The Complete Short Stories Part 24

One day at the lunch hour he looks at her and smiles. She is there, too, in the evening with only four other people plus the attendant for the elevator. He takes the plunge. Would she be free for dinner one night? Thursday? Friday?

They have made a date. They eat in a Polish restaurant where the clients are served by waitresses with long hair even blonder and probably more natural than Doreen's.

How long does it take for floating myths and suppositions to form themselves into the separate still digits of reality? Sometimes it is as quick or as slow, according to luck, as fixing the television screen when it has gone haywire. Those stripes and cloudscapes are suddenly furniture and people.

He is employed by one of the law firms up there on the twenty-first, his speciality is marine insurance claims. Doreen, as she is called, remarks that it must be a great responsibility. He realizes she is intelligent even before Doreen Bridges (her full name) tells him she works for W. H. Gilbert, ('Bill'), an independent literary agent, and that she has recently discovered an absolutely brilliant new author called Dak Jan whose forthcoming first novel she has great hopes for. Michael Pivet lives in a bachelor apartment; she shares rooms with another girl in another part of the city.

And the curious thing is, that all the notions and possibilities that have gone through their minds for the past five weeks or more are totally forgotten by both of them. In the fullness of the plain real facts their speculations disappear into immaterial nothingness, never once to be remembered in the course of their future life together.

You Should Have Seen the Mess I am now more than glad that I did not pa.s.s into the grammar school five years ago, although it was a disappointment at the time. I was always good at English, but not so good at the other subjects!!

I am glad that I went to the Secondary Modern School, because it was only constructed the year before. Therefore, it was much more hygienic than the Grammar School. The Secondary Modern was light and airy, and the walls were painted with a bright, washable, gloss. One day, I was sent over to the Grammar School, with a note for one of the teachers, and you should have seen the mess! The corridors were dusty, and I saw dust on the window ledges, which were chipped. I saw into one of the cla.s.srooms. It was very untidy in there.

I am also glad that I did not go to the Grammar School, because of what it does to one's habits. This may appear to be a strange remark, at first sight. It is a good thing to have an education behind you, and I do not believe in ignorance, but I have had certain experiences, with educated people, since going out into the world.

I am seventeen years of age, and left school two years ago last month. I had my A certificate for typing, so got my first job, as a junior, in a solicitor's office. Mum was pleased at this, and Dad said it was a first-cla.s.s start, as it was an old-established firm. I must say that when I went for the interview I was surprised at the windows, and the stairs up to the offices were also far from clean. There was a little waiting-room, where some of the elements were missing from the gas fire, and the carpet on the floor was worn. However, Mr Heygate's office, into which I was shown for the interview, was better. The furniture was old, but it was polished, and there was a good carpet, I will say that. The gla.s.s of the bookcase was very clean.

I was to start on the Monday, so along I went. They took me to the general office, where there were two senior shorthand typists, and a clerk, Mr Gresham, who was far from smart in appearance. You should have seen the mess!! There was no floor covering whatsoever, and so dusty everywhere. There were shelves all round the room, with old box files on them. The box files were falling to pieces, and all the old papers inside them were crumpled. The worst shock of all was the tea-cups. It was my duty to make tea, mornings and afternoons. Miss Bewlay showed me where everything was kept. It was kept in an old orange box, and the cups were all cracked. There were not enough saucers to go round, etc. I will not go into the facilities, but they were also far from hygienic. After three days, I told Mum, and she was upset, most of all about the cracked cups. We never keep a cracked cup, but throw it out, because those cracks can harbour germs. So Mum gave me my own cup to take to the office.

Then at the end of the week, when I got my salary, Mr Heygate said, 'Well, Lorna, what are you going to do with your first pay?' I did not like him saying this, and I nearly pa.s.sed a comment, but I said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'What do you do in the evenings, Lorna? Do you watch telly?' I did take this as an insult, because we call it TV, and his remark made me out to be uneducated. I just stood, and did not answer, and he looked surprised. Next day, Sat.u.r.day, I told Mum and Dad about the facilities, and we decided I should not go back to that job. Also, the desks in the general office were rickety. Dad was indignant, because Mr Heygate's concern was flouris.h.i.+ng, and he had letters after his name.

