Her English was not as eccentrically voluble as her brother’s – she seemed to speak it with some difficulty. I insisted on tea, and bustled about with host-like charm which, to my mortification, made no impression on her whatever.
‘I come to speak to you of Johnny’s baby,’ she said.
‘Yes …?’
‘I tell him he must take it home to Africa.’
‘Oh!’
‘Here it will not be happy, or be well instructed.’
‘No … But Miss Fortune – or may I call you Peach?’ (this gambit misfired too, for she made no reply) ‘—in English law, the baby belongs to the mother. Unless, that is, the parents were married, and even then …’
‘It is an Africa child.’
‘Well, not entirely, is it?’
‘I have no money.’
‘No …?’ (Money again!)
‘My father, my mother, they have money, yes. But they will give some to my brother only for his boat fare home to Africa.’
‘Yes … so he’s told me. But I don’t see …’
‘If he have other money, then he can buy the baby from the woman.’
‘Peach! You just can’t do that here in England. Or rather … she might agree, but then there are regulations about adoption, and emigration, and so on and so forth … Hasn’t Johnny told you all this?’
‘He tell me many things, but I wish to hear you speaking.’
‘Well, I am! We could try, of course, but, honestly, I think it’s unlikely the mother would … and in any case, what about that money?’
She looked at me.
‘My dear Miss Fortune, I haven’t got a cent.’ (Didn’t believe me, obviously.) ‘If you explain everything to your parents, wouldn’t they give Johnny something extra to try it with?’
‘No … My mother, no. My father, yes, but he listen to my mother.’
‘Well, then, excuse me, Peach – but why do you want to get the child? Does Johnny want it?’
‘No.’
‘So you do.’
‘No. But it is my brother’s child, and will not be happy here, not well instructed.’
‘That’s very possible, I admit … Is Johnny going back to Africa, then?’
‘I tell him he should do this.’
‘And he agrees?’
‘Yes, when I speak to him.’
‘Oh. Well, Peach – what can I do? I don’t know … I could try to see Muriel, if you like … And perhaps I could try to get some money somehow if she agrees to listen, which I very much doubt …’ Suddenly I rebelled against this hypnotic girl. ‘Why don’t you talk to Muriel?’ I asked.
‘I do not wish to see this family. No.’
‘Don’t you? I can’t altogether blame you. Well, shall I have a word with Johnny and see what might be done?’ She’d already got up. ‘But I don’t think there’s much hope …’ She was near the door. ‘And how do you like the hospital – and nursing? How do you like it over here?’ I asked desperately.
‘Is good for me to learn these things in London.’
She went down the stairs. Faint sounds of a long confabulation in African drifted up them. The front door banged, and Johnny reappeared.
‘You know it’s impossible, what she wants?’ I said to him. ‘Didn’t you tell her, before you inflicted all this on me?’
‘My sister believes it would be possible.’
‘Does she, indeed! And you: you don’t really want young William in Lagos, do you, even if you could ever get him there?’
‘If I have him in Africa, yes, then I would want him.’
I just stared at him. ‘Johnny! Have you, and your sister, and your entire race, ever reflected that other people in the world want things besides yourselves?’
‘I go out now, Montgomery.’
‘You’d better!’
By force of habit, the only thing I could think of was to tell Theodora. I called up her village on the ’phone, and she didn’t seem much surprised as I unfolded my incoherent story. She even said, ‘If Muriel can be bought off, one might try to short-circuit the regulations and kidnap the child. An air passage would fix it – it’s been done before.’
‘But money, Theodora! Money, money, money, money, money!’
‘Exactly. Listen. I’ll come up to town tomorrow, and we’ll pay a call together on Muriel.’
‘Hadn’t you better leave the negotiations to me?’
‘When you tried that once before, Montgomery, you weren’t particularly successful. And after all, it’s my money that’s going to be wasted.’
As I hung up, I registered, there and then, a vow that never after this, so long as I lived, never, would I interfere in anyone else’s private affairs. Never! After which, I rang Mr Zuss-Amor to check on the legal aspects.
He was discouraging. ‘The babe is hers until it’s a major. Even if he married the woman it still would be – unless he could sue for divorce for some reason or other later on and get the custody – but is all that likely? Why does he want it, anyway?’
‘You tell me. Can anyone understand Africans?’
‘Well, it’s a lesson to the boy, and to us all,’ the solicitor said humorously. ‘It makes you realise you’ve got to be very careful where you put it.’
I was glad to see Theodora back in London. She refused to come over to the house, and met me (neither of us could think, in a hurry, of a better place) at the pub round the corner from the law courts of evil memory. I expected that Theodora, too, would have changed, but the surprise was that it seemed a change for the better: she was less angular and spiky, rather more relaxed, and at moments she seemed almost matronly. In the taxi she took my arm and said, ‘What’s the sister like, Montgomery?’
‘Like him. Less of a ruffian, though.’
‘Women aren’t ruffians.’
