The Fancy

by Dickens, Monica

  The flat was at the top of a tall, dingy house in Tavistock Square. “Not much to look at from the outside,” said Mr. Bell confidently as they paused at the front steps, “but you can’t always go by outward appearances, can you? Take me. Now to look at me, you’d never think I was a man of great artistic tastes, would you? I love beautiful things, Miss Blake,” he said looking hard at her. Sheila didn’t care what he loved. All she cared about was getting inside the house and seeing the flat. Its position was perfect ; her hopes were soaring. For diplomacy’s sake, she smiled charmingly at him and allowed him to take her arm to help her up the steps.

  The street door was ajar and they walked through a dark hall, past a glass-panelled door with a yale leek and began to climb the stairs, Mr. Bell going neither in front nor behind, but keeping level with her, step by step.

  “As you see,” he said, “these flats have their own, that’s what it is.”. b front doors. All the privacy you want, Miss Blake, and I’m sure you do want privacy, don’t you?” He leered at her in the gloom and she said brightly : “Well, who doesn’t?”

  “Who, indeed?” he chuckled. “And I know what your young man would say. I know what I should say if I were your young man. What’s he like? Tall and handsome?—Damn him.” Sheila laughed uncomfortably. Mr. Bell’s body was overpowering, so close to hers, and he was breathing heavily down her neck as they climbed upward. She quickened her pace and arrived before him at the top floor in front of a white door with a yale lock, a lovely door, her and David’s front door.

  “Is this it?” she said.

  “Must be,” said Mr. Bell, arriving slightly out of breath at her side. “Let’s see, is there a number on it?” There was no light on the little landing, so he struck a match and they peered together

  “Flat 5,” they both said at once. “Five” said Mr. Bell, fumbling in his pocket for the key. “The magic number.”

  “Oh, do hurry up and open it,” said Sheila excitedly. “I’m longing to see it.” As soon as he had turned the key, she pushed past him and entered the flat, groping along the wall for the electric light switch.

  The hall had no windows and was quite dark. She heard him come in behind her and shut the door. “I can’t find the light,” she complained. “Where d’you think it is? Oh here.” She clicked down the switch, but nothing happened. “It doesn’t work,” she said, “Oh dear——”

  “The power’s off, I expect,” said Mr. Bell, startlingly close to her. “So what do we do now, come back in the morning?”

  “I suppose so,” said Sheila, disappointedly. Even if she took the flat without seeing it, she and David couldn’t very well move in here tonight in the dark. Or could they? Would he think it fun?

  “Look, Mr. Bell,” she said, groping her way back to the door. It was hateful being shut in this box with this objectionable, breathing, unseen man. “Supposing I took the flat on the chance without seeing it—I mean, you can say I’ve viewed it now, can’t you? Could we —that is, I move in tonight? I’ll have to ask my friend. He—she, that is, my girl friend you know, who’s sharing it with me——”

  “He—she?” mocked Mr. Bell, still horribly close. “I say, you are a naughty young lady. What’ll you give me not to tell, Miss Blake?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a panic, feeling all over the door for the handle.

  “Don’t you?” he said. “Don’t you? Don’t you think I should get something for being discreet and for bringing you all the way round here—don’t you? Not even one tiny little kiss——” Before Sheila could say anything, his arm went clumsily round her and his horrible loose wet mouth was on hers. She pushed at him blindly, with all her strength, and flinging up one hand to hit him in the face heard the tinkle of his glasses as they fell to the floor.

  “Damn you——” he said and clutched for her again, but she had found the door handle and felt it hit him in his soft stomach as she wrenched it open and pelted down the stairs, through the hall, dow was impressedan alongn the stone steps and along the pavement, running, running, knocking into people who turned and stared, running anywhere until she saw a Tube station and bolted down it like a rabbit, worming herself into the crowd as if she could rub off on them that crawling feeling in her spine that he was behind her.

