Thursday's Child (4 page)

On the bus going home, I realised guiltily that for a whole day I had not thought of Barney, and I wondered if he would mind. Then I thought of how he would have laughed at my discomfiture after the tango and I giggled behind my gloved hand. Looking out through the rain-lashed window I seemed to see him laughing with me, and I thought that perhaps he would be happy that I was feeling happier.

I soon became acquainted with all the staff and most of the members of the McShane. Bessie introduced me to the Director, Dr Gantry, a short, wiry man of uncertain temper and many accomplishments. He spoke seven languages well and managed to make himself understood
in several more. He was almost womanly in his insistence that the club must have a homely atmosphere; it must look like a well-cared-for house, not too fashionable or too shabby; there must be flowers and it must be warm and airy. He went through the premises daily, inspecting every corner like the Chief Steward of a liner; he met diplomats when their ships docked at Wetherport, and found digs for vegetarian students; he kept up a lively correspondence with ex-members of the club, who had returned to their own countries; he encouraged every kind of Anglo-Other Country society to meet at the club, provided they steered clear of political pitfalls; he led panting young men up and down mountains in the Lake District and in and out of the best country pubs – he would say: ‘You haven't seen England if you haven't been in a pub'; he took great care of the women who helped him with their voluntary work in the club, and any man about whom they complained was summoned to his office and if he did not mend his ways his pass was taken from him. This last was a delicate problem, but Dr Gantry had a fair idea of when a man had made a genuine mistake or when a woman's behaviour might be at fault. He used to say, however, that he sometimes thought he was running a marriage bureau, not a club. So many visitors were men, still young and single. They outnumbered their sisters by four to one, and as a result of the Committee's care in the choice of ladies allowed inside the club, these men met very marriageable young women. Almost every week Dr Gantry gave his blessing to a new couple about to marry, and he always said that Britain's best export was wives.

At the end of two months of helping with the dancing class and sometimes helping Bessie with a particularly large influx of visitors, Dr Gantry offered me a position on the staff of the club.

‘The Government has made so much use of our services that we have been able to obtain a grant from them to extend our work,' Dr Gantry said one day, as he chatted to me in the lounge, where I was waiting for the dancing class to begin, ‘and it has long been my opinion that lady visitors to this country have many problems peculiar to
women. I put this point to the Committee the other day and it was agreed that we should ask you to join our staff and look after our lady members.'

His offer was very unexpected but I was most interested and murmured that I was flattered by it.

‘Mrs Forbes tells me that much of your present work is in connection with women and children. She said also that you have a degree in Economics – is that so? and that you can speak French and German?'

‘Yes, it is so.' My face must have shown my interest, because he went on to tell me about the salary and the working hours. The staff worked in shifts, and sometimes I would have to be on duty during week-ends and in the evening; this did not trouble me as I had often worked irregular hours; and as he went on to describe the work to be done, I felt a great desire to leave my present employment, in which I saw only the more sordid and degraded side of women, and do work of a pleasant nature.

‘I can be free in two months' time,' I said, my mind made up. ‘Will that be all right?'

‘Just in time for the rush of summer visitors,' said Dr Gantry, wringing my hand, and then, before I could take breath, he shot across the room to talk to an Indian in a pink turban.

So I became part of the life of the McShane. It was for me a new and exciting life after the many years I had spent amongst the less fortunate inhabitants of the city. I helped Indian ladies with their shopping, shepherded American ladies round castles and museums, introduced wan German girls, imported as nurses, to the delights of having enough to eat, arranged tours for Gold Coast ladies whose knowledge of Shakespeare was frightening and who always wanted to see Anne Hathaway's cottage. I led hikes into the Welsh mountains, into the Lake District and into the Peak District, arranged tours round biscuit factories, cotton mills, docks, power stations and new housing estates; and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I encouraged my often-shy bunches of ladies to talk to everyone they met, with the result that many a factory hand heard of Somaliland for the first time, and many a farmer
saw India as a cluster of multicoloured saris fluttering round his cow-shed.

I rediscovered England myself, and the beauty of it was intensified for me by the many years spent working in an industrial town. When nowadays I sometimes feel a little homesick, I think of Tarn Hows in a rainstorm or the green pools of Snowdonia glittering in the sun, and my mind is diverted and the mood passes.

