The Bachelors (21 page)

‘Not if
I know it,’ she said and moved past him out of the kitchen.

He put
on his hat, scarf and coat in the hall.

‘Thank
you for a pleasant evening,’ he said.

‘I am
disappointed, Ewart.’

‘You
will be grateful one day, Marlene.’

He
kissed her on both cheeks and departed to his rooms at Campden Hill where, from
the depths of his leather arm-chair, he telephoned to Freda Flower.

‘I have
definitely made a stand, Freda, as regards Patrick Seton. It had to come,
Freda. Now, Freda, don’t be silly. That is sheer superstition. Patrick can do
you no further harm. I believe you’ve still got a weak spot for Patrick, Freda,
but believe me… And if I were you, my dear, I’d keep away from Mike Garland.
Yes, keep him away from you. Yes, keep away from… We’ll clean up the whole
organisation between us, you and I together. And Marlene will come to heel…’

His hips
expanded in the chair, and his chin went into extra folds as his face sank into
the skull. A smile of comfortable womanliness spread far into his cheeks as he
spoke and his eyes were avid, as if they had never moved dispassionately over
an examination paper. ‘Yes, Freda my dear, I made no bones about it and I just
said to her, I said…’

Meanwhile the Rev. T. W.
Socket said to Mike Garland who had at that moment arrived at his flat, ‘Mrs.
Flower is resolved to go ahead with the case.’

‘She
has no alternative. It’s in the hands of the police.’

‘But
will she be a willing witness? That’s what they need.’

‘I’ve
done my best with her,’ said Mike Garland.

‘I hope
you didn’t have to de-Flower her,’ said the Reverend Socket who then closed his
eyes and shook with mirth.

Mike
Garland smiled unpleasantly.

‘I don’t
trust Mrs. Flower,’ he said. ‘I don’t know for certain, but I think she may
have been discussing me with the police. A plain-clothes man called last night.
Somebody’s been talking to the police.’

‘What did
he want? What did he ask?’

‘About
my clairvoyant activities. Where did I operate? What did I charge for a
horoscope? I told him. I showed him the card index. All postal commissions, I
said.’

‘I’m
glad I suggested that card index,’ said Socket. ‘There is nothing like having a
card index in the house. You can always produce a card index. It puts them off
their stroke.’

‘I
invited the man to look through it, but he didn’t trouble.’

‘Who
has tipped them off, I wonder?’

‘He
mentioned Freda Flower.’

‘Really,
in what connection?’

‘He
asked me if I knew her. I said yes, she was a friend.’

‘How
many girls have you got staying with Freda Flower at the moment?’

‘Only
three.’

‘Transfer
them to Ramsgate right away,’ said Father Socket. ‘I blame Marlene Cooper for
this. You made an enemy of her the other night, I’m afraid. It was
ill-considered of you to challenge Patrick Seton at an open séance.’

‘I can’t
transfer the girls to Ramsgate right away.’

‘Why
not?’

‘Because
Freda Flower will be suspicious if they all leave at once. She thinks they work
in the all-night kitchen at Lyons’ Corner House. I can’t trust Freda Flower.’

‘Whom
can we trust?’ said Father Socket.

‘Someone
has tipped the police,’ said Mike Garland.

‘Could
it be Elsie? Surely it couldn’t be Elsie.’

‘She stole
that letter—she’s capable of anything.’

‘I told
you, didn’t I?’ said Father Socket, ‘that you should have been more discreet
when Elsie called yesterday.’

‘Having
stolen a letter which was Crown property I doubt if she would go the police.
Besides, what could she say? That I was wearing my green-striped dressing-gown?’
Mike Garland smiled with full lips pressed together.

‘This
is grave,’ said Father Socket. He was inserting a roll of tape into a recording
machine. He switched it on. It was his own voice rendering Shelley’s
Ode to
the West Wind.
He stood listening to it, with critical attention, while
Mike leant back with eyes closed.

When it
was finished Father Socket said, ‘I should have taken “Drive my dead thoughts…”
more slowly. They are all monosyllabic words, each word should be spoken with
equal stress. Drive — my —dead — thoughts … like that.’

