Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper Read online

  A feeling of dislike fell like drops of poison into his blood, and began to circulate.

  You see, he said to himself, I just cannot kill women. I’m sorry, Delius.

  But after all, why should the old chap complain?

  He wouldn’t know anything?

  Mrs Nandle bent over her knitting, wearing huge horn-rimmed glasses, and her glamorous blue trousers. She was sixty if she was a day.

  She said she felt Mr Bowling was a man one could talk to, and she didn’t know why she was telling him all this, but Delius had been dreadful several times, ‘with little blondes.’ He thought: ‘I don’t wonder! And you are telling me this simply because you tell everyone this!’

  When the shadows fell, the two women fell about the place arranging the blackout. Delius said all about how they always kept the stirrup pump in the corner of the porch, and they always kept the bath full of cold water. He said he had firewatching to do, but would not wake anybody up when he came in.

  Mr Bowling was shown upstairs to a little green and white room, with curtains and wallpaper dotted with scenes from Peter Pan. Mr Nandle started to say, ‘Once, we rather hoped … that is to say … however!’ and broke off lamely. ‘Fond of children?’ he enquired, blushing.

  ‘Very,’ said Mr Bowling.

  ‘Well, there it is …!’

  ‘It’s stopped raining,’ Mr Bowling said, wondering what time to murder his host. Perhaps tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow evening, just before leaving. In that shed. Oh, some idea would turn up.

  ‘Well, goodnight, Bowling!’

  ‘Goodnight, old chap!’

  ‘Hope you’ll be comfortable? I think Fairy’s put a hot water bottle … and there’ll be early morning tea, and …’

  ‘Marvellous! It’s so nice of you to have asked me down.’

  ‘We’re delighted to have you. We’re very lonely people, you know. But of course you don’t know the meaning of the word! You gay Londoners! H’m. Well, goodnight?’

  They shook hands.

  Mr Nandle was thinking: ‘Charming chap. Hope he isn’t bored.’

  And Mr Bowling was thinking:

  ‘The old boy’s nostrils may give me a bit of trouble. Peculiar shape. But apart from that, I shouldn’t think the poor old chap had a kick in him.’

  He went to bed.

  That night, Miss Souter, who had shared the double bedroom with Mrs Nandle for years, woke up in fright and declared she had dreamt that a funeral cortège had approached The Rookery. She said it was quite real. Both women discussed this. They both wore turbans on their heads, and had plastered their faces with grease. Upstairs, Delius was thumping about in his lonely room, and they looked at their watches hanging on the bedrail and saw that it was as late as two in the morning. ‘What is the matter with him?’ Fairy said crossly, and got out of bed and opened the door. ‘Delius?’ she called in a hissing voice, for fear of waking Mr Bowling.

  His door opened.

  ‘Hallo …?’

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘It’s two o’clock, Delius …’

  ‘I was reading Trollope, Barchester …’

  ‘Do go to sleep. Niggs is having dreadful dreams,’ Mrs Nandle complained.

  The grandfather clock complained downstairs, and she went back and her door shut.

  ‘There’s something very uncanny in the place,’ Miss Souter said in the darkness.

  Out in the shed, Pots started up a tremendous barking.

  ‘I dreamt of a funeral cortège, and I dreamt it was Mr Bowling in the coffin,’ Miss Souter said, ‘yet I’m sure he was alive.’

  ‘I never think of death,’ Mrs Nandle remarked. ‘I suppose one ought to more often.’

  ‘I suppose we all ought to.’

  ‘Life seems such a permanent affair.’

  ‘I do wish people didn’t think we were lesbians, Fairy? I know we’re the talk of the place.’

  ‘Does it really matter what people think?’

  ‘I often think it does,’ Miss Souter said.

  ‘It’s Delius’s fault. He will talk when he’s in his cups, and I expect he tells everyone I’m cold, and not a good wife. But after all, I’m not a chicken, I’ve told him time and time again that he’s had the best years of my life—and what have I had?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s a very stupid man, poor Delius, dear.’

