In Pursuit of the English Read online

  Bobby Brent let me in to a long low room, badly lit, that had Dan’s trestles and working tools standing neatly slacked in one corner. A half-circle bar had been installed, I saw the dim lighting was designed. A dozen wall-lights shed a reddish glow. Bobby Brent turned on a white working light, and the wall-lights became regularly-spaced red spots on arsenic-green surfaces.

  ‘Is the décor your idea?’

  ‘Décor! That’s not how it will be. Think I don’t know how to do things?’

  He took out a sheaf of poster-sized papers and spread them on the counter. They were all erotic semi-nudes, of an exotic nature.

  ‘We’re going to have these stencilled on the walls. What do you think?’

  ‘What sort of clientele do you have in mind?’

  ‘Take a look out of the door and see for yourself. This’ll be a place people can come at evenings, not too expensive, and plenty of class for their money.’ He pulled a clean sheet of drawing-paper to him and began sketching another nude. ‘See the idea? It’ll be the same as a night-club I saw in Cairo in the war. Now that was a place.’

  ‘It seems a bit old-fashioned to me.’

  ‘That’s what you think. Your ideas might be all right for the West End, People who can buy what they like don’t like to have their dirty ideas pushed down their throats. But in a neighbourhood like this, they need to know what they’re getting.’

  ‘Why, is it going to be a brothel as well?’

  ‘I say! You’d better be careful you know, That reminds me. You stay here. I’ll telephone my friend. He’ll have an idea or two that’ll interest you, you’ll see.’

  I waited for about half an hour. Then Bobby Brent came back with a small ratlike man who introduced himself as Mr Ponsonby’s lawyer, Mr Haigh.

  Bobby Brent could not prevent himself from smiling with premonitory triumph.

  ‘And now,’ I said, ‘let’s have it.’

  They exchanged glances. Bobby Brent nodded.

  Mr Haigh said; ‘You’re a writer, is that correct?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘And you’d like to make some money on the side.’

  ‘Mr Ponsonby thinks so.’

  ‘Mr Ponsonby knows his way about. Now. You know about the libel laws?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘That’s right, we like someone who’s careful about what they’re getting. But I know my trade. Now. You write a story. You get it printed. Doesn’t matter where. Anywhere will do. And then – bob’s your uncle if you go about it right.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘All right, all right. We’ll start from another angle. Have you had a story published in a magazine lately?’

  ‘As it happens, yes.’

  ‘Good. Right. Take a look at Raymond here.’

  ‘I’m looking.’

  ‘He’s in your story. How would you describe him?’

  ‘Tall, dark, handsome.’

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘Sinister.’

  ‘No, no. It’s the distinguishing marks you have to go for. Take another look – right? He’s got a scar under his jaw.’

  ‘Bayonet,’ said Bobby Brent, modestly. ‘Commandos. The man next to me – should have stuck the dummy, stuck me instead.’

  ‘Right. Now. A tall dark handsome man – sinister is not the right note, it’s the wrong touch. With a scar down under his jaw. Now, what does this man do in your story? Right, I’ll tell you. He breaks the law. Doesn’t matter how. Bob’s your uncle. Right?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Raymond here comes to me. A lawyer. Right? I write to the publishers. My client’s been libelled. Easily identifiable. Damages. Settled out of Court. One hundred nicker, just like that – split.’

  ‘Nice for you.’ I said. ‘But what about me?’

  ‘Insurance pays. You don’t. The publishers don’t. I’ve made hundreds that way. Hundreds. Always settle out of Court, they do – frightened of Court. The libel laws work against them. Only once went to Court. We lost. Mistake. But what’s one mistake with so much to gain? How about it?’

  ‘I’m not entirely clear in my mind.’

  ‘Right. Try again. Take me. How would you describe me – as a writer, mind.’

  ‘Small, furtive, rodentlike.’

