The Walking Stick by Winston Graham
Leigh wrote a legally dictated letter to Lorne asking her to come home, but she didn’t answer. The agency reported her as living a celibate life, but Leigh told them to keep a man on the case.
One day I came home and met a good-looking youngish-middle-aged woman leaving the studio. We just moved to each other as we passed, and when I got in Leigh was looking upset.
‘Dad’s next door neighbour. She’s up here for the day. Says he’s been ill.’
‘Why don’t you go and see him?’
‘I will sometime. But he’s all right again.’
‘Do you ever write?’
‘A couple of times a year, I reckon.’
‘Let’s both go and see him. You never talk about your family.’
‘No . . . wait till we’re married. He’s conventional that way.’
Shopping days to Christmas shortened with the daylight. Weekly we skated. I was good now, went on my own, didn’t fall. Weekly theatre too but little music – except for pop music we couldn’t enjoy the same things. Douglas and Erica asked us up. We went but it wasn’t really a success, though everybody tried.
I took the opportunity of collecting more of my precious china and porcelain. Since meeting Leigh the pieces had come to mean less and less to me; no longer the almost animate comfort they’d once been; but I still prized them, and it was fun to have them all in the studio, arranging them and rearranging them. I explained each one to Leigh, explained why each one was beautiful to me, gave him an idea of its value. We talked about how we would build up a stock in the shop, what it would be good to specialize in.
Christmas came and went. This time last year I’d have peered at myself with incredulity. Different person. Looking back, I now saw that little trappings of invalid-ism had been there – and incipient old-maidism perhaps. These gone. So I could stare both ways. Two or three at Whittington’s remarked on a change. They didn’t know the half.
On New Year’s Eve, which was a Saturday, I took and passed my driving test. This was a surprise and a great thrill. I felt so elated and when Leigh came home for lunch he was just as delighted.
The rest of the day we spent alone. A quiet misty day, with all the river buildings wrapped in cellophane. A hazy sun hung over the river for a few hours and then went out. But no fog when night came; the same cold distant haze, the same brooding quiet. We put on the record player and listened to records until just before midnight, then went on the balcony. At midnight the clocks chimed and bells began to ring in the churches. Then suddenly all the ships in the port of London let off their sirens and fired Very lights into the misty night. It was like another firework display, like a Coronation, a flowering of a great city and then a dying. The quiet air quivered with the wailing, hooting, snoring noise; waves of it came backward and forward across the river, colliding, echoing. Buildings blanched as Verys fell, the cranes flickered against the pink sky. Then as quickly as it began it all stopped. The last of the lights faded, the city sank back into its shadows and the nearer ships fell silent. But away, far away, in Blackwall Reach and Bugsby’s Reach and Woolwich Reach and Gallion’s Reach, the sirens were still sounding like an echo of the first explosion, dying, dying, dying . . .
In the new year Leigh left the job in Percy Street, took another as a clerk in a drawing office in Margaret Street. A pound a week less, but more scope.
Jack Foil. One day at lunch. ‘May I share your table? D’you mind? A trifle crowded,’ he said, overlooking the empty tables. ‘Just come out of Sotheby’s. Fine stuff going this morning but most of it over my head. Or over my pocket – ha-ha. Whittington’s have a dull week all that Victorian furniture. Just a snack, waitress. Just a plate of underdone beef, cut thin, and a salad if it’s fresh. Miss Dainton, you’re not eating. D’you prefer to be alone?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I’ve an envelope for Leigh, thought it would save the postage – ha-ha! – the wife and I were saying only the other day that we don’t see enough of you both.’ Signet rings flashed on furry-dark fingers. ‘That lovely party in November. Such an original idea.’
I looked at the thick white envelope. ‘For Leigh?’
‘Yes. A business matter. But you know about it. Very helpful you’ve been, Miss Dainton.’ His piece of bread had holes in it and he covered those rapidly with butter like someone puttying the cracks. ‘Very helpful. You’ve a very efficient mind, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
I left him in doubt.
