Kif: An Unvarnished History

by Josephine Tey

  Baba was wearing a black frock and a string of green beads. She had touched her full mouth with lipstick, which added vividness if not beauty to her triangular face. Kif noticed that Danny, who took no special interest in her while she sat at table, followed her with his eyes each time she rose to fetch or take away. He was unconscious that Angel's indifferent blue glance remarked not only Danny's preoccupation, but his own discovery of the fact. Baba was once more animated. It would not be true to say she chattered; her talk was not continuous enough for that. She tossed the ball of conversation from one tot another of the four men as cleverly and with as little effort as any ambassador's lady at a political dinner. She had a real flair for the provocative.

  And yet later, when Kif accompanied her to the kitchen, followed unseen but suspected by a malevolent glance from Danny, she did not bother to make conversation for him and seemed little interested in his thoughts and opinions. She made a few enquiries about his day's perambulation and made a few practical suggestions for the future; but she did not follow up any of his tentative leads. 'Damn,' he thought, 'what's the matter? Doesn't she like me? Doesn't she like me being here?' He watched her white neck as it turned to and fro from basin to rack. The strap of a green rubber apron made a vivid line across it, and just above it melted into the glory of her hair. The silence grew thick suddenly; thick and suffocating. He must say something. Something everyday and ordinary. The uninterrupted clatter of the dishes seemed to come from a great distance.

  'Green's your colour, isn't it?' he heard himself say, which was not at all the kind of remark he had intended to make. But even in his slight dismay he was aware that it had broken the spell.

  'That's right,' she said. 'It's my lucky colour, too. And thirteen's my lucky number. What's yours?'

  'Haven't got one,' said Kif, still conscious of escape from something unknown.

  'Oh, nonsense, everyone's got one. It's only that you haven't found it out yet.'

  'Well, I should think running into your brother was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. What was yesterday?'

  'The twenty-eighth.'

  'Well, twenty-eight is my lucky number. It's my birthday date too.'

  'There, you see, I told you!' She squeezed out the dishmop, waggled it vigorously to separate the strands, and propped it in a wooden frame.

  'I'm not superstitious,' he said, hoping to provoke her to argument.

  'No? Would you light three cigarettes with the same match?' She laughed at his hesitation. 'You lose,' she said; she polished her nails hurriedly on the towel and led the way back to the living-room.

  The four men played cards while Baba sat by the fire with some mending, and just before ten o'clock Angel went out to lock up the shop and relieve the boy who on half-holidays ran both the newspaper and the tobacco sides of the business from six o'clock onwards. And Kif went to bed, leaving Danny in possession. But before Angel came back Danny and Mr Carroll had departed together. Baba saw them off at the door and said 'Good-night. Be careful, old sporty. Good-night, Danny. Good luck!' When Angel came back she was once more sitting by the hearth with her work. It had been lying in her lap until she heard her brother's key in the door, when she recommenced it with an air of industrious abstraction.

  Angel came in rubbing his hands in cheerful protest at the cold, but when he saw his sister his hands slid into his trouser pockets and he came slowly over to the fire.

  'Look here, Baba,' he said, 'hands off!'

  Her wide eyes looked up at him, and dropped more hastily than she had intended. It was not her brother who occupied the hearth-rug, but Saint Michael on the war-path.

  'Don't be so deep,' she said wearily.

  'Oh, you know quite well what I mean. And you've got to keep off the grass.'

  'If you show me what I'm doing wrong I'll be delighted to oblige.'

  'Come off it, Baba. Kif's my pal, and I'm not going to stand by and see you do for him.'

  'You are complimentary. Have I lifted a finger to do for him, as you call it?'

  'Of course you haven't. Don't I know it! It's the old game—keeping him guessing. You want him to stay here. Well, I don't—much. Sammy was different. He was in the game. But now it's' hands off, see?'

  'And just because you have a nasty jealous mind am I to—'

  'Oh, carry on! I'd a sight rather you had your knife into me than your claws into him.' He paused. 'Baba,' he said, 'be a sport and let up!'

