Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘Sheep as a lamb,’ thought Liz, and gently opened the door.

  A dwarf with a hunched back and an alarming scowl was doing something with an enormous camera on a truck. A young man, with a little, monkey face and waved hair was sitting under several bright lights, in front of the camera. Both seemed startled to see Liz.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Liz. ‘I wanted to find out if anyone was about.’

  ‘Whadyer want?’ said the dwarf.

  ‘I wanted some attention.’

  ‘We only deal with the trade.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Liz. ‘And just how do you know that I’m not the trade.’

  The young man giggled. The dwarf continued to stare at Liz as if he hardly believed she existed.

  ‘Whadyer want?’ he said at last. He didn’t seem able to think up anything better.

  ‘What we’d better have,’ suggested Liz, ‘is a word in private.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said the young man. ‘I’m quite comfy.’

  The dwarf gave him a dirty look, then pushed past Liz, out of the door, and down the corridor. It wasn’t exactly a gesture of courtly invitation, but Liz grasped her umbrella a little more firmly and followed. He led the way into an office. It was a small room, and rendered smaller by the clutter which filled it. The walls on three sides were lined with shelves and the shelves were jam-packed with papers. They covered the table. They encroached on to the floor. They continued, in piles, on top of shelves, reaching up to the ceiling like tropical undergrowth blindly seeking the light.

  ‘Now wassit about?’ said the dwarf brusquely.

  He did not sit down, although there was a chair behind the desk, and Liz was unable to, since the other chairs were both deep in unfiled correspondence.

  ‘When you send out photographs,’ she said abruptly, ‘do you put Ardee – A-R-D-E-E – on them?’

  ‘We useter,’ said the dwarf cautiously.

  ‘So a photograph with Ardee on it must be one of yours?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘If I described a photograph to you, do you think you could trace it?’

  ‘What do you think?’ The dwarf’s eye flickered up and down the shelves. Liz saw his point. She tried another tack.

  ‘Do you do private sittings?’

  ‘Private,’ said the dwarf more thoughtfully. He managed to invest the single word with a deep edge of grimy disreputability.

  ‘I mean,’ said Liz hastily, ‘if someone just walked in and asked you to take his photograph, would that be the sort of business you’d do?’

  ‘Certainly not. We work for the trade.’

  Liz nearly said ‘What trade?’ but funked it.

  ‘You work for agencies?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘All the big ones.’

  From the depths of her memory Liz fished up a name.

  ‘Bart’s.’

  ‘That’s right. Bart send you?’ For the first time Liz seemed to be making sense to him,

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said. Thank you all the same. I may be back.’

  ‘Any time,’ said the dwarf impassively.

  Liz trudged back up the Charing Cross Road. The attendant was standing in the doorway of the contraceptive shop. He recognised Liz and winked at her. Liz winked back.

  Bart’s office was at the top of the building behind the Collodeon Theatre. It, too, was up three flights of stairs, with no lift, but at that point any resemblance to the Ardee Photographic Studios ceased.

  To begin with, it was full of people; not the helpless, costive crowd traditionally associated with such places, but a fluid one. People came in and held short and serious conversations, with a young man who was perched on a sofa reading a shiny periodical, with a young lady who came in from time to time from the back premises, with each other. When they had finished their conversations they went, and others came. Everyone talked rapidly but confidently. Everyone oozed personality. Everyone seemed to be roughly two and a half times their normal selves.

  Liz, sitting squarely in a corner, decided that it was, in principle, not unlike a French eighteenth-century salon.

  Eventually, by doing absolutely nothing, she attracted a certain amount of attention, and during a lull in the proceedings the young man came over and sat down beside her and asked, was there anything he could do for her?

  ‘Just a word with Bart,’ said Liz.

  ‘A word with Bart?’ said the young man. ‘Oh, I don’t—what exactly was it about?’

  ‘Nothing important,’ said Liz shortly.

  This seemed to disconcert the young man. He looked covertly at Liz again, trying to rationalise her old but nicely-cut tweeds, her expensive shoes, her impossible hat.