‘Your father and mother are very elite sort of people, too – I hadn’t had the pleasure before that evening. We talked about collecting. They don’t believe in it.’
Ruminative silence till his food came. When he cut his meat he held his knife between first finger and thumb, like a pencil.
He said: ‘Is there a private line?’
‘What?’ I looked at him, startled. ‘D’you mean . . . ?’
His eyes wobbled. ‘Yes. You didn’t say.’
‘I haven’t found out. I can’t.’
‘We have to know, you know.’ He sprinkled vinegar on his lettuce and then a touch of sugar. ‘Talk to the guards.’
‘I don’t know them – except just to nod to. I’m usually gone before seven.’
‘Stay on. Exchange a pleasantry or two. A joke. A pretty girl like you.’
I wasn’t eating now but I watched him eating.
‘There’s usually catches, that’s the trouble. Little booby traps, or things of that nature.’ He wiped the outside corners of his eyes. ‘Things the intruder doesn’t know about. Only make one mistake. Who’s in charge of security, d’you know? In the firm, I mean. Who deals with Safeguards?’
‘I don’t know.’ I did know; it was Smith-Williams.
‘Find out, will you?’ The lettuce crackled and a smear of oil ran down from the corner of his mouth. ‘It should be easy. Most people talk easily, love telling things when it’s in confidence. It’s lovely to have a secret and to pass it on. That’s the way the world goes round.’
I said stiffly: ‘Does Leigh know you’re meeting me?’
His eyes were nothing but glass; he was looking down at his plate, disappointed that the thin beef was gone.
‘I’m sure you’ll help us, Miss Dainton. It’s – part of the agreement, isn’t it? I hope it’s not asking too much.’
It is, it is.
‘There’s no efficiency in the world,’ he said. ‘That’s why I admire you. One of the elite ones, you know. You and Leigh, if you can set up in business together.’
I said: ‘Are you the leader in this, Mr Foil? Leigh says there’s someone else but won’t say who.’
‘You must come and see us again.’ He put his knife and fork together on the plate and smiled at me. ‘I’ve some new plants. Interesting. There aren’t any leaders, Miss Dainton. It’s just among friends, as the saying is . . . Don’t forget your envelope!’
Two hundred pounds in ten-pound notes. Sight of them is curiously corrosive. (What you could buy; go into a shop with three or four; not earned; not taxed; free to squander. I’ll have this and this and this; things I’ve always wanted; no, I’ll pay cash.)
‘You must give them back to him,’ I said, ‘so as to pay off part of what you owe him.’
‘No, he doesn’t want it; he’d be insulted. This is a fair payment for what we’ve done, what you’ve done. I’ve done nothing.’
‘But it’s essential to get clear of them, don’t you see?’
‘This isn’t enough. I owe him five hundred. There’s one thing certain: if you’re going to kick clear you don’t try to until you really can. That’s straight common sense, love.’
It was.
‘This mustn’t be squandered, Leigh.’ Lovely to squander, to dress well, to dine at the Savoy, to . . .
‘No, that’s sense too. It should go in a long stocking, so as we’ve made a start saving up for the shop.’
‘It won’t get us far, but—’
‘Well, there’s more to come. Perhaps mu
‘Mr Smith-Williams,’ I said, ‘how do these safety precautions work against burglary? I mean to do with the Safeguards.’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘I was talking to my father last night about the burglary in Hatton Garden. He said he thought Securicor were best.’
‘They’re certainly bigger. We chose Safeguards because they specialize in premises such as ours.’
‘What would happen if we did get broken into? Would they be responsible?’
‘Oh, no, not unless we could prove negligence of some sort. But of course it’s a very black mark against them if their precautions, for which a firm pays a pretty high rate, prove to be ineffective.’
‘There’s an awful lot of inefficiency in the world.’ For some reason I quoted Jack Foil.
‘That’s a very cynical remark! I hope you don’t find it in this firm.’
‘Oh, no.’ Laughing. ‘We’re the exception!’
