The Husband's Story (16 page)

‘Well?' he asked.

‘Well what?'

‘Do you know what time it is?'

Stan knew exactly. It was two minutes past ten. He'd been counting
up the minutes ever since he had left Cannon Street. But he wasn't going to tell Mr Parker because he felt perfectly sure that Mr Parker knew already.

‘The train was late,' he explained. ‘There'd been a hold-up or something. They were all running late this morning.'

‘Does this kind of thing often happen?'

‘It's not my fault,' he told him. ‘I can't tell when it's going to happen. There's nothing I can do about it.'

Stan was beginning to feel aggrieved by now. In all his life in the Civil Service he'd never been spoken to like this before. And it was clear that Mr Parker intended to go on with it. His eyes were fixed on Stan as he was speaking. They were hard, sportsman's eyes.

‘Oh yes, there is,' he replied. ‘You can catch an earlier train. Give yourself a safety-margin.'

Mr Parker, however, simply didn't understand. Beryl would never hear of it. As it was, she disapproved of breakfast at seven thirty. In her view that was when the working classes had breakfast. Anything earlier than eight o'clock smacked of commonness.

But, in any case, Stan wasn't going to be pushed around like that. He was not prepared to have Mr Parker re-making his domestic arrangements for him, and he was determined to make that clear.

‘It may interest you to know that, at the moment, I leave the house at five to eight every morning,' he said.

Mr Parker's eyes did not move.

‘And this morning that was half an hour too late, wasn't it?' he asked. ‘There was no one in charge of the outer office until ten.' He paused. ‘It didn't matter, of course, because I was here. I'm only glad that no one else spotted it.'

Stan felt himself trembling. It had always been the same: whenever he was upset about anything he started to twitch. Already little electric currents were running up and down his fingers. He steadied himself.

‘Is that all?' he asked.

And he was pleased with the way he had asked it. He'd kept his voice deliberately flat. It had come out polite but indifferent-sounding. No one could have guessed how hurt he was inside.

Or perhaps Mr Parker did guess it. He was the complete youth leader, and knew that there was something more to leadership than discipline. He came over and put his hand on Stan's shoulder.

‘Sorry to have to speak to you like that,' he said. ‘I'm not blaming
you. It's simply what you've grown used to. They told me things had got pretty slack round here. It's up to the two of us to put that right. You're not going to let me down, are you?'

Stan could feel the hand on his shoulder give a little squeeze as he finished. It made Stan feel faintly sick. He'd not forgotten that the door had been taken away. For all this hand-on-shoulder stuff, Mr Parker had succeeded in making a public spectacle of him.

Outside, the two juniors were giggling and whispering again.

In that one brief conversation, Mr Parker had managed to destroy nearly eighteen years of sheer routine happiness.

And that was where Stan found the photography side of things such a refuge. Photography was something that was private; something that belonged to him alone. Photography was his own secret world into which Mr Parker did not enter. Come to that, nor did Beryl. Photography was his one-man planet, blissfully spinning away in space with only him on board.

Not counting Mr Karlin, of course. He was welcome. And, on his part, eager. Mr Karlin had made that clear. The appointment to see him had been fixed for six o'clock next Thursday. In such a friendly way, too. It had been Mr Karlin's suggestion that, instead of making a purely business matter of it in Mr Karlin's office, they should meet in the lounge of the Brava Hotel, Bayswater. It would be so much quieter there, Mr Karlin told him.

And this suited Stan perfectly. Because he didn't want to be rushed. To show the prints off properly, he and Mr Karlin would have to go through them one by one, taking their time over it.

The Brava Hotel stood in that part of Bayswater where family life had died out long ago. All the houses were hotels by now; and some of the hotels seemed to be in danger of dying out, too. The Brava was one of them. The white stucco on the outside had flaked off in pieces, exposing a dark chocolate-brown layer underneath. And the twin pillars by the front door looked as though they had been nibbled at. Altogether it had the air of an old and second-hand wedding cake.

