The Dreaming Suburb (56 page)

At this manoeuvre Elaine whispered a mild protest:

“Mr. Tappertitt, you mustn't!”, but even as she said it she wanted to giggle, for both his name and his stealthy persistence struck her as comic, and the wine and liqueurs had induced in her a tolerant mood.

He desisted at last, settling for a rather cramped position of half-intimacy, with his right arm along the line of her shoulder and his left, still holding her hand, on the angle of her right knee. In this posture, which left a good deal to be desired, they watched the white hunter shoot the mad husband in the act of knifing the blonde, and enfold the widow in a long embrace beside a dead rhinoceros. Altogether it was a stimulating afternoon.

In the weeks that followed Elaine played Tom Tappertitt like a small, darting fish, while his stalking of her was constantly interrupted by the abrupt comings and goings of his wife. When Audrey the Amazon was with the show he never went near her, but as soon as she had departed on one of her booking trips he picked up where he had left off, and made steady, if strictly regulated, progress.

The climax came when the circus set up its tent on a derelict brickyard, midway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and Mrs. Tappertitt went on to Nottingham to make arrangements for the latter half of the week.

By this time Elaine had been able to extract a number of material benefits from the association. She had a brand-new outfit, including several pairs of shoes, a wristlet watch to replace the one that Benny Boy had given her (an adornment that, like its donor, appeared to take small account of time when close to Elaine). She also acquired a smart vanity case, of American manufacture, and a modest credit balance in the Post Office Savings Account. This she was accumulating against the day when, as was inevitable, Mrs. Tappertitt would redirect her into an indifferent world.

Taken all round she had the better of the bargain, for these perquisites had cost her nothing more than a few visits to the cinema, a few brief intervals on the banks of canals and park seats, a hasty kiss or two, plus any amount of
curve-patting and bottom-pinching as she passed close by Tom in unfrequented sections of the waste lands that the circus occupied week by week.

It was only when he began to show unmistakable signs of impatience, culminating in what amounted to a flat ultimatum on the day that Mrs. Tappertitt left for Nottingham, that she consented to stay a night at his hotel out of town. She capitulated on condition that “he would be good”, although it is to be doubted whether even Elaine expected him to take this proviso very seriously, particularly as, all smiles again, he forthwith presented her with a pair of black silk pyjamas, as a token of his appreciation.

So it came about, the following evening, that Tom and Elaine installed themselves as Mr. and Mrs. T. Smith (Tom was not a very original man) in a blameless little hotel, situated in the main street of a small country town, about a dozen miles west of the site. And it was here, at the unlikely hour of two in the morning, that their bedroom door flew open, and the lights were switched on, revealing to the tousled Elaine and her still sleeping partner, the awful reality of a professional strong woman in the role of outraged wife.

Elaine had no time to do more than blink, rub her eyes, and sit up in bed, before Audrey the Amazon, not even bothering to shut the door behind her, plucked her from bed, and tucked her under her massive arm as though she were a runaway puppy.

Then Elaine knew real fear, and cried aloud, her protests rousing Tom, who sat up very suddenly, looking more like the Kaiser than ever, with his true stature concealed by the bedclothes. Neither was he given any time to exclaim, for his wife, moving with incredible speed for one so huge, whipped round the end of the bed, threw Elaine heavily to the floor, picked up her husband with even less effort than she had lifted Elaine, and tossed him casually into a shallow closet, smartly slamming the door, and blocking it with the end of the bed, which she hooked sideways with her foot.

Although Audrey's disposal of Tom occupied but a few seconds it presented Elaine with her sole chance to escape, and she took it.

Breathlessly she scrambled to her knees, and dived over
the bed towards the door. She had stopped shouting, but her cries were now taken up by Tom from the closet, and by other people, presumably guests, or the proprietor and his wife, who had gathered in the passage, and were now adding their protests to the general uproar.

Elaine did not get very far in her scramble towards this group. Audrey the Amazon turned, seized her by the hair, pressed her face into the pillow, jumped on to the disordered bed, and pinned her down with one knee.

