Читать книгу A Voice Like Velvet - Martin Edwards, Donald Henderson - Страница 13

ERNEST was really rather dazed at this period of his life. He was ‘resting’. He had a good think, but let life do the worrying for a change. And he met his first dangerous woman at Miss Wisdon’s house, or to be precise, over Miss Wisdon’s fence. She was a girl of sixteen called Violet. She was fond of chocolate, eating it with her mouth open the whole time, without spilling any of it, and without offering him any. She had raven black hair shaped like a worn-out mop, and a hefty-looking father who wandered about the narrow garden as if he was looking for something. Miss Wisdon didn’t ‘know’ them; they were sanitary inspectors who had come into a bit of money, or they would have been still in Battersea by the gasworks. Violet was fond of standing on the manure heap at the bottom of her garden with her legs wide apart. She balanced herself there in order to stare at him and whatever was going on at any of Miss Wisdon’s windows. The only thing which ever did go on at her windows was a dancing yellow duster, in the mornings. For the rest of the day there was just Ernest for Violet to look at. She thought he made a change. She asked him point blank to kiss her at their third meeting by the manure heap, chocolate and all. He thought it would be like kissing an éclair. ‘You’ve never kissed a girl,’ she challenged him, ‘have you?’

‘I may have done,’ he told her, embarrassed.

‘Where?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘When, then?’

‘I can’t remember now.’

‘I knew you’d never! You went red as red!’

‘No, I didn’t! In any case, why should I tell you?’ he said, stung, but curious about her and this odd phase of his unsatisfactory life.

‘I didn’t want to know,’ she said, womanlike.

Then she said:

‘All the boys are after me. I go to the pictures twice a week.’

‘Oh?’ he said.

‘Joo go to the pictures?’

‘Now and then.’

‘I like Charlie Ruggles,’ she said in a certain way. ‘He’s up the road this week.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ he said, deciding quickly.

‘What’s it about, then?’

‘Well, if I tell you,’ he said glibly, ‘it’ll spoil it for you.’

Her long red tongue travelled down a yard of chocolate.

‘You haven’t seen it. And you’ve never bin with a girl. And you’re a dirty little liar.’

She ran up the garden and then ran back to say:

‘You can call me Violet. But I shall call you Squit.’

Then she ran away again.

It was Squit Bisham, watching her!

On Thursday afternoon when Mr Edwards was expected to dinner, Violet came to her manure heap when Bisham was thoughtfully weeding Miss Wisdon’s aster bed.

‘Hullo, Squit,’ she said.

‘Hallo,’ he said, generously.

‘Dad and Mum have gone out to supper. Take me to the pictures and we’ll be back by nine o’clock. We’ll have a good time.’

She looked flushed and pretty in a rough way. She was still licking chocolate. He was rather interested in the feminine figure at this time. But was it wise to take up with her? He thought of women in terms of marriage, and there was something a little unromantic about marrying a Sanitary Inspector’s daughter. He was very snobbish at this time. Violet was in a very chatty mood, called him Squit in quite a friendly way, and it obviously didn’t occur to her that he could refuse. She told him all about her grandma, who had the dropsy, giving interesting details. Finally she said he was to slip out into the street in exactly an hour’s time.

‘See? Have you got any money?’

‘Well, yes. But …’

‘Enough for chocolates? I hate half doing things.’

‘Look,’ he faltered, ‘I’m afraid I can’t come tonight. Somebody’s coming to dinner.’

Her brow darkened.

‘Who? That Mr Edwards?… That’s fine, leave them together, they’re madly in love with each other, didn’t you know that? Tell Miss Wisdon you want to go for a long walk.’

‘It isn’t so easy as that!’

‘You dirty little squit!’

‘I’d like to come some other night,’ he protested.

‘You’re afraid,’ she said.

‘I’m not …!’

‘Yes, you are! You’re afraid of girls!’ The contempt in her voice hurt badly. ‘I shall never speak to you again!’

