The Husband's Story (20 page)

Not that it was all dreaming. First, there was the register to correct, and he carefully deleted the reference to the photograph of Cliff's first Jaguar. Even if he had kept the negative, he wouldn't now have wanted to make another print of it.

And he didn't go straight back to bed again. He was far too wide awake for that. He pulled his dressing-gown around him and sat on thinking about the future. Beryl had been quite right about him. That was why it hurt so much. He'd never get to the top, never to one of the really upper rungs, not in the Civil Service, he wouldn't. With photography, however, it was different. There was nothing second-rate about him there. It was just that his choice of subject had been a bit too restricted. Character studies and nature pieces apparently weren't what the public wanted. But that was where his friend, Mr Karlin, came in. Mr Karlin knew what would sell and what wouldn't.

Up there in his private workroom, with Beryl and Marleen asleep in their beds one floor below, Stan made his big decision. In the morning – come to that it was early morning already – he would ring up and say that he had thought things over and was ready to have a go at the more saleable kind.

In a recorded message it is difficult to sound eager, or even reasonably polite. But that is the way it had to be. Mr Karlin's agency seemed to be run entirely by remote control with the telephone answering service on duty for twenty-four hours a day. Stan resented the recorded voice as soon as he heard it, and he resented the fact that when his message eventually reached Mr Karlin that would be recorded, too.

What's more, he couldn't ask Mr Karlin to phone him back. The last thing he wanted was for calls to start coming through either to Frobisher House or to Kendal Terrace. That way his little secret would be out in no time; not that he need have worried. There was a naturally discreet side to Mr Karlin's nature. Stan felt sure that he would find some other way of getting in touch with him.

All the same, it was a restless and unsettled kind of week-end that he had. Beryl appeared to be avoiding him, and he couldn't help wondering whether she knew how much he had overheard. Marleen, too, was
incommunicado
. She had a part in the school play. It was only a small part, but Beryl was anxious that Marleen should make the most of it. She had helped her with the gestures, making her go through them over and over again in front of the mirror until they were quite perfect. It was the words, not the gestures, that were the trouble. Marleen was not a quick learner. With her pretty head bent over the book, she repeated them endlessly to herself, first with her eyes open and then with them shut. But, back in front of the mirror, her mind would go as blank as when she had started. More than once she had burst into tears at the sheer disappointment of not being able to remember. And because she never liked people to see her when she had been crying she stayed up in her room, and sulked.

Stan, too, was unsettled. The realization of what his decision meant kept coming back to him, and he wondered whether he could go on. He was afraid that at the last moment, he might funk it; simply turn tail and run, or be too embarrassed to focus properly. Then he recalled his own high status as a photographer, and that comforted him. It would be his sheer professionalism that would carry him through. So
long as the lighting was right and the pose appealed to him, it would not make the slightest difference to him whether the girl was dressed or undressed. She was not really a girl at all, he kept telling himself; just a model, as much a model as the subject of
Village Pump
, which had been one of his earlier outstanding successes.

Monday and Tuesday both passed with no word from Mr Karlin and, by Wednesday, Stan was beginning to wonder whether the agency's telephone answering service had broken down. Then, as his morning train drew into Cannon Street, there was Helga standing at the barrier.

She folded up the paper that she had been reading, and came forward.

‘Mr Peets,' she said. ‘You remember me?'

As she smiled, Stan noticed again how white her teeth were. Very small and very white. It was the darkness of the lipstick that showed them up.

Stan held out his hand.

‘It's Helga, isn't it?' He paused. Perhaps he was being over-familiar. ‘I'm afraid I don't know your other name.'

She smiled again.

‘Everyone calls me Helga,' she said. ‘I have no other name.'

Stan glanced up at the station clock for a moment and then checked his watch by it. Helga saw the watch and patted it.

‘You are wearing it. That's good,' she told him. ‘Mr Karlin will be pleased.' Then she gave a little start. ‘Oh, but I make you late. I go along to the Underground with you. I give you my message while walking.'

She had taken his arm as she said it. And, now that she was close beside him, he was aware once more of that strange, rather heady scent that she was wearing.

‘What is the message?' he asked.

Helga's fingers tightened on his arm for a moment.