Then, releasing Elaine's hair so that she could turn her head just enough to breathe, she tore down her new pyjama trousers, and commenced to administer a spanking that could be heard very clearly in the lobby downstairs.

Mrs. Tappertitt had huge, meaty hands, that were able to cover quite an area, and they were hands that were accustomed daily to tying reef knots in iron bars, and tearing encyclopaedias in two. The wild cries of Elaine, squirming on the bed, were soon far louder than those of Tom, folded into the closet, and were certainly penetrating enough to drown the scattered protests of the group standing in the pasage, and looking in upon the curious scene.

It was perhaps a full minute before Audrey the Amazon paused and, with a final flip of her wrist, again deposited Elaine on the floor, this time on the side nearest the door.

“That,” said Audrey, wheezing a little, “is what your mother ought to have done more often!. Now get dressed, get your things together, and clear out of here, but don't take nothing
he
gave you, or I'll start on you again the minute I get me breath back!”

She then seemed to dismiss Elaine, and turned to the closet, kicking back the bed, and pulling open the door, so that poor Tom fell out face foremost, and landed abjectly at her feet.

“You get dressed too, Tom,” she said, “and I'll give you your rations the minute we get home!”

A man in a flannel dressing-gown stepped over the threshold, and began to say something, but Mrs. Tappertitt pushed him lightly in the chest, and he staggered back into the arms of the group in the passage.

“Well all be out of here in five minutes, so you mind your own business,” she said, and slammed the door on them.

Elaine never forgot the next half-hour.

With Mrs. Tappertitt sitting grimly on the bed the two of them dragged on their clothes, and made half-hearted attempts to collect their small amount of luggage, and pack it into the two suitcases they had brought with them.

Neither Tom nor Elaine said a word, but Mrs. Tappertitt watched every movement they made, her eyes following them over to the washbasin, and back again to the alcoves, where the suitcases rested. Once Tom began to say something, but before he had completed a word his wife said, “Shut up, and get on with it”, so they continued to pad to and fro, Elaine choking back sobs of rage and shame, Tom sniffing and hawking from his side of the room, and looking rather pitiful in his long woollen pants and striped shirt.

At last it was done, and they opened the door. The hotelier, a spare, angular man with a faintly military aspect, was still standing in the passage, in his woollen dressing-gown.

“This is outrageous,” he began. “I shall make it my business to...”

“You wont make it your business to do nothing,” said Mrs. Tappertitt tartly. “It won't do you any more good than it would us, so stop blowing so hard, and come to the point How much does he owe you?”

The man's Adam's Apple quivered. “Two pounds for the room, and one-pound-six for the meal,” he said.

“Pay it,” said Audrey briefly, and Tom took out his wallet, and handed the man four pounds.

“You can keep the change to mend the bolt on the door,” said Audrey thoughtfully, as they all three walked past him along the passage, and down the narrow stairs into the lobby.

The proprietor hurried after them, and unbolted the front door. Outside the youth Charlie was sitting at the wheel of a utility van, and when they emerged he jumped out and ran round to open the door.

“There's still some of my things in the trailer,” wailed
Elaine, as Mrs. Tappertitt pushed her husband into the van, and climbed in after him.

“Well send ‘em on! Where to?”

“I don't know ... how could I ...” began Elaine, and then, inexplicably, Esme's number, “Twenty-Two,” sprang into her mind, and she gave Esme's address, Charlie jotting it down on the back of an A.A. map.

“Here, you might as well have this, I got no use for it,” said Mrs. Tappertitt suddenly, and she tossed the black vanity case in Elaine's direction, just as Charlie let in the clutch and the van shot off into the darkness.

Elaine caught the little box, and put it on top on her suitcase. Behind her the hotelier had re-locked the door, and was turning out the lights. Somewhere near at hand a clock struck three, and it began to drizzle. It was then that Elaine realised that she did not even know the name of the town she was in, or whether it possessed a railway station. She stood there, her back to the wall, fresh tears welling. For the first time in her life she felt defeated and helpless.

A burly figure loomed out of the slanting rain, and stopped in front of her,

“Anything the matter, Miss?”

