The Cummings Report

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  “The trouble is,” she said in a voice that was still well below freezing-point, “it’s too large; it won’t go into the X-ray machine.”

  “Seriously, Jill,” I said, “Ido need my head examined. You’re much too valuable a property to let go as easily as that.”

  “You should have thought of that before,” she retorted. “Or are you the sort of person who never wants anything until it’s too late?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m the sort of person who never wants anything until it’salmost too late.”

  “Well, in my opinion you’re cutting it extremely fine,” she retorted.

  It was time for the White Flag. I abandoned all known technique and tried again. “All right,” I crawled, “I’m sorry about last night; I admit I behaved like a toad. But please let me try again. What about coming to a show tonight?”

  There was a subtle change in her voice, but she was still firm. “No, thanks. One show is enough to go on with for the time being. You can treat me to a coffee at theBell Bird Bar in Knightsbridge. Perhaps you’re better value in the early afternoon.”

  This was really clutching at straws. Still, I had no alternative at the moment. Unconditional surrender. “Do you guarantee safe passage if I come?” I asked.

  I heard a stifled laugh, but her voice was stern. “There will be a cease-fire,” she said. “That’s all I can promise.” She hung up.

  *

  At least Jill did not arrange to be five minutes late. She was there exactly on the dot and I had only just arrived. She was a breath of fresh air among the Kensingtonites, who all seemed to look exactly the same.

  “You look,” I said, “as if you’ve just come in from a morning swim.”

  “Perhaps you are better company in the daytime than you are in the evening!” She gave nothing away by the tone in her voice; I wasn’t sure whether she was joking.

  I didn’t like the sound of it, though. “I vary,” I explained. “Sometimes I’m ghastly all day; quite unpresentable until cocktail time. And often the very best time of all is even later than that. You know: moonlight. Soft music. Stars. All that kind of thing. Have some coffee.”

  She heaped brown sugar into the foul mixture (I hate Espresso). “I don’t think you’d be much good under those sort of conditions,” she said.

  “Some say different,” I replied.

  She sipped the coffee. “I’ll bet!” she exclaimed. “But they probably haven’t read the script.”

  “That’s unfair!” I protested. “You haven’t heard it yet. It’s a very good script. Still, I do agree with you. Iam apt to see the whole thing in Cinemascope. The trouble is I thought I was rather good at it; but you don’t seem to think so.”

  “You’ve probably got too used to it,” she explained. “The film’s got rather scratched. Try something new — be natural! Don’t be so determined to succeed, even if you usually do.”

  If anybody else had said that to me I would have been furious. I was angry now; it was an impertinence from a young woman who scarcely knew me. Yet somehow I was intrigued. No one had ever spoken to me like this before. I decided to try and keep my temper. At length I said: “What are you trying to do? Make me look a fool?”

  “No, darling, of course not.” Suddenly there was concern in her voice. Also, she had said ‘darling’. She didn’t strike me as being the sort of girl who said ‘darling’ to everybody.

  But she hadn’t meant to say it; it had slipped out, unintentionally. She could have bitten her tongue off for that.

  “Will you say that again?” I asked.

  “No, Joel, I won’t. And don’t take advantage, either. You know, you remind me of a book I read recently. It was written in the most dreadfully complicated and pedantic style, and yet I couldn’t put it down. You see, underneath all that mess was a very good story. The author had done his level best to conceal it, but he didn’t quite succeed. It was really rather a good book; but it would have been much better if it hadn’t been so heavily disguised.”

  This was as much as I could take. I put down my coffee cup with a bang. “You,” I said, “are an unbelievably sententious and conceited young woman. But, unlike me, you don’t need a lecture. You need ...”

