‘Then that is the end of the matter. Unless you can persuade her to come to me.’
‘Is that likely? Give me pills or tablets that I may put in her food.’
‘My dear Mr Jaraby, I cannot do that.’ The Doctor laughed to ease the atmosphere. ‘I would be struck off the register.’
‘You will see this woman suffer? You will see me suffer? She would take no pills herself. The mad think the world is mad. You should know that. After this I cannot believe you are a fully qualified doctor.’
‘I must ask you to go.’
‘I am going. I shall seek medical aid elsewhere. You are a callous man, far beyond the work you try to do. My fingers itch to write the facts to the Medical Council.’
‘I can give you the address.’
‘You are cheap and insolent, incompetent and doddering. Your brass plate shall be in a dustbin before the month is out.’
With his stick he struck the brass plate fiercely as he passed it, scarring his knuckles and noticing briefly in its gleam his blood-red, maddened face.
If I will it well enough it shall come to pass, she thought. He shall come with his birds in cages and release them through the house at the times he wishes. They shall chirrup and chatter and I shall watch him teaching them to say a few words. The past shall stay where it is, forgotten and never again raked over. He shall eat good meals, stews and tinned fruit, biscuits with his coffee. I shall wake in the mornings and hear the sound of the birds, and take an interest in them and go with him to shows. People shall come to the house to see them and buy them, not people who are old and lonely and of uncertain temper, but men who talk enthusiastically of their interest, who can tell the quality of a bird and can talk about it, so that one may learn in time to tell it too, and exchange a point of view.
10
On the day that Basil went to tea in Crimea Road, Mr Turtle went to tea at the Rimini. He was quite a regular Sunday visitor and had come to know many of the guests besides his two friends. With Miss Burdock he was a favourite, who saw in him – at least by Mr Cridley’s theory – a potential source of exploitation as a possible resident at the hotel. On this particular occasion Mr Turtle found his friends absent.
‘Where they have got to I cannot imagine,’ Miss Burdock said. ‘They do not often go out on a Sunday afternoon.’
‘I telephoned. I wouldn’t come unexpectedly.’
‘Forgetful old men! No worry, Mr Turtle. We shall enjoy ourselves.’
‘Oh yes, we shall. I just wonder what has happened to them. They wouldn’t have met with some accident? You’d have heard?’
‘Now no worry, please, Mr Turtle. We shall enjoy ourselves. Your friends are off on a raz-dazzle.’
They sat together in Miss Burdock’s cubby-hole off the hall. She was repairing a sheet, stitching it by hand. Bills and receipts were neatly arranged on long upright spikes on her desk. Beside them, a first-aid box and a pair of rolled-up stockings.
‘I have just again seen Random Harvest,’ Mr Turtle volunteered. ‘A great work. Have you seen it, Miss Burdock?’
‘Many years since. I found it very, very touching. Fancy your going to the cinema.’ She wore pince-nez for sewing. On her large face they seemed like an ornament, tiny and nearly lost.
‘I often go. I am quite a fan.’
‘And I, Mr Turtle. I go to the Gaumont on Tuesdays.’
Mr Turtle thought. He felt his mind slipping away, sliding from the moment and the conversation. He pulled himself together, fearing his silence would offend.
‘On Tuesdays? Would we perhaps join forces one day? It is nice to go with a companion.’
Miss Burdock beamed, her hands suddenly still, her head thrown to one side. ‘Well, that would be pleasant. On a Tuesday some time?’
‘Certainly on a Tuesday, if Tuesday is your day.’
‘Tuesday suits me perfectly. It is not always easy to get away from the hotel. So much to see to. Supervision is unending.’
Mr Turtle sighed agreeably. ‘What a worry, poor Miss Burdock!’
‘Providence calls me. I love my old souls. Simple fare and a wireless, nothing more they ask for.’
‘I have, you know, a whole house to myself. It is sometimes a bit much; empty rooms are depressing.’
‘But, Mr Turtle, you are not married. How do you manage? Who sees to you and cleans? Don’t say you equip yourself with dustpan and brush?’
‘I have a Mrs Strap who comes by day, in the mornings.’
‘A Mrs Strap?’
