London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  ‘Ten and six it is,’ Connie answered.

  They had reached the house by now and Mr Squales had just rung.

  The door opened and he gave a little bow.

  ‘Professor Qualito and assistant,’ he announced.

  2

  They made rather a lonely little group as they sat in the big drawing‐room waiting for Mrs Jan Byl to arrive.

  Fortunately, they were comfortable. Mr Squales’ chair was so deeply upholstered that his knees were above the level of his chin, and Connie was lying practically full length on a deep rose‐red couch. The room was undeniably well furnished. Indeed, it was more than furnished: it was appointed. The inlaid desk with the gilt legs and enormous claw feet, over by the window, was obviously Loowee, Mr Squales told himself; obviously genuine French Loowee. And the porcelain shepherdesses on the side table were obviously genuine Dresden. Or Wedgwood. Mr Squales couldn’t quite remember which. But whatever they were, they were clearly genuine. Indeed, this quality of genuineness ran right through the room. Even from where he was sitting he could see the hall‐mark on the period ink‐well.

  But it wasn’t at any of these things that he was looking now! He was looking at the photographs. There were a lot of them all over the room, mounted in elaborate silver frames. And they were all of the same man. Mr Squales went round and inspected them in turn. So far as he was concerned they were so many clues, staring at him. There was not much to be gained from them, however. It was a flat, unexciting kind of face – a Dutch face, in fact – with a pale drooping moustache and a small pointed beard.

  ‘So that’s what you looked like, is it?’ Mr Squales said musingly. ‘I’d pictured you a bit larger.’

  Only this morning he had been doing some research work on Mr Jan Byl. He had looked up his obituary notice in The Times, and by now he was by way of being quite an authority. That melancholy visage with the dark pondering eyes was the picture of the man who had made a corner in the soft cheese market and had left a hundred thousand pounds to a chest hospital.

  Then, while Mr Squales was still studying one of the photographs in fact, Mrs Jan Byl came in. She was an impressive woman. And she dominated. Mr Squales had risen as she entered, but Mrs Jan Byl waved him back again into his chair. It was a gesture at once casual and imperious, a mere backward flip of the fingers as though to warn him that if he didn’t move out of her way she would run him down. And having cleared a path for herself, she passed him with the rustle of silk and a strong waft of perfume and sat down in the big throne‐like chair with the lamp beside it. Getting out her lorgnette she scrutinised her visitors.

  Mr Squales disliked being examined through a lorgnette: it made him feel inferior. He longed for the monocle that he had worn with the light check suit during that happy summer down at Brighton. But he doubted whether even the monocle would have been a strong enough magic to save him. It was one thing using a monocle on a lot of defenceless natives. But Mrs Jan Byl’s lorgnette was of inlaid tortoise‐shell on a gold chain. It was colossal.

  ‘There’s a dressing‐room next door if you want to change, Professor,’ was all she said.

  But Mr Squales only shook his head. He had no intention whatever of leaving Mrs Jan Byl and Connie alone together.

  ‘Then shall we begin?’ Mrs Jan Byl asked impatiently. ‘I’m quite ready as soon as you’ve composed yourself.’

  The only light came from a shaded standard lamp that cast a small circular pool of brightness on the polished floor. All round, the shadows gathered mysteriously.

  Mr Squales was reclining on the couch, his head supported by a cushion, his eyes shut. Opposite to him sat Mrs Jan Byl. She was in a small semi‐circular armchair that fitted her so tightly that she seemed to be wearing it. Her head was bent slightly forward, and there was a tense, alert kind of expression on her face, as though she were ready at a moment’s warning to jump up, chair and all. In between them, on a kind of footstool, perched Connie.

  Mrs Jan Byl leant over and whispered to her.

  ‘Is he quite comfortable, do you think?’ she asked. ‘Is there anything he’d like?’

  For a moment Connie studied the slowing breathing form on the couch.

  ‘He might like another drink,’ she said.

  As she said it a quiver ran through the medium almost as though the moment of possession had come to him. But all that happened was that he raised one of his long sensitive hands and waved it reprovingly.

