‘People’ll think I’m mad,’ he told himself. ‘A fur‐coat in this weather.’
Mr Squales was very sensitive about appearances. And there was something else that played on his sensitiveness. Considering that it was all he had, there was really embarrassingly little to pack. It went into one old suit‐case. And when it was full Mr Squales stepped back and regarded it.
‘It’s a queer world,’ he told himself. ‘Whatever way you look at it, it’s a queer world. If the late Mr Vizzard knew what his suitcase was being used for…’
But even though he had finished his packing, the evening’s work wasn’t yet over. The worst part of it in fact was still to come. Mr Squales went over to the mantelshelf and got down the twopenny bottle of blue‐black ink, the plain schoolboyish penholder and the packet of cheap writing paper. That, however, was about as far as he was able to get. With the sheet of fancy vellum‐wove spread out on the table in front of him he just sat there staring at it. Instead of writing he began drawing designs on the packet – hearts and anchors and true lovers’ knots.
It was the chimes of Mr Josser’s presentation clock seeping down wall and ceiling that finally roused him. Squaring his shoulders and dipping the nib into the bottle right up to the cork finger‐guard he began. ‘Dear Friend,’ was how the letter started. But to go on was still difficult. He dried up completely once or twice. But he struggled on, filling the page with his bold backward sloping writing, with the downward strokes of the g’s twisted round like monkeys’ tails. And the end of the letter proved as difficult as the beginning. He pondered long over the subscription. ‘Yours sincerely’ – too prosaic; ‘Yours faithfully’ – too cold; ‘Yours truly’ – too formal; ‘Yours ever’ – unthinkable. In the end he decided to strike the note of friendship again. ‘Your sincere friend’ was what he wrote.
And when he came to read the letter over, he was pleased with it. It was calm, detached, dignified. Only one thing worried him.
‘How the hell do you spell forgiveness?’ he asked himself at last. ‘Is there an “e” or isn’t there?’
The letter, propped up against the piece of Bangor china on the mantel‐piece, seemed to dominate the whole room, and Mr Squales glanced back at it nervously.
‘She can’t miss it there, poor dear, that’s one thing,’ he told himself. He was stiff from sitting in the chair for so long, simply waiting for the time to pass. But now he stretched himself. He was ready. It was 4 a.m. and that gave him comfortable time to make his way quietly to Victoria. He would have breakfast at the station and then pick up the 9.15.
He opened the door of his room carefully. Very carefully.
‘No need to rouse everyone,’ he said under his breath. ‘This farewell is private.’
It wasn’t easy, however. The suit‐case was all right. But the fur‐coat behaved as erratically as if the bear had still been living. It tried to sweep things off stands as it passed them. And in the end Mr Squales had to go out backwards, leaving the coat to trail after him. It was safer that way, but not dignified.
Opening the front door was difficult. And he had to put the suitcase down before he could manage it. But the relief, the blessed relief, when the door at last was open and he could stand on the doorstep a free man. He took a deep breath.
‘Thank God,’ he said aloud. ‘That’s over. Too close to be comfortable…’
The sudden transition from strain to placidity was so great that he nearly screamed when someone spoke to him. He turned round, his eye‐balls staring. There on the step beside him stood Connie, the nightclub girl, just returning from her evening’s work. She looked at him, at the suit‐case and at the huge fur‐coat. Then she gave a large grin.
‘Taking the dog out?’ she asked.
Chapter LXXXI
1
It was on the same morning when Mrs Vizzard had discovered Mr Squales’ letter that Mrs Josser went down to give notice. Only Mrs Josser, of course, didn’t know anything about the letter. She was, indeed, so much concerned with the problem of how to give notice nicely – eleven years is, after all, a long time to have spent in anybody else’s house – that she couldn’t imagine that Mrs Vizzard could have any preoccupations of her own. That was why she started right in by telling Mrs Vizzard how comfortably they had all been at No. 10 and how, for her part, she would have preferred to stay where she was for ever. But there were other considerations outside her control, she explained. Mr Josser’s health, for instance. It was that which had decided her.
