London Transports (13 page)

“…really smashing, and you bought earrings too. They do suit you. Love, you look like a magazine cover, that’s what you look like.”

“That’s Ken,” Rita rapped out, pointing.

“And he’s talking to Lilly,” beamed Jeffrey. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”

He started moving over in great bounds with his hand held out and Rita followed on legs that seemed too weak to carry her. She kept well away from the edge of the pavement, the slightest stumble she felt might push her out under the traffic.

“Ken!” she said. “And Lilly! Now who says London isn’t a village?”

“This is Daisy, Rita,” said Ken in the voice of a child coming home from school with his first prize.

Rita looked at her. She was forty, she couldn’t have been a day less. She had stringy hair pushed behind her ears, and she leaned on a stick, She had a great big smile, like someone’s elderly and kindly invalid aunt.

“You’re just the way I imagined,” beamed Daisy, and with her free hand clutched Rita’s shoulder and gave her a sort of clumsy hug. She gave Jeffrey a hug too. Jeffrey looked as if all his birthdays had come at once. A little world of good-natured nice people had all gathered together, he was as happy as a king.

Lilly was like someone with shell shock.

“Rita told me that she was meeting friends tonight, but…well, isn’t it absolutely extraordinary?”

“How do you know each other?” snapped Rita in a bark. She was just recovering from the hug. She hated women who embraced you, and particularly women who embraced you from the awkward position of leaning on a stick.

“Peggy’s an old…Peggy’s a family friend…” stammered Lilly.

“I used to nurse with Lilly’s mother,” said Daisy. “And when Lilly was a child I used to come to the house and scrounge Sunday lunch. Your mother was so good to us, Lilly. We young nurses never had a penny in those days and there was always a huge meal there. It was really like home.”

Ken couldn’t go to bed with this woman, Ken couldn’t be on honeymoon with her. She wasn’t frail, she was a cripple. What had he been thinking of? He must have had some kind of nervous breakdown. Why was she called Peggy and Daisy, and why was she standing there leaning on her stick in her shabby jacket and skirt smiling all around her and looking so horribly
old
?

“Let’s all go and sit down,” said Jeffrey happily. “There’s a pub near here or we can go straight to the restaurant. Lilly, you’ll come with us. Shall I get a taxi?” He was so excited by it all that Rita could have hit him hard with her new handbag.

“Oh no, I can’t, I have to, I mean I’m going,” said Lilly, who, to give her some credit, thought Rita, looked wretched about it all. She didn’t want to come and witness the shambles of an evening that it was going to be.

“Nonsense,” said everyone at once including Rita, and suddenly there was a taxi and the five of them were in it, four of them chattering like birds in a box, Rita trying to calm down her mind, which seemed to be trying to get out of her forehead.

Why had nobody mentioned to her, even in passing, that this Daisy was an old woman? Very sensible, very good for Ken, what did they mean? Ken was fifteen years younger than she, at least. That might have merited a brief remark when Daisy’s name came up. Rita looked at her. She was laughing and saying how exciting it was to be in London, and that she had already seen a man who read the television news, and an actor, and thought she had seen a woman MP, but Ken said it wasn’t her after all.

“Why does Lilly call you Peggy?” asked Rita suddenly.

Daisy had an explanation for that too. Daisy had been her family name, like a nickname. When she was younger and worried about what people thought of her, she thought it was a silly name to have. So in the hospital she had pretended she was called Peggy. She had two identities now, one from the people she knew from those four years in the training hospital, who still called her Peggy, and her real name, which she had taken up again when she got a bit of sense and decided not to upset her parents any more than she need by rejecting the name they had given her.

They got to the restaurant. Everyone fussed about Daisy. The taximan helped her out of the cab.

“Did you have a fall, my girl?” he asked her kindly.

Girl! Rita nearly laughed aloud.

“No, it’s arthritis,” said Daisy. “It’s normally not nearly as bad as this. I feel such a fool with the stick, I’m always tripping people up with it. Most of the time I don’t need it at all, it’s just this week it’s bad. I couldn’t have timed it better, a wedding and a honeymoon and a stick, wouldn’t you know?” The taximan was delighted with her. So was the waiter in the restaurant. He found her a chair with arms to sit on. Quite naturally, as if she had been the one who invited them all there, Daisy started arranging where they should sit.

“Rita, sit there by Ken, you have so much to say to him after all these years, and I’ll take Jeffrey and Lilly here to tell me all about London.”

There was no fuss. They were seated. Rita raised her eyes to Ken.

“It’s great to see you,” she lied straight at him.

