The Fancy (36 page)

“I know,” said Sheila. He had said this every time. The two he showed her were hopeless, one three times too expensive and the other a basement, which David would never stand.

“Ah!” Mr. Bell clapped a hand to his forehead. “Now didn’t we have a flat turned in today? I believe—I’m not promising you, mind you, but I
believe
it might be the very thing you’re looking for.’ Hope leaped in Sheila’s eyes. She gazed at him as if he were a god, which he enjoyed.

“Oh, I’m sure it would be,” she said, prepared to take it without even hearing about it, before it vanished into thin air as all the other possibles had done.

“Let’s see.” He turned in his chair. “Did you make out the card for that flat that came in a little while ago, Mrs. Ledward?” The name struck Sheila as familiar, but she was too excited to wonder why.

“Yes, Mr. Bell,” said Connie in her office voice, “I have it here.” She rose and laid it on his desk and then sat down again and went on going through her letters with pursed lips. Edward at home was just hunting vainly in the kitchen for something appetising for his tea, but she had not given him a thought all day. Her new life as a businesswoman was far more engrossing than anything that could ever happen at Church Avenue. She left the housekeeping now almost entirely to Dorothy, who was no more proficient at it than her sister.

The flat sounded quite possible. It was a miracle. Sheila had already decided to take it before Mr. Bell had finished reading out the card. She could see herself telling David about it at dinner. They might even move in there tonight.

“Oh yes,” she said, interrupting him breathlessly before he had finished with kitch, and usual off., “I’m sure it would do. I’ll take it.” She leaned forward, nodding eagerly.

“Well, well, you are an impetuous young lady to be sure,” said Mr. Bell. He looked through the card again with maddening slowness. “I’m not sure, though… . We’ve another enquiry about it already, haven’t we, Mrs. Ledward?”

Connie looked through a file on her desk. “Yes, Mr. Bell,” she said. “The client was not sure whether it would suit. She said she’d let us know.”

“Did we give her any promise to keep it open?”

Connie had lost the place in the file and went through it again from A, although the client’s name was Widdicombe. Sheila could have screamed. Why couldn’t they put her out of her suspense?

“No, Mr. Bell, we gave her no option,” said Connie at last, and Sheila let out her breath and leaned back in the chair beaming.

“Well, then I could——” she began, but Mr. Bell interrupted in a businesslike voice : “When would it be convenient for you to see the flat in question?”

“Oh, any time. Now if you like. I mean, I don’t mind taking it straight away without seeing it. I’m sure it would do ; is sounds just right.”

“Oh, but Miss Blake,” said Mr. Bell, with raised eyebrows, “we couldn’t let it to you without a viewing. That would hardly be fair to you, or to us. Still, as you seem in such a hurry, I see no reason
why you shouldn’t see it this evening. We have the key was impressedan alongs and it’s only just round the corner from here. Let’s see, who could we send, Mrs. Ledward? Would you be good enough to go and enquire?”

Sheila didn’t like the way he looked at her when Connie had gone. His manner became quite intimate, but she couldn’t be too putting-off in case he might suddenly withdraw the flat, so she smiled and played up to him, answering back when he made a personal remark about her hat. He was delighted with her, and feeling that he held her in the hollow of his hand, allowed himself more familiarity of tone than was ethical, dropping it with a clearing of his throat when Connie returned.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bell,” she said, “but there’s no one. Phillips and Mr. Schilling have gone, and the rest of the staff is up to their eyes in work.”

Sheila hated her. “Well, couldn’t I go on my own if you gave me the keys?” she asked. “I wouldn’t steal anything.”

Mr. Bell laughed and Connie folded her lips and sat down again, uninterested in whether Sheila saw the flat or not.

“Wouldn’t steal anything, eh?” said Mr. Bell. “I’m not so sure. It’s just these innocent-looking ones who turn out to be the most dangerous criminals. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Ledward?” Connie pretended not to hear.

“Oh, but I must decide tonight,” said Sheila. She knew that the flat would escape her if she didn’t grab it.

“I tell you what,” Mr. Bell looked at his gold wrist watch, which had such a stout cage over the face that it was a wonder he could see the time at all, “I’ve got ten minutes to spare. I don’t mind just popping round with you if you come straightaway. We shan’t need very long. I dare say the viewing will be only a formality with you as you seem to have set your heart on the place.”

“Oh, would you really?” said Sheila, looking up at him under her curly lashes as he stood up. “It’s awfully good of you.”

