The Tumbled House

by Winston Graham

  Don pushed his chair back. “I’m sorry. This obviously hasn’t got us anywhere. I thought there might have been some sort of civilised meeting ground. I made a mistake in supposing that the man at the top of the dunghill would do anything but crow.”

  He turned and pushed his way through the noise and smoke towards the stairs.

  Chapter Six

  The British Ambassador to Greece had been recalled for consultations, so the B.E.A. flight from Istanbul was held up forty minutes at Hellenikon waiting for him. It was six-fifteen before the Viscount touched down and seven-fifteen before Bennie was free. When she reached Pond Mews an enormous and very old and battered Delage was already parked outside her door. She ran up the stairs and found Michael Shorn talking to Pat Wilenski, the half-Polish girl with whom she shared her flat.

  “So sorry I’m late. We were held up. I hope Pat’s been entertaining you.”

  Michael smiled. “She’s been doing fine. Bennie, I’m impressed by your uniform.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, warmed by his eyes. “I’ll be out of it in five minutes.”

  “No hurry. We’ve all night.”

  “Give him another drink, Pat. Do we run to it?”

  “Just.”

  Bennie fled into her room and began to change to the accompanying murmur of his deep voice and Pat’s laughter.

  “I haven’t drunk your last drink,” said Michael, getting up again when she came back. “I saved it for you.”

  As they left and Michael went round to open the car door for Bennie, Pat whispered to her: “Uh-huh. Dynamite. But dynamite.”

  “Think so?”

  “I am sure so.”

  “He’s a friend of the family.”

  “Don’t let that deceive you.”

  Michael said: “ I’ve put a rug over your seat so you won’t dirty your frock. All set? This door has to slam. Right.” He went round and slid in beside her. “Can you pull that thing out with the ring on it? Further. Till it dangles. That’s it.” He pressed the starter and the car suddenly began to quiver all over like an angry donkey. They backed round and shuddered off.

  He took her to Manettas for dinner. “These lights are really for ageing actresses. A pity bringing a girl here who’s got nothing to hide. How was the flight?”

  “Like a train. One woman felt faint.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “Oh, give her smelling salts and be generally kind and attentive.”

  He said: “ I’m thinking of taking a ticket to Istanbul and feeling faint. Can I book a stewardess as well as a flight?”

  “No, but there’s plenty of choice.”

  “Have I told you, by the way, how you look in your uniform? That wonderful tight skirt. I’m still suffering from the flash-burn.”

  “Well, I’ll give you no treatment for it.”

  He insisted on ordering champagne and they chatted amiably. She found herself enjoying his light sophisticated humour, but sometimes in repose the animation left his face and he looked sad. She wondered why. When the dinner was over he wanted to order brandy or a liqueur but she wouldn’t have either.

  “Have you come into a fortune?” she asked.

  “No, but this is a celebration.”

  “Of what?”

  “Our first meal together. And I’ve got myself a job and a new home. Isn’t that something to celebrate?”

  “Of course. I didn’t know. What is it, Michael?”

  “I’m taken on as a junior partner in a publishing firm.”

  She sipped the last of her champagne. “ I’ll drink to that!”

  “Trouble is there’s nobody junior to me! But on the strength of that I signed the lease of a two-roomed flat yesterday.”

  “Can I come to the house-warming?”

  “You’ll be the first guest.”

  She lowered her eyes. “ Where is it?”

  “Practically round the corner from you. Roger is paying the rent, and I’m going to beg, borrow or steal the furnishings.”

  “He’s certainly very good to you.”

  “Within certain limits he’s extraordinarily good. Let’s go on somewhere, shall we? I want to show you the town.”

  Bennie climbed again into the huge old car and pulled out the ring while he started the engine.

  “It’s a nineteen thirty-one four-litre straight-eight. I’ve an extra thirty-gallon petrol tank on the back.”

  “How far do you get on that—thirty miles?”

  “Naughty. Once you get three tons moving it practically goes under its own steam.”

  They roared down Piccadilly, stopped snorting and palpitating at traffic lights, then were off again with a great backfire that made people turn their heads all the way along the street. They turned up towards Soho, and after a bit of edging and squeezing got the car parked in a side street.

  She said: “ How do you know London so well, when you’ve spent all your time at Cambridge?”

  “Not all my time. That’s what the Master objected to.”

  He led the way to a door which looked like the back entrance to seedy offices, but music could be heard somewhere. They climbed stone stairs and came to a door marked Council For European Affiliation. He turned the handle and went in, and they were in a night club, where an ash blonde was taking coats, and the proprietor, a tall dark Sicilian with hair like fine fur, bowed from the waist and flashed a cash-register smile of welcome.

  You went down a plywood passage which at the end debouched on to a small room with painted bamboo tables; to the right was a room with a bar built to give the impression of being a billiard-table on its side; to the left was the dance floor in which a Negro in a salmon-coloured dinner-jacket sat playing Cross-Hands Boogie on an overstrung Bechstein. Here and there giant umbrella poles sprang from the floor and flowered to form a gaudy roof decoration. Over the bar was the illuminated name of the club, the Middle Pocket.

