London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  Things were not made any easier by the way in which Mrs Boon devoured and consumed him. It was not merely that she wanted to hear about Percy. She wanted to hear everything about him – how he was looking, what he was wearing, if he had enough clean clothes, whether they were nice to him, when the… but she broke down before she got to it and could not actually utter the word ‘trial.’

  The rush of questions overwhelmed Mr Josser and flurried him. And everything that he said seemed faintly wrong somehow. It all sounded callous and impersonal when it was for Mrs Boon’s ears that it was intended.

  ‘He’s… he’s looking fine,’ he assured her. ‘Plenty to eat and… and early to bed. I’ve never seen him looking better. He’s … he’s fine. Not worrying a bit.’

  ‘And are they nice to him?’ Mrs Boon persisted.

  ‘Couldn’t be nicer,’ he told her. ‘Real nice, that’s what they are. He’s a proper favourite.’

  Mrs Boon smiled.

  ‘That’s my Percy all over,’ she said.

  She paused, and Mr Josser saw that there were large tears trickling down her cheek. The stroke had affected only one side of her face, leaving the other untouched and even fresh‐looking. And the puckered side – it was as though under the skin there were elastic that somehow had been drawn tight – was away from him. If he kept his head low he could scarcely notice any difference.

  ‘Did he ask after me?’ she went on as soon as she could speak again. ‘Did he ask after you?’ Mr Josser repeated. ‘Talked about nothing else. Just his old Mum the whole time. That’s all he wanted to hear about.’

  It wasn’t quite true. Not the sort of truth that you’d speak on Judgment Day. But it was true enough for the present occasion. Better than the truth in fact.

  Mrs Boon was silent for a moment.

  ‘He’s very fond of you,’ she said at length. ‘He never really knew his father. That’s why he looks to you for everything. He was only little, remember, when George died.’

  Mr Josser didn’t answer immediately. He was uncomfortably aware that he was being drawn deeper and still deeper into the disaster that was Percy’s life. Having had to come along to the infirmary to‐day was only another part of an expanding pattern that was steadily and remorsely enveloping him.

  But already Mrs Boon was speaking again.

  ‘There’s something I want you to do for me,’ she said.

  There was no excuse, no pleading in her voice as she said it. She simply spoke with the assumed authority of an invalid. It wasn’t even a request that she was making. It was an order. And it was obvious that she expected it to be obeyed.

  ‘Any… anything you say,’ he promised her.

  ‘I want you to go along to the solicitor,’ she said. ‘It’s important. There’s a lot depends on it. I want you to go along and fix things up for Percy.’

  Mr Josser gave her hand a consoling little squeeze.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘Everything’s being done that can be. They fixed him up with a solicitor. There’s nothing more we could do. Things have just got to… to take their course.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ Mrs Boon said wearily. ‘I want Percy to have the best solicitor he can get. I don’t want a free one.’

  Mr Josser shook his head.

  ‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ he said. ‘It may cost a lot of money. May run into hundreds you know.’

  Mrs Boon gave a sort of nod – a nod with her head still on the pillows.

  ‘I can pay,’ she told him.

  Mr Josser looked at her in astonishment. Percy had been doing nicely at the garage. Very nicely, in fact. And Mrs Boon was the careful sort. She obviously wasn’t the kind to spend money when it could be avoided. But hundreds. It amazed him.

  A Sister, half‐hidden under the towering black coif, came along to the next bed and Mrs Boon placed her finger warningly over her lips. She did not speak again until the Sister had moved away.

  ‘I don’t want them to know,’ she said in a whisper. ‘If they knew, I’d have to pay for being here. And I don’t want that to happen. I want it all for Percy.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mr Josser answered.

  ‘It’s two hundred pounds,’ Mrs Boon continued, still in a whisper. ‘It was George’s insurance money. And it’s all in the post office. I’ve never touched a penny of it. It’ll be more than that by now. There’s the interest.’

  ‘And you want to spend it all?’ Mr Josser asked.

