Rusty Goes to London

by Ruskin Bond

  But the following year I was making more money and living in a bigger, brighter, homelier room. I had almost forgotten about George—my friend from the hospital—until I found him on my doorstep one day. I always wondered how he had tracked me down to my new address, but I never got around to asking him about it. That day, the two of us went to a nearby pub and drank rum. He invited me to a calypso party in Camden Town, and when I arrived I found I was the only ‘white’ in a gathering of some forty handsome black men and women, all determined to eat, drink and be merry into the early hours of the morning. I fell asleep on a settee halfway through the party. Someone fell asleep on top of me.

  I met George occasionally.

  George worked for British Railways. He was a ticket collector at one of the underground stations. He liked his work, and received about ten pounds a week for collecting tickets.

  Like thousands of other West Indians, he had come to England because he had been told that jobs were plentiful, that there was a free health scheme and national insurance, and that he could earn anything from ten to twenty pounds a week—far more than he could make in Trinidad or Jamaica. But, while it was true that jobs were to be had in England, it was also true that sections of local labour resented outsiders filling these posts. There were also those, belonging chiefly to the lower middle classes, who were prone to various prejudices, and though these people were a minority, they were still capable of making themselves felt and heard.

  In any case, London is a lonely place, especially for the stranger. And for the happy-go-lucky West Indian, accustomed to sunshine, colour and music, London must be quite baffling.

  As though to match the grey-green fogs of winter, Londoners wore sombre colours, greys and browns. The West Indians couldn’t understand this. Surely, they reasoned, during a grey season the colours worn should be vivid reds and greens—colours that would defy the curling fog and uncomfortable rain? But Londoners frowned on these gay splashes of colour; to them it all seemed an expression of some sort of barbarism. And then again Londoners had a horror of any sort of loud noise, and a blaring radio could (quite justifiably) bring in scores of protests from neighbouring houses. The West Indians, on the other hand, liked letting off steam; they liked holding parties in their rooms at which there was much singing and shouting. They had always believed that England was their mother country, and so, despite rain, fog, sleet and snow, they were determined to live as they had lived back home in Trinidad. And it is to their credit, and even to the credit of indigenous Londoners, that this is what they succeeded in doing.

  A large, stout man, with huge hands and feet, George always had a gentle, kindly expression on his mobile face. Amongst other accomplishments he could play the piano, and as there was an old, rather dilapidated piano in my room, he would often come over in the evenings to run his fat, heavy fingers over the keys, playing tunes that ranged from hymns to jazz pieces. I thought he would be a nice person to spend Christmas with, so I asked him to come and share the pudding my landlady had made, and a bottle of sherry I had procured.

  Little did I realize that an invitation to George would be interpreted as an invitation to all of George’s friends and relations—in fact, anyone who had known him in Trinidad—but this was the way he looked at it, and at eight o’clock on Christmas Eve, while a chilly wind blew dead leaves down from Hampstead Heath, I saw a veritable army of West Indians marching down Belsize Avenue, with George in the lead.

  Bewildered, I opened my door to them; and in streamed George, George’s cousins, George’s nephews and George’s friends. They were all smiling and they all shook hands with me, making complimentary remarks about my room (‘Man, that’s some piano!’ ‘Hey, look at that crazy picture!’ ‘This rocking chair gives me fever!’) and took no time at all to feel and make themselves at home. Everyone had brought something along for the party. George had brought several bottles of beer. Eric, a flashy, coffee-coloured youth, had brought cigarettes and more beer. Marian, a buxom woman of thirty-five, who called me ‘darling’ as soon as we met, and kissed me on the cheeks saying she adored pink cheeks, had brought bacon and eggs. Her daughter Lucy, who was sixteen and in the full bloom of youth, had brought a gramophone, while the little nephews carried the records. Other friends and familiars had also brought beer; and one enterprising fellow produced a bottle of Jamaican rum.

  Then everything began to happen at once.