It was a constable, his raincoat buttoned to his chin, his hands clasped behind him.

“I'm stranded,” said Elaine, “the ... the people I worked for just sacked me, and left me here.”

He regarded her curiously. “Have you got any money?”

“Yes, I've got money but...”

Suddenly Elaine perked up. It was three a.m. It was drizzling. She did not even know where she was, much less where she was going. Her behind glowed like a brazier, and she had bruised her knee, when that crazy woman had dropped her on the floor. Her hair was in a mess, and her face tear-stained and unwashed. But things might have been worse. She had money in her handbag, more in the Post Office, and here was a man. A police officer, to be sure, but a man, and she could handle all men.

She raised her head, and studied him in the faint, yellow glow of the single lamp a few yards down the street. He was. quite young, and obviously interested, extra-professionally.

“Perhaps you could show me where the railway station is,” she said; “I want to go to London by the first train.”

He relaxed, and picked up her case.

“Certainly, Miss. But why don't we go along to the station first? I'm going off duty soon, and there'll be a nice cup of tea there. Then you can tell me all about it—if you want to, that is—and I'll look up the trains for you. All right?”

“I think that's a wonderful idea,” said Elaine, and fell into step with him, as they moved off towards the centre of the town.

3

She had her cosy cup of tea and chat over the charge-room fire, and then caught the six-forty for Birmingham, for the connection to London at eight. In the station cloakroom she had a wash-and-brush-up, and had just sufficient time, before the main-line train arrived, to eat a cooked breakfast in the buffet.

During the journey south she took careful stock of her situation, much as a castaway might explore the contents of his pockets on the morning after the storm.

She had more than twenty pounds in her handbag, and another sixty in the Post Office. With a capital of eighty, and all the new clothes Tom Tappertitt had bought her, she was safe for a few weeks, and might even take a holiday, in order to map out the future. She was finished, she decided, with the stage, and with circuses. The life had its attractions but its uncertainty, and the type of man it presented held out no real prospects for the future. There was no one there, no one at least whom she was likely to meet, who would ever provide the terrace, the drinks, the hammock, and the hovering courtiers she had so often promised herself.

She would have to look elsewhere, abroad perhaps, or in the city, where men made real money, and often, she had heard, acquired fortunes overnight. She might go back to secretarial work. Secretaries were always marrying the bosses, wealthy bosses. Show her such a man, and she would go to work. Within months there would be a terrace, drinks,
hammock, and courtiers, as well as a sleek limousine that was not second-hand, like Benny Boy's.

Despite her ups and downs of the past few years her experiences had given her unlimited confidence in one respect. She understood men, all men. Almost every one of them looked at her in that certain way, and by this time she had learned precisely how to respond, when to hold back, when to encourage, when to do both at once.

She had read in a Sunday newspaper article that the way to make a million was to find something people wanted, and then corner a supply of that product. Well, she had what men wanted, any amount of it, and surely all that was really necessary was to display it in the right market. What she badly needed, she decided, was a base, a haven from which she could sally forth from time to time, and retreat into when necessary. A London flat was out of the question on her limited capital. If she laid out her money in that way she would be forever watching it dwindle, and a sense of urgency would soon tempt her into making rash judgements.

Suddenly she thought of Esme again. She had been thinking of him, at frequent intervals, ever since Sydney had mentioned him at the fairground. Six hundred a year, what he made writing scripts for the radio, and his inheritance! It was more than enough for the sort of base she was looking for, and mercifully Esme was still unmarried, otherwise Sydney would certainly have mentioned the fact. She worked out his age. He must be twenty-six, and if he was unmarried, at twenty-six, with all that security, then it surely followed that he had not yet met anyone who had displaced her in his affections. They had, after all, been the right sort of affections. She had never come across anyone else who had his ideals, who assumed that marriage must inevitably follow a few kisses in the park, who had looked so tragic and despairing when she had spoken lightly of marriage. True, their association had been a mere boy-and-girl affair, and she could hardly believe that he had taken it as seriously as he appeared to do at the time, but all the books said that first-love of this kind was much more enduring than subsequent affairs, and perhaps Esme was worth a try.