Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper Read online

  ‘What about some rum?’ suggested Hollowshaw all round.

  ‘Rum,’ they agreed. ‘Good idea …!’

  ‘Three large rums, Daph?’

  ‘Not for Phyllis,’ Mrs Hollowshaw said quickly. ‘You’ll make the child tight.’

  ‘Oh, Stee,’ Phyllis said to her mother, if it was her mother. ‘The way you fuss me!’

  Everybody laughed benevolently. Then they cruised over to the machines, searching for sixpenny pieces, Mrs Hollowshaw saying they were so natty, and she adored them, and then they cruised on to the balcony to watch a squash match. Two fat gentlemen in white vests and pants were slamming the ball over the line, darting here and there to catch it on the rebound, plunging forward again to cry: ‘Sorry, sir,’ and the ball whizzing to and fro at incredible speed making a soft, stinging sound like: flap, flap.

  ‘Sorry, sir …!’

  ‘Flap!’

  ‘Splendid, good man …!’

  ‘Flap …!’

  And cheers from the gallery.

  ‘It’s awfully natty,’ Mrs Hollowshaw said, leaning on the rail. ‘I love to watch it! D’you remember when we went to Bermuda, Phyll? That man who made us laugh so …!’

  ‘Sh, Stee, you mustn’t talk, dear!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Stee whispered, hunching her thin shoulders shyly. ‘My mistake, I’m sure!’

  Everyone grinned politely in an understanding sort of way. Flight Lieutenant Hollowshaw stared ferociously at the ball as if he had it in mind to dive bomb the bally thing, no target was too small for him, by jove, it was nice to see a bit of movement again, he was getting properly browned off with this leave, it suddenly seemed endless.

  Mr Bowling slipped quietly away, smiling benevolently. He became aware, once again, that Mr Farthing was leaning up against his office wall, watching him.

  Places, thought Mr Bowling, like tedious people, never seemed so pleasant as when we were about to leave them.

  His flat had never seemed so lived-in as it did that night, sitting alone in his sitting room, staring at the two-bar electric fire, which roasted his slippered feet. ‘It will be a little cheerless at the police station,’ he reflected, and very much regretted the weeks which inevitably had to pass before they got on with the wretched business of dispatching him.

  The room was filled with Mozart.

  A bit of wind had started up outside, and he could hear leaves being blown about on his stone balcony there, beyond the velvet curtains. How had they got there? The leaves made him think of the country, and the country made him think of their drive on Ashdown Forest, and that made him think of poor old Delius. Poor? Why was he poor? Nonsense, he was not poor at all; he shared with a billion braves the glory of that last, tiny secret which defeated us all. Defeated us? It did nothing of the kind. The sensible and the sincere knew all they needed to know about it? He thought of ghosts which he believed were only the guilty dead, or the innocent-but-worried dead, they were anxious about someone or something. But no ghosts had come to visit him: Ivy, Mr Watson, Mr Winthrop, Mr Nandle. None at all. They were far too busy and happy, and far too intelligent, one would hope, to waste any more time messing about here, a draughty, unsatisfactory place, oh, all right in the summer, to be sure, but, on balance, what did it amount to, you were either too hot or too bally cold, too dry or too wet, too full or too empty, too miserable or too happy! He let out a little laugh. ‘B’rf,’ his little laugh went. ‘I dunno, I’m sure—what? B’rf!’ And he stared at his toasting feet. So he sat for a while, ruminating. Presently he figured out: ‘They’ll get back from church about seven-thirty, they’ll telephone for the doctor, who will arrive about eight, say. Then they’ll telephone for the police, which will bring it to nine, say. Then they’ll say, after a certain type of conversation, Mr Bowling lives at Number 502 Addison Heights, London, W11, we haven’t his telephone number, unless poor Delius has it somewhere, do you know if he has, Niggs, my dear?’ But the police would say: ‘Never mind about that, madam, we can soon ask the operator.’ Which would bring the time up to about nine-thirty at the outside, including the instructions from Knockholt Police Station: ‘Pick up this chap Bowling—if you can find him—we want to talk to him.’ Which would bring the time, roughly, up to, say, nine-forty-five.

  He looked at his wristwatch. It was nine-forty-four.

  ‘H’m,’ he thought, and felt pleased to have had a little Mozart while there was time.

  He got up and stretched himself, then went into the bedroom and switched on the light. Where other people would have started to undress sleepily, yawning in a pleased fashion, or in a displeased fashion because they were thinking, Hell, that ruddy Ambulance Station again tomorrow, and all those pitiful L.C.C. lecturers babbling about broken spines, Mr Bowling started packing a small suitcase. He put in a spare shirt, pyjamas, socks, handkerchiefs and dressing gown, remembered collars and shaving kit in the bathroom, and closed the case quietly and put it on the little oak table in the little hall, ready. He looked at his watch and strolled back to the sitting room. He lit a cigar and paced dreamily up and down. Every now and again he looked at his watch, and the minute hand crept round towards ten.

