Mr Runca picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the magazine. He mentioned the name of the woman he had recently been speaking to. He spoke to her again. He said:
‘My wife points out that none of this is satisfactory. The flowers will take time to arrange, naturally. What point is there in keeping your photographers waiting? And I myself haven’t got all day.’
‘It shouldn’t take long to arrange the flowers.’
Mrs Runca lit her first cigarette of the day, imagining that the woman on the magazine was saying something like that. She had a long, rather thin face, and pale grey hair that had the glow of aluminium. Her hands were long also, hands that had grown elegant in childhood, with fingernails that now were of a fashionable length, metallically painted, a reflection of her hair. Ten years ago, on money borrowed from her husband, she had opened her boutique. She had called it St Catherine, and had watched it growing into a flourishing business with a staff of five women and a girl messenger.
‘Very well then,’ said the woman on the magazine, having listened further to Mr Runca. ‘I’ll have the flowers sent round this morning.’
‘They’re coming round this morning,’ reported Mr Runca to his wife.
‘I have to be at St Catherine at twelve,’ she said, ‘absolutely without fail.’
‘My wife has to be at her business at midday,’ said Mr Runca, and the woman on the magazine cursed silently. She promised that the flowers would be in the Runcas’ penthouse apartment within three-quarters of an hour.
Mr Runca rose to his feet and stood silently for a minute. He was a rich, heavily jowled man, the owner of three publications that appealed to those involved in the clothing trade. He was successful in much the same way as his wife was, and he felt, as she did, that efficiency and a stern outlook were good weapons in the business of accumulating wealth. Once upon a time they had both been poor and had recognized certain similar qualities in one another, had seen the future as a more luxurious time, as in fact it had become. They were proud that once again their penthouse apartment was to be honoured by photographs and a journalist. It was the symbol of their toil; and in a small way it had made them famous.
Mr Runca walked from the spacious room that had one side made entirely of glass, and his feet caused no sound as he crossed a white carpet of Afghanistan wool. He paused in the hall to place a hat on his head and gloves on his hands before departing for a morning’s business.
At ten to ten the flowers arrived and by a quarter past eleven Mrs Runca had arranged them to her satisfaction. The Runcas’ Italian maid, called Bianca, cleaned the flat most carefully, seeking dust in an expert way, working with method and a conscience, which was why the Runcas employed her. Mrs Runca warned her to be in at half past two because the photographers were coming then. ‘I must go out now then,’ replied Bianca, ‘for shopping. I will make these photographers coffee, I suppose?’ Mrs Runca said to give the men coffee in the kitchen, or tea, if they preferred it. ‘Don’t let them walk about the place with cups in their hands,’ she said, and went away.
In another part of the block of flats lived Miss Winton with her Cairn terrier. Her flat was different from the Runcas’; it contained many ornaments that had little artistic value, was in need of redecoration, and had a beige linoleum on the floor of the bathroom. Miss Winton did not notice her surroundings much; she considered the flat pretty in its way, and comfortable to live in. She was prepared to leave it at that.
‘Well,’ remarked Miss Winton to her dog in the same moment that Mrs Runca was stepping into a taxi-cab, ‘what shall we do?’
The dog made no reply beyond wagging its tail. ‘I have eggs to buy,’ said Miss Winton, ‘and honey, and butter. Shall we go and do all that?’
Miss Winton had lived in the block of flats for fifteen years. She had seen many tenants come and go. She had heard about the Runcas and the model place they had made of the penthouse. It was the talk of London, Miss Winton had been told by Mrs Neck, who kept a grocer’s shop near by; the Runcas were full of taste, apparently. Miss Winton thought it odd that London should talk about a penthouse flat, but did not ever mention that to Mrs Neck, who didn’t seem to think it odd in the least. To Miss Winton the Runcas were like many others who had come to live in the same building: people she saw and did not know. There were no children in the building, that being a rule; but animals, within reason, were permitted.
