Landlocked (4 page)

‘So he’s coming to see me?’

‘He’s got a message about something. Something political about the blacks, I think it was. He told me but I forgot. He said he’d come this week so expect him. And you can tell him from me I’m not a bad girl just because I work in a bar.’

‘Well, Maisie, I don’t believe he really thinks so.’

‘He says it, doesn’t he?’ Maisie lit a new cigarette, said again: ‘I should go down,’ but remained where she was: ‘There’s some brandy in the cupboard if you like, but I can’t stand drinking myself any more, after having to smell it every night down there.’ Martha got herself a brandy, and did not offer Maisie any; but when the bottle was put back, Maisie got up, went to the cupboard, poured herself a large brandy, and stood holding the glass between two hands against her breasts. The light fell through the rocking golden liquid and made spangles on the white flesh, and Maisie looked down, smiled. A great fat girl peered over a double chin and giggled because of the spinning lights from the liquid.

Giggling she said: ‘Well, let’s have it, Martha. It’s no good us sitting here and chatting about this and that just because we don’t like thinking about it.’

‘It’ was Mr Maynard, the Maynards, and their pressure on Maisie.

Some weeks before, Mr Maynard had telephoned Martha, demanding an interview. Martha had said that, since she had been told it was the Maynards who had arranged for Andrew, Maisie’s husband, to be posted from the Colony, she never wanted to see or hear of the Maynards again. And had put down the telephone.

Mr Maynard was waiting for her on the pavement when she left the office that evening. She tried to walk past him, but found her path blocked by a large, black-browed urbane presence who said: ‘My dear Martha, how very melodramatic, I am extremely surprised.’

He then proceeded to talk, or rather, inform, while she stood, half-listening, wishing to escape. When he had finished she said: ‘What you mean is, you want me to go down to Maisie’s, spy on her, find something wrong, and then come back and tell you so that you can persecute her.’

‘My dear Martha, the mother of my grandchild is working as a barmaid. You can’t expect me to like that. My grandchild is being brought up in one of the most sordid bars in the city. I’m not going to stand for it.’

‘The only thing is, it isn’t your grandchild.’

At which he said, calm, forceful, his handsome dark face compressed with determination: ‘That child was fathered by my son. She is my granddaughter.’

Martha could not stand up to him. She said, ‘I’ve got to go’—and literally ran away from him. That evening she had come to Maisie’s rooms late, when the bar was closed, to tell her that Mr Maynard was still on the scent.

Some hours later, waking at five in the morning, she realized, appalled at her’s and Maisie’s readiness to be bullied, that there was one simple way of defeating Mr Maynard—and that was to take no notice of him. She had telephoned Maisie that morning to say so. Maisie said she had written the old bastard a letter which would put him in his place for ever. ‘But Maisie, that’s just where we make our mistake, that’s what I’m telephoning for. You shouldn’t have written because he has no right to a letter, that’s the whole point.’

‘Oh don’t worry, Matty, I said what was right.’

The letter Mr Maynard got read:

‘Dear Mr Maynard,

My friend, Mrs Martha Hesse told me what you said. Please don’t worry, my Rita is being brought up properly. Just as well as Binkie would, I’m sure of that. Binkie had his chance and lost it. And there is another thing I want to say. I know who it was who
had my husband Corporal Andrew McGrew sent away to England. And I wish to have nothing to do with you or with Binkie either. Please tell him so when he comes home.

Yours truly,
M
AISIE
M
C
G
REW
’

This letter, written at white-heat, was pondered by the Maynards for some days. Mr Maynard then again waylaid Martha outside her office.

‘Well, Martha, you seem to be playing some kind of double game.’

‘What do you mean? You know I’m with Maisie.’ She knew it was a mistake to say this; she should simply have walked past him. Now he smiled.

She said: ‘Mr Maynard, you haven’t got any legal right to that child. You haven’t got a moral right either.’

He smiled again, the commanding face presented to her so that she could feel the full pressure of its assurance. Again she walked off, thinking: There wasn’t anything he wanted to say, there was nothing new to say, so what was he waiting there for? At last she understood: Of course, he wants to know whether I can be bullied.
And I can be
. And so can Maisie.

