But already Mrs. Privett had recovered herself. She was pushing him out of the room in front of her.
“You go straight round there,” she said. “They’ve got their ways. They’ll find her all right. Only hurry.” She paused. “Before it’s too late,” she added significantly.
3
Irene herself at that moment was just getting into bed. It was a small bedroom. Rather like the bedroom in a nursing home. With white shiny walls and white painted woodwork. And the corridor outside was made of some kind of composition stuff that curved up at the sides and looked as if it would be very soft and yielding to walk on, and wasn’t.
Up to now, it hadn’t been so bad. Not bad at all, in fact. She had been in such a temper when she left Fewkes Road that nothing had seemed to matter. And for the last couple of hours she had been among friends. There had been two girls from Stationery, a middle-aged woman whom she didn’t know from Woollens. And another girl of her own age from Classical Records. The brother of the Classical Records girl was there, too. He was a tall, rather serious young man, who didn’t say very much. But he seemed to be listening all the time. And he had a nice laugh. He was something in Travel he told her.
Because there was so much chatter going on, Irene had found herself forgetting all about the trouble at home. It had been rather fun sitting there as one of a group that was ready to accept her as a grown-up person who could be talked to sensibly. Not treated as a schoolgirl the way her mother did.
But then 10.30 had come round. The young man from Travel had been forced to leave them. And the whole party had just broken up.
Now she was alone with herself in that white, clinical-looking little bedroom. Really alone. So much alone that she felt like the last person left awake in London. And immediately it all came crowding back on her. The row with her mother. The way she had dashed out of the house without even saying good-bye. The consternation that she must have left behind her. The thought—the perfectly horrible thought—of what people had been saying behind her back. The thought of what they would begin saying after this had happened.
Somewhere nearby she heard an unfamiliar church clock strike eleven. It was a thin, melancholy chime. It reminded her that in less than twelve hours’ time she would have to face it all again.
She began crying. Crying very softly, with her head right down among the pillows, so that all the girls in the other white, clinical-looking little bedrooms wouldn’t be able to hear.
4
Mr. Privett had just reached the end of Fewkes Road. The police station was a couple of hundred yards away on the right-hand side. And he was going straight towards it.
But something kept holding him back. All the way from the house he had expected to meet Irene. He was certain, in fact, when he got to the Kentish Town Road that he would see her coming back. That was why he was walking so slowly. Giving her time to catch up with him. And, because there was no sign of her, because the whole street was just so much emptiness, he felt lost. Utterly lost and bewildered. Mrs. Privett, it seemed, had not been exaggerating.
He had reached the police station at last. But even then, with his foot on the bottom step, he still hesitated. His opening sentences, “I’ve come about my daughter. She’s run away from home,” were all ready on his lips. It wasn’t even the shame of saying it that he minded. He was long past caring about that sort of thing by now. All that mattered was finding her.
And then, just as he got to the door with the blue lamp shining over it, he stopped dead. But only for a moment. Because turning round, he came back down the steps again. He was walking very quickly. And this time there was no looking over his shoulder to see if Irene were following. He just went straight along to the Underground Station and into the nearest telephone box.
It took him a long while to find the number. But that was partly because the light was bad. And partly because his hands were trembling so. Even then, after he had dialled, the pause seemed an unduly long one. He was just beginning to think that he had blundered with the noughts or something when a voice answered.
“Rammell’s Staff Hostel.”
“It’s Mr. Privett here,” he began. “You know, Fourth Floor. Is my daughter ...?”
When he got back to Fewkes Road, he naturally expected Mrs. Privett to go along to the Hostel with him straight away to bring Irene home. They’d be sure to get a taxi, he said, if the Underground had closed by the time they got there.
But Mrs. Privett only shook her head.
“Not if that’s where she is,” she said. “She’ll be all right there. Better leave her to herself.”
She paused.
“I only thought ...” Mr. Privett began.
“No,” Mrs. Privett told him. “It wouldn’t be fair on her. It’d only make her more conspicuous. There’s been enough talk about her as there is. I’ll go along by myself in the morning. First thing.”