‘That he will be very happy to see you. Tonight, if you like. If not, tomorrow.'

Stan pretended to be working out the run of his evening engagements.

‘I think I could do tonight. Usual place?'

Helga shook her head.

‘Mr Karlin says he is in the West End all day. He suggests a wine bar. Would the one in Swallow Street be all right? I expect you know
it. Greco's. It is on the corner.'

‘Six o'clock?'

He mentioned six o'clock because that meant that he could get back to Cannon Street in time to catch the seven-two. Then he would be back in time for a meal at eight. Anything later than eight o'clock would cut across Marleen's bedtime. And Beryl more than once had made it quite clear to him that she wasn't going to have office overtime, sessions of the Photographic Club, or rail strikes for that matter, cutting across her little Marleen's precious sleepy time.

Greco's was just the sort of place which Stan would have expected Mr Karlin to frequent. From the moment you stepped inside and saw the long row of polished casks, all with bung-taps and little copper drip buckets under them, you could tell that it had class. It was a sort of elegant ground-floor cellar. Even the barmen in their green baize aprons were dressed up like cellarmen, too.

The only thing that was missing was Mr Karlin. This was a distinct setback. It was getting near to the end of the month and Stan was keeping a tight hold on his personal expenses. After paying for lunch he only had two-and-fourpence left on him. The drinks that the cellar-men were serving all looked the expensive kind, and he didn't want to start sipping something and then find that he couldn't afford to finish it. After looking round, he decided to wait in the doorway.

When he had been waiting for nearly ten minutes he decided to stroll up and down on the pavement outside, as far as Piccadilly in one direction and as far as Regent Street in the other. That was when he saw Helga. She was not hurrying. In fact, she seemed rather to be killing time, going slowly from one shop window to another, sometimes pausing in between for a second look. As soon as she saw Stan she broke into that quick, revealing smile of hers.

‘It is good that I have met you,' she said. ‘Now we can go straight in. They do not serve single ladies. They think that they are tarts.'

‘You don't look like a…' Stan began.

But Helga was already speaking.

‘Poor girls. They cannot help how they look. It is their occupation.'

As they sat down, it occurred to Stan that things were a good deal worse than when he had just come in alone. Then he'd had only himself to pay for. Now he had Helga as well. Helga did not look a soft-drink-or-glass-of-water kind of girl.

It was almost as if she had read his mind.

‘Order whatever you like,' she said. ‘When Mr Karlin comes he will pay.'

It was a glass of hock that Helga ordered and Stan said that he would have the same. Really, he would have preferred a gin-and-tonic or even a half-pint of bitter but Greco's didn't seem to be cut out for that kind of thing.

After the first sip he turned to Helga and put a question to her. The answer had been worrying him for some time.

‘How did you know what train I'd be coming on this morning?' he asked.

Helga's eyes opened wide, and then wider, at so extraordinarily simple a question.

‘Mr Karlin told me. He said it must be either the 8.10 or the 8.19, Otherwise you would be late at your office. Mr Karlin said you were the kind that would never be late.' She gave a little sigh. ‘It is very early to be at a railway station.'

‘Mr Karlin seems to know a lot about me.'

Helga inclined her head.

‘Mr Karlin is very thorough. That is why he is such a good agent.'

Stan raised his glass.

‘Cheers,' he said.

Helga lifted her glass, and chinked it against his.

‘Sold any of my pictures yet?' Stan asked.

Helga put out her hand and rested it on his arm.

‘Not to be impatient,' she told him. ‘Pictures like that are not news. They do not have to appear tomorrow. There is one publisher who is very interested. He is serious. He prints calendars.'

It was six-thirty when Mr Karlin arrived. By then Stan had got to know Helga pretty well, and she had told him her life story. It was lurid; also, in its way, classical. She had become orphaned at the age of three. An aunt had brought her up in Vienna, and been cruel to her. She had run away, penniless. In turn skivvy, waitress, usherette, chorus girl, air hostess, wife, model and divorcée. At the recollection of her past struggles, she had to wipe away a tear. Stan wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her.

