by Maggie Joel
Now all she needed was to find a way to convince Cecil that he should help.
In the three weeks since Freddie had come to the house and left in such a fury she had seen him only once and that an unsatisfactory meeting at a café in Baker Street. Freddie had been sullen, taciturn. Angry at her, it seemed, for the world’s condemnation, for Cecil’s belligerence, for her own belief in him. He had been restless, had talked of leaving, of returning to Canada. It was certainly what Cecil wanted. But why must they all do what Cecil wanted? It was Freddie’s life, after all. She had come away angry herself, at Cecil, at the world, at Freddie.
But last night, and from an unlikely source, something had come up. They had dined at White Gables, the Richmond home of Nobby Caruthers. Nobby and Cecil were both VPS Old Boys, though Nobby was some years Cecil’s senior. Now for the most part retired, Caruthers sat on the board of Home Counties Equity and Insurance in the City. The dinner—an annual affair made up of retired bankers and stockbrokers and their wives—was, generally speaking, as dull as ditchwater, but with the men finishing their port and cigars in the other room, Harriet had found herself seated next to Trixie Caruthers, Nobby’s wife.
‘My brother, Freddie, has recently returned from overseas,’ she had remarked. ‘He was in Canada, you know? Did rather well. But now he’s returned and is looking for a suitable position. His area is finance. Accounting, administration—well, one is never entirely clear about these things, but it’s all money, isn’t it?’
It had been a desperate gambit, not to mention an appalling lie to her host, who would surely see right through it. What kind of person, after all, returned from overseas having done ‘rather well’ and yet had no position to go to?
Yet Trixie had responded with a smile and a pat of her hand. ‘My dear, I’m sure if your brother is as good as you say he is, Nobby would be delighted to help him out. Why don’t I ask him if he is agreeable to a meeting?’
And there it was. So very simple in the end. Trixie had been true to her word, had telephoned that morning to report that Nobby was more than happy to meet Harriet’s brother and that the brother in question should telephone Nobby’s office to arrange a meeting. Harriet had telephoned Freddie at once.
‘Caruthers?’ Freddie had said suspiciously down the telephone. ‘There was a Caruthers made a big splash in New York before the war. That him?’
‘I think so. He’s semi-retired now, but he still holds a fair bit of influence. Well, the way Cecil and all the others kow-tow to him one would think he was the chairman of the Bank of England.’
‘And you went to him cap in hand, did you, begging for a job for the wayward younger brother?’
‘For God’s sake, it wasn’t like that, Freddie. Trixie, his wife, mentioned Caruthers had just given a job to Phyllis Bing’s ghastly eldest boy and how he was always scratching around trying to find good men. It just seemed the perfect opportunity. And once you’re in, in a place like that, well, that’s it. You’re set for life. No one gives a damn where you were before.’
‘You mean no one gives a damn what I did in the war? It’s the first thing they look at—a chap’s blasted war record. It’s no good, Harri. People like that—places like that—simply can’t see beyond it.’
‘Cecil and Caruthers were at the same school. A word from Cecil, a character reference, call it whatever you like—and you’re in.’
There had been a silence.
‘You can’t seriously believe Cecil would give it?’
‘He’ll have to.’
On the corner of Chancery Lane Harriet drew heavily on her cigarette, thinking hard.
She hadn’t rung to let Cecil know she was coming.
But no matter. She cast the cigarette into the gutter and walked up to the front entrance of Empire and Colonial’s head office.
The building was a large, modern tower block, all glass and concrete. Utterly bleak, of course. Cecil’s old office in Moorgate had been a marvellous old place, originally a Masonic hall, all coats of arms and gargoyles and intricate little cornices. Over two hundred years old. But an incendiary in the building next door in early ’41 had rendered it unsafe and the place had been abandoned. Empire and Colonial had operated out of temporary offices near Liverpool Street for some years, finally moving into these new premises off Chancery Lane in late ’49. Functional, that was about the only word one could use to describe this building. It was as though the war had made everyone too wary of wasting time and money putting up something rather grand or beautiful that a rocket could destroy in a matter of seconds.
