Chapter 7 See The Pyramids Along the Nile
“Is bad soil for growing,” Greta told Robbie, the authority of this pronouncement undiminished by the clothes-peg in her mouth.
Not that Robbie would dream of arguing. Honor had tried going head-to-head with Greta, and it never ended well.
“That bloody woman,” she would storm. “For two pins I’d sack her, if only I thought she’d find another job. ”
Greta handed Robbie a peg so he could secure one end of the bedsheet to the line.
He’d only come outside to look at his poor broad-bean plants.
Now he’d been drafted into hanging out washing.
Saul was right; people took advantage of his good nature.
He glanced at the teetering basketful of freshly mangled bed linen and wondered how to make a graceful retreat.
“You need,” she continued, making a flapping movement with her hand, “I don’t know English word. But I can get for you. Not expensive.”
“Manure?” he said. Was the flapping motion a horse’s tail? “That’s very kind. I’ll think about it. But I’m afraid I ought to get on. We’re going to press today, and—”
“I saw new boy,” she said nonsequitously. “He told me not to clean in his room. He is…” She squinted into the middle distance, considering the right word. “He is not nice-mannered.”
“Why doesn’t he want you to clean his room?”
“I cannot think of good reason. Can you?”
She stared at him until he realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I suppose if one isn’t used to having servants or anything like that…” He stopped on seeing the expression on Greta’s face. “Not that you’re a servant, of course! I only mean that—”
“No, is true,” she said philosophically. “He is not like you, or George, a young person from good family. I am surprised that Honor lets such a person live here. She is always so, so…”
Snobbish, he thought. “Particular about people. Yes, isn’t she just.”
“Blast,” muttered Robbie some hours later, getting to his feet and wiping his fingers on a handkerchief.
He stood on the curb, one hand on his bicycle seat and the other pushing his spectacles up his nose.
To his added dismay, for he felt at a disadvantage, he saw Jimmy emerging from the house in his overcoat and a smart brown hat, new by the looks of it.
“Afternoon,” said Jimmy, walking over to him. “Everything all right?”
“Hello. I’ve got a puncture, that’s all.”
“Haven’t you got a repair kit? I’ll give you a hand if you want.”
“I’m already terribly late, that’s the problem. I must get the new issue to the printer’s by four, or there’ll be trouble.”
“Why don’t I drive you?” Jimmy brandished a key with a triumphant tinkle.
“Have you got a motorcar?” In Robbie’s mind, only rich people owned motorcars.
Jimmy laughed. “That got your attention, didn’t it?” He pointed to a rust-rimmed blue-and-cream Ford Anglia parked across the road. “I’ve borrowed it from a friend. I do mean borrowed, by the way.”
“I wouldn’t have imagined otherwise,” said Robbie primly. “Gosh, you’d be doing me an enormous favor. The printer’s some way away, I’m afraid—Clerkenwell. But if you’re sure you don’t mind.” He wondered if Jimmy had a driving license but didn’t dare inquire.
“Put your bike away and let’s get going. I felt like a drive today, anyway.”
A smattering of snow had fallen overnight, but now the sun was out, touching the air with the faint scent of spring.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Robbie was disturbed by the enclosed proximity.
As Jimmy handled the gearstick, his elbow all but brushed against Robbie, who could smell the musty damp wool of his coat sleeve, as well as the man himself: Palmolive soap, Brylcreem, and some indefinable human essence.
They set off at speed, and Robbie, biting a thumbnail and staring at his shoes on the worn rubber mat, ran through conversational gambits in his head.
Yet Jimmy wasn’t in the least uncomfortable with the silence or their nearness. Unless, thought Robbie, he misread the fellow’s apparent serenity.
Robbie remembered he had some cigarettes and got them out of his pocket. “Would you like one? Can I light it for you?”
Jimmy smiled. “S’all right.” With one hand loosely on the wheel, he extracted a cigarette from the packet and deftly lit it. Then he blew three perfect smoke rings while doing a sharp left turn onto Fulham Road.
Why did I ask that? thought Robbie. “I heard you went for a drink with George the other night,” he blurted, desperate to redeem the situation.
“Did you, now? She tell you that, did she?”
“Actually, it was Honor. I don’t think she approves.”
“I bet she doesn’t,” said Jimmy, under his breath. Then, in a more normal tone, “Why, what’s her problem with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’d better not speak out of turn. In any case, I thought you found George standoffish or something?”
“She’s all right. Just a bit full of herself. Thinks because Daddy’s got a title, she can look down on the rest of us.”
Robbie was by no means George’s greatest admirer, but this wasn’t his impression. If anything, he thought, she slummed it far too readily. True, she made him feel provincial and plebeian, but she didn’t actually mean to. At least, he didn’t think she did.
“The only reason I bought her a drink,” Jimmy went on, “is because I found her wandering the streets like an orphan. She wants to be more careful. Some funny people about, especially after dark.” He tapped his cigarette in the ashtray and shot a glance at Robbie.
“But as I told you, I’m off women. Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t be interested in her. ”
They hit a red light at Brompton Road, and Jimmy turned to face him.
“You came up, actually. She said you were a ‘decent soul,’ and that it was a shame your wife scarpered, and a shame that you didn’t seem to have much luck with women in general.
She thought, perhaps—and I’m only telling you this because you’ve a right to know, I’d want to know if people were saying it behind my back—she thought you might be queer. ”
Robbie gave a brief alarmed chuckle and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Did she really say that?” He was less offended at the aspersion than hurt by George talking about him in this manner. “I mean, why would I get married in the first place if I were queer?”
“George said to conceal the fact, but then your wife probably found out and gave you your marching orders. I told her, I said that doesn’t sound very likely. Robbie seems like an excellent bloke to me. She said, ah, but you see, you don’t know him like we do.”
His cheeks burning, Robbie said, “She’s made all this up from whole cloth.
She knows nothing about me or my life. We’ve never even had a proper conversation, she and I.
Except for once. It was the day you first visited the house, in fact.
Given what she told me that day, she’s got a nerve gossiping about my personal affairs. A real nerve.”
“That’s women for you, isn’t it? Can’t trust them as far as you can throw them. So what did she tell you, then?”
“She’s going to have a baby.” The words escaped like mercury slipping between his fingers. “And she doesn’t even know who the father is.”
Jimmy made a whistling exhalation. “My, my. What’s Mrs. Wilson going to say? Going out with the likes of me will seem pretty tame by comparison, won’t it? Is she going to get married? Or give it up for adoption?”
“Neither, I don’t think. She wants to—you know—end the pregnancy.” It’s the size of a fingertip, she’d said. But that was nearly two weeks ago. How big would it be now? Maybe no size at all; maybe she’d already done the deed.
Jimmy ground out his cigarette and sped up to overtake a stuttering MG. “But that’s against the law. Not to mention immoral. Trying to kill a little baby, like it’s an insect you step on. And what’s she telling you for? She’s made you an accessory to a serious crime. You could both be arrested.”
Robbie wondered whether that was true. “I ought to have tried to talk her out of it. I suppose I didn’t think it was my place. You won’t say anything to anyone, will you? She told me in confidence. She definitely wouldn’t want Honor finding out.”
Jimmy shook his head and tapped his nose.
“Mum’s the word.” Frowning thoughtfully, he went on: “You know what, let’s agree to keep all of this conversation between ourselves.
I shouldn’t want George thinking I’m trying to be a troublemaker by repeating her remarks about you.
” After he’d ascribed these opinions to George—which he’d done impulsively, curiously—Jimmy had pictured Robbie confronting her, accusing her of slander.
Although perhaps it was no more slander than George being a baby murderess.