  “This is quite a place,” said Bennie.

  The room wasn’t crowded, but the lighting was very subdued and it was hard to see faces at any distance. Then the pianist finished and a girl came up and put on records. As the coloured man went to the bar Michael called him and he came over.

  “Meet Miss Bennie Marlowe, Dick. This is Dick Ballance, an old friend of mine.”

  “How d’you do, Miss Marlowe. Any friend of Michael’s has a big welcome here. What are you drinking, man?”

  “No, this is on me. Your usual?”

  “What else?” Dick unbuttoned his coat to show a flowered purple cummerbund and spread his large plump hands. “ I get worn out thumping that broken-down old virginal.” When Michael had gone to the bar he said: “What lovely hair you’ve got, Miss Marlowe. I guess I should know something about it, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it, because I run a hair-dressing barber-shop in Hammersmith. This is my spare time job, like. I sure do appreciate pretty hair, see. Oh, thank you, Michael, thank you, man.”

  After they had talked for a few minutes Michael said to Bennie: “Dance?” and they put their drinks on the table, and Ballance grinned his blessing and they took the floor.

  “This is an odd place,” she said.

  “You think so? I’m glad. But why?”

  “The night clubs I’ve been to before have always been so respectable. You feel anything could happen here.”

  After a few more times round Michael said: “Heavens, there’s Peter Waldo. I must say hullo to him at the end of this.”

  The music stopped, and the Negro was returning to the piano. Bennie tucked in a bit of hair and Michael watched the lift of her arms appreciatively.

  “Are you and Don very angry about that piece in The Sunday Gazette?”

  “Yes. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I didn’t read it, but Roger was talking about it. Oh, Peter!”

  A tall young man at the bar turned as they came up to him.

  “My darling boy, I thought you were at Cambridge.”

  “I’ve applied for the Chiltern Hun
dreds. This is Peter. This is Bennie Marlowe.”

  “Bennie? Short for Benzedrine? I can see it should be. One’s pepped up at the sight of you, my dear.”

  Peter Waldo was in his middle twenties, with a long neck and long slender fingers and china-blue eyes which took time to focus.

  He said to Michael: “ This place isn’t really awake yet. Are you staying on?”

  “No, I’m showing Bennie the town.” Michael fetched their drinks from the table.

  Peter Waldo said to her: “ Did you leave your angel’s wings in the cloakroom? You’re quite the nicest thing I’ve seen for a very long time.”

  “Bennie comes from Istanbul,” said Michael, handing her her beer. “You were out there this morning, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, her eyes clear and unembarrassed. “ I left at ten.”

  Peter made a little face and swallowed his drink, not quite sure what to make of it all. “ Tell me, did this delinquent bring you here in a traction engine held together with glue and cheap string?”

  “Now, now,” said Michael. “A joke’s a joke.”

  “Why don’t you leave it on a gentle slope by a river? One push and you could buy yourself a car.”

  “What with?”

  “Oh, that.” Peter Waldo waved a hand that nearly knocked a man’s drink out of his hand. “Seriously, Michael, I know a man who has a just-pre-war Lagonda. He only wants three hundred and I swear you could beat him down on that. The engine’s as smooth as silk.…”

  They talked cars for a few minutes, and then Michael said: “ I’m neglecting you, Bennie. Whenever I meet Peter I get bogged down.” He led her to the dance floor. To Peter he said: “ I’ve got a flat. Come to my house-warming next week.”

  Peter had followed them a few steps. “D’you want to go on with this fellow?” he asked Bennie. “ I know far more about London than he does.”

  She smiled: “Thank you. I think I’d better stay with him. I promised his father.”

  “Oh, that explains everything.”

  “You beast,” said Michael, smiling at her as they began to dance.

  They went on to what was called a “political” night club, recently opened by a psychiatrist. It seemed to differ very little from any other except that some of the clients looked as if they had recently been patients. To get in you made your way between two enormous white hands of plaster of paris, and the first notice said “ I Hate Yellow Cats”, which according to Michael meant that the hostess had a thing against blondes.

  They ordered a drink and watched a rather indifferent floor show.

  Bennie said: “ You’re not like Roger at all, are you? In features, I mean. Are you like your mother?”

  “As a young man Roger made a habit of marrying. My mother was the First of the Few.”

  “What happened?”

  “She left him. She’s still going strong somewhere. Roger bumped into her a few years ago. I gather she’d grown fat and blowsy.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words. In any case it’s better to know the truth, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure. In that case I should have thought not.”

  Michael turned, and his rather sombre lonely face was illumined by the wonderful smile. “Don’t start feeling sorry for me. That would be silly. I admire Roger for always being straight with me. He’s always told me what I wanted to know. A lot of people get half-way through life before they work out the answers for themselves. Roger’s told me the answers before I begin the sums. It makes a difference, that.”

