by D. J. Taylor
London was full of these sequestered corners, silent rookeries with the birds all gone, forgotten and despairing. He had never thought it would be like this, but it was. There was a train rushing by now, almost gone, a last carriage or two about to be swallowed up by the house-fronts, and he lit a cigarette and stared at it. The half-lit window drew out his silhouette and made him look larger than he really was, and the ash from his cigarette, which was too cheap for gestures of this sort, flaked over the knee of his suit. The pale face at the window; the cigarette smoke rising into thin air; the two or three hundred antiques drawn up behind Mr McKechnie’s shop.
Mr McKechnie was out back somewhere, riffling though the piles of junk that had accumulated in the yard, but the rumour of his presence left no trace. It was only Rodney who was real. The cigarette was all smoked up now. He left the butt to smoulder on the lip of the brass ashtray next to the till. Outside the window, a small man with a chipmunk’s face glanced up from the tray of books that ran beneath the ledge and he stared stonily back. Rule number one: never engage; let them come to you. The last wisps of cigarette smoke were burning out now, like a votive offering in the cleft between two ancient hills, faun and centaur standing by.
The antiques were a mixed lot. Reproductions of pictures by Winterhalter. Pewter pots. Cameo brooches that looked as if they hailed from Gainsborough films. One or two of the pieces were valuable; others a lot less so. There were no prices marked, so it was a question of knowing where to look. Chipmunk-face had his thumb on a copy of Ayala’s Angel now. The books were sixpence each and not worth the trouble, Mr McKechnie said. On the other hand, sometimes people came in and bought them.
He was thinking about London and what he had expected to find there. Whatever it was had not surfaced, still lingered far beneath the ice. The restlessness that he had brought with him was still there, but less well hidden. Another man came into the shop, breaking into these dreams of sun-dappled thoroughfares and pigeons in flight—all that illusory balm—and began to look around. The customers annoyed him, especially the ones who knew what they were doing. They had cracked the code, and he had not. There were other codes lurking out there, but he knew he would decipher them in the end: he always did.
The man had one of the pewter pots in his gloved hand. ‘How much do you want for this?’ he wondered.
Not less than fifteen bob for the pewter, Mr McKechnie had said. Rodney was appalled by what seemed to him the arbitrariness of the trade. Portraits of chocolate-box blondes went for a shilling; pairs of blackened fire-irons, for which there was no conceivable use, were reserved for Croesus.
‘A very good piece, sir, that,’ he said. He could hear the trace of Lancashire in his own voice and shortened the ‘a’ so that it came out as thet. He had once heard Mr McKechnie telling a customer that he sounded ‘quite thoroughly obsequious.’ ‘I couldn’t take less than a guinea.’
A guinea. That showed the kind of level he was operating at these days. Cheapskates talked about pounds, shillings, and pence. He dealt in finer coin.
‘It’s hardly worth that,’ the man said. He had a news announcer’s voice, like the man who introduced Band Waggon. That was another thing about London to add to the dead squares and the lumbering lorries: the voices.
‘Eighteen shillings, sir, would be positively the lowest I could go,’ he heard himself saying, without a flattened ‘a’ in sight.
The man gave him seven half-crowns and a sixpenny bit. Not quite the toff his accent had proclaimed him. Rodney put the pot in a brown paper bag and handed it over, the corners of his mouth turned down. To smile was to concede: to concede, to diminish. When the man had gone, letting in a slab of freezing air from the open door, he put six of the half-crowns in the till and stowed the seventh, and the sixpenny bit, in the jacket pocket of his suit.
Outside there was another train coming—you could tell this from the distant boring noise, like a drill edging into rock—and he tensed for its appearance, the raucous swan gliding on its cast-iron lake. In the depths of his trouser pocket, his hand fell on the slip of paper with its incriminating phone number, and he took it out and stared at it. One day he would call it. But not yet.
The train had gone, the last echo of its transit disappearing among the house-fronts, but there were other noises breaking into the silence: human voices, these ones. Presently a door banged, there was a little patter of footsteps, the last vestiges of a giggle vanishing into a space where he couldn’t follow it, and Mr McKechnie and his wife came in from the yard.
