The Tropical Issue

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Natalie took a good American slug of hers and said, ‘We were so shocked by it all. I hope you had the best medical care.’

  I began to lose interest in the conversation. She knew, and so did I, because I’d heard her ask Ferdy, that Pal Johnson had been two months in the best and dearest clinic in London before his lovely family carted him back to their country mansion. She was making small-talk.

  I don’t like small-talk. I looked round the room, which was rigged out like the others in brand-new furniture, this time study-type with oak tables and deep-buttoned leather. On one of the tables was a filing basket of opened letters, and beside it on the floor stood a plastic bin full of new handwritten envelopes with stamps on them.

  Mrs Sheridan’s chat moved from the guy Johnson’s health to this friend of hers, Roger van Diemen, who had also had a bad illness but seemed better now.

  I tried to read the names on the envelopes, and couldn’t. The curtains were made of silk velvet. In the corner I could see a T.V. but not a video. The word ‘bananas’ came into the talk.

  I looked at Ferdy, who had mentioned it, but couldn’t pick up the reason.

  No one looked at me, which was all right. Our client had gone on to talk about something she was doing in films, which Ferdy knew about also. She and Ferdy swapped news about cameramen, and she worked the talk round to include painters and some clever compliments about Johnson’s work.

  Johnson said the odd word, but hardly more than that. I began to wonder why she was bothering. Perhaps because he was well known. Perhaps because he was snooty, and she felt challenged to try to unbend him.

  There was no doubt, either, that she was good at it. Smooth, and funny, and interesting, but letting Ferdy shine too, so that she didn’t seem to make all the running. She tried to get a shine on Johnson as well, but he wasn’t having any, although he stayed polite as polite.

  He didn’t signal either, but Ferdy must have come to his senses at last and remembered which of them owned the studio. He stood up, glanced at the clock, and offered, heartily, to top up his famous customer’s sherry.

  She took the hint and rising, said she really must go.

  Ferdy saw her out. I heard her saying, ‘I couldn’t refuse, but he looks very poorly. Will he paint again, or is it quite hopeless?’ She sounded disappointed. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps she’d hoped to trap him into painting her portrait.

  He must have been good once, if Natalie Sheridan wanted him. I didn’t hear what Ferdy answered, but it was bound to be tactful.

  Excused from rising, Johnson was sitting nearer the door than I was, and had probably heard the lot. If he did, he paid no attention. When I looked at him, he was pressing a wall bell. His fingers had ink on them. Ferdy’s voice got fainter, as he saw Natalie out to the lift.

  The housekeeper came in, looked at her boss and at me, and then went over and collected the envelope bin. As she passed him, Pal Johnson remarked, ‘You’ve met Connie, haven’t you? Mrs Margate?’

  The housekeeper smiled. She said, ‘Miss Geddes has been working ever since she arrived. You give her another drink.’

  It struck me as funny that the owner of the flat called Ferdy Ferdy and his housekeeper Connie, and that everyone called Johnson Johnson. Then the housekeeper went out and Ferdy came in and Johnson said, ‘Your Bird of Paradise is to have another vodka martini, Ferdy.’

  I glared at Ferdy but he didn’t notice. He said to Johnson, ‘Well, you’ve run out of vodka. Where do you keep your supplies in this bloody awful apartment? Who in Christ’s name did it up?’

  ‘A very rich decorator,’ Johnson said. ‘Ask Connie where the stuff is.’

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ Ferdy said. ‘That woman Connie’s exhausted. You should go back to Surrey. I don’t know why you came here. The family didn’t want it.’

  The guy in the dressing-gown lay back with his feet on the dog. He remarked, apparently to me, ‘You’d better choose something else. He isn’t going to get you a vodka.’

  Ferdy, worrying about Connie Margate, never noticed. He said, ‘She can’t go on sleeping here every night. She’s got her own house to run. She’ll get ill, and then where will you be?’

  ‘Back in Surrey. I thought that’s what you wanted. I’m going to bed,’ said Pal Johnson, and took his feet off the dog.

  I wasn’t going to help him. He was doing Ferdy the favours. Ferdy said, ‘You can go to bed if you like, but I’m going to send that woman home for twenty-four hours. She can have one good night’s sleep in her own bed, and a day free of you and your telephone calls. What are you eating?’

