To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

Suddenly he remarked in a high insistent voice, ‘There are all those little fishes in the depths of the sea, all those little fishes. We explode all these bombs at them, and we’re not going to be forgiven for that, are we, we’re not going to be forgiven for blowing up the poor little fishes.’

She said, in an amiable voice, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and she left her seat behind him and sat in the same seat with him.

I had known that the afternoon was bound to get out of control at some point but this conversation upset me. I wa relieved when Aunt Emma restored normality by saying: ‘There. There never used to be people like that. It’s the Labour Government.’

‘Oh, Mummy,’ said Jessie, ‘I’m not in the mood for politics this afternoon.’

We had arrived at the place we wanted, and we got down off the bus. Aunt Emma gave the bus conductor ninepence for the three of us, which he took without comment. ‘And they’re inefficient as well,’ she said.

It was drizzling and rather cold. We proceeded up the street, our heads together under Aunt Emma’s umbrella.

Then I saw a newsboard with the item: Stalin is Dying. I stopped and the umbrella went jerking up the pavement without me. The newspaperman was an old acquaintance. I said to him, ‘What’s this, another of your sales boosters?’ He said: ‘The old boy’s had it, if you ask me. Well, the way he’s lived – the way I look at it, he’s had it coming to him. Must have the constitution of a bulldozer.’ He folded up a paper and gave it to me. ‘The way I look at it is that it doesn’t do anyone any good to live that sort of life. Sedentary. Reading reports and sitting at meetings. That’s why I like this job – there’s plenty of fresh air.’

A dozen paces away Aunt Emma and Jessie were standing facing me, huddled together under the wet umbrella. ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ shouted Aunt Emma. ‘Can’t you see, she’s buying a newspaper,’ said Jessie crossly.

The newspaperman said, ‘It’s going to make quite a change, with him gone. Not that I hold much with the goings-on out there. But they aren’t ued to democracy much, are they? What I mean is, if people aren’t used to something, they don’t miss it.’

I ran through the drizzle to the umbrella. ‘Stalin’s dying,’ I said.

‘How do you know?’ said Aunt Emma suspiciously.

‘It says so in the newspaper.’

‘They said he was sick this morning, but I expect it’s just propaganda. I won’t believe it till I see it.’

‘Oh don’t be silly, Mummy. How can you see it?’ said Jessie.

We went on up the street. Aunt Emma said: ‘What do you think, would it have been better if Jessie had bought a nice pretty afternoon dress?’

‘Oh, Mummy,’ said Jessie, ‘can’t you see she’s upset? It’s the same for her as it would be for us if Churchill was dead.’

‘Oh, my dear!’ said Aunt Emma, shocked, stopping dead. An umbrella spoke scraped across Jessie’s scalp, and she squeaked. ‘Do put that umbrella down now. Can’t you see it’s stopped raining?’ she said, irritably, rubbing her head.

Aunt Emma pushed and bundled at the umbrella until it collapsed, and Jessie took it and rolled it up. Aunt Emma, flushed and frowning, looked dubiously at me. ‘Would you like a nice cup of tea?’ she said.

‘Jessie’s going to be late,’ I said. The photographer’s door was just ahead.

‘I do hope this man’s going to get Jessie’s expression,’ said Aunt Emma. ‘There’s never been one yet that got her look.’

Jessie went crossly ahead of us up some rather plushy stairs in a hallway with mauve and gold striped wallpaper. At the top there was a burst of Stravinsky as Jessie masterfully opened a door and strode in. We followed her into what seemed to be a drawing room, all white and grey and gold. The Rites of Spring tinkled a baby chandelier overhead; and there was no point in speaking until our host, a charming young man in a black velvet jacket, switched off the machine, which he did with an apologetic smile.

‘I do hope this is the right place,’ said Aunt Emma. ‘I have brought my daughter to be photographed.’

