Loitering With Intent (15 page)

‘Where did he get the petrol?’ I said sharply. Petrol was still rationed; it would not be off the ration till later in the month, the twenty-sixth to be precise; I remember the date because I had promised Wally to go down for the week-end of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth to his cottage at Marlow in his car, to celebrate the end of petrol-rationing. But the petrol-rationing laws still in force were very strict; some prominent people had gone to prison for transgressing them. So my question ‘Where did he get the petrol?’ was a nasty little question, containing a menace of that citizens’ righteousness which was quite rife in those days amongst ill-natured or grievance-burdened people. Beryl Tims was flustered. ‘I’m sure, I’m quite positive,’ said she, ‘that Sir Quentin has Supplementary. He would have to do, I mean, wouldn’t he, for his poor mother?’

‘Oh, has he taken Lady Edwina?’

‘No, she’s having her breakfast.’

‘Then he shouldn’t be using her petrol coupons, should he?’ I said. ‘We’ll have to look into this,’ I went on in a voice which fairly took even myself aback. ‘Is his journey really necessary? We’ll see.’ I walked past Beryl to the study door. The door, the stable-door, was locked.

‘Sir Quentin,’ said the English Rose—she was wearing a shocking-pink twin set she had got for Easter— ‘has left instructions that you are not, definitely, to enter the study. Sir Quentin, I believe, has written you a letter of dismissal. He has appointed a certain new lady assistant to commence on Mondays.’

‘Well, I’ll see Lady Edwina,’ I said, starting down the corridor that led to her room.

Beryl followed me. ‘Sir Quentin told me that if you phoned or called I was to ask you to return immediately the work that you took home with you. It should not have left this house.’

I got to Edwina’s door. Beryl clutched my arm. ‘You may,’ said Beryl, ‘see Lady Edwina. You may even,’ she said, ‘take her out tomorrow so that Nurse Fisher can get away. Lady Edwina’s fluxive precipitations have augmented in frequency, and it is only because of the doctor’s orders that she’s to be spared distress and excitement that you are to be permitted the privilege of seeing her on the condition that she knows nothing of any dispute between yourself and Sir—’

The nurse opened the door just then. ‘Oh, good morning, Fleur,’ she said, while Edwina squealed from her bed, ‘Come and have some tea and toast. Tims—a fresh pot, please, and another cup.’

‘It’s a quarter past ten,’ said Beryl.

‘A fresh pot of tea, and step on the gas,’ yelled Edwina.

‘I’ll come and get it,’ said Miss Fisher.

When I sat on Edwina’s bed she buttered a piece of toast for me and said softly, with many a wild grimace, ‘He’s got a new secretary.’

‘Is it Dottie?’

‘Yes, of course. Ha-ha. He got Tims to burn some proofs of a book. She flushed the ashes down the lavatory. What a mess, all black.’

I put my head close to hers and mouthed some words very clearly and carefully. I said, ‘Listen, Edwina, I want you to take this in. I want to have Dottie out of the way for three hours tomorrow afternoon. I will say I can’t possibly manage to take you out tomorrow. If Miss Fisher offers to give up her afternoon-off, you are to refuse the offer. You are to demand Dottie. Make a fuss till you get Dottie to come. Be sure to keep her with you for at least three hours.’

The old woman’s eyes gleamed, her mouth made a great 0, her head nodded in time to the rhythm of my phrases. She was taking it in.

‘While Dottie is with you, take ill. Make her ring up the doctor. If he’s out make her get another doctor. Wet your knickers twenty times. At all costs, get Dottie to stay with you and keep her with you.’

She nodded.

‘Three hours.’

‘Three hours,’ said Edwina.

I rang the bell of Dottie’s flat when I went there the next day with a shopping bag in my hand, at two in the afternoon, just in case someone should be there. No answer. I let myself in with the key. I locked myself in.

‘Accused was familiar with the flat,’ I thought to myself as I went straight into the bathroom in a state of suspicious dread to look for signs of black paper-ash in the lavatory pan. I found no signs. I went into the bedroom, took off my coat and put it on the bed with my shopping bag. I had brought with me in the bag a small present, wrapped in pink tissue paper, a hand-embroidered silk handkerchief-case which I had never used, and which befitted an English Rose more than it did the likes of me. I intended to produce it as an alibi should I be caught in the flat.

