His smile was canny. The Major was a man who prided himself on knowing a thing or two. He had a loose, discoloured face, bruised purple in the cold weather, and black hair streaked painstakingly but inadequately across his skull. His figure was still carefully martial, the shoulders braced, the growing paunch manfully sucked in. When he expounded his inside information about life, he would bend and stretch his knees like a stage policeman. He bent them outwards now, but since he was on his third martini, he could not stretch them again, so he continued downwards into an armchair, knocking his glass off a little table.
“I don’t think so, sir,” Ben said, while Amy, who was being domesticated today, went silently to fetch a cloth. “This outfit sounds pretty genuine.”
“Of course it’s genuine,” Geneva told the Major sharply. “Don’t try to crab everything everybody else does, you idle old rascal. This is the first real nibble of a job Ben has had. You should rejoice with us.”
“I do, my dear, I do,” the Major said. “And if you will kindly bring over that cocktail shaker, I shall rejoice with even better heart.”
Amy had a holiday from school next day, the relic of some bygone anniversary which had never been relinquished along with the piece of empire it commemorated. She insisted on accompanying Ben to his interview. Nothing that he could say would dissuade her. She would no more let him go alone than if he were a four-year-old child wanting to travel across London by himself, although she did make the concession that she would not follow him right into Mr Sweeting’s office.
Everybody in the flat helped Ben to dress for the occasion. The Major had passed out the evening before and spent the night on the sofa. His recuperative powers were remarkable, and after monopolizing the bathroom for half an hour and using Ben’s electric razor and a quantity of Geneva’s talcum powder, he appeared at breakfast in the kitchen ready to tackle a large whisky and water. After breakfast he polished Ben’s shoes for him with the spit-and-rub technique he had learned from a long-ago batman. Amy laid all her father’s ties out on his bed and picked out the one which seemed to be the most persuasive. Geneva went over the collar and lapel of his best suit with cleaning fluid and drawing her mouth into a hundred tiny puckers, removed Rose’s powder and two of her strong hairs from the shoulder.
Rose had telephoned last night, but although Ben had wanted to share his excitement with her, the general hysteria surrounding the forthcoming interview had still left him enough sanity to wait until he got the job. If he failed, she would be more discouraged with him than she was already. If he got the job, he would swoop down on her and carry her off in astonishment to a champagne dinner.
Ben established Amy in a café near Victoria Station with a chocolate milk shake and a plate of hot buttered toast. He hovered for a moment by the table where she crouched with sucked-in cheeks over the straw.
“Are you scared, Daddy?”
“In a way.”
Amy looked up at him and raised her hand in a grown-up gesture, startlingly reminiscent of her mother, to pin up a short wisp of the long chestnut hair which she wore today in a pony-tail, to make her look older. “Remember you are a naval officer,” she said.
Walking towards Grosvenor Place, Ben passed a public house which was just opening. He would have welcomed a drink for the strange dryness in his mouth and the hollowness inside his waist, but Mr Sweeting would not care for whisky on his breath, and peppermints afterwards would be just as incriminating.
Waiting to cross the road, he looked at himself in a shop window, and saw that he appeared the same as usual. A man no longer boyishly young, but far from being irrevocably mature, of medium height, with broad shoulders and rather short arms, wearing a soft felt hat, a tweed coat over a grey flannel suit, and shoes that shone like an advertisement. From the looks of him no one would guess that here was a Navy throw-out, on his way to the first important testing of himself as a civilian, with a stomach that seemed to have done nothing at all about the bacon and eggs he had put into it three hours ago.
He adjusted the hat to a better angle. What would such a man be doing here at this hour of the morning if he were not going to see Mr Sweeting? It was much too late to be coming in on the train to work unless he were the very highest class of executive, and the soft brown hat and the tweed coat denied that.