She went briskly up the front steps and pushed her way through the ghastly revolving doorway. (Really! Such doors appeared to have been designed purely to repel visitors. And Lord knew, Empire and Colonial could ill afford to repel anyone.)
‘May I help you, madam?’ said the receptionist, a pert young girl in a steel grey blouse and horn-rimmed glasses. Her manner was slightly confronting, slightly hostile, utterly efficient. Harriet took an immediate dislike to her.
‘Yes, you may.’ She paused to put a cigarette in her mouth. ‘Do you have a light?’
The receptionist raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch then reached beneath her desk. She pulled out a lighter and silently lit Harriet’s cigarette.
‘Good. Thank you. Now, I should like to see Mr Cecil Wallis, please.’
‘Certainly.’ The girl was at once all smiling efficiency. ‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No.’
The smiling efficiency disappeared, replaced by cool impenetrability. ‘Then I shall need to consult with Miss James, Mr Wallis’s secretary,’ she said, as though she had little expectation of such a course of action actually achieving anything.
‘You do that,’ Harriet blew a stream of smoke from her nostrils upwards into the atrium.
The receptionist picked up the receiver of her telephone with some importance. ‘And what name shall I give?’
‘Your own, I would imagine. Then you may inform Miss James that Mrs Cecil Wallis is here.’
The receptionist reddened and asked no further questions.
It had been two or more years since she had last visited Cecil at his office. She had visited the old Moorgate office many times during those first years of marriage, when the children were very young. They had gone to Cecil’s club for lunch or taken sandwiches into the park. But it had been years since they had eaten sandwiches in the park together.
She took the lift to the tenth floor where the carpet was a bilious pea-green and the walls lined with self-important portraits of stuffy elderly Victorians sporting absurd whiskers. There were four secretaries stationed here, four versions of the one model: fifty-ish, grey hair pulled into a severe bun, glasses hanging from cords around their necks, stiff white blouses and pastel woollen cardigans.
‘Miss James. How lovely. Are you well?’
‘I am Miss Stuart,’ came the rather frosty reply. ‘Miss James is over there.’
‘I do beg your pardon. Miss James. How lovely. Are you well?’
‘Quite well, Mrs Wallis, thank you for inquiring.’
Miss James was perhaps a little older than her three colleagues, her bun perhaps a little more severe, the pencils in her jar arranged just a little more precisely—graded, no doubt, by height and colour.
‘Mr Wallis has an Indian gentleman with him just at the moment,’ Miss James explained, ‘a rather important meeting, though I’m sure it won’t go on too much longer. Would you care to take a seat?’
From this Mrs Wallis was to infer that she ranked somewhere beneath unknown Indian gentlemen in the office pecking order.
‘Yes, very well.’ Harriet sat down on the over-stuffed red leather chair indicated by Miss James and slowly crossed her legs. She drew on her cigarette and exhaled noiselessly. Miss James smothered a slight cough.
Minutes passed. Miss James completed a page of typing and pulled the page from the typewriter with a rip, then placed it on top of a pile of similar page
s. She knocked them together into one neat pile and placed them in a tray marked ‘Out’ with a satisfied look. Having completed this task she pushed her chair back and stood up.
‘I’m just taking this in to Mr Wallis now,’ she explained, indicating the documents. ‘I shall inform him you are here.’
She emerged a moment or two later, closing the door behind her, made her way back to her desk, sat down, rearranged her skirt and finally turned towards Harriet.
‘I have informed Mr Wallis of your presence, Mrs Wallis—’
‘I’m most grateful.’
Miss James produced a tight smile. ‘And he apologises for keeping you waiting and asks that you wait another ten minutes while he concludes his meeting and makes an important telephone call.’