So the summer and autumn passed in a holocaust of work. Father was amused at what he called my Wogs, but he was pleased to see my enthusiasm, and Mother was delighted about my improved health – plenty of fresh air was putting pink into my cheeks and improving my appetite. I no longer wept. The pain that was Barney was with me still, although I tried not to disturb the wrappings with which time was insulating it.

James sometimes invited Angela and me to the theatre or to a concert, but he was careful not to be alone with me, and marriage was not mentioned by either of us again.

I never forgot the tango which I danced with the Negro, Paul Stacey, and neither did he. Whenever I attended one of the dances given at the McShane, he always danced a tango with me, and I always felt slightly drunk after it. He had a girl friend, a Polish refugee, and they clung to each other through many social difficulties. She could not tango, however, and she used to stand and watch us dance and clap her hands to the rhythm of the music. She had been in a concentration camp and her eyes were full of the horrors she had seen, and yet when she was with Paul she was completely at peace. He knew exactly how to chase the ghosts from her mind and bring quiet to her restless body, and he never deserted her except to dance the tango.

The tango undid the good which many months of quiet discipline had done. When I knew that Barney would never come back to me, physical desire had raged within me. I knew, however, that to live I must find peace of body as well as of mind, and I therefore worked long hours and concentrated painstakingly on the problems of my clients. Gradually some respite came until, consciously or unconsciously, in the space of five minutes Paul made
naught of all my efforts. At first I felt humiliated and ashamed that, without encouragement, I could feel such desires – but comon sense told me that I was still young and must expect such feelings, so again I did my best to channel my energies into my work.

One day Bessie came and told me that a party of Egyptians was expected that evening. They were a rich and influential group of young men, who were touring Britain. It was Sunday and they were stranded in Wetherport until morning. Their guide, a harassed Government official, had telephoned to ask if we could entertain them for the evening, and, since a dance was held every Sunday evening, Dr Gantry had said that we could.

‘They're Muslims,' said Bessie in disgust. She was normally extremely tolerant, but for some reason she had taken a dislike to all followers of the Prophet, and it took her all her self-control to be pleasant to them. Like everything else about the staff, this was well known in the club. Probably she did not like them because, on their arrival in Britain, she was often the first Englishwoman – sometimes the first woman outside their family – to whom they had ever addressed themselves; and she suffered from their lack of knowledge of Western conventions.

Anyway, Bessie galvanised the canteen into baking in their honour, rounded up by telephone some girls with whom they could dance and begged me to help in the ballroom as well, although I protested laughingly that I was tired, after tramping round the cathedral with a party of American ladies.

When the Egyptians arrived, I was having a cheerful argument with Dr Wu, who believed ardently in the Chinese Communists' cause and wished to convert me to his views, so I did not see them enter the room.

A silence stole over the lounge and I turned to see about a dozen exquisitely tailored young men surveying the room languidly, while a very indifferently tailored Englishman with a decidedly hunted look was dithering in front of them.

‘Excuse me,' I said to Dr Wu, and went to the rescue.

The Englishman clutched my hand, said he was
delighted to meet me and introduced me to his charges as Mrs Forbes. All the Egyptians immediately voiced their delight too, so it seemed pointless to explain that I was not Mrs Forbes.

I took their coats from them, found them easy chairs near the fire and asked the steward to find out what they would like to drink. The party was split evenly between whiskies and sodas and cups of tea. Since Bessie had not appeared, I asked Dr Wu, in a whisper, if he would kindly find her for me. Then I sat down amongst the new arrivals and chatted to them about their tour. Their English was a pleasure to hear, every word being clearly enunciated.

Dr Gantry arrived, followed by Bessie, so I moved away from the circle and went to speak to the group of American ladies, who had congregated in one corner. They were curious to know who the new visitors were, and when I told them that they had come to dance, the ladies promptly announced that they wanted to dance too and charged off to the cloakroom to ‘pretty up', as they called it.

It looked as if the evening would be lively, so I sat down in a corner to rest for a few minutes. I had hardly seated myself when Dr Wu came up and silently handed me a cup of coffee – he must have seen my fatigue and gone specially to the buffet to get it. I was touched.

‘Please don't mention it,' he said when I thanked him, ‘it is a pleasure to me.'

I looked at Wu with new interest. Up to then he had just been another Chinese with Communist ideals, but when he expressed his pleasure he became suddenly a real person to me for the first time.

‘You are very kind, Dr Wu,' I said, as I sipped the coffee appreciatively.