‘That is her name. She is a youngish woman, very particular.’
‘I know the kind. I have had them at the Rimini. Out for what they can get and don’t give tuppence how they get it. What a bane she must be for you!’
‘Well, she knows the work and keeps the place tidy. She cooks a lunch and prepares cold supper. I manage my breakfast myself.’
‘Dear me, it does not seem at all the thing. Here at the Rimini we are all friends together. My job is to worry, my guests are free as birds. We eat like kings and rest and chat. We are the happiest family in the land; not one of us is lonely.’
‘It is nice to have someone to talk to.’
‘At the Rimini we talk all day. Chatter-chatter, like a cheerful band of monkeys!’
It would be nice to have a little bird in a cage. He had thought the man was trying to sell him one, a little blue budgerigar which he could teach to speak.
‘On Sunday mornings,’ Miss Burdock went on, ‘we have a service here in the hall for those who cannot manage the walk to church. They do enjoy it. Mr Featherstone arranges the chairs, Miss Edge plays the piano. We have a prayer and a hymn and I give them a thought for the week. When old Mrs Warren died she said as she passed: “Miss Burdock dear, give me a last thought. Give me a thought to carry from you to our Father.” Those lines of Bunyan sprang to mind. I took the old lady’s hand in mine and said: “My dear, you have lived by hearsay and faith, but now you go where you shall live by sight.” Ere I had finished she had given up the ghost.’
‘The lady died?’
‘At rest and happy. Glad that the end had come in her beloved Rimini.’
You had to slit their tongues to make them speak, but all that would be done by the man. While she was in the house he could keep the bird-cage in his wardrobe, and she need never know.
‘You’ve come a Sunday too soon,’ cried Mr Cridley in the hall. ‘We expected you next week, old man.’
‘My friends are back.’
‘The reprobates return!’ she carolled merrily. ‘Safe and sound and exercised. Scold them, Mr Turtle, while I prepare your tea.’
In the sun-lounge Mr Sole and Mr Cridley told about the visit of Mr Harp, and were cantankerous about the part played by Miss Burdock.
‘Perhaps I should live here,’ Mr Turtle said. ‘You have a bit of fun.’
‘Don’t be rash, Turtle. This is a frightful hole. Miss Edge crazy on the upper corridor and Torrill taken away now because he cannot control his natural functions. You wouldn’t find life in the raw as spectacular as you think.’
‘I like Miss Burdock. She always has a word for me.’
They had attempted to get in touch again with Mr Harp. Mr Cridley had telephoned a number they discovered in another advertisement for the same central heating. He tried twice and Mr Sole tried twice, but each time they were told that Mr Harp was out on his rounds. They were nervous of leaving a message, in case Mr Harp telephoned them at the hotel and Miss Burdock was rude to him again.
‘You would have liked him, Turtle. Interesting about a world we are quite unfamiliar with. What they teach these salesmen to say, how they lead a prospect on.’
‘I know. Salesmen come into films. They cannot pronounce certain words. A lot of them are American.’
‘Don’t speak of this in front of Burdock. She is silly about people like that.’
Miss Burdock, majestically bearing a tray of tea and sandwiches, entered and set to dispensing its contents.
&nbs
p; ‘Mr Turtle dear, have they apologized?’
The men were at sixes and sevens, groping their way to their feet to herald her entry, seating themselves to receive her bounty.
‘The error has been cleared. In fact it was mine, it seems.’
They ate and drank, the two residents displaying obvious displeasure at Miss Burdock’s decision to join them. They growled, murmuring through crumbs of bread with tuna fish on it. When she retired their irritation remained, turned against one another.
‘We went to the Jarabys’ last week. It was Sole’s idea to bring them clothes as though they were refugees. I could not make him see that one does not do such a thing; but I refused to visit a draper’s.’
‘Did you, Sole? Did you buy clothes at a draper’s?’
‘I think he did,’ said Mr Cridley. ‘When my back was turned I imagine he obtained the clouts he hankered after.’
‘You know I didn’t. You are making a story of it. I drew an analogy. It was you who wanted to bring them food.’
‘Food is a natural thing. A gift one carries, like chocolates to a theatre or fruit to an invalid.’