Everyone admires our flat, because Mum keeps it spotless, and Dad keeps doing things to it. He has done it up all over, and got permission from the Council to re-modernize the kitchen. I well recall the Health Visitor remarking to Mum, 'You could eat off your floor, Mrs Merrifield.' It is true that you could eat your lunch off Mum's floors, and any hour of the day or night you will find every corner spick and span.

Next, I was sent by the agency to a publisher's for an interview, because of being good at English. One look was enough!! My next interview was a success, and I am still at Low's Chemical Co. It is a modern block, with a quarter of an hour rest period, morning and afternoon. Mr Marwood is very smart in appearance. He is well spoken, although he has not got a university education behind him. There is special lighting over the desks, and the typewriters are the latest models.

So I am happy at Low's. But I have met other people, of an educated type, in the past year, and it has opened my eyes. It so happened that I had to go to the doctor's house, to fetch a prescription for my young brother, Trevor, when the epidemic was on. I rang the bell, and Mrs Darby came to the door. She was small, with fair hair, but too long, and a green maternity dress. But she was very nice to me. I had to wait in their living-room, and you should have seen the state it was in! There were broken toys on the carpet, and the ashtrays were full up. There were contemporary pictures on the walls, but the furniture was not contemporary, but old-fas.h.i.+oned, with covers which were past standing up to another wash, I should say. To cut a long story short, Dr Darby and Mrs Darby have always been very kind to me, and they meant everything for the best. Dr Darby is also short and fair, and they have three children, a girl and a boy, and now a baby boy.

When I went that day for the prescription, Dr Darby said to me, 'You look pale, Lorna. It's the London atmosphere. Come on a picnic with us, in the car, on Sat.u.r.day.' After that I went with the Darbys more and more. I liked them, but I did not like the mess, and it was a surprise. But I also kept in with them for the opportunity of meeting people, and Mum and Dad were pleased that I had made nice friends. So I did not say anything about the cracked limo, and the paintwork all chipped. The children's clothes were very shabby for a doctor, and she changed them out of their school clothes when they came home from school, into those worn-out garments. Mum always kept us spotless to go out to play, and I do not like to say it, but those Darby children frequently looked like the Leary family, which the Council evicted from our block, as they were far from houseproud.

One day, when I was there, Mavis (as I called Mrs Darby by then) put her head out of the window, and shouted to the boy, 'John, stop peeing over the cabbages at once. Pee on the lawn.' I did not know which way to look. Mum would never say a word like that from the window, and I know for a fact that Trevor would never pa.s.s water outside, not even bathing in the sea.

I went there usually at the weekends, but sometimes on weekdays, after supper. They had an idea to make a match for me with a chemist's a.s.sistant, whom they had taken up too. He was an orphan, and I do not say there was anything wrong with that. But he was not accustomed to those little extras that I was. He was a good-looking boy, I will say that. So I went once to a dance, and twice to films with him. To look at, he was quite clean in appearance. But there was only hot water at the weekend at his place, and he said that a bath once a week was sufficient. Jim (as I called Dr Darby by then) said it was sufficient also, and surprised me. He did not have much money, and I do not hold that against him. But there was no hurry for me, and I could wait for a man in a better position, so that I would not miss those little extras. So he started going out with a girl from the coffee bar, and did not come to the Darbys very much then.

There were plenty of boys at the office, but I will say this for the Darbys, they had lots of friends coming and going, and they had interesting conversation, although sometimes it gave me a surprise, and I did not know where to look. And sometimes they had people who were very down and out, although there is no need to be. But most of the guests were different, so it made a comparison with the boys at the office, who were not so educated in their conversation.

Now it was near the time for Mavis to have her baby, and I was to come in at the weekend, to keep an eye on the children, while the help had her day off. Mavis did not go away to have her baby, but would have it at home, in their double bed, as they did not have twin beds, although he was a doctor. A girl I knew, in our block, was engaged, but was let down, and even she had her baby in the labour ward. I was sure the bedroom was not hygienic for having a baby, but I did not mention it.

