The Nick of Time

by Francis King

  ‘Would you mind telling me what all this is about?’

  He handed her a glass and then raised his. ‘Mamma, I have money. I have rent.’

  ‘What you talking about? What money? Where’d it come from?’

  ‘Last weekend – you remember? – I visit cousin. In Kensington.’ He was always off to visit that cousin in Kensington at the weekends. For that reason she had come to dread Saturday and Sunday, spent disconsolately without either his company or his help.

  Meg nodded. She had never been able to discover what precisely this cousin did, but clearly – from Mehmet’s accounts of going with him to expensive restaurants, to theatres and, most recently, to his place in the country – he was well-heeled.

  ‘I speak to him of no work, problem with rent. All these things.’ He sipped, with shining eyes, from the glass. He was exultant. ‘He very kind man, son of mother’s brother. Good man. Suddenly he say: ‘‘Mehmet, I help you.’’ And he give me money, lot money. Just like that!’

  ‘Oh, Mehmet, how wonderful. I am glad!’ Meg clapped her hands together. ‘ I knew that sooner or later you’d have a stroke of luck. You so much deserve it, my darling, and you’ve waited so long.’ She had also waited so long for her rent, but she did not think of that.

  He pulled out his wallet and she could see that it was stuffed with notes. When he took them out and began to count what he owed her, she realized, with amazement, that these were not ten or twenty but fifty pound ones. It was seldom that she saw such notes and she had never handled one.

  He pushed the notes that he had counted towards her. ‘I think that right.’

  She drew back. ‘Oh, it looks far too much.’

  He laughed indulgently. ‘I owe you extra. For lateness. So – more there.’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t want any interest. Not from you.’

  He nodded. ‘Take it all.’ When she still refused to take the notes from his hand, he laid them down on the table beside her.

  ‘Oh, but I … I hope you’re not depriving yourself.’

  ‘All, all for you.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure … I’m sure I’m very grateful. I don’t know what to say …’ She realized that if she was not careful if she was going to make an idiot of herself and burst into tears.

  ‘Say nothing, Mamma.’

  ‘I’m so happy. For you, I mean. For me too but for you mostly.’

  ‘I am also happy. For both of us.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was an unusually trying day at the shop.

  An overdressed, middle-aged woman, with dangling earrings and a number of chunky rings on her fingers and even on one thumb, had come in with a skirt that she had bought from one of Audrey’s colleagues the previous day. Having edged past another customer who had been standing there before her, she had told Audrey peremptorily in what sounded like a French accent: ‘Please! Take a look here! Look!’ With a forefinger she indicated the hem of the skirt. ‘ There is a stain here, please. Oil, I think. I cannot buy a skirt with a stain.’

  ‘May I just finish serving this customer? I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  The woman waited, shifting from one leg to another and from time to time scowling and heaving a sigh.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I do not buy such a skirt. How can I wear such a skirt? I thought that all goods in Oxfam shops are cleaned before sale. This is impossible.’

  Her colleagues often told Audrey that she was too kind. One, exasperated, had on one occasion even told her that she was feeble. She hated rows, she even hated arguments. It was less bruising to give in. So, after a brief exchange with the woman, she handed over the seven pounds paid for the skirt and returned it to the rail from which it had come.

  ‘You’re not putting it straight back, are you?’ the woman demanded. ‘It ought to be cleaned.’

  Audrey made no response.

  A little later the elderly book thief, to whom the other workers would now refer as ‘your friend’ when talking about him to Audrey, tottered in on his stick and uttered his formal ‘ Good day, madam.’ On this occasion he had a soiled dressing over an eye and a loose bandage round his neck. At once he went over to the shelf of paperbacks at the rear of the shop, while Audrey squinted up at the mirror over the changing-room to watch him. Sure enough, she saw him, as so often in the past, slip a paperback into the pocket of the overcoat that reached almost to his ankles. If the woman with the skirt had not been so exasperating, she would once more have let the matter go. But on this occasion, as he was about to leave the shop, she walked swiftly round the counter to bar his way.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The one uncovered eye was bloodshot, as he turned it up to her. ‘Yes?’ He gave no impression whatever of anything being amiss. She might have been a stranger accosting him in the street to ask for directions.