There was no one at the reception desk when he went inside. But Stan didn't need anyone. A neon sign that someone had forgotten to switch on said ‘Lounge and Bar'. And there was an arrow pointing straight ahead. Stan followed it.

It was then that he found out what Mr Karlin had really meant by
quietness. The lounge had once been the drawing-room. It still had the original red wallpaper; most of the furniture appeared to be original, too. The bar itself was clearly an afterthought. It had been fitted in over on the far side like a corner-cupboard, and two red stools on bright chromium stalks had been screwed into the floor in front of it. The stools were both empty, and apparently the barman had not yet come on duty.

Stan wasn't the only person in the lounge, however. There was someone sitting in an armchair by the window, holding an evening paper open in front of him. Stan could only see his feet. They were small feet in narrow, highly polished shoes. Then the evening newspaper was put down, and Stan found himself facing a slim, rather shadowy young man, pale-complexioned and polite-looking. The young man folded up his paper and came over.

‘Mr Pitts?' he asked.

‘That's right,' Stan told him.

‘I'm Mr Karlin's assistant,' he explained. ‘Mr Karlin's been delayed. He asked me to apologize for him. He shouldn't be long now.' The young man pointed at the parcel under Stan's arm. ‘I expect you'd like to put that down and have a drink,' he said. ‘What's it going to be?'

Stan would have liked to order beer. But it didn't look like a place where anyone drank beer. All that he could see behind the bar was a row of upside-down bottles and small glasses.

‘Whisky, please,' he replied, adding ‘with water' to make it sound as if whisky was what he always drank.

The young man was looking at the parcel again.

‘Are those the pictures?' he asked. ‘Mr Karlin's told me all about your work. He is very excited.'

He had delicate, expressive hands and, with them, he managed to convey some hint of Mr Karlin's excitement.

Stan smiled professionally.

‘Just a selection,' he said. ‘Plenty more where these come from.'

This clearly pleased the young man.

‘You're what we've been looking for. To keep up the supply. There's not much good stuff about nowadays.'

At the sound of voices, the barman had opened up his corner cup-board and put the light on. The place looked gayer now. It had transformed itself into a small, illuminated shrine, complete with siphon and ice-bucket.

When he had returned with the drinks, the young man spread out his hands with the palms held upwards.

‘Shall we begin talking business?' he asked. ‘You know our terms. Either outright, or on commission. It's entirely up to you.'

Selling outright was something that Stan knew about. He'd read the warnings in all the better photographic magazines.

‘I never dispose of the copyright,' he said. ‘Never.'

In itself the reply was enough to show the young man that Stan wasn't by any means a beginner. It was evident now that there were two of them there in the faded back lounge of the Brava who could talk business.

‘Then, if we handle them on commission, what advance do you want? They've got to be exclusive to us, of course.'

Stan blew his lips out. This was the moment he'd been waiting for. He took a sip of whisky and cleared his throat before answering.

‘How about a hundred pounds?' he asked. ‘Exclusive licence for one year.'

This time he wished that it could have been Mr Winters who was listening to him.

The young man did not seem in the least surprised.

‘I'll put it to Mr Karlin,' he said. ‘Money's his department.'

‘Of course, he'll want to look at these first, I imagine.' Stan tapped with his forefinger on the parcel as he was speaking.

‘Naturally,' the young man replied. ‘They're what he's paying for, aren't they?'

‘Those, and more like them.'

While he was sitting there, his confidence had returned to him. At that moment he was pleasantly conscious of being in the master class.

The young man looked at his watch.

‘Another drink,' he suggested. ‘Mr Karlin shouldn't be long now. He must have been detained in Fleet Street. It's not like him to be late for an appointment. I only hope…'

But the young man need not have worried. Mr Karlin might have been outside the door listening for his cue. He came in, smiling his big warm smile, before the young man had finished speaking.

‘Those Editors,' he said. ‘Never let you go once they've got you there.' His handshake was big and warm like his smile. Just being gripped like that made Stan feel welcome and important. ‘Has he been
looking after you properly?' he asked. ‘I told him you might be a client of ours.'

Stan smiled back at him.