One day, after the baby boy came along, they took me in the car to the country, to see Jim's mother. The baby was put in a carry-cot at the back of the car. He began to cry, and without a word of a lie, Jim said to him over his shoulder, 'Oh shut your gob, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' I did not know what to do, and Mavis was smoking a cigarette. Dad would not dream of saying such a thing to Trevor or I. When we arrived at Jim's mother's place, Jim said, 'It's a fourteenth-century cottage, Lorna.' I could well believe it. It was very cracked and old, and it made one wonder how Jim could let his old mother live in this tumble-down cottage, as he was so good to everyone else. So Mavis knocked at the door, and the old lady came. There was not much anyone could do to the inside. Mavis said, 'Isn't it charming, Lorna?' If that was a joke, it was going too far. I said to the old Mrs Darby, 'Are you going to be re-housed?' but she did not understand this, and I explained how you have to apply to the Council, and keep at them. But it was funny that the Council had not done something already, when they go round condemning. Then old Mrs Darby said, 'My dear, I shall be re-housed in the Grave.' I did not know where to look.

There was a carpet hanging on the wall, which I think was there to hide a damp spot. She had a good TV set, I will say that. But some of the walls were bare brick, and the facilities were outside, through the garden. The furniture was far from new.

One Sat.u.r.day afternoon, as I happened to go to the Darbys, they were just going off to a film and they took me too. It was the Curzon, and afterwards we went to a flat in Curzon Street. It was a very clean block, I will say that, and there were good carpets at the entrance. The couple there had contemporary furniture, and they also spoke about music. It was a nice place, but there was no Welfare Centre to the flats, where people could go for social intercourse, advice and guidance. But they were well-spoken, and I met w.i.l.l.y Morley, who was an artist. w.i.l.l.y sat beside me, and we had a drink. He was young, dark, with a dark s.h.i.+rt, so one could not see right away if he was clean. Soon after this, Jim said to me, 'w.i.l.l.y wants to paint you, Lorna. But you'd better ask your Mum.' Mum said it was all right if he was a friend of the Darbys.

I can honestly say that w.i.l.l.y's place was the most unhygienic place I have seen in my life. He said I had an unusual type of beauty, which he must capture. This was when we came back to his place from the restaurant. The light was very dim, but I could see the bed had not been made, and the sheets were far from clean. He said he must paint me, but I told Mavis I did not like to go back there. 'Don't you like w.i.l.l.y?' she asked. I could not deny that I liked w.i.l.l.y, in a way. There was something about him, I will say that. Mavis said, 'I hope he hasn't been making a pa.s.s at you, Lorna.' I said he had not done so, which was almost true, because he did not attempt to go to the full extent. It was always unhygienic when I went to w.i.l.l.y's place, and I told him so once, but he said, 'Lorna, you are a joy.' He had a nice way, and he took me out in his car, which was a good one, but dirty inside, like his place. Jim said one day, 'He has pots of money, Lorna,' and Mavis said, 'You might make a man of him, as he is keen on you.' They always said w.i.l.l.y came from a good family.

But I saw that one could not do anything with him. He would not change his s.h.i.+rt very often, or get clothes, but he went round like a tramp, lending people money, as I have seen with my own eyes. His place was in a terrible mess, with the empty bottles, and laundry in the corner. He gave me several gifts over the period, which I took as he would have only given them away, but he never tried to go to the full extent. He never painted my portrait, as he was painting fruit on a table all that time, and they said his pictures were marvellous, and thought w.i.l.l.y and I were getting married.

One night, when I went home, I was upset as usual, after w.i.l.l.y's place. Mum and Dad had gone to bed, and I looked round our kitchen which is done in primrose and white. Then I went into the living-room, where Dad has done one wall in a patterned paper, deep rose and white, and the other walls pale rose, with white woodwork. The suite is new, and Mum keeps everything beautiful. So it came to me, all of a sudden, what a fool I was, going with w.i.l.l.y. I agree to equality, but as to me marrying w.i.l.l.y, as I said to Mavis, when I recall his place, and the good carpet gone greasy, not to mention the paint oozing out of the tubes, I think it would break my heart to sink so low.

