Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky Read online

  Of this trio of administrators, two – the Governor and his wife – made no attempt at divergence from type. They were as benign as they were bloated. It was pretty obvious to everybody that they might both burst at any moment, but this fact seemed to contribute towards rather than detract from their unvarying benevolence. Indeed, swathed round and round with their own tissue, they appeared to be numbed and protected from the general apprehensiveness which besets ordinary humanity. Instead, the rare qualities of warmth, geniality, fair-mindedness, and complete tranquillity had been given opportunity to flourish. Above all, complete tranquillity. The Governor and his wife would burst all in good time, and when they thought proper; and the same principle would apply to everything else concerning them. They were both about fifty. The Governor wore a large blonde moustache on a round, flat face: the Governor’s Wife had her hair peroxided and bobbed. You would have judged her a woman of vivid, and even lurid experience, and rightly. But this would have belonged to her youth, and that would have been cast behind when the Governor married her eighteen years ago. She was not legally married to the Governor, for she had a husband living; but no one knew this. At night she wore black, semi-evening dress. The Governor remained in his grey suit. This was a terribly tight fit (possibly because no tailor in the world could be made fully to credit the proportions demanded), and he never made any attempt to button the coat. The spectacle of his waistcoat, and all it contained, was doubtless an indecent spectacle to snobs, but a pure delight to the naïve. It was the same shape as the world, but a little smaller. The Governor, as he walked about, was a kind of original Atlas. He took the burden not on his shoulders, like the mythological figure, but in the middle. You could positively find yourself trying to spot the continents on the Governor’s waistcoat. His legs were surprisingly small for such a burden – tapering down from the waist to feet of little more than normal size. His wife’s legs and feet were the same. It was for this reason that the shape of both of them could be said to resemble less that of the pig than that of the tadpole – a much more agreeable comparison. And the kindest comparison was welcome in the case of these two, who were, in the last analysis, as charming human beings as could be found. They possessed, between them, over half a dozen chins.

  The Governor’s Wife’s Sister was a different proposition altogether. She was, to begin with, thin. She was also dark, and tall, and bony, and ugly, and her dark brown eyes were the quick eyes of one who has been trapped at last and is looking about for a cunning escape. She was intensely unpopular amongst her subordinates, and, in fact, something of a blot upon the house. She was, however, all-powerful – the true ruler and organizer of ‘The Midnight Bell.’ She had, it was widely known, a Head for Business. As the Governor’s Wife’s Sister her status was disputable; and this made her ascendancy all the more bitter. ‘Who does she think she is, anyway?’ Ella would ask, and Bob would ask the same. The Governor, they said, was the one they took orders from. They were employed by the Governor weren’t they? Or were they not? One day they were going to tell her off. In the meantime they obeyed her commands, which were peremptory, and bore her quibbles, which were continuous, without demur. But one day they were going to tell her off. In that faith they survived.

  CHAPTER III

  AS BOB CAME down to the bar, the large round clock, fixed high on the wall above the opening leading from the bar to the lounge, stood at five past five. It did not do this because the time was five past five, or even because anybody thought it was. The house was due to open at five, and would do so. The clock was five minutes fast – a naïve ruse employed by this trade for the purpose of ejecting, with greater facility, its lingering and incredulous customers at closing time.

  One minute before opening time. . . . A faint bustle of preparation in the other bars, but deep silence in the Saloon. . . . Bob switched on the lights in the Lounge (this was his routine) and went in and poked the fire into a crackling blaze. . . . He came back and encountered the Governor lifting the flap of the bar, and coming out to unbolt the door. The Governor almost invariably opened his own house. He carried the Evening News in his hand, and he gave it to Bob. This was also routine.

  ‘That there Prince of Wales again,’ said the Governor.

  ‘What? – fallen off?’ asked Bob, scanning the headlines.

  The Governor grunted an affirmative, and moved on towards the door.

  ‘He’ll break his neck – one of these days,’ said Ella, patting her hair in a bottle-surrounded little mirror she had secreted near the till. ‘That boy. . . .’

  ‘He will,’ said Bob. . . .