  Her face seemed to be getting larger in some peculiar way. But it was all right, it got smaller again. Too small. She was right the other side of the room. My own voice seemed to be coming from miles away, and I found it hard to listen to what I was saying. “In actual fact,” I was saying, “what I really want to do is to hold you in my arms and kiss you for quite a long time.” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  She seemed rather taken aback at this. Damn! The room was going round and round, and I couldn’t concentrate properly. I think she said: “That’s the first really sincere thing you’ve said so far.” I remember a smile at that point which belied everything she had said. But it changed to a look of puzzlement, then of alarm. She leant forward, and her face seemed to be huge. Frighteningly huge. “Are you all right?” someone asked. It must have been her. But the voice came from a different place. Damn! Everything was so confusing. There was Jill’s hand on my forehead. But it had nothing to do with Jill. Jill had disappeared behind a sort of mist. I was saying something again. I had to say it several times before I could understand it. Oh yes, that was it. “Alice knows. Phone Alice. Alice knows ... Something in my mind told me it was somewhat irrelevant to the situation, but before I blacked out completely I found myself saying: “The ridiculous part about it all is that I’ve fallen in love with you, Jill. Isn’t that absurd!”

  *

  It was Horrocks. Silly old Horrocks. I’d know the touch of his flabby hands anywhere.His voice didn’t come from the right place either. Typical.

  “He’s coming round now, he’ll be all right.”

  “Of course I’m all right,” I said irritably. “Where am I, anyway?” I looked around. Oh, I was in my flat. “How did I get here? Where’s Jill?” There was Alice, anyway. Good old Alice.

  “I’ve sent her home,” said Alice. “You gave her a nasty shock.”

  “Damn!” I exclaimed. “Did I have one of my ... ?” Oh God, in front of Jill! So I really had succeeded in making an ass of myself.

  Jeff was there too.Everybody seemed to be there to view the body.

  “Take it easy!” said Jeff — big, fat, reliable Jeff. “We were lucky; Sir George was at his London consulting-room and was able to come immediately.”

  How jolly! Like an opening night.

  Everything was back in focus now. I felt quite normal, though slightly sick. I now sat up. (Add to the above a splitting headache.)

  “How did it happen?” I asked quietly. “I thought I was through with all this nonsense.”

  “And so you would be,” said Horrocks smoothly, “if you did what you were told.”

  “I had my injection. What more do you want?”

  He was taking my pulse while I talked. “I told you not to get excited,” he said. “You’re particularly vulnerable at the moment. You’re back in the outside world again, living a normal life for the first time in nearly two years; and judging from what I’ve been told in the last few minutes you seem to want to do everything at once. You’re living a life like a three-ringed circus; and it all comes to a climax when you blow your top because a girl you like says something near enough the truth to annoy you.”

  “Oh! She told you all that, did she?”

  “Naturally.” He let go of my arm. “Pulse rather slow,” he said to Jeff. He faced me again. “I asked her for a detailed account of the whole business. She was obviously extremely concerned; in fact” — he looked at me gravely — “anyone would have thought that she was ...” He broke off maddeningly. “Anyway, I had the very devil of a job to get her to go home and rest.” He seemed to be reading my thoughts. “However,” he added, “she eventually persuaded me to allow her to come and see you this evening.” He was Father Christmas offering a particularly expensive toy from Hamley’s. “Of one thing I can a
ssure you,” he said, climbing back on to his sledge, “she doesnot think you made an ass of yourself. Not in the way you think, anyway.”

  “Is she all right?” I asked. “I think I’d better go and see her.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort, Joel,” he said. “You’ll have to stay indoors for a few days. Dr. Jefferson will keep an eye on you; and he’ll let you know when you can go out. And for heaven’s sake don’t try and do too much. You must have eight hours’ sleep each night. You must have a rest in the afternoons. You must not go to bed later than eleven o’clock more than one night each week; and you must not allow yourself to get worked up and overexcited in a negative way. I don’t mean,” he said with patronizing frankness, “that you can’t fall in love — as you seem to be doing — because that is a positive thing.”

