Out of the Blackout (15 page)

Rosemary's landlady's cold seemed to have become a matter of lesser importance. She pushed her glass across with a smile. As Simon waited for the landlord to get off his fat beam and condescend to serve, he turned to the tall man and said:

‘You don't know me, but I gather I've got your old room.'

‘Really?' said Blore, in a manner more pitying than aggrieved. ‘Well, rather you than me. I served my sentence.'

‘I feel rather guilty about it. I had the impression that Len Simmeter might have hurried you out.'

‘He turned me out. I knew he must have someone else lined up. It was the best thing that could have happened to me: I've got two good rooms now for the same rent. Len had been at daggers drawn with me since he saw my Labour Party poster. I think I only stayed on for devilment, to annoy him. I presume the object of the exercise was to up the rent still further?'

‘I suspect so,' said Simon. ‘I pay four pounds ten.'

Blore whistled.

‘But that's ludicrous. It's daylight robbery. And probably illegal to boot. I bet he's operating with two receipt books or something. You should dob him in.'

‘Oh no,' said Simon. ‘I shan't be dobbing him in for that.'

‘Well, someone ought to. You may have got yourself in with that gorgeous little tottie from next door, but you shouldn't stay a moment longer than you need.'

‘The Simmeters have a fatal fascination, as you found.'

‘They have nothing of the kind. Len Simmeter's not only a capitalist swine, he's a fascist capitalist swine. Did you know that?'

‘Yes,' said Simon. ‘That's one of the things I've found out.'

Then Simon carried the glasses back to the table, and for the rest of the evening he forgot about the Simmeters. As he walked home with Rosemary he promised to take her round the Zoo.

‘I must remember I've got to take Miss Cosgrove round too. She has the other room on the second floor.'

‘Oh well, we can organize it so you take us both together.'

‘No,' said Simon. ‘I think I'll take you round on your own.'

The question of moving from the Simmeters' came up again by chance next day at the Zoo. He and a senior colleague were
standing observing a puma that was taking badly to captivity. While they were watching the moping beast, his companion turned to him and said:

‘Done anything about getting a flat nearer here yet?'

‘No, not yet.'

‘Because I think the Boss is getting a bit worried. He's wondering if you're thinking of moving on, and he doesn't want to lose you.'

‘That's nice of him, but it's nothing like that. It's just—well, laziness I suppose. I'll start looking for something more convenient as soon as summer's over.'

And suddenly Simon realized that he was telling the truth. He was going to be moving out from the Simmeters' soon. That quest to find out about his origins had suddenly begun to lose the fine edge of urgency. He no longer had any need to ‘find a father'. He had found him, and would quite happily unfind him at any time. The moment he compared Len Simmeter with Tom Cutheridge back in Yeasdon, his heart yearned back to the slow, warm old man. The nature of his quest seemed to be changing, from an emotional one to a purely intellectual one: it was less a question of ‘who am I?' and more one of finding out what had happened to his mother, and how he had turned up on that platform in Paddington. Any emotion, any urgency, was connected with his mother: he wanted to know what exactly had happened on the night she died.

The next evening he called in at the Paddington Reference Library on his way home from work. What he was interested in now was Mary Simmeter's death. It should be easy enough to determine the date. He called for the volume of the
Recorder
for 1941. It was much lighter than the others he had handled: newsprint was scarce, though news itself there was in an abundance that even the 'thirties had not known. He turned to the week he had arrived in Yeasdon. Got it in one.

From the yellow pages of the emaciated issue of the paper there came a dim echo of the horrors of that week. It was one of the worst weeks of the blitz, and in that May London was strafed over and over again. On the front page, and again on the inside ones, there were pictures of blazing buildings, of houses and public buildings reduced to rubble. On page five, closely squeezed up together, as if in a journalistic paupers' grave,
there was a list of casualties. Mary Simmeter was killed—no precise date was given, but the issue of the paper was dated May 12th—by the bomb that had demolished 24 Fisher Street. Simon frowned. The address meant nothing to him. He drew a finger down the huddled list of names: finally he came to Simon and Eve Rosebourne, and their daughter Helen, aged three, all killed at 24 Fisher Street. So the presumption was that Mary had been out visiting, or perhaps on an errand of mercy, when she was killed.