  The Governor had now reached the door. He slid back the upper bolt; and he slid back the middle bolt. He was now faced by the lower bolt – a different matter. A breath was taken; and he stood a little further away. Then, with infinite precaution, the world-shape was let slowly down. A sharp click, a grunt of achievement, and ‘The Midnight Bell’ was open. The Governor came waddling back, again lifted the flap, passed through without a word, and disappeared.

  ‘The Midnight Bell’ was open. The public was at liberty to enter ‘The Midnight Bell.’ No sudden eruption, no announcing sound, proclaimed the fact. Only the click of sliding bolts, and the steady burning of electric light behind a door which might be Pushed.

  But who was going to Push? A deeper silence fell. Bob, with his right foot on the rail, and his newspaper on the bar, continued to read. . . . Ella, leaning over the bar with her hands clasped, stared into the distance and listened to London. . . . A grim, yet burdened and plaintive sound – the dim roar of traffic in the Tottenham Court Road – the far thunder of trams where the Hampstead Road began – the yelling of children in Warren Street near by. . . . And still no one Pushed. Bob’s newspaper rattled as he turned a page. . . .

  ‘Seems as though they’ve all gone and signed it to-night,’ said Bob. . . .

  He was alluding to an obscurely conceived document spoken of as the Pledge.

  Ella murmured assent, and again referred herself to her little mirror. She was always glancing at herself in the glass. This was not the result of vanity, but rather of a general despondence for ever seeking little reassurances and excuses for optimism.

  Bob turned over another rattling page. Ella began to hum.

  But humming was no good, and the row upon row of labelled, glittering bottles, standing in military order and with military submissive stiffness upon the shelves, told her as much. . . .

  A lorry smashed by in the Euston Road, and faded away in the distance. . . .

  What if no one ever came? What if all the customers of ‘The Midnight Bell’ had decided against it for the future? What if some fatal misadventure had occurred in the dark streets outside – some vast and unknown cataclysm to which the whole of London was rushing in mad haste? . . . The rows of uncanny bottles, in all their vigilant and eavesdropping stillness under the electric light, were more than susceptible to such morbid conceptions. . . .

  The Governor’s Wife came down to fetch something. ‘Quiet to-night,’ she said, and went upstairs again. . . .

  But saying it was Quiet, like that, did not make it any less quiet. On the contrary it made it rather more so. . . .

  Firm footsteps rang on the pavement outside, and the door swung briskly open with its habitual creak.

  CHAPTER IV

  ONLY MR. SOUNDER, certainly; but there was nothing more to worry about. Fear flew back to its evil haunts and the house respired again.

  ‘Ah – good evening,’ said Mr. Sounder, pacing up to the bar, and fishing in his pocket without ado.

  ‘Good evening, Mr. Sounder,’ returned Ella and Bob – Ella with her professional sauciness, Bob with a hint of coolness, and barely glancing up from his paper.

  Mr. Sounder was not a particularly welcome figure at ‘The Midnight Bell.’ He was an habitué. ‘The Midnight Bell’ without Mr. Sounder would not quite have been ‘The Midnight Bell.’ It would have been deprived, to begin with, of thousands of words every nigh
t – millions of words every year. He generally arrived at about this time, and he would stay, if he was lucky, until closing time. But if he was unlucky, and no one came in to pay his expenses, he would go out and come in again at half-past nine. His first beer was in the nature of an investment.

  His appearance was eccentric. Though of short stature he wore a thick beard and moustache which (though they did not in fact decrease his height) created an illusion of dwarfishness. This impression was augmented by the hair on his head, which went back in a thick mane magnificent for his age, which was something over fifty. But then Mr. Sounder went in greatly for hair. Apart from that already mentioned, he had a great deal of hair upon his hands, and a great deal of hair between his eyebrows, and a great deal of hair in his ears, and rather more hair coming in two exact little sprouts from his nostrils than modern fashion allows or nicety dictates.

  He wore, and had worn for years without interruption, a thick tweed suit, a soft collar, and a heavy bow tie. But sometimes his tie was a piece of black ribbon tied into a bow. How he lived nobody knew – but one imagined by the application of the same principles as won him his nightly beer. He had, and had had for years, a small upper room in the seedy environs of Osnaburgh Terrace, and he was never in evidence until the evening. He had been to Oxford University, and was a man of letters – mostly to the papers. He wrote articles and short stories for the press, which were very occasionally accepted. He called this Turning Out Little Things from Time to Time. An enormous Thing perpetually in progress was postulated but left in the dark.