What business had a man at Victoria Station late in the morning? The women, that was easy. They had come up to shop from the country or the suburbs. For a moment, Ben saw himself in a red-brick house in Reigate with a wife who looked like that girl over there in the coat with the high fur collar cuddling her neck, who would not be so busy buying things for the children and the house that she could not find time to slip in a little something for him.
The men were more difficult. There were crowds of them about, going in and out of the station, or hurrying in every direction along the pavements, as insanely purposeful as ants. They must be going in or out of offices in the neighbourhood, or travelling to or from factories south of the river. But what would they do when they got there, and where would they go when they left? Ben’s imagination struck, protesting to him that it knew nothing about the world of affairs, at Victoria or anywhere else. And yet in a few months, if his luck held—he could never think of himself as anything but lucky—he might be one of these men striding with a brief-case in and out of the station, looking as if he knew what he was about. What would he be doing at Victoria Station in the cause of charity? Going to Brighton, of course, comfortably on the noonday pullman, to see a rich old widow about her donation.
Mr Sweeting’s office was in a converted Belgravia house. Waiting in the reception-office where the sleek, straight up and down girl had shown him a chair and returned to her ivory-coloured, noiseless typewriter, Ben began to think that the Major might have a point when he talked about large expenses. There was an air of muted luxury about this outfit which did not come from paring down your budget.
Ben was early for his appointment—Miss Arkwright had suggested, as if it were a highly novel plan: “If I were you, I wouldn’t be late”—and he sat with his hat on his knee and looked at a picture on the pastel wall. It was a dark watercolour of the back of a row of little houses, all exactly alike, separated from each other by a narrow space that would barely let a bicycle through. Under the identical gables were tightly shut bedroom windows, and in the foreground house, under the window, a sloping roof covered what looked like a lean-to kitchen with three wooden steps slightly askew outside the back door. Snow lay on the roof and along the window-sills and was piled in a little drift between the steps and the house. Against the dark wall of the kitchen two windows and the top half of the back door shone with a warm yellow light.
There was someone in the kitchen, indistinguishable as either a man or a woman, with one arm hanging forward and down as if the sleeve were being rolled up. A man washing at the sink after work. A woman preparing supper. It was a poor house, a house probably ill equipped to keep out the weather which had brought the snow. The bright kitchen was perhaps only a small stuffy room with grease behind the stove and people who had nothing new to say to each other, but as long as you remained outside, it had the’ secret charm of any lighted place at night.
The artist had caught this covetous feeling of being outside and wanting to go in, because he knew he was not going in. Perhaps the man or woman had looked out of the window as they rolled up their sleeves, and seen him standing in the snow in a cap and muffler making a sketch for his picture, and envied him the adventure of his creation, because they were not going out to share it.
A discreet buzzer. “Mr Sweeting will see you now,” the flat girl, said, and Ben pulled himself out of the picture, wrenched at his persuasive tie, and followed her along the soft carpet to the door at the end of the corridor.
Mr Sweeting was a large, middle-aged man with a pouched eye and an easy but somewhat elusive manner, as if his attention was only half engaged. His suit and shirt were good and the appointments of his office elega
nt, down to the last polished leaf of the trailing plant in the window. The Major intruded into Ben’s head again with his observation about the Savoy Grill. It was easy to imagine Mr Sweeting lunching there.
Ben sat in a comfortable chair and waited for him to start the ball rolling. After the preliminary pleasantries, Mr Sweeting fell silent, looking unhurriedly through some papers on his desk as if he were alone in the room.
Perhaps he did not know why Ben was there, and was waiting for him to elucidate. Could one plunge in and say: “About the job———,” or must one sit humbly and let Sweeting play cat and mouse with one’s nerves? Remember you are a naval officer, Amy said from the café two hundred yards away, and Ben straightened his back and looked at the cigarette-box which was open on the desk. He had not had a cigarette all morning. Geneva had run out, and the Major smoked cheroots.
Mr Sweeting did not offer him a cigarette. “Can’t find the letter,” he said at last, looking up about two inches to the left of Ben’s head. “Let’s see, I think the agency said you were in one of the Services.”