  ‘Was it personal?’

  ‘In a way,’ said Liz.

  ‘Financial?’

  ‘I suppose you could describe it as that.’

  The young man got to his feet rather thoughtfully and said something to the girl. The girl cut short a conversation with a grey-haired old bouncer in full morning dress and went out of the room.

  Five minutes later she reappeared and asked Liz for her name. Liz gave it, spelling it patiently. The girl disappeared, reappeared, and said that if Mrs. Arsite would come along Mr. Bart was free for a few minutes.

  As she followed the girl Liz realized that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was trying to calculate, on insufficient data, who she might be. She felt a little surprised at herself.

  Bart was as she remembered him, a round brown indestructible ball of a man with the thick lips and high cheeks of his Russian parents, and the manners of a man who had been doing immense favours to other people since before he can remember and is getting a bit tired of it. It was clear that he did not recognise Liz.

  ‘I see you don’t know me,’ she said, as cheerfully as she could. ‘Why should you? It was fifteen years ago. I was running the Bramshott and District Pageant – the last big one we had before the war. I borrowed two professional players from you – one for Charles the Second and Sidney Herbert and the other for Nell Gwynne and Florence Nightingale.’

  ‘But I remember perfectly,’ said Bart, untruthfully. ‘I have no doubt we can help you. Again a pageant? Yes?’ He looked approvingly at Liz. ‘I have exactly the man. Last Tuesday he is Canute at Canvey Island. This weekend, Guy Fawkes, at Staines. Versatile.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Liz.

  ‘Not a pageant?’

  ‘Not a pageant. Something quite different. It was really your help I wanted.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s not—I mean, I’m not collecting for anything,’ said Liz hastily. ‘It’s your professional help that I want. It’s a curious story.’

  ‘Curious stories. I hear them a hundred a week,’ said Bart.

  ‘But this is quite uncommonly curious,’ said Liz. She told the story quickly. She was aware that she was there under false pretences, but she did not intend to abandon the ground until she was actually thrown out.

  It was difficult to tell if Bart was interested or not. He said, ‘Yes, of course I know Ronald Dowbell. They do a lot of work for us. Theatrical work. We are their biggest customers. But why should an Army officer go to them from us? I do not understand that.’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ said Liz. ‘I expect he just walked in – like I did – and they took his photograph. The thing is, I can’t make them search for the original, but you could. I’m sure they’d do it to oblige you—’

  ‘Perhaps—’ said Bart. He was too much of a gentleman to add what was plainly uppermost in both their minds.

  At that moment a small door behind Bart’s desk swung open and a big, black-haired man came in. There was no need to speak his name. His face said it for him. He was without doubt the greatest tenor in the world.

  Bart jumped to his feet, bounced forward with outstretched hand and said, ‘A pleasure. My dear Florimond.’

  ‘Florrie!’ said Liz.

  The b
lack-haired man shook Bart by the hand, came forward with calculated deliberation, and kissed Liz, first on one cheek, then on the other.

  It was as if someone had turned on a large electric fire and pink lighting had sprung up all round the cornices.

  ‘My dearest Liz,’ said the famous voice. ‘What gifts the Gods do drop into our undeserving laps. I come in, expecting to do no more than a little business with ugly old Bart, and who do I find—?’

  He waved a hand. It was a gesture to the leader of the orchestra. It was a signal to the electrician. More sympathetic spotlights. A soft preliminary note of music.

  ‘My dear Florimond. You know Mrs. Artside—?’

  ‘The name,’ said Florimond, ‘is Liz. Do I know her? The answer is “Yes”. I have been in love with her for thirty years. Even since she was six,’ he added gallantly.

  Now how was it, thought Liz, that some people could say things which they didn’t mean and which they didn’t even mean you to think they meant, and yet you liked them none the less? Italians, especially.

  ‘What chance brings you here? Do not tell me. I shall guess. Bart has at last found a composer talented enough to write an opera around your personality.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ said Bart. ‘Does Mrs. Artside—?’

