of it went in the saucer, I was only about seven and I was so afraid you were going to die. Your face was white as the sink ... is the way Mrs. Bellows put it. Anyway,” Flora turned resolutely away from the cooker and looked at Vivian with a smile in her eyes, “back to Sunday afternoons. It was always a bit of a squeeze, the four of us, Mrs. Bellows, Mr. Tipp, Grandpa and me, getting around the tea table that wasn’t much bigger than a lady’s writing desk, but we managed to have some really jolly times. Sometimes Mr. Tipp even cracked a smile and Mrs. Bellows would say she’d mark that down on the calendar. Poor Mr. Tipp! I hope he won’t have to be gone too long from Gossinger looking after his cousin who’s poorly. He never went away before, not so as I can remember, and I’m afraid he’ll be like a fish out of water.”
Vivian wasn’t at that moment particularly interested in Mr. Tipp. “What about that table?” he asked.
“The one in our sitting room?”
“That’s right. Did you arrange to have it sent here?”
“It didn’t belong to us,” said Flora. “None of the furnishings did, not the clock or the corner cupboard or Grandpa’s fireside chair. All that was there before he came. Leftovers from the butler before him perhaps, or it could be that some of the stuff was brought down from the trunk room; it always amazed me what was up there when I went exploring. Once, when Miss Doffit was with me, we found a pretty brooch made of different colored stones stuck down the side of an old brocade sofa. It wasn’t valuable—just glass I expect— but it was fun to pretend it had belonged to Sir Rowland Gossinger’s wife and that he had kept her a prisoner on bread and water in the trunk room because she wouldn’t agree to give him a divorce so he could marry his true love.”
“Were you sorry to leave it behind?” Vivian still had not budged from his stool.
“The brooch?” Flora brushed her hand across her face as if cobwebs from the trunk room still had her in their filmy hold. “I don’t know what happened to it.”
“I meant the table, the one in your sitting room.”
“Leaving it behind was rather like saying good-bye to another old friend; but never mind, it still has the clock and Grandpa’s chair for company.” Flora smiled. “And maybe when Mr. Tipp comes home, Sir Henry will reward him for all his long years of service by making him butler. And there will be more Sunday teas and other happy times in that room. You’re looking sorry for me, Mr. Gossinger, and that’s because I’ve given you entirely the wrong impression. It’s true all the major stuff—the furniture and so on—didn’t belong to Grandpa. But when I got older and interested in flea markets, I’d bring home my astonishing finds. All sorts of things—a cushion with a cup and saucer embroidered on it, barley-sugar twist candlesticks for the mantelpiece, and once an early Victorian photograph frame so Grandpa could put my mother’s picture on the tallboy in his bedroom. That way those rooms really got to be ours, even though we couldn’t change the furniture or the wallpaper. And when I came away I brought most
of those bits and pieces of memory with me in my bigger suitcase, along with those bottles of Grandpa’s silver polish.”
“I wonder you had any room for clothes,” said Vivian.
“Well, you can see what I did bring got horribly crushed.” Flora looked ruefully down at the damson-colored ankle-length dress which, along with the clunky shoes on her feet, had been another of her flea market finds. “I suppose I should have taken an iron to this, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting when ... when it was time to say good-bye and thank you for everything you’ve done, Mr. Gossinger, to see me settled into my new home.”
“I’m sorry,” Vivian stood up and nudged the stool under the sink, “but that wasn’t the plan. I don’t want to come off sounding abominably stuffy, Flora, but I think you may have had a little too much orange juice last night. Otherwise you would remember you promised to let me show you the flea market where I’ve been working these last few weeks.”
“But ...” Flora could have kicked herself for ranting on about her treasure hunts among the stalls, and at the same time she could not prevent a little spurt of pure happiness.
Vivian feigned disheartenment. “I expect you don’t take my efforts to make something of myself seriously. You see me as just another member of the wastrel set, a chip off my forebear Sir Rowland’s block, just playacting at making a living.”
“That’s not it!” replied Flora with surprising fierceness.
“Then you’re worried about what your grandfather would say if he were here about your spending the day with me.”
“Well ...” There was that and the fact it was impossible not to wonder how many minutes, let alone seconds, there were in a day and how they could be stretched like a rainbow across the sky.
“And that’s rubbish,” Vivian told her, “because Hutchins was the most sensible of men and as such would have understood that I need to talk to you about matters that affect the reputation of the Gossinger Family.”
“What do you mean?” Flora was startled into taking the two steps necessary to reach him. Without realizing what she did, she stretched out a hand to straighten his jacket collar. And by the time she got round to blushing it was too late because there was so much else to think about.
“That boy, Edna Smith’s grandson Boris ...” said Vivian.
“What about him?”
“It’s clear, isn’t it, that he’s not been his usual self since that school trip to Gossinger.”
“Meaning?”
“That,” Vivian took hold of Flora’s hand without either of them appearing to notice, “perhaps Boris saw or heard something that afternoon which has left him wondering about your grandfather’s death and whether he might have done something to prevent it. We’ll talk about all of this later out in the fresh air,” Vivian said in a soothing voice while propelling her through the opening into the shop.
“No, I think we should discuss it now.”
“Absolutely not. You look like you’re about to faint.”
“That’s only because it’s awfully stuffy in here.” Flora wriggled away from him. “The windows won’t have been opened since the last people left.”
“No wonder I’m seeing spots in front of my eyes,” Vivian was saying as they crossed the bare shop, then the jingle-jangle of the bell sounded and someone pushed the door open from the outside. “Stupid of me!” He grimaced. “I forgot to lock it when I came back in.”