  ‘Nab, not those fancy words. Look at my face. What do you see? I’ve got a mole. Look. Now, there’s your character for you – a lawyer with a good practice, his office situated so and so, and the name’s important, not Haigh, too close, something like Hay, or Hag – enough to establish malice. And with a mole on his upper cheek, he does something he shouldn’t. It’s in the bag. Not that I want you to use me – it’s too close the knuckle in a manner of speaking. But Raymond here. Or I can find someone, I got three hundred once, split three ways, it’s a hundred nicker each – what’s it cost you – spend an evening scribbling something, good enough to sell. I know three writers – they’ve lived off the libel laws these five years. Right, Now, what do you say?’

  ‘What immediately strikes me is, I’m surprised you’re interested in such small stakes. Knowing the way Mr Ponsonby operates, what’s even a hundred to him?’

  They exchanged another glance.

  ‘Raymond Ponsonby’s in a class by himself,’ said Mr Haigh. ‘That I grant you. And I’m not saying it would be Mr Ponsonby who’d oblige. I’m not saying that. I was using him and myself as examples. Right?’

  ‘I’ll think it over,’ I said.

  Bobby Brent controlled, with difficulty, a look of pure vicious triumph.

  We all shook hands. Mr Haigh departed, hoping he would have the pleasure of my further acquaintance.

  We locked up. ‘And now, a taxi,’ I said.

  ‘You want your pound of flesh, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m learning.’

  I saw him laugh silently.

  In the taxi he pulled out a piece of paper. ‘Here’s the contract,’ he said. On it was typed: ‘In pursuance of an arrangement come to this day the………. 1950………. contracts to pay Raymond Ponsonby the sum of £50 or half the proceeds of the damages gained from ………. Publishing Company, as a result of the story written by the said ………. libelling the said Raymond Ponsonby, in terms to be agreed in private treaty between the said ………. and the said Raymond Ponsonby before the story is written by the said ………. such payment to be made within a week of settlement being received from the said publishing company.’

  ‘You just fill in your name,’ he said casually. ‘Of course it’s a draft. To give you the idea. We knocked it out in Mr Haigh’s office while you were waiting.’

  ‘The only thing is,’ I remarked, ‘I used to work in a lawyer’s office.’

  I heard his breathing change. In the dark of the taxi he laboured to hide the murder on his face.

  ‘I say!’ he said at last. ‘You should have told me. It’s not fair. That’s taking advantage. You can’t call it anything else.’

  ‘Well, it’s not bad,’ I conceded. ‘Take quite a lot of people in, that document, I should think.’

  ‘Now, if you’d done the decent thing and told me you worked for a lawyer, you’d have saved me a lot of trouble, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Collusion, wouldn’t it be? Of course, the Law’s different here, but it’s probably collusion for the purposes of hand. And you could have blackmailed me for years and years.’

  ‘Well, how was I to know you knew about the Law, if you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘Your trouble is, you haven’t yet learned what people you can double-cross and who you can’t.’

  ‘Nobody’s using words like that to Andrew MacNamara. You’d better be careful.’ He thought a while. ‘Besides, look at it one way – I was doing you a good turn. After all, there is a lot of money to be made out of the libel law. That’s a fact. Of course that stuff’s not really in my class any longer, but a couple of years back I made a few hundred nicker out of writers.’

  ‘It all helps.’

>   ‘You’re coming on,’ he said at last, after a long silence. ‘I must say that you – you’re coming along fast. Well, I like that. You might turn out to have a real head for business. We could work together yet, if you just learned to trust me.’

  ‘It’s a terrible thing, lack of trust between friends.’

  ‘Yes. And loses money in the long run. Well, Mr Haigh will be disappointed. He’s not been doing too well recently, and he could do with a hand-up. I tell you what. I’ve a proposition. We’ll sign a real document, fair and above board, I don’t want any money for myself, but you and Mr Haigh split between you. I’d like to do him a good turn, and you, too. And that would show you I’m on your side.’

  ‘I don’t think my head for business is highly enough developed yet.’

  ‘Not yet, I grant you. But it comes with practice. Mind you, I’ll tell you this, when I first met you. I’d never have believed you’d come on like this, but you just let me know when you’re ready, and I’m your man.’ He left me at the door and took the taxi on, saying: ‘No hard feelings, mind you!’