She had therefore gone down to spend an afternoon with Maisie. It was a Saturday. They had walked in the park with the child, then gone back to the rooms and played with her. When she went off to sleep, they talked. Mr Maynard seemed remote. They laughed a great deal and said how ridiculous the Maynards were, pushing people around and thinking they could get away with it.

And again it had been only afterwards, waking in the night, that Martha understood the whole pleasant easy afternoon was in fact another victory for Mr Maynard. For one thing, his name, the Maynard name, had scarcely been off their tongues. Yet the essence of defeating Mr Maynard was to forget him.

And Martha’s being here now with Maisie was because Mr Maynard telephoned yesterday; ‘How’s my grandchild?’ ‘She’s not your grandchild, Mr Maynard.’

‘Maisie, the Maynards haven’t a legal right, they haven’t even a moral right to Rita. You’ve got to see it.’

‘They didn’t have a legal right or a moral right to send my husband away from this country. But they did it, didn’t they?’

‘That was because Mrs Maynard’s a cousin of the Commanding Officer.’

‘You know what I am saying, Matty, and it’s true.’

‘Yes, I know. But look, what do you suppose the Maynards could do? They can’t do a damned thing.’

‘After I posted that letter to Mr Maynard, I saw I’d put it into print.’

‘But Maisie, when you married Andrew, he became Rita’s father. The Maynards are out.’

‘But I’m divorced from Andrew.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘So you say. All I know is, the Maynards do as they like. And he’s a magistrate too. I lay awake last night thinking…’ Maisie stood in the middle of the little room, holding the glass of rocking liquid against her breasts, smiling, smiling nervously, while her serious blue eyes stared ahead, sombre with fear. She sipped the brandy nervously, held the glass against her breasts; sipped, smiled, pressed the glass against her flesh so that the white and gold and green lights made jewels on her flesh above the glitter of the diamanté brooch: she talked on, obsessively: ‘When Binkie gets back I’m going to see him and ask him to stop his parents driving me mad. He’s a decent kid, he’ll know it isn’t right. After all, it’s not his fault he’s got those old bastards for parents, he’ll tell them off, when I ask him.’

‘What’ll happen if Binkie still wants you back?’

‘He’s a decent kid, he’s not their kind, he’ll see right done. And anyway, he won’t be back for ages yet. Perhaps years. How do we know how long the war’ll go on? Perhaps he’ll be killed, how do we know? Anyway, I’ve got to get down to work. My boss will be flaming mad as it is. You’re a pal, helping me like this, and I don’t like turning you out, but money’s got to be earned, when all’s said and done.’

Martha got up, the two young women kissed, and Martha went out, saying: ‘Yes of course,’ in reply to Maisie’s
anxious: ‘If Mr Maynard comes after you again, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’

In every city of the world there is a café or a third-rate restaurant called Dirty Dick’s. Or Greasy Joe’s; or—In this case Dirty Dick’s was called so because Black Ally’s, beloved of the RAF, had closed down last year and there had to be somewhere to feel at home. The old one had been run by a good-humoured Greek who served chips and eggs and sausages and allowed the local Reds to put newspapers and pamphlets on the counter for sale to anyone interested. This restaurant was run by a small, sad, grey-haired man who was going home to Salonika when the war was over, and who would not allow his counter to be used as a bookshop because, as he said, he had a brother fighting against the communists in Greece at that very moment—and where was the sense in it? No hard feelings against you personally, Mrs Hesse…

When he knew that his place was called Dirty Dick’s, his sound commercial sense exulted and he at once made plans for taking the floor over his present one; which second restaurant, to be on an altogether smarter level than this, would be called ‘Mayfair’ to distinguish it from ‘Piccadilly’, the name which was painted in gold on the glass frontages that faced a waste lot where second-hand cars were sold.

He nodded at Martha as she came into the large room, recently a warehouse, which had one hundred tables arranged in four lines. Every table was occupied by the RAF, so that the place looked like a refectory or mess for the armed forces. ‘Mr Cohen is in the back room,’ he said.

‘You don’t mind us plotting in your restaurant, but you won’t sell our newspapers?’

‘I can’t stop you plotting, but I won’t sell your newspapers.’

The private room at the back had a large table in its centre, covered with a very white damask cloth on which stood every imaginable variety of sauce and condiment. Solly was waiting.

