Out of the Blackout (5 page)

‘Here! Stop that!' began Simon. He started towards them, but almost at once the blows and the screams sent over him a wave—of recollection, of nausea, of fear, whatever it might be—that seemed to submerge him, that sent his legs staggering under him, so that he could only stop and clutch at the walls of the passageway for support. The voice continued to bellow insults, the fists to fall, but Simon could only cling there, his eyes closed, his stomach rising in great heaves of panic and remembered fear.

Suddenly windows opened above the dirty courtyard. Voices began to be raised in protest. One woman screamed: ‘I've called the police.' The man straightened up, bellowed back an obscenity, and in a moment was barging past Simon, down the passage, and out into the street.

Gradually the panic subsided. He shook himself and opened his eyes, feeling very much less than heroic. He walked over to the sobbing bundle of clothes on the paved floor of the courtyard.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Oh, go to hell.'

An overpowering smell of sweat, urine and cheap spirits rose up and over him from the sobbing heap.

‘You really ought to see a doctor, you know.'

‘Oh, f—off.'

‘Don't bovver abaht 'er, mate,' said a voice from the window above. ‘It ain't the first time.'

‘Enjoys it, if you ask me,' said a woman's voice.

‘You might as well save yer breath,' said another. ‘You'll get no thanks from 'er, I can tell you.'

So Simon, awkwardly and unhappily, turned on his heels and slunk away. Out into New Oxford Street, along to the tube at Tottenham Court Road, then down into its depths, where he bought a ticket for Paddington.

When he emerged from the station he made his way, straight, confident, unflinching, to Farrow Street. He knew the way. Suddenly it occurred to him that he knew the way
from
Farrow Street
to
the Station. That was the way he had done it—or had done it as Simon Cutheridge. But he seemed to know the reverse journey equally well. How often had he done it as—as whatever his name was then?

As he walked, he asked himself why he had come back. Because he had just funked intervening in a fight, and had by some quirky idea of compensation determined to follow through what he had funked eight years ago? But he had been in fights before, and had not funked them: playground fights, the brush with the Fascists, an after-hours pub brawl in Leeds. What had been crucial here had been the
domestic
violence, the man and woman fighting. Had he funked it, or had it dredged from the silt of his early memories . . .
something?

He walked on, a tallish man in a not very fashionable sports jacket, good-looking in a not-too-obvious, English way, a way that had been more admired in the ‘fifties than it was in the 'sixties. Fair-haired, engaging, but somehow reserved, with the beginnings of lines of care along the high forehead and from the corners of his eyes. A fresh, well-meaning, slightly troubled boy-man.

That was what the woman saw when she opened the door of No. 17. He had gone up to the house confidently, walked up the steps, knocked without hesitation on the door, and then waited.

‘Coming! Won't be a mo! Just got to put me frock on!' came a voice. It was a voice that wakened no memories. Simon's stomach remained stable. When the woman opened the door it was obvious she had been dressing after a bath. There was a smell of talcum, and her dress hung loosely on her substantial body, and
was not done up at the back. Suddenly, but not for that reason, Simon felt awkward.

‘Yes?'

‘I'm sorry—this is going to sound rather funny—'

‘Won't be the first time I've heard funny things at my own front door,' said the woman, her sharp, ironic face surveying him coolly. ‘It's not religious, is it?'

‘No, it's not religious.'

‘Because they can be a bit over the top, in my experience. Oh, and by the way, I don't ever buy things at the door.'

‘It's not that either. You see, I used to live here . . .'

‘Oh yes?' The woman was polite, not specially interested. A house, for a Londoner, is usually no more than a machine for living in, not a repository for sentimental memories.

‘It was a long time ago, at the beginning of the war.'

‘You wouldn't have been more than a nipper then.'

‘That's right. The point is, I wondered . . . Have you lived here long?'

‘Matter of five years. Bit of a draught-trap, and bigger than we need, but we've got Bert's parents living with us, and it means we can keep out of each other's way.'

‘Do you remember who you bought it from?'

‘People called Ponting.'