  ‘I think you may have taken a book without paying for it.’

  He frowned in what anyone but Audrey would have taken to be a genuine bewilderment. ‘A book? Me?’

  ‘Yes, I saw you, I’m afraid. In that mirror.’ She pointed. ‘It’s not the first time, you know.’

  At this moment another customer, whom Audrey recognized as the surgery cleaner Mrs Flynn, limped into the shop. ‘Hello, Miss Carter. How are you?’

  Since she could not say: ‘I’m just dealing with a thief,’ Audrey contented herself with ‘Not too bad, thank you, Mrs Flynn.’ Then, from habit, she added: ‘And you?’

  Mrs Flynn began to complain about her feet and the new chiropodist at that NHS place, who had only made them worse. The old man, his way still barred, waited without any sign of agitation or even impatience. At long last, Mrs Flynn moved on to inspect the rack on which the returned skirt was now dangling.

  In a low voice, Audrey told the man: ‘If you give me back the book, we’ll say no more about it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t any book.’

  ‘I’m afraid you have.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Even now he showed no emotion; his voice was quiet and flat. ‘Please let me pass.’

  ‘Not until you give me back that book.’

  Suddenly, without any warning, he put up a hand, grabbed her shoulder and pushed her aside, with such violence that she all but fell over. Then he was out of the door and hurrying down the street. She went out in pursuit; but seeing him jump aboard a 28 bus, which happened to have just drawn up at the stop a few feet away, she gave up with a sigh.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Mrs Flynn asked.

  ‘He comes in here and pinches books.’

  ‘You should report him.’

  ‘Oh, he’s so old and pathetic.’

  ‘It’s the old ones that are often the worst. There was a programme about it on the telly only the other night. Some are real professionals.’

  When she arrived home, exhausted and upset, Audrey thought, I need some of Marilyn’s medicine, and went over to the drinks cupboard and helped herself to half a glass of her vodka. Now, she thought, she too had become a petty thief. She kept no drinks of her own down in the basement, other than a bottle of sherry for Laurence’s rare visits. She carried the glass of vodka down with her, along with The Times.

  She had already completed half of the crossword when she heard Marilyn above.

  ‘Is that you, Marilyn?’ she called up.

  ‘Yep. I’m done in, absolutely done in. Perhaps a bath will revive me.’ A silence followed. Audrey decided that Marilyn was now also pouring herself some vodka. Then: ‘I totally forgot to tell you that I’d be going out this evening. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. I haven’t embarked on any cooking yet.’

  Audrey wondered whether Marilyn was going out with the rent boy. Probably. Otherwise she was usually more specific – ‘I’m going out to the theatre’, ‘ I’m going to a meeting’, ‘I’m going out with Vicky.’ But Thursday wasn’t usually one of the rent boy’s evenings. It was always Wednesdays and of course the weekends that Mari
lyn kept for him – though, oddly, he had not turned up last weekend, making Audrey hope that perhaps he and Marilyn were now breaking up.

  Marilyn went upstairs and Audrey continued with the crossword. Then the bell rang, not once but in that imperious fashion, peel on peel, with which the rent boy always announced himself. Let Marilyn answer it. Eventually, after another ring, Marilyn did answer, trotting down the stairs in what, Audrey surmised, would be merely a towel or a dressing gown. Audrey strained to catch the ensuing conversation. Since all doors were open because of the heat, it was easy to do so.

  ‘Marilyn! I thought maybe you out. No answer for so long.’

  ‘I was having a bath. As you can see. I got so sticky. It’s terribly hot, isn’t it? Come in, come in! Get yourself a drink. I’ll be with you in a sec.’

  ‘I come up. Why not?’

  A laugh. ‘Why not? Yes. You can talk, to me while I’m dressing.’

  ‘I bring present for you.’

  ‘No, no! You must stop bringing me these presents. Every time you come you bring me one. Please! Stop!’

  ‘Special present. Here. Look.’