  ‘I’ll have a half of Burton,’ said Mr. Sounder.

  ‘Half of Burton?’ repeated Ella (she automatically repeated every order), and drew it for him.

  There was a clink of coins – a smash from the till – and a pause in which Mr. Sounder took his first sip. . . .

  The door swung open in the Public Bar round the corner, and a morose, heavy-booted customer came forward – a postman.

  Bob went on with his paper and no one spoke. . . . The postman, in the silence, could be discerned swallowing beer, with a forlorn and suspended expression, from a pint glass. . . . There was no life in the place.

  Footsteps again rang on the pavement outside; the door was flung back, and there entered a tall, violent gentleman with a long nose and wearing a bowler hat. A complete stranger. He ordered a small ‘Black and White’ and splash. He drank it in two gulps, and instantly paced out again, leaving ‘The Midnight Bell’ in the precise predicament in which he had found it.

  One apprehended for the millionth time that it was indeed a very queer life. Silence again reigned. . . .

  ‘Is that the Star you’ve got there, Bob?’ asked Mr. Sounder at last.

  ‘No, Mr. Sounder. Evening News.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr. Sounder, heavily, and took another sip. As he put the tumbler down there was observable in his eyes a faint but glassy gleam.

  To those (such as Bob and Ella) instructed in Mr. Sounder’s ways, there was no mistaking that gleam – or what it portended. It was the gleam of a man who has not long ago Turned Out a Little Thing. They offered him no assistance, however.

  ‘I thought perhaps you’d seen my own little contribution,’ tried Mr. Sounder.

  ‘What – have you written something in the Star?’ asked Ella.

  Mr. Sounder returned that he could not deny the soft impeachment.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Ella, kindly, and took his own copy from him.

  ‘Only a letter. I think you’ll find it on page five.’ Mr. Sounder lit a cigarette, and puffed gracefully into the air. Ella searched. ‘Here we are,’ she said, and read it through.

  Mr. Sounder’s letter dealt in a manly but rather vituperative style with the topic of woman’s hair. He personally liked it long. That much was clear from the start. Having asked to be allowed to ‘concur most heartily with M.B.L.’ (a previous enthusiast), he proceeded with sundry allusions to such themes as ‘woman’s crowning glory,’ ‘these days of close-shaven tresses,’ ‘the would-be modern young Miss,’ and ‘her Grandmother,’ which bespoke alike his fervour and irony. He also mentioned cocktails and night clubs. He thunderously signed himself ‘Harold B. Sounder’ and the bolt fell from ‘Osnaburgh Terrace, N.W.1.’

  ‘Very Good, isn’t it?’ said the amiable Ella. ‘Seen that, Bob?’

  It was given to Bob. He read it through. He also thought it was Very Good. . . .

  The favourable decision, however, was followed by a slightly awkward pause. (Two women had entered the Public Bar, and the murmur of their voices was audible.)

  ‘I fear you don’t hold with my views yourself, Ella,’ said Mr. Sounder, looking at her shingled head.

  ‘Ah – you’d like a lot of Lady Godivas knocking about, wouldn’t you, Mr. Sounder?’

  Mr. Sounder smiled, but was at a loss for a reply.

  ‘And I guess you’d be the Peeping Tom, wouldn’t you?’ she added, looking at him with the mock knowingness of the barmaid.

  ‘Ah – that would depend on the Lady Godiva, Ella,’ said Mr. Sounder. Another gleam portended gallantry. ‘Now if you, for instance. . . .’ Mr. Sounder could only conclude with a flourish of the hand.

  ‘Not me,’ said Ella. ‘Too cold.’

  ‘Ah – but your hair would keep you warm. Why don’t you grow it, like a sensible girl, Ella? I can assure you that it would increase your charms a thousandfold.’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m sure.’

  ‘Not that any increase is required,’ added Mr. Sounder, with a nice little leer.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Oh well – I don’t know,’ said Ella, staring dreamily into the distance, and relapsing, in a curious, and rather sweet way she had, from raillery into frankness. ‘We all have to keep up with the Fashion, don’t we?’