Miss Winton left her flat and walked with her dog to Mrs Neck’s shop. ‘Fresh buns,’ said Mrs Neck before Miss Winton had made a request. ‘Just in, dear.’ But Miss Winton shook her head and asked for eggs and honey and butter. ‘Seven and ten,’ said Mrs Neck, reckoning the cost before reaching a hand out for the articles. She said it was shocking that food should cost so much, but Miss Winton replied that in her opinion two shillings wasn’t exorbitant for half a pound of butter. ‘I remember it ninepence,’ said Mrs Neck, ‘and twice the stuff it was. I’d sooner a smear of Stork than what they’re turning out today.’ Miss Winton smiled, and agreed that the quality of everything had gone down a bit.
Afterwards, for very many years, Miss Winton remembered this conversation with Mrs Neck. She remembered Mrs Neck saying: ‘I’d sooner a smear of Stork than what they’re turning out today,’ and she remembered the rather small, dark-haired girl who entered Mrs Neck’s shop at that moment, who smiled at both of them in an innocent way. ‘Is that so?’ said the Runcas’ maid, Bianca. ‘Quality has gone down?’
‘Lord love you, Miss Winton knows what she’s talking about,’ said Mrs Neck. ‘Quality’s gone to pieces.’
Miss Winton might have left the shop then, for her purchasing was over, but the dark-haired young girl had leaned down and was patting the head of Miss Winton’s dog. She smiled while doing that. Mrs Neck said:
‘Miss Winton’s in the flats too.’
‘Ah, yes?’
‘This young lady,’ explained Mrs Neck to Miss Winton, ‘works for the Runcas in the penthouse we hear so much about.’
‘Today they are coming to photograph,’ said Bianca. ‘People from a magazine. And they will write down other things about it.’
‘Again?’ said Mrs Neck, shaking her head in wonderment. ‘What can I do for you?’
Bianca asked for coffee beans and a sliced loaf, still stroking the head of the dog.
Miss Winton smiled. ‘He has taken to you,’ she said to Bianca, speaking timidly because she felt shy of people, especially foreigners. ‘He’s very good company.’
‘Pretty little dog,’ said Bianca.
Miss Winton walked with Bianca back to the block of flats, and when they arrived in the large hallway Bianca said:
‘Miss Winton, would you like to see the penthouse with all its fresh flowers and fruits about the place? It is at its best in the morning sunlight as Mr Runca was remarking earlier. It is ready for the photographers.’
Miss Winton, touched that the Italian girl should display such thought-fulness towards an elderly spinster, said that it would be a pleasure to look at the penthouse flat but added that the Runcas might not care to have her walking about their property.
‘No, no,’ said Bianca, who had not been long in the Runcas’ employ. ‘Mrs Runca would love you to see it. And him too. “Show anyone you like,” they’ve said to me. Certainly.’ Bianca was not telling the truth, but time hung heavily on her hands in the empty penthouse and she knew she would enjoy showing Miss Winton the flowers that Mrs Runca had so tastefully arranged, and the curtains that had been imported specially from Thailand, and the rugs and the chairs and the pictures on the walls.
‘Well,’ began Miss Winton.
‘Yes,’ said Bianca and pressed Miss Winton and her dog into the lift.
But when the lift halted at the top and Bianca opened the gates Miss Winton experienced a small shock. ‘Mr Morgan is here too,’ said Bianca. ‘Mending the water.’
Miss Winton felt that she could not now refuse to enter the Runcas’ flat, since to do so would be to offend the f
riendly little Italian girl, yet she really did not wish to find herself face to face with Mr Morgan in somebody else’s flat. ‘Look here,’ she said, but Bianca and the dog were already ahead of her. ‘Come on, Miss Winton,’ said Bianca.
