A City of Strangers (7 page)

Now they were gone he could think of what to do. That little spurt of excitement (rare nowadays for him) remained with him. He was uncertain, though, felt the need to consult, and when he had gone downstairs he went through the kitchen and pottered down the back garden again and out to the lane at the back to see if there was anyone around. He was rewarded by Daphne Bridewell coming briskly out to her garage. Though they were not friends—Daphne had been a teacher, a deputy headmistress, and Algy had no pretensions to learning or culture—they had all the easy familiarity of long-established neighbors.

“Did you see who was round viewing The Hollies?” he demanded, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. “The Phelans, from the Estate!”

“My God!” said Daphne Bridewell. “They are bad news. But how on earth could they think of affording a house like that?”

“There was talk in the Belfield Arms of a pools win.”

“It would have to be that, or Sun
Bingo.”

“There were four children with them.”

“They've got six.”

“There were three girls and a toddler.”

“There's two other boys. Michael—he's about twelve—is apparently quite a bright boy. The girl in my flat is his teacher, and she's very interested in him. The only ones I had to do with when I was at Burtle Middle School were Kevin and June.
He
was an animal—indescribably nasty—and she was a tart, or one in the making.”

“Mrs. Eastlake says we've got to do something.”

“Mrs.
East
lake?”

Daphne Bridewell was stiff with astonishment.

“Yes, she rang. First time I've spoken with her in years. It was she who first saw them. She thought we ought to get together, I think—maybe make some plan of campaign.”

“Well,” said Daphne Bridewell, opening her garage, “keep me informed. I've got to go. Council subcommittee. I can see why Rosamund is concerned. But I don't see what anyone can do, if the Phelans can put down the money.”

That depressed Algy. As he walked back into Rosetree Cottage he thought that if Mrs. Bridewell, a councillor, didn't think they could do anything, the situation must be pretty hopeless. He wondered who else he should talk to. There was someone in the basement of The Hollies, but he had seldom seen her, and never met her; in any case, she would be a lodger rather than an owner, like the man in his own basement flat, whom he had hardly spoken to, and never with any pleasure. There was the university fellow in Ashdene who would surely be concerned if he knew, but he'd never done more than wave on his way in or out, and had been there hardly more than eighteen months. The Packards he knew better—they'd been in York House seven or eight years, and he often swapped words with Mrs. Packard if she was in her garden. The husband—he couldn't remember his name—was manager of Foodwise, in town. He was sometimes abrupt, but he seemed a capable young chap.

Algy went into his dark little hall and fetched the telephone directory. Why was everything printed so
small
these days? He noted the number down on a bit of paper, then went back into the hall to ring.

“Could I speak to the manager, to Mr. Packard, please?”

“Who's calling?”

“My name is Algy Cartwright.” He added, thinking that young Packard might not recognize his name: “I'm a neighbor of his.”

There was a pause, and then a brusque “Yes?”

He thinks I'm using the fact of being a neighbor of his to complain to the top about poor-quality vegetables or a moldy jar of fish paste, thought Algy miserably.

“Mr. Packard, I'm sorry to bother you, I know you'll be busy, but Mrs. Eastlake was very worried and I—well, to cut a long story short”—Algy Cartwright was getting flustered and losing his thread, conscious of clicks of annoyance from the other end of the line—“the empty house next to me, you know, Pickering's house, The Hollies, well, today it's been viewed by a family from the Estate. You probably wouldn't know them, a family called Phelan—”

“What?”

“Yes, and it does seem as if they would be very undesir—”

“You mean viewed to
buy?”

“Yes. They had the key.”

“Christ Almighty! . . . Look, Mr. Cartwright, I'm busy at the moment. Will you do something, and do it now? Go round to all the people in the houses,
all
of them, and tell them there's a crisis meeting at my house tonight. Seven, let's say—no, seven-thirty. Tell them to strain every nerve to be there—this is an emergency. Got that? Right. See you then.”

Algy put the phone down. If he'd thought about it he might have been
offended by young Packard's peremptory tone, but he didn't think about it. He felt invigorated, alive. It didn't even occur to him for some time that if the meeting was at seven-thirty he would miss
Coronation Street,
and when it did, it didn't particularly bother him.

A
lgy Cartwright was unusually active for the rest of the day. He scurried hither and thither around the houses in Wynton Lane in a manner that rather resembled the behavior of one of those elderly characters in a television sitcom—quirky, lovable, and patronized—who suddenly discover a purpose in life: a neighborhood watch scheme or bringing up an unbearable grandchild. Algy bustled, as he had had no cause to bustle since he had retired from work. He flowered.

As a matter of courtesy he decided he should first tell Mrs. Packard of the proposed meeting at her house that evening, in case her husband had been too busy to communicate this to her. He found, indeed, that she knew nothing about it. She received the news with a smile that was slightly quizzical, eyebrows raised, and she said she thought the whole thing was probably a joke on the Phelans' part. Mr. Copperwhite (or Doctor or Professor—Algy was unsure about university titles) was not in, and neither was his girlfriend (or live-in lover, or common-law wife—Algy was unsure about the usage in that sphere too). Daphne Bridewell was still at her committee meeting, but Algy left a note in her letter box, and as luck would have it met Carol Southgate coming home from school as he walked down the path. Carol was surprised at the news, had heard nothing about a pools win from Michael Phelan, and agreed that the Phelans would make appalling neighbors. However, she felt that, as one of the Phelan children's class teacher, she really could not join in any concerted action against them, if that was what was contemplated. Algy Cartwright had to agree, and thought she seemed a very nice young lady.