  ‘Humble pie,’ said Johnson shortly. He had his hands on the arms of his chair, and had stuck there.

  I got up to go away. Every girl knows what happens when a man suddenly needs help in the house. I didn’t want to be caught there when Ferdy let the housekeeper off as a reward for lifting Johnson out of his chair.

  Ferdy suddenly caught sight of me leaving, and leaped up saying, ‘Now, Rita? Who’s Ferdy’s best friend? Who got to meet Natalie Sheridan?’

  He followed me into the bedroom forbidding me to leave, and would have chummed me into the bathroom too if I hadn’t locked the door.

  When I came out he had gone, and I put on my shawl and stuff and picked up my case and went to tell Mrs Margate I would let myself out. I didn’t want to get within arm’s length of the guy Johnson or Ferdy again.

  Mrs Margate wasn’t there. Instead Ferdy was in the kitchen, surrounded by bowls and packets and pans, with a warm smell coming from the cooker already.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘Put your case down, darling, and go and help Johnson to bed while I make us some lunch.’

  Ferdy is quite a good cook. My mother, Robina, is the best cook I ever knew, and I learned a lot from her that even Ferdy didn’t know. I stood thinking, while he looked up from his pan, his capped teeth like barley in his speckly fawn whiskers.

  ‘Go on, darling,’ he said. ‘Natalie’s decided to give London another two days, and wants you to do her for her parties. Why pay for a hotel? Think how Scotch and saving it will be. You sleep on one side of Johnson’s guestbed and I’ll sleep on the other.’

  ‘You sleep on both sides,’ I said. ‘I’m not staying. I lied to you. I know you had your prostate fixed.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Don’t stay. Just help while I get the meal.’

  To tell the truth, he had a point. By afternoon, the security shift in the hall would have changed. I put my case down. ‘On one condition. I make the meal and you help your crippled chum. What’s his first name?’

  ‘Johnson,’ Ferdy said. ‘Same as his last. The registrar had a stutter. Call him J.J. if he ever speaks to you again. That’s the melted butter, and there’s a dish in the oven. Call when you’re ready.’

  He disappeared. I put my case out of harm’s way in the bedroom, took off my shawl and jacket and waistcoat and shirt and put on my overall again. I caught sight of my unpatterned face below the Dracula eyeshadow and if the butter hadn’t started to burn, I would have painted my cheeks then and there, in pure protest.

  As it was, I went back to the kitchen and made a smashing meal for all of us, which Ferdy and I enjoyed, and which Pal Johnson either forgot, ignored or slept through, according to Ferdy. Then I found something for Bessie, and left Ferdy to wash up while I took her out for her aged business.

  The two new men in the foyer gave me some long funny stares but didn’t stop me, mainly because Bessie would have stopped too, and that to some purpose.

  It took longer than I expected, since Bessie, having held out as far as the middle of the pavement and no further, celebrated her general relief by flopping off through every alley after her favourite smells, of which there are more in Mayfair than you would think.

  I hadn’t taken a leash, and by the time I got my hand in her collar, she was far from 17b, but in among the dress shops, the ivory shops, the gift shops and the shops making handmade chocolates, so that I rather
took my time getting back.

  The new doorkeeper stepped in front of me.

  He was smaller than the last one: only two feet higher than me. He said, ‘Oh yes. You’re the jokey lady who bloodied up Ned and Josser?’

  ‘And they deserved it,’ I said. The dog, fawning, dripped Standard Dribble on the doorkeeper’s trousers, and I waited for the accidental black eye.

  The doorkeeper said, ‘Good dog, then. Wish I’d seen that: my Gawd, what a picture! Where’s the blood come from, then?’

  He was cheerful. The new security man left the counter and joined us. He was cheerful too. ‘Important make-up lady, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘Ned and Josser weren’t to know. You should have told them, Miss. ‘E’s a real fan of yours, Mr Braithwaite.’

  Ferdy? Ferdy explaining and soothing? Ferdy down in the foyer spreading Largs?

  The security man said, ‘If you’re goin’ up now, Miss, there’s this parcel. The boy took it up to deliver it, but nobody answered the door. Of course, Mr Johnson’s not up to walking.’