Quest for Lavishes Ghast Lavishes ghast! - this phrase haunted me for years. When I first came to London I worked for a man who was always losing his papers. Hours I would spend, looking for those bits of paper, until suddenly he would say, 'Lavishes ghast.' After a while I got used to this man. Northerner though I was, and with only the short 'a' of lavishes and the long 'a' of ghast to work on, I came to understand that lavishes ghast stood for 'I have it at last.' And in spite of his habit of talking hand-over-fist and disdaining consonants, it became possible for me to decode an irrelevant statement like 'Clot on the brain' into the relevant 'Lost it again!'

I have kept coming across people like him. As a rule I have managed to fill in the missing letters and guess the whole. As a rule; but lavishes ghast remains an exception. In the same way that the yellowhammer chirps continually, 'A little piece of bread and no cheese,' and the cuckoo croaks nothing but 'cuckoo,' so, I swear, does everyone at the usual crowded party say 'lavishes ghast' all the time.

At the beginning of my quest I was quite unnerved by it. The phrase meant something different each time, but plainly it stemmed from a general, perhaps mystical meaning. Lavishes was so substantial and ghast so evanescent; all the anxious ingredients of Pavlov's nasty practical jokes were there in essence. Were people talking of radishes vast? Did they hang from the mast? Once I met a soldier in the train who was trying to dodge the military police. 'They'll ask me to lavishes ghast and I lavishes ghast, can't be done,' he explained through his teeth. With due cunning I inquired, 'Why not?' The question goaded him to articulate speech. 'How,' he demanded, 'can I hand 'em me pa.s.s if I haven't a pa.s.s?' And a girl I knew told me, 'I lavishes ghast to marry him.' Ungenerously, I took this to mean she hadn't been asked, but it turned out she hadn't the heart. I recall, too, a visit to the country... a rabbit in the gra.s.s... 'Yes, he does look happy at his task,' I said to my host, who had seemed to point at a ploughman as he spoke.

There was also the earlier and more deranging occasion when I stayed overnight with a friend's mother. At breakfast she was reading a letter from her son. She put down the letter, and, gazing wistfully at a bowl of flowers, murmured, 'Lavishes ghast, don't you think?' Well, of course I thought Anthony was fast. I could have told her a lot about Anthony, but after all, she was the mother, so I said, 'Oh, not really!' She paused, and, keeping her eye still on the flowers, repeated firmly, 'Well, my dear, I think they are ravis.h.i.+ng flaahers.'

I entered the obsessional phase. L. G. became meaningful, threatening. I began to suspect that it was a person. I didn't want to meet Mrs Ghast, for at the time I decided it must be a woman, a widow, formerly married to a Mr Ghast who was seen only once with his wife, on a desolate cliff top in the Orkneys or Land's End, before he disappeared. Mrs Ghast would be very lavish at first. She would be ever so hospitable, to start with. At times I speculated whether Ghast might be a thing, a powerful magnetic mineral to which I alone was allergic. But pondering the question at the dead of night, I felt sure again it was a person.

The situation had reached Gothic proportions. I decided to pursue the monster, hunt it down before it hunted me, and thus I came to do so. I took to frequenting the sort of place which is not my sort of place at all: cosy tea shops in Hampstead, Kensington, and even Ealing, with names like Araminta's Kettle or The Ginger Jug. Here, in these Jugs and Kettles, lavishes ghast flourishes most. And it rages most between the afternoon hours of four and five-thirty. My plan was simple: all I had to do was sit and listen, take notes of everything I heard by way of lavishes, do it into English and, when my collection reached a decent size, extract the common factors of sense. In this way I would locate lavishes ghast, its origin, nature, nationality of parents and present address.