‘It
gives one a frisson,’ said Mike.

‘All
troubles are passing,’ said Father Socket. ‘My son, the fever of life will soon
be over and gone. We will take this police enquiry in our stride. Do not be
disturbed, Mike. Patrick Seton will be brought to trial, the Wider Infinity
will be brought to disrepute, the Temple will be cleansed and we shall then
take over the affairs of the Circle ourselves.’

‘We’ll
take over the whole shooting-match,’ said Mike. ‘How you soothe me, Father.’

‘Some
will have to go,’ said the Rev. Socket. ‘Marlene, of course, will no longer be
in control. We shall not meet at Marlene’s flat, we shall meet here. Ewart
Thornton will have to go. Freda Flower — she is suspect, and to say the least,
has been a troublemaker — she will have to go. It makes one’s eyes narrow. We
may retain Tim Raymond, a biddable youth. We shall—’

‘But I
didn’t like that plain-clothes policeman calling on me last night,’ Mike
whispered. ‘I didn’t like it at all.’

‘Do
nothing for two weeks,’ said Father Socket. ‘My son, go nowhere, do nothing.’

‘But
the girls—’

‘I
shall myself convey the girls to Ramsgate,’ said Father Socket, ‘one by one.’

Mike
Garland took comfort from his elder partner whom he had revered for eight
years, since that summer evening at Ramsgate when he had just heard Father
Socket preach. This was in a private house, before the séance had commenced.
Mike, newly released from Maidstone prison, where he had served a sentence for
soliciting, was deeply moved when he heard Father Socket say, ‘There are those
amongst us who are not of the human race, but are aliens, and nevertheless must
walk in the midst of mankind disguised as members of the human race. He who
hath ears let him hear.’ Mike told Father Socket after the séance, ‘I was
deeply moved by what you said to-night.’ Father Socket adopted him. Mike was
then forty. He had a job as a waiter in a huge hotel. For the winter he had
intended to return to London and take up private service as a manservant, for
he had made a good butler in his time, with many profitable sidelines. Father
Socket had changed all that. He had bestowed larger thoughts on Mike, who began
to experience a late flowering in his soul. Father Socket cited the classics
and André Gide, and although Mike did not actually read them, he understood,
for the first time in his life, that the world contained scriptures to support
his homosexuality .which, till now, had been shifty and creedless. Mike gave up
his job as a waiter and went into training as a clairvoyant. His appearance
assisted him, he flowered. Father Socket instructed him in the theory and
practice of clairvoyance, and Mike’s late overflowing of the soul actually did
evoke pronounced psychic talents. Father Socket’s villa at Ramsgate was filled
twice weekly with residential widows and retired military men — for it was
widows and retired colonels who were the chief clients — come to receive clairvoyance
from Mike.

‘There
are certain aids to perception which it is unwise — nay, lacking in humility —
for the clairvoyant to ignore,’ Father Socket told Mike, and he taught him how
to observe his subjects and how, in the daylight hours, to gain useful
information as to their private lives. Mike’s previous career in the catering
and domestic worlds assisted him, for he knew his way about the back stairs of
hotels and boarding houses, he knew a friendly waiter when he saw one.

‘But we
must not neglect the little things of life,’ said Father Socket. ‘The gas bill
must be paid.’ Mike knew a street photographer. He knew which wealthy men were
taking the air on the front with their friends during illicit week-ends. The
couples were photographed, the man handed a ticket, and the ticket was thrown
away. Mike acquired these photographs at a higher price than the nominal three
for seven-and-sixpence. But he did not lose on the deal and, even though
certain members of hotel staffs had to be paid out of his earnings, still
Father Socket’s gas bills were paid.

‘Never
touch a woman,’ said Father Socket, ‘for a woman cannot enter the Kingdom. Have
dealings with a woman and the virtue departs from you. You should read the
Ancients on the subject.’

