The Walking Stick

  ‘The judge did plenty of that,’ Virginia said. ‘Thirty years was a bit thick, I must say. That’s where I do feel the law goes wrong.’

  Leigh smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.

  Philip said: ‘People said at the time that the sentences were a psychological mistake, but I doubt it—’

  ‘You think they were just?’

  ‘They’re still open to revision; you have to remember that. But people in the know thought the judge was right.’

  ‘Why?’ said Leigh. ‘This is just what I’m talking about. Why?’

  ‘Because crime at this moment in our history has to be seen not to pay. We’re on a knife-edge in this country at the moment. You may think I’m talking like this because of my father, what he is; but it isn’t just that.’

  Leigh put a lump of half-melted sugar in his mouth with his coffee spoon. ‘You have to admit, though, the really clever men were not all that bad. They’re too smart to be; it doesn’t pay them—’

  Philip said: ‘Until about fifteen years ago there wasn’t any organized crime in this country. Not really organized, planned, financed, run as a business. So it was easy to deal with. The police dealt with it. A few criminals got away but most got caught. It wasn’t a serious problem, a problem that could get out of hand. But now it can. And it’s on the verge of doing just that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The sex criminal, the man who knocks an old woman down for her handbag – all that – they’re just individuals – maybe worse as individuals but not a danger to the community as a whole. But in the last five years in this country we’ve come up against the real thing – which is the menace of big business. When big money comes in – finance – where crime is on the verge of becoming respectable, as it has done in the United States, then look out. This is the terrifying danger. How was that great train robbery financed? Perhaps from the London Airport robbery of the year before. In any event, there was whacks of money behind it. And where there’s money there’s danger. We’ve always reckoned that about 90 per cent of all people in this country are honest. That’s to say, if someone offered them a bribe of £10 – or perhaps even £100 – they’d refuse to listen. But what if the bribe were increased to £1000 or even £10,000? How many people are honest then? And even if they want to be honest, there’s all the other pressures that can be applied. Once crime becomes big business, run by apparently respectable people for respectable people, there’s no end. You see, you see . . .’ Philip leaned forward. ‘Jock Bingham here, is going to be a solicitor. He’ll do well for himself, I’m sure, as most of them do. But if there’s enough money, enough lawyers will be corrupted to defend shady clients on knowingly false evidence. If that becomes the case, then it becomes really much easier to teach the shady clients how not to get caught, than bothering to have to fake up the evidence to defend them. Then some of the police can be bought. Who knows that judges – a few judges – can’t be bought, if the price is big enough? This is the beginning of the corruption of all civil life. It’s been proved so in the United States – thanks chiefly to the mistake of prohibition. Once the corruption is there it’s the devil’s own job to uproot. That’s why the handbag snatcher is not so important, and that’s why our laws are not so wrongly slanted as you think, Leigh.’

  There was silence for a bit. Leigh had refused a liqueur – he was never a big drinker.

  He said: ‘Isn’t this pitching it a bit high? I’ve met one or two people who have been against the law all their lives. And to talk to they’re really not much different from you or me. They’re professionals – most of ’em are known to the police and most of ’em don’t mind – it’s an occupational risk. They keep to their rules – as I’ve said before – and the police keep to their rules. It’s like a game – a grim game maybe – but both sides play it. I still reckon these people are decent enough in their own wrong-headed way. They oughtn’t even to go in the same dock as a child murderer!’

  Virginia murmured a word of agreement. Philip shook his head and smiled and sighed.

  ‘Individually you’re right; socially you’re wrong, for the reasons I’ve said. In the eighteenth century wars were fairly localized affairs fought out by professional armies. An enemy soldier then was a tolerable figure. But as soon as wars became total and involved all ages of non-combatants they became intolerable. That’s what the criminal has become today. Just as in the international world we have to overcome war or we die, so in the civilian world we have to overcome crime or our civilization dies!’