  It sounded cruel, put that way. But he had to be quite sure. He was thinking that if anything – ‘anything’ was the way he always referred to it, even to himself – happened to Percy, Mrs Boon would need that two hundred. That two hundred and a good deal more besides.

  But Mrs Boon seemed surprised at him.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What else should I want it for?’

  ‘And you want me to give it to Mr Barks?’ Mr Josser said slowly, checking every point as he went along.

  Mrs Boon inclined her head.

  ‘I don’t want him to spare a penny of it,’ she said. ‘I want him to get all the best people and fix things up just as though Percy was a rich man’s son. I know that it’s what George would have wanted. He was so fond of Percy when he was a little boy. He thought the world of Percy when he was a little boy.’

  The tears came again and she had to stop talking for a moment. Then she recovered herself. ‘And if there’s anything over he can keep it for all his trouble,’ she continued. ‘I don’t want him to have to think of money.’

  She paused. Then suddenly she reached out and grasped Mr Josser by the hand.

  ‘Tell me it’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You don’t think he did it, do you? Tell me so that I can hear you saying it. I get so frightened just lying here. That’s why they give me sleeping draughts.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Mr Josser told her, trying to make his voice sound full and convincing. ‘He’ll be all right. Just you see.’

  The Sister came up the ward again placidly and efficiently telling the visitors that their time was up and that they’d have to be going. Mr Josser was relieved to see her. He got up and began pulling down his waistcoat.

  As soon as she saw what was happening, Mrs Boon started fumbling with the round neck of her nightdress. A moment later she withdrew her hand again and held something out to Mr Josser. It was a thin gold chain with a cross dangling from it. On the cross was the pigmy image of a body crucified.

  ‘Give this to Percy,’ she said. ‘It’s mine. He’ll recognise it. It’ll… it’ll help to keep him safe.’

  ‘I’ll give it to him,’ Mr Josser told her.

  He took the rosary. It was still warm.

  Then Mrs Boon tried to shift herself towards him again.

  ‘You haven’t told me what his room’s like,’ she reminded him. ‘Are you sure they’re looking after him properly?’

  ‘Couldn’t be more comfortable,’ Mr Josser told her for the second time. ‘And he’s got one of the biggest cells there is…’

  The Sister touched him on the elbow and he said good‐bye to Mrs Boon. Said it hurriedly and awkwardly, and escaped. ‘Cells!’ Why had he used the word? He’d been trying all the time to avoid any mention of where Percy really was. And then at the last moment it had slipped out just like that. Mr Josser wanted to kick himself.

  But how was he to know that Mrs Boon was going to talk about Percy as though he were in a convalescent home somewhere?

  3

  Mr Squales had been less wise than Mr Josser: he had attempted to argue about this afternoon. And, in the result, he had been quite right about the tears. Mrs Vizzard was so upset about the sudden cancellation of her little outing that she had broken down and told him that he didn’t really love her. But it was all over now, and she was nestling in his arms again on the straight‐back horsehair sofa. She had forgiven him. And he had forgiven her. Forgiven her, but made it plain that he was still terribly, terribly hurt by what she had said about not c
aring.

  ‘So my little kitten is happy, is she?’ he asked tenderly. ‘First we go together to the Tate to see the Blakers, and then I go on to my appointment – alone. You mustn’t be a selfish little kitten, remember.’

  ‘You won’t be late, will you? Not later than supper?’

  She regretted the words as she said them. They were fatal, silly words. They showed how absolutely, how disastrously, she relied on him.

  ‘I shall be only as late as I have to be,’ he told her severely.

  And that was all the promise that she could get from him. He was still a trifle cold and aloof in his manner. And remembering how unforgivably she herself had behaved she could not press him. She was lucky, she told herself, that he was even on speaking terms with her at all. Her feeling of contriteness – and gratitude – remained. And, when they finally set out arm‐in‐arm, Mrs Vizzard kept wishing every time she glanced at Mr Squales that she were a brighter and more dashing companion for such a man. But he still hadn’t told her where he was going afterwards.

