1946 - More Deadly than the Male Page 8

  Now, in the solitude of the bathroom, he only felt the excitement and not the fright that women raised in him.

  It was after four o’clock before he left the house. In high spirits he walked briskly down the street. It was a grand afternoon, and he found a secret pleasure in mingling with the crowds moving along the Edgware Road. He was now one of the crowd; he had somewhere to go, someone to meet. It gave him a feeling of security and confidence. He must do this more often, he told himself. It was absurd to bury himself away in his bedroom as he had been doing.

  Mortimer Street consisted of a row of small shops, three or four hawkers’ barrows and a public-house. George had to walk the length of the street before he discovered Joe’s Club. It was over a second-hand bookshop. The open door revealed a flight of uncarpeted stairs that rose steeply into darkness, and through the doorway came the smell of stale scent, spirits and tobacco smoke.

  He hesitated for several minutes before climbing the stairs. Finally he went up, his hand on the rickety banister, his feet treading cautiously, the stairs creaking under his weight.

  There was a dimly lit passage at the top of the stairs, and at the end of the passage there was a door on which was a dirty card with “Joe’s Club” printed in uneven, illiterate letters.

  George turned the door-knob and pushed open the door. He found himself in a long, narrow room, which, he guessed, must stretch the width of the two shops below. At the far end of the room was a bar. Rows of bottles stood on shelves within reach of the bar-tender’s hands. All round the room stood tables on which chairs were stacked, their legs pointing to the dirty, grey-white Ceiling. Opposite the bar, at the other end of the room, was a dais containing a piano, three battered music-stands and a drummer’s outfit. The walls of the room were covered with large reproductions of nudes from La Vie Parisienne and Esquire. A public telephone box stood just inside the door.

  “The joint’s closed,” a man’s voice said at his elbow.

  George jumped. He looked round, took a step back and stared at the little man who had come silently into the room. His flat, broad face was unpleasant; his complexion was shiny white, the texture of a slug’s body. Reddish hair like steel wool grew far back on his head and gave him a great deal of domed white forehead. His small, bitter, green eyes probed at George inquisitively.

  “Besides, you’re not a member,” the little man went on. His voice seemed to come from the back of his throat, like that of a ventriloquist. His bloodless lips hung open, but did not move as he spoke.

  “Yes,” George said. “I know.” He fingered his tie uneasily. “I really came to leave a message . . . .”

  “Why should I bother with messages?” the little man asked curtly. “Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do?”

  That settled it, George thought, delighted. He would have to wait for Brant’s sister. You couldn’t rely on this nasty little specimen to pass on any message.

  “All right,” he said, shrugging. “Perhaps you can tell me when Miss Brant will be here? I’ll tell her myself.”

  “Who?” asked the little man. —”Miss Brant? Never ‘eard of ‘er.”

  “Never mind,” George said firmly. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll come back later.”

  The green eyes probed his face.

  “Do you mean Cora?”

  George was startled. “Yes,” he said. “Miss Cora Brant.”

  A sly, sneering smile came into his green eyes.

  “Gawd Almighty! We’re putting on side, ain’t we?” the little man said. “Okay, palsy, leave your message. I’ll take care of it.”

  George’s growing dislike for the little man suddenly turned to suspicion. He looked a real bad lot: a shady character: a gangster. He could have been anything—a racing tout with a razor, a pimp with a knife.

  Abruptly he turned to the door. “I’ll see her,” he said shortly. “Don’t you bother.”

  He went downstairs. The little man watched him all the way down. As he reached the street door, the little man called after him, “Now wait. Don’t be so ‘asty,” but George did not stop. He walked rapidly away, his face hot and red.

  At the end of the street he paused and tried to make up his mind what he was to do. Obviously the club wouldn’t open until the evening. But what time in the evening? He’d have to find that out. He crossed the road and entered a shabby little tobacconist’s. He bought a packet of Player’s, and as he was waiting for his change he asked, “When does Joe’s Club open?”