She turned and ran up the garden, long legs white in the sunshine.

The incident clouded an evening already a little overcast. Mr Edwards’s arrival did nothing to cheer, nor did his after-dinner comments. During dinner he made no comments at all. Miss Wisdon had warned him in advance not to speak to him unless spoken to, Mr Edwards liking to eat in silence and to masticate his mouthfuls fifty-six times. He sat at table staring over his head at the bust of Robespierre on the bookcase. He was tall and stern and high-collared, and Miss Wisdon treated him like God. He treated her with great courtesy and respect too, speaking of her to him as ‘a great lady, so good and kind’. There wasn’t the feeling they were madly in love with each other, but he gathered at the finish he was a Trustee, and that she had done a great deal for the Chapel at which he was Sidesman. Dinner was prolonged and Ernest sat wondering what he would say to him afterwards, and whether Violet really thought he was afraid of girls, and whether he had better invite her to the pictures fairly soon. Miss Wisdon had said in scandalized tones before dinner: ‘I hope I didn’t see you talking to the girl next door, dear? She is not at all suitable and we do not know them.’ At the close of dinner Mr Edwards gravely said a grace, and Miss Wisdon in hushed tones said she now thought Mr Edwards might like to speak to him alone, and she went gravely out. He opened the door for her and she went off to the drawing-room, giving him a little pat on the cheek as if to say: ‘It’s quite all right, your future is assured—thanks to Mr Edwards!’

‘So kind and good,’ Mr Edwards said as he returned to his place. He was getting out a little cigar not much bigger than a cigarette.

He thereupon grew very pompous and talkative, asking a lot of questions about his life, and about his schools, and about how he liked being with good, kind Miss Wisdon, and whether she ever spoke about him. He replied that she frequently did and he looked very pleased in a clouded sort of way. Suddenly he got up and went to the fireplace and clasped his hands behind his coat tails. He said he understood that Ernest was worried about his future, but that now it was settled, and that he was to start on Monday in the West End of London, in a Banking and Insurance House called Ponds Corporation Limited. There was a sinister silence.

It suddenly came to Ernest that it was time he emerged from his dazed condition and took a serious interest in things.

He tried very hard to convince Mr Edwards about certain musical ambitions, which he didn’t really possess, but they sounded better than mentioning burglary.

Mr Edwards didn’t look the type to understand cat-burglaries.

Unfortunately, he didn’t understand music, either.

Ernest became aware that he had reached a time in life when certain decisions had to be made. He had some money now, but not so much as all that, and he supposed Mr Edwards was right in saying he ought to ‘do’ something. Why not learn banking, from the bottom rung of the ladder? It was so safe, Mr Edwards said he thought.

Mr Edwards said that music was ‘very unsatisfactory’, and, although Ernest knew he was pulling Mr Edwards’s leg, he kept on about music, so as to keep off the difficult subject of banking.

He also said there was no need for Mr Edwards to bother about him. It was only Miss Wisdon’s idea.

‘Only?’ frowned Mr Edwards.

‘It’s very kind of her, of course.’

‘She is very good and kind …’

‘I know. But there’s no need for either of you to bother about me, Mr Edwards. Thank you very much. Things will sort themselves out, I’ve no doubt.’ He added vaguely: ‘I might write a symphony.’

Mr Edwards was horrified.

‘Composing?’ he said, standing. He seemed fascinated by him. ‘But I thought you wanted to carve out a career for yourself. I know you have a little money now. What’s better than to learn banking? Then you will be able to look after it.’

‘I loathe money and banks,’ Ernest said sadly.

This winded him completely. He looked quite at a loss until his brain cleared with:

‘I must remember you are still very young.’ He seemed much happier. ‘How old are you?’

‘Getting on for thirty.’

‘Much older than you look. But nothing wrong with that age to enter a sound firm like Ponds Corporation. In fifty years—providing you work hard—you’ll probably be earning between ten and twenty pounds a week. This music phase of yours—there’s nothing wrong with it—will of course pass. Here is your letter of admission. I have already written to the bank on your behalf.’