  Her eyes were very cold. 'If you'll explain exactly what I'm to let up about I'll oblige, as I said before.'

  He stood looking down at her in silence. 'I wish I could beat you,' he said suddenly with venom. 'I don't know why Sammy never did it.'

  Her smile was like sunlight on arctic wastes.

  Baffled, he flung himself into the opposite chair. 'Well, you can clear out now. I want the room to myself for a while.'

  'I'm not ready to—' She met his eyes. They were not noticeably angry, but she said sulkily 'Oh, all right!' She folded up her work deliberately, putting away pins and needles with elaborate care. As she went to the door she said: 'And if you leave your bedroom in as untidy a mess to-morrow as you did this morning I won't touch it. So now you know!'

  She went slowly upstairs, her face heavy and dark with anger, but on the first landing she paused, teased the carpet with a considering toe for a little, and then threw back her head in a silent laugh.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kif came back from the hunt for work next day still unsuccessful but comparatively happy in the reflected glow of yesterday's windfall. He went upstairs two at a time without seeing anyone, elated at the thought that in a few moments he would be face to face with Baba. He swung into his room and stopped short. A man stood with his back to him inspecting the contents of his suitcase. The bed had been turned up so that the mattress showed and the drawers were half opened.

  'What the—' he began. The man swung round, and at the surprised shock in his face Kif leaped. Taken aback, the man fell backwards across the bed with Kif on top of him, his hands groping blindly for Kif's throat, while Kif with his left elbow under the unknown's chin was hitting him wholeheartedly with his right. As they rolled over Kif's left arm slipped, and the man, his throat free for the moment, shouted 'Richards! Richards!' before another roll brought Kif on top once more, and both Kif's sinewy hands on his neck. Kif was shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat, heedless of the wild blows the unknown was raining on him, when a hand plucked him backwards, and he was dragged to his feet by one of the largest men he had ever seen. Sheer amazement kept him from struggling.

  His victim sat up, trying to adjust a collar which was hopelessly wrecked and said: 'That's right, hold him there a minute. Bright boy, isn't he!' He glared malevolently at Kif.

  'Who the devil are you?' demanded Kif.

  'Well, we'd like a little information first if you don't mind. Who are you?'

  'And what—' Kif was beginning, when Baba appeared.

  'What's the row, sergeant?' she asked, looking, Kif thought, very faintly dismayed.

  'Who's this?' growled the man on the bed, waving a hand at Kif, who was still standing mildly in the grip of the huge man.

  'That's Vicar, an army friend of my brother's. What's your first name, Kif?'

  'Archibald.'

  'Archibald Vicar. May I introduce Sergeant Wilkins of the Metropolitan Police. And Constable—er—'

  'Richards,' supplied the huge man, grinning amiably.

  'Constable Richards. Did you do that to the sergeant?' she asked Kif. 'My goodness, what a mess!'

  But the sergeant did not appear to find the comfort that her sympathetic tones might be supposed to convey. And there was that in his subordinate's eye every time it came in contact with the mangled collar that made magnanimity impossible.

  Kif now began to stammer out apologies and to feel a complete fool. 'How was I to know? he said. 'I just came in and found him with my things, and there was no one about. How was I to know?' Most of his ap
ology seemed, strangely enough, to be addressed to Baba. He was consumed by a fear that what he had done might reflect on her or her household.

  'Well,' she said, 'perhaps the sergeant will fine you a collar and call it quits. Eh, sergeant?'

  The sergeant growled without looking at her. 'How long have you been here?'

  'I came the day before yesterday.'

  'And before that?'

  Kif gave him a brief résumé of his doings.

  He then demanded a detailed account of his actions during the day, which the constable noted in a little book. That done, the sergeant heaved himself off the bed, adjusted his clothes and hair at the mirror on the chest of drawers, and was moving to the door when Kif, desperately anxious to effect a reconciliation said: 'I'm frightfully sorry, sergeant. Really I am!'

  The Barclay adverb did not add to the sergeant's goodwill, but he had to keep up appearances. 'So am I, young fellow,' he said, turning round and smiling not at all pleasantly at Kif. 'Frightfully! But we'll say it was a mistake—this time. Finished, Richards? Aw right. All clear, Miss Carroll. We're going now. Don't bother to come down.'