Miss Winton found herself in the Runcas’ small and fastidious hall, and then in the large room that had one side made of glass. She looked around her and noted all the low furniture and the pale Afghanistan carpet and the objects scattered economically about, and the flowers that Mrs Runca had arranged. ‘Have coffee,’ said Bianca, going quickly off to make some, and the little dog, noting her swift movement and registering it as a form of play, gave a single bark and darted about himself, in a small circle. ‘Shh,’ whispered Miss Winton. ‘Really,’ she protested, following Bianca to the kitchen, ‘don’t bother about coffee.’ ‘No, no,’ said Bianca, pretending not to understand, thinking that there was plenty of time for herself and Miss Winton to have coffee together, sitting in the kitchen, where Mrs Runca had commanded coffee was to be drunk. Miss Winton could hear a light hammering and guessed it was Mr Morgan at work on the water-pipes. She could imagine him coming out of the Runcas’ bathroom and stopping quite still as soon as he saw her. He would stand there in his brown overall, large and bulky, peering at her through his spectacles, chewing, probably, a piece of his moustache. His job was to attend to the needs of the tenants when the needs were not complicated, but whenever Miss Winton telephoned down to his basement and asked for his assistance he would sigh loudly into the telephone and say that he mightn’t manage to attend to the matter for a day or two. He would come, eventually, late at night but still in his brown overall, his eyes watering, his breath rich with alcohol. He would look at whatever the trouble was and make a swift diagnosis, advising that experts should be summoned the following morning. He didn’t much like her, Miss Winton thought; no doubt he considered her a poor creature, unmarried at sixty-four, thin and weak-looking, with little sign that her physical appearance had been attractive in girlhood.
‘It’s a lovely place,’ said Miss Winton to Bianca. ‘But I think perhaps we should go now. Please don’t bother with coffee; and thank you most awfully.’
‘No, no,’ said Bianca, and while she was saying it Mr Morgan entered the kitchen in his brown overall.
One day in 1952 Miss Winton had mislaid her bicycle. It had disappeared without trace from the passage in the basement where Mr Morgan had said she might keep it. ‘I have not seen it,’ he had said slowly and deliberately at that time. ‘I know of no cycle.’ Miss Winton had reminded him that the bicycle had always had a place in the passage, since he had said she might keep it there. But Mr Morgan, thirteen years younger then, had replied that he could recall none of that. ‘Stolen,’ he had said. ‘I dare say stolen. I should say the coke men carted it away. I cannot always be watching the place, y’know. I have me work, madam.’ She had asked him to inquire of the coke men if they had in error removed her bicycle; she had spoken politely and with a smile, but Mr Morgan had repeatedly shaken his head, pointing out that he could not go suggesting that the coke men had made off with a bicycle, saying that the coke men would have the law on him. ‘The wife has a cycle,’ Mr Morgan had said. ‘A Rudge. I could obtain it for you, madam. Fifty shillings?’ Miss Winton had smiled again and had walked away, having refused this offer and given thanks for it.
‘Was you wanting something, madam?’ asked Mr Morgan now, his lower lip pulling a strand of his moustache into his mouth. ‘This is the Runcas’ flat up here.’
Miss Winton tried to smile at him. She thought that whatever she said he would be sarcastic in a disguised way. He would hide his sarcasm beneath the words he chose, implying it only with the inflection of his voice. Miss Winton said:
‘Bianca kindly invited me to see the penthouse.’
‘It is a different type of place from yours and mine,’ replied Mr Morgan, looking about him. ‘I was attending to a tap in the bathroom. Working, Miss Winton.’
‘It is to be photographed today,’ said Bianca. ‘Mr and Mrs Runca will return early from their businesses.’
‘Was you up here doing the flowers, madam?’
He had called her madam during all the years they had known one another, pointing up the fact that she had no right to the title.
‘A cup of coffee, Mr Morgan?’ said Bianca, and Miss Winton hoped he would refuse.
‘With two spoons of sugar in it,’ said Mr Morgan, nodding his head and adding: ‘D’you know what the Irish take in their coffee?’ He began to laugh rumbustiously, ignoring Miss Winton and appearing to share a joke with Bianca. ‘A tot of the hard stuff,’ said Mr Morgan. ‘Whisky.’
Bianca laughed too. She left the kitchen, and Miss Winton’s dog ran after her. Mr Morgan blew at the surface of his coffee while Miss Winton, wondering what to say to him, stirred hers.
‘It’s certainly a beautiful flat,’ said Miss Winton.
‘It would be too large for you, madam. I mean to say, just you and the dog in a place like this. You’d lose one another.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. No, I meant –’
‘I’ll speak to the authorities if you like. I’ll speak on your behalf, as a tenant often asks me to do. Put a word in, y’know. I could put a word in if you like, madam.’
Miss Winton frowned, wondering what Mr Morgan was talking about. She smiled uncertainly at him. He said:
‘I have a bit of influence, knowing the tenants and that. I got the left-hand ground flat for Mr Webster by moving the Aitchesons up to the third. I got Mrs Bloom out of the back one on the first –’
‘Mr Morgan, you’ve misunderstood me. I wouldn’t at all like to move up here.’