“Not at all.” Mr. Bell reached for his hat on the stand behind him. “Just a part of our service, eh, Mrs. Ledward?” Connie smiled briefly. “What about that letter to Lauder’s?” she said. “You wanted to get that off tonight, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I’ll be back in plenty of time for that,” he said airily. “If anyone wants me, tell ’em to try again in a quarter of an hour.” He held open the door for Sheila. “Shall we go then, Miss Blake?”

The flat was at the top of a tall, dingy house in Tavistock Square. “Not much to look at from the outside,” said Mr. Bell confidently as they paused at the front steps, “but you can’t always go by outward appearances, can you? Take me. Now to look at me, you’d never think I was a man of great artistic tastes, would you? I love beautiful things, Miss Blake,” he said looking hard at her. Sheila didn’t care what he loved. All she cared about was getting inside the house and seeing the flat. Its position was perfect ; her hopes were soaring. For diplomacy’s sake, she smiled charmingly at him and allowed him to take her arm to help her up the steps.

The street door was ajar and they walked through a dark hall, past a glass-panelled door with a yale leek and began to climb the stairs, Mr. Bell going neither in front nor behind, but keeping level with her, step by step.

“As you see,” he said, “these flats have their own, that’s what it is.”. b front doors. All the privacy you want, Miss Blake, and I’m sure you do want privacy, don’t you?” He leered at her in the gloom and she said brightly : “Well, who doesn’t?”

“Who, indeed?” he chuckled. “And I know what your young man would say. I know what
I
should say if I were your young man. What’s he like? Tall and handsome?—Damn him.” Sheila laughed uncomfortably. Mr. Bell’s body was overpowering, so close to hers, and he was breathing heavily down her neck as they climbed upward. She quickened her pace and arrived before him at the top floor in front of a white door with a yale lock, a lovely door, her and David’s front door.

“Is this it?” she said.

“Must be,” said Mr. Bell, arriving slightly out of breath at her side. “Let’s see, is there a number on it?” There was no light on the little landing, so he struck a match and they peered together

“Flat 5,” they both said at once. “Five” said Mr. Bell, fumbling in his pocket for the key. “The magic number.”

“Oh, do hurry up and open it,” said Sheila excitedly. “I’m longing to see it.” As soon as he had turned the key, she pushed past him and entered the flat, groping along the wall for the electric light switch.

The hall had no windows and was quite dark. She heard him come in behind her and shut the door. “I can’t find the light,” she complained. “Where d’you think it is? Oh here.” She clicked down the switch, but nothing happened. “It doesn’t work,” she said, “Oh dear——”

“The power’s off, I expect,” said Mr. Bell, startlingly close to her. “So what do we do now, come back in the morning?”

“I suppose so,” said Sheila, disappointedly. Even if she took the flat without seeing it, she and David couldn’t very well move in here tonight in the dark. Or could they? Would he think it fun?

“Look, Mr. Bell,” she said, groping her way back to the door. It was hateful being shut in this box with this objectionable, breathing, unseen man. “Supposing I took the flat on the chance without seeing it—I mean, you can say I’ve viewed it now, can’t you? Could we —that is, I move in tonight? I’ll have to ask my friend. He—she, that is, my girl friend you know, who’s sharing it with me——”

“He—she?” mocked Mr. Bell, still horribly close. “I say, you are a naughty young lady. What’ll you give me not to tell, Miss Blake?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a panic, feeling all over the door for the handle.

“Don’t you?” he said. “Don’t you? Don’t you think I should get something for being discreet and for bringing you all the way round here—don’t you? Not even one tiny little kiss——” Before
Sheila could say anything, his arm went clumsily round her and his horrible loose wet mouth was on hers. She pushed at him blindly, with all her strength, and flinging up one hand to hit him in the face heard the tinkle of his glasses as they fell to the floor.

“Damn you——” he said and clutched for her again, but she had found the door handle and felt it hit him in his soft stomach as she wrenched it open and pelted down the stairs, through the hall, dow was impressedan alongn the stone steps and along the pavement, running, running, knocking into people who turned and stared, running anywhere until she saw a Tube station and bolted down it like a rabbit, worming herself into the crowd as if she could rub off on them that crawling feeling in her spine that he was behind her.

