‘Thank you, Lou. I can do my own investigation.’ To Otis he said with an absolutely straight face, ‘Inspector George Moth of New Scotland Yard, miss. I’d just like to ask you one or two questions.’ In a tone too low for Lou to hear above the clatter of her baking pans, he said as he sat down in the chair facing her, ‘The first being: Do my eyes deceive me?’
‘Of course not. This is where I live and work.’
‘Well I’m damned! I beg your pardon, but when Esther said that you had gone to teach in a school and were living away from home, I imagined that you must be with one of those establishments like the one our Kitt will be attending soon – all shiny little boots and sailor suits in a pretty house with a green in front.’ He looked around the tiny room with its folding card tables, folding camping chairs and flaring gas lamp.
‘How is Kitt?’
‘Kitt? Oh he’s fine. I miss him of course, but he’s much better off in the country.’
‘Kitt in the country?’
‘With Esther. Didn’t you know that she has gone to live at Mere – the place Jack inherited from his uncle?’
‘Yes I did, but not about Kitt. The last time I received any news from her was to tell me about her expected child.’
‘I understood that she had written to you recently.’
‘Most of my letters go home, and I haven’t been back for a few weeks. I really must make the effort to go there.’
Pushing back his chair he said in a louder voice, ‘Well thank you, miss. I’ll let you finish your tea.’ And lower, ‘If I waited just along by the archway, would you walk with me for a few minutes? I should like to talk with you but don’t want to queer your pitch with Lou. Rozzers are not favourites in this area.’
It did not take her very long to say, ‘Very well. In say fifteen minutes?’
George Moth left, and Otis went back upstairs where she took off the everyday skirt and blouse in which she had been working, washed her face and hands and changed into a plain two-piece costume and a coat. Then she let herself out by the side door. Before she put the key into her pocket, she looked at it, smiled and squeezed it with pleasure. Independence!
She arrived at the archway and found no one. As she hesitated about what to do, an arm was slipped through hers and the bulky figure of George Moth was suddenly at her side.
‘I thought that it was only Sherlock Holmes who could melt into his surroundings.’
‘You are as easy to confuse as Dr Watson.’
‘Are you on duty?’ she asked.
He looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I am, but in my line of work there are no fixed hours. I am following a certain line of questioning on my own. It is the way that I often work.’
‘Why did you ask me to come out?’
He looked down at her. ‘I don’t really know, except that I was surprised to find that you were Lou Barker’s tenant and Lou doesn’t know that you know me, and habit makes me keep that bit of information to myself.’
‘Why shouldn’t Lou know?’
‘No reason… it wouldn’t matter, but I assumed from your disguise that you too are hoping to dissolve into the background.’
‘It is not a disguise, but I don’t want the children I teach or their parents to be put off because they think that I’m different from them.’
‘Otis… you are different from them. You cannot be otherwise with parents like yours, education like yours, background like yours.’
‘I am surprised to hear you say that.’
‘Why should you be?’
‘Because you married a lady who…’
‘Ah. You think that she dissolved into the background of the class she married into. She thought so too.’
‘It seemed to me that she did from what I saw of her. She was not at all superior and snobbish as people of old families are. At least, the ones I have met have been.’
He guided her through alleyways and down lanes that were new to her until they came to an open space with some grass and trees and a few wooden seats.
‘Will you sit for a few minutes? It isn’t closing time in the parks for an hour yet.’
They sat.
‘Anne was a Clermont when I met her, she was a Clermont when she died. Part of why I loved her was that difference from me and mine, and I believe that it was the same for her. Neither of us changed. We could not, and neither can you.’
Otis gave him a non-committal shrug of her shoulders.