“You look lovely, like a model,” he said truthfully, straight back at her.

“I feel overdressed and stupid,” she said, with honesty and feeling.

“You were always lovely to look at,” he said. “But I think you’ve got even better-looking.” His voice had a simple quality about it, like the way he used to say that mountains were beautiful, or that some piece of wood they had been scraping and stripping all weekend looked perfect. Just objective, happy admiration.

“Jeffrey’s in insurance, isn’t he?” said Ken after Rita had just stared at her plate for a bit.

“Oh, yes, he’s with a company but he does a bit of free lancing as well.”

“Perhaps we could get a bit of advice from him. We’ve got a small house. Do you remember Rodney Row? It’s one of those.”

They used to laugh at Rodney Row and say they were doll’s houses for doll people.

“I’m sure he’d be glad to give you any tips,” she said. “Jeffrey loves helping people he knows, and not just to make a commission, you know.”

“Oh no I wouldn’t think that, but of course we’d be very happy to do anything through him if it would help. I mean if there was any value to him out of it,” said Ken.

“I don’t think he’d like to make money out of friends.”

“No, perhaps it’s better not to mix work and pleasure,” said Ken agreeably, looking at the menu.

Pleasure. Pleasure. Had she remembered it all wrong? Was it she, not Ken, who was going mad? Perhaps he had always been the man who was destined to marry some aging nurse with a walking stick? Those wild months of freedom and abandon, and being sure with each other because together it was easy to reject other people’s pretensions and nonsenses…had all that been real, or was it just in her head?

The others were laughing loudly. Daisy had said something endearing to the waiter, and he had brought her a rose. She put it behind her ear, in the middle of that lank greasy hair, and smiled a big smile with a lot of yellow teeth.

“Isn’t this all great, Ken?” she laughed at him down the table.

Rita wouldn’t let it go, there had to be something. There must have been something there, she couldn’t have got it all so wrong, her memories of what they had. If they had nothing it would be like some kind of surgery, something would have been taken out of her.

“Look at those four over there,” she said, desperately indicating a table where two middle-aged couples sat eating and making occasional little forays of conversation. “Looks like a real salon-talk setup, don’t you think?”

Oh please, please, let him fall back into it, let us both start like we did in the old days. He might say “One thing about the Italians is they know how to cook food” and she would say “Isn’t it funny the way all Italian restaurants seem to be run by families?” and he would say “And they always seem to be so good-humoured, it must be coming from all that sun” and together they would laugh about how people could and did talk in clichés from birth to death. Please, please, let him remember salon talk.

Ken looked obediently at the four eaters.

“They don’t seem to be having a good time, is that what you mean?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Rita flatly.

“I often think that people in restaurants must look over at other tables and envy them,” he said. “They must wish they were part of a good scene like this.” He beamed down the table at Lilly and Daisy and Jeffrey and raised his glass to his travesty of a wife, and Rita wondered with a sharp pain whether she was going to be wrong about everything else as well. Had she never got anything right?

Chancery Lane

D
ear Mr. Lewis,

I’m sure you will think this very, very odd and you will spend the rest of your life refusing to talk to strange women at parties in case something of the sort should happen again. We met very briefly at the Barrys’ last week. You mentioned you were a barrister and I mentioned the Lord knows what because I was up to my eyebrows in gin. I was the one who was wearing a blue dress and what started out as a feather boa, but sort of moulted during the night. Anyway, your only mistake was to let me know where you worked, and my mistakes that night were legion.

I know nobody else at all in the legal world and I wonder if you could tell me where to look. In books people open the Yellow Pages and suddenly find exactly the right kind of lawyer for themselves, but I’ve been looking in the windows of various solicitors’ offices and they don’t seem to be the kind of thing I want. They’re full of files and girls typing. You seemed to have a lot of style that night, and you might know where to direct me.

I want to sue somebody for a breach of promise. I want to take him for everything he’s got. I want a great deal of publicity and attention drawn to the case and photographs of me leaving the court to appear in the newspapers. What I would really like is to see all the letters involved published in the papers, and I want to be helped through the crowds by policemen.

But what I don’t know is how to begin. Do I serve something on him, or send him a writ or a notice to prosecute? I feel sure the whole thing will gather its own momentum once it starts. It’s the beginning bit that has me worried. If you could write back as soon as possible and tell me where to start, I should be forever grateful.

I feel it would be unprofessional to offer you a fee for this service, but since it’s a matter of using your knowledge and experience for my benefit, I should be very happy to offer you some of mine in return. You may remember that I am a tap-dancing teacher (I probably gave several exhibitions to the whole room that night). So, if ever you want a lesson, I’d be delighted to give you one.