  ‘Yes! I’m very much afraid he is!’

  They talked a bit longer about how Mrs Nandle had so nearly been a Mrs Hawk-Smith, and gone to Hong Kong to live, and about how old Delius had popped up, looking helpless, and she’d gone to him as she would have gone to an old dog which has been bumped into by a passing car and left a bit dazed. But she said she had no idea how stupid he was, really fundamentally stupid and dull. He said nothing, thought nothing and did nothing. It was sad, but you had to face it. Miss Souter said, well, dear, we were all full of faults, and anyhow Fairy still had her, not that that was saying much, but there was something to be said for ordinary friendship. She said she had never loved a man, and could honestly say she hadn’t ever wanted to. ‘So I’m lucky,’ she said she thought.

  Next morning at breakfast, Delius revealed himself to be stupid as ever, he had left the lantern burning all night, the one they kept in the scullery, it both gave a light and saved the pipes from freezing, a new gadget it was. But he had left it on when the weather was quite moderate, and he knew perfectly well that dish cloths and things hung there, and might easily brush against the naked flame. Another thing he had done was to leave the back-door unlocked, so that burglars could just stroll in any old time and help themselves.

  ‘Really, Delius!’ the two women thought.

  Red and embarrassed before Bowling, he tried to laugh it off with:

  ‘Really, nobody would think I was master here, I don’t know what Bowling thinks, I seem to be treated like a schoolboy!’

  The following pause was rather pointed, but breakfast conversation seemed to go more brightly after that, despite porridge, and then got almost gay, Niggs saying that she thought Delius was the type who should have grown a beard. What she meant was that a beard would give the illusion that he had a chin, but what she actually said to give point, and to hide Fairy’s, ‘Beard? Delius? Gracious!’ was, ‘Beards give such personality, I always think. What do you think, Mr Bowling?’ Mr Bowling whose mind was elsewhere, said it depended what one had ‘learnt’ about such things.

  ‘Learnt?’ enquired Niggs keenly. She had been watching a thrush through the window, having swigs at the birdbath.

  Fairy and Delius cracked bits of toast with oddly similar pink and sinewy fingers, and smiled encouragingly at their guest. There was a nob of porridge on Delius’s mauve pullover. It slid down, interestingly, into the front of his brown trousers.

  Mr Bowling, with a bit of a laugh, said that most people had learnt that the man with a beard was frightfully highbrow and difficult to know or like, he might even be a professional artist, and too difficult even to talk to.

  Niggs, uncertain whether the accent was on comedy or drama, said, ‘Yes, I see,’ and started an obscure account of what a good idea it would be if only somebody would think of driving a tunnel all the way from here to Germany, and opened up a Second Front? ‘After all,’ she said, ‘we do such wonderful things, does it seem so fantastic?’ The idea was not pursued, however, owing to Delius saying, still more obscurely, what about the man who wears green shirts, then, and laughing for an inordinate length of time. Everyone stared at him until he stopped, coughing affectedly, and Mr Bowling observed conversationally: ‘And the chap who wears red ties is, of course, insane! That is to say, he is the man of tomorrow!’

  After breakfast, he heard Niggs saying to Fairy up on the landing:

  ‘Mr Bowling’s so subtle and go ahead! It’s wonderful!’

  ‘Subtle is the word,’ Fairy agreed. ‘It’s a real stimulant. Mental stimulant. If only Delius was like that!’

  The
n she called to Delius, who was another floor up, and made one or two enquiries.

  ‘We don’t want you to be petulant the entire day,’ she called to him sharply.

  Mr Bowling found himself fingering a copy of Kingsley’s Westward Ho!, reading the opening which said: ‘The hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage—the sea,’ and reading the flyleaf, which said in schoolboy script:

  ‘This belongs to D. Nandle, Lower Fifth, Christmas, and whoever pinches it is a filthy hound. Signed D.N.’