‘We were not going to a theatre.’
‘I am using the example to explain. You will say next the Jarabys are not invalids.’
‘Nor are they.’
‘Quite, quite.’
The conversation petered out. When it was renewed the subject was the coming Old Boys’ Day at the School, and with the change the discord slipped away.
‘Shall we three travel together?’ Mr Sole suggested.
‘You mean – you mean I should join you?’ Mr Turtle was pleased. ‘How very generous, Sole.’
‘By all means,’ urged Mr Cridley. ‘Sole can be generous when he makes the effort. I’ll tell you what, we are thinking of taking a cruise to Yalta. Show Turtle the cruise literature.’
Mr Sole found coloured brochures in the magazine rack, handed them round and read aloud from one of them: ‘It is not easy to resist the allurement of those brilliant coral reefs, those blue lagoons, those blessed palm-green shores. Mind you, that is not Yalta. Cridley is more set on Yalta than I am. I favour the allurement of the Caribbean.’
‘As far as I can see,’ said Mr Cridley, ‘you can have eight cabins for a hundred and eighty-seven pounds. There is a well-equipped laundry where passengers’ soiled linen can be laundered at reasonable cost. That is a useful thing … All pets should be placed in the care of the ship’s butcher. Is that a little odd?’
‘Does it go on to explain? I would not care to hand my pets to a butcher.’
‘It says that a governess is in attendance, but does not touch on the fate of the pets. It says that passengers must be in possession of a valid International Certificate against smallpox.’
‘Buoyant island with a happy heart. Craftsmen create tasteful pottery and play a mean game of cricket. That is Barbados. Now why do they say a mean game of cricket? That is an unpleasant and gratuitous remark.’
‘… On board will be found Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Hairdressing Saloons … an orchestra is carried … children are cared for …’
‘This one offers Christmas in sunshine and balmy beaches of southern shores …’
‘You are turning my head,’ cried Mr Turtle. He examined a picture of southern shores. Then he added: ‘Your Miss Burdock has consented to accompany me to the pictures. Isn’t that kind?’
‘She is not our Miss Burdock,’ Mr Sole giggled, winking clumsily at Mr Cridley. ‘By the sound of it, old man, she is fast becoming yours.’
‘You are welcome,’ said Mr Cridley. ‘She is a thorn in the flesh here.’
‘I was married once,’ Mr Turtle murmured; and, forgetting that he had told them before, he told them again.
When he had gone they nodded knowingly. ‘He is trying to get that wife out of his system.’
‘There was a time,’ Mr Cridley claimed, ‘when his ploy was to propose to the woman who cleans for him. He is starting work on Burdock, poor old devil.’
‘Heavens above! Burdock will gobble him up. Often she has asked about his money. She is a ruthless bitch.’
‘Is this true? It is poor news, Sole. Turtle would be better dead.’
‘She is a lot younger than he. She sees him passing on and will collect a fat cheque.’
‘Tell the spider woman to hold off. He is our friend after all.’
‘Tell her? Tell the wall!’
‘Dinner, dinner, you two,’ cried Miss Burdock. ‘The old gentleman has invited me to the pictures. Shan’t I enjoy that?’
Mr Cridley was being fanciful when he said that Mr Turtle had proposed marriage to the woman who cleaned for him. It was true that he found the strain of his marriage tragedy difficult to bear and had, especially lately, regretted that a second alliance had not come about to take away the bitterness of it. But he had never seen his cleaning woman as a contender for his hand. She was a source of terror to him; the kind of woman who seems designed, certainly physically, to be a source of terror to somebody. Mrs Strap, Aries, was forty-five, small, breastless and elaborately decorated: costume jewellery, ear-rings, hair a glitter of gold. There were touches of green about the rims of her eyes, powder the colour of a burst peach on her cheeks and nose. Despite the lipstick that marked her lips far beyond their natural boundaries, her mouth remained pinched and uninviting, metallic almost, as much like the slit of a long-healed wound as H. L. Dowse’s had grown to be. This comparison did not occur to Mr Turtle; he was not, in such matters, an observant man. Mrs Strap was more of a blur to him; a useful fury, an ill-tempered necessity. When she snapped, her eyes lit up with anger, matching her tongue. They blinked and glowed behind elaborate spectacles; spectacles that were a confection of bric-à-brac built up to a pair of tapering points: specks of coloured glass that were not for seeing through, with gold, or something, in triangular blobs at either hinge. That was Mrs Strap, to whom Mr Turtle had assigned a thousand pounds in his will and whom he did not wish to marry. As different from Miss Burdock as chalk from cheese.