The woman in the basement flat of The Hollies was home after five. She said her name was Valerie Hobbs, smiled a mechanical smile of sympathy
when she was told of Algy's mission, but said she was only there on a short-term lease from Dr. Pickering while she looked for something bigger, so she didn't feel it concerned her, really. Algy said he understood. The lodger in his own basement flat Algy would have preferred to leave out of things: He was a man of thirty-five, an inspector for the gas board—lonely, reclusive, surly. But Lynn Packard had said lodgers too, so Algy made the attempt. When the man answered the door and was told of the meeting, he simply muttered “No concern of mine—I don't give a bugger,” and shut the door again.

Those were the only basement flats occupied. So it would be the householders alone who took action, which was logical since the threat was to them. It only remained to talk to the Copperwhites (he preferred to think of them as that in his own mind). Evie Soames was on the phone in the hall when he rang the bell at six, but she waved him through to the study, where he found Steven at his desk, surrounded by piles of essays, in front of him a plate holding what Algy recognized as a Marks and Spencer's prepared meal. He too was on the phone. Two lines in the one house, thought Algy, impressed. Steven Copperwhite was obviously surprised to see him, but he motioned him to a seat, while he went on talking into the phone about putting positions on ice and reshuffling junior posts. Algy preferred to stand, and he wandered around the room looking at the books in the bookcases, and then—not finding these very interesting—at Steven's group picture of Balliol in 1957.

“Recognize him?” said Steven, finishing his phone call and coming over. “Bob McLennan—used to lead the SDP, or part of it. And that chap there—”

He pulled himself up. He was intensely proud of having been to Balliol, and had all too frequently in the past regaled visitors with details of the men who had been there “in my time.” But the fact was there were few notables: a good second-rank novelist, a Conservative MP of repellent right-wing views, a notable Indian writer. It wasn't much of a haul. Recently a visitor to whom he had given his spiel had remarked that it would make more sense to talk not about the effortless superiority but about the effortless mediocrity of Balliol men. Steven had been mortally offended and had resolved to keep more quiet on the subject in future.

“But you won't be interested in my college chums,” he said genially. “What can I do for you?”

When Algy had explained—haltingly, for he had an obscure feeling that he had just been put in his place—Steven exploded satisfyingly.

“You can't be serious! My God! The Phelans! Oh, yes, I've heard about them. They're poison. You're quite right—Packard is quite right—to be concerned. This has got to be stopped.” Hearing a noise in the hall he strode
over to the door. “Evie! Do you realize the Phelans have been viewing The Hollies?”

Evie came in, smiled pleasantly at Algy, and stood there coolly—indeed with something of the same quizzical expression on her face that Algy had seen on Jennifer Packard's.

“Good Lord! They must have gone up in the world. Or was it just a joke?”

“Cartwright here heard him say ‘It's not ours yet.' We're getting together tonight. Something's got to be done.”

Evie raised her eyebrows.

“Done?
What are you suggesting? That we all arm ourselves with pitchforks to see them off when they move in? The Wynton Lane Vigilantes?”

“Don't be facetious, Evie. What we're going to do is what we shall be discussing at the Packards' tonight.”

“Sounds like the sort of thing the Race Relations Act should have outlawed.”

“Race? What are you talking about? This has got nothing to do with race.”

“Not specifically, but it's similar. You don't want them here because they're common.”

“Common? They're a whole lot worse than common! They're beyond the pale! Look at what that young brute did to you. And they'll play havoc with the value of these properties.”

“That, at any rate, is honest,” Evie said, still very cool and rather amused. She looked at her watch. “I've got something on at half past eight. But I can see I'm going to have to sit in on at least part of this meeting.”

Jennifer Packard handed round the plates of refreshments to the little group, then put them on the two coffee tables so that they could help themselves. She had prepared snacks not too lavish and not too modest—delicious things on cream cheese and cracker biscuits. Lynn always liked her to err on the side of generosity when it came to refreshments, because, of course, they got all their food at a discount from the Foodwise chain. She had prepared, in fact—without being asked or told—exactly what Lynn would have wanted her to prepare.

Lynn was clearing his throat now.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I've called together this gathering—with the help of Mr. er, Cartwright, much appreciated—to meet a situation that I for one
would never have foreseen. You could call it a crisis meeting. Mr. Cartwright—Algy—will have told you what this crisis is, and I don't think I need to spell out the consequences that would follow this family's moving here: the personal annoyance to ourselves; the risks to our children (I realize that Jennifer and I are the only ones to be faced with that danger at this particular moment in time, but I'm sure you can all appreciate our concern); and there's also the potentially disastrous drop in property values if one of these houses is allowed—to put the matter bluntly—to become a slum.” He looked around the little group with a gaze of strong-minded concern. “The prospect is horrendous.”

“You're right,” said Adrian Eastlake. “Something has got to be done.”

The remark was both heartfelt yet feeble. It dropped into the atmosphere of the living room with dispiriting effect. Lynn Packard repressed—as he was seldom able to do—his irritation.

“Exactly. The question is, what?”

He had been half-conscious as he spoke that he did not have all his audience with him. Now the dissentient voice spoke.

“I should have thought,” Evie Soames drawled, “that the question in the first instance is not what you
should
do, but what you
can
do.”