“The Navy. I was retired as a commander,” Ben said, trying to make it sound impressive.
“Well, that’s against you for a start.” Mr Sweeting had a thick, catarrhal voice. After he spoke, his mouth remained slightly open. “The Navy is a strenuously efficient organization, though not, I regret, a profitable one.”
He drew out a large, crumpled handkerchief and blew his nose with a noise like an enraged elephant. When he had finished gasping and sniffing and stowing away the handkerchief, he continued: “Our organization is efficient too, of course. At the top. At the lower levels, we are served by all kinds of well-meaning amateurs whose charitable instincts sometimes fail them if they think they’re being treated too militantly. We had a lieutenant-colonel once.” He shuddered, looking beyond the opposite wall into memory. “Ghastly failure. An entire ladies’ committee walked out on him and went over to tuberculosis. What do you know about women?” He shot the question at Ben suddenly, without bringing down his eyes or changing his tone.
“Women, sir?” Damn, he had said it. He had vowed not to, but with Mr Sweeting holding the reins of this situation, it was almost impossible not to treat him like a senior officer. “Well———” He spread his hands. “The usual amount, I suppose. Do any of us know what really makes them tick?”
“Don’t ask me.” Mr Sweeting declined to be won over by this sprightly platitude. “I’m asking you. You ever worked with women?”
“Wrens. Yes, of course.”
“Did they have more money than sense and swallow half a bottle of aspirin because their deadly rival was appointed chairman of the Come-as-you-are Ball?”
“I doubt it. One of them had hysterics once. In a harbour launch. We held her over the side to cool off.”
“Very good.” Mr Sweeting’s face was blank, like the sadistic oral examiner who gives no indication of whether an answer is right or wrong. He took a cigarette and lit it, coughing harshly. Catching Ben’s eye, he said: “Excuse me,” and offered the box. Before he could stop himself, Ben heard his voice say: “Thanks, I don’t smoke.”
Idiot. A smoke might have pulled you through this, and the man will think you’re not convivial. He’ll expect you to say next that you’re a teetotaller, and that won’t get you very far at the Savoy Grill.
“Tell me,” said Mr Sweeting amiably cnough, leaning back and squinting at Ben through the smoke of the cigarette which hung on his open lip, “what are your qualifications for this job?”
Ben assumed the debonair face he had practised before the mirror. “My experience in this field may not be very extensive, but I’m confident I could do a good job for you.” He had rehearsed that. It was designed to disguise the fact that he had only a vague idea of what the job entailed.
“What do you know about research and statistics? The donation ratio between season and area and class of subscriber, and so on.”
Ben felt his debonair face slipping. Seeing Mr Sweeting’s open mouth, he realized that his own was hanging open too, and shut it quickly. “Of course.” He stalled for time. “Research. Yes, I see, all the usual paper work. I’ve had plenty of that in the Service, naturally. The Navy is laid on a keel of S forms, they say.”
Mr Sweeting did not smile. He trained his pouched eyes on Ben, looking at him directly for the first time. “What the devil is an S form?” he asked irritably.
“It’s a printed form, sir. You use it to report anything from the loss of a tin opener to the grounding of a ship. There’s an S form for almost everything—drawing stores, writing-up the character of a rating. S.264, that is.”
“You amaze me,” Mr Sweeting said coldly. “And now suppose you stop playing the fool with me and tell me what you know about advertising, drafting brochures, financial statements and the preparation of budgets. Take one at a time if you like.”
Ben did not like any of them. All he could say was: “I’m not trying to play the fool, sir.”
“Look here.” Mr Sweeting leaned forward to stub out the cigarette, which was making him cough. “You are Francis, aren’t you?”
Ben nodded.
