Imaginative Experience (22 page)

Under his feet he felt the house vibrate and wondered how anyone could bear to stay in it. Why had the police not put a stop to the noise? Julia and the dog would go mad, he thought, as he watched a man in a long brown overcoat and black felt hat dancing with two skinny girls in tight black leggings, admiring their high spirits and cheerful abandon. Were it not for Julia, he would be tempted to join them, their dancing was infectious. He was tempted but he turned from the window to continue up the stairs, squeezing past people gathered thick and sprawling on the last flight. ‘What’s the hurry, you hasty man?’ A girl circled his ankle with strong long fingers, digging in her nails. ‘Excuse me, I have to get past. Could you move your legs?’ He jerked his leg free and, inserting his feet between unknown thighs, clutching the banister, feeling his way, he moved on up. ‘Why,’ he shouted as he trod on a hand and its owner yelped, ‘is there no light?’

‘Bulb’s gone,’ said a voice. ‘Careful where you put your feet.’

Sylvester said, ‘Sorry,’ and moved on to reach the top landing where in almost total darkness he nearly lost his balance as a man thrust past him, making his way down amid squeals of protest. There was a fuggy smell of marijuana; he could discern two or three people lolling against the wall, relaxed and peaceful. Finding what he supposed was Julia’s door, he knocked and knocked again. From inside the dog barked. ‘Won’t let you in,’ said a girl leaning against the wall. ‘Wouldn’t open up to her other friend. She don’t seem sociable, no party spirit,’ she remarked amiably.

Sylvester felt for the keyhole and shouted, ‘It’s me. Let me in.’ The dog barked frantically. He listened, then shouted again, ‘Let me in.’

‘No.’ Julia’s voice was hoarse. ‘Go away.’

‘I guess she means go away means go away,’ said the girl sitting against the wall. ‘As I say, she wouldn’t let the other man in, so why you? I mean, what makes you different?’

Sylvester knelt and felt along the bottom of the door; there was, as he hoped, a gap. ‘Joyful,’ he called. ‘You there, Joyful? It’s me,’ and he blew through the gap between door and floor. From inside the dog snuffled in recognition. ‘Tell her to let me in,’ Sylvester shouted, ‘there’s a good dog.’

When the door opened suddenly Sylvester was on all fours. Julia said, ‘You do look peculiar.’ She had an empty tin in her hand, its jagged lid threatening his face. ‘Come in quickly,’ she said, ‘I thought you were—’ and stopped, her voice unsteady.

‘Who?’ Sylvester scrambled to his feet. ‘That’s a nasty weapon. Were you going to use it?’

‘Yes.’ She stepped back as he closed the door.

‘Why? What have I done?’

‘Not you, him. He tried to get in, he’s—I—’

‘What? Did he attack you?’ He could see she was shaken. ‘Who was it?’

‘I recognized—I thought I recognized him. Is he out there?’

‘Only some people lolling about. There’s a girl, I don’t think—’

‘Large? Broad? Bulky? Is he there?’ Her voice rose.

‘Nobody like that,’ Sylvester said quietly, ‘and give me that.’ He took the tin from her and, remembering the person who had pushed past him on the stairs, he said, ‘Whoever it was isn’t here now.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was, I am almost sure it was the man who has been telephoning me. I know the voice.’

Below them someone upped the volume of music. Sylvester raised his voice. ‘You can’t possibly stay here,’ he shouted.

‘I must.’

‘Don’t argue,’ he yelled, ‘you are coming back with me. Now come on, get the bloody dog food and let’s get out of here.’

But Julia demurred, not wishing to be bossed about, thinking that she had had enough of Sylvester, that she had not expected to meet him. That now she had met him he was not the nice old homosexual she had visualized who would wear a Panama hat and sit in the garden she had recreated, but a stranger who was taking something from her, had taken something from her, and that she was not prepared to give more. And what’s more, she noted, he was raiding her kitchen, stuffing tins of Joyful’s food into a carrier bag and preparing to leave, even shouting above the sound of rock, ‘Got your key?’ Shutting the window, bundling her into her coat and propelling her out of the flat, locking the door, her door, behind them, and fighting their way down the stairs and out into the street.

‘Whew!’ he exclaimed as they crossed the pavement. ‘Whew, that’s better! Good God! What are
you
doing here?’ he said to Rebecca who, tall and stately, was dancing free and easy, swinging her hips, stamping her high heels in unison with an unknown man. ‘God Almighty, what are you doing here?’ Sylvester repeated.