  He looked at his watch. “I must fly; I’m dreadfully late for an appointment. Jefferson, can you give me a lift?” This was obviously the call to a conference. Most of Horrocks’ conferences seemed to take place in cars — usually in Rolls-Royces, for he was Sir George Horrocks and he was expected to have a Rolls. In this case, however, he would have to put up with Jeff’s Jaguar.

  Alice saw them to the door and came back into the room. I couldn’t help admiring her. She was so many people in one; and each of them had a part to play. This was one of the nicest.

  “May I get myself a drink, now the Cabinet Meeting is over?” she asked.

  “Darling,” I said, “what a strange person you are! It gives me an uncanny feeling, you hovering over me like a sort of converted guardian angel. You’d better watch out; you’re developing the motherly instinct! The gin’s in the usual place; help yourself, my sweet. You’ve never asked before. That in itself is a precedent.”

  “The funny thing is,” said Alice, pouring herself a liberal gin and tonic, “I’m getting used to my role as a sort of Universal Aunt!” She added the vital slice of lemon. “I thought I’d be heartbroken, one month ago. Then I realized, quite suddenly, that I was merely being sentimental. You were right, you see — wewere bad for each other, Joel.”

  “No!” I said emphatically, “that’s not true. In a way, wemade each other. By our very incompatibility we learned a lot. There was a reason for our — association” — I had difficulty finding a word — “and although we drove each other to distraction sometimes, we learned about each other, and therefore about ourselves.”

  I knew my diagnosis was right. Her recent feeling over me was simply an emotional reaction to a chain of unhappy events. She was not really in love with me — as she half-thought she was, despite all she said. In actual fact, I don’t think she ever had been. She needed a very different sort of person from me. I wished I could ‘fix her up’ as efficiently as she had ‘fixed me up’ ...

  Alice finished her drink abruptly. “I must be going,” she announced briskly, “or I shall be fired. And getting the sack twice in one month might be a bit much. Where did I leave my cloak and dagger?”

  “Where you always leave it,” I said, “on the floor.”

  I helped her into her coat, and soon she left me to my own thoughts.

  And the pleasant prospect of seeing Jill again.

  CHAPTER 6

  “THE door was off the catch,” said Jill, “so I came straight in. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I think I can just about stand it,” I conceded. “What have you got in that interesting-looking parcel?”

  “I’ve brought you a jigsaw puzzle,” she said. She looked rather embarrassed. “But perhaps you don’t indulge in that sort of thing?”

  “Nonsense! Everybody does jigsaw puzzles. It’s very sweet of you. Occupational therapy for the invalid!” I grinned. “You don’t have to regard me as a ‘case’, actually. I’m as strong as a horse.”

  She looked at me rather sternly. “Physically, yes.” She walked over to the piano and picked up an overloaded ash-tray, then searched around for somewhere to tip it.

  “The bin’s under the desk,” I said, “but you’ll find it’s a heartbreak. The ash-tray will be just as bad tomorrow.”

  “I can always empty it again.” She replaced the ashtray and faced me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “You know very well what I mean. I feel rather ashamed that I contributed to ...” She didn’t know what to call it.

  “You couldn’t be expected to know that I would start falling about like that in the middle of my coffee. Besides, it only happened because you tried to penetrate my barbed wire.”

  “Thealter ego?”

  “If you like. The bit of me I don’t want you to know about.”

  “Why not?”

  This brought on an urge for tobacco. I offered her a cigarette, which she refused; then lit one myself. “Perhaps I am ashamed of it.”

  “Perhaps I would prefer it.”

  “Alice didn’t.”

  “I’m not Alice.”

  “No.”

  Her mood changed abruptly. “Help me to clear this side table,” she commanded. “Time for the therapy.”

  I removed an assortment of bric-a-brac from the table-top while she unwrapped the brown paper. “Would you like a drink?” I asked.

  “No, thank you,” she said, without looking up from her task.

  “You really mean business, don’t you!” I exclaimed. “Well, if you’re going to make me do my homework, I hope you’ll help me with it. I never was any good at doing things that require an orderly mind.”