‘You recognized my Aguila de Oro cigars, you must have noticed the portraits on the walls of Windsor Villa… and the Sèvres plates, the Florence glasswear? My wife had a romantic notion that she rejected the Clermont values for the sake of love. What happened was that she brought those ways with her into our home. Of course, she could do no other. She had always taken her tea from fine china cups, so she thought nothing of it, and when she bought me a present of cigars, then of course they were the brand that her father had smoked.’ He turned to look at her and laughed. ‘And I am a weak enough vessel not to resist.’
‘I hope that you aren’t implying that you think I shall fail in my attempt to take on a similar identity to that of the people I live among? I shall not.’
He stretched out his long, solid legs and rested his arms along the back of the seat in an attitude of relaxation. Although he was not touching her, she felt the warmth of his body, remembered how it had felt to be enveloped by it, and stiffened her back away from chance of contact.
‘Have you ever gone hungry?’ he asked.
‘I could manage if that were ever my misfortune.’
‘Supposing that you were penniless and had a starving child, or you were married to a man who gave you no money but who would beat you if there was nothing on the table… could you creep down in the night and steal a pie from Lou?’
‘I think that you make the same mistake of many of our class in thinking that poverty equals dishonesty.’
‘Did I suggest that? I merely asked whether you could do it.’
‘The answer is “no” then, because I know how long and hard Lou works. In the circumstances you suggest, I would probably beg or borrow something.’
‘Lou would do it.’
‘Steal?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘That is because you have never had a starving child or been beaten by your man.’
‘And to become initiated into this class I must have such experiences?’
‘You will never become one of them, Otis.’
‘If I do not, then I shall never become the teacher that I want to be.’
His fingers tentatively touched her upper arm. ‘Teaching is too arid an occupation for such an exotic creature as you are. You should always be dressed in strange pink colours and long drop ear-rings as you were at Esther’s wedding. You do not suit plain grey flannel and rooms above pie shops.’
Her breath halted and her thighs contracted.
At that moment she felt a desire – to experience every muscle of his torso, every sinew of his legs, every hair on his body. The image of her virginal counterpane as she had left it teased her. I have only to offer to make tea for him and I could have the experience. The experience. The one we all talked about at Stockwell but few of us had.
If only he were Jack, I would do it.
She leapt to her feet. ‘I am sorry that you do not like my suit, Inspector Moth, I was rather pleased with it. I really must get back, I have so much to do.’
‘Don’t be so touchy, Otis.’
‘I am not at all touchy. But I do have work to prepare.’
‘I will walk with you then.’
‘There is no need.’ She held out her hand. ‘I enjoyed our walk. I am sorry that I have been no help in your investigations.’
‘There is no need. My enquiries are into a crime that…’
‘Other women in this area do not get police protection – I do not wish any privilege.’
‘Nevertheless, I shall walk with yo
u. The women in this area do walk out with men you know. So stop being prickly and walk nicely.’
Otis did not carry the protest any further, but walked with a formal space between them. When they reached the dim archway, he halted and held her elbow. ‘I very much want to kiss you, Otis, but I should not take any such advantage of you as I did before.’
‘I am sorry, that was a mistake, I was carried away. I had some notion of wanting to comfort you.’
‘Otis! I am an old hand at tweaking out the truth, and I have experience of women. You responded to me as though you wanted nothing more than to be taken.’
‘To be taken? Oh no.’
‘Very well, if you say so. Then let me kiss you now?’
‘I… No. What would you say if it were my father asking Esther for a kiss?’
‘I should say that it was so entirely unsuitable as to be wrong. But you, Otis, are a creature with no age, you are Botticelli’s Venus, and have stepped into the world as a fully-formed woman. And in your presence a man is not aware of being a grandfather or a schoolboy, he is both youth and maturity.’
Not for the first time, Otis Hewetson understood why it was that Anne Moth had been so taken by this enigma. She did not know how to respond to so romantic a speech from a man who aroused her physically when in reality she wanted his son.
‘I forgot to ask… how is Jack?’