‘I can’t sit down,’ said Martha, ‘because I’m late.’

‘Oh go on…’ Solly pushed forward a chair, and Martha
sat, suddenly, closing her eyes, and scrabbling for a cigarette which Solly put between her lips already lit. ‘If you’ll take a cigarette from a dirty Trotskyist.’

‘I thought Joss was going to be here?’

‘Ah you’ll take a cigarette from a dirty Trotskyist if protected by a clean Stalinist?’

‘Oh Lord, Solly, I’ve only just come, have a heart.’

Here entered Johnny Capetenakis, smiling.

‘What have you got to
eat
? asked Solly.

‘Fried eggs, chips and sausages,’ said Johnny, wiping the glittering white of the cloth with another cloth.

‘I mean food.’

‘Ah, why didn’t you say so? A nice kebab? Saffron rice? Stuffed peppers?’

‘How about you, Matty?’

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Everything you’ve got that’s food—twice. My brother’ll be here in a minute.’

‘Right, Mr Cohen.’

He stood smiling, but Joss had turned to Martha, and the Greek switched on a couple more lights and drew a curtain across panes that showed a sudden dark where the stars already blazed.

He stood looking out, his hand on the sill, an ageing man glad of a moment’s chance to rest. Solly turned to see why he was still there and said: ‘Sit with us a minute, Johnny?’

‘Thanks for inviting me, but I’m a cook short tonight.’

‘Heard anything from home?’

Johnny shook his head. ‘Nothing good for your side or for mine and nothing will be.’

‘There’ll be a communist government in Greece after the war,’ said Solly. ‘But I’m as much against it as you are.’

Johnny looked to see if he were joking; then he shrugged. ‘My brother was always the one for politics. It’s not for me. My brother’s wounded.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Martha, politely.

‘My cousin in Nyasaland got a letter but it was from last year, it came down from Cairo. My brother was wounded, but only in his leg.’

As Solly said nothing Martha said: ‘I’m sorry,’ again, and took Solly’s critical look with a smile.

‘Yes, Mrs Hesse, I suppose the good God knows what he is doing. But there’s not much left of my family, there’s not much left of Greece by the time the war ends. Communist or not communist. If the war ever does end.’ He nodded at them, sombre, and went out.

‘All right then,’ said Martha, ‘but then why do we use this place practically as another office?’

‘Get as much out of the dirty little fascists as we can, that’s why.’

‘Oh, is that it? Well, what did you get me here for?’

‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’

‘I am in a hurry.’ She got up, to prove it.

‘All right, all right. I’m in contact with some contacts in the Coloured quarter. As of
course
you know. There’s a group of decent types. The point is, they’ve got a study group going with some Africans. Joss and I met them.’

‘
Joss?
’ said Martha, disbelieving.

Here Joss came in, with a brief smiling nod at both of them. He sat down opposite his brother. He was in civilian clothes. The only sign he had been in the army was a red scar down his right hand—a gun had exploded in Somaliland last year and for him the war was already over. Four years in the army had burned out his youth. He had been an earnest student: now one could already see what he would look like in middle age. Except when you looked him straight in the eyes, you were looking at a Jewish business man.

Solly on the other hand had not changed at all: he was still like a student.

‘I’ve ordered,’ said Solly to his brother.

‘Good.’

Joss waited, smiling. Martha waited. Solly said nothing.

‘I’m in an awful hurry,’ Martha said.

‘OK, OK, so you’re in a hurry,’ said Solly.

She understood suddenly that this meeting was some sort of joke, or private triumph of Solly’s and that Joss did not know she was here ‘for a serious discussion’.

‘Oh it really is
too
bad,’ she said, and her voice shook, although she tried to make it ‘humorous’.

‘What’s going on?’ said Joss. He spoke gently. He had understood, already, that she was on edge through one of the intuitive flashes of understanding by which human beings in fact understand and regulate their behaviour with each other. He, too, now lit a cigarette and handed it to her. ‘Keep your hair on and tell your Uncle Joss all about it.’

‘It’s so damned silly,’ said Martha. ‘For months and months, nothing happens. Suddenly it seems the Africans are really starting something at last. Then we hear that there is Solly, with his oar well in, having his say. Well, naturally I suppose.’

‘Naturally,’ said Solly.