Mr Morgan looked at Miss Winton, sucking coffee off his moustache. His eyes were focused on hers. He said:
‘You don’t have to say nothing outright, madam. I understand a hint.’
Bianca returned with a bottle of whisky. She handed it to Mr Morgan, saying that he had better add it to the coffee since she didn’t know how much to put in.
‘Oh, a good drop,’ said Mr Morgan, splashing the liquor on to his warm coffee. He approached Miss Winton with the neck of the bottle poised towards her cup. He’ll be offended, she thought; and because of that she did not, as she wished to, refuse his offering. ‘The Irish are heavy drinkers,’ said Mr Morgan. ‘Cheers.’ He drank the mixture and proclaimed it good. ‘D’you like that, Miss Winton?’ he asked, and Miss Winton tasted it and discovered to her surprise that the beverage was pleasant. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’
Mr Morgan held out his cup for more coffee. ‘Just a small drop,’ he said, and he filled the cup up with whisky. Again he inclined the neck of the bottle towards Miss Winton, who smiled and said she hadn’t finished. He held the bottle in the same position, watching her drinking her coffee. She protested when Bianca poured her more, but she could sense that Bianca was enjoying this giving of hospitality, and for that reason she accepted, knowing that Mr Morgan would pour in more whisky. She felt comfortably warm from the whisky that was already in her body, and she experienced the desire to be agreeable – although she was aware, too, that she would not care for it if the Runcas unexpectedly returned.
‘Fair enough,’ said Mr Morgan, topping up Bianca’s cup and adding a further quantity to his own. He said:
‘Miss Winton is thinking of shifting up here, her being the oldest tenant in the building. She’s been stuck downstairs for fifteen years.’
Bianca shook her head, saying to Miss Winton: ‘What means that?’
‘I’m quite happy,’ said Miss Winton, ‘where I am.’ She spoke softly, with a smile on her face, intent upon being agreeable. Mr Morgan was sitting on the edge of the kitchen table. Bianca had turned on the wireless. Mr Morgan said:
‘I come to the flats on March the 21st, 1951. Miss Winton here was already in residence. Riding about on a cycle.’
‘I was six years old,’ said Bianca.
‘D’you remember that day, Miss Winton? March the 21st?
’
Miss Winton shook her head. She sat down on a chair made of an ersatz material. She said:
‘It’s a long time ago.’
‘I remember the time you lost your cycle, Miss Winton. She come down to me in the basement,’ said Mr Morgan to Bianca, ‘and told me to tick off the coke deliverers for thieving her bicycle. I never seen no cycle, as I said to Miss Winton. D’you understand, missy?’ Bianca smiled, nodding swiftly. She hummed the tune that was coming from the wireless. ‘Do you like that Irish drink?’ said Mr Morgan. ‘Shall we have some more?’
‘I must be going,’ said Miss Winton. ‘It’s been terribly kind of you.’
‘Are you going, madam?’ said Mr Morgan, and there was in his tone a hint of the belligerency that Miss Winton knew his nature was imbued with. In her mind he spoke more harshly to her, saying she was a woman who had never lived. He was saying that she might have been a nun the way she existed, not knowing anything about the world around her; she had never known a man’s love, Mr Morgan was saying; she had never borne a child.
‘Oh, don’t go,’ said Bianca. ‘Please, I’ll make you a cold cocktail, like Mr Runca showed me how. Cinzano with gin in it, and lemon and ice.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Winton.
Mr Morgan sighed, implying with the intake of his breath that her protest was not unexpected. There were other women in the block of flats, Miss Winton imagined, who would have a chat with Mr Morgan now and again, who would pass the time of day with him, asking him for racing tips and suggesting that he should let them know when he heard that a flat they coveted was going to be empty. Mr Morgan was probably a man whom people tipped quite lavishly for the performance of services or favours. Miss Winton could imagine people – people like the Runcas maybe – saying to their friends: ‘We greased the caretaker’s palm. We gave him five pounds.’ She thought she’d never be able to do that.
The Collected Stories Page 12