  He had a sudden worry, which had occurred to him before.

  ‘I shall be pretty well sold,’ he thought ruefully, ‘if they bring in a verdict of Unsound Mind. D’you realise, old man, what it’d mean?… It’d mean that bally asylum place, with Ronald True and that crowd—for the rest of my days!’

  It worried him. No motive, you see, he thought over and over again. Though, I suppose I could invent a quarrel—but don’t you see that will spoil my idea? I’m sure I don’t appear mad, and I’m jolly well not mad, surely plenty of people would testify to that, Queenie … Queenie? No, the old pet might pop into the witness box and say he was mad, with the idea of saving his neck. It was a bit of a spot. He thought: ‘Hell! H’m.’

  He would just have to risk it, that’s all.

  It would have to be a sporting chance, all in with the rest.

  He glanced again at his watch. It had just gone ten.

  When it turned eleven, he began to feel very irritable. He was still pacing about, suitcase ready, hat and coat ready.

  At midnight, he put on the radio again, hearing Big Ben and the midnight news.

  He turned it off again in anger, and wandered about the place until one. He thought:

  ‘If I go to bed, they’ll damn well turn up and I shall have to dress again.’

  His mood grew black.

  … When dawn came, he was asleep in the armchair, his feet once again by the electric fire.

  He slept like a log until eight.

  The Belgian refugee had her own key, and she let herself in as usual and proceeded to get Mr Bowling’s breakfast. She betrayed no surprise at all when she saw him asleep in the sitting room. She merely went about her duties, not waking him until breakfast was ready, when she drew the curtains and opened a window or two to let out the fug. It was a winterish but beautiful day, there had been a sharp frost, but the sun was busy melting it. Mr Bowling had been dreaming that he was in a cell and the bed was narrow and short and hard.

  He shot bolt upright.

  ‘By jove,’ he exclaimed. ‘Where am I? What?’

  The woman said nothing whatever, just putting the chair, so to speak, for him to start his breakfast. Expressionless, she went out and closed the door.

  CHAPTER XIV

  AT about the same time, Mr Farthing opened the door of his shop. The first thing he always did on a Monday morning, was to switch on the lights, and start doing a spot of sweeping and dusting. There were no windows in the shop, except the front show window looking on to the foyer of the Heights, and the restaurant windows. He was dusting his china horses when he saw Mr Bowling come down in the lift and go out without a hat and coat. He thought he was looking preoccupied. In about two minutes, Mr Bowling returned carrying goodness only knew how many newspapers. He saw him sit on the settee and begin to go through them all caref
ully. ‘Must be very interested in the war,’ commented Mr Farthing sourly to himself. ‘I wonder what he does. Some safe and cushy job in one of the ministries, little doubt, thirty odd quid a week coming in for doing Sweet Fanny Adams.’ When Mr Bowling was again to be seen buying early editions of the evening papers, and to be sitting reading them quickly but carefully, as if afraid of missing something, Mr Farthing thought: ‘But of course—racing!’ Then he suddenly realised that there was no racing anywhere until next month, he knew that, he could have told him that?

  Upon which, Mr Farthing’s curiosity knew no bounds.

  He thought, scrubbing at his shop front:

  ‘I’d give a quid to know what the devil he does do,’ telling himself sourly that he was not in the least curious, he merely felt it was up to all of us to watch people these days, they were very likely spies or Fifth Columnists. ‘I notice he doesn’t wear a ruddy uniform,’ he thought, forgetting that he didn’t, either. ‘Trust your B. . . . . . Capitalist for that!’

  He scrubbed at his windows with a bitter expression. All day he thought about Mr Bowling, telling himself that he had never for a second forgotten Mr Bowling’s remark about him that first evening in the club, when he’d overheard him ask: ‘Who is that terrible fellow?’ Mr Bowling need not imagine he forgot a thing like that; he hadn’t and he never would. ‘Take it from me,’ he told his wife.

  ‘Dry up,’ Mrs Farthing said, bored. ‘You’re always letting off wind!’

  In the late afternoon, he again saw Mr Bowling go out, and he saw him come back with copies of the Evening Standard, the Evening News and the Star. He sat looking up and down this page and that, throwing a paper aside in a kind of anger, and taking up another. Afterwards, he threw them all away and strode off to the lift. He didn’t appear in the club at all that day, though, if he had, Mr Farthing had made up his mind to get into conversation with him, and do a bit of spying. ‘We owe it to ourselves,’ he said to himself patriotically, and he said it also to Daphne, adding behind his hand:

  ‘In other circumstances, I would not lower myself to speak to a person like that. You know me.’

  Daphne said she did, and laughed.

  ‘You’re only a woman,’ Mr Farthing retorted. He disliked being taken in any way but seriously. ‘No wonder the country’s in the mess it is! You don’t take things seriously at all!’