‘Might ask you the same question.’ Rebecca did not stop dancing. ‘What’s up with your cleaning lady?’ For Julia had taken to her heels and was racing down the street. ‘Oh, he’ll catch her all right,’ she said to her partner, ‘he ran at university. Now come on, pay attention to the rhythm, they are playing a rumba.’

R
EBECCA HAD ENJOYED HER
lunch, enjoyed the food, enjoyed the wine and, above all, she had enjoyed regaling her hosts with the description of how, from the kindness of her heart, she had brought a carton of milk to a former colleague in case he, arriving off a flight from the States on Bank Holiday morning with all the shops and supermarkets as closed as limpets—even Patel’s Corner Shop, a super shop she had recently discovered which never ever seemed to close (aren’t the Asians wonderful?)—was milkless, to find him milkless certainly, but with a dog in the house which was a surprise and, wait for it, and even greater surprise, ‘a strange woman’, and guess who the strange woman was? His cleaning lady!! Not the respectable Mrs Andrews with impeccable references she had taken the trouble to find for him when his wife left, but a gypsy girl with
no
references but apparently a dog!

She had told the tale wittily, taken care to describe the girl as ‘interesting’ and the dog, the sort attached by a bit of string, no proper lead. A New Age Traveller’s dog? Everyone had laughed over the dog and had been particularly amused by the thought of a cleaning lady visible on a Bank Holiday. They had laughed, too, at her description of Sylvester in the office during the period she had worked for him; his entrapment and subsequent desertion by Celia. Several of them knew Celia or imagined they did, and nearly all of them knew of Andrew Battersby and Andrew Battersby’s wealth.

‘You should have put a stop to it, Rebecca,’ they said, ‘saved the poor bloke, he sounds desperately naïve.’ ‘Why didn’t you marry him yourself, Rebecca?’ ‘If you had married him you would have had a legal position, been able to protect him,’ they said affectionately, aware of their friend’s character. But, ‘Oh, my dears, he isn’t my type,’ she had cried, laughing, ‘he is tall and stringy, he doesn’t smoke, he is too good-mannered and polite. And anyway he’s far too young.’

‘No, no, he would not suit,’ her hostess told the table at large. ‘What Rebecca likes is a mature man, a bit of a brute who enjoys a strong woman, a tweedy sort of man. Am I not right, Rebecca? They were all such wimps in that office,’ she said. ‘Small wonder you left. There’s a limit to what we can do for the weaker sex,’ she joked. ‘Rebecca’s glass is empty,’ she said to her husband, who was the sort of man Rebecca would have liked if she had not nobbled him first. So her host refilled her glass, and Rebecca appreciated her hostess’s twinge of jealousy and later, when she was leaving and her host suggested driving her home, she declined the offer, saying she preferred to walk. This was absolutely true; the poor fellow had been too thoroughly tamed to be interesting. It was in this contented mood that, rounding a corner in the Chelsea streets, she came upon the Fellowes’ and Eddisons’ street party and got involved.

Nobody later could remember who had set a calypso tape on the player, but two people present, who lived in Peckham and had spent holidays in the West Indies, finding it enjoyable, turned up the sound. This increase in volume coincided with Rebecca’s arrival and the passage through the street of a car whose passengers of Jamaican and African origin, seeing a party and hearing the music, not unnaturally stopped their, car, scrambled out and joined in the dancing.

Rebecca, drawing close to watch and admire the grace, dexterity and sweet humour of the new arrivals, found herself clapping her hands and jigging; and before long, as people flowed out of the house infected by the catchy rhythm, discovered that she had acquired a partner. ‘You a friend of the Eddisons and Fellowes?’ he asked, dancing rather clumsily, a thick-set fellow in a Barbour.

‘Who?’

‘People giving the party.’

‘Never heard of them. I was just passing.’ Rebecca kept her eye on a particular Jamaican who with extraordinary grace was dancing near by. He was, she thought, with his long legs and arms, snapping fingers and flashing teeth, a creature of remarkable beauty. An Ace, she thought catching his eye, exchanging a smile, an absolute Ace.

‘Like a drink?’ suggested the man in the Barbour. ‘This is hard work.’

‘Not at the moment, I drank at lunch.’ (Rather a lot; this is just what I need.) ‘What did you say their names are? Will they mind me joining in?’

‘No, no, everyone does, hardly know them myself. It’s a sort of free-for-all, a Christmas and Bank Holiday sort of thing, a junket.’

‘What lovely hospitable people they must be.’

‘What’s your name?’ her new friend asked.

‘Rebecca.’

‘You have lovely eyes, Rebecca.’ He danced closer.