‘With his chest what it is,’ Mrs Josser went on, ‘if I kept him here in Dulcimer Street against my better judgment, I should be a murderess. That’s what I should be – a murderess.’
She paused for a moment, and looked up in Mrs Vizzard’s direction. Up to the present, Mrs Vizzard had not said anything. And Mrs Josser wanted to make sure that she wasn’t offended. But what Mrs Josser saw astonished her. So far from being offended, Mrs Vizzard apparently wasn’t even listening. She was sitting back in her chair with her head cocked over on one side staring vacantly into space as though she were seeing ghosts.
Mrs Josser coughed.
‘It’s been a weekly tenancy,’ she said stiffly, ‘and we should be in our rights to give a week’s notice. But naturally we don’t want to put you to any inconvenience. Not after the way things have been. So I’m saying that we shall want to go at the end of the month. Not before, but not much after.’
‘Go at the end of the month?’
Mrs Vizzard had roused herself suddenly and was gazing incredulously at Mrs Josser.
‘That’s what I said,’ Mrs Josser told her.
‘Why?’ Mrs Vizzard asked blankly.
It was obvious that she hadn’t heard a word.
So, as it turned out, it was Mrs Josser and not Mrs Vizzard who was offended. And if Mrs Vizzard weren’t prepared to show her the courtesy of attending, Mrs Josser certainly didn’t propose to go on explaining. The limit of her patience had been reached. And exceeded. She got up.
‘You’ll probably like to have the house more to yourself anyhow,’ she said pointedly. ‘It’ll be different when it’s really a home for you again.’
‘A home again!’ Mrs Vizzard repeated half an octave higher.
Then, to Mrs Josser’s amazement, she said the words a second time.
‘A home again!’
This time her voice had risen still further. It was shrill and tremulous. And still the phrase seemed to hold some hidden fascination for her.
‘A home again!’
She was almost shrieking the phrase by now. And she was laughing as she uttered it.
‘You… you don’t know what you’re saying.’
She could not say more, however, because she was laughing too much. It was quite low, ladylike laughter at first – not more than little chuckling giggles. But, like the words which she had just spoken, it grew louder. It grew into a hoarse boisterous gust of laughter with nothing in the least ladylike about it. And it became continuous. Soon Mrs Vizzard was sitting there holding her sides. And laughing. Laughing. Laughing. Her hair which she had been wearing on top of her head in the halo which Mr Squales had admired so much came undone and slid down in a sort of noose.
Now that Mrs Josser suspected hysterics she realised that she would have to do something about it. The difficulty was in making absolutely certain. Even after she had half‐filled a cup with water at the tap she came back and stood there with the cup poised, uncertain whether or not to throw. It was only when she heard the words ‘…home again,’ inextricately mingled with the laughter, that she let go. The contents of the cup hit Mrs Vizzard a hard, fluid slap.
And the effect was magical. The laughter stopped instantly. Mrs Vizzard paused and gasped for breath. It was, of course, some little time before she had recovered herself completely. But she was in her right mind again. She remained where she was, whimpering freely and trying to mop up the icy streams that were running all down her.
It was over the tea,
brewed by Mrs Josser to revive her, that Mrs Vizzard told everything. And Mrs Josser listened tight‐lipped and aghast. Not until Mrs Vizzard implored her: ‘Don’t tell Connie and Mr Puddy. I couldn’t bear the shame of it,’ did Mrs Josser allow herself to interrupt even for a single moment.
‘They’ll have to know sooner or later,’ she said firmly. ‘You can’t conceal it beyond Wednesday week.’
‘My wedding‐day!’ Mrs Vizzard said under her breath, almost as though she’d forgotten that she was still speaking to any one. ‘Oh, the scandal, the disgrace. And after everything I’d done for him.’
Mrs Josser drew in her lips tightly.
‘You ought to thank yourself you’ve been spared,’ she said. ‘It was merciful Providence. Nothing less.’
But Mrs Vizzard was past listening to her.
‘The cruelty. The horrid cruelty of it,’ was all that she could say. ‘Look what he wrote to me.’
