Bless ’Em All Read online

  As the door opened Maurice could hear voices and the music got louder. Maurice went in.

  It was only a small room, dimly lit by wall lights. There were small tables with chairs for four people at each, and there was a clear square of floor space in the middle. At the top end of the room a languid pianist and an automatic drummer tinkled and scraped away as though the pair of them were locked in a trance. The pianist was black, the drummer big and swarthy. In the space in the middle, couples were slowly dancing: some very pretty girls and a collection of older men.

  ‘What is this place?’ Maurice asked.

  ‘The Hostess Club,’ said his brother. ‘If you fancy a dance you just help yourself.’

  They sat down and a waitress appeared.

  ‘Two gin and tonics,’ Bernard said. ‘And put some in.’

  ‘Just for you,’ she said, and smiled a gap-toothed smile.

  Maurice was surprised. Drinks in the middle of the afternoon? ‘Are you a member?’

  ‘I am,’ said Bernard with an air of satisfaction. Bernard, with his halo of light hair encircling his bald crown, was like a schoolboy out to shock his elders.

  Just opposite their table were two blonde women. One looked hard faced and confident, the other seemed a bit nervous. Bernard beckoned to the hard-faced one, and she got up, beaming, joining the two brothers at the table.

  ‘Bring your friend,’ said Bernard loudly, and gestured in the direction of the other woman. The first woman turned back, and her companion, younger and prettier, shuffled with embarrassment. ‘Come on,’ said Bernard, and she blushed and looked worried.

  ‘This is Bunty,’ said Bernard, by way of introduction. Bunty smiled a toothpaste smile and pulled down the top of her blouse, preening herself in a frank and obvious manner. ‘Who’s your friend?’ said Bernard, looking over at the younger woman. Bunty pouted as though she was a trifle put out at Bernard’s interest in her companion. She patted the seat of the empty chair, and the other woman got shyly to her feet and came over.

  ‘What’s your name, love?’ Bernard asked, and the embarrassed woman muttered something that no one could hear. ‘Speak up,’ said Bernard. ‘We all want to know.’

  ‘It’s Betty,’ said the woman, obviously wishing that she were at home scrubbing the floor or peeling spuds – anywhere but here.

  ‘Good,’ said Bernard, smiling a wolfish smile. ‘This is my brother, Maurice.’ Bunty flashed Maurice a bright smile, but the one called Betty looked down at the floor.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’ Bernard said, standing up, and Bunty, thinking that this was her cue, stood up and held out her arms. Bernard, aware that he had drawn the short straw, good-naturedly grasped Bunty around the waist and set off. There wasn’t much room for dancing, so the couples stayed close together, swaying as one, but hardly moving from the spot where they had started. Maurice, left with the clearly unhappy Betty, thought that something in the way of gallantry was required of him. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Er, um. Would you like to dance?’ Betty stood up, still looking at the floor. Bernard took her hands, holding her stiffly at a distance, as if they were at some strict and formal aristocratic ball. Once on her feet Betty relaxed: this was what she had come for, to dance. This Maurice might be a bit on the ancient side, but he was undoubtedly a gentleman. He hadn’t pressed himself against her, which was how all the other women in the room were being treated. He wasn’t much of a dancer; he was too stiff and jerky. She looked up at him. He seemed nice enough. The couple kept on around the tiny dance floor, twice as fast as any of the other couples, and when the pianist stopped playing Maurice gravely escorted Betty back to her seat.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ he said. ‘Very pleasant.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Betty desperately. ‘I enjoyed it.’ She looked around for Bunty, who seemed to have disappeared along with Bernard.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ Maurice asked politely. After all it wasn’t the poor girl’s fault they were trapped in this awkward situation.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Betty. ‘Could I have a small sherry?’ A small sherry was a polite drink. Not enough to do any harm but just enough to show that she wasn’t stand-offish.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Maurice asked.

  ‘No. Never.’ Betty shook her head. ‘I don’t think I should have come. I thought it would be a big place – you know, with a band and lots of people.’

  Maurice called the waitress. ‘A small sherry. I’ll have a whisky.’