  She took the lid off and hid it. “I’ll help youstartit,” she said, “but you’ll have to finish it on your own —withoutlooking at the picture on the lid. And when youhave finished it, I shall look forward to an invitation to come and see you again. But not before.”

  “Yes, matron.” I selected a piece at random from the box and plonked it down on to the table. “Your move,” I said.

  She came round the table and sat down beside me; and I suddenly realized how pleasant it was just to be sitting next to her.

  Jill scrutinized the maze of odd-shaped pieces of wood. Within seconds she found the mate for my bit, snapped it into place, and looked at me challengingly.

  I fumbled about in the box and produced a piece that nearly fitted, but not quite. “It isn’t fair!” I protested. “They all look exactly the same.”

  “You’ve got a flower-pot all mixed up with a motor-boat,” she said critically. “You’d better look for another flower-pot or else another piece of boat.”

  “How,” I demanded, “can there possibly be a flowerpot and a motor-boat in the same picture?”

  “That’s what you’ve got to find out.”

  *

  Two days later I cajoled Jeff into letting me go out.

  “I want to drive out into the country,” I said over the telephone. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Is it her day off?” asked Jeff, without a semblance of tact.

  “No. But since you’re hand in glove with Alice, you can damn wellget her off,” I retorted.

  “I’ll do my best,” he said, and hung up.

  *

  I drove Jill to Wendover, where you can climb up Coombe Hill to the War Memorial, and look out over five counties. It was a warm, sunny day; and a few other people had got the same idea. I had rather hoped we would have the hillside to ourselves.

  Suddenly she asked: “What’s that town on the horizon, in line with the water tower?”

  “That’s Rimsworth.”

  “Oh.” Then she said: “Why haven’t you talked to me about it?”

  “Because I dislike people who always bring the conversation round to their experiences on the operating table. Like people in the war who used to talk about ‘their bomb’. Well, everybody has a bomb. I expect even you have a ‘bomb’. Haven’t you?”

  “Oh yes; I have a bomb.”

  “You see! You don’t talk about yours, and I don’t talk about mine.”

  I had learned with Jill that she could suddenly ch
ange her mood, seemingly at will. When she decided that the subject should be changed, she changed it. I never could do that, on my own.

  She changed it now. “Come on!” she said brightly. “Let’s explore. Let’s pick some heather.”

  I hadn’t noticed there was any; but she bounded across the clearing to the perimeter of the thicket, and there it was. And, quite naturally, she slipped her hand in mine. Her hold was friendly and warm, and I realized that this was the first physical contact I had had with her. It was only a little thing, but it sent my morale soaring. She had sought my hand, not I hers.

  *

  Back at the flat, we put the heather in the fireplace, and I showed her the finished jigsaw puzzle. It was a picture of a sea front (obviously intended to be in Italy). There was a house with a pagoda, and a pier from which people in summer clothes were setting out for a day on the Mediterranean. My flower-pots were now safely planted on the balcony; and the motor-boat was out to sea. I was rather proud of the simple achievement of having completed the puzzle (without looking at the lid). It was the first puzzle I had ever done.

  This time she accepted a cocktail, and we turned on the radio and felt relaxed with each other.

  The last thing I was thinking about was my brush with the man who wore his toupée so clumsily; so that when the telephone rang and Agnes’ sombre voice greeted me from the other end it took me a few moments to reorientate myself. Her dismal ‘hello’ was the tired, forlorn wail of a ship’s siren, lost in the misty sea of hopelessness.

  “It’s about that actress,” she said.

  I had to think hard. “What actress, exactly?” I asked.

  “The one with the mole.”

  At once I was alert. “Oh yes. Have you got some news, then?”

  My enthusiasm inspired an even greater degree of gloom. “Not exactlynews,” she said despondently, “just an idea, that’s all. I’ve just turned up a photograph of a girl who fits your description. This woman has a mole on her cheek, all right, and she’s about the right age.”

  “Well done! Who is she?”