Presumably accepting her rejection of him, he walked on with her towards Lou Barker’s shop. ‘Jack? Well, I believe that Jack is thinking of answering the call to arms. He has been given several white feathers.’
‘Oh poor Jack. That is a terrible practice.’
‘And poor England if young men like Jack do not volunteer.’
‘You surely cannot want him in the army?’
‘Of course I don’t, but the army is in dire need of healthy young men, which is what Jack is… he is needed. Like yourself, he has been infected by the desire to become anonymous. He says that when he joins he will go as a common foot-soldier.’
‘I believe that our common foot-soldiers are being wasted. I cannot bear to think of Jack being used so uselessly.’
Now they were back in streets that were familiar to Otis. She held out her hand once more. ‘This time I shall go on alone. Please give Jack my regards. I will go home tomorrow to collect my letters and then write to Esther.’
He shook her hand and bowed briefly. ‘Thank you for your company. My investigations in this district are by no means ended; we shall perhaps see one another again.’
As she walked away he said, ‘Otis.’ She paused but did not turn around. ‘How many of your schoolchildren have parents who have letters awaiting them in some large villa in Clapham? How many of them receive any letters at all?’ Still without turning she raised her hand and said, ‘Touché.’
1914
Dear Wally. The circumstances with the Miss O’Reillys have changed. They have gone ‘pro’ this war and are thick with Mrs Pankhurst’s Lot. They would like me with them, but you know that is impossible. The only employment I can find is hotel work. Miss Althea thinks that I should be a munitionette and was annoyed when I pointed out that it was the munitions that helped one lot of working men kill another lot of working men. They have not given me notice, but the atmosphere is not good.
You have asked me plenty of times and I think that I should like to ‘try my luck’ in London. I took the bull by the horns and will be on the train that gets into Waterloo at six o’clock tomorrow. I remembered it was your early turn so wondered if you could meet me and help me find digs. If not, don’t worry, I can find my own way about. Yours, Nancy
In some ways, although she had not agreed with them, Nancy understood her employers’ change of mind. Having been for so long in the vanguard of local campaigning, their arguments had become as familiar as their faces, so that people had stopped listening. Nancy too felt that, whilst she could always gather a loyal factory crowd around her, she was preaching to the converted: they liked to hear somebody protesting about the government, about working conditions, about ‘Them’. But soon after she had replaced Victoria as speaker at Hampstead, Nancy had felt the urge to get away.
Now she was away and living in Bethnal Green. Wally, who was a tram driver, had got her a job as a conductress.
He was, as Nancy often gave him credit for, a real decent sort of a bloke, and he knew everyone in the area worth knowing. Thus he had been able to find Nancy some comfortable lodgings in Bethnal Green, and thus a few weeks later he had known a seaman who had a nice little engagement ring at half shop price.
Nancy settled down in London as though born there. Wally wangled it so that she could do her training on his tram and Nancy had never expected to be so happy. Although he spent a lot of time on union work, Nancy did not mind. She had plenty to occupy her. She discovered also that because of his union activities he knew scores of people in the area and had dozens of friends.
‘I got just the job for you, Nance.’ And she would find herself helping with some fly-posting. Or, ‘The WSP is short of helpers. I said you wouldn’t mind helping out. You don’t, do you, Nance?’ Nor did she mind. If she had once thought of herself as a rebel in her home town, now, in the presence of anarchists and communists, she found her beliefs to be fairly commonplace. Soon, however, she found herself giving her time to a cause that gave her back the feeling that she was in the vanguard of radical ideas – she was drawn into a group which was dedicated to providing birth control knowledge to ordinary people.
—
War, for Major Blood, had started on the week following his honeymoon when he received orders to join a party taking horses to France. Surprised, never having had anything to do with horses except by way of leisure, he nevertheless travelled to Southampton where he discovered that not only was he to join a party, he was to take charge. With the bit of luck that every officer needs to get by, the sergeant was an old Sweat who had experienced worse than horses being in the charge of a bandsman.