The first afternoon, this seemed easy. I fixed on a mother and daughter having tea. 'They're very lavish here,' said the mother, beaming on the cakes as the daughter replied, 'But the tea's ghastly.' I took this to be a good omen. But within a few days sinister complications like 'lavishes ghast lavishes' began to set in. A creature comprising Alex's car, aspects of art, anarchist bard, amorous chars, hand on my heart, Battersea Park, ma.s.ses of stars, pa.s.sion aha! remained beyond my comprehension.

My last tea shop was ominously called The African Palm by virtue of a large tough fern in the window. I chose a table next to a young couple who were conversing audibly.

'What was the lavishes ghast on lavishes ghast like?' rattled the girl.

'No, thanks,' said the youth, 'I'll have a bun.'

The girl looked cross. He had obviously misunderstood her, had this likable young man. She repeated her question. Practice had given me a flair for rapid decoding: 'What was the Charity Dance on Sat.u.r.day last like?'

'Ghast!' he replied. 'Lavishes!'

'I only went to please my mother,' he added obligingly, from which I deduced that the dance had been ghastly and shattering. I now craned eagerly. The girl gave utterance again ... She meant, surely, 'Harriet's mannerly ma's having a bath at last.' No doubt Harriet's ma lived in a boarding-house where there was so little hot water, and she so mannerly, that she had always sacrificed her bath to the other residents.

But the young man was apparently a little deaf. The girl had to repeat her piece of information over and over. The arrogant heart of the guard carried him far too far ... Tragic that happy young Mark fancies his chance at art ... If the tea shop had been an opium den the nightmare quality of the afternoon could not have been improved upon. 'Lavishes lavishes ghast lavishes ghast ghast,' the girl insisted. I really believed I had it then: 'Sad that a man like Papa had to depart fast.' This was obviously connected with the charity dance. An emerald bracelet had been missed. Papa, who was present, was also, later, missed. I could see Papa, small and round, skipping on to the plane - no, the Golden Arrow at Victoria Station. Papa, feeling for the bulge in his breast pocket, dressed so businesslike, but emanating such a sublime... Ma was prostrate. His firm were already going into the accounts. Sad that a man like Papa...

But who was Lavishes Ghast? Could it be that Papa...

At that moment someone entered the shop. The girl at the table looked up. Pamela!' she called out. 'Halo, Pamela,' said the young man, we were just talking about you.' Well, it had all been about Pamela and, for all I knew, her angular charms. As it happened I knew this Pamela. She came and spoke to me, then introduced me to her friends, and we stuck together for the evening.

We went to a pub and then to another. Then we went to a pub that served those watery meals comprising something with two vegetables, and decided we were hungry enough to take it. Two men sat at the table nearest ours. As the larger man ordered a rum with his supper, I noticed his voice above the hubbub from the bar, oiled and purring, like a cat of Rolls Royce make. He wore a broad ring studded with onyx, and although his clothes were dark, he looked profuse, his face, fruitlike above the white leaves of his collar, glowing with higher and richer thoughts. He said nothing to his companion who, poor thing, seemed distressed; this man, nervous and haggard, made repeated movements with his throat, as though swallowing down some dreadful sorrow.

The landlord approached the pair. 'How's business?' he said with a more-than-hearty laugh. The large man seemed delighted by the question. 'Lavishes ghast!' he proclaimed with a deep ripple of wheel-borne laughter. His friend closed his eyelids and softly ordered a beer.

The waitress came along with our plates splas.h.i.+ng over each other. She set them down and said, jerking her head to indicate the two men, 'Did you hear that? I don't call that a joke. Very bad taste.' She explained that the men worked in the funeral parlour around the corner, and that it was the landlord's indelicate habit to inquire how business was, and the big fellow's habit to reply, 'Absolutely marvellous.'

Suddenly I saw the whole thing quite clearly and the weight lifted for ever: this was Mr Lavishes and that was the unfortunate Mr Ghast. My friends were smiling at the landlord's joke, and I, secure in my private enlightenment, smiled too, and continued to work out the simple details. The partners had begun as Lavishes, Ghast & Co., now known generally as Lavishes Ghast, Undertakers. Mr Lavishes preferred to deal with the bereaved relatives, leaving Mr Ghast to see to the actual body.