  Sheila no longer slept with the alarm clock under her pillow. She hoped it would wake Kathleen, who slept deeply and healthily with her hair in a net and grease on her face, but it never did. Going down the steps of the Tube, still heavy with sleep and the worry which had now grown to be an obsession that governed all her waking hours, Sheila remembered what David had said last night. They had been dining cheaply at a place in Soho, where the knives and forks were not properly washed up, and he had told her that he was no longer sharing a room with Toddy, as another room had fallen vacant in the same house.

  “It’s very comfortable,” he said, “grand bed, an armchair and a desk, and the old girl does me very well : bacon and egg this morning and kippers yesterday. I seem to have struck oil.”

  Sheila would rather have heard that he was wretchedly uncomfortable and half-starved without her. She was losing him ; she could feel it. He was slipping away from her with each day that she failed to find somewhere for them to live together.

  “Can I come and see it?” she asked wistfully. “I’ll bring you along my brocade cushion and that red counterpane you like.” She wanted to leave something of herself in the room to remind him of her all the time.

  “Good God, no!” he had said. “It’s the most frightfully smug establishment, a sort of Y.M.C.A.—no followers allowed. We all live like eunuchs.”

  “’Ullo, love,” said Mrs. Urry, coming up the platform with her bundle of bedding. “You do look cheap this morning. What’s the matter with you these days—crossed in love?”

  “Who wouldn’t look cheap at this hour of the morning?” retorted Sheila. Mrs. Urry was a nice one to talk, with her bleary eyes and ropy hair escaping from under her beret.

  “Something on your mind though. I said so to Urry only tlast night, didn’t I, Urry?” she called over her shoulder to her husband, who was still sitting on the lower bunk, fiddling with his boots. “Blast that man ‘E’s slower than a funeral. What’s up, duck? Tell Mum.”

  “Well, I am a bit worried,” said Sheila. “I’ve been trying to find a flat you know, and it’s impossible these days. I’ll be sleeping down here with you if I don’t find somewhere soon. I can’t stand the girl I’m living with much longer.”

  “You could do worse,” said Mrs. Urry, hitching up her bundle while she waited for her husband. “H. and C. laid on, feather mattresses, early morning tea, all the comforts of ’ome. Ah, there you are, Urry, and about time. What’s the game? Want me to be late at the office?”

  “Shut up, you ugly old bitch.” Mr. Urry shuffled up with his bootlaces untied. “I’m poorly this morning. Don’t think I’ll go to work.”

  “You will or else——” said his wife. “So you’re looking for rooms, eh?” She turned to Sheila. “Tell you what, I believe that Greek’s got a couple going begging over the cafe.” She pronounced it to rhyme with safe.

  “Really?” Sheila pri by the time he got home p alongcked up her ears. “Where are they?”

  “Stone’s throw from ’Olborn, Thatcher Street. It ain’t Park Lane, but it’s quiet and central. Mind you, I ain’t seen ’em, but—No,” she shook her head, looking at Sheila’s clean blouse and sleek hair and brightly made-up face. “They wouldn’t be good enough for you, I dare say.”

  “Oh, I’m not looking for anywhere grand,” said Sheila quickly. “I can’t pay much, and I’d be thankful to get anywhere at all.” Her ideas about flats had come down considerably in the last weeks, after some of the hovels she had seen and even, in her despair, considered. “D’you think they’re still going?”

  “I could ask for you, if you like.” Mrs. Urry put her head on one side. “There’s your train coming.”

  “I wi
sh you would,” said Sheila. “Tell me tomorrow and perhaps I could go round and see them in the evening. There’d be two of us, you know. My—husband and I. Is it a double flat?”

  Mrs. Urry said something, which was drowned in the roar of the incoming train. The doors sighed and slid open. “Don’t forget to ask, will you?” said Sheila, looking back as she stepped into the carriage.

  Mr. Urry was half-way up the platform by now. He stopped and looked back balefully. “Come on, Aggie!” he called. “I thought you was in such a hurry Rushin’ me out of bed … keeping on at a man. …”

  “Oh, shut up, for Christ’s sake.” She trotted after him and they grumbled off together, bickering all the way to the “Cosy”.