‘Good morning, Rodney,’ Mr McKechnie said, although it was the third time they had come across each other since breakfast.
‘I sold one of those pewter jobs just now,’ Rodney said, with burlesqued enthusiasm. ‘Fifteen shillings.’
‘That’s good,’ Mr McKechnie said. He stared thoughtfully at the pots, as if detaching one of their number had a moral implication it might be dangerous to pursue. ‘Very good indeed. You’ll make our fortunes.’
Mr McKechnie was fifty, and set in his ways. He liked cups of black, sugary coffee at two-hour intervals, the News Chronicle’s daily crossword, and not having to be disturbed by dealers. Mrs McKechnie, whose name was Loelia, was younger and less predictable. She had a habit of lurking silently in the back of the shop until everyone had forgotten her existence and then popping up with some difficult question.
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea, Mrs McKechnie?’ Rodney asked, with the same phantom zeal.
‘No, thank you, Rodney. I’m sure you’ve better things to do with your time.’ Like most of Mrs McKechnie’s utterances, this came freighted with menace. He looked at her as she said it, but found no clue. The flapper gear had rather gone out in London, but Mrs McKechnie was still wearing it. Today she was got up in one of those cylinder dresses with a bead necklace so thickly cut that it could have been made out of old rope. She would have been about thirty-three or thirty-four, he thought, but made up for it with a line in girlish laughs.
‘No, no tea, thank you, Rodney,’ Mr McKechnie said. He had a sad but intermittently hopeful voice, like a Shakespearean clown, or Bud Flanagan singing ‘Underneath the Arches.’ ‘In fact, we’re just off out. There’s a sale up in Camden Town that Loelia particularly wanted to see.’
‘Anything good, Mr McKechnie?’ Rodney wondered. He knew about the sales up in Camden Town. Deceased clergymen’s libraries were pitilessly dispersed and trunks full of sepia photographs knocked down to the highest bidder.
‘One or two nice little early-Victorian reproductions, it says in the catalogue,’ Mr McKechnie said, one hand exploring the area at the back of his head where the black curls faded to grey. He was not quite an alcoholic, but liked to be in the pub by twelve.
‘We’ll be back by three,’ Mrs McKechnie said, giving him one of her looks, but in such a perfunctory way that he barely stirred. ‘And then you can make me that cup of tea.’
Through the shop window he watched them go out: Mr McKechnie already starting to meander; Mrs McKechnie chivvying him along; their hands clasped together as if padlocked. In their absence the shop grew larger again, less constricting to his imagination. He lit another cigarette and went along the aisles smoking it in grandiloquent puffs. Here and there the ash fell over the ersatz Winterhalters and Lord Leighton’s Attic drapery. There was no doubt about it: one of the girls in the painting looked like Mrs McKechnie. And not a stitch on her, either. He smiled at the identification. And then, just as his fingers trailed over the slip of paper again, the door-bell jangled and the American came into the shop.
He never knew what to make of the American. Mr and Mrs McKechnie he could set to work to his advantage, even when they thought it was the other way around. But the American’s intentions had to be guessed at. This time he took his hands out of the pockets of his overcoat and gave an infinitesimal nod.
‘I thought I’d come and look you up. Seeing as how you won’
t use the telephone. I hope that’s not inconvenient.’
‘Suits me fine,’ Rodney said.
‘All on your lonesome?’
‘That’s about the strength of it.’
‘That’s a good way to go about things.’
‘I always think so.’
This sort of banter could go on for hours; Rodney didn’t mind. It was like a trial of strength: each word an extra dumb-bell. The American had started turning over the pile of brass ashtrays next to the till. He said: ‘I like these. I could do with one for my office shelf. How much do you want?’
‘Seven and sixpence, they are.’
As he took the ten-shilling note and delved into the till for change, the American said, ‘There’s a little job you might like to do for me later. Two little jobs.’
He thought of Lord Leighton’s Greek girl in her olive grove. ‘I don’t see why not.’
