The End Of Solomon Grundy

The End of Solomon Grundy

First published in 1964

© Estate of Julian Symons; House of Stratus 1964-2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Julian Symons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

Julian Symons was born in 1912 in London. He was the younger brother, and later biographer, of the writer A.J.A. Symons.

Aged twenty five, he founded a poetry magazine which he edited for a short time, before turning to crime writing. This was not to be his only interest, however, as in his eighty-two years he produced an enormously varied body of work. Social and military history, biography and criticism were all subjects he touched upon with remarkable success, and held a distinguished reputation in each field. Nonetheless, it is primarily for his crime writing that he is remembered. His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day.

Symons commenced World War II as a recognised conscientious objector, but nevertheless ended up serving in the Royal Armoured Corps from 1942 until 1944, when he was invalided out. A period as an advertising copywriter followed, but was soon abandoned in favour of full time writing. Many prizes came his way as a result, including two
Edgar Awards
and in 1982 he received the accolade of being named as
Grand Master
of the Mystery Writers of America – an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. Symons then succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain’s Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the
Cartier Diamond Dagger
from the British Crime Writers for his lifetime’s achievement in crime fiction.

He published over thirty crime novels and story collections between 1945 and 1994; with the works combining different elements of the classic detective story and modern crime novel, but with a clear leaning toward the latter, especially situations where ordinary people get drawn into extraordinary series of events – a trait he shared with Eric Ambler. He also wrote two modern-day Sherlock Holmes pastiches. In
A Three Pipe Problem
the detective was ‘...a television actor,
Sheridan Hayes
, who wears the mask of
Sherlock Holmes
and assumes his character’. Several of Julian Symons’ works have been filmed for television.

Julian Symons died in 1994.

The French call a typewriter
une machine á ècrire
. It is a description that could well be applied to Julian Symons, except the writing he produced had nothing about it smelling of the mechanical. The greater part of his life was devoted to putting pen to paper. Appearing in 1938, his first book was a volume of poetry,
Confusions About X
. In 1996, after his death, there came his final crime novel,
A Sort of Virtue
(written even though he knew he was under sentence from an inoperable cancer) beautifully embodying the painful come-by lesson that it is possible to achieve at least a degree of good in life.

His crime fiction put him most noticeably into the public eye, but he wrote in many forms: biographies, a memorable piece of autobiography (
Notes from Another Country
), poetry, social history, literary criticism coupled with year-on-year reviewing and two volumes of military history, and one string thread runs through it all. Everywhere there is a hatred of hypocrisy, hatred even when it aroused the delighted fascination with which he chronicled the siren schemes of that notorious jingoist swindler, Horatio Bottomley, both in his biography of the man and fictionally in
The Paper Chase
and
The Killing of Francie Lake
.

That hatred, however, was not a spew but a well-spring. It lay behind what he wrote and gave it force, yet it was always tempered by a need to speak the truth. Whether he was writing about people as fiction or as fact, if he had a low opinion of them he simply told the truth as he saw it, no more and no less.

This adherence to truth fills his novels with images of the mask. Often it is the mask of hypocrisy. When, as in
Death’s Darkest Face
or
Something Like a Love Affair
, he chose to use a plot of dazzling legerdemain, the masks of cunning are startlingly ripped away.

The masks he ripped off most effectively were perhaps those which people put on their true faces when sex was in the air or under the exterior. ‘Lift the stone, and sex crawls out from under,’ says a character in that relentless hunt for truth,
The Progress of a Crime
, a book that achieved the rare feat for a British author, winning Symons the US Edgar Allen Poe Award.

Julian was indeed something of a pioneer in the fifties and sixties bringing into the almost sexless world of the detective story the truths of sexual situations. ‘To exclude realism of description and language from the crime novel’ he writes in
Critical Occasions
, ‘is almost to prevent its practitioners from attempting any serious work.’ And then the need to unmask deep-hidden secrecies of every sort was almost as necessary at the end of his crime-writing life as it had been at the beginning. Not for nothing was his last book subtitled
A Political Thriller.

