In Pursuit of the English

We turned into a narrow side street of short, low, damp, houses, a uniform dull yellow in colour, each with a single grey step. It was almost empty, though here and there in the failing light a woman leaned against a doorway. Rose said suddenly: ‘Let’s have a sit-down,’ and indicated a low wall that enclosed a brownish space of soil where a bomb had burst. There was a tree, paralysed down one side, and a board leaning in a heap of rubble that said: ‘Tea and Bun – One Penny.’

Rose settled herself on the wall and spat pips at a lamp-post.

‘Who sold the tea?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that? He got hit. That was before the war.’ She spoke as if it was a different century. ‘You don’t get tea and a bun for a penny now.’ She looked lovingly around her. ‘I was born here. In that house down there. That one with the brown door. Many’s the time I’ve sat here with my little brother when he was driving my mother silly. Or sometimes my stepfather got into one of his moods and I’d clear out and come here for a rest, in a way of speaking. He used to make me mad, he did.’ She lapsed into a silence of nostalgic content. A man slowly cycled down the street, stopping at each lamp-post. Above him, while he paused, a small yellow glimmer pushed back the thick grey air. Soon the houses retired into shadow. Pools of dim light showed wet pavements. Rose was quiet beside me, a huddled little figure in her tight black coat and head-scarf.

It was long after the sky had gone thick and black behind the glimmering lamps that Rose came out of her dream of childhood. She stretched and said: ‘We’d better be moving.’ But she didn’t move without reluctance. ‘At any rate, the blitz didn’t get it. That’s something to be glad about. And the bombs fell around here. God knows what they thought they were trying to bomb!’ She spoke indifferently, without hate. ‘I expect the planes got lost one night and thought this would do as well as anything. The Americans do that, too, they say – they just get fed up flying around in the dark, so they drop their bombs and nip home for a cup of tea.’

As we walked back, she said: ‘I’ll have to get a hurry on. I’ve got to help Flo with the washing-up or she’ll get the pip.’

‘Do you have to help her?’

‘No. Not really. But I’ve got into the habit of it. She’s like that – I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t. But you just watch yourself and don’t let yourself get into the habit of doing things. I’m telling you for your own good.’

At the bombed site her gait and manner changed. She withdrew into herself and became suspicious, looking into people’s faces as they passed as if they might turn out to be enemies. I couldn’t imagine this Rose, all prim and tightfaced, spitting pips with a laugh. In our street of great decaying houses she clutched at my arm for a moment and said, ‘This place gives me the ’ump sometimes. It’s not friendly, not like what I’m used to. That’s why.’

Bobby Brent was coming out of the side door from the basement, a natty brown hat pulled down over his eyes. When he saw us, he frowned; then smiled. ‘You thought I’d forgotten our appointment,’ he said. ‘Well, you don’t know me.’ Then it struck him: he examined his watch and exclaimed. ‘I say! It’s half-past nine. We agreed eight-fifteen.’

‘Oh, come off it, Bobby,’ said Rose giggling. ‘You do make me laugh.’

He gritted his teeth; forced his lips back in a smile. ‘I’ll take you over now,’ he said to me. ‘Of course, the one I tried to get for you’s gone; nobody to blame but yourself. But there’s another. Just right for you.’

Rose was leaning against the gate-pillar, watching him satirically. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said to him, and pulled me inside the front door.

She took my handbag from me, opened it, and removed all the money from it. ‘I’ll keep this till you come back,’ she said. ‘I’ve left you two shillings, that’ll be enough. Now, if you want this room next to me, it’s a good thing you go off with Bobby. It’ll make Flo nervous. And they’re doing ever such a deal, the three of them.’

‘What sort of deal? Why don’t you stop Flo?’

‘Oh no, it’s like this. If Bobby wants, for argument’s sake, five pounds, then don’t let him have it. But if it’s a hundred and it looks all right, that’s different, see? Bobby’s got an idea for a club, a night-club or something. Dan is going to lend him a hundred. And they’re talking how to get money out of you.’

‘But I haven’t any.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said, giggling. ‘Don’t mind me, but I did sort of keep my face straight, as if I thought you had money, because it makes me laugh, Flo and Dan, when they get the itch. There are two sorts of people in the world,’ she concluded, ‘the kind that get money, like Flo and Dan and Bobby. That’s because they think about it all the time. And people like us. Well, it takes all sorts. See you tomorrow. I’ll put your money under your pillow.’

Bobby Brent said as I joined him: ‘There’s just one kind of person that I can’t stand. The envious ones. Like Rose Jennings. She’s eaten up with it.’

‘Where’s the flat?’

‘Around the corner.’

We walked half a mile in silence. ‘How’s Miss Powell?’ I asked. ‘I don’t mind telling you, she’s a real problem to me. She’s got it into her head she wants to marry me.’ ‘Bad luck,’ I said. ‘The trouble with women is, they’re monogamous.’ ‘I know. It’s all very badly arranged.’ ‘What do you mean – my arrangements aren’t crystallized.’ ‘Never mind, you’ll feel different when you’re married to the daughter of the lord.’ ‘I’m not so sure. Women never understand. They tie a man down. They expect him to live the same life, day after day. Well, I was in the Commandos three years, and now I expect to call my life my own.’ ‘Cheer up. It looks as if there might very well be a war soon.’ ‘You can’t count on it,’ he said.

We were now in a hushed and darkened square, and outside a large house. The name on the doorbell we pushed was Colonel Bartowers. The door opened to show a martial old man, with protruding stomach, red face, and an aggressive blue stare.

‘We’re here on business. My name’s Ponsonby – Alfred Ponsonby.’ He thrust a card into the Colonel’s hand. The Colonel stood his ground, looking at him up and down, raising his white eyebrows in a terrifying way. ‘We understand you have premises to let.’