‘Had they lived here long?'

‘Only three or four years, as I remember. They retired to the coast somewhere. Why?'

‘Well . . .' Simon's face had fallen with disappointment, but he began to improvise a story. ‘You see, my parents were killed in the war, and I lost touch with my relations.'

‘Oh, really?' The story made him human, interested her distantly, as something she might read in the
Sunday Pictorial
would. ‘You wanted to find someone who knew them, did you? Really, I don't know . . .'

‘I wonder whether the neighbours . . .'

‘On that side it's Pakis. They'd be no use, because we didn't
have
Pakis then, did we? Not
here.
On the other side there's people I don't know, but they moved in after us. Have you tried the pub?'

‘No. Do you think they'd know anything there?'

‘Pubs are always good places to go to with something like
that. Then even if you don't get what you want you can always have a drop of something so you haven't wasted your time.' She laughed with the rich laugh of someone who's had a drop or two in her time. ‘It's the Fox and Newt, down the end of the road. Arnold Stebbings has been there an age, I do know that, so you could do worse than try him.'

‘I'll do that,' said Simon. ‘Many thanks.'

‘Don't mention it. Sorry I couldn't be more help,' said the woman, with that uninvolved friendliness the English rather go in for.

Why didn't I ask to see the house? Simon asked himself as he walked down the road in the direction she had pointed out. Too embarrassed. And it wouldn't have told me anything. Everything would have changed inside. They'd have taken their furniture—
them,
my family. Unless—you never knew—the wallpaper in one of the rooms had been the same . . . But how would I have explained why I wanted to see it?

Certainly the Fox and Newt aroused no memories, but then: how could it? It was a steamy, varnish-and-brass suburban London pub, but he could never have seen the inside of it. It was still early in the evening, and possible to have the landlord to himself for five minutes' conversation.

‘Oh aye, I've been here a while,' said Arnold Stebbings, polishing glasses, ‘but not
that
long. Only since 'forty-nine. Not before the war. I was
in
the war, my lad, and I only came to London on my demob.'

‘Hell!' said Simon, drinking into his pint disappointedly.

‘What was it you wanted?'

‘You see, I lost both my parents in the war.' (Suddenly there came, unbidden, to Simon's mind that line from
The Importance of Being Ernest:
‘It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me . . .'). ‘I was . . . adopted. And I wondered if there was anybody still living around here who . . . would remember me. And them.'

It would do, as a story. It was getting better. The landlord, anyway, was displaying that non-committal but friendly interest.

‘Let's see now. There's been a deal of changes, I can tell you. Well—Paddington's not really a place where people settle down, is it? There's still some of the old ‘uns around, though.
Jessie Pyke, but she's senile, more or less, so I wouldn't . . . Jack Watkyns! That's the chap for you!'

‘Where does he live?'

‘He's a regular here. What's today? Wednesday. He wouldn't thank you for disturbing him during
Coronation Street,
but he'll be in here directly afterwards. Have you got the price of a pint for him?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Well, you settle Jack down at a table with a pint he hasn't had to pay for, and he'll tell you all he knows. And he's a straight bloke: he won't make up what he doesn't remember.'

So when the torrid doings of the young Elsie Tanner were over for the night, Simon was introduced to old Jack Watkyns. He bought him a pint, took him over to a table, and let him tell all he knew. He was a fat, none-too-clean old man, probably around his mid-sixties, and he'd lived just round the corner from Farrow Street all his life. What he didn't know about the inhabitants he had been prevented from knowing by the inbuilt privacy-mania of Londoners, not from any lack of will to find out.

‘You say you used to live here? As a boy, was it? Now, which number in Farrow Street would that be?'

‘Number seventeen. It's got a green front door now, but it was brown then, and there's yellow roses in the garden.'

‘Got it. Three up from the shop. You're right, that front door did used to be brown. So this was wartime, was it?'

‘Yes. The beginning of the war.'

‘So that would be when the Simmeters were there, then—they'd be your people, would they? I remember there were children.'

