Half a Crown

by Jo Walton

  Jack ordered drinks, a cocktail for himself and a whisky and soda for Carmichael, as usual. “Bottoms up!” Jack said, and the barman laughed shrilly, though surely the joke must have worn as thin for him as it had for Carmichael, who sipped his whisky morosely. If they were raided, he thought, it would be best not to run but to hold on to Jack and go out of the front and simply overawe the police presence there with his card. He was almost sure it would work. The Watch were feared even by the Metropolitan Police, usually, until it got to high levels. Penn-Barkis—he didn’t want to think about Penn-Barkis, so he downed his whisky and bought another.

  “This is nice, isn’t it, P. A.?” Jack cajoled.

  “Lovely,” Carmichael said, resisting the urge to say that they had better whisky at home, and better music too. The band were sawing their way through “Anything Goes.” A man dressed quite convincingly as a woman caught Carmichael’s eye. It was interesting how men looked older in women’s clothes. Seen as a man, Carmichael would have guessed his age as perhaps twenty-two, but as a woman he looked every day of thirty. He wondered if the reverse were true.

  “Dance?” the man asked Carmichael. His voice was Cockney and masculine, even though he was consciously trying to lighten and raise it.

  “No, thank you,” Carmichael said.

  “How about you, then?” he asked Jack.

  “Do you mind, P. A.?” Jack asked.

  “Doesn’t own you, does he?” the man asked.

  Carmichael wanted to reply that he did, that Jack was his, every square inch of him, but he was here to make Jack happy, so he smiled and said that Jack could certainly dance if he wanted to. He leaned against the bar and watched them. They could have been a conventional couple, and if they were, he would have described them as a forty-year-old man with a thirty-year-old woman, not married, but both very much of the same class.

  Class would always come between them, Carmichael knew. Jack’s parents kept a fish and chip shop. Jack had left school at eleven and worked in a factory. He had gone from that into the army at the beginning of the War, and become Carmichael’s batman. He had almost no formal education, but he loved to read. In the years they had been together he had read far more than Carmichael, who liked to read Maugham or Forster now and then. Jack had no time for fiction, he liked only serious books. He had become almost an expert on Byzantium. But still he felt comfortable in this bar, with people like his new dance partner. He wanted to campaign for homosexual rights, and would have gone on a march once if Carmichael hadn’t explained to him the likely fate of the marchers. Carmichael knew what happened if you stuck your neck out. Jack dreamed of utopias. He had risen in the world, but resented the fact that he was stuck where he was.

  Carmichael’s own family were country squires in the north of Lancashire. His brother looked after his tenants and his sheep with very much the same attitude to all of them. He had married a girl from Carlisle who had a little money from a share in a biscuit factory, so they had more spending money than the family had when Carmichael was a boy. His nephews were at Shrewsbury School. It gave him pleasure to think that he had been able to send Elvira to Arlinghurst, which was better than Shrewsbury—indeed it was widely considered to be the girls’ equivalent of Eton. Such distinctions didn’t mean much to Jack, but Carmichael couldn’t help noticing and adding up the tiny gradations of school and class and income.

  It was possible to rise in the world, if you started early enough. Elvira, born the daughter of a sergeant in Scotland Yard, was being presented to the Queen. She could marry a Duke, or become Dean of a great Oxford College. But it was too late for Jack. Yet Jack would never be content with what he had. Carmichael earned a good salary as Watch Commander. He was not rich, and educating Elvira had cost a great deal, not that he begrudged it. What he had he considered as much Jack’s as his, but Jack would not see it that way. He had made a will leaving everything between Jack and Elvira, including his insurance policies. He expected to live for years, yet, but you never knew. There had been assassination attempts, after all.

  Just as Carmichael was finishing his whisky and growing morbid, Jack came back from the dance floor, smiling. Carmichael bought him another drink, wincing a little as he pronounced the ridiculous name. Did anyone else still drink cocktails? Jack was getting a little drunk. He put his arm around Carmichael’s neck. “Shall we dance?” he asked.