The rest of the evening Simon spent in the Colonel Monk. Teddy Simmeter did not come in, but Rosie Short did. They talked, exchanged confidences, got very close. At one point in the evening Rosie said:

‘You've got a reason for coming here, haven't you? You weren't just joking?'

‘No, I wasn't joking.'

‘I bet it's something to do with those rotten Simmeters.'

‘Yes, in a way it has.'

‘No “in a way” at all. It has. Are you going to tell me?'

Simon paused and thought.

‘Yes, I expect some day I will. Not now.'

‘You're not one of those shut-in, secretive people, are you?'

He put his arm round her.

‘No. I promise you I'm not that.'

It was Friday night when Teddy finally came in. There were rather more customers in the bar than usual, and people coming in and out for bottles the whole time, but Simon recognized Teddy at once. In spite of the twenty-odd years that had passed, there was still something of that young boy in RAF rig he had glimpsed in the Simmeters' sitting-room. Not that time had dealt lightly with him. Then he had been a fresh-faced, shy, not unhandsome young pilot, taking on the planes, presumably, that were inflicting such punishment on London night after night at the time of Mary Simmeter's death. Now he was a pudgy businessman, or more accurately a fat one. He was one of those men who made you wonder about the logistics of trousers; his face was red and veined, under an increasingly sparse head of hair, and he had a double chin round and succulent as turkey breast. But there was about him an air of invincible jollity, of honest roguery, of taking life as it came that was perhaps a relic
of his Battle of Britain days. The Simmeter strain only came out in his tendency to corpulence, but whereas his mother's bulk, even in her decline, seemed ponderous, overbearing, threatening, in him the bulk had been transformed—‘laundered', one might say, as dubious money is in the States—into something rubicund, endearing, almost Pickwickian. And those small, mean, Simmeter eyes has passed him by altogether.

Simon decided on a direct approach. He was an open soul by nature, and in any case too many devious approaches led to people comparing notes and finding discrepancies. Drinking down the quarter of a pint that remained in his glass, he marched over to the bar and stood by Teddy.

‘You must be Teddy Simmeter,' he said. ‘I recognize you from your photograph.'

‘Such is fame,' said Teddy, a genial smile on his ruddy face. ‘Now all I need to hear is that you're from the CID's ‘Wanted Persons' department. No, wait!' He banged his fist against his forehead. ‘I know who you are. You're the young chap from upstairs.'

‘That's right.'

‘I've just been hearing about you. Connie was full of you, and even the old Ma said you were a well-spoken young man.'

‘That was nice of her.'

‘Wrung from her, of course. It's not in Ma to approve a member of the younger generation. They've been going further and further to the bad since the old Queen died, if you believe Ma. I shouldn't laugh at her, poor old thing. She's looking a bit like the old Queen in her last days herself.'

‘Is she still poorly?'

‘Looks like a wreck of her old self. ‘Course, you won't have seen her in her prime: the true British battle-axe, honed to a vicious cutting edge.' He downed his first pint, and pushed his glass across the bar for another. ‘But when they get to that age, you forgive all, that's what I say. What she wants is cheering up. Not that it's easy. I feel like Max Miller in a Wednesday matinée at the Wimbledon Empire. Still, it's better than fighting with her, like Len.'

‘I gathered from Len that she didn't want to hand over the reins.'

‘Nor she does. But he needn't rub in her weakness in the way
he does. She's always held the purse-strings, Ma. Len's always handed over his weekly wage, like a good little boy. Then she starts getting forgetful, and Len starts bit by bit to get control. Nastiness and bitterness all the way, and all over a few quid. What Len really enjoys is showing her who's boss now.'

Teddy took out his wallet.

‘I'm going to take a bottle of Scotch back. Len's too mean to buy her anything—and of course the stubborn old body says she doesn't want it, and it goes against her religion. Sign of weakness, that's what alcohol is, as she's told me many a time in the past. Which doesn't mean she's not sitting at home now, hoping I bring a bottle back with me.'

