Deck With Flowers Page 8

  Mrs. Baird was wearing a small fur hat and a coat of the same shade as Nicola’s anorak. Her cheeks were reddened by the cold, taking years off her age and making her resemblance to Nicola even more striking. Rodney thought that in her youth, she must have been even lovelier than her daughter. Her manner was composed, but scarcely friendly.

  “You are welcome, Mr. Laird.”

  “Then why did you throw him out?” Nicola asked.

  “I did not throw him out. Don’t be absurd, Nicola; you’re talking nonsense.”

  “He said you did. Give me your coat. Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. I have just had some, downstairs. They told me you didn’t have lunch today.”

  “They’re wrong. I did—with Rodney. I spent the time trying to erase the bad impression you’d made.”

  “Don’t be silly. I hope you don’t take her seriously, Mr. Laird. She jokes about everything, even about things that are not for joking.”

  “Even about love,” Nicola said dreamily. “When I was twelve, I wrote a poem for the school magazine. Want to hear it?”

  “It was simply rubbish,” Mrs. Baird told him.

  “First verse coming up,” Nicola said. “So far as I can remember, it went: Love is a beverage offered to me, Shall I accept it? I’ll sip it, and see. How’s that for budding talent? Unfortunately, the bud didn’t open.”

  “Did you say you were twelve?” Rodney asked.

  “Thereabouts. Verse two: Love is a shrouded form beckoning to me, Shall I approach it? I’ll unveil it—and see. Not as good as verse one. It didn’t get into the magazine.”

  “Rejected on the grounds of undue precocity?”

  “No. I was told it didn’t scan.”

  “If you have finished talking nonsense,” her mother said, “you could pass me Mr. Laird’s empty cup. If I didn’t welcome you when you came before, Mr. Laird, it was because I lost my head a little. I thought you wished to speak of Madame Landini, and I didn’t want to hear anything about her. I will never forgive her for the way she behaved to Nicola.”

  “I came down,” Rodney explained, “to try and get a clearer picture of what happened, and to find out what led up to Madame’s outburst.”

  “And have you discovered?”

  “No. Except that it wasn’t, as far as one can judge, connected with the memoirs. If she decides to go on with them—”

  “No,” broke in Mrs. Baird. Her tone was almost passionate. “This, no. If you are going to say that you wish Nicola to go back to work for her, then to this I will absolutely not agree. I cannot prevent her, but I have said what I wish: that she will not go.”

  “Listen, Mother. I—”

  “No, Nicola, I won’t listen. Some other girl could do the work just as well as you—what is it, after all? Only typing. It can be done by any other girl. I don’t like to interfere or put myself in your way, but I ask you not to go back.”

  There was silence. Nicola, seated on the floor beside an electric radiator, finished her coffee, handed the cup to Rodney and then spoke slowly.

  “I’m almost certain,” she said, “that Madame Landini won’t go on with her memoirs. If she doesn’t, I’ll be sorry because I think the book ought to be written. I don’t like her, but every time I’ve settled down to type what she’d drafted or dictated, I’ve forgotten where I was. I was ... Rodney, could I use the word transported ?”

  “If it fits.”

  “Isn’t it what they used to do to criminals in the old days?”

  “Yes. You were saying?”

  “That I was transported when I typed the memoirs. I was carried away. I thought, when I first took the job, that I’d just be typing out a list of triumphs and famous names, with Madame Landini in the centre of the stage and the rest seen dimly in the background—but it didn’t turn out to be like that. It’s exciting. It’s fascinating. Nothing small ever seemed to happen to her. Wherever history was happening, there she was, ever since she was born. At the end of every day, I looked forward to starting on the next stage. If there’s to be any more, I’d like to go back and be there to the end. And there’s another angle. I haven’t seen much of poor old Mr. Claud, but I know the book means a lot to the firm. If Madame Landini goes back to work, and if she decides she’d like me to go back to work too, then I will.”

