The Fancy (13 page)

“The usual?” he asked, dipping milk into the two cups from the bowl of tinned milk on the bread board.

“That’s right, dear. Two nice cups of, and four slices.” They drank their tea and ate the bread and butter in silence. The warm, stale air made Mrs. Urry feel sleepy. “Tell you what,” she called to Sam, “I’ll have to speak to them about running that first train a bit later. Me nights is too short.” Sam stared for a moment like a child after a fall, weighing the advantages of tears or bravery, then his face puckered up and he doubled over the counter, enjoying the joke. “Oh, that’s good—that’s good!” he gasped, wiping his eyes and holding his middle. He never made a joke himself and was in agonies of delight at anyone else’s humour. Mrs. Urry sat back, basking in his amusement, and when he looked like recovering, set him off again with an allusion to her footman. She loved to be thought a wit.

A van driver shouldered his way past the curtain and sat down heavily at her table. “Morning, Wally,” she said. He grunted at her, passing his hand over his face. “Cup of, Sam, two rashers on and two slices,” he said over his shoulder.

“Coming up!” Sam doubled up to get through the low door to his gas rings.

Seeing Wally eat his bacon and potato reminded Mrs. Urry of her
intention to have a good meal. She would try and get out one dinner time and see what Urry was up to at Mrs. Ewins’ fish shop. But there was not much chance of the Greek letting her out dinner time. He was short of plates and they had to be washed as soon as they came off one table and rushed back on to the next one.

The Acropolis didn’t do breakfasts, but Mrs. Urry had to be there at half-past seven to do the cleaning, wash up whatever had accumulated after her departure the night before, peel the vegetables that the Greek was going to cook for lunch and as often as not do a bit of mincing, if it was rissole day.

Having parked Mr. Urry firmly in his angle between two walls, with his tray round his neck, Mrs. Urry went off up Holborn with many backward glances, as if she were training a dog. She had never yet caught him wandering away, but she had her suspicions. Someone would nab his pitch one of these days.

Entering the frosted glass doors of the Acropolis Dining Rooms, she went straight through to the kitchen without a glance at the Greek, reading the paper over coffee and rolls all the same. Ian alongat a corner table. He had already been to the market. There was a pile of vegetables and some large lumps of meat on the worn table that filled the centre of the low, smoky kitchen. Mrs. Urry investigated. Pork again! Black Market, of course. And all those raisins—it was evidently going to be steamed fruit pudding again. Well, she’d better get the fire going as the pans went on early, steaming days. She took off her cape, but kept on the beret and wound herself into an apron that had only gone once round the last washer-up, but went twice round Mrs. Urry and bunched out at the back like a bustle.

She went into the scullery. The sight of the piled dirty plates was too familiar to be disheartening. The water was still quite warm from last night, so after she had lit the kitchen range, mumbling and muttering at it and finally pouring on some paraffin that nearly blew off her few remaining eyebrows, she began on the washing up.

The Greek’s daughter, a dressy, pig-faced girl with a figure that burst out above and below the waist, came into the kitchen and began to pick over the raisins. Mrs, Urry leered at her over her shoulder through the adjoining doorway.

“’Ullo, Ellen, I saw you last night going in the pictures, when Urry and I was going to our ’otel. ’E’s all right, whoever he is. Where d’you pick that one up?”

“Oh, he’s a fellow I know,” said Ellen, popping a handful of raisins into her mouth. “He comes in here sometimes as a matter of fact. I wonder you haven’t seen him.”

“Fat chance I get to see any of the customers with your Pa around,” said Mrs. Urry, scraping at a bit of mustard, abandoning it, and slinging the plate into the rack that was too-high for her. When she was washing a pile of plates, she developed quite a rhythm as she
swilled a plate, then up on her toes to reach the rack, then down to swill another, then up again to the rack ; swill and reach, swill and reach, up and down jauntily went the bustle of her apron.

“When you were away that time,” she went on, raising her voice against the running tap, “he and Victor were run off their feet, but would they let me have so much as a look inside the dining-room? No, they would not, and once, when there’d been a soup ordered, and I’d served it out and no one to fetch it, in I popped—as a favour, mind you ; don’t think I fancy being a Nippy. Well, in I popped, as I say——” she got worked up even now when she thought of it—“and there was your Pa coming at me as if I was murder and disease and sudden death all in one. Out he comes here after me and we had a real set to. I told him straight. It don’t need me to take away their appetites. You’d think this was the Ritz ‘Otel, wouldn’t you?” She turned off the tap. “Wouldn’t you?” she repeated.