H R F Keating

London, 2001

Solomon Grundy

Born on Monday

Christened on Tuesday

Took ill on Wednesday

Worse on Friday

Died on Saturday

Buried on Sunday

This is the end

Of Solomon Grundy

The Weldons’ Party

Grundy’s hands, large, strong and hairy, rested on the steering wheel. The hairs, reddish and curling, sprouted abundantly from the confinement of his cuffs, covered much of the backs of his hands, and extended above the knuckles to his fingers. The lights changed to green and he turned out of the High Street traffic into the quietness of Brambly Way, with its squat Victorian blocks on one side and symmetrical Georgian façades on the other.

Three hundred yards down Brambly Way the blocks were broken by a sign that said in sans serif capitals THE DELL. Beneath it, in upper and lower case, the sign said: “5 Miles an Hour, Please. Children Playing.” Twenty yards from this sign the houses began, built on both sides of the gravel road in small terraces of four or six, with identical picture windows but each with its differently-coloured front door. Each house had its own small garden and front gate, and outside the gate strips of green, narrow as carpet runners, separated the houses from the gravel road down which the car jolted, small stones crunching under the tyres. The hundred houses that made up The Dell stretched as far as the eye could see, some of them parallel and some at angles to the road and to each other. They were intersected at several points by other gravel roads and by stretches of green public lawn on which a few children were still playing at the end of this mild September day. Grundy drove round three-quarters of The Dell, then parked his old Alvis beside other cars on a patch of waste ground, and walked across the waste ground to his house. He opened the magenta front door. The time was eight o’clock.

Marion was in the bedroom in slip and knickers, making up her face. He bent over her. “Don’t kiss me,” she said. “You’ll spoil it.”

He stared at the two faces in the glass, hers a little haggard but darkly pretty, intense and eager, his own freckled, ginger-coloured, rough.

“What are you getting ready for?”

The Weldons’ party. I told you this morning.”

“I forgot.”

“You never remember anything. You’re late.”

He waved one hand. “I got caught up.”

“They said eight o’clock.”

“It doesn’t matter about time with them, you know that. Besides, you’re not ready.”

“What was the point of my getting ready when you hadn’t come home?”

This almost meaningless bickering had become part of their lives.

Grundy washed his hands and face and then went down into the living-room, drew the curtains over the picture window, put the first record he picked up on the record player, and sat down in an arm-chair with thin metal legs and a circular back. The record was from
My Fair Lady.
He turned it down until he could hear the words only as a murmur, returned to the chair, sat back and closed his eyes.

Ten minutes later Marion stood before him, ready for the party. She wore a dark green silk dress with a pearl necklace and earrings that he had given her ten years ago.

Her eyes sparkled with the expectation of enjoyment, as they always did before a party.

“Are you going in that suit? Aren’t you even going to change your shirt?”

“For Dick and Caroline, no.” Grundy got up, turned off the record player. “You look nice. A little snifter before we go?”

“We mustn’t get there stinking of drink.” But she took the large whisky he poured for her, pirouetted on a shapely leg, sat down opposite him. Reproductions of Rouault, Dufy, Segonzac, Utrillo, looked at the pair of them. “Dick’s asked Kabanga.”

“Who?”

“That Jamaican or West African or whatever he is, you know he’s just come to live on the corner, No. 99. Edgar says there are too many of them coming to live here, they’ll put down property values.”

Grundy swirled the whisky in his glass. A little slopped on to his thumb, and he sucked it. “Edgar’s a bastard.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Marion leaned forward, her eyes bright. “I mean, colour shouldn’t be anything to do with it. Nor should money. That’s what I think’s so wrong.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, Dick’s just asked him out of curiosity, because he’s coloured.”

Grundy put down his drink. “Let’s go.”

They went out, walked a hundred yards to the right, crossed the road. From the Weldons’ house, which was similar to but a little larger than their own, came a confused roar of talk, music and laughter. The door was open, but they rang the bell.

“Sol. Marion. My darlings. So glad you could make it.”

“We had a long way to come,” said Marion, responding to this old Dell joke.

