All The Days of My Life (38 page)

He sat down and put his head in his hands. “Christ – I've been a bloody fool. What are the Roses going to say to this?”

“What's been going on?” Molly asked.

“My fucking life, that's what's been going on,” he told her bitterly. “It's simple – I've been getting done over by a tart ever since I got back from South Africa. Pretty boy – nowhere to go. I took him in. My friend, my old lover really, Geoffrey, moved out when he saw what was going to happen. I fell in love – he pretended he loved me – I go into hock for him, buying silk dressing-gowns and gold watches – all, mind you, to please him and see him smile. Then, gradually, I begin to think he doesn't love me. The pain begins. This morning I woke up with the bone-setters. You know, every bone in your body is broken and today's the day the doctor comes to wrench them all back into place? He hadn't come home, you see. He came in about ten this morning. I was awake, of course, had been since dawn. He said he'd been staying at his brother's but I'd been with Doctor Lovecure since six – I had four hours of agony behind me. So I said, ‘I don't believe
you,' and he said boo-hoo, how can you doubt me, etc, etc. On the other hand he didn't suggest I telephone his brother. On the contrary, when I said I wanted to, he said again, boo-hoo, how can you doubt me, the suggestion is hurtful, horrible and insulting-”

The telephone rang and Molly answered it. She handed it to Simon cautiously, afraid of the effect of the call on his stretched nerves. He said, “I don't think there's much point, Bassie. I think I'd be happier if you just got out. Perhaps I am but I'm very busy and I can't go on like this. I may be, later, but I doubt it.” Then he said, very loudly, “Well my dear, I suggest you go to your brother's,” and banged the phone down. He turned to Molly with a tired smile and said, “Of course, after I left he decided if I really doubted him I should telephone his brother, even though it might be rather humiliating for him. I suppose he checked and made sure that his brother would say he'd been there. So I've had to throw him out,” he said tightly. “Pity, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Molly. “Why don't you phone Geoffrey?”

Simon was not listening. “Serves me right, I suppose,” he said, “for taking up with the house tart. He was at the next school down the line from us – he was famous for it. Used to stand on the sidelines fluttering his eyelashes while we played matches with them. He was known as La Grande Horizontale.”

“What's that?” asked Molly.

“Famous tart,” said Simon.

“Why don't you ring Geoffrey?” asked Molly again.

“He can't help it, I suppose. He just gets what he can and leaves when it looks as if supplies are running out.”

“Simon – Geoffrey will help. Please ring him,” Molly pleaded.

“He's rubbish, I suppose. I used to come in at four and find him in his dressing-gown listening to jazz and smoking reefers. Nasty habit, that. But so pretty –”

“Geoffrey,” said Molly over the phone. “Simon's had a bust-up with some nasty bit of work. Can you forgive him, can you come and see him and, above all, Geoffrey, can you put him back in his right mind because the business is in a mess?” The voice at the other end spoke and she said, “Yes. I am in charge. I've got to be until Simon gets over all this. Please come, Geoffrey –”

She looked at Simon and said, “Come on, Simon, please. Geoffrey's taking you out to lunch at one. We must do something quickly –”

“It's all my fault,” he said.

“It's everybody's fault,” said Molly. She went out and yelled over
the banisters, “Mrs Jones – can you send someone over to the hotel for hot coffee and chicken sandwiches.” A voice shouted back. “Well,” yelled Molly, “go yourself, then. Do it, for Christ's sake, or we're all out of a job.”

“So refreshingly common,” Simon murmured to himself as she came back into the room.

“Just as bloody well,” Molly told him. “And don't drag class into it. Fact is, you've had a shock and I'm sorry. But we're up the creek here. If it goes on –” The phone rang again. She answered it.

“Arnie,” she cried, sounding delighted. “Well – nice to hear yours, too. Yes – yes – oh, of course you have. Well, look here – do you think we could have an extra couple of days, just to make sure the books are in apple pie order – you know, we're so busy – Good. All right then, look forward to seeing you –” She put the phone down and said to Simon, “That's Arnie. He's coming in with the accountant in a week's time for a routine check. He says routine – he can probably smell trouble.”