  There was a silence, then a squeal of pleasure from Marilyn. ‘Oh, but Mehmet … No, no, no!’

  ‘From Harvey Nichols. You remember? I go there with you when you buy tights. And you then see this …’

  ‘Yes, yes, I wanted it so much. And it was far, far too expensive. Fancy you going all the way to Harvey Nicks … But this is wrong, terribly wrong.’

  Now they were mounting the stairs. Arm in arm, Audrey was sure. Her shoulders would be bare, one hand holding the towel up around her, and then the towel would slip and she would clutch at it. Or it would fall down and he would stoop to pick it up for her. Or he would himself hold the towel around her. There were all sorts of variations and all of them disgusted her.

  But what had he given her that had caused her so much consternation and delight? Marilyn would never tell her, because she now never spoke about the rent boy.

  Now they were coming down the stairs again, trying to decide, as they so often tried to decide, which restaurant they would go to. Of course, Audrey was thinking, she would pay for the meal, poor thing; but then, amazingly, the rent boy was saying: ‘I wish to take you to Clarke’s. Someone say Clarke’s very good.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s far too expensive. Let’s go to somewhere like the Café Rouge or the Café Flo.’

  ‘No. I take you to Clarke’s.’

  ‘But how can you afford all this? First that wonderful, wonderful present, now Clarke’s. Where did you get the money?’

  ‘You remember my cousin – I have cousin with flat near Marble Arch. Remember? I speak of him. I visit him at weekend – weekend I cannot come to you – and he, he give me present …’

  The rest was lost to Audrey. They had left the hall and the front door clicked behind them.

  What was this ‘ wonderful, wonderful’ present? And who was this cousin who had suddenly, on a whim it seemed, shown the rent boy generosity? Audrey, hunched over in her chair and arms crossed over her stomach, as though she were suffering a gnawing colic, brooded on it. Then she jumped to her feet and hurried upstairs.

  Marilyn’s room was in its usual state of disorder – as though, in Laurence’s words, all twelve decisive battles of the world had been fought in it. Absentmindedly, as her eyes darted hither and thither, Marilyn picked up a shoe from the middle of the floor and placed it beside its fellow under the dressing table. She reached for the soggy towel draped across the bed, preparatory to taking it to the bathroom. Then she dropped it, when she glimpsed what was lying over the back of a chair. It was a voluminous, pale grey shawl, with long tassels that looked like the tails of innumerable Persian cats. She went over to it, picked it up, feeling its extraordinary softness and then its extraordinary suppleness, as though of a living thing, and finally held it against her cheek. It must be cashmere, she thought at first, only to realise that, no, it wasn’t cashmere but pashmina.

  It must have cost a bomb. How much could he have paid for it? That sum of money given to him by his cousin must have been considerable. Unless of course – the thought whirred at her like a javelin – he had stolen it. Or got it in some other way. As a rent boy? People said that rent boys could earn huge sums of money. Yes, that must be it. He must have sold himself to some wealthy woman or even man to get a shawl like that. She didn’t believe that that cousin existed.

  Having replaced the shawl, making sure that it lay over the chair exactly as it had been lying when she had first set eyes on it – Marilyn, she knew, was extremely observant – she went out on to the landing. She hesitated. Then disgusted with herself but unable to resist the impulse, she opened the door to the room next to it. Once again she sniffed in those combined odours of Caron Pour Un Homme, healthy sweat and cigarette smoke. Why did he never open the window?

  Mehmet had now increasingly come to regard this room as his and no longer Laurence’s. From weekend to weekend he would leave in it a set of pyjamas, shaving things, washing things, clean shirts and underclothes and even CD disks of Albanian music. He must have taken off that elegant dark blue silk blouson of his because of the heat. It was hanging there, beside his cotton dressing gown, on the door.