‘No? Well, less of the female equivalent. Very attractive indeed she’ll be in her nurse’s uniform – I wish I could see her in it; but then, a nurse’s uniform makes everyone look attractive.’
‘Even Florence Nightingale? You’re not going to propose to Peach, are you?’
‘I don’t think so, Theodora. What would be the use?’
‘And how’s he?’
‘Moody. Melancholy. But a lot happier now he’s decided to leave for home.’
‘You really think he will?’
‘Well, that’s the plan; but like all African plans …’
‘Don’t tell me. We must go out to Africa, too, one day, Montgomery, as tourists. See all the sights together.’
‘I bet as soon as we got there, we’d meet everyone we’ve known in all those disreputable clubs and places. We’d find Mr Karl Marx Bo prime minister, I expect.’
‘That would be too much. Is this the street?’
‘It is, but do let me go and spy out the land – I really think it would be best, Theodora.’
The flat was silent, and a neighbour told me the Macphersons had all left.
‘It’s Muriel I want.’
‘Oh, she’s gone off separate. I’ve got the address for forwarding – you’re not from the landlord, are you?’
‘No, no. A friend. Honest …’
Muriel’s new address was not far off. We walked up to the third floor, but there was nobody in there either.
‘No sounds of a baby wailing,’ I said. ‘Shall we wait here till she comes?’
‘I suppose we’d better.’
We sat on the stairs, talking. After two hours had gone, a young girl appeared with a baby. We introduced ourselves.
‘I’m from the crèche,’ she said. ‘Isn’t Mrs Macpherson back?’
‘Not yet,’ said Theodora. ‘Shall I look after it for you till she comes?’
‘Well, if you don’t drop it …’ she said after some persuasion, and handed the infant over to Theodora.
We looked together at William Macpherson Fortune. ‘My God,’ said Theodora. ‘They say babies aren’t like their parents. Just look at him!’
‘I’m ve
ry nervous, Theodora. I don’t think Muriel will approve at all.’
When she came, though, she almost seemed to have expected us, and asked us straight in to the single room. ‘Do you mind if I feed William?’ she said. ‘Then I’ll get you a cup of tea.’
Was there a faint triumph in her gesture, as there was certainly more than faint envy in Theodora? ‘Is he good?’ she asked the mother.
‘He is now, but he won’t be for long if he grows up like his father.’
She put the baby in its cot, and got us tea. ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me something about Johnny,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
By one of those accidents of nature, entirely unforeseeable (especially by a man, in the case of women), Theodora and Muriel, who’d only met so briefly and so long ago, seemed to take to each other, to be suddenly on familiar terms. Without too much beating about the bush, Theodora came to the point – or points, because there were quite a lot of them.
Muriel didn’t seem surprised, or hurt, by the proposition Theodora unfolded to her.
‘I know I behaved bad to Johnny,’ she said. ‘I know I should have spoken up for him in court. I should have, I dare say, but I just couldn’t do it – I just couldn’t. I was mad about him and Dorothy, and his doing nothing for me – nothing, can you believe it? – all the time.’
‘Yes, I can understand.’
‘And you spoke up for him instead.’
‘Yes.’
Muriel looked at Theodora rather sharply, with a sudden hostile glint. Then said, ‘Well, I don’t blame you, if you loved him – he’s a very lovable boy, isn’t he, in his way. But me, I just can’t make him out … He’s never loved me, that’s certain. He’s never loved any of us, from what I can see …’
‘No, I don’t think he has.’
‘And now he wants William: to get rid of me, and take William. Well, that’s asking a bit much, isn’t it? Just tell him to forget about it, will you? And that I’ll send him some snaps from time to time if he’ll give me his address …’
‘Quite apart from what he’s asked us to tell you,’ said Theodora, ‘could I help out financially at all? I’d be very glad to.’
Muriel reflected. ‘No, it’s all right, thanks. I’ve got me job and all the allowances, and they look after William at the crèche … Later on, when he grows up a bit, you could do something for him, if you felt like it.’
‘Perhaps you’d let me be his godparent, Muriel.’
‘And me,’ I said, vexed that I hadn’t thought of this.
‘Oh, I don’t believe in that … But if you like to help William, as I say, or send him something for his birthday …’
We both wrote the date down carefully. Muriel saw us to the door.
‘You can’t hate them, can you,’ she said, ‘whatever they do to you. Me, I loved Johnny, I really did, like I never will anybody else, I don’t suppose. And he was sweet to me in his way, and I had good times with him. But I never meant much to him, that was the trouble. I don’t believe they understand love like we do, but that’s their nature …’
4
Back home aboard the Lugard
It was when Laddy Boy returned from sea that he tell me of this tugboat, called the Lugard, to be sailed empty from London Docks to Lagos, and that a deck-hand crew of five was needed to take her there. And when Laddy Boy did me the great favour to give me a forged seaman’s book he buy, and tell me answers I must give to any questions, I made such a good impression on the captain by my strength and willingness (he was high, anyway – an Irishman) that he sign me on, and even though I cannot yet believe it, I am to go back home from England.