The Colonel fell back, astonished, and we were in the hall. The Colonel looked at me, and said blankly: ‘Well, come inside, now you’re here. How on earth – I haven’t even sent it to an agent – ’ He pulled himself together. ‘Well, I don’t know, these days you can’t even think of moving without getting in hordes of … however, I’m very glad. Come in.’

He showed us into a living-room. It was charming. This was the England I had read about in novels.

‘As a matter of interest,’ said the Colonel to me, ‘how did you hear about this flat?’

Mr Ponsonby strode forward and announced: ‘My cousin from Africa asked me to find her a flat.’ I tried to catch the Colonel’s eye, but Mr Ponsonby was in the way. ‘I’m in the business, as my card shows. There would be no fee to either lessor or lessee.’

‘A question of philanthropy,’ said the Colonel gravely; and Mr Ponsonby fell back, spelling out the word to himself. ‘Blood is blood,’ he offered at last.

‘Oh, quite,’ said Colonel Bartowers. He sighed and said: ‘Well, I suppose I might as well show you the flat, in case I decide to go abroad. You mentioned Africa?’ he said to me.

‘My cousin has just come,’ said Mr Ponsonby, trying to get between the Colonel and me, but he was brushed aside, and the Colonel took my arm.

‘I was myself in Southern Rhodesia for ten years. A little before your time, I expect. I left in 1905. Do you remember …’ And he began reciting names which are part of the history of the Empire. ‘This is the kitchen,’ he said, waving his hand at it. It was equipped like an American kitchen. ‘All the things one needs in a kitchen, I believe. So my wife said. She ran off with someone else last year. No loss. Not really. But I don’t use the kitchen. I eat out. Now, tell me, did you ever meet Jameson? I suppose not.’

In the bedroom he absently opened one cupboard after another, all filled with lush blankets and tinted linen of all kinds, shutting the doors before I could properly savour them. ‘All the usual things for bedrooms – hot bottles, electric bottles and so on. Never use the things myself. Now, tell me, did you ever go shooting down Gwelo way?’ He told a story of how he had shot a lion in the chicken-run, in the good old days. ‘But perhaps things have changed,’ he remarked at last.

‘I think they have, rather.’

‘Yes, so I hear.’ He threw open another door. ‘The bathroom,’ he announced, before shutting it. I caught a glimpse of a very large room with a black and white tiled floor, and a pale pink bath. ‘A bit cramped,’ he said, ‘but in these days.’

‘Well, I think that’s all,’ he said at last. ‘Shall we have a drink on it?’ He produced a bottle of Armagnac; then he looked at Mr Ponsonby, for the first time in minutes, and frowned. ‘There’s a pub round the corner,’ he said putting back the bottle. In the pub he ordered two drinks for me and for him, added a third as a calculated afterthought, and turned his back on Mr Ponsonby. ‘Now,’ he said, his fat red face relaxing. ‘We can talk.’ For the space of several drinks I said yes and no; and in the intervals of his monologue, the Colonel ordered, with brusque dislike, another for Mr Ponsonby, who was reacting to this situation in a way which disconcerted me. I expected him to be angry; but his eyes were focused on some plan. He watched the Colonel’s face for some time while he pretended to be listening to his talk. Then he turned away and got into conversation with a man sitting next to him. I heard phrases like ‘a good investment’ and ‘thirty per cent’ spoken in a discreet, almost winning voice.

‘That Bulawayo campaign. The best days of my life. I remember lying on the kopje behind my house and taking pot-shots at the nigs as they came to the river for water. I was a damned good shot, though I say it myself. Of course, I still shoot a bit, grouse chiefly, but it’s not the same. It was a good life, say what you like.’ He shot a pugnacious blue glance at me and demanded: ‘From what I hear they’ll be taking pot-shots at us soon, getting their own back, hey? This idea seemed to cause him a detached and almost kindly amusement, for he guffawed and said: ‘I used to get good fun with those nigs. Damn good fellows some of them. Sportsmen. Good fighters. Ah, well.’ He sighed and put down his glass. ‘Two more of the same.’

‘Closing time, sir.’

‘Blast. This damned country. Can’t stand it. It’s a nation of old women these days. It’s the Labour Government. Petticoat government, that’s what I call it. That’s why I’m thinking of getting out again. To Kenya, I thought. I’ve got a cousin. I’d go back to Rhodesia, but my wife, blast her, is there with her new husband. Not big enough for both of us. The trouble is, though, once you’ve lived out of England, you can’t really settle in it. Too small. I expect you’ll find that, too. I remember I came back on leave after that Bulawayo campaign and asking myself, How the hell did I stick England all those years. I still ask myself.’

I heard Mr Ponsonby say: ‘A nice little sideline for a man with a few hundred to spare.’

The Colonel, peevishly fiddling with his empty glass, listened.

‘Needs doing up. But it’s in good repair. All it really needs is some paint and a bar.’

‘Your cousin …’

‘He’s not my cousin.’

‘Of course not. Ah, well, these people have their uses, I suppose! He appears to have irons in the fire.’

‘Dozens. He’s a man of enterprise.’

‘That’s what this country lacks, these days.’

‘He was in the Commandos, too.’

But the Colonel’s face expressed nothing but distaste. ‘Was he? I like clean fighting myself. Still, I suppose those fellows were necessary.’

‘My principal needs a quick decision,’ said Mr Ponsonby. ‘You can give me a ring in the morning.’ He got off his stool and turned to us, not immediately recognizing us, so great was his preoccupation. ‘Well,’ he asked. ‘Everything fixed?’ He spoke as if this little matter could only be kept in the forefront of his attention by the greatest concentration.