Miss Burdock was patient with him when he was slow on his feet on the way back from the cinema. He was sleepy too, and glad of the support of her arm. They had Ovaltine together in her little cubby-hole, and when he dropped into a doze she offered him a spare bed for the night. He thanked her, explaining how much he would like to stay, but remembering that Mrs Strap would be alarmed at his absence in the morning and might telephone the police and the hospitals, her fingers crossed for his death. He did not know how he had become so tired, except that he had got himself into a state in the cinema when he found that the shoe which he had somehow kicked off was no longer at his feet. Miss Burdock ordered him a taxi, and in a clear voice gave the taxi man his address.
Swingler said: ‘Maybe you’re thinking you’re getting a raw deal, Mr Nox?’
Mr Nox, like a neat sphinx, opened exercise books, placed pencils ready for use. He paused to ask:
‘Why? We have made a bargain. Let us stick to it.’
‘Mr Jaraby was unaffected in the teashop. I saw him myself. Unmoved, untempted. Embarrassment was the height of it.’
‘I never liked the idea. A somewhat obvious and, if you’ll forgive me, vulgar way of attaining our ends.’
‘I am to continue to observe him?’
‘That is the understanding.’
‘The chances of success grow dimmer.’
‘Where there is chance at all, pursue it. You do not know it, Mr Swingler, but already our plans are bearing fruit. I confess I had hoped for one fell swoop, a clean thrust and sudden achievement. That, it seems, is not to be. But another thing is happening. We are building up a case against Jaraby. He has spoken in a certain suggestive way to me. An unwitnessed incident, I know. But as well he has been seen by you, a disinterested observer, taking tea with a professional fallen woman. You would sign a document to that effect?’
‘But the woman was in my employ. I knew what to expect, I followed the two of them from the str
eet to the teashop.’
‘My friends are not interested in you, Mr Swingler, whom you employ or whom you pursue on the streets. Why should they be? They wish to see the picture at a later stage: Jaraby and this woman ensconced together, enjoying themselves. That should be your statement; only that is necessary for the purpose.’
‘This is unethical.’
‘Unethical? You would be stating the truth. I do not ask you to lie. I would not do such a thing.’
‘I would be lying by inference, by what I leave out.’
‘Come, you are splitting hairs. I repeat, we cannot bother my friends with a lot of unnecessary detail. Like myself, they are elderly. They tire if too much is asked of them.’
‘We play the Machiavelli, eh?’ Swingler laughed. Mr Nox did not.
‘Let us now get on with our lesson. Frankly, I dislike discussing the other matter.’
‘Right you be, sir. Uccelli o animali, fiori in colori brillianti … Page fifty-seven, exercise nineteen.’
‘Is that Mr Harp?’
‘Harp speaking.’
‘Ah, Mr Harp, Cridley here. My friend and I were wondering –’
‘Whoa up a minute. I have the pleasure of addressing … ?’
‘Cridley. Of the Rimini Hotel, Wimbledon. We met a while back. Mr Sole and I –’
‘Are you the gentlemen who led me a bit of an old dance? Big rambling house, old folks, lady in long clothes?’
‘That’s it, Mr Harp.’
‘Well, Mr Cridley, it looks to me as though our negotiations are at an end.’
‘Mr Sole and I were wondering if you’d care to join us in a little drink?’
‘Oh I –’
‘And continue our discussion.’
‘Now, Mr Cridley, I do not understand you.’
‘We thought it would be nice to have a drink in some local place. Not here, you understand.’
‘I’m in the dark, sir.’
‘We’re interested in your work and would like to know more. About what they teach you –’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Mr Harp, and put the receiver down.
The Old Boys Page 8