Mike
felt secure with Father Socket in all his summer and all his winter activities.
He was no longer an aimless chancer sliding in and out of illegal avenues,
feeling resentful all the while. Mike now was at rights with the world, he was
somebody. He had a religion and a Way of Life, set forth by Father Socket.
Mike, tall, straight, with his pink and white cheeks, did not appear to be an
adoring type; nevertheless he adored Father Socket and was jealous of any other
potential acolytes who might put in a tentative appearance, and would not stand
for them.

Now, after
eight prosperous years, Mike could not believe that a mere visit from a
plain-clothes policeman could shake the benign rock which translated Horace,
recited Shelley, knew the writings of the Early Fathers, and studied the
Cabbala. This winter’s venture, a continuation of last summer’s venture, was a
private cinema show lasting half an hour. It comprised two films, entitled,
respectively,
The Truth about Nudism
and
Nature’s Way.
The three
girls, who appeared on the stage in person afterwards, were more or less thrown
in with the price of the ticket. Mike had thought the employment of these girls
unnecessary. ‘Suppose the place is raided, it is easier to destroy the film
than to conceal the girls.’

‘The
show would lose its attraction,’ said Father Socket, ‘without a peppering of
real flesh and blood. I prefer, myself, the more artistic exclusiveness of the film,
but we must allow for the cruder tastes of the Many.’

They
lodged the girls with unsuspecting Freda Flower, who was known to Father Socket
as a spiritualist and a widow and who touchingly gave him fifty cigarettes
every Christmas and a spray of carnations on the birthday of the late Sir
Oliver Lodge.

‘Freda
will take the girls,’ said Father Socket. ‘Now that Patrick Seton has let her
down so badly over her savings, the good woman will need the money.’

Mike
had not been happy about Freda taking the girls to lodge. ‘Never have to do
with a woman… they draw the virtue out of you.’

A
slight disturbance in Mike’s mind had recently occurred to make him wonder if
perhaps Father Socket was not more interested in women as such than he claimed
to be. There was a certain Elsie, who did his typing. He was furiously jealous
of Elsie. And these girls. But Mike, shivering as from a flash of clairvoyance,
cast the thought from him.

But
when Father Socket said, ‘I shall myself convey the girls to Ramsgate. One by
one. You must lie low. I confess I don’t like the sound of this policeman who
visited you. Are you sure he was a policeman? Did you ask for his credentials?
You should always demand their credentials.’ — When Father Socket spoke like
this, Mike recalled his first hesitation in dealing with Freda Flower, he
remembered his flash of doubt, whether Father Socket was reaching an age —
sixty-two — when he might become weak. In a fever of clairvoyance and
apprehension he looked at his patron and everlasting lean-upon, and said, ‘Never
have dealings with women, Father. They are denied the Kingdom. They suck the
virtue___’

‘Well,
my son,’ said Father Socket, ‘don’t be fearful.’ He patted Mike’s shoulder. ‘After
all, you are now forty-eight and you must endure whatever may betide.’

‘Things
look unlucky,’ said Mike, rising tall above Father Socket. ‘We had bad luck
with Elsie Forrest yesterday, and that was a start. We should have got that
letter out of her. Perhaps our good luck is turning.’

‘I told
you not to put in an appearance in that dressing-gown with that stuff on your
face,’ Father Socket said. ‘I told you she was not a true spirit. Whatever
must the girl have thought?’

Alice Dawes sat up in bed
combing her long black hair on that Sunday evening. A syringe lay on the table
beside her.

‘Some
time next week, I imagine,’ said Patrick, in his murmur.

‘And
the divorce — now how about the divorce case?’

‘Oh
yes, I meant to tell you. The divorce has been held up. Something technical —
but never mind that, I’ve got our honeymoon all arranged.’

‘Held
up? How can we have a honeymoon if we can’t get married?’

‘A
holiday, dear. We shall be married eventually.’

‘I wish
you’d tell me more about your divorce.’

‘You
trust me,’ said Patrick softly, ‘don’t you? ‘He put out his hand and stroked
her arm.

‘Of
course,’ she said, and after a space she said, ‘Are you sure the case will come
up next month?’