  ‘I think you’re a perfectionist, darling,’ said Sarah, patting Philip’s hand. ‘But I agree with you entirely, in spite of Leigh. I don’t know what Father would say in this argument, because he hates all police forces!’

  Philip said: ‘That’s because he’s had the privilege of growing up under their protection.’

  Talk broke up and no more was said of it. Except for all the dragging anxiety it was a pleasant evening. Strange, I thought, not for the first time, how much warmer Sarah made her home and her entertainment than the home we came from.

  On the Thursday, when we were eating after we had been skating, Leigh said: ‘There’s a shop I’ve found in Lambeth. I’d like you to see it.’

  ‘We haven’t much hope, have we?’

  ‘It’s a tobacconist’s at present, but the man has died and his widow’s selling. It’s in a frightful mess, but there’s a lot of room behind. We could turn it into a showroom and live over. The licence for tobacco would be a help; it could keep things going while we’re developing the other side.’

  ‘What do they want for it?’

  ‘Seven thousand – chiefly for the good will, which is pretty nearly non-existent. But it’s obviously worth that as site value. It’s leasehold, of course.’

  ‘What’s the rental?’

  ‘Five hundred a year, and rates about one-fifty.’

  ‘We couldn’t hope to get it! We couldn’t pay a year’s rent, let alone buy the good will.’

  ‘We might be able to in a couple of weeks.’

  Silence fell. I said: ‘Just what do you hope to make out of this thing?’

  ‘The stuff must be worth £150,000 at a minimum. If we get a third of its value and split it four ways, that means £12,000. It would set us up.’

  ‘Until the next time.’

  ‘Oh!’ He stopped explosively and peered through the window at the experts waltzing. ‘D’you think I’m looking forward to this caper next Wednesday? D’you really? Don’t you know I’m absolutely petrified with panic? Of course I’m tough in some ways, you know that. But all my life I’ve been scared stiff of the law. In spite of all my talk. I’ve told you – this is a bit of a self-test. I won’t allow myself to be that much of a windbag, to talk about wanting to be a pirate and then ratting at the one big opportunity. I’m going to prove that I’ve got the guts to do this. But once I’ve proved it, there’s going to be no repeat performance, I can tell you! Let me get away with a few thousand, enough to set up in business with you and no questions asked, and you’ve got a law-abiding citizen on your hands! I’ll be afraid to cheat at a parking meter ever after in case I’m pushing my luck!’

  We went to see the shop on Saturday afternoon. It was on a corner in a district where a lot of old buildings had been pulled down and big offices built, and would probably never have the ‘dropping in’ tobacco trade it had once had. But it was not far from the West End across Westminster Bridge. I thought it would cost two or three thousand to renovate it and make alterations, but Leigh said he was good with his hands and could do half of it himself. Once the deal was done he’d leave his job and work full time here. I could continue at Whittington’s for a few months until he was ready for me.

  I did not know if I could bring myself to continue at Whittington’s at all if Wednesday went as planned. The nearer it came the more impossible it became to go there each day.

  But I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night for thinking of the shop. Ev
en if only five thousand came to us we could borrow enough to make do. Leigh had wanted to put down a deposit on Saturday afternoon but I’d said wait. The widow, who seemed to take a fancy to us, said she’d keep the offer open for a week.

  Even perhaps with three thousand, I thought, perhaps one could borrow enough. So one is corrupted. So Philip Bartholomew was probably right.

  Sunday passed uneasily. Leigh spent the day sketching. I’d noticed sometimes before that tension sent him to his sketch book. He’d chain-smoked then. He could really sketch well. Seeing his pencil moving with such certainty on the paper, creating mass with a few disparate lines, one wondered why he should be considered to have no talent, one no longer wondered that he had as a boy been full of ambition. Remembering the Picasso film, how the master created enormous, powerful, significant designs with a piece of chalk, one could only see the resemblances not the differences. There was of course a gap, the gap created by genius; but how could it be so wide that one inspired scrawl commanded the admiration of the world, while the other was looked on as worthless?