  The old woman who had served him shook her head. “You want to keep away from that place,” she said. “No good’s ever come out of it.”

  George opened the packet of cigarettes and lit one. “Oh?” he said, feeling a stab of excitement. “What do you know about it?”

  “Enough,” the old woman answered shortly, and put the odd coppers on the counter.

  George lowered his voice. “I’m interested,” he said. “Perhaps you can help me.”

  “A den of thieves,” the old woman said, her thin, yellow face creasing in disgust. “The police ought to ‘ave closed it down long ago. I wish I was the mother of some of those little sluts ‘oo go there: I’d warm their backsides for ‘em!”

  “I’m supposed to meet someone there,” George said, looking at her a little helplessly. “I don’t want to get mixed up in anything. Who’s the little bloke with the red hair?”

  “You’ll get mixed up all right,” the old woman said contemptuously. “You keep away from that ‘ole.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” George returned, smiling at her. “But who is the little bloke with the red hair?”

  “That’s Little Ernie; everyone knows ‘im and his women.”

  “What time does the Club open?” George asked again.

  “Seven, and take my advice, keep clear of the place. They might take you for a copper, like I nearly did.” The old woman smiled secretly. “It ain’t healthy being taken for a copper in Joe’s Club.”

  George raised his hat and went out into the sunshine. Dark with a red bone bangle; a den of thieves; Little Ernie and his women. What a wonderful Saturday afternoon!

  He caught a bus at the corner of the street and travelled to Hyde Park. There he lost himself in the crowds, listening to the speakers, walking along the Serpentine, sitting on the grass. He didn’t mind waiting, because the evening was so full of promise. This was the world that fascinated him: the world he had read about and dreamed about.

  At half-past six he walked back to Mortimer Street. It had a forlorn, deserted appearance now that the hawkers’ barrows had gone and the shops were shut. He went into the public-house which was opposite Joe’s Club and ordered a pint of bitter. He took his glass to the window, where he could see the club entrance. From the window he had an uninterrupted view of the street. He lit a cigarette and waited.

  It was a long wait, but he did not mind. The street was full of interest. After seven o’clock a couple of stout, flashily dressed Jews came along, paused outside the Club, talked for a minute or so and then entered. Almost immediately a blonde woman wearing fox furs came down the street with a coarse, elderly man who was talking excitedly, gesticulating with his hands, an ugly look of rage on his badly shaven face. The woman walked along indifferently. She swayed her hips, and George recognised her for what she was. They, too, disappeared up the stairs to Joe’s Club. A little later three young girls—the eldest could not have been more than seventeen—all blonde, all wearing cheap, tight little frocks, all talking in high-pitched, nasal voices, disappeared, giggling and yapping, through the shabby doorway.

  George ordered another pint and continued to watch. From what he had seen, Joe’s Club seemed to attract the most odd type of man and woman from the shadowy night life of London. They were out of place in the sunlit street, like slugs you reveal when you turn over a log that has been lying in thick grass for a long time. Sunshine was not for them. Dark streets, dimly lit pavements, tobacco-laden air, the clink of glasses, the sound of liquor running from
a bottle—that was their background. They were., the “wide” boys and girls of London—the prostitutes, the thieves, the pimps, the touts, the pickpockets, the cat burglars, the hangers-on, the playboys and the-good-time girls all moving in a steady stream, like a river of rottenness, into Joe’s Club.

  As George watched them, summed them up, recognised them, he began to think about Brant’s sister. Would she turn out to be a brassy, hard little piece like these other girls who had gone up the stairs to Joe’s Club? He hated that type of girl. He had no personality to cope with them. He knew what kind of man they liked. He had listened to them in the park often enough. They and their boy friends: young men with spotty complexions, padded shoulders, snappy felt hats and cigarettes dangling from their loose mouths. Wise-cracking: every remark had a double meaning. The girls would scream with shrill laughter, vying with each other in appreciation. You were not wanted if you couldn’t make them laugh; if you didn’t know all the off-coloured jokes. Would Cora be like that?