  ‘None at all, I assure you.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  I did not see him again: he left the Bolts’ house that night. Dan and Flo were worried about the loss of rent but not, as I thought they should be, about their capital.

  Dan said it had all been done through a lawyer. Who chose the lawyer? Bobby Brent, said Dan, but a lawyer is a lawyer, when all is said and done.

  Two years later their partnership broke up, in violence. They had filled their two houses with West Indians; but Bobby Brent was making off with more than his share of the rents. Dan got to hear of this, and challenged him, Bobby Brent denied it, Dan lost his temper and assaulted him. Within a few seconds he found himself lying on his back, under the ex-Commando, the ju-jitsu expert; helpless, the knife that he had in his hand pointing at his own throat.

  They made a deal, in that position. They would each take one of the houses, Dan would sell out his share in the night-club, now doing nicely, to Bobby Brent. He would say nothing more about the fact he had never been paid for the work he did decorating the place.

  Dan lost a good deal of money in this settlement, but not so much that he could not immediately afford to buy a third house for himself.

  But this glory was still well in the future; they were occupied now with getting in enough money to keep up the hire-purchase instalments and pay for food.

  The campaign against me began when Dan came up to demand a month’s rent in advance. I paid in advance weekly. There was no proof, because we had agreed that rent-books were not necessary between friends. I refused; and Dan stamped out, saying that there were marks on the table that had not been there before, and I was going to have to pay him for the damage.

  I told Rose, and she said: ‘They’re cross. They want you to take the rooms on the ground-floor when they’re ready, and I said you wouldn’t want to. They’re charging five pounds a week. You wouldn’t want to pay that, would you? And I said that no one who’d seen that place so filthy and smelly would live in it, no matter how nice Dan does it up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to.’

  ‘No. Nor me. They might see that for themselves, but they don’t. Just hang on tight, their tempers’ll improve. Flo’s got a scheme on to get Jack back. He came into my shop yesterday and sent a message. I told Flo, but she daren’t tell Dan. She’s written out an advertisement to lie on the table for Dan to see: Come back. Jack. All is forgiven. But Dan pretends not to see it. Well, they’d better be quick, because Jack’s thinking of going to Australia. He says there’s no room in this country for a lad of enterprise. He can say that, looking at Dan. He makes me laugh, he does really.’

  She said ‘he makes me laugh’ in a sad heavy voice I had not heard for some weeks. Three evenings she spent in my room, one after another, saying that she wasn’t going to let Dickie take her for granted. In other words, he was standing her up again. Also she was troubled about her brother, now due out of Borstal. War Damage had finished with the attic, and she wanted him to live there. Flo and Dan refused; they were prepared to let Len sleep where Jack had, in the kitchen, rent-free, provided he helped Dan with the decorating.

  ‘But it’s not nice,’ said Rose. ‘He’ll want a little comforting and petting after that place, and all he’ll get will be work, work. And no money for it. So what can I do? My mother’s married that fancy man and he’s already started to treat her bad. I could have told her. But she’s got a real weakness for bad ones, the way I told you.’

  ‘Like someone else I know,’ I said.

  She was distressed. ‘Don’t say that,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t say it. Not yet, any rate. Perhaps things’ll come right. I mean, I know he loves me and that’s what counts, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps Flo’s right,’ I said.

  ‘But I couldn’t be happy, knowing I’d got a man that way. It stands to reason, you’d always be thinking – you’d remember you tricked him and you wouldn’t feel good. Mind you, it doesn’t trouble Flo, she’s happy enough.’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘No. But they’ll make it up.’

  Downstairs. Flo had been reduced by Dan’s persistent bad temper into a state of permanent near-tears. When he entered the basement he was confronted by Flo and Aurora, sitting in each other’s arms, staring at him in helpless pathos.

  He swore and blustered, but Flo replied through Aurora, thus: ‘Ah, my Lord, your daddy’s cross with us, Oar, he doesn’t love us no more, he just wishes we were both dead.’ At which Aurora wept, and Flo with her, genuinely and copiously.