Mr. Privett let out a deep sigh and sat down. He suddenly felt tired. Very tired. It had all been too much for him. And he felt hurt as well. Mrs. Privett hadn’t so much as congratulated him once on having thought of ringing up the Hostel in the first place. She had simply accepted the news without question. Calmly, sensibly accepted it.
“You go to bed now,” she said. “You won’t be fit for anything in the morning.” She hesitated for a moment. “Don’t wait for me,” she went on. “I haven’t even looked at the paper. I’m going to sit up for a bit.”
Mr. Privett made no reply. He was too shocked. This was more than calmness. It was downright callous, he reckoned, sitting down to read at a time like this. How she could ...
A faint sound on the other side of the fireplace made him glance up. Then he understood. The evening paper lay beside her untouched. Mrs. Privett had got her handkerchief up to her eyes. And her shoulders were shaking.
“Oh, my little Ireen, why did you?” she was saying.
Chapter Twenty-five
1
It was difficult nowadays for Mr. Bloot. Merely going on living in Tetsbury Road was a strain.
Resentment was no longer limited to Mrs. Gurney. She had confided in her husband—told him of the slur on the house—and he had sided with her. The two of them down there together in the rather dark front basement had whipped themselves up into a fury. They no longer spoke to Mr. Bloot when they met him on the stairs. Simply brushed past him silently as though one or other of them was a ghost.
And the rent was now no more than a formal, real-estate transaction. Mr. Bloot left the book with the pound note, the ten shilling note and the half-crown in an envelope marked “Mrs. Gurney” on the little ledge of the hall hat-stand. And by next morning, as though mute impersonal genies had been in charge of the whole operation, the money was removed, the rent book receipted and the same envelope with “Mrs. Gurney” crossed out and “Mr. Bloot” substituted for it, was back again on the same little ledge.
Even without this unpleasantness, Mr. Bloot’s spirits were at a low ebb already.
Admittedly there was the excitement, the rapturous anticipation of the wedding night ahead of him. But, hanging over everything was the grey, tremulous sadness of remembrance. It is always a painful, heart-tugging sort of business breaking up a home. And 17 Tetsbury Road was the only real home he had ever had. Before he and Emily had moved there, they had lived with her mother at Stoke Newington. And though it had been placid, comfortable, undifficult, he had never known exactly that real Englishman-in-his-castle kind of feeling.
And now he was planning the deliberate destruction of this great part of him. To say that he had loved Tetsbury Road would have been pitching things too high. But, until he had met Hetty, he had never imagined anything else. Tetsbury Road and Mr. Bloot had seemed practically indissociable.
“Bring round any little things you like, silly,” Hetty had said to him. “We’ll find a place for them.”
But what little things? He was, for instance, almost inordinately fond of a bow-fronted mahogany sideboard with a bevel edged
, oval mirror at the back. In the old days Emily had kept it polished like bronze. And with the Jubilee biscuit barrel, the cut-glass cruet stand and brightly-painted cheese cover with the design of roses on the top, he had sometimes passed his hand sensuously along the woodwork simply because he liked the sheer security of good living that the piece represented.
Only it wasn’t, by any means, a little thing. And Hetty had her own sideboard. A small almost boudoirish affair in light fumed oak with chromium handles.
And it was the same with his dining-room table. It was undeniably large. Large even for the spaciousness of Tetsbury Road. But good. Good and strong. And solid. But, again, Hetty had her own table. Fumed oak like the sideboard. And built refectory-style with one of those magic sections that jump up in the middle when you pull at the two ends.
Nor was she in any need of a bedroom suite. Again, she already had a suite in bright, palpitating satinwood with glass knobs on all the drawers, and a low dressing-table stool that looked as if it had been designed for child pianists. And though Mr. Bloot’s suite was more comprehensive—it included a marble-topped washstand complete with jug, basin, soap-dish and tooth-brush stand—it would clearly be impossible to crush it into the bedroom in Artillery Mansions.