“Hello there! I bring greetings to our new neighbor!” The person standing at the threshold beaming at them was a middle-size man with the sort of tan that you don’t get in England unless you were born with it courtesy of the genes that come from warmer climes. “I am Banda Singhh, very pleased to meet you, from down the road. Fish-and-chip shop, you know! Best in this neck of the woods. You must come and try some, on the house.”
“That would be lovely.” Flora hurried to shake Mr. Singhh’s outstretched hand, suddenly feeling that the world was a lot less scary. “And it was so kind of you to come round.”
“Yes, it was.” Vivian took his turn pumping Mr. Singhh’s hand while introducing himself and Flora, who had forgotten to do so.
“My wife, she would have come but she is cleaning out the chip baskets and shooshed me out the door. But I am to say you will like it here on Wishbone Street.” Mr. Singhh’s smile stretched even wider. “We came here straight from Pakistan and like it very much. Lots of very pleasant people, like one big happy family if you don’t count Mr. Grundy who is not the sort to do more than pass the time of day. Poor fellow,” Mr. Singhh now looked sad, “he has a bad back and a daughter who looks down her nose at him because he sells naughty underwear in his shop. A man has to earn his living, is what I tell him and now I must return to the grindstone before I find myself out of a job. My wife, Emel, she does not stand for too much slacking. You understand?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Vivian while Flora nodded.
“But remember,” Mr. Singhh was heading cheerfully out the door with a sideways wave of the hand, “do not hesitate to ask if there is anything Emel and I can do to be of assistance. Big or small, it is yours for the asking.”
“What a nice man,” said Flora as his footsteps retreated.
“With a prize of a wife by the sound of it,” replied Vivian, picturing the woman up to her elbows in greasy water scrubbing out the chip pans.
“I think he got the impression we are both living here,” Flora was saying when the door jangled open again and Mr. Singhh popped his head back inside.
“Sorry to make a nuisance of myself,” his smile was still out in full force, “but Emel would hit me over the head with a bottle of our finest malt vinegar if I returned without asking what sort of shop you will be setting up to do our happy neighborhood proud.”
“I’m not renting the shop.” Flora couldn’t help but sound apologetic. “Just the flat upstairs. The building belongs to Mr. Gossinger’s aunt.”
“She was formerly Mabel Bowser,” Vivian informed Mr. Singhh, “who grew up here with her sister Edna—now a Mrs. Smith—when their parents had the premises.”
“Yes, I know all about that!” The other gentleman looked as pleased as if he had been appointed Lord Mayor of London. “Emel, she is acquainted with this Mrs. Smith, a lady’s hairdresser, quite good I believe. They worked together on the church bazaar last week. We don’t go to the church—Methodist, I think it is—but we like to be friendly, you understand. All of us hoping to go to the same place, isn’t that right? But not too soon, please!” Mr. Singhh put his hands together and looked so soulful Flora had to laugh.
“Think about reopening the shop,” he told her, “and you, sir,” inclining his head toward Vivian, “talk if you please to your aunt, tell her Wishbone Street does not look its best with one of its teeth blacked out. And now I will go away, before you get cross and tell me never to come back wasting your time.”
“Wait a minute, please.” Flora followed Mr. Singhh out into the street. “I want you to know you could never be a nuisance, and there’s something else ...” she raised her voice as a bus rumbled past. “Would you happen to know what the shop was called when Mr. and Mrs. Bowser had it?”
“Ah, there’s a question better suited I think to my son, who turned himself into an historian and went to work at the British Museum. A father must have his little boast, you understand?” Mr. Singhh nodded his head over his steepled fingers as a mother with a couple of toddlers in tow brushed past him on their way down the street.
“It was a secondhand shop in those days,” prompted Flora.
“You forgive the slowness of my brain! It was before my time, you see. And businesses change hands as often as our friend Mrs. Smith gives haircuts.” Mr. Singhh now pressed his fingers to his forehead and clicked his teeth together. “Ah, yes, it comes back to me, I think. It was called ‘The Silver Teapot.’ “
Flora was tempted to kiss him, but was afraid that might be against his religion—which, as it happened, was Church of England.
/> After watching him make his way down the street, she went back inside to find Vivian checking the bolts on the door.
“I expect you’re wondering why I didn’t ask Edna Smith about all that last night,” she said. “But I didn’t think about it at the time. It’s true I will be having tea with her tomorrow, but suddenly it seemed important to know now. Because when you grow up in a house with a name, you get to think of places in a very personal sort of way. And it seemed—well, almost rude to keep thinking of my new home as a set of street numbers.”
“But the shop has probably changed names several times since the Bowsers were here. What makes you think,” Vivian stopped fiddling with the bolts to smile at her, “that it still wants to be called The Silver Teapot?”
“I don’t know.” Flora looked around at the empty walls as if seeing something written on them in a fairy hand. “Except that it seems strange in an enchanted sort of way that it should have had that name when your Aunt Mabel was here as a girl, and she should have afterward come to Gossinger where silver has played such an important role from the days of Sir Rowland right down to the present day.”
Turning to find Vivian looking at her in a very thoughtful manner, she added, “I mean that the Gossinger collection is still talked about as a talisman against evil days. And it works, you have to admit that. People pay money to view the house in good part because they want to see the silver, which is why ...” her voice dwindled to a thread, “Grandpa was always so particular about its cleaning and why he made up his own polish. Oh, I am being ridiculous! Rattling on to you about your own ... or what will be your own home one day.”
“That sort of talk has an aging effect on me, and it’s not even noon,” Vivian said somewhat curtly. “Let’s get out of here, before something or someone else happens to stop us. Fortune smiles.” He closed the door firmly behind as they stepped onto the pavement. “It’s warm enough that you don’t need a coat at the moment and if the temperature drops you can borrow my jacket. No need to worry about wear and tear, it’s paid for.”
God Save the Queen! Page 13