  Soon he counter-attacked. He was waking very early these days. He sneaked Aurora out of her bed while Flo slept, and took her into the kitchen. There he built up a great fire, and ate his breakfast with the child on his knee, feeding her bits of fried bread and egg. One morning the builders had blocked the front door with their gear and I had to go out through the basement, Dan forgot his ill-humour with me, and gave me a smile, pushing forward a chair, and setting a cup of tea. There was a great red fire. Aurora sat sleepy and smiling in her white nightgown with her arm round her father’s neck. ‘Look,’ said Dan. ‘she’s eating. She eats for me, if she won’t for her mother.’ He was cheerful and at ease there in his hot kitchen. He cooked more bacon, more egg, for me and for my son, and Aurora ate everything put in front of her.

  ‘You see?’ he kepi saying, awed by this miracle. ‘It’s just that stupid cow her mother that stops her eating.’

  Dan kept this up every day, and when we went up to work in the flat, took the child with him. But it was all too much for Aurora, who spent half the day as Dan’s ally, and the other half as Flo’s. She became silent; all the obedient clown went out of her nature, and she sucked at her bottle hour after hour.

  ‘No. I don’t love you. I don’t love you, I don’t love,’ she murmured automatically whenever either parent came near her. If she was picked up she went rigid and shrieked.

  At this juncture Welfare came again, and insisted on seeing both parents. Dan, who resented Welfare as much as Flo, was prepared to use her in his battle against his wife. He took Aurora to the doctor himself, allowing Flo to go with him.

  What they heard subdued the parents into friendship for each other. They were inarticulately miserable. They both deeply loved the child. Yet the doctor said they had ill-treated her to the point where she had a patch on one lung; her teeth were rotten; her bones were rickety. She had to have regular food, fresh air, and the company of other children. If her condition had not improved by the next visit, she would have to be sent to a sanatorium.

  Rose discussed all this with me; and went down to the basement to say Aurora should go to a nursery school.

  She came back to say: ‘Would you believe it? They say they have no money for nursery schools. I said, it’s your kid, isn’t it? And all that money with Bobby Brent? If it comes to the worst, sell out your share in one of the houses. But, oh no, peri
sh the thought, money before Aurora every time.’

  ‘But they love that kid.’ I said.

  ‘Love?’ said Rose. ‘Don’t use that word to me. I’ve heard all I want for the time being.’ She was going out with Dickie again; but all the joy had gone out of it. She had told him he must marry her; and he was replying: ‘What for?’

  ‘What for? he says. What for? Weil I’m not getting any younger. I say to him. Don’t you want your own home? Don’t you want children? But, oh no, not Dickie Bolt, he just laughs and twists my arm and says Let’s go to bed.’ She leaned forward in her chair, staring into my fire, her hands trembling together in her lap. ‘And what’s sad is, making love isn’t what it was, the way I feel. I’ve gone all cold on him and I can’t help it. And he says: What’s biting you. Rose? Funny, aren’t they – what’s biting you, he says, enjoying himself, and me scared even to think of what’s going to happen. Suppose I don’t never have a kid? I want to have kids bad.’

  ‘Give him up.’ I said, ‘He’s no good to you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say it. I know he isn’t. But I love him and I can’t help myself.’ She sat, staring, silent. Then she said fiercely: ‘And downstairs, that Flo and that Dan – if I had a kid I’d know how to look after it. I know. I’d treat it right and have some sense, not all that shouting and slapping and kissing.’ She wept hopelessly, and would not be comforted.

  Downstairs, now that her parents were no longer quarrelling. Aurora began to improve. Flo took her to the Park every afternoon and pushed her on the swings. She was made to go to bed early. She ate badly but better than before.

  Meanwhile Jack, against Rose’s advice, chose this moment to present himself truculently one evening, demanding to come home. The parents were concentrated on Aurora and their fright over her. He was told he could come back if he helped Dan. Jack had heard of Dan’s need for him, and demanded union rates for whatever work he did. Dan lost his temper again. Jack went off, and soon we heard he had gone to Australia. It was much later that Flo discovered the fifty pounds nest-egg she kept rolled in an old corset at the back of her cupboard was missing. He had used it to pay his passage.