  Sheila waited for David in the hall of the Café Royal in a fever of excitement. He was late. She kept getting up to look at the clock over the lift and then going back to sit down, tapping her fingers on her bag, crossing and recrossing her legs, glancing at the evening paper without reading it, and getting up to look at the clock again. The longer she waited, the more nervous she became about whether he would approve of what she had done, trying to visualise the rooms on the second floor of the Acropolis with his eyes, defending them to herself.

  They were clean anyway, and they were miles better than some of the places she had seen. She had stayed up until one o’clock this morning working on them, re-arranging the furniture, strewing them with her own belongings, disguising the more unattractive features with cushions and rugs, removing the old-fashioned photographs and ornaments and hiding them on top of the cupboard, even cleaning the windows. Would he mind about the flowered carpet? Would he notice that cistern? It was only because she was excited that it had kept her awake last night. Anyway, it was done now ; she had taken them, and paid the first month’s rent in advance. He would be pleased that it was so small.

  The revolving door went round slowly all the time. Every time it quickened, she looked eagerly for the first sight of his good leg stepping out of it. Each time she was sure it was going to be David, but each time it was hateful people, walking confidently through to the restaurant with talk and laughter, or someone alone, glancing round for a moment and then greeting a friend, shyly or casually or with obvious pleasure. None of the people sitting in the hall with her were kept waiting for long ; even that woman in the mackintosh and strap shoes had a husband, who came anxiously through the door with parcels, abasing himself for being five minutes late.

  Sheila sat on. Jews came, foreigners came, sailors and airmen and American soldiers came, but not David. She would wait ten more minutes and then go away. She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, she went and washed her hands again, but he was still not there when she returned. Even if he did come now there would be no tables and probably no food. She was watching a family party assemble in the hall with an unnecessary lot of kissing and laughter, still keeping half an eye on the revolving door, when David, who had come in by the side door, spoke in her ear and made her jump.

  “Awfully sorry, darling,” he said. “That’s what you get for going with a journalist. Let’s eat, shall we? I’m starving.”

  She waited until they had got a table and had ordered, and when their drinks had come, and David, who was looking tired, bad put down his glass and said : “Ah, that’s better. Now let me look at you,” she said : “Darling, guess what.”

  “What?” he said. “I like that hat.”

  “I’ve found somewhere for us to live.” She described it to him, making it sound cosy.

  “Thatcher Street?” he said. “Pretty low neighbourhood. It’s probably buggy.”

  “Oh no, it’s marvellously clean. It’s nothing like the flat, of course, but, honestly, it isn’t bad. There’s a bathroom.” She did not mention that it was shared by the occupants of the first floor rooms. “There isn’t a kitchen, I’m afraid, but we’ve got a gas ring and the man who owns the restaurant says I can use the kitchen whenever I like. Anyway, it’s somewhere to be together. That’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he said, but when he saw the rooms he was not so sure.

  In the middle of the night, when she thought he was alseep, she heard him turn over and thump the pillow and turn over again and groan.

  “Aren’t you asleep?” she said softly, putting out a hand.

  “This is a damned uncomfortable bed,” he grumbled, turning over again.

  “I don’t think it’s so bad. I expect it’s because you’re tired.”

  “I am tired, and it’s still damned uncomfortable.” The cistern chose that moment to explode and David swore. When at last he did get to sleep some men came down Thatcher Street singing, and when he dozed off again, the Greek’s daughter Ellen came home and stood talking on the pavement for a long time before letting herself in and banging the door. Sheila lay awake for what seemed hours, willing the cistern to be quiet, and when the alarm clock buzzed under her ear, it seemed she had only just gone to sleep.

  David woke as she was dressing and stared about him, rubbing his eyes. “Where am I?” he said. “Oh God, I remember,” and closed them again. All the furniture in the bedroom was dark and looming. Either the floor, or the legs of the wardrobe or both were uneven. It leaned forward so that its door would not stay shut. The head of the bed was carved in scrolls and hung menacingly over David’s restless head. He opened his eyes again as she was doing her hair at the mirror that overswung itself unless you wedged paper into the frame.

  “What’ll I do about my breakfast?” he asked.