Dick Weldon looked from one to the other of them, his large nose slightly raised as though scenting – what? – a scandal, an indiscretion, some infelicitous note indicative of marital disharmony? By profession an architect, Dick was a man who felt a natural, proprietorial interest in other people’s affairs. This interest was not malicious. It was simply that to be unaware of what was going on in the neighbourhood – not to know who had moved into the house left empty three months ago, or who was running the raffle for the Church or nuclear disarmament funds, or who had been knocked off his bicycle in Brambly Way – pained him like a nagging tooth. Over the years Dick’s great blunt nose had developed a beautifully delicate susceptibility to news that might interest him and now he stood, pointing as it were, for a moment, before he stood aside for them to pass him, bellowing: “Caroline, Caroline.”

The roar was louder, a turbulent dynamo of sound. Dick made a placatory gesture towards it, like a man apologising for the boisterousness of his loveable dog. “Get you a drink,” he said, and disappeared. Marion added her coat to the pile in the hall, and they pushed their way into the living-room. A couple of feet inside they were checked by a fat-faced boy who thrust at them a tray of bits of sardine, olives, smoked salmon, meat and cheese on strips of toast. They each took a strip.

“Hallo, Cyprian,” Marion said. “It’s a bit hard on you having to carry this tray around.”

“Mummy told me to. I’m staying up.” “That’s nice for you. Do you like the party?”

“I think it’s bloody awful. I want to watch TV.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a programme about an African tribe. They still have human sacrifices and initiation ceremonies. In one initiation they cut open a man’s stomach—”

Cyprian was waylaid by a girl in a mauve dress. Marion chewed her bit of smoked salmon and shuddered slightly. “Horrid little boy.”

“I’ll get us a drink.” Grundy turned on his heel. Within the vortex of the room he was sucked into a pool of sound and physical contact. He knew most of the fifty people there, since almost all of them lived in The Dell. They were men and women like himself, accountants or advertising men or architects or actors. He knew that their wives, in appearance plain or pretty, tarty or timid, were generally faithful to their husbands even when they were flirtatious with other people. Yet such is the transforming power of a party that these people now seemed strange to him, as though they were all in process of becoming what they believed to be their real selves, selves more witty, profound, elegant and desirable than was ever apparent in the knockabout of everyday life. As he pushed through the scrum, his thighs brushing against a woman’s buttocks, the skin of his hand feeling the texture of suits smooth or hairy, sentences and phrases came through to him through the deep general wave of sound, rather as though the crackle on a wireless set were intermittently shut off in favour of intelligible speech.

“—in any theory of graduated response—”

“—a wonderful hock, fruity and fragrant—”

“—a disgrace, of course, the whole garage question, and the committee—”

“—
Beyond the Fringe,
yes, I loved the one who—”

“—Late again, I said to the porter, and he said—”

“—if overkill, I mean, why not underkill—”

“—kill in any case—”

“—either you deliver on Thursday, I said, or I cancel the order—”

“—you can’t go wrong with the ’59—”

“—the Macmillan sketch was extremely funny—”

“—that’s right, you can’t go wrong with the ’59—”

“—an outmoded concept, have you read Schlesinger—”

“—part of the price we pay for living here—”

“—don’t shoot the committee, they’re doing their best—”

A voice said in his ear, “Don’t shoot the committee, eh?” Edgar Paget grinned up at Grundy, a little marine growth of a man, thick dark hair smooth as seaweed, features pudgy and malleable as though seen under water.

“I’m looking for a drink.”

“Here.” Paget wriggled aside, and behind him there was revealed a table with a cloth on it that served as a bar. Bottles of several kinds, full, half-full and empty, stood upon it. Grundy took a glass and one of the bottles, and tilted it. Suddenly Caroline Weldon, her face flushed, popped up from the other side of the bar.

“Darling Sol.” She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek. The bottle jerked a little, liquid flowed over the cloth.

“Very sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Are you having fun?”

“I’ve only just got here.”

“I’m having fun, I’m a barmaid.” And indeed Caroline, brawny-armed, deep-bosomed, hair some quite honestly artificial shade of blue, did look at home behind the bar. “Where’s Marion? Has the poor darling got a drink?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll take her this one.”