  George didn’t think so. He felt certain that she would mean something to him when they met. He didn’t know what their relations would be, but he was sure that meeting her was the most important thing in his life. The longer he waited the more excited he became.

  Then as he was about to call for another pint, as the hands of the clock above the bar shifted to eight o’clock, he saw her. She was around twenty and dark, She had on a pale blue sweater and dark slacks and she didn’t wear a hat. There was a three-inch-wide red bangle on her wrist. But even without these clues he was quite sure he would have known her. It was as if the finger of destiny had pointed her out to him.

  He crossed the bar in two strides, jerked open the door and stepped into the street. He crossed the street, removing his hat, as Cora reached the club door. She stopped when she saw him and stared at him. Her eyes were slate-grey, and had almost no expression when they looked at him.

  “Are you Miss Brant?” he asked, colour flooding his face. He tried, unsuccessfully, not to look at her breasts. She was flaunting her figure; with every move of her slim body, her breasts jiggled under the soft wool covering. She ought to wear something, he thought.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’m George Fraser,” he went on, aware that his heart was thumping wildly. “I don’t know if Syd ever mentioned me. He asked me to tell you that he’d be late. He’s taken the key . . .”

  Her eyes travelled over him. He had never experienced such intense scrutiny. He felt that she was even peering into his pockets.

  “Of course,” she said, “I know all about you. But come into the club. We don’t have to stand out here, do we?”

  Without waiting for his reply, she turned abruptly and walked out of the sunshine and the clean-smelling air into the darkness of the building.

  Following her, a helpless victim to the raven hair and slim, jaunty hips that preceded him up the stairs, George went towards his doom.

  seven

  George knew the exact moment when he fell in love with Cora Brant. It happened suddenly, and, to him, as dramatically as a blow in the face. He found it was extraordinary that he could fall in love with Cora in this way. It wasn’t George’s idea of love at all. He had always imagined that two people fell in love only after they had probed each other’s minds, learned each other’s habits and outlook and come to know each other so well that the obvious thing for them to do was to live together. That was George’s idea of falling in love. He often thought about marriage, and how he would behave when the right girl came along. He had assured himself over and over again that he wouldn’t do anything hasty. He had always imagined a leisurely, satisfying courtship that would give him an opportunity .of offering his affection slowly, but with increasing warmth, until the girl he had chosen gladly accepted him.

  But when it happened with this unexpected, extraordinary suddenness he was dismayed to find that he had no control over the situation nor over his feelings. At one moment Cora was just someone—admittedly exciting and unusual—to talk to and to look at and with whom he hoped to alleviate an hour of lonely boredom; at the next she was someone he was physically and mentally aware of in a most overpowering way. For some unexplained reason he was tremendously moved, wanting to cry: an absurd emotion, which, again, he had never experienced before, and which made him feel tremendously happy and lightheaded.

  He had only a hazy recollection of what had happened in the club. The room had been thick with tobacco smoke, noisy with jive and strident voices. But he had eyes only for Cora Brant. The people around him and the noise were incidental: a background out of focus. He had been so excited that he still was unable to remember what she had said to him. He had only been aware of her presence and his own triumph, and he nursed this triumph with secret and delighted pleasure.

  He had bought drinks, and he had been startled that she tackled a pint of beer. The large glass seemed grotesque in her thin, white hand: a claw. He had absently noticed that her nails were scarlet, and her knuckles were a little grubby. And when he looked more closely at her, he realized she was not immaculate in the accepted sense of the word. She was slatternly: her black hair was lustreless, her pale blue sweater was no longer fresh, and there was face-powder on her slacks.

  But George was not critical. Any woman was a novelty to him, and a girl like Cora Brant was far more than a novelty— she was an exciting experience. Because of the noise of the music and the voices around them, they hadn’t said much to each other. George had been content to admire her. He had, of course, explained about Sydney. To make himself heard, he had to lean across the table and shout at her. He found that embarrassing: it was like carrying on an intimate conversation in a crowded tube train. Cora had listened, her eyes on his face, her perfume in his nostrils. She had nodded and shrugged her shoulders, waving to the band as if to say it was no use talking at present.