  Lucy put a record on the gramophone, and the strains of Basin Street Blues filled the room. At the same time George sat down at the piano to hammer out an accompaniment to the record. His huge hands crushed down on the keys as though he were chopping up chunks of meat. Marian had lit the gas fire and was busy frying bacon and eggs. Eric was opening beer bottles. In the midst of the noise and confusion I heard a knock on the door—a very timid, hesitant sort of knock—and opening it, found my landlady standing on the threshold.

  ‘Oh, Mr Bond, the neighbours—’ she began, and glancing into the room was rendered speechless.

  ‘It’s only tonight,’ I said. ‘They’ll all go home after an hour. Remember, it’s Christmas!’

  She nodded mutely and hurried away down the corridor, pursued by something called Be Bop A-Lula. I closed the door and drew all the curtains in an effort to stifle the noise; but everyone was stamping about on the floorboards, and I hoped fervently that the downstairs people had gone to the theatre. George had started playing calypso music, and Eric and Lucy were strutting and stomping in the middle of the room, while the two nephews were improvising on their own. Before I knew what was happening, Marian had taken me in her strong arms and was teaching me to do the calypso. The song playing, I think, was Banana Boat Song.

  Instead of the party lasting an hour, it lasted three hours. We ate innumerable fried eggs and finished off all the beer. I took turns dancing with Marian, Lucy, and the nephews. There was a peculiar expression they used when excited. ‘Fire!’ they shouted. I never knew what was supposed to be on fire, or what the exclamation implied, but I too shouted ‘Fire!’ and somehow it seemed a very sensible thing to shout.

  Perhaps their hearts were on fire, I don’t know; but for all their excitability and flashiness and brashness they were lovable and sincere friends, and today, when I look back on my two years in London, that Christmas party is the brightest, most vivid memory of all, and the faces of George and Marian, Lucy and Eric, are the faces I remember best.

  At midnight someone turned out the light. I was dancing with Lucy at the time, and in the dark she threw her arms around me and kissed me full on the lips. It was the first time I had been kissed by a girl in London, and when I think about it, I am glad that it was Lucy who kissed me.

  When they left, they went in a bunch, just as they had come. I stood at the gate and watched them saunter down the dark, empty street. The buses and tubes had stopped running at midnight, and George and his friends would have to walk all the way back to their rooms at Highgate and Golders Green.

  After they had gone, the street was suddenly empty and silent, and my own footsteps were the only sounds I could hear. The cold came clutching at me, and I turned up my collar. I looked up at the windows of my house, and at the windows of all the other houses in the street. They were all in darkness. It seemed to me that we were the only ones who had really celebrated Christmas.

  The Stolen Daffodils

  IT WAS A foggy day in March that found me idling along Baker Street, with my hands in my pockets, a scarf wound round my neck, and two pairs of socks on my feet. I had taken the day off from work. The BBC had commissioned me to give a talk on village life in India, and, ambling along Baker Street in the fog, thinking of my talk, I realized I didn’t really know much about village life in India. True, I could remember the smell of cowdung smoke and the scent of jasmine, and the floodwaters lapping at the walls of mud houses, but I didn’t know much about village electorates and that sort of thing, and I was on the point of turning back and making my way to India House to get a few facts and figur
es, when I realized I wasn’t on Baker Street any more. Wrapped in thought, I had wandered into Regent’s Park. And now I wasn’t sure of the way out.

  A tall gentleman wearing a long grey cloak was stooping over a flower bed, and going up to him, I said, ‘Excuse me, sir, can you tell me how I get out of here?’

  ‘How did you get in?’ he asked me in an impatient voice, and when he turned and faced me, I received a severe shock. He wore a peaked hunting cap, and in one hand he held a large magnifying glass. A long, curved pipe hung from his sensuous mouth. He possessed a long steely jaw, and his eyes had a fierce expression— they were bright with the intoxication of some drug.

  ‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re Mr Sherlock Holmes!’

  ‘And you, sir,’ he replied with a flourish of his cloak, ‘are just out of India, on leave from office, and due to give a lecture on the radio.’