Lavishes Ghast. I like to think of Mr Lavishes and Mr Ghast performing, each in his own way, their selfless functions, so necessary to all. I feel it is rather touching, and only right, that when we gather together at parties we should pa.s.s those hours, as we do, in fervent acclamation of the Lavishes Ghast combine. In their way they are as much the backbone of the country as is the Housewife or the Coldstream Guard. And it is a memory to be cherished, that evening at the pub, when they settled to their late-s.n.a.t.c.hed supper, in a silence of mutual understanding, interrupted only when shrunken Mr Ghast looked up from his plate, and having brokenly uttered the national phrase to which he had contributed his name, swallowed a mouthful of cabbage, alas.

The Young Man Who Discovered the Secret of Life The main fact was, he was haunted by a ghost about five feet high when unfurled and standing upright. For the ghost unfurled itself from the top drawer of a piece of furniture that stood in the young man's bed-sitting room every night, or failing that, every morning. The young man was a plasterer's apprentice, or so he claimed.

But I have been told on good authority that this is absolutely absurd. There is no such thing: plasterers do not have apprentices. Ben, as the young man was called, was very concerned when I wrote to point this out. He decidedly preferred to change his status to that of 'bricklayer's' or, better still, 'kerblayer's apprentice', even though this meant putting himself in an unemployed category while doing a bit of plastering on the side to make a weekly wage of sorts.

I myself had only heard of Ben through correspondence, for he had written to me a most unusual letter, care of my publisher. In it, the then 'plasterer's apprentice' told about the visitations of the ghost. Normally, I would have torn up the letter; I only replied to him because one of his statements contained the challenging one that through his ghost Ben had discovered, or was by way of discovering 'the secret of life'. In my reply I was cautious about the 'apparition', as I called his ghost, but I more definitely pointed out that 'the secret of life' was most likely to mean the secret of his own personal life, not life in general. The lives of people hold many secrets, I emphasized. There was possibly no one 'secret' applying to us all. So, anyway, I wished him luck, and mailed off the letter. Goodbye.

But no, it wasn't goodbye, as I might have foreseen. It was true that I didn't write to him for some time, but he continued to write letters to me in some inexplicable need that he felt to express his odd experiences, real or imagined as the case might be.

According to Ben's letters to me, his greatest problem with the ghost was now blackmail and jealousy, for the ghost was truly jealous of Ben's girlfriend.

'I can haunt whoever and wherever I wish,' the ghost told Ben. 'It is easy for me to inform the whole of your acquaintance that you are only a plasterer looking for a steady job, and as for being a kerblayer or even a bricklayer, that is far from the truth.'

'Please yourself who you haunt,' said Ben. 'I am totally indifferent. The fact remains that I am a kerblayer at heart, whatever the nature of the temporary job as plasterer, etc., etc., that I am economically forced to accept from time to time.

'And what is "etc., etc."?' said the ghost nastily. 'Do you mind explaining?'

'Curl up and return to your drawer,' Ben bade him. 'And mind you don't crush my pyjamas.'

'Your pyjamas,' said the ghost, 'have no place in the top drawer where I come from. They are not pure silk, they are Marks & Spencer's.'

Ben was secretly very anxious lest it should be known he was not a kerblayer after all. But he was a brave fellow. 'Get back to your place or else,' he said.

The ghost curled up again, murmuring, 'At least you admit that I have a right to be here. As it happens I know what is going to win the three-thirty tomorrow. It is Bartender's Best.'

True enough that horse won the race and Ben was furious with himself for failing to take the tip, for he liked to play the horses when he had some money.

'Any more tips?' he asked the ghost that night.

'I thought you would ask that question,' said the ghost. 'But as you know, your girlfriend doesn't like betting. If you give her up I'll tell no one your secret and I'll give you good racing tips.

'Do you know what?' said Ben. 'You are getting on my nerves. You are the result of stale air, neither more nor less. Stale air becomes radioactive. It becomes luminous. If I open the window you will gradually disappear.