They were both on their second glass of hock when Mr Karlin arrived. And it was the authentic Mr Karlin, all right. Large, smiling and good-humoured, he seemed to bring his own envelope of warmth
along with him; and it was large enough to enclose all three of them. Champagne on draught was what he was going to have, he said, and he seemed surprised that the others should have contented themselves with ordinary hock.

Helga let Mr Karlin take his first sip before disturbing him. Then she leant forward and pulled up Stan's sleeve.

‘He's wearing it, you see.'

Mr Karlin nodded in approval.

‘Looks good on him, doesn't it? Got the right sort of wrist for it.' He slid back his cuff to show the duplicate watch on his own wrist. ‘Nice piece of workmanship. I thought you'd like it as soon as you got used to it.'

Stan remembered Cliff's interest in getting hold of the agency for the wrist-watches, and he asked Mr Karlin about it. But it was no use. Mr Karlin merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘Can't remember,' he said. ‘I'm in pictures, not watches. Don't know where they got them. Japanese probably. Most things are these days.'

He lit one of the small Dutch cigars that he was always smoking, and sat back in his chair.

‘Helga found you any nice models yet?'

It was Helga herself who answered the question.

‘We have not talked any business,' she said. ‘We have been speaking other things.'

Mr Karlin seemed disappointed.

‘Can't keep the public waiting,' he told her. ‘When can you fix up something?'

Helga was playing with her glass, twisting the tall stem round and round between her fingers.

‘It is already fixed.'

Despite the hock, Stan felt the inside of his mouth go dry.

‘What is?' he asked.

‘The studio.'

Stan tried to appear casual and unconcerned.

‘When for?'

‘Tomorrow night. Six o'clock. For as long as you like. I have arranged for more than one model. You can make your choice.'

Mr Karlin caught Stan's eye.

‘O.K. by you?'

Stan swallowed hard.

‘O.K.,' he told him.

Mr Karlin was smiling.

‘Don't know what I should do without Helga,' he said.

Stan turned towards her again.

‘Where is it?' he asked.

She opened her bag.

‘I have written it down for you.'

The piece of paper showed the address 27 Cremorne Crescent, Praed Street. Helga had used a thick felt pen to write it down. It was all in large capital letters.

‘I shall be there. To introduce you. They are good friends of mine. You will find them sincere and obliging.'

‘Your first time, isn't it?' It was Mr Karlin who was speaking, and he nodded his head approvingly. ‘Fresh approach. That's what's needed. You've got the artist's touch, you have. I'm looking forward.' He broke off suddenly and thrust his hand into his breast pocket. ‘Mustn't forget this, must we?' he said. This time the bundle of notes wasn't even in an envelope. It simply had a rubber band round it. Mr Karlin thrust it into Stan's hand. ‘Same as before,' he told him. ‘Don't bother to count. It's all there.'

Stan thanked him. He was still playing it cool. Cool and professional.

‘Don't know that I've earned it yet,' he said. ‘Do my best though. Just have to see what it comes out like, won't we?'

As he spoke, he felt his self-confidence returning to him. It was the bundle of notes in his pocket that was doing it. Held in by his ballpoint and his pocket comb, it bulged there right over his heart with the pressure of a reassuring hand.

‘And this, if you don't mind.' Mr Karlin was holding out a piece of paper. ‘Just a receipt,' he said. ‘Not for me. I don't understand money. It's for our auditor. He's the one who's particular.'

Stan disentangled the clip of the ball-point from the bank-notes, and signed.

27 Cremome Crescent turned out to be a perfectly ordinary-looking camera shop set between a newsagent's and a liquor store. Ordinary-looking, that is, in terms of camera shops. Everything on display was marked with a small orange-coloured ticket announcing the amount of the discount. ‘Maker's Price' and ‘Our Price' was how the little notices read, and the difference was sensational. But by no means out of place. The whole of this part of Praed Street and the Edgware Road was crowded with cut-price shops, all apparently bent on their own retail destruction, busily selling record-players, tape recorders, television sets, refrigerators, electric mixers, even complete suites of bedroom furniture, for less than it had cost the wholesaler to supply or the maker to manufacture them. It was a self-contained wasteland of crazy capitalism, a rather sleazy oasis where bad cost-accountancy, over-production and the eventual inevitable bankruptcy had at last all come to rest. The ghost of Karl Marx brooded over the place.