  The Tate Gallery was not really a success. Not so far as Mr Squales was concerned, that is. All the time he was in it, he kept wondering what he would do with it if it were his. There were obviously possibilities in those magnificent halls if only one could think of a purpose for them. The position of the gallery, of course, was against it. It was situated on the Embankment just where Westminster stopped and Chelsea hadn’t yet begun. Unless there was a collision on the river, or something, you could never collect a crowd in a place like that. Could never make a popular success of a place on a site like that.

  On the other hand, it clearly need not remain the obvious failure that it was now. And no wonder it was a failure. It was the pictures themselves that were at fault – that much was apparent at a glance – and Mr Squales suspected that something had gone wrong on the buying side. There was nothing that you could rightly call an Old Master in the whole place. And a picture gallery without Old Masters was just absurd – rather like a circus without elephants. No: in the race for Rembrandts and Landseers, the Tate Gallery had simply been scooped.

  There were some Turners admittedly, but Mr Squales after one look at them decided that they couldn’t be his best. He even wondered if they were genuine. Scooped again, in fact. And the stuff that they had bought up to fill the space was a positive disgrace. Somebody ought to have lost his job over it. ‘The Resurrection,’ for instance. And the portrait of Lytton Strachey. You had only to ask yourself the simple question of how they’d look in a room if you actually had to live with them to see where they came in the scale of art.

  And it wasn’t simply a matter of age. The Blakes – Blake, it was:

  Blaker, he remembered, had been a tobacconist in Brighton – weren’t new by any means. But they were bad, too. Shockingly bad. The man obviously couldn’t even draw. And the colours! And the number of exhibits. So far as he could judge almost everything that Blake had ever painted was there. Putting two and two together it looked to Mr Squales as though someone, the widow probably, had pulled a pretty fast one.

  Tea was better, except for the decorations on the walls of the tea‐room. Now there, Mr Squales spotted at once, was an opportunity. Nicely arranged, with period furniture and the waitresses in costume and one or two good pictures – hired if necessary – on the walls, the room could have been made attractive. But Mr Squales did not bother about it unduly: he was too much preoccupied. Time was getting on and though he didn’t want to be early for Mrs Jan Byl – that would look gauche and flustered – he certainly didn’t want to be late either.

  As he was drinking his second cup of tea he noticed that Mrs Vizzard was looking at him. It seemed somehow that she was always looking at him. It made him feel uncomfortable. And then he remembered that he hadn’t spoken to her since they’d entered the tea‐room. To be honest with himself he’d got so much on his mind that he’d entirely forgotten her. Leaning forward, he pushed the hot‐water jug a little to one side and inserted his forefinger into the open V at the wrist of Mrs Vizzard’s glove.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he said at random. ‘My own were on having to leave you.’

  ‘I was wondering if you had eaten enough,’ she said simply.

  Then she pushed a florin towards him. And, after Mr Squales had paid, they walked along together as far as the Vauxhall Bridge Road.

  ‘You’ve got enough money on you? You’re sure you’re all right?’ she asked diffidently.

  Mr Squales squeezed her arm.

  ‘There goes my kitten again,’ he told her. ‘You lent me five shillings last Thursday. You aren’t going to have a spendthrift for a husband.’

  A tram was coming over Vauxhall Bridge and Mr Squales stepped into the gutter to be ready for it. Mrs Vizzard summoned all her courage in this final moment.

  ‘You haven’t told me where you’re going,’ she reminded him reproachfully.

  He bent forward and taking hold of her hand he kissed it.

  ‘Right across London. Into terro incognito,’ he told her. ‘My tram.’ And with a final pressure of his lips on to the stitching of her glove, he had left her.

  Then a mood of madness took possession of Mrs Vizzard. A second tram, following close on the heels of Mr Squales’, drew up in front of her. And, mounting it, she followed him.

  The impulse was sudden and irresistible. But, in the result, a fit of violent shivering attacked her.

  ‘Why am I doing this?’ she asked herself. ‘Why? Don’t I trust him?’