  ‘Nothing at all now, thank you. Nothing at all. But please go on talking. It helps me.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘We shouldn’t have asked him,’ Connie observed. ‘We should just have put it by him.’

  ‘Chakvar Ali always fasts before a big séance,’ Mrs Jan Byl replied.

  Connie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Some like it one way, some like it another,’ she replied. ‘I’ve had to help Mr Squales out of the taxi before now.’

  Another quiver ran through the medium, and Connie corrected herself.

  ‘Not what you mean either,’ she said to Mrs Jan Byl. ‘Just exhaustion.’

  It was Mr Squales who interrupted them. He was anxious to bring the conversation to a close.

  ‘Quiet now, please,’ he said, his voice fading away to nothingness. ‘I feel myself drifting… drifting… drifting.’

  ‘You watch out,’ whispered Connie. ‘You’re in for something good. It’s the surprise of your life you’ll be getting.’

  After that the room was silent except for the sound of Mr Squales’ breathing. It was a low regular sibilance that seemed different from ordinary breathing. It was deeper and slower. The breathing of the profound sleeper, of the exhausted lover, of the man near to death. And it should have been pretty good breathing: Mr Squales had been practising it long enough.

  Then a change came over him. He was restful no longer. He was choking now. Just lying there in front of them, throttling himself. The air that he was swallowing might have been in solid chunks from the way he was biting at it.

  Very slowly the left leg rose into the air… But Connie wasn’t looking at the moment. She had never imagined that Mr Squales was such a good actor and the whole performance made her feel quite queer.

  It was after the left leg had raised itself for the third time that Mrs Jan Byl called her attention to it. Connie pulled herself together hurriedly.

  ‘That’s his signal,’ she said impulsively. ‘He’s ready.’

  Even so they had to wait for a minute, two minutes, three, before anything happened. And then a voice began speaking. It wasn’t like Mr Squales at all. It was very low and guttural. And it spoke in a faint foreign accent.

  ‘Good‐evening, loved one,’ it said. ‘How I miss you. I cannot tell you what separation means. It is like having a knife passed through me. It makes me bleed.’

  The voice ceased for a moment, and Connie could hear that Mrs Jan Byl was breathing heavily too.

  ‘But in a way I am happy, too. The air is like balm and I draw in sweet breaths of it. I suffer no pain.’

  ‘Go on,’ Mrs Jan Byl commanded.

  She was leaning right forward now so that the chair seemed no more than a tiny bustle behind her.

  ‘And I’m happy because I see your dear face all around me. It is in the flowers, in the clouds, in the stars above me…’

  ‘He’s certainly going it,’ thought Connie delightedly. ‘She’ll burst her bodice in a moment.’

  But before the voice could speak again, Mrs Jan Byl had asked it a question.

  ‘What was your mother’s first name?’ she asked.

  The voice hesitated.

  ‘Wilhelmina,’ it said, uttering the only Dutch name that it knew.

  Mrs Jan Byl drew her lips in tighter.

  ‘And when was your sister born?’ she demanded.

  ‘In… in the Hague,’ the voice told her.

  ‘I said when,’ Mrs Jan Byl reminded him.

  This time the voice didn’t answer immediately.
It just stayed somewhere inside Mr Squales saying nothing. When at last it came through it was distinctly petulant.

  ‘But these are trivial questions,’ it complained. ‘They are frivolous. I have a message for you. A great message. Something that is like a shaft of light through darkness. I am a light‐bearer.’

  Mrs Jan Byl had sat back abruptly in her chair. Reaching over her shoulder, she pulled the pendant switch in the tall standard lamp. The bright light made Connie blink. When she could see she looked in Mrs Jan Byl’s direction. She was sitting there with her arms crossed.

  ‘You mean you’re an imposter,’ Mrs Jan Byl contradicted him. ‘I’ve had plenty of your sort before. You can get up now. You’re only wasting my time lying there.’

  There was a silence. A strained awkward silence. Even the breathing on the couch seemed to have stopped.

  Connie roused herself.