  ‘But—but how did you know all that?’ I stammered. ‘You’ve never seen me before. I suppose you know my name too?’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Bond. The BBC notepaper in your hand, on which you have been scribbling, reveals your intention to give a talk. Your name is on the envelope which you hold upside down behind it. It is ten o’clock in the morning, and if you were not either on leave or unemployed you would be sitting in an office. The condition of your clothes would indicate that you are not in want of employment; therefore you must have taken the day off.’

  ‘And how do you know I’m from India?’ I said, a trifle resentfully.

  ‘Your accent betrays you,’ said Holmes with a superior smile.

  I was about to turn away and leave him, when he laid a restraining hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Stay a moment,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can help me. I’m surprised at Watson. He promised to be here ten minutes ago, but his wife must have kept him at home. Never marry, Bond. Women sap the intellect.’

  ‘In what way can I help you?’ I asked, feeling flattered now that the great man had condescended to take me into his confidence.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ said Holmes, going down on his knee near the flower bed. ‘Do you notice anything odd?’

  ‘Somebody’s been pulling out daffodils,’ I said.

  ‘Excellent, Bond! Your powers of observation are as good as Watson’s. Now tell me, what else do you see?’

  ‘The ground is a little trampled, that’s all.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘A human foot. And—yes, a dog has been here too, it’s been helping to dig up the bulbs!’

  ‘You astonish me, Bond. You are quicker than I thought you were. Now shall I explain what all this is about? You see, for the past week, someone has been stealing daffodils from the park, and the authorities have asked me to deal with the matter. I think we shall catch our culprit this afternoon.’

  I was rather disappointed. ‘It isn’t very dangerous, is it?’

  ‘Ah, my dear Bond, the days are past when Ruritanian princes lost their diamonds, and duchesses their tiaras. There are no longer any Ruritanian princes in existence, and duchesses cannot afford tiaras. The more successful criminals have legalized their activities, and the East End has been cleaned up. And those cretins at Scotland Yard don’t even believe in my existence!’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘But who do you think is stealing the daffodils?’

  ‘Obviously it is someone who owns a dog. Someone who takes a dog out regularly for a morning walk. That points to a woman. A woman in London is likely to keep a small dog—and judging from the animal’s footprints, it must be either a Pekinese or a miniature Pomeranian. What I suggest, Bond, is that we conceal ourselves behind those bushes, and wait for the culprit to come along. She is sure to come again this morning. She has been stealing daffodils for the past week. And stealing daffodils, like smoking opium, becomes a habit.’

  Holmes and I crept behind bushes, and settled down to a long wait. After half an hour our patience was rewarded. A large elderly woman in a green hat came walking stealthily across the grass, followed by a small white Pom on a lead. Holmes had been right! More than ever, I admired his brilliance. We waited until the woman began pulling daffodil plants out of the soil, and then Holmes leapt from the bushes.

  ‘Ah, we have you, madam!’ he cried, springing upon her so swiftly that she shrieked and dropped the daffodils. I sprang out after Holmes, but my effort was rewarded by a nip in the leg from the outraged Pomeranian.

  Holmes held the woman by the shoulders. I don’t know what frightened her more—being caught, or being confronted by that grim-visaged countenance, with its pipe, cloak and hunting cap.

  ‘Now, madam,’ he said firmly, ‘why were you stealing daffodils?’

  She had begun to weep, and I thought Holmes was going to soften; he always did, when confronted by weeping women.

  ‘I would be obliged, Bond, if you would call the park attendant,’ he said to me.

  I hurried off towards a greenhouse, and after a brief search found a gardener.

  ‘Stealing daffodils, is she?’ he said, running up at the double, a dangerous-looking rake in one hand.

  But when we got to the daffodil bed, I couldn’t find the lady anywhere. Nor was Holmes to be seen. I was overcome by doubt and embarrassment. But then I looked at the ground, and saw a number of daffodils scattered about the place.

  ‘Holmes must have taken her to the police,’ I said.

  ‘Holmes,’ said the gardener. ‘Who’s Holmes?’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes, of course. The celebrated detective. Haven’t you heard of him?’