  Could it be that Leigh had a future as an artist in pen and wash, in crayon, in black and white?

  In the evening I thought I’d go and see Douglas and Erica. They were both in, and unchanged. It was as if nothing had happened in their lives while so much was happening in mine. Perhaps it’s a commonplace of youth visiting middle-age, to find this. The time of experiment, of stress, of adventure, to them was over. They were married, occupied, professional, on an even keel, from which they might not be disturbed until sickness or death. I deeply envied them their serenity, their lack of stress. Yet, of course, given the chance, one would not conceivably have changed.

  Or only for a week. Let this week go by. Please God, if there is a God; please Freud, if Douglas is right, let this week go by.

  I told them about the possibility that we might take a shop. They were cool, not enthusiastic, doubtful of its success. Their attitude would have been amusing if it hadn’t been unamusing. In spite of their liberalism they were exactly like the rich snob parents of old, disapproving of a daughter marrying a working man. The only difference was that it was not a lack of class or money to which they objected in Leigh, it was what they considered his lack of originality and talent.

  Strange smells that I’d once accepted as normal: ether, Mincream, Soochong tea. ‘What,’ I said, ‘would you say if I wanted to borrow money? For this shop, I mean.’

  ‘For the shop?’ Douglas stroked his head. ‘As you know, Deborah, it’s never been a habit of ours to accumulate. In principle we’re rather against it. Not that there has been much incentive with three girls to educate.’ He laughed, giving his amusement plenty of air. ‘How did you hope to finance it?’

  ‘Leigh has a legacy. But it’s very small. I thought . . . I wondered . . .’

  ‘Banks. They can help sometimes . . .’

  I said: ‘But surely . . . A matter of a few thousands. We’re educated people, established, never seriously in debt. Surely.’ I suddenly found it necessary to press this point, as if the point, finally secured, would ward off the dangers of Wednesday, as if, going home tonight, I could cry: all is well, Leigh, I have the money, don’t take any part in this raid; see, I can save us both!

  But Douglas and Erica, completely unaware of the danger in which Leigh stood, were unhelpful past endurance. They had no money of their own to lend; our aunts and uncles were ‘untouchables’ in the true English sense. But if Leigh could find the money, why bother to look elsewhere?

  Yes, Leigh maybe ‘could find’ the money.

  I travelled home, exhausted, exasperated, railing against parents who couldn’t understand because no one could understand who hadn’t been told in precise terms what was at stake.

  Leigh was asleep when I got in, but he woke to greet me. I had no comfort for him, no glad news that he need not take part. He would have taken no notice anyway. We were both too committed now to draw back.

  Monday dragged. A day of petty irritations, of staff shortages because of flu, of clients disputing valuations, of accidents in the showrooms – a picture damaged and a vase chipped – of Peter Greeley in one of his rare unreasonable moods, of a complete page left out of a catalogue by the printers, and the catalogues sent out before anyone noticed, of fog outside and draughts in. When I left it took me nearly an hour to get home, and Leigh hadn’t returned.

  The big room was like a dank well. The nearness of the river meant that whenever there was fog we got the worst of it. I switched on all the heating there was and crouched shivering over the larger fire in my thick overcoat, warming my hands and listening to an exchange of distant fog signals. After about twenty minutes I thawed out sufficiently to move around and to begin to prepare supper. There seemed no reason why Leigh should be any later getting home from Margaret Street. I’d bought two lamb cutlets and I put these under the grill. He hadn’t come by the time they were ready, so I didn’t put the bacon and tomatoes on, as I’d intended. I washed the lettuce and made the dressing and settled to wait.

  Two letters for him, one in a woman’s writing. Not Lorne’s, for Lorne’s was backhand; I’d seen it in the kitchen on a grocery list. The other typewritten, from the solicitor. Another bill from the detective agency? I drew back the curtain, peered out. The fog was unrelenting, like an attack of melancholia. A few lights made aureoles in the yellow dark. I thought of Doreen Foil’s remark in the Caprice: ‘Whenever Jack’s late I always think he’s been run over or something.’ And Leigh?