‘Of course it’s the right place,’ said the young man. ‘How delightful of you to come!’ He took my Aunt Emma’s white-gloved hands in his own and seemed to press her down on to a large sofa; a pressure to which she responded with a confused blush. Then he looked at me. I sat down quickly on another divan, a long way from Aunt Emma. He looked professionally at Jessie, smiling. She was standing on the carpet, hands linked behind her back, like an admiral on the job, frowning at him.

‘You don’t look at all relaxed,’ he said to her gently. ‘It’s really no use at all, you know, unless you are really relaxed all over.’

‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ said Jessie. ‘It’s my cousin here who isn’t relaxed.’

I said, ‘I don’t see that it matters whether I’m relaxed or not, because it’s not me who is going to be photographed.’ A book fell off the divan beside me on the floor. It was Prancing Nigger by Ronald Firbank. Our host dived for it, anxiously.

‘Do you read our Ron?’ he asked.

‘From time to time,’ I said.

‘Personally I never read anything else,’ he said. ‘As far as I am concerned he said the last word. When I’ve read him all through, I begin again at the beginning and read him through again. I don’t see that there’s any point in anyone ever writing another word after Firbank.’

This remark discouraged me, and I did not feel inclined to say anything.

‘I think we could all do with a nice cup of tea,’ he said. ‘While I’m making it, would you like the gramophone on again?’

‘I can’t stand modern music,’ said Jessie.

‘We can’t all have the same tastes,’ he said. He was on his way to a door at the back, when it opened and another young man came in with a tea tray. He was as light and lithe as the first, with the same friendly ease of manner. He was wearing black jeans and a purple sweater, and his hair looked like two irregular glossy black wings on his head.

‘Ah, bless you, dear!’ said our host to him. Then to us: ‘Let me introduce my friend and assistant, Jackie Smith. My name you know. Now if we all have a nice cup of tea, I feel that our vibrations might become just a little more harmonious.’

All this time Jessie was standing-at-ease on the carpet. He handed her a cup of tea. She nodded towards me, saying, ‘Give it to her.’ He took it back and gave it to me. ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

‘I am perfectly well,’ I said, reading the newspaper.

‘Stalin is dying,’ said Aunt Emma. ‘Or so they would like us to believe.’

‘Stalin?’ said our host.

‘That man in Russia,’ said Aunt Emma.

‘Oh, you mean old Uncle Joe. Bless him.’

Aunt Emma started. Jessie looked gruffly incredulous.

Jackie Smith came and sat down beside me and read the newspaper over my shoulder. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well, well.’ Then he giggled and said: ‘Nine doctors. If there were fifty doctors I still wouldn’t feel very safe, would you?’

‘No, not really,’ I said.

‘Silly old nuisance,’ said Jackie Smith. ‘Should have bumped him off years ago. Obviously outlived his usefulness at the end of the war, wouldn’t you think?’

‘It seems rather hard to say,’ I said.

Our host, a teacup in one hand, raised the other in a peremptory gesture. ‘I don’t like to hear that kind of thing,’ he said. ‘I really don’t. God knows, if there’s one thing I make a point of never knowing a thing about, it’s politics, but during the war Uncle Joe and Roosevelt were absolutely my pin-up boys. But absolutely!’

Here Cousin Jessie, who had neither sat down nor taken a cup of tea, took a stride forward and said angrily: ‘Look, do you think we could get this damned business over with?’ Her virginal pink cheeks shone with emotion, and her eyes were brightly unhappy.

‘But, my dear!’ said our host, putting down his cup. ‘But of course. If you feel like that, of course.’

He looked at his assistant, Jackie, who reluctantly laid down the newspaper and pulled the cords of a curtain, revealing an alcove full of cameras and equipment. Then they both thoughtfully examined Jessie. ‘Perhaps it would help,’ said our host, ‘if you could give me an idea what you want it for? Publicity? Dust jackets? Or just for your lucky friends?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ said Cousin Jessie.