  ‘She has a perfectly natural basso. Rounded. Unique. Hamlet as a woman you have seen. Now Falstaff. Conceive the possibilities.’

  ‘Now really,’ said Liz. ‘Behave. It’s no use, Florimond, I’m not for sale. Sit down.’

  Florimond seated himself obediently, yet with a swirling gesture that turned Bart’s office chair into the imperial throne of the Romanoffs.

  ‘I did not come here for an audition,’ she went on. ‘I came here to get Mr. Bart’s help.’

  ‘Which I am certain he will give to you.’

  Bart was certain, too. So was Liz. Rarely had anyone’s status altered quite so rapidly. If Mrs. Artside was a friend of Florimond, if she knew him well enough to tell him to sit down and stop talking, then Bart was prepared to spend the whole day humouring her.

  ‘Mrs. Artside was just explaining it to me when you came in,’ he said. ‘A photograph—’

  ‘Ha,’ said Florimond. ‘An indiscreet photograph, taken in your youth. Some cad who has it refuses to give it up. A horsewhip—’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that. I’ll explain it again.’

  When she had done so Bart said: ‘That should not present any insuperable difficulty. I have a certain influence with the firm of Ronald Dowbell. In fact, a controlling influence. His records will certainly be available. The question will be, can anything at all be found? You say fifteen years. His filing system, I know, lacks method.’

  Liz could not but agree.

  ‘However, I have in this office a young man who worked there for some years. He shall go across and see what he can find. No thanks, please. If you would perhaps come back here after lunch—’

  Liz had arranged to lunch with a friend who lived in Putney and having little idea of comparative distances between different parts of London had made up her mind to go by bus. (If she had been told that Putney was nearly three times as far from Oxford Street as Bramshott was from Brimberley she would not have believed it. Everything in London was naturally next to everything else.) It was therefore nearly four o’clock before she got back to Bart’s.

  Bart had gone but the young man was waiting patiently for her. He had with him a number of photographs of men in military uniforms. They were a curious collection, ranging from a Colonel of Ruritanian Hussars to a gentleman in that easily recognisable Eastern European uniform which is made up of jackboots, baggy trousers, a blouse and a flat hat. Among them Liz had little difficulty in identifying Lieutenant MacMorris.

  ‘So that’s the chap, is he?’ said the young man. He peered at the photograph. ‘Don’t fancy I know him. He’s not a regular – not now, anyway. Here’s all the dope we’ve got about him.’

  He handed Liz a sheet of paper, half covered with typescript, which she read with a growing sense of fantasy.

  ‘Is this—are you sure this is right?’

  ‘Oh, that’s gospel,’ said the young man. ‘Some of the dates may be a little out but the gist of it’s all right. We’re very careful about that sort of thing here. Have to be.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Liz.

  ‘Not at all,’ said the young man. ‘Only too pleased to be of any help.’

  II

  Whist as played at village whist drives, as Tim had discovered, bore little resemblance to any other card game. The rules were comparatively simple. Suits were led out in turn, starting with the highest card in that suit that you happened to possess. Trumps were played last. (So much so that if, in error, you led a trump early on in the game it was etiquette for your opponents to indicate your mistake by some such observation as ‘Hearts are trumps this time,’ whereupon the lead could be withdrawn without penalty.) Scoring was at the flat rate of one point per trick, but an additional prestige point could be gained by leading your first card so quickly that no one else had had time to sort out their hand.

  Once he had mastered these rules Tim found the Brimberley whist drive quite good fun. They were cheap. One and sixpence, including refreshments.

  There was plenty of time to talk to one’s friends between games. And in the ordered coming and going that constituted the mobile element of the whist drive one could hardly help running into people one knew.

  As, for instance, Sue.

  Sue was two tables away, circulating anticlockwise. He was in the opposite planetary system. If they both won this hand they would find themselves momentarily in conjunction, though as opponents, at the same table,

  Tim looked at his hand and calculated his chances.