Amazingly in all the confusion of an army on the move, reservists were eventually allocated to companies, horses laagered, and wagons hooked into transporters. The enforcement of censorship was surprisingly easy, for nobody knew anything except where they were at any given moment. Bindon spoke to Esther by telephone. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t say where I am, but listen.’ He held the instrument out of the window where it picked up the screams of seagulls and ships’ hooters. In the excitement of his preparations to embark, it had not occurred to him that his new bride might not be equally aroused. ‘You’re not weeping, Esther?’
‘Of course I am weeping, Bindon. What woman would not weep when she hears the sounds of an army leaving home.’
‘Oh, my dear.’ He was genuinely shocked. ‘You must not worry on my account. They’ve given me a company of horses to command.’
And she had giggled. ‘Horses?’ A little strained, but it was better than the tears.
The rumour was that their destination was Rouen, as part of the first British Expeditionary Force – it turned out to be true. The sheds where both horses and men were assembled were rank and hot and had scarcely cooled by evening when the last of the men left them to board the transporting vessel. As an officer, Bindon Blood had been allocated space in a minute cabin which was even more stifling than the sheds had been. He dumped his bags and went up on deck and sat with, but apart from, a group of NCOs who had apparently served together everywhere from South Africa to India. He knew no one. In his previous existence as a bachelor he would have taken out his pipe and listened to the stories of the NCOs, but as a husband just back from a honeymoon with the most exquisite bride in the world, he could have wept for himself.
Had it not been for some anarchist student taking a pot shot at some Archduke in some godforsaken Austrian town, then he and Esther might have lived an enchanted existence. He might even have resigned his commission. He would probably have been welcomed into any orchestra in London.
Suddenly, the grinding
and bumping at the quayside ceased, the air freshened, and they were at sea on their way to fight a war.
To fight a war!
Above all else, Bindon vowed, I shall go back to Esther whole.
The NCOs accepted a fill from the major’s tobacco pouch and they all sat through the next hours as the vessel ploughed its way towards the war zone. The first excitement was when a pilot boarded; then land was sighted, which Bindon was able to identify for the NCOs as Le Havre, then Quillebeuf, and slowly along the Seine to Rouen.
At Rouen, Bindon was able to transfer his command of horses into the hands of a cavalry officer who, for some reason, was aboard the same vessel as Bindon, but not in charge of horses. No one questioned the strange ways of the army; they were used to them.
His stay in Rouen was about a fortnight, during which time he was attached to a company of mixed Regulars and Reservists. The Reservists, poor devils, were despised by many of the time-serving men. Yet, as Bindon reasoned, they’re as much in France as the rest of us, and worse off than we are by not knowing the ropes and dodges.
And then they marched.
Full packs, rations, ammunition, entrenching tools, maps and handbooks.
And then they entrained for God only knew where.
Here and there a cup of coffee and a roll at a railway station – this being France there was not a sign nor scent of a fragrant cup of tea.
And then they marched again towards the land of flat fields and dykes.
The roads were clogged with marching men and convoys of lorries. At first the sight of townspeople and villagers cheering and waving tricolours lifted the spirits of the men, but after twenty such accolades it was necessary for NCOs to prod a bit of a return waving and cheering from the footsore soldiers.
It had taken twenty days of marching, sleeping in woods, sitting in peaceful, newly-cut cornfields, eating bully-beef and biscuits, brewing tea and waving. The closer they got to the Belgian border, the more dispirited and antagonistic-looking the peasants appeared. It was hot, extremely hot. The men were ordered to dig in. That order countermanded. Then the first order reinstated. There was, as with everything else, so it seemed, a shortage of picks and shovels, so that men sweated and swore as they attacked the rock-hard ground with their light entrenching tools. It was almost as light relief that they saw in the distance a German reconnaissance aircraft.
Goodbye Piccadilly Page 16