  The two women had decided to go to church in the evening, and so as it was dry Mr Bowling offered to take them all a drive until then, or at any rate for as long as the petrol lasted. They were delighted, and said there was petrol in the garage.

  So they drove to Ashdown Forest, lunched near there, and had a good blow. It made a change. The two women sat in the back, and Delius sat in the front, red-looking and pleased, and having no notion whatever, or intuition, that he was having his last day on earth. He said he thought that but for Russia, we would have been in a fine old pickle by now, and he said he wished he was young enough to have a smack at the Japs. At the back, they said they wondered what it must be like to be Prime Minister at such a time, and what a responsibility it was. And they said they had a picture of Mr Churchill at home, bricklaying because his country thought there was nothing more useful he could do; and they said they had another one of Lady Baldwin making a speech, they thought in Dulwich. Tanks clattered past them, and Mrs Nandle remembered during the last war when you couldn’t drive far without soldiers stopping you with fixed bayonets and making you take the seats up. Miss Souter thought English soldiers were more refined nowadays. No sooner had she spoken than a posse of soldiers in German grey stopped the car and told her to get out and look slippy. Appalled, she was so frightened that the Germans had arrived at long last, she scurried out and clutched Mrs Nandle in terror. The Gestapo were here! But they had a great laugh at lunch, because it was only a rehearsal, and a very effective one! We weren’t exactly asleep, Mr Bowling laughed and said!

  They reached home as it was getting dark, and after a late tea the two ladies took their leave of Mr Bowling, who said he would be gone before they returned.

  They said it had been the pleasantest weekend for many a day.

  ‘I’m terribly glad,’ Mr Bowling smiled and said.

  ‘I do hope you haven’t been bored?’

  ‘I’ve loved every moment of it …!’

  ‘How nice of you, you must come again? Delius is so lonely, even though he has his firewatching.’

  Their footsteps went pattering down the path.

  Mr Bowling came slowly back to the living room and stood by the log fire. He stared into it, hearing Delius closing the front door and calling: ‘Very well, my dear! Yes, my dear …!’

  CHAPTER XII

  MR BOWLING idly kicked the log and watched the sparks fly. The red firelight lit the crease in his trousers, there was something about neatly creased flannel. He thought sadly: ‘I’m not going to flatter myself that I am the chosen instrument of Delius’s entry into the Next World. It isn’t that … But what I mean to say is, he doesn’t know what’s coming, he knows no fear, it won’t take long, and surely the point is we should all be prepared to die at any moment of any day, the war must at least have taught us that? The blitz must have taught us that? I mean,’ he thought, ‘it is up to each of us, isn’t it?’ And he turned and thought:

  ‘It’s a bit different with me—I happen to want to go.’

  The old dog was barking out there, and Delius said what about letting the brute in for a bit. He laughed sheepishly. ‘My wife doesn’t allow it, but Pots and I have our secrets!’

  The only regret, Mr Bowling thought, was separating the old chap from his dog.

  ‘Do you mind very much if we don’t have him in?’ he said quietly to Nandle.

  Nandle stopped by the door and looked his astonishment. His tall, stooping figure threw an enormous shadow across the low ceiling and across the far wall, blotting out the white alcove there. His face took on a shy, babyish expression, rather quaint, as if he was thinking, oh, dear, I hope my guest isn’t going to be hard to entertain, have I said the wrong thing?

  ‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ he said to his guest slowly and shyly, and hovering with a hand on the door. ‘I thought you liked dogs!’

  Bowling was standing with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I do like them, old chap,’ he replied in a breezy way, staring down at his shoes.

  ‘I wouldn’t have …’

  ‘No, no, I just have a slight headache, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I say, I’m most …!’

  ‘Nothing at all, only a very slight one. I thought the dear old dog, though I love him …’

  ‘But of course, we don’t want the brute bounding about if you’re like that! Look here, I’ve got some aspirin somewhere!’