  The gardener looked at me with increasing alarm. ‘Sherlock Holmes, eh? And you’ll be Dr Watson, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ I said; but before I could explain, the gardener had disappeared.

  I found my way out of the Park eventually, feeling that Holmes had let me down a little; then, just as I was crossing Baker Street, I thought I saw him on the opposite curb. He was alone, looking up at a lighted room, and his arm was raised as though he was waving to someone. I thought I heard him shout ‘Watson!’ But I was not sure. I started to cross the road, but a big red bus came out of the fog in front of me, and I had to wait for it to pass. When the road was clear, I dashed across. But by that time Holmes had gone, and the rooms above were dark.

  My Limehouse Adventure

  SO THIS WAS Limehouse: quiet, empty backstreets, with the river lapping against the walls of old houses. A brewery. A few warehouses. A boy speeding along the pavement on roller skates. But was this the real Limehouse? There were no drunken sailors in the streets. There were no Chinese laundry houses. Shouldn’t a Lascar come stumbling out of a dark doorway with a knife in his back? Wasn’t it somewhere on this very street that Watson found Holmes in an opium den run by a heavily-scarred Malay, while above stairs someone screamed and outside there was a splash in the river? Where were Edgar Wallace’s sinister Chinese, and where were the characters of W. W. Jacobs?

  Limehouse on a Sunday. Neither Chelsea nor Hampstead could have been more tranquil. Of course the pubs would close soon, and then perhaps the West Indian sailors, now sitting quietly in front of the bar, might suddenly come to life and perform calypsos in the street.

  I was feeling hungry, since I had walked almost the entire length of Commercial Road, starting from Petticoat Lane where I had found myself handing over five shillings to a street photographer for taking my picture unasked. (An hour later, when I looked at the photograph, it had faded completely.) On Ming Street—a name reminiscent of more exotic times—I was delighted to find several small restaurants with Chinese names. Most of them were empty. At one time you could count the Chinese in Limehouse by the thousands, but now there weren’t more than two or three hundred in the area.

  I pushed my way through the swing doors of the Nanking Restaurant and looked around. The place was empty. Tables and chairs were painted a bright green, and decorating the walls were coloured pictures of George V, George VI and Elizabeth II. I had never seen s
uch a patriotic display anywhere other than in the East End.

  There was nobody in the restaurant, not even a waiter, so I sat down and rattled a salt cellar in order to attract attention. But, as no one came, I began to wonder if the owner of the place couldn’t afford a waiter and did the serving himself, but even he was nowhere to be seen. The room was as quiet as an empty chapel.

  I coughed. The sound startled me. I tried whistling, but it sounded eerie rather than cheerful. I noticed a jug of water standing on a side board, and feeling thirsty, got up and made for it. As I couldn’t find a glass, I drank the water straight from the jug. I was putting it down when an inner door burst open and an excited Chinese rushed out. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he went through the swing doors and stood uncertainly on the pavement, looking in all directions, before coming in again with an anxious distracted expression. Without a word, he returned to the inner room.

  Here was a mystery! Limehouse was living up to its reputation. Perplexed but undaunted, I returned to my table, determined to remain in the restaurant until someone took notice of me. The sign board outside proclaimed that the place was a restaurant; and as the doors were open, I had every right to sit at a table, and wait to be served—or possibly murdered.

  Presently I heard a curtain rustle. It was a girl who came out—a little Chinese girl of about eleven, with her hair in a pigtail and green woollen leggings on her feet. Like the man, she paid no attention to me, but began bouncing a rubber ball on the floor. It bounced too high and came towards me, so I caught it and placed it on the table.

  ‘Pass the ball,’ said the girl from the middle of the room.

  ‘Come and get it,’ I said. ‘And can I get anything to eat here?’

  ‘If you like. Pass the ball.’

  ‘Was that your father who came out just now?’

  ‘Yes. Aren’t you going to pass the ball?’

  ‘Tell me, does he serve his customers, or do they just go into the kitchen and help themselves?’