Mrs Jones came in with the tray of coffee and sandwiches. She looked at the pile of markers on the table and put the tray down. She was walking out, full of silent disapproval, when Molly called her back. “Mrs Jones,” she said, “you've been trying to warn me, haven't you? So why don't you sit down and have a cup of coffee and tell me whose markers are good and whose are dodgy?”

Mrs Jones did. She ruffled through the markers rapidly delivering comments Molly took down. “No problem there – mother's an American heiress, Chicago meat packers, only son. No problem there – eldest daughter of a bishop, can't afford a scandal. You'll never see that £20,000 again – he just left for Argentina, owing everybody, Whoops-a-daisy. Whatever were you thinking of – no other house would take this one's marker for ninepence.” When she finished Simon stood up silently and handed her five pounds, which she tucked in her apron pocket before she left, remarking, “Well – half of them'll cough up, at any rate.”

Later, Simon said, “I'd never have thought of that one. Asking the attendant in the ladies' lav.”

“What do we do next?” said Molly.

“First the polite note, then the phone calls, then the phone calls designed to cause embarrassment, to workplaces, parents' houses, and so forth. We hint a bit about spreading the word about but the really hardened cases don't usually care – the trouble with gambling debts is
that they're slightly distinguished. Mark of a gentleman to owe bookmaker, tailor and wine merchant, you see. As a last resort we can threaten to tell interested parties, Mr Arnold and Norman Rose. I've never had to do that yet – it suggests a lack of class I'm not prepared to risk. We'd probably get the money and lose the clients.”

“It all sounds a bit long-winded to me,” Molly said. “All that'll take a month or more.”

“More like three,” Simon told her.

“We'll have to speed it up a bit,” Molly told him. “We've got to get half those markers redeemed before Arnie Rose turns up. And that's only a week. We'd better cut out the polite letter for a start.”

Simon looked doubtful. “All right,” he said. “But if I move too fast this place is going to look like a bucket shop. You can't hurry the upper classes where money's concerned.”

“I'll cut upstairs and re-check this list with Steven,” Mary said. “He knows a lot of gossip – we can see where levers can be tugged, who's engaged and wouldn't like the rich in-laws to find out before the ceremony, where people are at the moment. You're due for lunch with Geoffrey now at the brasserie. If you could get back at three you could start phoning then. I'll get a sort of dossier together and give it to you before you start. I'd do it myself but it's no good – I'm too common. I don't know the cliches to show I mean business but I'm a lady, really. Anyway, they'd take no notice of a woman.”

Simon, startled, agreed. Molly rushed out saying, “I've got to catch Steven before he starts out to fix the old dowagers' backs, or whatever he does.” She added over her shoulder, “No boozing and not too much crying and sobbing over that horrible Bassie.”

Upstairs, Steven Greene came out of the bathroom wrapped in a large towel. “Spare me half an hour?” Molly asked.

“For anything you like.”

“Keep your towel on,” she said. “It's information I want.”

While they were talking over the names on the markers an agitated ring on the doorbell brought in a tall and beautiful blonde girl in a black suit, with a white fur stole round her shoulders. She kissed Steven, looked at Molly, decided she was harmless and demanded, “Did you get it?”

“In here,” he said, pointing into the bedroom. She came out, seconds later, looking less worried. After she left he said, “Poor girl – couldn't pay the rent. I had to lend it to her.”

“Very sad,” Molly said dryly, not believing him. Before they had
done with all the names on the list the phone had rung twice. Each time he answered the speaker in his usual brief and cryptic way. “If he tells you that, he's not being exactly truthful, and you should ask him again,” he said. And, “There are limits to my powers, you know, and also to my funds.” After the calls he would come back to Molly's side, quite unruffled and say, “Tonia Thompson – don't bother to try. She's in the South of France with Onassis. Dirk Frogett? Never heard of him. Someone's having you on. Ah – Joe Templeton – fifteen thousand. I'm amazed anyone signed that. Hint you'll tell his mum – he's terribly Oedipal. Gordon? You'll have to ring Inverkyle. Sir A – what? – Milligatawny – oh, Mulvaney – no trouble there, he's a rich racehorse owner. Try this one, Pat Jamieson, and say next time you'll ring him at the bank. He won't like that and he can easily afford to pay.” When they had finished he leaned back and said, “Don't forget – I had no hand in this. It wouldn't suit me to become known as a man who couldn't keep his mouth shut.”