“I daresay,” said Ellen, who hadn’t heard a word. “He’s quite a nice fellow,” she went on, following her thoughts. “He works on a newspaper.” Mrs. Urry turned on the tap again and began to wash forks, several together in bunches. Newspapers to her were things that you wrapped round other things.

The Greek came out and began to mix suet pastry in an enormous bowl. When Mrs. Urry made for the potatoes to take them to the scullery to peel, he threw back an imaginary lock of hair, stabbing at the dough with his fingers like an impassioned impresario. “Please, Mrs. Hurry,” he called, in his high voice, “the dining-room is not yet done, I believe?”

“You mean you want it done,” said in the Redundant StoresI s.Mrs. Urry, facing him with a butting stance, beret well forward. She didn’t believe in sideways talk. She collected her bucket and mop and the precious bits of rag she secreted at the back of the cupboard and went out to slosh over the marble-topped tables and fix the dirt to the floor by wetting it. Laying the dust, that was called.

Victor was sitting behind the counter, where stand-up snacks were served, writing out menu cards in a looping violet hand. He was a Frenchman, a vague relation of the Greek’s, who had escaped from Occupied France in a dinghy. He had wandered into the Acropolis one evening and had stayed there happily ever since, as if he had escaped from a labour camp and endured the hunted, starving journey across France for nothing else.

He spoke English badly, with a cockney accent. Strangers to the Acropolis thought when Victor took their order that it must be quite a continental place—until their order arrived.

“Bonjewer,” said Mrs. Urry proudly, swatting at a table with a damp cloth.

“Bon jour, vieille putain,” said Victor, and Mrs. Urry bridled as at the wildest compliment.

On Fridays and Tuesdays, Sheila knew that the curly-haired boy with the limp would be in the third carriage from the end. It was not as if she got into the same carriage deliberately, because, after all, she went in it all the rest of the week ; it just happened to stop opposite to where the stairs brought her on to the platform. She got up a bit earlier on Fridays and Tuesdays, so as to have time to put on eye-black.

She got into the train this morning just like any other Friday, ostentatiously averting her head, after making sure that he was there and staring. He never pretended to be reading the paper, and peeped round it as some men did, and if she looked at him, he didn’t look away, but went on staring, so that she had to turn her head and hope that the hot feeling in her face wasn’t a blush coming.

He sat at the end of the carriage and she sat half-way down on the opposite side. She wondered a lot about him. What did he do and Why did he only do it twice a week, and what could he possibly do at Earl’s Court? That was where he always got off. Whatever it was, he looked as if he were overworking. Perhaps his limp meant that he was discharged wounded—a pilot, perhaps—and his face was tired because the wound hurt him. His clothes looked as if they had started life right. He was well-built, with a small head, a short nose and lively eyes, a curly mouth and that crisp, light brown hair that grew so absolutely the right way. All this she had gleaned from furtive glances twice a week and a more sustained scrutiny of his back view when he was getting out.

Sometimes she squirmed to peer through the diamond opening in the window netting to watch him walk up the platform, but once he had turned as he came level and looked her full in the eyes. She was not sure whether he had seen her or not.

This Friday morning was just like any other. She read her paper self-consciously, taking care not to frown, scarcely seeing a word she read. After nine months of this tedious journey, she knew all the stations by heart, so when the train stopped at Earl’s Court, she allowed a decent interval for him to get up and walk to the door and then raised her eyes to watch him get out. When she looked up this morning, he was gone. It was unusual for him to get out so quickly. He always waited until the train had completely stopped, because of his limp. She squinted through the window, and when she turned back, saw him still sitting in his seat at the end of the carriage. For the first time, he dropped his eyes, almost guiltily. What was so gu“You know blyhilty about not getting out at Earl’s Court? Perhaps he had suddenly decided not to go to work ; perhaps his leg was hurting him and he just couldn’t get up. She toyed with another idea. Perhaps he was going to travel on to see where she got out.