  ‘Don’t do anything,’ she advised. ‘Maybe there’s been a bit of a mixup. Perhaps the late lamented’ll be coming through in a minute.’

  Mrs Jan Byl rounded on her.

  ‘And you’re an accomplice,’ she said. ‘I ought to make the pair of you over to the police. You’re nothing but a pair of cheap charlatans.’

  A faint sound from the couch – a sound like a dry, rasping cough – made them both turn round. It came very obviously from Mr Squales’ direction. But it hadn’t come from Mr Squales. His lips were still closed. And, while they listened, the sound, the husky hollow cough, came again. Mrs Jan Byl gripped Connie’s arm.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Search me,’ Connie answered.

  They went across to the couch together and stood over Mr Squales. Even in the half‐light he looked somehow different. His chest with the broad black stock flowing over was no longer rising and falling as it had been. It seemed to have stopped altogether. And his face was now chalky pale. It was like the face of a comfortably dead man. The lower jaw had dropped down, and his upper denture was sagging. All Mr Squales’ self‐respect had gone from him.

  ‘Get up,’ Mrs Jan Byl said roughly. ‘Get up and leave the house.’ But Mr Squales apparently couldn’t hear her. He just lay there and while they looked his eyelids slowly rolled back into his face and his eyes stared upwards at the ceiling. The pupils had contracted, and the light catching them made them glint as though they were luminous. Mrs Jan Byl drew back a little.

  ‘He’s… he’s fainted,’ she said falteringly.

  She turned away to ring the bell. But before she could reach it someone addressed her peremptorily.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she was told.

  And it was not Mr Squales who had spoken. His lips were still drooping. And, in any case, the voice did not even seem to be coming from him. It came from a point about two feet above his placid figure. It was a voice without a body. An invisible mouth opening in the air.

  And the room had suddenly grown cold, unutterably cold. It was as though a frigid, unboisterous wind were blowing through the closed doors and curtained windows, freezing everything; as though slow waves of iciness were emanating from the body of the silent medium. Connie shivered.

  Then the voice began speaking again.

  ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’ it asked again. ‘Won’t you ever leave me alone? Not even now?’

  It was a flat, weary voice that was speaking. The voice of a man who had had all the sparkle trodden out of him.

  ‘I didn’t want to come when they sent for me. I was better off where I was. A lot better off. I just wanted to be left alone …’

  The voice paused, interrupted by the same recurrent cough.

  ‘I don’t believe you ever knew how much I got to hate you,’ it went on. ‘You and your grand ways and everything about you. That’s why I left all that money to the hospital. You did your best to stop it. But I was ready for you. I left everything tied up. If I’d been a bit braver, I’d have left you. Not gone after another woman. Just left you. Just walked out and left you sitting here. I thought about it often enough. I just hadn’t got the courage.’

  ‘Stop him,’ Mrs Jan Byl cried out. ‘Don’t let him say any more. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

  But the voice didn’t seem to hear her. It went on in the same flat voice as before.

  ‘And do you know what the first thing was they said to me up here when I told them? They said: “Well, why didn’t you? It’s too late now.” That’s what they said. They don’t think much of me up here.’ The voice was getting fainter now but they could still hear it speaking. ‘Don’t send for me again,’ it said. ‘I don’t want to come. I’ve had enough of you… I just want to be left alone. I want to think things out.’

  The voice had stopped altogether. And the room seemed to grow warmer. Connie took a deep breath and glanced across at Mrs Jan Byl. But Mrs Jan Byl was past noticing. She was lolling back in the tight armchair, crying.

  They were in the taxi going home now. Connie had pretty nearly carried Mr Squales downstairs and lifted him into it. He just sat there passing a handkerchief across his forehead and shivering. It must have been one of those unaccountable attacks that had come over him. He’d certainly have to see a specialist if they went on.

  ‘Was… was I a success?’ he asked feebly.

  Connie gave a little giggle.

  ‘A success?’ she answered. ‘You were a knock‐out.’

  Chapter XXII

  Percy was standing at the window looking out across the street. Just standing there. He’d been like that for nearly five minutes. He didn’t go out so much in the evening now. It felt safer indoors.