‘What do you do?'

‘TV rentals and repairs. We're the straightest firm this side of Guildford—though mind you' (he winked) ‘the competition's not too hot. That's another sign of weakness, TV. “I won't have a television receiver in the house,” she always used to say when I offered her one. In the end I just brought one round and left it. She needs something to cheer her up. She's never been what you'd call a lively spirit herself, and Len's got all the brightness and vivacity of a twenty-five-watt bulb. They just sit around spreading pools of gloom. At least the telly gives her something to tut-tut over.'

‘And there's your sister. She seems a bit different.'

‘Connie's not going to waste any effort on Ma. Don't get me wrong. Connie's OK. At least she's got a bit of fun in her. But there's too much water's gone under that bridge, too many things in her past that Ma never tires of reminding her of, for her to care much whether Ma is comfortable or not. She just uses the place as a hotel—and there's no love lost between her and the proprietors.' He took a hefty swig at his second pint, and ordered a bottle of whisky. ‘No, it's a dismal house and no mistake. My wife refuses to come round, ever since Ma called her a painted strumpet. I don't try to force her: it was pitching it rather high, just for a bit of Boots lipstick. The kids stopped coming years ago. I come round when I start feeling guilty. I can take Ma and Connie, but Len gives me the gripes. He was bad when he was under her thumb, but he's worse now that he's wriggling out from under. Ah well! Back to the Happy Haven!'

He downed the last of his beer, took up the whisky in his pudgy hand, and began making for the door.

‘I'll walk along with you,' said Simon. ‘Time I was getting back.'

‘Right you are. Home to Bleak House, Glum Terrace together. They'll have been counting the minutes I've been gone. The old Ma will say: “You'll never succeed in business if you drink all the profits.” And when I produce the whisky it'll be: “Wasting your money like that. Don't pretend
I
want it.” And when he sees the bottle Len's piggy little eyes will gleam. Have you got a family?'

‘Yes, I have,' said Simon. ‘A very nice one.'

‘Count yourself lucky. I sometimes wonder how I ever came through without being all knotted up inside, like Len. I used to tell my sister-in-law—Len's wife, poor soul—that she ought to get away with her little boy before they got twisted too. But she never managed it. Me—I was lucky. You could say the war was lucky for me, just as it was unlucky for her. I was in it from the start, almost. Got away, among normal people, and stayed away. Well, here we are—'

‘I'll say goodnight,' said Simon.

‘Here, look: why don't you come down and have a nip of this with us? Relieve the atmosphere, like. Won't be any fun, I warn you, but you'd be very welcome.'

‘Thanks,' said Simon. ‘I'd like that.'

‘Right. Here we go. Childe Whatsit and friend to the dark tower came. Mind the steps.'

T
he scene in the Simmeter sitting-room was a long way short of festive. Teddy had let himself in with his own key, and when he appeared at the door from the hallway they were all three looking up at him expectantly—rather as the inhabitants of an old people's home might look up at an amateur conjuror with an expression that said: ‘Entertain us. We challenge you to entertain us.' Mother was sitting idly in a chair; Connie, in a smart dress of light blue, had
Woman in the Home
on her lap; and Len
was at the table, stewing over a grubby little notebook. Mother sniffed, Connie smiled a lazy smile of welcome, and when he saw Simon behind Teddy Len got up, stretched his mouth into a smile, and began rubbing his hands. It was Mother that Teddy directed his attentions to, but she looked so drawn and tired, bore such signs of a long struggle against human weakness, that it looked to Simon as if he would have an uphill struggle.

‘I've brought you a bottle, and I've brought you a guest,' said Teddy heartily, as if he were only augmenting an atmosphere already cheery. ‘What more could you want?'

‘You shouldn't have,' said his mother, and she seemed to intend the remark to apply to both of his gifts. ‘You spend money like water. You know I never brought you up to have drink in the house. It's money wasted: don't pretend
I
want it.'

‘Come on, Mother—just a little nip. It'll warm you up.'