The train was running above ground now and the carriage was filling up. She recognised one or two people from Canning Kyles. By the time they neared Collis Park, he was hidden from her by a mass
of swaying bodies. He might have already got out for all she knew.

But when she stepped on to the platform, there he was in the crowd just ahead, looking back. In a sudden panic, Sheila spotted Grace and seized on her, chatting with self-conscious vivacity all the way up the steps that led from the railway cutting to the road. She was sure he was following her. As they walked towards the Estate, she took Grace’s arm, hanging on it so that she could not walk too fast, because of his limp. Grace had begun on the saga of her bathroom curtains. Sheila listened charmingly and once turned her head full towards Grace to say : “No, really?” so that she could look sideways behind her. He was following them. It was terribly exciting. She wanted to boast to Grace, but at the same time she knew she would have only one opinion of men who followed girls.

What did he mean to do? Was he just going to follow her to see where she worked, or was he going to come up and speak to her? Surely not with Grace there. She must lose Grace. She thought of pretending to have dropped a glove, but Grace would be sure to come back and help her look for it, because she was so kind. In any case, what should she say to him? She must obviously be fairly cold and dignified, but she couldn’t be too putting-off in case he was sensitive. It was rather cheek, really, to follow her like this.

They turned through the gates on to the Estate Road, and Sheila, gushing towards Grace again, saw him turn in behind her. The crowd was thickening. Even if he did accost her now, she couldn’t stop and parry words with him. Someone she knew would see her. She wouldn’t be able to do herself justice. He’d have to be quick though, they were only a hundred yards from the clockhouse—fifty yards and still he had not done whatever he meant to do. Perhaps he only wanted to see where she worked. You couldn’t say he was not persistent. He would be terribly late for his own work.

As they reached the clockhouse, and the stream of people compressed itself to crush through the narrow entrance, she dropped behind Grace and deliberately looked back. She was going to give him one dazzling smile. It was the least he deserved.

She just caught a glimpse of his sports jacket going through the gate that led to the big office building. Craning her neck, standing firm against the jostling crowd, she saw him speak to the doorman, and saw the doorman nod and step aside to let the sports coat through, before she was swept by the current into the clockhouse, and was docking in, looking at the figures 7.28 without taking them in and was out on the track with her brain reeling.

It was still reeling two hours later, and refusing to concentrate on work. “A penny for ’em,” said Edward, finding her staring into space, one hand idly turning the big gearwheel round on its stand.

Bob Condor was fussing about, finding jobs for anyone who was
idle for a moment. One of the managers was on his way round

“Finished this engine, Sheila?” he asked.

“What? Oh—oh no, Mr. Condor, not quite.” She began hurriedly to fill in the report card, holding her arm over it to conce to kiss her goodnight, ouafal how little she had done. Burrs and slight damage on teeth. What was he doing in the offices? Trim up splines … Who was he? Oil seal unserviceable, cracked … Had he or had he not been following her? Clean out thrust bearing … Where had he got to now?

She heard voices behind her, and when she looked round, there he was.

Sheila got such a shock that she swung straight round again on her stool and began to examine a bearing feverishly, like a monkey looking for ticks. She could feel the blush creeping up into her head ; the back of her neck and ears must be scarlet. He was being shown round by the Works Manager. Who
was
he? He must be a pilot, or somebody important.

“This is the reduction gear,” the Manager was saying, studiedly casual, as if it were just a little thing he’d run up in his spare time. “It reduces the revs of the crank, you see, to a suitable speed for the airscrew.”

He couldn’t be a pilot, then, or he would know that. Why didn’t he say something and let her hear what his voice was like?

“See this big wheel?” went on the Manager as Bob Condor’s scandalised voice hissed in Sheila’s ear : “Get up, Sheila. Don’t you shee Mr. Wrigley’s here?” She had to get up then and turn round keeping her eyes low, unwilling to look up and see him laughing at her.

If only she could have met him as an equal at a party, perhaps, or at somebody’s house at Swinley, or even in the train. Here he had her at a disadvantage. He was in the world of men in black hats and thick spectacles who came round poking at things with umbrellas and told the workers afterwards in the canteen that they were putting up a jolly fine show but were going to have the honour of being asked to do better still, while she was in the world of dirty hands whose only retaliation was a rude gesture after the departing figure.