Here we go, thought Rebecca. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Maurice, Maurice Benson. I am waiting to see a woman who lives in the top flat. She locked me out.’

Rebecca said, ‘Really?’, unsurprised.

‘I like your legs,’ said Maurice Benson.

‘Aren’t you awfully hot dancing in that jacket?’

Maurice said, ‘This is thirsty work, let’s get a drink, I am gasping,’ and, ‘Everyone goes inside when they’re thirsty,’ and, ‘Look, they are going in,’ nodding towards the Jamaicans.

Rebecca said, ‘All right,’ and they followed the man she had been watching as he went into the house with his friends, turning into Tim Fellowes’ flat where there was the roaring noise of drinking people. ‘You look much too hot in that awful garment,’ Rebecca needled. ‘Why don’t you take it off? You will need it when you are cooling down. I make these interesting suggestions out of sheer habit,’ she said. ‘I am a bossy lady.’

Maurice Benson’s reply was lost in a sudden uproar of confused shouts, scuffling, stamping of feet in the room ahead of them. The Ace Jamaican was shouting, ‘Cool it, man, cool it!’ He was laughing, but above his laughter Tim Fellowes screamed, ‘Who invited you? Who let you in? Get out of my house! Get out, get out! Get back to your trees in Bongo Bongo.’

Rebecca, shocked and craning her neck, cried, ‘What on earth’s going on?’ as she watched the Ace dancer, pressured back by the small infuriated man, good-humouredly warding off his flailing fists, stepping back onto the toes of his friends who, not as good-humoured as he, urged him forward, not back, with a certain belligerence.

‘Stop him!’ Rebecca ordered Benson. ‘Stop that little squirt.’

But Janet, Tim’s lover, appearing from nowhere, even smaller than Tim, struck him a crack from behind with a vase, felling him to his knees. As he clutched his head she kicked him in the back, shouting, ‘You racist! You disgusting racist! He is only like this when he’s drunk, come in, please come in, you are so so welcome.’ But the Ace dancer replied, polite though retreating, that he thought perhaps not and, accompanied by his friends, evaporated from the party.

Rebecca said, ‘What a splendid girl,’ and to Benson, ‘Why didn’t you
do
something?’ He said, ‘It’s not my scene, lady. Oh thanks, cheers,’ as a girl pressed a glass into his hand, saying ‘All over, better now,’ as though it were he who had caused the fracas and received a blow on the head.

But Rebecca said to the girl, ‘He doesn’t need that,’ and, taking the drink from Benson, set it aside. Catching him by the hand she drew him back into the street to resume their dance, and it was then as they danced that Sylvester coming out of the house with Julia recognized Rebecca and exclaimed in surprise.

Watching Sylvester race after Julia, Benson exclaimed, ‘That’s the girl I want to see,’ and made as though he would follow, but Rebecca held him back, saying, ‘It can’t be, she’s a gypsy sort of person and that man is a friend of mine.’ To which Benson retorted, ‘She’s no gypsy, I know her mother. She is said to have murdered her husband.’

Rebecca said, ‘It’s impossible, she’s his cleaning lady,’ which made Benson laugh. And then, because he was tired by the dancing and regretting the drink she had so arbitrarily snatched from him, yet liking Rebecca, he suggested they repair to the pub where in a more comfy atmosphere he would tell her all he knew.

Very anxious to hear Benson’s story, but thinking it possible Sylvester might also be in the pub, Rebecca had a better idea. Why not move on to her flat, which was only two streets away? There it would be warmer, more comfortable, more private. Benson agreed. As they made their way through the darkening streets he decided to play down his interest in Julia, not tell his new friend about the phone calls, work the conversation round to his life as a twitcher. And Rebecca, walking beside him, planned to strip him of that awful Barbour jacket which smelled of stale tobacco and alcohol and give him instead a lovely herring-bone tweed which had been left behind by her last—quite a long time ago—lover. This man would look almost presentable in her former lover’s tweed, she decided, not nearly so seedy. And, conscious that she was already weasling into his life, she burst out laughing so that Benson eyed her with alarm.

S
PRINTING HIS FASTEST, SYLVESTER
managed to catch up with Julia. ‘I nearly lost you,’ he gasped. ‘You are going the wrong way, you should have turned left.’ He caught her by the arm, turning her about. ‘It’s only a minute from here if we go this way.’

Julia said nothing.

‘What an extraordinary thing to see old Rebecca dancing in the street. What a spectacle! If I had not seen it, I would not have believed it.’ He guided Julia by the elbow. ‘I wonder who the bloke she was dancing with could be. He did not look her sort exactly.’