A Different Kind of Summer

by Jennie Melville

  “No. Local,’’ began Chris.

  In the distance a telephone began to ring.

  “There it goes again.’’

  But Charmian was already running.

  Chris watched her go. She knew who was in New York and how long he had been there. Strange lives her married friends lived.

  “Thin time,’’ she murmured sympathetically, and walked on down the stairs. “I’m ten minutes behind schedule.’’

  “Only half a life,’’ she said next, thinking of Charmian again.

  She herself, although not beautiful and not married, had a life and a half, but it took time. You had to be organised about time. She gave a little hop and a skip.

  “They say God’s on both sides,’’ she murmured with radiant pleasure. “But not in my kind of war.’’

  Charmian picked up the telephone. “ Hello,’’ she said eagerly.

  A low, husky voice whispered to her. It was neutral, sexless.

  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Doing that to an innocent young girl? You told her to go to London.’’

  “Who’s that?’’

  “It was you, wasn’t it? You told Phoebe to go.’’

  There was a click and silence.

  “I don’t know Phoebe,’’ cried Charmian to the dead telephone. “I’ve never even seen her.’’

  She searched her memory but she could find nothing of Phoebe there. She could remember plenty of Grace, though, and the voice, not to mention the tone of the conversation, reminded her of Grace. But what was Grace up to? And why?

  She groaned and put a hand up to her hot cheek.

  In their slang, canaries were trouble-makers, hysterics who created crises for themselves and other people, especially the fire brigade, the hospital, and the police. Canaries could scream suicide from the top of factories, jump off bridges, and lock themselves in public lavatories. Canaries had a problem but it was half real and half not. Grace was a canary.

  Then there were people who were full of an alert, anonymous malice. They watched out for opportunities to be spiteful. They rang up and said there was a bomb on that plane, they sent anonymous letters, they spied through windows and spat malice through key-holes. They were called bird-watchers.

  If Grace as well as being a screaming canary was going to be a bird-watcher too, then life was going to be rich.

  They had a murder, a break-in at the railway station, arson at the Infants’ School, a marksman with paint pellets, and now they had a bird-watcher.

  Chapter Eight

  While Christine Quinn was busy living life and a half she came across something.

  “I’m terribly hungry,’’ she said to Terry Wilson, who was her extra half life at the moment. (He could very easily have been the whole life and a half, but that would have been against policy: Chris’s policy.) She fastened the button on her jacket and re-applied her lipstick. The pale sort went on quick and easy. “Starving.’’

  “You don’t give yourself time to eat.’’

  “There are other sorts of hunger,’’ said Chris.

  “Yeah. Such as a hunger for learning and a thirst for knowledge.’’

  “That was just the sort I had in mind.’’

  “You must be the hungriest girl alive.’’

  Not a flicker of a smile moved between them.

  “I’m the most splendid fighting machine you have ever come across.’’

  “My God, you are.’’ He moved across the room to her, but she ducked.

  “No time.’’

  “Time. It’s always time with you.’’

  “What else am I short of?’’

  “You silence me.’’

  “Still, I shall have to go without food.’’

  “It’s about all you have gone without.’’

  “I shall have to eat.’’ She looked around the room as if a bowl of soup and a cheese roll might appear from the floor. It was almost the only place they could appear from, as there was hardly any furniture in the room.

  “I don’t know why you don’t do something about this place,’’ said Terry, settling himself comfortably on the bed. “ Fix it up a little.’’

  Chris did not even bother to look round the room. “I’ve only been here a couple of weeks,’’ she said indifferently. “ Give me time.’’

  “Time again. Give you time.’’

  “I don’t notice you talk about anything very profound.’’

  “Good.’’

  “Why good? What’s good about it?’’

  “You’re not just a clock. You do notice other things. What I talk about, for instance. I didn’t think you noticed I could talk.’’