The surname aroused the faintest of echoes in Simon's mind.

‘Do you remember much about them?'

‘But you won't need to ask me, young man, if they're your folks.'

‘We got separated . . . I think they were killed.'

‘Ah!' said Jack Watkyns, pulling deeply on his pint, and clearly wondering if there was likely to be any follow-up. ‘Could be. They moved, I remember that. They were here for years and years, but they moved early in the war . . . Was it northwards?'

‘Northwards? Like Yorkshire, you mean?'

‘No—Kilburn, Edgware, somewhere like that. Wait, though: I've an idea it was Islington, not the north at all. Anyway, never heard of them after that. Not that I had much to do with them while they were here.'

‘You didn't know them well?'

‘No. Private lot, so far as I remember. No disrespect, but they kept themselves very much to themselves—that kind of folks. Church, too, I reckon. I never saw him in here that I remember.'

‘Who was
he,
then?' Simon felt his heart beating faster.

‘That was the son. Let's see, what was his name? Lawrence? Lionel? Leonard. Leonard Simmeter, maybe. Sounds about right. Could be I never heard it, though.'

The name aroused no response in Simon. But if it was his father, he would always have known him as Daddy, presumably.

‘Was it a large family?'

‘Fairly so, as families go
these
days. And all crammed in together there.'

‘Who actually was there in the family?'

‘Oh, my God, it's a long time ago. You're asking a lot, young fellow. Yes, I will have another, since you're so kind . . . Thanks. Pulls a good pint, does Arnold. Well now, I can remember Mother. Big woman of fifty-odd then. Widow lady. Then there were three or four children. This Lawrence or Lionel or Leonard. And his wife—pale little body. And his sister—about the same age, or perhaps a bit younger. Good-looking girl. And . . . oh dear . . . I
think
there may have been a younger brother. Don't know that I could put a name to him—Ernie, could it be?—but I seem to recall a lad in RAF uniform. This Len—I'm sure it was Len, now I come to say the name—he worked at Paddington Station, that I do know. In the ticket office. I had a spell as a porter, so I'm pretty sure of that. But more I can't call to mind.'

‘It's a lot. I'm very grateful.'

‘You say they were killed?'

‘Yes . . . I think so.'

‘You don't seem too sure, lad. That's a bit queer, isn't it? You wouldn't be looking to find relatives, would you, young feller?'

‘Well—something like that.'

‘I never knew folks as was happier for finding relatives. Y'know, lad, if they didn't care for you then, they're not going to care about you now.'

‘I know,' said Simon, getting up abruptly. ‘Silly, isn't it?'

But when he got back to his hotel room that night, the first thing he did was to take up the last volume of the London Telephone Directory. There were four entries under Simmeter:

Simmeter, E., 16 Leith Grove, SE5.

Simmeter, L. J., 25 Miswell Tce, EC1.

Simmeter and Fox, TV Repairs, 76 High St, SE6.

Simmeter W., 7 Burdett St, NW3.

He looked under Simmetter, Simeter, even Scimeter, but he found no more entries.

He took out his pocket book and pencil, and noted down the details of the four.

N
ext morning, over scrambled eggs and toast and marmalade, Simon propped his pocket book up against the teapot and contemplated the entries. Thank God it was an unusual name, he said to himself.

It was fairly clear where he ought to start—supposing, that is, he decided to start at all. NW3 was Hampstead, that he did know, because his professor at Leeds had moved there when he got a job at London University. He had as yet no clear picture in his mind of the Simmeter family of Paddington, but Hampstead seemed an unlikely locality for them to rise to. In any case, the L. Simmeter was a much better bet. Jack Watkyns had mentioned Islington as a possibility. Simon turned to the theatre column in that morning's
Guardian.
Sadler's Wells Theatre, he knew, was in Islington. It was listed as EC1. Simon took it as his working hypothesis that Leonard or Lionel Simmeter had moved to Islington, where he had remained, while possibly his
brother had eventually moved out to SE5. But his imagination had fixed on Simmeter, L. It was with him that Simon felt his mission lay.