She handed the fatal letter – a little crumpled by now – over to Mrs Josser as she spoke and sat back to see the effect on her companion. Mrs Josser read it through carefully and then, with the tips of her fingers, passed it back as though she didn’t care to handle it.
‘He’s not a man at all,’ she said. ‘He’s a monster.’
And then perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all occurred. Mrs Vizzard indignantly contradicted her. Spurned, jilted, humiliated, she remained faithful.
‘It’s not his fault,’ she said miserably. ‘He’s just been weak. Weak and foolish. It’s some she‐devil who’s lured him. He … he’s such a lovely man in himself.’
2
All the time while Mrs Josser was in with Mrs Vizzard, poor old Connie was in agonies. She was so much upset that she nearly cried – cried because suddenly she was on the outside of things. Last night, or rather early this morning, on the doorstep, everything had been heavenly. She had poked her nose in at exactly the right moment. A few seconds either way and she and Mr Squales might have slipped out of each other’s lives without so much as a nod in passing. Thinking over the perfect timing of the episode she had gone to bed, chortling.
And, naturally, she had proposed following it up as soon as she had snatched a wink of sleep and a bite of breakfast. The trouble was, however, that she had unaccountably overslept. With the treat of a lifetime hanging over her, she had just gone on sleeping peacefully like a baby. Right on until nearly 10 a.m. It was actually the sound of Mrs Vizzard’s hysterical laughter that woke her.
Considering that she was only just awake it wasn’t bad – getting up and dressing all inside eight minutes. She didn’t attempt to do her hair, of course. Instead, she simply wound a bright red handkerchief round her head in a turban, hooked on a pair of rolled‐gold ear‐rings, and emerged looking like a small, frowsty pirate on a private boarding party. The distressing part was that when she got downstairs, it – whatever it had been – was over. All that she could hear through the closed door was the clink of tea‐cups and the sound of voices. It was Mrs Josser who was with Mrs Vizzard all right. She could detect that much even though she couldn’t make out so much as a word of what they were saying.
‘Mumble, mumble, mumble,’ Connie muttered to herself angrily. ‘What’s the use of that to me?’
Her instinct was to knock on the door, make some excuse and go right in. But she checked herself. After all, it was her treat and she didn’t want to share it with any one. So she decided to check up on things first. For a start, there was Mr Squales’ door standing invitingly open just to the left of her. Knocking on it quietly so that she shouldn’t be heard, she turned the handle and peeped in. It was empty and smelling strongly of stale tobacco, just as she had expected. Even the cupboard was wide open – and bare.
She closed the door again behind her and gave her skirt a hitch upwards.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘Here goes. Into the breach, dear friends…’ Before her head was properly round Mrs Vizzard’s door she started speaking.
‘Hail shining morn,’ she began. And then stopped, stopped in sheer surprise at seeing Mrs Josser there. ‘Too many bridesmaids,’ she said, shaking her head coyly.
But at the sight of Mrs Vizzard, all tear‐stained – and more than that: drenched apparently in her own woe – Connie suddenly wondered if she would be able to go through with her little act. Right up to this moment it had seemed that she could settle up all old scores in a few hurtful words carefully chosen. But now she doubted it. Mrs Vizzard was the landlady no longer. She was simply a middle‐aged woman who had had it. As Connie stood there she underwent a change of heart. And that automatically meant a change of plan as well. She turned to Mrs Josser, her eyes starting.
‘Don’t tell me it’s happened like you said it would,’ she asked in an incredulous whisper. ‘Not about Mr Squales, I mean.’
By the time Mrs Josser had denied to Mrs Vizzard that she had ever discussed Mr Squales with anyone Connie felt secure enough. Conversation was general by now. She had succeeded in inserting the thin, unwanted wedge of her company into their midst. Emboldened, she drew up a chair and sat down. The rest was easy. She was one of them. And more than one of them. She was their leader.
‘You could get him for breach of promise,’ she declared confidently. ‘And you might be able to get her for enticement. That’s harder, but Mr Barks would know. As for him, he’s finished: he’s practically hanged himself by going off with the suit‐case…’
Before she left, Connie gave her oath that she wouldn’t breathe a word to a soul.
