The Fancy (26 page)

“Quite a little show,” Edward was repeating thoughtfully one evening. “Not a big do : more like a get-acquainted affair for our members. Being the first, we’ve got to set the pace for the Club’s future, don’t forget. We’re not catering for the big breeders and the high fliers. Quite a little show, that’s how I picture it. Friendly. We could get St. Mark’s Hall ; they throw in flags there for nothing.”

“Hm, “said Dick Bennett and Mr. Bell said : “St. Mark’s Hall! My dear good chap, we want to aim a bit higher than that. Friendly by all means, no one’s keener on that than Yours Truly, but you say yourself, we’ve got to set the pace for the future. My point is this : properly handled, this little Club of ours could go a long way. Now I’ll tell you what I had in mind for the Show.” He tilted back his head and his adam’s apple pumped the beer out of his glass.

They had had supper at the “Four in Hand” and were now digesting it in the upstairs sitting-room of “Uanmee”. Miss Bell, who was the Assistant Manageress of a Secretarial College and moved upright along tracks of sexless competence had told her brother that an occasional supper party was all very well, but once a week was another matter. Sandwiches she could undertake, but no more. Mr. Bell respected his sister’s decrees because she made him comfortable.

The room in which they sat was all that a bachelor could desire. He had chosen the suite himself: two armchairs and a settee in a thin, synthetic leather that evoked the casualness of traditional study or library without the traditional shabbiness. These three pieces toed the edge of a black poodle rug in front of a gas fire contrived to look like glowing coals. It was a pleasantry of Mr. Bell’s to make as if to knock his pipe out into this fire and then recollect himself with : “Damn thing’s so lifelike it nearly takes me in! Honestly now, you’d never think that wasn’t the real thing, would you? It’s the only sort of fire to have, I’m convinced of that. All the advantages of a coal fire, with none of the inconveniences.”

You didn’t contradict him, any more than you contradicted his assurance that the pale polished table behind the settee was as good as piece of oak as you were likely to see in a day’s journey. There was something special about the seam apparently, but you agreed without understanding, hypnotised by Mr. Bell’s possessive confidence.

Bookshelves ranged the lower part of the walls, some holding books
lying horizontally to fill up the space. Above them, the wallpaper was regularly spaced with pictures. There were one or two hunting scenAs a matter of fact,an alonges with rather blobby horses and irresolute background, wild duck in flight, after, but not catching up with Peter Scott, and some of the better known sporting prints, like “The Moonlight Steeplechase” which had been with Mr. Bell from boyhood and were referred to as “my friends”. The mantelpiece held pipe-racks and tobacco jars and photographs of women, some theatrical and inscribed. The mirror above was stuck round with snapshots, invitation cards, visiting cards, prize cards from rabbit shows, newspaper cuttings and similar interesting personalia. In one corner stood a fine radiogram, fluted and polished and inlaid, and beside it a little cupboard on legs, which Mr. Bell had bought because it was labelled : “Cocktail Cabinet”, held albums of catalogued records.

A typical man’s room, as Mr. Bell always proudly apologised to newcomers.

Although it was early April and the evening quite warm, the window was shut and the gas fire round which the three Unofficial Presidents were sitting, was being a coal fire at full blast. A saucer of water which Mr. Bell thought was his original idea, stood in the fender to keep the air from getting dry. Beer bottles and ashtrays stood on the poodle rug. Edward was on the settee with a pile of papers in his lap, Dick Bennett was in one armchair, apparently for life, and E. Dexter Bell was in and out of the other according as he was moved to put on a record, tune the radio with howls and squeals through a rapid succession of stations, or lean heavily on Edward’s shoulder, stabbing at one of his papers with a square, manicured finger.

They were still discussing the Show, when the clock struck ten and Miss Bell came in with a plate of sandwiches in each hand and her library book under her arm, for she was on her way up to bed. Edward got up and Dick Bennett, who was wedged between the arms of the incapacious armchair, struggled and heaved. He had got himself half upright with bent knees, when she fortunately said : “Please sit down,” and he was able to subside again before he was completely unstuck.

Mr. Bell said : “Sandwiches—ah, bless you, Muriel!” and rubbed his hands. “I always say,” he went on, “there’s an art in making sandwiches as in everything else. Muriel’s got it all right. What are you feeding the Brute with tonight, Mu?”