I made for Dottie’s desk in her bedroom. There was a page in her typewriter; Dottie was evidently making a fair copy of a much-corrected typescript in an open folder on the desk. I would have liked to linger over it, for it was plainly Leslie’s novel; I glanced quickly at the cover of the folder to verify this and passed quickly to my main objective.
Warrender Chase
was nowhere on the desk. Nor was it in the drawers, in one of which, however, I came across a letter dated three weeks back, headed Park and Revisson Doe. It began ‘Dear Dottie (if I may) …’ I didn’t stop to read on but a superstitious impulse caused me to drag my coat and shopping bag off the bed lest they should be contaminated. I left my things on the floor and continued my search of the bedroom. In the cupboards, on top of the cupboards, under the pillows, the mattress. Under the bed was a suitcase. I dragged it out. It was full of Dottie’s summer clothes. No
Warrender Chase
anywhere. There remained the sitting-room, a spare bedroom which had also been Leslie’s study, the kitchen and the linen cupboard in the bathroom. I disposed of the linen cupboard; nothing there. I felt that the probabilities were in favour of Leslie’s study so I left it to the last. I started to ransack the sitting-room, lifting the cushions off the sofa and chairs and putting them back, searching behind the curtains and under piles of magazines. Nearly an hour had passed, and with the familiarity of the objects I touched and under which I peered came the doubt whether Dottie—exasperating but familiar old Dottie—had taken the manuscript at all.

I had finished with the sitting-room; everything was in place. I went out to the little hail to go into Leslie’s workroom, the door of which was wide open showing the masses of untidy papers and shelves of books that I knew from old times. I think I even got as far as to look round the room. But as I had passed through the hall I had seen underneath the coats which were hanging on two pegs by the door Dottie’s black bag with her knitting, the red scarf, protruding. I turned back to it. The notion came to me that I should examine this; no doubt Dottie had brought her knitting with her the night she had waited in my room and—But already my fingers had found a package, the size of a London telephone directory, wedged at the bottom of the ghastly black bag. Out I whisked that package in a flash, and in another flash had opened it. My
Warrender Chase,
my novel, my Warrender, Warrender Chase; my foolscap pages with the first chapters I had once torn up and then stuck together; my
Warrender Chase, mine.
I hugged it. I kissed it. I went to Dottie’s bedroom and put it in my own shopping bag. I snatched from Dottie’s desk an unopened ream of typing paper. This I wedged at the bottom of Dottie’s bag, and carefully arranged the knitting on top of it. I put on my coat, took my shopping bag on my arm, looked carefully round the flat to see if everything was in place. I straightened the covers on the revolting bed, let myself out of the flat and went on my way rejoicing.

I have never known an artist who at some time in his life has not come into conflict with pure evil, realized as it may have been under the form of disease, injustice, fear, oppression or any other ill element that can afflict living creatures. The reverse doesn’t hold: that is to say, it isn’t only the artist who suffers, or who perceives evil. But I think it true that no artist has lived who has not experienced and then recognized something, at first too incredibly evil to seem real, then so undoubtedly real as to be undoubtedly true. I was dying to look into the Pandora’s box of Sir Quentin’s biographies. But I had first to set about making typed copies of my
Warrender Chase,
it was imperative; for I was determined not to let the work out of my sight until I had spare copies to send to a publisher: I started this business as soon as I got home that Sunday afternoon. I recall that I stopped to ring Solly.

‘I got my manuscript back,’ I told him. ‘All the proofs and the typescripts were destroyed.’ I then described my raid on Dottie’s flat.

I gave him a full account. He was very solemn. He let loose a number of ill wishes upon the heads of Revisson Doe, Dottie and Sir Quentin Oliver. Then he said he would get me a new publisher if it was the last thing he did. Solly had always believed in the value of
Warrender Chase.
For myself, I felt towards it only that it was mine, my own, mine, and I still felt my novel
All Souls’ Day,
which I had started, was far superior.

‘Let me know when you’ve got the novel ready for a publisher,’ Solly said.

So I went on typing
Warrender Chase.
I had very few corrections to make, it was simple slog work. I stopped again to ring Hallam Street to enquire how Edwina was.

‘She has had a bad days,’ said Mrs Tims. ‘I can’t stop now, good-bye.’ And she put down the phone. I had a whisky and soda and ate a poached egg, then I continued my labours. At midnight I was still typing. Every now and then I had to wash my hands because the two carbon sheets—I had determined to make three typed sets of the novel in all—were constantly blackening them. At midnight more or less, Dottie started singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ outside my window. I thought her voice unusually high.