Yours sincerely,

Jilly Twilly

Dear Tom,

Thanks belatedly for a wonderful party last week. I don’t know what you put in those drinks but it took me days to get over it all. I enjoyed meeting all your friends. There was a woman with the impossible name of Jilly Twilly, I think, but perhaps I got it wrong. She wore a blue dress and a feather boa of sorts. I seem to have taken her cigarette lighter by mistake, and I was wondering if you could let me have her address so that I could return it. She seemed a lively sort of girl, have you known her long?

Once more, thanks for a great party.

John Lewis

Dear John,

Glad you enjoyed the party. Yes, I gather her name is Jilly Twilly, unlikely as it sounds. I don’t know her at all. She came with that banker guy, who is a friend of Freddy’s, so he might know. Pretty spectacular dance she did, wasn’t it? The women were all a bit sour about it, but I thought she was great.

Greetings to all in chambers.

Tom

Dear Ms. Twilly,

Thank you for your letter. Unfortunately you have approached the wrong person. Barristers are in fact briefed by solicitors in cases of this kind. So what you must do if you have a legal problem is to consult your family solicitor. If this firm does not handle the kind of litigation you have in mind, perhaps he may recommend a firm who will be able to help you.

I enjoyed meeting you at the party, and do indeed remember you very well. You seemed a very cheerful and happy person, and I might point out that these breach-of-promise actions are rarely satisfactory. They are never pleasant things for anyone, and I cannot believe that you would actually crave the attendant publicity.

I urge you to be circumspect about this for your own sake, but please do not regard this as legal advice, which it certainly is not.

I wish you success in whatever you are about to do, but with the reservation that I think you are unwise to be about to do it at all.

Kind wishes,

John Lewis

Dear Mr. Lewis,

Thank you very much for your letter, I knew I could rely on you to help me, and despite all those stuffy phrases you used I can see you will act for me. I understand completely that you have to write things like that for your files. Now, this is the bones of the story. Charlie, who is the villain of the whole scene and probably of many other scenes as well, is a very wealthy and stuffy banker, and he asked me to marry him several times. I gave it some thought and though I knew there would be problems, I said yes. He bought me an engagement ring and we were going to get married next June.

Because you are my lawyer and can’t divulge anything I tell you, I will tell you privately that I had a lot of doubts about it all. But I’m not getting any younger, I haven’t been in so many shows recently, and I teach dancing when I’m not in shows. I thought it would be fairly peaceful to get married and not to worry about paying the rent and all that.

So Charlie and I made a bargain. I was to behave nicely in front of his friends, and he was to behave unstuffily in front of mine. It worked fine, a bit gruesome at some of those bank things. Merchant bankers en masse are horrific and Charlie did his best with my friends. I wasn’t going to let him down in his career and he wasn’t going to interfere in mine. If I got a dancing part, so long as I wasn’t naked, I could take it.

And it was all fine until Tom Barry’s party, and when I woke up Charlie wasn’t there, he had left a note and taken my engagement ring, the rat. He said…oh well, I’ll make a photostat of the note, we’ll probably need it as evidence. I’ll also write out his address and you could get things going from your end.

I suppose it will be all right to pay you from the proceeds. I don’t have any spare cash just now.

Warm wishes,

Jilly Twilly

Photostat of note
:

Jilly,

Now I’ve finally had enough. Your behavior tonight is something that I would like obliterated from my mind. I do not want to see you again. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, you have failed utterly in yours.

Perhaps it is as well we discovered this before we were married. I am too angry to thank you for the undoubtedly good parts of our relationship because I cannot recall any of them.

I have reclaimed my ring. You may keep the watch.

Charles

Dear Ms. Twilly,

You have utterly misunderstood my letter. I really cannot act for you in any way in your projected action against Mr. Benson. As an acquaintance, may I take the liberty of reminding you once again of how unwise you would be to start any such proceedings? You are an attractive young woman, you seem from my short meeting with you to be well able to handle a life which does not contain Mr. Benson. My serious and considered advice to you, not as a lawyer but as a fellow guest at a party, is to forget it all and continue to live your own life without bitterness. And certainly without contemplating a litigation that is unlikely to bring you any satisfaction whatsoever.

Yours sincerely,

John Lewis

Dear John,

Stop telling me what to do with my life, it
is
my life. If I want to sue I’ll sue. Please have the papers ready or I will have to sue you for malpractice. You have wasted quite a lot of time already. I am enclosing a copy of the letter where Charlie mentions my marrying him. It will probably be exhibit A at the trial.