‘I've brought the photographs,' he said. He started to undo the parcel, but Mr Karlin stopped him.

‘Not in here,' he told him. ‘Light's not good enough. Couldn't tell anything in here.' He turned to the young man beside him. ‘Don't I get a drink?' he enquired.

While the young man was at the bar, Mr Karlin widened the conversation.

‘How's the Civil Service?' he asked. ‘Still overworking you?'

‘Not really,' Stan replied.

‘Don't know how you stand it,' he said frankly. ‘Not with an artistic nature like yours. But if you're happy there that's all that matters.'

When Stan said nothing about being happy, Mr Karlin continued.

‘I see you in a studio of your own,' he remarked. ‘Somewhere you can develop your talent. And that's where we may be able to help you. We use a lot of photographers. Stringers mostly.'

Stan didn't know what a stringer was, and he did not choose to ask. But it sounded a good sort of thing to be.

‘How's the family?' Mr Karlin asked. ‘What have you got? A boy and a girl, isn't it?'

Stan corrected him.

‘There's two of Marleen in there,' he said. ‘One of'em in her birthday suit and the other as The Little Milkmaid. Fancy-dress stuff, you know.'

‘I'll look out for them,' Mr Karlin assured him. ‘Always a good sell, children.'

The young man was back again. He'd brought Stan another drink as well, even though Stan had not yet finished his first one.

‘Did you get round to terms?' Mr Karlin asked.

‘Commission,' the young man replied. ‘Hundred pounds advance against royalties. One year licence.'

Mr Karlin wrinkled up his nose.

‘I don't like the year's licence bit,' he said.

The young man seemed temporarily put out.

‘What's wrong with it?' he asked.

‘Too long,' Mr Karlin told him. ‘Suppose we don't get on together. What happens if he doesn't like us? We don't want an unhappy client
round our necks.' He turned to Stan. ‘Cheque or cash?' he asked.

As he was speaking, Mr Karlin had thrust his hand into his breast pocket and produced a wad of something. He didn't bring it right out into the open, but kept it half hidden under the width of the lapel. Then he ran his thumbnail across the top. It made a noise like a pack of cards being shuffled.

‘Cash,' Stan told him.

Mr Karlin slid the bundle across to him.

It was the first time he'd ever had a hundred pounds actually sitting there in his hand.

‘Thank you,' Stan said politely. Then he reached up to his breast pocket for his Biro. ‘I expect you'd like a receipt,' he said.

But this seemed to amuse Mr Karlin. He pointed at the parcel beside Stan's feet.

‘Why?' he asked. ‘I've got these, haven't I?'

Stan saw the point.

‘OK,' he said.

Mr Karlin was smiling again.

‘Better count it,' he told him.

The notes were old ones, tired and grubby-looking, and Stan was a slow counter. The young man picked up his evening paper, and Mr Karlin signalled to the barman to bring him a drink.

‘Forty-five, fifty.'

Stan had got halfway. He set up a separate little pile of them, and then started off on the second batch. To make it easier for him, he began with ‘five' again.

Then he looked up.

‘There's a hundred here,' he said.

‘Well, don't spend it all on the way home,' Mr Karlin said. ‘And keep clear of the girls. I don't want you to go getting yourself into trouble.'

He got up and stretched out his arm to give Stan another of those great big warm handshakes of his.

‘Mind you, don't rush things,' he told him. ‘Give us a ring at the end of the month. Then we'll both know how we've been getting on.'

There was no reason why he should not have told Beryl straight off where the money had come from. It would have made everything far simpler that way. But of late, she simply hadn't been nice enough about
his photography for him to want to share any part of it with her. The hundred pounds was for her, of course; and for Marleen, too. It was family money.

How he had come by it, however, remained his affair. This was something else that belonged to his private world; and he found being secretive was rather enjoyable. For the moment, he was keeping the bundle of notes in his own possession. They were concealed under the lining-paper of his developer drawer. Merely thinking about them, stowed away up there, made him feel aloof and superior. He could afford now to look down on other people, even people like Mr Parker who had only their regular salaries to draw on.