It isn’t easy. You angle for information but the fish doesn’t bite. And whose side are you on, fundamentally? ‘I can’t get what they want,’ I say to Leigh, ‘they’ll have to find out some other way.’ ‘Do what you can, love. When’s the next big jewel sale?’ ‘The end of February. Does that mean . . . ?’
‘It doesn’t mean a thing. I’m in nobody’s confidence. But that sort of date must be of some importance in their young lives . . . Anyway, forget it. I love you.’
Easy to forget then. I’d thought once, right at the beginning, that first day, if one could only lift away one’s thinking mind, put it on a shelf somewhere for the time being, forget the smart words and the smart answers . . . It was easier now, grew easier every day. Your individuality, nature, tastes changed – not drastically, dramatically, but subtly like a plant moved to new ground and growing in different soil. ‘What did you mean, Leigh, by saying there might be much more for us in this?’ ‘Did I? Well, obviously three hundred more if we all keep our bargain.’ ‘You didn’t speak as if you meant it that way.’
His ways were changing too. His voice was less aggressive, he used expressions I used, swore less, didn’t make so many little slips in grammar. I’d never said anything to him, but he seemed peculiarly apt to take on the colour of his company – and most of his company, I suppose, was me.
To Jack Foil’s again, and after drinks to the Caprice to supper. His wife in an expensive black taffeta frock, very short and deeply V-ed at the back, with a big frill running down the back and round the hem, so that to sit down she had to move it like a bustle. Seen from a distance with the ashy hair she would have passed for twenty-two. The present fashion for very short skirts didn’t suit me. Our conversation tonight would have made Douglas and Erica groan; traffic problems, television, dogs, holidays abroad.
After supper when we went downstairs to the Ladies: ‘Do call me Doreen, won’t you, I feel we’re going to be friends. Jack’s very fond of Leigh . . . Jack’s never had a family – I’m his second wife, you know . . . Oh, I’ve only been married six years; I think maybe one of these days I’ll produce, but it’s a bit of a disappointment, especially with Jack being a family man.’
‘Has he known Leigh long?’
‘Oh, it’s about three years since he first brought him home . . . He did look sweet. Leigh, I mean. Half scared, half ready to fight. He’s changed so much. Does Leigh talk to you much, Miss Dainton? There, but I must call you Deborah, mustn’t I? Jack doesn’t talk to me much, you know. He’s always very sweet, but I sometimes think – oh, but really, I mustn’t say it! . . . Well, I sometimes think he likes me most because I’m an ornament. You know. He’s a collector. He’s always bringing home beautiful things. Not that I think I’m beautiful, mind, but I’m an ornament – or he thinks so. Do you and Leigh talk?’
‘Yes, quite a lot.’
‘You see, Jack doesn’t ever tell me things. I never know what his plans are. He loves bringing me presents and dressing me up and all that, and he’s always so sweet. You know. And you can trust him. Ever since we’ve been married I’ve never seen him look at another woman. He’s sweet. But there’s something brewing now, isn’t there?’
‘Is there?’
She tucked in a wisp of hair with the end of her tail comb. ‘Hasn’t Leigh told you?’
‘We hardly ever discuss Jack. We talk about – oh, music, painting, motorcars . . .’
Our eyes met in the mirror.
She said: ‘Leigh does paint ever so well, doesn’t he. I saw that painting of you that Jack had. Really very good. But you’re lovely, I think. Such colouring.’
I smiled and turned away from her eyes.
‘Are you afraid for Leigh?’
‘Afraid for him?’
‘Oh, you know. When you’re fond of someone you’ – with a tissue she wiped a corner of her mouth – ‘get afraid for them. Or I do. Whenever Jack’s late I always think he’s been run over or something . . . D’you think it’s funny for me to be satisfied with an old man?’
‘I’d never thought. But is he old?’
‘Well, oldish. But I had a young one before. He only had one idea what women were for, and he didn’t know any better. Nor never would. It’s nice to have someone like Jack. Dotes on you. Even though he never talks. Not about important things . . .’
When we got upstairs they were waiting, and Leigh was listening rather deferentially to what Jack Foil had to say.