  ‘I thought you said the country’s mess was the fault of the Capitalists,’ she giggled and said. ‘Now it’s my fault!’

  ‘I’ll have a Scotch and ginger.’

  ‘Why worry?’ she said.

  ‘I know my duty,’ he said mysteriously.

  ‘Why not join up, then?’ she said, smirking.

  He turned red.

  ‘What’s the good of talking to you,’ he snapped, and slammed down a florin.

  He waited and watched, but Mr Bowling did not come in at all.

  Next morning, when he was opening the shop, he noticed Mr Bowling again went out and bought a lot of newspapers.

  Mrs Farthing entered the shop.

  Mr Farthing looked up, extremely startled.

  ‘I thought you said you’d never set foot in this shop,’ he reminded her sulkily. Then he grunted out a laugh. He’d caught her out again, she was only a woman!

  She didn’t mind, she was used to him.

  ‘Dry up,’ she said flatly, ‘and give me a chair. I don’t want to come in here, but we’ve got to talk.’

  ‘Why?’ he mouthed, and put a chair for her and watched her settle herself.

  ‘The manager’s just been. We can’t get the rations, so we’re closing the restaurant.’

  He stood mouthing.

  ‘Closing the restaurant?’ He quickly feared: ‘Closing this shop too? And the club?’

  ‘Dry up, do,’ she said, blowing her nose without hurry. ‘I said the restaurant.’ She blew her nose. ‘I’ve decided to go down to Broadstairs with Aunt Jinnie. She wants me to help her make a go of the tea-rooms.’

  They discussed it, Mr Farthing forgetting Mr Bowling temporarily. He rolled himself a fag, a habit of his, getting out fag papers, roller and tobacco, and leaning on a table, and listening to his wife.

  It wasn’t that Mr and Mrs Farthing disliked each other. They’d married, and things hadn’t been very good financially for a long while, but they’d stuck it, running a boarding house for a bit, and then some chambers. Then his hot air got on her nerves, and things got a bit strained, but recovered somewhat when she had a baby boy, despite her crippled condition, but the boy had died, and she nearly had herself. This brought them together again, in their rough, unromantic way, her saying, Oh, dry up, to his breezy overtures about ‘the old woman being a good sort, though I say it in front of her’, hearty remarks like that. Then, however, on doctor’s orders, she was obliged to ‘refuse him the boudoir’, as he called it, and he suspected the truth, which was that she was thankful for the excuse. A wall fell between them like an iron curtain, the machinery broke down and it didn’t rise again. He turned against her and started having tawdry affairs with housemaids, girls in local laundries, bake houses and shops, and when his sex appeal got less and less, with prostitutes in Hyde Park and Soho. By which time, they had got the job at the Heights, and finance kept them together, on sort of semi-bitter sparring terms. Neither could now believe they had ever been anything to each other, and both were a little embarrassed at the thought of it.

  They looked, as Daphne said, like a Darby and Joan gone wrong. People couldn’t bear him, because of his gross ways and his great bull neck; but they liked her because of her sunny smile and the sensible way she told him to dry up.

  She sat now in the shadowy shop looking rather like a queen who is graciously interviewing an old but tedious subject, who she feels she must pension off for long service. Her skirts fell round her like a crinoline, by reason of her poor, bent legs.

  Mr Farthing looked not unlike a former Fascist dictator for whom the sands of time are quickly running out, and was sulky about it, but anxious to keep his end up with the Generals, for old time’s sake. He might have been saying:

  ‘Yes, it’s all very well, but look what I did for Rome?’

  The shop was brittle with modernness, and even the natural shadows were streaked in surrealist fashion. An arty lampshade, deeply vermilion, depicted a nude wench at the Court of King Arthur, making obeisance to the throne. King Arthur had an ultra-modern look as if he’d just had a couple at The Ivy.

  A door opened into Mr Farthing’s little office, and the shadow on the floor there looked as if it had been cut with a knife.

  ‘So, that’s the idea,’ she said. ‘So what have you got to say about that?’

  His slow and sullen mind had a great deal to say, but it had been tackled too suddenly, and his thoughts had formed a bottle-neck. They bulged and strained, only little bits coming out at the moment, like, ‘What’s all this?’ and, ‘Steady on … what? This is all a bit …’ and his vacant face coloured a little, telling her that he was really pleased, instinctively, at the thought of being up here on his own with Daphne, and knowing she would be making a go of the tea-rooms, where he could come flying down (God forbid) if the Heights got a bomb one night, or anything else happened. He was like a man who has been knocked very gently off his bicycle in the traffic by a Rolls Royce, knows he is not hurt, but yet wonders if he can think quickly enough so as to make a bit of money out of it, yes, look, the mudguard’s a bit bent, claim a fiver for that, and, by jove, yes, look, there’s a distinct bruise on my leg, small, but who’s to say it might not turn into septicæmia, better put in a claim, make twenty quid out of it, they can afford it, Capitalists …