  “I’m sure it makes a difference,” she agreed.

  “You’re not drinking your beer.”

  “Sorry. I’m awash.”

  “But not drunk.”

  “Not drunk.”

  “Seriously, Bennie, I want this to be the beginning of a lot of times together. Maybe not always chasing the neon lights—that’s not important—but together.”

  She smiled at him. “ Thank you, Michael. I think I’d like it better that way.”

  “Are you not enjoying yourself?”

  “Enormously.”

  “Let’s go somewhere else. This place bores me.”

  They went back to Soho to a French club, where a number of odd women sat on high stools drinking pernod, and a trio played nostalgic tunes from the Left Bank. From there Michael drove her a quarter of a mile to a bombed site, to a Negro club, where in a low cellar barely lit at all, real jive was going on to a first-class Negro band. By the time they got out of there Bennie was feeling muzzy in spite of herself, and although she knew the next and last place they called was well north of the rest she couldn’t be sure how far. All she knew was that the carpets were too thick and she didn’t like the proprietor.

  “What time is it?”

  “Something after three. Tired?”

  “No. But slightly drunk now.”

  He laughed. “Have a coffee. There’s practically no heroin in it.”

  After a while she said: “ Do you often do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make a round of the night life.”

  “Not often like this. I’m showing off, Bennie, to you.”

  “I’m tremendously impressed. I can’t imagine how you’ve discovered all these places.”

  “It’s all part of the service.”

  “There’s one place I might take you sometime,” she said reflectively. “ It’s full of Teddy Boys, and sometimes they beat each other up. It’s all rather entertaining.”

  “Where’s this, in Istanbul?”

  “No. Paddington.”

  He watched her to see if she were serious. “And how do you come to know it?”

  “It’s close to a hostel where I work.”

  “No,” he said. “ Let’s get this straight. You told me you work for B.E.A.”

  “So I do. But I have time off. I haven’t much spare time, but I do some voluntary work in a hostel in Paddington. I like the sister in charge. I’ve known her for years. I usually manage to put in a day a week.”

  “What makes you do that? Isn’t it hard work?”

  She smiled back at him with wide, sleepy eyes. “No harder than enjoying yourself any other way.”

  “Like this, eh? Come on. You’re tired. I’ll take you home.”

  They were let silently out; and she did her stuff with the choke, and he got the car to start; and they went thundering off, the uncertain roar of the exhaust beating against the sleeping quiet of the night. She dosed her eyes and must have dozed for some minutes, because when she opened them the car had stopped. She looked sleepily round, but could not recognise the high wall of Pond Mews. There was a lot too much sky.

  “Where are we?”

  “Hampstead Heath,” he said. “ I thought we’d watch the sunrise.”

  She stared out at the star-lit sky. It was completely dark. “What time is it?”

  “About twenty to four.”

  “The sun doesn’t rise till after five.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Disadvantage of working for B.E. A.”

  “I suppose I must have forgotten about summer time.”

  “I suppose you must.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Well, I think an hour and a half to wait.…”

  “We can occupy it.”

  He bent over her, smoothed her hair back with his hand and kissed her.

  When she could get her mouth free she said: “By now it must be quite a quarter to four.”

  “Yes, quite a quarter to four.”

  She put up her own hand to her hair, loosening the grip of his arms. “Like me to tell you about the stars?”

  “Later.”

  She sighed. “It’s one of the great drawbacks of working for B.E.A. One becomes informative.”

  He began to kiss her again. Breaking a little away after a minute or so, she said, trying to withdraw behind her own brand of humour: “Sirius is the brightest, but in fact it�
��s quite small compared with one like Arcturus.”

  “Bennie,” he said. “Be quiet. You’re so beautiful you destroy me.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Go to sleep, darling. Go to sleep.”

  His hand came up to her face and began to stroke it. He had soft and gentle fingers. She decided she could take this.

  “You think you’re cool and calm and collected,” he said. “But it isn’t true. That lovely sensuous mouth isn’t for nothing. You think too much. Let your brain go to sleep.”

  Beyond his arm she could see the half-dimmed glow of London. A turning car flooded its lights across the budding trees. His hand slid down and inside her frock to close over her shoulder. It was still gentle but it was firm, compelling.

  “Michael,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “There are other nights.”

  “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Nothing.…”

  “Your heart’s beating fast,” he said. “I can feel the pulse in your neck.”

  “It’s the altitude,” she said. “This cabin isn’t pressurised.”

  “Bennie, you’re so very beautiful. I’ve never met anyone like you. Truly, truly I haven’t. I believe your heart——”

  His hand slid downward. She made a quick movement to stop him. But he didn’t stop. She wrenched herself violently away, and her frock tore. For a second there was a pause while they took breaths in the dark.

  With an icy, sick feeling behind her eyes she swallowed and tried to say lightly: “Sorry, darling; it’s a restricted area.”

  There was a tremendous communication of tension between them that went far beyond what had been done and said.