  “Well you can make coffee on the gas-ring in the sitting-room. There’s bread and butter and milk a the subjectan alongnd things in the sideboard, and you can make toast at the gas-fire ; I bought a toasting fork. Or, you can go down and have breakfast in the restaurant. Mr. Petrocochino said he’d give it you if you wanted it.”

  “What, that place we came through last night?”

  “Yes. The cooking’s very good, I believe,” said Sheila brightly.

  The cistern exploded and David groaned and pulled the sheets over his head.

  The following night, David had his American article to do in the early hours of the morning, which meant he stayed at the office all night. He was working all the next day and when Sheila rang him in the evening from Collis Park Station, hesitantly, because she knew he didn’t like being called at the office, he told her he was not coming back to sleep at Thatcher Street.

  “I’ll sleep at Toddy’s place,” he said. “My room’s still free. I’ll get some food at the canteen here and then go straight to bed. I’m dead to the world.”

  “But, David, I’ve got some fish. I was going to do you a lovely dinner. You could have it in bed and go straight to sleep. I’d be ever so quiet. Do come home, David.” She called it home, hopefully.

  “Not tonight, honey. I must get some sleep.”

  “It won’t be so noisy tonight. I spoke to Mr. Petrocochino about that cistern, and he said——”

  “No, not tonight. Yes, what is it, Sammy?” His voice went away, talking to someone in the office and then came back to her. “Look, I must go now, I’m fearfully busy. See you soon, h’m?”

  Sheila went back to Thatcher Street, to the rooms which seemed blowsier than ever with the bed unmade, and brooded over tea and toast in the sitting-room with its tasselled tablecloth and tarnished gilt clock that didn’t go. Mr. Petrocochino had promised to keep her fish in his refrigerator, but when she wanted it on the following night, it had disappeared and with it, conveniently, his memory of putting it there.

  “But I gave it him,” stormed Sheila to Mrs. Urry in the little scullery. “How can he have the face to pretend I didn’t? He’s used it in the restaurant, I know.”

  “Eaten it ’imself, more like,” said Mrs. Urry, who was scraping carrots. “You don’t catch a nice bit of fish like that finding its way into the dining-room. Dog-fish is all the customers ever see, and Gawd knows what when it’s fish cakes.”

  “Oh, he’s hateful. Whe
n you accuse him of anything, he pretends not to understand. It was just the same over the bathwater. He’s vile, he’s mean——”

  “Mean?” said Mrs. Urry. “’E wouldn’t give you the drippings from ‘is nose.”

  “Mrs. Hurry!” called his voice from the kitchen, “how long I am waiting for those carrots?”

  “’Ow long, oh Lord, ’ow long,” muttered Mrs. Urry, plunging her hands about in the earthy water in the sink.

  “You are getting too old for your job, my woman,” he said, appearing in the doorway in a collarless shirt and pot-bellied apron. She swung round from the sink, the bunch of her apron at the back quivering.

  “If anyone’s getting too old for their job round here, it’s you,” she retort at the other end of the table.ke bed. “Talk about the ruins of Greece! And don’t you call me your woman.”

  “Carrots, carrots, carrots!” he hissed, beckoning them imperiously with a hand that had been mixing sausage-meat.

  “What’s all the excitement?” asked David’s voice from the kitchen, where he had strolled down to see why Sheila was being so long.

  Sheila, trapped in the scullery by the Greek’s bulk in the doorway, hated him to see her in the middle of this sordid scene. As soon as she could, she squirmed out and found him picking bits of crust off a loaf and talking to Ellen, who was dressed to go out in a black skirt and white satin blouse with nothing underneath.

  “Come on upstairs, David,” she said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go out to dinner as our fish seems to have disappeared into thin air.” She stood waiting his leisure, while he finished talking to Ellen, who leaned voluptuously against the dresser twiddling her dark curls with one fleshy white arm raised to display her figure.

  “So your boy-friend’s a newspaperman?” David was saying. “Like me. You want to look out for those guys.”

  “Oh, I like newspapermen,” said Ellen, travelling up and down him with half-closed eyes. Sheila snorted and went upstairs.