‘I’m terribly late tonight,’ I said to Maurice Mills. ‘Can I work on a bit? With Mary being away . . .’
‘Yes, I’ll let the guards know. But don’t overdo it. A lot of this new stuff is practically undatable.’
He was right. Some things any expert could identify, but in the last hundred and fifty years an enormous amount of china had been turned out anonymously by good factories which could only be assembled in large general categories. I could have left at seven easily. Last Saturday in that café in Evelyn Street a girl had come across to Leigh; skirt too tight; hair like a meringue. ‘Hi, Leigh, where you been hiding?’ A couple of minutes of uncomfortable talk; he didn’t introduce me; she moved off. I didn’t ask. Two drinks later he said: ‘That girl Sue Jones, trying to butt in, trying to make out she knew me well.’ ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten her.’ ‘No, it was just done to rile me.’ ‘Well, it did, didn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it sure did.’ ‘She certainly looked me up and down. Particularly down.’ ‘That’s clottish. I thought you’d grown out of that feeling.’
A tap at the door. ‘Excuse me, miss, I wondered, as you was still here, whether you’d like a cup of tea?’
‘I’d love one, thank you. Shall I come for it?’
‘No, I’ve got it here just outside.’
Ginger-haired man of fifty. Bad skin, with shaving rash. Square jaw. Square nails not scrubbed. Blue uniform, just like a policeman, heavy truncheon in belt. Safeguard shoulder flash.
‘Sorry if I’m in your way,’ I said. ‘I’m about ready to go.’
‘No, it doesn’t make no difference to us, like. Stay as long as you want. We don’t often have comp’ny so late as this.’
‘What time is it? Good heavens, nearly ten! I’ll go in a moment now.’
Sipping tea. Slightly worse-tasting if anything than the usual office tea. He sipped too.
‘Has your partner got one?’
‘Oh, yes, he’s upstairs; I took him his first.’
‘I suppose one of you always has to stay by the telephone?’
‘Well, that’s the general plan. Not that it matters s’much as all that. It is pretty safe here, y’know, against surprise.’
‘D’you have a private line to your own headquarters, or something like that?’
‘Yes. We ring up every half hour. Give a code word to identify ourselves, see. Tonight’s is . . . Well, last night’s was Lowestoft. If they don’t get it – if they don’t get it every quarter and three-quarter hour they know there’s trouble and come round in force.’
‘That’s terribly ingenious . .
‘Oh, well, they’re not so eager to turn out in the night as all that! They give us five minutes’ grace.’
Tea finished. Pretending a little left. Stirring the dregs. He was looking at the china.
‘Lovely stuff you get in here. I said to the wife this week, I said, it’s a good job you can’t see all I see of a night or you’d be discontented for the rest of your life! It’s true as true.’
He looked like a retired Army sergeant. A fair pension, but this extra would make all the difference. Tough and not easily frightened. Jack Foil and his friends had better try some easier meat.
Suddenly he said: ‘Oh, I’d best be going. It’s quarter past, and I have to clock in at ten-twenty on the first floor.’
‘Clock in?’
‘We’ve three clocks in the place, you know, miss. We do ’em each by the hour, one every twenty minutes. If we let ’em overrun they set off the alarms.’
‘Isn’t that clever!’
‘Well, it’s a good system. Let us know, will you, when you’re thinking of going. We wouldn’t want you to try and unbolt the doors by mistake!’
‘I’ll go now. If you’ll – er – clock in and come down again, I’ll get my coat.’
I said: ‘They’ll never break in, not in this world. When you were saying how careless Whittington’s were, I thought, I expect they’re not really careless at all!’
‘You sound pleased.’
‘I am. Oh, I am. Relieved anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Doesn’t it stand to common sense? Now your friends can try somewhere else, where I can’t help them!’
‘They may not want to.’
‘What choice have they?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘It seems to me, Leigh, that this is the perfect answer. No one can say I haven’t done my part.’
‘They certainly can’t.’ He was silent a minute. ‘There may be a way round all this, see. I don’t know. We’ll have to consider it.’