Even the birth of little Winston, however, did not do so very much to disturb the drift of Jean Hargreaves’ flower-decked gondola, for the baby was born in less than three hours and by 3 a.m. a pale and distraught Philip was told by a testy doctor that his wife was now sound asleep, that the baby boy weighed seven pounds, that the midwife was extremely capable, and that he would oblige everyone by piping down and going to bed himself!
Philip took the doctor’s advice and soon afterwards Margy yawned her way to bed, trying not to remember the occasion when her own child had been still-born in this house, or that the prospect of her and Ted having children in the future was now a remote improbability.
Not that she regretted this very much, nowadays, when all that children seemed to do was to whimper, grow up and suddenly sail away on Arctic convoys, to be bombed, shelled and torpedoed to death!
Harold Godbeer, of Number Twenty-Two, had a very different kind of adventure that New Year’s Eve and it overtook him a mile or so from the Avenue, in the sitting-room of his secretary’s home at Elmer’s End, an adjoining suburb.
The adventure took him completely by surprise for he never thought of himself as a widower and certainly not as an eligible widower, a man whom a young person could contemplate marrying.
Poor Harold must have been very short-sighted in more ways than one, for the attentions of Miss Redvers, who had been first a typist, and, as he rose in the firm, his personal secretary, seemed to have escaped him altogether. If he had noticed them at all he must have put them down to commercial zeal on Miss Redvers’ part; the discovery that she regarded him in any other light than that of an office superior must have been concealed from him by the rampart of his modesty.
It all began innocently enough. About four o’clock in the afternoon, when the city murk was closing in on the office, Blane, the articled junior, tripped into Harold’s office with a bottle tucked under either arm.
“Mr. Stillman’s compliments and here’s a couple of the old and best from the Admiral’s cellar,” he chirruped, depositing the grimy bottles on Harold’s spotless blotter.
Harold inspected the bottles with interest. They had come, as he knew, from the famous cellar of the late Admiral Hilton, whose estate they were dealing with at the moment. Harold had had a good deal to do with the old gentleman and the port, he presumed, was a kind of legacy, presented via Mr. Stillman in acknowledgement of his services during the Admiral’s illness.
“I say, but that’s very handsome of Mr. Stillman!” he exclaimed, and then, remembering that it was Old Year’s Night and that his girls and Blane, had served him dutifully throughout the year; “What about cracking one now, and drinking to victory in 1943.”
Young Blane thought this was an excellent idea and rummaged about for sherry glasses. He found four, and a corkscrew, while Harold carefully removed the cork and sniffed the bottle appreciatively.
“I don’t suppose we shall ever have a chance of drinking anything better than this,” he told Miss Redvers, and Miss Caughlin, the typist, when they had been summoned from the outer office. “I believe the Admiral was regarded as the best judge of port in London! Well, Blane, you do the honours,” and he motioned to the girls to lift their glasses.
“Er…here’s to next New Year’s Day on the top of the Brandenburg Gate,” proposed Blane, and emptied his glass at a draught.
“I say, you should sip port, young fellow,” advised Harold, “this is superb…quite superb, don’t you think so, Miss Redvers?”
“I’m afraid I’m not very used to good port,” admitted Miss Redvers, flushing slightly, “a mild sherry, or gin and orange, is about all we ever run to at home. Still, it does give you a kind of…of glow right through, doesn’t it?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” giggled Miss Caughlin. “Two of these and I should float all the way to the tube!”
The wine did seem to introduce a ‘glow right through’ as she put it and Harold’s eyes twinkled mischievously behind his spectacles. “Let’s have one more,” he suggested and immediately refilled their glasses.
Blane left the office smacking his lips and Miss Caughlin giggled again, said she had “simply thousands of letters to finish”, and soon followed him.
Harold had intended dictating a letter before five, but he discovered that he did not feel at all disposed to scrutinise the documents on his desk, in pursuance of Messrs. Heslop and Garratt’s search queries regarding the Fisher conveyance.