“Liver sausage, and cheese,” said Miss Bell, putting them on the table as she spoke, rubbing at an imaginary spot with her finger, inspecting her finger and wiping it on the handkerchief tucked through her belt.

“It’s very kind of you,” said Edward, who was still standing, with some of his papers clutched to him and others falling on the floor, “you really shouldn’t trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” said Miss Bell. Her voice was pitched on a permanent note of surprise and her face never altered in expression. She had small features, neat, and somehow unphysical. You could never imagine her nose running or her eyes watering, or saliva forming in her mouth at the smell of bacon cooking. Her little flat ears would always be clean even if she never washed them and the short bair waved behind them would never straggle in the rain. She may have worn a little powder and colourless lipsalve, but no one of either sex had ever witnessed the secrets of her toilet. She had no close friends and seemed to need none ; she had never betrayed nor given a confidence. She was as self-contained as a modern flat and about as inhuman.

She stood there, waiting to see if anyone had anything further to say to her, listened politely and without comment to Edward’s résumé of the day’s weath for Best Rabbit in Show p alonger and Dick Bennett’s groping beginning of a sentence that collapsed without ever coming to anything.

Mr. Bell had already leaned over the back of the settee and helped himself to a couple of sandwiches together before passing them round. With his mouth full, he blew a kiss into the air indicative of appreciation.

“Well, I’ll say good night,” said his sister. “Don’t forget to turn out all the lights and put the chain on the door, Edgar, before you come to bed.”

When she had gone, Edward, who didn’t want to return to the subject of the Show, turned up the pile of letters which were the week’s queries from members. Some of these Edward could answer himself, others were forwarded to the proper sources of information, in spite of E. Dexter Bell, who saw himself as the Dorothy Dix of the rabbit world and never lacked an answer. When the query was “What would you recommend as a suitable mate for such-and-such a doe?” or “What buck would give me such-and-such characteristic?” the answer was always simple : “One of the Bell bucks.” How could any fancier be in doubt?

The subject of the Show did not come up again until their next meeting, which was at Dick’s flat. Mr. Bell’s snuggery was being spring-cleaned and Edward did not like to impose too often on Connie, although she had been surprisingly complaisant of late.

The Bennett’s flat was the converted upper part of an old damp house, in which none of the doors and windows fitted. The floors didn’t seem to fit either. Domestic noises and rumbling voices rose from the ground-floor flat to mingle with the noise of Dick’s family about its daily life. As the three of them sat round the table, where Mrs. Bennett had given them a hearty and delicious meal, roars came from the baby in the front bedroom, hammering from the schoolboy’s room, shrieks and giggles from the room where sixteen-year-old Peggy was dressmaking with a girl friend, and an alarming noise from the kitchen where Mrs. Bennett was washing-up.

“Touching this question of the Show,” began Mr. Bell, raising his
voice and his eyebrows as an unexploded landmine appeared to fall in the schoolboy’s room, “I’ve had a great idea.”

“I’ve been in touch with the lessors of St. Mark’s Hall,” began Edward doggedly, but Mr. Bell waved this aside and continued : “My point is this : ‘Let’s have a show,’ you say. ‘Let’s have a so-and-so class, and a so-and-so. Let’s have a this and a that.’ Certainly ; nothing finer. ‘Let’s advertise,’ you say. ‘Let’s get a lot of exhibitors to come and—’”

“No,” said Edward, “that’s just it. We don’t want a lot of outside exhibitors this first time. I want the members to get the prizes.”

“My dear Edward, I thought the idea was to rope in a lot of new members.”

“Oh yes, of course. Everyone’s welcome,
provided
they join, but look here, Bell——” He had been repeatedly urged to call the man Edgar, but had never been able to bring himself to it.

“Well then. Where was I? Oh yes, well now, having done all that and laid all your plans, even booked your hall, apparently, though it’ll never do—having done all that ”—he leaned his arm on the table and waggled his finger at Edward— “there’s just one, just one little infinitesimal detail that you’ve overlooked. Infinitesimal, I say that leaves you to singwdr, but I might describe it as the most important item in the whole schedule.” He leaned towards Edward, thick lips slightly open, spectacles gleaming with triumph.

“Why, I don’t know—I don’t think I——”

“The judges, man! The judges!” roared Mr. Bell, and the baby echoed him, crescendo.