'Not me,' said the ghost. 'Not me, I won't.'

'I can't think of any more mindless occupation than to be a ghost in that post-mortem way you have in coming and going. So very unnecessary. I could have you psychoa.n.a.lysed away.'

Enter the story Genevieve, young and fair, a designer of scarecrows, Ben's girlfriend: Ben was convinced that her occupational status, the only type of status that apparently he knew, was beneath his, particularly now that he had become 'Profession: kerblayer's apprentice'. The pa.s.sion with which the ghost despised Genevieve could only be matched by Ben's genuine and desperate love for her. In the meantime the ghost continued to unfurl its five feet and to give Ben advice like 'psychoa.n.a.lyse your crazy pavements.

'The ghost is a terrible sn.o.b,' Ben wrote. 'He makes me feel great and terrible -'

In fact, Ben changed his patronizing att.i.tude towards the girl only after Genevieve borrowed his sun-hat, his jeans and one of his s.h.i.+rts to make up one of her scarecrows. She painted a turnip in the likeness of Ben's face. When she had set up this scarecrow in a field everyone knew that it was modelled on Ben. Everyone smiled. The terrible sn.o.b ghost came to report this to Ben, adding that a cow's milk had already been turned by the scarecrow.

On the previous day Ben had won twenty-four pounds on a horse, quite on his own hunch. So he skipped his usual visit to the job centre and took a bus out of town to the field where Genevieve's handiwork was flapping. Two cars had drawn up by the side of the road, and the occupants were admiring the work of art, as one of them called it. 'It's the image of a young builder's mate who once worked on my property,' she said.

So instead of taking the effigy amiss Ben was full of admiration for Genevieve. He rang her up and made her fix a date for their marriage, never mind that he was at present out of work.

The ghost unfurled himself again that night, but when he heard of Ben's proposal to Genevieve, he returned to the top drawer from whence he came, curled up and disappeared. 'This quenching of the ghost,' Ben wrote, 'is to me the secret of life.' He said 'quenching' for he felt the ghost had been thirsty for his soul, and had in fact drunk his fill.

Ben never again won on the horses, although he became a master-bricklayer, a prosperous man, specializing in crazy-paving.

Daisy Overend It is hardly ever that I think of her, but sometimes, if I happen to pa.s.s Clarges Street or Albemarle Street on a sunny afternoon, she comes to mind. Or if, in a little crowd waiting to cross the road, I hear behind me two women meet, and the one exclaim: 'Darling!' (or 'Bobbie!' or 'Goo!') and the other answer: 'Goo!' (or 'Billie!' or 'Bobbie!' or 'Darling!') - if I hear these words, spoken in a certain trill which betokens the period 1920-29, I know that I have by chance entered the world of Daisy Overend, Bruton Street, W1.

Ideally, these Bobbies and Darlings are sheathed in short frocks, the hems of which dangle about their knees like seaweed, the waistlines of which encircle their hips, loose and effortless, following the droop of shoulder and mouth. Ideally, the whole is upheld by a pair of s.h.i.+ny silk stockings of a bright hue known as, but not resembling, a peach.

But in reality it is only by the voice you can tell them. The voice harks back to days bright and young and unredeemable whence the involuntary echoes arise - Billie!... Goo!... heavenly!... divine! like the motto and crest which adorn the letter paper of a family whose silver is p.a.w.ned and forgotten.

Daisy Overend, small, imperious, smart, was to my mind the flower and consummation of her kind, and this is not to discount the male of the species Daisy Overend, with his wee face, blue eyes, bad teeth and nerves. But if you have met Mrs Overend, you have as good as met him too, he is so unlike her, and yet so much her kind.

I met her, myself, in the prodigious and lovely summer of 1947. Very charming she was. A tubular skirt clung to her hips, a tiny cap to her hair, and her hair clung, bronzed and s.h.i.+ngled, to her head, like the cup of a toy egg of which her face was the other half. Her face was a mere lobe. Her eyes were considered to be expressive and they expressed avarice in various forms; the pupils were round and watchful. Mrs Overend engaged me for three weeks to help her with some committee work. As you will see, we parted in three days.