  If it wasn’t for Jack, Carmichael thought—as he thought at a certain point every time he visited this club, or one of the others like it—he would have had no way to find a partner, ever, without resorting to a place like this. He felt ridiculous as they moved onto the dance floor, conspicuous and pathetic. Jack led, and he stumbled through the steps of the dance, remembering dancing classes in the upstairs room of the Farmers Arms in Lancaster and the pink cheeks and protruding pigtails of fat Lottie Cunningham, who had always been his partner. The dance floor at the Caravan Club was as formal and chaste as those long-ago dance lessons. Except for the gender of the participants it would have been acceptable at any church social evening. “Let’s misbehave!” crooned the singer, moving into a new song. Jack winked, and Carmichael tried to smile. It was ten o’clock. In another two hours they could go home.

  More people were dancing now, and Carmichael didn’t feel quite as if he stood out so conspicuously. A man in a bright pink sweater trod on his foot, and apologized profusely. Carmichael noticed an Oriental dancing with one of the less-plausible-looking men dressed as women. “Just like in Shanghai before the War!” he overheard as they swept past him.

  The tune ended, and they stumbled back to the bar. The barman produced more drinks. Carmichael had a beer this time, which came in an old-fashioned pink china pint mug. “I didn’t know there were any of these left!” he said. “The last time I saw one of these was when—” He cut himself off. “It must have been about ten years ago in Bethnal Green.” He and Royston had been investigating the supposed Irish communist Guerin who had turned out to be an unemployed fitter from Liverpool called Brown. It had been part of the Farthing case. But he wouldn’t have talked about it in the bar whatever case it had been. Nobody here knew who he was, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  “I’ve got a friend in Bethnal Green,” the barman said, stressing the word emphatically.

  “Lots of nice pubs down that way,” Carmichael said. “Though it’s years since I was there. London’s like that, isn’t it, you keep to your own patch?”

  The barman agreed, and explained that he came from Sunder-land, where people were much friendlier and got around more, but that he’d been in London since the War. “I was too young for the forces, so I became an ARP warden, they were taking them at seventeen. I trained at home, then they sent me to London because of the Blitz. I spent night after night really thinking we were all going to be blown to bits. I got interested in London, the buildings and districts, because of saving it from burning down, which is funny when you think about it. When Thirkie made the peace in 1941 I took the first job here I was offered, and I’ve been here ever since. I can still remember how relieved I was that the Blitz was over and the War with it. I couldn’t believe I was going to survive to grow up. I remember walking around London with one of my friends, a French boy he was, one of de Gaulle’s men who went off to Canada later. He was crying, but I just felt this incredible sense of relief.”

  “It’s much the same for me,” Carmichael confided. “I was in the army, and so was my friend.” He glanced at Jack, who seemed happy enough talking to a listening coterie. “They kept us in uniform for a while, in case, and then we came out at the same time and I found a job down here. I’m from Lancashire originally.”

  “I’d have guessed that from your voice,” the barman said. “What’s the scene like over there?”

  “The scene?”

  “You know, this sort of thing. Places for people like us to meet. That’s one thing where London has Sunderland beaten hollow, if you ask me. That’s the other reason why I stayed. There’s
nowhere homely like this, almost in the open. This club has been here since 1930. It’s practically an institution. Oh, we get raided now and then, but the peelers know we don’t put up with any rough stuff, or young boys. You need to be a member to get in, and we don’t let anyone join who doesn’t already know a member. Almost like a real London gentry club.” He looked around at the little dance floor and wall hangings proudly.