The flavour of Admiral Hilton’s old port had lifted him above such things and he preferred, instead, to lean back on his swivel chair and contemplate Miss Redvers as she rattled away on her big typewriter beside the window.
How long had he known her? Ten years? Twenty? Where did she live and what were her ambitions, if she had any? How was it that she was still unmarried? She wasn’t a bad-looking girl, a little heavy perhaps, and with a bit of a stoop, but not really bad-looking, with her sleek brown hair and big brown eyes. They could be very kind eyes too, he reflected, remembering how gentle she had been with him on that awful day they had phoned through from Torquay about Eunice. Eunice’s eyes had been china blue and she had been much more finely made than Miss Redvers. Odd that he should be sitting here comparing them, as dusk closed in over St. Paul’s Churchyard. What was her Christian name? Was it something modern, like Diana, or Shirley, or was it an old-fashioned name, like Jane, or Mary? Surely he ought to know what her name was? He had had her insurance card in the file for years and only had to glance at it!
Before he quite realised what he was saying he had asked her.
“By the way, what is your Christian name, Miss Redvers?”
She stopped typing instantly and he saw her brace her plump shoulders. Good heavens, he thought, now I’ve offended the girl. It must be the port. Who could imagine that two glasses of port would make a man my age start playing the fool with the female staff?
She wasn’t offended, however, simply surprised, and mildly amused. She swung round on her typist’s stool and smiled across at him and the smile reassured him. He was quite right, he decided, she wasn’t at all plain, with her short, straight nose, firmly rounded chin and kind brown eyes. Only her mouth was wrong, it was too small somehow and too puckered, like a sulky baby’s, and anyway it looked all wrong on her, as if it had been added after the other features and really belonged to someone younger and slimmer than Miss Redvers!
“Do you really mean to say that you don’t know, Mr. Godbeer,” she said, still smiling, and looking, he thought, very pleased with herself all of a sudden.
“I admit that I should, but I’m afraid I don’t,” he told her defiantly, and made a mental note that he would think twice before distributing old port to the office staff in future.
“It’s ‘Kathleen’,” she said, “but everyone calls me ‘Kay’ and I like ‘Kay’ much better.”
“Really,” said Harold, politely, “that’s quite a nice name—Kay—yes, that’s really quite nice,” and he tried to end the conversation by bending anew over the Fisher conveyance.
She would not, however, take the cue from him, but continued to sit facing his way, her hands loose on her lap.
Presently, she said:
“Are you doing anything special tonight, Mr. Godbeer?”
He answered without thinking completely forgetting that it was Old Year’s Night, and wondering vaguely what made her ask such a question.
“No…no, I don’t think so! Should I be?”
“It’s Old Year’s Night…most people do something or go somewhere, don’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose they do,” he answered, “but my friend, Mr. Carver, the man I told you about, is on a long-distance job and he won’t be back until after midnight. It’s a pity really, as we should have seen the New Year in together and listened to the radio, but he’s working part-time now for the transport firm that employed him a long time ago and as I said, he won’t be back from Leicester until very late.”
He could not imagi
ne why he should be telling her all this rigmarole but it was safer than discussing her name and she seemed interested. He noticed that the port, or his sudden interest in her name had animated her and that her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were pinker than usual.
“Would you like to…to come to a little party?”
She spoke diffidently and with what seemed to him a considerable effort.
“A party? Where?”
“At my home…just the family you know, we’d love to have you and it seems so silly to see the new year in all by yourself. Do come, Mr. Godbeer!”
“Where do you live?”
She laughed at that and hoisted herself off the stool to cross over to sit in the chair that she used when he was dictating.
“Oh dear! You aren’t very flattering, are you?”
“Isn’t it Streatham?” he said, feeling vaguely apologetic.