The ashtray was in its brown-paper bag. He put a strip of tape over the opening to make it neat. The American said, ‘You’d have to do the first one this afternoon. About four-thirty. Down at the House of Commons. You know where that is?’
‘Of course I know.’
He had never been further south than Soho. But there were maps, and policemen to ask.
‘Go to the main entrance and ask for Captain Ramsay. The porters will know where to find him. He’ll give you a parcel, and you can bring it to me. I suppose it couldn’t be simpler.’
Something struck him about these arrangements and he said, ‘Why can’t you go yourself?’
‘Let’s just say that it’s easier to send someone else. Plus it creates employment. So everybody’s happy. You, me, and Sir John Simon.’
‘Who’s Sir John Simon?’
‘He’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A fellow that has your best interests at heart, I’m sure. You can bring the parcel to the usual place.’
‘What about the other job?’
‘Ah, I’m not so sure about that yet. Not quite. I’ll know later. Might mean you staying out.’
‘It’s no odds to me.’
When he had gone, Rodney looked at the ten-shilling note lying in the till and decided to leave it there. In the corner of the square there was another train coming past, but the Great Northern railway had lost its charm. It was about half-past twelve, and schoolchildren were going listlessly to their dinners. There was a trace of perfume hanging over the space near the pewter pots: Mrs McKechnie’s faint but unappetising spoor. Mr McKechnie would have drunk three large gins by now and be making fanciful bids for the memoirs of General Roberts in three volumes, or ancient coal-buckets varnished over with postage stamps.
At a quarter to one he shut up the shop, in defiance of every known law, and walked the three streets to the room he inhabited in a row of identical Edwardian houses that seemed to be pressing in on each other, so that the ones in the middle looked as if they might soon be squeezed out. The room was bitterly cold and the morning’s post lay on the mat: a letter from his mother, and a second letter with his name and address typewritten on the front which contained a five-pound note compressed into such a tiny square that it resembled a lump of sealing-wax. He threw the letter from his mother into the waste-paper basket without opening it and then unravelled the five-pound note, taking care not to tear the edge, and put it in a cash-box which lay on the bed. Once or twice he strained to hear sounds of movement, but the house was as quiet as the grave.
Half an hour later he walked back by a different route: along a terrace of plump, three-storey houses with steps leading down into murky areas. Here lived benign tyrants known jokily to their subjects as ‘The Dad,’ girls who worked as secretary-typists in estate agents’ offices, and bright-blazered grammar-school boys.
Back at the shop there was trouble brewing. Manageable trouble, but trouble nonetheless, for the McKechnies had come home early. At least Mrs McKechnie was standing by the till with an unlit cigarette jammed inexpertly into her mouth, and her hat—one of those elfin bonnets with a kind of mushroom stalk on the crown—slightly askew.
‘Where’s Mr McKechnie?’ he wondered.
‘He had to go upstairs. He wasn’t feeling very well,’ Mrs McKechnie said. The McKechnies lived in a flat above the shop, into which unsaleable stock occasionally strayed. He thought he was going to get away without having to explain his absence, but suddenly Mrs McKechnie remembered why she was cross and said, ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’
‘’Fraid I had to send a telegram.’ It was the best excuse of all, he had always thought. By the time you had finished explaining what it was about and to whom it was sent, nine out of ten people would have lost interest.
‘It really won’t do …’ Mrs McKechnie began, but he could see that it meant nothing to her. Nothing at all. Above their heads a curious thumping noise sounded from the ceiling, like someone dropping a packing case on the floor, shifting it a few feet, and then dropping it again. ‘Mr McKechnie’s not at all well,’ Mrs McKechnie said again, a touch absently. The smell of the perfume had gone now, to be replaced by gin. She put her hand on the till and spread out the fingers, gracefully, like a mannequin about to have her nails painted. ‘I know something about you,’ she said.
‘What’s that, then?’ He didn’t like people knowing things about him. ‘What do you know about me?’
‘I was in the back of the shop the other day, first thing in the morning, and you sold a man a cigar case for twelve shillings. The float was a pound. And then when I looked in the till while you were getting the tea, there was only thirty shillings.’
‘You’re forgetting the two shillings that went on the envelopes,’ he said.