  “I notice you a whole lot,’’ she said drily. “And you know it.’’ She had finished restoring her appearance to her own satisfaction and was about to start moving. She looked at her watch. “I shall have to run.’’

  He got up. “ I’ll run with you.’’

  “I mean literally run.’’

  “So that’s what I meant. I’ll run leg to leg. We’d run well together, don’t you think?’’

  “But you’ve got a car.’’

  “I’d like the exercise.’’

  “There’s no room in my life for running leg to leg with you down the High Street while everyone looks on,’’ said Chris decisively.

  On the street leading up to the police station was a small quiet coffee bar and Chris stopped here, drank some coffee standing by the counter and absently smoked a cigarette. She was thinking of Terry. She could allow herself this indulgence because she knew exactly how long it took her to smoke a cigarette, six and a half minutes, and knew that when she had stubbed it out this was the time to move on. Perhaps she had exaggerated her haste a little to Terry. But he treated time as if it would never run out, as if you could go on grabbing what you wanted and there would always be some to spare. This was no way to go on with a girl like Chris.

  Her cigarette was halfway through and her coffee finished before she noticed that the man behind the counter was talking to her.

  “It’s this anti-Semitism,’’ he was saying. “I’m against it.’’

  “So am I,’’ said Chris absently.

  “But that’s who done it. It’s only my theory, but it’ll turn out to be right, you’ll find.’’

  He didn’t give her time to answer, before going on, “ I’ve been right before.’’

  Christine nodded.

  “Look at Jack the Ripper.’’

  “Eh?’’ said Chris; she was lost now.

  “That was all anti-Semitism. I knew a man that knew Jack the Ripper.’’ He leaned forward and looked her in the face. Reluctantly Chris looked at him. He had quite a pleasant face, but it was far too close. She moved back.

  “And this torso they’ve found, you’ll find anti-Semitism behind that too.’’

  “You ought to tell the police,’’ said Chris; she looked around, her cigarette was missing; she must have finished it. Time to move on.

  “And what’s more,’’ he said, “ I’ve lost a knife.’’

  Christine blinked.

  “There has to be a knife,’’ he said impatiently. “ The head, the hands. Of course, there was a knife. And a sharp one too.’’

  “And you’ve lost one?’’

  “Yes. I have. A real butcher’s knife. You could take off the head of an ox with that knife.’’

  “I expect it’ll turn up.’’

  “There always has to be a knife,’’ he repeated, as if she was being stupid. “ You wouldn’t go and buy one, would you? Not under those circumstances, and not if you could steal one.’’ He added, and apparently with pride, “ So he stole my knife.’’

  “Who did?’’

  “The killer.’’ He certainly was triumphant. Perhaps he was even proud that his knife had been used. If it had been used. “Now what do you think I ought to do?’’

  “I’ll give you a ring some time,’’ said Chris. “ If I have an idea.’’

  She
got herself out of the door without wasting any more time and hurried up the slope.

  But as she walked, she thought. Well, perhaps, and a knife is a knife. Like he said, there always has to be a knife.

  Grizel and Charmian were working silently when she arrived, although the room itself was not silent because you could hear voices floating up from the stairs: Inspector Pratt’s cough which was exacerbated by the warm dry air-stream, and a sort of restless creak emanating from the whole building.

  “I think one day this building will just give a sort of heave and walk off with us all in it. I mean it’s alive, isn’t it?’’ said Chris, hanging up her coat. “My last station was an old building, and you couldn’t hear a thing. It smelt, though.’’

  “This smells,’’ said Grizel truthfully. “ It smells of floor polish and disinfectant and soup. I don’t know how, but it smells of soup.’’

  The canteen was in the basement, well hidden, but it was certainly true that at some hours of the day a strong smell of food floated up. But the food that you were offered was not the food you had smelt. And as far as was known there was never any soup.