  “Very well. I can’t stop you,” Mrs. Baird said. “But after she acted as she did, you are wrong to go back.”

  Rodney was preparing to leave. Nicola went to a desk, wrote something on a piece of paper and brought it to him. “Telephone number,” she said. “Thank you for the lunch.” He shook Mrs. Baird’s hand.

  “Goodbye. I hope you won’t be angry if Nicola goes back—but if she does, I promise to keep an eye on her.”

  “Thank you.” The hand in his was cold. He went down the stairs with Nicola, and drove away.

  He had hoped to get back to London in time to look into the office, but at seven he was still on the outskirts. He stopped and telephoned to Oliver.

  “Just back,” he told him.

  “Come and have dinner. I’ll order something hot.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Until ten-thirty.”

  “Good. Heat some rum for me, will you?”

  He found the front door on the latch, and Oliver in his bath. He helped himself to hot rum-and-orange and stretched out on the deep-cushioned sofa.

  “Any news?” he called.

  “None this end. How about you?”

  “Nothing. The only thing is that Nicola Baird will come back if we need her.”

  “If she doesn’t get tired of waiting, and get another job. Pour me out some of that stuff, will you?”

  Rodney took the drink, with his own, into the bedroom and lowered himself carefully on to the bed, which was of cushioned suede set almost at ground level.

  “Her mother,” he said, “is dead against her coming back. It’s a Swiss background—pastry-cooks.” He put his glass on the floor, and stretched. “My God, it was cold down there. Resorts are pretty dreary in the winter, too. I can’t believe I stuck more than two months of it. What are we going to eat?”

  “Soup and steak. And there it comes. Open the door, will you? Don’t pay; just tip the man. And lay a table.”

  Rodney found a cloth, spread it on a table and laid out the food. Oliver, coming in in the Japanese robe, began to lift everything off again. He folded the cloth, fetched another From a drawer and spread it on the central table.

  “Wrong cloth, wrong table,” he explained.

  “Henrietta’s turning you into a handy little housekeeper. Do I use this napkin, or do I have to wait while you fetch the right one?”

  “Don’t carp. Eat.”

  Rodney ate, but something in the air—the spirit of Henrietta, he thought—had made him lose his desire to talk over the events of the day, to give Oliver a sketch of the Baird background and in doing so clarify some of the half-formed impressions in his own mind. He helped to put the empty plates and dishes back into the container that was to be returned to the restaurant, and then decided to leave.

  He got home just before half-past ten. Walking from the garage to the house, he was confronted by Mrs. Major’s dustbin, which had been carried to the Grelby’s doorstep, and left there. He picked it up and heard Peter Grelby speaking behind him.

  “It’s no use, you know. I’ve taken it back twice, and she’s dumped it here again.”

  Rodney turned. “It might be easier to put it on wheels,” he suggested.

  “Not a bad idea. I’ve been hoping I’d run into you, to thank you for letting us use your phone. And also to ask you if you can do anything to stop that old harridan from making a ruddy nuisance of herself.”

  “I try, now and then.”

  “She’s been a blasted pain ever since we moved in. Why has she got it in for us? You’d think she’d be pleased to see this street being smartened up.”

  “She’s not pleased.”

  “I know that. Priss
went to see her when we first came, to ask whether she’d come and clean the house once or twice a week. The answer, a very rude one, was no. She worked for you, didn’t she?”

  “Until Angela came. Now she only comes up now and again to clean up the worst messes.”

  “Then she’s got plenty of free hours, which is what Priss pointed out.”

  “A great mistake, pointing it out.”

  “I know. All she got was abuse. I’m certain the old witch bribes all those wild kids who come stampeding round here sometimes. Can’t you tell her she’s overdoing it? What’s her basic complaint?”

  “The loss of all her old friends and neighbours.”

  “Then why doesn’t she follow them? Most of them have moved into those new apartment blocks, haven’t they? Why doesn’t she go and join them?”