‘There wasn’t any two shillings that went on envelopes,’ she said, with a kind of dreadful, pixie brightness. She giggled. ‘It’s all right. I shan’t tell on you. Good luck to you. That’s what I say.’
He shifted the angle of his shoulders, in the hope of being able to greet someone coming into the shop, but it was no good. There were never any customers in the afternoons. Above their heads came the sound of a drawn-out and calamitous descent, like a sack of potatoes being tipped slowly onto its side, and then silence. The cigarette went up and down like a lever in Mrs McKechnie’s mouth when she talked.
‘I don’t know why I put up with this,’ Mrs McKechnie said.
It was always women who did this to him, who couldn’t hold themselves together, wouldn’t lie down in the beds they’d made. Why was that? His mother was just the same.
Mrs McKechnie was picking up pewter pots at random, looking at them suspiciously, and then setting them down. ‘I could put up with it,’ she said, ‘if there was anyone who understood me. But there isn’t. Not anyone.’
This had happened before. It was important not to let the situation develop.
‘Look,’ he said, in the confidential tones of one old friend needing another to do him a favour, ‘I’ve got to go out again. My aunt’s in hospital, down at St Thomas’s, and they’ve sent word I’ve to see her. Do you think you could look after the shop?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I could do that. After all, there’s not much to do, is there? Apart from taking the money and making sure at least some of it stays in the till.’ She held the four fingers of her right hand up in a kind of chevron and touched them to the side of her head in mock-salute. Still wearing her coat and the elf-bonnet, she perched on the high stool behind the till. ‘I’ll be a brave soldier, shall I? And if one of the dealers comes in, I can just tell him that my husband is indisposed.’
But he had lost interest in Mrs McKechnie. He wondered what would happen after he’d gone. The worst thing would be if she fell asleep at the desk or went upstairs without locking the door. It was a risk he’d have to take.
‘I’m very much obliged to you,’ he said. ‘Truly.’
‘That’s all right, Rodney. What’s yo
ur aunt’s name?’
‘Muriel,’ he said, without hesitation.
‘Why don’t you use that two shillings and buy her a bunch of flowers?’
‘Maybe I will,’ he said.
When he glanced back, he could see her waiting in the window, with her hat sliding down the side of her head and one stockinged leg hauled over the other, staring out at nothing. He wondered what she and Mr McKechnie said to each other over the breakfast table, or indeed what they said to each other anywhere.
Supine under the mid-afternoon light, the square seemed suddenly wintry. In the far corner there was a file of army trucks moving slowly north. The coal-sacks piled up near the motorcycle-shop stirred in the wind like cowled monks. He went south by degrees: a bus to Marble Arch; a forced march along Oxford Street; a saunter around the garishly lit frontage of Bourne & Hollingsworth. Now and again he caught sight of himself in windows, white face glaring out of the crowd. In the Charing Cross Road he stopped at a kiosk and bought a packet of cigarettes.
It was not long until Armistice Day and there were nurses selling poppies from trays. He took one of them and pinned it to the button-hole of his coat. The light was starting to fade, and the Charing Cross Road, jumbled up with buses and lorries, was drained of colour, like some vast painting from which the pigment had been mysteriously extracted. He got on another bus and watched Trafalgar Square and the outlying stretches of Whitehall drift by. There were sandbags banked up against the foot of the column and a sentry post or two. The war was only a rumour: distant voices, ghostly knocking heard a long way off, but for a moment he imagined the bombs falling on the square: the lions split apart by thermite; the columns smashed; the bodies in the fountains. It was all the same to him. Or not quite.
On the train, two months ago, the corridors had been full of men in khaki heading south. They seemed to lack curiosity about where they were going, what might be the end of it all. Perhaps being in uniform simply inoculated you against doubts of this kind. Far above the bus the sky was smudging to grey: a line of gulls, like stitching; in the middle distance an aeroplane or two; then, towards the horizon, grotesque protrusions of concrete towers and barrage-balloons. The newspaper someone had left on the seat next to him said King to intervene, and he wondered what the King intended to intervene in, and exactly how he went about doing it.