  Mrs Boon looked up from her mending. Her face for some reason looked sadder than ever to‐night. An expression of resignation and defeat seemed to have settled down on it.

  ‘Why don’t you do something, Percy?’ she asked. ‘Just standing there.’

  He was so jumpy that he started when she spoke to him. But he couldn’t admit that he was jumpy. Couldn’t admit that there was anything wrong with him. He felt betrayed that his mother had even noticed that there was anything wrong. It was as though she weren’t on his side after all, as though he weren’t so safe with her as he’d thought.

  ‘I’m all right, Mum,’ was all he said.

  Mrs Boon continued to stare across at him. There was something about him that reminded her of him as he had been when he was a little boy. She never saw him as his real age. He was fixed in her mind, photographed as it were, somewhere round about the age of seven or eight – rather as a delicate little boy, tall for his years, in a jersey and blue corduroy trousers. He’d had these silly, difficult fits even then.

  ‘Why don’t you go out for a walk?’

  ‘Don’t wanna walk.’

  ‘You used to like it all right,’ Mrs Boon went on. ‘You weren’t never in.’

  She was no longer looking at him. Her eyes were down on her mending again.

  Percy turned on her.

  ‘Oh shut up, Mum, can’t you?’ he said. ‘First you nag at me because I’m always out. And now you’re nagging at me because I stop in.’

  ‘Oh Percy.’

  There were tears in Mrs Boon’s eyes as she spoke. She couldn’t help it. It was silly minding about Percy like that. But he was all she had. She couldn’t bear it when he was cross with her.

  But Percy had turned his back on her again. He was looking down the street once more.

  ‘There isn’t anything worrying you, is there?’ she asked.

  Percy shook his head.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said.

  Then Mrs Boon screwed up her courage. She had to do so: she and Percy never discussed his private affairs together.

  ‘Not a girl or anything, is it, Percy?’

  She was sorry as soon as she had said it, because she was afraid that it would make him angry. But she hadn’t anticipated that it would make him as angry as all this.

  He rounded on her.

  ‘Wotta are you going on at me for?’
he demanded. ‘I asked you to shut up, didn’t I?’

  Before Mrs Boon could answer he had crossed the room and gone over to the door. He stood there for a moment, his hand resting on the handle.

  And as Mrs Boon looked at him she noticed again how ill and pallid he seemed. There were dark circles under his eyes. Too much smoking. That was it. Or not sleeping. She’d heard him tossing about at night lately.

  ‘All right,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll go out if you don’t want me here.’

  It was about 8 o’clock when he pulled the front door shut behind him. And he went straight down the steps even though he hadn’t yet decided where to go. He was feeling anxiously in his pockets for his cigarettes.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll feel better if I get a walk,’ he told himself. ‘Get a walk and have a drink. Go to the pictures if it wasn’t so late. Go to the pictures if they’d got anything decent on.’ He looked at his watch – the rolled gold wrist‐watch that Mrs Boon had given him – and then pulled his cuff down again. ‘Reckon I’ll just go for a walk,’ he decided. ‘Just go round the streets and try to walk it off. Perhaps I’ll feel better if I get a walk.’

  He’d turned automatically in the direction of Dove Street. But on the way he stopped suddenly. Stopped suddenly and drew himself up flat against the railings so that he shouldn’t be noticed. And all because he’d looked ahead of him and seen two men in sports coats and flannel trousers standing at the street corner in front.

  He stood there without moving long enough to see the two men saunter slowly off towards the Oval. It looked O.K. But how was he to know that they hadn’t spotted him before he noticed what was happening? How was he to know that? And it couldn’t just be a coincidence. He was always seeing men in sports coats and flannels nowadays, men in proper plain clothes uniform, standing about where they could see him. There’d been a man that he hadn’t liked the look of, standing outside the garage for nearly an hour this morning. And two nights ago someone had followed him home. He was sure of that. He’d noticed him right up by Kennington Park Road, and he’d still been behind him by the time Percy had turned into No. 10. That man, whoever he was, knew where Percy lived all right.