Sheila no longer slept with the alarm clock under her pillow. She hoped it would wake Kathleen, who slept deeply and healthily with her hair in a net and grease on her face, but it never did. Going down the steps of the Tube, still heavy with sleep and the worry which had now grown to be an obsession that governed all her waking hours, Sheila remembered what David had said last night. They had been dining cheaply at a place in Soho, where the knives and forks were not properly washed up, and he had told her that he was no longer sharing a room with Toddy, as another room had fallen vacant in the same house.

“It’s very comfortable,” he said, “grand bed, an armchair and a desk, and the old girl does me very well : bacon and egg this morning and kippers yesterday. I seem to have struck oil.”

Sheila would rather have heard that he was wretchedly uncomfortable and half-starved without her. She was losing him ; she could feel it. He was slipping away from her with each day that she failed to find somewhere for them to live together.

“Can I come and see it?” she asked wistfully. “I’ll bring you along my brocade cushion and that red counterpane you like.” She wanted to leave something of herself in the room to remind him of her all the time.

“Good God, no!” he had said. “It’s the most frightfully smug establishment, a sort of Y.M.C.A.—no followers allowed. We all live like eunuchs.”

“’Ullo, love,” said Mrs. Urry, coming up the platform with her bundle of bedding. “You do look cheap this morning. What’s the matter with you these days—crossed in love?”

“Who wouldn’t look cheap at this hour of the morning?” retorted Sheila. Mrs. Urry was a nice one to talk, with her bleary eyes and ropy hair escaping from under her beret.

“Something on your mind though. I said so to Urry only tlast night, didn’t I, Urry?” she called over her shoulder to her husband, who was still sitting on the lower bunk, fiddling with his boots. “Blast that man ‘E’s slower than a funeral. What’s up, duck? Tell Mum.”

“Well, I am a bit worried,” said Sheila. “I’ve been trying to find
a flat you know, and it’s impossible these days. I’ll be sleeping down here with you if I don’t find somewhere soon. I can’t stand the girl I’m living with much longer.”

“You could do worse,” said Mrs. Urry, hitching up her bundle while she waited for her husband. “H. and C. laid on, feather mattresses, early morning tea, all the comforts of ’ome. Ah, there you are, Urry, and about time. What’s the game? Want me to be late at the office?”

“Shut up, you ugly old bitch.” Mr. Urry shuffled up with his bootlaces untied. “I’m poorly this morning. Don’t think I’ll go to work.”

“You will or else——” said his wife. “So you’re looking for rooms, eh?” She turned to Sheila. “Tell you what, I believe that Greek’s got a couple going begging over the cafe.” She pronounced it to rhyme with safe.

“Really?” Sheila pri by the time he got home p alongcked up her ears. “Where are they?”

“Stone’s throw from ’Olborn, Thatcher Street. It ain’t Park Lane, but it’s quiet and central. Mind you, I ain’t seen ’em, but—No,” she shook her head, looking at Sheila’s clean blouse and sleek hair and brightly made-up face. “They wouldn’t be good enough for you, I dare say.”

“Oh, I’m not looking for anywhere grand,” said Sheila quickly. “I can’t pay much, and I’d be thankful to get anywhere at all.” Her ideas about flats had come down considerably in the last weeks, after some of the hovels she had seen and even, in her despair, considered. “D’you think they’re still going?”

“I could ask for you, if you like.” Mrs. Urry put her head on one side. “There’s your train coming.”

“I wish you would,” said Sheila. “Tell me tomorrow and perhaps I could go round and see them in the evening. There’d be two of us, you know. My—husband and I. Is it a double flat?”

Mrs. Urry said something, which was drowned in the roar of the incoming train. The doors sighed and slid open. “Don’t forget to ask, will you?” said Sheila, looking back as she stepped into the carriage.

Mr. Urry was half-way up the platform by now. He stopped and looked back balefully. “Come
on
, Aggie!” he called. “I thought you was in such a hurry Rushin’ me out of bed … keeping on at a man. …”

“Oh, shut up, for Christ’s sake.” She trotted after him and they grumbled off together, bickering all the way to the “Cosy”.

Sheila waited for David in the hall of the Café Royal in a fever of excitement. He was late. She kept getting up to look at the clock over the lift and then going back to sit down, tapping her fingers on her bag, crossing and recrossing her legs, glancing at the evening paper without reading it, and getting up to look at the clock again. The longer she waited, the more nervous she became about whether he would approve of what she had done, trying to visualise the rooms on the
second floor of the Acropolis with his eyes, defending them to herself.