Kind wishes and hurry up,

Jilly

Darling Jilly,

You must know that the bank can’t put any money into the ridiculous venture you suggest. I didn’t come to America to meet show-biz people and interest them in your little troupe of dancers. I know that it must be disheartening for you not to get any backing, but in six months’ time we will be married and you won’t need to bother your pretty little feet about a career. I love you, Jilly, but I wish you wouldn’t keep telephoning the bank here on reverse charges because I am here only for a conference and it looks bad to get several calls a day, all about something which we haven’t the slightest intention of doing.

Look after yourself if you can,

Charles

Dear Ms. Twilly,

These chambers will have no further correspondence with you about any legal matters whatsoever. Kindly go through the correct channels, and approach a solicitor who will if necessary brief counsel for you.

Yours faithfully,

John Lewis

Dear John,

What have I done? Why is this kind of thing always happening to me? I thought we got on so well that night at Tom Barry’s party. Did I tell you by the way that Charlie was quite wrong? Tom Barry was not one of his friends, he was a mutual new friend that we had met with Freddy who was one of Charlie’s friends. So I didn’t break any bargain by behaving badly.

I just thought that the publicity of a big breach-of-promise case might give me some chance of being noticed. People would hear of me, I’d get more jobs. You see without Charlie or my ring or anything I have so little money, and I was only trying to claw at life with both hands.

It’s fine for you, you are a wealthy, settled barrister. What would you do if you were a fast-fading, poor little dancer betrayed by everyone? I’m nearly twenty-six, my best years of dancing are probably over.

It was my one chance of hitting back at life, I thought I should grab it. Anyway, I’m sorry, I seem to have upset you. Good-bye.

Jilly

Dear Jilly,

My letter may have seemed harsh. I do indeed see what you mean about grabbing at life, and I admire your pluck, believe me I do. What you need is not so much a court action, it’s much more a good friend to advise you about your career and to cheer you up. I don’t think you should get involved with anyone like Charlie, your worlds are too different. I only vaguely remember him from the party at Tom Barry’s but I think he was a little buttoned up.

You need somebody younger than Charlie Benson.

Perhaps you and I might meet for a meal one evening and discuss it all, totally as friends and in no way in a client-lawyer relationship. If you would like this please let me know.

Cordially,

John

Dear Monica,

I’m afraid I won’t be able to make the week-end after all. Rather an important case has come up and I can’t leave London just now. I know you will be disappointed, still we did agree that I should do everything possible to advance my career, so that is what I’m doing. I hope the week-end goes awfully well, looking forward to seeing you soon.

Love,

John

Dear John,

I was sorry about the week-end. Daddy and Mummy were sorry you were kept in London. Daddy kept saying that all work and no play…you know the way Daddy does.

I came to London last Tuesday. You weren’t in chambers and you weren’t in your flat, even though I phoned you there lots of times up to midnight. Maybe Daddy is right and although we all want to advance your career, perhaps it is a question of all work and no play.

Love anyway darling,

Monica

Darling John,

How can I thank you for the lovely, lovely weekend. I always wanted to go to Paris and it really cheered me up. It was such a relief to be able to talk to someone so understanding. I’m afraid you must have spent a fortune but I did enjoy myself.

See you next week-end,

love Jilly

Dear Monica,

I must say I thought your phone call to the office today was hysterical and ill-timed. I was in consultation and it was very embarrassing to have to discuss my private life in front of others. I do not know where and why you have got this absurd notion that we had an understanding about getting married. From my side certainly we have no such thing. I always regarded you as a good friend, and will continue to do so unless prevented by another phone call like today’s.

You may check your letters from me to see whether any such “understanding” was mentioned. I think you will find that nowhere do I mention marriage. I find this an embarrassing topic so will now close.

John

Dear Tom,

I appreciate your intentions in writing to me with what you consider a justifiable warning. I realize you did this from no purposes of self-interest.

Still, I have to thank you for your intention and tell you that your remarks were not well received. Ms. Twilly and I are to be married shortly, and I regard your information that she has had seven breach-of-promise actions settled out of court as utterly preposterous. In fact I know for a certainty that the lady is quite incapable of beginning a breach-of-promise action, so your friend’s sources cannot be as accurate as he or you may think.

Under other circumstances I would have invited you to our wedding but, as things are, I think I can thank you for having had the party where I was fortunate enough to meet my future bride and wish you well in the future.

Sincerely,

John Lewis