  Bessie was at the lift, waiting.

  I didn’t join her.

  I didn’t take the parcel.

  I said, ‘But Mr Braithwaite’s in the flat. Didn’t Mr Braithwaite come to the door?’

  They looked at me, and I brought my voice down. I said, ‘Didn’t Mr Braithwaite go up to the flat again after he spoke to you?’

  ‘Oh no, Miss,’ the security man said. ‘Out on the street like a rocket, he went. A heavy date, he said, and he was late for it. My Gawd, that’s a character. . . Do you ‘ave a key to 17b, Miss? Mr Braithwaite left one for you, in case.’

  King Ferdy the Rat.

  I turned to make for the street. Bessie joined me, her tail wagging. I halted.

  My case was in the flat, too. And my money.

  I returned to the desk. I said, ‘Do you know Mrs Margate’s address or phone number? Mr Johnson’s housekeeper?’

  They didn’t. I thought.

  Ferdy’s flat was being rewired. It was empty.

  Natalie Sheridan wanted me for two days. I had no flat, no hotel room, no money and an Old English Sheepdog.

  There were a number of choices.

  I could shove Bessie into the flat, lift my gear and walk out.

  I could tell the men down below what had happened. They could ring Meals on Wheels or the Salvation Army to rescue the guy upstairs if they felt like it. Ferdy would be mad, but it was Ferdy’s fault anyway.

  On the other hand, Ferdy could do me down with Natalie Sheridan.

  It wasn’t likely. He enjoyed life, and it took a good push before he got the knives out. But everyone knew what happened then.

  I didn’t want Mrs Sheridan put off me. I didn’t much want to walk round finding a bed. A free night upstairs had something to it. And sure as eggs, I’d have no come-on from the resident cripple.

  I took the key and went up in the lift with Bessie. Someone had wiped off my lipstick from the mirror, and had written TA LOVE on the door. I read it.

  Ferdy was a bastard, but I supposed I’d go along with it in the end, as per usual. Twenty-four hours was all he claimed the housekeeper needed.

  I could stick it till lunchtime tomorrow. And if I could, the guy Johnson would have to.

  I got to his door and nearly changed my mind when I heard the phone ringing behind it. But however feeble, the man could surely take his own calls, if I answered the doorbell and fed him.

  I unlocked the door and walked in, shooing Bessie before me. I shouted. ‘It’s Miss Geddes back, Mr Johnson! You’ve got another palm for your parlour!’

  I don’t know whether he heard me, but I could hear his voice on the phone, so I suppose he did. I shut the door and went to choose a bedroom. The one I’d used seemed to be the main guestroom. It smelt of Mrs Sheridan’s scent. It had a phone in it.

  It struck me that I had some calls to make if I was staying in London. I picked up the phone, and found I was listening to Johnson’s caller.

  It was a woman, and she was in the middle of reading a lecture.

  ‘Well, you can’t stay there, can you? If you don’t go back to your people, then you might as well come to us. Daughter Joanna would love it. She’s made you some rather drippy jam.’

  Johnson’s voice said, ‘If I don’t go home, I’d have to go to the Judge’s.’

  There was a silence. Then the woman said, ‘Yes, I see that. But it’s too much for Connie.’

  He said, ‘I’ll get help for her. Really. It’s all right.’

  ‘And later?’ She still sounded doubtful. ‘Don’t you want to get away from those phones? Where’s Dolly?’

  ‘Still refitting.’

  The woman said, ‘You could be in the Caribbean by the early summer. Why don’t we send Lenny down to sail her out? We’re not using him. He could take her to Tenerife and wait till you were ready. Or take her across himself with Raymond or somebody. You could fly over.

  ‘You know everyone over there. You could stay anywhere you want, or on board if you didn’t want company. I’ll tell Bernard.’

  ‘Something to look forward to?’ he said. The put-down in his voice was like the one I’d had.

  There was another silence. Then she said, ‘Believe me, you won’t feel as tired as this all the time. All the same, I don’t know what you were thinking of, letting these people in. What’s she called, this girl Ferdy’s wished on you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Geddes, I think,’ he said.

  ‘And what’s she like?’