  Christine was still holding her internal debate about the knife. Should she say something or not? She might look a fool. But she was a girl who could never keep quiet if something had to be said, could never leave unfilled a minute of time that ought to be filled with purposeful human activity. Above all, she wasn’t really afraid of looking a fool.

  Here goes, she thought, here is where your boss thinks you’re gullible. (And no policeman ought to be gullible. Chris never called herself a policewoman. What was sex after all? Something she had handled.)

  “There’s a man in that shop down the hill, coffee and sandwich bar, who says he’s lost a knife. Perhaps this knife could connect with the torso,’’ she said clearly and slowly.

  “Spinola?’’ Charmian raised her head.

  “That was the name on the shop,’’ Chris admitted.

  “He’s always first with the news,’’ said Grizel.

  “You know him?’’

  “He’s what is known as an ‘unreliable source’. In fact, come to think of it, he’s probably the original ‘unreliable source’.’’

  “I didn’t think he was lying,’’ Chris frowned. “Not about the knife.’’

  “He does it for the excitement, I think. He likes to see us jump.’’

  “He didn’t know I was a policeman.’’

  “Correction. He certainly did know. That’s the sort of thing Pete always knows. He’s seen you around.’’ Grizel laughed. “I bet he’s been dying to get into the act. I know for a fact he went cycling round and round Deerham Hills hoping the marksman with the paint would pop at him. He’s dying to get into the papers again.’’

  “Again?’’

  “He manages it more often than you might think,’’ said Grizel.

  Chris looked at Charmian. She wasn’t laughing. “A knife is always serious,’’ said Charmian. “If not in this case, in another. One that hasn’t even happened yet. I’ll keep my eyes open. Thanks.’’

  She would call on him eventually.

  Eventually might be too late.

  One of the other customers at Peter Spinola’s Sandwich Bar was William Burton who called in regularly on his way home from work. Sometimes he drank coffee, sometimes, rather shamefacedly, he ate ice-cream, and sometimes he took home pizza to give his wife for supper. She did most of the cooking from her wheel chair; she had the whole kitchen arranged so that she could, but Willie liked to give her a night off. As he couldn’t easily take her out to dinner, he had to take the dinner home. In Deerham Hills this meant either fish and chips or pizza from Peter’s.

  Tonight was pizza night.

  “I’d send it round for you,’’ said Peter, as he wrapped his production in waxed paper. “Any time. For you.’’

  “You forgot, last time you said that,’’ Willie reminded him without malice.

  “Not forgot. No. I told you. The boy dropped it and didn’t like to say.’’

  “The result, as far as we were concerned, was the same.’’

  “And I thought of you eating it,’’ said Peter sadly.

  He had already told Willie that he had lost a knife, and Willie had told his wife, and his wife had told John Customer, so everyone in their little circle knew that a knife was lost. They were old friends and had all been at school with each other. So had John Pratt, but he was outside the circle.

  “A lost life is always a bad thing,’’ said John Customer.

  “That’s a strange slip of the tongue,’’ said Ella Burton. “ Now if I had said that …’’

  “Your life’s not lost, Ella.’’

  “I’ve buried a little bit of it, John, I can’t hide it from myself. And what’s more important, I’ve buried a lot of Willie’s life too. It’s hard on him, hard the way he has to live. Because he is a man, John.’’

  “I know it,’’ said John Customer.

  “I still have a pretty face, John, but that’s all I do have for him.’’

  John Customer was silent.

  “Do you think he minds, John?’’

  “I don’t think so.’’

  “I think he does,’’ said Ella, her lips compressed.

  “He’d never show it,’’ said John.

  “I married a man, not an illusionist,’’ said Ella sharply. “I don’t mind if he shows it. I don’t blame him if he feels it.’’

  “No one would, Ella.’’

  “I mean he’s not old.’’

  “No one understands better than me.’’

  Ella smiled at him. “Yes, you do understand a lot. John, you’re softer than you look.’’

  “Oh, I am?’’