Thus this ancient problem was no easier for Ernest than for a multitude of others. It had come to him later, that was all. Just before he was ready for it. Income versus Art, and all the arguments about playing for safety, or playing for your beliefs and your secret faith in yourself. He could never agree with those who thought an artist could not create what he wanted to create without that frightful preliminary toss-up. Perhaps one day it would be possible for the boy who wanted to paint or write or sing or play to get on with it at once without money worries, in the same way that the would-be businessman could get on with it from the word go, and paid for it into the bargain. Until the present, the would-be creators, who had problems enough to decide if they were even sufficiently gifted, had to set out into the darkness of probable hunger and squalor, at tenderer years than thirty. It was time that Dickens’s garret was burned down and forgotten. Mr Edwards was no better and no worse than his predecessors. He put it down to Ernest’s youth and said quite sharply: ‘Take my advice and put music out of your head.’ He would have said much worse about cat-burglary.

‘Supposing Beethoven had done that,’ Ernest explained, flushed. ‘Or Schubert.’

He let out a guffaw. ‘So you fancy you are Schubert?’

‘No,’ he said, getting bored. What ought he to do with his life? There was such a lot of it.

‘We all have young ideas,’ Mr Edwards said.

‘Did you?’ he asked.

Mr Edwards went into the drawing-room presently, shaking his head and looking very cross. Ernest heard him telling Miss Wisdon that he had been a little rude ‘and ungrateful’, and that he was afraid he was stupid into the bargain. He admitted Ernest looked intelligent enough to grow out of it ‘in time’. When he had gone, Miss Wisdon asked him in scandalized tones if he had been ‘polite to Mr Edwards? He’s such a great man, and Chapel.’

‘I tried to be,’ he said. ‘But I’m older than he thinks.’

‘I hope you will make a better impression on Ponds Corporation, dear. You are not at all old. Thirty is nothing. For a man.’

‘I want to learn about music. Not about banking, Miss Wisdon,’ he decided to explain. ‘When anyone wants to learn about banking, they’re received with open arms! Everyone understands immediately. They don’t get told, oh, you must go and write a symphony, here’s a letter of introduction, you will start on Monday at two pounds a week. Then, after fifty years, if you have written enough symphonies, you may earn ten pounds a week.’

‘Don’t scream, dear,’ prayed Miss Wisdon, scandalized afresh. ‘You look quite flushed, I’m sure you’ve got a headache.’

And she asked him if he needed aspirin or Enos. He chose aspirin.

Next morning he saw Violet balanced as usual on her manure heap. He had been set to sweep in between Miss Wisdon’s row of stone frogs, by the sun-dial. Violet was wiping her tongue along a stick of liquorice and eyeing him with that kind of disfavour which was also speculative. A high wind blew her mop in an easterly direction.

‘Squit,’ she said.

‘Good morning,’ he said, by now resolved to ease his ruffled vanity by some display of manhood. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’

She turned her back, but he noticed she didn’t run away.

‘Would you like to come to the pictures?’ he enquired nervously.

‘Seen everything,’ her back said.

‘Well, we could go to a theatre.’

‘What sort?’

‘Something musical, if you like.’

‘When?’

‘Saturday. Tomorrow. I’ve decided to start a job on Monday and I’ll be leaving here.’

She swung round.

‘Leaving?’

‘Yes. I didn’t come here for always. Miss Wisdon only did it to oblige. My other house is being painted.’

She would not commit herself, but he felt certain she would turn up, if only because he secretly prayed she wouldn’t. She ran in, and then ran back to say she had examined the papers and he could take her to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, a twopenny bus ride, and that if she turned up, she’d meet him there in time for the first house. ‘I say if. I ought not to come out with you at all, after the way you treated me.’

‘It’s very kind of you.’

‘I wouldn’t do it for everyone.’

‘Well, thank you.’

He retired to wait in dread for the following evening.