  “We’ll go somewhere quieter in a little while,” she had said, and had turned to watch the band.

  After that it would not have mattered to George if she had not spoken again during the whole evening. She had actually said that they were going to be together, and he relaxed, rather astonished, but so grateful that he could have wept.

  Then later, when the band had left the dais for a short interval, she looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

  “Shall we go?” she said, pushing back her chair.

  Obediently George followed her down the stairs to the street. The sudden decision to leave, the complete indifference to his own plans, and her take-it-for-granted attitude that he wanted to go with her reminded him of Sydney Brant. That was how he behaved. Both of them knew what they wanted. They led: others followed.

  Neither of them spoke as they walked along the pavement together. Cora’s small head, level with George’s shoulder, moved along smoothly before him, as if she were being drawn along on wheels. She left behind her the faintest smell of sandalwood.

  The evening light was beginning to fade. Storm-clouds crept across the sky. The air in the streets had become stale, like the breath of a sick man, and sudden gusts of hot wind sent dust and scraps of paper swirling around the feet of the crowd moving sullenly along the hot pavements.

  At the corner of Orchard and Oxford Streets, Cora paused. She glanced along the street towards Marble Arch: a street thronged with people all making a leisurely way to the Park.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “That’s an idea,” George said eagerly, conscious of Robinson’s eleven pounds in his wallet. “Where would you like to go? The Dorchester?” He was quite willing to spend his last penny on her if it would help to create a good impression. He had never been to the Dorchester, but he had heard about it. It was the smartest place he could think of that was close at hand.

  “The what?” she asked, staring at him blankly. “Do you mean the Dorchester Hotel?”

  He felt himself flushing. “Yes,” he said. “Why not?”

  “What, in those cl
othes?” she asked, eyeing him up and down. “My dear man! They wouldn’t let you past the door.”

  He looked at his worn shoes, his face burning. If she had struck him with a whip she couldn’t have succeeded in hurting him more.

  “And what about me?” she went on, apparently unaware that she had so completely crushed him. “The Dorchester in these rags?”

  “I—I’m sorry,” George said, not looking at her. “I just wanted to give you a good time. I—I didn’t think it mattered what you wore.”

  “Well, it does,” she said coldly.

  There was a long, awkward pause. George was too flustered to suggest anywhere else. She’ll go in a moment, he thought feverishly. I’m sure she’ll go. Why am I standing like this, doing nothing? I can’t expect her to suggest anything—it’s my place to make the arrangements.

  But the more he tried to think where he could take her, the more panic-stricken he became.

  She was eyeing him curiously now. He could feel her eyes on his face.

  “Perhaps you have something else to do . . .” she said suddenly.

  “Me? Of course not,” George said, over-eager and almost shouting. “I—I’ve got nowhere to go. I just don’t go anywhere, that’s all. I—I don’t know where you’d like to go. Perhaps you’ll suggest something.”

  “Where do you live?”

  Astonished, George told her.

  “Let’s go to your place,” she said. “I’m tired of the heat and the crowds.”

  George could scarcely believe his ears.

  “My place?” he repeated blankly. “Oh, you wouldn’t like that. I mean it’s only a room. It—it isn’t much. It’s not very comfortable.”

  “It’s somewhere to sit, isn’t it?” she said, staring a little impatiently at him. “Or can’t you take women there?”

  He hadn’t the faintest idea. It was something he had never comtemplated doing. He had visions of Mrs. Rhodes’ disapproving face, and he flinched away from the thought. Then he remembered once seeing one of the other boarders bring a lady visitor to his room. Of course, the visitor hadn’t been like Cora; but if one boarder could do it, why couldn’t he? Besides, if they went at once, Mrs. Rhodes would be in the basement having supper. She wouldn’t even see him.