In short, as Mr. Bloot went round his little home, he realized sadly that it would all have to go. All of it. By the time he had moved in with Hetty he would simply have submerged his life in hers.
In the end he decided to make an exception of three things. A small bamboo table which he always kept alongside his bed at night. A practically new ironing-board that he used when pressing his trousers. And a glass-fronted corner cupboard that he refused to believe couldn’t be wedged in somewhere. Apart from that, nothing. Nothing at all preservable from the possessions of a lifetime. If Hetty had rescued him from the very gutter itself he could hardly have seemed more destitute.
Except, of course, for his budgerigars. Even if the rest of his furniture was a bit on the old-fashioned side there was nothing to be ashamed of about them. No matter how you looked at it, champion budgerigars in specially sprung, pavilion-shaped cages really were something worth acquiring.
And all the things that went with budgerigars—the millet seed, the grit, the vegetable salts, the cuttlefish bone, the sack of refined sand, the tin water-jug—could easily, he told himself, be stored away somewhere in the kitchen quarters, leaving the birds themselves, free and unencumbered for their social life.
Because the Gurneys were being so horrid to him, it was with a feeling of glorious relief when Sunday morning came round again, and Mr. Bloot went round to Hetty’s.
Indeed, as he shut the iron gate of the front garden behind him with its familiar, insistent screech, he felt better. By the time he had reached the Tufnell Park Road he was whistling.
And Hetty, as it turned out, was in the same mood of jubilation herself. Even though it was only eleven-thirty in the morning, she was already dressed and her face all made up. She suggested a cocktail as soon as he got there.
Mr. Bloot accepted it. He had grown used to cocktails. And then, because Hetty kept pressing, he lit a cigarette as well. Sitting there, glass in hand, watching the swirl of blue smoke coil upwards he felt like a big recklessly wicked Latin kind of lover.
“I like a man to smoke,” Hetty told him. “Seems more manly somehow. And after all it’s only natural. Everyone smokes cigarettes ...”
She came over and refilled his glass. And from sheer coyness she rubbed the cold frosted side of the shaker across the back of his hand as she did so.
“Not that you need to,” she went on. “Not really. You’re all right as you are. It’s just that it’s more friendly.”
“Ah love you,” Mr. Bloot told her, somewhat mechanically. “Ah will ’ave ’er noccasional smoke if you’d rather.”
It was after all the very least that he could say after Hetty had been so nice to him. And if she was happy he wanted to keep her happy. He would have agreed to smoke cigars if necessary.
“Ah’ve found out where to go,” he told her. “And they take three weeks. Ah couldn’t actually do anything yesterday because they’d shut. But Ah’ll go in on Monday. Ah’ve explained the position at Rammell’s. It’ll be all raht.”
“What will?”
“The registry yoffice. It’s in the Town ’all, Finsbury Park. Just round the corner. It’s er nomen. Er nappy omen.”
But Hetty only laughed.
“Don’t bother about it,” she said. “I’ve seen to it.”
“Seen to it,” Mr. Bloot repeated incredulously.
Hetty nodded.
“Done it all myself,” she told him. “And fixed the time. On the 26th, at 9.30. We’re the first that day.”
At the thought of such devotion Mr. Bloot’s eyes filled with tears. He was deeply, uncontrollably moved. But his sense of the proprieties remained.
“You shouldn’t of,” he told her firmly. “It’s not raht. It’s the man’s prerogative.”
“Don’t give it a thought,” Hetty told him. “After all, it was nearer for me, wasn’t it?”
Mr. Bloot reached out his hand and began fondling her wrist, thrusting in his fingers between the thick slave bangles that she was wearing.
“Yur’re such a dear,” he answered. “Saving me all that trouble. But it’s still wrong. All wrong. It makes me despahs mahself.”
He paused for a moment, his wide, pink face clouded with apprehension.
“But ’ow did you know the facts?” he went on. “About me and Emily, I mean. Things like ’er second name. And the date. And which church it was. They need all that, you know.”
“I asked Mrs. Privett,” Hetty replied. “That night when we went round there.”