  Baba went out to the landing and watched them stump their way down and then came back to Kif, who was adding two and two together in an attempt to make four.

  'What did they want?' he asked.

  'Father and Danny did a job last night, and they were looking for the stuff. I forgot to warn them that you were here. I am sorry.'

  Kif was more anxious about her welfare than dismayed at his association with the Law's suspects. 'But your father—is he—how did they know?'

  'Oh, there are no flies on the police. Besides, Father is so good at the game that they would recognise his work. He's all right though. He hasn't been "inside" since I was little. He's in the shop right now, selling Navy Cut and Evening Standards. And he'll go on selling them. Father wasn't born yesterday.'

  The pride in her voice arrested his attention. So that was the kind of man she admired. Did she think him a sissy?

  'Does Angel—' he hesitated.

  'Oh yes, Angel will be as good as Father some day. Only a month ago he and Danny—But that's telling. Perhaps I'm a fool to be telling you anything. You'll be going away one of these days, and who knows?' She turned her great grey eyes on him in appeal. 'You wouldn't give us away, though, would you?'

  'What do you think!' said Kif. 'After you taking me in when I hadn't a bean? You don't really think that. Besides, I'm not going away if you'll let me stay. I'll get a job soon, and you can have me as a lodger. Will you?'

  She seemed to consider. 'I wouldn't mind, but I don't think it would be good for you to stay I'm sorry. You see, it was different with Sammy.'

  'Did Sammy work with the rest, or did he—do jobs alone?'

  'Oh, he worked with the rest usually.'

  'Well, I'm coming in in Sammy's place.'

  She laughed outright, a low gurgle of amusement. 'Nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know anything about it.' She was indulgently scornful.

  'Well, I'll make a very good apprentice, you see if I don't. There's nothing I'd like better than to relieve some well-to-do folk of their cash.'

  She smiled at him and sighed a little. 'It isn't for me to say, anyhow, is it? Get tidy now and come down to tea. The others will be in presently.'

  'You're not angry with me for kicking up that row?'

  'Angry with you? With Wilkins' collar looking like that? Why, I love you! Don't be long. It's sausage.'

  While Kif pulled his tie straight he whistled gently under his breath. It was not a sign of any real elation on his part; it was what a groom does to quiet a restive horse. He was, quite unconsciously, whistling to the unquiet, eager stirring in his heart. Something had come awake there—the faint delicious excitement before battle—and for once he wanted to ignore it, to pretend that the possibilities ahead were of no great moment. There was something about the prospect that did not bear close examination, and his mind slid away from the contemplation.

  He found only Mr Carroll in the living-room—Angel was to come home as soon as his father relieved him at business—and it was impossible to tell from his manner whether he knew of the occurrence or not. He asked interestedly about Kif's luck during the day, and seemed genuinely sympathetic over his lack of success. As Baba came in with a steaming tray, however, he said:

  'I am sorry you should have been put to inconvenience over your room. We occasionally have these inspections, and have to put up with them as best we can. But it is rather hard for a visitor to be subjected to the same treatment. We feel we owe you an apology.'

  Kif was not sure whether the 'we' was collective, editorial, or royal, but he had, vaguely, the feeling of watching greatness unbend. He again apologised, if not quite so heartily, for his hastiness in action, and Mr Carroll smiled.

  'Well, well, youth always hits first and asks questions afterwards. It is no bad thing to be what our American friends call quick on the draw. Though personally, I am a man of peace.'

  Kif examined the man of peace curiously as he portioned out the dish of sausages in front of him. A burglar! It was ludicrous. Smooth pink face and smooth pinky-fair hair growing a little thin on the top, bland blue eyes and a contemplative manner. A crook! In Kif's early literature crooks were all swarthy, black-eyed and vaguely sinister: rather like Danny on a bigger scale; and though five years of rubbing elbows with all the world had modified his ideas on most things he still unconsciously pictured Crime as the Knave of Spades. And Mr Carroll upset his ideas with some violence.