  “Yes,’’ she teased him. “You’re soft with women anyway. It might not do you any harm to be tougher with Leonora.’’

  “Oh, Leonora,’’ he sighed.

  “You’ve had a lot of material success, of course.’’

  “I can see you don’t think that important.’’ He sounded half amused, half cross. He had his material success, and took it seriously. There were certain things you could joke about with John Customer. You could joke about his figure, about his imported French silk ties, but not about his money. He wasn’t hostile, he simply didn’t see what was funny.

  “But Leonora …’’

  “We won’t talk about Leonora, please,’’ said John. He knew and everyone else knew that Leonora was a bad wife, a non-existent wife, a dead wife, but he could not talk about her. Especially he could not talk about her in a hostile, unfriendly way. He owed her that much.

  “You don’t owe her anything,’’ said Ella quickly, as if she had read his thoughts.

  He did not answer.

  “The thing is you love the woman,’’ said Ella, exasperated.

  “Now you do some understanding,’’ said John Customer, as if what she said smarted.

  “You sound as though you really mean that.’’ She hesitated and then put her hand on his arm.

  “Let’s get down to our plan now,’’ he said. “You’ve got the picture clear?’’

  “Oh yes.’’ She was eager. “I’ve been thinking about it all the time.’’ She was trembling.

  He put his arm round her. “You should have married me all those years ago,’’ he said. “Why didn’t you? I needed you then.’’

  “But Willie …’’ she began.

  “Oh, Willie,’’ he said with a sigh, moving his arm away, she was better now. “Willie would have got along. You may not have noticed it, but Willie’s braver than I am. Well, he’s something, anyway.’’ Even when speaking the deepest truth, John Customer could not quite bear to give Willie Burton the best. “Willie solves his problems, you know that and I know it. I live with mine.’’ And he gave a bitter, half coughing kind of laugh.

  “Well, I can’t reform Leonora for you,’’ she said with a sigh. “I can’t do anything for you and I can’t do anything for myself
.’’

  “My plan is that you should,’’ he said.

  Suddenly she said: “Of course, you understand that whatever happens I should always remain utterly faithful to William.’’

  “Of course, my dearest girl.’’ He took her hand.

  “As you would be to Leonora.’’

  “Ah yes, Leonora,’’ he said sadly.

  “Your plan or not!’’

  “Our plan. It’s going to take a lot out of you; you’re going to have to be brave.’’

  The telephone rang and she reached out and lifted the receiver.

  “Hello? Oh yes, dear, I recognised your voice. Oh yes, I would be here, wouldn’t I? Where else could I be? … I didn’t mean to sound bitter … Yes, quite alone. No, not doing anything special. No, absolutely nothing. You haven’t interrupted me at all … No, I love pizza. You know I do. Soon then, Willie.’’

  She put the telephone receiver back and sat still for a moment without speaking. Then:

  “That was Willie.’’

  John nodded.

  “I didn’t tell him you were here.’’

  “No.’’

  “I think he knew, though.’’

  “Why did he ring?’’

  She did not answer the question, all she said was: “You’d better go now.’’

  “Don’t dismiss me.’’

  She did not answer. He was dismissed, then. There was something a little queenly about Ella. After a pause he got up, pressed her hand and quietly left.

  As he walked down the path and got into his car, it occurred to him that she seemed frightened of Willie, but it was a ridiculous idea and he subdued it.

  He was wrong. Ella was not frightened of Willie. She was frightened for Willie. Because there was a dead woman in Deerham Hills mortuary, the lives of a good many other women were being troubled.

  Any minute now Willie was going to come walking up the road and in at the door carrying his pizza and she didn’t have the least idea in the world what she was going to say to him.

  Could she say, “ Willie, John Customer and I have an understanding .…’’?

  Or could she say, “ Willie, there is a dead Woman in a coffin in Deerham Hills who came here by railway and you and I know, and very soon the police will know, that she could only have been brought here by someone who knew the railway?’’