  “There’s nothing at all like this in Lancaster as far as I know,” Carmichael said. “There’s a pub where men are supposed to meet, it’s called the Ring O’ Bells. Even the communists have their meetings there, can you believe? It’s a funny place. Good beer, and a nice garden outside, but if men do meet there, I didn’t meet any when I was there. But I was young.” It had only been one illicit visit, after he had heard the rumors about it, and the whole time he had been terrified his father or his brother would come in and read his purpose on his face. He had hardly dared look at the other customers in case they were, or were not, interested in him. He had been eighteen and had just left school, where the rules had been different and everyone had been more or less queer.

  “You didn’t understand how it was done, I don’t suppose,” the barman said. “But there, I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. Your friend will be getting jealous.”

  Carmichael turned to Jack. He had become the center of a group of enthusiastic talkers, all telling jokes and keeping each other in stitches. Carmichael took his place in the circle, tried to listen, tried to smile in the right places. He sipped his beer slowly and tried not to look at his watch too often.

  When he was ready to scream with the sheer tedium, he waited for a pause and leaned over and asked Jack if he wanted to dance again. They were playing a lively tune, one Carmichael didn’t know for once. He took Jack in his arms and led—he was better at leading than following—and even though the dance floor was quite crowded they managed to revolve several times before the song came to an end.

  “Shall we dance again?” Jack asked.

  “If you want to,” Carmichael said. All the curtains across the alcoves were drawn, and couples waited at some of them for those inside to be finished so they could go on. The Oriental gentleman came out with a sailor, or perhaps a man half-dressed as a sailor, and they made their way to the bar. The room was filled with more smoke than air, and the red drapes on the walls seemed to pulse in time to the music.

  Jack put his hand on Carmichael’s cheek, then kissed him. “Happy anniversary,” he said.

  15

  Really,” Sir Alan said, looking at me in a considering way.

  Now this bit is going to be hard to explain and I hope I don’t make too much of a hash of it. Before this I’d been aware that he had a certain interest in me, and one that was different from the interest he had in Betsy. There were girls you married and girls you didn’t, and he’d always looked at me as one of the girls you didn’t. There was a sexual element in his attitude that simultaneously attracted and repelled me—that beard!—but now his whole expression changed. He looked very assessing and calculating, and he didn’t say anything after that “Really” for what felt like quite a long time, while we carried on dancing quite automatically. Of course, I didn’t realize all this entirely at once, on the dance floor. In fact I didn’t work half of it out until afterwards when I was talking to Betsy about it. He held me a little bit tighter and said very quietly, “Do you like brandy, Cinderella?”

  Of course, I thought he was suggesting we sneak away to a nightclub. “Sir Alan! I can’t possibly leave the ball!” I said, in a shocked tone, but not too shocked because I was still trying to draw him off.

  “Not before midnight,” he said, playfully. “But we wouldn’t have to leave the ball. I happen to know there’s a bar set up in the card room, where Sir John Mitchell is sitting, and where most of the gentlemen, and more than a few of the young ladies, have been withdrawing for a few moments for a little liquid refreshment. I saw you drinking champagne downstairs, so I know you’re not a teetotaler.”

  “Certainly not,” I said. Nobody had ever suggested that I was a prude. “I suppose I could drink brandy, though I never have.” I’d had it with lemon in tea when I had colds and thought it very nasty, but I didn’t think that should count. At least it wasn’t beer.

  “Come along then,” he said, and steered me off the dance floor and through an archway into another room, which had lovely eighteenth-century white molding but was empty. The Mitchells certainly had a lovely house. We went on through a heavy paneled door into another room. There were four green baize tables set up for bridge, three of them occupied. The players were all men—all fathers, I would have thought from their ages. Lord Malcolm was among them, and I gave him a smile as we went by. There was a proper bar, on wheels, with a servant standing behind it, bartending. A handful of younger men, the kind who were my usual dance partners, were gathered around it. It might have been true what Sir Alan had said about most of the young ladies coming in from time to time, but at that moment there was only one other female in the room, Christine ffoulkes, who I knew only slightly. She was a hag—not literally! I mean she was a debutante who has been out for two seasons without getting married. Sir John Mitchell, who was dummy in one of the bridge games, looked up at us and smiled as we walked over to the bar together.