  Sue was now playing against Mrs. Ransome, who cheated and, therefore, won more often than not. He, on the other hand, was playing opposite Lucy Mallory, who was quite hopeless, against the Vicar and his wife, rather a hot partnership. On the other hand, the organiser had just announced that clubs would be trumps, and he saw that he had no fewer than six of them.

  It was a close call, but he did it. He was almost thwarted at the last moment by Lucy, who first trumped his last (and winning) diamond and then failed to trump the Vicar’s winning spade; but he bludgeoned his way to seven tricks with his run of clubs and rose to his feet to see Mrs. Ransome looking slightly pink about her prominent ears, and Sue coming towards him.

  Sue also appeared to be put out.

  ‘Really,’ she said, ‘that woman ought to be warned off. I don’t mind her revoking, but when it comes to putting her handbag down on two of our tricks and trying to claim them for her side – what are trumps?’

  ‘Hearts,’ said Jim Hedges, ‘and I hope you got plenty of ‘em. Miss Susan, because I haven’t got but two.’

  That’s all right, Jim,’ said Sue. ‘I’ve got some nice hearts. It’s clubs I’m right out of. Oh, I didn’t really mean that as a hint, but I suppose I might as well trump it, since you’ve led it – well played again – eight – nine – ten – that’s eleven tricks to us. Thank you so much, partner.’

  She moved on.

  Mr. Sunley, the Bramshott solicitor, who had been partnering Tim, got up and moved into the opposition seat and observed, ‘I am not sure that cards bring out the best in the opposite sex.’

  By ten o’clock the prizes had been distributed and the party was breaking up. Tim caught up with Sue as she was leaving.

  ‘May I walk home with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sue shortly. ‘If you behave yourself.’

  They walked in silence for some time. Tim said, ‘I’ve wanted a chance to apologise for the other night.’

  ‘There’s absolutely no need.’

  ‘Well, I think there is. Particularly now that—’

  ‘Now that the little man can no longer stand up for himself.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tim doggedly. ‘I told him I was sorry – and now
I’ve said it to you.’

  ‘Short of an announcement in the press, that would seem to wrap it up,’ agreed Sue.

  After a further hundred yards Tim chanced his arm again. ‘I only wish,’ he said, ‘that you wouldn’t be quite so beastly to me all the time.’

  Sue stopped, and there was enough light for him to see the danger signals. However, when she spoke it was in a deceptively moderate voice.

  ‘Just exactly why should it matter to you how I behave?’

  This was not a question to which there seemed to be any easy answer.

  ‘I—’ said Tim. ‘I can only say—well, it does matter to me. I’m—’ Under her young eyes he funked it. ‘I’m fond of you,’ he said at last.

  ‘I see.’ Sue looked him up and down carefully. ‘That’s rather one-sided, isn’t it? I mean, why should the fact that you are fond of me be supposed to affect my outlook? Or perhaps I’ve missed the point.’

  ‘I did think, at one time—’ said Tim, and stopped. He was being manoeuvred into an impossible position.

  ‘You thought at one time that I rather went for you,’ said Sue. ‘Right. So I did. When I was six I loved the gardener. He was a Scotsman, and he had the softest brownest sidewhiskers. Later on it was the geography mistress. Then it was you. I can’t explain it, but I expect it was something to do with your uniform and the medals and all the jolly hush-hush business of being behind enemy lines and killing people and spying.’

  Tim remembered reading about a Red Indian who had been skinned alive. They started with his feet. He appreciated just how it had felt.

  ‘I see,’ he said at last.

  ‘You were only a phase,’ went on Sue, plying the knife kindly. ‘It didn’t last long. There are too many soldiers round these parts for the actual idea of a soldier to stay glamorous. And, when you look round you, there doesn’t seem to be all that future in being a soldier’s wife.’

  ‘But I’m not a soldier.’

  ‘No,’ admitted Sue. ‘I suppose not. But you’re not exactly a civilian either. What do you do for a living? Not,’ she added as Tim remained uncomfortably silent, ‘that I’m at all interested. Particularly if it’s security.’