  She slumped down into the first available seat and remained there, her two hands clasped together to restrain their trembling. When she held out the penny for the fare her fingers quivered ridiculously.

  But, absorbed in the importance of her purpose, she overcame her agitation. She had work to do, serious engrossing work. There was Mr Squales, in the tram in front blissful, unsuspecting, unalarmed. Here she was, in the tram behind, alert, suspicious, implacable. And the appreciation of the situation gave her a gratifying, God‐like sensation. For the first time in her life she felt superior to Mr Squales. And for the first time in her life she realised how agreeable the life of private detectives must be.

  For the next few minutes at least there was very little that she could do. The tram was trundling down the Vauxhall Bridge Road and it did not seem in the least likely that her quarry would be getting off before he reached Victoria. Mrs Vizzard, therefore, sat back and tried to compose herself. There were moments of anxiety, however. At one moment, for instance, a brewer’s dray came across the track and the tram had to slow down for it while Mr Squales’ tram went dwindling dizzily into the distance. But it was all right. By the time they had got to Victoria they were almost on top of each other again. The two trams, in fact, were so close to each other than Mrs Vizzard was quite nervous as she got off hers. She wondered what Mr Squales would have to say if in the crush around the Clock Tower she should suddenly bump into him.

  Mr Squales, however, was oblivious of his pursuer. A conspicuous figure in his light grey suit, he made his way through the crowd, moving with that easy, slightly swaying movement that seemed to make his walk different from other men’s. Like… like an Indian, she told herself, not being quite clear in her own mind what it was that she meant.

  And he certainly moved quickly.

  She had the utmost difficulty in keeping up with him. Round the corner by the Windsor Castle he went and across the station yard like a man hurrying to catch a train. Mrs Vizzard was about fifty yards behind him and, for a moment, her heart started beating louder from a fresh anxiety. She feared that he was going off by train somewhere. Going off! Never coming back again …

  The fear proved groundless, however. Mr Squales passed the station without even glancing at it and went straight on to the bus stop in Grosvenor Gardens. It was open country here with no natural cover and Mrs Vizzard dared not go any further. She remained up against the Grosvenor Hotel watching him. And then as a stream of buses, released sudden
ly by the traffic lights, surged round in front of her, she realised that she would have to act rapidly if she were to avoid losing him altogether. Darting in and out of the traffic like a whippet she crossed the road. And it was fortunate that she did so. Mr Squales was already getting on to a No. 19 that was moving. Without waiting to see the number of the bus behind she leapt on to it.

  This part of the ride was agony to Mrs Vizzard. In her haste there had been no time to notice where her bus was going. For all she knew Mr Squales might be swept off to Cricklewood while she was being carried away to South Kensington. She took a twopenny ticket and remained on her toes.

  But her fears proved to be groundless. Both buses, Mr Squales’ and hers, turned west at Hyde Park Corner and went along past Knightsbridge Barracks. Then things began to go wrong. Her bus began to race Mr Squales’. Nosing out more quickly from the stopping place it got away well ahead. Soon Mrs Vizzard was looking out of the back window to keep the other bus in sight. And this, of course, meant that she had no idea where she should get out. She was well and truly trapped. Buses, she realised, were less reliable than trams for shadowing.

  Then, fortunately, as though sensing the competition, Mr Squales’ driver put on a spurt and caught up with them again. For a moment they ran side by side. And through the window in that agonising instant, Mrs Vizzard saw the back of a very light grey suit making its way towards the exit. At the next stop she got off and hid in a doorway.

  Then Mr Squales did an astonishing thing. He signalled to a taxi. He was too far away for Mrs Vizzard to hear what he said to the taximan. All she could do was to stand there watching her plan and strategy collapse before her eyes. But she had come a long way to be beaten. She was – apart from this abominable infatuation – a woman of determined will. And without hesitation she did something equally astonishing. She hailed another taxi.

  ‘It’s my friend,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He’s gone off in that taxi. Please keep up with him – I’ve… I’ve forgotten the address.’