  His eyes turned to Baba, pouring out tea at the other end of the table. The steam rose in slow waves round her like the smoke of incense. Serenely aloof she sat there among the instruments of her rites, a votary, a goddess, incalculable, unapproachable. Kif had a spasm of despair. Who was he to aspire? And then she handed him his teacup and her eyes rested on him for a moment; what he read in them made his replies to Mr Carroll's conversation border on the incoherent. But when she joined the conversation and Kif dared to look at her again her manner was matter-of-fact and her eyes impersonal. And Kif cursed himself for a fool that he should imagine vain things. She refused, later, to let him help her in the kitchen. 'You're tired,' she said. 'Sit down and rest.' And Kif felt as though a benediction had been said over him.

  He was hunting through a collection of 'sevenpennys' hung in a two-shelved bracket on the wall by the fireplace for something to read when Angel came in.

  'So you've been beating up Wilkins, I hear,' he said lightly, but the eyes above the beautiful laughing mouth were not laughing.

  Kif turned slowly from the sevenpennys. 'Do you mind?' he asked.

  'Not I, but I'm afraid Wilkins will. Turning the other cheek isn't Wilkins' strong point.'

  'Well, I licked his boots till there couldn't have been any blacking left.'

  'That should have soothed him. He can stand any amount of that. Got indigestion now?' He surveyed Kif half whimsically, half shrewdly.

  'Not exactly. But I don't like being a neutral. If I offered you my services, would you have them?'

  Baba came in from the kitchen with fresh tea, and Angel was silent until she had gone again. He pulled in his chair to the table, but instead of eating he propped his head on his fists and looked long at Kif.

  'You're a real sport, Kif,' he said, 'but I'd much rather you didn't. You'd probably like it at first, but you'd probably get fed with it in a little. And it's a darn sight easier to get into than out of. I'd feel sort of responsible too for taking you here. You weren't born to it, like me.'

  'You think I'd be no use to you, that's it, isn't it?'

  'Not a bit of it. It's that I think you'd probably get disgusted with it, and be sorry you started that sort of life.'

  'Well, but that's my look-out, isn't it? Of course your father—' he hesitated.

  'Oh, my father mightn't say anything against it.'

  'In that case the only reason against it is that I might
wish I hadn't. And you might say that of anything.'

  'Yes—but—Well, you see, it isn't like starting a business, or something like that. It's more like entering a ruddy convent. You're not one of the crowd any more.'

  'Well, I'm not so stuck on the crowd.' Kif's voice was bitter.

  Angel considered him again. 'Well, don't decide yet anyhow. There's heaps of time in front of you.' He started to eat as Baba came back.

  She cast a suspicious glance at the two men, which Kif did not see, and Angel ignored. 'Looking for a book?' she said.

  'Yes, what would you recommend?'

  'I'd recommend you not to,' she said. 'I never read a line myself, except the papers. What do you see in it? It's all lies. What's the good of reading a lot of lies? What you read in the papers is true—mostly. 'But that!' She waved a hand at the red rows. 'And at school who used had have to write exams on what a person who had never lived thought. Can you beat it? Crazy!'

  Kif considered this new point of view with some amazement. 'But if you had a very dull life you'd want something to make it exciting even if it was only pretending.'

  'Pretending wouldn't excite me. I wouldn't need to pretend, anyhow. I'd make my own excitement.'

  'Well, perhaps it's different for a girl like you.' Kif said it sincerely, and without any flirtatious motive. 'But I bet if you were stuck on a farm miles from anywhere even you would take to reading.'

  'I'd take to drugs first.'

  'Well, reading's a sort of drug,' Kif admitted with a grin.

  'Oh, let's go to the pictures,' she said, dismissing the argument. 'Will you, Angel?'

  'Righto,' said her brother, his eyes on his food. 'I thought you didn't like things that weren't true?' said Kif.

  She made a little moue. 'But they are true,' she said. 'They really happened.'

  This exhibition of feminine logic left Kif speechless. He smiled at her, his eyes alight with laughter. 'Oh, kamarad!' he said, and left it there.