  Rodney thought it would be tactless to explain that she found it more stimulating to stay where she was. He picked up the dustbin and went as far as to guarantee that it would not be moved again—at least, not that night. He placed it in front of Mrs. Major’s doorstep, and found her waiting for him in the hall.

  “Now, wot did you go an’ do that for?” she demanded.

  “You’re a spiteful old woman,” he told her without heat, “and one of these days, I’m going to stop supplying you with free bottles of my home-made wine. Furthermore, someone’s soon going to report you to the police for disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood. You’ll do somebody some real damage if you go on leaving that dustbin in the middle of the pavement on a dark night like this.”

  “D’you know what she come and said to me, that little snippet? ‘I need a cleanin’ woman,’ she said. Those were ’er first words, just like that.”

  “She didn’t want to waste your time, so she came straight to the point.”

  “I went straight to the point, too, an’ told ’er she wasn’t gettin’ none o’ me time.”

  “She needs help in the house.”

  “She’s young, ain’t she? At ’er age, I could’ve gorn over three ’ouses that size, all in one mornin’. She’s lazy, that’s ’er trouble.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Eh?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Is that why she wears them pinafores?”

  “Yes. So if she come out of the house and trips over your dustbin and has a miscarriage, I’ll know who’s responsible. Good night and God bless you and make you a better woman. Amen.”

  “Amen yourself.”

  He went upstairs and found Angela in the kitchen washing up the breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes. Even bent over a steaming sink, she managed to retain a look of freshness—a combination of angel and slut, he decided, and closed his mind to the contrast between these rooms and the ones he had seen in Brighton. He took down a cloth and began to dry plates, and she looked round in surprise, shook back a long strand of hair and gave him a welcoming smile.

  “Didn’t hear you come in. Want anything to eat?”

  “No, thanks. I had a meal at Oliver’s.”

  “Not cooked by Henrietta, I’ll bet.”

  “Soup and steak from the restaurant. She wasn’t there.”

  “Lucky you. Tired?”

  “I should be; I’ve hauled Mrs. Major’s dustbin back to its rightful place and explained that the lady’s pregnant. When’s it due?”

  “In about five or six weeks.”

  “I thought you were going out tonight.”

  “I called it off. The hood of James Paynton’s car leaks. Imagine being dripped on in weather like this!”

  “Paynton? I thought you were going dancing with Bates.”

  “No, thank you. I’m sick of him. And I’m sick of his schoolboy jokes. Like tonight, ringing up and putting on a peculiar accent and pretending to be an Italian called Potsy.”

  The bowl that Rodney was drying gave a twitch and leapt from his hands, to break in pieces on the tiled floor. Mechanically, he bent to pick them up, and then rose and stared at his sister.

  “What did you say?” he asked in a dazed voice.

  She was stacking a pile of plates.

  “I didn’t say anything. I might have done, considering that that’s the the last of the Breton china. Don’t look so worried; what’s a bowl more or less?”

  “I said—What—did—you— say?”

  “I’ve just told you—nothing. What are you looking like that for?”

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” He pulled himself together and spoke quietly. “On the phone.”

  “Oh, on the phone?” She eyed him uneasily. “I don’t see that it matters—”

  “Before I strangle you, will you please tell me exactly what was said?”

  She twisted the cloth she was holding and spoke reluctantly.

  “Nothing, really. He just put on this accent and said he was Signor Potsy. That’s all.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said . . . well, I can’t remember, exactly.”

  “Did he say any more?”

  “Well, he said: ‘This is important. I am Signor Potsy . . and I, well, I...”

  “You hung up?”

  “Yes. No. I said…”

  “You said?”

  “I said if he wanted to be really impressive, he should have chosen a better name than Potsy. And then I ... I rang off.”

  He hung the cloth very carefully over the stove to dry, and then glanced up at the clock on the wall. Eleven-thirty. Too late; accountants needed their sleep. He walked past Angela and out of the kitchen. After a moment, she heard the door of his room close quietly.