Wu smiled. ‘You are very kind to us,' he said. ‘Madame Li has told me of your many kindnesses to her and to the other ladies in your charge.'

‘It is nothing,' I said, the old shyness creeping over me. ‘I just do my work.'

‘You do much more than your work,' said Wu. ‘We all know that,' and he waved one hand as if to associate with his remarks the many faces in the background.

This was the first indication I had had that anyone other than the ladies I escorted appreciated the amount of work which I put into the club, and I was pleased. Through Wu's polite remarks I glimpsed also how much foreigners like himself depended on the club for its friendly atmosphere.

‘I must desert you and go to the dance,' I said, hastily finishing my coffee. ‘I have promised to help Mrs Forbes.'

Wu rose, bowed and smiled so that his eyes nearly vanished.

‘Alas,' he said, ‘dancing is beyond me. My stupid feet fail to understand what the music tells them to do.' His hands fluttered hopelessly.

I laughed.

‘Soon my friend will arrive and we will both come to the ballroom to watch you dance. Mr Stacey says that you dance most excellently.'

‘Mr Stacey is too kind. Do I know your friend?'

‘I think not. May I have the pleasure of introducing him to you later in the evening?'

‘I should be delighted to meet him,' I said, and went away to dance with the Egyptians.

The usual mixed crowd was gyrating slowly round the ballroom floor to the strains of a waltz. The room was already overhot and the Englishman in charge of the radiogram was perspiring. The lights had been lowered for the waltz and the whole room looked dreamy and unreal. I felt very tired.

Bessie ushered in most of the Egyptians – one or two older ones had stayed with their English guide and Dr Gantry in the lounge, preferring the cosy fire and Dr Gantry's lively conversation to dancing.

I went to Bessie. She was wearing a pink dress and her best hostess manner; and I noted that she had already enchanted a rather portly, but extremely aristocratic-looking,
member of the party. She promptly pushed him on to me and we finished the waltz together.

The club had long since found that to encourage new members to dance, it was advisable in the first instance for one of the staff to ask them to dance, after which they usually had enough courage to ask someone else to dance. I therefore went to each Egyptian in turn and took him on to the floor, after which I let him loose amongst the other women present. Most of them danced very well and their conversation was polite.

The lights had again been lowered for a waltz, and I swam out with my fifth Egyptian. This one hugged me tightly to him, and we had hardly circulated once round the room before he asked me to accompany him to Manchester the following day and spend the evening with him.

I regretted that I was not free as I worked at the club. He said calmly that he would arrange it with Dr Gantry, who was a friend of his father's. He wanted, he said soulfully, to take me to a ball and dance the whole evening with me. Retreating, I said that it was impossible and that I had no suitable clothes.

He said he would buy me all the clothes I could desire.

I was in real difficulty. Dr Gantry had expressly asked that we be careful in handling these young men, whose fathers were either high-ranking Government officials or well-to-do aristocrats. All his life this young man had probably had everything he wanted, and it would not be easy to gainsay him.

The record player seemed to be playing for an interminable time, and the Egyptian's lips were brushing my ear as he murmured: ‘We are agreed that there are many more beautiful women in England, but you – you are the most seductive woman we have seen.'

I wanted to giggle. Miss Delaney, until lately helper of girls in distress, to be called seductive and to be so tempted! I had to get out of my predicament somehow – and get out of it gracefully. I looked round for a staff member or some English helper to whom I might have introduced my partner and thus created a diversion and made my escape; but almost everyone was dancing and the record-playing
Englishman seemed to have vanished.

My partner was saying: ‘You should wear pearls in your ears – you must let me buy you some.'

I resisted a temptation to slap his face. Then over his shoulder I saw Dr Wu enter with a brown-skinned man – presumably the friend he had mentioned earlier. Dr Wu would do very nicely – but by the time we had danced round to the door where he had been standing, he had gone and there was only his friend, leaning against the doorpost and puffing at a pipe. I did not know this man and so continued to dance. The Egyptian had taken my silence for acquiescence and was breathing sweet nothings down my neck. Once more we came near to the door. I looked up and straight into the eyes of the brown-faced stranger. They were the most honest eyes imaginable, and when I looked they had such an unexpectedly gentle expression that I felt I had inadvertently peeped into his private life, and I dropped my own eyes. The music stopped and I guided the Egyptian firmly towards his friends. He was saying: ‘Please say where I shall meet you tomorrow.'

‘I am sorry I cannot come,' I said, and turned round and fled.