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ Betty said, looking anxious.

  ‘No. Nor can I. I wonder what happened to Bernard.’

  ‘He’ll be down in a minute,’ said the waitress, sidling up with the drinks.

  ‘Bit of a dim place,’ said Maurice. ‘Not my idea of fun.’

  Betty sipped her drink. ‘Are you, er, in business?’ She didn’t really care whether Maurice was an international tycoon or a dustman. She just thought that she ought to contribute something in exchange for the small sherry.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maurice, slightly surprised at the girl’s interest. ‘The book trade.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty. ‘That sounds interesting,’

  ‘Yes. It is. Do you do much reading?’

  ‘Not lately. I used to.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Maurice. ‘And what kind of thing did you like?’ Betty desperately raked her memory for books glimpsed in her schooldays.

  ‘Little Women,’ she replied.

  ‘Ah,’ said Maurice. ‘An old favourite.’

  ‘What kinds of books do you have?’

  ‘All kinds,’ said Maurice, in a matter-of-fact way. There was no need to boast. ‘A whole big warehouse, full of books of all kinds. We fill orders for the bookshops. We have a massive stock. Taken years to build up.’ Maurice was sure he was boring the poor girl into a coma, and yet she seemed impressed. ‘Do you want to dance again?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Betty. ‘I’d much rather hear about your old books.’ So Maurice explained about the service he supplied. How he thought he was doing something worth while. And then he saw Bernard, looking flushed, with the other woman called Bunty, her eyes bright and knowing. Bernard slumped down in the chair next to Maurice. Maurice noticed that Bernard was sweating.

  ‘It’s all laid on, if you want it,’ he said heavily. ‘I’d taken a shine to yours, but I couldn’t shake Bunty off.’

  Maurice frowned. ‘What the … Good Lord, Bernard. Is this a knocking shop?’

  Bernard looked at his brother with a quizzical grin. ‘If it isn’t I don’t know what we’re doing here. I don’t like dancing, and this is washing-up sherry – and they’re not giving it away.’

  Maurice looked at Betty. Was she aware of the kind of place she was at and what was expected of her?

  ‘Oh go on,’ said Bernard. ‘A couple of quid will cover it.’

  After years of loveless nights with Clare, Maurice’s sense of sexual adventure had practically died from lack of use. He doubted whether he could ever be aroused again. He stood up, and Betty, thinking she was being asked to dance again, got up and stood ready to whirl off. But Maurice grabbed her by the arm and made for the door, pulling the startled girl with him. In the street he linked arms with her and strode away quickly from the building, with Betty clattering along beside him, breathless from trying to keep up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Betty gulped.

  ‘That place. Do you know what it was?’

  ‘A club. A club for dancing.’

  ‘No. It was more than that.’ Maurice slowed down. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘It’s all right. I can get the bus.’

  Maurice stopped and looked down. The girl was clearly puzzled, out of her depth. She almost looked like a child, playing at dressing up in her mother’s clothes.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea somewhere.’

  Tea at the Corner House was hardly racy, but the odd pair found the pseudo-posh atmosphere more to
their liking.

  ‘Why did you go there with that woman?’

  ‘She’s Bunty. She lives downstairs. She’s a good sort.’

  ‘Maybe, but she’s a tart, isn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s a poor thing. She’s deaf and dumb.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ said Maurice. ‘Tell me, what do you do all day?’

  ‘I’m married,’ said Betty. ‘Stephen works, but I stay home. I make the tea, but I never really know when he’s coming in.’

  The girl seemed lost. She had got married at eighteen in Liverpool, her home town. Then her husband, who was a floorwalker with British Home Stores, got a London posting. She didn’t know anyone in London, so, when her husband went off to work, she was alone all day in her tiny flat. She seemed to be entirely without thought or personal ambition. He mind was a blank canvas, and yet she was pleasant enough, eager to please and too well aware of her shortcomings.

  ‘Would you like a job?’ he said, on the spur of the moment.

  ‘What, with all them books?’

  ‘You could do worse,’ Maurice said. ‘Just being there is an education in itself.’