  Back to look at the cutlets. They were all right but they weren’t improving. Have mine? But I wasn’t hungry. The fog had got into my throat. Fear death, to feel the fog in my throat, the mist in my face . . . Who’d written that? Browning, I thought. A declaration of pious nineteenth-century optimism. Well, anything wrong with that? The optimism might have been proved true or untrue, it didn’t render the expression less valid. I was ever a fighter so one fight more, the best and the last . . . Well worn now, worn smooth with repetition, almost meaningless like the prayers in the Prayer Book; corny. What in its place? Not even a belief in human nature. Too much of the world was sick, poisoning itself with its own spleen. Time for a revival, a return to former values? But what values? Thou shalt not? . . . How could you turn back? It was against nature. So forward, into the darkness and the fog.

  At nine I took the spoiled cutlets and picked at one sparingly. At nine-thirty footsteps.

  Leigh, in his old leather coat, face sort of darkened with the fog; Ted Sandymount; Jack Foil; a stranger, middle-aged, gaunt. When I saw them I knew there was something wrong. Half-smiling, half-grim, they came in, found chairs, apologetic, polite; Leigh said, I hope you didn’t wait, and what’ll everybody drink, and sit down, Deborah, you’re in this now – you’re in this.

  John Irons, they said his name was; a broad face, the colour of fresh putty, black eyes set so deep you had to quarry to see their expression, a mouth that looked as if it had never spoken ordinarily but only dropped words out of the corner when no one was looking. But polite, good-mannered, quiet. And gaunt. Watchful. This was our friend, said Jack Foil. He made number four, so to speak. He was a top man at his job. The top man looked at me as if I were a Chubb safe, and then looked across the room and said nothing. We sat and talked. Three of them had whisky. Leigh and I made coffee. He seemed not to want to say anything in the privacy of the kitchen.

  Smoke hung in a haze over the men as they talked and drank. The fog had come in here, only it was blue-coloured instead of ochreous. Jack Foil cleared his throat.

  They all stopped talking.

  He said: ‘You’ve helped us in this, Miss Dainton – Deborah – you’ve helped us a lot, so it’s only right and fair you should know what’s happened. In fact, we’ve come specially to tell you.’

  I stared at him. I pulled my skirt down over my thin leg.

  ‘There’s been a real upset. One of those things you don’t make plans for. You remember’ – his eyes wo
bbled at me – ‘me saying to you there’s a lot of inefficiency in the world. But you can be as efficient as you like and one unlucky mishap and all your plans are upset. This has happened now. No fault of anybody’s. There it is.’

  I stared at him and then at Leigh. No one spoke.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘“Baker” Evans was due to take over at Whittington’s this week from a man called Gaskell. They change weekly, as you know, one changing Friday, one Tuesday, so that it’s not long the same two are on together. “Baker” Evans was due to come on again at Whittington’s last Friday. A return visit. Perfect. Just covered the time perfect. But there’s been flu about; a lot of flu; and his partner went down with it, so they told him to stay on the weekend at Knight’s the jewellers instead, where he was already. Fine. It still worked. Coming on at Whittington’s tomorrow night. Running it a bit close, but he’d be there all right for Wednesday. Fine.’ Jack Foil twisted the signet ring among the fur on his left hand. ‘But now he’s been put off again. His mate’s down with pneumonia and five others are off. So they’re having a stand-still, bringing on reliefs for a few unimportant jobs, leaving others where they are. So Evans stays at Knight’s and Gaskell stays on at Whittington’s with a fellow called McCarthy.’

  The foghorn droned again in the river. Dead silence in the studio. Leigh’s coffee cup rattled as he put it down.

  ‘So it’s off,’ I said.

  Jack Foil shrugged.