  ‘No …’

  ‘They’re in Fairy’s room. I’ll go up, it won’t take a second.’

  ‘I don’t want to trouble you, old man, really.’

  ‘I insist! No, really, it’s no trouble at all, Bowling. The reverse.’ He went out and there was the sound of his footsteps going up the creaky stairs, all mountainous shadows, and the glimpse of his red, worried face, as if he was thinking: ‘I wonder why he said that about Pots, he was so kind to the dog after lunch, had the brute on his knee, even. I hope he’s not ill …? I wonder how long he is going to stay, he said he’d be off before Fairy and Niggs got back, but he doesn’t seem to be making a move, is he bored?’ The lines deepened into his bit of a forehead.

  He went up the stairs and went into Fairy’s room and hunted about for the aspirin. Coming out, he thought of the cupboard where all the games were put, and he decided that Bowling might care for a game of draughts. He opened the little white cupboard and put in his long fingers. It was rather a dull idea, one supposed, but it might encourage Bowling to go, as a matter of fact he wasn’t frightfully easy to entertain, he was probably shy, most people were shy in some secret way or other. He felt very shy, as a matter of fact, though it seemed ridiculous, being left alone with Bowling. Perhaps it would be best to leave the draughtboard, after all, and just go down with the aspirin and suggest a drink?

  He hesitated, finally deciding to take the board, and suggest a drink as well. And a cigar.

  In the cupboard was the Mah Jong set he had given Fairy all those years ago, when he had started the life of an architect’s clerk, which he still was. He sighed, thinking of all those years ago, and how wasted they seemed. Wasted? Well, well, who could say if life’s minutes and hours and days were ever wasted—until you could judge the thing as a whole? And when, indeed, could you judge it as a whole? Not ever, on this side of the Styx. There was a modicum of beauty and comfort in that, wasn’t there?

  He closed the cupboard and started to go down the stairs again, the draughtboard in one hand, the aspirin in the other.

  Coming round the bend in the creaky stairs, he was astonished to find that Mr Bowling had put out the light. There was just the firelight, its warm, flickering shadows.

  ‘Are you there, Bowling?’ he began in surprise. He couldn’t see him. Was he sitting down, or had he gone out? ‘I wonder if you would like a whisky and soda with your aspirin? And then, if you were to sit quietly, before leaving, if you really intend going back tonight though I wish you wouldn’t, you know, we might have a game of draughts? I can’t remember when I last …’

  When his voice stopped so suddenly, there was a very remarkable stillness indeed, broken only distantly, in the country kind of way; the old dog wailing out there in his shed; a distant train. The nearer and more vital and intimate sound of the crackling flames in the grate there, eating the green, juicy wood.

  And the small sound of the aspirin bottle falling to the parquet; and the slightly bigger sound of the draughtboard falling there too.

  And then a sliding, muffled sound, which might have been anything.<
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  And, at last, the closing of a door, two doors; quietly.

  … Mr Bowling enjoyed that sense of excitement which the Londoner always gets when he has been away for a little time, but is now coming home again. He drove like the wind, leaving the quiet behind him. At Bromley he stopped at an hotel and went in to the noise and the lights. It was gay …

  In his pocket was Mrs Nandle’s little parcel. She had asked him at lunch-time if he lived anywhere near Brook Green, and when he said he did, she asked him if he would be so very good as to take the little parcel to an address for her, it was fragile and might break in the post. It was a present for someone. He hadn’t listened at all closely, merely registering that he would be delighted to deliver the parcel safely. The address was on it in Mrs Nandle’s large script.

  He forgot it again.

  When he reached London he was well-lit and in a bright humour. He felt pleased to see his flat again, the atmosphere was friendly and warm. He mixed a stiff whisky and soda, tossed it back and went down to the club, where, off-handedly, he asked Daphne for a newspaper.

  ‘A newspaper?’ she cried cheerily. ‘Why, Mr Bowling, it’s Sunday!’

  He made a grimace.