I found that literature and politics took up most of Daisy's days and many of her nights. She wrote a regular column in a small political paper and she belonged to all the literary societies. Thus, it was the literature of politics and the politics of literature which occupied Daisy, and thus she bamboozled many politicians who thought she was a writer, and writers who believed her to be a political theorist. But these activities failed to satisfy, that is to say, intoxicate her.

Now, she did not drink. I saw her sipping barley water while her guests drank her gin. But Daisy had danced the Charleston in her youth with a royal prince, and of this she a.s.sured me several times, speaking with swift greed while an alcoholic look came over her.

'Those times were divine,' she boozily concluded, 'they were ripping.' And I realized she was quite drunk with the idea. Normally as precise as a bird, she reached out blunderingly for the cigarettes, knocking the whole lot over. Literature and politics failed to affect her in this way, though she sat on many committees. Therefore she had taken - it is her expression - two lovers: one an expert, as she put it, on politics, and the other a poet.

The political expert, Lotti, was a fair Central European, an exiled man. The skin of his upper lip was drawn taut across his top jaw; this gave Lotti the appearance, together with his high cheekbones, of having had his face lifted. But it was not so; it was a natural defect which made his smile look like a baring of the teeth. He was perhaps the best of the lot that I met at Daisy Overend's.

Lotti could name each member of every Western Cabinet which had sat since the Treaty of Versailles. Daisy found this invaluable for her monthly column. Never did Lotti speak of these men but with contempt. He was a member of three shadow cabinets.

On the Sunday which, as it turned out, was my last day with Daisy, she laid aside her library book and said to Lotti: 'I'm bored with Cronin.

Lotti, to whom all statesmen were as the ash he was just then flicking to the floor, looked at her all amazed.

'Daisy, mei gurl, you crazy?' he said.

'A Cronin!' he said, handing me an armful of air to convey the full extent of his derision. 'She is bored with a Cronin.'

At that moment, Daisy's vexed misunderstood expression reminded me that her other lover, the poet Tom Pfeffer, had brought the same look to her face two days before. When, rus.h.i.+ng into the flat as was her wont, she said, gasping, to Tom, 'Things have been happening in the House.' - Tom, who was reading the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, looked up. 'Nothing's been happening in the house,' he a.s.sured her.

Tom Pfeffer is dead now. Mrs Overend told me the story of how she rescued him from lunacy, and I think Tom believed this. It is true she had prevented his being taken to a mental home for treatment.

The time came when Tom wanted, on an autumn morning, a ticket to Burton-on-Trent to visit a friend, and he wanted this more than he wanted a room in Mrs Overend's flat and regular meals. In his own interests she refused, obliterating the last traces of insurrection by giving Lotti six pound notes, clean from the bank, in front of Tom.

How jealous Tom Pfeffer was of Lotti, how indifferent was Lotti to him! But on this last day that I spent with Mrs Overend, the poet was fairly calm, although there were signs of the awful neurotic dance of his facial muscles which were later to distort him utterly before he died insane.

Daisy was preparing for a party, the reason for my presence on a Sunday, and for the arrival at five o'clock of her secretary Miss Rilke, a displaced European, got cheap. When anyone said to Daisy 'Is she related to the poet Rilke?' Daisy replied, 'Oh, I should think so,' indignant almost, that it should be doubted.

'Be an angel,' said Daisy to Miss Rilke when she arrived, 'run down to the cafe and get me two packets of twenty. Is it still raining? How priceless the weather is. Take my awning.'

'Awning?'

'Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella,' said Daisy, jabbing her finger at it fractiously.

Like ping-pong, Miss Rilke's glance met Lotti's, and Lotti's hers. She took the umbrella and went.

'What are you looking at?' Daisy said quickly to Lotti.

'Nothing,' said Tom Pfeffer, thinking he was being addressed and looking up from his book.

'Not you,' said Daisy.

'Do you mean me?' I said.

'No,' she said, and kept her peace.

Miss Rilke returned to say that the shop would give Mrs Overend no more credit.