  There was heard a murmur of voices outside, and the door opened to a middle-aged couple, who did not go through to the lounge, but sat down at a table in the bar. Being seated they were within Bob’s province. He took his tray, went over to them, and met their eyes. The lady was doubtful, but at last decided on Guinness, and the gentleman wanted a Gin and It. Ella, hearing the order, got to work without Bob’s repeating it. Bob returned with the drinks on his tray, placed them on the table, took a half crown from the man, gave the change and received no tip. He had expected none, and returned to his newspaper. The lady, apparently, knew Ella.

  ‘Rather quiet to-night, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, we are, ain’t we?’ said Ella. ‘’Spect they’ll be in soon, though.’

  Mr. Sounder stood quietly observing the couple – possibly with an eye to getting off with them. His first investment was almost swallowed, and things were looking bad.

  But the door again creaked open, and a brisk man of fifty entered. This was Mr. Brooks – another habitué – the owner of a nondescript hardware store near by – a seller of pots, and pans, and kitchen accessories, and screws – particularly screws. He had a terrible squint. It was as though the screws had somehow gone to his brain, and his eyes were twisted in fanatical endeavours to follow their obscure gyrations. He looked intently at your left ear as he spoke to you, as though you had left some soap in it. But he gave Mr. Sounder a warm ‘Good evening,’ and spotted the soap and asked him what he would have simultaneously. Mr. Sounder would have another Burton, he thought. He caught Ella’s eye rather shamefacedly as he said so, and Ella pulled her levers with a touch of irony.

  At the same time three rough males had entered the Public Bar, and were talking in loud voices, and the Saloon door again creaked open, and another couple entered and went straight through into the lounge and sat down. They were followed by two men, who came and stood at the bar. With a sudden burst the place was awake.

  CHAPTER V

  BOB’S NIGHTLY ASPIRATION was five shillings. He was a young man who kept a keen eye upon his finances, and a pound a week in tips he regarded as a peremptory necessity.

  It may be supposed that the am
ounts he received were dependent upon chance: but Bob did not believe this to be the case. He believed it possible, by energy, subtlety, and dexterity, to manipulate and augment the largesse of his customers. The great thing was always to have plenty of coppers. Sixpence change from two shillings, for instance, should almost invariably be proffered in this form. And they should not be put down in a lump, but counted out slowly one by one, so as to give the recipient full time in which to make his decision and expel a magnificent twopence, or even threepence, for the waiter. Bob, as a point of honour, would never hover. He took his defeats in the same spirit as his successes – with ‘Thankyouverymuchsir’ and instant withdrawal.

  Not that sixpence change from two shillings should invariably be submitted in the form of coppers. Sometimes it was wise to employ the silver coin, and here Bob gambled with human psychology. He risked getting nothing (few people know how often waiters get nothing when there are no coppers to hand) and it lay with him to make lightning interpretations of situation and character – to divine on what occasions it was worth the risk. In the case of a well-disposed or slightly intoxicated customer, it was obviously worth the risk: the same thing applied to any young man on not too familiar terms with the young woman accompanying him. The first would not care, the second would not dare, to leave the waiter nothing. But it was up to Bob to gauge with precision how well disposed the customer was or how familiar the young man with the young woman. It was also up to him to keep a perpetual supply of coppers, sixpences, and shillings readily available in separate pockets. For besides the one just mentioned, there were infinite other subtle combinations of change in relation to character and situation, all of which depended upon a smooth-working supply. He tormented Ella with his pleas for different coins.

  Like most waiters Bob had an unmistakable, unhesitating, and carefully cultivated style, wherewith to uphold his dignity. In his case it centred around his tray. Bob without his tray would have been like an excitable writer without dashes – he would hardly have been able to carry on. On going up to any table he held his tray lightly in the fingers of both hands, and, balancing it perpendicularly upon the table, said either ‘Yessir’ or ‘Goodeveningsir’ according to the case. In resting the tray thus upon the table he was able to achieve a minute bow. Without the tray he could not have bowed, would not have known what to do with his hands, and could only have stood there looking limp and inadequate. Similarly, in the indecisive conversation which invariably followed amongst those he served, the tray was a barrier, a counter, a thing behind which he could resolutely stand and wait, deferent and official.