  There was another silence. Then he said, ‘Small. Tough. Scottish. She’s listening to you.’

  The bastard. I whipped the receiver away from my ear without thinking, and so missed the first half of a very smart leave-taking. I heard Johnson say, ‘It’s too much trouble for you. No, please don’t. But of course I’ll remember. Give my love to Joanna.’

  Then the woman rang off, but he didn’t. He just laid the phone off the rest, so no more calls could get in.

  It also meant that I couldn’t phone out.

  As I’ve probably said, attack first is my motto. I got up and banged on the door of his bedroom. Why not?

  I had credit cards and an account. I could go to a hotel. Pal Johnson wasn’t going to suffer, with his folks and the Judge and Joanna’s mother and all to mollycuddle him. So I walked into his room without waiting too long for a sniffy invitation. He wasn’t likely to be taking calls starkers.

  Starkers he wasn’t, but the Owner of the Apartment he certainly was, sitting straight up in bed as if he’d money rammed into both pillows. On the bed stood the filing basket full of letters, florists’ cards and parcel tags, and beside it a tray of pens and paper and stuff he’d been answering with.

  The phone was purring beside him on the table. I put the receiver back on its rest and said, ‘I have some calls to make. Do you want me here or not?’

  ‘It depends rather,’ he said, ‘on whether Ferdy comes back.’

  A man of few words. What he meant was, he couldn’t be bothered to row, but he wasn’t going to lease 17b as a knocking-shop.

  I said, ‘There’s nothing for him to come back for. How long is your housekeeper taking?’

  ‘Till tomorrow night, I imagine,’ he said. ‘I should have asked Ferdy.’

  The phone rang, and he looked at it. He didn’t pick it up. It went on ringing. I said, ‘I’ll go into the kitchen and whistle,’ but got no reaction. Against the ringing, he said, ‘Stay or leave as you like. You need a bed?’

  The ringing came to an end, and he turned his head and unhooked and laid down the receiver. ‘I’m afraid that is essential,’ he said.

  Behind the table, there was a telephone socket in the skirting. I got down on my knees and, pushing aside Bessie, who wanted to die for me, unplugged the cable. In two other rooms, the telephone started to ring again.

  I got to my feet. Johnson pulled the blotter over his knees and picked his pen up, as if in return he’d unplugged me. I stood and looked at h
im sorting his papers.

  I wanted to make calls and receive them from, for example, Ferdy or Natalie Sheridan.

  The Owner wasn’t going to answer the telephone. Which, if I stayed, made me his personal answering service.

  He had started writing again, and I might as well have been a pot with a Zulu in it. I walked out and into the studio. I sat down at the piano and treated it to a yard or two of punchy Scott Joplin, waiting for the ringing to end so that I could start to make my phone calls.

  I stopped because my legwarmers had got stamped down to my ankles, and the way I felt about the tantalised fruits told me I was starving.

  There was a phone in the kitchen. I had just got a pan out when the ringing stopped and I made a dive to unhook the receiver. The ringing started again as I did it, and a voice spoke before I could get the thing down. ‘Connie? Is that you? How is Mr Johnson today?’

  This time, it was a man. I had the answer ready on tap. ‘Very much improved, thank you,’ I said. ‘It will be a long business, of course. But he’s making great strides now, considering.’

  There were three more calls before I got all my outgoing ones. One of them wanted to know who I was, and I told him I’d been sent by the escort agency.

  I made an omelette and ate it with a glass of milk while I was talking. Then I made another omelette, plated it, and carried it through the hall, having taken the other two phones off their hooks.

  I banged on the Owner’s door, and got an immediate answer. ‘Come in. You were good enough to answer the phone?’

  I put the plate on his blotter and handed him a knife and fork. ‘It was an accident. Just folk with good wishes.’

  ‘Did they leave names?’ he said. He looked down at the plate and added, ‘Have you eaten?’ There were a dozen new addressed envelopes on the table.

  ‘I had the one I practised on,’ I said. ‘Did you want their names? There wasn’t a pencil.’

  The Owner picked up the fork. ‘They’ll ring again,’ he said. ‘If you took their names, I could ring back some time. The only people I’d need to speak to are my own family. They’ll say who they are. And people called Ballantyne.’