  “A pair of burning brandies,” Sir Alan said to the barman.

  The barman, who was probably a footman or something in everyday life, raised an eyebrow slightly. He took down two little straight glasses, set them on the bar before us, and filled them to the brim with pale brown brandy. Then he flicked a cigarette lighter and lit them both. Little blue flames danced over them. “It’s just like Christmas pudding,” I said. “Of course, that’s brandy too!”

  “You are so charming. Now, you mustn’t hesitate, you have to down it all at once, or you burn your mouth,” Sir Alan said. He picked up his glass and demonstrated, tipping it straight down his throat.

  I was afraid, actually, if you want to know, but I didn’t hesitate. “Cheers,” I said, picked up mine, and tossed it down the same way. It did burn, going down, but I think that was the alcohol more than the flame. I spluttered a little, I couldn’t help it. Christine laughed. She sounded drunk, and I noticed that one of the young men had his arm around her waist.

  “Well done!” Sir Alan said, encouragingly.

  “I’m eighteen, you know, I’m not a child,” I said.

  “Are you indeed? Well, how about a glass of champagne to cool your throat now,” Sir Alan said.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk?” I asked.

  “Certainly not; nobody could get drunk on one brandy and two glasses of champagne,” he said, sounding so surprised that I absolved him, though most boys who were interested did their best to ply the debs with alcohol, as one of them was doing with Christine right now. That had been Betsy’s downfall with Kurt, so I’d always been very careful about it. “I just gave you the brandy because I wanted to confirm what I thought about how you felt about taking risks.”

  The barman poured two glasses of champagne, in flutes, not in the wide flat glasses they were using in the supper room. “Let’s sit on the windowsill,” Sir Alan said, leading the way across the room.

  It wasn’t a windowsill but a proper padded window seat, in a deep paneled recess. The window was open at the top, letting in some valuable cool air, but the faded velvet curtains were closed, so I couldn’t see out. There was plenty of room for both of us to sit. We were perfectly well chaperoned by the card players and by Christine and her friends at the bar, but nobody could overhear us.

  “Now, it seems I should have been listening to my mother for once,” Sir Alan said. “You won’t mind if I speak frankly, will you, Cinderella? There isn’t any other way to say this, and I know you’re brave and sensible.”

  “Certainly, say whatever you like,” I said. I might have been a little affected by the alcohol, because I felt friendly and expansive. I liked him calling me brave
and sensible, though I knew I wasn’t really either of them.

  “Mrs. Maynard told my mother that you were a nobody, and I’m afraid I’ve been treating you rather as if that were true, as if you were, well, a very attractive nobody.”

  “She said I was not quite ...,” I said. “I overheard. That’s what I was doing when you caught me on the stairs with my shoes off.”

  “Not quite...,” Sir Alan echoed. “How vile of her. That’s much worse than saying you’re of no family, which is true. But you’re certainly a lady.”

  I was pleased that he understood so quickly and felt as I did, though I wasn’t really sure he had thought I was a lady before that moment in the ballroom.

  “Very well,” he went on. “But it seems your uncle is Watch Commander Carmichael, which means she’s entirely wrong, you are quite suitable, you’re not a nobody after all, whoever your parents were. Now, Mrs. Maynard and my mother would like me to marry Miss Maynard, because they’re friends, and because, frankly, she’s not going to be that easy to marry off. I have some money, and she has the right sort of background, and I’ve been letting them go ahead with thinking that, because I do want to marry somebody. I’m twenty-nine, and there is the title to think of, and Rossingham. It is time to think about settling down, and while he is having money problems, Maynard still looked as if he could be useful to me. I wasn’t at all attracted to Miss Maynard, I think you know that.”

  He paused and waited for a response, looking directly into my eyes. “Betsy and I are both quite aware of that,” I said, drawing myself up and a little away from him.