“No, and it hasn’t been Streatham since the blitz,” she laughed. “It’s Elmer’s End, right on your doorstep. You could easily get a bus home afterwards, they run until twelve-thirty.”
His reserve was fighting a losing battle with the port. He said to himself: “And why not? Why ever not? She’s a nice girl, a sensible girl, and it would be interesting to see how she lived and what her parents were like. What should I do with myself if I went home? Cook some supper, read the evening paper and sit over the fire until the small hours waiting for Jim.”
“Are you quite sure that your people would like me to come?” he asked.
“Why of course I am! Daddy would be thrilled. He’s heard about you for years, and Mother too.”
“Well, I must say it’s very kind of you,” said Harold, “and I…I’d like to come, if you’re absolutely sure they won’t mind.”
He got up, feeling elated and she jumped up too, looking prettier than he had ever thought her capable of looking.
“You oughtn’t to waste time taking me to a party,” he said jocularly, “you should concentrate on the younger bloods!”
Instantly he was sorry he had made the remark, for her eager look faded and was replaced by an almost sullen expression.
“I’m not the slightest bit interested in ‘young bloods’!” she said. “They’re all show-offs!” Suddenly she became very business-like. “Shall we do that letter to Heslop and Garratt before we close down?”
“No,” he told her, “that port doesn’t seem to go along with Heslop and Garratt! We’ll leave it until tomorrow.”
He got his hat and coat and she covered the typewriter, afterwards disappearing into the cloakroom where she remained a long time. When she emerged he noticed that she had reddened her lips, powdered her nose, and done something to her hair. They went out into the drizzle and along to the station but without saying anything more to one another before reaching the ’bus stop.
The London Bridge train was packed and they were unable to exchange another word until they had struggled out on to the platform at Elmer’s End, to find that it was now raining heavily. He put up his umbrella and held it over her.
“You lead the way,” he said and was a little alarmed at the readiness she showed in taking his arm.
She lived, he discovered, in one of the larger bungalows on a new estate that reached out towards the northern fringe of the golf links, bordering Shirley Rise. The bungalow was squat and red-tiled, with a rough-cast finish and a well-kept garden. Inside, the furniture was new and the colours bright, a little too bright for his taste. The family seemed disposed towards dramatic mural decorations and he noticed particularly a flight of plaster geese, moulded in diminishing sizes, and disappearing across the hall towards the dining-room.
Her father, he found, was employed at the gasworks, in Lewisham. He was an elderly, brisk little man, obviously delighted to see him. He at once whisked away Harold’s coat and umbrella and conducted him into the lounge, where several other people were finishing their tea.
“It’s my boss, Mr. Godbeer,” announced Miss Redvers, generally, “but don’t let’s bother with formal introductions because he isn’t very good at remembering names, are you Mr. Godbeer?”
He said no, he was afraid he wasn’t, and it struck him that she seemed to possess two quite distinct personalities, one for the office and another for home. The office personality, the one he had always thought of as being exclusively Miss Redvers, was a stranger to this after-office hours girl, who was relaxed and altogether less mousey. The Miss Redvers who sat typing at the window overlooking St. Paul’s Churchyard, would never have said a thing like that, not even after an entire bottle of the Admiral’s port!
He shook hands with her mother, brother, and sister, and her sister’s young man, who was wearing the uniform of the gunners, and a bombardier’s chevrons. They seemed to be a jolly, normal family, much devoted to one another and extremely welcoming towards him. After tea (a very extravagant tea for wartime, he thought!) they all helped mother to clear away and wash up. Then Kay took out some Bach records and put them on the radiogram, telling him to make himself comfortable and talk to Daddy whilst she popped up and changed.
He sat there for more than half an hour, listening to Bach and attempting also to listen to Mr. Redvers. The little man talked conventionally about the war and shortages and the garden that he was making out at the back.