She had removed his glass from his hand while she was talking, and now sat herself heavily upon his knee. He gave a sharp, involuntary gasp as her weight came bearing down upon him. But he still had enough breath left to kiss her. It was a real, full-blooded, rousing kiss. And he felt quite exhausted at the end of it.
“Now let’s talk about the honeymoon,” Hetty suggested. “I still think Bournemouth. It’s more select. And it’s warmer. Not that I mind so long as it’s just us.”
Because of the little additional squeeze that she gave him as she said it, Mr. Bloot could not reply immediately.
“Bournemouth it is,” he said breathlessly. “You’ve done the lahcence. Ah’ll look after the ’otel.”
“Make it a front room,” Hetty said softly. “So that we can lie there listening to the sea.”
“Leave it all to me,” Mr. Bloot told her. “We’ll ’ave the best.”
He paused, as his strong sense of the practical regained possession of him.
“After all,” he added, “it’s only for three days. And it’s not the season. If Ah knows anything abaht ’otels they’ll probably be very glad to ’ave us.”
They sat there in silence for a time, Hetty gently squeezing his ear and Mr. Bloot allowing his hand to stray upwards until it was toying with the thick coil of her hair.
“Ah’ve made up mah mind what Ah’ll bring round ’ere,” he said at last. “It’s nothing really. Just two useful bits, and one ornamental.”
Hetty gave him a little kiss on the top of his head.
“Whatever you say,” she told him dreamily.
“And then there’s mah budgies,” he went on.
“Your what?”
“Mah budgies.”
“You’re teasing.”
“If you’d ever been round to mah place you’d ’ave seen ’em,” he said. “Flying abaht, too. Not just in cages.”
He broke off for a moment as though wondering whether to disclose a secret.
“Ah’m teaching Joey to say your name,” he confided.
Hetty, however, did not seem reassured. He could feel a little shudder run right through her. Then she got up.
“Birds,” she said. “I can’t abide them. Give me the shivers. Even sparrows.”
&
nbsp; Mr. Bloot shook his head.
“But not budgies,” he said. “They’re more like little ’umans. They can think.”
Hetty did not reply immediately. It was obvious that she was still battling with her feelings.
“Horrible smelly things,” she said at last.
Mr. Bloot himself had got up by now and was on his way over to her.
“Budgies aren’t smelly,” he blurted out.
But before he could reach her, she had turned round.
“Well, smelly or not, they’re not coming here,” she said. “And that’s flat. What sort of place d’you think this is anyway? A menagerie?”
Chapter Twenty-six
1
Considering what the consequences might have been, the Staff Hostel incident passed off very quietly.
Mrs. Privett had gone along at breakfast time as she had promised. And that was all that Mr. Privett knew. What had actually taken place when she got there was a secret between the two of them. And had remained a secret.
Mr. Privett had peeped in at Children’s on his way back down from coffee. And he had seen Irene. There she was, standing underneath a sign marked Zipperwear. She certainly appeared to be all right. Showed no signs of the drama of the night before. But he couldn’t be certain from that distance. And, above all, he didn’t want her to know that he had been spying. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to wait until he could see Mrs. Privett when he got home. Not that this helped him very much either.
“We’re not going to talk about it,” Mrs. Privett told him. “Irene knows she’s been silly. And it’s not going to happen again. We’re just neither of us ever going to refer to it.”
Even so, Mr. Privett couldn’t help worrying. He knew how Irene must be feeling. And he tried to be extra nice to her to make up for it.
That was why he was so glad when the Staff Association Ball came round again. Not much of a dancing man himself, he knew nevertheless that it would be something that would take Mrs. Privett and Irene right out of themselves. Because, even including the Summer Outing and the Dramatic Society’s Annual Performance, the Staff Association Ball was easily the biggest thing in the whole Rammell year. Attendance was practically compulsory. Everyone from Sir Harry downwards was there. And not to have turned up would have been the cause of a lot of raised eyebrows next morning. Might have stood in the way of promotion, in fact.
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