I was greatly tempted to throw a jug of water over her head. But I was even more greatly avid to see her. I wanted to know about her afternoon with Edwina. I wanted to know about her affair with Revisson Doe, and what she would say about her new job with Sir Quentin. I was also keen to find out if she had discovered that I had retrieved my
Warrender Chase.

I let her in.

‘I came last night,’ she said. ‘But you were out. ‘There was a tone of reproach as she said it, which made me laugh.

‘What is there to laugh about?’ said Dottie as she took off her coat and sat down in my wicker arm-chair. The manuscript of
Warrender Chase
was visible on the writing-table and the pages I had typed were face downwards on the other side of the typewriter. I had no intention of hiding the book, but she didn’t notice it at the moment.

‘I had a terrible time with that repulsive old woman, ‘said Dottie.

‘Oh, well, you’ll have to get used to it,’ I said. ‘Edwina’s part of the job, in a sense.’

I saw that Dottie was excited and distressed. She was trembling. I felt rather sorry for her.

‘I haven’t come to discuss the job,’ said Dottie. ‘I came last night. I came to tell you that Sir Quentin wants those biographies back. I have to work on them. Hand them over, please.’

‘Have you come here in the middle of the night to fetch them? Don’t you see I’m busy?’

‘Give me a drink,’ said Dottie. ‘I’ve come for some typing paper. I’m typing Leslie’s novel and I’ve run out of typing paper. I could have sworn I had a new packet of paper, but I can’t find it. I must have left it in the shop. I wanted to get on with Leslie’s novel because he’s coming back from Ireland tomorrow night. He was to be away three weeks, but you know what he is. I won’t have time to buy paper tomorrow because I’m starting my job tomorrow morning. And Park and Revisson Doe are probably going to publish Leslie’s book.’

I handed her a whisky and water. I said, ‘Are you sure you should be drinking? Are you ill?’

She didn’t reply. Her eyes were on my
Warrender Chase.

‘What’s that?’ said Dottie.

‘I’m making a few copies of my novel. The old copies got tattered.’

‘What novel?’

‘The same old
Warrender Chase.’

‘Where did you get it?’ said Dottie.

‘Dottie,’ I said, ‘you must be mad. What do you mean, where did I get it?’

‘How many handwritten copies of the original did you make?’ Dottie said.

‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘Don’t be boring. Tell me about your affair with Revisson Doe.’

She spilt her whisky as she put the glass down on the floor.

‘You don’t understand,’ she said, ‘that sometimes a woman has to make a sacrifice for a man. You’re hard. You’re evil. Why don’t you see a priest?’

Now, seeing a priest is all very well if you have something on your conscience. But there are very few predicaments in a writer’s life where it would be the slightest use explaining the ins and outs to a priest. A priest is the person to see if you fear for your immortal soul, but not if you are menaced by someone else’s. I told Dottie, ‘I would as soon see a priest about you or, for instance, Sir Quentin, as I would go to consult a doctor about your lungs and his kidneys. Whys don’t you see a priest yourself?’

‘I will when it’s all over,’ said Dottie. ‘Leslie needs a publisher.’

She was shaking very badly.

I said, ‘You should see a doctor.’

She threw the rest of her whisky all over my typed pages. I got a cloth and blotted them as best I could.

I said, ‘Sir Quentin Oliver urged you to take on that old man, didn’t he?’

‘Sir Quentin,’ she said, ‘is a genius and a born leader. Now give me those biographies and I’ll go.’

‘You’ll go,’ I said, ‘but the biographies are staying with me until I’ve had time to study them. A lot of my
Warrender Chase
has been transferred to those biographies. When I’ve extracted what’s mine I’ll hand over the rest.’

‘What a fiend you are,’ Dottie said.

I don’t know what prompted me then to ask, ‘Are you taking pills?’

‘What pills?’ said Dottie.

‘Drugs.’

‘Only for my weight-reducing,’ said Dottie.

‘From a doctor?’

‘No, I get them from a friend.’

I put together half a ream of typing paper and gave it to Dottie. I told her she was a fool.

She said, ‘You’re furious because I’ve taken your job.’ I said that was fair enough, everything she had done was fair enough, because I had once taken her husband. But she was a fool to have any more to do with the Autobiographical Association.