  They dawdled over cream cakes, and Maurice began to feel very confident and relaxed. After all, the girl was young enough to be his daughter. He enjoyed the fatherly role, in loco parentis, as it were, to instruct and inform this almost entirely virgin intellect. She wasn’t sure about coming to work for him. He gave her one of his business cards, which seemed to delight her no end.

  ‘My,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your name all printed out.’

  He grinned. It was like being out with a child. ‘It’s just for business.’

  The one area where she had some expertise was in the latest films. Betty and her husband went on Wednesdays, which was half-day closing for the shop. She liked love stories and musicals, but not westerns. ‘I hate westerns,’ she said. ‘All that riding and shooting. What do you hate most in all the world?’

  Maurice didn’t need to think. ‘Mice,’ he said. ‘Mice.’

  3

  YOUNG Jimmy Fosset stopped outside an eating-house in Carter Lane. It was under a railway arch. All the dishes were in the window, kept warm on hotplates from a gas burner. There were metal trays of sizzling sausages, fried onions, pease pudding, faggots and saveloys, sliced slivers of ham and beef and pork with crackling. The shop was full of standing diners – there were no seats – with their plates on a shelf running along three walls that were dripping with condensation. Jimmy pressed his nose to the window, but he couldn’t smell anything. He opened the door and went in, and the smell, warm and oily, assaulted his nostrils. It was predominately of burnt onions, but there were traces of hot beef dripping and an occasional sniff of boiled ham. Jimmy hovered behind a group of men at the counter, piping up when he saw a clearing.

  ‘Two sausages and a penn’orth of pease.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I said pease, didn’t I?’

  ‘Oho. Clever stuff, eh? Onions?’

  ‘No onions. Gravy.’

  ‘You get gravy. Thruppence.’

  Jimmy took the warm plate to the shelf by the wall. There was just room for him to squeeze in between two burly diners, scoffing quickly, like pigs in a trough. Globules of condensation dripped from the ceiling, sometimes plopping on to their plates. He soon ate the warm swill, dousing the pease pudding in the gravy and chasing it on to a slice of bread. It was warm and quick and left him with enough for a penny bar of Cadbury’s to eat on his round.

  On this side of Ludgate Hill was T. Werner Laurie, who published some of the books that Bernard dealt with – The Cautious Amorist came from there. Also, in Carter Lane itself, was Hutchinson’s, who published a string of crime writers, including the prolific Dennis Wheatley with his novelty Crime Dossiers – loose-leaf folios with maps, plans of houses where a crime had been committed and little envelopes containing lipsticked cigarette ends, fingerprints, hairs and dust and fragments of letters to help solve the crime. Hutchinson’s also published biographies of the stars of stage and screen. Further along were Routledge and Kegan Paul, which was all serious stuff about something called psychology. Sometimes Routledge’s stuff was heavy, although not as heavy as Dean’s Rag Books, the indestructible books for very young children, and Jimmy would go back to empty his sack on the other side of the hill, where all the publishing houses were gathered in the shade of St Paul’s.

  It was Paternoster Row and Warwick Square where the bulk of Jimmy’s collecting took place: Nelson’s on the corner, then Longman’s, then Sweet and Maxwell. Along Paternoster Row every building seemed to house a publishing office, and they all had trade counters where Jimmy would sit on a polished wooden bench waiting his turn. In Warwick Square he could spend a comfortable ten minutes with the young girl at Hodder and Stoughton – staring at her until she became embarrassed and blushed – which was conveniently situated alongside the Oxford University Press.

  You could walk around the bulk of British publishers in ten minutes. There were some out-of-the-way firms in the West End – Constable, Michael Joseph, Fabers – others, like Warne and Dent, near to Covent Garden, and even one awkward one in the City, John Murray, but most of them were within easy reach of Green’s.

  Jimmy had got used to his round, and was able to cut corners to give him time to dawdle outside the Old Bailey and sometimes pop into the public gallery to see the theatrical trial of some murderer or financial swindler. It was the lighting that enhanced the effect of the drama. The judges and barristers looked like they had makeup on their faces. The people on trial were usually pitiful figures, staring blankly around as though they didn’t know where they were or how they had got there.