Before Harriet could make a suitable reply, the office door opened and the Indian gentleman came out. He was a distinguished-looking man, very tall and very dark, white tunic and trousers, a snow-white turban with a delicate wispy feather at the crown. And patent leather shoes—Italian, by the look of them—a rolled black umbrella and a smart little briefcase. He paused at Miss James’s desk and bowed deeply.
‘Thanking you, dear lady, for your most generous hospitality,’ he said in a deep musical voice.
Miss James flushed and simpered.
‘Oh, my pleasure, Mr Gupta. Any time, I’m sure.’
Mr Gupta inclined his head, then nodded briefly at the other secretaries, noticed Harriet and nodded at her too, for good measure, then strode from the room.
Perhaps Mr Gupta was employed at the Bombay office. His dark colouring suggested he came from the south of India, Madras or Mysore or Bangalore perhaps, and Harriet was reminded of the maharaja who had ruled a state neighbouring Father’s district. He had the same bearing, the same extreme politeness. But this man was darker, much darker, more like the coolies you saw piled three deep on the roof of the trains that travelled from Delhi to Bombay. She had travelled on that train herself once.
Harriet abruptly stood up and Miss James looked at her.
‘I have decided to wait outside. Please tell my husband I shall wait in the park opposite.’
‘Of course,’ said Miss James and she looked as though she would have liked to add something further but Harriet had picked up her handbag and left the office.
The park was busier now. The young couple had gone, replaced by groups of tourists studying guides and maps. The pigeons were still there and the only vacant bench was spotted with their droppings. Harriet found a clean patch on the bench and sat down. Her cigarette had expired and she tossed it on the ground and reached for another. She could see Mr Gupta standing on the pavement waving his umbrella at a passing cab. The cab pulled up and the Indian stood and waited as though expecting the door to be opened for him. After an exchange with the driver Mr Gupta opened the door himself and climbed in. The cab drove off.
Freddie. And now this Indian man, this Mr Gupta.
It was important not to think about that train journey.
Two small children ran into the park, a girl and a boy, perhaps nine and five, the girl older, leading her little brother importantly by the hand, the boy following demurely, trusting her to lead him safely through the park.
She remembered the train journey.
The locals had ridden on the roof of the train all the way from Jhelum to Bombay and eight-year-old Freddie had been amazed.
‘But they won’t fall off, will they, Mr Stephens?’ he had asked over and over, and Mr Stephens, who had been in India a month, had shaken his head and said, ‘No, Freddie, of course they won’t. These chaps are used to it.’
The train journey to Bombay went via Delhi and took two days, so Father had reserved sleeping compartments for them all. He had been unable to accompany them to the train station and Mother was too unwell to move from the veranda. So they had all stood outside the house and made a rather sombre and restrained farewell. Mother had said, You’ll look after Freddie, dear, won’t you? He is in your care.
Mohammed had driven them in a bullock cart to the station, found them their compartment, stowed the luggage and then waited patiently for the train to depart.
‘Goodbye, Mohammed,’ Freddie had called excitedly again and again from the window and as the train had pulled away from the station Mohammed had finally raised a hand in farewell and stood there, unmoving, a slowly disappearing figure, still as a statue on the platform. Harriet had raised her hand once and let it fall onto her lap. Someone one had known forever, who had always been there, was now disappearing into the distance.
They had never seen him again.
The luggage had become lost almost immediately and Mr Stephens had remonstrated with the train guard and the porters, and finally the luggage had been returned to them, some hours into their journey.
‘Absolutely bloody outrageous,’ he had exclaimed, and Harriet had stared at him in shock.
‘Not in front of Freddie,’ she had told him and he had blushed.