  Swiftly she walked over to it and began to go through the pockets. A used handkerchief. She stuffed that back. A few coins. Two keys on a silver heart-shaped ring, with the initial M engraved on it in Gothic script. A present from Marilyn? If so, he must have chosen it, since Marilyn would have balked at anything so vulgar. Two cinema ticket stubs. Some pocket matches with ‘ The Town House’ printed on them. A condom. She scrunched it between her fingers and then, with a fleeting moue of distaste, returned it to the blouson. This was odd: a flat, rectangular box of cigarettes which, when she raised its lid, showed cigarettes in a number of different, garish colours. Cocktail Cigarettes, the box told her. She had not seen a box of cigarettes like that since her Oxford days. She was used to seeing used packets of Superking Lights left on the sitting-room or kitchen table, or on the table by his bed.

  Last, she came on the envelope, it was from Salonika and it was addressed to him ‘c/ o Towling’, followed by an address. She had always had a remarkably good memory and so, without any conscious effort, she memorized the address now. Towling. She had never before heard that name. It sounded strange – as though the person who had written it had inadvertently omitted an ‘e’. She looked inside the envelope but she already knew, from the flimsy feel of it, that there was nothing inside. There were two telephone numbers written on its back, and some figures, jotted down untidily here and there in small columns for addition.

  She had so often felt that, in making his visits, he was violating the house and even, in some subtle, horrible way, herself. Now she had violated him. But that thought gave her no satisfaction. It even made her feel vaguely nauseated.

  Two days later Laurence was, as he put it, having a day in town, with visits to ‘ my foot chappy’, Trumper to have his hair cut, and the London Library to pick up some books. Dutifully, Audrey had offered to chauffeur him.

  With a grimace he climbed into the car. His neck, he told her, was being an absolute bugger. It was clear to her that, in consequence of the neck, he was in one of his moods. ‘I’ve always hated this poky little car,’ he complained with real venom. ‘Why on earth did you buy it? Too low, no leg room, so bloody noisy.’ Then he began to tell her fretfully that she was taking the wrong route, she had absolutely no sense of direction, it would have been so much quicker to have avoided Putney High Street.

  However, by the time that he had completed his errands, his mood, like the previously ominous sky, was sunnier. ‘Now I’m going to take you out to lunch. There’s a Turkish restaurant I’m eager to try. It’s mentioned in the Good Food Guide. Would you mind awfully driving me there?’

  ‘Of course not. Where is it?’

  When he told her, Audrey stopped the car and said that she would have to look in her A-Z
. She had never been to that part of London. Having consulted the map, she realized that the restaurant was only three or four streets from that address that she had found in one of the ransacked pockets of the rent boy’s blouson.

  ‘Found it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘It’s an awfully long way. But never mind.’

  The meal was so good that, by its close, every trace of Laurence’s peevishness had vanished. Over their small cups of coffee, a bitter sludge, he even began to suggest that they might take a Hellenic cruise together – ‘We don’t have to listen to all those old farts telling us things we know already. We can cut the lectures.’ He was going to sell off that Queen Anne escritoire, he announced, it was far too big for that wretched little sitting-room of his, and he might as well blue the proceeds on the cruise. Audrey was touched and delighted. He had only once asked her to share a holiday, and that was merely because he had wanted her to drive him around the Highlands.

  When they returned to the car, Laurence’s face was flushed and his walk unsteady from having drunk the whole of a bottle of wine, with the exception of a half glass drunk by Audrey. ‘ Whoops!’ He put out a hand to the car as he all but tottered over.

  ‘Before I drive you back to Wimbledon, there’s something I want to do. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I want to see a house. Near here. Three or four streets away.’ All through lunch an obsessive curiosity had been gnawing at her. She was like a zoologist determined to inspect the habitat of a rare animal.

  ‘A house? What house? You’re not thinking of moving are you? You couldn’t possibly move into a neighbourhood like this. I can tell you, I’d never visit you here, not even for that restaurant.’

  ‘It’s where he lives.’

  ‘He?’ By now Laurence was used to the way, both conspiratorial and venomous, with which Audrey spoke the monosyllable. ‘Oh, you mean the rent boy?’ Laurence often brooded on the rent boy. He would like to see him for himself – in order, in effect, to sum up the competition. But there was more to it than that. He felt an odd, awkward, strangling bond with him. At Audrey’s mention of it, he too was now instantly infected with the urge to see the rent boy’s lair.