  ‘How stupid of me! I clean forgot.’

  CHAPTER XIII

  SUNDAY at the Heights was little different to other days; the club merely opened an hour later, while Mrs Farthing merely put on her green flowing dress with the pink coral beads. Mr Farthing looked just the same, in the same ash-strewn dark suit, sitting on the same stool, looking sullen and vicious and going behind his hand: ‘Here he is again—h’mf! And don’t think I’ve forgotten!’ when Mr Bowling came in. He heard Mr Bowling ask for a paper and thought he meant the Sunday morning papers, which were on the table to his hand, but he thought: ‘I’m not going to pass them to him, B. . . . . Capitalist, let him send one of the servants for them! I suppose he wants to look at his B. . . . . horoscope!’ Nearly everybody in the club went by the Sunday horoscopes, even though all vowed how stupid it was and how wrong all forecasts were. A thin, old, redhaired lady with a scar right across her lips, who had made a long profession out of love, but had now succeeded to well earned retirement at the Heights, on the other hand swore by Mr Naylor in the Sunday Express, indicating that he had saved her from mistakes time and again. But Captain Batcher, the squash champion rubbed his sweating body down under the shower downstairs and frequently admitted: ‘I’m a complete baby with this affair of the stars, old cock,’ to his crony Admiral Leopard. ‘I swear by Adrienne Arden. News of the World, y’know.’ Admiral Leopard knew the News of the World, he thought it was a paper full of sparkle, but he didn’t follow her, ‘only alcohol and billiards, what?’ The Admiral had a beetroot-coloured face and was very popular because one night he had been exceptionally merry and had mistaken Mr Farthing’s little club-office for the gents, the two places being side by side, and Mr Farthing had gone to his desk startled to observe: ‘a leak from somewhere—struth, Daphne, come here quick …?’ There was no dancing on Sundays, Ted Tickler and His Boys having an engagement at the Locarno Dance Hall, Tooting Bec, where they dealt out swing and boogy woogy to entranced couples who later repaired to the Common to stretch their young and aching limbs. Mr Bowling had a drink with three people with whom he was on nodding acquaintance, Flight Lieutenant Hollowshaw, the lady people said wasn’t really Mrs Hollowshaw, and the dull girl people said was really Miss Hollowshaw. The Flight Lieutenant looked like an eagle, and was suitably reticent about things everyone wanted to know, and would only let drop tantalising hints about what Bomber Command really had been up to, and how Churchill really crossed the Atlantic, and what we really had done to Berlin since war began. Miss Hollowshaw was rather like a mouse who had learned to stand on two little legs, and she said she thought it was a marvellous idea of the Russians to drop dead bodies of Germans into Berlin streets. Mrs Hollowshaw had a kind face, and always showed her ring, because she knew nobody thought she was really married to Jock. She didn’t like talking about dead bodies or war matters, and lived from hour to hour, never knowing when she would see Jock again, if ever at all. She liked to talk about the flats, telling Mr Bowling that the one-room flats here were ‘very natty’, and that the two-roomed ones were ‘awfully natty, they really are’, and that she thought the three-roomed ones were ‘marvellously natty’. She showed oddly long teeth when she smiled, and he thought she had the thinnest shoulders he had ever seen. He listened to it all in a dream and had the feeling that this modern way of living was a very clever invention, when one thought of the past with its bare and lonely rooms, without radio or light, and without getting to know anyone in the house, except the forward or the boring or the desperate who came to the door and timidly asked for a shilling for the gas, they’d run out of change, you’d get it back when they’d been to the bank—which of course you never did, the poor devils had never seen a bank, except from the outside. Mr Bowling felt slightly benevolent, as did the Flight Lieutenant, both of them thinking: ‘Well, it’s all very jolly and gay, but in a day or two, well, who knows?’ Daphne was signalled for, and she came smiling along to say in her Sunday manner: ‘Same again, sir? I’m afraid we’ve run out of Scotch Ale, would you like some bottled lager?’