“It’s clay,” he said, “heavy clay, and I find it terribly tough going. It’s always the same, of course, when you move into new property. I’ve dug out at least five tons of half-bricks and old iron, in the two years I’ve been here. You’ve no idea what they dumped there—bicycle frames, bedsteads, even enamel chamber-pots!”
Harold said he could well imagine, contenting himself with monosyllabic replies. He felt relaxed and comfortable. The glow of the port had not died away when Mrs. Redvers came in with sherry. Then Kay reappeared, and Harold only just prevented himself from exclaiming aloud, for he had expected her to appear in something quiet and comfortable, but she now looked as if she was dressed for a ball. She wore a bright, yellow frock, with a spray of artificial flowers fastened to the shoulder, and her hair had been groomed until it looked as soft and sleek as a film star’s. As he stared at her the brown eyes smiled into his in a way that they had never smiled in the past.
After supper (they did seem to consume huge quantities of food, thought Harold) they pulled back the furniture and the bombardier and Kay’s sister, Peggy, began to dance. Kay tried to persuade Harold to dance with her but he was firm in his protests and said that he had never learned to dance, not even in his youth, and would much prefer not to start now, notwithstanding the Admiral’s port and her father’s sherry.
She did not seem to mind one way or the other but perched herself happily on the arm of his chair, tapping away with her right foot, and when Peggy and the Bombardier were tired of dancing they tuned in to the Home Service and heard the news, and the first part of the New Year programmes. At ten o’clock the Bombardier said that he would have to catch his ’bus and Peggy went off with him, telling them that she wouldn’t be long. Mr. Redvers then said that he didn’t think he would wait up for midnight as he had welcomed too many new years already, but when Harold protested that he too should be going, both Mr. and Mrs. Redvers exclaimed that he must do no such thing but must sit right here until 1943, and then catch the twelve-twenty ’bus that passed the door and dropped him within two hundred yards of his home.
Harold would have much preferred to leave but they were all so insistent that it seemed rude to make an issue of it, so Kay fetched him another plate of trifle and while he was eating it, her brother, Sam and Mr. and Mrs. Redvers melted away and he was alone with Kay.
The sudden cessation of the family’s chatter made him feel rather nervous and when Kay switched the radio off and put on a Strauss record, he said:
“Has your mother gone to bed too, Miss Redvers?”
She pretended not to hear the question and busied herself with the radiogram, remaining beside it until the record was well started and the f
amiliar melody of ‘Tales from Vienna Woods’ filled the room.
Then she looked up and smiled.
“Are you always going to stick to ‘Miss Redvers’?” she asked. Apparently noticing the expression of alarm that followed this question she added: “I wouldn’t expect you to call me ‘Kay’ at the office, of course, but it does sound terribly stuffy here, don’t you think?”
“I think your family are very charming…Kay,” he conceded, “it was most kind indeed of you all to bother with me tonight.”
“Have you really enjoyed yourself?” she asked gravely. “You needn’t mind telling me…I did rather rush you into it!”
“Nonsense,” he said, relieved by her admission, which seemed to him to herald the return of the familiar Miss Redvers, “I’ve enjoyed myself immensely and I’m very glad indeed that you thought of asking me.” He paused a moment before adding, banteringly; “I half expected to meet your young man, Kay.”
“I haven’t got a young man,” said Miss Redvers, remaining coiled beside the radiogram and looking away from him.
“Oh, come now,” he chaffed, “you aren’t going to tell me that you dressed up like that for me?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she said, and this time looked at him with disconcerting directness, so that it was his turn to look away.
“Does that surprise you so much, Mr. Godbeer?”
“Yes,” he said, wriggling, “it certainly does!” With an effort he rallied a little, “Bless you, Miss Red…Kay, what’s the point in impressing me? I’m old enough to be your father.”
“Do you know how old I am?” she asked, in the same steady voice. “After all, you didn’t know my Christian name, did you?”
The Avenue Goes to War Page 43