“Thanks, Steven,” said Molly, rushing out. “I owe you a favour.”

“You do, dear, but try not to sound too much like the Rose brothers,” he told her.

In the afternoon the phone calls were made. The evening was quiet. The word was out and the customers were discouraged.

“I hope this isn't the end of the business,” remarked Molly, coming into the flat and kicking off her shoes. “After all the trouble we've all gone to.”

“Probably temporary,” Steven Greene told her. He was lying on the sofa reading a book. “Pour us a drink and have a rest. In a minute I'll run you a nice, hot bath.”

He did. When Molly went into the bathroom she found he had poured scent into the water.

“You're so kind,” she said, when she had bathed and got into her dressing-gown.

He put his book down. “I shouldn't be. It only corrupts me, probably. What do I want, in fact? To be liked?”

“You help people and they have to help you,” Molly observed. “That's your system.”

“Sharp girl,” he said. “You should read more – you're too intelligent to be so ill-informed.”

“Yes,” she said. “I should get a book. It'd take my mind off all these problems. Can you recommend one?”

“Have a look over there,” he told her. “That item against the wall is
what is commonly called a bookshelf. On it you will find books. Look at them and see what you can find to read.”

“Sarcastic,” murmured Molly and went to the shelf. She looked at the books, then said, suddenly, “I'm haunted by the thought of Johnnie Bridges.”

“Let him haunt you, then,” Greene said, his eyes still on his book. “It'll end. Unless you're neurotic – which you aren't. In the meanwhile, try improving your mind.”

“I'm not the sort,” muttered Molly. “I'm going to get a television and put it in my room.”

“Molly Flanders,” he said. “I'm telling you something for your own good. Carry on as you are, and you'll in the end be a pain in the neck to yourself and everybody else. Endless confusion, rows, scenes and arguments – spinning around doing this, that and the other – no contemplation, no inner life, no nothing. You know what becomes of women if all that goes on too long? They get thoroughly tiresome, and disappointed.”

Molly realized he might be telling her a truth. She also spotted the male desire for peace and quiet when faced with female urgencies. She had seen Sid and Ivy driving each other mad like that often enough.

“Where is he anyway?” she said angrily. “Shacked up with some floosie, I daresay.”

“You can find out, I expect,” Greene said coolly. “I'm advising you, before you take him back, as you undoubtedly will, do try and find out something about yourself first. What do you want?”

“I don't know – Johnnie,” Mary answered.

“Just ‘Johnnie' isn't a good enough reply. ‘Johnnie' won't suffice for a lifetime, nor will any number of Johnnies. As I say, either you find some kind of course for yourself, or others, usually men, will come along and suggest one for you. You'll follow that course until it doesn't work any more – then again, and then again, getting tireder and tireder. It's a case of think now or find out the hard way.”

“Oh – very clever,” said Molly. “And what about you, then? What's your course you're following? Tell me that?”

“I'm like you, dear Molly,” he said. “I go where the wind bloweth, like a girl, but I suspect you're firmer-minded than I am. Now – would you like to come to bed with me?”

“Don't be disgusting,” Molly said, looking at the title of a book and putting it back on the shelf.

“Well, I've done my best. I've offered the alternatives of a well-stocked
mind or a satisfied body and you've rejected both –” he said and, finding his place in his book, began to read again, looking up only to remark, “I'm on your side, you know. I don't recommend reading to all the pretty girls I'm acquainted with – I think your course may be a complicated one, Molly, and you're going to have to steer it yourself. I'm trying to help you save some time and agony.”

“You said you'd do my horoscope,” Molly grumbled.

“Your horoscope's a dog's breakfast,” he told her. “Someone must have invented your birth certificate from their imagination. It made no sense, so I gave up.”