  Chapter 4

  When he had finished breakfast on the following morning, Rodney went to the telephone to put in a call to Signor Piozzi. Then, feeling that it was too early, he decided to make a personal call instead. By the time he had got to Park Lane through the rush-hour traffic, the Signor—he hoped—would be through his bath and breakfast.

  When he arrived at Madame Landini’s house, his request to see the Signor was forestalled by an invitation to enter. Led along the broad corridors, he felt relief at being back in the first-class section, but was he on his way to Signor Piozzi or to the Maharajah? He was ushered into a lift, taken up one flight and then followed his guide along a gallery that overlooked the entrance hall. At the end was a double door. The guide knocked; the voice that answered was Madame Landini’s. The next moment, Rodney found himself standing at the edge of a pale green ocean of carpet; on the farther shore, reclining on a sofa, he saw Madame Landini. She gave him a languid smile, held out a hand, and as he drew near told him in a weary voice that she was very glad he had been able to come; would he please sit down for a few minutes? She had something to say to him.

  He sat down and tried to decide whether Signor Piozzi, finding that last night’s summons had misfired, had put in another call after he had left the house this morning. Before he could make a guess, Madame Landini had begun to speak.

  “I will tell you,” she said, “why I asked Signor Piozzi to telephone and ask you to come and see me.”

  On his entrance, he had felt that the invalid pose was slightly overdone, but now he could see that she looked almost haggard, and she had lost something of the arrogance that had characterised her during the negotiations for the publication of her memoirs. Not all the ribbons and laces of her morning robe could draw his eyes from the signs of age and fatigue on her face. It was with genuine sympathy that he asked whether she was feeling better.

  “You are very kind. Yes, I am feeling a little better,” she said. “I must rest, of course, but I feel stronger. May I tell you why I sent for you?”

  “Please do.”

  “I wish the secretary, Miss Baird, to return.”

  “I see. I’ll do my best—”

  “That is, if she will. You will arrange it?”

  He caught himself up on the point of saying that he had already arranged it.

  “It might be difficult,” he said instead, “if she has taken another job.”
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  “There will have been no time for that.”

  “Perhaps not. I’ll do my best. She doesn’t live in London.”

  “Yes, she does. She told me that she has rooms, a room.”

  “She gave it up and went home.”

  “Where is her home?”

  “Brighton,” he said, and at once wished that he had made it Soscombe or Bognor. Brighton, he remembered too late, was it the very head of Madame’s list of banned towns and cities, the list was not a long one, but once a name was entered upon it, it was never removed. Whenever and wherever she had consented to give a concert, she expected, and was invariably given a royal reception. If—as had happened at Brighton—an unfortunate official or civic dignitary omitted he smallest detail of the ceremonies, the concert was immediately cancelled and the place never again visited. It was a pity to have brought up Brighton now.

  But he could see only a faint frown on Madame Landini’s face.

  “Brighton is not far,” she pointed out. “If you go today, you will be there before she has time to arrange another post, you may tell her that I regret very much my words to her. I was of course ill.”

  “If she’s free, and can return, when would you—”

  “At once. And one thing more; two things more. First, I would like her to consider the post a resident one. I was about to ask you this when you said that she had given up her room; perhaps this will make it simpler. If she refuses, as she refused before, I will not insist. The second, the last thing, I will give no guarantee that I will resume my memoirs. I wish to, naturally, but my doctor says that I am to do nothing strenuous, and as you know, writing them is not a light task. The fact that Miss Baird is here in the house means that from time to time, as I feel like it, I can dictate notes to her. If I do not feel up to this, she can perform other duties; she could perhaps help Signor Piozzi a little. He has a great deal to do; he has arranged the sale of some of my property to His Highness, and he is also going to arrange schools for His Highness’s grandsons—they are to have, as he had, an English education. And now, will you forgive me if I dismiss you? It always gives me great pleasure to see you, but at present I am not up to talking. Will you be so good as to ring?”