In Pursuit of the English

‘How much?’

‘Twelve guineas.’

‘A month?’

Her face creased into suspicion. ‘A week,’ she said affrontedly. ‘Where do you come from? I might as well say now that the old lady won’t take foreigners.’

‘What do you mean by foreigners?’

She looked me up and down, a practised, sly movement. ‘Where do you come from, then?’ She moved slowly backwards, her hand pressed against her chest, as if warding off something.

‘Africa.’

The hand slowly dropped, and at her side, the fingers clenched nervously. ‘You’re not a black?’

‘Do I look like one?’

‘One never knows. You’d be surprised what people try to get away with these days. We’re not having blacks. Across the road a black took to the bottle on the first floor. Such trouble they had. We don’t take Jews either. Not that that’s any protection.’ She sniffed sharply, looking over her shoulder at the bed. ‘Disgusting,’ she said. ‘Disgusting.’ In a prim fine voice she stated: ‘And I may as well say we’re particular about what goes on. Are you married?’

‘I’m not taking it.’ I said going into the living-room.

The nurse came after me; her whole attitude had changed. ‘Why not, don’t you like it?’

‘No. I do not.’

‘It’s very comfortable, only select people in this house …’ She glanced back at the room. ‘Except when there’s mistakes. You can’t help mistakes.’ She stood between me and the door, her hands clasped lightly at her waist, in an attitude of willing service, but with a look of affronted surprise on her face. It was clear that letting this place quickly was necessary as part of her revenge on the couple she had turned out. ‘If the old lady likes you she might put the rent down to eleven guineas.’

‘But I don’t like it.’ I repeated, moving past her to the door.

‘We don’t have any difficulty in letting it, I can tell you that,’ she sniffed challengingly, marching over to twitch the curtains back, so that now the room was absorbed back into its cavernous ruddy gloom. ‘You’re the second in half an hour — by the way, how did you hear of it? It hasn’t even gone to the agents yet.’

‘One hears of places, house-hunting.’

‘I suppose you are a friend of that precious pair downstairs.’ She grasped my arm, as if to pull me to the door. ‘I hear the bell. That’ll be someone else. I suppose, getting me up all these stairs for nothing. Come along now.’ She glanced at me, stiffened, stared: ‘If you’ll be so kind.’ She went on staring. At last, she said: ‘It’s much better when people are straightforward about things, that’s what I say.’

‘About what?’

Looking straight ahead, her hands lying down the folds of her stiff skirt, she descended the stairs with a consciously demure rectitude, and said: ‘If I’d known you were a foreigner, it would have saved me so much time, wouldn’t it? One must have thought for other people, these times.’

‘What kind of a foreigner do you think I am?’

‘I’ve known people before, calling it sunburn.’

In the hail the old lady was lurking in a doorway, leaning forward in her wheeled chair from a mist of pastel shawls. Her small beady eyes, like a bird’s, were fixed on me. Her face was twisted into a preparatory smile of stiff welcome, but a glance at the nurse caused her to give me a slight toss of the head instead. Leaning back, she daintily took a grape from a dish beside her, and held it to her mouth in a tiny bony hand, her eyes still regarding me sideways, so that she looked even more like a watchful parrot.

On the steps was the young man, alone. ‘How do you think I can leave when you won’t let us take our property?’ he asked the nurse.

‘I’m not having you set foot in this house.’

‘I’ve paid the rent, so if you take my wife’s things …’

‘Your wife!’

Immediately his attitude changed to one of confident challenge. ‘I’ll show you my marriage certificate, if that’s your attitude.’ His hand was already in his pocket, but she had slammed the door. There was a clinking noise, and the letterbox slit showed dark with a face hovering white behind it.

‘You deserve to be in prison,’ said the shrill voice through the slit.

‘If you don’t give me my things I’m going straight to a lawyer.’

‘You tell that woman of yours to come here this afternoon and I’ll have them bundled up for her in the hall.’ The metal flap dropped with a clatter.

‘I say!’ shouted the young man in an injured way. ‘Do you know that’s a legal offence?’ With one shoulder thrust forward, his chin stuck angrily out, he looked as if he were about to fling himself on the door.

Nothing happened. Slowly the young man straightened, letting his shoulders loosen. For a moment he stood gazing with sullen reflectiveness at the door; then he turned and his eyes came blankly to rest on me. The glowering anger left in him from the encounter with the nurse simmered in him, unreleased; but soon he smiled a statesman’s smile, bathing me in winning frankness. ‘It’s only right for me to warn you,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t want any friend of mine to live in that house.’ He swung his head to glare at it before going on. ‘Don’t take it. I’m warning you.’

‘I haven’t taken it,’ I said.

Disbelief congealed the smile. ‘Not fit for pigs,’ he said. ‘Better change your mind now, before it’s too late. Better late than never.’ This aphorism pleased him so much that he repeated it, and his smile was momentarily gratified. He leaned towards me, his eyes were anxiously penetrating. If I had said I had taken the rooms, he would now be as anxiously testing me for the lie. ‘Go in and cancel the contract now, better that way.’ The word contract in his mouth was loaded with suspicion. ‘But I haven’t taken it.’ He stared at me closely. ‘Mind, it’s not too bad at first sight. You see the snags when you’re in. You can’t call your life your own.’ I smiled. He grew uneasy. A genuine impatience must have shown itself in my face, for at once his body arranged itself into a new attitude, and he leaned forward with a gentle and disarming persuasiveness. ‘If you’re looking for a place to live, I’m your man.’

‘Do you know of somewhere?’

‘It’s my business. I’m an estate agent.’

‘Then you’re lucky. You won’t have difficulty in finding somewhere yourself, will you?’

At this he inspected me for some lime, in silence, and with hostility. Thus it was that right at the beginning, the quality which he most valued in his victims — my naivety — confused him. He could not believe that I was as green as I seemed. Looking back. I can’t believe it either.

Looking back it is clear that he believed I was putting on innocence to lead him on, to some dark goal, for reasons of my own. Yet there were moments when I was as gullible as a fish. I confused him. And he confused me. I disliked him at sight, but I saw no reason not to trust him. I had never met a con-man in my life.

‘I’ll have no trouble,’ he remarked at last. ‘I’ve nothing to worry about. And they can’t turn me into the street, just like that — not Andrew MacNamara.’

Envying him, I walked away down the steps, and found him striding beside me, giving me calculating glances from his large treacly brown eyes. He was still tortured by uncertainty as to whether I was lying. And what was important to him was not the fact, but whether he was being made a fool of, ‘If you don’t believe me, I can tell you things about that crowd in there that would put them into prison. It’s no place for decent people.’

‘Then it’s lucky I haven’t taken it.’

He changed ground. ‘If you don’t have to count the pennies, there’s flats for the asking.’ A pause. ‘I could fix you up tomorrow, today.’

‘But I have to count the pennies.’

‘That’s always a good line, to start with,’ he probed.

‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a small child.’

‘That’s bad,’ he said. ‘It won’t make things any easier. But you can buy anything.’

We had reached a main street. Half a dozen large red buses lumbered past, concentrating all the colour and light there was in their cheerful and exuberant bodies. ‘Taxi?’ he suggested. ‘There’s a friend of mine in the rank over there.’ He raised his arm to wave.