So on our sailing day, I met with my English friend Montgomery and my sister Peach at a dockside Chinese restaurant where they come to say goodbye to me. ‘That is like the life,’ I said to Montgomery. ‘My sister Peach, who never wishes to leave Africa, is now in London till she becomes a nurse, and I who wished to live in this big city, go back home to all my family to take her place.’
‘Soon I come home also,’ said my sister, ‘with my nurse’s belt and badges. I shall not waste my time with foolishness like my brother.’
A sister’s remark! ‘Through Peach you will have news of me, Montgomery,’ I said, ‘and of all my activities at home.’
‘Won’t you be writing to me?’ asked my English friend.
‘Of course, of course – and soon you will come to Africa as well and visit Mum and Dad and Christmas and our family, and live with us in our home like I do when here with you.’
‘Perhaps I’ll go there when Peach has qualified,’ said Montgomery. ‘Perhaps we’ll go out together.’
‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ I said (but Peach has her close instructions, and this also is her wish, that she shall not see Montgomery so often, and always, if so, in the company of the nurses’ hostel).
I looked at my watch – a parting friendship present from Montgomery – and said that my time had come to go. We went in the streets, in sunshine, and I spoke first to my sister in our language, and then to Montgomery, my Jumble friend.
‘Goodbye, Johnny,’ he said. ‘I can’t think what to say, and how to thank you …’
‘Thank me? Man, it is you who gave me so many good things that I needed.’
‘Nothing it wasn’t a joy to … Shall we see you down to the dock gates?’
‘No, no, please. We find a taxi for you take my sister back to hospital, and then I go on alone.’
I opened the taxi door, and gave my surprise gift to Montgomery: it is the mission school medal I wear on my neck on its chain since boyhood. ‘For you,’ I tell him. ‘You keep it with you, please.’ Then I tell the driver where he should go, and I waved to them as the taxi carried this two away.
I walked on quickly to the dock gates, to get a best bed on my ship before the other seamen come there. But by the river side, where our strong, dirty, little boat is by its mooring, I find that Laddy Boy is waiting for me.
He took my arm, and pulled me behind the shed. ‘Listen, man,’ he said. ‘They sign on Whispers.’
‘Sign Billy on?’
‘Yes. As one of the five crew. I did not know. Shall I go see the captain and try to stop this?’
‘Why, man? Why you do that?’
‘Why? You know why.’
‘Let him come travel home with me if he wants to. Why should I stop him go?’
‘Johnny, is he stop you. This man will kill you on this voyage.’
I laughed now out loud at Laddy Boy. ‘No one will kill me, countryman!’ I cried. ‘This is my city, look at it now! Look at it there – it has not killed me! There is my ship that takes me home to Africa: it will not kill me either! No! Nobody in the world will kill me ever until I die!’
About the Author
COLIN MACINNES (1914–76), son of novelist Angela Thirkell, cousin of Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling, grandson of Burne-Jones, was brought up in Australia but lived most of his life in London, about which he wrote with a warts-and-all relish that earned him a reputation as the literary Hogarth of his day.
Bisexual, outsider, champion of youth, ‘pale-pink’ friend of Black Londoners and chronicler of English life, MacInnes described himself as ‘a very nosy person’ who ‘found adultery in Hampstead indescribably dull’ and was much more at home in the coffee bars and jazz clubs of Soho and Notting Hill.
A talented off-beat journalist and social observer, he is best known for his three London novels, City of Spades, Absolute Beginners and Mr Love and Justice. His other books include To the Victor the Spoils, a disenchanted view of the Allied occupation of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, June in Her Spring and England, Half English. Colin MacInnes’s essays were published in Out of the Way in 1980 and a selection of the best of his fiction and journalism is available in Absolute MacInnes, edited by Tony Gould. MacInnes died of cancer in 1976.
By Colin MacInnes
City of Spades
Absolute Beginners
Mr
Love and Justice
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
13 Charlotte Mews
London W1T 4EJ
www.allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain in 1957.
This ebook edition first published by Allison & Busby in 2012.
Copyright © 1957 by THE COLIN MACINNES ESTATE
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1205–2
ALSO BY COLIN MACINNES
London, 1957. Victoria Station is awash with boat trains discharging hopeful black immigrants into a cold and alien motherland. Liberal England is about to discover the legacy of Empire. And when Montgomery Pew, assistant welfare officer in the Colonial Department, meets Johnny Fortune, recently arrived from Lagos, the meeting of minds and races takes a surprising turn …
Hilarious, anti-conventional, blisteringly honest and fully committed to youth and vitality, City of Spades is a unique and inspiring tribute to a country on the brink of change.
Frankie Love, new to his profession as a ponce, seems to run his illegal life on strictly fair principles. Ted Justice, recently appointed member of the vice squad, finds his upholding of the law complicated by love for his girl …
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