When it came, he told Miss Wisdon he thought he would go and make sure of how to reach Ponds Corporation, so as not to be late for Monday morning, and she was very pleased, though she told him not to linger long in the West End on a Saturday night. She looked very grave about this, and so did Iris. The future seemed a dizzy and bewildering affair, and his evening with Violet offered some light relief. Perhaps it was at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, once again within sound of music, or at any rate musical noises, that he decided Ponds Corporation could not be allowed to hold him for long, if at all. Violet turned up on the tick. She looked surprisingly nice, a trifle startling, wearing a little red hat with a huge white feather jutting out of the top of it. She was for a time surprisingly shy and subdued, blushing profusely when she said: ‘Hullo, Squit!’

‘Good evening, Violet,’ he said, raising a felt hat bought that very morning. ‘It is most kind of you to have come.’

‘I bet you thought I wouldn’t,’ she said.

They went in. They were both very shy until a turn came on called ‘The Orchestra Conductor’, in which a man climbed up out of the orchestra pit with a fiddle and started to conduct the orchestra. A fat lady hurried on as if she was the outraged manageress about to send him off the stage. In two seconds they were fighting with such astonishing abandon, mainly involving the violin and the manageress’s skirts, that the audience, led by Violet, was in an uproar of delight, Violet rocking to and fro and reaching crescendo with the cry: ‘Ooh, my dear, she’s got her behind in his face …!’ It was a great success, and Violet kept up her enthusiasm with such verve that the gentleman in front kept turning round and asking her if she would mind keeping her hands to herself. What she said to him would not bear mentioning, but he got up and walked off to the bar with an expression of extreme horror on his face. Violet was very interested in the bar, but it was still a little improper for ladies to be seen in bars, so she had to be content with ice cream and chocolates. Out in the street again he had his first hint that something was wrong with the post-war world. Out-of-works were parading with banners round Shepherd’s Bush Green. The banners cried: ‘We want work. Where are your promises? We are the heroes!’ He took Violet home on the 17 bus. When they got off it was dark and she said: ‘We won’t go in yet,’ in sinister tones. She took him along a side street to some trees she seemed to know. He felt very nervous indeed. She said he had been ‘sweet’, and wasn’t quite the squit she thought, and that the rest of the evening was on her.

‘Oh?’ he said, puzzled. He was very young about women.

‘I love you. You’re sweet.’

They were under the tree.

‘It’s very kind of you,’ he began.

‘No, don’t you understand? I’ll be your girl. I thought you were a sissy, but you’re not.’

‘A sissy?’

‘Oh, stop kidding,’ she giggled, ‘you are a One,’ and she dug him in the ribs. ‘Shall I take off my hat? Or what?’

He supposed he owed quite a lot to Violet; for breaking the ice, as it were. She was quite nice about things, almost motherly. He supposed she was a naughty little girl. But he remembered her now as a cockney girl who got him the biggest black eye of his life. When they got to her door at last he thought the evening was over. But thrills were the spice of life to her. She whispered that pa and ma would be in bed, and that they would have five minutes in the parlour, ‘so long as we are quiet’. Unfortunately, she omitted to inform him about the stairs leading off the hall to the basement. Tip-toeing in with beating heart, he missed his footing and fell with prolonged and resounding thuds down the twenty-four steps to Violet’s dropsical grandma’s kitchen. Dropsical grandma evidently slept there, for nightmarish screams broke out on the instant, being taken up by the sounds of creaking beds above, opening doors and a male voice bawling: ‘Who’s muckin’ abart darn there?’ Followed the massive vision of the Sanitary Inspector himself, replete with blunderbuss. Much of what he called him was now happily lost in the limbo where lurk all such unhappy misdemeanours, but he remembered a cuff which sent him reeling some four hundred yards backwards down the corridor. ‘You whipper-snapper,’ was one thing the Sanitary Inspector thought about him. ‘You seducer of innicent gells! Get art—afore I chuck you art!’