  Jimmy’s Uncle Mick, a sailor, had been reported missing. He wasn’t in the Royal Navy, just a merchant seaman. He was a big cheerful man with tattoos and biceps like Popeye, who rolled around amiably drunk whenever he was home. But there had been an explosion, and Uncle Mick’s ship had been lost in the North Sea and nobody knew what had happened to the crew. This was the first time that the war had registered on Jimmy’s consciousness. It was there in the background. The silly man with his moustache and the fat man who looked as though he might explode in any minute. There was some talk of getting an Anderson shelter put in the garden, but it would be a job as the whole area was concreted over.

  Jimmy hadn’t any special feelings about being in the book trade. He had answered an advertisement for ‘Smart Boy Wanted’ in the Telegraph. Now he had been there six months he knew that he had landed a doddle. If he worked his round right he could be two hours just wandering around. As long as he got back in time to catch the post nobody questioned the time it took him to do they job. Sometimes, if he had to go to Long Acre or Covent Garden for Gollancz he could be out for over three hours. He liked just wandering around and exploring London, seeing the sights, looking outside theatres at the photographs of what was on at the time, meandering into the National Portrait Gallery, examining the foreign stamps at Stanley Gibbons in the Strand, delighting in the joke shop in the arcade in Trafalgar Square, watching people coming and going at the Savoy. It was only a waiting period until he could follow his father into ‘the print’. He could get a junior card at eighteen and the Greens could stuff it. As a proud member of the NUPBPW, membership of which could only be conferred on sons of existing members, he would be one of the swaggering élite, leaving home at six in the evening and back home before midnight after a session in the pub.

  There was another stratum of life that was way beyond fish and chips and saveloys and faggots. He saw them. Toffs and posh women, getting out of cars as though they were in a film or something. They wore smart clothes, big hats. They never noticed Jimmy Fosset, but Jimmy noticed them. There were more officers about nowadays, looking as though they had something important and urgent to do. There were some women in uniforms, too, who looked self-conscious and out of place. Jimmy’s dad had nothing but scorn for these people. ‘Stuck-u
p bastards’ was his verdict. ‘Parasites,’ said Jimmy’s father with a venomous snarl.

  When Jimmy got back he could see that old Maurice was in a tizzy. There were piles of books to pack, and they had to be at the post office in New Bridge Street before six o’clock. Maurice himself was helping Jack with the packing, and Miss Tcherny was making out invoices as fast as she could go.

  ‘Ah, Jimmy,’ said Maurice. ‘Start getting this stuff downstairs and load them on to the trolley.’ Jimmy groaned. He knew that there were going to be too many parcels for him to carry, and taking the trolley meant that he had to wheel the bloody thing back before he could go home.

  The afternoon’s escapade had put Maurice behind. He hadn’t got back until half-past four. He didn’t like doing things in a rush. That way you made mistakes, sent the wrong goods to the wrong people. He always checked everything over twice, and this time he would have to trust that he had it right the first time. Although his mind was engaged, there was still time for it to wander back to the curious meeting with the young woman he had met at Bernard’s dive. If he hadn’t just happened to be there the innocent girl might have landed in all sorts of trouble. In fact, he was probably the only male in the disgusting place who wouldn’t have taken advantage of her. He did not really expect her to take up his offer of a job. He did not really need any extra staff. It would just be a gesture made in charity.

  ‘All right,’ said Maurice suddenly. ‘That’ll do for tonight.’ He had noticed how Miss Tcherny had kept glancing at her watch. ‘Off you go, Jimmy. You’ll have to run.’

  Jimmy dashed down the stairs with the last remaining parcels and met a delivery man with two huge rolls of corrugated paper on the way up. When he got downstairs he found that the trolley was piled so high that he couldn’t go fast over the cobbles or the whole bloody lot would fall off. On the other hand, if he arrived too late to get them in at the post office he would have to bring the whole bloody lot back. As it was, one parcel fell off in Ludgate Circus, and he kicked it away across the pavement. That one would have to find its own way.