It seemed, in the circumstances, the least that she could do. She gave her oath readily and without reservation, and what was more, she meant it. She even passed her wetted forefinger across her throat as proof.
It was all the more surprising therefore that, a couple of hours later, Mr Puddy should stop Mr Josser on the stairs and address him in a hoarse enraged whisper.
‘The dirdy foridder,’ was what he said. ‘Ledding dowd a lady. Breege of bromise. Thad’s whad id is. If he things he can ged ub to Dago triggs in Dulcimer Streed, just led him waid till a jury geds hold of hib.’
Chapter LXXXII
1
But, by next morning and for several mornings to come, there was – even in No. 10 Dulcimer Street – more than the singular defection of Mr Squales to think about. It was May the tenth. May the tenth, 1940 – the day on which Mr Churchill took over from Mr Chamberlain. And just across the Channel every single gloomy prophecy of Uncle Henry’s looked like coming true. The Germans were pouring across Belgium and Luxembourg, as though it were all just some big military manœuvre. Even Holland – apparently the Wehrmacht had taken the matter of the dykes into consideration – was being over‐run with the same precision. The Third Reich was really on the move at last, and Europe had been slit wide open.
Now that it had actually started everybody agreed that it was what they had all been waiting for. Even expecting. Everybody except the war office that is. The British Army, the army of Ted Josser and Lord Gort, was moving forward. But it was obviously too late. Neutrality had seen to that. And worse than neutrality. There were queer things happening. Bridges that should have been blown up were left standing. Tunnels that should have been blocked remained clear. Parachutists disguised as nuns were being dropped like black snowflakes. And the centre of Rotterdam was being bombed to rubble, not because Rotterdam had offended the Germans in any way, but simply as a warning to wantons not to interfere.
It was all very sudden and terrible. And now that the war was coming this way it was all uncomfortably near home.
On that same morning, May the tenth, as soon as Mrs Josser had listened to the radio and read the paper, she went straight round to Cynthia. It was her duty – nothing less she told herself – to be with her at such a moment. If she knew anything about Cynthia, she would find her either in tears or in hysterics. And that kind of thing wasn’t fair on Baby. It was, in fact, really for Baby’s sake that she was going. For Baby’s sake. And because of the
letter that Ted had written. He’d asked her to look after Cynthia and that was what she was doing.
All the way in the bus – it was a twopenny fare to Larkspur Road – she tormented herself. Preparing for the worse, she planned exactly what to do if she found Cynthia prostrate and incapable. First she would get her to bed – put her to bed, if necessary. Then she would send a telegram for her mother. And, as soon as Cynthia was seen to, she would remove Baby to Dulcimer Street for safe keeping. Anything so long as Baby didn’t get upset as well.
It was just nine‐thirty when Mrs Josser got there. And Cynthia wasn’t yet dressed properly. She came down to the door in a kind of kimono with her hair done up in a fish net. The sight offended Mrs Josser. In her house, particularly when the children had been little, she herself had always been clothed and presentable from seven o’clock onwards. She didn’t approve of housewives who made a late start. Also, she wished that Cynthia could have looked a little more pleased to see her. Pleased. Not just surprised.
‘Oh, do come in,’ Cynthia urged her after a pause that was just a moment too long. ‘Everything’s in an awful muddle. But do come in.’
Mrs Josser went in. And she saw straight away what Cynthia had meant about a muddle. The remains of Doris’ breakfast – an empty egg‐shell and a dirty cup and saucer all piled together on a plate – stood beside Baby’s brightly‐painted teddy bear mug and another cup and saucer that was evidently Cynthia’s. Through the open door of the bedroom an unmade bed was visible, with what looked like clothes left lying about, on the floor. And Baby, dressed only in pyjamas and dressing‐gown like her mother, was imprisoned inside the play‐pen banging industriously with a little wooden hammer… Mrs Josser’s heart bled when she thought of the homelife that Ted had so gallantly been concealing from her all these years.
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