There was a tug at his sleeve, light but positive and persistent, like that of some small animal determined to attract attention. Edgar’s face wavered a shoulder’s height below his.

“Wanted to have a word, old boy, just a couple of minutes, in here.”

Grundy allowed himself to be led out of the door into the adjoining small dining room. People at parties congregate in one room and for no apparent reason ignore another. So at this party there were no more than half a dozen people in the dining room, talking quietly and earnestly to each other. Edgar took Grundy to a corner of the room where they talked beneath one of the near-Calder mobiles which Caroline made to express her uncertain artistic aspirations.

“I expect you can guess what it’s about.” Edgar smiled lopsidedly. Whisky could be smelt upon his breath. Grundy absent-mindedly gulped the wine he had got for Marion.

“The garages? There’s a committee meeting tomorrow, isn’t that right?”

“Not the garages. This African chap.”

“Kabanga?”

“Yes. Dick’s asked him along here, that’s all right, shake hands with the fellow, quite all right. But there’s a bit too much of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s moved in, you know that, I expect. Four of them living here now.”

“Well?”

“I’m an estate agent, old boy, believe me I know what I’m talking about. There was just one living here twelve months ago, four now, maybe twenty in another twelve months. You’ve got no colour prejudice, all right, neither have I, but I’m telling you – speaking as an estate agent, mind you – if that happens the value of your house is going down
and
down. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is.” He wagged a finger. “Tell you another thing. Keep my ear to the ground, you know that. This Kabanga’s no good.”

“What do you mean?”

“A word to the wise. He’s no good, that’s all.”

Grundy tapped the mobile above his head. Little gold and silver blobs on the ends of the wires moved round. He drained his glass. His voice, hoarse but powerful, came like rusty water out of a tap.

“Marion and I were talking about this before we came here. Do you know what I said? I said to her, ‘Edgar’s a bastard.’”

Edgar’s face wobbled, the eyes staring fixedly in their jelly of flesh. He began to say something, then put down his glass on a table and turned away. Grundy began to laugh. The Weldons’ daughter, Gloria, a girl of thirteen, came up carrying a tray of sausage rolls.

“Have one of these. Mummy made them, and I’ve made them hot. Isn’t this party just marv.”

“Marv.” He took a sausage roll.

By ten o’clock Marion had drunk three large whiskies, two glasses of white and one of red wine, and had eaten a number of biscuits and bits of things on toast. She had seen her husband’s ginger head only once or twice across the room, but this was not unusual. They were after all, as she often said, independent beings, and you didn’t go to a party just to talk to your husband. So she had talked to Peter Clements, the TV producer, whose general air of extrovert normality made it all the more surprising that he kept house with Rex Lecky, a young actor who seemed to be nowhere about. She had talked to Jack Jellifer, who was a professional expert on wine and food, and to his rather tarty wife Arlene. She had had a long conversation with Dick Weldon, in which Dick had told her that he often worried about the kids, particularly about the language Cyprian used.

Marion shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

Dick was serious, even solemn. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder whether a psychiatrist is the answer.”

“Trauma. Just a trauma.”

“You think so?”

“If you’ve got a good relationship, you and Caroline, that’s what’s important to – to Gloria and Cyprian. Home example, that’s the thing.”

“I expect you’re right.” Dick nodded, with what in another man might have been called complacence.

“I mean to say, when you’ve got a relationship like that you can feel happy about – anything.”

She became aware that her voice was a little high. Dick’s large nose pointed upwards, his brown eyes looked at her speculatively. To avoid his gaze she lifted her glass. It was empty.

“I’m being a bad host.” He filled her glass with white wine and moved away. From the dining-room there came the sound of music. Marion moved towards it and stood in the doorway. Somebody had turned out all of the lights except one, and had placed a thick bit of material over that. In the semi-obscurity half a dozen couples moved around. Marion saw Jack Jellifer dancing with Caroline Weldon, and Arlene moving round with her head resting on the shoulder of a stranger to the Dell, whom she vaguely recognised as a guest of the Weldons. She did not see her husband.