‘Well, but really. These chaps are nothing but nasty little thieves. Pretending to help a fellow, wearing a uniform to try and fool one they’re all above board and tickety-boo, then one hands over some local currency and hey presto! One’s luggage miraculously reappears. It’s a damned scam … Oh, I’m sorry …’
They were leaving India, going Home to England, though neither she nor Freddie had ever been to England before. They were supposed to be travelling with Mother, but with Mother too ill to travel Mr Stephens would be escorting them to Bombay instead, and putting them on the ship to England. And Mr Stephens, who had been in India for a month, had been angry about the luggage.
Harriet hadn’t minded about the luggage. Things went missing all the time. One expected it. This was India, after all, as everyone always said—as though India was a magical land where solid objects simply vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. Mr Stephens seemed not to be aware of this.
She and Freddie had sat in the open doorway of the train carriage, their legs dangling and the wind blowing in their faces, and Mr Stephens had said, ‘Come away from there, it’s not safe.’ But of course it was safe, everyone did it, and the trains travelled so slowly one could practically jump out and run alongside it. And some people did just that. It was terrifically hot and the carriage was unbearable, so really they were forced to sit by the door. Mr Stephens had softened a bit after that and had come and joined them in the doorway, and he had told Freddie about the voyage out. He had come out from Liverpool, he explained, then Marseilles, then Port Said, then through the Suez Canal. It had taken four weeks. Freddie had been very interested because of course they were about to make the same voyage themselves, only in reverse, and he had asked Mr Stephens all sorts of questions about the ship, the cabins, what the crew wore, what food was served, and he’d got very excited when Mr Stephens had said there was a swimming pool on the deck.
‘And what will England be like?’ Freddie had asked, and Mr Stephens had got all peculiar and seemed not to hear the question so that Freddie had had to ask it again. Eventually he had answered, ‘Well, Freddie. It’s green fields and beautiful villages and lovely old trees and wonderful old cities. It’s quite the most marvellous place in the world, my boy,’ and Freddie had said, ‘But there are trees and fields and villages and cities here,’ and Mr Stephens had replied that that was hardly the same thing. Freddie had asked why was it not the same thing? and Mr Stephens had looked annoyed and had stood up and said he would see about tiffin.
Mohammed had packed them all off with tiffin trays for the journey and Mr Stephens now broke these open. They had eaten in companionable silence and when the train had pulled into some tiny halt in the middle of nowhere, small children had crowded around the doorway begging for food. Mr Stephens had shooed them away and, encouraged by this, they had run enthusiastically alongside the train as it pulled out of the station.
At last night had come and the mosquitoes had swarmed around them. Freddie had fallen asleep against Mr S
tephens’s shoulder and Mr Stephens had stood up saying, Up we go, lifting Freddie up in his arms and carrying him to the sleeping compartment. There were nets over the bunks, but the mosquitoes were relentless, and Mr Stephens could be heard in the next compartment swatting and cursing and twisting around and opening and closing the window.
In the morning the train had stopped for hours at an important junction and they had got out and stretched their legs, walking up and down the platform as railway staff swarmed around and all over the engine, refuelling and decoupling cars and coupling other cars. They had eaten their breakfast tiffin sitting on the platform, and suddenly the whistle had blown and they had had only seconds to scramble back on board before the train left.
Freddie and Mr Stephens were the best of friends by this stage and at one point when Freddie had needed to visit the lavatory Mr Stephens had offered to take him. Freddie had returned red faced and silent and Mr Stephens had explained in an aside that he had had a little accident. That was typical of Freddie, who tended to get over-excited; Mother was always saying it.
They had stopped at another big station and as it was lunchtime they had disembarked and had a rather splendid luncheon at the station restaurant before the train moved off again.
‘Really!’ Mr Stephens had exclaimed as the train had eventually set off once more, ‘It’s a wonder these trains ever reach their destination.’ But as their ship wasn’t scheduled to sail until the ten o’clock tide that evening Harriet couldn’t see that it mattered if they spent an hour at lunch. And anyway, it meant they could stretch their legs some more.
Freddie had said little since his accident and had picked at his food and Mr Stephens had jollied him along and played the fool a bit to help him over his embarrassment.