Just at the door I looked back. The Egyptian was fighting his way through the swarm of dancers. Whatever should I do? ‘Come with me,' said a voice.

I looked up. The stranger was laughing down at me. A thousand times better than twenty Egyptians, I thought. He opened the door opposite the ballroom door. The library, of course. So simple a means of escape – across the floor and down the tiny back staircase to the canteen on the floor below.

‘Thank you very much,' I said, as we descended the staircase. ‘How did you guess?'

The stranger looked embarrassed and said shyly: ‘I was looking at your face.' He stood uncertainly before me, pipe in one hand, the other making nervous gestures. I smiled, and he gained enough courage to say: ‘I come here every Saturday and Sunday to see you.'

I was surprised. ‘But I have never seen you before,' I exclaimed.

‘You have to take care of all the ladies. How is it that you will see me?'

‘But – but …' Words would not come. The evening was getting to the stage of fantasy, and I was so tired.

‘Is your work ended?' asked the stranger, seeing my embarrassment and trying to change the subject. He drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned gold watch. ‘The time is ten o'clock.'

‘Oh, yes, Mrs Forbes asked me to stay only until 9.30.'

‘May I obtain for you a cup of tea before you go? We could – we could sit and drink tea safely in this corner, where you cannot be seen from the door by the Muslim.'

My legs were feeling unaccountably wobbly, my head ached and the canteen was quiet, except for two German girls talking with their English escorts. I sat down where he had indicated.

Mrs Barnes, the Canteen Manageress, evidently knew the stranger who liked to look at me every Saturday and Sunday, because she drew from under the counter and gave to him some cheese straws and some chocolate biscuits, which were in short supply at the time. Armed with these and some tea he came and sat down by me. My head was clearing and when I thanked him I took a good look at him. He was dressed in an old tweed jacket and baggy, grey trousers; his white shirt made his skin look very dark but his features were clear cut and delicate; both in expression and outline his face reminded me of a Saint in an old Italian painting; his hands also, as they invited me to eat and drink, used the gestures portrayed in the same paintings.

‘From which country do you come?' I asked, ‘and may I ask your name?'

‘I am from India and I am called Ajit Singh. You are Miss Margaret Delaney and you live in this city, yes?'

‘Yes,' I said, and inquired if he was at the University.

‘I am writing my thesis – I spend much time, however, at the Berkeley Street power station – for experience.'

‘Oh,' I said blankly, wondering what kind of experience a power station offered.

‘Instruments,' said Ajit, as if divining my thoughts.

The tea was reviving me. My eyes twinkled with the
mischief I felt, as I asked suddenly: ‘Why do you come to see me on Saturdays and Sundays?'

‘I have to work very much from Monday to Friday,' was the calm rejoinder.

I laughed outright: ‘But I have never met you.'

‘There was no one to introduce us.'

‘That does not seem to deter the others.'

‘My father has said that in England an introduction is necessary before a gentleman speaks to a lady. Tonight I see the Egyptian frighten you – and I know Father is right.'

‘The Egyptian was introduced to me – he was not, however, acquainted with our customs. It must have been difficult for him to understand the subtle relationship between men and women in the West.'

‘It was difficult for me – but I have not frightened you, have I?'

‘No,' I smiled.

He looked as if he was about to say something that was important to him, but changed his mind and said merely: ‘This evening my friend, Dr Wu, had promised to introduce us, but we have managed very well by ourselves, have we not?' He flashed a little grin at me, as he took out his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe: ‘May I smoke?' he asked.

This then was Dr Wu's friend. Presumably they had met at the University.

‘Please do smoke,' I said. ‘I must go – otherwise I shall miss the last bus home.'

He rose as I did, and opened the door for me.

‘Thank you again for rescuing me,' I said, pausing by the door.

‘It is nothing,' he said, his face inexplicably sad.

‘I hope to see you next Saturday,' I said, desiring to clear the melancholy shadow away.

The sun shone immediately. ‘I wish that I will see you,' he said, and I went to fetch my coat and hat.

As I hurried through the swing doors on my way out, I met Dr Wu looking harassed.

‘Are you looking for Mr Singh?' I asked.

‘Yes, Miss Delaney, I am.'

‘You will find him in the canteen,' I said, and ran down the stairs. As I went through the glass outer door, I turned. Wu was standing at the top of the stairs grinning down at me, as if I were the subject of some private joke.