“I can’t find the agency’s letter. That girl tidies this desk every time I go out of the room. Do you know what they said about you? Perhaps you wrote the letter yourself? No? Well, that’s something. They implied that you’d been working with charitable groups for some time. I got the impression—perhaps I’m the fool —that you’d been running some sort of sailor’s benevolent association, and that most of your time in the Navy had been spent raising funds.”
Miss Arkwright, what have you done?
Ben sighed. “Most of my time in the Navy was spent in a submarine or a depot ship. The only thing I ever raised was a beer mug.”
“I can only suppose,” Mr Sweeting said heavily, “that the agency hoped that you would keep the fiction going, in the feeble hope that I wouldn’t ask for references.”
“How could I? They didn’t tell me what they’d said.”
“Then,” said Mr Sweeting, who was shrewder than he looked, “they just wanted to bluff me into interviewing you, on the chance that I’d like you so much I’d employ you anyway.”
Ben and Mr Sweeting looked at each other solemnly for a moment, and then they suddenly burst out laughing.
Mr Sweeting’s laugh was like a bronchial donkey. His sunken eyes oozed a few drops into the folds of flesh. His large body shook. He pulled out the handkerchief and mopped his face, passing the handkerchief right over his bald head and round the back of his neck.
When he had finished, Ben asked: “I say, could I have a cigarette?”
“I thought you said you didn’t smoke.”
“I said it by mistake. I was scared.”
This made Mr Sweeting laugh again. He went through the whole process of braying and shaking and wiping his eyes and his head and neck. “Oddly enough,” he said, when he had achieved the second recovery, “I do like you. Can’t think why. You haven’t said a sensible thing since you came into this office. Except about the Wren. Dunked her in the sea, eh? I wish I’d been there.”
Ben told him some more about Sylvia. With the tension broken, he felt more like himself. It was quite a shock when Mr Sweeting reminded him that he had failed to get the job.
“I wish I could help you, though,” he said. “It’s going to be hard for you to find something worthwhile, I’m afraid. What can you do, anyway?”
“A few things. I’m an expert at handling drunken sailors. Ask anyone. And at one time I was said to have the best periscope eye in the Mediterranean fleet.”
“At the moment, I fail to see how we could use that. Perhaps later on———”
“Meanwhile you’ll keep my name in your files in case a suitable vacancy arises,” Ben quoted cheerfully. Mr Sweeting had seemed at first like a man you could not like. Now that they had shared a laugh together, he was suddenly a friend, and Ben did not mind what he said to him.
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p; “You took the words out of my mouth.” Mr Sweeting’s eyes no longer wandered disinterestedly round the room. They rested on Ben with an amused favour. “I might find you some junior post. I’d make one if I could, but I can’t play around with other people’s cash. We have to save money wherever we can.”
“You might start right here,” Ben said, looking round the office.
“Don’t be beastly, my dear chap. You have to spend money to get money. Don’t you know that?” He stood up, smiling, and held out his hand. “I hate to throw you out, but I’ve got serious work to do. I have to draft another advertisement that won’t land me with another dead loss like you.”
They shook hands, and he went with Ben to the door. As Ben went down the corridor, Mr Sweeting called after him: “Let’s lunch some time.”
The girl in the reception-office had stopped typing at the sound of Mr Sweeting’s convivial voice. She was surprised into asking Ben: “Did you get the job then?” “No. Didn’t you think I would?”
She shook her well-brushed head. “I can always tell. I have a feeling about people. I’m sorry,” she offered, smiling for the first time.
“It’s all right. I shouldn’t have come after it.”
As he picked up his hat, he glanced once more at the picture. The figure in the lighted kitchen was a man. No wonder it looked inviting to see him rolling up his sleeves at home. He had a job, one that made him honestly dirty. He was not supposed to know about anything he could not do with his hands.
Amy was no longer in the café when Ben returned to her. She was standing outside with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat, looking anxiously along the pavement for him. She was quite tall for her age, but she looked tiny standing against the wall to be out of the way of the heedless, hurrying people, with her toes turned in and the beautiful pony-tail flattened against the steamy window of the café.
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