Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

alive with short-haired, short-skirted girls running up and down as in Jacob's dream, except that these girls were exchanging backchat with shouting removal men. (Short hair and short skirts were, of course, new at that date, though my mother had already gone in for both, even though she rarely travelled far from her cottage.) Moving through the throng were several men in white shirts, stiff collars, dark trousers, and braces. Could they be partners? Even Stallabrass, Hoskins and Cramp in person? Certainly they were going through motions which might well be a form of giving orders. The total number of persons involved quite eclipsed Freedom, even relatively. And that afternoon came Maureen tapping at my door.

'Why didn't you let me know you were back?'

'I hesitated.'

She was willing to let it go at that.

'What do you think?' I went on, inclining my head downwards and sideways.

Maureen twitched up a corner of her mouth.

'Do you suppose they'll quieten down?' I asked.

'I don't see why they should. They're a pretty awful lot from what little I've seen.'

'I've seen quite enough of them already.' Authors always tend to be hasty in their judgments. It is the strain of searching for peace and concentration.

'Have you seen Mr Millar?'

'Not that I know of. Who's Mr Millar?'

'He's the man whose outfit it really is. The names outside don't exist, or are all dead, or something. My guess is that Mr Millar's bumped them all off.'

I remember Maureen using that exact expression, which was then as new as short hair and short skirts.

'Not necessarily,' I said. 'You often find these firms with lots of names and none of the people really existing.'

'You haven't seen Mr Millar,' replied Maureen.

'Not that I know of. There seemed to be about a hundred of them. Is there anything special about Mr Millar's appearance?'

'Yes,' said Maureen. 'He looks like Cordoba the Sex Vampire.' This, I should observe, was a silent film that made a mark at the time, though I was a little surprised to find Maureen citing it.

'Then you'd better rub yourself all over with garlic before you go to bed,' I replied; and this helped to make things go more easily between Maureen and me after our separation.

I cannot say that Maureen's description of our new neighbour even stimulated my curiosity. As will have been gathered by now, I was an anxious and cautious youth, walking his own tight-rope, and rather afraid than otherwise of new company, of becoming involved. Possibly the frightful stuff that Major Valentine sent up to me contributed to my social timidity. I am sure I thought that the longer I could keep entirely out of contact with Maureen's Mr Millar, the better. I had very little idea of 'gathering experience', and never doubted that I could spin books from inside me. For me the matter did not even need thinking about.

It was bad enough that the new tenants were all over the stairs and landings, with endless giggling, shouting, and banging of doors. Even during the first two or three days I noticed that they had a way of banging ordinary room doors several times in succession, as people do nowadays to doors of motor cars. None of it was at all the way I had supposed chartered accountants to behave.

'I wonder how they get any work done at all,' Maureen was soon exclaiming. It was indeed on the next occasion I saw her.

I agreed with her: being one who needed complete silence and total absence of distraction before I could work at all. Or so I then thought. Indeed, I elaborated a little to Maureen.

'It's different for you,' Maureen observed amiably. One of Maureen's many good points had always been her apparently sincere respect for an artist. It is probably grudging of me to term it 'apparently sincere', but it is a thing one never really knows.

'You're welcome to use our living room at any time,' Maureen continued.

'Thank you very much.'

'If Mr Millar makes himself at home there, I don't see why you shouldn't. I like you much better,' Maureen added coquettishly.

'Mr Millar! How did he get in?'

'He rang our bell the afternoon he arrived. The day I told you about him. You'll find he does the same to you soon. I rather fancy it's the way he goes about things.'

'But what does he do in your flat?' I enquired feebly. I was astounded by what Maureen had said. The new people had been with us for only a few days.

'He lies down. In a darkened room, as he puts it. Though, as a matter of fact, our flat's not at all easy to darken properly. I once tried. Mr Millar says that he has to have what he calls intermissions. You can see what he means when you think about the din they all make.'

'They're his staff, after all. Why can't he make them shut up?'

'I can't tell you, Roy.'

'But what are you doing when he's there?'

'So far I've not been there. After all, it's only happened about three times. I suppose I can always keep the kids in the kitchen or put them in their bedroom.'

'You'd better charge him something,' I said sourly.

'Are you jealous, Roy?' asked Maureen.

'Yes,' I said; though it was not entirely the truth.

'Oh, good,' said Maureen. 'We progress.'

I had to admit to myself that I had probably invited remarks of that kind.

I had also to admit that, in the matter of meeting Mr Millar, to general distaste had now been added specific embarrassment.

I began to be upset by another irritating habit: the people downstairs had a way of letting their telephones (undoubtedly several of them — commoner now than then) ring and ring and ring before lifting the receiver. As they almost always left all their doors open, the trick contributed greatly to the distant uproar that ascended to my attic.

Sometimes I could not but overhear one end of these delayed telephone conversations; when I was passing through the house, I mean: I do not imply that actual definable words penetrated my floor or walls.

Whatever I did hear was always of unbelievable commonplaceness or banality. It never seemed to be business in any sense; only a flow of vapourings, mixed with giggles. It is obvious that I judged with prejudice, but, as time passed, and I heard more and more of these vapid utterances, and never anything else, prejudice began to be mixed with a certain wonder, and then with a certain concern. Yes, I am almost sure that it was these overheard inanities, in no way my business and not even overheard all that frequently, because I passed through the house during business hours as rarely as I could, that first made me feel disturbed. . feel that about the new tenants was something that as well as continually irritating me also frightened me. I had, of course, come upon jokes about typists talking on the telephone to their boy friends, but here was something that seemed to go much further. I think I might put it that a conversation as reasonable as a chat with a boy friend would have been positively welcome to my long ears, and explicable. Everything I heard or overheard was merely empty. For that reason nothing of it can be remembered. I doubt if I could have written down immediately what I had just heard as I climbed up to my third floor. Apart from anything else, I should have been ashamed to harbour such futilities in my thoughts or memory.

When I met them in the hall or on the stairs, the little girls leered at me forthcomingly, or smirked at me contemptuously, or sometimes manifested real hostility. Some of these words seem absurd; but they describe how the girls made me feel. All of them were very young. Many people would say that the fault must have been largely mine. No doubt in a sense it was. I admit that I could find no way of dealing with the girls. Conventional greetings seemed absurd. Moreover, the girls were always new: I suppose there might have been five or six working there (if that was the word) at a time, but faces that I had come to know soon disappeared, and were apparently replaced by complete strangers. It was not possible to think in terms of getting to know individuals; even if that had been what I wanted to do.