“Oh,” said Edward. “Yes, of course, the judges. Well, I hadn’t really thought——”

“Ah!” Mr. Bell leaned back, nodding contentedly and taking off his spectacles. “I thought so. Now here’s where Yours Truly is going to make his humble suggestion. I think it’s a winner,” he added diffidently, and taking out a silk handkerchief, began to polish his spectacles slowly to create suspense.

“Fire ahead,” breathed Dick, his great face agog.

“Well, I was turning over this little question in the watches of the night, when I says to meself, says I——” He paused again and eyed his audience. “Why not ask my old friend, says I, my very good friend——”

Edward leant forward. “Allan Colley? “he said excitedly.

“Edward, old lad, you’re a mind reader. None other than my old friend, Allan Colley.”

“But he never would, surely,” said Edward. “A little unknown affair like ours. I mean, he judges at the big County Shows and all that. Oh, I don’t think he would. But how marvellous if he did.”

“He might,” said Mr. Bell casually, “if I asked him as a favour. Do anything for me, the old collie dog would.”

“I say, it would be marvellous,” said Edward in the tones of the schoolboy whose hammering had just been stopped by a yell from the kitchen of “Arthur! I’ll pay you if you don’t stop that and get to bed. Go and say good night to your Dad!”

“Wouldn’t it be grand, Dick?” said Edward. Dick’s face was flushed with pleasure, as he nodded, but before he could speak, a dirty object in shorts and a green jersey had hurled itself into the room, butted into its father’s stomach with close-cropped head so as not to have to look at the visitors and hurled itself out again with a great clatter of boots.

“My eldest son,” said Dick, gazing after him with his face collapsed in sentiment, the Show and Allan Colley forgotten.

Edward heard no more about it until they met at his house one evening when Connie had been given a chicken by her uncle from Barnet. Edward had thought that she would want to have it on Thursday when her family came, but when he mentioned that Dick and Mr. Bell might be looking in one day after supper, she had surprisingly said : “Well, what’s the matter with my cooking? Isn’t roast chicken good enough for your precious Mr. Bell?”

It was quite a party. Mr. Bell arrived with half a bottle of sherry in the deep pocket of his overcoat “to drink the health of my friend, Allan Colley, who’s promised to come and judge our show.”

“
No!
” said Edward.

“Aha, yes!” said Mr. Bell, knocking his arms against the walls as he struggled out of his coat in the hall.

“You mean he’s really promised to come and judge for us?”

“Well, I told you took a step nearer to her mother,W b he would, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I never thought—I mean, such a small affair—it couldn’t possibly interest him.”

“Who said it was going to be a small affair?” Mr. Bell sagged at the knees to look in the mirror and quiff up his side hair with the flat of his hand. “With a draw like Colley, we’ll get the all big breeders in the neighbourhood, and some from outside, too, unless I’m mistaken. I say, can I go and wash, boy? I stink of the city’s dirt.” He ran upstairs. He was quite at home in the house by now, and Edward followed him up and hovered on the landing while Mr. Bell sluiced water lavishly over himself and the floor. He was a large man, and though not outsize, he had the knack of making things look small. Edward’s house seemed to shrink as soon as he got inside it, and now, using the bathroom basin, he gave the impression that he was washing his hands in a pie-dish.

“Yes, sir,” he was saying. “We’ll certainly have to put up a good show for the old collie dog. I know for some reason or other you were set on a little show, Ted, but this puts a different face on things, doesn’t it?”

Edward was silent, He had never dreamed that Allan Colley would
accept, and he was still adjusting himself to the impossible fact that he had. He had to adjust himself too to the defeat of his plans for a cosy, encouraging little show. Mr. Bell had undoubtedly scored a point.

“Now my idea is this,” he began, saturating as if it were a pocket handkerchief the towel which Edward handed him. “To start with, I thought the Victory Hall——” He elaborated his plans and Edward had no choice but to agree. After all, Allan Colley was coming, that was the main thing, and it was up to them to give him something worth coming for. They went down to the living-room, where Dick was reading the paper, Connie took off her apron and came in from the kitchen and they all had sherry out of the set of glasses that had hardly been used since their wedding day. They drank : “To the Show!” and then filled up and drank : “To the Collis Park Rabbit Club!” which even Connie drank quite willingly. She liked sherry. Then Dick cleared his throat and said : “Here’s to you. All you’ve done—Edgar,” which made Edward look at him sharply, it sounded so odd.