‘Come back,’ said the policeman, ‘you’re obstructing the firemen.’
‘My papers are up there,’ Alec said.
The policeman took him by the arm and pulled him away. ‘There is a cat,’ Alec said desperately, ‘in my rooms. I can’t let pussy burn. Let me dash up and let her out. I’ll take the risk.’
The policeman did not reply, but continued to propel Alec away from the fire.
‘There’s a dog up there. A beautiful husky from a polar expedition,’ Alec haggled. ‘Top floor, first door.’
‘Sorry, too late, guvnor,’ said one of the firemen. ‘Your dog must have had it by now. The top storey’s burnt out.’
One of the residents among the crowd said, ‘There are no pets in those flats. Pets are not allowed.’
Alec walked away; he went to his club and booked a room for the night.
SIXTEEN
The summer had passed and it was Granny Bean’s birthday for which the ward had been preparing for some days.
There was a huge cake with a hundred candles. Some men from the newspapers came in with their cameras. Others talked a while to Granny Bean, who was propped up in a new blue bed-jacket.
‘Yes,’ Granny Bean answered them in her far-away flute,’ I’ve lived a long time.’
‘Yes,’ said Granny Bean, ‘I’m very happy.’
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, ‘I seen Queen Victoria once as a girl.’
‘What does it feel like to be a hundred, Mrs Bean?’
‘All right,’ she said weakly, nodding her head.
‘You mustn’t tire her,’ Sister Lucy, who had put on her service medal for the occasion, told the news men.
The men took down notes from the sister. ‘Seven children, only one now alive, in Canada. Started life as a seamstress hand at the age of eleven …’
The matron came in at three o’clock and read out the telegram from the Queen. Everyone applauded. Granny Valvona commented, ‘“… on your hundredth birthday”, doesn’t sound quite right. Queen Mary always used to say, “on the occasion of your centenary”.’ But everyone said it came to the same thing.
The matron stood proxy for Granny Bean in blowing out the candles. She was out of breath by the twenty-third. The nurses took turns to blow out the rest.
They were cutting the cake. One of the news men called, ‘Three cheers for Granny Bean.’
The hilarity was dying down and the men had gone by the time the normal visitors started to arrive. Some of the geriatrics were still eating or doing various things with their slice of cake.
Miss Valvona adjusted her glasses and reached for the newspaper.
She read out for the third time that day: ‘“September 21st — today’s birthday. Your year ahead:
But Mrs Bean had dropped asleep on her pillow after the nurse had given her a warm drink. Her mouth was formed once more into a small ‘O’ through which her breath whistled faintly.
‘Festivities going on?’ said Alec Warner, looking around at the party decorations.
‘Yes, Mrs Bean is a hundred today.’
The deep lines on Alec’s face and brow showed deeper. It was four months since he had lost his entire notes and records in the fire.
Jean Taylor had said, ‘Try to start all over again, Alec. You will find a lot of it will come back to your mind while you work.’
‘I could never trust my memory,’ he had said, ‘as I trusted those notes.’
‘Well, you must start all over again.’
‘I haven’t got it in me,’ he said, ‘to do that at my age. It was an accumulation of years of labour. It was invaluable.’
He had seldom, since then, referred to his loss. He felt, sometimes, he said once, that he was really dead, since his records had ceased to exist.
‘That’s rather a metaphysical idea for you, Alec,’ she said. ‘For in fact you are not dead, but still alive.’
He told her, it was true he frequently went over his vast notebooks in his mind, as through a card index. ‘But never,’ he said, ‘shall I make another note. I read instead. It is in some ways a better thing.’
She caught him looking with an almost cannibal desire at Granny Bean on her hundredth birthday. He sighed and looked away.
‘We all appear to ourselves frustrated in our old age, Alec, because we cling to everything so much. But in reality we are still fulfilling our lives.’
‘A friend of mine fulfilled his yesterday.’
‘Oh, who was that?’
‘Matt O’Brien in Folkestone. He thought he was God. He died in his sleep. He has left a fortune, but never knew
